Just A Greek Mythology Stan

In your own classes on Tuesday, you were faced with the typical innocuous questions in a master's level course that should have led to thoughtful discussions, but were instead devolving into full-on arguments; tensions were already high among your fellow second-year grad students, with everybody keenly aware of just how much work needed to be finished before graduating and just how quickly your anticipated graduation date was already approaching. It was a stressful time for everybody, but you haven’t found yourself that heated on a topic like museum repatriation for a while.

(Not because it wasn’t an important issue, but because typically, the historians that you interacted with at this point in your academic career were all on the same page about repatriation)

Besides staring at a blank document and cursing the writer’s block that had left you stuck on the latest chapter of your thesis since the beginning of the week, Wednesday should have been low-key. Naturally, you forgot that you signed up to work a shift at the history department’s table at the campus’s activities and curricula fair—an opportunity for students to check out the different opportunities available on campus, including those who were still undecided on their majors or deciding on potential paths for grad schools—until the member of your cohort who you were meant to be relieving texted to ask where you were. You were thankfully already on campus, so you hustled from the student union to the campus green and prepared to spend two hours of your day sitting at a table and smiling at students who tried desperately to avoid eye contact.

The interactions that you did have were pretty normal—most involved students who were really only in it for the freebies stopping by and pretending to look interested while grabbing some candy and a pamphlet, but you did have the opportunity to talk up the graduate program with a few upperclassmen who were genuinely considering a master’s degree. Towards the end of your shift, a younger woman in a black military parade jacket and a black tulle skirt, with piercing heterochromatic eyes, one green and one blue, approached the table. 

“Hi, are you interested in learning more about the history program?” you asked for what must have been the twentieth time, surely sounding a bit robotic by now.

“No!” the woman said with a bright smile, running a fishnet-gloved hand over the various offerings on the table.

Your own smile faltered just slightly, unused to such bluntness from students doing the university version of trick-or-treating. “Oh!”

“I just wanted to say hello,” she said conspiratorially, like she had gone behind somebody’s back to be at the fair.

For a moment, you wondered if maybe you had met her at some point and were supposed to be familiar with her. Was she a student from last year, perhaps? Maybe one who sat in the back and didn’t contribute much? 

Maybe that was the case, but you highly doubted that. This was not the type of woman that people forgot. No, with her eclectic style and frenetic energy, she would be impossible to lose in any crowd.

“Well, hello,” you greeted, feeling bad that you couldn’t remember her.

“Isn’t it lovely?” she asked after a few moments of quiet.

You tilted your head. “What is?”

“When good things happen to the people we love.” Her eyes flickered down to your hands sitting atop the table, and for a moment, you would swear that they were both an intense blue.

“Yeah, it is lovely,” you responded tentatively, unsure where she was going with her words. The whole conversation felt discombobulating, as though you were trying to have a conversation with somebody while having a high fever that would leave you unable to remember the details later on.

A loud pop sounded from behind you, and you whipped around to see the remains of one of the balloons in the large balloon arch falling sadly to the ground. When you turned forward once more, the woman was gone, replaced by multicolored bubbles wafting lazily in the air.

“What the fuck?” you whispered to yourself, shaking your head a few times to try and clear it of the sensation that it was stuffed full of cotton.

Now that the calendar has done its job and once again faithfully brought you to Thursday evening, you’re all the more relieved to meet up with your fellow graduate students, drink, and talk about your weeks—y’know, something normal. There are some weeks where happy hour feels like a begrudging obligation, and others where it feels like your only salvation. This week, it is most decidedly the latter.

When your eyes adjust to the sudden change in lighting from entering the pub, you’re relieved to see you’ve hit that sweet spot where you’re neither the first to arrive (which would mean you would have to ward seat-stealers away from your table awkwardly) nor the last (which would lead to everyone ribbing you for tardiness). As you make your way across the room, though you have no reason to believe that this week will be different from the prior two, your eyes flick to the table that your advisor calls his own whenever he patronizes his own business almost against your will. To your immense surprise, you find it occupied by both Rob…

…and Morpheus.

To say that you hadn’t thought about Rob’s enigmatic friend in the days since you talked to him would be the boldest of lies. After the initial embarrassment towards your words and actions faded (because why should you be embarrassed about being exactly who you are?), you did what a historian-in-training does best and analyzed every detail available in your memory, both big and small. The heated intensity in his gaze every time you looked at him, counterbalanced by his outwardly chilly disposition. How comfortable it felt to have him in step next to you. His careful cataloguing of Rob’s office and all the treasures that it held.

The way that he listened to you so intently, as though every word you said was important.

To call it a crush would be juvenile and, you believe, incorrect. You have had a grand total of one conversation with him—an interesting conversation, to be sure, but also fairly surface-level. No, perhaps fascination was a better word. He’s handsome, yes, but looks alone don’t make a suitable partner. You know that you were just barely scratching the surface of who Morpheus is when you piqued his interest with your thesis and evoked such a thoughtful response from him, and now, you’re intrigued by the mystery of who he truly is.

After the way your week has gone, though, you’re happy to leave the mystery solving for another day.

Although the hope is to skirt through the room and past the table unnoticed, Rob clocks you almost instantly, smiling and waving. You repeat the gestures, locking eyes with Morpheus for just a moment before you keep on your original path, lest you be swept into the cerulean depths of his eyes. Georgia’s saved a spot for you next to her, and you force yourself to focus on greetings and idle small-talk while you wait for the rest of the group—not on how easy it would be to tilt your head to the left and catch glimpses of Morpheus out of the corner of your eye.

It’s fine, you think firmly to yourself. The night can still be normal, even with them here!

Normal is, of course, relative. A white Christmas is the expectation for large swaths of the world, but for others, such an event would mean climate devastation. Your cohort devolving into an argument about the true nature of Queen Victoria’s relationship with John Brown? Weird for some, to be sure, but normal for you, even if the ferocity of the debate is starting to give you a headache.

“You can not be serious,” Kylie, a first-year PhD student who hopes to write her dissertation on the evolution of legal rights in the Gilded Age, throws her hands in the air. “She was literally buried with a lock of his hair and his mom’s wedding ring!”

“She mourned Prince Albert for the entire forty-odd years that she outlived him. There’s no way she had room in her heart for another lover,” Georgia rebuts, fingers absentmindedly tearing a straw wrapper to pieces.

“Lots of widows and widowers manage to find love again while still feeling the exact same about their deceased spouse, though.”

“I think you guys are forgetting an integral part of the puzzle, which is that he was her servant. Let’s say there was a relationship; it was still based on power imbalances and, dare I say, coercion.” Ryan, in his first year of grad school and just ‘figuring it out,’ timidly jumps into the fray.

The group considers this for a moment, Connor going so far as to hum and stroke his chin ponderingly in an attempt to make Ryan nervous (not a difficult thing to accomplish).

“Good point,” Kylie concedes.

Ryan blushes from the praise, and you sigh tiredly. You love this weekly tradition that’s sprung up among people you call both peers and friends, truly, and you’d likely be joining the conversation on any other week. But tonight, you were hoping to have a conversation that didn’t revolve around history and thus remind you of your dreaded thesis, the next chapter of which is due on Monday.

“If this is going to be how tonight goes, I need another drink. Can I get anybody else another while I’m up?” you ask.

A chorus of shaking heads and murmured ‘no’s greet you, and you stand to make your way to the bar. A cold front has moved in this week, causing people to seek indoor activities—in this case, judging by how packed the New Inn is tonight, that activity is hoping that the warmth of alcohol running through veins might replace the vanishing summer sun. As you weave your way through the crowd, you’re stopped by somebody calling your name.

“Add a rum and Coke to my tab, will you?” Connor calls, hands cupped around his face in the hopes that it projects his voice. When you nod and give him a thumbs up, he grins and clasps his hands together in thanks. “My hero!”

The path from your group’s usual table to the bar is so familiar to you at this point that you could likely make it there blindfolded and walking backwards. Even when you’ve turned around to listen to Connor’s order, your body is still working on muscle memory and unconsciously taking a couple of wayward steps behind you before you remember that it’s far too crowded tonight to even attempt such a move.

This realization comes too late when an errant foot crosses your path, and you catch yourself on the extremity before it can register as a threat to your balance. A choked gasp escapes you as gravity immediately claims your clumsiness for its spoils, and you go falling backwards. You brace yourself to land in embarrassing fashion, already thinking about how you’ll try to get out of here with a few scraps of your dignity intact and as little attention on you as possible, when a pair of strong arms grabs you before you can hit the floor.

The adrenaline that began coursing through you the moment you tripped only serves to send your heart thundering into overdrive as you stare up into Morpheus’s stormy blue eyes, which trace over your face in concern. One of his arms supports your lower back, while the other stretches across your body so that his hand grasps your bicep. The realization that he’s touching you (and the small voice in the back of your head that is yelling about how good and right it feels) has your brain short-circuiting, and you have to fight to remember how the English language works.

“Hi,” you finally manage to get out.

