FIC: Dreams and Dreamers

[jij]

Title:  Dreams and Dreamers
Characters/Pairings: Clark/Bruce, The Endless (Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Delirium, Despair, Destiny)
Rating: PG
Summary:  When Batman goes missing, Superman goes searching for him, and they encounter a variety of unusual...entities.
Continuity:  For all you Sandman continuity purists, you might want to know this takes place just before the events of The Kindly Ones.  By sheer coincidence, as far as I can tell this places it in DC continuity slightly after Superman returns from the dead, which may well account for Bruce's predicament.  None of this is necessary to know to read the story.  :)
Word count:  4800
Notes: 
damo_in_japan's betas often approach full co-writer status, and in this case even more than usual, as he ended up writing all of one character's dialogue.

Batman is missing.

He has been missing for a month.

There's no sign of him anywhere.  Magic and science have failed them.  Alfred Pennyworth reports that Bruce Wayne was dressing in his bedroom when Alfred went to fetch a cup of coffee.  When he returned, the room was empty.  No sign of a struggle.  Simply empty.

Superman hasn't slept for almost a month.  It's physically possible for him to do this, but not recommended.  But he's needed in the search, needed to cover for Batman's absence.

And he doesn't like what he sees in his dreams right now.  It's easier not to sleep at all.

Batman is missing.

Bruce Wayne is missing.

Superman considers the loss of Batman unacceptable from a strategic point of view.

Clark Kent considers the loss of Bruce Wayne--

He isn't sure what he considers it.  The man was--is--impossible, and prickly, and mule-headed to a fault.  And he clearly has little use for Clark Kent.

And yet the world seems empty.  Grayer.  The color seems drained from it, which is funny considering Superman is supposed to be bright and colorful one.

Clark would laugh at the irony, but nothing seems very amusing right now.

He's in front of his bathroom mirror after another long night spent searching and patrolling.  He splashes cold water on his face, grips the basin with both hands as if to hold himself up, and meets his own eyes in the mirror.  They stare back at him, and for a second there's nothing behind them at all.  This is hopeless, he realizes.  It's time to give up.  Give up and move on.

You've failed, Clark.

For a moment, it all makes sense:  the uselessness of it all.  He's a red and blue puppet animated by nothing but duty and vanity.  Hollow gestures, preening vainglory that will never bring back his friend.

For a moment, he believes it.

Then the porcelain snaps under his hands.  No.  Hope is never useless.  And he'll find his friend and bring him back.

"I'm not giving up, Bruce," he whispers.  "Never."

He's in a gray place.  Mist roils along the--ground?  Floor?--like fat white worms, twining around his feet.  It clings damply, and he knows he should feel repulsion, disgust, but it doesn't seem to matter.

He looks around because there's nothing better to do.

Hanging in the air all around him are what look like mirrors, but within them he sees not his own reflection, but movement, a flickering of infinite eyes.  Each hanging mirror is like a window.  The people in the mirrors stare blankly, unseeingly, at Bruce.  Some are weeping.  Most are not.  Their faces are as gray and cold as this place.

There was a time, Bruce feels faintly, when that would bother him.  When he would care about their pain.  He tries to remember what that felt like--to care.

The mist caresses his ankles and there is a rustling susurration, like countless rats.  This should alarm him.  He knows it should.

He walks, aimlessly.  Picking one mirror at random, he looks through it into an unknown woman's face.  Her eyes are hollow and her lower lip is trembling.

"She is fifty years old and she has Alzheimer's," says a voice near him.  The voice is like granite rubbing against granite, gray and bleak, like a death-rattle of escaping air.  Bruce looks down to see a short, naked woman standing next to him.  Her skin is gray, her hair unkempt.  Her pendulous breasts sink almost to her flabby stomach.  She raises her hand toward the mirror and Bruce can see she's wearing a ring with a hook in it.

"At this exact moment, she is realizing she can no longer remember the song they played at her wedding," the woman continues.  "She can feel the disease eating her brain away and knows this may well be the last moment she is truly sane.  Her body is young and healthy, and she knows she will remain alive for years, her mind ravaged beyond recovery, nothing but a piece of meat that her husband and children will care for, and weep over, and finally come to loathe as a burden."  The woman tilts her head slightly, and Bruce sees a glint of tusks protruding from her lower jaw, like a walrus.  "Isn't it beautiful?"

