Archive of Our Own

It begins as all things do: with the sun.

He looks upward and feels the taste of heaven on his skin. The Garden of Eden flourishes around him, luxurious by restraint, and the grass springs beneath his feet as he walks. Everything grows in leaps and bounds. 

It’s a beautiful day, although that isn’t saying much. There have only been seven of them, after all. 

Dream turns his head back to the ground. He only takes two more steps before someone rises next to him. 

“Hello,” the serpent says. “Wonderful day, isn’t it?”

Dream has never made a habit of talking to the Fallen. He supposes he doesn’t have many others he can talk to, though. 

“It’s wonderful,” he says. The sun pours down, golden and endless. Dream can sense the eyes above watching him. 

He’s been tasked with protecting humanity— the two humans that exist here, after all. Dream can sense that the serpent has been tasked with the opposite goal: corrupt and taint. He intends for that to not happen. Dream has always been the best at everything; he’s never failed before. 

“Well,” the serpent says, “Care to tell me your name? I have a feeling we’ll be spending a lot of time together.”

“I am the Guardian of the Eastern Gate,” Dream says. 

“And I am the Serpent of Eden,” the serpent says.

You seem like you’ll be trouble , Dream thinks, but he says, “My real name is Dream.”

The serpent smiles. “Did you pick it yourself?”

“No,” Dream says. “It was given.” 

Although it is the kind of name that he would have given to himself, if he was created with any other name in mind. 

“I’ll pick my own name,” the serpent decides, and he thinks for a moment. Dream takes him in. In his human form he looks remarkably like Adam. Skin like the alabaster walls of Eden and eyes like the freshly turned dirt. Nothing like the red serpent that is meant to entice evil.

“I think George,” the serpent decides. “That will be my name.”

George. Dream considers that. He rolls the syllables around his tongue, thinks about how they feel, how they taste. 

He has a feeling that George is going to be stuck with him for a long, long time. Dream also has the sinking feeling that he will soon grow bored of the low walls of Eden. 

“George,” Dream finally says. “Are you going to make my job difficult?”

George turns his gaze upward. He squints at the sun, which only seems to glow brighter. Above and below, angels and demons alike watch the two of them. They will be the blueprint, won’t they?

“Yes,” George says. “I’m planning on it.”

“I would appreciate it if you didn’t.” 

George hums. He doesn’t deign to respond. Instead, he tilts his head towards the center of the Garden. There grows the Tree. It has aptly been named the Tree of Knowledge. Knowledge of what, Dream is unaware. He won’t know until the Tree is eaten from.

It spirals above them both, arching far overhead, grand and luxurious. Red fruit grows from it, plump and inviting, dangling down close enough to touch. Dream follows George’s gaze. 

“You’re going to feed Adam the apple,” Dream recognizes. Something spikes through him, nauseating and sharp. 

“No,” George corrects. “I’m going to give Eve the apple.”

“Don’t you dare,” Dream says, because he has only met Eve that day, and he already knows that she is far too daring for her own good. Adam will hesitate and look up above to see if he should eat the apple, and Dream will have the chance to change his mind; Eve will do it without a second thought as to whether she is being tempted or not. She is brilliant and vivacious and if George succeeds, Eden will fall. 

The Serpent of Eden smiles.

“I would never,” he says. “She’ll make the choice for herself.”

The Serpent is right.

Eve eats the apple. The Serpent smiles, forked tongue, and laughs. He guides Eve to Adam, and he, too, eats the apple once he sees that his love has done it already. Love, lust, temptation; the vices of the first humans. Dream watches and is unable to stop them. 

That is the story of the fall of Eden.

Six thousand years move by like the wind. 

Each one tells its own story. Each one makes them reborn anew. 

Before those six thousand years pass, however, Cain is born. Abel follows a few years after, young and bright and alive. When their parents fail to supply them with proper morals, Dream and George step in. Dream takes Abel by the hand and teaches him how to herd sheep, to check for weakness in the flock, to care for animals the same way one should care for themselves. 

