morpheus x reader oneshots & headcanons

insomniac

Melatonin usually worked - usually being the operative word. Despite your best efforts and commitment to at least a dozen tips and tricks to fall asleep, you had found yourself getting at most 3 to 4 hours of rest at night. Maybe it was enough to stay alive and sane but your entire day was spent on thinking about how tired you were while attempting to manage your irritability.

But this night, nothing was going to work. You knew that the moment you lay in bed, 2 AM, with your eyes open wide as if you didn't get barely a third of the recommended amount of sleep for the past week. It was going to be a long, frustrating night.

Although, 'nothing' wasn't quite honest. There was something else, someone else, who could help but you never really considered that option. Despite his adamant reassurances that he wants to help you should you find it impossible to fall asleep, you hated the thought of bothering Morpheus. Not because he was snarky about helping mortals, it was quite the contrary, but because you could only imagine how busy he was. The King of Dreams, at night, surely had more important things to do than put his duties on hold to put a human to sleep. Besides, it wasn't like you hadn't slept for the last few days at all; your case of insomnia was an inconvenience but not an emergency.

You looked at the bedside table standing right next to you. In the drawer, there was a plastic bag of birthday candles, each of them with "Morpheus" written on them. It was probably the closest thing to a speed dial one could put an eldritch being on. Should you become desperate enough, you could simply light one of them and wait until the candle burns out to personally tell Morpheus that you give in to his offer of help.

When the pink and white birthday candle was being consumed by a flame, you were seriously considering putting it out and just putting up with your suffering. You were an adult and that meant taking care of your own problems without kicking a fuss but after a good week or two of little to no sleep, even mature grown-ups become a little toddler-like. If Morpheus does show up like he promised, you could always put the blame on him - he was the one offering to help with your insomnia any time you liked, so he was the one responsible for having to put his duties on hold for you... right?
You watched the melted wax pool on the saucer. It was quite pretty: a sea of white with streaks of bright pink. The room looked surprisingly dark without a source of light. Now, you were sentenced to rely on the streetlamps outside. Turning on the light in your bedroom would be counter-productive as you had learned quite early on in your battle with insomnia that it only made falling asleep harder.

"Anytime now, King of Brooding," you murmured under your nose.

"Are you alright?" a low voice resounded throughout your bedroom. It was one of those strange little ways he expressed his affection and concern.

He was standing on the threshold of your bedroom, unsure whether he was welcomed into the privacy of it. Looking at Morpheus's face, you couldn't tell whether he was upset with you for interrupting him with whatever it was he was doing beforehand but, truthfully, you couldn't tell much from his facial expression at all.
"Yes but no?" It was then, when he slowly walked towards you, that you thought summoning him was the worst idea you had in quite a while. "It's a moderate 'no', I'll live but..." you hung your voice before sighing heavily, "I admit defeat."

A smile of amusement appeared on his face as though he actually did win some kind of a bet. Or, perhaps, he wasn't going to gloat in his triumph but hold dear that one night when you indirectly told him that you needed him.

Wearing a grim expression, you moved to the side of the bed to make space for him but he didn't pick up on the cue right away. Instead, he stared at the spot you prepared for him with a strange intensity. Something was making him reluctant to lay or even sit next to you but by the flexing muscles of his jaw, as he clenched and relaxed it repeatedly, you could tell a part of him was desperate to do so.

Finally, in slow, perhaps slightly anxious, steps, Morpheus accepted your invitation and lay on top of the bed next to you, still dressed in outdoor clothes. He didn't bother slipping under the covers but it wasn't the temperature that concerned him - he thought it rude to invade your privacy further without your explicit demand, no matter his own desires.

With equal reluctance and hesitation that elicited an infantile giggle from you, Morpheus put his arms around you. His limbs were oddly stiff as if he was navigating uncharted waters, which obviously wasn't true. In an attempt to coax him further into the pleasant intimacy, you cuddled up to him, resting your face against his chest. You felt his chin barely brush past the top of your head. Despite his inhuman, strangely thin yet muscular, physique, Morpheus was quite comfortable to lay against or maybe it was his aura that simply made it irresistible to fall asleep.

As minutes went by, you felt Morpheus becoming more relaxed. At some point, his fingers began shyly grazing your skin as though he was anxiously exploring the boundaries between the two of you. There was something truly wonderful about lovers discovering how much trust is put into them, that their hands will caress, not strangle, and just how much their presence is yearned for by another person.

"I'm sorry for bothering you," you whispered into the pleasantly silent night.

You couldn't see it but he was smiling, revealing his heart's desires in that one, small expression of gentle adoration. "I enjoy being bothered by you," he answered equally quietly just before you fell asleep.