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The Corinthian opens his eyes.
He draws in his first breath, inhaling deeply through his nostrils, and all three of his mouths. His lungs expand, and in the center of his chest, something not unlike a heart begins to beat. The scent of ozone sticks to the inside of his throat, pungent and electrifying.
His eye-mouths blink, their tongues darting out experimentally, and he tastes salt on his eyelashes.
There is a dull, droning roar around him: the distinctive, relentless crashing of night-speckled waves breaking against a shoreline.
He looks out, to the source.
Before him, trillions of stars glitter beneath a churning sea and its white-frothing foam, and each roll and recession of the waves washes up nebulas and quasars on the sands.
He knows where he is. The landscape changes often, but this is the primordial heart of the Dreaming, the place upon which Lord Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, first turned his gaze to the vast, tidal swell of mankind’s collective subconscious, and began to fashion for them horrors and wonders to terrorize and delight their sleeping minds.
These shores are the birthing grounds of every single dream and nightmare that has come since.
The Corinthian knows this truth instinctively. It is the nature of all of Dream’s creatures to know their home, and their god.
He exhales, and from behind, there comes a voice so intimately familiar that the sound of it sings through every cell in his body.
“Nightmare,” Dream of the Endless rumbles. “Turn and face your creator.”
The Corinthian obeys, and though he was not asked, he kneels, bowing his head and fixing his gaze on the muddy sands and washed-up celestial phenomena below rather than raise his face and behold his god.
He startles as a cool hand descends to trail along his jaw. Dream’s fingers slip under his chin, tilting it up.
Dream stares down at him, beautiful and serene and so monstrously perfect that the Corinthian aches at the sight of him.
He also, the Corinthian notes somewhat belatedly, fully dressed, and it is only now that he registers his own nakedness in comparison.
Though his nudity is no fault of his own, embarrassment curls inside of him. On instinct he tries to pull away, but Dream’s fingers tighten on his chin, holding him in place in a steel grip - possessive in a way that sends a thrill down the Corinthian’s spine.
Dream’s eyes blaze with starlight - more radiant than any of the galaxies sloshing about in the sea. “You are the Corinthian,” he declares. And with that, he finally drops his hand, releasing him.
The sudden, acute absence of Dream’s touch stings. “Yes,” the Corinthian replies, too sharply. “I know.”
Dream frowns, and cold, nauseous horror drops into the pit of the Corinthian’s stomach at the thought that he has already managed to displease his lord so soon into life. He finds he can no longer look at Dream. His eye-mouths open and close miserably.
But all Dream says is, “Interesting.” And then, mildly, “Rise, my little nightmare.”
Dream opens his palm as the Corinthian stands, and there is a dry, aching exhalation in the Dreaming as it cleaves to its master. A vortex of sand materializes around the Corinthian, and he squeezes all three of his mouths shut against the sudden onslaught.
It is over in moments. When he opens his eyes again he is no longer nude - he wears a cream-colored shirt, brown pants, and brown shoes. The fabric is soft, and he runs his hands down the sleeves of his arms, wondrous. These are gifts from Dream, crafted just for the Corinthian’s body.
“Thank you, my lord,” he murmurs.
Dream hesitates. “You are most welcome, Corinthian,” he says at last. “One finishing touch.”
He makes a fist. Sand spills from between his fingers, and when he opens his hand there is a pair of black sunglasses resting in his palm.
A chill of déjà vu goes through the Corinthian as he slides them on, the act triggering something deep in his mind that almost feels almost like a memory. It slips away when he tries to grab hold of it; his eye-teeth gnash together, frustrated, and he is guiltily grateful that the glasses cover them, so Dream cannot see.
Dream ushers him forward. “Walk with me, Corinthian.”
Dream does not speak again for a while, and they walk in silence down the shores of the Dreaming, under the great shadows of overhanging cliffs.
The Corinthian doesn’t mind. It’s peaceful like this: the damp sands glittering with drowned constellations, the overhead sky slowly brightening into a soft sunrise peach, and him and Dream side-by-side, alone together.
They pass a section of the shoreline littered with the skeletons of unfinished dreams and nightmares. Some are nothing but wisps of dreamstuff arranged into a semblance of form; others are almost done, and their empty eyes gaze out vacantly from expressionless faces.
The Corinthian smirks when he sees them. He is alive, and in the company of Lord Morpheus, while they languish alone, incomplete and bereft of the touch or the attention of their king.
The Corinthian is not sure how long they walk together. Time flows strangely in the Dreaming - it might be minutes or hours before Dream finally slows, and turns to face the Corinthian.
There is a strange undercurrent of tension in his voice as he asks, “Do you know your function, Corinthian?”
“I think so,” the Corinthian says. When he lets his thoughts go quiet, he can almost feel the weight of a knife in his palm, imagine the squelch of viscera under his thumbs.
He knows that his body has been made for a singular, brutal purpose. His muscles are wiry and strong and his teeth are sharp, and his instincts are those of a night-predator.
Dream seems satisfied by this. “Good,” he says. And then, gentler, “You will serve me well, Corinthian.”
The Corinthian flushes, but does not respond. He licks his lips, unsure. Something itches at the back of his mind - a question he is afraid to ask.
Dream is watching him closely. “Is there something you wish to tell me, Corinthian?” His gaze sharpens. His eyes are as mercilessly blue as supermassive suns. “Speak.”
“I’m not the first Corinthian, am I?” the Corinthian blurts out.
Dream’s face does not change, but he is quiet for a long moment. “You are not,” he finally says.
“What happened to the first Corinthian?” he asks. “Why did I need to be remade?”
Dream’s sun-bright eyes shutter, just for a second. “He disobeyed me,” he says coolly. “He was a failure, in the end.”
The Corinthian shivers, his eye-teeth chattering. “I will not fail you,” he promises fervently. “I am yours, my lord.”
It might be a trick of the light, but Dream’s expression seems to soften the barest amount, and he reaches for the Corinthian, resting a hand on the nape of his neck.
“You are perfect,” he tells him. His fingers card through the short strands of the Corinthian’s hair. “My masterpiece.”
The Corinthian swells with pride, and he resolves to commit those words to memory, forever.
He is stalking his prey through a maze of cubicles that grow higher and higher as the nightmare progresses, until the partitions rise as tall as mountains, when he realizes he is being watched.
It is a disconcerting sensation - the Corinthian is a solitary hunter by nature, and he is not used to conducting his business under someone else’s eye.
He stills, assessing his surroundings. There are no shadows where there should not be, no sounds beyond that of the dreamer’s uneven, muffled breathing two cubicles down.
In the Waking World this would be sufficient proof he was alone - but the Dreaming operates by a different set of rules, unbothered by universal constants such as physics or object permanence. It could, he supposes, be another nightmare watching him - but he doubts it. He is not sure what it was his predecessor did to make the creatures of the Dreaming so frightened of him - but he does not think there are many who would trespass on his hunting grounds without permission.
Ahead, there is a painfully dry sob - the sound of prey beginning to come to terms with its imminent demise.
The noise alights a renewed hunger in the Corinthian; his eye-mouths salivate, and he lopes forward, knife in hand, all other considerations forgotten.
This is only his fifth nightmare since being made - or rather, remade - but he is already beginning to develop his preferences: in particular, he likes to give his dreamers a chance to soak in their fear before he kills them, likes to wait until the hot glow of adrenaline has faded away into a cold terror.
The Corinthian lets the dreamer hear him approach, whistling a catchy tune he picked up from a previous nightmare.
On cue, the dreamer bolts out of the cubicle and back into the hallway - straight into the Corinthian’s sights.
The dreamer musters a last ditch attempt at bravery, tucking his head and rushing full speed at the Corinthian, angling his shoulder forward.
The Corinthian’s back impacts against the ground. The air is driven from his lungs, but this is a nightmare, and he is a nightmare, and he was not made to be brought low by pain.
He lunges forward, catching the dreamer by the ankle. He yanks him towards him, and - when the dreamer tries to kick - he drives his knife into his Achilles’ tendon, severing it in one slice.
The dreamscape shifts - the office shrinks around them, and the gray drabness of scenery warps, green tiles replacing vinyl flooring, the scents of piss and vomit thickening in the air. They’re in a motel bathroom now - some old trauma of the dreamer’s, maybe, summoned from his subconscious.
The Corinthian pins the dreamer underneath him, holding him steady as he writhes and whimpers, and goes to work with his knife.
A memory - not his - floats up from the back of his mind like a bloated corpse - ugly and intrusive and uncomfortably exciting: of the Corinthian’s body heavy and immovable on top of a dark-haired dreamer with brilliant blue eyes; of peeling out each eye one at a time, holding them gently in the palms of his hands, so awed by their beauty that the dreamer had died before he’d been able to consume them.
