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wyvernquill · 1 year

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More Dreamling Anastasia AU

Because I must obviously be stricken down for my hubris if I say I refuse to write something. (Masterpost can be found here!)

This one’s an earlier bit, while they’re still trying to teach “Murphy” how to act like Dream, and first encounter The Corinthian - so please be aware that there will be Corinthian-typical mentions of stabbing and blood in this excerpt!

(Tagging @10moonymhrivertam again, and also open invitation for anyone who wants to be notified of new updates to tell me so, and I’ll tag you when/if I write other scenes!)

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“Do the list again.”

“Hob…” Murphy sighs, visibly annoyed, hands stuffed in his coat pockets and face ducked into his scarf. There are snowflakes caught in the dark tangle of his hair, and Hob wonders briefly if he would accept Hob’s hat, or look at it with the same disgusted grimace he pulled when he was offered one of Gil’s spare cardigans.

“Come on. Again.” Hob encourages. “You’ll need to know it by heart, it has to be ingrained so deeply into you that I should be able to wake you up at three in the night and have you recite it perfectly.”

“Do not dare to wake me up at three in the night!” Murphy snarls, and they will really have to work on that temper - Gilbert is very insistent that Dream of the Endless’s fury was fierce, yes, but quiet, controlled, and merciless in its silence. These outbursts don’t befit a Dream King, and they’ll have to go.

“I was speaking metaphorically!” Hob laughs and holds up his hands defensively. “I know better than to disturb your sleep, rest assured. Matthew would peck my eyes out, for a start.”

(Judging from the look on Murphy’s face, the man would approve of that course of events, and possibly praise his raven afterwards.)

“But the list. Go on, Lord Morpheus, the list.”

Murphy sighs again, turning his face up to the snow-grey night sky. Hob is suddenly quite glad Gilbert shooed them out for a walk, to clear Murphy’s head after another long day of lessons - more lessons tomorrow, and then they’ll be travelling again over the weekend, always busy or on the move. It’s quite lovely, to have this moment of tranquillity, in the dark and the snow, and to see Murphy… well. Less frustrated and harried than he usually is, solemn and thoughtful and with chapped lips from the frost.

“Destiny, the oldest, in the maze, with the book.” He recites, only slightly sullen. “Death, the second, everywhere and everywhen, but always where she’s needed, with the ankh. Dream, the third-”

“Include the names.”

“Ugh. Dream of the Endless, Lord Morpheus, the King of Dreams, Ruler of the Nightmare Realms, the Shaper of Form, Kai’ckul-”

“Kai-what?” Hob frowns. He hasn’t heard that one before.

“-Oneiros or the Oneiromancer, and the Lord of Stories.” Murphy continues, undeterred, slogging through the list just to have it be over quicker. “There, the names. Now: Dream, in the Dreaming, with the ruby - and sometimes the helmet and the sand. Always with a raven. Next, Destruction-”

“No, please,” drawls a voice behind them. “Tell us more about Dream.”

They both freeze.

Hob turns slowly, stepping to the side just slightly, just enough so he will be in range to shove Murphy behind himself, should it become necessary.

“I do so love bedtime stories,” the stranger who has approached them is grinning broadly, in a tan suit and coat much too thin for this weather, and dark glasses - sunglasses? At night!? - covering his eyes. “Though I always like ‘em best when they have gory endings. When the stepsisters cut their feet to fit into the glass slipper in the Grimm brothers’ version of Cinderella? Boy, I could listen to that all night.”

The man is holding a long knife in his hand, the sort not made for cutting anything but the flesh of your fellow man, toying with it - and Hob feels a prickle of fear slide down his spine.

“Who are you, to disturb us?” Murphy snaps haughtily, and Hob would be pleased at the excellent noble-arrogant cadence, if he weren’t suddenly fucking terrified of Murphy getting a knife in between the ribs for his cheek.

“Me?” The man laughs, throwing the knife up in the air, glittering, twirling, before catching it again. “You don’t remember little old me?”

The man’s teeth are too white, Hob notes, too bright, and too *many* when he smiles like this.

“I’m your worst nightmare, my Lord,” he says, still smiling - and then lunges forward, knife first.

