#the sandman one shot

[writethrough]

Hello! I just finished reading your Morpheus fics and I absolutely love them! So I thought about requesting something, too. Morpheus x reader where reader is feeling well and calls for him. They spend all evening togheter after a long time. reading togheter, watching some movies, talking and sharing their thoughts... until Morpheus notice it’s really late, almost midnight, and it’s time for reader to sleep, but she doesn't want to ‘cause Morpheus is always busy and she misses spending time with him, even whe she's asleep lately he was never there. Morpheus feels guilty and promises her he’ll be more present, especially in her dreams. A nice ending where he stays with her until she falls asleep, and him appearing in her dreams as he promised? Thank you 💖

A Homemade Remedy

(Morpheus x Female Reader)

Synopsis: After days of dealing with your sickness by yourself, you give in and call your boyfriend, hoping he'll come.

Warnings: Minor language

Word Count: 815

A/N: Stop two on the apology tour. I'm so sorry this has taken so long! And I want to thank you profusely for your patience. And for sending the request in. I really hope you enjoy this fluffy little fic!

Normally, you wouldn’t bother Morpheus with this. He had more important things to deal with instead. But you felt as if Death would appear at any moment, and all you wanted was some comfort from your boyfriend. 

You pressed the ruby pendant he gifted you to your heart, croaking his name. 

“Beloved?” 

You blinked, seemingly slower than usual. 

“Hi,” you whispered, covers pulled to your chin. 

He took you in for a few moments, brows pinched slightly. You could only tell he was worried because of how long you’d known him. 

“You are unwell.” 

“S’just a—” A coughing fit started, only ceasing when he handed you your glass of water. “Just a cold.” 

Between the tissues piled in the trash beside your bed, the bottle of medication without its lid, and the two additional blankets on top of you, he knew that wasn’t the case. You’d been here much longer than a few hours. 

“Why did you not call for me when your ailment began?” 

And there it was, the look you were dreading the more you prolonged summoning him. You’re not even sure he’s aware of his “kicked puppy” look. 

You shrugged, pulling the covers just below your nose.  

Morpheus made no sound—as graceful and Endless as ever. The only indication he had moved was the lifting of your blankets as he slid in behind you. 

“Turn around, my love.” 

You were far too weak and needy to refuse. 

Settling with your head on his thigh, he rested a hand on your hair. 

“I am here now, and I will take care of you,” he said. “Whatever you may need, I will gather.” 

“Just this.” Your voice barely carried on a whisper. 

“Then here I shall remain.” 

Morpheus always spoke softer than you would expect while still containing all the authority in the universe, but it sounded even softer. It held gentleness—kindness—a quality that said, “You are precious to me.” 

“What about the Dreaming?” you asked, eyes closed. 

“In Lucienne’s capable hands,” he replied without hesitation. You were so considerate of him and his duties, for once, he wished you’d be selfish.  

“What if she needs you?” Even as you said this, your arm settled over his lap. 

“She has looked after my realm much longer than you will be ill.” 

You squeezed him as best you could at the reminder. You didn’t like to think about what had happened to him. Though you met long after that, it hurt to know someone could do that to another being—human or not. 

Morpheus had reassured you he had healed. Much of that having to do with you. 

“Could you read to me, then?” you asked. 

A book appeared in seconds, his voice matching perfectly to the cadence of the lines. It didn’t matter what he was saying, hearing him speak in that hypnotic rumble was enough. Even the flipping of the page didn’t distract you. He was captivating from the first word. 

He’d read two chapters when your stomach growled. 

“When did you last eat?” His smile was soft, thumb grazing your arm. 

You shrugged, not wanting to be scolded. 

“Can you eat?” 

You weren’t sure if it was how shitty you were feeling, how tired you were, or how helpless you felt, but his words went straight to your heart. 

He considered how you might feel. He wasn’t pushing you to eat, but asking if you thought you could stomach anything. He wanted to help, but not at the risk of causing you more discomfort. 

You nodded, keeping your eyes closed so he wouldn’t see them watering. 

“Here.” He helped you sit up before picking up the bowl of broth that had manifested on the nightstand. 

You went to grab it, but he tutted, picking the spoon up himself and bringing it to your mouth. 

“I can feed myself,” you said after swallowing. 

“I know,” he said. “Please. Let me help you.” 

You ate the next spoonful without complaint, and soon, the bowl was empty. 

“Thank you,” you mummered, head nestled into the crook of his shoulder. 

“It’s late, you must rest,” he whispered into your hair. 

You shook your head, and tried to snuggle yourself closer to him, like if you planted yourself firmly enough, he wouldn’t be able to leave. 

“Haven’t seen you in forever,” you mumbled. “Don’t wanna waste it.” 

Guilt flooded Morpheus. He knew he had been neglectful of you, but you had been so patient with him. You were the embodiment of understanding—and he had taken advantage of that. 

“Go to sleep, dear one. I will meet you in the Dreaming.” His lips pressed to your crown. 

You hummed, head growing heavy. 

And when your eyes opened, there he was, holding you as you laid in his chambers. 

He smiled fondly, brushing your chin with his knuckles. 

“What shall we do now, my love?” 

Taglist: @sayumiht, @hatterripper31, @snowsatsu, @1950schick, @navs-bhat, @bookshelf-dust, @sapphireonline, @fictional-hooman, @steph-speaks, @ladyredstar1991, @secretdreamlandmentality, @ababycake, @morpheuss1mp, @boofy1998, @alice-the-nerd, @herfantasyworldd, @poemfreak306, @tronnily, @commanderfreethatdust

If you’d like to be added to any taglists, please comment or message me with the character you’d like updates on. 

[withoutyouimsaskia]

Fever Dream (Sandman One-Shot)

GIF: Originally posted by @saraicus​​​​

Pairing: Morpheus/Dream of the Endless x gender neutral reader

Summary: One-shot. Reader self-insert. Established relationship. Fluff. You develop a flu-like illness resulting in fever dreams. Morpheus helps you with the nightmares and cares for you.

Warnings: sickness, nightmares

Word Count: 2.2k

Sandman Masterlist

--------------------------------------------

Pressing your fingertip to the red circle of pixels on your phone screen to hang up the call took effort.

That was when you knew that you were in for a brutal few days.

Your boss had asked very few questions on said call, summating pretty easily from your voice that you were not in any fit state to be working.

Your first sign of what was to come had been the sore throat that had emerged the day before yesterday. A scritchy sensation that had intensified with every swallow before progressing into a tickly cough in the next 24 hours.

Bedtime last night saw you at the proverbial fork in the sickness road. One path led to a moderate illness and the other to a severe one. The only way to know which you were about to be dealt was to wait until morning.

According to your memory, there had been no recent contact with anyone acutely sick, and with this in mind, you had not mentioned your symptoms to Morpheus when you had gone to meet him in the Dreaming. There seemed little reason; you had been fairly certain that it wasn’t going to be bad.

Understatement didn't even cover it.

You had woken ten minutes ago with aches so deep inside your bones that it felt like your marrow was being scraped by razor claws. Every movement was now painful, including low impact ones like utilising your phone.

You plop the object on your bedside table before slumping back against your pillow.

All you desire is sleep yet you know you must attend to some basic needs first. You go through the list in your head:

1. Toilet

2. Sustenance

3. Hydration

4. Painkillers

5. Hydration Pt. II

The very idea of moving was not tempting in the slightest yet you cajole yourself out into the cold air of your apartment. Your steps are wobbly on the way to the bathroom and lurching as you press on to the kitchen.

You shovel a banana into your mouth and down an entire pint of water with great urgency. Two paracetamol tablets are then chased down with another gulp of tepid liquid.

How you manage to get back to your bedroom while holding a full glass and several packets of medication without incident, you are unsure however, it is a relief when you are back under your covers.

Sleep claims you not long after.

***

Morpheus senses your return to the Dreaming and it confuses him slightly. Why had you come back so quickly? You are a firm believer in getting up when your alarm sounds.

The Endless reasons that you must have changed your schedule. A day of leave from work, perhaps. The idea satisfies him for a little while and then curiosity becomes too predominant.

He lets his being drift towards your sleeping mind to check in.

What he finds in your subconscious is a kaleidoscope of disjointed scenes, all with an unpleasant or sinister underpinning.

You are holding a frightened cat in your arms as you wade through knee high sewage. You are in a room with an old television that bursts into flames when you go to turn it off. You are scrabbling on a hardwood floor, desperately trying to find something but being completely unable to remember what it was that you had misplaced. You are running through deserted streets, convinced that someone is following you, taking more and more detours to try and shake them off.

He feels your fear reach a crescendo as your pursuer gains a corporeal form. The images then begin to shake, burning and flashing with a palette of hyper-reality.

He has seen this many times before.

You were having a fever dream.

Which meant you were suffering.

You suddenly cry out his name and the sound is like the stab of a blade in Morpheus' gut.

He ends the nightmarish dream without hesitation, tells Lucienne of his intentions and leaves to journey to you in the Waking World.

***

Morpheus stands at the foot of your bed. Even with the curtains drawn, he is able to notice your off-colour complexion. Your eyes are closed despite being awake. The covers are draped clumsily over your frame. He longs to re-arrange them to ensure you are completely wrapped in their embrace but he doesn't want to startle you with an unexpected touch.

He speaks your name.

Your eyelids flutter and your attention is drawn to where he is standing. Your eyes are unable to focus yet you know what you are seeing is Morpheus for you would recognise his silhouette anywhere. Whether he was real was a different matter.

"Morpheus?"

"My love."

His deep, rich timbre thrums through the air at a resonance that is unable to be fabricated; no hallucination could match it even if it tried.

"Why are you here?"

As your partner, it was not the first time he had been in your house however it was the first time he had come unannounced.

"You called for me in your sleep."

"I did?" You let out a cough.

"You were having a fever dream."

You suddenly become aware of the clammy sweat that is drenching every part of your body. In fact, the more you dialled into your senses, the more you began to notice other hallmarks of being in the grasp of a fever. The inability to regulate your core temperature manifesting in the quick-fire switching of hot and cold. Deep seated shivers that ripple through your body and into the mattress. It must have come on since you had fallen asleep.

Morpheus moves to crouch beside you.

"What can I do to help you, my love?"

"I think I just need to sleep."

He concurs with a nod before adding, "I will ensure that it is a peaceful one."

He reaches inside the pocket of his coat and produces his leather pouch.

"When would you like me to wake you?"

You fumble for your phone to check the time.

"In 3 and a half hours. That's when I can take my next lot of medication."

"May I sit next to you?"

You nod your agreement.

Morpheus walks around the bed and removes his boots before situating himself beside you. He neatens the duvet with a precise tug.

"I will be here to watch over you."

"Thank you," you whisper hoarsely.

Morpheus takes some sand and breezes it across your face with a steady exhalation. He feels your mind materialise in the Dreaming.

Barefoot, you walk on the shoreline of a deserted beach. A gentle tide laps over the golden sand. The sun is high in the sky, accompanied by pillowy clouds. A tranquil haven.

You sit just out of reach of the waves and deeply breathe the sea salt air with closed eyes. Morpheus chooses this moment to step into the frame and settle next to you, a direct mirroring of your waking world configuration.

He watches you intently and is soon satisfied; your smile and the unfurling of your fists indicate that you have calmed, at least in your psychological space.

Morpheus comes back to your bedroom and assumes sentry. A couple of hours pass and then he begins to see a fiery blaze in your cheeks.

His palm presses against your forehead. It is inferno-like in temperature. He pulls you out, rife with worry. You come to slowly, weakly rubbing the remnants of the sand from the corners of your eyes.

"Is it really 10:30 already?" Your voice sounds strange and nasal when you talk.

"No, my love. I felt it necessary to wake you; you are crimson."

He folds the cover back to give you some ventilation. The cooler air feels good on your skin.

"The meds must have worn off already," you reason dazedly.

"I think it would be wise if you drink some water."

He helps you to sit up. You take small sips as he rubs circles on your lower back, an action that never fails to induce relaxation inside you.

After you lay back down, you find the next 45 minutes to be agony. The pressure in your sinuses is making the roots of your teeth ache horribly. Involuntary twitches of your limbs shoot pain everywhere. Your temperature inches higher and higher, forcing you to throw off the covers entirely.

You whimper involuntarily as the random spasms become non-stop shudders and that is when you begin to feel tears leaking from your eyes.

Morpheus hates seeing you this way. You know it from how his gaze never strays from you, in the way he protectively strokes your face.

"I'm sorry." They are the only words you can muster right now with the brain fog that has taken hold.

"Why are you apologising? You did not choose to be unwell."

His words console you instantly. You could always rely on him to be the voice of reason.

You check your phone again. It was finally time for your next round of tablets.While waiting for the medication to kick in, you find that your mind starts to lose clarity and lucidity. Fever-induced images float eerily before your eyes; you screw them shut, hoping to sleep instead but you can’t because of frustrating cyclical thoughts.

A single lyric from a song you had been listening to yesterday repeats with sanity-robbing precision. More tears fall. Morpheus wipes them away.

"Can you make me sleep again?" You ask desperately.

***

Over the next couple of days, Morpheus uses his sand several times to ease you into slumber. It wrecks your sleep pattern, along with the daytime napping, however he reasons it is necessary for healing and allows it. He also takes care of you in other ways through refilling your water glass, bringing you food and steadying you while you brush your teeth and wash.

The depths of his patience and devotion were seemingly bottomless. You do not know what you would have done without him. When you tell him this, his usual composure slips and he turns an adorable, bashful pink.

At the end of the third day, you feel a marked change in your health. The fever breaks, taking the shudders and hallucinations with it. You are still weak, achy and mentally fuzzy but the difference is such a relief for you, and for your diligent partner.

When the evening draws in, you are finding it near-impossible to switch off with your broken circadian rhythm. Morpheus is reading a book by lamplight beside you; you place a hand on his to get his attention.

“Can you help me sleep, please?”

You look automatically to the pocket where he keeps his sand pouch. Morpheus places the book on the floor.

“Not this time, my love. You are much improved and you must learn to sleep on your own again.”

You worry your bottom lip. “I don't think I can.”

He smiles at you softly, moving a few stray strands of hair off your face. “You can. I believe in you.”

“But it's so easy when you use your sand. Effortless. It’s a nice change from the usual everyday exertions.”

Morpheus’ fingers languidly caress your cheeks. His bottomless blue eyes are full of wisdom and adoration.

“I find effort to be a reliable of gauge of whether something has purpose or meaning. Everything that is worth doing requires some kind of effort,” He has adopted the whispered tone that makes his sentences sound like lullabies.

“Annoyingly, I think you may be right,” you sigh.

He releases a satisfied noise at your agreement and he lies down beside you.

“Come here.”

He initiates a slow and deep kiss. You instinctively reach for his messy, silken hair and he clings to you in a similar fashion, both of you savouring the first proper intimacy you have been able to share in many days.

Pulling away, he rests his forehead against yours. You are flooded with oxytocin and all tension in your body melts away however, despite his best intentions, you feel more awake than ever.

“Morpheus?” Your voice is croaky.

“Yes?”

“I still can't sleep.”

He laughs a precious laugh. “Let us try a different approach then, my little insomniac.”

He gently rolls you over onto your side and positions himself flush against you.

“I want you to focus on me. Feel me holding you. The sensation of my arms cradling you. My palms on your abdomen. My chest against your back.”

You do as he says, already feeling hypnotised.

“Feel my breath on your skin. Hear my voice. Inhale my scent. Taste me on your lips.”

You let out a breathy, contented noise.

“You are safe here. You can relax. Just relax your body and your mind will follow. That's it. Drift across to the Dreaming. I'll meet you there.”

His coaxing is working. You feel so very tired now.

“I love you,” you say sleepily.

“I love you too.”

You manage one more sentence. “Thank you for looking after me.”

"Always."

You nuzzle further into his embrace. His mouth brushes against the shell of your ear.

“Sleep now, my love."

[morpheusbaby3]

in the fanfics morpheus x reader x corinthian, the reader always chooses morpheus, and i love him obviously… but i really wanted someone to write something where we choose to stay with corinthian and not morpheus, especially corinthian 2.0. someone please do this.

(I'm using a translator btw)

[morpheusbaby3]

I'm not ashamed to say that I cried reading this. It's so beautiful, I love Calliope, I love how you wrote this, I love who inspired these ideas.

I felt like Calliope was by my side bringing me comfort.

I must confess that I felt a crush on her.......

To the world we dream about (and the one we live in now)

Calliope & GN!Reader, Morpheus/Dream of the Endless & GN!Reader

Summary: Being in the right place at the right time turns everything you thought you knew on its head when a woman, imprisoned and battered, is literally thrown into your life. Left with no choice but to do the obvious, you offer her shelter and support in her time of need.

Unbeknownst to you, said woman is a powerful and ancient being who now belongs to you in accordance with the old laws. This situation definitely won’t become complicated, right?

Word Count: 14.5k

Author's Note: A couple of months ago, I received an ask, seen below, and have not been able to stop thinking about it since. After a lot of brainstorming with the wonderful sender of the ask (not sure if they want to be named!), I finally sat down to write it.

So, here we are! This story took on a mind of its own the longer I wrote (perhaps the Muse Calliope paid me a visit haha), and it's genuinely something that I'm so proud to have produced. It's not necessarily an x reader fic—right now, though depending on reader reaction there may be future parts (including a Calliope/Morpheus POV of these events)—so I absolutely understand if you choose not to read, but I hope that you do. In the end, this is truly Calliope's story.

A story of empowerment, friendship, freedom, and self-discovery.

Content warnings for this work include allusions to sexual assault, general trauma, Richard Madoc, vomiting, kidnapping, realizations of inadvertent kidnapping, mentions of death, and Nightmare!Morpheus. Reader discretion is advised.

