Chapter Text
Three o’clock.
Despite what has just happened in the kitchen, the Corinthian hasn’t given up on finding a way to stop Dream from attending the rave. He just has to be more careful.
“Get him punch drunk. Knock his lights out, leave him on the sofa, and he’ll sleep through the whole party,” Matthew suggests. They’re taking pains not to be overheard by Dream now, so they’re in the Corinthian’s room and have shut the door to conspire.
“What if he doesn’t get drunk? He’s an Endless, you know. I’m not sure I want to risk it.”
“If he’s still sober, you can actually knock him out. With your fist. You can do it. I can tell. I can tell what’s beneath your shirt. I see your -”
The Corinthian blocks out the last part, decides there’s no harm in trying out the first, and in a few quick whizzes in and out of the Waking World, retrieves some rum from the minds of dreamers.
“Shall we pre-game?” he asks Dream, in the sweetest, most innocent voice he can summon, when he’s outside his room.
“Pre-game?”
“It’s an, ah, American party tradition. Drink a little before the actual party, or the rave. Takes the edge off. Even got something, ah, traditional.”
Dream sniffs carefully at the snout of the open bottle, with remarkably catlike fastidiousness. The Corinthian struggles to remain calm as Dream's triangular ears flick curiously.
“This does not entirely appeal to me.”
"Aw, come on. It’ll do you good. Don’t you want to be fully immersed in the human experience?”
That seems to persuade Dream a little. He mulls over it, and then brightens up and says with a hopeful air,
“What about some coffee? Can I have that instead?”
"No coffee after two p.m.," the Corinthian says automatically.
"But we want to be fully immersed in the human - "
Bitch did you just use my line on me -
"Nope. Forget it. My mistake."
He’s not risking giving Dream some coffee. Doesn’t need Meowpheus hyped up and overactive during the rave.
Dream's ears and tail droop in disappointment, and the Corinthian has to flee before the sight can make him cave. Once in his room, he sighs, uncorks the bottle, and takes a swig from it. Stupid Matthew.
Four o’clock.
As if the Corinthian did not have enough to think about, Fiddler’s Green comes to call about an hour later. Dream’s given him a holiday, too, because he had wanted to visit Hal and Barbie and Zelda and Chantelle for Halloween. God, the whole Dreaming's so sociable now.
“It’s good to see you, my lord! And my, what marvellous attire. It’s most convincing!”
The Corinthian rushes down the stairs when he hears that familiar English accent. He’s learned his lesson - he doesn’t need anyone giving Dream any other ideas about costumes. Matthew trails behind him, flapping in a desultory way.
“And pray tell, will you be attending the festivities too?” Fiddlers' asks.
“Yes. I’ll be going to a party,” Dream pronounces, with a stately, understated excitement. “ With the Corinthian. The annual rave.”
The Fiddler’s Green sighs and beams. “It’s wonderful, my lord, to see you enjoying yourself. I do admit, I love celebrating these human traditions. Halloween is one of my favourites. Is it just the party you’ll be having, then?”
“I am also looking forward to people visiting the house.”
“Oh? Who have you invited?”
The Corinthian reaches the living room in time to be present when Dream replies.
“There were no invitations. But there will be children. They will come to trick-or-sweet.”
Matthew’s beak clicks open. Fiddler’s blinks.
“Ah - is that how it’s said, my lord?” the portly old man asks diplomatically.
“Yes, it is. Because when the children arrive, you may either trick them or give them sweets,” Dream says, with lofty certainty. “I’ll show you.” Dream picks up the laptop from the TV console, loops his tail around the Corinthian’s arm and bodily pulls the nightmare in. “Type me to the google please, Corinthian.”