“Hello,” Morpheus greets softly.

He tilts you up until you’re standing firmly on your feet once more, steadying hands remaining on you as though he doesn’t quite trust gravity and its effect on you anymore. For a moment, the room narrows, until it feels as though you and he are the only occupants—perhaps even the only two on the planet.

“I’m so sorry!” the woman whose foot you’ve tripped over shatters the moment, coming into view as she anxiously looks you up and down. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine! I wasn’t watching where I was going,” you assure her. She nods dubiously before deciding she’s done her due diligence in checking on you and returns to her conversation.

Your attention goes back to Morpheus; though, has it ever truly been off of him since you realized you were in the same location?

“Thank you for saving my ass. Literally,” you tack on with a slight laugh.

“I would not see you injured.” He says this earnestly, as though he were saving you from certain death rather than a tumble to the floor.

“The only thing that would have been hurt was my dignity, but I appreciate it nonetheless.”

When your eyes drop to your upper arm, where one of his hands still firmly rests, he belatedly realizes that he did not, in fact, let go of you, and does so thusly. Is it delusional to think that you can feel your skin tingling under the memory of his touch?

“I was just on my way to grab a drink,” you explain lamely, stating the obvious as you finish your journey (forward-facing this time) to the bar.

Morpheus, to your surprise, follows you. “I was as well.”

You lean against the bartop and smile when you catch Maggie’s attention. A single mom in her 40s who bartends on the evenings her kids are at their dad’s, Maggie doesn’t put up with anybody’s shit—which makes her perfect for handling the colorful audience that comes through the New Inn’s doors. She puts a finger up in the direction of the customer she’s been idly chatting with before making her way over to you with a grin.

“Let me guess, the usual?” she questions, making you flush.

“One day, I’m going to order something completely wild, just to throw you for a loop,” you declare.

She raises an unimpressed brow. “And as for today?”

“...Yeah, the usual,” you admit. “And a rum and Coke on Connor’s tab, please.”

Her eyes turn to Morpheus. “And you, handsome? A glass of red wine that you’ll touch maybe once?”

He looks similarly embarrassed, all too seen under Maggie’s watchful gaze. “Yes.”

“I’m on it.”

You try to keep your eyes on Maggie’s deft movements as she pulls three glasses from their various racks, but eventually, they track towards Morpheus, who’s already looking at you. His mouth opens like he’s going to say something, but no words come out. You press your lips together to hide your amusement, choosing to wait out his indecision rather than be the one to initiate a conversation.

“How…are you?” he asks finally, though it sounds both like a question directed towards you and a phrase he’s unsure if he’s saying correctly.

You smile encouragingly, in case the latter has any bit of truth to it. “I’m good! It’s been a busy week—weird week too, honestly—but it’s almost over, and in the meantime, I get to enjoy a night spent with my friends.”

“How is the work on your thesis progressing?” Morpheus inquires politely.

Your smile falls. “Not nearly as good, but that’s a problem for tomorrow. How are you?” you ask, pivoting to a different topic of conversation in the hopes that you can outrun the despair that this writer’s block seems intent on bringing upon you.

“Me?” He’s genuinely surprised—like nobody ever bothers to ask him such a question. In response, you nod. “I am well.”

The air is quiet between you as it appears that Morpheus is content with that being the extent of his week, but you refuse to let this conversation die out. Not when you finally have him in front of you after a week of second-guessing your recent interaction and imagining all of the ways you would have liked it to go differently.

“It was really nice of you to go out of your way to find that copy of Canterbury Tales for Rob,” you settle on beginning with. “He’s been looking for one for years, so naturally he’s been showing it off to everybody like the prized possession it surely is now.”

Though you’re sure you’re not telling him anything he doesn’t know, Morpheus smiles just slightly. “I believe one would say that that is what friends are for.”

“Have you two been friends for a while?” You’ve only seen him three times now, but surely there’s a history between the two—has to be, for Morpheus to have known about Rob’s long-running quest.

“Oh, yes. He is my oldest and dearest friend.”

“How did you meet, if you don’t mind me asking?” you prompt.

Maggie slides your respective drinks across the bar, and you both quietly thank her. Morpheus picks up his glass, long fingers curled elegantly above the stem, and stares into the burgundy liquid as he remembers.

“It was in a pub, much like this. Robert was…in his cups,” he looks at you with a smirk, and you stifle a laugh, “and issued a challenge rather loudly. My sister and I proceeded to wager on whether or not it would come to pass.”

“Who won?”

“The verdict is still out,” he declares.

You wonder what Rob might have said to capture the attention of both Morpheus and his sister. Knowing him, it was most definitely something audacious.

“So you’re not a professor,” you note, the information you’re learning about him making you greedy for more. “What do you do for work?”

He hesitates. “I suppose one could say that I deal in stories.”

You gasp, a grin taking over your face. “No way! I can’t believe you didn’t mention that last week! That explains how you managed to track Canterbury Tales down so easily.” And how he got right to the heart of why you’re passionate about stories in a way that even a good number of your friends who have listened to you talk about the subject at length haven’t. “Are you a writer?”

“No, but I have had a hand in the creation of many stories.”

“Publishing, then.”

“As you say,” he says into his wine before taking a sip. Is he nervous? Maybe he works for a huge publishing house and is constantly pestered by people asking him to look at their manuscripts the moment they find out what he does for work.

“Anything that I would—”

“Hey!” a voice interrupts.

“Oh!” You jump, looking to your other side where Connor stands. “Hey, Connor.”

“Sorry, you’re, um, kind of holding my drink hostage.” He gestures down at the aforementioned drink, the untouched glass beading with condensation.

“Oops.” 

Sheepishly, you push it in his direction. He takes the drink with quiet thanks, but chooses to remain next to you rather than going to the table and allowing you to continue your discussion.

“Are you going to keep chatting with your…friend?” he asks, casting a wary glance at Morpheus. “Because if not, I could use your help making sure Kylie and Georgia don’t eat Ryan alive for his opinions about Victorian-era love.”

“I thought they agreed with him?” you question dubiously.

“He’s quickly getting too big for his britches. You know how some first years are when they’re emboldened by having one correct opinion.” 

While you would love nothing more than to keep ‘chatting’ with Morpheus, you’ve both come here with other obligations tonight, and you look back at him apologetically. “I’ve once again monopolized your time with Rob! I’m sorry.”

“There is nothing for you to apologize about, for you have done no such thing. For now, though, we must go our separate ways.” He sounds as disappointed as you feel, and the thought pleases you to no end. 

“Thank you again, for catching me.”

He bows his head nobly, accepting your thanks. “Enjoy your evening.”

“You too.” 

It takes a moment before both you and Morpheus actually move, the glow of learning more about somebody interesting and finding connection in a new person keeping you both in its warm embrace. Only when Connor politely bumps your shoulder do your feet spur into action, and you give Morpheus a parting wave before actually following your friend.

“You good?” Connor checks in quietly.

“Yeah? Why wouldn’t I be?” you ask, assuming he’s talking about you almost falling.

“You got stuck having to talk to Rob’s scary friend,” he laughs. “I was sent by the troops to make sure that you didn’t get snatched up by the bogeyman—”

“Don’t call him that,” you snap.

His expression, previously joyous, quickly crumples into confusion. “What?”

“Stop talking about him like that. He’s actually really nice.” It’s a little surprising how vociferously you’re defending this man that you don’t really know, but it feels cruel to allow people who don’t know him even less than you to talk about him in such a way. Not only has he been nothing but nice to you, but you also don’t see anything ‘scary’ about him.

“O…kay? Sorry, I guess,” Connor apologizes reluctantly. “I didn’t know you two were friends.”

“We’re not. But do you think somebody scary would have jumped in to catch me when I was about to land on my ass?”

You don’t wait around to hear the answer that you both know, steering ahead of him and sitting in your original seat with a huff. Georgia turns to you in concern, putting a hand on the back of your chair.

“You okay, love?” she asks.

You very nearly snap at this. Was Connor being serious when he said that he was ‘sent’ by the rest of your cohort? Was everybody here that worried that you were talking to Morpheus that they felt the need to save you from a situation you needed no rescuing from?

“You almost ended up with quite the bruise!”

Oh. Just like that, your anger quickly leaches out of you—for the most part. You should have known that Georgia, at least, was concerned only for your physical well-being.

“I’m okay!” you assure. “Only mildly embarrassed that I almost wiped out in front of the entire bar.”

“Lucky you that a knight in all-black armor just happened to stroll by,” she teases, looking in the direction of Morpheus and Rob’s table.

You don’t dare to follow her lead and glance in the same direction, because part of you knows that, if you did, you would find Morpheus looking right back at you.

“Lucky me,” you agree.

And when you wake the next morning to find that the path to completing the newest chapter of your thesis that had been hopelessly blocked for days is finally clear, you think that maybe there was some good to be found in this weird week, after all.

