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cuubism · 3 months

Text

Morphology | Dreamling | 4.6k words | Explicit | AO3

eldritch Dream, genderfluidity of a kind, lots of smut, nonhuman organs, angst, body dysphoria, undefined body forms and transformation, brief eldritch panic attack, they/them pronouns for Dream

Dream is not meant to stay in one form. But they must, for that is the form that Hob knows. That Hob loves. Or so they think.

this is based on @gabessquishytum and their anon's post located here, about Dream believing Hob won't want him in all his nonhuman shapes, only to discover Hob is very much a monsterfucker... and also loves him very much. I was going to append it to the post but then it got kind of very long. Hope you don't mind me playing around!

---

It was not for dreams to be only one thing.

In the Dreaming, they morphed and shifted, merging from one form to another. Smoke to wind to water, lava to sparks back to stone. In the minds of dreamers they took every unconceivable form, a thousand impossibilities as various as the limbs of Destiny’s forking tree. They were all of unreality. All that could not be, all that was hoped for, fleeting, forgotten, or held, for a time.

In the Waking, it was different. Dreams Dream bent and condensed into a singular form. They he knew well enough from his dreamers that while fluid changeability may be accepted in the illogical narratives of dreams, it was not so in the Waking. To interact with humans, he must appear as one, with the limited mutability that allowed.

Which was not to say that Dream disliked his Waking form. He chose what was pleasing to him. But sometimes it felt… stifling, for one used to being as expansive as the clouds.

Particularly after his imprisonment. Kept like an insect pinned to a board. Immovable. When he was meant to move. When he was Morpheus. Shaper of Forms.

Dream put that away from him.

Hob liked this form of his. Dream had come to understand the way Hob looked on him, and he liked that Hob wanted this form. But. He was not meant to stay in this form. Not always. It was. Chafing. It was. Hurting.

No matter. He could stay in this form that Hob wanted, because more than wanting to break from this skin Dream wanted Hob’s love. And his desire. He wanted to keep Hob’s gentle, heated touch.

This form of lean muscle and sharp bone. This solid body that had endured Roderick Burgess’s prison but also received Hob’s love… he could keep it. Yes. He could. He could.

~~~

I am wind that wishes to storm. Cloud that edges on rain. I am caterpillar’s dream of flight, I am words of disbelieving, I am the hopeful light of new stars, I am— I am water’s dance with the shore, and the sun’s kiss of the moon, and— and— no—

“Yo. Roiling mass of terror that I’m pretty sure is the boss. You good?”

Dream opened their eyes. They did not have eyes, but no matter. Dreams were often about seeing. Matthew was standing on the sand before them, head cocked.

“You alright?” he repeated. “I couldn’t tell if the shrieking was a bad thing or just like. One of your things.”

“One of my things,” Dream repeated.

“Can never know,” said Matthew. He hopped onto an arm that Dream’s form generated just for him to stand on.

“I was not,” said Dream, “shrieking.”

“You were definitely shrieking,” said Matthew. “It sounded like a laundry machine dying.”

Dream grumbled in offense.

Matthew nudged his head against one of Dream’s hands. “Do you… wanna talk about it?”

Dream considered. “Do you often ponder your own physical form, Matthew?”

“Well, since I became a bird,” said Matthew. “Kinda weird. It’s cool, though. Who doesn’t dream of flying, amirite?” He flapped his wings in demonstration, lifting off Dream’s arm, then settling down again.

“And when you were human?” Dream asked.

“Every human thinks about their body, dude.”

“Did you desire to change it?” Dream pressed.

“You mean like a weight loss program?” said Matthew. “Those never work.”

“No,” said Dream. Their form morphed around them, here legs, there tail, wings, teeth. They could not make it settle, not on a human shape or on anything else. They felt— agitated. They should return to their usual human form. Should. “That is not what I meant.”

“Ohhhhhh,” said Matthew, and smacked his face with his wing in realization. “It’s this whole deal. Well, you could change it if you want? I mean. You’re doing it.”

“I did not mean to,” said Dream, their form still writhing around them, never landing on any one shape. “I—” they were meant to go see Hob. They had been cloaked properly in their usual shape. And. Something had snapped.

They remembered, now, falling to their knees on the sand, the careful construct of their human self, a body once worn easily as one of many, shattering into a million shards.

They should. Change. They should change back. They wished to see Hob, and Hob, for all his adaptability, was only human, he would not be able to tolerate this, this thing that could not even give itself a face, or decide what it was, this thing that found physical stasis anathema after so long pressed in glass. Hob cared for the being that he knew. Not this one that, Dream thought, sometimes did not even know itself.

“Whatever you’re doing, I think you should probably stop,” Matthew warned.

“You dare to question me?” Dream bit. He was condensing back down under his human mask, he could do it, he could. He had loved this form once. Could again. As one of many.

Matthew nipped at his hand with his beak. And it was only this that made Dream realize he was clawing at his face so hard he was bleeding starlight.

Solidity spiraled away from Dream again, and they let out a hard breath. It was useless. Whatever meager control they had maintained since their escape was slipping from them. It was pointless to pretend otherwise any longer. Or to pretend that they could truly offer Hob the form he was accustomed to.

“Matthew,” Dream said, and Matthew hopped to attention. “I have some business I must attend to. Please leave me now.”

“Are you sure—?”

Dream waved a hand and sent him back to the palace.

If it was impossible for them to consistently return to their prior state, then at least they should be done with it now. Show Hob what he was truly dealing with. That Dream was not what he thought. Or wanted. Then, at least, they would spare themselves any greater heartbreak.

Wrapping the barest trappings of their usual form around them like an ill-fitting coat, Dream stepped into the Waking.

~~~

Dream emerged directly onto Hob’s bed as a formless shadow. It felt good, to be formless. Normally, they did like to take a form, but to choose recently had been taxing.

Hob was awake and reading. Dream had been meant to come for dinner, and was late. When Dream appeared in a sudden fall of darkness, Hob shrieked and flung his book at them on instinct. It simply passed through Dream with no effect.

“Dream?” said Hob, gasping, the spike in his adrenaline clear. “Is that you, love? Somehow? Or am I about to get eaten?”

Those do not preclude each other, Dream said. Though as they were still a shadow, their voice was more a low rumbling vibration than a true voice.

“Not sure how I understood that,” said Hob. He tilted his head, trying to make out features in the darkness but not, Dream thought, managing it. “Always kind of knew you were more than you seemed,” he added. “Didn’t quite picture this, though.”

It is but one form I am capable of holding, Dream said. Strictly speaking, it was not quite a form at all. As they said it, they shifted, unconsciously, until they were the beam of lamplight caressing Hob’s face—Hob’s hand chased them across his own cheek—and then the lulling hum of traffic, comforting night sounds. Hob kept reaching for them, not quite knowing where he was reaching. And Dream slipped into his daydreams, his vision for what Dream’s many forms might be.

Hob’s daydreams were a comfortable place to land. Warm. Welcoming. And when Dream emerged, they were a thing of Hob’s imagining, something dark and shadowed and multi-faceted but ultimately. Touchable.

That was what Hob desired of them?

“Okay,” said Hob, “what actually is going on here? Are you okay?”

Dream did not reply, stuck on Hob’s daydreams. He did not wish for Dream to force themselves back into their usual form. He merely molded what Dream brought him into a form that was comprehensible to him.

Relief crashed over Dream, magnitudes greater than the dread they had refused to acknowledge. They knew, now, that they had truly expected this to be the end. To scare Hob off. But Hob did not seem to be scared.

“Dream?” Hob reached a careful hand toward them. He pet down Dream’s flank. Fur that was soft because he was touching it. He huffed an incredulous laugh. “Wow. It really is… you.”

“In some fashion,” said Dream.

“In some fashion,” Hob repeated. “In what fashion, exactly?”

Instead of answering, Dream butted their head into Hob’s shoulder. Following the relief of his touch, so much softer and more detailed, now that they did not have the barrier of a stifling form in the way.

“Darling,” Hob said, petting Dream’s hair, “need words.”

“No,” Dream mumbled petulantly. And Hob allowed them their petulance. Dream let out a long breath. It blew warm over Hob’s throat, and Dream felt him shiver. They trailed fingertips up Hob’s ribcage, along bare skin, feeling the stacked solidity of his bones. Hob shivered again.

“It’s like that, is it?” he said.

Dream shifted closer, half slither, half crawl, until their form, incomprehensible even to themselves, was draped over Hob’s lap. Bliss, there, the warmth of him. “You are not repelled?”

“By the ten arms? I think I can cope.” He pressed his lips in close to Dream’s ear. “In fact. I had a dream about this the other night. Well.” He laughed. “I guess I’m having a Dream about it now, eh?”

“Did you?” said Dream, ears pricking up. Had their… moods slipped into Hob’s dreams?

“Can’t remember the details,” Hob said. “But I remember how it felt.” He trailed fingertips up the bony knobs of Dream’s spine. Unlike Dream at the moment, Hob only had two arms, but Dream felt every press of his fingers acutely.

“How did it feel?” they whispered.

“Like,” Hob murmured, lips to Dream’s jaw now, “you were everywhere. Like I got into your body and made love to you from the inside out.”

The thought made all of the strange and varied nerves of Dream’s shifting body stand on end. They wrapped legs around Hob’s waist, arms around his shoulders. Scraped sharp teeth over his pulse. “Really?”

Hob laughed. “Interested now, are you?”

“Yes,” Dream rumbled, their form flickering in excitement, to shadow then a falling rainbow of light, to a mass of vines that wound all around Hob’s body, and then into roots, as if they could grow into Hob, then branching veins pulsing and racing with Hob’s heartbeat, then back to a morass of half-body, half-shadow, because yes, they wanted to be held by Hob, they must remember that.

Hob was still for several moments, then laughed incredulously. “Okay. You’re so cool. I don’t know what to do with any of that, so I’m going to have to wing it.”

He traced a hand along the soft feathers of a wing that had grown with his words. Dream shuddered. A sensitive part of the body, indeed.

“You’re gorgeous,” Hob murmured. “My strange creature.”

Dream purred in pleasure, wrapping their wings around Hob’s back, mouth catching on the edge of his jaw, and, incredibly, felt Hob growing hard under them, as he would if Dream lounged in his lap and mouthed at his jaw as a human.

“You like this,” Dream said, unable to keep the surprise from their voice.

Hob chuckled. “Didn’t you know I fell for you the second I saw the spark of the otherworldly in your eyes? Just didn’t know the whole of what I was looking at. Not then.”

The spark of the otherworldly. “You are in love with dreams.”

“Figured it out by now, yeah.”

“You are. In love. With this,” Dream said, voice echoing from more than one throat, choked up.

“With this? You mean with you?”

“I do not know quite what I am, now,” Dream admitted.

“Well,” said Hob, slipping a hand between them. Dream gasped in pleasure, wings fluttering involuntarily. “You want to find out?”

Squirming against his hand, Dream said, “Do you even know what it is you are touching?”

“Haven’t a clue,” Hob said cheerfully. “Made you go all shivery, though.”

It had. It was. Dream writhed in his lap as Hob experimented, moaned in startled pleasure, toes curling. Body shifting to hurtle towards that arousal. Hob startled as his hand was suddenly enveloped in heat, something he could press into, and Dream whined, so full all at once with no prelude, body twisting out of control without their explicit direction. But it was good.

Hob gripped them by one wing—these had stayed even as Dream’s form continued to spin—and Dream quivered as Hob pulled them closer, pressing his hand deeper into slick heat. He was grinning against Dream’s throat, scraped light teeth over his pulse, sucked a bruise there. Dream’s form rode the wave of his daydreams, provided a wet mouth for him to bite and kiss as soon as he thought of it. Dream tangled long fingers in his hair, claws digging in.

“Can I fuck you like this?” Hob breathed against his lips.

“If you can cope with me changing on you,” Dream said. “I am not. Entirely in control. At the moment.”

A shameful admission, but Hob groaned as if it was the hottest thing he could think of. “I get to have you multiple ways at once? Oh, how will I manage?”

Dream laughed. It may have been a bit teary. Their many hearts were racing, lungs stuttering for air. Wings shivered, feathers fluttering. A long, furred tail wound its way up Hob’s back to wrap lightly around his throat, possessive. Dream would not let this man go now. Could not.

“Budge up, let’s see what we’re dealing with,” Hob said, probing deeper under Dream’s form with his hand, the other still firm on Dream’s wing, which he seemed to have understood was very sensitive, and intended to press that advantage as much as he could.

The touch of Hob’s hand, in Dream, on them, around them, was bliss. Dream wished to be full of him again. To, as Hob had dreamt, be made love to from the inside out.

Riding that hope, their body shaped another hole for his questing fingers. Hob obligingly pressed his fingers in, but said, “Regrettably, darling, I’ve only got one cock, and I had other plans for my hands.”

“Regrettable, indeed,” said Dream, and Hob laughed. Then, “Plans?”

“Oh, yes. I expect some other interesting things may crop up, eh? Need hands free.” He leaned in close to Dream’s ear, which flicked toward him to listen. “I’m going to find every erogenous zone on this body and make it scream.”

Goosebumps broke out all over Dream’s body. They clung to Hob with every limb they could find. Hob grinned wickedly at this reaction. It was a look Dream knew well, one that always boded very well for them indeed.

Hob worked Dream open on two fingers—though he need not, Dream was already wet and gaping for him—then maneuvered his sleep shorts off, took his cock in hand and stroked it twice, hand slick with Dream’s fluids. Then he lifted Dream bodily and sank them back down on his cock.

Dream whined, careening up several registers, as they were filled so suddenly, as they took Hob to the base. Hob groaned at the feeling of their body. Dream tried to adjust to him but couldn’t, Hob’s cock pressed on sensitive spots deep within them, and any time they thought they’d gotten used to the feeling their body produced a new place to torment.

They clawed at Hob’s back, leaving red lines with sharp fingers. Hob gave an experimental thrust, shifting Dream in his lap, and Dream bit down on a scream as their body lit up, chasing the feeling, loving it, magnitudes more affected than in their usual, limited form.

“Wow,” Hob said, fond laughter in his voice, and heat too, as Dream panted wetly in his ear, “this is going to be fun. Have you been all worked up, my darling? Just needed someone to give you what you really need?”

“Needed you,” Dream murmured. They clenched around Hob, tried to steady themselves, but it only made things worse. Everywhere deep inside them was searing flame, their skin-feathers-fur prickly with static, they feared and needed Hob’s touch in equal measure. To soothe. To set alight.

Hob slipped a hand into the other space Dream had left to tempt him, probing deep. Dream bit down on his ear, drawing spots of blood. Hob drew his hand back, met one of Dream’s many eyes. Licked Dream’s fluids from his hand.

Dream lunged forward to kiss him, whimpering into Hob’s mouth as that drove them impossibly deeper onto Hob’s cock. Hob pulled them close, kissed them hard, caught a fistful of Dream’s hair and pulled. Dream’s body decided that it liked that very much, indeed. They whined at the grip, clawing at Hob’s skin with many hands.

Hob brought them close with a firm hand, bounced Dream in his lap, moving them on and off his cock. Dream wailed, overstimulated by all the angles of his touch, torn between pulling away and diving closer as Hob swept his tongue into their mouth, over sharp teeth and soft palate.

“There’s a love,” Hob breathed. “Does that feel good, darling?”

Dream couldn’t offer a reply, and Hob didn’t wait for one. He dug his fingers into the tight feathering of Dream’s wing and tugged. Dream shrieked, wings flapping wildly, sets of them bursting along their back, more, more, less, more. Hob didn’t let up, stroking his fingers through the feathers, dragging over soft skin, sucking on Dream’s throat all the while.

Dream saw white, their body seized up, and the nebulous hole Hob was using to fuck them morphed into a mouth.

Hob yelped to suddenly feel his cock grazing over shielded teeth. Then he laughed. “Don’t you dare bite my dick off, you menace. It’s horrible to regrow it.”

Dream would have asked how he knew that, except Hob’s cock was down their throat. They choked, swallowing around him. Dream did not need to breathe, and so the pressure was exquisite. Their long tongue wrapped around Hob to the base, caressed his balls. Explored further, along his perineum, to probe at his entrance, and then press in.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck—” Hob’s voice was a strangled shout. “Dream what the actual fuck are you doing?” It didn’t sound like a complaint.

I am fucking you with my tongue, Dream said, a hum directly from their form to Hob’s.

“I can bloody well tell, Jesus Mary and—”

Dream purred and rumbled in pleasure, the satisfaction of taking and being taken at once, of being inside their beloved and having Hob inside them in turn. As Hob had dreamt.

Hob’s fingers pressed into Dream. Dream’s form gave and made places for him to press into. Hob’s fingers tickled deep within them, starlight and heat tracking their path. Dream swirled in an indefinite vortex of shape, a hundred things at once, their body prickling all over with the pleasure of Hob’s touch.

Hob twisted against them, clenching down on their tongue, shouted “Dream!” and came down Dream’s throat. Dream swallowed him down in pleasure, retracted their tongue from Hob’s body, eliciting a long moan. They let Hob pull out, and licked the final taste of Hob from their lips before letting that mouth disappear into their form, the traces of Hob consumed.

And then Hob flipped them, somehow manhandled Dream’s indefinite form down to the mattress, pressed down immovably on legs and arms and wings so that the softest parts of Dream’s body were bared to him. Dream reached for him, always they reached for him, cock hard and straining, cunt aching, the slashes of their being weeping for Hob to come inside. Always weeping. They cried out, every inch of them trembling for Hob’s touch.

“You gorgeous nightmare,” Hob said. “You brilliant daydream. Oh, my darling, I love you so much. I’d do anything for you. Anything. But mostly I want to do this.”

He pressed his mouth to where Dream’s body strained for him.

Hob had a very talented and generous mouth, which Dream had blessedly been on the receiving end of many times. This was different: Dream’s form echoed out Hob’s touch, replicated it a hundred times over so every crevice of their body could feel the flat swipe of his tongue, how he drank Dream’s fluids down, the drag of his stubble over lips and folds and the soft skin of thighs. Dream’s many limbs trembled, bent, reformed themselves in ecstasy, they dragged at Hob’s hair, pressing his face deeper so Dream could grind against him, which only made Hob grin.

Hob pressed two fingers into Dream’s mouth and Dream greedily sucked on them, grounding themselves. Taking Hob in more than one way at once… yes. That was what they wanted. They closed their many eyes and gave themselves over to sensation. Hob’s mouth and tongue, the taste of him, the weight of his body as he bent Dream on the bed, his scent, musk and the woodsmoke that seemed to cling to him all these years later—or perhaps that was only in dreams.

They were a dream of completion. They were a dream of ecstasy. Of flight. Hob’s hand tangled in their fragile feathers. Hob’s mouth and fingers inside them. Then Hob plunged three fingers hard, deep within them, as he sucked on Dream’s clit, and with a piercing noise like glass shattering Dream came.

They were. Fragments. The individual colors splayed wide by a prism. Red, yellow, blue. Hob’s fingers trailed through them, blending the colors like paint in water. For several moments Dream drifted, more thought than being. Distantly aware of Hob’s weight on them. It felt… like kindness. Then they floated back to the present, light as the first flight of unfurled moth wings.

Hob was lying on them, looking at them, head tilted. A twinkle in his eyes. He skated his hands up Dream’s sides. Flowers bloomed in the wake of his touch, their soft petals shivering with sensitivity. Hob plucked one of the flower buds and, holding Dream’s gaze, ate it. Swallowed it. Dream watched the movement of his throat.

Inside out, he thought.

“Broke you into pieces,” Hob said then, with satisfaction. “Think I might have seen God for a sec there. Can do better, though.”

“Better?” Dream echoed, voice hoarse. Their form shifted, still, but slowly, languidly. No longer restless. A dark wing draped over Hob’s back. A tail played with his hair. He didn’t seem to mind.

“There’s so much we can do with this,” he said. He gazed at Dream, fond, terribly knowing. “Only getting started, love. I love—” he kissed Dream’s belly, a light, ghosting touch, and tickled Dream’s side with his fingertips— “how sensitive you are like this.”

“I—” Dream started. Absent the writhing need, now they just felt… stripped. Vulnerable. “I expected that you would. Not. Like this. It is not. Human.”

“Neither are you,” Hob pointed out.

“I appear so,” Dream said.

Hob snorted. “No, you don’t.”

Dream stared at him, unable to decide whether or not to be offended.

“I wear the guise of a human,” they insisted, and, to prove it, morphed back into the form that Hob would know as his lover. It was an easier coat to wear, now that they knew they could take it off.

“No, keep the wings,” Hob complained. “Those are cool.”

Dream obligingly returned wings to their form.

“I appear human, to you,” they insisted again.

“Dream, I say this with all the love in my heart, which is quite a lot because I do. Love you.” He leaned on his hand, looking at Dream with sparkling eyes. “You look about as human as a kid wearing a bedsheet looks like a ghost.”

Dream stared at him, mouth agape.

“Don’t worry, it’s a gorgeous costume,” Hob said. “Love it. Really, really do. But I could always tell that wasn’t the whole truth of the matter. Especially once I got close.” With this, he winked.

“A part of me is human,” Dream said. Had Hob truly always seen through them? Paid so close attention as to perceive the translucence of the mask? “For I am the dreams of humanity.”

“And a part of you isn’t,” said Hob. “For—” he mimicked the cadence of Dream’s speech, though not in a mocking way— “you are also the dreams of birds, and shadows, and stars.”

Dream nodded. “These and more.”

“Brilliant,” said Hob.

Brilliant, Dream thought.

Then Hob tilted his head, thinking back. “You expected me not to like that?”

“Recently,” said Dream slowly, “I found I could not maintain this form without pain. And so my hand was forced.” It hurt still, to think of. “I had no choice but to make my true form—or rather, my true formlessness—known to you if I wished to be here at all.”

Hob pushed himself up from where he was lying on Dream’s chest, and instead straddled his hips so he could take Dream’s face between his hands. “It hurts?” he demanded.

“At times,” said Dream. “More so. Since.” They didn’t finish the sentence.

