Christmas with Jonah
Apologies if the formatting is annoying. I've tried to fix it. Apologies also for the typos I've undoubtedly missed. This experience has taught me never to try any serious writing on my iPad, and never to leave my laptop charger at home when I'm 600 miles away for two weeks. >_< But here is my holiday extra with Jonah and Morpheus. Enjoy some Christmas fluff. :)
Jonah closed his eyes, concentrating on the crackling of the fire, the scent of woodsmoke mingling with the smells of hot chocolate and gingersnaps, the texture of a bearskin rug beneath him--the texture he imagined a bearskin rug would have, anyway; he had never actually touched one in the Waking. He imagined the snow falling thick and soft outside, the tendrils of frost spreading across the windowpanes.
"Where are we?"
Jonah's eyes snapped open to find Morpheus eagerly pressing his face to one window, nose smashed flat like a child. Smiling, he took a sip from the steaming mug in his hands before answering. "A cabin in Maine. The way I imagine Maine in December, that is."
"Why?"
"I wanted to sit in front of a fire, pigging out on gingersnaps and hot chocolate while watching the snow." He shrugged. "It seemed Christmassy."
Morpheus' brows drew together in confusion as he turned from the window. "The snow I think I understand; many people dream of what they call a 'white Christmas'. But Maine? Fire? Cookies? Hot chocolate? I do not understand what any of those things have to do with Christmas. I thought things like evergreens, babies, gifts, reindeer, and fat men in red suits who look nothing like Turkish bishops were supposed to be Christmassy."
"Yeah, that too." Jonah grinned. "Maybe it's more that these things remind me of Christmas break from school when I was a kid, and my mom would let me sit in front of the fire and drink hot chocolate with one marshmallow for each year of my age 'plus one to grow on' after I shoveled the driveway and promised not to shake any of the boxes under the tree."
Crossing the room, Morpheus looked around with a growing smile. "I do not know why this is not simply a winter night, but I like it." He flopped down next to Jonah on the rug and leaned back on one elbow, his wings flaring briefly before curling in against his back. "Perhaps it is only in the Dreaming," he said, voice dropping in a way Jonah had come to know well over the past three years, "but there are many dreams of couples alone on bearskin rugs in front of a fire. Very few of them involve this much clothing." The tip of his finger slid under Jonah's sweatshirt to trace a little curlicue on the soft flesh above his hipbone.
Jonah squirmed. "That tickles." He grabbed Morpheus' hand and lifted it to his lips. His eyes traveled down the long, lean lines of Morpheus' body, the gleam of the firelight nearly absorbed into the midnight darkness of his skin. He really was beautiful. "It feels like a terribly cliche scene from a bad seventies movie, but what the hell. Let's do it," Jonah said, pretending he hadn't been hit with a rush of want like a tidal wave the instant Morpheus had started speaking in his bedroom voice. "I've never had sex on an imaginary bearskin rug before."
"Neither have I." Morpheus beamed so brightly Jonah couldn't resist kissing that smile, tongue tingling as though he'd been licking stars. As his hand slipped around the back of Morpheus' neck, he began to feel Morpheus tugging at the dreamspace around him, trying to make Jonah's clothes disappear.
"Sorry, but you're going to have to do that the Waking way. This is my dream." He laughed when that made Morpheus grumble, though it only took a minute more before the rug pressed against naked skin and Jonah found himself fighting to keep the dream together while Morpheus did his best to drive him to distraction. It had become something of a competition between them whenever Jonah built a particularly elaborate dream, Morpheus trying to make Jonah lose control of his dreamspace while Jonah tried to keep his dream from unraveling.
In the end, the dream only flickered at the edges for a few seconds when Jonah spilled into Morpheus' hand. Morpheus didn't say anything about it, but he smirked like a satisfied cat while he licked his fingers clean. While he caught his breath, Jonah lightly stroked the edge of Morpheus' wing, eliciting a shiver. Settling very carefully onto his back so he didn't crush his wings, Morpheus tucked Jonah up against his side.
Jonah looked so pale beside him in this form; most of his forms, really, except the red-haired female. But when Morpheus was in this form, the one he had first shown to Jonah, the one that looked like midnight given a face, he was Jonah's counter image: tall, thin, leanly muscled, beautiful, and dark. Sometimes it still left Jonah feeling a little confused when he looked at his own shorter, softer, rounder, paler body, but Jonah knew Morpheus loved him, and while the attraction may have started with his mind, Morpheus left no doubt that he found Jonah's body just as desirable.
"Love you," Jonah murmured against Morpheus' jaw.
"I love you as well, my dreamer." Morpheus pressed his lips to Jonah's temple. "As you well know."
He did.
"Are you going to be able to get away long enough to come to my parents' house? I know it's a busy time of year for you."
Morpheus hummed, a low rumble in his chest, and carded his fingers through Jonah's hair. "Not so busy that I cannot take a few hours in the waking world with my favorite dreamer and his family. Will your mother make pie again?"
"Have we ever been at my parents' house and not had pie?" Jonah grinned. "She saves all of her new recipes for you, you know. She knows you'll try anything, and you're not as picky as Dad, Emily, and I are." He snuggled closer, burying his nose in Morpheus' neck as Morpheus' wing closed gently around him. The sandalwood scent of Morpheus' power was faint in this dream of Jonah's making, but his own scent lingered, as if he'd been grilling in the rare books section of a library and tried to hide it with incense. Jonah had grown quite fond of it.
"Mostly the house will be full of cookies and chocolate and other sweet things you can eat without silverware."
"Like the edible building? That was part of last year's treats, was it not?"
"Yeah, though it'll be a different building this year. My dad likes to pick different structures every year to replicate. You should have seen the year he did the Sydney opera house." A smile touched his mouth as he remembered the carefully drawn lines of silver icing over the even coat of white, the convex gingerbread shells over baked just enough to keep them from sagging but still soft enough to eat. Some men built model cars out of balsa wood and paint; Jonah's dad built model buildings out of gingerbread and candy. And then ate them with his family.
Winding one of Jonah's curls around his finger, Morpheus exhaled slowly. "I enjoy your family gatherings," he said, tone suddenly somber, "but my family has nothing similar. There are no holidays we celebrate, no foods we can all eat, nor close ties to bring us together. Does that bother you?"
Jonah tilted his face up, eyebrows raised. "Does it bother you?"
"No." Morpheus blinked. "I have not interacted with some of my siblings since... Probably since they came to be. The thought of a family gathering is strange."
"You're telling me." One corner of Jonah's mouth twisted up a little before he pressed his lips to Morpheus' shoulder. "You remember how freaked out I was when you told me we were going to meet Thanatos? That whole experience was completely surreal. I can't imagine meeting everybody at once. How could you even occupy the same place? Is there anywhere all of your worlds meet?"