This dreamer lasts longer than the first five did.
The Corinthian digs his thumb into the dreamer’s tear duct. The eyes always come free easily in nightmares - and it does not take him long to wrench it from the socket.
Carefully, he raises it to his face and feeds it to his left eye-mouth, licking off the gore from his fingers with his right.
The eye crunches between his teeth. Blood and vitreous fluid sprays across what remains of the dreamer’s face, and he thrashes uselessly underneath the Corinthian, screaming wordlessly.
The nightmare ends just as the Corinthian manages to remove the dreamer’s second eyeball.
“Shit,” he hisses, and hastily tries to shove it in his right eye-mouth before it disappears.
It’s gone before he can bite down on it. His teeth snap together futilely, and behind him there is the dry, aspirated rasp of airless laughter.
The Corinthian whirls around, knife at the ready.
Dream raises his hands, palms out, in amused appeasement. “You have nothing to fear from me, Corinthian,” he says, his lips twitching at the corners. “I merely desired to observe your work.”
The Corinthian’s knife clatters against the cracked tiled floor.
All of his mouths have gone dry, but he manages to say, “Apologies, my lord.” And then, nervously, “Have I - did I meet expectations?”
“You were splendid, little nightmare,” Dream says, his voice velvet smooth. “Or, as a human might say, I have no notes.”
Dream’s approval floods warmly through the Corinthian, chasing away his previous embarrassment. “You flatter me, my lord,” he demures. And then, in an excited rush, “I took two eyes that time before the dreamer woke. It won’t be long before I’m able to eat them both and end the dream myself, by killing them.”
Solar luminosity sparkles in Dream’s eyes as he smiles in full. The Corinthian drinks in the sight of it, bursting with pride. There is certainly no greater pleasure, he rashly decides, than to look upon Dream’s smile, knowing that it is for him and him alone.
“Of that Corinthian,” Dream murmurs. “I have no doubt.” He exhales, and to the Corinthian’s distress, his smile slowly fades into a grimace.
“My lord?” the Corinthian asks, hesitant.
Dream studies him for a moment, intent in a way that sends a cold chill down the Corinthian’s spine. “Corinthian,” he begins, and draws in a breath, pausing for a moment before he continues, “are you pleased with this work? Does it… meet your expectations?”
If this is a test, it is not one the Corinthian understands. He chews on the inside of his cheek, uncertain. “It is my function,” he finally says.
“And it satisfies you to fulfill it?” Dream presses. There is a strange reluctance in his voice that unsettles the Corinthian - as if this is a test that Dream, too, is unfamiliar with.
“Of course,” the Corinthian replies. “It’s what you made me for.”
It is the truth; to kill for the pleasure of his lord, to know that he is doing his best to be what Dream has made him - this satisfies the Corinthian greatly.
Dream nods slowly. The stiff set of his shoulders lose a fraction of their tension, and the Corinthian smiles, pleased to have answered correctly.
“Good,” he says. “Thank you, Corinthian.”
And then in a gust of sand he is gone. The Corinthian stares at the empty space where Dream had stood just a moment before. A gnawing hunger that he does not understand has begun to throb behind his eyes, and inside the thing in his chest that is not quite a heart.
He stays in the nightmare until it dissolves, just in case his lord decides to return to it.
He does not.
Dream continues to visit the Corinthian intermittently as he works. He never interferes. Occasionally he will make a comment to the Corinthian (“Cut his vocal chords instead of his tongue, Corinthian, otherwise he will merely drown in blood before you finish.”) but usually he seems content to simply observe in silence.
The Corinthian never knows when to expect him. Sometimes Dream will make his appearance known early in the nightmare, but oftentimes he will not show himself until after the Corinthian has finished his work.
Once, memorably, he had revealed himself as the Corinthian was mid-way through carving out the dreamer’s first eyeball, lounging on a dusty leather armchair that hadn’t been there before. He had watched attentively as the Corinthian carefully pulled the eye up from the dreamer’s skull and sliced through the optic nerve in one ruthless cut.
High on the thrill of violence, the Corinthian had dared to hold Dream’s gaze as he held the eye aloft by its severed, bleeding nerve, and he had lowered it into his primary mouth slowly, seductively, the dreamer all but forgotten underneath him.
Dream’s lips had curved into the barest hint of a smile, and the Corinthian let himself grow bolder, bringing his fingers to his mouth one at a time and sucking them clean of blood.
The nightmare had ended prematurely, but Dream had not reprimanded him.
“It is good to see you taking pleasure in your work,” he said.
But to the Corinthian’s dismay, Dream’s visits begin to grow less and less frequent, and correspondingly, the Corinthian finds his enjoyment of his duties starting to wane.
At first he thinks it’s just that he misses having an audience - after all, the dreamers he torments are unlikely to recall much of their interactions, beyond a few gruesome snippets - the daytime light of the Waking World tends to burn away all but the starkest memories from the Dreaming.
But it is not just his hunts that have begun to lose their appeal - the nagging sense of discontent has started to pervade even the Dreaming itself; the realm seems to grow duller every day, grayer; even its endless myriad of wonders: the impossible, fantastical architecture, the chimera creatures, the ephemeral wisps of song - they are all, somehow, lacking.
He’s bored, he eventually decides. Maybe it’s the fault of being the second Corinthian, but nothing the Dreaming offers seems to spark much interest in him. There’s always some shallow novelty to be had, of course; the Dreaming changes constantly - by its nature it is always in a state of flux - stars will sprout wings and peel themselves off the sky, distant green mountains will resolve into piles of bone - but if anything, the more the Dreaming shifts, the more detached the Corinthian feels from it. The one true element of stability, of consistency, he had was Dream - and now he seems to want little to do with the Corinthian.
There is only one place in the Dreaming the Corinthian enjoys enough to visit regularly.
Fiddler’s Green wears springtime colors today: blooming azalea bushes in every shade of the rainbow, slender trees sprouting with white buds and delicate green leaves, and a sky the rich, clear blue of a lazy Sunday afternoon. The crisp breeze fluttering about carries the faint scents of gardenia and rose, and in the distance, a trio of glowing birds preen and flap around a gurgling stream.
The Corinthian thinks they look positively radioactive.
He’s spilled himself out underneath the shade of a birch tree, jacket folded on the grass beside him, legs propped up on a mossy log Fiddler’s Green has helpfully placed by his feet.
Leisurely, he rolls his sleeves up to his elbows and removes his glasses. His eye-mouths open, tongues darting out inquisitively, and he sighs with his primary mouth, taking a moment to enjoy the cool, gentle breeze rustling through his hair.
Eventually, he stretches, yawns, and then asks, “How are the dreamers today?”
Fiddler’s Green makes their presence known with a soft exhalation of wind before they speak. “Less numerous than the last time you visited. But one child just had a lovely little dream about a unicorn - they rode through my gardens and swam in my rivers for quite some time.”
The Corinthian smiles politely. “Your voice has changed,” he notes, tilting his head as he tries to place the accent. “Is that an Irish brogue I detect, Fiddler’s Green?”
The flowers on a nearby bush swish, pleased. “Indeed that was the goal.”
“It’s perfect,” the Corinthian compliments. “You know, I killed an Irish dreamer a bit ago - he made the most beautiful sounds, even after I tore out his tongue.”
A silence falls on the garden - even the usual noise of babbling brooks and chirping crickets fades, and by the stream, the three nuclear waste-colored birds have gone utterly still.
The Corinthian licks his lips. “I’m sorry,” he says, flashing his most winning smile - though he knows it’s rather less effective with his eyes uncovered. “I’ll keep the job stuff to a minimum.”
Fiddler’s Green does not respond in words, but the tree leaves above him shake softly in acknowledgment, and the cheerful sounds of the garden resume. The birds are back to playing again - splashing around in the water.
The Corinthian rearranges himself, leaning back against the tree, enjoying the slight discomfort of the bark scraping over his back. All pain is blunted in Fiddler’s Green domain - but the Corinthian likes the little bits of realness that creep through in spite of Fiddler’s attempts to sanitize.
He reaches beside him to toy with a stalk of grass, pinching it between his fingers until it bleeds green onto his skin. “Do you ever get lonely?” he blurts out.
“Hm,” Fiddler’s Green muses. “Lonely….” They take an obnoxiously long time to ponder the question, and the Corinthian braids a few blades of grass into a tiny, makeshift rope as he waits.
Eventually, they seem to have their answer. “I wouldn’t say I’m especially prone to loneliness, no,” they say. “But I suppose I have always had ample guests to keep me company.”