“Why are you doing it now, then?”

“It does not hurt so much now,” Dream said. “It is simply that when I stay static, it begins to. Ache.”

“Ache,” Hob repeated, looking stricken. “Dream, if it hurts, then change back. Be a chimera or whatever the hell you were doing before.”

“That is how you interpreted it?”

“To be honest, I don’t think my brain was really interpreting it at all. You were just kind of… everything.” He stroked a fingertip along the fine bone of Dream’s wing, which was folded against their back now. “Did like the wings, though.”

“I’d noticed that.”

“Cheeky.” Hob shook himself. “Getting distracted. The point is, don’t hurt yourself. I don’t want to see you hurt yourself.” He tipped his head against Dream’s, lips to their skin. “Much rather see you how were today.”

“How?”

“Letting go. Enjoying yourself.” He smirked, Dream felt it against their temple. “Making all kind of lovely noises. Squealing. Shrieking—”

“I was not shrieking.”

“You were shrieking.”

Hob tickled his fingers through Dream’s feathers, and Dream made an embarrassing squeak. They smacked Hob in the face with that wing, and Hob burst out laughing, even though he had to pull a feather out of his teeth.

“I love you,” he said. “Don’t hurt yourself. Be... the indefinably strange creature that you are. And just trust me to keep up.”

Hob kissed them lightly on the lips. Dream leaned into him, made still for a moment by the depth of Hob’s care for them, how Hob caught all of their longing and swallowed it, kept it warm. How he loved Dream. And dreams.

Hob drew them both down to the bed, and the covers over them, and Dream let their other forms creep out, hesitant, but hungry for Hob’s affection. And a creature that was the sky’s dream of nightfall and the poetry of rain upon a still lake, that was the individual patterns of snowflakes and the sculptures built of their drifts, that was ambitious owl and frightened vole, quiet soil and its thoughtful worms, shape and narrative and human, too, of course, laid down its many heads, and curled its much-loved wings over its lover, and rested in his dreams.

#i wrote this so fast in truly a fit of insanity... hope it's hot and not just weird! it's definitely weird though #dreamling #hob gadling #dream of the endless #nsft #my writing #gabessquishytum #eldritch smut

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bones4thecats · 5 months

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I finally found it! But I had to find it on my laptop instead of my phone.

Can I request for a Reader who is a Dragon Rider from 'How to Train Your Dragon' (You can decide what her dragon is), being in relationships with the Norse Gods (Odin, Thor and Loki). Your choice is they want to have families at the end.

A/N: I haven’t watched these movies in so long so I had to dig up some information, thankfully it wasn’t hard to find. I also made this as Hiccup and Astrid’s child since it made more sense to me.

●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・

🪶 Odin first met you when he had a meeting with your tribe

🪶 Your parents, Hiccup and Astrid, had gotten older and you took up as leader of your tribe, which meant you needed to go to meetings with surrounding nations, Gods included

🪶 You jumped onto your Bewilderbeast, which you named Asger, and rode away to the meeting with the Norse family

🪶 Odin knew your family had these creatures, and when they landed, his birds, Huginn and Muninn, jumped and squawked at you all, demanding to know why your band of humans was there

🪶 Asger sat behind you as you walked up to Odin, bowing as a greeting, which caused Asger to do the same

🪶 Odin looked at your dragon and smirked, he had no idea you humans could tame the beasts to such size

🪶 After the meeting, Odin had invited you over a lot more, saying he wished to talk about your dragon and how your tribe came to tame the beasts

🪶 He admired your personality, strong-willed yet calm and collected

🪶 And he cannot lie, watching Huginn and Muninn jump whenever Asger opened his large mouth or poked at them with his large tusks got him laughing mentally

●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・

🌩️ You had gone to a meeting with your parents and they decided to have you take a step outside for a break

🌩️ You may be the heir, but they wanted you to have some freedom before taking the reins of the entire tribe and dragon relations

🌩️ Your Crimson Goregutter, Bjørn, followed you as you walked through the fields of Asgard, and you had to admit, it was surprisingly well taken care off

🌩️ Bjørn held his tail in front of you when a strong presence was felt, and it was your ally’s son, Thor, who radiated that aura

🌩️ Thor felt the ground shake as your dragon took his steps, and when he saw how tall it was compared to you, he had to admit, he was surprised you could handle him

🌩️ You hushed Bjørn and greeted Thor as the child of Astrid Hofferson and Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III

🌩️ The God of Thunder had heard about your tribe through others, your tribe had many dragons that you treated like family, and it made him smile lightly as you pet Bjørn’s wings

🌩️ He wanted to know more about these creatures, and he definitely would invite you to speak about them more

●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・

🐍 Oh he was so interested in your dragon!

🐍 You were told by your mother and father to stray away from the nephew of Odin’s, as he was known as one of the most dangerous Gods in the Norse Pantheon

🐍 Loki had hopped onto your Deathgripper’s head, causing them to go berserk, seeing him as a threat

🐍 The Hobgobbler that you were petting and training for their first flight jumped and hid behind you as you tried calming Guenther, your Deathgripper, down

🐍 He flew off of it and landed nicely as you stopped Guenther’s tail from smashing into the man’s stomach, and thankfully, Guenther listened to you

🐍 Despite the rough meeting, Loki and Guenther got along quite well

🐍 From their dark, pet playful personalities, the two of them like messing around and pranking other Gods

🐍 While your parents are concerned about you being with the God of Mischief, they can sense the love you guys both carry for one another, and, because they don’t wanna hurt your feelings and restrict you from being free

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bubbles-for-all-of-us · 1 year

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Butterfly II

a/n some of you wanted a part two of this so here we go. This can be read as a standalone. I am just a tiny bit obsessed with this. Thank you for so much love, I really wasn't expecting it. 🤍

summary: When Joel thinks that his life is over his little butterfly sends him a new reason to stay alive. The only problem is that he doesn't know how to love but when you are the meaning of love itself how can he not fall.

Part III is on my blog!

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It almost felt like you were floating. The warmth and soft sheets surrounded your body, and the mattress beneath you was an absolute dream in comparison to a makeshift box bed or the sleeping bag on the ground. Maybe this was a dream after all? Considering that you could almost make out the birds chirping outside. The bright morning sun hit your face through the crack in the messily closed blinds. The ray of light leaves warm kisses on your skin. When was the last time you felt so at peace? Without the primal urge to survive rushing through your body.

You tried to tilt your head to the side, hoping to escape the beaming light but found no luck there. Lazily opening one eye, you took in the room in front of you. A frown washed over your face. You did not remember getting up to the bedroom last night. Had you been that tired? Your leg nudged something on the other side of the bed, and you instantly shot up as the fight or flight mode went off. Heart racing.

"Easy, easy… You're okay, everything's okay", Joel's groggy morning voice filled your ears, and your shoulders slumped in the instant. As you took a breath in, your hand came to rest on your chest. Joel's fingers slipped to run up and down your exposed thigh as he tried to soothe the rush of anxiety that he felt seeping through you. His eyes were still closed; the sun was dancing on his exposed chest now. Yeah, maybe you were dreaming.

"Bad dream?", he mumbled again, pulling you out of your little daydream. You shook your head even if you knew he couldn't see it, "No, I just didn't expect you…here", "You act like we haven't shared a bed". You let out a huff, pushing his rough palm off your leg. The corner of Joel's lips turned upward. "It's not about that, it's just a… I usually know that we will be in bed together here, so I figured you might… never mind," you muttered quickly.

Back in QZ, where you shared an apartment with one bed, sleeping in it together was a no-brainer. Well, Joel had given up his bed to you first, moving to sleep on the sofa instead. However, he did not spend a single night there. The guilt of him getting a bad back because of you made you drag him to bed in the middle of the night. It was a blanket line at first that split the bed, but even that didn't stick around for long as you found yourself waking up with your fingers reaching out for Joel or clenching his shirt in your sleep. Maybe simply seeking comfort, maybe out of sheer fear of waking up alone.

"Lay down and stop thinking so loudly," Joel's hands pulled you closer to him, and you let him as you rested your head on his chest. Fingers instantly reached up to run over the lines of scars that covered his body. In the beginning, he would catch your wrist with his hand, pushing it away from his skin, but now… Now he said and did nothing to stop you, allowing you to do your thing.

"Did you bring me here last night?", you questioned quietly, feeling bad for disturbing his slumber. Joel only hummed, "You fell asleep on the sofa." You remembered watching Ellie flip through the books you had found in the attic. Cup of tea by her side that you made her in hopes of making her nighttime anxiety ease up. You watched her with a fond smile on your face. Truly, there was nothing more beautiful than seeing a child experience something new, and Ellie, just like all the other kids, was robbed of a normal childhood. So you were more than happy to bring at least a drop of normality to her. Your head was resting on Joel's shoulder as he, too, sipped the tea you had made.

"This shit is nasty, why would you write a book about dating?", Ellie turned a romantic novel in her hands, making you let out a tired chuckle. "Eh, that was one of my favorites. Wait till you get to my age. Fictional men are like no other", you snorted, just managing to hear Joel do the same as he brought the cup closer to his lips again. Looking up, you already find him glancing down at you.

"No way, Bill had comic books?!", the girl shrieked, making you jump slightly at the loud noise as she pushed the box over, making everything spill all over the carpet. Joel squeezed your shoulder slightly, "Lay down." He patted the pillow that was on his lap, but you shook your head, "Not tired. Don't worry". But the man wasn't having any of it and gently moved you to lie down. You tried to protest at first, but Joel only silenced you as he started running his hand through your hair. That was when you realized just how insanely tired you were. Your hand squeezed his thigh, a silent thank you as you felt your eyes getting heavy.

Joel's eyes stayed on you. Watching as sleep took over your body. How you lost the fight to slumber, and your body slowly eased up You twitched a couple of times. A usual practice for you that Joel had grown familiar with. You, just like him, had nightmares clouding your brain. And your body hated the sensation of sleeping, trying to fight off the state of unconsciousness for as long as possible. No one could protect you in your dreams. Not even Joel - even if he wanted to.

"You like her," Ellie said, causing Joel to raise his head. He had somehow forgotten that she was here too, lulled by your somewhat peaceful features. He wouldn't have let his guard down so low otherwise. This side of him was only for his own eyes and no one else's. His face instantly shifted to a tight smile, replacing the calm features. "Don't shove your nose into other people's business," he said bitterly, hoping that Ellie would feel ashamed and drop her gaze, but she didn't. "But you do. I can see it", "What do you know about it, kid", Joel bite back harshly, but you had shifted on his thigh as if even in your sleep sending him a warning to watch his tone. The girl shrugged her shoulders, "Not much, but you always watch her, and it's kind of creepy, but also she does the same, so", Ellie trailed off, returning to making piles of the books instead. Joel wanted to snarl something out, but it was true. He was always watching over you. And he loved nothing more than catching your gaze, taking you off guard at times.

"Go to bed, it's late", Joel said, carefully shifting to scoop you up in his arms, "I'm not tired", Ellie voiced, and Joel only inhaled sharply, "That's what Y/N said as well, look at her now". Ellie watched as you clung to Joel, even in your sleep. She watched as he walked towards the stairs, once again shushing you as you muttered something in your sleep. She followed you up to her room, which was a door away from the one Joel carried you to. You had asked her if she wanted to have a room all to herself for a couple of days that you were here. Since she had never had the pleasure of it, she of course agreed to it. But now that Ellie looked at the dark space in front of her, she realized how much more she preferred being able to press herself closer to you as you slept in the sleeping bag.

Joel had walked out not even ten minutes later after he was sure that you were sleeping and comfortable. Ellie was standing in front of her bedroom door, staring into the distance. "Why aren't you in bed yet?", Joel called out, making her jump. "It's dark," she muttered under her breath. The distress in her body language was visible. "Well, it's nighttime, so of course, it's dark," Joel said, waiting for her to come at him, but she just tightened her hands into fists. He often thought that this was unfair. That Ellie had to go through so much at such a young age. He understood why you grew so protective of her and why Ellie clung to you at any moment that her ability, to pretend that she feared nothing at all, failed her. Joel let out a sigh as he walked into the dark room, quickly finding a light switch before moving towards the bedside table. Ellie watched him from the hallway still. She watched how Joel pulled the table to the furthest corner of the room, before putting a lamp into it. It was far enough away to not disturb sleep, but bright enough to illuminate every corner of the room.

"Jump into bed, Ellie," Joel said calmly, and Ellie almost thought that she was imagining the soft sound. Well, she heard it when Joel talked to you. His tone was barely bitter then, but… She nodded her head as she rushed to get under the covers. She expected to watch Joel leave, but instead, he walked toward the bed before sitting down at the end of it. "Go to sleep," Joel repeated, "But why… what are you doing?", the girl croaked out, trying not to let the stinging in her eyes show. Just like Joel, she hid her emotions behind the wall. Only slip-ups happened when she was with you. "You have nothing to fear. I'll be here till you fall asleep, and then Y/N and I are a door away," Joel said, watching as Ellie looked around the room. A glimpse of Sarah filled his mind. She nodded her head, but the tension didn't leave her body as she clenched the blanket in her hands. Joel wasn't sure who or what made him do it, but he moved closer to Ellie. The memories of him introducing Sarah to her new room and how she hated it the first night swirled around.

"Want to… want to hold my hand?", it felt weird saying it, and Joel even got embarrassed, but then he sensed Ellie shifting as she clung to him. Joel's gaze softened when he saw a tear glistening in the dim light on her cheek. "You're safe here. We will always keep you safe, kiddo." And he stayed there till she fell asleep, and then some more. Watching her or just zoning out as he thought about Sarah. The same way he shushed you as you spoke in your sleep, Joel shushed Ellie. Guiding her out of her bad dreams and into a peaceful slumber.

When he finally slipped out of Ellie's room and went to check on you, Joel knew that he wasn't going to find sleep anytime soon. After pulling the blanket further up your shoulder, Joel moved towards the window, quickly checking if it was tightly shut. Then the same thing happened in Ellie's room. He walked all around the second floor, checking the doors and windows, before moving downstairs and doing the same. That's why a man like you and I are here. Joel could still hear Ellie's voice as she read out Bill's letter. We have a job to do, and God help any motherfucker who stands in our way.

The feeling of your fingers scratching Joel's scalp brought him back to the sunny room, and he finally opened his eyes. "Was she okay sleeping without us?", you moved up, pushing yourself against Joel's chest, and he shook his head, already hating the worried look that washed over you. "I stayed with her till she fell asleep and checked on her through the night," he said so casually as if it were a self-explanatory thing, but his words made your heart clench. You knew how difficult such interactions were for him, how many demons from his past he had to choke out for that to become a reality.

You leaned in, brushing your nose against his before wrapping your hands around his neck. Joel's arms sneaked around your waist, fingertips moving just slightly under the big shirt you were wearing. "You know that she will never forget that, right?", you muttered into the crook of his neck. "Thank you for doing that", "I wasn't going to leave her all alone," Joel said firmly, and you pulled away slightly. Of course, he wasn't. Because he cared. Cared more than he wanted to admit it, and even more than he knew himself. You two were inches apart. You could feel his breath on your skin. Warm and inviting. This felt intimate, not like most of the sexual interactions you two shared, which were mostly there to get rid of the primal needs.

You moved to slip off Joel's chest, but his grip on your hips only tightened. "Joel..", you breathed out. Fuck, did he love hearing his name roll off your tongue. There was always this beam of light with love in it. It didn't sound as harsh or scary as it did when others said it. No, when you said Joel's name, he knew there was nothing but happiness there. And you proved just that when a soft chuckle slipped past your lips, and you leaned back toward him. "I just want to make your coffee," you said as you twirled your figures through his hair, hoping to reason with him to let you go. "We can go if you want a cup," but you shook your head, pointing a finger to his chest, "You will stay in bed, sir, and let me bring it up for you."

The only person who had done this before—brought him coffee, even if it was with a scrunched-up nose—had been Sarah. The gleam in your eyes made it hard for him to say no. So he did what he had been doing for years. Joel let go of you, watching as you quickly shimmied out of bed. He hated that this felt natural. This felt right. He fucking wanted to start his days like this. Even more so, he knew that this was temporary. A day or two and you would be out in the wilderness, where at any moment a runner or a clicker could get either of you infected. Joel wished you could just stay here. Forget about all the other promises and just stay here in this surreal reality.

Seeing you with a cup of coffee in your hand and messy hair falling everywhere, even if you tried to control them with a quick braid and that smile, made Joel's head spin. That smile had dampened him and left him defenseless. "Careful, it's really hot", you handed Joel a cup as he sat down, resting his back against the headboard. "Did you sleep at all?", you spoke up again, crisscrossing your legs as you looked up at Joel, all of a sudden noticing his tired eyes. He slowly nodded his head, yet you could tell that he was elsewhere.

You were about to nudge him about staying in bed all day and finally getting proper rest when you heard a silent knock on the door before it cracked open, and you saw Ellie standing there. Still rubbing the sleep from her eyes, you smiled at her, patting the side of the bed. Her eyes drifted to Joel, but since he paid her no attention, she stepped inside. Curling up on your lap like a cat in front of the sun on the windowsill. "Morning, sleepyhead, did you rest well?", you pushed some of the messy strands of hair away from her face as she flashed you a smile, yet her eyes were still closed.

You pulled your blanket over her body, slowly tracing your hand up and down her back, and almost immediately you heard light snoring. Raising your eyebrows, you looked toward Joel, "She fell asleep again." You giggled, carefully swaying from side to side with her in your embrace. Joel's eyes fell on you, but they were nothing like they were moments ago. You reached your hand out to touch him, but he quickly got out of bed. "Get to the garage when she's up; we need to talk about the next step." You frowned slightly, unsure of what this was about, but still nodded your head.

Joel sat by the table, his chin resting on his knuckles as he stared ahead. His brain was racing. This was all too good. Too much. He was losing his clear mind. Tiredness—it was all because of tiredness, he told himself as he waited for you two. That's why a man like you and I are here. Joel needed to remind himself of his main job here. To remind himself of what had happened before. What had happened to Sarah. Joel heard you two before you opened the door. Ellie was talking so quickly that you were probably laughing at her, yet it died down the moment you stepped into the garage.

Joel met your confused eyes but dropped the gaze in an instant. "I think it's best if we leave tomorrow morning," he spoke up coldly. No reason's why. Or what had changed. Just a plain, cold statement. "What?", you choked out, walking closer to him. "It's best if we keep moving," Joel insisted again.

This was not what you imagined hearing this morning. Even more so when the morning started so sweet. "Where is this coming from? I thought we were going to stay here for a couple of days," you questioned again, feeling Ellie's hand slip into yours. "We're getting too comfortable; the word behind the fence is nothing like this," Joel grumbled angrily, not meeting your eyes for even a second. That in itself was starting to annoy you.

"Joel… we talked about this. We stay for a couple of days, regain our strength, all of us, and then…", but a harsh slam on the metal table made you stop mid-sentence. "Then what?", Joel spat, "What, Y/N? You're getting too attached. This is not our reality. We're wasting time to deliver cargo." Joel's words left you defenseless as you stared at him, not quite. believing your ears. You knew that he could be an ass at times, but this.

"Shit," Ellie cursed under her breath, and you instantly pushed her behind you. "Right, because she is nothing to you. Because you're this cold and fucked up male", you spat back, as nodded your head, "It blows my mind the way you dispose of people…". Laughing under your breath, you tried to find words to say. Still in disbelief that he was changing the plan for selfish reasons. Just because he didn't do happy.

"Fuck you, Miller. I've been trying so hard, but you know what? Fuck it. Get us there and fuck off!", the sound of your voice made Joel clench his jaw. He would have much more enjoyed you screaming than hearing the disappointment that poured from you. Joel looked up at you, but now you seemed miles away. Had he finally done it? Finally made you give up on him. "Yn," he called out quietly, but you only shook your head, "Don't you Y/N me. Come Ellie bug, let's get our stuff", you turned to Ellie, who was standing behind a woodworking table. All way pressed up against the corner like a lost puppy.

"Don't," Joel caught your hand as it reached for the girl, but you yanked it away from his grasp in an instant. Your eyes filled up with tears, but you bit the inside of your cheek as you tried to pull yourself together. You'll cry later. In the shower, maybe. Behind the house. Anywhere but in front of him. You reached Ellie, bringing her into your embrace, as you guided her toward the door. You were about to step out when you stopped and turned to Joel one last time, mumbling, "There's no us, by the way. You're alone in this Miller", with that you pushed the door closed harshly, making your way towards the house as you dabbed your cheeks dry so Ellie wouldn't worry even more. Butterflies weren't meant to live a long time. Maybe it's better to live from sunrise to sunset and die before the world beats you down without any mercy.

#joel miller x reader #joel miller imagine #joel miller x you #the last of us imagine #the last of us x reader #pedro pascal imagine #pedro pascal x reader

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the-darklings · 1 year

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──𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐢 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐲 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐞 [𝐗𝐈.]

summary: "We begin... with a spin."

pairing: dream of the endless x f!reader

wc: 16.2k+

warnings: gonna break your heart one last time, Dream is still Dream (reluctantly affectionate)

notes: all good things come to an end : )

ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ: Rule the World (Odyssey Version) by Take That

1:32 ───|────── 4:55

part one | series masterlist | ao3 |

PART ELEVEN: BEYOND.

“Who are you?”

“I am Destiny of the Endless.”

“And who am I?”

“You are the one who wanders. You will do so until the universe ceases.”

“Why?”

“Because you have been cursed to do so. Because you chose no shackles, no roots. You wished, instead, to roam free. And now you shall.”

“Why?”

“Because all is as it is meant to be, Wanderer.”

“Why?”

“Because you wished to break your destiny. And so you did.”

“I knew a lad called Jack Constantine once.”

Book in hand, you step around Hob, licking the dryness from your lips. Copper lingers on your tongue. “Same family.”

He perks up at your subdued comment, arms unfolding from where they rested over his chest.

“Nah, really?” He mulls it over for a moment. “Wait, that actually makes a lot of sense. He was a bit of a twat.”

