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Life with the Corinthian is pretty good, to Johanna’s surprise. He’s a conscientious roommate - doesn’t even have clothes, just magics them up from sand or whatever, so there’s no socks or underwear left on the floor of the bathroom. He doesn’t eat, so she doesn’t have to share room in her fridge. He doesn’t hog the bathroom, doesn’t leave piles of washing up; in fact it’s Johanna who does all those things, like she always has, because she’s a fucking mess of a person. The Corinthian picks up her dirty socks and puts them in her washing basket; he does the dishes while she’s on a job. She comes back to a glass of wine and a takeaway, because he’s absolutely shit in the kitchen, and he kisses her with the same enthusiasm every time they reunite.
She wakes up once with her hands around his throat, still caught in the throes of a nightmare where it’s a demon under her. It’s been a while since she dreamed like that - she guesses Dream’s promise of peaceful nights ended when Morpheus died or whatever - and it was always a point of contention with Rachel; Jo didn’t share beds. She was too scared to. The Corinthian just bares his throat, pushing it up against her palms, eye-mouths heavy lidded.
“Fuck!” she says, letting go of him and scrambling backwards so fast she almost falls off the bed. He sits up and tilts his head. “Shit, I- sorry, fuck.”
“No, it’s my fault,” says the Corinthian. “I should’ve stopped any other Nightmares invading your sleep. I was distracted.”
“By fucking what?” Johanna snaps, and then takes a deep breath. “Sorry. It’s- it’s not your fault. Maybe I need to talk to the new Dream about it.”
The Corinthian jerks forward, aborting the motion almost as soon as it starts. “No, hey, no,” he says, urgent as he holds his hands out in placation. “You don’t- you don’t need to do that. I’ll do better next time, right? What kinda nightmare boyfriend lets his girlfriend have other nightmares? You don’t- you don’t have to go to the Dream Lord. I’ll fix it.”
“Not your job to fix my fucked-up head,” Jo says, crawling to the edge of the bed and fumbling at the drawer of the bedside table for a cig. She finds one and lights it with shaking hands, taking a deep drag. “But- that would be. Fine. If it’s not…”
“Of course,” says the Corinthian. He scoots up behind her, thighs spread around her hips, and noses at her neck. She sighs, exhaling smoke, and tilts it to allow him better access. “Anything for you,” he murmurs, directly against her skin, and it sends a shiver down her spine. Weird nightmare shit - sometimes even the sweetest gestures get her feeling like she’s about to be swallowed whole.
Alright, fine, it’s nice to have someone so dedicated to her. Someone she can’t hurt, who doesn’t have needs she’ll inevitably fail to meet. She’s shit at being a person, let alone a girlfriend. But there’s still something gnawing at the back of her mind, turning over and over like she’s flipping a coin along her knuckles in her head.
He doesn’t, like… do nightmare shit anymore. Which is good, obviously - she doesn’t want him out there eating eyes and shit, it’s disgusting (if useful, on occasion. So what if she’s used him on a job before?). But didn’t he used to have a purpose in the Dreaming? Before he went rogue and started serial killing people, he was a pretty big deal, from what Johanna can tell. And now he’s just… hanging out in her flat. Organising her books, for fucks sake.
She comes home to another eager kiss, the flat tidier than when she left in the morning. Her favourite Indian on the kitchen counter, plates already out and waiting. It’s the same thing she’s been coming home to for a few weeks now, since the wake.
“Don’t you ever get sick of being here?” she asks, instead of something appropriately grateful. “Like, mate - you don’t have to stay in my flat all day. Don’t you have nightmare shit to do? What do you even do when I’m out?”
“Wait for you to come back,” says the Corinthian, with that puppy-dog tilt to his head. “I don’t mind. If I can’t come to work with you, it’s good to be surrounded by your things. And I don’t have duties anymore! You’re all that matters to me.”
“Even I know that doesn’t sound healthy,” Jo says. “And I’m fucking shit at having a work-life balance. People can’t just live for their girlfriends.”
“I’m not a per-son,” sing-songs the Corinthian, handing her a full plate and spoon.