It’s true - everyone seems to gravitate to Fiddler’s Green - dreams and nightmares alike. The Corinthian finds himself envious of Fiddler’s Green, sometimes. It’s so easy for them to be likable, to be seen as trustworthy. The Corinthian is good at being charming; he was designed to be both the bait and the kill trap - to lure people in with his looks, his friendliness - but those are superficial tactics, and not ones that are very effective on residents of the Dreaming. To his vague frustration, the Corinthian is not particularly well-liked. He isn’t sure how much of it can be attributed to his previous incarnation’s actions, either - he suspects, although he does not know why, that others have always found him off-putting, once they’ve spent enough time with him. He is not sure how to remedy it; in the end, he is a nightmare - a pretty nightmare, but a nightmare nonetheless - with a nightmare’s instincts and impulses. Fiddler’s Green is a beautiful dream.
Innocently, Fiddler’s Green asks, “Are you lonely?”
The Corinthian’s mouth splits into a tight, insincere grin. “Oh, I’ve got plenty of dreamers myself,” he drawls. “More than I know what to do with.”
The wind stirs around him, sweetly scented. “You are always welcome here,” Fiddler’s Green tells him. “All beings are.”
“Even Lord Morpheus?” the Corinthian asks hopefully.
“Even Lord Morpheus,” Fiddler’s Green confirms. “As a matter of fact, he visited a day ago - or, a day by my estimation, at least. Hard to say when it actually was. He and Matthew explored my forests for quite some time.”
Bitterness floods the Corinthian’s mouth like acid and he squeezes the rope of grass in his palm, crushing it. He had tried, at points, to pretend that Dream’s continued absence was simply due to his busyness - but it seems he has enough free time to enjoy ambling, aimless strolls with his precious raven.
“He used to visit me,” he says, miserable, dropping the ruined wad of grass onto the ground and plucking out another blade.
A warm breeze dances around the Corinthian, ruffling gently through his hair in a way he knows is meant to be sympathetic. The pity disgusts him, and he grits all three sets of his teeth, but he can’t find it within himself to tell them to fuck off. Even this disembodied mimicry of gentle touch feels revoltingly good.
“Perhaps you could go to him,” Fiddler’s Green suggests. “They say the library is his favorite wing of the palace, and it is open to all.”
The Corinthian twists the grass in his finger, tying it into a tight knot before flicking it away. “We’ll see.”
The Corinthian leaves Fiddler’s Green and heads almost immediately to the library.
He hasn’t bothered much with the library before: he has nothing against it, per se - it’s a central hub of the Dreaming, and new and interesting guests are always wandering around its shelves, but Lucienne’s rules are tiresome, and the books are needlessly dusty (there’s nothing that should make them so, it’s a purely aesthetic choice), and Mervyn Pumpkinhead is often lurking about, whom the Corinthian finds a bit creepy.
But this time he strides into the library with a hopeful, jittery purpose.
Lucienne is not hard to find. Unlike Lord Morpheus, she’s always made herself accessible to the creatures of the Dreaming; the Corinthian finds her bathed in the softly filtered, electric light of a green desk lamp, huddled over a yellowed scroll and scratching notes into the parchment with an oil-black quill he finds himself pettily hoping is a raven’s feather.
“Corinthian,” she says, not looking up. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
She sounds exasperated already, which the Corinthian suspects is not a promising sign, but he smiles, and inclines his head in the respectful deference that Dream’s librarian is due.
“Y’know,” he begins. “I’m not sure I’ve ever told you how impressive I’ve always found the library.” He runs a finger along the spine of a nearby book, and instantly regrets it when the finger comes back covered in a layer of grime. Covertly, he wipes it off on his pant leg. “Trillions of stories! Constantly changing. That’s gotta be an absolute bitch to manage. How d’ya do it?”
Lucienne releases out a heavy sigh, and finally looks up from her scroll, carefully placing her quill in the inkwell at the corner of the desk. She blinks at him owlishly from under her glasses. “I didn’t take you for a reader,” she says dryly. “Is there, perhaps, something specific I can assist you with?”
The Corinthian’s smile widens, and he takes a few long, lazy steps towards her. “Where’s Dream?” he asks, as innocently as he can. “Haven’t seen him around much lately.”
Lucienne sniffs. “I am neither our lord’s secretary nor his minder, Corinthian.”
The Corinthian dips his head in polite acknowledgement, and seats himself on the corner of the desk, near enough to the inkwell that Lucienne’s expression hardens with dissatisfaction, and she quickly snatches it away, moving it to the safety of the other end of the desk.
“But you are,” he says, “his confidant.” He licks his lips, considering. “He here? Heard he’s partial to this place.”
Lucienne squares her shoulders. “Lord Morpheus visits on occasion,” she says in a clipped voice. “When he can get away from his duties to the realm.”
The Corinthian’s smile drops away as a cold rush of anger - familiar in a way that he doesn’t understand - surges through him.
His voice, when he speaks, comes out harsh and mocking. “Why yes, of course,” he says. “Our lord must always attend to his realm.”
Lucienne draws back and eyes him for a long, wary moment. “Will that be all, then?” she asks. “Or is there something else you require?”
“Nope!” the Corinthian says. He stands, and somehow manages not to choke on his resentment as he swallows it down. He forces a bright grin. “I’m good.”
He’s making his retreat when Lucienne calls out: “Corinthian.”
He turns. Her expression is one of supreme reluctance: her brows furrow together, and her mouth puckers unhappily. She examines him, heaves another long sigh, and then says, “He does visit.”
So what if the Corinthian starts to go to the library more frequently after that? It’s none of anyone’s business but his own, and even Fiddler’s Green wisely chooses not to remark on it when he swings by their gardens one day smelling of old tomes and dusting off stray, stowaway sentences from his sleeves.
Unfortunately, he can’t say all this new time spent at the library has made him appreciate it any more. The dreamers might be plentiful, but they’re all off-limits - it’s like being at a buffet but forbidden from eating - and the Corinthian can’t bring himself to give a shit about the books themselves. Stories don’t appeal much to him - they always seem to be about things that once were, might be, or never could be. The Corinthian is a nightmare - a creature of immediacy, of the present. He wants, he takes - this is his nature.
Beyond the distant promise of seeing Dream, there is little to interest him in the library, until there is.
There is a vault that he finds - although perhaps to describe it as him finding it would be inaccurate. He is, as usual, wandering aimlessly through the library, when he feels a tug in his chest, like a string has been hooked to the center of his being. The pull is demanding, and the Corinthian is bored, so he does not try to fight it, and instead allows it to drag him along to its source.
The vault it guides him to is cold, and drafty, and the air inside is stale and faintly rotten. It’s dark - illuminated only by a single, flickering bulb, and it takes him a moment to adjust before he can make out much beyond the general, claustrophobic shape of it.
The walls are ugly metal, crudely hammered into shape, and the shelves affixed to them are lopsided, as if hastily installed without any concern for aesthetics. It is a small miracle that the books haven’t all tipped over onto the floor.
This is not a place, he suspects, that hosts many guests.
The Corinthian, curious, selects a book at random, pulling it off the shelf.
The cover material is a beaten tan leather, roughly the color and texture of human skin. The Corinthian raises it to his face, inhales. Smells a bit like human skin, too - although at a certain point, all dried flesh mostly smells the same. He hesitates. He doesn’t think he should know that. This must be another memory from the old Corinthian’s life seeping in without permission, invasive.
He opens the book. The title is on the inside page: The Man with Teeth for Eyes.
Dread slithers through his innards, cold and slimy. The book slips out of his hands to the floor. A ragged exhalation escapes past his lips.
He reaches out to select another.
The Man in the White Suit.
The Serial Killer in Shades.
They are all about him (or no, not him, but the first Corinthian) he eventually discovers, sitting cross legged by a stack of books under the thin glow of the lightbulb, flipping through their pages.
Some of them are stories imagined by dreamers sufficiently terrorized by his past self in their sleep, but most are the books the first Corinthian’s victims would’ve written, had they survived him.
The icy snake of dread inside of him begins to twist into new form, and with a perverse fascination, he begins to read.
The stories might be about the first Corinthian, but he recognizes himself in the descriptions of him - the wide, easy smiles, the preference for pale fabrics, the languid movements, the Southern drawl.
The Corinthian - the character - is familiar. But his deeds - are not.
A seduction is described: the narrator, charmed in a bar and coaxed into a taxi as the Man in Shades whispers sweet nothings into his ear on the ride back, inching his hand closer and closer to the narrator’s crotch until he’s palming his cock over his jeans as the driver swerves through traffic, none the wiser.