Morpheus pondered a moment. "I suppose we must all be able to travel to my father's realm. Else we could not have come from it." A bright grin suddenly split his face, a slash of moonlight in the darkness of his skin. "It is rather humorous to imagine us all gathered in our true forms, mingling over hors d'oeuvres and trying to make polite conversation."
Given his single experience with Morpheus' family, Jonah thought it might be more terrifying than funny, but then he was mortal and had to worry about little things like accidentally having his soul carted away into another realm. Standing around in a room full of gods he couldn't see didn't sound like a great time to Jonah. "No, I'm not disappointed to miss out on that experience." He returned Morpheus' grin and added a kiss. "But I'm glad you're coming to mine." One more kiss, a little longer. "Ready to go?"
"With you, my dreamer? Always." He rocked his hips gently against Jonah's belly, hand traveling down from where it had been resting at Jonah's hip to smooth over his ass. "Especially when I am privileged to be inside your mind. You know how incredibly sexy I think it is to watch you manipulate your own dreamspace."
"That's not quite what I meant," Jonah mumbled, face hot, but Morpheus was already rolling them over, nuzzling at Jonah's neck, trailing kisses along his collarbone, sliding his long, elegant fingers up the inside of Jonah's thigh. Jonah's swallowed. "Besides, I don't think I can come again yet. It's only been--"
"But this is the Dreaming!" Morpheus groaned, laughter tickling the hair on Jonah's chest. "If you want to, we can. But you will have to let it happen, and I know how hard that can be for your mind to allow."
Jonah smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, I still forget all the time."
"I know." He looked at Jonah so fondly that Jonah's breath caught for a moment. Out of all the mortals who had ever lived, he was the only one who got to look into this immortal face. To see that face so full of love, and for him, astounded him every time. "So, yes or no?"
"Umm." Jonah tried to see if he could convince himself to break Waking rules. It wasn't that hard to imagine that Morpheus could get him hard again in a few minutes. Of course, Morpheus' wandering fingers were both helping to convince him and hurting his concentration. "Oh!" He gasped as Morpheus squeezed lightly. "That's cheating!" A smug smile spread across Morpheus' mouth, but he said nothing, just continued to wait while his hand kept doing evil things. "Yeah, all right," Jonah conceded. "But we'll have to make it quick. I don't want to be late."
"Let us race." The glint in his eyes made nervous, horny butterflies start kicking up a fuss in Jonah's stomach. "I predict I will win."
He did, though Jonah maintained that it was because he got a head start. And they were only a little late. They might even have been early if Morpheus hadn't insisted on wearing the Christmas sweater Jonah had gotten him as sort of a joke two years before and then lost in the back of his closet. Jonah hadn't realized how seriously Morpheus had taken the gift until he saw the expression on his face when he thought it was gone forever.
"It was my first Christmas present," Morpheus said quietly outside the door of Jonah's parents' house as he straightened the high-fiving reindeer on his chest, rustling the jingle bell buttons in the process. "I know it is not a particularly handsome piece of apparel and does little for my own appearance, but I am fond of it, if only because you gave it to me and it made you smile."
"My mother will love it." She had always been fond of Christmas sweaters, the uglier the better, much to Jonah's embarrassment growing up. She made up for it, though, by making more and better cookies than everybody else's moms.
With his arms full of packages, it took a moment to get the door open. He nearly dropped his nephew's present, but Morpheus caught it and placed it carefully back on top of the stack, taking the opportunity for a quick kiss. Jonah's mother met them in the hallway, standing on her tiptoes to hug Morpheus before wrapping her arms around Jonah. He pressed a kiss to her cheek, her soft, cinnamon sugar embrace plunging him instantly into a sense of home. "Merry Christmas, Mom."
"Merry Christmas, Jonah bear." She widened her eyes meaningfully as her arms fell back to her sides. "You'll never guess who's here. Your great aunt Marlys stopped by."
"The one who's allergic to everything and tells you specifically not to put away your Christmas decorations or make her anything special to eat when you offer, and then complains about the candles and the pine boughs and all of the things she can't eat?"
She offered a forced smile. "And Great Uncle Ned came, too."
Great Uncle Ned, who found fault with everyone and everything except his own children and grandchildren. Jonah grimaced, aware he was in for an evening of hearing all about how far short he fell of his cousins. His poor mother had undoubtedly been suffering their pointed remarks all afternoon. "How long are they staying?"
"They said half an hour. Of course, that was three hours ago." She dropped the pretense of delight and wrinkled her nose. "You had better get in there and save your boyfriend."
Morpheus was standing just inside the doorway, Jonah's nephew clinging to his leg. "Come see what I got, Uncle Phee! I got so many presents. Baby Abby didn't get hardly anything good, but I got a ton of awesome things." He started to list them, then noticed Jonah lurking behind Morpheus and paused long enough to stick his head out around Morpheus' leg and say, "Hi, Uncle Jonah," before he was tugging on Morpheus' hand again. Morpheus grinned over his shoulder as he let Zeke drag him to the corner of the room where a heap of shiny new toys lay waiting for someone with the kind of imagination that created all of the world's dreams.
"Jonah!"
He plastered a smile on his face and turned to the sofa. "Hello, Aunt Marlys, Uncle Ned. Good to see you again. You're looking well." That was a complete lie, since Aunt Marlys' eyes were red and running, and neither of them looked as though they had seen either sun or full health in months.
"It has been quite a while, hasn't it?" Aunt Marlys sniffed dramatically, making a show of pulling out her handkerchief and wiping her nose while she glared at the pine branches and candles on the mantel. "You're looking so much older. I take it you have a job at the moment? You certainly don't appear to be having trouble feeding yourself, at any rate." She smiled as though she had just paid him a compliment, though her tone made it quite clear that she hadn't been thinking anything kind.
Jonah didn't let his expression waver. "I'm still employed by the same company where I was working last time I saw you. "
Uncle Ned pursed his lips. "Your cousin Gerry has just gotten promoted for the second time with his new company. He's thinking of starting his own business soon."
"Good for him." Jonah glanced longingly at the corner where Morpheus was playing with Zeke. Morpheus looked up and smiled when he caught his eyes.
"Jonah, why do you not join us? This fire truck cannot drive itself."
"Uncle Jonah's not very good at pretending." Zeke looked dubious.
"I know." Morpheus' eyes regarded Jonah warmly. "It is quite remarkable, is it not?"
Jonah rolled his eyes, but he could feel a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Sure, I'll play. I just want to make sure that Aunt Marlys and Uncle Ned aren't being neglected."
