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astaraels · 4 months

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A Future to Hold Onto

It's Christmas, and Svetlana takes a moment to breathe. Set post-s4. (on ao3) holiday fic for @svetlanayevgenivna. Enjoy, my dear!

The winter morning dawned cold and clear outside; Svetlana rolled over in her bed and raised her head up, still mostly asleep. Her hair fell in front of her face, but she could hear Nika in bed next to her snoring softly. With a groan, Svetlana sat up and brushed her hair back. A glance at the clock showed her that it was already 7:30am—not yet time to wake Yevgeny. He’d managed to sleep through the night last night, and she couldn’t help but be grateful. The last few days had been difficult, with something giving him stomach trouble, although he seemed to be doing better yesterday. The worst part was how he’d kept waking up in the middle of the night needing diaper changes.

Between Yevgeny’s stomach problems and the troubles with her husband’s boyfriend, Svetlana had not gotten much sleep lately. She and Mickey—the name had always made her laugh ever since Katya mentioned it was like the Disney mouse—had come to an understanding, after his confrontation with his father. She still didn’t know what to make of the ginger boy. His very presence in the house at first had made her lash out, back when Mickey had brought him home and let him rest in what had been their marital bed. As much as she was used to Yvon bringing home working girls during the brief farce of their marriage back in Russia, she’d been determined that this marriage would be better.

America, land of choice, land of opportunity. She had the chance to make things work, to be a good wife, and this skinny boy with floppy red hair had seemed to be the biggest obstacle to things going right. It didn’t matter that her husband never touched her after their first time together—if she had to marry, to have a baby, at least she didn’t have to endure him trying to paw at her the same way her clients at the spa did. Fucking pricks. But she’d seen the look in Mickey’s eyes the night he’d brought the other boy home. She hadn’t recognized the orange-haired boy at first when he’d come to see her at the spa, months before, but she did that night. His skin was pale like the snow she remembered back home, passed out in the bed she’d called hers for the past four months. Her husband staring at the other boy with a look of pain and longing that she understood all too well was almost too much. A threat to everything she thought she’d gained. The fear that she’d lose it all, that her baby would be tossed to the wayside, was more than she could bear.

Now, of course, she knew better. Svetlana had been almost impressed with how her husband stood up to Terry Milkovich—she understood what it meant, to be under a father’s control. To feel helpless, to have no chance to breathe until all you could do was gasp when there was even the briefest gulp of air. They fought for each other the way Svetlana knew without a doubt that she would fight for Yevgeny; savage and harsh, without care for herself. As long as he was safe, that was all that mattered.

Now, of course, she had Nika. Nika, who had given her sideways looks and knowing smiles for so long, ones that Svetlana had ached to return but never dared to do with Terry Milkovich around. An understanding with her idiot husband who had nothing but lovesick looks for the boy who’d taken her place in that bed. She had brought Nika home with her that very evening, moving her things out of Mickey’s room and into the one across from Mandy, the two of them taking great glee in going through the disgusting Nazi shit left in there and tossing it like the garbage it was. It had felt nice to laugh again; she hadn’t had much reason to do so in a long time. A chuckle, a scoff, a snort, perhaps, but nothing like the laughter between them that night. Laughter turned to kisses and caresses, and she’d been able to love Nika back the way she knew the other girl had wanted for so long.

Svetlana shook her head, trying to clear away all the thoughts that just brought her more gloom. She grabbed her dressing gown from the floor where she’d tossed it last night and pulled it on, tying it closed before heading into the kitchen. There was little point in focusing on the past, not when things had gotten much better these past few weeks. Better, if not for the orange boy lying in bed like a dead thing. She didn’t understand, but as long as it didn’t keep her husband from ignoring Yevgeny entirely, it wasn’t her problem. His bitchy older sister had said something about a disorder—Svetlana didn’t know much about that, but she liked it when the younger one came by to see him. She was a sweet girl, always polite, and called her “Lana” instead of “stupid whore”. The last time she’d been there, she even brought sandwiches that she’d shared with Nika and Svetlana. From what Svetlana could hear, she’d managed to coax her brother to have one, too.

Between everything with the orange boy and taking care of Yevgeny—not to mention getting wrapped up in the headiness of her new relationship with Nika—Svetlana hadn’t noticed that it was almost Christmas. The calendar on the wall showed it being December 18th, she realized, and with it came a rush of old, warm memories from home. Her mother and grandmother cooking and baking in the kitchen. Cousins and aunts and uncles coming by, all of them singing carols together in the house. Her father being sober for one of the few times of the year, even once lifting her up and laughing with her when she was very small. The happy times had become few and far between as she’d grown up, but she cradled those precious memories close to her, careful not to hold on too tightly. She didn’t want them to slip away entirely.

Back home in Russia, everything had been colder, but it seemed brighter, more cheerful. Here in America, there was a crispness to the air, but the snow looked dirty and the fire looked dull. It flickered in the hearth as she walked by—strange, since no one else was awake to light it—but it crackled and burned while Svetlana started to make herself breakfast. Once she was done eating, she reasoned, it’d be time to get Yevgeny up and feed him. Sunday mornings were never very lively in this house, and she found that she liked being awake by herself at those times. It was a comfortable kind of loneliness, where she could still feel the presence of others but still be alone with her thoughts for a little bit longer than usual.

She was in the middle of having toast with far more peanut butter on it than she’d intended—it wasn’t Svetlana’s fault that the Jif jar was more addicting than cigarettes—when she heard the faint sound of footsteps padding towards the kitchen. To her surprise, the orange boy, Ian, walked carefully down the hall from the room she’d once occupied with her husband, his hair a flyaway mess and his skin paler than usual.

He stopped when he saw her, blinking slowly several times. Every movement he made seemed heavy, like he had weights attached to his limbs. Maybe, in a way, he did, judging by how she’d overheard Mickey telling Mandy he’d had to help the other boy get up and piss or take a shower these past few weeks. Maybe it was his disease weighing him down. Svetlana didn’t know, and she didn’t have the right words to say anything about it in English (she’d been improving, according to Mandy, but everything still made more sense in Russian), so she kept it to herself. Instead she gave him a slow nod and raised her peanut butter toast in salute. Slowly, he nodded once at her, managing the ghost of a smile as he rubbed his eyes.

“You should have toast,” she told him, for lack of something else to say. “Stay in bed too long, not healthy. Food will help.”

He sat down across the table from her with a small exhale. She felt a slight pang when she noticed his fingers trembling slightly. It was the same feeling she had when she noticed Lidiya’s face growing sharp and angled after she hadn’t been eaten in some time. But he didn’t look like he had the strength to get up again—like he’d collapse on the floor if he tried—so Svetlana leaned back in her chair and popped two slices of bread into the toaster. “Cannot have my husband thinking I am reason you starve,” she said by way of explanation. “Eat toast. You will feel better, having food.”

He let out a huff of air that almost sounded like a laugh. “So I’ve heard.”

She’d heard it too—Mickey had begged him, when it all started, to eat something, anything. Clearly he’d done so at some point, but not very much. He looked like a lost waif from her grandmother’s fairy stories. Something about him reminded her of the younger girls she’d come over with, the ones who’d curled up and cried themselves to sleep on the long boat ride to America. They’d emerged from the trip with darkened eyes and haunted looks—she saw a similar shadow in his expression.

They sat together in silence until the toast popped up, steam rising gently as the bread started to cool. Svetlana grabbed a clean-looking plate and put the toast onto it, setting it in front of the boy and pushing the peanut butter jar closer to him. “Peanut butter, too. For protein.” She’d read about that, felt a surge of pride in her knowledge. It felt like a small victory when he glanced up at her and took the knife to spread peanut butter on the slices of toast. Still slow, like he was moving through syrup, but better than lying in bed unable to do anything.

“Don’t feel very hungry,” he finally said, but he took a bite of the toast anyway.

Svetlana shrugged. “Is probably body lying to you. Or brain, in your case.” She stood up and grabbed a glass from the cupboard, then went to the refrigerator and pulled out the container of orange juice. After a moment of thought, she found another glass and poured one for him as well. Her grandmother always said that you had to feed people who could not feed themselves. It might have been different circumstances, but she felt it still applied. She prided herself on knowing her own mind and knowing it well—she didn’t like the idea that it might suddenly betray her one day, like his had done. She knew her grandmother would take one look at this orange boy and exclaim how he was skin and bone, that some good stew and a hearty meal could take care of the problem at hand. Svetlana had never been as good of a cook as her grandmother was, but this she could do.

