Dream a Little Dream of Me (for streetlevel )

[hawk_shot]

Have a wonderful dream, Kate. May it be all your mind hopes it can be, and may it help in whatever you face next.


Kate hated goodbyes.

Sniffling, she stared at the ceiling of her apartment. Her old and own apartment, no longer a mixture of past and present in her dreams. That sunset no longer bathed the world with an orange light, her father was once again gone and her mother -- Kate tried not to think too much about Eleanor, even if her presence in her subconcious mind clearly spoke for itself.

Her apartment was dark as the rain tapped her windows, but even then she could tell that morning had come. Whatever it was that Matt was cooking downstairs? The aromas reached her and instantlty made her feel better. It was almost as good as the way that Lucky had come to check on her, hopping onto the bed and sniffing at her face before he licked the tears away.

Kate smiled and pushed his muzzle aside, keeping it away from her mouth before she kissed the top of his furry head in return.


You will receive two amulets. When worn, you will find one another in slumber that night. It will work only once, and both hearts must want it, or else it will not end well.


They were there. As promised by Dream, Kate woke up clutching the hexagon amulets in her hand. Was she surprised by this little magical display? A miracle, Matt might call it. No. By now Kate was used to trust her dreams, despite of anything her mind might argue in the waking hours. Her heart, thought? It had foolishly hoped she was mistaken and that, for once, that dream had been nothing but a meaningless.

She hated goodbyes. 

Putting the amulets inside of her nightstand's drawers, she grabbed one of Matt's t-shirts from the chair by the bed and slipped it on. Dragging her feet downstaits, she knew her silence it was not so uncharacteristic, as sleep often drained her from words early in the morning. Thas time however, she was still sniffling as she came to Matt from behind, her arms wrapping around his waist as he took care of the stove. 

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[streetlevel]

As usual, Matt had woken up first ahead of Kate. He had his days where he overslept, but for the most part he managed to get up on time. Which, for him, was usually early given he needed to get into the office for his day job. Today was no exception. He'd woken up, lightly kissed Kate's hair, inhaled her scent, and slipped up and out of bed. The kittens came with him immediately, but Lucky stayed with Kate longer and loyally returned to her before breakfast was finished. Matt had smiled as he heard the dog head upstairs.

He was humming softly under his breath as he made breakfast. Coffee was percolating, nearly done. Today he'd decided to go with a frittata, complete with eggs, onions, peppers, tomatoes, and potatoes. He was in the middle of mixing the ingredients when he heard Kate stir. He felt her hands wrap around him, which wasn't unusual, but he didn't even need super senses to detect her sniffling. Worried, Matt set the towel aside and turned to face her. Not that he could see her, but this way, he could fold his arms around her, too. Behind him Sam leaped onto the counter, testing his luck while his humans were busy.

Folding his arms around her waist, Matt's head tilted as it normally did when he was trying to read her. He wasn't wearing his glasses, and he was still dressed in his boxer shorts and a t-shirt. His feet were bare. "Hey." He reached up to lightly brush away some tears from under her eyes before resuming holding her in an embrace. "Are you all right? Bad dreams?"

[hawk_shot]

It was becoming a little habit they shared. One in which, Kate had to fight the urge of coming back to her apartment with Matt or asking him to come over and spend the night at the penthouse. Plenty of times they did, either because they were too eager for intimacy or, after a particularly tough night, because they were too tired to part ways. More often than not, Matt woke un before Kate did, taking care of breakfast while she claimed an extra half an hour of sleep.

Given their nocturnal activities, in and out of the bedroom? They both needed to catch up some sleep before facing the next day. But most importantly, Kate didn't want to screw this up. She didn't want for things to feel weird. They already saw each other almost every day. If they already started sleeping with each other every night? It was a weird territory, they were still getting used to each other. Was she putting too much distance? Was she too needy? There was a lot to figure out. Rom-coms didn't explain how to handle a relationship when you both are vigilantes.

But none of that mattered this morning. Right now? As Matt's thumbs stroked those tears away, Kate couldn't do anything but smile and be grateful to find him there in her kitchen, first thing in the morning. He really was her rock sometimes.