Bruce backs away from her.  "Where am I?"

The woman stares at him for a very long time.  "I hate you," she says flatly.  She raises her hand with the hooked ring on it and digs it into her bare flesh, just above her collarbone.  Dark red blood, almost black, oozes from the wound.  She doesn't seem to notice.  "Sometimes I think I hate you most of all.  They all think it's him, but you," she shakes her head.  "You mock me."  The ring digs in more.  "You're mine.  You should be mine.  I set my seal upon you.  And yet--"  her mouth twists in a way that could be threatening, with the tusks, but instead looks like she wants to weep.  "--Yet every day you arise with my kiss on your brow and you keep going!"  She makes a hoarse keening sound.  "Why do you refuse me?"

Then a small smile, almost sly, crosses her face.  "But I have you here now.  My twin and I pulled you this way and that until you came to me of your own free will, and I will not let you go.  You will serve me here.  And there is no escape."

It's true.  He knows it to be true, in his bones, in his marrow.  There's no way out of here.  He closes his eyes for a moment, trying to remember how he got here, but his mind can't seem to turn back to anything beyond this grayness, this silver void.

"You," says the grinding voice.  He opens his eyes to see her staring into a mirror.  In the mirror is a face he knows.

Clark Kent's face.

Clark's eyes gaze through the mirror, as blue as heaven.  Blue as hope.  His face is drawn and exhausted, his mouth set as if against tears.  He's gripping the sides of a sink, his hands tight on the white china.

"You," says the woman again.  She lifts her hand and sets the hook of her ring against the mirror, draws it across the surface with a hideous screech of metal on metal.

The ring comes away bloody, scarlet droplets trailing down the woman's arm.  "My hook in your heart," she murmurs.

Bruce wants to move, wants to yell something, but the hopelessness in Clark's eyes seems to choke him, stifling any protest.  It's useless.

Then there's a sharp crack and Clark's eyes seem to shift focus, to stop looking into this realm and to fix on something else.  "I'm not giving up, Bruce," he whispers, and for just a second Bruce feels something like hope in his heart.  "Never."

He turns and is gone.

The woman sighs and licks blood off her hooked ring, unmindful of the gashes she's delivering to her lip and tongue.  "My greatest failure," she observes.  "It seemed like such a masterpiece at the time, but I was young..."  Blood drools from her mouth and drips onto the floor, where it's swallowed up in the mist.  She points at Bruce.  "It doesn't matter.  No one can take another's soul from here.  It is one of the laws of my realm."  Her smile is affectionate and ghastly.  "You'll stay here, my Bruce."

She walks away through the mist, stopping to peer at some of the mirrors, and is eventually swallowed up in the distance, leaving Bruce alone.

Bruce takes a deep breath and calls up an image of bright blue eyes and the moment of hope like a dove in his breast.  He can't feel it anymore, but he can remember that he felt it.  "There has to be a way out of here," he says, mostly to hear his own voice.  "There has to be."

"I know one," says a high, fluting voice behind him.

He's in civilian clothes, walking in the park, aimlessly.  He just needs a moment to clear his head before he goes back to work, back to the search.  He sits down on a park bench.

"You look like you could use some sleep," says a voice.

Clark looks over and sees a young woman sitting next to him on the bench, dressed in Goth fashion, all black clothes and pale skin, a silver ankh around her neck.  Her eyes are heavily kohled, with a curve of blackness coiling down onto her cheek.

"I said, you look like you could use some sleep," she repeats as he stares at her, and then she smiles.

Clark blinks.  "Have we met?"  She looks familiar.  Maybe someone Superman rescued once?

"Briefly," she says, tilting her head, that beautiful smile still on her face.  It's a smile that makes you trust her, the smile of your oldest, dearest friend.  It's a smile that no one could resist confessing to.

"I haven't been able to sleep for a long time now.  I mean, I can, but I have awful nightmares.  Ravens, lots of ravens.  And a man in white with dark sunglasses, covering eyes that..."  Clark shudders, unwilling to explain further.