“...thank you,” he said quietly, his voice hoarse. “I, uh. I don’t…”

“No need to explain,” she told him. “Winter in Russia make everyone a little crazy. Chicago winter is no different, it seems.”

The tension around his mouth relaxed. He took a bite of his toast, and then another. Svetlana finished her own piece off, then used a spoon to scoop out a large dollop of peanut butter from the jar so she could eat it. Even with the orange boy here, she didn’t have to act, didn’t have to show off and make herself desirable. If she wanted to eat the peanut butter from the jar, she would do so. If it had been her own father, or even Terry, he probably would have smacked the spoon from her hand and told her she was acting like a whore. Mickey would have rolled his eyes and said a smart remark, something her grandmother would have smacked his mouth for. Ian simply let her be.

Once she finished off her spoonful, she stood up from the table and went back to her and Nika’s room to fetch Yevgeny. He was starting to wake as she stood over his crib and cooed at him softly in Russian. Her son. A light she hadn’t known she needed in her life, until she held him in her arms. The prospect of motherhood had terrified her—she couldn’t work once she’d started showing, and the very sight of her swollen belly had driven her husband further away instead of bringing him closer, although she now understood why. And he’d promised her, he wouldn’t bullshit around with the baby. Now that he had the orange boy with him, Svetlana was glad to see him keeping his promise. Even with everything, he’d kept his word. He was still a piece of shit, still just a boy who thought himself a man, but at least he would change the diapers and pay for Yevgeny’s food and clothes.

She brought the baby with her back to the kitchen, and was gratified when she noticed that half of the first piece of toast was already gone from the orange boy’s plate. Svetlana sat Yevgeny in her lap, pulling her gown to the side so he could nurse. The three of them sat in a comfortable quiet, the warmth from the fire now starting to reach where they were. The boy—Ian—took another bite of toast, chewing it slowly.

“Is almost Christmas,” she said after a while. He hadn’t been out of bed in so long, he probably hadn’t realized how much time had passed. “Zhenya’s first.”

“...Zhenya—isn’t he Yevgeny?” he asked. He managed to say the name mostly right, too.

“Zhenya is other name for Yevgeny,” Svetlana explained. “Russian babies always have baby name that comes from regular name.”

“Oh, so a nickname.”

She nodded. “Nickname, yes. Zhenya is nickname for Yevgeny.”

His lips turned up in the ghost of a smile. “Cute. Didn’t know it was so close to Christmas, though.”

“You are feeling better? After being sick?” She didn’t claim to know much about what was happening to him, but at least it wasn’t a winter cold. Otherwise she’d worry, for Yevgeny’s sake. He was still so young and fragile, this tiny thing she’d felt grow in her belly for months on end. His birth had terrified her—she’d never thought she’d be a mother, especially not like this—but holding him had melted her heart and sparked in her a fierce devotion to protect him against all the pain the world held. She wanted nothing more but to keep him safe, shield him from the dangers she herself knew far too well. This disease, this sickness the orange boy had was nothing like what she’d known. If it was a cold, or something like it, she could feed him her grandmother’s stew and have him feeling better. But some things couldn’t be fixed so easily.

He shrugged half-heartedly at her question, glancing down at the half-eaten toast. “Dunno,” he finally said. “It’s…hard to explain.”

“Scared the shit out of boyfriend,” she offered. “Is fine, though—he does not bullshit with baby now. So is okay he spends time with you.” It wasn’t much, but it was what Svetlana could offer. Mickey was here for his son and the boy he loved—and it was love, in spite of what he’d told her weeks ago—made easier by them all being under the same roof now. Yevgeny finally released her nipple and she grabbed a towel, putting it over her shoulder like the baby books had said to do. Mandy had been kind in those early days and brought her a battered copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting . It took Svetlana longer than she’d like to admit to read through the book, since she’d had to write notes in Russian in the margins as she looked up the words she didn’t know. She carefully patted Yevgeny’s back to burp him, and the orange boy glanced at the baby, a pale smile on his lips.

“He’s…adjusting” was all he could manage to say, which Svetlana knew already, but it was good to hear anyway. Everything in their lives was an adjustment with the baby. Yevgeny let out a loud burp, startling a laugh out of Ian.

“Baby is big adjustment,” she said, choosing her words with care. As she’d told her husband before, Yevgeny hadn’t chosen to be brought into this world, and he was here whether they liked it or not. She hoped that things would get easier with time. Glancing up, she saw the look in the boy’s face—the light that came into his eyes when he looked at Yevgeny. It hadn’t been there before; his gaze had seemed dull and listless until now. So Svetlana made a choice. “You would like to hold Zhenya?”

Judging by the look on his face, it wasn’t what he’d expected her to say, but after a moment he nodded. “Yeah. Yeah…I’d like that.” Svetlana stood up and came over to him, holding onto Yevgeny until she was certain Ian had a solid hold on him, supporting his head like he was supposed to. The orange boy knew how to hold a baby, at least—she had to give him that. His sister had mentioned several other siblings; perhaps he’d had practice that way.

“Hey, Yevgeny,” he said quietly, rocking the baby with gentle motions. “I’m Ian.” Svetlana felt a smile try to cross her face at the way he spoke to her Zhenya. Kind and calm.

“You like babies, then?”

“I liked helping with my siblings,” he said. What she heard was, I like helping. He seemed the type. “His eyes are so blue.”

“Yes, has father’s eyes.” She noticed the way it brought the smile back to his face. “My husband, your boyfriend, Zhenya’s father. He is many things to all of us.”

The orange boy—Ian—nodded. “And…you’re okay with that?”

She shrugged. “I choose Nika. Husband choose you. We did not choose each other. I thought, I could be good wife. He could provide for me and baby. Now I know truth, I do not ask to be husband and wife like regular. Does not mean he cannot take care of baby, of course. I cannot work yet, so he must help.”

“I get it.”

“Good.” Svetlana watched as he rocked Yevgeny, smiling as her son yawned and reached his little fists out. “You and me, I think we understand each other. At least where baby is concerned. Maybe you help, too. Help with baby, help brain feel better.”

His smile lingered a bit longer this time. “Yeah…maybe you’re right.”

“Now is time to put Zhenya in play chair,” she told him. “You will do this?” It seemed that even the little amount of food he’d had did help, since he stood up and walked Yevgeny to the baby walker. The other girls at the spa had put their money together and bought it for Svetlana before she’d given birth, and she treasured their gift. The book had said that babies needed to play in order to learn when they were older. “Wait one moment.”

She walked to the laundry room and found a clean shirt, and some of Mickey’s underwear that had gotten washed in the last load. Then she came back and handed them over to Ian. “Not good to stay in bed so long,” she explained. “You take shower, get dressed.”

He looked uncertain, like he wasn’t sure he’d have the energy. “I…I haven’t been able to, without Mickey.”

“Then I wake up husband and make him help,” Svetlana said with a shrug. “No big deal. I watch baby, husband help you. You help hold baby later. He change diaper when I nap. We all help.”

Her words seemed to spark something in his dulled green eyes. Maybe he needed to feel useful, instead of sitting around feeling sad for days. “Yeah…yeah, I can do that. I—I can help.”

“Maybe when you are feeling better, we go to store, buy Zhenya new outfit for Christmas,” she suggested.

He nodded. “I’d like that.”

“Ian?” came a voice from the other room. Mickey walked down the hall toward the two of them, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Hey…didn’t realize you were awake. You could’ve gotten me up.”

“No worries, husband,” Svetlana said, glancing over at Yevgeny in his walker. “I feed carrot boy toast, we talk about baby.”

“Toast, huh?” Mickey said, eventually nodding. “That’s good—get some food in ya.”

“Svetlana said you should help me get a shower,” Ian told him, holding up the clothes. “She’s right—I am kinda rank.”

“Your words, not mine,” she told him with a grin. “Go get clean. Then we put on Christmas movie.”

Mickey put a hand on Ian’s back and glanced back at Svetlana with a look of understanding. She knew what he wouldn’t, couldn’t say—the worry, the fear, the helplessness. Just like any other illness, this had to run its course eventually. Maybe things were starting to look up, for all of them. Svetlana watched them walk back down the hall towards their room, closing the door behind them, and she went to sit on the couch near where Yevgeny was playing. Life would never be easy for someone like her, and much of her future was still uncertain even now. But she felt that maybe, just maybe, she could start to see one taking shape.