"Sad dreams," Kate admitted, her voice still a little hoarse from sleep.

She chuckled awkwardly, a little flustered, as she leaned in to hide her face on his chest. She rocked them both, trying to be a little playful, to shake the sadness away from her bones as the memory of Morpheus parting words squeezed her heart again.

"This smells amazing," he offered between sniffles.

[streetlevel]

It was both like and unlike the start of a lot of Matt's past relationships. The newness was there, that exciting thrill of exploration and figuring out where lines lay and what overlapped. That uncertainty over certain steps, not wanting to trip anyone up before things really began. Matt had dated friends before, he'd dated vigilantes before, he'd even dated a combination of the two once or twice. Yet he'd never done so when he saw the person as much as he did Kate. Never when the other party involved was as close a friend as she was to start. They had spent most of their free time together before kissing, yet now there was an added layer of questioning for all those moments adding up together. Neither of them wanted to ruin things.

It led to some questions, some self-reflection. Yet it also led to being able to sense Kate with him when he woke up in the morning, and that? That was a feeling that helped him deal with all the rest.

His heart ached for her when she mentioned sad dreams. There were a lot of possibilities, for what that meant. She had, unfortunately, gone through a lot in her short life. Knowing she liked it, he soothingly rubbed at her lower back as they rocked together for a moment. He dropped a kiss on her forehead. "It should taste amazing, too. I just have to - hey!" Turning, he shooed away Sam from the pan. "It's not time for second breakfast for you yet, buddy." Shaking his head, he said to Kate, "I just have to throw it in the oven for a little bit. We could have some coffee while it cooks. Maybe talk about your dream, if you want?"

[hawk_shot]

"Speaking about nightmares," Kate snorted as Matt caught his mischievous ginger kitten giving a poor attempt at being stealthy. Honestly, Sam and Ella had been incredibly lucky when it came to how the tapestry of their lives had woven itself into Matt's. But at the same time? That had been the worst of luck if they ever hoped to catch their human dad by surprise.

Luck. She certainly had it today, as neither of them have to go to the office and Matt didn't have to leave for church. Weekends had been the easiest of arrangement, as they seemed meant to be spent together. They had not even needed to debate it, as the way they barely seemed able to keep their hands off each other spoke for itself.

"Sure, take care of that." With a pat to his ass, Kate craned her neck to peck his lips and stepped back. "I'll get coffee. Wanna move to the sofa?" Finally stepping away from Matt, Kate tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled as Lucky followed her while they moved around the kitchen. Of course, the fridge had been already stocked with oat milk before Matt even moved in.

And one of the mugs in her cabinet? There had been an unspoken agreement, but they both already knew that the green one was Matt's.

Soon, afte topping up Lucky's water bowl, she carried both steaming mugs to the coffee table, with both Lucky and Ella following Kate at her heels.

"How about you? How did you sleep?"

It was easier to focus on Matt right now. How was she going to explain everything about Morpheus?

[streetlevel]

Matt left the topic for now, not wanting to push it. He set Sam back down on the floor and straightened back up to put the frittata in the oven. After that he bent down to pick up Ella, who wanted to ride on his shoulder, and headed to the living area where Kate had set up shop with their coffees. Sam pranced about at his heels, following after and generally getting underfoot. As it was the weekend they did have the luxury of taking more time with one another. Matt still often went into the office, or at the very least did work from home, but he didn't have to be up and out the door by eight. Besides, now knowing that Kate had had a hard start to the day, Matt wanted to take the time to comfort her as best he could.

Settling on the sofa, Ella climbed down to rest on his lap. Sam playfully bounced around Lucky's legs. Leaning forward, Matt blew on the hot liquid and then took a sip of his coffee. It was perfect, Kate knew by now exactly how much oat milk he took in his. "I slept fine. It felt like it went by fast," Matt joked ruefully. "The coffee's helping make up for that, though." That sleepy, hazy feeling in his brain he knew would slowly start to ebb as the caffeine kicked in. Settling one hand around Kate's shoulders, he lightly rubbed the back of her neck while his other hand remained holding the steaming mug. "And I didn't have Sam landing on my stomach to wake me up, so. He was being polite today."

