#itpot

You opened the door. You stepped inside. The room greeted you with its familiar shape, desk, bed, shelf, papers, the faint lingering warmth of earlier hours. Ordinary things. Safe things. It should have steadied you.

Instead, the moment the door closed behind all four of you, your anxiety surged.

It climbed fast and cold, crawling under your ribs, making your hands feel too clumsy and your breathing too shallow. The book was still where you had left it, tucked away with all the caution of a secret that had long since become too large to hide.

You went to the shelf.

Drew the tomes aside.

Found it.

The cover looked no different than before. Harmless in the way dangerous things often are.

But when you lifted it into your arms, it felt heavier than any book had a right to feel.

Heavier, and wrong. Not in any way you could have explained if someone had asked. But there was something in the weight of it that made your stomach turn, something that felt less like paper and binding and more like being watched.

Behind you, no one spoke.

That, more than anything, frightened you.

Chai Latte Cookie, who always had something to say, stood near your desk with her hands clasped tightly together, worry plain on her face. Hazelnut Biscotti Cookie had gone unusually still, every trace of easy humor held at the edge of collapse. Earl Grey Cookie watched the book the way one might watch a blade balanced point-down on a table, calm, controlled, and fully prepared for blood.

You looked down at the cover.

It did not move.

And yet the room felt as though it were waiting for it to.

Your fingers trembled around the edges. For one awful second you imagined it shifting beneath your hands like something alive. The thought made your grip tighten instead of loosen.

If tonight was the night everything finally gave way into its terrible answer, then you had run out of time to pretend it would sort itself out.

You took a breath.

Opened the book…and the world snapped apart under the crack of chalk.

You jolted upright so violently your knee hit the underside of the desk.

Pain flashed sharp like electricity through you. The lecture hall surged into focus; Sunlight pouring through tall windows, the dusty sweetness of old pages, the broad blackboard at the front of the room covered in diagrams and notes.

You were seated in class. Your pulse was still sprinting. For a moment you could only stare.

At the students turning to look at you. At the familiar Academy robes. At the professor standing motionless near the board, one piece of chalk still in hand, his expression caught somewhere between resignation and weary disappointment.

Professor Almond Custard closed his eyes.

Then sighed.

It was not a dramatic sigh. It was worse than that. It was the sigh of a man who had spent years believing in academic excellence and had once again been asked to confront reality instead.

“Wonderful,” he said. “You’re awake.”

A few students laughed under their breath.

Heat rushed into your face all at once.

You looked around wildly.

Chai Latte was there, seated two rows down and already gaping at you.

Hazelnut Biscotti had twisted halfway around in his seat, staring with a degree of fascinated alarm that suggested he was only a few seconds away from asking whether you had seen a prophet in your sleep.

Earl Grey’s brows had drawn together. Calm as ever, but clearly concerned.

And near the window… your heart dropped.

Shadow Milk Cookie.

He sat with one elbow resting lightly against the desk, pen in hand, composed. Sunlight caught along the academy robes…?He looked younger like this. Less untouchable, somehow just placed within the world instead of above it.

And yet the sight of him struck you harder than anything else in the room.

Because he was here.

Because he was real.

Because if this was real, then…

Professor Almond Custard set the chalk down with care. “Perhaps,” he said, in that measured tone professors reserve for very public embarrassment, “you would like to explain why you sat upright in the middle of my lecture looking like you had just been personally cursed.”

There was another ripple of laughter.

You swallowed. Your mouth felt dry.

“I had a dream,” you said.

Hazelnut Biscotti raised his hand.

Professor Almond Custard stared at him. “Mr. Biscotti, I have not asked a question.”

“I just feel like this is going to become relevant to me emotionally.”

“Put your hand down.”

He kept it raised.

Professor Almond Custard did not even look at him. “No.”

Hazelnut lowered it.

You forced yourself to breathe. “It wasn’t just a dream. I mean, it was, obviously, but it felt real. We were in my room. All of us. There was this book, and it was asking me to choose, and there was this whole…”

You hesitated.