#svetlana yevgenivna #svetlana milkovich #ian gallagher #mickey milkovich #shameless fic #shameless #leinth writes fic #holy shit i can't believe i finished it all today i am so happy #this is a bit angstier than i was expecting it to be but i still hope you enjoy it!!!

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five-and-dimes · 1 year

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Now I Lay Me

Turned my 728 word Sleeping Beauty-esque post into a 10,324 word fic. On AO3 HERE

Italics are flashbacks

TW: Suicide attempt (in a magical fantasy way, but the intent is there)

~~~

It’s getting late.

While Hob’s appointments with Dream have become far more frequent than once a century, he still finds himself stretching each meeting as long as he can, reluctant to let his friend leave.

They have been talking for hours now, mostly mundane happenings in Hob’s week, and Hob has caught Dream staring a few times now, something soft and peaceful in his gaze. It makes something flutter in his chest, and finally he bursts out questioningly, “What? Do I have something on my face?”

Dream laughs softly, little more than a smiling breath, and shakes his head. “No, nothing like that. I simply…”

Tilting his head, it looks as if Dream is committing the moment to memory.

“I am glad for your friendship.”

Hob doesn’t think he will ever tire of hearing Dream acknowledge their friendship. It makes him feel a little less like a fool for wanting more.

Grinning, he raises his glass in cheers, “I am glad for yours as well.”

Dream doesn’t have a drink to raise, but he smiles.

When he leaves half an hour later, Dream bows his head and says “Goodbye, Hob Gadling,” with that same soft smile. Hob thinks it’s strangely formal.

But he doesn’t dwell on it.

~~~

The weather in the Dreaming has been fluctuating all day.

All week really, if Lucienne is honest. She frowns as she gazes out of the library windows, watching large, fluffy snowflakes drift across the gardens. Normally, when the King of Dreams was in a particularly emotional mood, there would be storms; raging winds and floods that tore apart the landscape the way he tore apart himself. But, for all the strange weather, none of it could be categorized as a storm.

Misting rains and far-away rolls of thunder, springtime warmth, thick, swirling fog, and now this gentle snow.

It doesn’t take her long to find Morpheus. He is sitting just outside on the palace steps, eyes closed and face tilted towards the sky. Snowflakes land on his hair and skin, and he is cold enough that they do not melt against him. He looks so peaceful, Lucienne hates to disturb him. But she cannot help but question.

“Sir?”

When he opens his eyes, the light in them is brighter than Lucienne has seen in quite some time. She had forgotten that stars are also suns.

“Yes, Lucienne?”

“...Is everything alright?” She asks hesitantly. Dream seems… content. It feels silly to worry so when he seems to actually be in a fairly good mood. The feeling only increases when he smiles slowly, still looking up at the sky, hands folded elegantly in his lap.

“Yes,” Dream sighs. Above them, the snow ceases as the clouds part slowly. Sunbeams shimmer unnaturally, as though they are filtering through planes of glass somewhere above the clouds.

“I am The Dreaming. And The Dreaming is me.” His voice is soft. Gentle, almost. And when he turns, there is a smile on his face, small and delicate and sincere. “Isn’t that lovely?”

She can’t explain it, but this interaction leaves Lucienne off-kilter. But if her king is happy, who is she to question it? Still, it is all she can do to smile and say, “It is, my lord,” before returning to the safety of the library where things make sense.

~~~

Desire can feel the moment someone takes their sigil in their hands.

It’s a little tingle on the back of their neck, like the feeling of knowing someone is watching you even if you can’t see them. Sighing, they rolled over and stretched languidly on their couch, waiting for a call from one of their siblings.

But no call comes.

Frowning, Desire sits up, tilting their head curiously. They can still feel it, someone is definitely holding Desire’s sigil, have been for a few minutes now, and yet have not spoken. No request to enter their realm, or a summoning to another’s. Just a heart held in their hands silently.

Finally, after far too long, Desire feels their sigil released. They huffed at the strange annoyance, curious as to which of their siblings was messing around in their gallery. For a brief moment, they considered harassing each sibling in turn, pester and prod to sate their curiosity. But ultimately, they shrugged it off.

Whatever. If someone wanted to speak with Desire, they knew where to find them.

~~~

It is a soft day in the Dreaming when Dream steps outside. Clear skies, the sun shining bright but not harsh, a gentle breeze keeping the realm from being either too hot or too cold. It is a gentle day. Peaceful.

Dream’s steps are slow and sure as he walks through the gardens. He passes through Fiddler’s Green, running his fingers through low hanging leaves in a tender caress. The grass is soft beneath his bare feet, and the wind skims against his arms soothingly, skin exposed by a simple t-shirt.

Eventually, he comes to a spot he finds suitable. The ground is soft and giving, close enough to a grove of trees to allow a comforting shade to cover him. He lays down, curling loosely on his side, the trees to his back and the view of the gardens in front of him. He can see the walls of the palace looming in the distance, majestic stone spires and arches towering above the green of the landscape.

With reverence, he runs his fingers through the grass, petting it like the softest fur. There is no glass here. No iron.

He is the Dreaming and the Dreaming is him.

Dream closes his eyes.

~~~

Listen. Matthew hasn’t been Dream’s raven for very long, but he’s good at it. He is a damn good raven, probably a better raven than a person (sometimes he wonders if being a bad person is what makes him a good raven).

So it is immensely frustrating when his newfound dream-powers just stop working out of the blue.

He can feel his feathers puffing up in agitation. Being able to find Dream of the Endless is Raven 101 as far as he is concerned. Dream is like gravity in the Dreaming; a force that is always pulling you towards him. Normally, Matthew can just spread his wings and follow the pull, the landscape warping and folding to get him to Dream’s side in no time flat. But today, it feels like the gravity is fucking broken. His internal compass is spinning wildly.

Landing on one of the pillars of the bridge outside the palace, Matthew huffs angrily. His instincts are telling him that Dream is here. Like, right here. And also over there. And also everywhere else.

What the fuck.

Matthew is determined not to call on Lucienne for help until absolutely necessary. He’s not a newbie anymore, he can totally figure this out. The Dreaming is a weird place, and Dream is a weird person, so for all he knows this is a totally normal happenstance.

Closing his eyes, he focuses on the pull he’s become so used to. If he really, really, focuses, he thinks there might be a direction, where Dream is… more. It’s still disorienting, because when he opens his eyes Matthew half expects his boss to be sitting next to him, but at least he has a direction now.

Taking off again, he drifts through air that feels strangely heavier than usual. Following his Dream-sense, it feels a little like swimming upstream, fighting the current to get to the source. Eventually, he finds himself landing in one of the gardens outside of the palace, and he grumbles in frustration that Dream was apparently so close.

It is quiet in the garden, just a soft rustling of wind through the leaves to break up the silence. Twisting his head side to side, the space looks empty to Matthew. He hops a few times across the grass.

“Uh, boss? Olly olly oxen free?” Would Dream even understand that phrase? Oh well, maybe he’ll reveal himself just to ask Matthew about its meaning.

But there is no response.

For a moment, Matthew is actually, truly worried. But after a few minutes of fluttering across the garden, he lets out a deep sigh of relief when he notices the dark figure laying at the edge of the garden, where the grass transitions into a grove of trees and flowering bushes.

“There you are! Jeez, way to give a man a heart attack.”

Flying over to him, he is surprised to finds Dream fast asleep. He is laying on his side on the ground, his hands curled loosely by his face. It feels less refined than he thought Dream was capable off, but privately he thinks it’s kind of cute how peaceful he looks. Matthew has always felt that Dream looks his age- the weight on his shoulders and the tension in his face making him look as ancient as he is. But now, his face lax in sleep and his body curled comfortably in the grass, Matthew thinks he looks young.

He regrets having to wake him, but if Matthew was this worried, he can only imagine how much Lucienne must be internally freaking out. It had been almost a full day since either of them had seen the Dream Lord, which understandably put some folks on edge. So, dutiful raven that he is, Matthew hops over to lightly peck at his shoulder.

“Boss? Up and attem’! Lucienne would be tearing her hair out if she had any.”

Standing in front of him, Matthew waits for Dream to sigh heavily and stand, to brush off their concern but still return to the palace to relieve his librarian’s worries.

But Dream doesn’t wake.

Hesitantly, Matthew moves to peck at the bare skin of Dream’s hands, raising his voice, “Boss! Time to wake up now! You’ve got a whole castle full of soft things, why are you even sleeping on the ground?” From what he’s heard, Dream resting at all is a pretty rare occurrence, so maybe he just doesn’t have the instincts to lay down somewhere more comfortable. Matthew wouldn’t find that surprising.

What he does find surprising is the fact that Dream still hasn’t responded, even when Matthew pecks his hand hard enough that a human would probably bleed. Almost without thinking, he glances at Dream’s chest, relieved to find it rising and falling gently. He’s aware that Dream doesn’t need to breathe, but it’s reassuring nonetheless.

Or at least, it’s reassuring until his eye catches movement around Dream’s limbs.

Leaning in to get a closer look, Matthew finds blades of grass growing from beneath Dream’s body, expanding and curling to slowly wrap around wrists and ankles. More are starting to inch up his chest.

“Hey, hey, HEY!” Matthew caws frantically, flapping his wings and hovering to tear at the grass with his talons, “Back off, grass! This is the King of Dreams you’re messing with!” He’s probably going to get in trouble for this, but it has been a weird day and he’s feeling more than a little anxious about the situation, so Matthew lands on Dream’s shoulder and grabs a beakful of hair and starts tugging.

“Boss! Seriously, I’d appreciate it if you could wake up and start yelling at me right about now! I have had a very long day and I- ACK!”

Flying back, he stumbles a few steps, hopping on one foot as the other bleeds slightly. In front of him, he sees that the grass creeping around Dream’s body has changed into barbed briars, thick vines and sharp thorns, reaching around Dream’s body and digging into his clothes the way they had Matthew's foot.

Mathew, appropriately, freaks the fuck out.

“Stop! Stop it!” He yells at the plants, flying forward and trying again to tear them away. When that doesn’t work, he wraps his talons around one of Dream’s skinny wrists and begins flapping his wings desperately, trying to pull him away from the overgrowth. Dream isn’t a heavy guy, but Matthew is a bird, and he’s pretty sure the vines are actively trying to pull Dream away from him. He feels another sharp pain in his foot, and yelps as his grip is released, sending him tumbling across the garden.

Straightening up, Matthew is officially panicking. He doesn’t want to leave Dream here, but he also doesn’t know what to do.

“Don’t worry, boss! I’ll get help!” As he flies away, he calls out behind him, “Everything is gonna be just fine!”

Dream slumbers on. But Matthew was mostly saying it for himself anyways.