Johanna sniffs. “Piss off.”

Late evening sun streams through the blinds, bathing the dark wood office in syrupy, golden-brown light. Books and notes lay scattered everywhere you look, each inch utilised fully. Johanna leans her hands on the table, squinting at the grimoire laid open. She’s been chewing on her lip for the last five minutes. That doesn’t bode well.

“No can do,” Hob replies, hitching his shoulders with a proud smile. “I’m here on strict business.”

Dropping the grimoire Johanna requested on the table, you shoot them both a look, “Are you two done?” Your attention swivels towards the necromancer despite your trembling hands, finding her delicate features pinched. “Can you find Jed Walker?”

She huffs, her brows folding inwards. “You’re asking me to find a needle in a haystack of seven billion, give or take. I’m not a bloody witch. I don’t just cook up locator spells. I deal with demons and the dead.”

Bracing your hand on the table to mirror her, you soften your voice, “I understand what I’m asking for.”

“I’ll need time to figure this out,” she admits tightly.

Private displeasure colours Johanna’s voice, and you nod in defeat. It’s hard to admit any shortcoming, much less one rooted in one’s power. While Johanna may be more powerful than most mortals can comprehend, it’s not power without gaps. She’s still so young. But, as with all Constantines you’ve known, there now sparks that fiery, stubborn drive, seemingly blazing from within. This is a challenge and one she’s set to overcome.

“What about the other?” she poses abruptly, turning several pages in the grimoire. Her index finger trails over the yellowed pages, glued to another spell. “Do you have anything of theirs? You said this one has magical protection?”

“It’s conjecture,” you clarify. “But he’s been able to skirt me for over a century, so I’m left with one conclusion.”

Hob whistles under his breath. “A century? Bloody hell, you must be eager to find him.”

Memories flutter to life, birds caught in flight. A tall man with blonde hair, a dangerous smirk, and your blurred reflection dancing across his shaded glasses. Nothing more than a twisted memory that’s all fangs and blood. To file this want under ‘eager’ would be insulting. This specific longing comes with both elation and dread. Horror at what you might discover. This ignorance is no more than a flimsy illusion. You’ve spent the last century following Corinthian’s every crime, experiencing it as if he executed them on you instead.

“I can’t promise this will work,” Johanna continues, oblivious to your internal struggle. Your attention snags on Hob, who is watching you with deep creases denting his forehead. There’s old, shrewd awareness in how he examines your rumpled appearance. “At best, I might be able to cloak you. Again, locator spells are not my speciality. At all.”

You clear your mind, pushing away from the wooden fixture. “ What if I gave up an object? It’s old, full of history. Would I be able to form a tether?

You’ve seen such spells performed—you know they’re possible and incredibly advantageous when done right.

Johanna glares down at the grimoire for a beat, silent. Her chin lifts suddenly, her narrow-eyed stare harsh and biting. There’s digging intensity to how she inspects your appearance from head to toe, and you bristle at the probing check.

“You look like shit,” she says bluntly. “I don’t think you should be doing any tethering to anything.”

Your teeth gnash. “Can it be done, Constantine?”

Tension barbs through the room. Hob sighs, making you even more defensive because you can instinctively tell it’s about to become two against one. “We’re not daft, you know,” he says quietly. “It’s clear you’re unwell.”

Your eyes flutter shut. Forcing your jaw to relax, you mull over the most palatable way you can deliver this information to them. It’s clear from their wonderfully human determination that they’re not going to let this drop until they have more context.

“Fine.” Filling your lungs with oxygen, you hold your breath, gathering yourself. How difficult it is to draw oxygen should probably concern you. “Remember how I told you I’ve been experimenting? Well, I’ve exercised a degree of control over the curse. The travelling part, at least. I can force it to take me places I want, but it… costs me. Physically.”

Johanna folds her arms over her chest, humming in consideration. “Cost, eh? How steep?”

These damn Constantines.

The setting sun warms your cool cheek, and some invisible restraint in you loosens your invisible cast dropping. “Internal injuries. Bleeding, tissue tears, organ failure, haemorrhaging. It heals, but slowly. Excruciatingly so. If I abuse controlled travel too often, I can pass out. Slip into a temporary coma until internal damage heals. Vomiting, mobility issues, dizziness, hallucinations—take your pick.”

You’re avoiding direct eye contact, but utter silence encompasses the office when your words sink in.

Hob gathers himself first. “Jesus Christ.”

Shrugging, you say, “It’s fine. I’m getting better at controlling it.”

“Which part of that is fine?” Hob’s voice is barbed with horror. “None of that is fine.”

You wish neither of them were looking at you like this. Rattled, aghast, alight with shades of sadness. It's so much easier to handle this when no one is standing there reminding you of the ugly aspects of this curse.

“Can it be done?” you bite out.

Johanna wipes emotion from her face, stretching out her hand, palm up. “Show me this item.”

Without a preamble, you hand her the roughened wooden figurine. Your stomach roils at the sight. Desperately your fingers clench and unclench in the folds of your coat, blunt nails biting into your palms. The urge to snatch back the figurine is bone-breaking.

Johanna rolls the item in her hand, scanning it with eyes that see far beyond its material form. She’s digging deeper into what history—power—the object contains. “It might work,” she muses pensively. “I’ll cloak you, but the spell will have a time limit. The further away you are from me, the shorter the timer will be. Whoever it is won’t see you coming, but I can’t promise you the exact location.”

The grim determination bubbling in your gut answers: “Just get me as close as you can.”

Swirls of colours and shapes; loud, jarring noises, spinning, spinning, nails raking through the skin—

“Make it stop, make it stop—”

It doesn’t stop. There’s only colour—sound—sound—breaking—madness. And it doesn’t stop for a very long time.

A thousand reflections stare back at you.

“Coward.”

“Traitor.”

“Murderer.”

“I’m not,” you gasp. “I’m not.”

Do it, do it, do it—

A rat scurries past your arm, disappearing into the hoary mist, and you flinch.

No matter how loudly you plead for forgiveness, for relief, there’s only endless despair and glass cutting into your palms.

Flower fields. Sunshine. Peace.

A tall, pale, looming man with twin stars for eyes stands over you.

“What does the Lord of Dreams dream about?”

No reply.

But for the first time since you’ve woken up as you: hope.

A beautiful dream.

“Who did you say you were again?”

Mighty, leathery wings block out whatever light there once was, the newcomer’s pale hair shining like a halo around their fair face.

“I am an angel, here to save you,” a benign, soothing voice coos, followed by fingers tracing over your bloodied jawline. “If only you help me.”

“By doing what?” you slur, blood and sweat trickling down your split brow. “By spying on the Endless? On Dream?”

“Do not fear. I alone can protect you. Your purpose is to merely… observe.”

Demons hiss and growl around you, and you flex your newly healed jaw. They broke it four times in succession. So much for talking back. Scorched dirt beneath your feet stains with your congealing blood, and you chuckle. The croaking sound grows in volume until your throat bleeds.

It’s answer enough.

Your bones quiver under the sheer power of Morningstar’s displeasure. “Take this one away. Make sure there’s nothing left.”

The demons make good on that order.

Johanna pierces the world map with a letter opener, every inch cutting in with deliberate slowness. Candles flicker, settling after the spell, and you taste the magick at the back of your throat.

“Georgia, U-S of A,” the necromancer announces, loosening a breath.

“Great,” Hob chirps, his arm brushing against yours. “That’s just brilliant. It’s across the bloody ocean, that is.”

Johnna shoots him a venomous look. “Oh, sorry. Were you hoping for a nice trip down Brighton?”

Hob stares at her blankly in the shadowed office. He turns your way slowly as if mutely asking do you believe her?

You do. You’ve dealt with enough Constantines in your lifetime to ensure their sarcastic, surly nature is no longer a shock.

“You’re a highly unpleasant woman,” Hob concludes, though no real malice lingers in his tone or bearing.

“Thank you, Constantine,” you cut in before they can break into another bickering session. “There’s one more thing.”

The brunette rolls her eyes. “Is there now?”

“Magdalene’s Grimoire,” you begin deliberately. Johanna freezes. “I want you to locate it and retrieve it for me.”

Your companions speak simultaneously:

“Why?”

“You believe it has something to do with your curse, don’t you?”

Ignoring Hob’s incredulous outcry, you nod towards Johanna. Pain twinges suddenly in your core, and your breaths slow until you get a grip on yourself. But it’s slow. Numbing pain laps at your senses for a debilitating minute until it clears once more. The curse wants to drag you in a thousand directions, but you don’t permit it.

You right yourself again, swallowing over your dry tongue. Your temples throb insistently.

“I think it’s old—older than people assume and has spells that no mortal should have access to.” You lean towards the map, examining the range letter opener has offered. You’ve been to Georgia several times previously, but long ago. “Roderick Burgess might have gotten lucky, but the mere fact there’s a spell there that can help capture an Endless… I find that curious. Unlike what your records indicate, he was not the first Magus, but he was the last. This means the grimoire has to be with his family—likely his son—or someone relating to them. I’ll pay you.”

Somehow.

“Are you joking?” Johanna scoffs immediately. “One of the most powerful grimoires known to humanity? I’ll find it for free. Imagine what I could learn from it.”

Your stare glides to her unhurriedly, fixing on her fair complexion. She visibly falters at whatever she spies in your cool regard. “Within reason… and for the good of humanity. Scout's honour.”

Hob squints at her. “You’re not even American.”

“Shut… up,” she mutters, shooting him another nasty look.

You tug your coat free when it catches on a chair, slotting your hands in your pockets. “Thank you, both of you. Is the spell active?”

“Yes, but it won’t hold long at this distance,” Johanna warns.

Your attention latches on the wooden figurine on her desk. It’s wrong—it feels so wrong to have it out of your grasp, to feel nothing more than Dream’s pebble warming your hand. You try not to think about him now or your last conversation together. Instead, you focus on the thread woven around your heart, tugging you away and over the ocean.

“I won’t be back for at least two weeks, but see what you can discover in that time,” you tell them.

Hob balances on his heels, presenting Johanna with a charming grin. “Well, I guess I ought to help you.”

The sorceress scowls. “I don’t need your help.”

“Everyone needs help,” Hob counters.

Levelling them with a fond look, you wordlessly head towards the door while they verbally spar. Your hand briefly braces your chest, feeling the unsteady thud beneath your palm. You’ve been jumping too often, too far, and too rapidly for your body to recover. But just a bit more. Then you can rest.

You’re almost at the end of a darkened hallway before an urgent voice sounds behind you, accompanied by brisk strides in your direction.

“Wait, wait…”

You’re not even slightly surprised to hear Hob behind you or feel his fingers wrap around your bicep. Street light filtering through the window paints over his taut features, creating a pronounced tale of two sides. Light and dark. Young and older than anyone can comprehend. Quite fitting for both of you.

“Take me with you,” Hob says, imploring edge laced beneath his lighthearted manner. It pinches your heart. “You know what they say: two immortals are better than one, eh?”

If things were less dangerous, less volatile, if it were anyone but Corinthian, you would take him up on his offer. You would love nothing more—two immortals going on an adventure. Hob has known the same horrors, similar hardships, countless failures and highs. Together you’re as effortless as breathing, as familiar as old friends meeting after years apart. You’ve felt that kinship with him from the first moment you locked eyes in that overcrowded pub, sitting there soaked and miserable.

But this is the Corinthian. Even if Hob is the one human with nothing to fear from the nightmare, this goes much deeper. Soul deep. Perhaps deeper still. This conflict is between you, Corinthian, and Dream. It’s always been a tale of three parts, interwoven into a single, unbreakable thread.

“Hob Gadling, you are a gem,” you say softly, placing your hand on his warm cheek. An unsure smile forms across his mouth. “And maybe one day I will. But this… this is something I must do alone.”

“You don’t, though. You realise that, right?” Hob argues softly, fiercely. “There are people who care about you.”

You think about the Dreaming and its occupants, all the mortals and other beings you’ve encountered in your many travels. Friends and companions who have told you to visit, stay, there is always a place for you here even when they knew you could do no such thing without putting them at risk. You think about the Endless—your becoming and undoing.

Your hand slips away from him, your faint smile hollow. “I do. Two weeks.”

The Endless are formidable individually. The raw power holding this universe together, given form and reason. Their realms are kingdoms that put others to shame. You’ve visited plenty by now to draw the unsurprising conclusion. Dealing with each sibling is an exercise in patience, tact, and subtle respect in differing shades.

Sitting in the same room as seven of them makes you want to crawl out of your skin and run for the hills. You’ve met them individually in the past. There’ve been a handful of occasions where you encountered several simultaneously. But never all together in the same room like this.

They’re terrible and wonderful and so suffocating in their casual existence that every instinct in your mortal body warns you of one indisputable truth:

“I shouldn’t be here.”

Death shakes her head promptly, giving you a stern glance. “Nonsense, sweetheart,” she asserts. “You’re right where you belong. Isn’t that right, Destiny?”

Destiny of the Endless sits unmoving, only his mouth visible behind his flowing, beige hood. His hand rests on the Book of Destiny, pale but relaxed. Whenever Destiny does move, the chain connecting him to the book rattles through your bones.

He hosts these family gatherings, though all Endless have equal prominence in this universe and its continuous function. Despite it, from your angle, it appears as if he’s the one at the head of the table. Oldest and certainly the most overwhelming in his sheer aura. It took him a simple swipe of his hand for an additional chair to materialise at the table for you. For his fluttering, eerily silent attendants to lay a plate and glass on either side of you.

“All is as it should be, sister,” Destiny replies, his voice whistling wind through dry leaves.

Your pulse beats against the curve of your throat. If your stomach weren’t already empty, you would likely be throwing up right now.

Death grins brightly, pleased. Her smile is no doubt meant to be reassuring when she angles back towards you. “See, that’s a yes.”

Your words form clumsily on your tongue, “I didn’t mean to impose—”

Sitting on your left, Delirium tightens her grip on you, cutting your words short. Her chair had been dragged towards yours, your arms linked despite the uncomfortable angle. The scent of leather, sweat, and burnt sugar bites into your nostrils. Today, her hair keeps flickering between bright orange, yellow, and neon green.

“Uhm… impose?” she mutters. Her words flow so swiftly that it’s an effort to keep up. “No, no, imposing to be imposed on, and, um, imposing is impolite. What is impolite?”

“To impose would be impolite, yes.” Your words come out measured. “Like that man. You went into his home.”

“Well, he, well, he wasn’t a very good man.” Delirium’s voice thins, frustration biting into each syllable. On your other side, you sense Destruction turning in your direction. Tension blinks out from Delirium’s lovely features, her different-coloured eyes shining in the dimly lit room. “I made him see colours. Really pretty, pretty colours.”

Yes, she certainly did. You’re hopeful the man received a swift death via villagers, others having no doubt concluded him mad or consorting with devils and demons. As if to illustrate her point, Delirium lightly positions her thumb and index fingers together, forming an O. She giggles, blowing air, and much to your unspoken wonder, multicoloured bubbles float through the air. Some remain bubbles, bloated and bobbing. Others shape into animals and birds.

“I am not an Endless,” you remind, feeling foolish for doing so. As if anyone could mistake you for one of them. Your eyes briefly skim over each sibling, shifting in your seat for the dozenth time. “I don’t think it’s right for me to be here.”

Despair, sitting opposite to you beside her twin, hoods her eyes. The metal hook on her finger digs into her chin. Blood bubbles beneath the honed metal. “Yes. Mortal.”

Her whispering, thin voice blankets you, and your insides ball up.

Destruction chuckles on your right, deep and echoing in the dining hall, smoothing over your suddenly chilled, clammy skin. “Sister, do you meet many mortals who live over three hundred years? I see no harm in you being here, dear Wanderer.”

Desire stretches indolently in their seat, candlelight washing over their indescribable features. Scoff ripples from their chest, their chin dropping in their open palm.

“Right, is anyone else opposed to Wanderer being here?” Desire voices, sweeping a challenging look around the table. When no one speaks, Desire shrugs, arms open at their sides. “See, sweet thing, relax. Have some fruit.”

They pointedly push the fruit basket closer towards you. The fruit does look tasty, and you hadn’t eaten in two days, but don't think you can stomach it right now.

Dream casts an inpatient glance Destiny’s way. In extravagant robes, Dream Lord appears the most disgruntled with being summoned. “Why are we here, Destiny? You do not call upon the family without a cause.”

Destiny’s answer comes predictably vague: “You are here, brother Dream. That is all.”

Despite your unease to be dropped into their family meeting, annoyance pinpricks you at his words. Always the same ambiguity, always what the book dictates, and never what someone might feel. Destiny is not human. It would be unfair for you to hold any of the Endless to mortal standards. For you to expect them to comprehend sentiments that are so far out of their reach.

It doesn’t take away from the sting, though. At least this time, the curse was mindful enough to drop you inside Destiny’s stronghold inside the Garden of Forking Ways. Last time, you found yourself helplessly lost inside the boundless maze for weeks. Destiny did nothing to aid you—it was as it was meant to be. You associate him most closely with that wild animal fear and sheer helplessness. You can’t help it.

“Why the rush?” Desire calls out, interrupting your thoughts. “Eager to get back to another failed relationship, sweet Dream?”

Shadows coil around Dream Lord’s feet, seated between Delirium and Death. You silently question if it’s a purposeful partition.

“That’s enough from you, sibling,” Dream warns.

Desire’s lovely mouth spreads into a quick, beaming smile; all teeth bared and tawny eyes aglow with sadistic amusement. A predator having scented blood. “Oh, come on now,” they coo. “We all come here to talk as a family; even lovely Wanderer is present. Yet you think yourself above everything. Your realm, your rules—we’ve heard it all before! You’re oh so dull.”

Despair slumps beside her twin, face downcast. “Dull. Yes, rather dull indeed.”

“And are you perhaps bored, my sibling?” Dream returns, a slight pinch to his imperious features. His voice remains perfectly aloof. From this outsider’s perspective, it’s easy to see why Desire views Dream as supercilious. “Did you run out of adequate ways to amuse yourself?”

Momentarily swallowing down your fear, you slant your head over to one side, “Dream.”

Dream pauses at your drawn, anxious expression. The ignited stars dim, draining away, but the hard slant of his broad shoulders doesn’t drop.

“Oh, don’t run to his defence.” Desire’s voice is just edging on goading. Their nails tap on the wooden table when they cross their legs, leaning towards you. “This is quite characteristic. Surely you find him just as insufferable as the rest of us?”

Death’s retort is whip-sharp. “Desire. Shut up.”

Others around the table appear calmly accepting. They’ve seen this fight play out in the past a thousand times. While you’ve never demanded reasons for the bad blood between the two Endless, it’s clear it runs deep, a problem stemming from innumerable centuries long since past. And very clearly not a situation for you to get involved in. You’re not naive or arrogant enough to assume you can fix their problems for them. Neither Desire nor Dream seems particularly invested in settling anything, either.

But inciting like this is dangerous. Desire has never attempted to spark arguments involving you in the past, no matter how spiteful the mood.

As if mentally arriving at the same conclusion, Destruction’s rumbling words vocalise your unspoken plea: “Do not involve Wanderer in your quarrel, sibling.”

Delirium curls into herself, her legs raised on the chair and pressing into her chest. Her hold on your arm turns near painful. “Arguing, fights, it's not nice, but it… um… that’s not where Desire is supposed to be. It’s um… it’s somewhere else. It’s in Dreams.”

You’re not sure how to decode Delirium’s words. You once believed them to be mindless babbles. Then some phrases would come back to haunt you months or even years later. Whatever caused the turn in Delirium from Delight gave her foresight no other Endless seemed to possess. Save, perhaps, Destiny.

Desire’s fingers curl beneath their pointed chin. Desire surveys you, then his older brother, with a feline's slowness. “Well, well. Aren’t you two sweet on each other?”

This time, the darkness curling beneath Dream’s chair becomes physical. Visible even to your mortal eye.

“Cease your poisonous stipulations,” Dream says icily.

Desire scoffs, dropping back in their seat with a graceful, seductive stretch. Heat encompasses your being, pouring in the crevices of your skin. Desire’s effect is all but impossible to escape this close.

“Is it not my function, oh dear brother of mine, to sow desire in the hearts of all living things, mortal and otherwise? What are they without their desires?” The Endless straightens just as swiftly, their elbows digging back into the table while they eye you, chin back in their hands. Something cruel and fragmented, endlessly amused, slides through those golden irises—an intent you’ve never seen Desire direct your way until now. “Come, my sweet, doesn’t it get dreary? All those mortals set on your suffering? Surely you have missed the sweet, loving embrace of Desire? I could make you desire anything… even a kiss.”

And then…

The world melts away, and everything once making up your being bows and folds under the power pressing into you. You’re but a child. You are atoms. And you’ve forgotten how terrible their power could be once unleashed.

There’s only cocoon and darkness and golden, glowing eyes beckoning you, warming you, bewitching you. Your limbs are too far away to control, your will dulled into thin, worn paper—brittle to the touch. Your skin is too hot, and the air in your lungs is insufficient. It feels so good. So good, so good—

Even a kiss, even a kiss, even a kiss—

Your limbs are on strings, tugged in one direction, then another. Distantly, horror chokes you, and you scratch at the walls inside your mind, clawing for some semblance of control, but there’s only a sultry embrace of desire.

“Desire, no—”

“Stop—”

“Enough.” Something inside your chest trembles at that single word’s sheer, unbridled power. Your numbed senses are clear but not enough to free you. You're trapped, caught on the verge of awareness. “You dare.”

“Now, now, dear Dream. Did I get under your skin? It’s but jest. Lighten up.”

Few stars emerge in your blackened vision, guiding you closer. They urge you forward to safety, but you’re unable to move. It feels good to be here, so good and hot. There’s no pain, only desire and pleasure—

“We do not control mortals, sister-brother. Their will is their own. Release Wanderer.”

Destiny’s tepid command shreds through the heated, desire-filled veil. You return to yourself with a choked gasp, snapping into your tiny mortal body with a painful lurch. It’s overwhelming. Every sense was smothered to such a degree, it’s as if everything is twice as heightened now.