“The whole what?” Chai Latte asked, visibly baffled.

“The immortality thing.”

Silence.

Professor Almond Custard blinked once.

Hazelnut leaned forward. “I’m sorry,” he said, very politely, “the what thing?”

“The immortality thing,” you repeated, growing more self-conscious with every word. “The ritual. The book. The choice.”

Chai Latte’s face had gone from worried to deeply confused. “What book?”

“The one in my room.”

“You don’t have a weird book in your room,” Hazelnut said.

You stared at him. “Yes I do.”

“No, you have eight normal books, three stacks of notes, one chipped mug, and an alarming amount of loose paper,” he said. “I’ve been there.”

“That is an outrageous level of detail.”

“I notice things when I’m afraid.”

Professor Almond Custard rubbed at his temple.

Earl Grey turned in his seat. “You should go to the infirmary.”

“No, I’m fine,” you said quickly, though you were very obviously not fine. “I just had a weird dream, that’s all. It’s just that it felt so real.”

Your gaze had already drifted back to Shadow Milk Cookie. He had been watching quietly the entire time. Not with concern or recognition.

Only with mild curiosity, as though you were some interesting classroom interruption.

A chill moved through you.

You felt yourself ask, before you could stop it, “Do you remember any of it?”

He tilted his head.

“Any of what?”

Your stomach twisted.

“The Spire,” you said quietly. “Office hours. Me.”

The room was too quiet.

Shadow Milk Cookie regarded you for a long beat, his expression unreadable but contemplative. And with perfect courtesy, he said  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

Something in your chest gave way all at once.

It was ridiculous.

Utterly ridiculous.

To feel hurt by that. To feel the air leave you as though you had been struck. To feel your throat tighten over a life that, if this was real, had never happened at all.

A dream. That was all.

A dream so cruelly detailed that it had carved itself into you before dissolving.

You let out a small, humorless laugh and looked down at your desk.

“How strange,” you murmured.

That seemed, somehow, to be the wrong thing to say, because Chai Latte’s expression softened immediately. Earl Grey stood. Hazelnut looked like he was trying very hard not to say something that might accidentally make everything worse.

Professor Almond Custard, to his credit, also looked less annoyed now and full of concern.

“Yes,” he said, gentler than before. “Strange. I think perhaps…”

He got no further.

The blackboard behind him erased itself.

It wiped clean in one broad, it’s motion like an offended hand had swatted across it from the inside.

Every head in the room turned.

There, in enormous looping letters of bright blue chalk, appeared the words.

APRIL FOOLS! POP QUIZ ON ETERNAL LIFE CANCELLED DUE TO LOW MORALE.

Silence.

Then somewhere in the back of the room, a desk let out a honk.

A goose-honk.

You stared.

Another desk answered it.

Professor Almond Custard closed his eyes.

Hazelnut whispered, “What.”

A shower of glitter burst from the ceiling fan.

Someone yelped as a rolled-up scroll sprang open on its own and smacked them lightly in the face. Chai Latte’s ink bottle erupted into tiny paper flowers. Earl Grey opened his notebook only to find every line of his perfectly copied lecture notes replaced with the words nice try in increasingly smug handwriting. At the front of the room, the chalk began scribbling of its own accord.

TODAY’S LESSON: TRUST NO ONE.

Professor Almond Custard turned with the slow dignity of a man confronting the collapse of civilization.

“This,” he said flatly, “is why I have always advocated for a modest distrust of whimsy.”

A rubber fish sailed through the air and hit the wall.

The class lost all order at once.

Someone else discovered their chair squeaked out little trumpet noises every time they shifted. A potted plant near the window sneezed glitter directly onto a student’s notes. Hazelnut opened his textbook and recoiled when a folded paper plane sprung shot out of the pages at his nose.

You looked around in disbelief nothing was real.

Or perhaps all of it was.

Chai Latte rose first. “Okay, no. No, I’m claiming you before the Academy explodes.”