~~~

It takes a few tries for Lucienne to understand what Matthew is trying to say to her. He had burst into the library already shouting frantically, and even after landing his wings flapped in panic. Even once she manages to make out the words, Lucienne still doesn’t understand, but she can feel in her bones that it’s bad and so she drops the book in her hands and sprints. Matthew guides her, still rambling anxiously, but Lucienne can’t blame him, especially after she lays eyes on her king.

For a long moment she is frozen, standing a few feet away from where Dream is laying in the grass, a look of peaceful slumber on his face as moss and other plant life creeps along his limbs. She takes a few hesitant steps, looking over his body, looking for a wound, something she can bandage, something she can fix.

Half an hour later, screaming and shaking her king’s shoulders, she does not think this is something she can fix.

Not alone.

~~~

Lucienne and Matthew have barely cobbled together an explanation when Death is running past them. She will apologize later for the way she shoves past the librarian, but right now it feels like tunnel vision the way she needs to see her brother right now.

She finds him exactly where Matthew had described, laying on his side with greenery growing over him like a blanket. Death doesn’t need to breathe, but right now she can’t, falling to her knees in front of the motionless body in the depths of the garden.

“Hey little brother,” she forces her voice steady. Dream has always been dramatic, this is just… a fit. Soon she’ll have him awake and grumbling at her, and she’ll smack him for making her worry, and then make him drink something warm while she strokes his hair and bullies him into telling her what’s wrong.

She tries not to think about how she’s never seen him this peaceful before.

“Come on now, you’re the King of Dreams, we both know you don’t sleep,” she teases.

Reaching out, she gently pushes back the vines draped over his chest, frowning when they slowly return to their original position, a little tighter this time.

“Hey, come on now,” she brushes his hair away from his face, ignores the slight tremble in her fingers, “You’re worrying your staff. You gotta… you gotta wake up now, okay? I’m all for you getting some rest, but…”

Still nothing.

Swallowing thickly, she leans forward, one hand on Dream’s arm, and reaches out with her senses, trying to feel where Dream is.

“Lady Death?”

Lucienne’s voice is soft and hesitant, and when Death turns to look, her hands are curled into shaking fists. “Is he…?”

Death can’t help the wet laugh that escapes her.

“He is not with me,” she answers.

She wishes that was good news.

Looking back down, Death notices that the ground beneath Dream seems just slightly sunken, like a mattress indented from the weight of his body. A bed of earth cradling a fragile body.

“He’s here.”

~~~

Dream has told Hob about Matthew before, but that doesn’t make it any less jarring to have a raven peck at his window and yell at him at six in the evening.

It’s more jarring to have his first meeting with the raven be to receive truly disturbing news.

“What do you mean he won’t wake up??”

“I mean exactly what I fucking said! He wont wake up!” Matthew is pacing back and forth in Hob’s living room, something that Hob distantly recognizes as comical but is outweighed by the sheer panic radiating off of both of them, “And all these stupid plants keep growing over him, even when we try to pull them up!”

“Okay but- but what does that mean?” Hob repeated, “Like, was he cursed or something?”

Matthew suddenly freezes, shifting uncomfortably and refusing to even glance in Hob’s direction.

It’s a bad sign if Hob’s ever seen one.

“Matthew.”

“Well,” he starts, sounding nervous and sad, “Lady Death said-”

“I’m sorry, Death?” Hob screeches in a panic.

“He’s not dead!” Matthew interrupts immediately, already knowing Hob’s fear, “Death is the boss’ sister. She came to help us figure out what was going on.”

And. Well. That’s some information that hasn’t come up in their conversations the past few months. Dream had mentioned that he had siblings, which was shocking in itself, but he had never mentioned names.

He shakes his head, trying to focus on one thing at a time, “Okay… okay and what did she say?”

Matthew sighed, “She said he’s, like, merging with the Dreaming.”

Hob opens his mouth and Matthew snaps, “And if you ask me what that means, I will peck your eyes out! I don’t know! I don’t know either!”

The apartment is tense for a long moment. Matthew feels a little bad for his outburst, but then Hob kneels in front of him.

“I’m sorry, I know you’re freaking out as much as I am. Probably more.”

Sighing, Matthew shakes his head to clear his thoughts, “Look, just… Lucienne told me to come get you. She’s calling all the Endless to see if they can help, but honestly he’s been hanging out with you more than any of them, so she thought maybe you could help somehow.”

Hob has no idea how on earth he could possibly help in this situation. But that won’t stop him from trying. “Okay,” he nods, “What do I do?”

~~~

Lucienne is able to explain the situation a little more articulately than Matthew had, but it didn’t make it any better.

“This is Dream’s doing,” she had explained wearily, “as such there is nothing we can do to reverse the process. Our best bet is, for lack of a better phrase… to try to talk him out of it.”

Hob had hesitated by the palace doors, “He’ll be able to hear me?”

“Most likely he can hear you now.”

Cool, Hob thought, so Dream probably saw Hob absolutely losing his shit while Lucienne calmly explained the logistics of what the King of Dreams was doing to himself.

Taking a deep breath, he makes his way outside, following the directions given to him by Matthew. Internally, he tries to view the situation more rationally. He thinks of 1889, of Dream storming off into the rain because Hob had the audacity to call him lonely. Dream is an unfathomably ancient being who holds humanity’s collective unconscious within himself. He’s also overly dramatic and petty. For all Hob knows, this is the eldritch being version of collapsing into a fainting couch.

(He pushes away the image of Lucienne wringing her hands, of Matthew silent and solemn on her shoulder. They’re probably overreacting.)

When he sees Dream, the first thing he thinks is that he’s never seen him so… casual. Curled in peaceful sleep, bare arms and feet, face relaxed. There is none of the rigid tension he’s come to associate with Dream.

It’s uncomfortable.

“You’ve got everyone in a right tizzy, my friend,” he says without preamble. “This seems pretty in character to me though. I mean, you stormed off and ghosted me for 133 years just for saying you needed a friend. What happened this time? Someone tell you to take a break so you decided to make them regret it?”

He keeps his voice light, and deep down he expects Dream to huff, to crack an eye open and glare at him, tell him not to speak on matters he knows nothing of or something equally pretentious.

But none of that happens.

Sitting in front of him, he swallows thickly, “I will say, this is a good look on you. First time I’ve seen you that you don’t look like you’ve bitten into a lemon like an apple.”

At this point he’d be thankful if Dream stood up just to storm off. Hob would give anything for him to yell at him.

He starts pulling at the grass wrapping around parts of Dream’s body, “You know, obviously vampire or devil were my first theories for what you are, but faerie prince was up there too. All covered in plants like this you certainly look the part.”

Hob stays for hours, rambling the most outlandish, borderline insulting things he can think of about the King of Dreams. He calls him pretty boy, calls him a Hot Topic manager, calls him a goth twink, a basic bitch, a Karen, an HR nightmare. Calls him lonely again, just for good measure.

Dream slumbers on.

Hob wakes up with tears in his eyes.