She seems to understand.  "Yeah, that's a bad one.  But...nightmares can be helpful, sometimes."

His smile stretches his face, humorless.  "Can they help me find my friend?"  Her face is sympathetic, and he suddenly feels tears well up again, very differently that when he had stared into his bathroom mirror.  "He's missing," he whispers, his voice cracking.  "No one can find him.  I can't find him."

"Well," says the woman with a faint smile, "I haven't seen him, I can tell you that."  Clark scrubs at his eyes and she laughs softly.  "Most people would find that a comfort."

"I'd do anything to find him."

The woman frowns.  "Really?  Anything?"  When he nods, her frown deepens, then smooths back into her glorious smile.  "Well.  I shouldn't play favorites, I know, but...maybe I can help you."  She springs up, her every motion like a dance, full of life.  "Come here."

Baffled, but unwilling to deny her smile, Clark follows her.  She leads him to the entrance of a topiary maze.  "Go in there," she says, pointing.  "Pick a path and walk it.  You'll meet my brother.  And I recommend you go home and get some sleep after that."

Part of Clark knows she's speaking nonsense.  Another part, a deeper part, nods and turns to enter the maze.  As he reaches the border, he hears her voice again:  "Kal."

He turns, startled.  Her face is very serious now.  "Kal.  I know you worry about this, sometimes, and I want you to know--" Her smile is luminous, irrefutable.  "I promise you that I'll never, ever forsake you."

Clark enters the maze feeling inexplicably reassured.

"I remember you."  The girl attached to this voice is small, and slight.  Half of her head is shaved and the other half is a mass of fluffy strawberry-blond curls.  She smiles up at Bruce, a rather tremulous smile, and he notices that one of her eyes is a pale ice-blue and the other is a brilliant jade green, flecked with silver.  "You're the little boy from Gotham."

"How did you get here?"  There seem to be no doors.

"Oh, I'm always here."  Her voice is a high, thin tremolo, and it seems to hover between them like a multi-colored balloon.  "Here isn't always this place, of course.  Sometimes it's Gotham.  I like Gotham lots."  She wanders in a small circle and stops in front of him again.  She looks confused, then drops him a small curtsy.

"Can you take me back there?"

She laughs like glass breaking and tilts her head.  "To Gotham?"  She scratches her head, pondering, then her eyes light up, azure and viridian.  "I know!  You could come with me!"  She holds out her hand, dainty as a child's, and her eyes are infinitely old.  "Come with me, Brucie.  We'll go looking for that special place.  The place where nothing's ever wrong.  Maybe there'll be goldfish?"  She looks hopeful.

Bruce backs away a step, and a flicker of emotion goes across her face.  "You've never really been mine, have you?"  Her sigh is a carillon of tiny bells.  "Not even that night."

"I'm sorry," he says.

She sniffles and produces a multicolored handkerchief out of nowhere to blow her nose into.  "That's all right," she says with abrupt cheerfulness, "You're kind of serious.  I don't think you can let go of things.  I do.  Sometimes they are blueberries."  She turns a cartwheel in the mist.  "But you even hold on to your--"  She stops herself and puts a finger to her lips with exaggerated care, "--shhh!  Not here!"  Her smile is conspiratorial, but Bruce is not in on the conspiracy.  "I bet that makes them mad.  They doesn't like losing to him."  She twirls so the mist curls around her in little tendrils.  "Maybe he will find you or--oh!--maybe he will find you," she whispers gleefully, then turns sideways and is gone.

The maze stretches before him.  At random, Clark takes a left, then a right.  Another left.  Then he blinks, because the hedges have given way to marble walls without him noticing.  Left.  Left.  Right.

You're supposed to always turn one way in a labyrinth, Clark remembers, but as the marble gives way to metal he knows the normal rules won't apply here.  Right.  Left.

Then the walls slide away altogether and he's on a path that seems to hang in a featureless silver void.  The path gleams with golden light and stretches out in infinite loops and mandalas in every direction as far as the eye can see.

Clark lifts up from the surface of the maze to fly over it, to see it from above.

Or rather, he intends to.  But his feet stay firmly on the path.  He can walk it, but he cannot leave it.