Hob moves instantly, instinctively, without even a moment’s hesitation.

With his elbow, he shoves Murphy back, out of the way, and then bats the man’s knife arm off-course, coming in swinging with the other fist. It connects with an audible crack, but their assailant only laughs, giddy and breathless, and spits out half a mouthful of blood - is there some dripping from his eyes under the glasses, too - before evading Hob’s grip on his arm and dancing out of the way.

“Murphy, run!” Hob shouts over his shoulder, heart beating in his throat, blood up and boiling. He hasn’t gotten into alleyway fights in a year or two, but it’s familiar, the tang of blood, the rush of adrenaline. He’s always liked the brawls where there wasn’t a sharp object involved better, just two men and their fists - but if this madman wants a fight, he’ll damn well get one. Hob’s put better people than him in hospital.

Hob charges forward, goes for a grab at the knife arm again, and manages a short grapple, a kick at a shin, the tip of the knife wavering as they twist against each other, and slicing a red-hot line of pain along the side of Hob’s jaw - the man’s still grinning, holy shit, that’s unsettling - before the other twists himself free again with almost unnatural strength, and Hob has to jump back before that knife goes somewhere vital.

“Well, aren’t’cha quite the fighter, Hobsie?” The assailant says, with his dozens of bone-white teeth bared. “I’m glad. Makes it more fun to carve into you when you struggle a li’l bit.”

“Would love to see you try,” Hob spits back, wiping his cheek, his blood dripping red onto the snow.

They throw themselves at each other again, and the man is impossibly strong, delivering an almost casual punch against Hob’s sternum that knocks the breath out of him, forcing him back a couple stumbling steps.

And Hob knows he should run, too. The best way to win a streetfight is to not be in one, and he’s not keen on getting stabbed. Would be a waste, to die now, when he’s so close to earning himself immortality…

…but he needs to buy Murphy time.

The thought alone, of seeing Murphy dead in the snow, blood pooling around him in and coat spread out like broken wings - he can’t bear it. He’s got the man into this fucking mess, and he cannot let Murphy die because of his con. This is supposed to be a win-win situation for them all, not a threat to anyone’s life!

And if somebody’s life is threatened, it better be Hob’s own. Only fair - he gets the biggest reward in the end, he should shoulder the brunt of the risk as well.

Hob coughs one last time, eyeing the blood-red tip of the assailant’s knife. He won’t die here, he refuses to, and he’ll fight until the bitter end if-

“Wait,” Murphy says, and Hob’s heart stutters in his chest.

The idiot! The absolute fool! Hob told him to run, why the fuck is he still here!?

Hob gets barely more than a second of panic in before Murphy steps up beside him, glowering darkly at the man with the knife…

And then, in a movement quick as a flash, he throws a handful of salt-grit-sand mix - the sort the city keeps in large containers alongside the streets in wintertime, to make the snow and ice safer to traverse - straight into the man’s face.

The man screeches, voice strangely dissonant, as if it comes from three mouths at once, and jerks back sputtering, dropping his knife and covering his face with his hands.

Hob kicks the knife away, out of reach, on instinct - and then he feels a bony hand curl around his own, dragging him away, and he lets it, running hand in hand with Murphy for dear life.

(There are angry shouts behind them, threats, but Hob never looks back, only squeezing the cold palm against his harder.)

They run, and run, and run, until they finally reach the relative safety and familiarity of the street outside their inn, both gasping for breath as they lean against its walls.

“You… need not… have come…” Murphy wheezes, his thin chest heaving under his thick coat, even as his eyes are burning with indignation, “to my… defence!”

“Clearly!” Hob rasps, sliding to the ground, uncaring for the snowmelt soaking through his trousers. “Still… I didn’t want to be standing in front of the Endless alone, in a few weeks’ time.”

He grins up at Murphy - the wound along his cheek burning as he does it - and the sharp retort about being perfectly capable of handling himself in a fight visibly dies on Murphy’s lips.

He crouches down besides Hob, coat puffing up around him, and brings one hand up to cup Hob’s jaw, to turn it and inspect the line of red their attacker’s knife left there. Thumbs the cut, smearing warm blood along Hob’s cheekbone.