[hawk_shot]

Tucking her legs up on the sofa, Kate leaned in against Matt as she blew on her own coffee, sweet sugary, before taking a much needed sip. It helped, the way Matt never hesitated

to show his affection through touch. Being with a hand under her shit and on her lower back, or like now behind her neck, it always felt nice to feel him close. Even more so now, when intimacy was no longer a barrier or worry.

Unless he was working, of course.

"Ugh, it's shit when you wake up and you could have sworn you got into bed half an hour ago," she agreed, little by little bitterness catching up with her.

Dream.

Would the coffee help her to get rid of that sleepy haze as well? It felt like letting go. As if, the last that remained of Dream in her she was finally letting go of.

No. She still had his gift.

"And I didn't kick you either," Kate commented playfully, the idea of her being a kicker now becaming an inside-joke of sorts. One of these days she would give him a little kick simply to feed that myth.

Sipping on her coffee, Kate grew quiet for a moment. Thoughtful.

"The other day I was watching this thing," she started, sounding a little unsure. Huffing an amused breath, it felt as if she was coming clean with something. "Don't judge me, okay? But yeah, it was a movie about a visually impaired guy who meets a woman who can see and how they fall in love."

[streetlevel]

"Or I was so tired I didn't feel the kick," Matt teased her in return. "I'd have to check for bruises later to see whether it happened." Like he'd be able to pick out one bruise from the collection he has these days, anyway. It was all joking in good fun, making more and more of a mountain out of Kate's kicks than really existed. Just like Matt sometimes rolled around in his sleep, nearly knocking Kate off the bed - at least according to her. It might be that his rolling was also exaggerated. Despite their restless natures, neither of them seemed inclined to suggest not sharing the bed together often. If anything, sleeping with Kate had helped Matt sleep a little better at night.

Sipping his coffee, he let her start to speak what was on her mind. "Why would I judge you? For watching a romance? I like a little romance, in case you hadn't noticed." Giving her a faint smile, he leaned in to give her a little kiss on the lips. Seeing the affection, Ella on his lap mewled. Matt bent down, truly a feat of his flexibility, while still holding his coffee to kiss Ella's head. "I'm sorry, I forgot, there was a cat kiss tax," he teased Ella, who now seemed satisfied. Settling back upright, Matt tilted his head in Kate's direction. She didn't seem bothered that he wasn't wearing his glasses while they talked. If anything, she seemed to like getting to see his eyes, even if they weren't focused. "So tell me about it. How did the story unfold?"

[hawk_shot]

"I don't know, I don't want you to think I have a blind fetish or something," Kate pointed out before her own faint smile kissed the rim of her cup of coffee. It wasn't a fetish, no, but the theme had certainly caught her interest ever since she started to know Matt better. Watching a romantic movie involving one? It had felt like the cleanest of dirty secrets.

As Sam climbed on her lap, Kate let her hand travel from the top of his head down to the base of his tail, the ginger kitten raising his rump to meet her caresses. "Anyway so, he is a masseuse." She paused, making sure Matt noticed her leaning towards him briefly. "That's a very important detail, if you wanna pick on it," she clarified playfully, already sounding a little more like her usual self.

"And they start like seeing each other. But then she's like, she finds a doctor that can supposedly cure him, right?" Cure. The term felt so wrong. "Which we both know it's bullshit, because we both know there's nothing to fix. Sometimes people are just different." Would Matt feel like she's trying to fix something in him? "But he goes for it. And it does work, but, like adapting to it all is tough for him. It made the whole thing feel a little sad, you know?"

Turning her head towards him, Kate finally dared to look at Matt again. She loved seeing him like this, stripped away from his armor. No daredevil suit, not buttons up. Not even those cool glasses of his.

Matt had beautiful eyes that, even if they only met Kate's by chance? They almost always offered her nothing but softness and kindness. Mischief sometimes.