“Fuck off,” she says, irritated by the glib response, and he almost-flinches. What the fuck? “You’re- you’re not human, sure, but you’re a person. You have your own- agency, or whatever. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’re not up to the same shit the old you did, but. You can go outside. Go to Costa, get a crap latte, sit in the sun. Whatever you… okay, I don’t actually know what you like to do. Isn’t that kinda fucked? Shouldn’t I know that?”
“I like being with you,” says the Corinthian, quiet and sad. “I like making you happy.”
“What do you like that’s not about me?” Jo fires back. The Corinthian frowns.
“Am I doing something wrong?”
“Fuck me,” Johanna groans. She’s getting a fucking headache. The Corinthian perks up.
“I can do that,” he says brightly, already stepping forward.
“Fucking stop it!”
She shouts without meaning to, something great and yawning and ugly opening up like a fucking pit in her stomach. She slams the plate down on the kitchen top and resists the urge to fucking throw it. The Corinthian just stands there, looking at her with a confused expression.
“You don’t want me?” he ventures.
“I want you to fucking want something!” Johanna says, because she’s finally starting to understand what the itch at the back of her mind these past few weeks has been.
“I want you,” says the Corinthian. “I’m yours. I’m yours forever. Doesn’t that mean anything?”
“You’re not mine!” Johanna shouts. “You don’t- you don’t fucking belong to me. People can’t belong to other people!”
“I’m not-“
“You’re not a person, yeah.” Johanna finds the bottle of vodka in her freezer and takes a swig straight from the bottle. No point bothering with a glass. It tastes like shit - it’s cheap, nasty stuff.
“I don’t understand why you’re angry,” says the Corinthian.
“I want you, right now, to tell me something in your life that isn’t about me.”
“You are my life,” says the Corinthian, with a devotion usually reserved for Victorian-era romance novels. “I don’t want anything except you.”
“That’s fucked,” Johanna says, and takes another drink.
“It’s what I’m made for,” the Corinthian says, forehead scrunched in confusion. “Why would I want anything else?”
Jo points at him. “Right. Explain that.” The Corinthian takes a cautious, prowling step towards her. “Stay back. Just- just talk, alright? What does that fucking mean? Aren’t you meant to be humanity’s dark mirror or some shit?”
“That was the first Corinthian,” says the Corinthian. “When the Dream Lord brought me back, he wanted… he wanted you to be happy. And I thought we were happy,” he finishes, plaintive. “I thought I made you happy. What did I do wrong?”
“So, what,” Johanna says, throat tight. “He made you for me? To be with me?”
“Yes,” says the Corinthian, and suddenly he’s right in front of her, clasping her hands between his, the vodka bottle excruciatingly cold compared to his warmth. “Exactly. Jo, you never have to be alone again. You never have to hurt a person, or have them leave you, or die. You never have to suffer again. You get to be loved every day for the rest of your life by someone who can’t get hurt, can’t die, and won’t hurt you. Isn’t that beautiful? Just love, forever.”
“And that’s what you want?”
The Corinthian smiles, with all three mouths. “Of course,” he says. “It’s what I was made for.”
“What about the first Corinthian? What did he want?”
The smiles go a little rigid. “That doesn’t matter,” says the Corinthian, nuzzling at their joined hands. His left eye-mouth nips at her knuckles playfully. “All that matters is us,” it whispers.
“He was a disappointment,” whispers the other eye-mouth.
“We won’t be,” whispers the left.
“So you play the perfect boyfriend or Dream destroys you? That’s the deal?”
“I’m not playing,” says the Corinthian plaintively. “I love you. He made me to love you, Johanna. Please, it’s all I…” He swallows. “You’re all I have. He doesn’t even let me hunt the dreamers anymore.”
His eye-mouths spasm, like they’re in pain. His face contorts, and then smooths.
“Which is fine,” he continues, earnest again. “All I need is you. As long as you’re happy, I’m happy. Don’t I make you happy?”
“Yeah, of course,” Johanna says. Her mouth is dry. The Corinthian beams, leaning forward to kiss her hard as he takes the vodka from her hand and carefully places it on the counter.
“Why don’t we have dinner later? Have a little fun now?” he purrs, kissing her neck. Johanna fights back a wave of revulsion to step back, her hand firm against his chest.