George takes Cain. Where Dream attempts to teach the brothers responsibility, George teaches them to celebrate fun. George laughs with Cain, tosses him impossibly high into the air. He swings from the pomegranate trees and splits the fruit open, juice dripping from his chin. 

George murmurs softly in his ear, and that’s when Dream takes him away to go play with his brother. 

“You aren’t getting him,” he accuses under his breath. “Cain is going to be one of ours.”

George laughs. “Of course he will.”

Abel dies in fresh, unturned soil. Cain goes to Hell. George laughs, and he crooks his finger at Dream.

“You’ll get the next one, won’t you?”

With that, he disappears.

From Mesopotamia sprouts the first roots of civilization.

George causes discord. He’s made for it, after all. He changes his appearance, changes his name, whispers rumors into the most upright, law-abiding citizens. They turn on each other, fight, destroy.

It is after the start of these rumors (one man sleeping with another’s wife) where George returns, sated and satisfied from a full day of work, and he finds Dream sitting there, upon the tallest hill he can find. The moon looms overhead, illuminating the entire city’s secrets. 

“Congratulations,” Dream says humorlessly. “You destroyed an innocent man’s life.”

“He was hardly innocent,” George argues, “He destroyed someone’s home because they were earning more profit than him. He deserves this.”

Dream finds that he has no answer for that. What does it say about him, that he believes the Serpent of Eden over what Heaven would say to him? 

“Agree with me,” George says, and he sinks that note of temptation into his voice, luring Dream ever closer. The magic would work on someone who isn’t magic themselves.

“Stop,” Dream snaps. “Stop messing with my head.”

The prodding retreats in the next instant. George smiles guilelessly, as if he had been doing nothing the entire time.

“That won’t work on me,” Dream says. “I know all your tricks.”

“Do you?”

“Most of them,” Dream amends. 

He glances up into the sky. Stars are out, so bright that they cloud out the rest of the darkness. Dream knows innately that the light of many of these stars will fade in the next thousand, two thousand years. Humanity will learn to brighten their own skies and will lose most of those stars.

“If I asked to tempt,” George asks curiously, “Would you let me?”

Dream laughs. “No.” He’ll never be tempted by a serpent. 

It’s funny, looking back on that now, how much his answer has changed. 

It is a damp, foggy night along the damp grass in what is now named Ireland. The moorland stretches around them; it seems to extend far into the mist. The dew soaks through Dream’s shoes, creeps up his legs, and the chill is vivid. 

A good swath of Ireland is peat, and with peat comes bog fires. Dream casts his gaze out into the distance and there, he sees, is a flare of red. That fire has been burning for a while. He wonders when it will finally dissipate. 

“Hello,” George says, and he shivers into existence beside him.

Dream isn’t surprised that he’s there. Even though it’s been nearly a hundred years since they’ve seen each other.

“Welcome back,” Dream says. “Do anything interesting in your spare time?”

“No,” George says. “Humanity is boring.”

Ever since the fall of Eden and the Mark of Cain, humanity has been nothing short of battle after battle. Heaven floods the earth and reveals the rainbow; some cities are razed to the ground. Dream in particular has found that humanity has an affinity for violence against siblings. The bloody stories of sibling rivalry are splattered across the books of history. 

“I disagree,” Dream says. “I think it’s been rather busy.”

George looks around. “And that’s why you’re… here. Instead of helping them.”

Exhaustion, even though Dream is an ageless being of Heaven, and is supposed to be inexhaustible, tugs at his body. 

“I needed a break,” he says. “This was quiet enough.”

George doesn’t respond. He only falls in line with Dream, matching him pace for pace, and they walk along city streets that aren’t yet dreamed of.

“Your virtues,” George says suddenly, “Are very boring.” 

Dream frowns. “They are not .”