As the Corinthian staggers to the side of The Armchair, fighting not to look at the tail, Fiddler's looks even more uncertain, and Matthew can't help but pipe up,
"Ah - it's just Google , my lord. It's not an actual place, not like the library. In fact, Google is really more of a librarian, one you can talk to to find your - Corinthian, did you never explain -"
Dream is starting to frown, and the Corinthian, thinking of his after party punishment, doesn’t need Dream to start wondering about all the things he never properly explained. Quickly he takes the laptop and swipes quickly across the keyboard. "Be quiet, Matthew. Dream, we're here, we've reached the Google."
Dream scans the screen that the Corinthian has pulled up - it's the actual page with the simple search engine - and frowns. “This is not the correct one. I want the one in black and red.”
The Corinthian stills, momentarily, as he wonders what kind of webpage, exactly, would be in black and red. Then, he sighs again. There’s nothing for it now. He pulls up the search history and finds the latest page, and when it opens up he can see that the page, indeed, is in black background and eye-wateringly red text - no wonder Dream read it wrongly - saying, ten things to make your Halloween a memorable one!
“There,” Dream says, and snatches the laptop from the Corinthian to show Fiddler’s before the nightmare can read more than the title. “What did I tell you?”
“Ah,” the Fiddler’s Green says, in a perfectly neutral voice. “Have, ah, have fun when the children visit, your majesty.”
“That reminds me. I don't see any sweets, Corinthian. Where are they? Did we get any? We must prepare some.”
The Corinthian sighs, and hidden behind smog dark glasses, two small tongues roll in their mouths with derision, like eyes.
Five o'clock.
“When are they coming, Corinthian?”
The Corinthian opens his eyes to see Dream bouncing on his feet. The Sandman had gotten steadily more animated as evening approached. The nightmare had thought he would be doing more to keep his excitement in check, to maintain his usual stately mien, but perhaps he does not feel the weight of his office here, in the Waking World and so far from his dour and imposing palace. He’d been letting little hints of his mood pop up here and there.
“Who?”
“The children. When are they coming? We must wait for them. Should we trick them or give them sweets? Will they make us late for the rave?”
For example, his speech pattern has gotten a little off kilter, and words burst from him in bubbles of thoughts, loosely connected as he imagines the upcoming evening. He bops up and down instead of standing in place, and his tail twitches and fluffs at random.
“We won’t be late,” the Corinthian says, from his prone position on the couch. After Fiddler’s departed, he’d been trying to take a nap, though of course a certain someone doesn't let that dampen his questions. “The rave lasts till sun-up tomorrow, and we can go anytime." Inspiration seizes him. "But we won’t stay that long. Now that I think about it, I think you won’t like the rave at all, so we’ll make it a fast one - just in and out - ”
“Corinthian! It has occurred to me, that I have never asked for tricks or sweets.”
“Well - of course you - why would - what?”
“Have you ever? Should we go, ourselves? Tricking. Or sweeting. I would prefer sweets. We can join the children.”
“No,” the Corinthian says immediately, at the very disturbing idea. “We can’t. We’re adults. Only children go trick-or-sweeting - I mean, treating.”
Dream pauses mid-bounce.
“If I take the form of a smaller cat - a kitten -”
“Isaidno,” the Corinthian snaps, and covers his face with a cushion as it heats up.
“You’re really bad at this,” Matthew tells the Corinthian, when Dream has darted off from the living room to do heaven knows what. “The excuse was practically hand fed. After the kids leave, you could have just said, oops, the kids took too long, it’s too late now, the rave is over. We’ll try again next year. ” And then, just because he can, the raven croons, “where are the sweets, Corinthian?”
“You’re useless, Matthew. Absolutely useless.”
Six o'clock.
Something, an instinct that remains vigilant even while he rests, wakes the Corinthian from his nap. He blinks once, twice, and leaps from the couch as if scalded.
“What happened?” he yells.
Cobwebs and spiders and pumpkins and bats and broomsticks and tombstones of all shapes and sizes and ages have emerged all over the walls and ceilings and floor. There’s even a skeleton upon The Armchair.