A look that was unmistakingly Matt's.

"If you could see, for one night, would you want to?"

[streetlevel]

"I don't think we've quite hit fetish territory yet," Matt teased her in response. "Knowing someone with a disability does mean seeing someone operate in a new way. It's okay to be curious how it works. I sometimes wonder what it'd be like to know the world like you do, too." He was being honest. While he didn't see himself in need of a cure, and Kate was quick to catch herself on that, the road to accepting his blindness had been a long one. He'd been angry and bitter for years, especially as his powers took hold and he hadn't been able to control them. Now, of course, he'd made peace with it, but it was a complicated situation that hadn't happened overnight.

It took a minute or two for Kate to arrive at her question. Matt let her get there in her own time, setting the stage with the story. He sipped his coffee, his other hand lightly rubbing the back of her neck and playing with her strands of hair. The question surprised him, but he gave it thoughtful consideration afterwards. "To see for one night? I guess that there might be a little sadness afterwards. I've spent thirty years getting used to not seeing, so I'm sure there'd be some hardship in letting it go afterwards again." He smiled a little in her direction. "Not all sadness is bad, though. Everyone gets a little sad when a perfect night ends, or a vacation comes to a stop. That doesn't mean we don't want to keep the good memories that came along with it. If I was given the chance to see for one night, yeah. I think I'd take it. I'd try and hold onto it as long as I could. See how much memory I could squeeze out of it for the next thirty years."

[hawk_shot]

It felt like she had taken a burden off her chest. At least, a good chunk out of it, by asking this outloud. Matt, as always, took her question completely serious and considered her words carefully, with the attention they both clearly believed it deserved.

It was so important to know if he'd consent to it.

Leaning against his side, she reached out to stroke Ella while her brother was distracted grooming himself on Kate's lap. Matt's little angel instantly stretched her neck as she accepted some scritches, purring loudly at Kate's attention while her human confirmed what Kate suspected.

It would be sad, having the clock ticking on them. But to Matt, it seemed worth it.

And there was so many things she wanted to show him.

What surrounded him now, those he cared about him. Where he lived and the places he had called a home. Maybe... Even those who were gone.

Would Kate be able to control it, though? What if the dream took a power of it's own and ended up being a random thing they shared? It was a possibility, yes. But they would still meet there. Matt would still be able to see the world like she did.

Which was exactly what he said he wished he could do sometimes.

"This is going to sound crazy," she warned him before she took another sip of her coffee. It was a much needed pause, the calm before the weirdness. "But, you know, after alien invasions and the Blip, crazy is relative, right?" Oh, God, Kate get on with it. You almost sound as if you had commited some crime.

"But I have something that I think would be able to make you see for one night, Matt."

[streetlevel]

It took a moment for what she said to process. Not just because of his sleepy brain still waking up, but because of the magnitude of her words. His brow furrowed in confusion. Pulling his hand back, he used it to help himself sit up straighter on the sofa. Ella gave a little disgruntled noise at his lap shifting but then settled right back down on it. One of his fingers trailed around the rim of his mug as he tried to make sense of it all. She could help him to see for one night. "You mean those 3D printed images you were mentioning before?" Did Kate plan to open a whole gallery so that Matt could feel his way around the room, take in all the faces of those he knew or had once loved? "That seems... a little extravagant, Kate. The one bust we talked about would be enough."

He couldn't yet fathom what she really possibly meant.

[hawk_shot]

Oh, shit.

Of course Matt's mind would wander there. Could she blame him? Nothing she was gonna say would make any sense for most people. Not even those who knew her as well as Matt did.

Reaching over towards the coffee table, Kate placed her mug down and then turned to properly face Matt. Sammy slid off her lap as she did, taking the sudden move as an invitation to start a game that led him to jump Lucky instead.

"No, this has nothing to do with the 3D sculptures." Although, that reminded Kate that she needed to speak to the artist. "I'm talking about real life magic. Like whay Doctor Strange does. A magic amulet that could make us meet in each other's dreams."