“Temperance?” George says in disbelief. “ Chastity?”

“Far better than gluttony and lust.”

“Those are interesting,” George says. “They make you think. They’re fun.”

“Of course.” Dream’s voice is sardonic. “Dooming hundreds to Hell. How fun.”

“It would be fun if you tried them,” George says. “Even just the slightest.” 

“I don’t think so.” 

They continue walking. The mist sinks low over them, cold and damp, and Dream can barely see George even though he knows the demon is directly next to him. 

George is silent for a curiously long time. He sounds as if he’s thinking

Finally, he says, “Make me a deal.” 

This piques Dream’s curiosity. He turns his head. “What sort of deal?”

“You say humanity has been exhausting,” George says. “I say humanity is boring. Why not try switching places to see if that fixes things?”

Dream cottons onto what George is suggesting. “You want me to stop practicing miracles?”

“Well—” George considers that. “Maybe not. I don’t think I’d be any good at miracles. I don’t think you’d be any good at temptations. Instead, consider it a switch of the mindset.”

He taps his temple for emphasis. Dream blinks at him.

“Mindset,” he confirms. George nods. “You want me to change my mindset.”

“For fun,” George says, and his smile is a terrible thing, delicious and tempting. “And in return, I’ll do the same.”

Dream frowns. He knows that the Serpent of Eden always has an ulterior motive.

“What are you gaining from this?”

“Who knows?” George shrugs expansively. “I’m bored. I like a challenge. I like a thrill .”

The last word is lower and quieter. He directs it at Dream. 

Dream wonders what George considers a thrill, and he gets his answer when George says, “So I’ll try your virtues if you try my vices.”

Dream recalls George’s earlier words. It would be fun.

He finds himself saying, “I will.”

He turns his eyes to the moon. It reflects the judging eyes of the sun. Dream sends a pitiful apology up to Heaven. 

He never gets a response.

He is there when War rears her head in the city of Troy and brings the walls crumbling down. He is there when Famine laughs and careens through Judea, leaving fiery paths in her wake. He is there for Pestilence and Death, working hand in hand, dragging the world behind them like a patchwork quilt of their own making.

Life turns them over and around again.

They never seem to be where they should be.

He and George manage to wrangle the Four of them into order a thousand years after they’ve been released, and in the moment they take to catch their breath, Pestilence has escaped again. Dream sighs, takes one look at George, and begins the hunt anew. 

For as long as they try, they never are able to keep all Four Horsemen in one place. It seems to be one of those things that is inevitable. 

“I wonder,” George says one afternoon, “Whether I’m the serpent or whether you are.”

“Hm.”

In front of them, the rubble of Carthage lays burning and salted. Nothing will grow from the ground, not for the next century at the very least. Rome has already taken her troops and left. Dream watched War rise from the ashes, smiling, sated for the next year at least, and she winked at Dream. She blew a kiss to George. 

Dream hopes that War will leave. But he knows that he’ll see her again. Tomorrow, the day after, the year after. As long as time keeps ticking onward, the Four Horsemen will be there. 

“You like chaos,” George notes. Dream wonders if he is never silent. “And Heaven chose to send you down here, instead of someone else?”

“Chaos is a part of humanity,” Dream says.

“You want to be human?”

“I want to help humans,” Dream corrects. 

George smiles humorlessly. “I thought angels couldn’t lie.”

Dream wonders if that’s true. He has no idea whether he’s lying to himself or not.

“I’m not,” he says. He thinks about the way Rome slaughtered her enemies, one after the other, and he wonders if they know when their empire is going to fall. Will it be now? Will it be in a dozen years? A hundred? A thousand?

Nothing lasts forever.

Nothing except the Guardian of the Eastern Gate and the Serpent of Eden, always chasing each other, wound so tightly Dream isn’t sure which one of them is which anymore. 

Carthage burns in the foreground. Dream stands, turns his back on it, and says, “I’m leaving.”

