Archive of Our Own

And yet, even knowing this now, you still feel an urgency to duck into one of the classrooms.  Like you’re expected.  And you don’t want to disappoint whoever is waiting.

But what is through the door is no classroom.  It’s really unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.  The marble tiles seem to glow, bathing the place in a surreal light that travels up the half dozen chiseled columns and archways.  Archways that seem to magically dissolve into a purpled midnight sky where a ceiling ought to be.  It dances with an aurora borealis in vivid greens and electric blues that nearly stop your heart as you stare in wonder.

The sound of a book closing draws your attention back downward.  A large ornately carved table commands the center of the place, the darkest wood of it matching the brimming bookcases that line the walls.  At one end of the table sits a singular high-backed chair, and in it, a man with a leather bound tome in his pale hand.

Dream.

You realize he must have been watching you since you came in, but when your eyes finally settle on him, the ghost of a smile crosses his face as he tilts his head.  “Ah, there you are.  I have been waiting for you.”

“Sorry,” you mutter offhand, attention torn between the marvel above you and the Dream Lord as you draw closer.  “What is this place?”

“There’s no need for apologies.”  He stands then, looking every bit the ethereal king you know him to be, but there’s something endearingly mundane about the way he cradles the book in his hand and straightens his shoulders formally.  “Welcome to my library.”

That takes you aback.  This place is much too small to be The Dreaming’s library, no way all the stories of the collective unconscious could be housed in these beautiful, but decidedly close quarters.  As if reading your mind, or perhaps just the puzzlement on your face, Morpheus adds “This is my private collection.  I thought it to be… less overwhelming.”

You stop beside the table, glancing up once more at the colors dancing above you both, and fix him with an incredulous look.  “Right, much less overwhelming.”

His gaze follows yours up to the lights a moment, falling back to your face with the slightest quirk at the corner of his lips.  And it almost seems like the flickering blue has been caught in his eyes as he rounds the corner of the table to approach you.  Your mind takes you back to your first meeting with this Endless and you realize that blanket of calm has returned.  Except where there was once fear, something else rests in your chest.  Something else you’re not quite sure you have a name for just yet.

“I wrote the thing,” you offer, remembering the last dream and the story ideas that had flooded your mind. How he had already known them as sure as anything you’d actually put to paper.  “The angsty one.”

“I know.” Of course he does, how could you have possibly thought otherwise.  But there isn’t any smugness in the look he gives you as he stops a scant arm’s length away.  It’s softer.  It’s… kind.  “I am pleased to hear it. Now, what shall your next one be?”

The book he’d been reading is still in his hand; he raises it in acknowledgement before setting it on the table between you both and you suddenly know that’s it. That’s the book that holds all your stories, everything you’ve ever written and everything you’ve never written.  Without realizing, your hand finds its way to the cover, itching to open it, to know.  But you stay yourself, fingers feeling along the spine wistfully.

“I don’t know.”  You shrug a little, letting your hand drop to your side as you look back up at him.  “Matthew, maybe?”

Lord Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, surprises you with a half-annoyed little huff.  “He will be flattered, I’m sure.”

Your lips draw thin as you try to contain yourself, peering at him curiously.  “Jealous?”

Perhaps you were too bold, because your heart drops at the affronted way he raises his chin, brow cinched and lips parted as if to retort, to deny.  But the spark in his eyes softens first, followed slowly by his expression, into something that feels almost playful.

“Are you laughing at me?”  He squints at you, studying you, though his mouth quirks gently.

“No!” It comes out so sharp and fast you nearly startle yourself.  This only seems to amuse the Dream King more.  “No, of course not.”

His gentle hum is enough to soothe any worry in you.  Though not quite enough to dispel your look of chagrin or the heat in your cheeks.  Those you try hiding with another glance up at the color dancing across the glittering sky above.  It’s beautiful, wondrous, and threatens to make you feel so small.  Except…

“Can I…” You pause a moment to look at Dream again, not exactly sure where the ember of curiosity has come from, but feeling it fanned by the way this Endless watches you so intently.  “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Why?”