•••

Well-thought-out responses he provided, until he reached a petition that involved a few dreams whose specialty is soulmates. This, naturally, caused him to start thinking about you, and suddenly he had lost an hour to thinking about your soft smile and the way that you had looked at him without an ounce of fear—so unlike every other mortal in the pub, who avoided even looking at him lest they flinch at the sight of somebody so obviously Other than they.

That he could be so easily thrown off the tasks he had been working on at the mere mention of something relating to you was mildly distressing, and he decided that putting space between himself and these thoughts was the best course of action. There were plenty of half-finished creations on the Shores for him to continue crafting, after all. With the return of his tools, of his power, of his realm, so too had his creativity returned. He seemed to find inspiration at every corner these days, taking to keeping a small notebook within his pockets to write down ideas as they came to him.

For a time, he was successful at working on his creations. The physical act of creation, of shaping and tweaking and crafting until it was to his liking, was a deterrent against any unwanted thoughts. As he sent one of the new dreams off to explore and learn, he looked through the portal and saw doors leading to other dreams.

It would be all too easy to find one door in particular, a part of his mind suggested. It is, after all, early in the morning in that part of the Waking. Most everybody is asleep, including…

He shook his head to clear the thoughts, but it was too late. He could already feel exactly where your sleeping mind was dreaming, though he knew not if the bond had enhanced his already-existing ability to find any dreamer at any time.

His mistake, he muses as he finally opens the door, was assuming that he could resume work normally. But nothing can be normal now, not when he’s discovered that he has a soulmate.

Morpheus finds himself in the back of a lecture hall, cloaked in shadows and invisible to all as he watches you attempt to teach a class. It’s quickly obvious to him that this particular dream is a result of stress—the walls quake ever so slightly with anxiety, threatening to gradually close in around you as you stumble through your words. Still, you persist with a nervous smile on your face, even as it becomes evident that this is a subject you are unfamiliar with.

Though there is a part of him that is tempted to change your dream to something kinder, he knows that to do so would be to go back on the promise he just made with himself. He could not let this bond, no matter how life-changing it may be, get in the way of performing his duties and responsibilities—chief among said duties and responsibilities, of course, is allowing dreamers to face whatever their minds are deeming important enough to dream about. To you, apparently, that is teaching even when you should be the one being taught.

Up front, your eyes cast over the assembled students, ostensibly to check for questions and engagement. It’s a well-practiced movement, and it should be a routine sweep, but something near Morpheus catches your attention. Your gaze freezes, and you tilt your head curiously.

“Hi,” you call out. “Are you lost?”

For a moment, Morpheus is unsure of who you are talking to. After all, it could not possibly be him—not when he knows that he’s still hidden. Yet, as he stares back at your intuitive eyes, which have once again captured him and made him your devoted acolyte with barely a glance, he knows that logic has no place in this new world he’s found himself in. Apparently, the powers that he has considered basic have no effect on you.

There is no time to ponder the soulmate bond and all that it may or may not affect, not when you tell the class that you will be right back and proceed to start moving to climb the steps towards him. Panic, novel sensation that it is, seizes him; he’s not ready to truly face you yet, to look at you and try to explain the gravity of the bond that has connected you when he does not fully understand such a bond either.

It’s both cowardly and shameful, but there is only one thing that he can think of doing to wrest some semblance of control over his life back from the Fates. Quickly, he raises a hand to end your dream, leaving him back on the Shores where he started.

He’s simultaneously exhilarated and terrified, the two creating a cocktail of compelling emotion that he could easily become addicted to. To be constantly reminded by forces more powerful than he that the soulmate bond is not a figment of his romance-starved imagination, yet faced with the potential implications of having a soulmate (a mortal soulmate, at that) when one is Endless, is perhaps more vexing than even the whole affair with the key to Hell. There is so much unknown about the situation, and he knows that he cannot yet act. 

No, first, Morpheus needs to research.

•••

There is nowhere in all of the realms that Morpheus feels more comfortable than in his own. The Dreaming is his, after all; his very essence is the lifeblood that sustains the dreams and nightmares and everything they inhabit. It is the ground that they walk upon, and the very air that they breathe. He has taken great care to ensure that every part of his realm is perfect, to his specifications. It is his home.

At least, that is what he tells himself as he sneaks (him, sneaking!) through the Library, lest somebody discover him and ask questions that he does not yet have the answers to.

It is far too optimistic to believe that Lucienne will be tied up in other tasks—his librarian is, above all, dedicated to her craft. Instead, his plan is to find as many books relating to the topic of soulmates as he can in as short a time as possible, then escape once more to his study so that he can read in peace. By no means is this plan a perfect one, but it does seem like it will be the easiest. The Library may contain every story, both written and not, but it is still his. How difficult can it be to find books?

The answer, he learns defeatedly, is very difficult. He has been wandering the shelves for what is sure to be the mortal equivalent of hours now, with only one tome to show for it. Every time he thought he had finally worked out how the library was organized, he would round a corner only to find that the genres were entirely different from what he had just been perusing. Nonfiction relationships became astronomy just as quickly as science turned to classic Russian literature. It’s mind-boggling, and Morpheus is stuck between attempting to determine which way to turn next or just giving up and taking his meager findings back to his study.

Lucienne, naturally, picks this moment to find him.

“Lord Morpheus,” she says, surprised at finding him, rather than him finding her, which is the usual order of things. “Are you looking for anything in particular today?”

“No, I am simply…doing some research.” He attempts to sound nonchalant, but can tell by the way that Lucienne pinches the bridge of her nose as she adjusts her glasses that he does not succeed.

“And as your librarian, I can help you procure books that might assist you in your research.”

Morpheus realizes that the cover of the book he is holding is facing outwards just as Lucienne gets the idea to look at what book he’s already found in order to help hone her upcoming search, and he hurriedly tries to turn it in his grasp before she can read it.

“A Beginner’s Guide to Soulmate Bonds?” The amused smirk on Lucienne’s face falls as she reads the title aloud, and she turns her gaze back to Morpheus in confusion.

Coincidentally, Morpheus finds the ceiling of the library to be quite interesting.

The cavernous room goes silent, Lucienne attempting to make sense of the situation as Morpheus weighs the merits of disappearing in a puff of sand.

“Is this…personal…research?” she asks finally, knowing that she must tread delicately.

For a moment, Morpheus is tempted to lie. To do so would be beyond childish, however, and he knows that Lucienne would see right through him and thus think him especially so. Reluctantly, he looks at her once more. “Yes.”

“When?”

“Two days ago, when I was in the Waking,” he admits.

Lucienne hums, nodding. “That would explain the sudden change of weather, then.”

Despite the embarrassing situation he’s found himself in, Morpheus cannot help but smile ever so slightly as Lucienne demonstrates once again that she knows her lord better than almost anybody else. Of course, Lucienne would know that nothing so simple as a visit to an old friend could yield the picturesque climate that had replaced the torrential downpours and thunderstorms the Dreaming had briefly found itself engulfed in.

She glances down at a ledger in her hands that is quickly becoming covered in text. “I’ll admit that I’m not the most well-versed in soulmate bonds, but there are signs, yes? To confirm it as so?” Morpheus nods, and she continues. “You saw a sign?”

“A physical string of fate, connecting myself to my soulmate,” he confirms.

From within her coat, Lucienne produces a pen and makes a note on the ledger, muttering something unintelligible under her breath. “Well, if you’re looking for materials on soulmates, you’re in the completely wrong wing for it. Strings of Fate and Other Signs from the Universe, for instance, is near the entrance of the library.”

“Yes, it appears that I am not…as familiar with the shelving system as I thought.”

“Which brings us back to me asking if I might help you find a book,” she says patiently, humor glinting in her eyes. “Give me just a few minutes to pull some relevant texts.”

“I can help—” Morpheus begins, despite knowing that he would not be able to provide actual help.

Lucienne shakes her head. “That is not necessary.”

She’s already disappearing between the shelves when a thought has Morpheus calling out to her. “Lucienne?”

She pops out once more, waiting expectantly.

“Some books on recent courting rituals would likely help as well, I believe,” he requests sheepishly.

•••

As expected, Lucienne returns with a bevy of books—so many, in fact, that she has enlisted her new favorite helper, Nuala of Faerie, to help her carry them to the large table Morpheus has commandeered as his own.

“This stack—” Lucienne begins, punctuating it by setting down the books she’s been holding, “contains books that cover the basics of soulmates—the formation of a bond, theories on how they come to be, what to expect when a bond has formed, and so on.”

She looks to Nuala expectantly, the faerie setting her own books down far more gingerly than Lucienne, as though she believes that she will be scolded for not having the lightest of touches.

“And these cover courting and romance in the modern age.” Lucienne pulls out a chair and takes a seat opposite Morpheus, Nuala hesitantly sitting next to her. “Shall we begin?”

“What are you doing?” Morpheus asks as Lucienne pulls a book off the stacks.

“Helping you, of course.”

“I did not expect you to be so open to the idea of my having a soulmate, Lucienne,” he cannot help but tease, knowing she feels the exact opposite.