“To go where?” George says. “I’ll be there. Wherever you go.”

Dream considers this. 

“Away,” he says, and he’s gone.

George, for all he’s worth, does not follow. 

It becomes a tradition for them.

Always, always, always, George succeeds where Dream fails. The world tramples before him, and Dream thinks faintly, if only Eve hadn’t bitten it.

But deep down, he knows that it’s futile to think that. Paradise was lost long before it was ever created; the Tree of Knowledge was placed there on purpose, and the world was always going to turn. Free will only extends so far. 

Besides, there are good things to come from sin.

Like laughter. Riotous, vivid laughter, that can only be found emerging from the people who are truly living. Drinking and dancing and sex. Whispered words to each other in the dead of night that it doesn’t matter whether they find sin or salvation. Where they are, living freely, is enough.

Dream makes a mental note to send those people to Heaven. Whatever they believe in, it makes them happy. When has happiness ever been a crime?

Tradition, endlessly moving onwards. On and on and on. The steady flow of life ceases for no one. 

It is the dawning of yet another new era.

The world cheers the end of the nineteenth century and welcomes in the twentieth. Dream sits there humorlessly. 

America seems to be the stomping ground of the Four Horsemen for now, with how they’re tearing everything to shreds. The years fly by, and Dream tracks along with them. He guides a woman out of danger when three men follow her down an alleyway, and watches over until she makes it home safely. He pays off someone’s crippling debt in a matter of moments and never looks back. He rescues a boy drowning in a New York harbor. When the adults, astonished, at how he survives, ask him what happened, the boy only breathlessly exclaims, “Dream!”

Dream watches from a few steps away, invisible to the world, and turns away.

They take him for a dream. That’s alright by him. He is the Guardian of the Eastern Gate, sent down to save humanity from sin, and he does his job alright.

George, however, does his job magnificently as well. And unfortunately for Dream, his job is to work against him. 

The two of them have fallen into a strange movement, a push and pull, where they are neither finished or starting their work. Dream attempts to spool the wild ball of yarn that is the world is into order, and the moment he finally untangles one knot, George is behind him, tangling it again. Dream watches him unspool the greatest of men into the lowest of animals, tempt them into sin and corruption. He sees the way George smiles, ruthless and grinning, and always, always, imagines what it would take for George to do the same to him.

Would he take Dream’s hand, in the same way he takes the hands of politicians? Would he murmur into Dream’s ear? Would he hold Dream’s arms, hips, waist, shoulders, tracing every line of him, tempting him ever closer towards corruption?

Dream has no answers. He has no idea if George catches the glances. Perhaps George is already working his magic over him, though he’ll never admit it out loud. 

George’s voice whispers to him. If I asked to tempt you, would you let me?

Would he, would he, would he. Dream still has no answer. 

He meets George at a cornerway. A crossroads. A Washington D.C. city street, where cars chug by in miserable clouds of smoke. The crowds flutter and scream and it is 1920, at the moment when the suffrage movement finally succeeds.

Dream lets out a slow, exhaustive breath. 

He did it, he supposes. He succeeded. At least in this one country, in this one instant, women can vote. Surely that requires some sort of congratulations.

As if reading his thoughts, George says, “Congratulations.” He doesn’t sound bitter at all.

Vaguely, Dream wonders whether George wanted this or not. He’s always assumed that everything he works for is what George works against. But he looks over at the serpent and he sees no upset on his face. He sees a smile. A smile that doesn’t signal disaster, like many other smiles do. 

This smile is pleased. This smile means he has gotten something that he wanted.

“I thought you would be against this,” Dream comments, out of the corner of his mouth.

George focuses his gaze on the crowd. Women cheer. An American flag, bright red and blue and white, flies overhead.

“There’s no fun in hurting people who are already down,” he says.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Look at them,” George says, and he gestures. “Isn’t this happiness what you wanted, too?”