"Oh, don't worry about us old folks. We can entertain ourselves," Aunt Marlys said just as Uncle Ned said, "Who's that?"
Zeke stared at them as though they were idiots. "That's Uncle Phee." With a dismissive snort, he turned back to the ambulance in his hand.
Jonah smothered a grin. "He's my partner."
Aunt Marlys fixed him with a narrow eyed gaze. "Partner?"
"Boyfriend," he clarified. "Going on four years now." He didn't watch for her reaction. It didn't matter.
Uncle Ned sniffed, but before he could make an undoubtedly disparaging remark, Aunt Marlys asked, "What part of Africa are you from, Phee? I don't think I've ever seen anyone quite as black as you."
Jonah had just enough time to panic when he recognized the look on Morpheus' face before Morpheus opened his broadly smiling mouth and began to weave a complete fabrication. "I am from the Songhai Empire."
"The what?" Jonah's sister Emily mouthed from where she sat in a recliner a few feet left of where Morpheus was playing with her son. In response, Jonah just shrugged helplessly.
"Songhai? Isn't that in China?" Marlys was saying. "You don't look Asian."
"You're thinking of Shanghai." Uncle Ned scowled at Morpheus as though his wife's geographical failings were his fault. "Where is this Songhai place? I can't keep up with the changing names and borders over there. You people always seem to be in the midst of some sort of civil unrest."
Jonah had to bite his tongue hard to refrain from saying something rude. Uncle Ned wasn't worth the breath. Besides, if he got pulled into this, he was going to have to start lying, and then everybody would know something was up. Morpheus just tilted his head slightly, brow furrowed, and said, "Have you not heard of Gao? Or perhaps you are more familiar with Timbuktu."
Emily raised an eyebrow pointedly. Jonah made a face at her, and then stuck his tongue out to make the baby in her lap giggle. Morpheus kept speaking. "My father was one of the qadi, very well respected in my village. My mother came from a family of salt traders. My sister married very well."
"Probably traded the girl for a few camels," Uncle Ned muttered under his breath.
"Yes!" Morpheus replied in the same voice he used when Jonah or Zeke gave him a suggestion he liked. "Her husband gave my father three camels and a pound of salt because she is very beautiful and our family is rich and well connected."
Jonah had no idea how believable that was, but given that Morpheus had declared himself a citizen of an empire that no longer existed, Jonah probably shouldn't worry too much about Morpheus' fake sister's dowry tipping them off.
"Your English is pretty good." Aunt Marlys managed to make it sound like an accusation. She regarded Morpheus suspiciously. "Not much of an accent for an African."
Completely disregarding her intent, Morpheus smiled broadly. "Thank you. I have worked very hard to make it so. I had excellent teachers."
"All the way out there in Timbuktu?"
"Of course." Morpheus blinked, baffled. "There is nowhere better in all of Africa to study."
Another disdainful sniff from Uncle Ned.
"So," Emily interrupted. Jonah threw her a grateful look. "Zeke, why don't you explain to Uncle Jonah what you and Uncle Phee are playing?"
"Well, this ambulance is really a spaceship, and I'm the captain, and Uncle Phee is a pirate, and that fire truck is his spaceship, and these rail cars are the booty he's trying to... What was that word you used, Uncle Phee?"
"Plunder."
"Oh yeah. He's trying to plunder these from me."
Inwardly Jonah sighed. This was why he was bad at entertaining Zeke. Why did all of the toys have to be something other than what they appeared to be? But Zeke was staring at Morpheus with outright hero worship, and Morpheus had the same satisfied expression he wore after creating a new dream, so Jonah squatted down beside them and picked up a dump truck. "And who am I?"
"You are the officer of the law. You must protect the captain and his cargo and capture me." Morpheus winked at Jonah, then leaned over to kiss his cheek.
"Eww. Pirates don't kiss police officers. They hate each other."
"Oh no, not this pirate and this police officer. This pirate is in love with this police officer, but he does not think the police officer can love him, since he is a pirate. So he is trying to get the police officer to notice him, maybe trying a little to get caught."
Wrinkling his nose, Zeke shook his head. "He doesn't sound like a very good pirate."
Morpheus leaned in conspiratorially. "He is the best pirate. He fears nothing, because if he does his job well, he will be very rich, and if he does his job poorly, the man he loves will come. This makes him a very daring pirate, willing to take on any task. And robbing your spaceship is the most dangerous task of all." Zeke nodded very hard. "It is time to load up your cargo, captain. And time for you to catch me if you can, officer." He whispered in Jonah's ear, "Don't let me catch you first. You know what happens then."
Jonah shivered, thinking about the last time Pirate Captain Morpheus had captured Jonah in the Dreaming. He certainly wouldn't mind repeating the experience, but not in front of his nephew.
To his surprise, Jonah actually had fun playing and wasn't completely terrible at it. His experience with the Dreaming definitely helped; he didn't think he would have known what to do if the same scenario had taken place four years earlier. When they reached the part where Jonah captured the dastardly pirate, Morpheus informed him, "Now you have to drag me off to the jail. Which is," he looked around for a few moments, then pointed to the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, "right there."
Jonah obligingly got to his feet and pulled Morpheus up, holding his wrists behind his back. Morpheus winked at Zeke, who giggled as Jonah dragged Morpheus across the room toward "jail".
When they reached jail, Morpheus turned around triumphantly and pointed to the top of the door frame. "I got you under the mistletoe. Now you have to kiss me." A flicker of doubt crossed his face. "Right?"
Jonah laughed, reaching up to cup the back of Morpheus' head. "Yeah, that's how it goes." Mindful that Zeke was probably watching, Jonah tried to keep the kiss chaste and brief, but Morpheus' mouth chased his when he tried to pull away, and the moment stretched between them into a minute of mingled breaths and soft brushes of lips.
"If we step away and I pull you right back, do you have to kiss me again?" Morpheus' eyes were hopeful.
Jonah shook his head. "I don't think it works like that. But, although I have kissed you, you haven't kissed me yet under the mistletoe, so we might be able to squeeze one more out of it on a technicality."
Morpheus grinned and pulled him into a hot, open-mouthed affair that left Jonah slightly lightheaded. He hardly even noticed Jeremy's whistle or Emily's laughter, too caught up in the warm, wet slide of Morpheus' tongue against his and the tight grip of his hand in Jonah's hair. After they broke apart, Jonah just stood for a moment regaining his bearings. Morpheus chuckled when he saw Jonah's face. "If we are allowed only one, we should make it a worthy one."
Jonah's ears burned a little and he buried his face in Morpheus' shoulder, muffling his embarrassed laughter. "Maybe we should consider putting up some mistletoe in our apartment."