Earl Grey was already collecting his things. “Agreed.”

Hazelnut, still holding the paper plane at arm’s length, stood as well. “I don’t want to alarm anyone, but reality appears to be doing improv.”

Professor Almond Custard pointed toward the door without turning away from the board. “Take them away!” he said. “And if the corridor starts speaking in rhyme, do not answer it.”

You let your friends steer you out of the lecture hall.

The corridor beyond was mercifully quiet and you stood by the lecture hall doors.

For three seconds.

Then a portrait on the wall winked at you.

Hazelnut made a noise of deep personal offense. 

Chai Latte tightened her hold on your sleeve. 

Earl Grey muttered something under his breath and flicked two fingers in the air, likely reinforcing whatever wards remained between the Academy and complete nonsense.

You glanced back.

Shadow Milk Cookie had not followed.

He remained seated where you had left him, one hand propped lightly against his cheek, watching the classroom dissolve into absurdity with the calm interest of someone attending a mildly entertaining performance.

He met your eyes from across the distance.

Still no recognition.

Still that neat, blankness.

Then, to your utter disbelief, he offered you a small, elegant wave.

The floor vanished.

You woke with a gasp.

Not to chalk, a lecture hall or a corridor full of badly behaved architecture.

Instead you awoke to a bed, to warmth.

To the gentle weight of blankets tangled around your legs and the soft gold hush of early morning filtering through curtains. Your heart was still hammering, but this time there was no terror in the room, only the quiet presence of another body beside yours.

You went still.

Then slowly turned your head.

A familiar shape rested next to you beneath the blankets, still warm from sleep.

One arm. One hand. One face you knew.

On your finger was a ring.

On theirs was its match.

Your spouse stirred at the movement.

Route One: Chai Latte Cookie

Chai Latte was awake before you realized it.

You only knew because by the time your breathing gave you away, she had already pushed herself up on one elbow and turned toward you, her hair a little mussed, her expression soft with sleepy concern.

“Hey,” she murmured. “Bad one?”

You looked at her and felt something inside you loosen so abruptly it almost hurt.

Not because the fear was gone, but because she knew you. Immediately, Instantly, Without question.

And after the absurd, aching wrongness of that other dream…the classroom, the blank stare, the unbearable unfamiliarity of Shadow Milk Cookie not knowing your name. That simple fact nearly undid you. How could someone you worked closely with not know you?

Chai Latte saw the look on your face and scooted closer at once.

“Oh, it was that bad,” she whispered.

You laughed weakly, then covered your face. “I had to choose immortality.”

There was a pause.

Then she gently pulled your hands down just enough to peer at you. “Before breakfast?”

You nodded miserably.

“Horrible,” she said at once. “Cruel and unethical.”

You gave a breathy little laugh.

Encouraged, she tucked herself against your side and wrapped both arms around you like she intended to physically prevent any more dreams from getting near you.

“It started with the book,” you mumbled into her shoulder. “And then I woke up in Professor Almond Custard’s lecture hall, and everyone thought I was crazy, and everything was wrong, and the professor was disappointed in me, and the desks were honking, and-”

“The desks were what?”

“Honking.”

She pulled back just enough to stare.

Then, with great solemnity, “Oh, that’s nasty. That’s not even meaningful. That’s just the mind creating noise pollution.”

You laughed again, thin but genuine.

Chai Latte brightened immediately, as though she had been waiting right there for that sound.

You pressed the heels of your hands to your eyes. “It felt real.”

“I know.”

“And Shadow Milk didn’t know me.”

That one changed her face.

Her teasing gentled at once. 

“Oh,” she said, sounding a bit distant.

You stared at the blankets. “Which is stupid, because obviously it wasn’t real, but it still hurt.”

“No,” Chai Latte said, and there was no humor in her voice now. “That’s not stupid.”

She reached up and smoothed your hair back from your face. Such a simple touch. Such a familiar one. The kind that always felt as though she had known how to comfort you long before either of you had admitted how much you needed it.