“Of course,” Dream says.

He’s never understood why people think otherwise. 

“Contrary to popular belief,” George says, after a beat of silence has passed between them, “I want everyone to have the best opportunities possible.”

“It’ll be a thousand years before that happens.”

Dream isn’t a pessimist. He’s a realist. 

“Maybe,” George allows, “Maybe not.” 

They both turn their gazes back to the crowd. Another car chugs by. It expels smoke into the atmosphere, and Dream takes a long, pitiful moment to miss the stars. In Washington D.C.— and, in most big cities across the world— nearly half of them are gone. He will never have the same sky that he witnessed in Mesopotamia that one night. 

“Well?” George prompts. “Performing any miracles today, oh Guardian?”

Dream has already performed a miracle. A very large one, at that.

“Some smaller ones,” Dream says. “Maybe.”

“I wish you the best of luck.”

“George,” Dream says, and nearly pleads, “Let them be.”

“I will,” George assures. 

“Excuse me if I don’t believe you.” 

“There’s no fun in kicking people who are already down,” George repeats. “Recently, I’ve found that going after the rich is more fun.”

“Ah,” Dream says blandly. “And why is that?”

“I’ve been asking myself that same thing,” George says. “Why is it that the people with the most— the people who have everything— why are they the ones who are the most cruel to others?”

“Pride,” Dream responds. “Greed.”

Gluttony, envy, lust. All the vices coagulate into one. 

“They’re easier to corrupt,” George answers. “They have the time to worry about morals and what’s right or wrong. That’s why they’re always so cruel to others.” 

“So you leave the little people alone.”

George smiles. “I leave those to you.” 

“Instead of practicing your virtues,” Dream says, “Maybe you could consider performing a miracle for once in your life.”

George considers that. “Sounds exhausting.”

Dream is. He’s always exhausted. 

“They’re happy for now,” he says. “Maybe Heaven will end up taking the lot.”

“Heaven takes some,” George says, “But Hell takes the most.”

“If all humans got what they deserved,” Dream answers, “Then they wouldn’t be human at all.”

George hums. He doesn't respond. Instead, they turn their attention back to the ground. Riotous and celebratory and happy, they shout and cajole. Today is a happy day. Dream takes a deep breath, in and out, and wishes happiness for all.

How he wishes that his larger miracles were as easy to perform as the little ones.

The twentieth century passes in a blink.

Dream is dragged through time, again and again and again.

It is the center of the twentieth century, and George finds Dream in the middle of nowhere.

He supposes that it’s a little stupid to try and find a place that humans haven’t touched yet. But all his favorite stomping grounds are tarnished. That city in Mesopotamia is overrun with archaeologists, looking to uncover the history of a world that Dream has witnessed with his own eyes. That place in Ireland, with the bog fires and the peat, has turned into a city with cobbled streets and yellow streetlamps. He no longer sees all the stars that he used to see.

“Are you practicing your temptations?” George asks mildly.

“I am,” Dream says. “I’ve been thinking about them a lot recently.”

“Tell me.”

“Gluttony,” Dream says. “I’ve found that food is a wonderful thing to partake in.”

“I agree,” George says. “A simple pleasure.”

“And sloth. It’s exhausting taking care of the world the whole time.”

“It’s fun to go against what you’re meant to do.”

“And I suppose envy is on my mind recently,” Dream allows. “I’ve been wondering why I’m here at all.”

George hums. “You were sent to do a task no one can accomplish. It’s fair to be envious.”

“And that envy brings anger.” 

“Envy will always bring wrath,” George agrees.

“I am so tired, George. I desire so much. And I feel as though I get so little.”

“You are tired,” George says sympathetically. “You get so little.” 