"Well, I don't know how they do things in Shanghai, but that sort of behavior in public is positively shameful." At the sound of Aunt Marlys' voice, Jonah let out a heavy sigh and stepped away from Morpheus.
"Craig and Alice would never do that," Uncle Ned agreed.
"Oh, come on." Emily rolled her eyes. "It's Christmas, they're under the mistletoe, ad they're practically married. Probably would be, if it were legal."
Probably wouldn't be, Jonah thought. There wouldn't be any way around Morpheus' lack of public records, and no state was likely to give a marriage license to a guy who had no birth certificate, no visa, no passport, no identification of any kind. Morpheus couldn't even apply for a driver's license. But that was okay; Jonah didn't need a piece of paper to tell him that he and Morpheus were together for eternity. Besides, a face to face meeting with the god of death to beg for Jonah's immortality carried a little more clout than a ceremony in front of a judge.
In the end, Uncle Ned and Aunt Marlys ended up staying for dinner, none of which Aunt Marlys ate but all of which she complained about, and then they departed. The entire house breathed a collective sigh of relief, and then Jonah's mom brought out the cookies and the pie, and Jonah's dad brought out his gingerbread Kremlin, and they all pigged out until their stomachs hurt and they could just barely heave themselves out of their chairs to gather around the tree.
While there were some drawbacks to Morpheus' access to the subconscious of everyone in the world--Mike and Sarah's announcement that they were expecting had sort of been ruined by Jonah's involvement in helping Morpheus create the baby's new bubble of dreamspace, since she was going to start dreaming well before she was born--he was amazing at picking gifts for people. He didn't really understand cost, so sometimes Jonah had to get a list of several suggestions before Morpheus got to one Jonah could actually afford, but Jonah loved giving gifts he knew people really wanted, and Morpheus still hadn't gotten over his fascination with the mall, which made even the shopping bearable.
After all the gifts were open, Zeke had a toy in hand, and Baby Abby had a piece of wrapping paper in her fist to chew, Jonah's mother sat down at the piano and pretended she could play while she coerced them all into singing a few Christmas carols. Morpheus sang along enthusiastically with any tune he recognized, though Jonah had to muffle a laugh or two at his interesting version of some of the words. On the other hand, he knew all about King Wenceslaus, which nobody else in Jonah's family did.
Before he knew it, Jonah was packing their gifts into the car and kissing his mother goodbye while she pressed a tin of cookies into his hands. As Jonah got the car running, Morpheus scraped the snow and ice off the windshield and windows, only getting distracted by studying the individual snowflakes twice. He stuck his tongue out to catch some, face lighting up as they melted cold against his skin. For a minute, Jonah just watched, feeling sappy and schmoopy and hopelessly in love. Then he rolled down his window. "Get in the car before you get frostbite. It's ten below out there and you're not wearing gloves or a hat."
"Yes, beloved." Morpheus slid into the passenger seat, clicked his seatbelt into place, and held his hands out in front of the vent to warm. "I had a good time tonight."
"Even with Uncle Ned and Aunt Marlys?" Jonah raised an eyebrow, giving him an oblique look before backing out of the driveway.
"It was nice that Edward and Marlys could join us. They are very lonely, and their own children spend far less time with them than they would like. But their children have little respect for them and even less time, because they have focused on their careers as Edward taught them, and their parents' inferior education embarrasses them. I have done what I can for them in the Dreaming, but you know that unhappy people often request unhappy dreams. When they ask for more pleasant scenes, I give them dreams of evenings like this. Marlys and Edward have both been dreaming of a family like yours for quite some time, and I think it was pleasant change for them to spend an afternoon with relatives without being ridiculed by those they most want to love them."
At the next red light, Jonah took his hand off the gearshift and hooked it around the back of Morpheus' neck. Then he kissed him, sweet and slow, until the light turned green and the car behind them honked.
"What did I do to earn that?"
"You were just yourself." Jonah smiled at him. "Thanks."
At home, Jonah pulled Morpheus in for one more kiss, just because he could, and led the way into their living room. Each of them picked up the packages they had placed under the tiny artificial tree earlier that week and took them back to the sofa, exchanging self conscious smiles as they settled into opposite ends, legs drawn up between them, tangled together.
"Well?" Morpheus broke the moment of awkward silence. "What did you get me?"
Jonah thrust the badly wrapped stack of biographies into Morpheus' hands. He wished he could have thought of something better, but it was hard when Morpheus spent so little time in the Waking and objects couldn't travel between realms. Still, Morpheus exclaimed excitedly about each book, telling Jonah something about the dreams of the title figure.
"I know you met all these people, but I thought you might want to know something about their Waking lives, too."
Morpheus gave him that bright smile that went straight to Jonah's heart every time and seemed to squeeze it a little. "Thank you, beloved. I look forward to reading them." He leaned forward until their lips met briefly, depositing a package in Jonah's hands as he did so.
Curious, Jonah tore open the wrapping to find a soft leather bound journal. "It's beautiful." Running his fingers along the edges of the beveled pages, he noticed ink on some of them and flipped the journal open. It wasn't blank, as he had thought, but filled with page after page of Morpheus' old-fashioned scrawl.
"I was not entirely sure what to get you," Morpheus said, looking up at Jonah shyly through his lashes, "but Mike told me that the gifts I was contemplating were too expensive to buy with your credit card, and I do not have any money of my own. I asked what you would want, and he told me you wanted only me. So I wrote a description of my family for you. There are a few pages for each family member, and then some memories of us together and of my time in the Dreaming before you arrived."
Jonah paged through the journal again, more slowly this time, reading snippets and noticing the small sketches scattered throughout. "Thank you. It's perfect." He surged forward to kiss Morpheus again, hard and enthusiastic. "You're perfect."
"I'm glad you like it." Morpheus sat up, confidence regained, and put his arm around Jonah. "I will have to return to the Dreaming soon, but perhaps for a few minutes we can sit together."
"Don't let me fall asleep on your shoulder again. That didn't end well last time." Just thinking about the crick in his neck when he'd woken up on the empty couch made him itch to roll his shoulders.
"I will keep you here with me until it is time to return." Morpheus kissed the top of Jonah's head. Jonah relaxed against him, snuggling close and basking in the warm solidity of Morpheus' body beside his, watching the twinkle of the Christmas lights.
It wasn't long before Jonah could feel the pull of sleep and that unfolding awareness of the Dreaming nearby. "Time?" he murmured.