~~~

Desire strutted through the palace of the Dreaming, taking their time to make their way into the gardens. When they finally made their way to where their older brother lay sleeping, they smirked, placing their hands on their hips.

“Well, looks like I won,” they grinned coldly, looking down their nose at the motionless body, “Can’t say I’m surprised, Sweet Dream. While your efforts have been truly entertaining, we both knew you didn’t stand a chance. What fun we had! Not as fun as victory of course. Enjoy your nap, big brother.”

Turning on a heel, Desire giggled and began to walk away. Head held high with proud, confident steps towards the castle to return to their own realm.

And then they falter.

For a long moment, they stand there, facing away from the garden, holding their breath as they wait.

All at once, Desire’s face twists in frustration, spinning around in a fury, “Did you hear me? I said I won! I won!” They shouted it to the sky, let the words echo through the clearing, chest heaving and fists clenched.

There is no response.

“So that’s it then? All you’re doing is proving me right!”

The silence stretched, and Desire clenched their jaw, “Fine. I win then. You can do whatever you want, see if I care.”

Turning again, they stomped away in a huff. They weren’t worried. Dream would mull over their words and his pride would outweigh whatever nonsense this was.

They were sure of it.

~~~

“This is rude, you know that?”

Matthew huffs, hopping in agitation in front of where Dream sleeps. He’s given up trying to peck at the briars, so now he simply vents his frustration to the still figure.

“I know I haven’t been here that long, but you- you have to let me do my job! I was so ready, y’know?” Honestly, it’s probably a little weird how immediately he took to his role as Dream’s raven. But then, he supposed that’s why he was chosen.

“I would fight anything for you. I would have pecked out Lucifer’s eyes! Or, tried to, at least.” He doesn’t know if he could win a fight against the devil, but dammit he would try.

“...But I can’t fight this,” and dammit, he had tried. “So… what am I supposed to do?”

On paper, he feels like he shouldn’t like Dream as much as he does. (Shouldn’t love him, shouldn’t feel such a strong sense of protective and protected in equal measure, he calls him boss but that’s just because he has no idea how to describe what he feels about his relationship with the Endless being.)

“What would Jessamy do…”

He wishes he could have met the raven before him, wishes he could ask her for advice. He wants to ask if she loved Dream as quickly as Matthew has. And if Dream loved her as quickly as Dream loved him. (Dream’s love is quiet, and hidden, but oh so obvious if you know how to look.)

The answer doesn’t come to him, so Matthew can’t help but caw in frustration, flapping his wings in a way reminiscent of throwing his hands in the air back when he had them.

“I can’t be your messenger if you don’t talk to me!” He exclaims, “That’s, like, part of the definition! What am I supposed to do now? Just fly around aimlessly? I’m not spending eternity as a raven with no purpose!”

He knows the yelling isn’t helping, but it makes him feel better. A little.

Looking down at the King of Dreams, he wonders what he could have done to make him feel better. Because that was the problem, wasn’t it. Dream felt so bad he’d rather sink into the earth than keep feeling it.

Or… maybe not bad.

Maybe he just felt so much.

Matthew thinks of Dream’s love, of the fear he carried at the thought of another raven being harmed under his care, of the pain and anger and hope and sorrow and pride and every feeling humanity has ever felt carried in his chest and locked behind a stoic facade.

How exhausting, Matthew thinks.

Instincts are important as a Raven of the Dreaming, and so Matthew gives in to the urge to hop forward, wedging himself under Dream’s arm until he can nestle in the grass by his chest, pressing his head against the underside of Dream’s chin.

“I guess I understand how you would want to rest for a bit,” he mumbles, “as long as you come back. But meanwhile, you have to let us protect you. You have to let us take care of you.”

He settles more comfortably against the sleeping king, “We want to.”

~~~

Destiny sat on an intricate stone bench, a few feet from the seemingly slumbering figure at the edge of the garden. He knew his siblings had taken to (or in some cases would take to) placing themselves directly next to Dream- to Dream’s body- but Destiny knew that his brother could hear him, no matter where he sat in the Dreaming.

A quiet voice wonders if Destiny wants to be heard at all.

“I did not see this,” his confession is a whisper, “it was not written this way.”

It is rare for Destiny to step into the Dreaming. It often feels to him as jarring as Delirium’s realm, the unpredictable nature of it secretly frustrating to him. It was, perhaps unsurprisingly, Delirium who came the closest to explaining it to him.

‘It’s a choose-your-own-adventure realm. You’ll always know exactly what will happen as long as you know exactly where you’re going.’

For the first time, he finds that thought comforting.

“Should I be grateful?” he questions, turning his face to frown at his sleeping brother, “That you have found a way to leave us without dying? That you managed to change your fate? Should I tell the others how much worse it was supposed to be?”

Destiny doubts that information would be any comfort to his siblings. Mostly because he doubts it’s honesty. He thinks this might be the worse outcome.

His closed book sits heavy in his lap, a comfortable and familiar weight. He keeps a thumb wedged between the pages, marking the place he last left off.

“Not looking at the next page does not change what it says. And yet… I find myself…”

The book stays closed. The last chapter unread.

Rising slowly, he finally makes his way over to the body, gliding across the garden silently. For a long, long moment all he can do is stand over him, a looming Destiny watching over a Dream. He remembers losing Despair, remembers when Destruction left them, and he feels the same now as he did then. The sharp, painful reminder that he was not simply the personification of destiny.

He is an elder brother. The eldest, the one to whom the others are supposed to look up to.

He does not interfere. But, not for the first time, he wishes he did.

“You are the Prince of Stories,” he states. Kneeling before his little brother, Destiny lets his thumb slip from the book, lets himself lose his place. And then, hesitantly, he takes Dream’s hand into his own and places a gentle kiss against the tips of his fingers.

“Perhaps. You could change your story. One more time.”

~~~

It was a few weeks before Desire returned, and this time they were angry.

“You’re making Death cry, do you know that?”

Dream remained motionless and silent and it infuriated Desire.

“This is your master plan? Become one with the Dreaming so you don’t have to deal with living? Well, now I have a whole realm to torment! Maybe this will be more fun, now you can cause an earthquake when I get you really riled up!”

With long, quick strides, Desire made their way to the nearest fruit tree, heavy with vibrant oranges on its branches. Smirking to themself, they reached out, and with no preamble, they snatched the ripe fruit and ripped it from the branches.

Spinning back around to face their brother’s body, they found themself waiting again. Waiting for Dream to bolt upright in a fury. They even half expected the tree to attack them, or perhaps for thunder or lightning. Some sort of reaction from wherever Dream was.

When they turned to the tree, they found a new fruit growing in the same spot as the one they had snagged, this one larger and brighter and closer to their hand.

Desire screamed in fury.

Long nails curved like claws as they began ripping every orange from the tree, throwing them to the ground and tearing at the branches. When there was nothing left in their reach, they began kicking at it, sharp shoes kicking up grass and leaving long gouges in the bark as they screamed and cursed.

Chest heaving, they took a step back, surveying the damage they had done to the corner of the garden. Their brother is the Dreaming and the Dreaming is him, now more than ever. Surely… surely this had hurt.

When they turn around, there is an orange blossom blooming in the palm of Dream’s hand like an offering.

Desire let out a sob.

“Why don’t you understand?!”

They hate Dream. They hate him so much, in this moment more than ever, because it’s not fair that Desire still loves him this much. Loves him to the point of screaming.

“Just because someone desires something from you doesn’t mean you have to give it to them!”

They’re not sure when they fall to their knees. They’re not sure how long they sob on the ground. They’re not sure it matters.

~~~

It takes a while for Delirium to find Dream’s body, if only because Dream’s realm is so distracting, sometimes. She gets lost, trying to tell which fish are hers and which are Dream’s.