“Do not mistake my interest in a research topic to be an interest in your love life, my lord,” Lucienne retorts, though he can see the fondness in her eyes while she says it. “Are we looking for any particular topics or passages of information?”

It is obvious that she is not going to take no for an answer, and Morpheus decides that he might as well use the extra sets of hands. “A general overview of what a soulmate bond entails, as well as specifics as to how a bond affects each side. And…bonds forged between beings and mortals.”

Lucienne and Nuala look at each other in alarm, the latter asking a question before her fear can catch up to her. “Is—”

“My soulmate is a mortal,” Morpheus confirms.

Lucienne grimaces. “Oh dear.”

“Death and I visited Destiny, who told us that previous assumptions were incorrect. No cosmic harm will come to anybody by pursuing this bond.”

It is obvious that the sentence is unfinished. “But?”

“But mortals do not know about soulmates, which is why I am here.”

“My, we do have our work cut out for us, don’t we?”

She flips the cover of her book open, Morpheus and Nuala each grabbing a book of their own and doing the same after a moment.

The pile of books diminishes far faster when there are three sets of eyes doing the reading. The library remains quiet, save for the flipping of pages and the infrequent interjections of the three patrons as each comes across a bit of information relevant to Morpheus’s situation in their journeys through pages.

Unfortunately, much of it is what he already knows: theoretical. Soulmates have existed for as long as there have been beings to seek companionship and love one another, which means that the phenomenon has been studied for just as long. Still, there is no one definitive answer as to how a bond forms, nor is there anything that could be seen as ‘standard.’ Every culture, every pantheon, every realm has its own mythos behind soulmates. Soulmate bonds are unique to every pair, and remain a mystery, even with modern science and its many wonders.

Morpheus is starting to resign himself to having to learn more about a soulmate bond by actually interacting with his soulmate, but Lucienne, still steadfast in the belief that there must be some sort of concrete answer hidden amongst the pages filling the library, has disappeared down the stacks once more in the hopes of finding a book relevant to them. In the meantime, Nuala continues to dutifully read through each book. 

“‘Soulmate bonds can be physical just as much as they are emotional,’” Nuala reads from the aforementioned Strings of Fate, “‘with bonded pairs being known to exhibit symptoms such as longing, an increase of thoughts about the being on the other end of the bond, and a need for proximity that rises the longer a pair goes without seeing each other. In rare cases of a creature bonding with a mortal, such symptoms may be heightened.’”

These have been the rare glimmers of information that may actually be uniform, but they are still frustratingly vague.

“Yet another case of something that may or may not happen, I’m afraid,” Nuala says, looking at him apologetically as though it is her fault that there has been little progress.

Morpheus sighs. “I fear that lived experiences are all that lies in these books.”

“‘Tis frustrating to be getting nowhere,” she agrees.

“What does Faerie believe of soulmates, Lady Nuala?” Though she was no longer a member of the Court of Faerie, Morpheus still affords her the title that she deserves, had her queen not forced her into exile.

Nuala smiles. “It’s one of the most sacred bonds across all the realms, of course. Every pantheon and plane of existence recognizes and reveres the soulmate bond, every being hoping that one day they’ll find their own. Humans have made deals with a great many fae in the hopes that they’ll be granted their soulmate. That’s not in our power to do, of course; only fate decides how, when, and if a soulmate is found.

“We’re frequently characterized as tricksters—tales say that we purposely obfuscate our speech to capture humans, or that we lure them back to Faerie so that we can have our way with them for what seems like the blink of an eye, as hundreds of years pass in the Waking. For some, that’s true, but they are the minority. Fae revere the soulmate bond. We crave a love that can withstand all of the betrayal, gossip, and deceit of the Court. A love that cannot be ended on the whims of those more powerful than us, who seek only to have a drama or a tragedy play out in front of them for their merriment.”

“You speak as though from experience,” Morpheus notes.

She dips her head just slightly, the most that she’s willing to acknowledge the topic, whether on behalf of herself or somebody that she cares for. “I think it’s jealousy, if I may be frank. Not even Titania and Oberon have a soulmate bond, though you already knew this.”

“I did?” He did not realize that he did.

“For Fae, at least, a bond would make a party terribly ill if they tried to seek romantic affection from another party.” She trails off, cheeks turning pink as she hints at the…fling that Morpheus and Titania partook in centuries ago. 

The brief affair was no secret—not even to Oberon, though he cared not what, or whom, his wife was doing when he had paramours of his own—but after an end so disastrous that Titania closed off Faerie’s border to the Dreaming for a time, nearly nobody was bold enough to actually speak of it.

Matthew lands on the table by Morpheus’s elbow, interrupting what was sure to turn into an awkward conversation.

“So! Soulmates are real, huh?” he says. When he meets Morpheus’s inquiring gaze, he hops backward just slightly. “Uh, Lucienne let it slip. Said you might need a human’s perspective. Well, former human, but still.”

Mere days ago, Morpheus would have shrugged off all of the help that he is currently receiving, but especially the suggestion of a human perspective on any issues in his life. Now? Morpheus will take all of the help that he can get on matters in which he finds himself hopelessly unversed.

“I have never made it a point to fraternize with mortals; indeed, if anything, I made it a point to distance myself from them. And now, I must attempt to…romance one,” he admits.

“Aren’t you supposed to be some sort of Casanova?” Matthew asks. The apparent reference goes over Morpheus’s head, but Lucienne, who has returned with hands devoid of any new books, bites her lip to hold back a smirk. “I heard all of the, uh, talk from your many guests when they were supposed to be vying for the key to Hell.”

Naturally, the many pantheons and realms had taken the opportunity of being guests of the Dreaming to gossip about its Lord. “It has been some time since I partook in a…dalliance with another. Even longer since an actual relationship.”

“Well, what was it like the last time you courted somebody, then?” Lucienne prompts.

Morpheus thinks back to those halcyon days of his early relationship with Calliope, when, for the first time, somebody did not see him as Endless. No, back then, he was simply a man—or, as close as one of his kind could get to being a man—attempting to woo a woman.

“To court a goddess is no small feat,” he begins. “It is a carefully choreographed dance, a chess match between two grandmasters. You are…declaring yourself a worthy suitor, and showcasing your strengths as a partner. Gifts, elaborate declarations of love, heroic deeds in her name. All of these could be given, and still, it was up to the one being courted to decide if these were enough.”

Even now, so long after their marriage ended acrimoniously (though he was glad that their last meeting ended with the promise of finally talking things through), he still holds the glint in Calliope’s dark eyes and the quirk of her full lips as she finally deemed him a worthy future husband among his cherished memories. He earned the right to love her; with his wit, with his power, with his show of all that he could offer to her if only she were to take his hand in marriage. It was just as satisfying a win as when he battled the Old Gods out of his realm, crafting the skeleton of one into his helm.

He can only hope to one day see such a reaction from you.

“Oh, mortals don’t expect any of that!” Matthew remarks cheerfully. “This’ll be easy, then.”

“How would you suggest I approach first courting my soulmate?” Morpheus asks dubiously.

His three denizens ponder this.

“Flowers?” Nuala suggests first. “Humans like flowers, though not as much as Fae, of course. When we court, we usually present beautiful bouquets of flowers every day, each species of flower saying something that our words do not. Yarrow for everlasting love, red tulips for passion, yellow jasmine to speak of the receiver’s grace and elegance.”

Lucienne is next. “The old ways of courting are still seen as rather romantic and chivalrous—many contemporary novels set in a historical time period write about this favorably. Perhaps that would impress your soulmate?”

“Wait, wait, wait, let’s take a few steps back here before we jump straight into grandiose gestures,” Matthew says hurriedly. “Have you actually, oh, I don’t know…talked to each other?”

“We did not…have the opportunity,” Morpheus responds. 

Matthew sighs heavily, his beak clacking in disappointment. “Well, I think you should start there. The other stuff—flowers and declarations of love—is going to be very freaky without it.”

Morpheus stares at his emissary blankly. “You believe that we should…talk.”

“Y’know. ‘Hi,’ ‘how’s it going,’ ‘my name is.’ The basics!”

“It is a good idea, Matthew, but it would involve Lord Morpheus somehow coming across his soulmate in the Waking and having to make it look natural,” Lucienne says, leaving off the part where Morpheus would assuredly fail at making anything ‘look natural.’

Matthew has an answer almost immediately. “It doesn’t have to be some big affair! It could be like a romcom, where you two just ‘happen’ to bump into each other! Not–not that I like them, of course. I’m just familiar with them.”

“A ‘romcom’?” Nuala asks.

Matthew looks aggrieved. “Romantic comedy. It’s a genre of books and movies that a lot of people like, but that’s not the point!” He turns his attention to Morpheus once more. “You don’t need to immediately go up to your soulmate and say, ‘hi, we’re meant to be together, please love me.’ Just talk. Get to know each other a bit. I obviously have no clue how it was in other times and realms, but on modern-day Earth, that’s how you establish a solid foundation to a relationship.”