“Are you insane?” Death snaps. You’ve never heard her this angry until now. There’s always a smile on her face and a playful gleam in her eyes. But you’re too busy shaking to be afraid. “What was that, huh?”

Your hands convulse. Bloody indents line your palms. Your nails must have cut into your skin hard enough to draw blood. You fought. But what can a mortal do when faced with an Endless? You were erased, folded down to nothing. You are nothing.

Voices melt into one. You’re too shaken to separate them. When some semblance of awareness settles in, you realise how awful these… seconds, minutes, or hours have truly been.

You’re half straddling Destruction, arms half wrapped around his broad shoulders, your mouth near his neck. Horror liquefies your limbs, rooting you in your spot. Too much—it’s too much. Humiliation leaves you immobile, but Destruction rests his hand between your shoulder blades, his gaze kind and concerned beneath his bunched eyebrows.

“Are you well?” he asks quietly over the clamour behind you.

Your chin wobbles. Shame lashes your skin. You’ve been used as no more than a puppet to be thrown at him. On him. Like some mindless whore. A witless worshipper, begging for their chosen god’s favour, not understanding what they’re inviting. How the gods are never kind. How they only use and break for their amusement.

Even though Destruction doesn’t appear angry, you can’t stop yourself from croaking out, “I… I… I’m sorry.”

His sympathetic frown is visible even beneath his thick beard. He cradles you to him but with gentleness indicating how fragile he believes you to be at this moment. “Do not fret. It is quite alright, my friend.”

“Can you…?”

Your words splinter. The burn behind your eyes turns painfully prickly. Destruction’s handsome face creases further. He nods mutely, carefully manoeuvring your body to a standing position. His large hand presses between your shoulder blades, steading and hot through your thin robes. His fingers fold slightly, protectively. Your gratitude for his unprompted support is immeasurable. An anchor while your knees shake.

“It was a joke,” Desire calls out over his siblings. “Desire is who I am. It’s all in good fun. Isn’t that right, sweet thing?”

Your shoulders spasm, your back still to them. Your insides churn at the prompt, and you’re unsure if you’re about to be sick, cry, or some horrific mix of both.

You thought… you were foolish enough to assume…

How many times have you landed in the Threshold, thrilled to see Desire? How often have you shared jokes, laughs, and peaceful evenings and mornings in the twilight land? What other touch or embrace have you known over three centuries that didn’t end in agony but Desire’s? You’ve told them numerous times you have no preference for any sibling in their family—that you cherish Desire’s company as much as others, perhaps even more so. Because with Desire, you could remember what it’s like to be human—to want and need.

You had foolishly believed you were friends.

Now you see the truth. You feel the horrible, numbing heat licking across your flesh—the aftermath of this ultimate betrayal. Desire’s power shimmers on the outskirts of your mind, ready to devour you anew. Rob you of reason and choice.

“I—you… I trusted you.” Everyone falls silent at your frayed words, scraping through the eerily quiet dining hall. When you rotate clumsily towards them, you look only at Desire. You avoid others. Your humiliation burns too brightly for anything else. “You… just made me feel like nothing. You degraded me. I’m no more than a thing for you to play with.”

Some foreign emotion spasms briefly through Desire’s face—gone in a blink. Their answering smile is so patronising a deeper crack splinters your chest. “Wanderer. Be a good sport. It was simply a bit of fun.”

A bit of fun.

Desire can be fickle, and it can be cruel. But you’ve forgotten just how cruel they could be. To Desire, this is no more than a practical joke. You’re only a silly mortal. No wonder you don’t get the joke. You’ll get over yourself soon enough. But no one else is laughing or smiling, either. Even Despair in your peripheral remains hunched and mute, typically first to her twin’s defence.

“Fun.”

The word shatters something between you the second you voice it. You can see it on Desire’s face. The realisation settling in. There is no regret, no apology. Nor will there ever be. It’s clear from the dismissive curl of Desire’s mouth. They don’t see anything wrong with what just transpired.

It makes it worse. So much worse.

“Wanderer, brother Destruction. Sit.”

Destiny’s perfectly poised voice shreds whatever little composure you’ve been clinging onto.

“You knew, didn’t you?” The accusation rips through the room like wildfire. You shake off Destructions comforting touch, your lungs filling with air and spilling out fire. “You knew Desire was going to do that. That’s the only reason why you permitted me to stay. Do I not suffer every day? Or do you enjoy making me into your little plaything? Have I not been humiliated enough for your amusement?”

Destiny says nothing.

You shove away from the table with disgust. Your feet tangle before you command your sluggish limbs. Death rise after you immediately.

“Wanderer—”

You flinch away from her extended hand, from all of them. You don’t care what invisible line you may be overstepping. “Don’t touch me,” you spit out. “I never should have stayed.”

Your feet carry you several paces until another, more resounding voice calls, “Wanderer.”

A part of you doesn’t understand why you pause or look back. Dream’s gaze sears into you. Yet you can’t untangle a single thing you see burrowed there. He’s standing as well, his hand flat on the table. Foolishly, you hope he will come after you, say something in defence of you. But Dream is Dream. He’s likely just as clueless about why you took this so badly as others. Perhaps the fury you see glimmering in those starlit eyes is but your imagination. Another pretty lie your sentimental, human heart would be all too happy to convince yourself of.

He doesn’t move. You pivot away, your shoulders hunching.

Desire’s chuckle licks at your back, silky and smooth. “So tense, that one. It was only a bit of fun.”

No one laughs. No one responds.

Only a bit of fun.

“Take me away, take me away from here,” you sob, stumbling into a shadowed hallway.

For once, the curse listens.

Rivulets of sweat drip down your back. The puddle of blood at your feet is starting to go dark. These observations float from somewhere beyond the dense fog shrouding your mind. It’s so difficult to focus. Wiping across your sweaty forehead, you lean on your arm, breathing deeply. You’ve forgotten how suffocating the humidity could be here in Georgia.

Mercifully only heat-blurred fields surround you. The vast, open stretch of highway is all you see on either side.

Lights dance in your vision, your ears ringing. Maybe it’s the curse and not the heat. Your limbs obey no command, barely held together by sheer stubborn will to follow the tether pulsing in your chest. The spell’s power is already dimming. You have no choice but to jump. This is your only chance to get to Corinthian first.

“Come on… come on… I don’t obey you.” Your nails scrape on the heated metal, your head hanging low. “You obey me.”

Your tongue rolls the words clumsily. No matter how much you swallow, more saliva floods your mouth, causing your stomach to cramp. Your knees beg to fold beneath you. Lay down in this tall grass and wait for the inevitable that will never arrive. It’s foolish. Death is far from the worst thing that can befall an individual. It was the very first lesson you learned.

Digging deeper, you claw and yank on the curse’s power, squeezing it until the bleed becomes physical. Until your limbs rip from one place to another.

When you settle back into your body, skin stinging, your knees hit the ground immediately. Blood dribbles past your lips, your sweat-covered forehead pressing into the soft dirt. You pant loudly, blood trickling past your cracked lips. Pain is coming from everywhere. Sounds mangle into each other when you attempt to raise your head. Your stomach protests viciously, leaving you dry heaving. Nothing but more blood escapes your body.

A hotel sign. It’s the first thing you register. You’ve landed near one, practically on it. Your fingernails dig into the dirt as you stumble into a standing position. The tether Johanna’s spell has threaded pulses harder and faster in your chest. There. Corinthian has to be there.

Cradling your sore midsection, you painstakingly make your way towards the hotel. Relentless heat melts your already nonexistent strength reserves down to nothing.

Several people glance in your direction when you push through the reception door. In this climate, your attire certainly raises eyebrows, but you remind yourself there’s no way Corinthian can know you’re here this time.

“Can I help you?”

You stumble to a stop, breathing heavily. A man with a tiny hat and a nametag reading Fun Land sits behind a table, his annoyance palpable while he stares at you expectedly. It takes considerable effort to gather the strength required to speak.

“No.”

You turn to go.

“Hey, woah! This is a convention-only area. Can’t you read?”

Following the direction the man is gesturing wildly towards, you find a board reading Cereal Convention printed in large, bold letters. The rest blurs, sweat stinging your eyes. You work your jaw.

“No,” you repeat.

The man’s petulant glare would be comical if you were in a better mood.

“You can’t go here,” he declares stiffly.

Your fingers curl weakly, convulsing at your sides. You didn’t come this far to be precluded from finding Corinthian by a goddamn sign. By a cereal convention. Cereal convention. Cereal. At the back of your foggy mind, something nags at you.

Your brows dip inwards, your gaze slipping towards the man. His bravado stutters, washing away from him. He shrinks backwards the longer you stare at him, his throat working on a gulp. Your lips compress into a stiffer line. Someone brushes behind you, stepping up to the table. Fun Land exhales in audible relief, serving them, pretending he’s too busy to pay you further notice.

Fine. You’ll find another way.

Stalking outside, you keep to the shade, leaning into the wall for support. It doesn’t take long to track down the delivery entrance. Every hotel has one, and depending on the time of day, they’re not the best protected. Like right now, in the afternoon, after housekeeping has gone home, leaving only a handful of staff on standby.

He’s in here somewhere. The hotel corridors melt together. Beige walls and stale, humid air. They warp, smearing together into nothing but sensation. You’re a rat caught inside yet another maze. Sickness churns inside your stomach.

And then, impossibly, you see him.

A pale head of golden hair illuminated by washed-out light, his back to you while he strolls ahead and away from you.

“Corinthian.”

The raspy exhale ricochets. The nightmare stops dead in his tracks. Until this precise second, he wasn’t there, wasn’t real, but with his name, the nightmare becomes a reality. Corridor may separate you, but the spell winks out, confirming your suspicion.

Aircon buzzes through the long, otherwise vacant corridor. Your heart thunders in your ears.

Then, Corinthian speaks: “You shouldn’t be here.”

A sob wells in your chest at his drawling, smooth words. Nearly two hundred years you haven’t seen him. Over a century seeking him out, having to live with the ramifications of atrocities he’s been inflicting. And now, here, it’s just you and him. You’re not sure which sensation pulses in you stronger: anger or relief.

Your mouth quivers, your tongue dragging across your dry, cracked lips. “I searched for you.”

“I know you did,” he replies listlessly, his back still facing you. It hurts, because you were right. He’s been knowingly avoiding you. As if reading your mind, Corinthian raises his hand, and your stomach shrivels when you spot your ring firm on his finger. “I have this to thank you for, but it would seem you found me out anyway. Shame.”

The ring. Of course.

A small piece of humanity for you to hold. I told you, they’re not all bad. I hope this can help you experience it.

And experience it he did. An essential part of yourself put away in that ring must have given him a sense of your presence nearby. He used your own present against you.

The Corinthian finally turns to face you, all but unchanged except for his modern hairstyle and refined round shades. You want to say so many things to him that your tongue refuses to work altogether. A great chasm yawns between you, and you have no idea how to bridge it.

“What are you doing?” you ask at last.

There’s no smirk or sly grin in sight. He’s as closed off as you. Despite his seeming indifference, you read the subtle tension lining Corinthian’s broad shoulders. He can hide from others, trick and lie to them if he pleases, but never you.

“What I was made to do,” he replies tightly.

“No. You’re hurting them.”

Corinthian’s jaw locks. “He made me in your image, Wanderer. Now I’m making the world in mine. I thought you’d be proud.”

A disbelieving scoff rips from your chest, burning your windpipe as if acid washed down it. “Proud?” you parrot. “You’re killing them.”

Your harsh condemnation dissolves whatever neutrality remains in the space between you. Prior uncertainty dashes beneath a strain of a century dripping in the blood of innocents.

“Did they do less to you?” Corinthian’s voice is all nightmare; honeyed, cruel, and seductive. His head tilts playfully to one side. “How often did they torture you? Shun you? Sought to eradicate you? Still you defend them as you did him.”

Your sight muddies, and it takes a shake of your head to clear it. “You can’t punish all for crimes of a few.”

A snarl twists Corinthian’s mouth, his feet carrying him towards you in a measured, prowling stalk.

“A few? They’re all the same: greedy, selfish, and cruel. The curse reveals. I reflect. They don’t change; they only learn how to hide better.” He pauses, licking his lips as he considers you. Something seems to occur to him, a faint laugh vibrating from his chest. “Do you have any idea how many times I stopped them? Punished them for hurting you? New Orleans in ‘31. Berlin in ‘43. Vienna in ‘55. Seoul in ‘62. Moscow in ‘71. Bangkok in ‘89. New York in ‘00. Why those were all me and then some. I was there. I’ve always been there.”

Each date punctures through you like a stray bullet. Honed and whetted for the single purpose of hurting you in a different sense. A fragmented nightmare. You’ve chased a mirage while the nightmare has spent a century mirroring your steps, keeping you safe from the shadows whenever your paths crossed unbeknownst to you.

There’ve been times—

You thought you’d caught glimpses of him in decades-long since lost. But unfailingly, you’ve only ever found empty alleyways when you pursued these figments. Eventually, you stopped chasing these mirages. The pain was too great. But it’s never been just your overreactive imagination, has it? He was real. He was there.

He’s spent a century killing indiscriminately while also keeping you safe. You want to scream at him for the evil he’s committed and cry from sheer relief he hasn’t forgotten you.

“Then why hide?” you croak, stumbling closer. “Why not speak with me?”

“Oh, come now.” Corinthian clicks his tongue. He turns away, nostrils flaring, then turns to face you again. “You know why. You would have asked me to come back, and for you, I would have.”

His features blur, your words barely audible, “And would that have been so terrible?”

“Come back to what? Dream’s ball and chain?” Acidic words, despite their softness. His rage deflates instantly, a huffing laugh escaping him as if he’s surprised himself with the lapse. “You think he gives a fuck about either of us? He threw you out. You left.”

Indignation flares in your chest. “Not by choice.”

“Then you should have taken me with you. But you left me. All you ever do is play by Dream’s rules. I figured out how to leave the Dreaming back during Dreamfall, but I stayed. Wonder why.”

You have no response to that. You’re left standing there, gaping. For you. Who else? He had no one else there; no other reason to stay other than your presence.

“So that’s it,” you begin shakily, your words rasping, sniffling. “All this because you believe I chose Dream and his rules over you?”

“What did you do to yourself?”

Corinthian’s voice has gone dreadfully quiet. Fiercely unhappy. Too late, you realise you’re sniffling because blood is dripping from your nose. Clumsily, you swipe the back of your hand over your chin. Crevices in your skin crack with dried blood.

“It was never a choice, don’t you get it?” you whisper, your words pouring out thick and wet with emotion. “It’s always been you. Always. I was terrified the journey would destroy you. Had I known, I would have taken you with me in a heartbeat.”

Corinthian closes the remaining distance between you, grasping you by the forearms. It’s such a relief to have him near again. You sag into him, trembling. You try to raise your hand to wipe beneath your nose, but your limbs are too stiff to obey.

“What did you do, Wanderer?” He sounds furious while he examines you, as if only now realising the extent of your deterioration. “What did you do yourself?”

“I had to get to you first,” you tell him. Blood smudges the lapels of his jacket where you grasp it. “Please, you have to stop. They don’t deserve this, Cori.”

He looks disgusted at your words, but your legs fail you before he responds. Corinthian catches you before your knees hit the carpeted ground.

“It hurts.” His words come out hissing, sharp with incredulity. “Why does it hurt?”

Your chin jolts upwards, your bloodstained smile trembling around the edges. “You know why. I’m inside of you. You can’t escape that.”

Neither of you can. You’ll carry him in you until your bitter end, as he will carry you until his.

“Shh. I got you.” Corinthian tucks you into him when a whimper of pain escapes you. His hand cradles the back of your head. “I’m going to set us both free.”

And then, through horror, darkness closes in.

Motion.

“Who is that?”

A woman’s voice. Unfamiliar.

“Oh, yes. This one is with me. Won’t you be a good girl and share that tidbit with others, so we don’t have any… complications. I appreciate it.”

“But I thought—”

Arms tighten around you possessively—the air coils, suffused with thick tension.

“Good Doctor. No one touches this one. Or they'll have to deal with me. Personally.”

Footsteps retreat near instantly, the atmosphere lightening in the absence. You’re resting on something velvety. You have no idea where you are, but you know you’re safe.

“Cori…”

“Shh, I’ll be back before you know it.” Cold glass touches your lips. When your lips part, soothing water slips into your awaiting mouth. After several mouthfuls, the glass disappears. A cool hand traces your face. “Things will be different real soon, you’ll see.”

You reach blindly, seeking. “Don’t go.”

“Oh, don’t worry. After I’m done, we’ll have a Dreaming of our own.”

Then nothing.

Anchor around your ankle. Plunging, bitter cold water, pressure, pressure, a hand reaching uselessly towards the shrinking light above, then nothing—

Ropes bite into your wrists, the pyre is tall, and the crowd jeers with open delight. They throw things at you; some hit, some miss. You don’t know if you hate them or pity them. Both, neither. Sahsin’s face is disgusted, filled with hate. She has positioned herself in front of the throbbing mob. When the fire comes, Sahsin enjoys it. When the fire comes, the agony devours all else—

Blank page.

And beneath, a faint, pulsing power of Endless Destruction.

“My lord.”

Urgent footsteps head in his direction. Morpheus raises his head, his grip on the tome in his hands white-knuckled.

Loyal Lucienne and a rather familiar figure a step behind her.

“I apologise for leaving, Lord,” Fiddler’s Green begins, flustered but entreating. “But you must help. He’s killing them.”

You awake with a pained gasp. Your head swims, your fingers clumsily seeking purchase.

An eerily silent hotel room greets you when your hiccuping gasps assuage into a steadier rhythm. Corinthian is nowhere in sight. You wrench yourself from beneath the comfortable covers, stumbling. You grab your carelessly thrown coat on your way out, shrugging on the familiar weight. At least your vision is clearer than earlier. Pain remains undiminished by your fretful rest.

The hotel is unnaturally quiet—your nerves prickle. Nothing good ever comes from places where there should be life, being devoid of it. Unease pools in your stomach while you stumble through winding corridors. Where did everyone go?

Outside, twilight has settled over the landscape. Your pace increases, your palms dragging across the walls to keep moving.

You find the reception empty, the convention table barren. Except…

“—a black mirror, made to reflect everything about itself that humanity will not confront. But look at you—”

Your body turns to stone mid-step. There’s no confusing that voice with anyone—the absolute power infused into every deliberate, low syllable.

With a start, you realise your knees have bent, your coat pooling around your ankles. You’re scared. Dream wasn’t supposed to be here. Not when you’re not there to mediate. Clawing at the walls, you force your legs forward. Your bones quake in protest with each step.

Shoving into the conference room, you find the room full. Hotel patrons sit in neat rows, their heads bowed and eyes closed.

Dream of the Endless and the nightmare make for a lonely, contrasting sight on the stage: dark and light.

Corinthian’s small smile is scornful. “I’m not the problem, Dream.”

“You’re right,” Dream Lord concurs quietly. “This is my fault, not yours. I had so much hope for you, but I created you poorly then. So I must uncreate you now.”

Dream’s arm lifts in the air between them. You lurch forward, stumbling up the stairs.

“No!”

You let out a dry sob, pushing past Dream to get to the nightmare. The contours of Corinthian’s face have begun dissolving, singed red at the edges, disappearing back into the sand he was fashioned from.

Corinthian chokes out a breath, grinning widely, grasping your hand. “Hey, trouble—”

His hand in yours crumbles. A wounded, animalistic sound rips from you. There’s a futile, blind attempt to grasp onto his body as it slips between your fingers. Through your arms, and then out of your life.

“No! No, no.”

Your knees hit the stage so hard the sound is a thunderclap through the hushed room. Sand lays in a golden pile at your feet. A tiny skull containing teeth for eyes is all that remains and—

Your ring. Corinthian’s faint warmth still lingers on the metal. Wet dots fall into the sand. Only then do you register the tears dripping down your face. Followed by speckles of blood. It seems appropriate that, in the end, he should have your blood also.

Featherlight touch on your shoulder only registers after Dream’s voice floats through your agony: “Wanderer. I am sorry.”

Perhaps under different circumstances, you would have examined this moment closer—Dream Lord, an Endless, on his knees beside you, his voice impossibly soft. Instead, you want to disappear.

“I know,” you sob, shaking, half leaning towards the ground. If it weren’t for Dream’s grip on you, there’s no doubt in your mind you would collapse right where Corinthian has. Something mangles inside you, far beyond physical. “I know you had to stop him. I… to me… he… to me he’s…”

Everything.

Dragging your hands desperately through the slippery grains, you gather them in a smaller circle.

“What are you doing?”

Dream’s question is uncharacteristically gentle. There’s deeper awareness that a wrong question could shatter you completely.

Past your raw vocal cords, you only manage: “I—I can’t leave him. I can’t leave him again.”

You’re not sure if you’re coherent enough for him to understand. Each word borders on a pained howl. Black is rapidly devouring your fading vision. Too much. It’s too much. You’re about to explode. Collapse like the nightmare did, utterly undone.

Several scarlet drops drip into the sand, and Dream sucks in a deep breath beside you, his grip on you tightening.

“You’re bleeding.”

He doesn’t get a response. Blackness devours you whole.

Recovery takes three weeks. You’re unconscious for the first two. Another week crawls by until you can move again.

The simple fact that it takes you so long to become functional only confirms that Dream brought back a broken soul into the Dreaming. You’ve survived limbs being severed. Past incidents where your skin was peeled off. But this goes beyond skin deep.

You haven’t travelled since the incident. The mere thought induces a fresh dose of cramping terror through your system. The curse, wounded and worn, has retreated. Dormant. For now.

“You mourn him.”

You jump in your spot. Your fingers close protectively over the ring in your hand. Dream steps into your line of sight, his coat fluttering around his lithe figure. His face is slanted away from you, observing the waterfront. You try to hide your surprise at seeing him.

He’s been… distant these last three weeks. Not cold, but…

Sad.