He walks his path, choosing a direction at each junction.

Left.  Left.  Left.  Right.

As he draws further along the infinite filigreed road, he realizes he can see another path in the distance.  This one gleams black against the silver air, glossy and ebon as a crow's wing.  He tries to make his way toward it, but can never seem to reach it.  Its loops and whorls do not exactly mirror that of the golden path he's on, and yet...they complement, somehow.  They curve toward each other gracefully, yet never quite meet.

Clark finds himself longing to set foot on that gleaming black surface, dark as a night with no stars.  Every choice he makes draws him closer, and yet he can't seem to attain his goal.  His eyes blur with tears of frustration, but he keeps going, doggedly choosing path after path.

At last, at last, he stands before a three-way junction.  To the left he can step onto the shining black path.  To the right the golden path continues on alone.  And in the middle the gold and black combine to form a road of gleaming light and shadow, dappled bright and dark.  Clark steps forward.

"Consider," says a voice behind him.  Clark turns to see a man floating slightly above the maze.  Cloaked in gray, he carries a massive open book, bound in leather.

"Consider what?"  Clark says when the man shows no inclination to continue.

"Your choices."

"Why?"

The man neither smiles nor frowns.  "Because that is your nature," he says, glancing down at his book.  Clark can't see the pages clearly, but they seem to be brightly colored and divided into panels.

Clark looks back at the three-way fork.  "This is important."

"All choices are."

Tired of the evasions, Clark does as he had always known he would:  he steps onto the path where light and darkness intertwine.

The maze falls away, melts back into topiary.  Clark's standing at the far end of the hedge maze, being stared at by a small child with chocolate ice cream smeared across her face.  He smiles apologetically at the suspicious mother and, remembering the dark-haired girl's words, goes home, as he can think of nothing better to do.

He wanders aimlessly through the mirror-studded void, looking for Clark's eyes.

He knows he'll never see them again.

"Wow, the twins have really given you a thorough working over, haven't they, you poor sod," says a gruff, vital voice behind him.  He turns to see a tall, broad-shouldered man with red hair pulled back into a ponytail, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt.

"The twins," Bruce says.  "You mean the gray lady and the crazy girl?  They don't look like twins."

"Those two?  Nah," says the man, shaking his head.  "Del--the crazy girl, as you so-succinctly put it--isn't a twin.  Or she's her own twin, I suppose," he adds thoughtfully.  "The Gray Lady, as you call her, is one of them.  She and her twin have been pulling your soul back and forth like a wishbone so long no wonder you're here."  He sighs and shakes his head.  As he does, the naked, monstrous figure walks by slowly, gazing into mirrors.  She gives Bruce a pat on the arm as she goes by, but doesn't seem to notice the other man.

"She can't see you?"

The man's hazel eyes are deeply sad.  "I try not to stop by here too often, but sometimes..."  He sighs.  "My sister yearns to see me, and yet she can't perceive me.  It's the curse of her essence."

"Your sister?"  Bruce struggles to make some connection between the tusked monster and the handsome man;  his brain aches.

The man throws back his head and laughs;  the sound shakes the mirrors.  "Family's a funny thing, isn't it?"  He frowns.  "That could be a poem, I suppose."  He holds up a broad hand, counting on the fingers.  "Fam-i-ly ties are / Strange and my-ster-i-ous things. / You just can't change them."  He looks at Bruce, hopeful.  "How's that for a haiku?"

"Not very good," Bruce says.  "You need a seasonal pivot word in the middle."

Another shattering guffaw.  "I like you, man," says the stranger.

Bruce feels desperation gnawing at him.  "Do you have any idea how I can get out of here?"

"Of course."

"How?"

The man tilts his head.  "You have to break the stalemate that the twins have you in.  That'll be hard for someone like you.  You have to be willing to change, Bruce."

Bruce feels a flicker of annoyance that everyone here seems to know his name;  he clings to the annoyance, as it's something other than hopelessness.  "I'm always willing to change."

"Are you?  Really?  In the ways that matter?  I don't mean trying a new kind of decel line or even joining the League--I mean real change, the kind you can't back away from.  The kind that could shatter everything and unmake your world."