(And this part is not in the book, but with a start the Corinthian abruptly remembers: the man’s hair had been thick and black and enticingly disheveled, and he had run his fingers through it with his free hand as he’d worked his cock with his other. He had been disappointed to find it had not been nearly as soft as it had looked.)
Fully absorbed now, the Corinthian continues to read. His mouths - all of them - are dry, and his pulse begins to hammer wildly in his throat as the narrator details what had happened when they had arrived at his apartment: the Man in Shade’s smirk as he’d shoved him onto his bed and climbed on top of him, the warmth of the Man in Shade’s mouth on his lips, his neck, his cock. The way he had taken him all the way into his throat without making a single noise of complaint, just let him roughly fuck his face until he came.
And how, afterwards, almost insensate with post-coital bliss, he had been held down into the mattress by a forearm to his windpipe, as the Man in Shades had pulled out a knife and ripped out the first of his eyes.
The Corinthian slams the book shut, his not-heart pounding in a violent, percussive rhythm. He feels hot everywhere - his neck, his chest, between his legs. On impulse, he grabs his cock and gives it an experimental squeeze, before quickly dropping his hand, ashamed.
These are records of the first Corinthian’s crimes - the acts of defiance that Lord Morpheus had alluded to - the reasons for which he was unmade.
These are the stories of the Corinthian’s disobedience. His betrayal.
Even so.
Nervous excitement flutters inside his belly, and hesitantly, guiltily, he reaches for another book.
This one had been not-written by a detective assigned to investigate a string of the Corinthian’s crimes, and it contains graphic, lurid details from the crime scenes. There are descriptions of rumpled, sweat-and-blood-and-cum stained bedsheets and naked victims: one corpse’s thighs caked with dried cum, another, their buttocks covered in love-bites. There are passages and passages describing empty, sightless eye-sockets, and numerous theories about the significance of the eyes.
The Corinthian shivers as he reads. His eye-mouths open as if hoping to be fed - hungry, insatiable.
He can imagine the joy the old Corinthian must’ve felt fulfilling his purpose in such a visceral way, and it would’ve been perfect - no alarm clock or loudly snoring lover to end the event early, and the realness of it - how rich and heady the taste of Waking blood would be in his mouths, how hot and slick it would feel sliding down his throat.
And the eyes! The things he would have seen from those eyes. What he experiences in the Dreaming is a poor substitute of what they can offer - he has always known this. In the Waking World, human eyes are more than just tasty snacks - they’re windows to the very souls of humanity.
And - he returns to the first book, and with trembling hands flips to the scene right before the murder. He shudders, imagining if instead of taking him into his mouth, the old Corinthian had rolled onto his stomach, and let the man fuck his ass.
A soft, rebellious voice in the back of his mind whispers to him that he could have this, all of it. He did it before, after all. And he would be cleverer this time, too. More subtle.
He throws the book away as if it’s burned him.
He’d told Dream he wouldn’t fail him - and he has no intention of going back on that promise. He clenches his jaw. He will not repeat the old Corinthian’s mistakes. The Waking World is off-limits to dreams and nightmares - Dream has decreed it so, and he will respect his lord’s rules.
He is a nightmare. The Dreaming is where he belongs.
The dreamer on the bed holds the Corinthian’s gaze as the Corinthian slowly, tentatively, dips his head to kiss his partner’s neck.
Across the room, the dreamer grins, and settles back against the headboard, taking his cock in hand and giving it a few leisurely strokes. The Corinthian takes that as sufficient permission to go further; he twists a hand into the partner’s hair, tugging back with just enough force to bare his throat. With the dreamer still watching raptly, the Corinthian presses wet, open-mouthed kisses up his neck.
The partner moans softly as the Corinthian sucks a bruise into the yielding flesh under his jaw. He shivers against the Corinthian, soft and insubstantial. He’s not real like the dreamer is, and he’s not one of Morpheus’ creations either - he’s just a figment of memory, brought into the Dreaming by the dreamer.
The Corinthian isn’t sure who he is to the dreamer - he guesses maybe an ex, or a crush - there’s a wistful quality to the dream… or at least there was, before the Corinthian had interfered.
The mood has changed since he arrived - grown sharper. Headier.
On the bed, the dreamer has begun to thrust into his own hand with abandon, his hips rolling sensually, and the Corinthian watches, entranced, his own cock hard and aching in his pants. The formless dream-memory moving passionlessly against him has lost all appeal - the Corinthian releases it, and takes a brief moment to steel himself before moving to approach the dreamer instead.
The dreamer grins at the Corinthian invitingly, and his hand slows as it moves over his cock - gliding up luxuriously from root to tip. He is beautiful - pale and wiry and sharp-featured, and the Corinthian’s breath catches as he offers him another coy smile.
The Corinthian crawls onto the bed beside him, flushing with nervous energy. His clothes dissolve under the dreamer’s gaze and he ignores the quick, discomforting stab of vulnerability at his sudden nakedness. He lifts his hand to his face - breathes a quick sigh of relief when he finds his glasses still intact.
The dreamer surges up towards the Corinthian, grabbing him by the shoulders and dragging him down onto the mattress, flipping him onto his back and kissing him roughly. The Corinthian gasps into the demanding heat of his mouth, melting bonelessly as the dreamer takes his pleasure from him.
He attacks the Corinthian’s body mouth-first, biting and licking and sucking with the unrestrained, unselfconscious greed dreamers are known for - and for a second the Corinthian wishes they were in the Waking World instead, so he could know how the dreamer would really act - if he’d be shy, or talkative, or want the Corinthian to guide him to the spots where he likes to be touched - but then the dreamer is reaching between his legs, running a hand over the length of his cock, and he suddenly becomes incapable of concentrating on anything else.
Deft, clever fingers circle the head of his cock, and a thumb brushes over the weeping slit. The Corinthian chokes back a groan, fisting his hands into the sheets beside him.
The dreamer looks supremely pleased with himself. “Yeah? You like that, baby?”
His voice is grating - the Corinthian grabs him by the back of his head and forces their mouths together, neatly shutting him up.
When they come apart, the dreamer is blessedly silent, and his arms tense, corded muscles bunching as he props himself upright over the Corinthian, staring down at him with abject hunger.
The Corinthian squirms, canting his hips up. “Fuck me,” he pants. He wants it so badly it hurts - wants to know, desperately, what it feels like to be filled.
There are some memories of the act that have resurfaced since his first visit to the vault - but this body is still new and virginal, and he wants to defile it, to claim it as his own.
The dreamer nods eagerly, and then without preamble he’s spitting into his hand and parting the Corinthian’s asscheeks, circling his hole with the pad of his finger before pushing inside. The finger wriggles, and then a second joins it, and it’s - not painful, exactly, but profoundly uncomfortable - but then the dreamer angles his wrist and rubs over a spot that makes the Corinthian see stars.
He squeezes his eyes shut, primary mouth hanging open. The dreamer’s hand moves inside of him again, punching another moan out of the Corinthian.
The dreamer is laughing, and he’s leaning down, his breath tickling the Corinthian’s neck. He starts to say something -
But then there is another voice, as dark and rumbling as the first roll of thunder heralding an incoming storm, and it says, Enough, and then the weight of dreamer’s body overtop of him vanishes, and the Corinthian - naked and suddenly empty - is alone with Lord Morpheus.
The Corinthian clenches his jaw, and fights against the almost overpowering urge to scramble for the sheets. He forces himself to stay loose as he rearranges himself to relax, semi-upright, against the headboard, and he holds Dream’s gaze unflinchingly. He has not - technically - broken any rules.
Dream stares back evenly. There is a faint sharpness in his tone as he says, “Corinthian,” but, unexpectedly, he comes closer, sitting down on the side of the bed.
His long-fingered hand splays out on the sheets, devastatingly close to the Corinthian’s thigh. It would be so easy to touch him - so easy to pretend it was an accident -
“My lord,” the Corinthian replies, and he is proud of himself for keeping his voice steady.
His cock, however - despite himself it’s still hard, jutting up rigidly as if demanding attention. Humiliation burns under his skin at being found in this state, at having to remain in this state - if Dream so desired, the room would be gone, and the Corinthian would be clothed. He wonders if these considerations have even occurred to Dream. After all, no aspect of the Corinthian’s body is a mystery to him; he sculpted every inch of his flesh with his own hands - from the curve of his cheekbones to the pale thatch of hair above his cock.
The Corinthian lets out a shaky breath. That is a dangerous thought to be having a time like this.
Dream cocks his head. “You should not be here,” he admonishes. “This dream was not meant for you.”
“Why not?” the Corinthian retorts. “Aren’t I allowed to seek out dreamers of my choosing?”