The idea is not a bad one by any means; starting by simply getting to know one another sounds better to Morpheus, too, for whom soulmates and modern mortals are completely foreign. Still, he is not typically in the Waking, which means that he will now have to make up excuses to find himself there—the difficult part of all of this.

“The plan is acceptable,” Morpheus says, surprising both Matthew and Lucienne. “The next time that I find myself in the Waking, I shall make it a point to…say ‘hi’ to my soulmate.”

“Great!” Matthew cheers. “You’ve got this, boss. I have faith in you.”

•••

What Lord Morpheus does not know will not hurt him, Lucienne thinks to herself later as she, Matthew, and Nuala make bets on when the Dreamlord will finally give in and go to the Waking. Nuala, who knows the least about their Lord by virtue of her being new to his service, bets a month. Matthew believes that he shall make it six weeks before finally giving in. Lucienne, having been around for almost all of his doomed relationships, gives it two weeks.

•••

It is fifteen agonizing days before Morpheus can bear being separated from his soulmate no longer.

The books had warned of this, of course. That beings and creatures who bonded with a mortal often found themselves more affected by the physical symptoms of a soulmate bond than, say, a minor goddess who found her soulmate to be a nymph, or a god and a goddess from different pantheons. There was no concrete answer as to why, of course, but the running theory seemed to be that mortals did not have the heightened senses and general knowledge of a bond to be able to feel the effects of a bond and participate in the traditional bonding experience. Thus, the feelings of affection were reflected back onto the being.

Still, Morpheus had not expected to feel this way. He is Endless, after all—so much more than all other species. 

But with every passing day, he can practically feel the bond continue to deepen and establish itself as something not to be ignored. It’s still just as frightening and exhilarating as when you saw him in your dream, the prospect of love outweighing the fears of rejection.

Morpheus descends the stairs to the entry hall of his castle, Lucienne trailing behind him as he dictates his plans to her.

“I will be in the Waking for a short time to leave a book with Hob Gadling,” he says, holding up said book. “In the meantime, I leave the realm in your capable hands.”

His immortal friend had long been on the hunt for one of the copies of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales that he printed while apprenticing for William Caxton and his printing press in the hopes that he could show off a first edition to one of his classes (without making mention of whose hands actually crafted it), and mentioned to Morpheus that if he came across one, he would greatly appreciate it. 

It was fairly easy to locate when one knew which avenues to take—the angel that owns A.Z. Fell and Co. has varied tastes and has been on Earth longer than almost any living being, giving him plenty of time to source books with all of the dedication and impeccable taste of a seasoned wine connoisseur. Matthew had visited him yesterday on the Dreamlord’s behalf, first to inquire if such a book was in Aziraphale’s possession, and to acquire it if so. The asking price was fair for such a piece (Morpheus’s offer of one of Christopher Marlowe’s later drafts of Tamburlaine, complete with the playwright’s notes still on the parchment, Matthew told him, was eagerly accepted), and the raven returned with the requested book in tow without issue.

Now, there was only one thing left to do.

“Is that the only reason?” Lucienne presses.

“Yes,” Morpheus replies a tad too hastily. “It will be a quick errand.”

If rolling her eyes were not improper, Morpheus has a hunch that Lucienne’s would have made a full rotation. “Mhm. And if you just happen to bump into a certain someone?” 

“A coincidence,” he assures.

“Of course.” She tries to look unimpressed, but cannot help but smile. “Good luck with your errand, then.”

Morpheus nods and reaches into his robes to produce a small pouch, from which he produces a handful of translucent grains. With a flick of sand, he’s off to the Waking.

•••

If Morpheus were to be honest, he’s not sure that he wants to see you. 

That’s technically a lie. He wants to see you, of course. But perhaps from a distance, where you do not know that he is near, rather than face-to-face. He has not yet figured out what to say—if he tells you the truth of who he is and what the universe has decided for both of you, or if he should choose to act as though he is not Endless, lying to you in the process. The fear of rejection also still lingers closely behind him like a specter. Mortals often find themselves immediately unnerved by his (and his siblings’) otherness, making it a point to interact as little as possible. What if that extends to you as well? You did not fear him when you were merely looking at him, but what if an actual conversation proves to be too much?

As he attempts to maneuver through the university’s campus, though, he is starting to believe that he may not see you at all. He intended to meet Hob at his office and leave the book there—Hob did, after all, say that he was welcome to ‘drop by’ at any time. But when he arrives near Hob’s location and finds himself standing in a hallway outside of a door, he takes a peek through the glass to see his friend standing at the front of a classroom and lecturing animatedly—decidedly not the time for an old friend to appear. He shall just have to find Hob’s office the mortal way, then.

As it turns out, this is easier said than done. The university’s campus is fairly large, and the stately buildings make no indication as to the rooms that lie inside. He finds a large map in the middle of an alcove, but it means nothing to him when he does not know which building Hob’s office is in. Still, he holds some hope that, by staring at it long enough, he might divine the answer. Anything rather than admitting to the reality, which is that he is hopelessly lost.

A figure approaches from his left, and he tries not to immediately resort to escaping back to the Dreaming at the prospect of interaction with a human. “Hi! You’re Rob’s friend, right?”

The voice is recognizable right away—how could he ever forget the sound? But when Morpheus turns his head to see you standing right next to him, after so long spent thinking about you and imagining how a potential interaction with you would go, he uncharacteristically forgets how to speak for a moment and can only nod in response.

Your friendly smile falters just slightly, and Morpheus realizes that his outward reaction was probably not an ideal first impression. “Are you…looking for him?”

“I am hoping to leave a book with him, but am unsure of his current whereabouts,” he says, finally managing to produce words.

You glance down at your watch. “Rob’s still teaching a class, but should be done in about twenty minutes.” 

Twenty minutes is not that long—his sister was right when she said that the Endless have all the time in the world—but there is still the matter of locating Hob Gadling’s office, which he is no closer to finding than he was when he first stepped into the Waking.

“I’m actually on my way to his office to drop off a couple of things,” you say, seemingly sensing his helplessness. “I could take you there? If you don’t know the way?”

Opportunity has presented itself, and he would be a fool to turn it away. “That would be much appreciated.” 

“Great! This way, then.” You turn back towards your original path, Morpheus falling in step beside you.

 It is almost surreal to be so close to you after imagining and longing for such a situation for two weeks. The research he conducted did not lie about how blissful it would feel to simply bask in your presence, and he knows that he would happily follow you to the ends of the earth if only you allowed him to follow this close. When he gets greedy and tries to peek at you, he finds you looking right back at him.

You’re shy as you first introduce yourself, unsure of how to act around this stranger—though he knows that his general disposition is not doing him any favors in this matter. When he asks you a question about your studies, though, he can see that he has discovered one of the keys to your heart. You light up almost immediately, giving him a basic overview of your thesis before he asks yet another question, and you realize that he is truly interested in learning more about this.

He watches, enraptured, as you speak more confidently, hands gesticulating as you periodically glance at him with shining eyes to ensure that you are making sense, that his interest has not waned. How could it, though? He would listen to you talk about the most banal of subjects—the weather, perhaps, or human economics—simply so that he could hear your voice.

But no, he is fortunate enough to get to listen as you talk about something that you are deeply passionate about. To get a glimpse into how your brilliant mind works is a treat. To learn that stories held your interest, to the point that you had dedicated your studies to it? That was proof of divine intervention, proof that your impending romance was written in the stars.

When you realize that you have found yourself in front of Hob’s office, you cut yourself off from talking about your thesis.

“I’m sorry, I’m rambling.” It is clear that you are embarrassed, focusing on finding a set of keys so that you can unlock the door in an attempt to rid yourself of the feeling. “I just get excited to talk about this subject.”

“You need not apologize.” Truly, he hopes that you never again feel embarrassed to talk about anything in his presence, especially something that you care about. “I asked you a question, and I was happy to learn from you. You are, after all, attempting to become an expert in this subject, correct?”

You let out a small, halfhearted laugh, obviously not believing him. “Yeah, I suppose.”

The door to the office is unlocked, and you make your way towards what is presumably Hob’s desk while Morpheus takes the opportunity to look around. Hob has opened his home to Morpheus a few times, and he is pleased to see that the immortal man’s office is decorated much the same; his personal collection, lovingly displayed for himself and others to admire. He smiles slightly at the daguerreotype on the wall, discerning eyes able to pick up his friend’s face amidst the other soldiers.

“Have you ever been in here before?” you ask.

Morpheus turns to look at you. “No. Robert was, perhaps, overconfident in my abilities to navigate the university to find his office when he told me I could simply leave the book here.”

A breath of laughter leaves you. “Glad I was around to rescue you, then, so you could explore a bit. I love his office, it’s like a museum.”

“His home is much the same; a testament to life, created by a man grateful for every minute of his own.”

You consider the statement, a smile forming as you do. “That’s such an accurate description of him.” 

Something catches your attention, and you produce a cellular device from your pocket to look at its surface.

“I have to get going. My class is on the other side of campus, and if I don’t leave now, I’ll be late,” you explain. 