Bruce looks around the void, the despairing eyes in the mirrors, none of them Clark's, none of them ever again.  "I can do it."

The man's smile is gigantic.  "Let's go then," he says, reaching out his hand.

Bruce grabs it before he can have second thoughts.

The world turns inside out and annihilates him.

Somehow he's not surprised when he opens his apartment door and finds someone already there.  The figure is dressed in a cream-colored jacket, perfectly cut, with a wine-red cravat at the throat.  The face is perfect, flawless, with the cool, distant symmetry of a Nagal print, pale skin and dark red lips, black hair slicked back and gleaming.  She's the most beautiful woman Clark has ever seen, and he feels fierce hunger moving through him as he meets her glorious eyes, which are golden as amber.  Then the being smiles and lifts a red flower to its lips, and Clark realizes with a shock that it's not a woman, it's a man.

The hunger remains exactly the same.

The perfect man puts the flower in his boutonniere as Clark struggles to control his breathing a little.  It's hopeless.  He's never wanted anything so much.  The man steps forward one step and Clark's whole body yearns.  "Who are you?" he manages.

The being pirouettes in a slow circle, posing, and Clark realizes that he was wrong again, it's a woman.  No.  Gender doesn't apply to it, to its unsplit and whole perfection.  It tilts its head slightly and looks amused at the expression on Clark's face.  "You wanted something, and here I am," it says.

The voice is honey-rich, balanced perfectly between male and female, and yet..."You sound like Bruce," Clark says without thinking.  It's true.  The rhythms and timbre of the voice are instantly recognizable as his friend's.  He would know that voice anywhere.  Anywhere at all.  Even in the mouth of this flawless vision.

"Is that what you want?"  The tawny eyes glimmer as if at a secret joke.

The voice has reminded Clark of his quest.  "I'm looking for him."

"You need him."

It's not quite a statement, not quite a question, and Clark doesn't know how to answer the implications of it.  "I need to find him.  Can you take me to him?"

"Of course I can."  The being's smile feels like it will melt the bones in his body.  "I am, after all, partly responsible for his situation."

"What--what must I do?"  He struggles to articulate the words, feeling at once drowsy and more alert than ever in his life.

"You must submit to me."  The being puts forth one foot, clad in high leather boots.  "As you know you wish to."

Clark sways on his feet, his eyes half-closed, panting.  Then he goes to his knees.  It feels so good, he's drowning in pleasure, in the bliss of submission.  He gets on his hands and knees before the being, aching and hard and enraptured.  "Yes," he says, and puts his lips to the black leather.  "I submit."  Shudders rack his body, not a climax, better than that.  What he's always wanted.

He submits to it and knows his desire at last.

The being steps away lightly, almost dancing.  "You're pretty on your knees," it says, its voice light and mocking.

Clark stares at it, still drunk with insight and yearning.  "You said you'd tell me where Bruce was."

A smile as devoid of humor as a knife;  the figure sniffs delicately at the flower in its lapel.  "I promised no such thing.  I merely said you had to submit to me.  Not that I would owe you anything if you did."

Clark is on his feet again, hands fisted at his sides, but even in his fury he knows he could never lift a hand against this ethereal being.  Its cruelty and beauty are inviolable.  It has shown him the truth and he loves it.  "Please," he begs.

It laughs and leaves.

Strangely, Clark feels no despair now.  He's on the path he's chosen, no matter the cost.  He feels only peace and emptiness as he stumbles to the couch and collapses on it.

He's asleep before he's finished falling.

When the wrenching anguish of dislocation leaves him, Bruce finds himself alone in a small wooded clearing.  The grass is lush and soft, filled with flowers and butterflies;  a brook runs gently through the clearing, gurgling gently in the sunlight.  The air itself is balm, sweeter than anything Bruce has ever breathed before.  It's full of hope and promise.  The gentle sunlight touches his skin.

He waits, filled with anticipation and resolve.

He feels no surprise at all when Clark steps from the wood into the clearing, his eyes puzzled.  Slowly, they well up with joy.  "Bruce," Clark says.  "I found you.  I--"

Before he can think about it, before the promise in the air gives way to trepidation, Bruce goes to him and kisses him.