The man standing at the front of the room taps his fingers along the edge of his lectern, savoring the enraptured faces that stare back at him. For those in his class, this is expected of him—he always gets a dramatic air about him when he’s on the verge of making the point that he had been working towards for the entire lecture and looping it back to the thesis statement from the beginning of the hour. Though it was routine by now, practically tradition, the students still ate it up every time.

“The theme between all of these authors–the Fitzgeralds and the Hemingways, the Tolkeins and the Orwells–is that their words carry power and strength. While they may look like mere letters strung together on a sheet of paper, when read together, these words have a weight behind them. They can conjure up worlds, inspire the masses, make readers think critically; it’s a type of magic when you really think about it.”

He checks his watch before clapping his hands together in finality and smiling out at the room.

“Well, my friends, I’m afraid that’s all the time we have today. Thank you very much for joining me, and please make sure that you have your essays on the influences of World War One and its aftermath on the literature of the time ready for our next class. See you then!”

When your university announced that world-renowned author Ric Madoc would be a visiting professor for the semester, you immediately jumped on the long list of students interested in taking one of the three classes that were going to be taught by him. You had absolutely no hope that you would get into the class, not when it seemed like half the student body was also signed up, but you had to at least try. The Spirit Who Had Half of Everything was one of your favorite books of all time, and you’d be remiss not to attempt to learn from the master himself.

Somehow, much to your surprise, you had received an email informing you that you earned a spot in Madoc’s “Great Works of the 20th Century” class. The class had lived up to the hype so far and you were thoroughly enjoying it, even though it wasn’t exactly related to your field of study. In fact, you enjoyed it so much that you normally stayed behind with a group of students to continue having a discussion with Madoc about the aforementioned great works. Today, unfortunately, you couldn’t, having to rush out immediately after class was over to make it to your group project meeting in the library on time.

Of course, it’s difficult to get any sort of work done when one happens to be randomly paired with their best friend, but you’re trying your hardest.

“Psst.” You don’t look up, choosing instead to try and finish the sentence you’re writing, but a balled-up gum wrapper hits you smack in the center of the forehead. “Hey!”

After you’ve finished typing, you look across the table at Evie, your best friend. “Can I help you?” you ask.

“Do you wanna come out with me and a couple of others tonight?”

“It’s Thursday.”

She shrugs. “So?”

Points were made, and who are you to resist a good argument? “Convincing. I’m in! I just have to run home real quick and get changed.”

As you search through your bag, you start to feel your heart plummeting in your chest as you realize that you can’t find your keys. Digging through the contents furiously in the hopes that they’ll turn up yields no results, and neither does patting at the pockets you know are empty. With horror in your eyes and fear in your heart, you look back up at her.

“Fuck, I lost my keys.”

“Shit, dude. Do you remember where you last had them?”

“Um.” 

You have to think for a moment, mentally retracing your steps until you can definitively pinpoint the last time you saw your keys. They were with you in the parking lot, because you remember locking your car twice just to be sure that you did. From there, you would have been holding them in your hand as you walked to Madoc’s class. Considering you went straight from class to the library, there are limited options for where they could be. Either you left them in the lecture hall or you dropped them somewhere on campus. For your sake, you hope it’s the former.

On the syllabus, Madoc had given the class his work cell phone number in case of emergencies like being unable to make it to class or an act of God destroying your homework. Though you doubted you would need it at the time, you still saved it in your phone to be on the safe side. Now, as you pull up his contact and start a new conversation, you thank past-you for having such good foresight.

You: Hey, great class today! Did you happen to find a set of keys left behind in the lecture hall? I’m missing mine.

After a second of contemplation, you send another text with your first and last name when you realize he probably doesn’t know who it is texting him. It only takes a couple of anxious minutes before your phone chimes. 

Richard Madoc: Hello! Would these happen to be the keys in question?

Richard Madoc: Attachment

The keys are immediately recognizable as yours, thanks to the keychain of a possum wearing a cowboy hat that’s attached to them. You sigh in immense relief before glancing up at Evie, who’s been watching with bated breath the entire time. “I left them in Madoc’s class.”

“Oh thank god!”

You: They are! Any chance you’re still on campus so I can swing by and grab them?

Richard Madoc: I’m afraid I’ve already left for the day, but I live pretty close to the uni if you’d be willing to pick them up from my flat.

He sends an address in the following text, which you promptly input in your maps app so you can see where said address is located. It’s maybe a five-minute drive from campus and conveniently located in the direction of your apartment.

You: Will be there in a bit! Thank you :)

“He already left, I’d have to pick them up from his place,” you explain.

Evie immediately fixes you with a look, one that says she’s seen this particular move before (and she didn’t like the ending). “Do you want me to come with you?”

The unspoken words hang in the air between you: Do you feel safe going to an unfamiliar man’s house alone? Should I come to make sure nothing bad happens? It’s very thoughtful of her, and you consider saying yes for a moment.

But Evie lives in the opposite direction of you, and she doesn’t have a car. While you don’t know Madoc well, you’re also not expecting him to try anything on you, especially when it’s still light out. 

“I should be okay,” you say.

“You’re sure?” Evie double-checks, and you nod. “Call me before you get there, okay? Just…have me on the line, in your back pocket. It’d make me feel better about letting you go on your own.”

How did you get so lucky to have such a great friend like Evie? Of course, you would do the same for Evie in a heartbeat, but it’s so nice to have found a kindred spirit, someone who truly understands you and all your little quirks, so early in your adulthood.

“You’re not letting me do anything,” you tease. “But yeah, I’ll call you when I get there.”

“Thank you,” she says sincerely, sliding her papers and her laptop into her backpack. “Now let’s go. The sooner you get your keys, the sooner we can go and get drunk.”

It feels a little dumb to be driving such a short distance, from the campus to the address that Madoc had given you. You’re exactly the type of person that’s killing the planet with unnecessary carbon emissions when you could just as easily walk, you chastise yourself on the way over. 

But you had driven to class this morning, that being a distance actually too far to walk, and it would be stupid to walk to Madoc’s, get your keys, walk back to campus, and then drive home. So here you are, beating yourself up over something stupid and inconsequential while you try your best to parallel park in a respectable manner in front of Madoc’s little townhouse.

It’s exactly the type of lodgings you’d expect a university professor to have, yet almost the opposite of what you envisioned as a successful author’s home; a small, yet stately, townhouse with a little fenced-in front yard. Plants try their hardest to survive in the patch of dirt that’s probably supposed to be a garden, and there’s a small chair and table perfect for Sunday mornings sitting on the front stoop.

The gate creaks when you open it, and even more when you close it behind you. At the last second, you remember that you promised to call Evie, so you pull out your phone and do just that. 

“Hey, you there?” Evie answers her phone.

“Yeah, just got here. Putting you in my pocket now.”

Even though the idea felt a little like an overreaction, you can’t deny that you feel safer now knowing that Evie’s listening on the phone.

You knock on the dark blue front door once, twice, three times before taking a step back and waiting patiently. After about thirty seconds, you start to worry that Madoc’s not home. But no, that wouldn’t make sense; you talked to him maybe half an hour ago, and he knew that you were on your way to pick up your keys. Frowning, you knock again, followed by holding your ear to the door to see if you can hear anything.

He’s definitely inside. Though the sound is muffled, you can hear what sounds like him yelling at somebody through the door. Who the source of his ire is, you can’t say, because there’s nobody saying anything back to him. Maybe he’s having a really heated conversation on the phone? If that’s the case, it’s a pretty inconvenient time to launch into a virtual argument.

You don’t want to be rude and knock for a third separate time, but you really do need your keys, and you’d prefer to not be kept standing out here waiting. Begrudgingly, you knock yet again, putting a considerable amount of force behind it this time. 

“Mr. Madoc?” you call through the door, raising your voice enough that you’re sure he’s heard you. By the way that he suddenly falls silent, you’re assuming that you’ve been successful. Pulling back from your position right up against the door, you wait for him to appear.

When the door is yanked open, you’re shocked at what you see. Gone is the confident lecturer who stood at the front of your class this afternoon. The man in front of you looks positively haggard. His eyes are bloodshot and red-rimmed, and his bottom lip quivers almost as furiously as his hands shake. His hair is a mess, as though he’s been pulling at it, and his shirt is weirdly rumpled like he fell asleep in it.

You take a big step back when his eyes land wildly on you without really seeing you. Your hand goes to your back pocket, hovering just above your phone in case this encounter goes south and you need to have Evie do…something. Call the cops? Yell at Madoc through the phone? Scream? Whatever it is, though, she’ll do it for you.

“Hi. Um, you–”

Madoc shakes his head back and forth and begins to mumble something, completely ignoring you and your presence. He reaches one of his hands further inside the house, grabbing at something unseen. Your body tenses, preparing to fight this man that, up until two minutes ago, you had believed to be completely sane and rational.

His hand comes back into view, tightly gripping a woman’s upper arm. She’s barefoot and clad only in a thin silk nightgown, and you can see the goosebumps already appearing on her skin.

“A city in which the streets are paved with time,” he mumbles a little louder, allowing you to hear what he’s rambling about. “A train full of silent women, plowing forever through the twilight. Heads made of light. A small piece of blue cardboard. A plum, sweet and tart and cold.”

“Mr. Madoc, are you alright?” 

Instead of answering you, Madoc throws the woman across the threshold and towards you. You catch her in your arms, both of you stumbling backward, but you let go when you notice how she immediately tenses at your touch.

“She’s your problem now, I can’t do this anymore!” Madoc begins to pull at his hair, so hard that you think he might end up pulling it out of his head. “I refuse to be tortured any longer!”

“What are you talking about?” 

He’s lost his damn mind, you think to yourself as he continues to spout the most random of ideas. You thought that you had properly calculated the risks of coming over here on your own, but apparently, you’re bad at math.

“A were-goldfish who transforms into a wolf at full moon. Griffins shouldn’t marry. Vampires don’t dance.” Madoc shakes and smacks himself multiple times as if to try and snap himself out of whatever he’s gotten into. “A man who inherits a library card to the library in Alexandria. A rose bush, a nightingale, and a black rubber dog collar!”

You’re so thrown off by what you’re witnessing that you don’t even realize he’s closing the door until the sound of it hitting the doorframe reminds you why you’re here. You bang your fist against the door and yell at him, “Hey! Give me my fucking keys!” 

Madoc opens the door just enough to throw your keys at you, which you fumble and nearly drop until catching them by the stupid cowboy possum keychain, before slamming it shut again. From within, you can hear several locks clicking shut loudly in quick succession.

The speed with which this entire interaction has occurred leaves your head spinning, and you have to take a moment to realize that yes, what you just experienced was real. Even then, you stare at the door bemusedly. “What the fuck?”

“I do not believe he will be coming back,” an accented voice says from behind you.

You can’t stop the little scream of surprise that leaves you when you whip around to face the woman who, until this moment, you forgot had been kicked out of Madoc’s house. She stares at you, just as warily as you’re probably staring at her.

She’s otherworldly beautiful, with olive skin, dark hair, and dark eyes. But what stands out the most is just how visibly scared she is. She watches you like you’re a predator readying to attack. You hate it because you’d never do anything like that to anybody, but especially her. What had Madoc done to cause her to have this reaction to a stranger?

Evie’s voice rises tinnily from the phone in your back pocket, loud and panicked, and you remember that she’s been on the phone this whole time. You pull your phone out and hold it up to your ear, having to put a little distance between it due to how she’s yelling.

“—I swear, I’m two seconds away from calling the cops! Please just let me know you’re okay!”

“Evie, hey, I’m here,” you say, making her cry out in relief.

“Oh my god, are you okay? I was scared when I heard yelling!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m alright. Pretty sure I just watched Madoc have a mental breakdown?” Is that what that was? You can’t say for certain, considering this is your first such occasion.

“Seriously? Well, did you get your keys, at least?”

“After he finished rambling about were-goldfish and plums.”

“Jesus Christ. Are you going to call somebody?”

“Who would I call? And anyway, maybe this is normal for him.”

“If that’s normal, I’d hate to see what abnormal is.” She sighs. “So, I’ll see you soon?”

“Um,” you trail off, looking at the woman. “Y’know, I might take a rain check, if that’s okay. I’m a little shaken up by everything that just happened.”

“I bet, that sounds like it was really scary. We’ll miss you, but take care of yourself. If you do decide to come out, just text me and I’ll tell you where we’re at.”

“Thanks, Ev. I’ll, uh, talk to you soon.”

You hang up the phone, and now you and the woman are left awkwardly staring at each other. How are you supposed to approach a situation like this? Sliding your phone back into your pocket, you hold your hands with the palms facing out so that she can see you’re not holding any weapons and decide to just start from the beginning.

“Hi.”

She nods back in greeting, trying to hold herself with as much dignity as she can in this situation. The chill of the night and her lack of proper clothing leave her trembling in front of you, though some of that is likely from fear too, and you can see bruises in various shades of healing up and down her arms. Worse, there are visible fingerprint-shaped bruises ringing her neck. Though you’ve never been particularly violent, you’re tempted to break down Madoc’s door and do unto him what he’s obviously done to this woman.

“Are you cold? I have a spare jacket if you want it.” You point the hundred or so feet to where your car sits. “Here, let’s go over to my car, I’m just parked on the street right there.”

The woman attempts to gauge you and, presumably, your intentions. Though this is her decision to make, you give her a friendly smile in the hopes of convincing her that you have no ill will toward her. After a moment, she nods hesitantly.

You take the lead as you walk down the front path to your car, mainly to show that she holds the power here. There will be nobody sneaking up on this woman or trying anything, and she’s free to run far away from you if that’s what she chooses. 

Still, she follows you, and waits patiently while you dig around in your back seat until you finally come up with the light jacket that you had tossed back there after an outdoor movie night. You hand it to her and she shrugs it on, holding it tightly around her and trying to hide within the cotton fabric.

You don’t want to ask the question that’s on your mind, but you know that you have to. You need some sort of context for the situation. “Was…Madoc keeping you locked up in there?” She nods, and you feel your stomach roil with sick nausea. “Okay. We need to call the cops, so they can come and arrest him.”

“No!” she says firmly, a departure from how soft-spoken she previously was. “Please, I beg you, no authorities.”

“But…” 

Maybe he hadn’t kidnapped her like you found yourself assuming at first. Perhaps this is a severe case of domestic violence? Regardless, she looks like the poster child for abused women, and you’re not about to disrespect her wishes when this is probably the first choice she’s been able to make for herself in a long time.

“Okay,” you agree. “No cops.” 

“Thank you.” She sounds so relieved that it makes you want to cry.

An idea begins to form in your head, but one that you’re not sure how to begin to broach. After all, the woman in front of you has absolutely no reason to trust you. “I’m guessing you don’t have anywhere to go?”

She shakes her head. “No, I have…nowhere, and nobody.”

That settles it. You’re not about to leave a battered, formerly-trapped woman to fend for herself on the streets. “So listen. I have a spare room at my place, and you’re completely welcome to it for as long as you need.”

“Oh, I could not impose.”

“You wouldn’t be!” you assure her. “Please, it’s the least I can do. At least until you get back on your feet.”

She studies you again. Though you don’t know what she’s looking for, you can tell that she’s the kind of intuitive person that sees beyond that which is only skin-deep. Finally, she says, “Alright.”

You grin and open the passenger side door, gesturing for her to get in. “Alright.”

After getting the car started and the heat turned up all the way, you watch as the woman fiddles with the airflow of the heater until it’s blowing directly on her delicate hands, which she holds in front of her to warm up. She looks at you as if realizing for the first time that you could betray her trust much in the same way as Ric Madoc had. To prove to her that you won’t, you unlock the doors when they try to lock automatically in response to you putting the car in ‘drive’.

You tell her your name, and for the first time, she smiles. It’s a small thing, barely a quirk of the lips, but it’s there. “I am Calliope.”

“Oh cool, like the Muse!” Her smile widens until she’s actually smiling, leaving you delighted. “Your parents were into Greek mythology, then?”

“Something like that, yes.”

As you drive to your apartment, Calliope turns in her seat and watches as Madoc’s apartment grows smaller and smaller behind your car. Even after it’s disappeared behind turns and other buildings, she still watches, perhaps waiting for him to come back to his senses and come after her. But there will be none of that tonight, or ever again. Not as long as you have anything to do about it.

When you get home, you continue the routine of taking the lead and allowing Calliope to decide whether or not she wants to follow you. Calliope lingers in the entryway of your apartment, taking her time carefully cataloging everything that she can see as you work at getting the lights turned on and trying to clean up a little bit—after all, you hadn’t exactly expected a houseguest when you left for class this morning. 

She runs her fingers along the walls and the frames of artwork that you’ve acquired at festivals and flea markets. She feels the coats on your coat rack, and her dark, inquisitive eyes scan over the battered toaster and soft fruit in your kitchen. As she walks further into your home, she takes care to take up as little space as possible until she reaches where you stand in front of a closed door.

“My old roommate moved in with their girlfriend a couple of months ago, and they don’t know what they want to do with her furniture, so they’re just storing it here until they can figure it out,” you explain as you open the door and flick on the light switch to reveal a bare bedroom. It’s sparsely furnished, with just a full bed, a nightstand, a dresser, and a desk and chair. “Now, it’s yours.”

“Mine?”

“For as long as you need it,” you repeat.

Hesitantly stepping inside, Calliope looks over the room before nodding in satisfaction. You can only hope that she had a space of her own in Madoc’s house, but by the way that she looks around like she’s never seen something so wonderful as an empty bedroom before, you’re left with a sinking feeling that this wasn’t the case.

“So! I’ll grab some sheets and a blanket from the linen closet and get the bed made up for you. Um, all of the doors lock on the inside, so feel free to keep yourself and your space private. Do you want to take a shower? Because you definitely can. Avery—that’s my old roommate—left some of the clothes they didn’t want behind, and they’re about your size, I think.” You’re rambling, but you just want to make her feel as welcome as possible. 

