"Into this wild Abyss the wary Fiend
Stood on the brink of Hell and looked awhile,
Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith
He had to cross."
'Paradise Lost' by John Milton
Johanna thought she would be used to this nightmare by now, but it never got easier. Thanks to many years of work and spending as much time as she did with Dream in the Dreaming, she was a lucid dreamer, but this nightmare was more of a memory than anything else. At one point, he took it from her, but Johanna felt like she was losing something when she tried to pretend that Astra being stolen away wasn't one of her guiding principles. So, despite how much it hurt, Johanna continued to subject herself to this, even as she knew that no matter how hard she tried, she wouldn't hold on tight enough to keep Astra from being pulled into that void.
In the nightmare, the memory, Johanna could feel the heat of hell on her skin. It made her sweat, and she sometimes wondered if the sweat on her hands was why she lost her grip on Astra. She wondered if she was a little better at tolerating heat; she could have held on. No matter how often someone tried to reassure her or tell her that she couldn't have done anything else, Johanna still second-guessed everything she did in this memory. Astra vanished into the fire, and Johanna was left holding the severed hand of a little girl she failed to save.
Bodies held power, which is why Johanna didn't tell Astra's parents about the arm. Somewhere, in the dark corners of her flat, were the bones, and Johanna thought they could be the link that helped bring Astra back someday. She called everyone she could think of, including a distant uncle named John, who apparently made his fair share of deals with demons. He was of no help and told her that trying to get someone back like that was virtually impossible unless she was willing to give up her own soul, and even then, there was a good chance the demon wouldn't hold up their end of the bargain.
Johanna nearly torpedoed her new relationship with Dream when she insisted that he could help Astra and was just refusing not to out of some obligation to the rules. Johanna knew now it was much more complicated than that, but that didn't stop it from stinging that she had a connection to the Endless, and she still couldn't save that little girl.
The memory ended, and Johanna opened her eyes to her flat. The reality of the true nightmare was that she continued to fail every day.
Much like nearly every other time, Johanna had to deal with this memory; any food or booze she had in her stomach rolled, and it was a mad scramble to the bathroom before she threw up. The insidious voice in the back of her mind liked to remind Johanna of her weaknesses and her failure liked to say that a nightmare shouldn't have this much power over her. Johanna splashed some cold water on her face, brushed the disgusting taste from her mouth, and exited her bedroom.
Another side effect of being with Dream was that he was weirdly annoying about the fact that she needed to sleep in her bed and not on the couch. Johanna liked how he looked out for her in some ways, but it also meant that she was having a hard time sleeping somewhere that wasn't a bed, which wasn't good for business. Sometimes, you need to sleep on a pew in the back of a church or in the backseat of a cab, but Dream wouldn't say anything about it; he would just get the look that Johanna hated seeing on his face.
Maybe it was still the nightmare lingering, but Johanna didn't even realize she was reaching for her notes from the Dead Boy Detectives until they were already in her hand. She had known about them for quite a while now; they weren't exactly subtle to anyone who bothered to pay attention. She kept an eye on them for a couple of months, but when it looked like they truly weren't going to cause any harm, Johanna decided it was best to just let them be. She dealt with wayward spirits and poltergeists, but only if someone was paying, and no one was paying for Edwin and Charles, so she left them alone.
They were known by the family the same way many supernatural things in the world were. If there was a Constantine who knew about the supernatural, then they knew about Edwin and Charles because it was just as important to keep track of things that were docile as it was to keep track of threats. So when she ran into them last month while dealing with roaming ghosts and poltergeists and eventually tracking down a sorcerer with a chip on his shoulder, the boys had to pay for help (at least initially) the same way everyone else did. So, Johanna told them that her price was Edwin's map out of hell.
At the time, it seemed like a fair trade, but now Johanna felt like an asshole for even asking him to do that. She felt that Edwin wouldn't hold it against her, but Charles might, and she knew the work that went into making that cricket bat pack a punch. She didn't want to be on the receiving end of it. She had the notes, and there wasn't anything that she could do about it now. All Johanna could do now was figure out a way to make sure this information was useful.
As soon as she could force herself to open up the notes, Johanna was going to get right on that.
She didn't know how long she sat there and stared at the notebook in her hands, but subtle movement in her flat was enough to bring Johanna back to the present. She was startled, but the number of wards and runes up around her home meant that only one person could appear in her flat, and that was Dream. He stood across the room, as put together as ever, but looked concerned.
"I was wondering when you were going to turn up," Johanna said, and she was not going to call attention to the fact that her voice cracked; she absolutely refused, even if she knew Dream would never judge her for showing weakness.
"The memory and nightmare do not happen every night, and since you have asked me not to interfere with them, this is what I can do for you," Dream replied. He moved across her room almost silently, but Johanna could very much feel his presence as he sat down next to her on the couch. Not long ago, she would have shied away from taking comfort like this, but she leaned into Dream and let him hold her for a moment. "Something else is troubling you."