Morpheus finds himself thrilled at the regret on your face, neither of you wanting this interaction to end.

“Far be it from me to stand in the way of anybody’s pursuit of knowledge,” he says.

“Are you going to wait for Rob in here, or do you need me to walk you out?” you ask.

For a moment, he considers leaving with you, but he would like to see Hob’s face when he sees what Morpheus has brought him. “I shall wait.”

“Okay! I’ll leave you to it, then.” 

You rock backwards on your heels, unsure of whether you should say something else before you leave, or if Morpheus is going to say anything in return. His lips cannot help but quirk up at the very human action, made all the more endearing by the fact that you are the human doing so, and your eyes widen in surprise at the sight.

“Bye,” you squeak, turning on your heel and quickly exiting the office. Morpheus can hear your shoes pounding against the floors as, it seems, you run out of the building.

He stares fondly at the space you just occupied before migrating to the window in the hopes that he might catch a glimpse of you. It is not a long wait, and when you do appear, you lean against the wall and bury your head in your hands.

Your abashment, it seems, has only increased, though he knows not why. How could you feel such a way after a conversation that has only served to make him more infatuated with you? He wishes that there had been more time for him to assure you that nothing you had said or done—indeed, nothing you could ever say or do—would lower your status in his eyes. Instead, he watches as a mortal woman appears and begins to comfort you.

Movement sounds from behind him, and Morpheus reluctantly draws his eyes away from you and to the sight of Hob Gadling smiling at him.

“My friend!” Hob greets warmly. “What a welcome surprise it is to see you! What brings you to my neck of the woods?”

“I found the book that you have been searching for,” Morpheus says, producing the copy of Canterbury Tales from his coat.

Hob’s face lights up as Morpheus holds out the tome, and he takes it gently in his own hands.

“Well, look at that!” He carefully flips the book open—although, thanks to good care and preservation by the previous owner, the book does not show nearly how old it is—and angles it so that Morpheus can see the small design near the bottom of the title page—a simple H and G, with a sword piercing through both letters. “My printer’s mark. I was so thrilled when Billy Caxton told me I got to make one of my very own. It was the first time in my life that I created something, after so long spent being a soldier and a mercenary.”

Hob is silent for a few moments, nostalgia washing over him as he thinks of a life long past. Morpheus tries his best to stay out of his friend’s fond daydreams, focusing instead on the papers you have left on the desk—a copy of an answer key for a test, and what looks to be your aforementioned thesis.

“Thank you for this,” Hob says finally, sincerely. “Truly. You didn’t have to go through the trouble of searching for this on my behalf.”

“It was not nearly the chore you are imagining it to be,” Morpheus assures.

“Still. I owe you one.”

Morpheus smirks. “I am not of the fair folk, Hob. I do not deal in debts.”

“Of course not, though I did once think you one.” This is not a surprise; Hob told him months ago of all the manners of creatures he believed his mysterious stranger to be at one point or another. Vampire, Fae, angel, demon, witch. None of which comes close to capturing all that Morpheus is. “You did me a huge favor, though, and as your friend, I would like to repay it at some point.”

Hob reverently traces his printer’s mark once more before closing the book to place it on his desk and looking at Morpheus once more.

“Not that I’m not thrilled you’re here, but how did you get in?” Hob asks. “I may be getting up there in years, but I know I didn’t leave my door unlocked.”

“Your graduate student granted me entrance,” Morpheus says truthfully.

“Ah, I should’ve known,” Hob responds, very familiar with your kind and helpful nature. 

Much the same as you did minutes ago, Hob’s own cellular device buzzes in his hand, and he curses under his breath.

“I wish I could stay to chat, but I have another class. Can I walk you out?”

Morpheus nods his assent, following his friend out of the office and waiting for him to dutifully lock the door before the two traverse down the hallway and towards the exit of the building.

When they reach sunlight once more, Hob attempts again to repay the favor that Morpheus has done for him. “Are you sure there’s nothing that I can do for you in return?”

Morpheus is about to turn him down once more when he realizes that there is something that Hob could do for him, though guilt envelops him as the idea percolates in his head. He would not be using his friend if he were to ask for what he is thinking about. After all, he does enjoy seeing him more often than once a century. Still, it feels slightly…dishonest to lead Hob to believe that there is no ulterior motive to what he will ask.

“I would see you, if you are amenable. Thursday next, perhaps? At…our usual spot?” Morpheus proposes, attempting to sound casual and as though he does not remember that you and your fellow graduate students meet at the New Inn every Thursday.

Hob lights up. “I would most definitely be amenable. Thursday next, then! I look forward to it.”

“I do, as well. Farewell, Hob.”

“Bye, Morpheus.” Hob waves, then turns to head for a different building.

Morpheus turns as well, to find a quiet place where he can return to the Dreaming and count down the days until he can see you once more.

•••

Robert Gadling (“Please call me Rob, no need for any of that Dr. Gadling business”) notices you almost immediately and raises a hand to wave, with his usual friendly smile on his face. Your group is tucked at the large table in the corner by the windows that they typically haunt, meaning you’ll have to walk by him anyway to get to where you’re going. Might as well rip the bandage off now, you think as you come to a stop at his table.

“Hey, Rob!” He has a friend with him tonight, a dour man in all black currently scowling at his drink. You’ll endeavor to be quick, then.

“Now, my favorite TA wouldn’t be taking advantage of my pub to work on homework for my class that you haven’t done yet, would you?” he asks, falling back on one of his favorite jokes of the new school year—the man’s full of dad jokes, and you’re usually who he tries them out on.

“I’m your only TA this semester,” you respond, as per usual.

Rob chuckles and waves his hand in the air. “Semantics!”

“But to answer your question, a couple of us are meeting up before the history grad students’ weekly happy hour to work on our term assignments for Keller’s Archival Methods class. I would never work on your homework in front of you!”

Rob’s friend has glanced up, and you wink at him to let him know that you have 100% worked on homework for Rob’s classes at the New Inn (What? You’d feel bad for completely ignoring this guy when you’ve just monopolized his time with his friend).

When your optic nerves finally reach the thinking part of your brain and you finally process who you’re looking at, you have to make a conscious effort to keep your jaw from dropping. The man sitting before you is devastatingly, otherworldly beautiful; with his high cheekbones, sharp jawline, and regal nose, he looks as though he’s gotten lost after leaving a runway and ended up among mere mortals. His skin, so pale that you wonder for a moment if vampires maybe are real, stands out in stark contrast to his messy, jet-black hair and matching black ensemble.

But it’s his eyes that truly captivate you, an arresting shade of blue that makes you feel as though you’re frozen under his icy gaze. They sparkle even under the ambient lighting of the pub, galaxies hidden within his irises that you could spend hours exploring.

Glasses clanking together as a bartender receives a crate of clean dishes breaks you out of the spell you’ve found yourself under, and you blink a couple of times in the hopes that it clears your head. Why are you here again? When you look at Rob once more, you’re reminded of the reason and can only hope that you weren’t staring at his friend for as long as it felt.

“Um…I’m glad I caught you, actually,” you say, trying to turn your sole attention to the matter at hand. “I was grading your Intro to Medieval Europe essays, and I’m ninety-nine percent sure I caught plagiarism again.”

His face falls. “Seriously? Who?”

“Tom Wyatt, from your 9 a.m. Tuesday/Thursday. Not only did he forget to remove ChatGPT saying ‘certainly, here’s an essay,’ but there’s also a sonnet about oranges.”

As a hopeful deterrent against plagiarism, but more realistically, as an easy way to catch it, Rob always put a prompt in white at the end of the essay prompts on the class websites. For this assignment, he tacked on a command to “write a sonnet about oranges.” Students who actually wrote their assignments would never see it, but an AI chatbot programmed to respond to all commands from a block of text being copied and pasted?

Hook, line, and sinker.

“Damn, that’s frustrating.” He sounds just as aggrieved as you feel. How hard is it to write a freshman-level essay on how the Catholic Church benefited from feudalism? “That makes how many for you?” 

“This would be number four that I’ve caught.” At barely a month into the semester, too.

“Who needs GPTZero when I’ve got you? Bring it by during office hours tomorrow and we’ll have a look, alright?”

“Sure.” A voice calling your name has your head snapping up, and you see a couple of your fellow grad students beckoning you over to their table. “I'd better go. I’ll see you tomorrow!”

You chance one last glance at Rob’s friend and find those piercing eyes of his already on you, smiling at him even as your heart pounds. When you turn and make your way across the room, you push away the ludicrous thought that you can feel icy pinpricks on the back of your neck.

“Hey, guys,” you greet, landing in an open chair and opening your backpack to take your laptop out.

“What, you don’t get enough of your advisor during school hours? It’s only September, and I’m already wishing that Keller just randomly decides to take a sabbatical in the middle of the school year,” Connor, a second-year PhD student with a focus on geopolitics in World War Two who’s decided to help you out since he knows how Keller’s classes work, bemoans.

You laugh. “I would have just said hi and moved on, but another student plagiarized their essay, and I wanted to let Rob know.”