“A shower would be…nice,” Calliope decides.

“Awesome! The bathroom’s right through here, c’mon.”

In the bathroom, Calliope watches as you grab a couple of towels from the closet, along with the sheets and blanket you mentioned earlier. You set the towels down on the closed toilet lid next to the shower.

“Feel free to use any of my stuff here, it’s totally fine,” you explain, pulling back the shower curtain so Calliope can see your haircare products and body wash.

Instead of looking over that array, she simply stares at the chrome of the shower faucet in confusion.

“Oh yeah, the shower’s a little weird here. All you have to do is turn the handle, and then pull the plug on the faucet for the shower.” You show her as you explain it. “Turn the handle left for hot water, and right for cold. Got it?”

“I believe so.”

“Alright, I’ll leave you to it, then. Just yell if you need anything from me.”

You close the bathroom door behind you and after a long moment, you finally hear the lock turn.

Good. In the meantime, you’ll make a quick meal for her, in case she’s hungry. Plus, you need to keep your hands busy. It will help take your mind off of the horrors you’re trying desperately to forget that you witnessed.

•••

Four days later, Evie runs up to you on campus when she sees you and wraps both of her hands around your upper arm before pulling you towards her. “Did you hear?”

“What?” You’re more focused on not falling over your feet at the sudden change of pace you’ve been forced into than you are wondering what you did or didn’t hear.

“You were right. Mr. Madoc had a complete mental breakdown! Somebody called in a welfare check on him, and the cops found him curled up in a ball mumbling gibberish. He hadn’t moved for days. You know the worst part, though?” 

You shake your head. 

“He covered every single wall of his house with the most random words and phrases, and they were all written in his own blood.”

You reel back. “Jesus!”

“I know, totally gory.” By her laugh, you can tell that she enjoys the gore.

It’s at this moment that you realize that you haven’t told Evie anything about what happened after you hung up with her that night. It certainly wasn’t deliberate; you’ve just been so caught up in the sudden change in your living arrangements that you haven’t had the time to text or call her about what you went through.

With that in mind, you say, “I have something to tell you.”

Evie’s eyes immediately light up at the prospect of gossip. “You do?”

You nod. “That night, when I went to his house? He grabbed this woman from inside his house and just threw her at me, saying that she was my problem now. She was all bruised and wearing nothing but a nightgown, and he treated her like she was his property. Evie, she said he kept her trapped there.”

“What the fuck.” Evie stares at you in horror. “Is she okay now?”

“Physically, yeah. She’s staying with me.”

“At your apartment?”

“Where else? Her name’s Calliope. I’m letting her stay in Avery’s old room until she gets back on her feet again.”

Evie whistles lowly. “I can’t tell if that’s kind of you or stupid of you.”

“Probably both.”

“Yeah, probably.” 

As you walk, an astute observation comes to your mind. “Y’know, it makes sense that he’s such a piece of shit. Now that I think about it, the only authors we ever discussed in class were white guys.”

“Hmm, typical white man.” Evie rolls her eyes before she grins. “Hey, can I meet her?”

“Calliope?”

“Who else?”

You have to think about that for a minute. Would she be comfortable with meeting new people and putting herself out there? While you think that your friends are great, especially Evie, you just don’t want to force her into anything before she’s ready.

Evie seems to sense this hesitation, and explains, “She just seems like she needs some friends. A support system might be good for her while she tries to get her life back!”

“I can’t make any promises, but I’ll ask her if she wants to do something like that.”

“That’s all I ask,” Evie says. “In the meantime, is there anything that I can do to help? Like, does she need clothes? Kiara’s aunt owns that boutique, and she would probably be willing to help out.”

That’s a good idea and one that you hadn’t even considered. Obviously, Calliope’s going to want some clothes of her own instead of Avery’s hand-me-downs. It’ll probably help her to feel more like a human being, one with choice and agency over herself.

“Oh, would you ask her to talk to her aunt?” you ask. “That’d be great.” 

Evie nods. “Definitely. I feel like that’s, like, the least I can do.”

“I wish there was more that I could do,” you admit.

“You’re doing what you can, and that’s what matters. Hell, most people wouldn’t have even offered to let a woman in Calliope’s situation stay with them. You’re a good person, you know that?”

“Thanks.”

“Eh, what are friends for, if not to reassure you that taking in a random woman on a whim is the right idea?” You huff in mock anger, and Evie laughs. “Anyways, you’ll never guess what the university is trying to do about the whole Madoc situation now…”

•••

Calliope doesn’t come out of her room when you’re around, not that you blame her. If you had gone through even an ounce of what you suspect she had, you’d want to be safe and alone for a long time, no matter how nice your new roommate is (and you like to think you’re pretty nice). You hear her sneak around when she knows that you’re in your own bedroom, as quiet as a mouse, and every night without fail, she takes a long shower. Other than that, it feels like you’re still living alone.

Since you don’t know how often she’s eating, and she doesn’t leave dishes or any sort of indication that she’s getting food for herself, you leave meals out in front of her door for her, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Sticky notes accompany them, because you have things that you want her to know and this is the only way to communicate with her right now.

“Feel free to grab food from the kitchen whenever you want!”

“I have great books, and you’re more than welcome to them.”

“If you find yourself wanting to watch TV, the remote is on the coffee table!”

Each message is signed with a smiley face, and each one is gone when the empty tray is returned outside her door.

The empty trays and, eventually, the books that go missing from your bookshelf are the only signs of life that you receive from Calliope. 

When Calliope finally emerges while you’re home and not in your room, it’s six days after Ric Madoc threw her into your arms. You’re sitting on your couch reading fanfiction, a random YouTube video playing in the background when Calliope’s door creaks open and she peeks her head out hesitantly. Immediately you pause the video, smiling brightly when she notices you looking at her.

“Hi!” you greet.

“Hello.” She slowly exits her room clutching the book she’s been reading, as skittish as a feral kitten, and you slide over on the couch before patting the now-empty other side in invitation.

“You can come sit if you want. I’m just reading.”

“What are you reading?” Calliope asks, perching on the edge of the cushion as though she’s preparing for escape at any moment.

The smile freezes on your face. Just because you’re happy your new roommate is here doesn’t mean you’re about to out yourself as a fanfiction reader. “Oh, just a fantasy book.”

“Why do you have that…television on, then?” Calliope says this as though she’s still unfamiliar with the concept of television.

“I like the background noise of putting on shows that I’ve already seen. Helps me focus.”

She looks at you like that’s one of the oddest things she’s ever heard. Maybe it is, but it’s your little habit, and it has been for so long that it’s normal now. You hit play again, and Calliope starts a bit as sound comes through the speakers on the TV. Funnily, even though she seems to not understand your reasoning, the sound itself helps her to relax enough that she’s sitting on the couch with you instead of hovering like she’s preparing to bolt at any moment.

You don’t say anything, not wanting to make her think that you’re dictating what she can and cannot do. Eventually, Calliope decides to follow your lead and open her book, though she keeps getting distracted by the TV and eventually forgoes the book entirely in favor of watching the show.

“The tall one does not believe in ghosts, but the little one does?” Calliope asks out of the blue. You swallow down your laugh at her description of the hosts and nod.

“Mhm, and that’s what makes the show so good, is that dichotomy between the two hosts. One is so serious about everything they do, every noise that they hear, and the other is just dancing around and begging the demons to possess him or whatever because he thinks they’re not real and so saying this stuff can’t hurt him.”

She watches silently for another few minutes before asking, “Why are they searching for ghosts in the first place?”

“Well, because people love trying to solve the unsolved. And I think ghosts and the question of their existence is one of the ultimate unsolved mysteries.” She nods in satisfaction and turns back to the show, and you decide to turn off your phone and join her.

Calliope, as it turns out, enjoys television, if only for the strange concepts of some of the shows. You’re more than happy to show her all of the strangest and best shows, with the bonus of getting to see them anew through her eyes, which seem to be watching everything for the very first time.

•••

It’s mid-afternoon, and instead of being outside on what’s turning out to be a beautiful day, you’re stuck doing homework.

Everybody had assumed that Ric Madoc’s classes would be canceled after his abrupt admission into the Saint Dymphna Mental Health Hospital. The university, however, not wanting to just give out automatic passing grades without merit, had scrambled to try and find professors to teach Madoc’s classes. Somehow, they had succeeded, and you were now once again immersed in the world of 20th-century authors. Though your new professor didn’t have the ability to truly capture a room in the same way Madoc had, she was a fine replacement, and she devoted a good chunk of class time to women authors.

It’s too nice of a day to not take advantage of, though. That first true spring day after a long, harsh winter has finally arrived, and you won’t let it pass you by. All of the windows are open to allow the stale air of the apartment to dissipate, and as you write, you listen to the birds chirping and people doing yard work. Maybe, if you finish quickly enough, you’ll be able to take a walk yourself. 

Calliope would probably enjoy that as well, you think.

The woman in question knocks on your open bedroom door, and you look up at her with a smile from your desk. She clocks the computer and the notes spread around you and grows sheepish.

“I’m sorry, you are busy. I’ll–”

“No, don’t worry! Just finishing up an essay for a class. Got a crazy burst of motivation for it, and ended up knocking it out in a couple of hours. It’ll be good to look away from the screen.” 

Calliope gets that funny little smile on her face, the one that says that she has found something amusing but is going to keep it to herself. She waits patiently as you stretch, wincing when she hears the way that your shoulders pop and crack after hours of stagnancy.

“What’s up?” you ask. “You seem like you want to ask me something.”

Calliope points out of your bedroom. “What is out there?”

You stand so that you can see what it is she’s referencing, and find that she’s pointing to your sliding door.

“Oh, it’s a little balcony. I don’t go out there much right now, still a little too chilly, but it’ll be nice to sit out there once summer comes. Here, I’ll show you.”

It’s the first time this season that it’s been nice enough to have the door open, which is probably why she’s only just now realized it’s there. You open the screen door and lead her out onto your balcony. It’s small, but you spent last summer adding to it and making it a comforting place to relax. Now, there are lights strung up above your heads, and there are two chairs with a table in between them. Planters sit lined up along the iron of the balcony railing, ready to be filled when planting season comes around.

Calliope gasps, and you’re about to ask what’s wrong (part of you is worried that a snake managed to find its way up to the third floor), when she tilts her face up to the sun, leaning over the railing to try and get as much of the light on her as possible. She looks like a painting come to life, probably with a name like “Muse Bathed in the Sun”, because truly, Calliope seems like the type of person to inspire every person lucky enough to make her acquaintance. 

“Helios,” you hear Calliope whisper reverently. 

It’s obvious that she isn’t aware that she said that out loud, and you start to feel embarrassed before she turns back to you with a true smile and tears running down her face.

“I have not been outside in the sun in so long.” 

She explains this simply and factually, as if she’s talking about why the sun is where it is and not about all that she was deprived of during her captivity. Madoc didn’t even let her go outside. It’s a good thing that he’s under secure watch 24/7, because there have been many times over the almost-three weeks that Calliope has lived with you that you have wished to be able to go and inflict upon him a modicum of that which he did to Calliope.

Now tears are running down your face too, and you wipe at them harshly with the backs of your hands. This is Calliope’s moment, Calliope’s joy, and you won’t have her feeling sorry for making you experience such happiness and broken-heartedness by watching her.

“It’s here no matter what. Even if it’s a little cold, bring a blanket out and sit whenever you want. Soon, we’ll be able to plant some stuff. You can help me if you want!”

Calliope’s back to facing the sun directly, but she still nods to let you know that it’s a good idea. Quietly, you back up into the apartment and close the screen door behind you, letting her have this time of reconnection to herself.

Most mornings after this rediscovery, you find Calliope already sitting on the balcony by the time you wake up, a blanket around her shoulders, a mug of something hot in her hands, a book on her lap, and the sun bathing her skin.

•••

“Y’know what, I’m gonna give that one a three.”

“A three?” Calliope tuts. “That is cruel. His performance was at least a six.”

“C’mon Cal, you’re just saying that because you see the best in everybody! The rest of us saw a douchey frat bro drunkenly singing ‘SexyBack,’ which earned him a three. And that’s me being generous.”

Calliope and your friend Ethan are, of course, judging the karaoke performances of the bar patrons brave (or stupid) enough to sing in front of others. They, along with your friend Kiara, take this tradition very seriously. For every performance, the three of them have detailed notes and a rating out of ten to go along with it. 

You had finally given in to Evie’s pleadings and decided to broach the subject of going out in public to Calliope. Much to your surprise, she accepted when you first invited her to karaoke night with your friends at the group’s favorite bar. She accepted when you offered to bring her to trivia, and she accepted when your friends finally got around to doing a book club meeting—which was mainly just drinking and eating appetizers while you talked about the books you’d read, but it still counted. 

(Taking Calliope to her first drag show quickly became one of your favorite and most cherished memories)

She took to your friend group like a duck to water, and in return, they embraced her wholeheartedly. Now, none of you could imagine a life without her in it. 

And slowly, it seemed as though Calliope began to start to heal. With every bar meetup, movie night, or random coffee date, you saw a bit more light return back to Calliope. Flashes of the woman that she once was, vibrant and funny and elegant and wise, begin to become more frequent as the days pass. Every time she allows for a hug or every time she smirks into her glass after saying something that has the group erupting in laughter, she becomes more and more herself.

“Oh my god, it’s our turn!” Ethan yells suddenly after the karaoke emcee calls his and Evie’s names. He stands and holds his hand out to Evie, who happily takes it and jumps up with him. “Let’s go knock some socks off.”

This will either go one of two ways. They’ll either perform their serious song, “Bennie and the Jets,” which they’re surprisingly good at, or they’ll go funny and perform the Sharpay and Ryan version of “What I’ve Been Lookin’ For” from High School Musical, which they’re also really good at. By their tipsy giggles, you’re guessing it’s the latter.

The second they both start doing the Sharpay and Ryan hype-up routine, Kiara sighs and grabs her drink and phone.

“I promised these dumbasses I’d film them the next time they performed this,” she explains before going to work as an unpaid videographer.

Throughout their entire routine, Calliope’s enthralled, as she should be. It’s a good performance, of course, but Evie and Ethan together are a true comedic duo. The matching jazz squares during the instrumentals truly bring the whole piece together, and you’re in tears from laughter by the end of their routine. When they return to the table after a rousing standing ovation from the patrons of the bar, Calliope gives them her own round of applause and beams.

Naturally, she bestows upon them the highest ranking one can receive during karaoke nights. “Now that was a ten.”

Ethan bows as Evie kisses Calliope’s cheek. “Thank you, m’lady,” he says proudly.

“When do you get the time to practice this?”

“Nights like this, usually,” Evie explains before Ethan interrupts.

“Though we have been known to skip a class or two when we were trying to work out the kinks in our performance.” Ethan picks up his drink before frowning when he sees there’s nothing but melting ice cubes in the glass. “Well, apparently I need another drink. Anybody else?”

Everyone at the table shakes their head, but Kiara reaches into her jacket. “No, but I am gonna go hit my pen.”

“Ooh, I’ll come with you,” Evie volunteers cheerfully.

“Weed thief,” Kiara teases.

“Are you telling me no?”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“That’s not a no!”

Your friends go their separate ways, leaving you and Calliope to sit alone at the table. The next singer has already started, and you grin when you hear what it is.

“Oh, I love this song,” you tell Calliope before singing along. “‘Cause I’m dreaming of you tonight, ‘til tomorrow I’ll be holding you tight!”

Beside you, Calliope grows a little gloomy. She’s frowning a bit; even if it’s barely there, you can always tell because it completely transforms her beautiful face into something so sad. You stop humming and look over at her, watching as she slowly swirls her straw in her drink repeatedly to give her something to do.

“Having fun?” you ask, slightly worried at the sudden melancholy that seems to have draped over her like a shroud.

“Yes,” she tries to assure you, but it sounds clipped, like she’s holding back.

“You know you don’t have to come just because I invited you, right? You can do whatever you want.” You never want her to feel as though you’re forcing her to do anything, and even though she’s been having fun up until now, there’s still that anxiety that tells you that she’s just going along with it because she feels like she owes you.

“I know,” Calliope assures. “But I enjoy you and your group of friends. You make me feel…welcomed, and accepted, in a way that I have not felt in a long time.” 

“They’re your friends now too. Pretty sure they decided that the second they met you.”

“I consider them friends as well. I consider you a friend as well, though I hope you know that by now.” She smiles down at her drink. “Besides, I quite like the karaoke nights.”

“I can tell. You never sing with us, though.”

“I don’t need to, I just enjoy listening. The people singing, and enjoying themselves, it reminds me of my son. He, too, loved to sing, and he was gifted with such a beautiful voice.”

“You have a son?” This takes you by surprise. Though Calliope seems to be very maternal, she’s never mentioned anything about a child until now. The fact that she talks about him in the past tense has your heart sinking into your stomach from the implications.

Calliope nods. “My sweet boy, my Orpheus. He was beautiful, and heartbreakingly sweet. He had a voice that could bring even the gods themselves to tears. He was taken from me…far too soon, and I miss him every day, with every fiber of my being. Being here, among so many people happy and making music—I see his face in all of theirs, and it brings me some sense of peace, to know that I can find pieces of him here, in the most unlikely of places..”

It’s sweet that she kept the Greek mythology theme going with her own son, you think, though it’s tragic that he suffered the same fate as his namesake.

“He was so lucky to have a mom like you, Calliope. Any child would be.” You lick your lips and taste the sweetness of alcohol on them as you ponder what to say next. “His life might have ended too soon, but he knew that he was completely and truly loved until the very end, which is such a gift.”

Tears well up in Calliope’s eyes, and she dabs at them with a napkin grabbed hastily from the table. “Thank you,” she chokes out. “You have no idea how much that means to me.”