“Yes,” Dream agrees. “To hunt. To kill. That is your role. Do you mean to tell me that is what you were doing here?”
The Corinthian swallows. “Maybe I would’ve killed him, after.”
Dream raises an eyebrow, dubious. “Is that so?”
The Corinthian says nothing. His chest rises and falls with sharp breaths. After months of being ignored, this is what finally brings Dream to him? The opportunity to reprimand him?
“My creations must understand their roles, Corinthian,” Dream lectures. “They cannot simply go through dreams at their leisure, taking what they want, doing as they please. There are rules. You are not exempt from them.”
“I was curious,” the Corinthian snaps. “Is that not allowed?”
Dream blinks, taken aback, and for a fearful second the Corinthian thinks he has overstepped, but then Dream sighs, and something in his expression softens. The hand he’s laid beside the Corinthian’s thigh lifts, coming to rest on the curve of his hip, instead.
It’s like an electric current goes through him. All of the Corinthian’s anger bleeds away, and he bites his bottom lip to stop himself from whimpering. Dream’s fingers are welcomingly cool against his overheated skin - and he hadn’t realized, until now, just how badly he’d missed Dream’s touch.
Dream’s thumb rotates, massaging into the Corinthian’s hip. “That is allowed,” he says. “But you must learn to find more appropriate outlets.”
He does not remove his hand. Emboldened by this and dazed with arousal, the Corinthian leans in, nuzzling at Dream’s neck. When he is not immediately punished for the transgression, he chances a quick kiss - just the barest, fleeting touch of his lips to Dream’s jugular.
“With you, my lord?” the Corinthian asks breathlessly. He keeps his face buried in Dream’s neck - he cannot bring himself to look him in the eye.
A low, purring chuckle vibrates in Dream’s chest. “Little nightmare,” he murmurs. “You are an insatiable thing.”
And then, to the Corinthian’s dismay, he pulls away. His eyes are the silver-blue of liquid moonshine as he gazes down at him, smiling softly. “But I am afraid you must learn to be self-reliant at times.”
Wind and sand swirl around him, and then - with that - he is gone. Golden motes of sand sparkle behind in the air, settling onto the empty bedsheets, and an aching, hollow thing in the Corinthian’s chest cracks open a little wider.
His cock has already begun to wilt, but he takes it in his hand and with a few sharp, angry pumps returns it to fullness.
It feels like nothing when he cums.
One of the books in the vault is not like the others.
Immediately, it starts off differently from the rest. Most of the stories are about young men - or occasionally older women (the Corinthian had very quickly discovered that he shares his type for victims with his original self), but this one is the biography of a young boy, trapped in a house by an abusive stepfather.
It’s odd, but not enough so to make him suspicious; he’s found some of the narrators like to deliver long-winded backstory before getting into the good stuff. This would be the first one that tracks the author all the way from childhood, but it’s not, he supposes, entirely unprecedented.
He skips forward a few chapters but finds, to his disappointment, that the narrator still seems to be a child. And then, confused, he sees himself in the story already - a white man in a suit just a few shades darker than his hair. He is, in this particular scene, playfully debating with the boy about the merits of old school rock versus modern rock as they cruise down a deserted stretch of highway.
The boy is happy - the convertible’s top is down, and the wind feels good against his skin. This is the first time in too long to remember that he has felt free.
The Corinthian frowns, and goes back. He skims through a chapter detailing a visit from a social worker that leads to the boy getting locked in a basement (not an uncommon punishment, it seems), and then - there is the first Corinthian, beaming warmly at him, freeing him from the house.
Curious, the Corinthian continues to read.
A few chapters later the boy thinks back to his stepparents and consoles himself with the knowledge that the Corinthian is beside him, protecting him. The Corinthian tilts his head at that, faintly amused. That’s a first, all right - from what he’s read in the other books, feelings of safety aren’t what the Corinthian tends to elicit.
There is no point where that feeling changes, either: there are moments of fear - in one, the boy catches a glimpse of the Corinthian engaged in an act of violence - but he does not fully understand it, and the story does not focus on it for long. His feelings for the Corinthian are rosy and warm: he wants, very much, to give him the benefit of the doubt.
In another passage, the Corinthian kills an attacker in front of the boy and his sister, saving their lives. The boy has a realization - knows then that the Corinthian must’ve killed his stepparents. He feels - relief. Gratitude. A weight lifts from his chest to know that they will never imprison him again.
The Corinthian reaches the end of the story. The boy and his sister are still alive, about to start a new life together. It is a happy ending, the first one he has read. The only bitter spot: the boy misses his protector. Wonders if he will ever see him again.
With a faint pang in his chest, the Corinthian closes the book. He’s about to place it on the stack by his feet, but he hesitates, and reopens it instead. He turns to the inside cover, and traces a gentle finger along the author’s name.
It’s nearly familiar.
“Who’s Jed Walker?” the Corinthian asks.
Lucienne - stretching up to return a book to its shelf, freezes mid-way there, balancing precariously on her tip-toes.
The Corinthian gives her a friendly smile and pulls the book from her hand, slides it into the empty slot on the shelf. “Jed Walker,” he repeats.
Lucienne rolls back onto her heels and gives him a sideways look. “I take it you’ve found his book about you.”
“I have,” the Corinthian says easily. “And it made me curious.”
Lucienne makes a face like she’s just sucked on a lemon. “Curious,” she repeats.
“That’s right,” the Corinthian agrees. “And I figured - if anybody here would know - it would be you.” Lucienne looks distinctly unimpressed by the flattery, but the Corinthian continues, unfazed, “So tell me Lucienne, who was Jed Walker to me?”
Lucienne’s mouth pinches again. “To you?”
He laughs. “To the old Corinthian.” When Lucienne doesn’t move to respond, he wheedles, “C’mon, indulge me.”
“He wasn’t anything to him,” Lucienne says. She waves a dismissive hand. “He was the brother of a vortex. Your predecessor used him to draw her out and from there, used her to attempt to unseat Lord Morpheus as the center of the Dreaming. Jed Walker was merely the means to an end.”
The Corinthian recalls some of this. He remembers the vortex - remembers her power - the raw, untamed brutality of it. More vividly, he remembers how she’d gutted Dream, torn away his strength - remembers Dream gazing up at him from his knees, his blue eyes wide and bewildered, blood seeping from the wound the Corinthian had dealt him.
Sometimes, when Dream’s absence stings more sharply than usual, the Corinthian will take his cock in hand and return to that memory.
He remembers the vortex. He had not remembered she had a brother.
A means to an end, Lucienne had said.
“I see,” he says, and smiles. “Thank you, Lucienne. I do always appreciate our little chats.”
He doesn’t know why he gives a shit, and he doesn’t know why he doesn’t quite believe Lucienne.
Could be it’s just this continuous boredom itching at him, making him restless, and hungry. Dream still hasn’t visited him since that time he interrupted his sex dream, and the Corinthian suspects he’s not about to start any time soon. He still goes to the library, but more of habit now - and to continue to explore the contents of the vault, to enjoy its secondhand offerings of sex and death and violence.
He still sits in Fiddler’s Green’s gardens and indulges in the warmth of sunshine on his skin - but he’s alone with his thoughts - Fiddler’s Green has no appetite for them - and they chew at him, relentless. His curiosity has begun to eat him alive.
It is not difficult to find him, when he puts his mind to it. He has his name, and he knows something of his spirit - all writers pour their souls into their stories, regardless of whether they keep them in their minds, or release them into the world.
The dream he finds him in is a mundane one - blandly, innocently pleasant in a way that instantly raises the Corinthian’s hackles.
More so than the sex dream, it feels wrong to be here - a trespass. The sky is a soft, pastel pink, and stretching out before him is a long pier, the smoothly sanded wooden planks set over a river so crystalline perfect it almost looks like a mirror. The whole thing is saccharine sweet - and the Corinthian shifts, uncomfortable. He was made for ugly nightmares, for killing dreams, for base reflections of human perversion. He is distinctly out of place here, a stain on this dream.
At the end of the pier, fishing in the clear waters, is the boy. The Corinthian observes him for a while. Occasionally the rod will bend, and he will reel it in, pulling free something wet and scaly that is not a fish - unless fish have suddenly developed fins that flutter like feathers - and release it back into the sea.
It’s a dull, tedious dream, an endless hunt with no prey.
The Corinthian watches for a moment longer, and then finally steps onto the pier and walks down.
The boy doesn’t turn. In the Dreaming, the Corinthian is in his element: he is a predator - soft-footed, deathly quiet - he makes no sound that he does not want to.
Up close the boy does look familiar, and a memory unspools within him - the boy, seated across from him at a picnic bench, eating ice cream and smiling. The Corinthian was eating ice cream, too, he recalls suddenly, and when he licks his lips he can almost taste the flavor of it lingering on his mouth - sweet and citrus.