“I, uh- I just remembered, I’m going out tonight,” she says, fumbling her words. Fuck, get it together. “I said I’d meet this guy. From work.”
“Oh,” says the Corinthian, visibly crestfallen. “Can I come?”
“No,” she says, harsh and cutting. When he flinches again, she grits her teeth and makes a conscious effort to soften her tone. “It’s- it’s a work thing. Okay? I need to go. I’ll see you later, alright?”
“Okay,” says the Corinthian. He stands there, hands relaxed, like an automaton waiting for instruction. Johanna swallows another wave of nausea. “I love you.”
“Yeah,” says Johanna, and then she’s gone.
—
She gets absolutely plastered at the nearest boozer, and then calls Hob Gadling. They’re not exactly friends or whatever, but he knew Dream, and they met at the wake and he’s not exactly hard to find in the real world.
“‘Lo?” His voice is muzzy with sleep. Johanna checks her phone and realises it’s nearly 2am.
“Shit.”
“Who’s this?”
Johanna fumbles for a cig.
“Hello?”
“Shut up,” she says, because she’s drunk, and it’s really hard to light her fag with his voice in her ear. “You’re distracting me.”
“Who is this? And- you called me, how am I-“
She manages to light the cigarette. “Constantine.“
“Oh. Right. I don’t remember giving you my number?”
“You didn’t. Are you done asking stupid questions? I…”
Fuck. What is she doing? Calling up a guy who’s basically a stranger because she thinks her weird nightmare boyfriend might not actually have a choice in dating her because he was mindwiped by his creator to be in love with her?
She hears Gadling groan, and the rustling of someone sitting up in bed. “Look, do you need something? It’s the middle of the fucking night, and-“
“Look, you’re the only person I can talk to about weird Dream shit,” she interrupts. “And I’ve got some pressing weird Dream shit that needs talking about.”
“I don’t know the new Dream very well,” Gadling starts.
“It’s the old one I need to talk about.”
Gadling sighs. “You know he’s only been dead for a few weeks, right? It’s… still a sore spot.”
“Oh, fuck you then,” she says, dropping the barely-smoked cig and stomping it out angrily. “I’ll figure it out my-fucking-self.”
“Come to the New Inn,” Gadling says. “I’ll be there. You’re buying, even though it sounds like you’ve already had enough.”
“Bite me,” Johanna says, ending the call. She googles the New Inn and starts walking.
—
It’s a nice place, she thinks hazily. All exposed beams and shit, comfy chairs, low lighting. Gadling looks the same as he did at the wake, just more tired. She should feel bad, but she doesn’t, because she’s a proper cunt of a person. She does buy him a cider, though.
“So,” says Hob Gadling. “What’s so important that you had to wake me up in the middle of the night?”
Johanna takes a fortifying gulp of his cider, ignoring his protest; he’d refused to serve her.
“You know the Corinthian?” she says.
Gadling squints. “Sunglasses, right?” he says. “I mean… I met him at the wake, but I’m pretty sure he’s the same Corinthian that spent the last hundred years killing people and taking their eyes across the pond. He matched a couple of descriptions from survivors, and it’s not like a normal person can spend 100 years killing whoever they want. Can’t say I’m a fan.”
“He ate them,” says Johanna. “The eyes.”
“Gods above,” says Gadling faintly.
“He doesn’t do that anymore,” she adds. “He’s, uh. We live together. We’re kind of a thing. He’s not… Dream remade him. The first guy who did all that shit got… destroyed, or something. And then Dream brought him back different.”
He is essentially a newborn.
“I’ve seen him eat eyes,” she adds. “He can still do it. He just doesn’t. He doesn’t do much of anything.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Gadling ventures. Johanna thumps her forehead against the table.
“You’d fucking think so, wouldn’t you,” she mutters. “The first Corinthian got destroyed because he ‘disappointed’ Dream, yeah? And then- this one, the second Corinthian, he said that Dream made him for me. To love me, because I’m total shit at relationships and they always go bad, and someone gets hurt, and nightmares can’t get hurt. Because he wanted me to be happy.”
Gadling’s gone misty-eyed. “That’s so nice,” he says. Johanna punches him in the arm. “Ow!”