Groans go up around you. “Fucking AI, man. I worry about how dumb the world is going to be in ten years.”

“Ten years? That’s very optimistic of you.”

“I’m surprised you went over there at all, what with his scary friend sitting there too,” Georgia, in her second year and with a thesis focusing on economics influencing fashion, says.

You raise your eyebrows. “Scary?”

“Yeah, looks like the boogeyman or something.” The other grad students nod, a couple of them casting furtive glances at Rob’s table to see what is, apparently, a specter from their nightmares.

You keep quiet, because what are you supposed to say? ‘I think he’s really cute’? ‘Are you guys blind?’ You’re not a teenager who can’t control their hormones and crushes on every attractive person they see, and these are your peers in academia.

(Plus, cute feels like a massive understatement)

Still, you can’t help but glance one last time at the table as conversation shifts to the term assignments you’re meant to be working on in the first place, only mildly disappointed when you see that he’s already left. Oh well, you think, attempting to turn your focus towards powering on your computer and navigating to Keller’s class website. Time to put the handsome stranger out of your mind and get on with the rest of your night.

Much easier said than done, though, especially when your head hits the pillow and you finally fall asleep.

The scenario you’re in is immediately recognizable as one of your regular stress dreams; though, all of your dreams lately seem to be stress dreams now that the school year has started. You’re standing at the front of a classroom you’re a teacher’s assistant for, only to find that the class isn’t history. Sometimes the class is a foreign language you don’t speak, other times it’s math or science-related. Tonight, apparently, you’re meant to be teaching microbiology.

You try your hardest to bluff your way through the class, first by attempting to make sense of the writing on the whiteboard, which, by virtue of this being a dream, is unreadable. When that doesn’t work, you switch to pulling from the meager knowledge of biology that you have from high school and the gen-ed biology class that you took as a freshman in college. 

While you’re stuttering about the mitochondria, you chance a glimpse around the room. The faces of the students watching you are never fleshed out and are usually just blurs interspersed with one or two students that you’ve taught before, but old habits die hard, and you still like to make eye contact with your students even when they don’t have eyes. Your own eyes are drawn to the back of the classroom when a flash of black catches your attention.

It’s him. The man from the pub, looking just as handsome and serious as a few hours ago. He’s more in focus than the rest of the classroom—everything about him as though you’re awake and standing in a room with him. He seems just as surprised to see you as you are to see him, as though he wandered into this classroom by accident while on the hunt for another one.

“Hi,” is all you can think to say, stopping your half-assed attempt at teaching a subject you only know the basics about. “Are you lost?”

He remains silent. Maybe whatever he’s here for, he doesn’t want to talk about it in front of your students (obviously, that’s not the case, but your sleeping mind, which is currently in teaching mode, is treating this entire situation like a regular school day)? You should probably address this.

“Give me just one moment,” you say to the class before making your way to the steps to the back of the lecture hall.

The man’s surprise only increases as he watches you move towards him. When your foot reaches the first stair, he makes a movement with his hand—

Your eyes snap open to the sight of your ceiling fan spinning circles above you. The dream is already slipping through your fingers like wafting smoke, and you sigh as you turn it over in your mind, examining it from every angle while you still can.

It’s been a while since you’ve been…interested in anybody. Sure, you have crushes on celebrities, on fictional characters from television and movies and books. But actual dating? Taking a second look at somebody and thinking that they could be a person you might imagine yourself being romantically interested in? 

You don’t have time for that—not when you’re working so hard to get to where you want to be in life. Life feels more than fulfilling for you right now; you’re studying in a field you’re passionate about, getting to research, write, learn, and teach (even if each individually causes you grief at times). You have a good group of friends and peers, most of whom are also trying to make their way through academia. It’s a time in your life that you’re trying to savor while you’re in the middle of it, knowing that one day you’ll be missing this period.

Romance, you feel, would only slow you down. But is it so bad to have a harmless crush? To find a stranger in a bar so attractive that you can’t help but have a one-off dream about him? 

No, you don’t think so. After all, there’s comfort in knowing that you’ll never see this man again, that the endless depths of his eyes will never analyze you and somehow know that you’ve managed to conjure his form in your sleeping mind.

A large yawn interrupts your thoughts, and your eyes start to flutter shut against your will. Maybe you can fall back asleep for a bit before you have to be up? One glance at your phone screen reveals you’ve woken up a mere five minutes before your alarm is set to go off, and you shove your head under your pillow to groan miserably before throwing your blankets off of you and getting a start on your day.

•••

As expected, the handsome stranger begins to fade from the forefront of your mind as your usual daily life marches on. There are classes to take, classes to teach, papers to mark, and a social life that you continue to try and have despite it all. It’s a complicated juggling act, but it’s one that you’ve managed to balance well. It’s a relief, honestly, that the dream was a one-night-only affair, lest it throw everything off.

Logic tells you all of this, and you agree with it. Yet, there’s still a part of you that can’t help but eagerly look towards Rob’s usual table on the next Thursday, feeling a sliver of hope that the scowling man dressed like a member of the Addams family will be there too. When you see nothing but two empty chairs sitting at the table, it’s only a mild letdown.

•••

The university’s campus is beautiful during all four seasons, but is particularly lovely during the fall. The sun is still shining, but it’s no longer uncomfortably hot. Leaves have started to turn autumnal shades of red, orange, and yellow as the trees prepare to shed in anticipation of the winter months. There’s a steady stream of students, either heading to and from one building to the next, or taking advantage of the conditions by studying or relaxing outside. The campus green is practically alive with activity—with a newly curated “fall faves” playlist playing in your ears on your walk to Rob’s office before class, and plans to treat yourself to a favorite drink from the on-campus café after, you think that this might be your idea of a perfect fall day.

A skateboarder attempting to slide across a bench draws your attention, and you find yourself mildly impressed when he lands the trick. He grins when he notices you watching, throwing up the horns as he skates past the small alcove and away. You look back at the bench to marvel at just how he did that when a sight more surprising than any skateboard trick stops you in your tracks.

There, staring at one of the large campus map signs posted in the alcove, is the man who was sitting with Rob at the New Inn a couple of weeks ago. It’s startling to see him here, in a place you consider yours; almost like seeing a teacher outside of school for the first time (perhaps not a very good simile in your grad school years, now that you regularly see at least one teacher outside of school). He’s just as handsome as you remember from both your brief encounter and the dream, only this is no dream. Your eyes quickly snap away from him and ahead of you at the realization that he’s only a few feet away from you, and not some distant memory.

You should just keep walking—you are on a mission, after all—but he looks genuinely lost. With a sigh and only a bit of hesitation, you turn around and approach the sign.

“Hi! You’re Rob’s friend, right?” you ask, knowing very well that he is.

The man turns away from the sign to look at you for a long moment before he nods.

Okay. Not the best reaction, but you won’t let that dissuade you. “Are you…looking for him?”

“I am hoping to leave a book with him, but am unsure of his current whereabouts.”

His voice. Oh god, his voice. Sonorous like you’ve never heard before and as smooth as silk; if he doesn’t narrate audiobooks, he definitely should look into that as a potential career path. It leaves you feeling almost as flustered as when you first looked into his starry blue eyes—paired together, it’s a deadly combination.

You check your watch to remind yourself of Rob’s Wednesday schedule, grateful for the opportunity to avert your gaze for a moment and get yourself under control. It’s 10:35, which means that he’s discussing Chaucer in his Medieval Literature course.

“Rob’s still teaching a class, but should be done in about twenty minutes.” He nods again, seemingly unsure of his next course of action. Lucky for him, you’re far too helpful for your own good. “I’m actually on my way to his office to drop off a couple of things. I could take you there? If you don’t know the way?”

“That would be much appreciated.” Though he doesn’t speak very loudly, his voice carries easily through the breeze.

“Great! This way, then.” You turn back towards your original path and immediately cringe internally.

Great? My best response to him was great?

The man falls in step next to you, and you wage a battle with yourself as you try to decide if it would be worse to allow the silence to persist on the entire walk or to fill the silence with boring, meaningless small talk. You see him glance at you out of the corner of your eye at the same moment that you glance out of yours, and smile nervously upon being caught.

“I didn’t get the chance to actually introduce myself the other night when I stole Rob from you for a bit,” you say sheepishly before giving him your name.

He inclines his head in your direction. “I am Morpheus.”

It’s a name that you weren’t expecting at all, but somehow, you already know that it fits him perfectly. Of course, this man would be named after a Greek god; to name him something common would be a disservice to him.

“It’s nice to meet you, Morpheus,” you say warmly.

While you’re expecting the conversation to end there, Morpheus only glances in front of him to make sure his path is still clear before looking to you again. “You are H—Robert’s student?”

“Mhm, he’s my graduate advisor.”

You interviewed with a few different colleges and universities during your graduate school hunt, but none of your prospective advisors could hold a candle to Robert Gadling. He was immediately engaged in your areas of interest, hearing out your potential ideas for a thesis, and explaining how his skill set would be able to help you get your degree. When you managed to get full funding from this university as well, the decision was rather easy.