Carefully, he tries out the name. “Jed.”
Jed whirls around, the fishing pole falling from his hands and clattering onto the pier. He’s grinning already, and he starts to scramble to his feet, but the Corinthian waves him back down, and with an affected grunt drops beside him instead. His legs are longer than Jed’s, and his shoes dip into the water, disturbing the glass-smooth surface.
Jed stares. “You’re getting your shoes wet.”
“It’s just a dream, Jed,” the Corinthian says. He smiles pleasantly and kicks at the water, splashing one of the not-fish for effect. “It doesn’t matter.”
Jed examines him, his smile fading. “If it’s a dream,” he starts, “is it really you this time?”
“Yes,” the Corinthian says, although it is not exactly the truth. “It’s me.”
Jed gives him a skeptical look. “Rose said you must’ve died.”
The Corinthian laughs. “Do I look dead to you?”
Jed shrugs. “I guess not.” His mouth twists. “You promise it’s really you? Rose told me….”
The Corinthian hesitates. “I promise.”
That seems to be enough for Jed - he accepts the Corinthian’s response with the characteristic ease dreamers are known for, and a smile spreads across his face again.
The Corinthian grins back at him. “How you been, kiddo?” he asks. “No more foster parents, I hope?”
“Nah. Been living with Rose and Lyta.” His chest puffs up. “Been helping take care of her new baby.”
He laughs. “How very adult! Don’t tell me you got a car and a 9 to 5, too?”
Jed grins ruefully. “Rose says I gotta be able to see over the steering wheel before she’ll start letting me practice.”
“She’ll regret promising that,” the Corinthian says, faux-somberly. “Kids your age grow overnight. You’ll wake up a foot taller and she’ll have no choice but to give you the keys.”
“Don’t jinx it!” Jed laughs, unguarded and fully relaxed now, and the nightmare instincts woven deep into the fibers of the Corinthian’s being shiver to life as he notices it, like a shark scenting blood in the water.
He could kill him, he thinks. His eye-mouths salivate at the prospect, always hungry. And why not? Even Dream would be proud of him for fulfilling his function, perhaps enough to forgive him for trespassing in another dream. He designed him for horror, for the action of death.
This is his purpose, what Dream has made him for.
The Corinthian hesitates too long, and Jed looks up at the Corinthian, his expression plaintive. “Would you like to stay?” he asks, gesturing to a second fishing pole that has materialized between them.
The Corinthian smiles. “Sure thing, kid.”
Fuck his purpose, he thinks experimentally, testing out the small act of rebellion. Maybe he should just do what he wants.
And maybe what he’ll want tomorrow will be something different, but what he wants right now is to sit under an eternal sunrise with Jed Walker and listen to him chatter about his new room and favorite comics, until the dream eventually fades.
He waits for a reprimand, a punishment, for intruding on Jed Walker’s dream, before he eventually realizes none is coming. Perhaps, he thinks feverishly, Dream doesn’t know. After all, he’s not omniscient.
The sensation of getting away with something, no matter how insignificant it might be, is thrilling, and he wonders what else he could get away with, if he wanted to.
And what he wants is beginning to take shape in his mind more and more clearly with every lackluster kill, every new book he reads. More memories have been trickling back to him - and what fascinates him the most are the memories of the century he was free for: flirting with strangers at bars, waiting to see who would make the first move, sampling local food from each new city he visited, people watching from park benches, drinking in all the different variations and varieties of humanity.
He wants so badly it hurts - his need as acutely sharp and raw as a wound inside of him.
It’s not fair to be given all these rules, all these restrictions, by a god that seems to love him not.
He is in Fiddler’s Green’s gardens, recently returned from visiting another dream of Jed’s - when they mention in passing that Dream is currently away attending to business in one of his siblings’ realms.
“Is that so?” the Corinthian asks. And then, innocently, “He won’t be gone for long, I hope?”
The white-spotted fawn that’d been dozing in the bed of wildflowers beside the Corinthian, occasionally accepting a scratch behind its ears, raises its head, and answers in Fiddler’s Green’s voice, “I’m not sure. Matthew told me it was some trouble with Desire. Lord Morpheus had to leave in a haste.”
The Corinthian bites back a smirk as the first true seeds of a plan take root in his mind. He strokes the fawn along its velvety snout and wonders idly if it would bleed if he tore out its throat - or if Fiddler’s Green would prevent such a thing from occurring in their gardens. That is the problem with the Dreaming, he thinks. The rules might be vague and unpredictable, but where they exist, they are absolute. There is no room within them for change, for growth - only for the rigid obedience that Dream demands.
He blows out an exaggerated breath, tsks. “Let’s hope for his speedy return. I’m not sure this realm could endure a prolonged absence again.”
“Indeed not,” Fiddler’s Green says through the fawn, batting its eyelashes sleepily, and the Corinthian rests a hand on its delicate skull, tempted to see what would happen if he squeezed. “I suppose all we can do is simply perform our duties as best we can until he returns.”
“Our duties,” the Corinthian echoes. “Yes.”
He reconstitutes in a New York alleyway. It’s nighttime - but unlike the Dreaming, there are no stars in the sky, just the faint, shimmering impression of the moon, blurry through clouds and the stain of light pollution.
The alleyway is filthy - it reeks of trash and sewage and stale vomit, and in the shadows mangy rats skitter between garbage cans. The mingled scents are almost painfully intense - itching at the inside of his nose. He inhales deeply, trying to suffuse it into his lungs. It’s disgusting - and he loves it already.
He walks out of the alleyway into the neon-soaked glow of a city coming alive at night, and tries to take in everything he can: the brutish buildings stretching up to the sky, the chaotic noises of traffic, the acerbic smell of gasoline-and-rubber in the air, the faded colors of graffiti on the bricks, the aromas wafting out from street vendor carts - pizza here, cinnamon there, smoked meat down the street.
And the people - his memories hadn’t prepared him for what it would be like to actually be here, with humanity pressing around him from all sides. It’s incredible - he almost wishes he could slow down time, to properly appreciate it all.
The Corinthian follows the throngs of people, flowing with them through the streets, catching bits of phone conversations or chatter between friends, cataloguing the smells of various perfumes and colognes.
After a while the crowds start to thin, and a small bar on the corner of the street - its door painted with a rainbow - catches his attention. He hears the sounds of muffled music coming from within, and from a blackened window, he sees outlines of bodies writhing to the beat.
The inside of the bar is sticky and hot with human musk, and the song rumbling through the speakers throbs through the air, the base vibrating pleasantly through his chest, between his ribs, inside his ears. Perspiration has already started to bead along his forehead and his jacket is growing uncomfortably hot. This isn’t an issue he ever would’ve had in the Dreaming - and it’s simultaneously fascinating and aggravating.
He takes a seat at the bar, shrugging off his jacket and placing it on the counter in front of him.
Across from him, a bartender raises an eyebrow. “That’s daring.”
The Corinthian grins. “I’m good at getting stains out.”
The bartender barks out a laugh. “That so?” He leans forward, elbows propped on the counter, and gives the Corinthian an appreciative once-over. “You want anything, cutie?”
The Corinthian stifles a groan. He’d been in such a hurry to leave, it hadn’t even occurred to him to rustle up some money in the Dreaming. He’s flat broke. “Just water for me, thanks.”
The bartender’s lips twitch. “You sure that’s all you want?”
The Corinthian tilts his head, assessing. The bartender’s attractive enough - tanner and more broad-shouldered than his usual type, but he likes the hoarse smoker’s rasp in his voice, the bit of liner rimming his eyes. He grins. “You offering?”
The bartender’s tongue darts out to wet his lips, dark pink in the low light. “What’re you in the mood for?”
“Dealer’s choice,” the Corinthian says smoothly. “I’m flexible.”
The bartender winks. “I bet.”
The drink he slides over to him is strong and sweet. It’s nothing too complex - probably just vodka and triple sec and cranberry juice - but he loves it, loves the burn of alcohol in his mouth and throat, loves the warmth that settles in his stomach as he swallows it down.
“How is it?” the bartender asks.
The Corinthian smiles at him over the rim. “Delicious.”
The bartender grins back. “Alright, man,” he says. “You gotta tell me. How the hell do you see anything in those shades of yours?”
The Corinthian downs the rest of the drink in one go, and leans in, resting his hand on the bartender’s wrist. “Maybe,” he purrs, “I just feel around by touch.”
The bartender’s throat bobs as he swallows. “You doing anything later?”
“Like I said,” the Corinthian says. “I’m flexible.”