[streetlevel]

Silence stretched as Matt's face turned only more confused. He'd heard about Dr. Strange of course, though he hadn't yet met the man. He knew a little of magic, but none of it was a pleasant kind. "What magic are you talking about? Who is offering magic?" She'd said magic like Strange's, so probably not his. Who else knew magic? Gao knew some things from her time with the Hand, but that surely was not what Kate meant. None of the magic he'd ever encountered had anything to do in dreams. Leaning forward he set his coffee down as well on the coffee table. "Entering one another's dreams sounds like it could be dangerous." Was it something like dream walking? He hadn't even known that really existed.

[hawk_shot]

Kate sucked in her lips in the way she did sometimes when she was feeling a little nervous. She considered how to follow up, which way was the best to start answering all of Matt's questions.

At least he didn't seem to think she was a nutjob.

"Have you ever heard those stories about the Sandman? You know, someone that helps people dream. The ruler of that world and person that helps us create our dreams and nightmares." God, even in her own ears, this sounded a little cringey. Even if hearing her heart, Matt would know she wasn't messing around about this.

"We... Are friends, Matt. Morpheus is real."

[streetlevel]

Matt could tell that Kate wasn't lying. Insanity was always an option, people sometimes genuinely believed in their delusions. She wasn't acting insane otherwise, though. "That... is not what I expected to hear this morning." He was trying to process it all. The concept of gods and immortals existing wasn't new to him. There was Thor, after all. There was the Hand and the Chaste, each of which had people who'd existed for centuries or longer. Aliens and magic woven into great stories about gods. Of course Matt didn't subscribe to any worship of them, but he understood how such tales had come about and why other people revered them. They were just lower case g's to him, compared to God.

"Okay. Okay..." He had so many questions. "I mean, if anyone was going to somehow befriend a ruler of dreams, of course it would be you." Kate would think nothing of trying to befriend anyone, or being able to charm them to her side. "I kind of want to hear the story about how you met this guy sometime, but if you trust him, you know I trust you." Which meant that, transitionally, he trusted this king. God? Whatever he was. "Why would he do this, though? I mean, did you help him and he offered this?" Was Kate wasting a wish on him? "Could you just wish for some good nights of sleep on your behalf, instead?" Of course Matt would rather it be used for Kate instead of him.

[hawk_shot]

Well, Matt wasn't running out of the door and blocking her number just yet, so that was a good sign. Right?

At his joke about how Kate would obviously be the one who'd befriend an ancient entity, a toothy smile finally spread on her lips. She shrugged, almost as if she had got caught red handed on something.

There was so much to share with Matt, from the times when Dream made himself known to her through his realm, to his days visiting the waking world and their adventures as Kate helped him catch some rogue nightmares. It all felt like something that happened a lifetime ago.

But right now, she didn't want to stray too far from the main topic. "Something happened to him, he wouldn't give me details," Kate explained. "But last night he came to me, telling me he had to go away. That he wanted to give me anything he could grant me in the Dreaming, in case we don't see each other again." Kate's voice spoke for itself. There was something broken in there. Worry, longing. "Maybe nothing will happen to him, maybe he'll be fine. But.. Maybe by the time he is able to come back, I won't be alive to meet him again."

Kate's chin trembled slightly as grief caught up with her again. She sat more upright, her hands tucked between her legs now. But even if she was avoiding Matt's lost gaze, that last question he asked drew her back to him and his warmth.

Of course Matt would always put her needs and happiness first.

"I have a good sleep whenever you are around," she reminded him as her smile reached her eyes.

With an apology, Kate picked Ella from his lap and, even though she was confronted with an indignant meow, a kiss to the top of the calico's head mended things for now. "Sorry, gorgeous. I need your dad for a moment."

Putting Ella aside and with her brother and Lucky, Kate moved to straddle Matt. She cupped his face then, her thumbs stroking his bonecheeks as she picked her words.

"Matt. If I'm able to walk into your dreams or you walk into mine, you'll be able to see what I see." She explained, knowing he'd get the weight of this and how much it meant to her. Because she knew how much it could mean for him. "For one night, you can see me."