“You were hurt,” he murmurs, dark voice almost wavering with distress.

“Shallow cut.” Hob catches Murphy’s wrist before he can fuss any more with the wound, rubs a thumb soothingly over the thin bones there. “I’ll live.”

“Foolish man,” Murphy grumbles - but he’s very nearly smiling as he says it.

Their eyes meet.

They’re both still breathing hard, and for all his haggard, skeletal build and sunken face lined with long years of hardship, Murphy looks almost lovely like this, lips slightly parted and pale face flushed with exertion, looking up at Hob through his lashes as if…

As if…

Hob leans forward, and Murphy does too, something burning bright and smouldering hot between them, lips getting close enough to brush-

“ROBERT! MURPHY!” Gilbert slams open the door beside them, and they both jerk apart as if burned.

“Oh, thank goodness, you’re here!” Gilbert flusters, wringing his hands on the grip of his cane. “I had the most terrible premonition that my two dear friends were in danger, most ghastly, so I rushed- Robert, are you bleeding!?”

“I’m fine, Gil,” Hob tries to wave him off - to little avail.

Hob is ushered up into their room, sat down, and then berated by Gilbert for his recklessness while Murphy is carefully, studiously, dabbing at Hob’s wound with one of Gilbert’s handkerchiefs and pointedly not making any eye contact.

(Though Matthew is more than making up for that, staring Hob down as if he knows exactly what almost transpired outside the inn’s door, and is rather firmly against the idea of letting it happen again…

Which it surely won’t. It was a mad impulse in the spur of the moment - they both know better, now.

Yes.

They both know better.)

#WyWrites #dreamling #the sandman #anastasia dreamling au #and feel free to send me asks if you want me to elaborate or something #or what i had in mind for other scenes #i'm always happy to chat!#i just couldn't resist an almost-kiss here #and gratuitous references to the 1789 scene #hob and dream fighting to protect each other my beloved #also the corinthian is LUCKY gilbert got the memo a little late #because yes he DOES have a sword in his cane #and he happily would have used it #maybe he will in a later confrontation #because i suddenly have a mighty need for gilbert vs. corinthian sword-knife fencing #matthew kind of likes hob by the way #but after years of protecting murphy on the streets he's just overall wary of others #even if they seem like good guys who let him sip from their beers

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general-cyno · 11 months

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Having a lot of feels and thoughts abt stamp Nai's relationship with Rem so here I go.

I know Nai's yandere brocon behavior tends to overshadow other parts of his character in the anime, but the idea that he hates Rem out of jealousy bc of Vash's love for her isn't really it imo or at the very least not entirely. Nai is... a very contradictory character and as a narrator he's unreliable as hell, his perception of events is deliberately distorted (from a narrative standpoint, I mean) and warped by trauma and the beliefs he clings to as a result of it.

As far as the childhood flashbacks in tristamp are concerned, there's no indication that Nai felt insecure or envious of Vash's relationship with Rem and they both interacted with her in equal measure (which I actually found interesting bc in the manga, we only see Rem talking to Vash abt the geraniums, in tristamp they're both present) previous to the discovery of Tessla, that is. And there's still mostly a blank space within the aftermath of Tessla and Nai causing the Fall that we know nothing about aside from that brief conversation between Vash and Nai in ep 11.

Albeit his personality as a kid is pretty different from his manga counterpart's, you can still see that Nai was happy with Vash and Rem in ship 5 and he even got all shy/flustered when she was affectionate towards them.

Idk but that doesn't look like a child who actively resents or fights his mother for his brother's attention. And curiously enough, while the piano (and the duet) is Nai's direct link to Vash, it is ironically his tie to Rem as well. It is imo perfectly framed here in these shots and dialogues from ep 11:

(Note how Nai avoids answering Vash's question here and deflects by bringing up the memory of Tessla.)

That's the piano Nai plays in ep 9 during the duet flashback, and here the three of them are framed directly in front of it AND the flowers. If the geraniums are used as a symbol of Vash's connection to Rem, you can probably see where I'm going here when the piano - which is mostly Nai's thing throughout the story - is shown this way. I have more to say abt this ep but I'll go back to that in a bit.