Clark responds immediately, without hesitation, his mouth warm and sure.  Bruce nibbles on the full lower lip, hisses with delight as Clark deepens the kiss, his tongue exploring.  "This is a dream," Clark murmurs, his voice thick.  "I fell asleep and I'm dreaming of you, my love.  Only a dream."

"It's a dream, yes.  But not only a dream."  Bruce can feel the truth of it in his bones, in the sunlit air around them.  "It's true, too."

"A cogent observation," says a voice from the trees.  A man with unruly black hair and white skin dressed in black robes steps forward.  His eyes are depthless shadows.  He looks, Bruce realizes, tired.

The stranger walks toward them, frowning, and Bruce feels a surprisingly intense thrill of pleasure that Clark keeps one arm tightly around him as the man approaches.  One very pale hand reaches to capture Bruce's chin, and the man tilts Bruce's head to the side, examining him.  It's neither insulting nor sexual, but oddly possessive, as if Bruce is being appraised by someone who knows his value.  "You've been dealing with my brother," the man says.  "You've... changed."

Bruce tightens his grasp on Clark's waist.  "I guess I got tired of the status quo."

The man looks thoughtful, as if Bruce's words have an extra layer of meaning even Bruce isn't aware of.  "I did not think I had created you so.  Interesting.  This will alter everything," he notes.  "And you will both have prices to pay--you for your association with my brother, and you," he says to Clark, "for submitting to my brother-sister.  You understand that?"

Beside him, Clark nods.  "I'll take that risk."  Bruce says nothing, knowing his heart shows in his expression.

The man sighs.  "And yet," he murmurs, "I find I envy you."  He gazes at them and for a moment a light like a star burns in one eye.  "Go then," he says, "From one dream to the next, to deal with the changes you've made."

As dreams often do, the world slides away from Bruce.  But he carries the warmth of Clark's body against his with him and is filled with peace.

Clark holds on to the dream for as long as he can, not wanting to let go of the feeling of Bruce's arm around him like a lover's, terrified of forgetting how Bruce's mouth felt on his.  And yet when he opens his eyes neither of these things has changed.

Bruce is lying next to him on the couch, huddled close to avoid falling off, one arm still wrapped tightly around his waist.  As Clark stares, he pulls himself closer, murmurs something unintelligible, and buries his face in Clark's neck, breathing in deeply as if to memorize the scent of his skin.  Joy and lust cascade through Clark.  "Bruce," he says, his voice shaking.

Bruce's mumble against his neck ends on an inquiring note;  Clark feels a hot tongue dart out and touch his collarbone with infinite delicacy.  He makes a strangled noise, torn between pulling away to get a good look at Bruce's face and crushing the other man even closer, and Bruce laughs and takes pity on him, propping himself up to meet Clark's eyes squarely.  "Clark," he says.  His mouth is unsmiling but there is happiness in his eyes, deep and quiet.

"What happened?"

Bruce touches the corners of Clark's eyes, runs a finger over his eyebrows, traces the curve of his lips as if these are things he never expected to do;  Clark shudders at the touch.  ""I guess I learned how to change," he says.  "Flexibility.  The ability to destroy yourself and then to make yourself anew."

"Oh, " says Clark, although he's not exactly sure he knows what Bruce is talking about, unwilling to interrupt the gentle touches on his face, light as rain.  He closes his eyes in bliss and Bruce's fingers trace his eyelids lightly, smoothing his eyelashes.  "Who was that man, at the end?"

"I'm not sure."  The fingers move to his ear, caressing the curves.  It becomes increasingly difficult to think.  "If that was a dream, he would probably have been the Lord of Dreams."

His body shifts against Clark's;  his motions starting to take on an urgency that Clark has no desire to deny.  But he hangs on to one last question.  "What did he mean when he said he made you?  And he said...'from one dream to the next.'  Does that mean--"

He breaks off with a gasp as Bruce's hands do something particularly inventive and intimate.  "Clark," Bruce says softly, very serious for a moment, "I'm not sure now is the time to be contemplating our metaphysical existence."  His hands and mouth make clear that their physical existence is of primary importance.

Clark holds his desire, his destiny, his dream in his arms and is content in every way.