“Dreaaamm!” He roars. The end of his bellow escalates into a howl as something huge and black scuttles above him, just out of direct sight.
The king pops up in the doorway.
"Yes, Corinthian?"
“What did you do to the house?”
“I’ve been practising my Halloween.”
“Practising your what?”
Dream's ears and tail quiver with excitement.
“Yes, I’ve been looking at the other houses on the street and they are all like this, but the children shall like our house the best and we shall give them the most sweets - ”
“Dream - the bats - the spiders - the things on the floor - are they - are they alive???”
“Yes, I got them from -”
“No!” the Corinthian shrieks. “Put them back, now!”
Dream takes a step back, mouth agape at his nightmare's rage.
"But I've barely -"
The nightmare makes a threatening, chopping motion with his hand, and Dream wilts a little.
Blessedly, the Corinthian feels a wave of magic, that's thorough, if resentful. The nightmare can feel the spiders vanish from behind him. He continues glaring at Dream, and in a second wave of magic, feels the bats disappear too.
Something crawls over the Corinthian's foot. He peers down before he can think the better of it, and almost blacks out at the sight of an enormous centipede, shiny and clicking, traveling over over the top of his foot, before it too goes.
"Done," Dream says sulkily.
The Corinthian reaches out with his senses to the rest of the house. He'd been so preoccupied with avoiding eye contact with the things on the walls and ceilings and floors that he hadn't considered the other parts of the house.
"What are you hiding in the kitchen?"
"Nothing," Dream says, with a defiant little gleam.
"Get rid of it!!"
Dream mumbles something that sounds like 'so long,’ and the Corinthian feels another reluctant wash of magic. He manages to identify the animal before it disappears. It’s a fucking porcupine.
The Corinthian tests his surroundings again. There's one more thing.
"Is - what is that thing upstairs? Is that a snake?"
Having received no direct order to remove it, Dream takes a deep breath.
"If I may just keep the anaconda, with the doors and windows of my room shut, it would not -"
The Corinthian resists the urge to throttle his king with an almighty effort.
"Snakes. Eat. People!"
"Of course I know that," Dream sounds injured that the Corinthian would so underestimate his knowledge. "Which is why I fed it as soon as it got here."
The Corinthian feels faint, again. "With what?"
"A few small white rodents that were sleeping in a transparent box, near the ice cream shop -"
The Corinthian waves him silent with a groan and makes a mental note to make a transfer to their local pet store. Yet another concept he has not explained, not that he ever thought that Dream would help himself freely to the rabbits -
"Nevermind. Send the snake back as well, please."
There's no corresponding wave of magic.
"Dream," he says warningly, and sees the king glaring at him mullishly.
"I like it," he insists. "Why must I get rid of it?"
"There are many reasons why you can't keep a snake," the Corinthian says pleadingly. "I will explain them to you if you wish, but even if I don't, you're in the Waking Realm now, and there are just some rules you have to follow. And you have to put the living things back."
"I can understand that you may not want the large ones, but why must I also get rid of those that are so very small?"
"Wh - "
The Corinthian thinks to the eight-eyed, eight-legged beach ball-sized things that he had called spiders, the two foot long centipede that had nearly made him wet himself, and is quite sure they would not be so very small to anyone. He’s starting to feel a little dizzy, but he steels himself, and then asks,
"What, pray tell, is the thing that is so very small?"
Dream raises his forearm to reveal a palm sized scorpion on the underside with a jet black carapace and a wicked hooked tail.
“If you prefer to have smaller creatures at home, then I could - Corinthian? Corinthian? Are you alright?"
The Corinthian blinks as the world comes back into view. He finds himself looking up at Dream from the hallway floor from where he’s seated, sprawled, in the hallway, tangled nicely in a massive cobweb.
“Are you afraid of scorpions, Corinthian? Then perhaps I could keep the anaconda instead, as an exchange - ”
"Just - just give me some air. And for god's sake, there’s no exchange ! Get rid of them both."