Dream falls silent. He wants to speak more, to voice all his frustrations, explode out into the world. He thinks about Adam and Eve, sharing the apple together, and Cain striking Abel down. He thinks about Jacob tricking Isaac into earning his rightful inheritance. He thinks about Joseph’s twelve brothers and a bloodstained coat. He remembers guiding Joseph to prosperity. He remembers consoling Esau, who had lost everything. He remembers weeping at Abel’s grave, mourning everything he was unable to do.

He remembers facing Eve, standing tall, and hearing her say, I am not sorry.

Eden falls, a million times over. What good is one angel against the world?

George counts on his fingers. “Gluttony, sloth, wrath, envy. Four out of seven is decent.” 

Dream can barely find his voice to ask, “And have you been practicing your virtues?”

George laughs. “It’s hardly decent of a demon to be virtuous.”

Dream knows when George is deflecting. “Tell me.” 

The sun dips low into the sky. It begins to burn the horizon, scalding it in shades of orange and red. George’s skin glows with warmth. 

He says, “Diligence.”

“A good virtue to have.”

“And patience,” George says, with a flash of a smile. “It takes time for plans to be set into motion.”

“Waiting for things is better than the thing itself,” Dream says.

“I suppose I have been rather charitable lately,” George says. 

“What’s that story they tell?” 

“Robin Hood,” George recalls. “That’s a form of charity, I believe.”

“Any others?”

Dream glances over at George. The shadows have started to fall, now. They lengthen and stretch like melted rubber, coagulating over the two of them.

“Kind,” George says, close to a whisper. “I am trying to be kind.”

They stretch towards each other, melding seamlessly in the wake of the setting sun. 

“Four for four,” Dream says. “That isn’t half bad.”

“It feels strange,” George says, “To be something that I’m not.”

Dream wonders, at that. He wonders if George is feeling the same thing that Dream is feeling right now. 

Attraction surfaces her head, dangerous and appealing. She wraps fingers around Dream’s soul and where George cannot tempt Dream, attraction does. 

The descent begins like this: not with a movement but with a thought.

That’s how all the great movements are started, aren’t they? 

Dream thinks about the three remaining vices he has yet to practice, at George’s behest and his command. Greed. Pride. Lust.

George, meanwhile, seems to struggle his way through temperance. Chastity. Humility.

That is the funny thing about the two of them. Near polar opposites.

Whoever invented the phrase opposites attract has never been more correct. Dream wants to be as close to George as is possible. He wants to hold him against his heart. Against his very soul. 

The year Dream falls is lost to both him and time. It is somewhere around when technology begins to explode and careen out of control. The world crumples around him and Dream isn’t sure whether the thoughts are his own or whether George has planted them there, with nothing more than a touch to the shoulder. 

Dream thinks, why should the evil get to live? Why do I bother saving those who are already corrupted?

His miracles are always performed to save those who are fresh and newly minted, who haven’t been tainted by the evils of others. Whose only faults are being born into misfortune and danger and poverty. Those things, Dream can alleviate.

But he watches the world clamber higher and higher, sees those at the top descend further and further into evil, and realizes, they are already lost. Wouldn’t it be easier to take out the cause instead of trying to prune the leaves? To pull the weed out from the root? 

The first time he kills an evil soul, Dream realizes that George has accomplished everything he dreamed of.

Temptation, lust, love. The sins of the first humans. 

Everything returns back to the apple.

Dream sits and weeps. He mourns someone who should not be mourned. 

“Why did you kill him?”

Dream sits, in a church steeple looking over the Seine. He has no idea how George found him. 

“I don’t know,” he says. It’s another lie.

George hums. “I thought the Guardian of the Eastern Gate was incorruptible. Lord knows I’ve tried.”

Hearing that George has tried only confirms the sinking feeling inside of Dream’s stomach.

“I think you know,” Dream says. “Why I did it.”

George turns to look at him. “I do.” Evenly: “I want to hear you say it yourself.”

The words rise, foaming and soft, at the back of Dream’s throat. They’re begging to be said. Demanding to be spoken, spit out into the evening air. 