“Ah, now you’re gonna go and make me cry too. Can I hug you?” 

You always, always ask for permission before hugging her or touching her. She doesn’t seem to mind anymore when friends do it without asking, but you can’t break yourself of the habit. 

Not after seeing what you saw the night that you met her.

She doesn’t give you an answer in the form of words. Instead, she simply falls into your arms, both of you clinging to the other.

From behind you, Ethan whispers, “Uh, are we interrupting something?”

•••

Evie has a date tonight and is naturally freaking out about it. She doesn’t know what to wear, she doesn’t know what she’s going to say, she doesn’t know if she’s even going to like the girl. Though you can provide her with all of the moral support in the world, there’s only one problem that you can currently help her with, which is how she ends up rifling furiously through your closet on a random Wednesday night.

You and Calliope sit on your bed, watching as Evie grabs different outfits and either critiques them herself or holds them up for you to do so. This is a tried-and-true routine for you, but Calliope’s experiencing the joys of helping a friend in need pick out a first date outfit for the first time. As a result, she puts far more thought into her responses when Evie asks for an opinion.

“You know, I believe I may have just the shirt for you in my room,” Calliope says after the outfit rejections have reached double digits. “Come.”

Calliope has truly made her room her own in the almost two months that she’s lived here, which makes you so happy to see. She’s decorated with items found antiquing (Calliope always manages to come out of an antique store with a haul—you think it's her superpower), and her room has an actual personality now.

She goes to her closet and begins searching through it before finding what she’s looking for; a white blouse with bell sleeves and delicate embroidering along the cuffs and collar. It’s beautiful, and exactly what Evie was looking for. Her attention, however, is drawn to something else in the closet, and she grabs at one of the hangers after approving Calliope’s choice. To your surprise, Evie comes up holding a cream-colored, silk nightgown.

“Wait, Cal, you still have the nightgown you were wearing the night you got away?” you ask.

It would be cruel to say anything more than the most vague descriptions regarding Calliope’s imprisonment. Nobody particularly wanted to remind her of that dark time in her life, so great care was taken to make it the least bit triggering as possible when it needed to be brought up.

She nods. 

“Why?”

Calliope thinks about that for a moment. “I am not sure, to be honest. I certainly do not want to keep a relic of such a terrible time, but throwing it away does not feel…right.”

Evie perks up. “Ooh, y’know what we should do? We should burn that bitch!”

Calliope looks perturbed. “I thought you said that he is still in a mental hospital? Besides, I believe that immolation is still a crime.”

You and Evie both laugh when you realize that Calliope thought she was talking about Madoc.

“Not that bitch, though you’re giving me great ideas. I meant that we should burn the dress. I saw it on TikTok; these friends did a ‘burn and release’ ritual. They had a fire going in their backyard, and they all wrote down and talked about things that they wanted to release before burning it and physically releasing themselves of that. It looks like it’s super empowering, and it might give you the closure that it seems like you’re looking for.”

She doesn’t say anything, but you can tell that she’s intrigued. 

“We’d participate, too,” you chime in, Evie nodding along with you. “I think we all have things we want to burn so that we can give ourselves permission to move on.”

“I would like that, I think.”

Evie smiles. “Perfect. Leave it to me.”

It only takes Evie a couple of days to coordinate everything. Her parents live just outside of town, and they happily offer up their backyard to their daughter and her group of friends. When you and Calliope arrive, there’s already a fire pit set up with a ring of camping chairs surrounding it. Kiara waves from one of the chairs, a bag of marshmallows sitting in her lap, as Evie works at getting the fire going.

“Yay, you made it!” she says when she can finally trust the fire to not go out the moment she looks away from it.

Calliope nods graciously. “Thank you for hosting us this evening.”

“You’re so formal sometimes! If anything, I should be the one thanking you for going along with my crazy idea.”

“I do not think it is crazy at all,” Calliope assures.

“We’ll see, won’t we? Anyways, pens and paper are over in the empty chair next to Kiara, and there will be drinks and snacks momentarily.” Evie turns to you. “Wanna help me grab said drinks and snacks? I need an extra set of hands.”

After helping Evie with procuring and setting out a few bottles of wine, plastic cups, and a bunch of different snacks, the four of you each pick up a pen and paper and begin to write. Calliope writes furiously, her pen seeming to fly over the paper as she jots down her thoughts, and is done first as a result. The rest of you take a bit longer to write, needing to stop and think about what you want to put down before you do so.

In a group chat, you, Kiara, and Evie had decided that one of you would automatically go first, to make Calliope feel comfortable about participating. When you’ve all finished writing, Kiara stands and clears her throat.

“Well, guess I’m first up,” she says.

In hindsight, you should have guessed how emotional a night of talking about things that you need to release and then burning them as a physical manifestation would be. Still, the teary eyes from everybody when Kiara finishes reading her letter to her ex-best friend and tosses it, along with a small box of mementos, into the fire catch you off-guard. Though you said that everybody had things that they needed to release the night that Evie first brought this up, you just didn’t realize that everyone was carrying their own burdens that, to them, are just as heavy as Calliope’s is to her.

You volunteer to go next, reading about how you release all of the expectations that you’ve had about your life and where it’s meant to go. Even before Calliope arrived in your life, you struggled with the idea that your life was not going according to the plan that you had in mind. You weren’t hitting milestones that you had plotted out, and your life “schedule” kept imploding time and time again. Now, you hope to be rid of that, and the constant feeling that you’re failing yourself and your life. 

As you watch the paper burn in the flames, you try to convince yourself that all of those feelings are burning along with it.

Evie follows, with a big “fuck you” to her biological dad, who she recently found out only tried to form a relationship with her so that he could get money from her. It’s such a terrible situation, and though she’s handled it with her classic brand of humor, you can all see the hurt that she carries with her. Her letter is funny and biting and makes you all laugh, but she’s openly crying by the time she tosses it into the fire, and she gets a long hug from each of you after.

Finally, it’s Calliope’s turn, and she takes a long moment to stand. She’s been holding your hand since you finished reading her letter, and you give her a comforting squeeze before letting go so she can properly hold the letter. After taking a deep breath, she looks around the fire at the encouraging faces before her before she begins.

“I have often lived my life in the service of others, though most of the time, it was something that I willingly and happily did. That choice was removed from me when I was stolen from my home and bound to a truly vile and horrid man. He took everything from me. My thoughts, my inspiration, my—” Calliope’s voice breaks. “My body. Nothing was mine anymore, and I was told that that was how it should be, that it was the natural order of the world. He beat me down, physically and emotionally, to the point where I started to believe it. 

“Though I had long since lost hope, I prayed for some sort of salvation, and I prayed to whomever I could think of. Nobody answered, either because they could not or would not, and I believed myself truly alone. Eventually, my former lover, Morpheus, was the only one who could, or would, help me, and even then, there was only so much that he could do. I do not fault him for that, because he did the most that was possible for him to do.

“And then one day, somebody knocked on the door of my prison and demanded their keys back.” She looks at you with a wobbly smile, and you sniffle in an attempt to hold back tears. “I know not why that was the tipping point for my captor, and frankly, nor do I care. He threw me out like trash, but I was not really in a place to question a gift such as this. And it truly has been a gift for me. In the two months since I escaped captivity, I have been able to heal, slowly but surely, even though I did not think such a thing was possible. I have found my laugh once more. I am free to do whatever I want, whenever I want. To sit in the sun, or read a book, or be with my friends.”

Calliope picks up the nightgown from where it sat next to her chair. “With this, I release every last hold that my captivity has had on me. From now on, when I think about that time, I shall think about survival, and how I refused to be kept down. I am free, and I shall remain forever free.”

She tosses the dress and the letter into the fire, watching intently as the flames catch the fabric and begin to work through it. Then, she laughs. Her laugh is beautiful and like the peals of bells, and it’s infectious too. Soon you’re all laughing, and you all have the same idea to hug Calliope. It turns into a group hug, the four of you laughing and hugging and watching as the smoke of the fire carries away that which you do not want to carry with you any longer.

•••

Calliope takes her time getting out of the car when you arrive back home, still basking in the euphoria of emotional release. When she turns to look at you, you already know what she’s going to say.

“Go in without me.” She sighs happily and looks up at the moon. “I wish to remain outside for a moment longer.”

You squeeze her shoulder before letting go. “Alright. The door’ll be unlocked whenever you decide you’re finished.”

You hum while unlocking the door, kicking your shoes off and hearing them thump against the wall of the entryway. Fumbling, you curse under your breath as you try to find the light switch—really, you’d think that after living here for almost a year, you’d be able to turn the lights on on the first try.

Light finally floods the room, and your humming resumes as you head into the kitchen to grab a drink. There’s a chill in the air, more figurative than literal, that causes goosebumps to rise on your skin. Your heartbeat quickens as you remove a glass from the cabinet, like your reflexes are trying to warn you of some unseen danger. Nervously, you hum a little louder while filling your glass up in the hopes that you’ll feel better. 

You don’t. How could you, when you look over the kitchen island into the living room and see a figure standing silhouetted against the back door? In fact, you feel much worse than nervous; now, you’re scared out of your wits, enough so that you scream upon realizing that there’s actually a man in your home, a man who is most definitely not supposed to be here.

You scream.

“Hello.” 

The man’s voice is deep, deeper than you think you’ve ever heard before. If he wasn’t currently in the act of breaking into your home, you’d think about how nice of a voice it is. Right now, it’s simply disturbing.

His eyes seem to twinkle in the darkness before he takes a step toward you, thus putting himself in the light. He’s paler than any living being you’ve ever seen, with long, unkempt black hair and cold blue eyes that seem like they can tell everything about you just from looking at you. He’s dressed in all black, with a long black coat completing his ensemble.

He’s not human, that much you’re sure of. You’ve spent enough time around Calliope in the past couple of months to guess that she is something more, and this stranger is the same. Power radiates off of him in waves, the same as it does with Calliope. Both are ethereally, sharply beautiful, in a way that lets lesser beings know that these are the true apex predators.

Even though it probably won’t help (now that you have the barest idea of what you’re dealing with), you pick up a kitchen knife from the dish rack and brandish it in front of you, thankful that you had cut up an apple last night and thus had needed your largest knife to do so. 

“Get the fuck out of my apartment!” 

He doesn’t move, choosing instead to just keep staring at you with those piercing eyes. You come out from behind the island, still holding the knife towards him. 

“Seriously, leave or I’m calling the cops,” you threaten, pulling your phone out of your pocket with your free hand.

This decision quickly has the situation going from bad to worse. The man seems to cross the entire room in a single step before slamming you against the wall, one hand wrapped dangerously tight around your throat. You gasp at the sudden violence, as well as the strength that he possesses under his lean figure, and both the knife and the phone fall from your hands as you try to figure out what to do. 

“Be quiet, mortal,” he spits venomously, his hand flexing around your throat. You attempt to grab at his hand to get him off of you, but he doesn’t budge. When you try to kick at him, he just leans more of his weight against you and renders you virtually immobile. “You are keeping a woman here, against her will. You will release her immediately, or suffer the most dire of consequences.”

“What? No, I’m not!” you argue.

Is he talking about Calliope? If so, he’s about two months too late in coming to her rescue. The only one that was holding her against her will was Ric Madoc, and he’s facing his own set of consequences for what he did.

Speak of the devil. Calliope chooses this moment to come in from her nighttime sojourn. You and your attacker both stare at the door as Calliope enters the apartment. She’s humming, much as you had when you first came in, completely in her own little world.

“Cal!” you cry out helplessly in an attempt to warn her, the only sound you can make before the man’s hand tightens again and cuts off all but a bit of your air supply. If given the chance, you’re not sure if you would tell her to run or ask for her help.

She takes stock of the situation before her with calculated eyes. Instead of surprise, shock, or fear, Calliope just looks…angry. Her bag drops to the floor next to her feet, and she makes sure to shut and lock the door behind her.

“Let her go, Oneiros,” Calliope commands, her hand landing on his shoulder.

Wait, Calliope knows him? Internally, you chastise yourself; obviously, she knows him, she called him by name! Still, you find yourself confused. She hasn’t mentioned having any contacts in the area. In fact, you distinctly remember her saying that she had “nobody” that first night you met her.

The intruder—Oneiros, apparently—does as Calliope asks, and you slide to the floor without his interference keeping you upright. Calliope slides down with you, landing on her knees in front of you as she looks you over with her big, brown eyes.

“Are you alright?” she asks, using her thumbs to wipe away your tears, tears that you weren’t aware you were shedding.

You nod. “I–I think so.” 

Despite your reassurance, your hand goes to your throat, and you try to rub away the soreness that’s already settling beneath the skin. When she begins to rub her hands up and down your arms, you realize that you’re shaking violently. Calliope stands and briefly leaves the room, leaving you and Oneiros in awkward silence until she returns with a blanket, which she gently wraps around you.

After she’s completed this task, Calliope wheels around to point accusingly at the man. “You are a fool, and you allow yourself to act without first thinking far too often.”

“Calliope–” he tries to interrupt, but Calliope shakes her head.

“What are you doing here?” she demands.

He scowls. “You called for me again, did you not?” 

“I did no such thing!”

“Really?” he questions with a raised eyebrow. “You did not write my name down prior to burning it?”

Calliope falls silent, because apparently that’s exactly what she did.

“I thought that what I had done to Richard Madoc worked, Calliope. Why did you not come to me sooner to tell me that he had sold you off instead?”

“Nothing of the sort has happened!”

“Then how did you end up bound to yet another mortal?”

“It is not what it looks like, Morpheus.”

“Explain it to me, then,” he pleads.

As the two continue to bicker above you, you feel increasingly like you’re interrupting in your own home. You shift uncomfortably, and Oneiros—Morpheus? Seriously, how many names does this guy have?—turns his sharp gaze upon you.

“You. How did you come to bind the Muse Calliope? What spell have you used to bewitch her?” He demands answers that you don’t have, and your shaking becomes worse under the full brunt of his stare.

“What?” You scramble to your feet so that you can at least pretend to be on the same ground as the two others here. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Please, let us sit down and discuss this civilly,” Calliope interrupts, gesturing both of you towards the living room. 

After a moment of consideration, Oneiros/Morpheus nods tersely and walks in the direction that Calliope had pointed as though this is his home and not yours. You try to get your legs to move, but they steadfastly remain stuck to the spot you’re standing in. Calliope notices this and loops her arm through yours before gently guiding you into the living room.

“Why did he call you a Muse?” you whisper to her.

She presses her lips together in a thin line. “I will give you answers, I promise. It is…complicated.”

Though you’re not exactly satisfied by this answer, you trust Calliope, so you nod and silently agree to wait.

You don’t have to wait for long. Once everybody is seated (you in the chair perpendicular to the couch, with Oneiros/Morpheus on the couch and Calliope sitting next to him while simultaneously acting as a buffer between you), Calliope takes a deep breath and begins to explain everything. About who, and what, she is, how she came to be bound by a writer named Erasmus Fry, and how she was basically bartered for by Ric Madoc. She explains what they wanted from her, and she explains, unflinchingly, what they did to her to get it. Though it’s horrific, you listen to all of it. After all, if she’s willing to give, it’s only fair that you be open to receiving.

Calliope’s words seem to hang in the air long after she’s finished. The three of you sit in silence; Oneiros/Morpheus with a stony expression, you crying (you think you’ve cried more today than you’ve cried in a long, long time), and Calliope waiting calmly for you both to digest what she’s said.

In the end, it’s you who speaks first. “So you’re a goddess?” you ask.

“A Muse, yes,” she says.

“Like, of the Greek variety.” You need to confirm this for some reason, even though you already know the answer.

She laughs. “Yes.”

“A literal Muse is my best friend and roommate?”

You think that you might be going into shock right now

Oneiros/Morpheus scoffs, and you glare at him. “You have something to say?”

“You say that Calliope is your best friend. Then why do you not set her free?”

“Set her free? She’s a person, she’s free to do whatever she wants.”

“No, she is not. Calliope is bound to you, by the old laws.”

“Morpheus,” Calliope says sharply, a warning, but the man continues.

“You are enslaving a goddess and calling it friendship.” The disgust is clear on his face. “How can there be any sort of friendship when she is unable to leave, to do anything, without your say? You have complete and utter control over her, and you force her to pretend that it isn’t so. This farce that you’ve concocted must end now. I implore you to free her before I am left with no choice but to take further action against you.”

The room begins to tilt, and you shake your head in disbelief. “No…”

“They don’t know, Morpheus!” Calliope snaps.

“Cal, you—” 

You feel sick, and you genuinely think that you’re about to throw up. All this time, you thought you had helped to free her from her prison. Instead, she’s remained trapped, bound to you just like she was bound to Madoc and, as you’ve now learned, Erasmus Fry. These men took everything from an unwilling goddess, a Muse, and you’re basically no better than them. 

Swallowing down the bile that rises in your throat does nothing, so you close your eyes to take a couple of deep, shaky breaths in an attempt to calm down. That doesn’t work either, and you rise shakily to your feet before rushing over to the trash can in the kitchen and throwing up the wine and snacks that you had eagerly partaken in at Evie’s.

It’s humiliating, doing something as base and human as retching in the presence of two godly creatures. Everything about this situation is humiliating, if you’re being honest with yourself. You’ve unknowingly extended Calliope’s incarceration and deluded both of you into believing that it was friendship. How could you be a part of such a heinous act? Truly, are you no better than Madoc?

When you’ve finally thrown up everything in your stomach and then some, you’re full-on sobbing as you clutch at the trash can. Your knees give out, but Calliope catches you as you fall to the ground and wraps you in her embrace. She soothes you and murmurs words of comfort as she runs a hand through your hair, letting you cry in her arms when it should be the other way around. You don’t deserve her comfort, you think to yourself.