There’s no other way to delineate the forlorn stares that seem to follow you.

“I’m not an idiot. What Corinthian was doing was horrific,” you say dully, tugging on stray blades of grass.

Fiddler’s Green has returned, taking his post once more. It should make you happy. He apologised personally for his departure, but you understood his reasonings for leaving. Without his creator, Fiddler’s Green wanted to experience what it was like to be human. What right do you have to judge him for such a wish? Yet memory is a cruel mistress—the recollections of the one whose absence is so torturously felt are everywhere.

“He took lives that were never his to take,” you continue. Anger bites into controlled syllables. “Not to mention his plan to have Rose become the new heart of the Dreaming. Did he realise the universe would have collapsed in on itself? He had to be stopped.”

It was what had awoken you back at the hotel. It’s only later that you learned the extent of Corinthian’s plan. Rose Walker was the vortex. Given enough time, she would have become the centre of the Dreaming, drawing dreams and nightmares to her. And collapsed this universe as a result. Dream would have killed her—it’s the only time the Endless are permitted to take mortal life, if they’re an active threat—but Rose’s grandmother had stepped in last second. A woman who should have been the vortex if it hadn’t been for Dream’s capture. If the sleeping sickness that swept through the waking world had not robbed her of life.

“But you mourn him still.”

Unequivocal insistence. Your composed mask cracks around the edges. Lying would be pointless.

“Of course I do,” you exhale, pained.

Dream’s fingers curl at his side, but he doesn’t look your way. “This was my oversight, Wanderer. Do not bear the guilt for those lost.”

Trees ripple and shiver in the faint breeze. Waterfall roars to your left, while to your right, the dark shores of the Dreaming reflect sunshine like the darkest obsidian. You consider the Dream Lord while he watches the beach with a stony expression. Utterly closed off—same old Dream.

Deflating, you struggle back onto your feet.

“Their blood is on my hands, too,” you say, turning to go.

Guilt will follow you no matter what he maintains.

“Are you departing once more?” he calls out, halting you in your tracks. He’s scrutinising you when you peek his way. “You are not fit for travel.”

Offering a throwaway smile, you shrug. “I’m a rubber ball. I bounce back quickly.”

“Stay until Dreamfall if the curse permits it.” Dream pauses after his brisk request, catching himself with a swallow. Awkwardness permeates the air. “It would mean a great deal to others if you celebrated with them.”

You loosen a reluctant breath, squinting at him. “Do you want me to stay?”

Something shifts between you at the forthright prompt; tightening, warming. Surprise collects in your chest at the fact you dared to ask. But you’re tired of feigning, acting as if you’re both not caught in some bizarre impasse.

Dream’s lips part softly, his answer a mere exhale, “I would.”

Light, tingling sensation webs through your chest. You hadn’t expected that. “Under one condition.”

“Name it.”

“Answer me something, Morpheus. Truthfully.” With deliberate slowness, you step into his bubble, so close Dream’s lashes flutter as he peers at you. There’s such unbearable weight to his gaze. There’s always been a raging storm brewing there, but this is more. Heavier. “Corinthian was convinced that you made him in my image. Is it true?”

Your jaw sets stubbornly, the nightmare’s name stinging your tongue. Dream’s eyes roam over your features, seeking some unknown truth. You’re not asking about physical similarities, but you permit him this moment. Because he digs deeper, because your heart is in your throat when Dream finally settles on his truth:

“While I did not recognise it as such at the time, I believe I did.”

You’ve known, been aware of this fact for centuries. Since Corinthian shared his hypothesis, you’ve been unable to scrub it from your mind. But to have confirmation from Dream himself paints many past events in a different light.

“I made you poorly then… a black mirror made to reflect everything humanity will not confront.” Recalling Dream Lord’s words, you stagger backwards, your mind whirling with thoughts. A startled gasp pushes from your lungs, your attention snapping back to the Endless. Suddenly all the puzzle pieces slot perfectly into place. “I had it all wrong. Corinthian was a manifestation of your anger for what humanity was doing to me. He was to be your mirror, your teacher, so humanity may choose to be better. So they may learn to overcome their darkest impulses.”

Staggering backwards, words escape you in a torrent, “But it went wrong, didn’t it? You gave him too much of that anger—the fury of an Endless and reckless, unshakable defiance of a cursed mortal. You created a masterpiece by giving him too much. By making something that is so much more than just a nightmare. A perfect hybrid between an Endless and a mortal.”

Dream says nothing in response. It’s the only confirmation you need.

In the end, you stay. But this time, you’re the one who avoids the Dream Lord.

“You’re always welcome in my chambers, sweet Dream. It’s lovely to see you. Can I get you anything you desire?”

Morpheus strolls through the glossy scarlet chambers of his younger sibling’s stronghold. Desire of the Endless curls with each word spoken, stretching indolently across their seat. Loving malice lines planes of Desire’s face, enigmatic and magnetic as their name suggests.

Dream moves closer. “I desire nothing from you, save some answers.”

Desire pouts, sitting up, their hands in their lap. “Oh? Do tell. I love a test.”

He’s never understood Desire’s love for games. Petulant slights or wish to inflict harm. To manipulate and use. Once…

He supposes it no longer matters what their relationship might have been once—too many years arc between them: too much history and bad blood. Morpheus prowls through the gallery, briefly flicking his attention towards his family’s sigils.

“Unity Kincaid should have been the vortex of this age. But someone saw fit to take advantage of my imprisonment and fathered a child with her, knowing full well that it would become the vortex and I would be left with no choice but to kill it.”

A mock gasp escapes Desire’s ruby-painted lips. Their golden eyes blow wide open, startled and innocent, while they monitor Dream.

“Are you implying I meddled with affairs of another Endless domain, dear brother?” Desire’s pout wobbles when Dream doesn't respond. The faux innocence melts away in a blink, leaving behind nothing but conniving malice, peering back through a hooded stare. “Oh, fine, was I really that obvious?”

A brief, cool smile touches Dream’s lips, his words coming out frosty, “No. You covered your tracks remarkably well.”

“High praise, coming from you,” Desire tuts, grinning sharply.

“What did you intend?” Dream heads towards the other Endless unhurriedly. “That I should spill family blood? With all that would entail?”

“This time, it almost worked.” Desire’s grin stretches wider, pleased. “I haven’t seen you this worked up since my little wrangle with lovely Wanderer. How is she, by the way? Still coughing up blood?”

His younger sibling adjusts their position once again, sitting up straighter. Bracing for a fight, Morpheus realises belatedly. This is a sore spot that always elicits a reaction. But this time, Morpheus will not be giving his sibling the satisfaction. He’s observed Desire’s and Wanderer’s relationship—or what little of it remains—long enough to draw his own conclusions.

“You do not fool me,” Morpheus begins deliberately. The corners of Desire’s mouth tilt downwards slightly. “I know your fickle heart, my sibling, and you resent the fact Wanderer forgives others but not you. But you fail to understand why that same forgiveness has not been extended your way. We of the Endless are the servants of the living, not their masters. We exist only because they know deep in their hearts that we exist. We do not manipulate them. If anything, they manipulate us.”

“Then perhaps I shall pay Wanderer a visit in person.” Desire drags their thumbs over the edge of their lips, sly in their wily deliberation. “I do, after all, wear your face now. But unlike you, I will endeavour to be a far more… devoted lover.”

Wrath kindles in his chest. Morpheus knows. He’s read about your and Desire’s encounter at the shores of the Dreaming while he was locked away.

He shakes his head. “Still, you fail to see. We are their dolls, Desire. You and Despair, and even poor Delirium, will do well to remember that.”

Desire presents him with a dismissive shrug, their nose wrinkling. “Maybe I don’t understand.”

“No, perhaps you do not,” Morpheus agrees softly. Circling, he slips behind his younger sibling. Desire’s head wrenches backwards, their gulping gasp nearly lost when Morpheus twists the other Endless’ head back, peering down at the blonde coldly. “Then let me tell you something you will understand: mess with me or mine again, and I shall forget you are family. You lay a finger on Wanderer, and I will make every circle of Hell feel like kindness by comparison. Do you believe yourself to be strong enough to stand against me? Against Death? Against Destiny?”

Desire forces down a gulp, their breath stuttering at the creeping wrath, “No.”

“No, indeed.” Dropping his hold, Morpheus straightens, his jaw rigid as he stalks away, adding, “Remember this next time you’re inspired to interfere in my affairs.”

And then he’s gone.

Translucent light kisses your shoulders as you stroll towards the looming stronghold, your hands buried deep in your pockets. Your fingers have turned numb from how tightly you’re clenching them. The impressive, stone-carved statues depicting the seven Endless guide your way. Well, six. You pause by Destruction, the only one facing away, unlike his siblings.

You don’t dare to stray from the path. The likelihood of finding your way out if you get lost in the maze again is non-existent.

The ruler of this sprawling, eerily silent domain greets you at the foot of the marble staircase.

“I welcome thee, Wanderer, Roamer of Realms, into my stronghold.”

Even at this distance, Destiny looms so impossibly tall, some forgotten human instinct sparks in a warning.

Undeterred, you halt before the imposing figure, bowing your head. “I greet and thank you for your welcome, Destiny of the Endless.”

Only Destiny’s lower face is visible behind his billowing hood when he speaks in a crackling rasp, “You have arrived here for a single purpose.”

No ifs or buts about it—he knows better than that, the book slotted neatly under his arm.

“And here I was, ready to ask if you’re surprised to see me,” you shoot back jokingly. Destiny does not smile or construe entertainment from your words. You sober, your attempt at levity now abandoned. “Guess we both know the answer to that. I’m here to share some theories if you have time to spare.”

To your surprise, Destiny slips past you, heading in the direction you came from, deeper into his garden. His footsteps make no sound. His cloak whispers behind him, shimmering in the dim, muted light. On equal footing, you have to crane your head to see him. The devouring dark pooling around the contours of his pallid face reveals nothing beneath the hood, even at your angle.

“You seek to ask questions for which there are scarce few answers, Wanderer,” Destiny says resolutely. “You are far older than most mortals can comprehend, yet your heart remains stubbornly mortal.”

You set out after him at once, your invisible hackles rising. “In what way? My defiance?”

Destiny does not falter, his pace remaining as steady as lapping waves. “That is not for me to judge.”

The garden is vast and a marvel to behold, but the temperature lingers on that unnatural lukewarmness that gives away how unorthodox this place is. The light is perpetually unfading, gauzy in the corners of your eyes. It’s a confusing, strangely profound place. It’s as if Destiny’s realm contains everything all at once but also nothing. A place of futures to come, lives unlived, and wilted pasts. There’s no point in attempting to unravel it. There’s only uncanny strangeness you’ve come to accept.

“You will spend time in the realm of each sibling—you will dream, despair, desire, destroy, delight and otherwise, and, eventually, die—but you were his from the very first page, and only he will read how your story comes out, a long time from now.”

Destiny doesn’t pause at your reiteration. There’s no indication he even heard you, but you’re a step behind him. A thousand years of trying to get answers have taught you he would not be entertaining you if this wasn’t heading somewhere. The thought of another scrap of information sets your heart thudding. Haven’t you spent the last two centuries piecing things together? Attempting to confirm your speculations before you came here to confront him with them. Your past attempts may have ended in uniform failure, but today is different. You can feel it.

“You told me that when we first met,” you continue, keeping your nonchalance. You’re no more than a child to him despite your millennia of existence—this is the only way to get him to take you seriously. “When I awoke in your garden, alone and terrified, with no clue as to who I was or what had happened to me. I’ve been thinking about those words ever since.”

Destiny slows, then stops altogether. Your heart climbs to your throat. You've paused by his statue, standing at the foot of polished, pale stone. Destiny’s cloak whispers when he hinges in your direction, anticipatory. He already knows what you will say.

“It was you. You’re the one who did this to me.”

The clarity that clangs through you with those words shakes your knees. Sucking down more oxygen, you add, “Not directly, maybe. I was cursed by mortal power. This much I know for certain. But you made it possible. You led me to this by the hand. Why?”

And like a dozen times you’ve tried in the past, you expect dismissal, or worse, silence with which he’s punished you often. Destiny would disappear from your sight altogether. His patience and unwillingness to give you clear answers are unmatched.

But not this time.

“Because you broke your destiny. Tore it to shreds. Painted it red.” Destiny readjusts the heavy book under his arm. “So you were allocated a new path. One of hardship and pain, but one that may lead you to salvation. Should you tread it mindfully.”

The roar in your head is so loud you barely understand Destiny’s low, equable words.

“You could have told me this a thousand years ago,” you choke out.

He remains a perfectly barren canvas, but in the tension pulsing between you, there now whispers a hint of displeasure. Sweat trickles down your nape.

“I did,” he replies flatly. “But you did not listen. You instead raged and ran, and what came of it?”

Madness and despair.

Stumbling forward, you bite out, “Why? What did I do? What could prompt eternity of this.”

All this pain for crimes you couldn’t so much as recall. Whatever it was, have you not paid back your dues? Have you not suffered enough to make up for your past?

“Forgetting is the only kindness you’ve ever been spared. Or ever will be. Treat it as such.” Cold needles your spine, and a terrible urge to fold yourself into a ball gnaws on your bones. Destiny’s pitch does not change, nor does his bearing, but it doesn’t need to. “In your quest to break, you reformed into something else.”

Your force down saliva, near choking. “Into what?”

“Challenger of the Unknown.”

Silence envelopes the garden. There’s little to no sound in the Garden of the Forking Ways to begin with, but those words blanket everything. Not even the wind seems to stir. No blade of grass moves. This means something; it means something crucial, but you have no idea what.

“What does that mean?” you beseech. Destiny doesn’t move, nor does he answer. Your voice cracks. “Please just tell me.”

But you already know it’s a lost battle. This is all too familiar—the cold, pitiless silence, utterly unmoved. He’s given you all he’s intended to.

“I used to think you hated me.” You’re not sure why you’re telling him this. Destiny won’t care. Your feet carry you past him. Briefly, you pause by Dream’s statue, then keep going. “More than anyone else in this universe. It wasn’t until Destruction left that I finally understood your position more. It is a burden to know what others don’t but be unable to speak that knowledge.”

There’s no doubt in your mind that Destiny knows where Destruction is.

The Prodigal’s statue pierces your vision, making you squint into the hazy skies above. Your following words slip out, each lilting with breezy ease: “But it doesn’t mean I’ll ever forgive you for letting Dream rot in a cage for a hundred years when you knew it was coming, when you could have warned him somehow. I know you have a duty, but he’s your brother. However, indirectly you let Dreaming decay—my home. You let humanity suffer. I figured it out, by the way, why it’s a loophole. Why my book exists in the library, but nothing in other dimensions does. Why I can sleep in the Dreaming but not anywhere else.”

Destiny stands stock still, his bony arms close to his chest, clutching his book. He displays no outward reaction as per usual. It’s a relief to voice your thoughts. You’re utterly terrified of him, but he’s right—your heart is still stubbornly human, as brazen as the Fates accused you of being.

“Because if my curse was the will of the Endless, if my path—whatever it is—is so tightly bound to your family, then it only makes sense, right?” You’re not looking for a response because Destiny will offer none. “The Dreaming is the only place where aspects of each Endless manifest. It’s a loophole. The curse goes dormant when I’m in the Dreaming because the only thing more powerful than the curse is the combined power of the seven Endless.”

You’ve waited to voice your conclusions for so long, it’s surreal to have spoken them aloud. You might fear Destiny, but not enough to continue as a coward. He can deny it, but you’re confident that’s the reason. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

“My siblings have gained much from their companionship with you, Wanderer,” Destiny admits. You quell a flinch despite Destiny’s voice retaining its monotonous quality. “But you and I are antitheses of one another. My brother would not be who he is now had he not tasted that helplessness and sorrow. You are the ink and the quilt with which Dream will write his story.”

His words make little to no sense. Dream is… Dream. What could ever influence him? Much less you. He’s changed since his imprisonment, it’s true, but doubt still nestles in your heart. Had the situation with Gault not proven how those attempts to change come undone in a blink? Despite it, Dream is trying, and it’s more than enough. Change doesn’t happen overnight; not any profound version, anyway.

You wipe across your face, schooling yourself. “I won’t stop trying to save them even if I’m punished further,” you assert. “I’ll always fight for humanity.”

Even over his hood, you feel your gazes clash, burning into one another.

“I would expect no less,” Destiny assures.

Squaring your shoulders, you’re halfway between dimensions before a thought occurs to you. “Just one more thing before I go.”

Destiny is as grave as usual, entirely inhuman in his foreboding silence while he waits.

“It can be broken, can’t it?” you say, scrutinising him closely. “The curse. There are weak spots in its design.”

“That is for you to discover,” he replies, much to your surprise. It’s closer to a yes than a no. “But pay heed. This path will not be forgiving should you wish to pursue it.”

Icy trepidation creeps its claws down your spine. You don’t permit it to show.

“Nothing in my life has been forgiving,” you say curtly. “I bid you good fortune, Destiny.”

“And I you, Roamer of Realms.”

“Happy Dreamfall.”

Slanting your head, you let your chin dig into your shoulder, smiling. You hadn’t seen the Dream Lord since you snuck back into the Dreaming, seemingly no one having noticed your momentary departure. Normally, there are someone’s eyes on you. But only Dream can sense your appearance and disappearance inside the Dreaming itself. So you’ve taken advantage of his absence. You’ve had too much on your mind since your return from visiting Destiny to seek him out yet.

“Happy Dreamfall,” you say to the Endless, who comes to a halt beside you. “May Fates smile upon you, Dream Lord. And may your realm of dreams be aplenty.”

Behind you, the castle grounds buzz with activity. At long last, things were returning to normal. This is the first cause of celebration these dreams and nightmares had in over a century. Back home, safe and in a place where they belong. You hugged and drank sweet nectars with plenty, smiling and touching hands. Or claws. But it didn’t take long to slip away and settle out here.

Perched on the castle staircase, you must make for an odd sight, but Gatekeepers straighten back into their patrol positions with Dream’s arrival. You had left the castle to enjoy the darkening skies, the dreams swelling and blinking in the pitch-black canvas, ready for their journey. The Gatekeepers had clustered close, and you had spent a while simply chatting. You’ve missed them. It had been harrowing to witness them turn to stone while Dream was missing.

“Would you walk with me?” Dream asks.

Wetting your lips, you stand. “Sure.”

Without a preamble, Dream sets out. His gait hovers on ponderous this evening. You’ve gotten used to more hurried, curt interactions between you. Invisible tension stretched tautly. Will-o'-the-wisps dance and sway through the humming evening air. Flowers in your path bloom in different colours, fairy dust sprinkled through the air. You continue on the faintly lit path cutting through the heart of the Dreaming without a word.

“Are you well?”

Dream’s sudden question shakes you from your peaceful stupor.

“Busy, but good,” you answer. “And you?”

Dream halts abruptly. You pass him, then do the same, gazing back at him, confused.

Dream Lord’s pale eyes dig into you. They steal from you, and they give more than words ever could. But this once, Dream also uses his words: “I wish for us to talk as we once did.”

Anxiety pangs through your belly. You hadn’t expected him to point it out. Your lips compress into a stiff, bloodless line. It would be a bald-faced lie to insist something hasn’t broken between you. Corinthian’s unmaking has driven a wedge between you that neither can overcome. The nightmare had to be stopped, but it doesn’t take away from the grief festering in your chest. Most believe grief is an absence, but you’ve found the exact opposite is true.

Grief is a presence that should be there but isn’t. It’s a weight of memories, of possibilities, of life unlived. Corinthian has become your phantom limb, his absence invisible to all but you as is the bleed.

“We’re getting there,” you say lastly.

His wild hair covers his eyes when his head lowers. Subconsciously, you find yourself stepping towards him, folding your hand around his. Cool and silky to the touch. A breath, and then you feel Dream’s hand curl around yours. He doesn’t move otherwise, muscles sitting in rigid mass beneath his pale skin.

“Dream,” you call his name gently. “You’re trying. I see that. We’re finding new ways. Now tell me why we’re here.”

Because this path is familiar to you as your own hands. Just over the dark treeline lays the beach. The docks you’ve visited every night in his absence. This path had been your pilgrimage once, and now he’s returned. The fingers folded around yours tighten. Dream wordlessly tugs you with him until soft sand cushions the soles of your shoes.

“It is a night where anything is possible,” he says knowingly.

Your heartbeat jumps when he leads you towards the pier, wood creaking under your combined weight. “What are you doing?”

Dream draws you both to a stop halfway across the pier, something close to mischief sparking in his gaze. It’s so bizarrely unwonted you do a doubletake.

“Giving you my present.”

With that, he strides closer. Your mouth dries when he gently curls his arm around your waist. He raises your joint hands, spinning you to the side slowly. Clumsily, your legs obey, your breaths escaping uneven gulps.

“Are we dancing, Dream Lord?”

Dream bows his head closer to yours, his voice velvet, “We are dancing in starlight, you and I.”

It’s then you feel the tingling, reverent whisper of his power over your body. Your eyes widen when you see faint light needling the sturdy fabric, as if your coat has become no more than a window into the raw cosmos. Galaxies swirl in raging spirals across the once-dark material. Your head snaps to the side while Dream continues spinning you unhurriedly. Your coat is shrinking, reshaping to fit your body even better than it did up to this point.

“Dream this is…”

The coat settles into actuality. Sparkling dust spills from the material when you shift. Your overcoat has shrunk to kiss just above your knees. More fitted but no less comfortable. And then there’s the way it glimmers like a precious jewel whenever moonlight hits it.

“I had hoped to give you something more… fitting,” Dream murmurs. You look up at him, your noses almost touching. “It is only right for the one who roams the stars to wear a coat of pure starlight.”

“Thank you,” you whisper shakily. “It’s beautiful.”

Beautiful doesn’t do it justice. The midnight material shimmers with your movement, liquid starlight captured into tangible fabric, and your throat closes up as you examine it further. Dream slips his arm from your waist. He lifts your joint hands, comfortable in his own, and lays a light kiss on your hand.