"Yes." Morpheus helped Jonah to his feet and walked him into the bedroom, where he helped him undress and shed his own clothes before sliding between the cool sheets. Searching out Jonah's hand, he laced their fingers together. "Good night, dreamer. Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas," Jonah slurred, already half asleep. "See you in a minute." And when he opened his eyes again, Morpheus was waiting.
Jonah closed his eyes, concentrating on the crackling of the fire, the scent of woodsmoke mingling with the smells of hot chocolate and gingersnaps, the texture of a bearskin rug beneath him--the texture he imagined a bearskin rug would have, anyway; he had never actually touched one in the Waking. He imagined the snow falling thick and soft outside, the tendrils of frost spreading across the windowpanes.
"Where are we?"
Jonah's eyes snapped open to find Morpheus eagerly pressing his face to one window, nose smashed flat like a child. Smiling, he took a sip from the steaming mug in his hands before answering. "A cabin in Maine. The way I imagine Maine in December, that is."
"Why?"
"I wanted to sit in front of a fire, pigging out on gingersnaps and hot chocolate while watching the snow." He shrugged. "It seemed Christmassy."
Morpheus' brows drew together in confusion as he turned from the window. "The snow I think I understand; many people dream of what they call a 'white Christmas'. But Maine? Fire? Cookies? Hot chocolate? I do not understand what any of those things have to do with Christmas. I thought things like evergreens, babies, gifts, reindeer, and fat men in red suits who look nothing like Turkish bishops were supposed to be Christmassy."
"Yeah, that too." Jonah grinned. "Maybe it's more that these things remind me of Christmas break from school when I was a kid, and my mom would let me sit in front of the fire and drink hot chocolate with one marshmallow for each year of my age 'plus one to grow on' after I shoveled the driveway and promised not to shake any of the boxes under the tree."
Crossing the room, Morpheus looked around with a growing smile. "I do not know why this is not simply a winter night, but I like it." He flopped down next to Jonah on the rug and leaned back on one elbow, his wings flaring briefly before curling in against his back. "Perhaps it is only in the Dreaming," he said, voice dropping in a way Jonah had come to know well over the past three years, "but there are many dreams of couples alone on bearskin rugs in front of a fire. Very few of them involve this much clothing." The tip of his finger slid under Jonah's sweatshirt to trace a little curlicue on the soft flesh above his hipbone.
Jonah squirmed. "That tickles." He grabbed Morpheus' hand and lifted it to his lips. His eyes traveled down the long, lean lines of Morpheus' body, the gleam of the firelight nearly absorbed into the midnight darkness of his skin. He really was beautiful. "It feels like a terribly cliche scene from a bad seventies movie, but what the hell. Let's do it," Jonah said, pretending he hadn't been hit with a rush of want like a tidal wave the instant Morpheus had started speaking in his bedroom voice. "I've never had sex on an imaginary bearskin rug before."
"Neither have I." Morpheus beamed so brightly Jonah couldn't resist kissing that smile, tongue tingling as though he'd been licking stars. As his hand slipped around the back of Morpheus' neck, he began to feel Morpheus tugging at the dreamspace around him, trying to make Jonah's clothes disappear.
"Sorry, but you're going to have to do that the Waking way. This is my dream." He laughed when that made Morpheus grumble, though it only took a minute more before the rug pressed against naked skin and Jonah found himself fighting to keep the dream together while Morpheus did his best to drive him to distraction. It had become something of a competition between them whenever Jonah built a particularly elaborate dream, Morpheus trying to make Jonah lose control of his dreamspace while Jonah tried to keep his dream from unraveling.
In the end, the dream only flickered at the edges for a few seconds when Jonah spilled into Morpheus' hand. Morpheus didn't say anything about it, but he smirked like a satisfied cat while he licked his fingers clean. While he caught his breath, Jonah lightly stroked the edge of Morpheus' wing, eliciting a shiver. Settling very carefully onto his back so he didn't crush his wings, Morpheus tucked Jonah up against his side.
Jonah looked so pale beside him in this form; most of his forms, really, except the red-haired female. But when Morpheus was in this form, the one he had first shown to Jonah, the one that looked like midnight given a face, he was Jonah's counter image: tall, thin, leanly muscled, beautiful, and dark. Sometimes it still left Jonah feeling a little confused when he looked at his own shorter, softer, rounder, paler body, but Jonah knew Morpheus loved him, and while the attraction may have started with his mind, Morpheus left no doubt that he found Jonah's body just as desirable.
"Love you," Jonah murmured against Morpheus' jaw.
"I love you as well, my dreamer." Morpheus pressed his lips to Jonah's temple. "As you well know."
He did.
"Are you going to be able to get away long enough to come to my parents' house? I know it's a busy time of year for you."
Morpheus hummed, a low rumble in his chest, and carded his fingers through Jonah's hair. "Not so busy that I cannot take a few hours in the waking world with my favorite dreamer and his family. Will your mother make pie again?"
"Have we ever been at my parents' house and not had pie?" Jonah grinned. "She saves all of her new recipes for you, you know. She knows you'll try anything, and you're not as picky as Dad, Emily, and I are." He snuggled closer, burying his nose in Morpheus' neck as Morpheus' wing closed gently around him. The sandalwood scent of Morpheus' power was faint in this dream of Jonah's making, but his own scent lingered, as if he'd been grilling in the rare books section of a library and tried to hide it with incense. Jonah had grown quite fond of it.
"Mostly the house will be full of cookies and chocolate and other sweet things you can eat without silverware."
"Like the edible building? That was part of last year's treats, was it not?"
"Yeah, though it'll be a different building this year. My dad likes to pick different structures every year to replicate. You should have seen the year he did the Sydney opera house." A smile touched his mouth as he remembered the carefully drawn lines of silver icing over the even coat of white, the convex gingerbread shells over baked just enough to keep them from sagging but still soft enough to eat. Some men built model cars out of balsa wood and paint; Jonah's dad built model buildings out of gingerbread and candy. And then ate them with his family.
Winding one of Jonah's curls around his finger, Morpheus exhaled slowly. "I enjoy your family gatherings," he said, tone suddenly somber, "but my family has nothing similar. There are no holidays we celebrate, no foods we can all eat, nor close ties to bring us together. Does that bother you?"
Jonah tilted his face up, eyebrows raised. "Does it bother you?"
"No." Morpheus blinked. "I have not interacted with some of my siblings since... Probably since they came to be. The thought of a family gathering is strange."
"You're telling me." One corner of Jonah's mouth twisted up a little before he pressed his lips to Morpheus' shoulder. "You remember how freaked out I was when you told me we were going to meet Thanatos? That whole experience was completely surreal. I can't imagine meeting everybody at once. How could you even occupy the same place? Is there anywhere all of your worlds meet?"