Compared to what you’ve heard from some of your friends at different schools across the globe, stuck with advisors who have received tenure and thus checked out from doing any actual advising, you’ll never regret the choice you made.

“He’s one of the best teachers I’ve ever had across all levels of schooling,” you say, unable to not compliment him, especially to his friend.

“That does not surprise me in the slightest.” His lips quirk up ever so slightly, and you get the feeling that this is his version of a smile; in that case, it’s easy to see that Morpheus is very fond of Rob. “Is your area of focus on the Medieval period as well?”

“I think the Medieval period is interesting, but no. My thesis is about oral traditions and examining what information is lost when they’re put on paper.” That’s the 30,000-foot view of it, at least.

His eyes turn bright, curious, and you squirm under his focus as you look nervously in front of you to make sure he’s not going to hit anybody with his inattention. 

“You enjoy learning about stories?” Morpheus asks.

You can’t help but grin at the unexpected question. “Oh, yes! Storytelling is one of our earliest forms of communication, and every society across all of human history has its own stories and folklore. Before there was any written language, before there was an idea to elaborate on what was being said by painting illustrations onto the walls of caves, there were simply people sitting together and coming up with stories. Stories to entertain, stories to warn, stories to educate. It’s fascinating.”

“I feel much the same,” he responds. “Stories…connect. The elder generation warns the younger about dangers in the forest by speaking of bloodthirsty monsters. Warring factions may find that they have common ground upon realizing they believe in the same mythos. Friends keep one another company in the long hours of the night around a fire by making up tales of bravery and heroism.”

Finally, it feels like somebody is speaking your language, and you nod in excitement. “Exactly! And there’s something magical about how stories can be so powerful that they can transcend the time and place they were first thought up. Romeo and Juliet just finished a run on Broadway after being written in England in the late sixteenth century. The Odyssey was first spoken in around the eighth century BCE, and one of the biggest directors of the twenty-first century is filming a star-studded adaptation today. Stories are kind of time capsules, when you think about it.

“It was hard even to narrow down a research question for my thesis, to be honest. If I could have, I’d just analyze the history of stories, but you need an actual research question for—”

Rounding the corner to see Rob’s office door cuts you off, embarrassment flooding through you as you abruptly realize that you’ve been talking this poor man’s ear off for almost the entirety of the walk to the history department’s offices.

“I’m sorry, I’m rambling.” Heat rises in your face, and you focus on finding your keys and unlocking the door rather than wishing the ground would open up and swallow you whole. “I just get excited to talk about this subject.”

“You need not apologize,” Morpheus assures. “I asked you a question, and I was happy to learn from you. You are, after all, attempting to become an expert in this subject, correct?”

His words make you feel a bit better, but you’re only able to let out a halfhearted laugh and a “Yeah, I guess,” as you swing the door open and step inside.

To the average outsider, Rob’s office would be considered messy. The bookshelves are stuffed full with both textbooks and historical texts he finds handy for teaching and researching, and a variety of papers litter every flat surface one might use for writing on. Rob, though, knows exactly where everything is; in your third semester as his graduate student, you start to believe you’re getting there.

Your favorite part of Rob’s office, though, has to be his decor. Everything that’s not school-issued is vintage and sourced by him, from the velvet Art Deco club chair by the window to the Victorian-era globe that sits on a shelf in the corner. He even has a literal broadsword hanging behind his desk that is, supposedly, an heirloom that has managed to stay in the Gadling family for hundreds of years. You’re still finding little treasures tucked around the room that you’ve never seen before, like the small, ornate snuffbox from the 1770s sitting on an upper shelf that you came across last week when looking for a spare copy of the Medieval Lit textbook.

Morpheus starts a slow lap around the room as you lay your backpack on Rob’s desk so that you can grab both the proposed answer key for his Intro to Medieval Europe pop quiz (he hates to give pop quizzes, but his 2 p.m. Monday/Wednesday/Friday course has been particularly dismal when it comes to even bothering to pretend to take notes) and the rough draft of the first 15 pages of your thesis, which you’re particularly nervous about leaving in the hands of somebody who’s not you. 

While you could have just emailed both of these documents, Rob enjoys having physical copies of almost everything and makes it a requirement that essays are to be printed out and handed to him in class so that he can have adequate space to leave feedback. In the matter of the work-in-progress that is your thesis, you’ll take as much constructive criticism as you can get.

“Have you ever been in here before?” you ask, noticing Morpheus’s eyes lingering on a small daguerrotype of a group of American Civil War soldiers on the wall by the bookshelves.

“No. Robert was, perhaps, overconfident in my abilities to navigate the university to find his office when he told me I could simply leave the book here.”

A huff of amusement escapes you. “Glad I was around to rescue you, then, so you could explore a bit. I love his office, it’s like a museum.”

“His home is much the same; a testament to life, created by a man grateful for every minute of his own,” Morpheus says eloquently.

“That’s such an accurate description of him.” Truly, your advisor always has something good to say, even when a situation may call for a bit of doom and gloom; faced with the way that AI is wreaking havoc on academia, for instance, he simply expressed gratitude that you were good at catching such uses.

Your phone buzzes with a notification, and when you look at the screen, you see that it’s almost 10:45.

“I have to get going. My class is on the other side of campus, and if I don’t leave now, I’ll be late,” you say apologetically. 

“Far be it from me to stand in the way of anybody’s pursuit of knowledge.” Morpheus doesn’t speak like anybody you’ve ever met—in fact, he speaks more like a character from a book than anything—but it doesn’t carry any of the affectation that it would were it coming from anybody you’ve met.

“Are you going to wait for Rob in here, or do you need me to walk you out?” you ask.

“I shall wait,” he decides.

“Okay! I’ll leave you to it, then.” 

You rock awkwardly on your heels, unsure of how to end this interaction. When his lips quirk up at you this time, and not a mention of his friend, you panic.

“Bye,” you squeak, ducking out of Rob’s office and practically running out of the building, if only to get some distance between you and the mortification chasing after you as it attempts to engulf you.

(And, if you’re truly being honest, to put some physical distance between yourself and the enigmatic man you’ve just walked through campus with)

When you make it outside, you lean against the stone exterior and bury your head in your hands. You can feel your cheeks burning beneath your fingers, and you can’t help the forlorn groan you make as your brain forces you to recall every painful moment of your interaction with Morpheus.

“What’s wrong?” somebody asks.

Peeking between your fingers, you see Georgia standing in front of you, sipping on the straw of the large iced coffee in her hand. In her other hand, she holds your favorite drink, having taken the silence when she texted you to ask if you wanted a drink (since you were otherwise occupied) as a yes—bless her.

“I’m an idiot. The most handsome guy I’ve ever met in my life talks to me, and I infodump about my thesis to him!” you wail. 

“The grad student curse,” Georgia commiserates, handing you your drink so that she can lean against the wall next to you and pat a comforting hand on your shoulder. “I was DD once for my friends this summer and was not feeling like being out at all, so I decided to post up at the bar with a book about fashion during the Great Depression, as one does.”

“Oh no.” You can already tell where this is going, both dreading and anticipating the next part.

“A guy came up to me to ask what I was reading—he was obviously flirting with me, only I didn’t realize it, so I proceeded to spend the next ten minutes talking about feed sack and flour bag dresses.”

When you begin to laugh, her smirk widens into a grin.

“I wish that I were joking. It’s like a disease! We get to study what we’re passionate about, but the cost is that we’re unable to talk about it like a normal person.”

“I’m so sorry,” you say when you get your laughter under control.

“Pssh, he wasn’t even that cute, anyway, my smarts simply did the job for me and scared him off.” Georgia links an arm with you, pulling you away from the wall and out of your despair. “What I’m trying to say is that if someone can’t match your freak from right out of the gate, then that’s not a person that you want in your life, friend or otherwise.”

Wise words, presented in a way that’s so uniquely Georgia. 

“Sorry to have laughed at your misfortune, but it did make me feel better,” you assure her.

She pumps a Breakfast Club-esque fist in the air victoriously. “Then my mission’s accomplished.”

“I still think I might walk into traffic, though.” You make like you’re going to walk to the parking lot (you won’t, obviously), and she yanks you back.

“At least wait until you graduate. It’d be a shame to have done all this work and not be able to put that you have your master's degree in your obituary.”

You give the suggestion a blink of consideration. “Good point.”

“Man, I am just full of great advice today,” Georgia marvels, walking with you in the direction of your next class. “Perhaps I should switch to psychology instead of history?”

“Please don’t, I don’t want to have to pay for advice you’ve been giving me for free.”

Georgia throws her head back in a laugh, platinum blonde hair shining in the sun. “Oh! Speaking of therapists, I don’t think I told you how mine rightfully read me for filth and called me out the other day.”

You’re happy to simply listen to your friend talk as you head to class, the warm day making it impossible for you to feel any icy pinpricks from a watchful gaze on your back.

•••