Once you finally have enough breath in your lungs to be able to talk, you gasp out between hyperventilating, “I’m so sorry. I–I didn’t know, and if I did, I would have never–”

“Shh,” she hushes you, grabbing your hands in hers. “My sweet friend, you have done nothing wrong.”

“But I–”

“I am the one who chose not to tell you. I trusted you in the beginning, and I trust you now. You have not failed me or abused me, or been a captor to me. Do you hear me?” She holds your face in her hands to make you look at her, and she waits until you nod to hug you once more.

“How do I free you?” you ask her. “Please, let me free you.”

“You must say that she is free,” your uninvited guest speaks up, making you remember that there’s a whole other person here. “And mean it.”

“Calliope, you’re free. You’ve always been free,” you say immediately, looking at her earnestly and hoping that she can see in your eyes how sorry you are.

Nothing physically changes. No burst of light envelops her, and she doesn’t undergo any sort of transformation. Yet, something in the air changes and becomes lighter. That inner glow that Calliope’s always carried seems to beam brighter now. Her shoulders look less weighed down now, no longer burdened by her forced captivity.

“Thank you,” Calliope says profusely.

“Don’t do that,” you say, feeling sick all over again. “Don’t thank me for something I should have done the second that Madoc threw you at me. I should have been smarter, more observant than I was. God, you deserve so much more than anything I can ever begin to give you.”

She’s not happy about your self-deprecation, but you will not be the source of her rage tonight. No, as she helps you once more to stand, her anger lands squarely on the man who barged in here and turned everything on its head.

“Apologize. Now,” Calliope demands. “What you have done here tonight is completely unacceptable and a new low, even for you.”

After thinking for a moment, perhaps to consider if he did transgress against you, he nods and stands like some sort of gentleman to properly address you. “The lady Calliope is right. I have acted deplorably towards you this evening, when you have done nothing but offer shelter and companionship to one needing it. I sincerely apologize for the pain and anguish that I have caused you.”

You nod warily, still tucked into Calliope’s side. “Thank you,” you say quietly. 

Truthfully, you do appreciate the apology. If he’s as powerful as you think he is, then he could have just as easily decided that you weren’t worth the breath it would take to form words, and that would be well within his right.

“Well, now that we’re all close to being on the same page here.” Calliope gestures to the man. “Allow me to introduce you to Lord Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, King of Dreams and Ruler of the Nightmare Realms, et cetera, et cetera.”

“You’re a god too?” you ask.

“Not a god. I am Endless, one of seven anthropomorphic personifications of natural forces. I am far older, and far more powerful, than any god, and will remain long after all of your gods are dead and gone,” Morpheus explains.

You try to ignore the fact that one of the most powerful beings in the universe is currently sitting in your living room, lest you start to have an existential crisis in front of him. Now that Calliope’s told you his name, it rings a bell. “Wait, is he your ex?”

Morpheus looks at you both in surprise. “You’ve told her about me?”

“Only tonight,” Calliope assures him. “When I…accidentally summoned you.”

The longer that you can think clearly without the threat of bodily harm, the more the puzzle pieces keep clicking into place for you. “He’s Orpheus’s dad, isn’t he?”

Calliope nods, and so does Morpheus, though he’s far more reluctant than she is. You don’t notice that, though, too caught up in your thoughts.

“Ha, Morpheus and Orpheus.” Maybe all of the crying has made you dehydrated, which in turn has left you a little delirious. That’s the only reason why you say this train of thought out loud. “What, if you had a daughter were you going to name her Alliope?” 

Calliope snickers at that, though Morpheus doesn’t share her amusement. “His name fit him perfectly, even though it was quite the coincidence that it was one letter off from that of his father’s.”

“God, I’m so stupid,” you bemoan. “How did I not know you were a goddess? I literally said, ‘Oh cool, like the muse’ when you introduced yourself! You must have thought I was an idiot.”

“It is difficult for the mortal mind to comprehend that which it believes to be fake. To you, that was the only connection that you subconsciously deemed possible,” Morpheus explains. Though he does it to make you feel better, it feels a little patronizing when it comes from someone as powerful as him.

“I wish you would have told me. Did you think that I wouldn’t have freed you? Because I would have!”

“I know that,” Calliope says. “Truthfully, I…forgot to tell you.”

“You forgot?” Morpheus says in disbelief.

At the same time, you ask, “How the fuck do you forget to tell someone that you’re accidentally bound to them?”

“At first, I was scared. That it was a trap, that you would be worse than Madoc. Of course, that lasted about twenty minutes.”

“What made you realize I was different?”

She smiles. “When you told me that the doors only locked from the inside. You cared about my privacy and that I was feeling safe, and I figured that you had no clue about anything that had happened, or about who I was. From there, it just wasn’t something that I thought to bring up. I was too frightened to leave the apartment, and I had been cut off from the world for over sixty years. Frankly, the idea of going out without you terrified me. As I began to regain control of my life and heal, it just became something that I thought about less and less. You are my best and dearest friend, and we do everything together, so why would I think about a bond other than the one that formed naturally?”

It’s very sweet of her to say, but you still have questions. “So you were just going to continue to live like this?”

“I did not have a plan, but I suppose so. I was happy here, with you.”

“Okay, but what happened if I got married one day, or like, had kids?”

“I would just be the fun aunt that lived with you and your family?”

“Jesus Christ,” you groan before sitting up suddenly. “Wait, is Jesus Christ real too?” 

Calliope and Morpheus share a look, and you’re suddenly frightened of the answer.

“No wait, don’t tell me, I don’t wanna know.”

You really, really don’t want to have an existential crisis until you can be alone in the comfort of your room.

Thankfully, Calliope and Morpheus take over the conversation from there, because you don’t think you have the mental capacity to try and further any conversation right now. They obviously have a lot to catch up on, since it seems like the last time they saw each other was when Calliope broke down and asked him for help escaping Madoc.

Instead, while they converse, you take a moment to zone out and try to process just what has happened in the past hour. The stranger that broke into your apartment turned out to be the powerful, eldritch nightmare king ex-husband to your roommate, who’s actually a goddess that was unintentionally bound to you. For reasons beyond your comprehension, he thought that she needed rescuing, and that you were the one that she needed rescuing from.

Your thoughts chase each other like a cyclone, and you try not to panic as you think about all of this. God, you need a drink right now.

When Morpheus and Calliope both rise, with Morpheus saying that he really must return to his kingdom, you rise with them. After all, how will you ever feel at ease if you don’t ask him what’s on your mind?

“Are we good now?” you ask. “Like, you’re not gonna hurt me or curse me? I promise I had no idea about any of this.”

“Yes, I know that now,” Morpheus says. “I will not harm you. If anything, I should be offering you a boon, for being such an immense help to one such as Calliope.”

“You owe me nothing. Neither of you do.”

Calliope leans in and kisses Morpheus on the cheek, so gently that you wonder if she even made contact. “Fare you well, Morpheus.”

He bows his head. “Goodbye.”

Between one blink and the next, he’s gone as though he was never here at all.

•••

That night, you dream, and for the first time, you’re aware of the fact that you’re dreaming.

You don’t know where you are, but it’s the greenest, lushest meadow you’ve ever seen. Wildflowers dance lazily in the breeze, and you can hear the low rush of a river behind the treeline. You’re tempted to lie down in the impossibly soft-looking grass and watch the clouds drift overhead, but before you can, you see them standing next to you.

Morpheus looks just as he did when you saw him in your apartment, only a lot less like he’s ready to murder you. The main difference is that he now sports robes fit for a king instead of his coat. His eyes, you also notice, are black pools of stars.

On the other hand, the Calliope you see before you is a complete departure from the Calliope you know and love. She’s wearing a white chiton that’s belted at the waist and her hair, which normally falls in curly waves, is braided back intricately. She shines, in a way that you’ve never seen, looking every bit the goddess that she is.

“Is this real, or am I dreaming?” you ask.

“Dreams are real,” Morpheus says with the slightest of smiles.

“Of course, my bad.”

Though it’s a picturesque dream, it’s stained with strokes of melancholy. On some level, you know what’s going to happen, and what Morpheus has brought you here for.

“You’re gonna leave, aren’t you?” you ask Calliope.

Selfishly, you’re hoping that she’ll say no. That she’ll tell you that your home is her home and where she’s meant to be. Yet even as you foolishly hope, you know that your ordinary apartment, your ordinary life, is no place for a goddess. No, she deserves far greater than that.

She smiles sadly, and that’s all the confirmation you need. “I think I must, at least temporarily. There is…much for me to do, back home on Olympus. I wish to reconnect with my sisters, for one. And though it is lofty of me, I wish to change the old laws so that we may never be enslaved on the whims of mortals ever again.”

“If anyone can change laws that are thousands of years old, it’s you.”

“Thank you…for everything these past two months. Truly, I do not know how I can ever properly thank you for what you have done for me.”

“You don’t have to do anything; just knowing that you’re safe and happy is enough for me. I’m so proud of you for taking your life back after everything you went through. You deserve all of the happiness and goodness that the world has to offer you.”

“I would not have been able to do it without you, you know. No matter how we came to know each other, I am glad that we did. You saved me.” She says it so earnestly, needing you to truly understand your impact on her recovery.

“You did that yourself, Cal. I was just along for the ride.”

“You have my utmost respect,” Morpheus says. “Not many would have taken in a stranger needing help from off the streets with nothing but the purest of intentions, and fewer still would have offered them friendship. Your bravery and kind heart shall not be forgotten.”

“You have my respect too, for what it’s worth.”

He looks at you in surprise. “Why?”

“Calliope told me that you didn’t end things on the best of terms. But still, when she called for help, you answered with barely a second thought, and did all you could to help.”

He stares for a moment before nodding and turning to gaze out across the meadow. To your unabashed delight, his cheeks tint a light lavender in embarrassment, unsure of how to take your compliment. You bite your lip to stifle your laugh and decide to not tease the King of Dreams…for now.

Though you’ve been putting it off, some sixth sense tells you that your time here is nearing an end. You turn to Calliope again, who already is trying desperately to keep her tears unshed. When you meet her eyes, she holds out her arms to hug you, and you gladly accept.

“I’ll miss you,” you mumble.

Calliope kisses your forehead before pressing hers to yours affectionately. “I shall miss you as well, more than you can even imagine.”

“Call me if you need anything, okay? If–if your sisters are ganging up on you, or if you need someone to watch the best movies of the two-thousands with you, or if you’re missing going to karaoke with the gang. I’ll drop everything and go to Greece, just say the word.”

She laughs, the sound uninhibited and joyful. “I know you will.”

“Goodbye, Calliope." You have no choice but to finally, reluctantly say the words you've been dreading to say. If you weren't to do it now, you know you'd never let go of her.

Calliope pulls away just enough so that she can look you in the eye. “May fortune go with you, my sweetest friend.”

•••

Calliope’s gone when you wake up, her belongings the only sign that she even existed here in the first place. Though you cry, they’re not tears of sadness; rather, they’re happy tears, because how could you not be happy for Calliope? She’s found her freedom and the strength to return home, to try and make a better world for herself and her fellow gods and goddesses. Truly, this is all that you ever wanted for her.

On her nightstand sits a folded-up note, your name written on the front in Calliope’s ornate script. You open it up to read it, and when you finish, you hold it to your heart.

I will always be close by in your heart, as you will always be in mine. No distance can change that. Should you need me, you need only pray to me, and I shall hear you. Continue to make the world as bright as you.

-Calliope

[avelera]

You Found Me (5628 words) by Avelera Chapters: 1/2 Fandom: The Sandman (TV 2022), The Sandman (Comics) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Relationships: Dream of the Endless & Hob Gadling, Dream of the Endless | Morpheus/Hob Gadling, Past Hob Gadling/Audrey Additional Tags: Pre-Slash, Hob's Canonical Girlfriend Audrey, Past Relationship(s), Divorce, POV Hob Gadling, Hob Gadling Needs A Hug, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anger, Character Study Summary: Hob Gadling is recently divorced and not in a good mental place when Dream walks into the New Inn over thirty years late for their appointment. So, instead of warmly welcoming Dream, Hob decides to finally give him a piece of his mind. As far as he's concerned, it's Dream's turn to be the good friend if he wants Hob back in his life. He was not expecting Dream to take him up on that challenge.

--

This was one of the first one-shots I actually ever wrote for Sandman but then never posted because I couldn't figure out the ending. Well, I think I've cracked it now, so I thought I'd share it with you all! Hope you enjoy!

[not-a-heretic]

there is a noticeable lack of jake art around here so i’ve decided to fix that

i made this drawing for @widowswinter for her birthday a few days ago (i love you bestie 🫵♥️) this piece belongs entirely to her.

without background

sketch and base color

[angelsonoah]

AND SHE SAID—

Don't you know that I would die for you

If I knew that you would make it through

'Cause losing me is better than losing you

[withoutyouimsaskia]

Low (Sandman One-Shot)

​GIF: Originally posted by @sigurism

Pairing: Morpheus/Dream of the Endless x gender neutral reader

Summary: One-shot. Reader self-insert. Angst/comfort. Morpheus attempts to bring comfort to a dreamer who is managing depression, while in his cat form.

Warnings: Angst, talk of depression

Word Count: 1.7k

A/N: Hey Sandfam, can you believe it has been a whole year since series 1 hit our screens? To celebrate, I am sharing a one-shot that features our beloved Dream as Meowpheus. Hope you enjoy, let me know what you think. Would love to know if you're doing anything to commemorate today. All my love, Saskia <3

Sandman Masterlist

--------------------------------------------

If a person were allowed to view what was presently being thought inside your mind and felt within your heart, they would likely notice that your body was being a direct conduit for both.

You were often cited by others as someone who wore their heart on the sleeve. When you had first heard the phrase directed towards you, it had conjured a pleasant connotation. Showing your emotions could not really be a bad thing, could it? Humans loved love, and they loved honesty. However, honesty about less-than-positive feelings; you have come to learn that it doesn't produce the same reaction.

All endearment fades.

Infants, children, adolescents can feel as they wish. Adults must be in control.

Unhappiness is something to be fixed, avoided, quashed; an emotion to be ashamed of, this is what you have been conditioned to believe. And unfortunately, the manner in which a vast majority of people behave in response to your low moods does little to aid in changing your mindset.

"Cheer up, it might never happen", they would say, the flippant words a paralysing gut punch that leaves you wanting to scream: It already did.

You then feel obligated to double down on your efforts to flatten the emotional peaks and troughs. A dangerous pursuit, for repressing sadness in lieu of its acknowledgement allows for it to stack up and up so much that you that run the risk of it spilling forth in unfavourable, non-triggering settings.

You are a human shaped pressure cooker. Doomed to spiral at the petrol station.

There was a time when sleep brought you a refuge. Regardless of how bad your day had been, how leaden your steps, you could always find enough fervour to propel yourself into carrying out your bedtime routine and then contentedly fall asleep.

For in dreams, the act of masking your feelings from observers could be dropped; you were alone in body and mind within the neutrality of your bedroom. Sure, you had nightmares at times but you derived so much pleasure from their dream counterparts that it did not matter in the long term.

You were happy in your dreamscapes to simply be.

Until you suddenly weren't.

A new low was discovered in waking and it has transformed into one you cannot escape from, even in dreams. Each night has become a repetition. You slip into sleep and plummet to the same subconscious rock bottom.

The place where you go, the earth is cold and damp under your prone body. You lay on your side, one arm cradling your head, the other wrapped around your middle.

An ominous drone takes up residence within your mind, a constant reminder of your thoughts and feelings.

Here you remain.

Trapped in the doldrums. Languishing away. Asleep but not seeking fantasies.

Even your usual nightmares are not drawn to you for there is nothing to entice them in. What could you need of a nightmare right now? There was nothing that could be taught.

Morpheus, Dream of the Endless senses the shift. You are a blip in a sea of dreamers. As if your subconscious mind has become a daub of dark matter against a backdrop of glowing galaxies; you exist but your light is extinguished.

There is so much anguish and the King of Dreams and Nightmares feels it all too keenly, as if it were his own.

It grows in strength with each passing day and night, taking your will to carry on. The handiwork of Despair of the Endless is all too apparent, intricate and bold in its ensnarement until you are a focal point of suffering.

Unsurprisingly, this is not the first time that Morpheus has felt the sorrow of a dreamer. Having existed for millennia, he has been witness to every variety. Kinds brought on by grief, shame, fear, longing, loathing to name but a few. There is something additional afoot with you though.

The desolate clearing you have been coming to, the fact that it is the same location every night, unchanging and devoid of hope. It is unusual, and hard to witness.

Despair has you in a chokehold.

What pains Morpheus even further is that he cannot remove his sibling's influence here. He can, however, offer you a reprieve.

He will bring you a dream.

A few moments are spent wandering through your prior dreamscapes, through the aid of the book emblazoned with your name, looking for things that have brought you solace in the past. Morpheus sees a few are inspired by memories.

He knows he must do this in a delicate manner and settles on a reserved option. One that would hopefully not startle you too much. Approaching you in a humanoid form is not feasible. It was other humans that had contributed to your current state, judging by your recent nightmares.

Morpheus enters the frame upon four legs, approaching you on soundless feet. Each step is measured, the pads of each wide paw flattening imperceptibly into the cold, loose ground.

He creeps closer and takes a minute to watch you. Your eyelids are closed, forehead pinched with a frown, mouth set in a grimace.

Morpheus stands beside you and nudges his nose against the hand you are gripping your torso with. Three sensations stand out to you. The soft press of the contact. The warm breath of an exhalation. The delicate tickle of whiskers.

The latter is a something you recognise immediately; it was unlike anything else in the universe.

You open your eyes, unsurprised by the image that greets you.

Next to you stands a cat. At least you think it is a cat.