Instead, Dream says, “I’m so tired.”

Tired of failing. Tired of limiting himself, over and over. Tired of never being able to keep up. 

George looks at him carefully. Something swims in his expression. 

He says, “Wasn’t your act a miracle rather than a sin?”

The Seine blurs in his vision. He barely registers himself saying, “How so?”

“I hear people’s prayers,” George says. “I hear what they wish for. They think of this as a miracle. They think they are closer to salvation.”

Salvation. What a funny word.

“I killed someone,” Dream says. The words burn in his mouth.

“And you saved a million more,”  George counters. “Listen to them tonight. They’ll tell you so.”

Dream shakes his head mutely. 

The acts he’s committed are his to deal with. George can try and tell him that he’s done a miracle, but Dream won’t believe it. Not until he sees the aftereffects for himself. 

“You did a good thing,” George says with certainty. “You might not believe it now, but I can tell.”

Dream presses his lips together and doesn’t respond. The Seine glitters below, always churning onward. The entire city of Paris is sleeping right now, while Dream sits in agony. 

He falls, he falls, he falls. There is no way to clamber back up. 

“Dream,” George says, and presses a gentle hand to his shoulder, “There is no good without the bad.”

He moves to dissolve, likely feeling that he’s done all he can for Dream’s inner turmoil, but before he can disappear fully, Dream reaches out and wraps arms around him. He hugs him. Close enough to feel their hearts beating in tandem. 

It’s a strange hug. Lopsided and Dream realizes that in all his existence, since his creation, he’s unsure whether he’s hugged another person before.

“Thank you,” Dream breathes.

They stay like that long after the sun has risen.

They find each other in China, in the hills of Guilin. They find each other in the vast tundra of Siberia, where the wind howls, where even Dream’s immortal form can feel the cold. They find each other in Morocco, in Sicily, in Debrecen. Dream sees flashes of George’s spirit in the wind near Germany and in the deserts of Libya. He finds evidence that George was just in front of him in the rainforests of Brazil and the coastline of Chile. They follow each other all over the world and never once does Dream do the one thing he wants to do.

Which is—

Well. 

He’ll never speak it out loud. Not where George can hear him.

He feels pride when he turns a child towards the good in life, helps them practice kindness and honesty. He feels greed when he sees the people who are saving others, saving themselves, and demands more. Always demanding more.

But he never goes close to lust. 

Not when he sees George, grinning that same wild, reckless smile he always does. The set to his shoulders when he’s determined. The way his hands move in the mist, gesturing as he complains. He complains about everything. Shouts scathing words up to Heaven and curses whatever happens in Hell. He glows with noise and Dream thinks, I want you.

George vanishes to go damn another person all the way to Hell. Dream follows. He tells himself that he’s following to save someone, not because he wants to be with George. 

It is the first time he lies to himself in a long, long while.

“You and I aren’t so different.”

They walk from building to building in San Francisco, floating above the crowds. Their feet barely seem to touch the clouds. The city moves by soundlessly beneath them. 

“How so?” Dream asks. 

George gestures. “Six out of seven.” 

Vices or virtues? 

“Lust,” Dream says. 

“Humility,” George scowls. He crosses his arms, “It’s for the faint of heart.”

“Would it kill you to shelve your pride?”

“In another world,” George says, “We would be each other.” 

“I would be a demon who loves?”

“And I would be the angel who sins.” 

“I think we’re rather different,” Dream says, because considering any other possibility is tremendous and fearful. 

George smiles. Something in his heart beats at that. They are sworn enemies, each working to counter the actions of the other. Somehow, they’ve ended up as entangled in each other as two people can be.

The funny thing about lust is that Dream has seen the vice turned around and manipulated to shame other people. But is it really so bad? Acting on one’s urges— so long as they’re safe, he supposes, and don’t harm anyone else? Sex has always been claimed as a sin. But Dream hears the whispers, in the dead of night, of love and warmth and safety, and he looks at George and feels an echo of that reflected in him.