Morpheus pondered a moment. "I suppose we must all be able to travel to my father's realm. Else we could not have come from it." A bright grin suddenly split his face, a slash of moonlight in the darkness of his skin. "It is rather humorous to imagine us all gathered in our true forms, mingling over hors d'oeuvres and trying to make polite conversation."
Given his single experience with Morpheus' family, Jonah thought it might be more terrifying than funny, but then he was mortal and had to worry about little things like accidentally having his soul carted away into another realm. Standing around in a room full of gods he couldn't see didn't sound like a great time to Jonah. "No, I'm not disappointed to miss out on that experience." He returned Morpheus' grin and added a kiss. "But I'm glad you're coming to mine." One more kiss, a little longer. "Ready to go?"
"With you, my dreamer? Always." He rocked his hips gently against Jonah's belly, hand traveling down from where it had been resting at Jonah's hip to smooth over his ass. "Especially when I am privileged to be inside your mind. You know how incredibly sexy I think it is to watch you manipulate your own dreamspace."
"That's not quite what I meant," Jonah mumbled, face hot, but Morpheus was already rolling them over, nuzzling at Jonah's neck, trailing kisses along his collarbone, sliding his long, elegant fingers up the inside of Jonah's thigh. Jonah's swallowed. "Besides, I don't think I can come again yet. It's only been--"
"But this is the Dreaming!" Morpheus groaned, laughter tickling the hair on Jonah's chest. "If you want to, we can. But you will have to let it happen, and I know how hard that can be for your mind to allow."
Jonah smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, I still forget all the time."
"I know." He looked at Jonah so fondly that Jonah's breath caught for a moment. Out of all the mortals who had ever lived, he was the only one who got to look into this immortal face. To see that face so full of love, and for him, astounded him every time. "So, yes or no?"
"Umm." Jonah tried to see if he could convince himself to break Waking rules. It wasn't that hard to imagine that Morpheus could get him hard again in a few minutes. Of course, Morpheus' wandering fingers were both helping to convince him and hurting his concentration. "Oh!" He gasped as Morpheus squeezed lightly. "That's cheating!" A smug smile spread across Morpheus' mouth, but he said nothing, just continued to wait while his hand kept doing evil things. "Yeah, all right," Jonah conceded. "But we'll have to make it quick. I don't want to be late."
"Let us race." The glint in his eyes made nervous, horny butterflies start kicking up a fuss in Jonah's stomach. "I predict I will win."
He did, though Jonah maintained that it was because he got a head start. And they were only a little late. They might even have been early if Morpheus hadn't insisted on wearing the Christmas sweater Jonah had gotten him as sort of a joke two years before and then lost in the back of his closet. Jonah hadn't realized how seriously Morpheus had taken the gift until he saw the expression on his face when he thought it was gone forever.
"It was my first Christmas present," Morpheus said quietly outside the door of Jonah's parents' house as he straightened the high-fiving reindeer on his chest, rustling the jingle bell buttons in the process. "I know it is not a particularly handsome piece of apparel and does little for my own appearance, but I am fond of it, if only because you gave it to me and it made you smile."
"My mother will love it." She had always been fond of Christmas sweaters, the uglier the better, much to Jonah's embarrassment growing up. She made up for it, though, by making more and better cookies than everybody else's moms.
With his arms full of packages, it took a moment to get the door open. He nearly dropped his nephew's present, but Morpheus caught it and placed it carefully back on top of the stack, taking the opportunity for a quick kiss. Jonah's mother met them in the hallway, standing on her tiptoes to hug Morpheus before wrapping her arms around Jonah. He pressed a kiss to her cheek, her soft, cinnamon sugar embrace plunging him instantly into a sense of home. "Merry Christmas, Mom."
"Merry Christmas, Jonah bear." She widened her eyes meaningfully as her arms fell back to her sides. "You'll never guess who's here. Your great aunt Marlys stopped by."
"The one who's allergic to everything and tells you specifically not to put away your Christmas decorations or make her anything special to eat when you offer, and then complains about the candles and the pine boughs and all of the things she can't eat?"
She offered a forced smile. "And Great Uncle Ned came, too."
Great Uncle Ned, who found fault with everyone and everything except his own children and grandchildren. Jonah grimaced, aware he was in for an evening of hearing all about how far short he fell of his cousins. His poor mother had undoubtedly been suffering their pointed remarks all afternoon. "How long are they staying?"
"They said half an hour. Of course, that was three hours ago." She dropped the pretense of delight and wrinkled her nose. "You had better get in there and save your boyfriend."
Morpheus was standing just inside the doorway, Jonah's nephew clinging to his leg. "Come see what I got, Uncle Phee! I got so many presents. Baby Abby didn't get hardly anything good, but I got a ton of awesome things." He started to list them, then noticed Jonah lurking behind Morpheus and paused long enough to stick his head out around Morpheus' leg and say, "Hi, Uncle Jonah," before he was tugging on Morpheus' hand again. Morpheus grinned over his shoulder as he let Zeke drag him to the corner of the room where a heap of shiny new toys lay waiting for someone with the kind of imagination that created all of the world's dreams.
"Jonah!"
He plastered a smile on his face and turned to the sofa. "Hello, Aunt Marlys, Uncle Ned. Good to see you again. You're looking well." That was a complete lie, since Aunt Marlys' eyes were red and running, and neither of them looked as though they had seen either sun or full health in months.
"It has been quite a while, hasn't it?" Aunt Marlys sniffed dramatically, making a show of pulling out her handkerchief and wiping her nose while she glared at the pine branches and candles on the mantel. "You're looking so much older. I take it you have a job at the moment? You certainly don't appear to be having trouble feeding yourself, at any rate." She smiled as though she had just paid him a compliment, though her tone made it quite clear that she hadn't been thinking anything kind.
Jonah didn't let his expression waver. "I'm still employed by the same company where I was working last time I saw you. "
Uncle Ned pursed his lips. "Your cousin Gerry has just gotten promoted for the second time with his new company. He's thinking of starting his own business soon."
"Good for him." Jonah glanced longingly at the corner where Morpheus was playing with Zeke. Morpheus looked up and smiled when he caught his eyes.
"Jonah, why do you not join us? This fire truck cannot drive itself."
"Uncle Jonah's not very good at pretending." Zeke looked dubious.
"I know." Morpheus' eyes regarded Jonah warmly. "It is quite remarkable, is it not?"
Jonah rolled his eyes, but he could feel a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Sure, I'll play. I just want to make sure that Aunt Marlys and Uncle Ned aren't being neglected."
"Oh, don't worry about us old folks. We can entertain ourselves," Aunt Marlys said just as Uncle Ned said, "Who's that?"