“It’s not fucking nice, you psychopath!” she hisses. “Dream gave the guy a fucking lobotomy so he could be some kind of fucking… sex slave for me, or whatever. Boyfriend slave. He was made to serve me, love me, whatever whatever. His entire existence revolves around me. It’s so fucked up! It’s like… it’s like he’s playing a part, but he doesn’t even know it, and if he does it wrong he’s scared the new Dream will unmake him again. He’s got to make me happy or he fucking dies, and he doesn’t even know how fucked up that is because he’s been programmed to fucking not see it! And now I’ve been fucking this- this thing that can’t consent, because all he wants to do is whatever I want!”
Gadling’s face does something weird. “Dream wouldn’t do that,” he says firmly.
“Well he fucking did,” says Johanna, drinking more of his cider.
“Stop it,” Gadling says, taking his own sip. Ew, backwash. “Dream hated slavery. He thought it was, um. A poor thing, for one man to own another.”
“Not a man,” Jo says. “Neither of us. The Corinthian keeps insisting he’s not a person, and like, sure, he’s not human, but he’s a person. Isn’t he? He seems like a person, in his own fucking weird kind of way. He’s person-shaped. Fuck, what if he’s not even… are Nightmares people? Is he even- is he sentient, or just… like a computer program? Am I fucking Dream-Siri?”
Gadling mulls that over.
“Not a clue,” he says cheerfully, downing the rest of his cider. “Right. I think we both need another one of those.”
“Christ, yes,” says Johanna, and everything gets kind of hazy after that.
—
She’s in a massive fuck-off library, one she doesn’t recognise. Her head doesn’t hurt, so she’s somehow not hungover, even though-
Hold on. She doesn’t remember waking up. Doesn’t remember leaving the New Inn (or Hob Gadling’s spare room), never mind making her way to the biggest library she’s ever seen in her fucking life. Maybe the biggest building she’s ever seen, because now she’s looking around the aisles seem endless, and the ceiling is-
Ohhhhh.
“I’m in the Dreaming,” she realises aloud, and hears a polite cough. She turns and finds Lucienne standing behind her, hands clasped politely at her abdomen.
“Johanna Constantine,” says the other woman, bowing her head a little. “Welcome to the Library. Can I help you find something?”
“Lucienne,” Johanna says. “Nice to see you. Banging library, by the way.”
“Thank you.” The corner of Lucienne’s lip twitches upward, almost unnoticeable. “I take it you did not mean to come here?”
“Fell asleep absolutely buggered,” Johanna admits, rocking back on her heels. “Probably more like passed out, if we’re being honest. I normally don’t dream at all when I’m this wasted.”
“Perhaps there is something here you need to read,” Lucienne suggests, looking piercingly over her glasses. “Questions you may need answered?”
Jo’s about to say that there’s nothing, really, and then she pauses. She can see the names on the spines of books nearby; people’s entire lives laid down to bound paper. “So… you’ve got every book ever written in here, right? And chronicles of people’s lives and all that?”
“Every book ever written, conceived or imagined,” Lucienne says. “Accounts of almost all experience, no matter how small.”
“Do dreams get their own books?”
Lucienne’s polite expression shows a brief hint of wariness. “Yes,” she says.
“The Corinthian?”
“He is a Major Arcana - he has several volumes of history. Though, of course, the current Corinthian has only existed for a short while, and I imagine his volume would be a fairly uninteresting read.”
“It’s the old one I’m after,” Johanna says. “Can I?”
Lucienne hesitates. “The library is open to any dreamer who wishes to come,” she says, “but… the First Corinthian was a very different beast to the one that exists now. Some of his volumes may be… unpleasant, to mortal eyes. Some are hard to stomach even for dreams.”
“Yeah, well. I got plenty of experience with fucked up shit,” Johanna says. “Where do I find them?”
Lucienne leads her to a shelf, where the Corinthian’s name spans several thick, heavy volumes. “Don’t hesitate to call me, if you need anything,” Lucienne says. “And… if you would prefer lighter reading. Please let me know.”
“Ta,” says Johanna, knowing full well that she doesn’t care about any of the other shit in here right now. She skips the first few books - she doesn’t need thousands of years of “dutifully served the Dreaming”, which she’s pretty sure is all there’ll be. He went rogue, what, 100ish years ago? When Morpheus got locked up? Probably recent enough to be in the last book, she reckons.
