morpheus x reader oneshots & headcanons

accidentally summoning morpheus

The cardboard box had your name written on it in sharpie and judging by the amount of dust collected on the lid, it must have been waiting for you for at least a decade. According to your grandmother, everything inside was a remnant of your early childhood when she would take care of you when your parents couldn't. All of it was waiting for the day you become an adult and, to your grandmother's nostalgic dissatisfaction, that day had come a little faster than she wished.

Upon opening the box and coughing up your lungs with the old dust, you heard yourself gasp at the very first thing you lay your eyes on: a music box.

"Please, tell me you still work," you whispered to yourself as you hurriedly took it out.

The enamel was chipped away in many places but not enough to make the trinket in any way ugly. Its black paint and golden decorations took you back to all the sleepless nights when your grandmother would wind the music box up and let it play your insomnia away.

"You'll be asleep before the song ends," she used to assure you. And she never once was wrong.

Carefully, you lifted the porcelain-covered lid. Inside, the figurine of a black raven was still taking flight, even after all those years when it was hidden away in a cardboard box somewhere between Christmas decorations and VHS tapes no one watched anymore. The inside of the music box was just as dark as the outside except for the tiny, white dots that were meant to resemble stars as though the black bird was always flying away into the night sky.

You turned the winding key countless times or so it seemed. When you felt that it wouldn't turn anymore, you excitedly retracted your hand, expecting the sweet melody of childhood to resound in your ears once more.

The raven figurine turned slowly as the equally slow melody began playing. Curiously, you never did learn what song it was as you have never heard it anywhere else. A grimace appeared on your face as you listened to the high-pitched, bright sounds: the melody in minor key sounded a lot darker, creepier, than you remembered it. Maybe the fang of time had already gnawed on the music box? Perhaps it was simply out of tune and you had to find someone capable of fixing it.

"Why have you summoned me?"

The low voice behind you made you fall over. Scurrying away in fear, you turned around only to see a tall, thin man in a long coat. His hair was dishevelled and its dark, raven-like shade made his pasty skin appear only lighter. Suddenly, you noticed the air in your bedroom smelling somewhat sweet and stale like fruit in an antique bookshop. His blue eyes remained strangely expressionless as he stared at you.

Even if you did know what to say, you were physically incapable of doing so. Who was he? How did he get in? And what on Earth did he mean by 'summon'?

Your heart was thundering in your chest and you quickly began feeling trouble catching your breath. Fearful blankness wove a nest in your thoughts. A cold sweat run down your back.

"I know your face," he spoke again as he slowly walked towards you, "although long years had gone by since I last saw you."

Your back hit the wall - there was nowhere else to run from the stranger. He, to your horror, only continued his stroll in your direction. Panting, you looked around if there was anything you could use to defend yourself from the trespasser but a cardboard lid wasn't a weapon in any way or meaning. As it befits prey, you simply waited.

But his hand was never once raised against you. When the stranger stood right in front of you, he silently extended reached his arm to you to help you get up. With great hesitation, you took it.

"I must confess I did harbour some hope that you might remember me," he said once you had gotten up.

"Alas, we are strangers once more."