“It becomes you,” he compliments quietly, releasing you. “Now… it’s time.”

Your brows crease. “Time for what?”

Was this not it? Thick emotions still coat your tongue, lodged deep in your windpipe. But Dream only devours you with quiet intensity.

Above your head, dreams start raining down in shining beams of light.

“We begin… with a spin.”

Your heart stutters to a stop. Water roars behind Dream, wild spray flying through the air. The faint drizzle beats against your face, leaving you gaping.

“Dream. I…”

He extends his hand your way. “There is no Dreaming without Wanderer Island. Should you wish it, I would like us to create another.”

Your features crumble, the ball in your throat robbing you of your voice. Indecision holds you captive—on the one hand, you want nothing more, but on another, you’re too afraid. What if it all ends up in the same place? You watching yet another part of you sink into those inky depths.

But there’s something cautious, near vulnerable, to be found in Dream’s guarded features. It’s an effort for him to open up, but you can see the unsure way his hand hangs in offering between you. He’s bracing himself for rejection, for you to leave him alone on this pier.

You grasp his proffered hand, fingers winding cautiously around his. Dream’s shoulders slump slightly from their rigid slant, relaxing at the contact.

He guides you to an all too familiar position. You standing at the edge of the pier, him behind you, a hand on your shoulder. A disconcerting sensation of deja vu falls over you.

“Describe it to me,” he prompts.

Black, foreboding waters of the Dreaming spin in ferocious whirlpools. Dream’s elegant hand pierces your line of sight, primed for creation.

“There’s a small island.” Your voice trembles. You haven’t forgotten anything, down to the exact words used. You conjure the Wanderer Island in your mind’s eye as it once stood; brilliant and shining. The visual blooms bold and alive in your mind. “The grass that grows there is the greenest there’s ever been. And it tastes like sour apples.”

Dream’s hand on your shoulder squeezes lightly. Same amusement, even centuries later. You’re both changed, but a familiar outline of an island starts taking shape on the horizon.

“The sun that shines on the island is never too hot. The air is sweet and light. The flowers never wilt, and trees never shed leaves.” It’s pouring from your mouth now, an avalanche of memory. You’ve missed the island so dearly, and details from five centuries ago come readily. “The sky is an endless periwinkle shade. There’s always food and drinks. Books and games. And…”

Your heart bleeds, fresh wounds gushing. But you push on because it’s not about you.

“And an old friend waits at the beach to greet you with a patient smile whenever you arrive. Because not everyone has a family, and not everyone needs a lover, but everyone should have a friend. The island will be there whenever someone feels lonely, lost, or desperate for an escape. It’ll be there to welcome you. To give you a corner to hide. There is no sadness there. No loneliness or confusion. Only…”

Dream’s lips tickle over the shell of your ear. “… hope.”

And then stillness.

The water settles in a gurgling slosh. In the distance, a patch of land once again floats. There to welcome new dreamers. Wanderer Island blurs. The heel of your hand presses over your eyes, overwhelmed.

Blindly, you tug on Dream’s coat; a mute request. Between one inhale and the next, wood underfoot is exchanged for sand.

Everything is the same down to the last blade of grass and tree composition. Either your vision was so clear Dream could pluck every last detail from your mind or…

Or he remembered the Island with the same clarity as you.

You sink to your knees. Sand crumbles around your digits when you dip them into the pliable sand.

“Hi. There you are.”

Nothing, then…

Grass sprouts unprompted around your hand, tiny daisies twining across your thumb. Utterly impossible, yet tonight, here, anything is possible. A choked laugh escapes you. Your cheeks ache from your beaming smile.

“She’s missed you,” Dream reveals quietly.

Your head lifts in surprise. You stroke the miniature, perfect blooms. “I missed you too.”

With another tickle, the flowers and grass retreat, shrinking into the golden beach. Several moments pass by until you unearth the strength to stand. Dream’s profile greets you. He’s turned away, giving you privacy, but subtle uncertainty lines his features. Sensing your attention, he peers towards you, then past you.

“Thank you,” you breathe. Despite your verbal gratitude, Dream’s attention remains fixed over your shoulder. “What?”

His low words reach you over the sound of lapping waves. “Are you not going to say hello to an old friend?”

You follow his line of sight. Behind you, at a distance with falling dreams as his backdrop, stands a tall, pale-haired figure.

Everything inside you falls very, very quiet—all those tumultuous emotions freeze. Your head snaps back to Dream with a stifled gulp. It can’t be real. Surely it’s some mirage, a feedback loop, a ghost conjured from your love for the now-gone nightmare.

But Dream only slants his head in a marginal, affirming nod. You dare to peek behind you once more. There he stands. The nightmare. Not a twisted joke.

Your feet carry you towards him without conscious thought; half-running, half-walking, stumbling all the while. Corinthian stands with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders in a slight slouch. His nude-coloured slacks and white shirt shine like beacons in the pale moonlight. Round shades cover his eyes, his blonde strands fluttering in the light breeze.

He's a figment. Not quite tangible until your body crashes into him, your arms scrambling to hold onto him. “Oh, God!”

Dry, humoured, “Not quite.”

Your heart is pounding so loudly you’re sure he can feel it, if not hear it. A pained, whining sound bubbles up in your throat, gripping him closer.

“I… how…” You wrench yourself back, a horrible thought occurring. You search his handsome features. That infuriating smirk always curling his mouth is absent. “Do you remember me?”

Corinthian stands there, not moving, with no real emotion on display, either. Your heart sinks. Could it be that he—

Dull throb flares across your forehead. He’s flicked you—

A wide, toothy grin stretches across Corinthian’s mouth. “Gotcha.”

With a choked laugh, you punch his shoulder, hugging him close with a wide smile. “I hate you.”

A pleased hum. This time, the nightmare’s arm settles around you. “Hate you more.”

You’re not sure how long you both stand there. When you do part, reluctance keeps your hand on him. Fingertips connecting to some part of him. Remembering the Dream Lord you came here with—who gave you this, his present—you find Dream no longer on the beach. Or anywhere in sight. He’s given you privacy and time. Your heart softens further.

“Does this mean I’m forgiven?”

Corinthian’s subdued question tugs your attention back towards him. You almost wish he didn’t remind you. Because now you’re faced with the reality that even though he’s been returned to you, there’s much you both need to overcome and fix. That losing him did not magically wipe away the wrongs he’s done. If you hope to return to the relationship you once had, you’ll need time.

You consider him for a moment.

“You’re always forgiven,” you tell him honestly.

Standing in the moonglow, you pretend you don’t notice how something coiled tightly seems to loosen inside him at your reassurance. Instead, you reach for his face. Your fingertips brush over Corinthain’s glasses, and his hand snap out, wrapping around your wrist tightly. Bones making up his jaw roll beneath the skin. Tension throbs between you while seconds tick by. Through clenched teeth, Corinthian unwraps his hold finger by finger.

You tug his shades away from his face. He’s tense as a bowstring, his head slanted at an angle. The same jagged teeth sit where most have eyeballs. They’re hooded, though. His discomfort—and anger at said discomfort—couldn’t be more perspicuous.

His shades close as you fold arm temples one at a time. You hold his stare, staring right at those jagged teeth with a slight frown. You extend his shades back to him mutely.

“But my trust is something you will have to earn back,” you state earnestly.

The nightmare hesitates halfway to reaching for his glasses. Those pale fingers dance over them before he plucks them from you.

“Sounds like a fair deal,” he muses absently. You expect him to put the shades back on, but instead, Corinthian hooks them on his shirt pocket. Turning to go, he calls out a honeyed, “You coming?”

He gazes at you over his shoulder, jagged teeth on full show, and you feel yourself smile.

“Always.”

Sun shines luminous and warm today. The Wanderer Island stretches as far as your eye can perceive, teeming with life and greenery around every corner. Flowers and trees bloom everywhere—an awe-inspiring marriage between tropical and temperate climates. The Island once again oozes a sense of magick and wonder that was once so prominent here. No place in the universe can compare.

“Rebuilding is almost complete,” you begin conversationally. “The Dreaming is more beautiful than ever.”

The Endless keeps pace beside you, a pensive sound rumbling from him. “It was not without aid.”

A smile twitches your lips upwards. “You’re welcome.”

Two weeks have gone by since Dreamfall. Things have mended—between you individually and the atmosphere around the Dreaming. While Corinthian’s return was met with some side glances, no one discussed it further. Dreamfolk trust Dream to make the right decision. Or perhaps Gault was right; they’re wiser than to outright question.

“The Corinthian has also been making progress,” Dream says. “I am hoping to place him under supervision and monitor his conduct. To make sure what happened is never repeated. Should the need arise, he will be allocated duties back in the waking world.”

Joy flutters in your heart. “Yeah? That’s great. Someone you trust, I assume?”

“Yes.”

“And?” you probe. “Are you going to tell me who or not?”

In your peripheral, Dream inclines in your direction. “Yours.”

You nearly trip. “Dream, I—” You clear your throat, pausing. “Are you sure? It didn’t exactly work out last time.”

Dream’s intent scrutiny slides over your facial features. “It was due to no fault of yours. And this Corinthian is the same in all but one function. He will not fail again. He has a different purpose now.”

There’s a solemn sort of finality about the way he articulates those words. A tiny shiver skitters down your spine. He will not expand further upon those words. Whatever that purpose is, you imagine time will reveal it.

You chew on your inner cheek. “Okay. I would like that.”

You smile at him. But Dream’s expression stutters, overcome by some foreign emotion. His mouth parts, then closes, his fingers folding into white-knuckled fists.

Just as you’re about to ask what’s wrong, Dream speaks: “Wanderer. Stay.”

You muster up an uncertain, perplexed smile. “I’m right here.”

Dream marches closer, sunshine caught in his onyx hair.

“Stay however long you want,” he insists softly. “Stay forever if it should so please you.”

Shock envelops you, freezing you in your spot. You’ve told him, didn’t you? That you would stay forever by his side if only he asked. Now he’s asking. Except confusion and unease battle in your chest. Can you trust his word? Did Dream change enough? He brought back Corinthian. He freed Gault from the Darkness. He insists this is a new age. But…

“And if I wanted to leave?” you question. “If I chose never to return, what then?”

“It would sadden my creations—”

“I’m asking you.”

Dream falters, shackled by your insistence. His lashes flutter, his head lowering in near palpable struggle. You’re challenging him, but you refuse to continue with the charade. If he wants forever, you can’t live with the fear he might change his mind about it.

“It would pain me, also. A great deal.” He hesitates again, and it’s bizarre because this degree of uncertainty is not something you associate Dream with. “But you are free. You've always been free. The Dreaming is your home. Should you wish to return, its gates will always await you.”

Doubt twists your mouth downwards. “I thought that once—”

“I swear it. No matter what the future may hold. No matter how angry I get, I shall never again take the Dreaming away from you.” Sheer power woven into those words leaves no room for doubt. It’s a vow. He will not break it. There would be a price to pay if he did. Dream’s fingertips ghost over yours, a graze leaving fire in its wake. “I read your book in the library. I did not wish to tell you sooner because I worried you would leave. Because… you were right. I could never understand the sheer devastation. Or the harm I inflicted.”

You drag your hand back, stepping away from him. Dream’s features fall subtly. You face away, giving him your back while you process. Raising the hand he was caressing seconds prior, you cradle it to your chest. Sunshine prickles your cheek, but you ignore it.

“I’m not ashamed of my past,” you tell him, turning back to face him. “I always knew there was a chance you could read it. So, what did you think?”

He appears pained. At least now you know why he’s been so melancholy these last several weeks. “That I should wish for nothing more than for you to stay by my side.”

Those unadorned words devastated you.

Smiling through your inflated, overjoyed heart, you mumble, “Stay forever… I can’t technically do that.”

But Dream is unruffled. If anything, you glimpse the beginnings of hope starting to take root in him.

“I’ll seek a way,” he avows.

“To what?” An incredulous chuckle escapes you. “Break the curse?”

Destiny’s warning jump back to the forefront of your mind, and you swallow thickly. You don’t dare to ponder freedom for longer than an indulgent moment.

“Yes,” Dream replies.

You stare at him. Tall and dark, sunlit and more open than you’ve ever seen him. Determined and golden. Your Dream Lord. He terrifies you. You love him.

“You can’t interfere,” you remind him emptily. “And I might die.”

“Or you may live,” Dream argues. “Freely. And choose for yourself. Always.”

“Trying to bait me, Dream Lord?”

Sudden tension between you loosens around the edges. Once more, the susurration of the trees trickles into your mind, elevating the brewing anxiety.

A thousand years. The curse has defined your existence and has kept you alive this long. What are you without it? There’s always been an unspoken acknowledgement that you could never break the curse without dying. Simply too much time has passed. No mortal vessel can survive over a millennium otherwise. When you asked Destiny, it was only to understand more about the nature of the curse. Not because you ever assumed you could survive breaking the curse.

Dream’s mouth compresses as if he’s attempting not to smile. “I would never.”

“Stay by your side, huh?” you mutter, looking away while you mull over your conversation. “And what exactly would that entail?”

His response is immediate, smooth, “Whatever you wish.”

“A companion, then?” Your words pitch lower and silkier while you close the minimal distance with relaxed, unhurried steps. Dream’s eyes darken a shade. “An emissary? A consort? A queen?”

His black-clad shoulders lift with his inhale.

“Those are but words,” he murmurs silkily. “For you would be all those things, and more.”

You examine his profile, those starlit irises, the doubt swimming there. Does he doubt you would stay? After such long years harbouring this affection for him? Silly, wonderful anthropomorphic personification. “I’ll stay, but only if you answer a question.”

“Even if the price were a hundred thousand questions, Wanderer, I would pay it gladly. What is this question?”

Narrowing your eyes, you scrutinise him. Dream does not balk under your exigent examination, waiting patiently. Biting back a smile, you permit your features to relax. He’s unfairly fun to tease.

“What does the Lord of Dreams dream about?”

Relish bubbles in your chest at the way Dream’s expression comes undone. As if from a thousand questions he was bracing for, nothing could have prepared him for this. Birds chirp a merry tune somewhere in the tree line, a warm breeze ruffling Dream’s dark hair while he gazes at you with utterly confused wonderment. A slight, fond smile curls his lips.

“A thousand years,” he begins in a bewildered drawl. “And still, you ask the same question.”

You laugh faintly, shrugging. “Well, in all fairness, you never answered me the last time. Which was very rude, by the way—”

In an inhale Dream of the Endless materialises in front of you. His hands slip to hold your face, cupping it with delicate hands as he tugs you closer. His kiss falls over you like stars. Silky, gentle warmth that washes over you with such fervent passion you gasp against his mouth. Your hands grasp onto him blindly. You part only long enough for you to gulp down oxygen before your mouths meet again, and again, and again, burning with need unquenched. Heat spreads through every inch of you. A thousand years being cold, floating unearthed, but now someone is holding you.

Dream presses another kiss to your mouth, desperate and hungry, gentle in his handling, and you return it with equal enthusiasm, equal need. Dizziness envelops you, and Dream pulls back, his forehead resting against yours. You shudder, a delicious heat licking up your senses. This closeness hurts better than anything ever has. You remind yourself to breathe, to remember this is real, he’s here, holding you, and nothing matters in this moment. Whatever the future holds, you do not fear it. Because Hob was right: there are people out there who love, and that makes all the difference.

Dream’s thumb grazes over your bunched-up cheek. Your smile is wide enough to light your entire face.

It continues with a gentle, rasping: “I’ll tell you one day, stardust.”

an:

Never apologise, never explain.

I set out to write nothing more than a fun little story that I expected to have maybe 3-4 parts max. Something entirely self-indulgent and fun for no one but me and maybe one or two mutuals. I never quite expected it would become as beloved as it did. I suppose here, in the end, I would like to take the time to thank everyone who read this and supported it. Be it by commenting, making edits/art for it or just sending me encouraging/funny messages. You guys are the reason this story became what it did. I'm immensely grateful for each and every single one of you. It was a rough month, but I'm glad I could offer you this conclusion at long last. Thank you for being here, thank you for being kind, and thank you again for reading.

Goodnight, and see you all in dreams, wanderers ☾ ⋆･ﾟ:⋆･ﾟ

#the sandman #dream of the endless #dream x reader #morpheus x reader #sandman x reader #the sandman netflix #sandman imagine #morpheus imagines #morpheus x fem!reader #dream x fem!reader #sandman fic #fanfiction #sandman netflix #sandman neil gaiman #morpheus fic #dream fic #tom sturridge #fic: today i bury you in me

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chantsdemarins · 3 months

Text

New Fic: Breath of the Æsir ⚔︎🏰 (Loki X Reader)

Formally (Collapsing in the Arms of Chaos) I changed the name. 😬 I know Medieval stories aren't everyone's fav but heck, I hope you like it! It has been brewing in the coffee pot that is in my head for over a year. I feel slightly self-conscious that after my first time with COVID, my brain is not the same. I hope I still have my ability to write! My last story published a few weeks ago was written while I was falling ill and I know it wasn't my best!

Thank you for reading!! If you want to comment I would be so happy and reblogs are like the most precious thing to me. All art is mine, it's a Photoshop-crazed situation.

Summary: Disenchanted with the Danes' misuse of Norse gods to sanction their brutality, Loki finds himself ostracized. Stripped of his divine powers and bearing a severe injury, he wanders into the realm of the conquered. By a twist of fate, he arrives at your manor, where you await your husband's return. However, destiny has other plans.

Warnings: Blood.

Words: 2,471

Smut rating: Not yet...but there sure will be!

Posting schedule: Every Saturday! I am going to stick to this!

Chapter 1 The Embroidery of Destiny Chapter 2 The Stranger Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5

@lokis-little-fawn @lcolumbia1988 @thesoftboiledegg @anukulee @mochie85 @lokisgoodgirl @lokischambermaid @nildespirandum @caffiend-queen @mochie85 @maple-seed @mischief2sarawr @kikster606 @thedistractedagglomeration @glitchquake@simplyholl @holdmytesseract @holymultiplefandomsbatman @wheredafandomat @fictive-sl0th @ijuststareatstuffhereok89 @muddyorbs @vickie5446 @trickster-maiden @grymrayven

Before your family settled again, you had been travelers, moving from one darkened patch of earth to the next. Soil on your boots muddied your paths, creating difficulties in finding a home. There were many things to see, some horrors, some things magical and unfounded. Shapes shifted in the forest where you camped at night. One day your father showed you where they lowered men into the bogs, decorated with bronze. These were not the ways of your people. They did not worship like that. It might have been too much for you to know where some ended up when they were no longer living, not in graves or on pyres. Something else.

By the time you reached the northern lands, your family had negotiated your belongings down to just what the pallid horses could carry. Your croft was built into the very earth you had struggled to cross, with bedrooms burrowed into the side of a hill. It was not built for so much rain. Buckets and sluices were not enough to keep out the floods.

So, when your husband came to marry you, you packed your things neatly, placed them in a pack, and left your parents’ home without drawing a breath. You walked a distance far greater than any you had as a child to his family's land, your new home. The way your family had negotiated the marriage remained a blind spot in your mind. You couldn't fathom it. From a croft to a manor.

Over time, nothing in your marriage seemed to flourish. The land, though beautiful, yielded nothing you sowed. Too sandy or too chelated, perhaps unfortunate timing. You became a wife in the loneliest ways. No spinning of yarn would produce a cloth finer than the wool you began with. Hours of practice composing embroidery resulted in nothing more than half completed sea escarpments, knots, and birds with no flight.

The elegant window that surveyed the tenants' labors only deepened your isolation. They carried on with their duties, and you retired to your quarters, curtains drawn. The chill from your childhood followed you here. The stone walls held a dampness no fire could dispel. You knew somewhere across the hills where your parents still sleeping too close to the earth. Rooms still flooded. Though your loyalty never wavered, even as your husband wandered afar, absent for days at a time, his pursuits as obscure as the horizon beyond your room filled with half-finished tasks.

In kindness or disappointment, he had ensured your education extended beyond your lowly beginnings. Through travels and courtly audiences, barons and other titled men and women recounted their lives' poetry over each glass of mead or wine. You listened for moments when they forgot their lines, most days this was more interesting than their images they wanted you to see.

Although had you not met Isolde of Easting, you would not have thought to plant the spiky yellow gorse along the manor's borders. When the proper conversation waned, you had discovered the titled people still spun tales of their lands. The places they had come or been uprooted from. In the best conversations, you gleaned knowledge of the plants, herbs, and tokens from the first peoples, their ways overshadowed by the new cultures but nonetheless seeming to flow from them to you during the quieter moments—the men away hunting, the embroidery thread running low, the teapot empty. These things were spoken of in hushed tones so the servants would not get ideas.

You spoke of the hawthorn tree, the ravens' work, the swords warriors cast into the cold estuary, found along all the lakes' shores. The Roman merchants who brought tales of Jesus and his cross. The god Woden came from the Angles, and Odin, from the North. Their wars and bloodshed filled the spaces between village homes and now the courts. If asked if you prayed to the Christian god, you couldn't say. You longed to speak of the place where they lowered men into the bogs, the place your father once showed you. Later, in the quiet of your room, you would pull out a relic from beneath the blankets in your chest, and it would look unrecognizable. It once held meaning, but that meaning didn't travel with it.

Sometimes when you were awake much too early, the nightingales still singing, you would dip your quill into the small pot of black soot. You would unroll a small piece of parchment, discarded by the cooks, and write down your dreams. Which had room in your sleep since they were so often unimpeded by the presence of your husband. You wrote in the lais of the Frankish people, counting eight sounds to the line, braiding your dreams with your words.

Had I found a small shell, not rope I would have held it to my ear The ocean's song would have come to me Instead, I was swallowed wholly

This was how things proceeded until the day they did not.

As you came to learn, in the void and closeness of life, nothing is reliable enough to expect its continuation the next day. You should allow for change to slip through the crevices of even the dampest chambers. It just had not happened in so long you almost did not recognize it when something remarkable unfolded at your manor.