When her wandering finally takes her to the castle garden where her brother sleeps, she manages to bee line to the moss-covered figure (strange phrase, bee line, a handful of bees manifest behind her and not a single one flies straight).

She sits right next to him, leaning back against his body and patting clumsily at wild black hair entwined with grass. As she does, small white flowers begin to bloom beneath her hand. She gasps gleefully, running her fingers across small, delicate petals.

“Oh, how lovely. Are these a dream or a hallucination?”

There is no answer.

Sighing, Delirium flops over dramatically, laying down with her nose barely pressing against Dream’s. She traces over the sharp planes of his face, brushing his eyelids, hoping for more flowers. Or maybe stars.

“I changed too.”

She doesn’t know why she whispers. It’s not a secret.

“What will your name be now?” Who decided her name? She can’t remember.

“Let’s see… Dumb!” She pokes at her dumb brother’s cheek. “Or maybe. Desire always calls you Dreary. Desert!” Things don’t grow in deserts. She waits for the moss and ivy to wither and die. A cactus flower blooms over Dream’s throat.

“Oh,” Delirium pouted, “Right.” She plucks the flower from his throat, and her hand comes back bloody, cactus thorns sprouting across Dream’s neck.

“Darkness. Debt. Defeat.” She rolls onto her back, looking up at the sky and watches far off creatures fly above her. Her hands start braiding fragile stems. “Daisy Chain.”

Suddenly, she jerks to sit upright, “Dream?” She shakes his shoulder roughly, “What is the word for when you feel like you want to go home, even though you’re already there?”

Nothing.

She shakes him again, harder.

Nothing.

Letting her hand fall away from her brother’s shoulder, Delirium wants very much to be angry. But, she supposes, she can’t always get what she wants.

“…You’re supposed to tell me.” Her eyes well with tears, lips quivering. “Dream? What is the word for when you want to go home, but home is a person and the person is gone?”

The fish drift down, catching her tears on their scales before they can hit the ground, before they can water the vines. Her voice cracks, “Dream?” She lays back down, tucking her face under her brother’s chin. The cactus spines turn into soft blades of grass against her cheek. “Dream, what is the word?” She sniffles, drawing her knees to her chest, “Is there a word?”

Maybe there isn’t.

The tears dry against her face, uncomfortable and itchy, but Delirium stays. She tears out blades of grass and sprinkles them over her own body to match her brother, lets little rainbows bloom between them.

“What will your name be now?”

When she sits up, she finds that her brother’s body looks exactly like it did when she had first arrived, no evidence of flowers or spines. She brushes a gentle thumb across still, white eyelids. No stars.

Leaning down, she places a kiss on a cold cheek.

“How about Dearest.”

~~~

“You know, I had the most absurd plans to try to woo you.”

Hob has been sitting by Dream’s side every night for almost two months now. Honestly he’s surprised it took this long for him to talk about this.

“Well, perhaps ‘woo’ is the wrong word,” he muses, laying next to Dream’s still body, looking up at the clouds, “I wasn’t sure you’d be open to blatant courting. Didn’t want to scare you off again. So I tried to think of ways to, like, trick you into wanting to date me.”

He turned his face to look at Dream, “Which sounds crazy, but you are the most prickly, flighty person I know. It’s like interacting with a wild rabbit, one wrong move and you’re bolting into the woods. Gotta move all slow and careful.”

Dream would have his head for saying these things. Hob would give it to him if he would just wake up.

Sighing, he keeps talking when the silence continues, “I was going to make up some bullshit story about how I absolutely had to have a date to a friend’s wedding, and how I needed you to pretend to be my boyfriend. And then we would dance together and you’d realize what a catch I am and it would just go from there.”

Sitting up, he begins his nightly ritual of trying to remove the plants from around Dream’s body, “Or, I also considered taking you to a gay bar. I didn’t really think of any steps past that, I just kind of hoped you would get the hint.”

Every vine he pulls up is replaced almost immediately. He never makes any progress. Still, it makes him feel better to try.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Hob’s voice softens, “I love being your friend. If I got nothing else for all eternity, well, it’s still more than I thought I’d get. But…” He looks down at Dreams face, hesitantly reaches out to stroke the line of his jaw, and smirks, “You know me. Endlessly greedy.”

If Dream was awake he would probably roll his eyes at that.

But Dream is not awake.

~~~

Sometimes Death wanders through the Dreaming before seeing Dream. Or, maybe wanders through the Dreaming to see Dream. It hurts her heart to see his essence spreading, the way the landscape feels more sentient, the way different dreams and nightmares seem drawn by an invisible force to guide their nights. Some of them try to fight it. Try to push it back.

She sits in Fiddler’s Green, runs her fingers through the grass, brushing away dew like tear drops, and she feels in her chest the way the landscape cries.

I’m trying. I’m trying.

“I know,” she whispers, petting the earth below her. “I know.”

~~~

Despair stands in the shadows of the palace for a long time before approaching her brother, shifting from foot to foot and fidgeting with her ring. Finally, she takes a deep breath and goes outside, digging the end of her hook into her finger as she approaches the spot where Dream sleeps.

“If I cry here, will it make the grass grow faster?”

There is no response, but she figures it won’t make a difference. From what she’s heard no one has managed to change the rate at which the garden grows over their brother. As such, she sits immediately next to him, settling in the curve of his body, feeling moss and sharp bones pressing against her back, and letting her right hand shyly play with Dream’s hair.

“I remember dying, a little,” she admits. “It’s a little fuzzy. Like… like how some humans describe a dream,” she looks at Dream out of the corner of her eye, half expecting him to scoff or glare at the comparison.

When there is no response, she continues, “I remember coming into being more clearly though. I remember Desire hugging me, and I hugged back, and we made sure no one could see, but we were both crying. Mourning and celebrating in equal measure.”

She knows that, deep down, Desire still sometimes misses who Despair used to be. Despair sometimes misses who she used to be, too. But they are still together, and they both find relief in that.

Sighing, she looks up at the sky, gray clouds muting the normally vibrant landscape. She wonders if that is her fault.

“For as long as I can remember you’ve had one foot in my realm. Sometimes more.”

Dream was always in the corner of her eye, a shadow that she could no more escape than he could escape her.

“It was suffocating, like I could never get away from you,” she pauses, “But I wanted you closer, too.” He was always circling her, but never with her. “Those hundred years you were imprisoned… it felt like this. You were right there next to me, you were right there. But you never came to me, you never talked to me. I’m Despair, why wouldn’t you talk to me? You should’ve talked to me.”

Would she have led him out of her realm? Would she have led him deeper?

She doesn’t know.

But she would have done something.

Pulling her hands into her lap, she stares down at her fingers, pressing her hook into them once more, deeper this time, “...I should’ve talked to you.”

Glancing back at Dream, she finds the words. Maybe it’s too late, but Despair hopes that he can hear her now. She pulls the hook from her finger, leans down, and kisses Dream’s temple.

“I should have told you that there will always be despair in living. I should have told you that I will always be there for you. I should have told you that you don’t have to hurt alone.”

~~~

When Destruction arrives in the Dreaming, Lucienne has to place a hand over Matthew’s beak to keep him from calling attention to it, giving Destruction a respectful nod before disappearing into another room.

Destruction smirked slightly, always appreciative of Lucienne’s discretion whenever he visits this realm. As he walks, he runs his fingers along the intricate stone of the palace, eventually transitioning to soft touches of leaves and flowers as he enters the gardens.

The smile slips from his face as he finally sees the figure of his brother, thin and fragile and slowly being covered by greenery. He cannot help but approach hesitantly, as though he will awaken the peaceful figure if his footsteps are too heavy. It strikes him that that is what he wants, and he intentionally lets his feet fall heavier.

He sits with a sigh, and as he reaches out to begin tearing at the grass, he speaks to his brother.

“I remember the first time I dreamt after I left,” he begins softly, “I’m sure you do too. I spent the whole time expecting you to show up and scold me, and I remember… trying to hide. Not because I thought it would do anything, obviously, you could find me anywhere here, but because…”

Destruction feels a stab of guilt, but he continues, “I remember I hoped you would take the hint,” he admits, “And you never showed up. Not that time, or the time after that, or any of the times I’ve dreamt since then.”

Sometimes he wonders about how often he dreamt. He wonders how he ever fooled himself into thinking he didn’t want to be found.

