The Empty World | The Empty World Sequence [complete | rewriting]

Twenty-Two

"Mess up your tie," River whispered.

Morpheus smiled as he manually shifted the tie askew. He took the bouquet into his right hand, and held it behind his back as he flew.

Julien's suite of rooms looked a lot like Morpheus remembered. He didn't see Julien immediately, but doors to hall and bedroom were all closed. The drapes were closed allowing only narrow beams of sunlight that lit the floor, but the digital clocks amid the audio components indicated it was after 5, meaning it was summer.

The door to the hall opened and Julien came in, his back to the door as he wiped the back of one hand over his mouth. Morpheus knew he would have normally fixated right on Julien, but he sidestepped, trying to confirm whether the webbed ornament hanging on the door, above the note to staff, was what it looked like.

"Is that a real dream snare?"

"What?!"

Morpheus focused on Julien, finally. He was wearing black kurta and shalwar with fuzzy white slippers. He looked beautiful. He was sleepy-eyed, and his mouth rigid with concern, but still as naturally pretty as Morpheus remembered. "I-" He kind of forgot about the dream snare. Instead, Morpheus offered the bouquet of six white roses. "These are for you."

Julien reached out and took the flowers, then promptly hissed as he touched a thorn.

"Careful how you cut yourself."

Julien looked up, met Morpheus' eyes. Oh, Honey, don't even start. The message seemed conveyed so strongly in Julien's gaze alone that Morpheus questioned if he had even used telepathy, but he knew ultimately that Julien had.

"You've gotten better at controlling that," Morpheus said aloud.

Yes. And then aloud, "These need water. Wait here." Julien walked around the sofa toward the bedroom doors. "Actually, there's something there on console for you, but you might want to listen to the queued digital track first."

As Julien passed through the pair of doors, and closed them behind, Morpheus moved around the low coffee table to the collection of audio components of various vintages. The room was tidy and ordered, as Morpheus believed it usually was, so long as Julien wasn't too depressed to clean up after himself. The only out of place item on the top of the shelves was a single audio cassette.

Morpheus took the cassette and found its player.

"He said play the other first," River reminded him.

Morpheus turned and looked back towards the doors. He couldn't hear anything, not running water, or any clear sign of movement.

River leaned from Morpheus' arm and pressed the controls of one of the devices so that they queued track began to play. "You want to bet whether he's changing his clothes?" River asked, as the music started.

"Oh, I know he is, but he'll look good, so I win either way." Morpheus was more focused on the song, the synthesized sounds of the instrumental intro were familiar, yet he didn't recognize the song. It was not until the vocals started....

You feast upon my very innocence

And now your fangs gnaw at my every defense

"Holy- stuff that's holy!" It was Morpheus' own voice!

River laughed, probably at Morpheus' disease with cursing. Someone had produced the heck out of the acoustic version to mix Morpheus' vocals with the electronic rock. The driving guitar and percussion through the chorus weren't those played by him or Traps, Morpheus could tell, but it sounded good....