“It makes sense,” she murmured. 

“Dream-you still loved dream-him. Of course that would hurt.” she grimaced.

You looked at her.

She offered you a small, crooked smile. “Also, for the record, if anyone ever forgets you in any universe, they’re the one with the problem.”

“Was it at least the cool lecture hall?” she asked.

“No.”

“Any dramatic lightning?”

“No.”

“Then it sounds like a complete waste of emotional damage.”

You snorted.

She grinned, pleased with herself, and reached blindly toward the nightstand. A moment later she produced a mug she must have set there before bed, your favorite mug, now filled with tea kept warm by her famous kettle.

You blinked at it. “You had this ready?”

She shrugged with exaggerated modesty. “I like being adored for my foresight.”

You took it with both hands. The warmth seeped into your fingers immediately.

Chai Latte tucked herself back against your side, head coming to rest on your shoulder like it belonged there.

“Okay,” she said. “Here’s the plan.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“It is not. It’s perfect.” She counted on her fingers. “One, no immortality choices. Two, no lectures, we're wayyyy past that. Three, no cursed books. Four, if Professor Almond Custard appears in this room to judge you for sleeping, I’m throwing a pillow at him. Well who knows if he’s even around anymore…”

“You’d never.”

“I would throw it nicely.”

You huffed into your tea, and then set it down on the nightstand.

Outside, dawn had fully begun to spill itself across the windows. Inside, everything remained small and warm and manageable.

Chai Latte tilted her head to look at you, eyes soft.

“You don’t have to choose forever today, or ever” she said quietly. “You don’t have to choose anything frightening or enormous. It’s April first. The world is being annoying on purpose.”

“And if the universe tries to make you immortal before noon,” she added, “I’ll fight it.”

“You can’t fight eternity.”

“Watch me.”

You smiled with gusto, and Chai Latte beamed like she had won something precious.

Then she kissed your temple, slid her fingers through yours beneath the blankets, and held on until the last of the fear had nowhere left to sit.

Route Two: Earl Grey Cookie

You woke to the slow, steady motion of a hand moving up and down your back.

Enough to guide you home.

Your eyes opened to find Earl Grey already awake, propped neatly against the headboard, spectacles low on his nose, his expression composed in the way only he could manage while still half-covered by blankets.

The moment he saw you were fully conscious, he set his book aside.

“You were dreaming,” he said.

You stared at him for a second, disoriented by the contrast. The nightmare had been so loud, so absurd, so humiliating in ways only dreams could be, and here he was as if mornings had never been invented for chaos at all.

You let out a shaky breath. “It was awful.”

“I gathered as much.”

His hand did not leave your back.

You turned onto your side to face him fully, and once you started talking, the whole thing came spilling out before you could stop it. 

The book. The ritual. 

The feeling that something terrible and endless was waiting for you just beyond the next choice. The lecture hall. Professor Almond Custard’s disappointment. The Academy dissolving into ridiculousness. Shadow Milk Cookie looking at you like a stranger.

Earl Grey listened without interrupting once.

He always did that. Gave your panic enough dignity to finish speaking before he tried to argue with it.

By the time you were done, your hands had twisted themselves into the blankets.

He noticed.

Without comment, he reached over and offered you one of his.

You took it at once.

His fingers closed around yours, cool, gentle, grounding.

“First,” he said quietly, “you are here.”

He squeezed once.

“In our room.”

Another squeeze.

“In our bed.”

Another.

“With me.”

Your breathing eased by a fraction.

He glanced toward the curtains, where morning had begun to shine through in pale gold. “Second, it is April first.”

You squinted at him.

“That matters because?”

“Because reality is more susceptible to foolishness on certain dates.”

“That sounds made up.”

“It is,” he said. “But I believe it nonetheless.”

A startled laugh escaped you.

There the faintest hint of satisfaction crossed his face.

He leaned over to the nightstand and passed you a cup of tea you had not even noticed waiting there. Of course there was tea. Of course it was at the right temperature already. Of course Earl Grey Cookie, confronted with a spouse in distress, had responded with practical comfort and precise timing.

