#absolutionem 03

Oh, shit. He bolts upright, the details of the dream flooding back. Every moment is rendered in perfect clarity, more akin to a memory of a real event than the hazy vestiges of a dream. In his mind’s eye, he sees it all—the Gallows, the desire demon, Cullen’s miraculous arrival, the… what came after that.

He groans, rubbing his eyes. You idiot, you’re lucky you’re not waking up an abomination. Like any mage, he’s no stranger to demonic temptation. He knows all the usual tricks, and he knows never to trust anyone he meets in his dreams, not even if they wear the face of someone he cares for. Especially not then. It’s plain to him now that Cullen could not have actually been in the Fade with him; therefore, what he encountered must have been another demon—a demon whose charade he fell for hook, line, and sinker. By all accounts, it ought to have possessed him. He can’t for the life of him understand why it didn’t, but he’s not one to question his own preternatural good luck.

He’s about to write off the experience as a lesson learned when he feels something cold and hard next to his leg. He reaches for it, wondering if he left his phone on the bed again. Instead of the familiar metal rectangle, his fingers close around smooth glass. No. It’s not possible. 

The makeshift phylactery sits in the palm of his shaking hand, the vial’s contents bright crimson in the morning sunlight. What the fuck? Did he make this in his sleep? Manifest it, somehow…? His mind supplies a half dozen possible explanations, each more far-fetched and disturbing than the last.

Then, because today is really not shaping up to be his day, the doorbell rings. He curses under his breath, throwing on a ratty bathrobe that he doesn’t bother to tie. He’s taken to sleeping only in boxer shorts, which make the heat more tolerable but aren't ideal attire for entertaining visitors. “Just a moment,” he calls, a trifle testily, wondering who in the Void would pay a social call at this hour. He stuffs the phylactery in his robe pocket, partly because he doesn’t know what else to do with it and partly because he’s paranoid that it’ll disappear back into the Fade once it’s no longer on his person.

He races to the door, knowing that he must look an utter mess—hair even more disheveled than usual, beard untrimmed and unoiled, robe just barely maintaining the pretense of decency. “Sorry for the—oh.” Standing in the doorway is quite possibly the last person in the universe he wants to face right now. What is he even supposed to say? Lovely morning, isn’t it? By the way, I just had a dream in which a demon wearing your face kissed me senseless right after I bared my soul to it. Or maybe: I think I might have feelings for you, and those feelings have physically manifested in my house in the form of a phylactery. Weird, right?