On this day, as you sipped your tea, with half-finished yards of cloth draped across your lap, and the unopened book of hours on the small, worn table, your gaze was fixed on the wind billowing the emerald curtains—silk from an era long past, traded by hands unknown. Like much of the decor in the manor, these were vestiges of your husband's family's trade in finery, symbols of their stature akin to that of minor kings.

Elinor, your companion for the last 10 years, rapped on your door abruptly, breaking your contemplative gaze.

“My lady, please excuse me,” she croaked, as the door opened before you could arrange a pretext to delay her entry.

“What is it, Elinor?” you asked, not wishing to dwell on the trivialities of the manor that day. Clearing her throat, she reported urgently of a man in a bad way, injured and lying on the steps. She hastened to your window, the portal to the land beyond your manor, and pointed to the makeshift courtyard where a man lay seemingly lifeless if not for the faint moan you heard.

“Why have you not sought my husband or some other man of decisions?” you questioned with a twinge of fear edging into your refuge of solitude.

“Lady, your husband has traveled beyond into the land of the Scots, and the aldermen are not present either,” she informed you.

“A household of women only, then? How did I overlook such an event?” you pondered.

“Lady, you are often engrossed in your own pursuits within these walls. How could you have noticed your husband's departure?” Elinor reasoned, her words not easing the panic now fully upon you. The thought that your husband had left you unprotected added another layer of anguish.

“At such a time, Elinor, how shall we defend ourselves?” you barely articulated.

“I suspect he gave little thought to the matter,” Elinor replied, her head bowed even lower than her subdued voice.

“Then it falls to me to act in their absence,” you reasoned. Not wanting this conflict or the talk that may ensue you knew you must act quickly. This man perhaps knew your husband, or perhaps it was only a small political scuffle that may have resulted in his injuries. You thought of the many reasons he could have ended up at the steps of your manor of this day. None of them added up entirely.

As you navigated the long, narrow corridors, your thin morning jacket provided little relief from the chill as Elinor aided you with the heavy door. You both stood in awe of the man at your feet. Having seen men before, chiefly your husband. This man’s appearance was now shocking at close view. He was unlike your husband in all ways you could imagine.

“Holy Jesus save us,” Elinor yelled through her missing teeth.

“He will not assist with this, Elinor,” you responded, your eyes surveying the severe wound from his stomach to his chest, the dark blood pooling around his lean form.

The man’s hair was a shade darker than the darkest night. Had night possessed more depth, it would resemble the hue of his locks. His attire suggested nobility, which only intensified the chill you felt. He had clearly been bested in whatever skirmish he had come from, and with no healer at hand, it seemed likely that a burial might soon follow—until his eyes fluttered open.

A striking blue that drew your own darker gaze, hinting at his foreign language or origins. His hand reached out feebly before falling back to his side.

He whispered faintly, “Ásjá.”

“He's alive!” you declared, as if the statement itself could reverse his fate.

“Yes, lady, he lives, I told you. Now what shall we do?” Elinor asked, concern evident in her voice.

“We save him. It is the right thing to do,” you answered.

“But without a healer, we risk much by sheltering him,” Elinor’s voice trembled.

“Then we shall tend to his needs ourselves,” you declared, your courage unusual, unfounded, drawn from the same well that had seen men saved from death at a distance. An instinct came over you. You directed Elinor to gather wood, cloth, herbs, and other necessities that seemed more from your imagination than any practical experience. You quickly cut away his clothes, exposing the dire wound more fully.

“Lady, he may not survive this,” Elinor observed with a somber tone. The unhinged flesh flapping against the seemingly unended torrent of blood emerging from him. How could there be so much blood.

“Silence, Elinor,” you hushed her. Your hands, though failed in the art of tapestry, were adept with needle and thread. So much failure had given you courage.

“We must stem the bleeding before we can stitch him up,” you instructed, asking for a branch from the fire.

“Lady, you cannot—” Elinor began, but you had already pressed the smoldering wood to the wound. The man awoke suddenly, thrashing in pain.

“Hold him down!” you ordered. Elinor, small but determined, restrained his arms.

You envisioned repairing his injury as if it were the "Galley of the Titan’s Moons," a rare piece of embroidery from the northern lands.

“I shall map the night sky upon your body, sir,” you said, speaking into the silence as he drifted further from this world. You sensed the ancestors gather, ready to welcome him, but you were not ready to let him go.

“No, not yet” you whispered, a soft rebuke to the invisible presence.

Elinor looked at you, puzzled. To whom were you speaking?

You were determined. This man would not die. Though you had sent for a proper healer, your task was to keep him alive until they arrived, hoping they would be sober enough to be of use. Much worse would be a drunk priest should your help not find any healer available.

It was not until you had finished suturing his wound that you noticed how his body appeared in the dim light of the great room. Your loneliness resonated with the landscape of his injury. It was a peculiar reaction, but there was something else broken within this man, beyond the sword wound. It was something familiar to your own. You held you own stomach for a moment, it felt as if you were the one almost slain, not him.

Eventually, his bleeding ceased, and the healer arrived, tended to him with poultices and what looked like grain spirits. You wrapped your furs around his sleeping form. He did not pass away. The stranger in your home survived. You had been told he might still not make the night. You watched him for as long as your eyes could. His faint inhalations mirrored in your own. But the exhaustion took over, and before you could retreat to your own chamber, you found yourself lying at his side.

“How improper, Lady!” Elinor’s voice pierced the quiet as dawn crept in and your eyes, heavy with sleep, opened. You hadn’t realized you had fallen asleep beside the stranger. Startled, you rose, wrapping a blanket around yourself. Quickly finding a reason that you had slept at his side.

“He remains unconscious, Elinor. The healer was unsure if he would wake,” you confided in the servant who had been by your side for so many years. She looked briefly placated. Yet you knew her mind was racing. The healer would tell the burgh folk of this strange man. Your husband was nowhere to be known. Northman had recently been subdued with heavy piles of church silver, and that arrangement was delicate at best. They would be back and this time they would perhaps sack the village since you knew the last of the silver had been promised away to visiting bishops and clergy. The wealth had run its course.

“He must stay until he awakens, until he can speak for himself,” you quickly decided.

It was better to know who he was. He would surely tell you since you saved his life.

“But what if he is a demon, my lady? Have you considered that he may have come from Hell to bring us further misfortune?” Elinor ventured, instantly regretting her words as her face contorted with shame.

“I apologize. I did not mean to imply you are cursed,” she hastily added.

You felt pity for Elinor, she was not as traveled as you had become. Had not the stories you knew, but you also could not see beyond, you had no way to know if it was safe to keep him with you. If your husband should arrive back, there would be no way to convince him that this man had not abused you in some way, but you did know something of him. There was something you did recognize.

“This man is no curse, no demon,” you affirmed, your gaze fixed on his hair, as dark as the ink with which you wrote.

“How can you be certain?” she queried.

“He spoke in the old tongue, asking for aid. Did you not hear him, Elinor?” you questioned, your voice steady.

The woman stepped back, tossing another log onto the fire, her confusion apparent. “I did not recognize the language, nor do I understand how you did,” she admitted.

The language was familiar to you, it was the tongue of your people from so long ago. From the place of your birth. The place that was destroyed till there was nothing but darkness.

Chapter 2 below!

#loki #loki laufeyson #loki fandom #loki fanfic #loki fanfiction #loki smut #loki x reader #mcu #norse mythology #medieval fanfic #AU loki #tom hiddleston

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clangenrising · 7 months

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Month 8 - Leaffall

Russetfrond carried a pair of birds in his jaws as he strolled beside Goldenstar who led the way back to camp, carrying her own catch, a particularly fat mouse she had snagged last minute. He looked idly over swaying grass, pressing his ears back as they walked against the chilly Leaffall breeze, and let her chatter. It was a familiar old feeling; her talking as if silence was her enemy, him responding here and there. It was nice.

As they got closer to camp, talk turned to Oddstripe’s litter.

“I’m still trying to figure out exactly who I want to mentor the kits,” she said. “It’ll be my first apprentice ceremony as leader and I wanna make sure I do it right.”

“Mm,” he grunted in response.

“Yarrowshade said you knew exactly who you would pick,” she continued, meeting his gaze. “Is that true?”

“Mhm,” he tried for, hoping she’d leave it at that but knowing she wouldn’t.

“So, what are they?” she asked predictably. “If you care about the choices I make, you gotta say something, man.”

He sighed, disliking that he had to make his mouth form actual words again, and then grunted to clear his throat. “Floodkit I’d give to Nightfrost, Sparrow to Pantherhaze, and Barley to Ospreymask.”

“Huh,” she mused and he twitched an ear indignantly.

“What d’you mean, ‘huh’? You don’t like my placements?”

“No, no, I just wouldn’t have picked them myself,” she shrugged. “I feel like Ospreymask is too much of a kitsitter to them to be a good mentor. Y’know, same reason we don’t usually let cats mentor their own kits.”

“Fair point,” he conceded.

Her next question surprised him. “Would you like to mentor any of them?”

“Me?” he blinked, tail unfurling upward.

“Yeah, you, fish face,” she rolled her eyes. “You’re a good warrior and you deserve another apprentice.”

“I know that,” he said, unable to resist a little jab. “I just figured you’d give them to Yarrowshade and Scorch instead.”

Goldenstar let out a little growl. “Ugh, you’re still on about that? Just because you disagree with some of my choices doesn’t mean I’m just blindly doing whatever they tell me to, y’know.”

“So who are you planning to give them to?” he asked, sidestepping her comment.

She sighed in frustration and said, “I don’t know. But you’re at the top of the list. Now do you wanna mentor one of them or not?”

“I wouldn’t say no,” he shrugged.

“Any preference?”

He thought it over for a second. “Floodkit I guess. He’s got a lot of passion and ferocity. I think he’d make a great apprentice.”

“Interesting,” she hummed. “I’ll take it under advisement. Let me know if you change your mind.”

“I will,” he agreed.

Shortly after, they arrived back at camp and she left him to head into the Healers’ den. In the dusty center of camp, the kits were playing. Floodkit and Sparrowkit wrestled and chased each other, shouting about borders and territories and such. Barleykit sat at the edge of camp, watching her brothers with a dejected look on her face. Russetfrond decided to see what was troubling her and took one of the birds he had caught, a bright red cardinal, over to where she was sitting.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked.

Barleykit squeaked in surprise and nearly jumped to her feet. Recognizing him, she settled down again and said, “um, sure.”

He sat down next to her and said, “You seem upset. What’s wrong?”

“Oh,” she blushed, massive ears folding back. “I’m just… thinking.”

“About what?” he pressed gently as he started to pull the flight feathers from the cardinal. While it was normal to eat a bird feathers and all, he didn’t feel inclined to deal with the larger ones today and there was a methodical kind of pleasure in plucking them. Barleykit shuffled anxiously and looked askance.

“I’m worried about becoming an apprentice,” she admitted softly. “I don’t think I’ll be very good at it.”

“No one is good at it at first,” he shrugged, “that's why you have a mentor to teach you.”

“I guess,” she shuffled again. “I just… I don’t like rough games. I don’t wanna fight anybody. But I don’t care about herbs either. I’m worried I’m just gonna be a scaredy mouse my whole life.” Russetfroned hummed thoughtfully. He wasn’t sure what to tell her.

“Well,” he said, “being brave isn’t about not being scared. It’s about doing the scary thing anyway.” Barleykit sighed and looked down. It seemed that hadn’t helped to calm her worries at all. He looked down at his paws as he tried to gather his thoughts, and he spotted the scattered feathers. Something about their bright coloring sparked an idea in his mind.

“Here,” he said, plucking one of them from the ground. “See these feathers?”

“Yeah,” she said cautiously, eyeing them.

“These feathers are magic,” he said.

“Really?” Her eyes widened and she looked them over.

“Yep,” he nodded. “If you wear them on your fur they make you very brave.”

“Really?” she asked again. “I want some!”

“I dunno,” he feigned reluctance, “I was going to save them for myself…”

“Please?” she begged, “Please, please, please? I wanna be brave just like Floodkit!”

“Well… Okay,” he chuckled. “Here, hold still and I’ll put them in.” Barleykit sat up straight and lifted her head eagerly, posing in what he imagined she thought was a very brave position. He leaned forward and started to place feathers into her fur around her neck and shoulders.

After he’d placed as many as he cared to, he sat back and said, “There.”

She looked down at them, craning her neck to try and examine his handiwork, and said, “Wow. Do they look alright?”

“Oh, yeah,” he nodded. “You wear them well.” He leaned down to start eating but she leaped forward and put her paws on his food causing him to frown.

Before he could complain, she declared, “I wanna do you now!”

He closed his mouth, biting back on whatever irritation had risen in him. Taking a deep breath he said, “Okay, but put them in my tail okay?” Maybe that way, he reasoned, he could ignore it for the most part and finish his meal.

“Okay,” she said, plucking several feathers and then passing his food back to him. Sighing, he twitched his tail out in front of her and hungrily began to devour the cardinal. Barleykit hummed to herself as she tucked the feathers into his fur and smoothed the fur back down with the utmost care. After she finished, she sat back and looked at him eagerly.

“Do you like it?” she asked.

He gave his tail a roll and glanced over it. “It’s perfect,” he said, “Thank you.”

“We can wear them together,” she nodded, “and we’ll both be brave.” “Sure,” he chuckled, and went back to eating. She was a sweet girl, he thought, but already his energy for kitsitting was nearly gone. Luckily, she settled down again, laying her head against his tail, and they quietly watched her brothers tumbling across the grass together. She probably isn’t the right apprentice for me, he thought, but I hope Goldenstar picks a good mentor for her.

UPDATES:

- Russetfrond and Barleykit start wearing cardinal feathers on their pelts.

#clan gen #clangen #warrior cats #warrior cats oc #warriors #warriors oc #clangen oc #clan gen oc #Russetfrond #Barleykit #Goldenstar #clangenrising

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xythlia · 7 months

Text

𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐎 — 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓

kinktober week two | biting | vampire!satan x f!reader

What Goes Bump In The Night week two is here! The theater two showing is all about vampires, so when those fangs are bared make sure your necks are too~

› you're a caged bird, no hope of faith or flight to save you from the beast that holds you in an iron grip. But do you even want to be saved?

› warnings : ambiguous 18th century setting, biting, vampire au, blood/blood consumption, kidnapping, stockholm syndrome, use of pet, sacrilege/religious themes, mention of killing, reader has hair long enough for it to get in their face, noncon, cervix fucking, creampie, choking

› word count : 3k+

🔪 what goes bump in the night?

The human mind possesses a remarkable ability to adapt.

You had quit marking time here long ago, it only served to drive you deeper into despair and slowly it became clear the only choice left was to make the best of being trapped in this rotted cathedral. So be it. Things became less horrid once that shifted inside you, he was kinder for one. Less bouts of intense rage although it wasn't perfectly remedied by your obedience and you suspected the real source of his rage was his own despair at knowing there was no solution for what he was. He also allowed you more freedom of movement, though only within this decrepit place.

You also suppose it makes sense he would choose this place to be a prison, for both of you. What you don't understand however, is his would be devotion to a being that did not create him nor hold any love for him.

"Leave me." Satan greeted you. His eyes never even moved to you, it almost made you feel miffed he couldn't even be bothered to properly rebuke you.

"I didn't even know you were here," you lied. He's always here. Always in the shadow of this altar when he's not slipping into your bedroom, attempting to find a much different form of salvation. This place was obviously once resplendent, but years of abandonment have reduced portions to rubble. This main part of the cathedral was nothing more than a half cracked maw, sucking in the freezing night air.

"I couldn't sleep," you muttered, maybe more to the neglected pews than to him.

You both knew you were lying, his acknowledgement coming in the form of a bland hmph. It was strange, you hated and reviled him especially when he would lurk into your room at night but something you couldn't really describe would rear it's head as an ache for him. You were now wholly dependent on him and you loathed him for it.

When those venomous eyes finally train on you it nearly makes you reconsider. Coming to him like this was a mistake, especially if you don't tred carefully-

"Maybe I should use you to sate my own desires," he cuts off your train of thought. "How wretched you are. You call me beast more times than I can count, yet you sulk into this place wanting to be bed by said beast." He sneered, tone shot full of mocking. You were caught out.

A pit opened in your stomach, but it wasn't unpleasant. No, it was a funny mixture of desire and disgust. He was right, though that would never pass your lips.

So you decide to lie again, even though you know he can practically taste the desire wafting from you, knew you were wet the moment you walked in.

"That's not what I want from you-"

"Then leave!" He practically snarls and you wish you had the nerve to strike him. He knows perfectly well you can't leave, could never leave. He tore you away in the night from all you ever had, all you ever knew and dropped you into this decaying church because try as he might he can never resist what he is.

Your own lips curl into a snarl. "You're nothing but a pathetic creature that would spend all of his eternity knelt for a god that deafens its ears to him."

You don't stop even as he rises to stand, every movement radiating aggression as he comes closer to you. You want to hurt him even a fraction of how badly he's hurt you, the ugliness of it twines together with your arousal, twin snakes squirming in your belly.

"You're pathetic. You know no god will ever look at you in joy so you capture women, cage them and break them so at least someone will gaze at you in sick adoration-"

The words die as a garbled sound of pain as his hand grips your throat, pushing you forcefully against a half rotted support beam. The position was oddly intimate, allowing you to smell the tang of the dust that had settled on him from spending hours in that repentant pose. That shameful arousal spiked inside your gut at the way he bared those fangs at you, the way he held you in place by your neck.

"Aren't you the one gazing in adoration, pet?"

The stone floor suddenly at your back was roughly fractured in sharp contours, horribly uncomfortable but it mattered not. You blinked away the start of tears in your eyes at the breathtaking sensation of being laid out flat, you always forgot about his strength when enough time passed but his small display of violence was thrilling to you in a vile way, so was the pain.

All of Satan's focus was zeroed on you as he hunched above your trembling body. The look on his face was dark, making your thighs squeeze together in a way you wish didn't happen. His flaxen hair was haloed by the cracks of moonlight from the crumbling ceiling,for a millisecond you swear he looked like one of those stained glass depictions of an angel.

"Please not here," you squeaked out.

"What? Are you afraid god will strike you down?" He asked, then whispered, "Do you really think he cares? He has yet to save you."

You swallowed thickly, noting how his eyes tracked the movement with their overblown pupils. This was a terrible idea, one you regretted now but it was too late. You'd poked the bear until claws came out and there's no asking for them to be retracted.

In the tense quiet he brushed a stray strand of hair from your forehead, the act so gentle, so intimate it nearly made you forget that you were but a meal and a thing to fuck. The faint stench of old blood brought you back to reality, knowing it came from his hands.

So, his faux repentance was prompted by another killing. It always is.

That blood-crusted hand glided down the column of your throat, making you flinch. You could tell by the hardening of his eyes that it was the wrong involuntary action to have, but there was no taking it back. That hand dipped inside your neckline to trace the curve of a breast before stilling above your heart.

"You're always so afraid," he said. It sounded almost regretful. "You know I don't mean to hurt you?"

"I don't." You whimpered. Finally a portion of truth. For all his occasional nicety it always wound back around to pain. A pain you got used to, tolerated, even sought out such as tonight, but you could never ever be sure that he would never hurt you.

He laughed and it was a mad sound, ricocheting off the cold indifferent stone and making you flinch again.

"You're just as detestable as I am, do you know that? Skulking in, acting on your own shameful desires, pretending you're not. Pretending you don't enjoy this little dance we do." His speech was coming out hard, rapidly. "I could tear you into shreds, leave nothing but ichor and parts and there's nothing you could ever do to stop me."

It was sick, how delighted he looked as you shrank against the floor. Even now your defiant streak became prevalent.

"You won't kill me," but you hardly sounded sure.

"Would you like to test it?"

You clenched your jaw, staying silent, although your trembling worsened.

Before you realized it he was leaning back, icy hands moving down violently to rip at the linen trousers you wore and horror washed over you. Horror that this was no longer a scathing back and forth, and that this time he really might make good on killing you.

"What are you doing- stop!" You cried out in dread but his movements didn't falter, no matter how much you struggled against him pulling at the fabrics of your clothes until the seams tore, leaving your cunt bare to his gaze and your ass to the bite of the frozen stone floor.

You yelped in pain as he tugged you down, scraping your back against the stone and raised your legs up, propping them on his shoulders in a hardened grip. Terror kept you locked in place even when his hands disappeared, fumbling with his own waistband looking down you saw how erect he was in his hand. Thick and tip dripping precum as you feel him smear it between your folds, and you bite down hard on your lips in anticipation of fresh pain.

As he roughly guided himself inside you struggled anew, crying out from the unprepared stretching as his girth forced your muscles and slick walls to part. Something like lust overcame you as you felt him fit fully inside, the head of his cock brushing against your cervix. It made you go limp, a gasped sob rising from your chest as he pushed your legs up against your breasts before forcefully placing your hands to hold the backs of your thighs.

His movements started slow, his breathing ragged feeling you clench around him. When he started thrusting with more vigor the back of your head scraped painfully against the floor, making you yelp as cool tears pooled in the shell of your ears from sliding down your cheeks. It hurt, the way it always did and brought a dull pounding pain that flowed through your entire body.

It was raw, being fucked into jagged stone with no consideration from the man sucking and nipping at your skin. A mockery of intimacy, but in a repulsive way it sustained you. Feeling his balls smack against the fat of your ass, gasping his name in broken syllables, feeling his fingers slip down to prod at your clit; it guaranteed your survival.

As you shift to wrap your arms around his neck an aggressive sound leaves him. All the pain made your back arch, trying to escape the ground while at the same time providing him a deeper reach that brought a burst of ecstasy to you. Pain and pleasure intensely mixed and muddled your mind as your body jostled with his cruel pace. Whatever pain there was would be rewarded, there was solace in that.

With no space between you that scent of iron and rot returned, pairing with the smell of your own acrid sweat and his golden hair tickled your cheek as he bit down with intent this time.