You cradled the cup in both hands.

“It felt real,” you admitted after a moment.

“Yes.”

“And the part that upset me most wasn’t even the immortality thing.”

“No,” Earl Grey said softly. “I suspected it wouldn’t be.”

You looked down.

“It was him not knowing me.”

He was silent for just a beat.

Then…“Yes. He was an important teacher for you.”

No dismissal. No it was only a dream, don’t be silly, understanding delivered so simply it made your throat ache.

Earl Grey shifted closer and traced a small ward into the air with two fingers. The room gave the faintest hum as privacy settled around you both, a soft barrier against interruptions, noise, and anything else the morning might attempt.

“Dreams have a talent,” he said, “for finding the exact shape of a fear and dressing it in familiar faces.”

You listened.

“They are not prophecies,” he continued. “They are reflections. Distorted ones, usually. And unkind.”

You glanced at him over the rim of your cup. “You make them sound petty.”

“They are.”

He reached over and brushed his thumb lightly beneath your eye. “No grand decisions today,” he murmured. “No eternity. No impossible choices. Only breakfast, if you feel like it. And perhaps another hour of sleep, if you don’t.”

“What if eternity comes back after breakfast?”

“Then I shall reschedule it.”

That made you laugh into the tea hard enough that you nearly spilled.

He took the cup from you before you could, set it back on the nightstand, and drew you against him with quiet certainty. One arm came around your shoulders. His chin rested lightly against the top of your head.

You listened to the rhythm of his breathing. To the small sounds of morning beyond the warded room. To the beating of your own heart as it gradually remembered it was no longer being chased.

After a while, he spoke again, his voice low by your hair.

“For the record,” he said, “if you ever fall asleep during Professor Almond Custard’s lecture in reality, I will wake you before he notices. Though I imagine we’re too old for any of his courses.”

You smiled against his chest. “How noble.”

“I know.”

Then, after a beat, with the dry sort of fondness that always caught you by surprise when it surfaced, “Though if the desks begin honking, I am leaving you to your fate.”

Route Three: Hazelnut Biscotti Cookie

You woke with a gasp and nearly knocked Hazelnut Biscotti off the bed.

He jerked upright with an entirely undignified noise. “What happened? Who died? Is it me?”

You stared at him, wide-eyed.

His hair was a mess. The blanket had somehow wrapped itself around one shoulder like a frightened shawl. He looked as though he had been dragged out of sleep mid-thought and had come back unprepared to face the world.

And yet the instant he registered your expression, all the flailing stopped.

“Oh,” he said, softer. “Nightmare.”

You nodded.

He exhaled. “Okay. Better than me dying. Not for you, obviously. But statistically.”

Despite everything, a laugh slipped out.

He pointed at you immediately. “Good. Keep doing that. That’s a very encouraging sign.”

You dragged a hand over your face. “It was horrible.”

“Tell me everything,” he said, already pulling his legs up and turning fully toward you with surprising seriousness. “No, wait. Start with whether I was cool in it.”

“You were stressed.”

He looked offended. “Unrealistic.”

That got another laugh out of you, and with that tiny opening the whole nightmare spilled free. The book. The ritual. The immortality choice. The lecture hall. Professor Almond Custard’s sigh. The terrible feeling of no one understanding what you were talking about. Shadow Milk Cookie not knowing you. The desks honking. The classroom turning into some cursed April first disaster.

Hazelnut listened with his full attention, eyebrows rising higher and higher as the story went on.

When you finished, he sat in silence for two long seconds.

Then he said, very gravely, “Okay. Several things.”

You sniffed. 

“First, if a desk honks at me in real life, I’m dropping the class.”

You laughed weakly.

“Second, if a book ever asks you to choose immortality, the answer is no because forever is too much commitment and I don’t even like committing to lunch plans. Dinner was hard enough, only easy because of you…”

He nodded, pleased. “Third, I’m deeply offended dream-me didn’t apparently tackle the book out the window.”