The bartender ends his shift early, and he pulls the Corinthian with him into the bathrooms. They go to one of the stalls, and the Corinthian lets himself be pushed down to his knees.
The bartender looms above him, unzipping his pants. He smirks as the Corinthian nuzzles against his thigh, his mouth full and sensual in a way that almost reminds the Corinthian of his lord, and he feels his cock twitch at the comparison.
He doesn’t comment on why the Corinthian’s still got his glasses on - and he’s grateful for it. He’s got a decent buzz - enough to make his thoughts a little looser, and the last thing he wants to deal with right now is having to invent a convincing lie.
The bartender gazes down at him with heavy-lidded eyes as he tugs down his boxers, and the Corinthian leans forward eagerly. He hasn’t sucked cock since his last life, and he makes a point to reacquaint himself with it, wrapping his fist around the base of his dick as he slowly licks his way up to the tip, lapping at the drops of beading precum at the head.
The bartender moans, reaching out to steady himself with the wall behind him as the Corinthian removes his hand and takes the full length of his cock into his throat in a single motion.
“Fuck,” the bartender hisses. His knees buckle, and he tries to get a good grip on the Corinthian’s hair, but his fingers slip through the short strands.
Perhaps, the Corinthian thinks, he should grow it out. He quickly decides against it. This is how Dream designed him - if he thought the Corinthian would’ve been more perfect with longer hair, he would’ve given him longer hair.
The bartender flattens his hand, securing it on the back of the Corinthian’s head as he guides him deeper, and the Corinthian breathes in through his nostrils, relaxes his throat, and hollows his cheeks. He bobs his head, sucking and working his tongue in unison until the man is tense and panting above him.
He swallows him down as he cums - the taste bitter and salty and sharply human.
“Fuck,” the bartender gasps, slumping back against the wall. He runs a hand through his hair, grins down at the Corinthian. “You’ve got a fucking amazing mouth, man. Can I do anything for you?”
The Corinthian stands and reaches out for his face. The bartender smiles, leaning into the touch as the Corinthian sweeps his thumbs along his cheeks, then under his eyes. He smiles reassuringly. He knows this part - all he has to do is reach up, just a little - it would be an easy thing, to rip out those pretty eyes, and then all of the man’s innermost thoughts, all of his secrets, would belong to the Corinthian. He would understand him - completely - if only for a moment.
Saliva dribbles from his eye-mouths, threatening to spill past his eyelids and down onto his face. His fingers twitch on the bartender’s face. He wants to know. To taste everything denied to him, everything he can’t have.
And yet - he remembers -
You disappoint me, Corinthian.
He lets his hands fall away. “I’m good,” he says. “Thanks for the night.”
He does not reform where he expected.
Instead of returning to the gray deserts where he’d left, the Dreaming flexes around him, dragging him towards its center, towards its master.
Unreality unfolds around him, twisting spires and vaulted marble domes weaving above him, and when the Corinthian comes back to himself, he is in Lord Morpheus’ throne room, kneeling prostrate on the ground like a penitent.
Dream sprawls out on his throne, black robes spilling around him. His lips curl, and he tilts his head, gazing down at the Corinthian with an almost clinical displeasure. He’s not alone: Matthew hops onto his armrest, feathers rustling, and Lucienne lingers off to Dream’s side, hands clasped behind her back, expression carefully neutral.
Dream strokes a long-fingered hand down his raven’s small head. “Good of you to finally return, Corinthian.”
The Corinthian sneers, picks himself up from the floor. “I thought you would be away longer, my lord.”
“So did I,” Dream replies coolly. “How fortuitous it was not so. You can only imagine my disappointment when I returned to hear that my prodigal nightmare was missing once again.”
The Corinthian flinches at that, ashamed despite himself, but he musters enough brazenness to taunt, “So what now, daddy dearest? Gonna kill me again? Try to see if the third time’s the charm?”
Dream stares at him. “That is… not my preference,” he says slowly. “It is a taxing thing, your creation.
“Besides,” Dream continues, “I watched you through Matthew’s eyes; despite your disobedience, I saw you managed to restrain yourself… somewhat.” His lips flatten into a thin, bloodless line. “Make no mistake: that you did not kill the man is the only reason we are having a conversation at all, Corinthian.”
The Corinthian doesn’t even want to know how the fuck a raven managed to sneak into a gay bar. As if reading his thoughts, Matthew cocks his head, fixes him with his beady black eyes, and lets out a caw that sounds almost smug.
Dream shoots him a dark glare before returning his full attention to the Corinthian. A muscle tenses in his jaw. “Why must you continue to defy me?”
“Because I’m here!” the Corinthian snarls. All his pent-up anger rises up inside him at once, vomiting out of him in a vicious rush, “Chained to this meaningless fucking realm that you care about more than anything else! Stuck obeying your arbitrary fucking rules! Still, even now!”
For the first time, Dream looks taken aback. His hand falls from Matthew’s head, and there is a long, tense silence before he announces, “Leave us.”
Lucienne straightens. “My lord,” she protests, “is that wise?”
Dream does not look at her. He stares unblinkingly at the Corinthian as he says, quietly, “I will not repeat myself again.”
Lucienne heaves a long-suffering sigh, and with a few flaps of his wings Matthew glides over to her, perching on her shoulder as she offers Dream a short bow and exits.
When they are alone, Dream pushes himself up from the throne. He stalks towards the Corinthian, dark and pale and frightening, a shadow spilling over the marble floor, and the Corinthian represses the primitive instinct to sink to his knees again in animal supplication.
Dream comes to a stop in front of him, and the Corinthian squares his shoulders and stiffens his jaw - bracing himself for punishment - but instead Dream only frowns, his eyes searching the Corinthian’s face. Softly, he says, “Are you still so unhappy, little nightmare?”
“Why do you care?” the Corinthian spits out. “You don’t give a fuck about me. Even after I tried - so hard - to be good - you only see fit to dignify me with your presence when I’ve failed you in some way.” He releases a wet, hysterical laugh. “Is this - are you punishing me? For what I did, before?”
“Punishment,” Dream echoes, his eyebrows raising incredulously. “Corinthian, I sought to give you a fresh start. I am the King of Nightmares; if I wanted to punish you, do you not think I’d have more creativity than this?”
“Then why the fuck have you been avoiding me?” he hisses. Dream opens his mouth to respond, but the Corinthian isn’t finished. His words are pouring out of him, he can’t stop them. “And why - why didn’t you make me different this time around? Why do I still feel - like this?”
“Enough!” Dream snaps. The Corinthian draws in a ragged breath, and Dream sighs. “You were a flawed creature,” he says. “Flawed and petty and vindictive and bloodthirsty and foolish.”
The Corinthian snarls wordlessly, and Dream lifts a hand.
“-And yet,” he says. “You were my masterpiece. I thought of so many ways I could change you - but if I did, you would cease to be the Corinthian. And you were - you are - perfect. And I had no desire to lose you.” He hesitates. “I thought perhaps - I could remake you, and let you live your life in the Dreaming, free of me. And you would be - happier.”
“Happier,” the Corinthian repeats numbly.
Dream steps closer. “I was wrong,” he says quietly. “Perhaps I should have simply asked you what it was you needed instead.”
Another step forward. He is so close to the Corinthian now that he can smell him - petrichor and sage, like a desert after a rainstorm. He leans towards Dream, helplessly, and his breath catches painfully in his throat as Dream raises a hand, and brings it to cup his cheek. The Corinthian’s trapped breath escapes him in a broken exhalation, and his eyes slip closed, just for a moment. It’s almost unfair that Dream is able to do this to him - undo him with just a touch.
“I shall ask you now, my Corinthian,” Dream murmurs. “What is it that you need? If it is in my power to grant, you shall have it.”
The Corinthian voice comes out small. “You,” he says. He squeezes his eyes closed, ashamed at the admittance. “Fuck. I don’t want to disappoint you, my lord. I just - want to be good for you.”
The Corinthian feels Dream go still, and he when he opens his eyes Dream is staring at him, lips slightly parted. The Corinthian tenses, certain that he has overstepped, but then Dream’s mouth curves into a small smile, and the hand on the Corinthian’s cheek moves to the nape of his neck, cradling the back of his head.
“Little dream,” he says. “Allow me to show you - you already are.”
And then time seems to slow to a crawl as Dream of the Endless pulls the Corinthian in to capture his mouth in a tender kiss.
The Corinthian freezes, too stunned to respond, but then Dream bites softly at his lower lip, guiding his mouth open, and the Corinthian melts against him, gasping into his mouth, parting his lips to accept Dream’s questing tongue.
