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The human boy kissed clumsily at his neck, trembling but unashamed in the depths of desire. It was a nearly lucid dream. The darkest hour before dawn. The room where they were was full of smoke and amber light, smelling of spilled beer, something sweet. The boy's old college dorm, a memory made strange. He was warm under the hands of the Corinthian. He twitched and wriggled and gasped and his hair, where it brushed against the Corinthian's chin, was stiff with styling gel. Not as soft as- well.
He took it fine, though, when he was pushed down- made to face the mattress, on hands and knees like a dog- he accepted it as the dream melted his clothes away and burning hands found his hips, his waist, took a fistful of his too-tidy hair. Not dark enough, that hair. Not pale enough, that dimpled skin. The way he squirmed- like a rat, a chittering prey-animal- his heart was a raucous device that beat fast in his chest. A little too fast, maybe.
The Corinthian would fuck him anyway.
(And then he would do the next thing.)
It wasn't like it wasn't pleasurable. Burying himself in something warm, all that flesh to grip, to bruise, to mould. A spine to bend under his palms. Yes, he enjoyed this, yes, he wanted it. He wanted it very much.
…pale eyes with white-light pupils, peering over a sharp white shoulder. This position was submissive, whorish, and the thrill of it shot down the Corinthian's spine like lightning. Fingers digging into hair as dark as midnight, pulling a white throat back. All his. He knew how the glide of that silky skin would feel under his palms. He knew the chill that would not abate, knew the quiet sounds that would drive him mad-
"Please," the boy gasped, a high and choked out voice. "Please, oh, yes-"
But that was all wrong.
He dragged the brown-haired boy to his back, relishing with a new lust the yelp of surprise, of pain. It was time enough to take the glasses off. Time enough for the next thing.
In this dream, he used his fingernails, not bothering with the blade.
~
The Corinthian was a nightmare, and therefore he could not dream. Or at least, not in the way that humans did- lost so deep in the other worlds that flickered behind their lids that they forgot their waking lives. No, he had not been made with such a disadvantage, such a privilege. Wandering between the Dreaming and the Waking worlds, the Corinthian always knew himself quite well.
That didn't mean he was incapable of other kinds of dreams. Imagination- the ability to picture unyet done possibilities, to predict- that much was necessary for any being capable of rational thought. It was certainly necessary for a predator, that which he knew he was. Critical to the role of a nightmare was the capacity to bring forth, from his own calling and that of his victims, the ideal setting for his little show of horror.
The Corinthian wondered if his master had considered what else he might use his imagination for. If he cared enough, was meticulous enough, to have designed such a thing. He hoped not. He hoped so.
Truth be told, his mind spun with what he wanted, when it came to Dream.
~
In the Corinthian's fantasy the King took it on all fours, a burning hand pressed between sharp white shoulder blades, pushing him down into the mattress. Fucked like an animal. No clever words here, no 'this dream is over', no imperial commands. It was easy enough to imagine a gag, a strip of something black tied tight to stop all of that. A tremor in those weightless white limbs. Glowing eyes made all soft, heavy-lidded, hollow cheeks containing the faintest tinge of indignant pink.
"Yes."
He could hear such a word in that cold voice, made tremulous, strained. Lustful.
"Harder."
There was no doubt at all, he would be bossy in bed, the Corinthian knew that already.
Please…
No, that much he couldn't hear, no matter how much he strained, listening for it.
Odd. It was a word he heard all the time.
Please, come inside. Please, leave me alone.
Humans loved to say it.
Yes, fuck me, please, no, don't hurt me, please!
The Corinthian wondered if Dream had ever begged anyone for anything in his life.
(That very, ridiculously, unimaginably long life.)
God- the things he would do to be the first.
~
The Corinthian had, once or twice, stalked the nightmares of psychologists- those who claimed to study dreams. Picked their brains clean with a knife. Fools, he had thought them, they didn't understand Dream at all- did not comprehend how little they mattered, how deep-set was his unkindness, his apathy. They dared think they were important, and for that the Corinthian laughed when he plucked their eyes from their head.
Still, sometimes he caught himself thinking about them, wondering if maybe- by whatever cosmic accident- they had been unknowingly right. Oedipus and Electra. If perhaps, at the heart of things, the Created really, truly wanted nothing more than to screw the brains out of their Creator. Destruction through sex-conquest. The only way to truly be free of it, that fear of smallness, of irrelevancy, and the longing that itched under the skin…
Well. Who in their right mind wouldn't want to fuck their God? The Corinthian couldn't imagine a power-trip greater than that.
~
He was sure that arrogant Nightmare had never sucked a man's cock, whether it belonged to one of his creations or not. That didn't stop him from thinking about it. How bitter he would surely look, put in his place at last. Just the thought made the Corinthian shiver to himself, made him warmer than the human mouth he really had upon him, a head yanked this way and that by the hair.