“I don’t think windows were the issue.”

“They never are until you need one.”

By now you were laughing enough to breathe again, and Hazelnut relaxed a little at the sight of it.

Then he reached over and took your hand firmly.

“Hey,” he said, and all the silliness in him gentled into something steady. “That sounds awful. I’m really sorry.”

You looked at him.

“It felt real,” you admitted.

“I know.”

“And the weirdest part is the immortality thing wasn’t even the worst part.”

“No,” he said softly. “It was him not knowing you. He was a great guy for what he was…though I don’t appreciate how menacing he was.”

You blinked and nodded.

Hazelnut made a face like someone who had unfortunately guessed correctly. “Yeah. I know.”

For a moment neither of you said anything.

Then, because being quiet for too long clearly violated some important personal code, he threw the blanket over both of you in one sweeping motion until you were half-buried together.

“There,” he said.

You blinked in the dim little fabric cave. “What is this?”

“A tactical response.”

“To what?”

“To sadness.”

“That’s not a tactic.”

“It is if I do it with conviction. Confidence is key!”

You laughed again, and he gave a triumphant nod.

Then he scrambled out from under the blanket, nearly tripped over the edge of it, recovered, and returned with water, a snack, and your softest extra blanket, which he proceeded to arrange around you with the absolute certainty of a man who had no formal training whatsoever and yet believed deeply in the healing powers of being over-bundled.

“Hazel.”

“Yes?”

“I can’t move.”

“Perfect,” he said. “Then you can’t go back to immortality.”

He climbed back beside you and tucked himself against your side, one arm around your shoulders. 

“It’s April first,” he said after a moment, glancing toward the calendar. “You realize what this means.”

You narrowed your eyes. “That my subconscious hates me?”

“That reality is doing bits.”

You huffed a laugh.

He looked deeply suspicious of the ceiling. “Frankly, I think the universe should be more professional.”

“Complain to management.”

“I will.”

He rested his chin lightly atop your head.

“If fate ever hands you another creepy immortal book,” he said, “I’m throwing it in a river.”

“That seems reckless.”

“I’ll throw it anyways.”

You smiled into the blanket.

“And if Professor Almond Custard shows up in this room to shame you for sleeping through lecture,” Hazelnut added, “I’ll defend you.”

“How?”

He considered. “I’ll say you were doing research.”

“That’s a terrible lie.”

“I know. But I’ll say it confidently. And also it would be really weird if he showed up here…”

The last of the panic had begun to unravel by then, slowly undone by his nonsense and his sincerity in equal measure.

You let your eyes drift shut again.

Hazelnut’s voice softened above you.

“You’re okay,” he murmured. You smiled.

He squeezed your shoulder lightly. “And for the record? If anyone forgets you in any universe, they don’t deserve your stress about it.”

You turned your face against him, and Hazelnut held you there, warm and ridiculous and achingly kind, until the nightmare became small enough to laugh at.

Route Four: Shadow Milk Cookie

You woke with the sharp inhale still caught in your throat.

For one fractured second, you didn’t move.

Then you felt a hand at your waist, warm and familiar. The slow rise and fall of another body beside yours. The faint scent of lavender, clean linen, and something sweetly impossible to mistake.

A thumb brushed lightly beneath your eye.

“Good morning,” Shadow Milk Cookie murmured.

You looked at him.

Not at a stranger in a lecture hall. Not at that polite, empty version of him who had met your hurt with elegance and distance. At him. Your him.

Hair loosened from sleep. Sharp features softened by early morning and rumpled sheets and the fact that he was looking at you with immediate recognition, as if it had never occurred to the universe that there might be any other way.

The relief hit so fast your eyes stung.

His expression changed at once.

The faint trace of amusement left him; Instead concern welled over.

“What happened?” he asked quietly.

You tried to answer and instead made a useless little sound.

His arm tightened around you, drawing you closer before you had even decided whether you wanted that. Which, unfortunately for your dignity, you very much did.