The wail that rang against the unfeeling cathedral left you unbidden, an animalistic response to the searing, nearly blinding pain of teeth sinking into your flesh. Sobs left you in ripping spurts, your nails clawing at his back but it did little to stop him. His pace never broke, if anything the way he circled your clit only picked up speed and your cunt spasmed around him.

It was strangely beautiful, feeling yourself coming undone and slipping away as your eyes never left the gap of starlight breaking through the musty darkness from the vaulted ceiling. The pain was ebbing away too, like a hazy afterimage that you couldn't hold onto. Faintly you knew the wet warmth seeping against your skin was your own blood, he always is a sloppy eater after all. It makes you crack a small smile, and distantly you know you look insane: fucked out, bloody, yet smiling up to the sky while he doesn't stop pumping into you, doesn't stop sucking and grunting against your skin. A barbaric display beneath the unsympathetic eye of the moon.

Though there is a happiness in knowing the dance ended the way it always does. That tomorrow you'll wake up, sore and feeling sick, but alive still.

As your eyes flutter closed and you go limp in his hold something shifts, though you're no longer awake to catch it. To him this suffering of eternal existence would perhaps be lessened if you were also eternally present, and without your current fragility.

Thick spurts of cum flood your throbbing cunt with his last sloppy thrusts as he keeps drinking, past his fill and past the point of no return. You'll wake much, much later as little more than a fledgling beast with base instincts but it thrills him to think of your anguish once you regain a sense of self.

Whatever poison you spit at him as a human would pale in comparison to what will surely leave your mouth once you realize what he's done to you. But snapping that iron will of yours a second time will taste even sweeter than you do at this moment.

#kinktober 2023 #🔪 WGBITN #obey me smut #obey me x reader #obey me x female reader #obey me oneshot #obey me satan #om! smut #om! satan #satan smut #satan x reader #satan x mc #obey me x y/n

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mothdruid · 1 year

Text

A Snowed In Baby Bird

pairing: robert ‘bob’ floyd x afab!reader

summary: you and bob are childhood best friends, your families being friends before you both were born. a storm rolls in at your families shared cabin, that the two of you volunteered to lock up. now the two of you are stuck, but is that really a bad thing?

wc: 4.4k

warnings: 18+, smut, mdni, fluff at the end, alcohol use, oral sex (male receiving), vaginal fingering, blow job, pet names (baby bird), penetrative sex, unprotected sex, bob fucks.

a/n: we've gotten two out of three winter storms in michigan so far this week! we currently have six inches of snow and are supposed to get six more this friday! so i was inspired to write a snowed in fic! this was also lightly based on a twitter porn video.

“Well, fuck.”

The weather outside was getting progressively worse. The wind was picking up, whipping around the thick white flakes of snow outside. It was practically a blizzard. Something that you would have seen in a movie and definitely didn’t feel confident driving back in. And you didn’t want to pressure Bob into driving back in this weather.

“What’s up?” Bob asked, walking over and stopping behind you.

“The storm showed up early.”

Yeah, the two of you knew about the storm. But it wasn’t supposed to show up for another three hours. Or at least the last you checked it wasn’t supposed to.

“That doesn’t look good.”

You nodded in agreement.

“Might as well get a hold of our parents.” Bob said, turning to go search for his phone.

Both of your families had left earlier that day, leaving the two of you alone. You two had volunteered to lock up, not wanting the rest of the family to be held up. After spending the whole weekend with each other's families, you two really wanted to take this time to catch up. You two had hoped to get alone time this weekend, but your families made it borderline impossible.

Your family and Bob’s had been close for years. Neither of you knew how or when your parents became best friends, but you both remembered each other from day one. Bob was only a few months older than you, something he always boasted about when you two were kids. You were a little surprised when he came home this time.

He was a little different, not the shy Bobby you grew up with. He was more confident and composed now, college having changed him. He had goals he was aiming for now, flight school being his driving force. A part of you was beyond proud of him, but it was still worrying watching the person you had loved for years take off without you.

You had never confessed that you loved him to anyone. You had always assumed it was some type of childhood crush, affection towards the first person who was kind to you. But then it never went away. Even when you both left for college, your heart ached at the loss of contact. The texts never stopped, the occasional video call every now and then, but it was just never the same.

“Yeah, ma. We know, we know. Yeah. Love you, too.”

You watched Bob pace back and forth around the living room, texting your own parents that you two were stuck at the cabin due to the storm. You bounced your leg lightly, a little anxious about the new predicament. There was barely enough wood for the wood stove to keep the cabin warm through the night. You leaned back into the couch, watching Bob hang up and walk over to you.

“You good?” Bob nudged your leg with his.

“I mean, kind of?”

Bob plopped down next to you, setting his phone on the coffee table. You mimicked the action, placing your phone on the coffee table.

“Getting snowed in wasn’t on my trip checklist.” You joked.

“Mine either.” Bob said, smiling at you. He wrapped an arm behind you on the couch, adjusting his glasses as he looked at you.

The two of you sat there for a moment, contemplating what to do next. The two of you decided that you would stay downstairs, not wanting to burn through all the wood trying to heat the entire place up. Bob offered to sleep on the couch, letting you take the only downstairs bedroom.

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to get too cold.” You said. The urge to say you would just share with him was strong, but you decided to tuck that away.

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’ll just sleep in a sweater or something.” Bob chuckled. He stood up, moving to the wood pile near the wood stove.

You watched as he opened the front of the stove, taking a log and placing it inside the stove. A part of you wondered about how his arms looked under his sweater. The knit material hid the way his biceps flexed when he picked up each log. Bob had always been lean and fit, but you knew that since he was headed to flight school he might have started working out.

A heat started to bubble inside of you, still watching him. You could see a small rosy tint on his cheeks when he looked back at you. You gave him a small smile, getting up and heading to the open kitchen. You sought out two shot glasses and a bottle of fireball. If the fire wasn’t going to warm you up quickly, this definitely would.

Bob had moved to the fireplace when you returned to the living room. You watched as Bob got the fireplace lit, cracking open the bottle of fireball. He looked back as you filled one of the glasses with amber liquid, setting the bottle down before throwing back the shot. The liquid seared your throat as you felt it travel down, settling in your stomach.

“Fireball?” Bob asked, watching you pour another shot. “Are we in high school?”

“Says the one who didn’t drink til he turned twenty-one.” You threw back the second shot quickly, grimacing lightly.

“Sorry I was following the law.” Bob joked, tossing his hands up in a defensive way. You watched him grab the bottle and pour his own shot.

“Always being a good boy, aren’t you Bobby?” You teased.

Bob rolled his eyes, throwing back his own shot. The bob of his adams apple caught your attention. Your tongue ran over your lips, watching his lips detach from the shot glass. The shots in your stomach were starting to warm your body, adding a light haze to your brain. You weren’t sure when he had started watching you, but when your eyes caught his he blushed, looking away swiftly.

After the both of you downed a few more shots, you had finally started to catch up. You learned that Bob had got a close knit friend group at college. The group helped him push himself, going out of his comfort zone and learning more about what he was comfortable with. Bob had learned that you were still sporting a high GPA, even with graduation right around the corner.

“So, you heard about flight school?” You asked, pulling a blanket you had found further up your body.

“Yep, got accepted.” Bob nodded, holding another shot up to you as a toast before throwing it back. The bottle of fireball was almost empty now, maybe only a handful of shots left in the bottle.

“Congrats! Baby bird got his wings!” You squealed. Excitement with a tinge of sadness flowed through you, knowing that naval flight school would be hard. It would put him further away from you, making your heart ache. But you knew the two of you would make it through, just like you did with college.

“I haven't got 'em yet.” Bob said, looking at you with a bit of a sad look.

“What’s that look for?” You questioned, afraid you might have said something wrong.

Bob shrugged as he crossed his legs, grabbing at his pants leg now. He looked so small now, like that kid you grew up with. The kid that was always making sure that he had enough to share with the class. The one who always made sure that nobody was left behind in the line or fell behind in class. You thought about the one time he found a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest, which really upset him when he found out it couldn’t be put back. The incident that earned him the nickname ‘baby bird’ from you.

“It.. it’s nothing.” Bob whispered, trying to give you a small reassuring smile.

“That’s a lie.” You stood up, pointing down at him. “You have to tell me.”

Bob stared at your finger, leaning back a little bit. He was a bit perturbed at your action. His face scrunched up, eyes squinting to look at you. You watched him adjust his glasses, a part of your throat went dry as you watched him. Eventually, he swatted your finger away, pulling one knee up to his chest.

“Why do you want to know?” Bob questioned.

You made your way around the coffee table, moving to your knees in front of him. His cerulean eyes were deep pools of emotion, hiding something you couldn’t see on the surface.

“Because you’re my friend.” You reached out for his hand, feeling his soft skin against your own. “If something is bothering you, I’m here for you. You can talk to me.” Emotion had started to take over your face.

Bob could feel everything bubbling inside of him. It was all settling in his throat, threatening to break out. He had thought about his fears for a while. Being shipped off to the other side of the US, away from everyone he knew and loved. Away from you. The two of you weren’t together now, but a three hour drive was much more bearable than an almost day long drive.

“I’m scared about leaving. Being away from everyone.” Bob figured now was better than never. “Not having anyone I really know around. Not having anyone to lean on. Not having you.” Bob’s hand tightened around yours, the alcohol giving him confidence. “I don’t wanna lose you.”

Your heart ached at his words. All the shots of fireball were making his words confusing. It felt like a confession, but you weren’t sure of what. Without thinking you leaned forward, pressing your forehead to his.

“I’m not leaving you though. I’ll always be here.”

Bob brought his free hand up to your face, caressing your cheek. You watched his eyes flick down to your lips, tongue moving to wet his lips. You scanned his face, taking in his now bright red cheeks and ocean like eyes.

His lips were soft when they pressed against yours, softer than you ever imagined. You tightened your hand in his. The movement was gentle, his lips softly moving on yours. It wasn’t pushy or desperate, more refreshing than any other kiss you had experienced. The hand on your cheek moved a little bit, sliding to cradle the spot right below your ear. Bob pulled back from you, pressing his nose into your cheek.

“Is this okay?” Bob whispered.

“More than okay.” You nodded, feeling his glasses move with your motions.

The two you reconnected, a little bit more passion behind the kiss now. You let your years of emotions start to pour into it, giving him everything you had to offer. Bob doing a similar thing, letting all of his hidden emotions come to the surface. He let go of your hand bringing it up to the other side of your jaw, keeping you in place as he kissed you. The small wire frames of his glasses could be felt against the plush of your cheeks.

“Let’s move to the couch.” You whispered, kissing him lightly before standing up.

Bob moved over to the couch, sitting on it as he watched you saunter over. You placed a knee on each side of Bob, settling in his lap. Bob’s hands moved to your waist, lightly settling but not grabbing or applying pressure. You rolled your hips down onto his, feeling his semi-hard cock in his jeans. Bob leaned his head back into the couch, reveling in the feeling of you grinding against him. His eyes were focused on you, watching your hips roll against him. His chest was already moving heavily, each breath filling his lungs to the brink.

You gripped the back of the couch, rolling your hips as you felt his hard-on grow against your ass. He closed his eyes and parted his lips, breath passing quickly as you rocked against him. You felt your sweater tighten around your waist. You looked to see Bob’s hand tight on the material of your sweater.

Heat was starting to pool in your abdomen as you rocked against him. You pressed your chest against his, latching your lips onto his neck. A gasp left Bob, his blue eyes opening wide. His hips rocked up into your grinding motions, pulling a whimper from him. Soft noises started to pour from him when you sucked the spot below his ear.

“Can I ride you?” You asked.

You could feel how hot and wet your panties were as you rocked against him. It was barely anything, but god was it getting you ready for him. You felt like a teenager in high school during your first make out session. But the one thing you couldn’t get past was Bob not touching you. Did he actually want this? He was the one that asked you if it was okay? Maybe he changed his mind?

“Please.” Bob said, leaning up and trying to capture your lips again.

You gave him a small peck before climbing off of him. He watched you unbutton your jeans, sliding them down and kicking them to the side. Bob clenched the cushion of the couch, his other hand moving to lightly rub over the bulge of his jeans. He was watching you with such devotion and innocence, making you wonder if he had ever even lost his virginity.

“I’ve got a question for you, baby bird.” You asked, slipping your hands up the back of your sweater. You unhooked the clasp of your bra, bringing your arms in to take your bra off. “Have you ever,” you let your bra drop from under your sweater, “thought about this?”

Bob swallowed as he watched you. You stood before him in just your underwear and knit sweater. It was driving him crazy, thinking about your nude form underneath the sweater. The way your nipples must have perked up when the material of your sweater brushed them. He almost forgot about the question you asked him. He nodded eagerly once he remembered your words.

“Another question.” You settled on the floor in front of him, hands moving to his belt. “Have you ever, ya know?” Your fingers unlooped his belt, pulling it out from his pants. Your fingers swiftly undid the button to his pants.

“Yeah, it’s just been a while.” Bob quietly said, lifting his hips as you started pulling his pants down his legs.

“That’s okay, I promise to take it easy.” Your fingers hooked into the waistband of his boxers, easing them down his thighs.

Bob sighed when his cock was freed, the cooler air covering his cock. He spread his legs a little bit, watching you look at his cock. A small bit of embarrassment was starting to flood inside of him, not sure what you were thinking. It was all drained from him once your fingers wrapped around him, stroking lightly.

“Oh god.” Bob let out, letting his head drop back. He closed his eyes, breathing almost hitching with each stroke.

A warmth bloomed inside your chest as you watched his reaction. His cock felt like silk against your skin, a pearl of pre-come catching on your thumb. You spread pre-come along his cock, reveling in the sounds he had started to make. You grabbed the inside of his thigh with your left hand, keeping your right one stroking him.

The groan was ripped from Bob when your tongue licked at his tip. You kitten licked the head of his cock, earning soft whimpers from Bob. You took him into your mouth, easing him further into your mouth. Bob’s hand clenched near his sides, bringing himself to look at you. He moaned when he looked down at you, lips wrapped around his cock. It was something he had dreamed about for years.

You bobbed against him, taking him further and further into your mouth. You brought a hand to his balls, massaging lightly. Bob’s hips bucked a little, pushing the head of his cock into your throat. A gagging noise came from you, but you didn’t pull off of him. You wanted to give him everything you could. Take care of him the best you could.

Bob could barely handle it. The sounds of his cock slipping in and out of your mouth were pushing him to the edge. His abdomen was tight, a heat boiling in the base of his spine. He knew that if you kept this up he would come soon. Without a warning, you pulled off of him. He leaned up a little, getting ready to speak. You smashed your lips against his, earning a moan from Bob.

“I need you in me.” You said, slipping your underwear off as you started to stand up.

Bob nodded, watching you place a knee on each side of him. You hovered above him, staring at him as you grabbed his cock. You rubbed the head of his cock through your folds, catching on your entrance every now and then. A whine fell from you when it rubbed against your clit, a wave of pleasure rippling through you.

You positioned him at your entrance, preparing yourself to take him. You slowly started to sink down on his cock. A moan fell from you as he stretched you open. Bob’s hands shot to your waist, still hesitating to grab you. His breathing picked up, chest heaving as you fully seated yourself in his lap. Soft sounds continued to come from him.

“You’re not going to come, are you?” You asked softly.

“No.”

Bob’s fingers started to skate under your sweater. Without warning, you grabbed your sweater and took it off. Bob’s fingers grazed over your midsection, not knowing exactly where to touch. Bob’s eyes eventually found yours, not leaving your gaze as you took his glasses off of him. His cheeks were bright red, causing a warmth to blossom in your heart.

Your hips started to roll against him, his cock sliding in and out of you. Your fingers moved to the back of the couch, grabbing it for more leverage. Bob’s hands felt like they were hovering over your body. You started to lightly bounce on him, his cock stretching you with each downward motion.

His hands moved to the couch cushions, gripping them with each motion you made. A part of you was confused, wishing he would just touch you. Your hands found his, placing them over your breasts. Bob licked his lips when he felt your breasts in his hands. He kept his hands there, too nervous to grab or knead them.

You kept working your hips, thighs starting to slowly burn. A steady heat had formed in the pit of your belly. You placed your hands back on Bob’s thighs, rolling your hips and slightly presenting yourself to him. Bob just sat there watching, whines and moans falling from his lips. His hands stayed barely touching your breasts. His tongue ran over his lips, wetting them while teasing you.

You leaned over him, placing your hands on his jaw. You licked his lips, silently asking for him to open his mouth. His hands drifted to your waist, sitting there as your tongue moved against his. You ran a hand through his hair, pressing your forehead to his as you broke the kiss.

“You don’t have to be afraid to touch me.” You said, rolling your hips.

“I’m nervous.” Bob whimpered.

“You don’t have to be nervous. It’s just me.”

Bob kissed you gingerly.

“But what if this is the only time.” He let his head fall back.

You started to kiss his neck, marking it lightly. It was cute, the concern and nervousness he was showing. You were also worried about this being the only time, but if he wanted to do this again, you definitely weren’t going to say no.

“We can do this however many times you want.” You whispered in his ear.

Bob pulled back to look at you. He leaned against you nodding before smashing his lips against yours. His hands tightened on your waist, pulling you down tightly against him. A moan escaped you, his cock pushing deeper inside of you. His hips started to roll up into yours, meeting your own movements.

Bob leaned up, taking a nipple into his mouth as you rode him. His tongue swirled around the bud, pulling a moan from you. You threaded your fingers into his hair, keeping him pressed tightly on your chest. Moans started to pour from you as Bob started to take control. His hands gripped your hips and rolled them against him.

One of his hands disappeared from your hips, slipping between the two of you. Bob’s fingers slid between your legs, finding your clit. Your body shivered when he started rubbing circles on the bundle of nerves. You were so used to him not touching you that it was a little shocking. It hadn’t occurred to you just how close you were to your climax.

“Jus-just like that.” You whimpered as your hips rocked heavily against his.

The head of his cock was pressed tightly against that sensitive spot inside of you. The combination of his fingers on your clit and his cock pressed against your g-spot had you tumbling over the edge. Your walls clenched around his cock impossibly tight. Whimpers fell from your lips, his hips not stopping.

“B-Bob!” Your hands gripped the shoulders of his sweater tightly as you came around his cock.

“I’m not gonna last.” Bob whimpered, feeling you clenched around him.

“Inside of me, please.” You whimpered.

Bob groaned at your request, thrusts started to become uneven. His whimpers started to grow louder, hands tight on your sides. With only a few more thrusts and whines, Bob was coming inside of you. You moaned when you felt his come fill you, coating your walls and spreading warmth inside of you. You pulled Bob in for a heated kiss, tongue and teeth clashing.

Eventually you two pulled a part, Bob guiding you to rest your head on his shoulder. He started tracing small patterns on the skin of your back, taking a moment to appreciate what just happened. The material of his sweater pressed against your cheek as you started to drift. You shifted in his lap, his softened cock falling out of you. The both of you moaned when he fell out of you, his cum starting to fall out of you.

“Hey, let me go get something to clean you up.” Bob whispered, shifting you off of him and onto the couch.

A thumbs up was all you gave him as he got up and trotted off to the downstairs bathroom. You looked around for your sweater, locating it on the floor near the couch. By the time you slipped your sweater on, Bob was returning with a wet washcloth. You accepted it from him, whipping away the mess between your legs. He tracked down his underwear to put on, finding yours too. He held your panties out to you, trading you for the washcloth.

Bob left after the trade, heading back to toss the washcloth into the dirty clothes basket in the bathroom. You slipped your panties on before he came back, finding the blanket you were curled up in earlier. Bob picked his glasses up from the arm of the couch, placing them back on his face. He sat down near your feet, placing a hand on your now blanketed calf. You kicked your legs up, making sure the blanket covered his legs and yours.

The cabin was darker now, the fireplace barely had a flame to it and the night had consumed the weather outside. Silence settled between the two of you. It felt comfortable yet awkward.

“I was serious.” You said, staring at the dimly lit fireplace.

“Hmm?” Bob looked over at you, confused by your words.

“About it happening as many times as you want.” You looked at him, watching a shy look take over his face.

“Oh, I.. Okay.” Bob adjusted his glasses as he looked back at the fire.

You sat up, moving closer to him. You took one of his hands in yours, squeezing it.

“Are you okay?”

Bob smiled and turned to look at you. The shadows of his glasses casted over his face.

“I’m better than okay.” He squeezed your hand back. He leaned towards you, kissing you softly.

Warmth flooded you as he kissed you, spreading through your body. You brought a hand up to his face, caressing his cheek. He pulled back and pressed his forehead to yours. You heard him take a deep breath.

“I like you.” Bob whispered.

“I like you, too. Always have.” You whispered back.

Bob pulled back from you, a small look of surprise on his face. You smiled at him, repositioning the blanket on your laps then resting your head against his shoulder.

“I’ve always liked you.” Bob said, staring at the fireplace. He was contemplating getting up to add more wood to it. He didn’t want to give this up, having you cuddled against him.

“I think I’ve always liked you too. Liked you ever since we were little.” You said, thumb rubbing along the back of his hand.

Bob kissed the top of your head, then removed himself from you. He made his way to get a piece of wood to put in the fireplace, checking the wood stove in the process. He made his way back over to you, letting you rest your head on him again when he sat next to you.

“What’s gonna happen when I leave?” Bob asked. It was quiet, something you barely picked up.

“I didn’t leave you when we left for college, I’m not going to leave you when you go to flight school.”

“But it’s a lot farther away.”

You sat up, pulling your knees up and sitting on them. Bob watched you move quickly, facing him completely now. You grabbed both sides of his face, keeping him from looking away from you.

“Bob, what about ‘I’ve liked you since we were little’ do you not understand? I’m not going anywhere. I love you and I’ll be with you till the end.”

Bob scanned your face, taking in your features. Sincerity was all he could find. Your words were honest, full to the brim with truth. You had never lied to him before, why would you be lying now.

“You love me?” Bob asked.

“Yes, baby bird.” You pressed a kiss to him.

“I love you, too.” He whispered back.

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