They are much larger than any feline you have ever laid eyes on, made even more immense by their black fur; wild and mussed but not in a way that suggested they were uncared for, rather that it had been blown about by an unrelenting wind.

"Hello." You push yourself to a cross-legged seated position. "Are you lost?"

The innocent little question is loaded with such pathos that Morpheus has to blink back the hot prick of tears behind his eyes. Here you were, your hope, your life force literally ebbing away and you were worried about him.

He instinctually edges a bit closer to you before you speak again, this time in a whisper.

“I’m afraid I might not be much help. I’m lost too."

You extend your arm, offering the flat of your palm to the cat as a proper introduction, one that he reciprocates by bumping his cheek firmly against your skin.

"I guess we can be lost together."

Your sad smile is utterly devastating as you scratch behind one of his almost wolfish ears. He is unbelievably soft and you reach for the same spot again.

Morpheus puts his front paws on your left knee so you don't have to stretch as far and lets you continue to touch his head.

He is aware of the science of petting a cat with its lowering of blood pressure and alleviation of stress and anxiety, and with every second, he feels a lessening of your most acute pain, like the top layers are being skimmed away.

You feel better physically too, less tightness in your muscles and more awareness in your senses. You begin to notice things like the scent of the air and the ambient temperature. It is damp and mild but nothing you can’t handle, and it is a nice thought to have.

"You're very handsome," You comment, carefully and meticulously running your fingers through the dark fur, starting at his head and ending at the very tip of his bushy tail.

Morpheus, though he was calm before, is instantly and completely disarmed by these long-form strokes and is powerless to stop the deep, rumbling purrs that emanate from within his chest.

You smile widely at your companion’s reaction.

"Would you like to sit on me?" You pat your thigh as an invitation.

Morpheus hesitates, wondering if he would be crossing a boundary of familiarity. You don’t know that he is the anthropomorphic personification of dreams and nightmares. To you, he is a cat and according to your dreams, an animal that makes you feel safe and calm.

And right now, you were making him feel the same. This was not in any way a part of his plan when he had shown himself to you but who was he to deny what was clearly happening here?

He climbs up.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” You say encouragingly, delighted by the fact that this beautiful cat has chosen to trust you.

Morpheus takes a moment to settle and then snuggles into the crook of your arm. His warmth and weight are comforting sensations. You resume your gentle stroking, and he resumes his satisfied purring.

He gazes up at you with his striking blue eyes. Stormy in their intensity, oceanic in their colour. They are eyes that seem to hold the depth of a juxtaposed universe within them; wise yet weary. Hopeful yet haunted.

You have never seen anything like them in cats or humans alike.

The more you look, the more the cat's face seems to say: "Feel what you need to. Everything will be okay." How you determine this, you do not know yet you go with it, you are asleep after all.

Overcome with emotion, you screw your eyes shut and bend down to bring your face close to Morpheus' own. You cuddle him and the tears begin to fall.

"Thank you," You say in a hoarse whisper.

A little piece of hope glistens within you. You can do this. You don't have to hide your feelings. You shouldn't.

Morpheus feels his heart bursting at this wavering of your despair.

He decides there and then that he will do this for you every night until you feel strong enough to leave this barren plane.

No words needed. Just a human and a cat. Helping each other feel less alone.

[rippersz]

ℌ𝔬𝔩𝔶

◢◤◢◤◢◤◢◤

◢◤◢◤◢◤◢◤

(Rebel Angel who somehow doesn’t know who Lucifer is)

◢◤◢◤◢◤◢◤

It seemed that the Almighty had reached his limit. His breaking point. His last straw. You exhausted him- worried him- pushed him too far and he had had enough. Too many broken rules. Too many annoyances. Too many thises and thatses and one or the other. So many complaints… so many arguments… so many accounts of general public disruption…

God never allowed insolence. God never allowed anything less than perfection.

And you were terribly flawed.

That was the reason- surely- as to why you found yourself waking up on a dark cold marble floor instead of in the cool holy waters of your ivory bath.

The wings at your back ached and something in your chest was bruised, swiftly gathering atoms of divinity to weave the pain away. Too, your hands were red when you turned them over - stinging with the remnants of a hard fall. And your knees were skinned; epidermis peeled back and raw. It looked as though you’d been brought to the pearly gates and pushed off of the silver city’s edge. It felt like you’d been brought to the pearly gates and pushed off of the silver city’s edge.

“Stuck up- bastards-,” you grunted, pulling yourself up onto your hands and knees.

The fucking lot of them - every other single fucking angel up there in those clouds… they were morons. Idiots. None of them knew how to have a good time. None of them knew how to have fun. There were no parties in Heaven. There were no parties in paradise. There was no difficulty in Nirvana. And you loathed that. Hated that. For years you sat on your ass, from childhood to adulthood, watching with wide bright eyes as the world went on around you. Your parents made you the way you were, keeping you sheltered and happy and strong while the other little angels played outside and were born with glowing lights around their bodies. They learned all sorts of things out there - mingling in the ‘real world’ - watching as guardians.

But your human died one day after being born - and you had no one to guard. And God sort of looked at you after that and thought ‘Meh. Do what you want with her.’ and that was the end of it. From that point on you were just- there. A distraction for the others. A nuisance for most. A good time for few. But it seemed God decided you’d fucked around for the last time - and he cast you to-

…well. You weren’t exactly sure where you were.

Unlike Eden, the place you were in was dark. Desolate. Lit with something… unsettling. The air smelled of sulfur and burn - and you swore you could see ash float about in the nonexistent wind. There were no clouds either, and no subliminal gentle hum that typically played on a loop within the city - meant to carry the angels and souls through their hours. Inspiring joy. Happiness. Obedience. The tune was bloody annoying was what it was - you’d always held some type of disdain for it. But there, surrounded by a very sudden eerie quiet, you wished you could hear the choir singing again. It would, perhaps, only slightly lessen the sudden feeling of being entirely out of place. The metal bowls of flame fixed between long marble columns… the strange fire-pit you faced upon standing on your feet and shakily turning around… the- oh… the color of the sky… no such phenomenons existed in Heaven. Flames were rarely seen. And the sky was never- well you would have remembered if it were ever red. Or a weird mix of fiery orange and black. Or even grey. But it wasn’t. You knew it wasn’t. There were no silver pathways leading from this place to the other; and there was no distinct shine to the universe itself. No… divinity. No divinity at all.

So where in the Lord’s name were you?

“How peculiar…” a voice purred, “…an Angel? In my realm?… It appears you have fallen quite a long way.”

You turned, body tensing with discomfort. You didn’t know anyone else would be present. You hadn’t even heard them come in. Yet when you looked around, searching and curious, having to do a complete 360, you found there was someone present.

Something present.

The fire in the great pit that separated you had grown into an inferno. You could barely make out the creature’s face through the heated disruption. The blonde curls, you saw. The way they fell just so across a pale forehead. And the wings… by God, the wings. You were drawn to them almost instantly. A set far different from your own, laying poised behind the thing’s strong back. Dark, you noticed. And sharp. Leathery? Yes - definitely. Nearly… bat-like… and powerful, without a doubt. You squinted, trying to see through the flames, but it was to no use. The stranger was tall but drowned in shadow. Hidden, almost - even though you could see the midnight color of their silk robe.

How intriguing… You blinked, wondering if there was a chance that you were possibly hallucinating (and ignoring the fact that angels couldn’t hallucinate), but you weren’t. It was real. And it was silent. And you were staring.

“Who are you?” The volume of your tone made you wince. In Heaven, everyone had to raise their voices over the soft din of the choir, eventually giving them the natural disposition of talking loudly. But in the silence of that strange land, it sounded like the ‘gunshot’ some humans described when first stepping into the silver city. Noisy, booming, and honestly embarrassing.

Though the creature didn’t seem to mind. In fact, they didn’t seem to care. Not at all. Instead, you noticed the slightest shift in the robe’s sleeve and could just barely make out the velvet outline of long fingers floating delicately through the ashen air before the fire in front of you- the fire separating you- the only thing keeping you strangers and safe- disappeared. Went out. Settled into heated coals and sizzling sounds. And thus, revealed the monster.

The very… very… very… very attractive monster. The handsomest of monsters. The most beautiful monster. With shining crystal eyes, blue like the holy water you rested in during times of sleep, and soft pink lips, putting human flower petals and sunsets to shame. And with a pale pallet, nearly… nearly glowing…

“I am in no mood for games, little Angel,” the pretty monster hummed, tilting its head as it began moving.

Slow step by slow step, you watched in awe as it grew closer… and taller… and more glorious. You’d never seen anyone like them. No soul, no divine thing, no creature in the silver city looked like that. Looked so- so- well you didn’t even have words. Literally and figuratively. Your mouth dropped open and you floundered, searching for something to say, trying to find your sense as each thought in your mind began fraying - destroyed by their proximity. Destroyed by the soft hard line of their jaw and the curve of their chin and bridge of their nose. So glorious… so holy…

“I-” your voice croaked, “I don’t- I don’t know… who you are,” you confessed, voice softening into something innocent.

It was the truth - the honest truth! - but for some reason you felt… stupid. For not knowing what it was or who they were. From a young age, angels were expected to know everyone and everything. Nearly every other angel’s name by heart; every religion and each God; every world and all things in between. Including greater entities. Anomalies. Beings with great power - like Dream of the Endless and his friend, Desire. And most angels did know such things. Most angels did retain such information. But of course, as it goes in any walk or form of life, one must always slip through the cracks. And that was you. There were many things you didn’t know and many things you didn’t care to know. But standing there in front of them, below them, looking up to see the way some stray beacon of light made their fair curls shimmer, you realized you probably ought to know them. Their presence felt so… intoxicating… it was hard to understand how you hadn’t come across anything like that before. Especially when you felt your hands shake as you realized just how much they loomed over you… Like Azrael. But they- it?- was not Death. You knew Death. You had tea with Death once… before trying to poison them. Just to see what would happen of course! Just to know. (Nothing happened, unfortunately. They just sort of blinked and gave you an exasperated look and told you to go away. There was no more tea after that.) But despite not being Death, they still held that air about them. That distinct aura of doom. Of glorious defeat. It swelled in the pits of those icy eyes.

And such glorious icy eyes they were. So beautiful. So intense. You felt frozen beneath them, any hint of scorn directed at the Almighty suddenly gone in the face of the new creature. Entirely overshadowed by morbid curiosity… and the tiniest hint of fear. You’d never really felt fear before. But the rushing in your heart, and the sound of golden blood in your ears, and the whimper that nestled in the depths of your throat could only mean terror, couldn’t they? You watched realization slowly dawn on the creature’s face. You watched their brows furrow slightly, then you looked down to see those peach lips parting - slowly, softly, god-like.

“Intriguing…,” their breath smelled of wine and dying stars, “…you really have no idea, do you?”

Their tone was lilting; their accent sublime. So pronounced, so gentle, sounding almost like a song within the crackling silence of the fires going on around you. It had you leaning closer, drawn like a foolish sailor to a siren’s whims. Just utterly transcendent. Just inexplicably marvelous. It had a weight to it that you’d only seen in God… but the creature before you was most certainly not God. Not in any religion. No, it was something else. Something more abstract. Something darker. But you couldn’t place even a single fingertip on it.

“No, no clue.” You sounded breathless.

Hearing that seemed to please the creature in some odd way. There was a glimmer to their eye that wasn’t there before - and they appeared… delighted?

“Well,” it sighed, sculpted pale hands poised in front of a soft abdomen. “I believe that calls for an introduction.” And then there was a pause. An ominous, strange pause - as if the being was silently telling you that you had one last chance to be honest; coaxing you into admitting a truth that you didn’t know nor understand. But when you just blinked at them, hanging onto their words for dear non-life, quite unsure of what they wanted, they seemed to finally accept reality and internally concede.

“Lucifer,” they cooed, voice ringing and smirk evil, “Morningstar.”

Morningstar…

…The Morningstar.

The one whispered about… the one gossiped about… the name passed from one seraphic mouth to another… the occasional ‘talk of the town.’ Everyone seemed to know about them but you. They were formidable, yes, but that was the extent of your knowledge. Their origins were unknown. Their story was a shot in the dark. Perhaps that’s why you felt so odd within their presence - like a sweating blushing thing that wasn’t sure of its place in the Heavens. Or in any realm, for that matter.

You sort of felt the need to bow. It tingled in your shoulder blades, wormed beneath your ribcage, but refused the instinct. You were an Angel. You bowed to no one but God, and even then you rarely did so. Everyone in the clouds knew you to shirk such an honor. A brave few even murmured about the Morningstar and how you’d ‘fall’ just like them. At the time you ignored them, having no clue what they were talking about. But looking around you then, feeling the weight of the burning air, you knew you were a long way from Heaven. Perhaps in its very antithesis, though you had no name for that just yet. Did everyone in that realm have a figure like Lucifer’s? Did all of their hair shine like that? Were all of them fair-skinned and untouchable? Was it Heaven reversed?

You couldn’t control the way your eyes slid over to their wings. They were far larger up close… and taloned, you noted. Was there a chance they were soft? They looked soft. Leathery and strange, with skin stretched over bone, but soft nonetheless. And as if sparked by your thinking, they twitched, flaring for just a moment before relaxing once again. You looked back up into Lucifer’s eyes, not at all surprised to see the lingerings of malice. They did not look like they wanted to kill you, but they did not exactly look welcoming either. No, there was no warmth there. Just curiosity. And openness. You were no threat to this being… and that irritated you. Every religion knew to respect the angels. Every religion knew to understand that they did the bidding of God. Every religion knew to welcome them with open hands and a smile.

But you were not welcome. Not with open hands and certainly not with a smile.

So how dare they? How dare it? How dare this- this- Lucifer? You felt your back straighten, renewed with energy as you found your mental footing. The ache in your body was gone, whatever wounds you’d sustained just faded memories of some minutes. That’s right - you were angelic. Divine. This Lucifer had no idea who it was speaking to.

“And I am Y/n,” your voice was hard, “I’d say it’s a pleasure, but it doesn’t feel like it.”

You were expecting bared teeth. A growl, maybe. Perhaps the full extension of those glorious wings. A hand around your neck would have done enough all on its own. But the only response you inspired was the slightest twitch in the Morningstar’s right cheek. It tugged at the corner of their lip, making them smirk and sneer all at the same time - but only for a moment. A very quick moment that wouldn’t have happened at all if you hadn’t been watching. And just as swiftly, they were back to neutral; a pleasant little expression on their face as their eyes suddenly ran over your body - from top to bottom and back again. You were grateful that you were still wearing your toga; pristine and white, draped over your one shoulder and tucked under your other arm, tied tightly at the waist with a thin golden band - divine in nature and very handy. Your feet, on the other hand, were bare. And the golden cuffs that usually graced your wrists were gone. You felt disheveled. You felt less than pristine. You looked… exactly as you had always felt. Like a mess. Like a bright glimmering mess. Like a pile of abstract art that existed among the carefully carved statues of Heaven. You felt… you looked… far more beautiful than you ever had before.

It was hard to tell if Lucifer agreed.

“No I suppose it doesn’t,” they hummed, referring to your earlier response. “Though I should hope you know that’s the point.” The Morningstar spoke nonchalantly- as if they weren’t the most strangely intriguing thing you’d ever come across.

Their words, on the other hand, were confusing.

“No. I don’t know where I am,” you glanced around for a moment, still stuck without a clue, “so I wouldn’t know. Care to enlighten me, Morningstar?”

“You will address me as ‘Your Majesty’ or you will lose your tongue,” they replied quicker than light, voice deep and sharp enough to cut.

It felt like the air changed then, becoming nearly suffocating in its depth. It crawled into your lungs, into your veins, making you swallow around a sudden lump in your throat while your eyes started to water. Clearly, Lucifer was powerful. Not someone to be messed with. And not nearly as patient- nor ‘kind’- as God. At the brief thought of him, you glanced up; like you’d suddenly see the city gates open again and you’d be welcomed back and lightly chastised before being sent on your way around the clouds; like you’d somehow be saved. But there was no reckoning. There was no call. There was no miracle. There was only Lucifer.

“Do you wish to return to the silvery city, little Angel?” You turned back to those calm frozen eyes, resisting the urge to get lost in them.

“Yes, of course,” you said as though your answer was obvious (which it was).

“Interesting,” they hummed, tilting their head to the side slowly - like a hungry snake, “…I felt that way once, too.”

You frowned. Just what in Heaven’s name was the Morningstar talking about? No, you’d never heard of angels being cast from Eden, but you assumed that it was maybe like a one time thing? Like a mini punishment and you’d be summoned in any coming minute? For a second there you even considered the dark marble and flames and strange domed ceiling and weird cave walls were all part of an odd dream. But the sincerity in the Morningstar’s hushed tone said otherwise. Like they- like it was the truth. Like they truly had done what you did (though many more times) and looked to the sky in hopes to hear the choir once more. Like the weight of whatever happened to them would become a similar weight for you. Their words sent your head in circles.

“What do you mean?” You finally demanded, crossing your arms over your chest.

That seemed to amuse them as they smirked, eyelashes fluttering slightly. “I fell too. Once upon a time,” they paused, watching your eyes for any understanding. When they didn’t find it, they continued. “Right after succumbing to defeat.” A flicker of something dark rushed through their gaze. It unsettled you.

And sparked more outrage.

“What- what are you talking about?!” You exclaimed, throwing your hands up in clear exasperation.

What ‘defeat’? What ‘fall’? How long ago was all of that? What even happened? How did they get those wings? Who were they really and what were they capable of? And honestly, dear God, would someone just tell you where the fuck you were?!

“Ah,” they pursed their pretty lips, “It’s no surprise you’re here now. Angels are not meant to be so foolish,” the Morningstar declared, still lilting and song-like and beautiful and terribly insincere.