In this fantasy, after all, he was King, he held all the magic objects, and cruel Morpheus knelt at his feet. An inversion of reality that made all his mouths water, all his teeth clench. There would be no black-feather cloak for Dream, but a black collar would do nicely, and he could kneel there and kiss his Lord's hand and other things also. Likely not with any adoration, but no matter, the Corinthian would relish even the sulkiest acrimony.
A sudden, clear image- Dream's arms folded in his lap, head resting in the divot of one bent elbow. Flushed with want, looking up at him through coy lashes. The sparkle of some other galaxy in those pale, hollow eyes.
And the Corinthian could reach out and hook his thumb behind one of those lights and pop it out, slick, into his palm, shut it off forever.
(He wondered how it would taste- if it would taste of anything.)
Blinded, wanton, subjugated oneiromancer. White face stained by bloody tear tracks. A fantasy so sweet it was almost bitter.
And the Corinthian spilled over it like a fucking human teenager and when it was over he was the one who felt bitter, felt his chest constrict, and he wasn't entirely sure why.
~
It was so hard to resist sneaking into the mansion of Roderick Burgess, so hard to abstain it very nearly hurt. The only thing that kept him was that he knew it wouldn't do any good. The consequences of such an act would be the opposite of what he wanted. He knew- though he was loathe to admit it- that in his powerlessness if he were to slip into that glass cage Dream would escape immediately.
(And probably wouldn't even thank him for it.)
But what an image it made. What a pretty fucking picture.
Dream locked behind a wall of ancient runes, in a terrarium, like a piece of art at a museum. A bird in a cage with its wings clipped, reduced to the purpose of singing for its master. Though the Corinthian doubted he sang- doubted his face showed anything but haughty resentment. The last clutch of power for the captured angel, now naked and airless and weak. Strength sapped by the glyphs until he could barely move. A bare white throat exposed for teeth to take it, a hollow belly laid out for claws to shred. The King at the mercy of a mortal.
No- the Corinthian would kill Roderick Burgess. Take his eyes. Dream should be at his mercy, and his alone.
Not that the Corinthian would hurt him, not in this fantasy, no. He would sit at his side, glowing golden with his own strength, stroke that glossy white skin. Pet his feathery hair like he was a domesticated cat, all his claws already plucked out. Run a thumb over that plush lower lip, push in, there, he wouldn't be able to bite, he’d have no choice but to accept it, to lap at the intrusion with a cold pink tongue…the Corinthian could feed him milk and honey from his fingertips until he was strong enough to be kissed, but not strong enough to resist. Play with feeble white limbs like he was a doll. Yes, in this fantasy the Corinthian would give him pleasure, whether he wanted it or not, make him take it on his back with his wrists pinned above his head. The slow, slick drag, a murmur. The glass fogged by warm bodies, warm breaths- though of course, he knew Morpheus was never warm.
And if the King kissed him back, and beckoned to him through the clear barriers- waited peacefully, lovingly for the Corinthian's return, a dream put to sleep at last- well, the satisfaction would be all the greater.
~
Damn it. Damn him.
For a moment there, after the woman had flashed her cursed eye at him- when he had felt the sand dragging him away, pulling at all his edges- the Corinthian had felt a very real fear.
He was back. The instant the Corinthian appeared in the Dreaming, he knew it- he was back.
A hundred years of freedom, of slow-growing power, of real impact, a hundred years to proper self-realization. Well, here came the consequences.
But it wasn't he who greeted the Corinthian at the desecrated gates of the Dreaming. No, it was only simpering little Lucienne, hands folded at her back, head cocked, all attentive. Not understanding in the slightest. Not even capable of understanding it, he figured- a servant-born and servant-made, designed only for subjugation.
And fuck, but didn't it sting? His King couldn't even be bothered to appear, to come and execute the punishment himself. Couldn't give enough shits to award the Corinthian one last, uncaring look.
…unless this wasn't his punishment. Unless- and this was delightful- he didn't know what the Corinthian needed punishing for, not yet.
"He doesn't give a fuck about you," he said to Lucienne, which was surely true, and any bitterness the words might have held were swallowed in the thrill of knowing that he hadn't been caught yet. "You can't change him."
Back to the Waking world. He had a lot of work to do- after all, he was quite determined to stay there.
~
The Corinthian's blood burned hot in his veins. He wasn't so different from the men upon which he had been modeled- better, certainly, but not so very different.
These last few weeks he had been running himself thin. International flights, errands, people to follow. People to chase. Dead-ends and leads that made the bloodhound in him salivate. He was a wolf, pursuing nimble-footed rabbits across the map- and he could feel the breath of the hunter on the back of his neck.
Perhaps that's why he was doing this. It was just a little stress relief. He hadn't even bothered to stop at a bar, to play a game, no pretty boys to make-do this time. Just a motel room that smelled of old smoke and cheap soap, and a dampened palm.
So who could blame him for imagining he was somewhere else?