“And I… for the longest time I thought, ‘wow, he’s so mad he can’t even speak to me’. But… it was just a lie I told myself.” He swallows thickly, forcing the confession out even though it hurts, “Because it was easier to believe you were furious with me than to acknowledge that you, more than any of the others, just understood. That you wanted to leave too.”

A pile of torn grass and vines sits next to Destruction’s folded legs, but Dream’s form looks exactly the same.

“I get it. You know I do,” he pleads, “Come back so we can talk about it.”

He doesn’t get an answer.

~~~

“Lucienne.”

The librarian turned, looking to where Dream sat by one of the large ornate windows of the palace, his fingers tracing unseen shapes.

“Yes, my lord?”

There is a long pause before he answers, seemingly weighing his words carefully.

“Do you ever wish I had been imprisoned sooner?”

For a too long moment Lucienne feels the breath catch in her chest, like her lungs alone have turned to stone. It takes too long for her to find her own words.

“I wish you hadn’t been imprisoned at all.”

She doesn’t like the way Dream’s brows furrow just slightly at her answer, in surprise or confusion or something else entirely.

But before she can say anything else, he simply hums in response and sweeps out of the room.

Lucienne does not follow.

~~~

There are large alabaster beds on the shore of the dreaming. Dozens of massive half shells, like hands, holding half-formed dreams within them. Lucienne stares, trying to understand what she is seeing. As she watches, the tides of the dreaming drift forward, blankets of water covering the shells, and when they pull back the dreams are all a little more complete. Lucienne thinks of The Birth of Venus, of oysters, of pearls forming, of the things that grow in the waters, and of small particles of near-nothingness being coated in nacre slowly and meticulously until they become something beautiful and whole.

Lucienne begins to cry.

“You have certainly thought of everything, my Lord.”

There is no grace as she kneels in the sand. It is a collapse. A heaviness that she cannot withstand.

“You are so meticulous,” she hiccups, “so careful to make sure that the Dreaming will not suffer for losing its hands. Why, in all that consideration, did you not think to talk to me?”

The waves are near silent, repetitive and soft as they methodically grow dreams and nightmares. It hits Lucienne suddenly that she does not want to be here without Dream. There is an inherent wrongness, a gaping absence, and before she fully thinks about it she is stumbling to her feet and running from the shore.

She is no more composed when she reaches the garden, and she doesn’t want to be here either, but she cannot stop herself from going to her king’s side. Sitting in front of him, she takes a moment to try to pull herself together, to find some of the composure more fitting of her station.

After a few deep breaths, she feels a little less like falling apart, and reaches out to hold the hand of the sleeping figure. The fingers are bonier than they were, which is saying something, and she finds herself placing them between her palms, hoping to warm them if even a little.

“You have always seemed so confused by my loyalty,” her voice is soft, but steady, “I wish you had been able to see that it was care.”

Lucienne grips his hand tighter, and feels a damn break inside her.

“I did not need you to be perfect,” she says imploringly, “There were things that frustrated me, that I wanted to change. Sometimes you drove me absolutely crazy,” she lets out a watery laugh, “but it never made me love you less. If I could dream, it would be of your hands stroking my feathers. The way you always held me like I was something precious. The way you let me become something more.”

She remembers her time as a raven with such fondness, but more than anything she remembers how clearly Dream had cared for her, how his love shone through his cold exterior.

It makes her feel guilty, sometimes.

“We both know that you loved me before I loved you,” she confesses quietly, “That does not mean that I do not love you. I do not care for you because it is my job.”

She raises Dream’s hand to her lips, pressing a soft kiss against sharp knuckles.

“I simply care for you.”

~~~

“I’m always happy to see you,” Hob whispers, “But I hate to see you like this.”

He keeps one hand on Dream’s fragile ribs, feeling the way it rises and falls rhythmically, the body still alive even as it slowly decomposes into the earth below it. Dream is so thin, his clothes in tatters, his skin nearly translucent.

“I don’t mind waiting for you,” he strokes a hand through Dream’s hair, fingers catching on briars tangles in the messy locks, “because you’ve always come back, eventually.”

Swallowing thickly, he closes his eyes, “Do you understand?” he asks in a whisper.

“That means you have to come back.”

~~~

Desire is quiet when they approach Dream. His chest continues to rise and fall methodically, but it doesn’t make him look any less like a corpse. They sit in front of him.

“Do you want me to say that you won?” Their voice is the softest they think it’s ever been, “Because I will. I will, if it would change anything.”

At this point, they’re not surprised when they don’t receive an answer. Sighing, they lean down, resting their head against a moss-covered shoulder.

“You’re insufferable,” they whisper, “I should have known you’d find a way so that we both lose.”

They lay with their brother for what feels like hours, and when they leave, they press a kiss to wild black hair.

~~~

“Sorry it’s been so long, work never ends, y’know?”

Death smiled shakily, kneeling in her usual spot next to Dream. Reaching out, she began gently pulling away the grass weaving around his body, chattering mindlessly about the things she’d seen since last she saw him, eyes watching his face carefully for any sign of…

Any sign of life.

Her fingers catch on a particularly stubborn vine, and she turns, intending to pull harder, but her breath immediately catches. There are holes in Dream’s shirt from the growth, and Death sees now that the vine in her hand has woven through one of Dream’s prominent ribs.

She drops the vine like she’s been burned, jerking backwards and falling onto her backside. Her chest is heaving, and her eyes dart around Dream’s body, and she can’t tell how much is growing around him and how much is growing through him. There’s too much.

“This isn’t fair,” her voice cracks.

Dream looks so different like this. But, she realizes, it is something beyond his withering body. Death has known him his whole life, remembers the day he was brought into being, and she realizes that the face she is looking at now is unfamiliar because it is not in pain.

“This isn’t fair,” tears stream down her face, “If you had just… If you tried to die properly then I’d be able to… to smack you, and tell you how stupid you are, or…” she closes her eyes, hanging her head in grief, “...or hold your hand.”

That is her purpose, her function. And she can’t even fulfill it for her own brother.

“But now I can’t do anything, and that’s, frankly, quite rude of you,” she sniffles, wiping at her face and looking at the slumbering figure again.

“I’m your big sister. You’re supposed to talk to me. You’re supposed to be able to talk to me. Where did we go wrong, that your own story is the one you struggle to tell?” She knows she has not been the perfect sister. All of the Endless have struggled to be a family, so caught up in their incredible responsibilities over humanity. They have all failed each other so many times.

Not for the first time, Death wishes they could be something else.

Swallowing thickly, she reaches out, running her fingers through Dream’s hair with one hand while the other laces between Dream’s spindly fingers.

Leaning over, she places a kiss on Dream’s forehead.

“I will hold your hand through this, too.”

~~~

When Destruction approaches, he notices almost immediately the flowers around Dream’s body. They are scattered and vibrant, and there is not much of Dream’s skin left showing, but Destruction still sees when he gets close enough that the flowers are not growing on top of Dream. They are growing out of him.

Logically, Destruction knows that what he feels in that moment is not rage. But it’s something close enough.

It is grief that makes him draw his sword.

With a broken cry, he falls to his knees, swinging his sword with precision to slice through the flowers, letting their petals fall in tatters around Dream’s body.

"You don't get to do this!” He screams, he cries, “You don't get to destroy yourself and then cover it with flowers like that makes it better! It doesn’t make it better!”

He raises his sword again, ready to cut through every bit of grass and growth that clings to his brother. But before he can, his eyes catch on his brother’s wrists, where moments ago a row of flowers had been blooming. Now, red blooms from the ends of the fragile remnants of clipped stems. The flowers are bleeding.

Dream is bleeding.

Destruction’s fingers go numb, and the sword drops to the earth with a muffled ‘thud’. A broken sob is torn from his throat, and then he cannot stop. He curls over himself, his forehead pressed to the grass as he weeps, his fists clenched so tight he nearly makes himself bleed as well.

He is still crying when he finds the strength to lift his head, and his hands are shaking when he reaches out. It is with infinite gentleness that he cups his brother’s hand between his own. He does not want to hurt him anymore.

Leaning down, he presses his lips softly to his elder brother’s bloody wrist.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. Closing his eyes, he presses Dream’s hand to his chest, “I’m so sorry.”

Destruction stays, cradling his brother’s hand, until the bleeding has stopped.