“My lord,” the Corinthian pants when they finally part, pleading for something he does not fully understand. He fists his hands into Dream’s robes, terrified this might end if he breaks away.
Dream’s blue eyes blaze as bright as stars. Lowly, he says, “The lovers you took before were unworthy of you.” With a sweep of his hand, the throne room shimmers like a mirage, and then they’re in a bedroom with high walls and a glass ceiling open to the night sky, and a bed draped with red silk sheets. He gestures towards it. “Join me, my nightmare, and I will show you what it is to be fucked by a king.”
The Corinthian doesn’t have to be told twice. He clambers inelegantly onto the bed, fumbling with his shirt, his pants. Dream could easily remove his clothes with a thought, but he seems content to watch, amused, as the Corinthian’s fingers tremble and slip down the buttons of his shirt.
When he’s finally undressed, he reclines on the bed and tries to relax as much as he can, his hands braced behind him, legs outstretched in front. Dream’s eyes roam over his body, appreciative and unhurried, and the Corinthian flushes, his cock - already half-hard - thickening to full size.
He attempts a teasing tone that comes out faintly hoarse. “You planning on joining me anytime soon, Dream?”
Dream’s lips twist, the skin around his eyes crinkling, and he steps forward, his robes dissolving, dark pieces of fabric fluttering off of him and evaporating into shadow and smoke.
The Corinthian has never seen Dream nude before.
He’s painfully beautiful, and the Corinthian wraps a hand around the base of his cock, giving it a harsh squeeze. He doesn’t think he could survive the shame of cumming untouched, just from the sight of his lord undressed.
Dream crawls onto the bed, straddling the Corinthian’s waist, and places a firm hand on his sternum, pushing him down. His thin body belies a great strength, and the Corinthian doesn’t try to fight it, just sinks back obediently into the mattress, staring up hungrily as Dream leans over him.
Dream trails a languid hand up the Corinthian’s chest, his throat, the side of his face, and finally to his glasses. “Remove these as well,” he commands. “I would see all of you.”
The Corinthian obeys, and is rewarded with a chaste kiss at the corner of his left eye, and then his right. His eye-mouths hang open at the contact, and Dream laughs, tracing a gentle finger beneath each of them, one at a time. “Greedy thing.”
Dream dips his head down, kissing him again, and the Corinthian tries to take the lead this time - he has wanted this for so long -
Dream obliges him, indulgent, generous, letting the Corinthian fuck his mouth with his tongue and lick at his cheeks with his eyes, tasting as much of him as he can.
Dream makes a low, husky noise in his throat, and - spurred on by this - the Corinthian reaches up to touch him. He is gentle and reverent at first, ghosting his hands over Dream’s wiry musculature, the bony divots of his hips, the smooth skin of his chest and back, before letting himself grow bolder, twisting one hand into his hair and digging the other into his waist, tugging him down onto him.
Dream lets himself be pulled down, and the Corinthian gasps into his mouth as their cocks slide together, and he ruts up into Dream, desperate for friction, for him.
Dream breaks away from the kiss and pushes the Corinthian back into the mattress, holding him still with a hand on his belly. “Patience,” he rumbles.
A cruel joke. They both know the Corinthian is not capable of such things. He offers a wild, toothy grin. “If you’d wanted me to be patient,” he says, “you shoulda made me patient this time.”
Dream gazes at him silently. His eyes sparkle with mirth, but he says nothing, and allows him nothing, and the Corinthian quickly breaks. “Oh fuck, please,” he begs. “Fuck me. Touch me. Anything.”
Dream’s expression shifts - darkening in a way that suggests he isn’t quite as unaffected as he appears. “Beg me again,” he says roughly. “And perhaps I shall.”
“Please,” the Corinthian babbles, squirming desperately under Dream’s ruthless, immovable hand, all pretense of pride abandoned. “Please fuck me - Dream - please please please-”
Dream pulls back onto his haunches, and before the Corinthian can protest the loss of contact, Dream grabs him by the waist, yanking him towards him and pushing apart his legs so that the Corinthian is crudely splayed out, presented to his lord like an offering. Dream takes his cock in hand, and there is lubricant on it now, summoned into existence by his will - a mercy.
Dream smiles. “Very well, little nightmare.”
The Corinthian cums almost immediately after Dream enters him, just from the sensation of Dream’s cock settling inside him, filling him up fully - as if his body had been tailor-made to fit his lord. He’s still painfully hard, oversensitized, and he whimpers as Dream begins to move inside of him. He fucks him slowly at first, agonizingly so, then faster, setting a merciless pace.
Dream shifts forward, lying down over top of him so that their chests are pressed together, and he kisses the Corinthian’s mouth, his throat, fucks his eyes with his fingers - and that makes him cum a second time. Maybe he’s being punished after all, he thinks, almost hysterically. Dream devours him entirely - and it’s all nearly too much - too good -. His cock twitches again weakly, spent but somehow still wanting.
“Insatiable,” Dream murmurs, licking up the arched, tensed column of the Corinthian’s throat. He rolls his hips, thrusting in deeply, and he bares his teeth in a sharp smile as the movement punches out a low moan from the Corinthian.
Dream kisses each of his eye-mouths, pressing his tongue past his teeth as the Corinthian writhes underneath him. “You are perfect,” he breathes.
“I love you,” the Corinthian gasps, his chest heaving, his stomach wet with his own spend. “Fuck I love you I love you-”
When it is over, when Dream’s cum leaks out of the Corinthian’s well-used hole, Dream pulls him into his arms and lets him rest his head against his ribs as he strokes through his hair.
“I love all my creations,” Dream murmurs. “But I confess - you most of all.”
The Corinthian’s face has grown hot enough that he is sure Dream can feel it against his chest, and his throat closes, unable to speak. Mercifully, Dream does not seem to expect him too - his fingers continue to card through his hair, rhythmic and soothing.
After a while, Dream’s hand slows. “I do not want you to be unhappy, Corinthian,” he says, more serious now, and as much as it pains the Corinthian to extricate himself from the embrace, he raises his head, props himself up onto his elbows.
“I’m happy with you,” the Corinthian says, uncertain.
“Yes,” Dream says. “But I cannot be with you at all times.” He gives the Corinthian a heavy, contemplative look. “You were happy in the Waking World,” he says at last. “But I did not understand the extent of it, then. What it was you sought besides violence.” He sighs, examines him. “Tell me, Corinthian, would you like to return to it?”
The Corinthian blinks. “I don’t understand.”
“I would allow you to live in the Waking World,” Dream says. “On the following conditions: that you return to the Dreaming to perform your duties at night, and that you confine your killings to their minds.” His expression hardens, and there is a sharpness in his voice as he continues, “This would be contingent on good behavior, Corinthian. Do you understand me?” When the Corinthian nods, he asks, softer, “Would you want this?”
“Yes,” the Corinthian breathes. He hesitates. “Would I still see you?”
The smile Dream offers him is wide and radiant, and warmth blooms in the Corinthian’s chest at the sight of it. “You think I would not check up on my wayward nightmare?” he asks, fond. “I would be remiss not to. I will come to you one day every week, and you, my dear Corinthian, will show me what you have made for yourself in the Waking World.”
As promised, Dream visits him a week after the Corinthian sets foot in the world again.
It’s bizarrely mundane, having to buzz Dream of the Endless into his building, seeing him scrape a bit of dirt off his boots on the welcome mat outside his door. Cradled in his hands is a vaguely wilted aloe vera plant in a clay pot - and he pushes it at the Corinthian when he is let inside.
“For me?” the Corinthian asks, amused.
Dream frowns. “Is this not acceptable? Matthew informed me it is customary to bring a gift of this nature upon a first visit to a new home.”
“It’s great,” the Corinthian laughs, moving to set it on his windowsill. “Thank you.” Dream trails behind him, scanning the Corinthian’s apartment - gaze lingering on the cardboard boxes and semi-assembled IKEA furniture.
The Corinthian shifts, embarrassed. This is what he’s showing off to Lord Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, king and maker of the Dreaming? “I know it’s not much,” he says.
Dream looks up. “You should be proud of what you are creating here, Corinthian,” he says somberly. “It is no small thing.”
“You’re too kind,” the Corinthian drawls. He hesitates. “What would you like to do?” he asks. Coyly, “I’m all yours.”
Dream lifts his chin imperiously. “I have seen too little of this neighborhood of yours,” he says, reaching out for the Corinthian’s hand. “I would have you to show it to me.”
Dream’s cool fingers interlace with the Corinthian’s, and he nods, his mouth suddenly dry. His attempt at a teasing tone comes out raspy as he says, “As you command, my king.”
“And then,” Dream says, with a sly smile, “I would return here, with you. And know again the pleasures of your body.”