Zeke stared at them as though they were idiots. "That's Uncle Phee." With a dismissive snort, he turned back to the ambulance in his hand.
Jonah smothered a grin. "He's my partner."
Aunt Marlys fixed him with a narrow eyed gaze. "Partner?"
"Boyfriend," he clarified. "Going on four years now." He didn't watch for her reaction. It didn't matter.
Uncle Ned sniffed, but before he could make an undoubtedly disparaging remark, Aunt Marlys asked, "What part of Africa are you from, Phee? I don't think I've ever seen anyone quite as black as you."
Jonah had just enough time to panic when he recognized the look on Morpheus' face before Morpheus opened his broadly smiling mouth and began to weave a complete fabrication. "I am from the Songhai Empire."
"The what?" Jonah's sister Emily mouthed from where she sat in a recliner a few feet left of where Morpheus was playing with her son. In response, Jonah just shrugged helplessly.
"Songhai? Isn't that in China?" Marlys was saying. "You don't look Asian."
"You're thinking of Shanghai." Uncle Ned scowled at Morpheus as though his wife's geographical failings were his fault. "Where is this Songhai place? I can't keep up with the changing names and borders over there. You people always seem to be in the midst of some sort of civil unrest."
Jonah had to bite his tongue hard to refrain from saying something rude. Uncle Ned wasn't worth the breath. Besides, if he got pulled into this, he was going to have to start lying, and then everybody would know something was up. Morpheus just tilted his head slightly, brow furrowed, and said, "Have you not heard of Gao? Or perhaps you are more familiar with Timbuktu."
Emily raised an eyebrow pointedly. Jonah made a face at her, and then stuck his tongue out to make the baby in her lap giggle. Morpheus kept speaking. "My father was one of the qadi, very well respected in my village. My mother came from a family of salt traders. My sister married very well."
"Probably traded the girl for a few camels," Uncle Ned muttered under his breath.
"Yes!" Morpheus replied in the same voice he used when Jonah or Zeke gave him a suggestion he liked. "Her husband gave my father three camels and a pound of salt because she is very beautiful and our family is rich and well connected."
Jonah had no idea how believable that was, but given that Morpheus had declared himself a citizen of an empire that no longer existed, Jonah probably shouldn't worry too much about Morpheus' fake sister's dowry tipping them off.
"Your English is pretty good." Aunt Marlys managed to make it sound like an accusation. She regarded Morpheus suspiciously. "Not much of an accent for an African."
Completely disregarding her intent, Morpheus smiled broadly. "Thank you. I have worked very hard to make it so. I had excellent teachers."
"All the way out there in Timbuktu?"
"Of course." Morpheus blinked, baffled. "There is nowhere better in all of Africa to study."
Another disdainful sniff from Uncle Ned.
"So," Emily interrupted. Jonah threw her a grateful look. "Zeke, why don't you explain to Uncle Jonah what you and Uncle Phee are playing?"
"Well, this ambulance is really a spaceship, and I'm the captain, and Uncle Phee is a pirate, and that fire truck is his spaceship, and these rail cars are the booty he's trying to... What was that word you used, Uncle Phee?"
"Plunder."
"Oh yeah. He's trying to plunder these from me."
Inwardly Jonah sighed. This was why he was bad at entertaining Zeke. Why did all of the toys have to be something other than what they appeared to be? But Zeke was staring at Morpheus with outright hero worship, and Morpheus had the same satisfied expression he wore after creating a new dream, so Jonah squatted down beside them and picked up a dump truck. "And who am I?"
"You are the officer of the law. You must protect the captain and his cargo and capture me." Morpheus winked at Jonah, then leaned over to kiss his cheek.
"Eww. Pirates don't kiss police officers. They hate each other."
"Oh no, not this pirate and this police officer. This pirate is in love with this police officer, but he does not think the police officer can love him, since he is a pirate. So he is trying to get the police officer to notice him, maybe trying a little to get caught."
Wrinkling his nose, Zeke shook his head. "He doesn't sound like a very good pirate."
Morpheus leaned in conspiratorially. "He is the best pirate. He fears nothing, because if he does his job well, he will be very rich, and if he does his job poorly, the man he loves will come. This makes him a very daring pirate, willing to take on any task. And robbing your spaceship is the most dangerous task of all." Zeke nodded very hard. "It is time to load up your cargo, captain. And time for you to catch me if you can, officer." He whispered in Jonah's ear, "Don't let me catch you first. You know what happens then."
Jonah shivered, thinking about the last time Pirate Captain Morpheus had captured Jonah in the Dreaming. He certainly wouldn't mind repeating the experience, but not in front of his nephew.
To his surprise, Jonah actually had fun playing and wasn't completely terrible at it. His experience with the Dreaming definitely helped; he didn't think he would have known what to do if the same scenario had taken place four years earlier. When they reached the part where Jonah captured the dastardly pirate, Morpheus informed him, "Now you have to drag me off to the jail. Which is," he looked around for a few moments, then pointed to the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, "right there."
Jonah obligingly got to his feet and pulled Morpheus up, holding his wrists behind his back. Morpheus winked at Zeke, who giggled as Jonah dragged Morpheus across the room toward "jail".
When they reached jail, Morpheus turned around triumphantly and pointed to the top of the door frame. "I got you under the mistletoe. Now you have to kiss me." A flicker of doubt crossed his face. "Right?"
Jonah laughed, reaching up to cup the back of Morpheus' head. "Yeah, that's how it goes." Mindful that Zeke was probably watching, Jonah tried to keep the kiss chaste and brief, but Morpheus' mouth chased his when he tried to pull away, and the moment stretched between them into a minute of mingled breaths and soft brushes of lips.
"If we step away and I pull you right back, do you have to kiss me again?" Morpheus' eyes were hopeful.
Jonah shook his head. "I don't think it works like that. But, although I have kissed you, you haven't kissed me yet under the mistletoe, so we might be able to squeeze one more out of it on a technicality."
Morpheus grinned and pulled him into a hot, open-mouthed affair that left Jonah slightly lightheaded. He hardly even noticed Jeremy's whistle or Emily's laughter, too caught up in the warm, wet slide of Morpheus' tongue against his and the tight grip of his hand in Jonah's hair. After they broke apart, Jonah just stood for a moment regaining his bearings. Morpheus chuckled when he saw Jonah's face. "If we are allowed only one, we should make it a worthy one."
Jonah's ears burned a little and he buried his face in Morpheus' shoulder, muffling his embarrassed laughter. "Maybe we should consider putting up some mistletoe in our apartment."
"Well, I don't know how they do things in Shanghai, but that sort of behavior in public is positively shameful." At the sound of Aunt Marlys' voice, Jonah let out a heavy sigh and stepped away from Morpheus.