Dream's eerie throne had always looked hard and uninviting, but in the Corinthian's fantasy it was at least as cushy as the motel bed, and in it he sat as Emperor. The one who was actually on top, at-fucking-last. And on his lap, bare-white and writhing, of course, was pretty Nightmare.
(Who else?)
And he wanted to be there, in this fancy, no, he wasn't bitter in the slightest. He spasmed and sighed and fucked himself on the Corinthian's cock, and his eyes glowed like supernovas in his head, just as powerful as he ever was. Perhaps they were watched by all the King's subjects- perhaps the throne was surrounded by bodies, bloodied and eyeless, the completed portfolio of all the Corinthian's many years of work- perhaps they were entirely alone. Yes, they were alone. They were probably the only two beings left in the damn universe.
Dream cupped his face in cold, soft palms, clawed thumbs stroking the delicate skin under his eyes, the lids that weren't lids but lips. A kiss of real ardor. The Corinthian's hands dug into slender white thighs, leaving crescent-moon marks that bled not blood but a silver ichor that dissolved, after a moment, to smoke.
The kiss broke when Dream moaned, ecstatic from it, and he folded his arms around the Corinthian's shoulders, pressing his face into the warm hollow of his throat. Cool fingers carded through blonde hair, and something about it felt like comfort.
"You've done very well."
A cold whisper against the shell of his ear.
Fuck.
The Corinthian came back to himself only slowly after that orgasm, hot and skin-crawling and wet. Vaguely disgusted by something, he wasn't sure what. Maybe just the room, with its broken overhead fan and a little bit more body fluid in it, now, with which to stain the bed.
The sun would set soon- he had to keep moving. There was a vortex to catch.
~
Disappointing.
Maybe, not surprising.
Three of the strongest- the most independent- yet to return. Pretending they haven't felt it, haven't heard.
And that one, I knew already was a troublemaker. Rule-breaker.
Murderer.
(Even now, in the quiet, I can still feel myself suffocating.)
The light that comes through the centerpane of the window is stained all orange, yellow, red. Sunshine colours, fire. Cornfields and smoke. Dyed in the worst shades of summer. Blood and sweat and the long song of the cicadas.
…I'm tired of this.
(Usurpation.)
No more.
I toss a sprinkle of sand into the water. Silver on silver, something glimmering.
(I wonder if he thinks he's been hidden, thinks he's safe- if he believes the dreams he's dreamt are somehow different from anyone else's.)
Just what have you been dreaming of, my errant wolf?
Time to find out.
~
“I am not the problem, Dream.”
The end of the line.
He had forgotten what it felt like, to actually stand in the presence of the King. A hundred years had been too long for his memory. He'd thought he had outgrown it, that crushing weight, the devastation of those flat, starlit eyes upon him- of how he left no reflection there- of his own ephemeracy. Thought he would have done enough by now- made enough of himself, by now- so as not to feel it. A horror so sharp and deep it stung like a wound. A wound that, as it turned out, couldn't be outrun or outgrown.
He realized he had been deluding himself, thinking he would get away with all this. How foolish he had been to believe he had any chance of it going his way- his clutching, desperate little scheme- how foolish to feel any satisfaction when his knife had gone through Dream’s palm. He might as well have shot an arrow with the hope of cracking the moon.
The Corinthian had spent a century bathing in mortals, drowning in them, their self-obsession and their delusions and their small worldview. Perhaps he had started to think of Dream that way- as something that was capable, somewhere in there, of care. Of actual feeling. Oh, no. Nightmare was a Void, not a vortex, a nothing that went on and on and on forever and swallowed everything inside it. A fucking black hole. The sermon he had given his flock- his serial killers- it had been a lie, and a pathetic one, too. The declaration of the ant who had climbed to the top of the hill and figured he must be a god.
“You’re right,” said Dream, from a million miles away. “This was my fault, not yours.”
Even that scrap of agency, taken from him.
“I created you poorly, then…so I must uncreate you now.”
The Corinthian clenched his jaw, locked his legs- he refused to run away, refused to whimper. He would cling to this very last, fragile thread of dignity. Let it be known, at least, that he was better than the animals- please, let him at least be that.
He expected Dream to raise an imperial hand, to feel that infernal prickling, the hot and cold that shuddered into nothing- but he didn't do this. He took a step forward, instead.
The Corinthian had been looking away, down at some vague spot on the King’s chest, unable to meet that terrible gaze- but, surprised, he did so then. Eldritch blue eyes, closer to his own than they had been in a very long time.
How strange. He almost thought he saw something there- something like curiosity.
Cold lips pressed to his left cheek. A kiss as light as a feather.
Then there came the burning, then there came the freezing, the edging thorny blackness of oblivion- and as he disappeared the Corinthian had not the wherewithal to say anything.
Gone.
“Next time I make you, you will not be so flawed…and petty, little dream.”