The confused pinch between his brow really does make you laugh this time.  Though it’s more at yourself than him; nervous, delirious, uncertain.

“Why give me all these ideas?” you continue with a little shake of your head.  “Why show me these things?  This place?”

“Because I wish to read them.”  As though it is the most obvious thing in the world and not some mystery tickling at your brain.

You guffaw at that, momentarily dumbfounded by what feels like a celestial joke. Spinning on your heel to escape his constant starry gaze for a breath, you take a few aimless steps.  “Okay… then why me?  There are plenty of people you could get to write for you.”

Morpheus’s fingers wrap around your elbow, gently urge you back toward him.  His eyes study you like some fascinating puzzle he can’t quite sus out.  “You humans are so strange.  Half hope, half doubt.  Never knowing quite which side to fall on.”

“You’ve never doubted yourself before?” You’re not sure where such words, such bold familiarity comes from, but out it tumbles in a gentle press; a little plea for empathy.

This gives him a moment’s pause before a soft smile warms his pale features.  “Perhaps that is why you, Little Writer. Or that I whisper these things to you and you build worlds with them. As sure as anything I build in The Dreaming.  It is your words I want for my library.  I will keep them well here.”

Speechless.  Something aches inside you at his sincerity, at the way he speaks his last sentence like a reassuring oath. He asks for your words and yet there are none in this moment you can piece together in response.  

But this doesn’t deter the Dream King.  He merely steps closer, cool fingers tracing electric  down your arm to settle at your wrist.  And his voice is somehow deeper in its quiet, its intimacy.  “Let others have their dreams and inspirations.  Let me be yours.”

“Mine?”  It comes out unbidden, a choked whisper into the space between you, more longing in it than you realize.  It deepens the ache in you, finding that feeling of wonder and smallness in his glittering eyes, as striking as the vaulted ceiling above.

Realization seems to dawn on Dream’s face and his soft, amused chuckle hums in your chest.  He knows.  He sees your ache and your smallness.  But he doesn’t back away, he doesn’t back down.  Instead, delicate fingers clasp your near trembling hand.

“I thought I’d made my intentions quite obvious,” he muses, perhaps more to himself than anything, raising your joined hands to press a chaste kiss to your knuckles.  “I mean to court you, Little Writer.  If you allow it.”

“Court me?”  You blink, shocked, flustered.  Skin all too alive under the barest brush of his lips.  Feeling all too like some dumbfounded parrot with the way you can only repeat his words that strike you hardest.

The barest hint of concern etches his features, though his gentle touch never falters.  “Are my advances… unwelcome?”

You nearly find yourself repeating him again in your haze, but you catch it, gaping mouth snapping shut as you force yourself to a more coherent answer.  “Not unwelcome. Just unexpected.”

This seems to please him.  You can almost feel it in his touch, it hitches your breath ever so quietly.  That pleases him too, his mouth tilting smug.  “Have I overwhelmed you?”

“Oh, maybe just a little,” you manage to snark back at him, earning a wider grin that heats your face like the sun. Your eyes scan the room again, across the starry ceiling, trying to calm your wild heart.  “I’d hate to think just how overwhelmed I’d be if you’d picked some place else.”

“Then my apologies are in order,” Dream murmurs gently, fingers slipping from your hand.  But before you can protest, they’re silencing you with a touch at your chin, holding your gaze on him lest it wander again.  And it’s all so very soft you could melt.  “Morning breaks in your realm.  The Waking World calls you.”

“Can’t I stay here,” you whisper, though you can feel the truth of his words, see pinks and oranges starting to leech into the starry night beyond his dark mess of hair.

“But then who shall write these stories for me? Or for my dreamers?”  His quiet tease does nothing to change your mind. Yet still you feel yourself slipping away, eyes heavy, fluttering closed at the feel of his thumb grazing the curve of your lips.  “Go, Little Writer.  I’ll be here when you return…”

Your eyes blink open slowly to sunlight streaming in through your bedroom window.  Some black bird flutters past and brings a wistful smile to your face.  What a wild dream. Your old high school.  A gorgeous, dancing sky.  A dark-haired man with stars for eyes.  

If only you could remember more…