Their insult had your blood boiling. Who the fuck were they to say that? They were no Angel. They didn’t understand a damned thing. They didn’t know you and they didn’t deserve to know you. No matter how sublime a creature - such glory only existed on the outside.

“You wouldn’t know a fuckin thing,” you spat, giving them the best glare you could, “you’re no Angel.” A sneer painted your face.

“Foolish and blind, it seems…,” they mused as they began walking around you, lining your arms up at one point before continuing their small trek around the round bowl of the fire pit.

They paid you virtually no attention as they went, keeping their eyes trained on what appeared to be a balcony a few feet away. Interestingly enough, although their realm was warm, they seemed to be ice cold. There was not an ounce of heat that passed through the silk of their robe when they brushed past you. The proximity to something so powerful again had that feeling of needing to kneel traveling up your spine, but you pushed it down and worked on keeping the Morningstar in your sight. If you stopped looking at them, it was only a wonder as to how easily they could catch you by surprise.

“But you don’t look very…,” you trailed off, knowing you were going to say ‘angelic’, but realizing that you were… well you were wrong. Quite wrong.

Lucifer kept walking, not caring to stop for your reconsideration. But you didn’t need long. Those curls actually seemed rather… familiar. The way they surrounded the head, covered the ears, accentuated the cherubic features, glowed despite there being no light; and the willowy glide of their body, slow, methodical, full of undeniable beautiful grace; and their voice, distinct and delicate and precious and captivating; and their height- and their jaw- and their lips- and eyes- and proud nose- and perfect posture- and heavy wings- and… well… every bit of them seemed almost… holy.

Seemed almost like… like… like something you’d seen before. Briefly. In a painting and in a scroll. Only once or twice.

“Samael.”

It came out as a whisper but the monster still heard. And it made them stop in their tracks, wings swaying while the world paused.

You sucked in a heavy breath, feeling a very small shot of fear run down the curve of your neck.

They were Samael. Or they used to be Samael. God’s favorite. God’s best creation. The wisest, handsomest, strongest, most glorious Angel to ever be. The staple of divinity. The most beloved and the most cherished. There was a time once where you walked past an elder and heard them murmur about Samael. They had called you the antithesis. They had called you, in short, the most un-divine angel. If the fallen Samael was the best, you were the worst. And though you did not fully understand the story, though you did not know how they fell or when they fell or why they fell, you knew that their power had changed. The light had gone out and made room for the dark. Their wings shed their feathers and their skin lost its warmth. And they changed. They rebelled.

You frowned, feeling a tug in your heart at the sight of them standing there - glorious and tall and never beaten down. Never one to be truly defeated. They chose that risk - they knew of the consequences. But you? You? You were young. You were not wise, no, but you were clever. Smart. Hot-headed. Wasn’t Samael hot-headed once too? Wasn’t Samael flawed once too? Your small pathetic acts of rebellion were nothing in comparison to all that the Morningstar did.

So why did you wake up in their realm? What did God mean to say?

“Things have changed, little Angel,” their voice grasped you by the throat and brought you back to the present, “dwelling on the past reaps no benefits.”

“But I-” you swallowed, looking around wildly, finding that the gravity of what happened had begun to sink in. “No. No no no, I don’t belong here. I didn’t- I didn’t choose this. I don’t belong here!”

“Why shout when he has closed his ears to you?” The Morningstar asked, turning to face you with curious innocent eyes. “Why fret when you know what you’ve done?”

You squinted, confused, finding yourself taking panicked steps backward.

“That’s the thing, I didn’t do anything!” You insisted, hands clenching and unclenching into fists at your sides. “I didn’t lead a- a- a fucking rebellion against God! I didn’t hurt him! I’m- I’m pure! I want to go home!”

Lucifer stared at you, face blank.

“…This is your home now.”

◢◤◢◤◢◤◢◤

:) - Ripley x

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[signiorbenedickofpadua]

Anachronistic Greetings

by SigniorBenedickofPadua — Read on AO3

Pairing: Dream of the Endless/Hob Gadling Rating: Mature Words: 2900 Tags: Sleep Deprivation, Accidental Kissing, Professor Hob Gadling, First Kiss, Getting Together, Dream Sex, Middle English. Counter Sex, or counter-foreplay to be precise, Accidental Confession, Daydreaming, Feelings Revealed by Daydreaming

Summary:

Hob is sleep deprived. That's fine, it happens, he's used to it. It's just that when you're 600-something the centuries can start to blend together a bit when you're tired. Enough so, apparently, that when Dream pops by for a visit, Hob's muddled brain decides to greet him with a "Salve!" and a kiss on the lips like it's still 1389 and he's greeting any old friend and not the cosmic being he's secretly in love with in the year of our Lord 2023. It's a good thing Dream is understanding. Very understanding.

Hob stared down at the kitchen table he was sitting at, resting his head in his hands as he absently followed the pattern of the wood grain with unseeing eyes, mind occupied with thoughts of absolutely nothing at all. He could have been sitting there for anything between seconds and hours for all he knew when he suddenly blinked and realised that he had entered the kitchen to get something to eat. Probably. He was fairly sure he hadn’t eaten yet.

He shook his head, forcing himself to snap out of it and come back to the then and there. He had just gotten home from work, and he was going to have dinner. Right. Yes. Only problem was he hadn’t quite got to that point before spacing out and forgetting what he was doing due to the fact that he hadn’t slept a wink last night. He’d had to stay up late marking essays, after which his brain had just refused to shut off and stop thinking about Middle English syntax for long enough for him to fall asleep.

Actually, come to think of it, that was two nights ago. Had he been awake all of last night too? He thought he might have been, having been too tired to fall asleep because the human body was bloody stupid like that. He attributed the fact that he hadn’t simply collapsed in front of his students while lecturing to his experience marching for days without proper rest back when he was constantly fighting for or against one Plantagenet king or another. But just because his body had kept going through the day didn’t mean his brain had followed at the same pace.

He felt a little bad for his students, to be honest, because he doubted his lectures had been up to his usual standards. At one point, if he remembered correctly, he had slipped into Middle French for several sentences before realising it, and, while talking about how the printing press had contributed to standardising the vocabulary of the English language, he was pretty sure he had used the pronouns “I” and “we” a few too many times to be entirely advisable for someone who was keen on keeping their immortality a secret.

He blinked again. Food. Right. He’d gotten distracted thinking about why he was distracted in the first place. Maybe he should just give up and go straight to bed, to catch up. Or maybe he’d better stay awake and go to bed at a normal time so as not to fuck up his sleep schedule even more by going to sleep at five in the afternoon. Hm. Dinner first. Then decisions.

He had just gotten up from his chair with the intention of opening the fridge to see what his options were when he heard a knock on his front door. Seconds later, he heard it opening. Hob instinctively reached for a sword which no longer hung at his hip before realising that a burglar probably wouldn’t bother knocking before breaking in, and that he had, in fact, forgotten to lock the door behind him when he got home.

The door closed behind his visitor, and he heard a familiar voice call, “Hob?”

Ah, of course. Who else would just waltz into his flat without waiting to be let in? He supposed he should be grateful Dream had learned to knock at all instead of just travelling by sand straight to Hob’s living room as he had often done back when the two of them had first started spending time together outside their centennial appointments. A wide smile spread across his face as he made his way into the hallway and laid eyes on his old friend. Sleep deprivation or not, Dream was always welcome.

“Salve, my freend,” he greeted him, laying his hands on Dream’s shoulders and standing on tiptoes to reach up and plant a kiss on his lips. “Wel y-mette.” He turned and headed back towards the kitchen. “I was just going to figure out dinner. Can I get you anything?”

There was no response, but Hob hadn’t really expected much of one. Asking Dream if he wanted something to eat or drink was mostly just a habitual courtesy — he knew he rarely indulged in such things in the waking world. He opened the fridge and looked over its contents with his own needs in mind as he waited for Dream to catch up and join him in the kitchen, which took longer than expected. Settling on some leftover stew, he removed the tupperware from the fridge and wandered over to the breadbox on the counter, cursing when he realised he was out of trencher bread. Wait. No. Why the fuck would he use a trencher? He had plates nowadays. Christ, he needed to sleep.

“Is this style of greeting coming back into fashion?” he heard Dream ask from the doorway, and he tore his eyes from the breadbox he had been blindly staring at for just a bit too long to look up at his friend.

“Hm? What greeting?”

Dream raised an eyebrow. “You do not usually kiss me when I enter your home.”

If Hob’s brain had been moving slowly before, now it froze completely. “Kiss? I didn’t—” His short-term memory finally caught up with him and he felt suddenly faint. “Oh, God… I’m— Fuck, I’m sorry, Dream.” The ice-cold fear that had gripped his heart was somewhat lessened by the fact that Dream looked mildly amused rather than offended, and he buried his rapidly flushing face in his hands. “Christ, I didn’t mean to— Sorry, I’m really out of it today and I think my brain has been stuck in the wrong century the entire day. I was going for a friendly greeting and apparently chose something that would’ve been appropriate six hundred years ago — before, you know, kissing on the mouth like that had the, uh, intimate connotations it has today.”

“I am aware of the greeting customs of humans, past and present,” Dream said, and when Hob dared to look up again, he could see the corner of his friend’s mouth twitch slightly, “I was merely taken aback by the anachronism.”

Hob took that as confirmation that he was forgiven for his slip-up, and he allowed himself a slightly nervous chuckle to lighten the mood, trying very hard to push back the thought that he had actually kissed Dream. He now knew what those lips felt like against his own, after having fantasised about it for ages. And this is how he found out? Through an absent-mindedly archaic greeting that was over in a second? Fucking hell, Gadling, get a grip. He needed to invest in sleeping pills after this, to prevent anything like it to ever happen again.

“Well, still. Sorry. Wouldn’t have been appropriate even if this had been the 14th century, would it? We’re hardly equals — you know, with you being a literal king and all. Someone like me should have kissed the hem of your coat, or the ground at your feet, or something like that.”

Dream took a step closer to where Hob was leaning back against the counter. “You are not my subject, Hob Gadling. You are my friend. I would rather have you kiss me like an equal.”

And wasn’t that a thought? Hob tried to remind himself that Dream’s words were on the subject of platonic greetings in a historical context, but he was finding it very, very hard not to imagine him saying the same thing in a modern context — as an invitation. His eyes dropped down to Dream’s plump lips, which looked so much softer when turned up in fond amusement than when pursed in annoyance or fury. Quite against his conscious efforts not to, he recalled the way they had parted slightly in surprise when he had covered them with his own and how they had not been as cool as he had previously imagined them, but pleasantly warm and lush. He imagined they would feel even more so if Dream initiated a kiss instead of being surprised by one. Especially if he abandoned the platonic pretence and kissed Hob the way he had dreamt of for far longer than he cared to admit.

Dream’s lips moved, saying something that Hob didn’t quite register, but which at least made him realise that he had been staring rather rudely.

“Hm?” he said again, tearing his eyes away to meet Dream’s. They were darker and closer to him than they had been before. “Sorry, what?”

“You are sleep deprived,” Dream stated simply.

“How did you know?”

“I am Dream of the Endless. I know.” He stepped even closer to Hob, almost crowding him against the counter. “And, being half asleep as you are, your daydreams are far more vivid and harder to ignore than usual.”

“What— Oh.” Oh no… “Fuck, I’m sorry—”

“No need to apologise,” Dream murmured. He was practically hovering over Hob at this point. “Unless…you did not mean it?”

His nose brushed lightly against Hob’s, and Hob forgot how to breathe. “Mean what?” he managed to squeeze out, dizzy with proximity to his oldest friend.

This close he could smell him. He could feel Dream’s breath (which he did not strictly need) dance over his lips when he spoke again, a low rumble which reverberated through Hob’s entire body and lit a fire in his belly.

“Do you wish me to stop?” Dream clarified, and there could be no question as to his meaning. Not when his body made contact with Hob’s, pressing him up against the counter, gently but insistently.

“No,” Hob breathed, half suspecting that he had, in fact, fallen asleep at the kitchen table and that this was a dream. But he had been friends with Dream long enough to be able to tell the difference between dreaming and waking, as well as how to tell if his friend was actually there in his dreams. As unlikely as this was, his feet were firmly planted in the Waking, even if his mind was at risk of straying dangerously close to the Dreaming in his current state. “No, I don’t.”

“Very well.” Dream’s voice was halfway between a purr and a growl as he surged forward, closing the remaining distance to slot their lips and bodies together.

Hob had been right. There was a world of difference between giving Dream a little peck on the mouth and being kissed by him in earnest. To say that sparks flew would be an understatement. It was more akin to being consumed but a wildfire, burning hot and fierce. Gone was the reserved stiffness his friend often exhibited in public. Now he sank his hands into Hob’s hair with passionate abandon and licked into his mouth like a man dying of thirst hoping to catch every last drop of water in his cup. He pressed himself close to Hob, slipping a knee between his legs and rolling his hips experimentally, obviously pleased when it wrung a moan out of Hob.

Hob’s hands flew up to Dream’s hips, finding their way beneath his stupid, elegant coat which he still hadn’t removed. He clutched at the fabric of his shirt, using it to pull his friend even closer, marvelling at the solidity of his thin body as he splayed a hand over his ribs and moved it in a caress around to his back. He could count every knob in his spine by touch, yes, but the muscles surrounding it were strong and firm and they danced beneath his hand as Dream reached down and lifted Hob onto the countertop like he weighed absolutely nothing — and fuck, if that wasn’t a turn on…

Hob retaliated by wrapping his legs around Dream’s lithe form and groaned when his friend rutted up against him. He was reasonably sure that Dream must have made himself taller than he’d been a moment ago for their groins to still be at the same height, but he had a hard time focusing on that when it felt so damn good to have Dream’s obvious erection rub against his own, even through far too many layers of clothes. 

“Fuck, Dream…” he gasped when Dream, a good while later, broke the kiss to instead mouth at the side of his neck, then up to nip at a sensitive earlobe, all while slipping his hands under the hem of his shirt to palm at longing skin. “Are you… Ah! Do you want to take this to the bedroom?”

He was proud of himself for managing the question without his voice trembling. Despite the fact that Dream had initiated this whole thing and was clearly as excited about it as Hob was, he still felt the half-irrational fear that any sudden moves or potentially offending propositions might send his friend running like he had the last time Hob had dared presume too much.

Dream hummed against the spot where Hob’s ear connected to his jaw and dragged his fingernails lightly down his back, sending a shiver down his spine. “A sensible idea. You are weary and need to rest.”

“Not what I meant, and you know it.”

“Nevertheless, I think perhaps you ought to get some sleep. I can feel you yearning for the Dreaming, in mind and body alike.”

“For its ruler, maybe. I may be a bit tired, but I’d rather continue this than try and fail to go to sleep right now.”

He would never admit it, but a pang of anxiety shot through him at the thought of interrupting this at this point. He needed them to see it through, and to talk about it afterwards to figure out what the hell it meant. If they stopped now, if Dream left… Would they have the courage to bring it up the next time they saw each other, or would they dance around it for a few more centuries? He wasn’t sure he could bear that.

Dream pulled back enough to meet Hob’s eyes. His lips were red and puffy and sported an amused smile. “Hob, I shall join you in the Dreaming, naturally. I too am quite keen to finish what we have started.” He punctuated this with a roll of his hips which chased Hob’s fears away to make room for arousal. “As for falling asleep — there are certain benefits to keeping the King of Dreams as one’s lover. It will not prove an obstacle.”

Hob hardly heard anything he said after the word lover, which bounced around in his head like an intoxicating echo. “Well, then… Bringe me to bedde, louer myn,” he murmured, lifting a hand to push a strand of Dream’s wild hair behind his ear. It was just as soft as it looked.

His lover smiled and whispered, “Slepe, thanne, my biloued.”

Dream bent his head to place a gentle kiss on Hob’s forehead, and suddenly it was nigh on impossible to keep his eyes open. The last thing Hob was conscious of before sleep claimed him was his head slumping forward to rest on Dream’s shoulder. Then everything went dark and fuzzy.

***

When Hob next opened his eyes, he knew he was dreaming. He found himself in a room he did not recognise, but he knew it belonged to the Palace of the Dreaming. It was unclear whether he knew it because he recognised the stone the walls were built from, or the style of the lofty stained-glass windows, or because of the way you just knew things sometimes when you dreamt, but it hardly mattered. What mattered was that he was lucid, that he was in a bed, that he was naked beneath the sheets, and that Dream stood before him by the side of the bed, dressed only in a diaphanous black robe which was seemingly woven from pure shadow.

“Hello, Hob,” Dream rumbled, voice impossibly deep and sonorous here in his natural habitat. His eyes gleamed with starlight as he looked down at Hob.

“Please tell me I’m not currently asleep in a heap on my kitchen floor,” was what Hob managed to say after suppressing the urge to just whine and rip that horribly teasing robe off of Dream’s body.

“Of course not. I carried you to bed. The point was to ensure you got some restful sleep, which the floor is hardly suited for.”

“Oh, that’s the point of this, is it?” Hob asked with a breathless laugh, running his eyes down the neckline of the robe, which plunged dangerously low.

Dream smirked. “Among other things.” He placed a knee on the bed, and then, in an unnaturally smooth movement, he was seated across Hob’s hips, their bodies separated only by the gossamer fabric of the robe and the silky satin of the sheets.

“And what were those, again? Would you care to remind me?” Hob teased, reaching out to slide his hands up slim but powerful thighs.

“It would be my pleasure.”

That night, as Hob would later reflect, put every wet dream he’d had in his very long life to shame. The next morning, he woke up well-rested but starving, with a distinctly uncomfortable situation in his pants and a tupperware container full of spoiled stew waiting for him in the kitchen. That didn’t matter much, however, when he also woke up to find the King of Dreams in his bed.

[daxhalfawake]

That feeling when you read an old thing you wrote and wouldn't change a damn thing about it 🥹 doesn't happen often but I'm NGL, I'm so proud of this.