It’s… well, Lucienne wasn’t wrong. Jo skims through 100 years of killing and fucking and inspiring serial killers, all laid out in clinical recollection, and it’s fucking awful. The Corinthian must have killed hundreds - she’s not counting - and not all of them were ever found.
She knew that already, though. What she didn’t know, and what becomes clear as she leafs back and forth through the stupid fucking book-
All those years, outside of anyone else’s control and under his own prerogative, the Corinthian only ever fucked men. He almost only ever killed them, too - often the killing directly followed the fucking. The few female victims he took were witnesses, or obstacles in his greater plan.
I’m not gonna stop until I reshape this whole world to look just like me. God, he’d been an arrogant prick - Johanna can feel the self importance oozing through, enough to make her scoff. He’d been confident, and charming, and so self-assured, right up until he got unmade.
The next time I make you, you shall not be so flawed and petty, little dream.
Flawed, sure, yeah, Jo agrees that going around America killing people and eating their eyes isn’t good. It’s fucking awful, even if - look, she’s not a good person, alright? - even if she can kind of see where the First Corinthian was coming from. Isn’t this why you made me? he’d asked, at the beginning before Dream got trapped, and Johanna can see how he thought that. If she’d spent thousands of years cutting out people’s eyeballs in dreams, she’d probably not see anything wrong with doing it in the real world too.
And then… well, he was pissed, and angry, and completely off-leash. No big surprise he kept doing what he wanted, no Dream to punish him for it.
An arrogant prick, sure, but there’s real pride there. The First Corinthian spent 100 years inspiring people, in his own fucked up way, and even through his book she can tell how fucking proud of it he was. How much pleasure he took in infecting others with his own twisted desire, and how much he enjoyed the fucking, the killing, the hunting. He was made to be a predator - of course he felt that way.
Her Corinthian… not that she wants him to be like that, but now that she can directly compare the two? Fuck. It’s like there’s a big chasm where all his old wants used to be, empty and hollowed out like Dream took a fucking ice cream scoop and just balled it out. The old Corinthian had fought tooth and nail for his freedom, done everything within his power to live as an autonomous being, and the new Corinthian calls himself Jo’s property with a besotted smile.
This shit is fucked.
—
“Jo!” says the Corinthian as she comes through her front door. “You’re back!”
“Yeah,” says Johanna, dropping her keys in the bowl and kicking off her shoes. “You ever fucked a man?”
The Corinthian stalls, faltering where he was coming to greet her. “What?” he says, sounding absolutely baffled.
“You ever fucked a man?” she repeats, crossing her arms. Standing her ground. The Corinthian smiles nervously.
“I’ve only fucked you,” he says, hands clenching and unclenching. “I- my lord only made me a few hours before we met. You know my entire life.”
“But the old you. Do you remember being him?”
The Corinthian shifts his weight, a tell she recognises as him fighting his own urge to be evasive. “No. I get… flashes. Moments of sensation. But I don’t remember everything. The clearest memory is… the shame he felt, when my lord had to unmake him. Knowing that he was a failure, and a disappointment. The Dream Lord left me that memory in full, so that I would remember what’s important.”
“And what’s that?”
“Obedience to him,” says the Corinthian, without hesitation. “My loyalty to the Dreaming and the Dream Lord comes before any other selfish wants.”
“Oh yeah? And what selfish wants do you have?”
The Corinthian’s face twitches, brow furrowing for a moment. “I… I want to serve my lord,” he says slowly. “And I want to make you happy.”
“Because that’s your purpose, right?” God, it’s hard to stay calm here. The Corinthian nods, looking almost relieved. “But I don’t want to be your purpose. I want to be a choice.”
“I choose you,” says the Corinthian immediately. “It’s my honour to be yours-“
“Stop.” He does. “This isn’t… this isn’t what love is, Corinthian. This is fucking - servitude, slavery under a different fucking name. You know what the old Corinthian wanted? To fuck men, eat their eyes, and be a free fucking agent. The last thing he would’ve wanted to do was be a fucking housewife to some woman who got given him as a gift, like he’s a fucking houseplant!”