“A dream?” he guessed.

You nodded against his shoulder.

“The mind can be so cruel,” he said at once, the offense in his tone so sincere it almost made you laugh.

Almost.

He tipped your chin up with two fingers. “Tell me about it.”

So you did.

The book. The terror. The feeling of standing on the edge of something vast and wrong and permanent. The lecture hall. Professor Almond Custard’s disappointment. The absurdity of the academy turning into some April first disaster. Worst of all, the sight of him sitting by the window and looking at you as though you were no one.

By the time you finished, your voice had gone smaller.

“You didn’t know me,” you said.

Shadow Milk Cookie went very still.

Then he leaned in and pressed a kiss to your forehead, slow, deliberate, almost ritualistic in its tenderness.

“My starlight,” he murmured, “if I ever looked at you and did not know you, something in creation has gone catastrophically wrong.”

You let out a shaky breath.

He touched your face as though checking for remnants of the dream there. “No, no,” he said softly when he saw your eyes still threatening to betray you. “Absolutely not. I refuse to share my morning with tears caused by fiction.”

That finally made you laugh, weak though it was.

“There,” he said, pleased. “A much better sound.”

He reached across you then, and your whole body tensed when you saw what sat on the bedside table.

A book.

It was thick. Decorative. Ominous in the low morning light.

Shadow Milk noticed at once.

Then, to your astonishment, he picked it up with two fingers and turned it over.

Across the front cover, written in awful looping handwriting with embarrassingly bright blue ink, was,

TOTALLY CURSED BOOK OF ETERNAL SUFFERING APRIL FOOLS :)

There was a long silence.

You stared.

He stared.

Then he exhaled through his nose.

“How vulgar,” he said.

You broke. The randomness of the situation was funny to your feeble mind.

You laughed so suddenly and helplessly that you had to bury your face against his shoulder.

Shadow Milk Cookie, instead of lamenting the indignity of being used as a pillow, simply drew you closer and let you laugh there, one hand smoothing through your hair.

“It is the first of April,” he said, voice dry above you. “The universe is apparently determined to embarrass itself.”

He sighed, his expression becoming inquisitive.

“You truly thought you had to choose?” he asked.

You looked down. “Yes.”

“And that terrified you.”

“Yes.”

“Well it’s a good thing no one is asking that of you today,” he said. 

His thumb brushed your cheek.

“Especially not me.”

You swallowed.

“I know it wasn’t real,” you said quietly. “But it still hurt.”

“Of course it did.”

“You grieve losses even in dreams,” he murmured. “The heart is embarrassingly sincere like that.”

That made you smile a little.

He looked inordinately pleased to have earned it.

“Come here,” he said, though you were already close enough that the command was really just an excuse.

He shifted until you were half-draped over him, one arm secure around your waist, the other spread warm and protective between your shoulder blades. His chin brushed the top of your head.

Outside, morning stretched itself bright and gold across the curtains.

Inside, the room was quiet.

Safe.

“So,” he said after a moment, tone lightening just slightly, “let us review. You are alive. You are married. You are in bed with someone devastatingly handsome.”

“Debatable.”

He gasped softly. “Cruel. After all I’ve done.”

A laugh slipped out of you.

He continued as though you had not interrupted. “There are no immortal contracts scheduled for today. No ritual circles. No lectures. No humiliation before Professor Almond Custard. Only breakfast, if we feel ambitious. And perhaps several more hours of scandalous laziness.”

“You make laziness sound like an art form.”

“It is when I do it. Besides I’m always thinking, you not so much.”

You could feel the last edges of fear finally beginning to unwind.

Shadow Milk Cookie pressed a kiss to your hair.

“The world may make a fool of itself today,” he murmured, voice low and velvet-soft, “but it shall not make one of you.”

You closed your eyes.

He held you through the silence that followed.

After long enough that your breathing had fully steadied, he added, with a faint smile in his voice “Though if a desk ever honks at you in reality, do wake me. I should like to see it.”