Link if anyone would like to throw some kudos my way, but I'm going to put the fic below anyway.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/41365350

The Lost

“Morpheus…?” Several voices called out the name from a single body, though not all at once. They overlapped, some having a cadence which lingered long after the others’ echoes had died out. The body to which they belonged was still assembling itself upon the spot where it originated – as though it could not quite find its way through the endless void. Their edges shifted slightly to the left as the silence became so deafening that it pressed in upon the ears which had not yet manifested. “Oneiros!” They tried again; this time the sound had sharp edges, both hissed and shouted. Each iteration stopped short, though the echoes continued seemingly ad infinitum.

Dream of the Endless materialized, silencing all. He looked on at the being struggling to keep themself together. A brow arched slowly in curiosity, though not confusion. Lips pursed, he did not speak. He did not feel he had reason to, yet.

“What is this?” The voices hissed and crooned. Apprehension crept into their words.

“This,” Morpheus stated slowly, “Is that for which you asked.”

“It's so dark,” the voices wailed in unison. “So… cold.”

“What did you expect from an absence of dreams?”

The entity considered the King’s question carefully. They hardly felt human, let alone alive. They certainly had not anticipated such feelings to follow them out of the waking world. Finally, a single voice uttered a frightened whisper, “I expected peace, if only for an hour.” Their form still had not fully stabilized, but it was less a sandstorm and more a shadowy, humanoid figure. Emerald glinted out of the space where one might assume their eyes would be. "This is worse than the most gruesome night terrors."

Morpheus fell silent once more. A gasp and a sob ripped through the otherwise barren air. The being collapsed, seemingly suspended within the void. Dream crouched over the being before him as it settled into the form he knew to belong to the subconscious’ current mortal body, if slightly desaturated. “You are so fractured,” he murmured as he very slowly pushed the hair from their face.

These dreamers, he referred to as Lost. They were the ones so plagued with nightmares that they pleaded (with him, albeit usually unbeknownst to them) to be freed from the Dreaming altogether. Of course, this was something that Dream of the Endless himself could not fully grant – for humans could not survive without it. Instead, he could relieve them of the Dreaming by casting them into the void at its outskirts. Very few of the Lost actually experienced the void. Typically, their waking minds would assume that they simply did not remember the Dreaming. Lost like the one lying before him, however, he pitied. They knew that all that awaited them in his realm was taciturn darkness. They could not look forward to sleep any more than they had while they were plagued by his nightmares. His art was wasted on them.

With a heavy sigh and a sweeping gesture, the Endless dotted the void with faraway stars and swirls of dust. His heart had softened towards the Lost as he discovered them – and the circumstances which created them. He hoped that maybe they would find their way back into the Dreaming when the time came; in the meantime, he could at least brighten the void for them.

[devilfic]

could you do some more stuff on bruce with reader and dick ? the christmas one was ADORABLE AND I JUST CANT HANDLE okay thanks

a/n: you were probably hoping for something fluffy and I APOLOGIZE but I also really wanted to explore the relationship you'd have with dick when you first take him in and show how he grows to trust you ;-;;;;

imagine that it’s right after you and bruce take in dick. he’s angry, he’s grieving, he’s cold. it’s been a rough few weeks since the deaths of his parents. you and bruce had thought about having kids one day but it was never the right time, not until that night when it all happened and bruce looked at you and you just knew.

and then you’d somehow convinced this kid (this kid who looked the spitting image of your husband already, like he was destined to be yours) to let you keep him. not to be his parents because you could never replace john and mary grayson, but to give him a safe place to stay. dick is too young to be this angry but he agrees because he can’t find his parents’ killer when he’s too busy hopping from foster home to foster home with no end in sight.

and you expect that it’ll take time but it doesn’t make his rejection hurt any less. he never stays in the room long enough to talk to either of you, and when he does, he’s always asking about the investigation. it breaks your heart every time to tell him the gcpd are still looking, following leads that you both have a feeling lead nowhere. they don’t know where tony zucco is. you can see the frustration growing in him and the resentment too.

you try to be there because bruce can’t. how can he? he’s so busy looking, chasing those same leads as the bat every night. it makes it harder for dick to trust bruce. he’s a stranger to him. always working, never home. as far as dick was concerned, bruce didn’t give a rat’s ass about finding his parents’ murderer. but every night, from sundown to sun up, your husband was scouring the streets for the man that had ruined dick’s life. but you can’t tell dick that part. bruce isn’t ready.

and one night, it’s storming. it’s not uncommon in gotham but you feel your stomach flip at a crack of thunder. something pulls you out of your sleep, out of your empty bed and down the hall to dick’s room. the door is always shut and locked but now it’s cracked open. a peek inside and he’s nowhere to be found. your stomach drops at another crack of thunder.

you tear the penthouse apart and even alfred can’t tell you when he’d last seen him. it’s then that you notice his coat and shoes are gone, and you’re out the door with barely enough time to get dressed or to heed alfred’s warning.

your instincts are telling you that wherever he is, and god forbid he’s in a ditch somewhere with the kind of types that hang around the city this late, he’s close. even if you can’t see him. you keep searching the skies as if you’ll find him there when the bat signal flips on, and you realize that all this time, your instincts have been leading you right to it.

you reach the top of the building and find dick there, staring off into the sky, and you can’t help but demand to know what he was thinking running off like that. what if he’d gotten hurt or worse? what if you’d lost him for good?

and he’s got this look on his face like he’s freezing and doesn’t want you to notice because then you’ll just cover him in your coat and freeze too. because you would and have. you would do anything to protect him. “you won’t help me.”

“that’s not true, dick. these things take time. trust me, the gcpd is doing everything they can to find that man. we’re not letting zucco get away with what he did to your parents. you have to believe me.”

dick’s scoffing at you. If he wasn’t so small, still chubby-cheeked and rosy, his snark would put him beyond your years, “the police won’t find him. batman will.”

dick doesn’t know how right he is but you try to steer him away, telling him that batman is a vigilante and that there’s no way to prove if you can trust him, but it’s like everything you say goes in one ear and out the other. at some point, you tell him that bruce would be home soon and seeing dick missing would tear him up inside and, without missing a beat, dick tells you “he’d have to be around to care.”

and how do you reconcile with that? how do you make a child feel loved and cared for with nothing to show for it? nothing you can show for it?

you don’t know what you and bruce were thinking. you weren’t ready. you must have wanted to be so bad that you mistook it for something it wasn’t. dick grayson didn’t need new parents. he’d told you as much the minute you’d offered to take him in. of course he’d run away. as far as dick was concerned, all you’d given him was a pretty house to mourn in.

you almost forget why you’re up here.

dick spots him before you do, the dark knight, and from where you’re kneeling you can imagine what he must look like to a child. a boogeyman or an angel, something other than human. dick runs at him as if he’s all that and more. completely enamored. bruce can’t ask with dick there but his eyes flicker to you and you must look pitiful.

it’s just that dick is so. starstruck. you’ve never seen him like this in all the time he’s been with you. it almost feels worth it keeping the secret, then. “you came.” dick sighs.

you’re thinking about all the things bruce’s eyes are saying. he’s focused on this little boy, too afraid to look away, almost too afraid to speak. what if dick could tell? what if he mistook this for some cruel joke? but then bruce puts his hand on dick’s shoulder and would you believe it? for the first time, dick lets bruce touch him, “you called.”

“I need your help, batman.” dick pleads. you shut your eyes, unable to look at bruce or dick knowing what’s coming next. “someone took my parents away from me. I need to find him. and I need your help.”

a few moments pass. you dare crack open an eye, ready to sweep dick out of there and suffer his anger on the way home. anything to avoid seeing the inevitable heartbreak in your husband’s expression. you couldn’t take it. but you falter when you see bruce kneeling before the kid. he’s schooled his expression into something reminiscent of the symbol, the impenetrable, immovable batman, “the graysons, right? the flying graysons. you’re the kid.”

you can hear the shock in dick’s voice, “you know me?”

“I don’t forget a face,” you watch bruce smile, “or someone as talented as you. your parents were good people. I’m sorry for your loss… which is why I’m doing everything I can to find him, dick. I promise I’ll find him.”

“let me help.” bruce laughs—or gasps—at how sudden and stubborn his request is. dick immediately takes offense, “I’m not kidding.”

“no, no. I know you’re not. you just… remind me of someone. I believe you. but not just anybody can do what I do.”

“I can fight! a little. I need some training. but I’m really flexible! and I’m fast.”

“that’s good. people underestimate you when you’re small and lean.”

“how do I get superpowers like you?”

“I don’t have powers.”

“then how do you fly?”

bruce drags his cape between the two of them, eyes sparkling, “physics.”

dick doesn’t even know what that means. he still says “coooooool” like he does. “can I have a cape?”

taking dick’s hand in yours, you try your best not to say bruce’s name when you mean batman (because let’s be honest, the man in front of you is more bruce than anything—all soft eyes, tender voice, careful smiles), insisting that it’s late and way past dick’s bedtime and that you both really need to get home before this storm gets worse when dick begs batman to take you both home in his “super cool” car. and really, how can either of you refuse him?

so you keep him in your lap on the drive home, watching bruce explain what each of the little knobs and buttons do, but dick never runs out of questions. “how fast can you go?” “do you have other cars?” “does it have a name? can I name it?” bruce meets every single one of them with the breathless, youthful kind of joy you get when a child trusts you, really trusts and likes you. even if it’s not really him, it’s enough.

it must be a sight, crawling out of the batman’s car onto the sidewalk. dick clearly doesn’t want to go with his hands on the door begging to see batman again.

“you will,” bruce assures him, looking over at you for just a split second, “I promise.”

it’s days later when bruce gives you the go ahead and you take dick down into the elevator, the one you’d always told him didn’t work anymore. the first thing he sees is bruce at his desk with his cowl in his hands and that shocking black paint across his eyes, waiting with more fear than you’d seen in him fighting his greatest enemies. you don’t think he could take the rejection if this went badly.

bruce steps forward, kneels before dick, tender and vulnerable and open. dick’s shoulders tremble beneath your hands. “I think I found him, but I need your help. so no more secrets.” bruce holds out his hand, shaky and bare, “deal?”

dick is silent for a long time; lips pursed, eyes blown wide. you think he even stops breathing, his chest refusing to rise and fall. you brush a hand through his hair, whispering his name, and catch your husband’s worried eyes. was it too soon? had he scared off dick altogether?

but dick places his hand in bruce’s, so small in comparison. it’s such a shy touch that bruce doesn’t even close his hand around it, too afraid. doesn’t want to scare him. doesn’t want to indulge too much in this kid, so much like himself, finding safety and solace in him. because dick isn’t looking for parents. he wants answers, revenge, justice, whatever he called it to sleep better. and if all you and bruce could do for him is give him that closure, you would. and if dick wanted to leave when it was all said and done, you would let him do that too.

that evening, dick takes dinner with you two and alfred. you take heart in the fact that dick allows you this much. it’s one step, small as it may be, in the right direction.

taglist: @yikes-buddy @alexxavicry @theclassicvinyldragon @angxlictexrs @moonlightreader649 @geekyfer @thescarletfang @navs-bhat

[avelera]

Banana Daiquiris (4277 words) by Avelera Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Sandman (Comics), The Sandman (TV 2022) Relationships: Dream of the Endless/Hob Gadling Summary: Set during the events of Hob Gadling's trip to the Renaissance Faire in "The Wake". Hob falls asleep at the Renaissance Faire and dreams of a beach. His dead friend, Dream, is there, and so his brother, Destruction. Except Dream, it turns out, is not dead and Hob is not dreaming but is, in fact, really on a beach on the other side of the world. This is a hell of a thing to have to explain to his (probably soon-to-be-ex) girlfriend.

--

Hey all! I wrote a short (for me) joke-y Retired Dream AU fic because the concept made me ugly laugh and I thought I'd share it with you all! Hope you enjoy!

[bullet-proof-killjoy]

okay hear me out: sandman could have beat thanos if the writers ever put them in a room together

[lovingkvinner]

Notice me!

Lucifer Morningstar x reader

Warnings- attempted murder and mention of crime, small fluff towards end.

Summary- you will do anything to please Lucifer

Tonight you would sin, your final sin. Not that you knew it but it would be that last act that gave you everything.

Tonight you were planning to murder…

It had all started around 4 months ago, however time escapes you when devotion envelopes you. You remember the first time that you saw that beautiful face, the face of Lucifer Morningstar. You had never seen anything that could compare, even trying to describe it is a feat attempted by fools for words can not encapsulate them. Dreaming of them, that night was the start of your destruction but the beginning of your everything, your purpose, your making.

Painstakingly everyday you would pour your eyes over the tiny words printed in the bible and note of any sin mentioned. You needed to grasp the attention of Lucifer, throwing yourself into temptation you decided was the best way.

You just needed to see them, in flesh and blood; or whatever demons were made of, suffering perhaps?

You were once such a perfect human, trying to please everyone, now you would tarnish, ruin and stain your soul. If they didn’t notice this then they would surely be blind.

You began small, eased your way into it like it was a cold lake. First it was eating meat on Fridays, then it was shoplifting, a bit of good old lying and then you got a tattoo. Gainng confidence you killed two birds with one stone, sex before marriage and homosexuality in one night; the two were long overdue.

A little time later you indulged in some light arson- a trashcan, then a bible and finally an abandoned church; derelict and only of 60 years of age yet it was a holy building none the less.

Tonight however, tonight was the sin of all sins. The holy grail, if you will.

How you prayed they would be watching, you prayed it would please them because tonight you would take your first life.

You had decided to murder your ex-girlfirend. It wasn’t like you still loved her or anything but you were jealous that they had managed to move on so fast after you cheated on them (adultery was just another sin to add to the others you were so diligently racking up)

So here you were, knife pressed against her throat, both of you with tears in your eyes.

“Im sorry it had to come to this, it isn’t personal” you told her whilst trying to muster the courage to finish the deed.

“Why?! Why then? What did I do?” She choked out in-between sobs

“Its just the last step in my plan. The last thing I need to do to get them to notice me” you tried to explain yourself, as if it was possible.

“Who are you talking about?!” She screamed “haven’t you done enough”

God you hoped the neighbours wouldn’t hear this before you couldn’t complete the task

“LUCIFER FUCKING MORNINGSTAR FOR CHRISTS SAKE” (+1 sin for uttering Christs name in vain) You were about make the fatal cut when a voice boomed behind you

“ENOUGH” it was a deep resounding voice that made you drop the knife and immediately turn around.

You dropped to the floor and a bang resounded from your knees hitting the kitchen floor. Raising your arms out I front of you, you were not sure whether you were doing this for mercy fuelled by fear or to worship the devil in front of you. “Lucifer… it’s you” you uttered, looked up at them as if they were some bronzed statue of a marked hero.

“I have seen enough” they told you, then they must have used some kind of magic because with a wave of their hand your victim was slumped on the floor.

“All of this… it.. it was for you, just, ever since I dreamt you I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I haven’t slept right in months all I could do is pour myself over the bible and live to please you” your eyes drifted away from them as you progressed your devotion aloud.

“And how impressed I have been” they took a step towards you, the sound of platformed boots hitting the floor echoed in the room until they crouched in front of you, still a little taller but closer to where you could see one another. You still hadn’t dared to peer into those blue eyes, the vortex of death trapped in two little spheres. “Oh, you were so innocent” they savoured the taste of the word on their tongue “but you have ruined yourself so very well for me, such a bad girl” Lucifer took your face in a cold hand and shifted your jaw so you were looking directly at her.

God how the fuck did the devil make you so horny? They must have known what they were doing.

“I must confess, I noticed you before all of this” they began again, not breaking contact “I noticed how you sat and prayed every Sunday, on your knees under golden spires praying to be relieved of your sins, of your lust and of your want and need for happiness. So I commissioned my little friend, dream of the endless to orchestrate those little dreams you had been having.” They took great pleasure in recounting this and smiled when your eyes lit up after they told you they noticed you.

What a lovely thing it is, to feel noticed, when you felt no body had ever really noticed you at all.

You were speechless so they continued.

“I saw the potential inside of you, inside of that innocent hopeless little girl I saw power within you. I have been waiting for you to recognise it.” They took the hand away from your face and stood up.

You shivered in the dark shadows that their wings created.

“However, I couldn’t have you killing anyone, just yet or else I might have god on my back” they offered you a hand, to help you from the floor, you took it. They were very strong as they managed to prize your tired body from the floor.

Pulling you up, you landed in their chest and you pulled back a little, shocked at the proximity, and shocked that the devil smelled good. Like burning wood and earth. They wrapped a wing and an arm around your shivering body.

“Ready to leave?” They asked looking down with raw anticipation swirling in those eyes.

You looked around one last time “yes…. Oh but, will she be okay” you gestured to the unmoving body behind you.

Lucifer let out a low dark chuckle that make all of your organs quake, it was like their laugh had just prompted an earthquake “awww, your still the innocent girl I first lay i eyes on all those months ago” she caressed your face with her hand gently “she will be fine, unfortunately, it will all seem like well, a dream”

“ oh, okay” you turned back around and Lucifer took their arm from your shoulder and linked it through yours whilst still keeping you under their strong wing.

“Shall we leave this place darling, I can’t wait to show you our home, in hell” they asked you, you had never imagined that the devil could have such soft and beautiful expressions, ones that made you want to reach out and touch their face to make sure they were real.

The smile you gave them was enough of an answer and you watched as they opened up a dark portal, swirling red and orange like a fire but someone had photographed it with the pin wheel filter.

They squeezed your arm “hold on tight”

[fishfingersandscarves]

wrote a fic about the complicated feelings and love you have when you're an older sibling, featuring hob gadling, rose walker, jed walker, and agnes (hob's little sister and my darling oc)