"Craig and Alice would never do that," Uncle Ned agreed.
"Oh, come on." Emily rolled her eyes. "It's Christmas, they're under the mistletoe, ad they're practically married. Probably would be, if it were legal."
Probably wouldn't be, Jonah thought. There wouldn't be any way around Morpheus' lack of public records, and no state was likely to give a marriage license to a guy who had no birth certificate, no visa, no passport, no identification of any kind. Morpheus couldn't even apply for a driver's license. But that was okay; Jonah didn't need a piece of paper to tell him that he and Morpheus were together for eternity. Besides, a face to face meeting with the god of death to beg for Jonah's immortality carried a little more clout than a ceremony in front of a judge.
In the end, Uncle Ned and Aunt Marlys ended up staying for dinner, none of which Aunt Marlys ate but all of which she complained about, and then they departed. The entire house breathed a collective sigh of relief, and then Jonah's mom brought out the cookies and the pie, and Jonah's dad brought out his gingerbread Kremlin, and they all pigged out until their stomachs hurt and they could just barely heave themselves out of their chairs to gather around the tree.
While there were some drawbacks to Morpheus' access to the subconscious of everyone in the world--Mike and Sarah's announcement that they were expecting had sort of been ruined by Jonah's involvement in helping Morpheus create the baby's new bubble of dreamspace, since she was going to start dreaming well before she was born--he was amazing at picking gifts for people. He didn't really understand cost, so sometimes Jonah had to get a list of several suggestions before Morpheus got to one Jonah could actually afford, but Jonah loved giving gifts he knew people really wanted, and Morpheus still hadn't gotten over his fascination with the mall, which made even the shopping bearable.
After all the gifts were open, Zeke had a toy in hand, and Baby Abby had a piece of wrapping paper in her fist to chew, Jonah's mother sat down at the piano and pretended she could play while she coerced them all into singing a few Christmas carols. Morpheus sang along enthusiastically with any tune he recognized, though Jonah had to muffle a laugh or two at his interesting version of some of the words. On the other hand, he knew all about King Wenceslaus, which nobody else in Jonah's family did.
Before he knew it, Jonah was packing their gifts into the car and kissing his mother goodbye while she pressed a tin of cookies into his hands. As Jonah got the car running, Morpheus scraped the snow and ice off the windshield and windows, only getting distracted by studying the individual snowflakes twice. He stuck his tongue out to catch some, face lighting up as they melted cold against his skin. For a minute, Jonah just watched, feeling sappy and schmoopy and hopelessly in love. Then he rolled down his window. "Get in the car before you get frostbite. It's ten below out there and you're not wearing gloves or a hat."
"Yes, beloved." Morpheus slid into the passenger seat, clicked his seatbelt into place, and held his hands out in front of the vent to warm. "I had a good time tonight."
"Even with Uncle Ned and Aunt Marlys?" Jonah raised an eyebrow, giving him an oblique look before backing out of the driveway.
"It was nice that Edward and Marlys could join us. They are very lonely, and their own children spend far less time with them than they would like. But their children have little respect for them and even less time, because they have focused on their careers as Edward taught them, and their parents' inferior education embarrasses them. I have done what I can for them in the Dreaming, but you know that unhappy people often request unhappy dreams. When they ask for more pleasant scenes, I give them dreams of evenings like this. Marlys and Edward have both been dreaming of a family like yours for quite some time, and I think it was pleasant change for them to spend an afternoon with relatives without being ridiculed by those they most want to love them."
At the next red light, Jonah took his hand off the gearshift and hooked it around the back of Morpheus' neck. Then he kissed him, sweet and slow, until the light turned green and the car behind them honked.
"What did I do to earn that?"
"You were just yourself." Jonah smiled at him. "Thanks."
At home, Jonah pulled Morpheus in for one more kiss, just because he could, and led the way into their living room. Each of them picked up the packages they had placed under the tiny artificial tree earlier that week and took them back to the sofa, exchanging self conscious smiles as they settled into opposite ends, legs drawn up between them, tangled together.
"Well?" Morpheus broke the moment of awkward silence. "What did you get me?"
Jonah thrust the badly wrapped stack of biographies into Morpheus' hands. He wished he could have thought of something better, but it was hard when Morpheus spent so little time in the Waking and objects couldn't travel between realms. Still, Morpheus exclaimed excitedly about each book, telling Jonah something about the dreams of the title figure.
"I know you met all these people, but I thought you might want to know something about their Waking lives, too."
Morpheus gave him that bright smile that went straight to Jonah's heart every time and seemed to squeeze it a little. "Thank you, beloved. I look forward to reading them." He leaned forward until their lips met briefly, depositing a package in Jonah's hands as he did so.
Curious, Jonah tore open the wrapping to find a soft leather bound journal. "It's beautiful." Running his fingers along the edges of the beveled pages, he noticed ink on some of them and flipped the journal open. It wasn't blank, as he had thought, but filled with page after page of Morpheus' old-fashioned scrawl.
"I was not entirely sure what to get you," Morpheus said, looking up at Jonah shyly through his lashes, "but Mike told me that the gifts I was contemplating were too expensive to buy with your credit card, and I do not have any money of my own. I asked what you would want, and he told me you wanted only me. So I wrote a description of my family for you. There are a few pages for each family member, and then some memories of us together and of my time in the Dreaming before you arrived."
Jonah paged through the journal again, more slowly this time, reading snippets and noticing the small sketches scattered throughout. "Thank you. It's perfect." He surged forward to kiss Morpheus again, hard and enthusiastic. "You're perfect."
"I'm glad you like it." Morpheus sat up, confidence regained, and put his arm around Jonah. "I will have to return to the Dreaming soon, but perhaps for a few minutes we can sit together."
"Don't let me fall asleep on your shoulder again. That didn't end well last time." Just thinking about the crick in his neck when he'd woken up on the empty couch made him itch to roll his shoulders.
"I will keep you here with me until it is time to return." Morpheus kissed the top of Jonah's head. Jonah relaxed against him, snuggling close and basking in the warm solidity of Morpheus' body beside his, watching the twinkle of the Christmas lights.
It wasn't long before Jonah could feel the pull of sleep and that unfolding awareness of the Dreaming nearby. "Time?" he murmured.
"Yes." Morpheus helped Jonah to his feet and walked him into the bedroom, where he helped him undress and shed his own clothes before sliding between the cool sheets. Searching out Jonah's hand, he laced their fingers together. "Good night, dreamer. Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas," Jonah slurred, already half asleep. "See you in a minute." And when he opened his eyes again, Morpheus was waiting.