In ep 9 we get the most blatant lines from Nai depicting his possessiveness toward Vash and his resentment not for Luida as an individual, but what she represents - a Rem-like, human figure in Vash's life that keeps his brother from choosing Nai's side. Nai doesn't know Luida, and he very likely had no idea Vash was staying in ship 3 (Conrad himself was surprised to see her) so when he says you witch, how many times? how many times will you steal him from me? He's not seeing Luida - he's seeing Rem. Which is emphasized by the fact that, previous to that, Vash himself mentioned Rem by name when he retaliated against Nai and tried to stop him from his attempt to kill Luida.

"So that means he resents Rem bc she takes Vash away from him!" Yes... but that's not all of it. Imo, part of the betrayal Nai feels everytime Vash chooses humans over him is, in a way, an extension and amplified version of the betrayal he likely felt when Rem herself chose not to take his hand and escape with them during the fall. Whether him reaching out to her was genuine or not is up for interpretation, but considering that we never saw Knives in the manga do the same - to me, that's a very deliberate addition in tristamp's writing.

As for Nai feeling betrayed by Rem's choice... You have to understand that from Nai's pov, Rem hid the gruesome truth abt Tessla, and discovering her mutilated body probably put a lot of things into a very different perspective for him. Being registered on the same database as his Alive But Torn Apart Sister (with Vash's info ominously saved in the same folder as hers) who was kept in the same room as the ornamental flowers mixed up with Rem's insistance that Nai should pretend to act human/hide his powers from the other crewmembers in a hypothetical/future situation must've seemed extremely grim in retrospective, even if Rem was very likely doing that to keep him safe. Still, he offered his hand to her and Rem chose to stay and save humans instead. The same humans that had, from Nai's pov, hurt his sister and would've probably done the same to him and his brother.

Which brings me back to ep 11 and this bit in specific:

Read above then read this dialogue again, remember that Nai is (among other things) the king of projecting his issues onto Vash, and well. Shit starts making a lot of sense. Another thing that's worth noticing in this scene is that, throughout the memory manipulating, Nai wears just his bodysuit. It's only when confronted with the memory of Rem and erasing her from Vash's mind (killing her, again) that he hides behind the blade-cloak. Very interesting and deliberate visual choices.

Also important to point out that Nai's paradise free of pain, fear and humiliation is one that's a replica of the garden back on ship 5. Even after doing his best to erase Rem from Vash's memory, the safe and happy place that he desperately wants to go back to is that in which they both lived with her.

Despite his very ehem. questionable methods, I do think Nai is genuine in his wish to protect Vash and liberate their sisters and that yes, he does resent Rem or rather, what Rem represents when it comes to his relationship with Vash. Thing is, Nai tends to downplay his own feelings, bottling shit up and using Vash as conduit for hardcore projecting.

Imo, Nai doesn't resent Rem bc Vash loves her. He resents that her beliefs and her sacrifice for humanity's sake were imprinted so deeply into Vash's being that he keeps doing the same - choosing humanity over Nai, even to his own detriment. Nai keeps losing Rem and Vash to humanity again and again and he hates it, but the most tragic part of it is that it is pretty much a hell of his own making.

#(spoilers for trimax) which knives realizes by the end btw #mr millions mommy issues I love him sm #long post #tp #anyway all this to say that yes. nai loved his mother very much #and part of his resentment towards her is the fact that this love (from his pov) wasn't reciprocated in the magnitude #nor in the moment where it counted to him (the fall). and vash acts just like her (towards humans)#nevermind how much of it is nai's own fault #I italicized it tho i didn't elaborate for the sake of not derailing the post but #the talk of the geraniums and nai pointing out that they're 'ornamental' just like the one that we later find out #is kept in the same room as tessla's body is so fascinating like. there's smth to be said abt how it must've looked to nai #the humans encasing tessla's torn body in such a dehumanizing fashion #like an ornament. and worse even bc at least the flowers are pretty enough to be displayed in the open #tessla was the ugliness they kept hidden

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