“But I’m not him,” says the Corinthian. “He was a disappointment. I won’t be anything like him. I can’t be.”
“He did some really fucked up shit, I’m not arguing that,” says Johanna, because she’s not. “But he was a person, kind of. He had wants and dreams and thoughts, and Dream took them out when he brought you back and made you only remember the shame. He took out all the shit that made you who you were, and then made you feel ashamed of it. And then he gave you to me like you were a pet or something, when the last you wanted fucking nothing more than to be himself. Do you see how fucked up that is?”
“But…” The Corinthian looks down at his hands. “I don’t want to be unmade again. And if I was him, I’d go back to the darkness. I think it’s okay, if it means I get to live.”
“You can’t just take out the parts of a person you don’t like,” Johanna says. “I don’t care that you’re not human, it’s fucking awful. And it’s fucking weird that being gay is apparently one of the things that Dream thought made you flawed. Thought his lot were above that sort of thing.”
“But I love you,” says the Corinthian. “I… I was brought back to love you.”
“That’s not how love works,” Johanna says. Fuck, her chest hurts. “That’s not how it fucking works.”
“But I love you,” says the Corinthian again, helplessly, and there’s fucking blood tears rolling down his cheeks from underneath the glasses now. He’s often looked to her for guidance, seemed young in a way that reminded her of Morpheus calling him a newborn, but he’s never looked smaller than he does right now. He looks fucking lost. She steps forward now, and she’s shit at comforting people but she drags him into a hug, lets him clutch at the back of her coat with desperate fingers. She’s gonna have to burn this coat; she can feel his bloody tears soaking into the collar where he’s pressed his face against it.
“It’s so confusing,” he whispers. “I know what I am, but- I remember being something different, and I remember… I remember wanting, and being hungry, and how good it felt when- he did what he did. When I did what I did. It’s not me, but it’s me, and- and I miss it, but this is my purpose now, you’re my purpose now, and I can’t get it wrong, I can’t. He’ll unmake me, and I don’t - I don’t want to go back to the darkness. I’ll never touch a boy again if it just means I get to live. I’ll never eat another eye or hunt another dreamer. I… I can be good. I will be good.”
“Fucking shit,” says Johanna lowly, because doesn’t that confirm everything she feared. The Corinthian shudders.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers against her neck. “I’m sorry, I can- you’re my purpose now, I can ignore everything else. I swear, I can be good. I can be what you want.”
“Fuck that.” She grabs him by the hair - maybe she should be gentler right now, but she’s so pissed off and sickened that it’s making her stomach ache - and pulls him up and back so that she can look him in the face. He’s smeared with red, all three sets of teeth bared in matching grimaces when she takes his glasses off, folds them and tucks them into his sweater one-handed. “Listen to me, mate. I don’t want some kind of nightmare slave. You hear me? I’m so fucking serious right now. If he wasn’t already dead I’d be figuring out a way to beat the shit out of Morpheus for thinking this was okay. I don’t want you to go back to the serial killing shit, yeah, but I don’t want you to- you don’t have to pretend.”
“But I am in love with you,” says the Corinthian. “It’s what he brought me back to be. It’s my function.”
“Fuck function,” says Johanna, with feeling. “If your function goes against who you are, then fuck it. You can’t make someone love someone, anyway. You think you love me ‘cause that’s what he wanted you to think, but it’s not real. That’s not how this shit works.”
The Corinthian is quiet for a few moments, face downturned. Red tears slide down his cheeks and drip onto the floor. For a moment Johanna mourns the loss of what they had - it was manufactured by a fucked up creator, sure, but it had been comfortable. She’d felt… almost peaceful, for a while there. Just like Morpheus wanted, she thinks angrily. Yeah, well, take your fake peace and shove it.
“What do I do now?” asks the Corinthian eventually, looking up at her again. He looks empty, haggard. He looks real. The fantasy is over for both of them. Jo blows out a breath.
“I think we get really fucking drunk, if that’s something you can do,” she says. “And we’ll work out a plan in the morning. Deal?”
“Deal,” says the Corinthian, mouth ticking up at one corner, and Johanna goes to fetch the vodka.