The flowers don’t grow back.

~~~

When Hob arrives in the garden, he cannot see Dream’s body.

He freezes, staring at the spot he has been coming to every night for over three months, the space he knows like the back of his hand, that he could find with his eyes closed, and sees nothing.

No wild black hair, no snow white skin, no peaceful figure resting in a garden bed.

All he sees is grass, and moss, and creeping vines.

Maybe to another it would look simply like an uneven patch of earth, a soft slope of stone or roots, a natural variety to the land.

To Hob, it looks like a grave.

And something inside of him snaps.

“No.”

His steps are furious and desperate as he marches to the buried figure and, with no hesitation, falls to his knees and thrusts both hands into the earth. Briars catch on his coat sleeves and dirt catches under his fingernails as he pushes through the growth. He can feel skeletal limbs and torn fabric, grips tight around a fragile chest, braces his legs and pulls.

Tears stream down Hob’s face as Dream’s body is torn from the ground. It feels like a tearing, grass and vines snapping as Hob stands. He feels a tug as something holds Dream back, and when he looks, he sees roots emerging from Dream’s wrists and fingernails, from the knobs of his spine, a web of tethers reaching into the earth.

It hurts, because Hob never wants to be anything but gentle with Dream, but right now he can’t, because the landscape is trying to pull the body from his hands and he can’t let it. So he sobs, and pulls harder, dragging Dream away from his resting spot, dirt spraying as the long tangle of roots rip from the ground.

Eventually, he stumbles, falling backwards until he is sitting with Dream between his legs, his back pressed against Hob’s chest. Black hair and dirt tickle Hob’s face, his tears turning to mud. The grass is already reaching for him, the roots of Dream’s body gripping the ground and trying to burrow deeper.

Hob twist them around so he can cradle Dream in his arms and look down at his pale, sunken face. His eyes still closed in peaceful slumber. He brings a shaking hand up to cup Dream’s face, his thumb brushing dirt from his sharp cheekbone.

“You are not getting rid of me that easily, do you hear me?” He whispers desperately, “I waited six hundred years to be your friend. I loved you when I was at my worst, I loved you when you were at your worst, and I will love you when you are the roots beneath the Dreaming.”

His voice gets louder, his tears stream faster, he grips Dream’s face harder, “Do you understand? Are you listening? I’m more stubborn than you! This is a fight you won’t win! I have no problem falling in love with a patch of grass!”

Raw honesty paints his words. Hob has loved and lost more times than he can count in his immortal life, but he refuses to lose this one. His oldest friend, his only constant.

“I… I want to live,” he confesses softly, “and I want you to live with me. Beside me. I want us to go through the years together, to share in whatever comes next. I want us to share stories with each other, and hold each other when things are hard. I want to experience eternity with you.”

It’s an old dream. The fantasy of going through his life the same as he has for the past 600 years except with his stranger beside him. The two of them laughing and crying and raging and living together, hand in hand.

“I want you here,” Hob’s voice cracks, but he swallows, and his next words come strong and firm, “But I’ll marry this realm if I have to. I’ll spend eternity caring for the land through every season, through spring and summer, through autumn and winter, I’ll be here tilling the earth and watering the flowers. Give whole new meaning to the word ‘husbandry’.”

A watery laugh escapes him, “I’ll… I’ll drive you absolutely mad. So just… just come back.”

The briars are creeping up Dream’s body, the roots trying to pull him down. Vines try to slip between Hob’s hand and Dream’s skin.

So Hob holds on tighter, closes his eyes, and pulls Dream up to kiss him for all he’s worth.

It’s different from what Hob imagined, mostly because he never imagined kissing Dream in these circumstances. His lips are ice cold and taste of dirt and grass. He feels so fragile in Hob’s arms, he keeps his lips soft, gentle, trying to pour all his love through the contact without forcing it.

He tries not to think of it as a goodbye kiss.

The saltwater of his tears reaches his lips, and he nearly laughs at the thought of salting the earth, a shaky breath escaping him even as he keeps his lips against Dream’s face. For a long moment he just breathes against Dream’s lips, their foreheads pressed together, Hob’s tears dripping to leave tear tracks on Dream’s face.

A rattling breath brushes against Hob’s lips.

Eyes snapping open, Hob becomes suddenly aware of how the grass has stopped pulling on Dream’s body, no longer pushing to separate them. In fact, they seem to be receding, however slowly.

Something in the air has changed as well, though Hob has trouble articulating it. Like when the air pressure drops before a storm, or the way his stomach feels just before going over the first drop of a roller coaster, or the way the ocean draws back before a tidal wave. Except, there is no break to the tension, no storm or drop or wall of water. It feels the way a Shepard Tone sounds.

Dream’s lips part just slightly, and Hob sees his eyes shift behind his eyelids for the first time. He looks up and down Dream’s withered body, watching as the plants seem to retreat reluctantly, the way Dream’s skin shifts slightly as the roots being to slowly, so slowly, pull out of the earth and back into his body, inch by inch, and they are so long, so deep, that Hob wonders if they stretched to the edge of the Dreaming.

And then, Dream opens his eyes.

Hob can’t contain the sobs that escape him as he looks into cloudy eyes. The ocean blue of his irises are just barely visible behind what looks like literal storm clouds. At first he stares at Hob unseeingly. But then tears well up, and as they spill over his cheeks, running side by side with the tracks Hob’s own tears had left on his skin, the clouds begin to gradually clear as he cries out the storm in his eyes.

“Hey, hey, hello, hello my love,” Hob sobs, running his fingers through Dream’s hair, across his cheeks, wiping at his tears, embracing him impossibly closer.

“Hob…”

Dream’s voice is thready and weak. Horse from disuse and the earth that had settled in his lungs. He sucks in a pained breath, his eyes falling closed again as the roots continue to slide into his flesh.

“It’s alright, I’m here, I’m right here,” Hob pressed him to his chest, pressing kisses everywhere he can reach, “Come back to me now, it’s alright.”

If he could, if it did not hurt so much, Dream thinks he would be crying harder. As it is, he has no power to do anything more than allow the tears to slip silently down his face, his body limp and stiff in Hob’s arms.

But Hob’s arms are so warm.

It hurts, to pull himself out of the Dreaming. He had sunk so deep, spread so far, it feels like collecting pieces of broken glass into his hands and trying to press them back together. He almost stops, the thought of glass making him want to retreat back to that peaceful not-quite-existence he had carved for himself.

Then he feels Hob’s lips against his eyelids, his hands holding him steady and safe, and he wants to feel more. Roots drag through the earth like razor blades, but along the way he thinks he feels the echoes of kisses. Different lips, different times, all pressing a calling against his skin, a plea for him to return.

When he had laid down here, he had not expected anyone to truly want him to return.

Neither knows how long it takes, it feels like hours, years, lifetimes, but finally Dream gasps in agony as the ends of the roots break free of the earth. It takes longer for the last few feet to disappear back into Dream, and he thinks he still feels them coiled around his lungs, aching to crawl out his mouth and anchor him again. He worries that his tears will turn to roots.

He grinds his teeth together, clenches his eyes shut, swallows back everything that brought him to this point. His body begins to shake, and he doesn’t know if he will be able to hold himself together again.

Hob cries freely above him, and as the roots disappear, he begins trailing his lips along Dream’s arms, kissing every smoothed over spot and Dream feels something settle inside him. Hob kisses his wrists and Dream feels the roots begin to turn back into veins, and Hob kisses his eyes and his tears are still salt water, and he kisses his mouth and that is all Dream needs to anchor himself.

Dream opens his eyes again, and Hob is crying and smiling and holding him like he will never let go.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.”

He wants to laugh, but all Dream can do is keep crying. He does not feel like a beauty and he is certain he does not look like one either. He feels like a weed ripped from a garden. Maybe that’s exactly what he is.

The tears turn to sobs, his chest aches with it. He knows why he left, and he knows why he came back, and now he does not know where he is meant to go.

Perhaps, he thinks as Hob cradles him closer, tucking his head under his chin, he is not meant to go anywhere. Perhaps, for now, he can just stay in Hob’s embrace. His arms are too weak to hold Hob back, but he presses his face against Hob’s chest, letting his shirt soak his tears. It hurts less, the longer he lets Hob hold him together, the more he lets all the words from the past however long sink into his bones. He thinks, perhaps, being a person isn’t so bad if he can sooth it with all these little compassions.

Hob kisses him on the mouth again, and as he finally kisses back, Dream thinks to himself:

Perhaps, I could live with this.

Perhaps I could live.

#my writing #the sandman #dreamling #dreamling fic #endless family #holy SHIT I can't believe I actually finished this by New Years #as always I'm meh on the ending #still terrified that the fic wont be as good as the og post #but here we are

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