Would it really be so bad?

Lust is more than just carnal desire. It’s what drives him to be more. What drives him to seek out George, day after day, and demand to know what the serpent is doing on his end. 

It is lust and desire that drive him to kiss George’s cheek, as red as the apple Eve eats, directly underneath the summer sun. 

But it is humility that makes George turn and kiss him back. 

It is the turn of the century, again and again and again. 

December rolls into January and the twentieth century transforms into the twenty-first. The world cheers in hourly segments, believing that this new year will bring them everything good. Dream has no words to offer them. He too does not know what this world will bring. 

He does find that the twenty-first century is fantastical. 

Dream thinks it is funny that humans say they don’t know what magic is, when in reality, all they’ve done is integrate it into their daily lives. Trains moving faster than a person can comprehend it, messages heard across the world in an instant. Clouds, circling above, cleared away with the sunlight. The sound of a plane overhead, spiraling ever onwards. It bursts through a cloud and vanishes into the open sky, closer to Heaven than any human can be while they live. 

He moves across the city with silent ease, tracing his footsteps from the day before over and over. He picks up a loaf of freshly baked bread from the corner bakery that knows him by name, and Dream summons a little extra coin for their pocket. The farmer’s market, quiet in the early morning hours, is where he heads next. He passes a hand over glass jewelry, wishes the owner of the stall well. They’ll sell their entire stock that day. 

He passes a fruit stand and thinks about what would be best to buy. At last he decides upon a carton of strawberries. They’re not his favorite, but he knows someone who would enjoy them. 

The world creeps into motion, stalling and starting, and Dream turns his feet towards home. He leaves miracles behind him in his wake, scattered on the ground like stars. 

Dream has no need for sleep, and so he doesn’t.

George, however, sleeps because he can.

He sleeps because it’s luxurious, gluttonous, lazy to wake up long after the sun has hit its peak in the sky. He sleeps because he doesn’t need to work any longer, not when he’s already accomplished his goal. 

“Wake up,” Dream says, and his lover wakes with little more than a word.

“Good morning.” George sounds pleased, and Dream hums.

“Sleep well?”

“As always,” George says. “You should try it sometime.”

“Maybe,” Dream says. He’s never had a need for it. Why should he start now?

“It might make you feel less tired,” George says.

“Maybe,” Dream says, and he says, “I bought you strawberries. The fresh ones from the farmer’s market.”

“Ah,” George hums, and he stretches wide and long, “You know me too well, don’t you?”

“Well enough,” Dream corrects.

George doesn’t bother responding. When he kisses Dream, he tastes of strawberry.

As the years pass, Dream notes that his memories are slowly transforming from memories of regret to memories of George— although many of those go hand in hand. He replays the vivid memory of George last night, washing dishes by hand. Even after a hundred years he still refuses to wash them through magic. Refuses to waste his energy on something so simple. So he uses too much lemon-scented dish soap and fills the whole sink with warm water and flicks bubbles at Dream when he passes. Dream approaches from behind him, tucks his chin onto his shoulder, reaches his hands around. In response, George splashes him with warm water, all the way up his forearms. 

“Anything planned for today?” 

Dream thinks. “Nothing large.”

“We’re still not eating the rich yet?”

“Not yet,” Dream says, ‘Although that is on my to-do list.” 

“Well,” George hums, “Let me know. I’ll be by your side.” 

The sun clambers higher over the two of them. Dream glances up to it and thinks about just how different his existence would be if he had been tasked to stay in Heaven. What would his world look like? Who would he be?

Dream looks at George again, soft underneath the morning light.

They have known each other for thousands of years, have seen everything in the world unfurl from their actions. Dream has seen George smile and laugh and cry and mourn and everything in between. 

Everything starts and ends with the sun. 

Dream glances up to the sky and thinks, thank you.