"Sometimes I think I shouldn't have shown you my tells," Johanna replied, but there wasn't any humor behind it. She sat up and looked at the notebook in her hands. "Edwin, when I first met him and Charles, I said I wouldn't work for free, so I asked for something. You could see it as much as I could, the scars that hell left on his soul, and he told me that he found his own way out." Dream seemed to go very still at her side. "It wasn't a portal or anything we need to worry about; it was a door that was closed after he went through it, so no worries there. He was sent back, and Charles used his notes and map as a guide to go down and pull Edwin out again. So, I asked for his map out of hell for payment."
"May I?" Dream softly asked as he gestured to the notebook. Johanna nodded and watched as he began to look through the pages carefully. He wasn't saying anything, though, and, for some reason, it was making Johanna uneasy. The topic of her connections to hell was not one that they discussed often after their fight on the matter, and this was bringing all of those old feelings back to the surface.
"I just thought that if I had this map, maybe I could figure out a way to get it to Astra, and it could help her find a way out or get somewhere where I could reach her," Johanna said. Dream continued to look over the detailed notes that Edwin had taken for her and the ones that Johanna had added when the boys told her their stories. Eventually, he closed the notebook and handed it back to her.
"Johanna, for you, what is the worst torture you can think of? What would be eternal torture for you?" Dream asked, and she blinked because the question was not close to what she thought he would say.
"I guess my nightmare is a form of torture, just watching myself fail Astra again and again," Johanna replied, "but what does that have to do with anything?"
"Your torture is very personal, the same way your paradise would be personal because there is no universal punishment in hell. It would not be hell if it did not target the thing that hurts you the most," Dream explained. "Hell warps itself to fit the soul that it is currently hosting, whether that is entire paths or just singular rooms; it all changes depending on the soul and what transgressions they committed in life. Edwin's torture, while horrific, if you asked him, likely did not have a specific link to his life because he was not in hell to pay for a transgression. He was there by mistake, so it could only change so much to try to punish a soul that was never supposed to be there.
"This is a map out of hell," Dream continued. "However, it is a map out of Edwin's hell and Edwin's hell alone. It's a path only he could have forged and walked on because that is his path. Even if you had gotten this map to Astra, it would not have helped her because she could not walk Edwin's path out of hell. She needs to walk her own if there is one."
"So you're saying that even if I got her this map, it wouldn't be of any use because it's for a path Astra can't walk," Johanna replied as she looked at the notes in her hand. Dream hummed his agreement, and she wanted to throw the notebook across the room. "So you're telling me I made that boy relive that entire experience, and it was for nothing?" Dream didn't say anything, which was answered enough. Johanna wondered if there was a way to refund Edwin the payment she had requested when she remembered something. "Wait, you said this is Edwin's path in hell, right?"
"That is correct," Dream said. "You know I was recently there and didn't see anything like this."
"But Charles used these notes to get down to Edwin and get him out again. If it's Edwin's path, wouldn't it be useless to Charles, too?" Johanna asked. Maybe there was a loophole here that she wasn't seeing, and this was the key. Maybe there was still a chance that the map was helpful.
"I found my sister not long after I took care of the sorcerer," Dream said. Johanna didn't say anything because sometimes it seemed like Dream was saying completely irrelevant things when he was just taking a long way to get the point. She had a feeling this might be one of those times, and it was also one of those times when she didn't mind. "She confirmed with me that she really is fond of them, and she detailed all of the measures they took for so many years to hide from her. She spoke of them the same way she speaks of Hob." Johanna knew more than anyone that Hob's immortality was as much a gift of love to Dream as it was to Hob.
"She was pleased to hear that I helped them with their sorcerer issue since it was one that she did not feel she could involve herself in," Dream continued. "She feels looking away is already a risk to the cosmic balance, and as fond as she is, she does not want to be involved anymore with them. However, something else my sister told me was surprising: we were not the only Endless Edwin and Charles had met. During his recent time in hell, my sister, Despair, made contact with Edwin. She is also fond of him in her own way, and she was disappointed that Charles did not stay long enough for her to meet him as well."
"I don't understand what this has to do with Charles being able to walk Edwin's path in hell," Johanna said.
"The number of mortals that have captured my interest and that of multiple other members of my family is extremely limited," Dream said. "Common souls do not do that. They are unique, not two halves of a whole, but tied together by something that feels linked to my brother, Destiny. Their connection has his markings all over them; not even the threat of hell could tear them apart. Charles did not need a map to walk Edwin's path; he would have found it on his own. In the same way, Edwin would not need a map to find Charles if the roles were ever reversed."
Johanna finally understood what Dream was trying to explain to her; using Edwin and Charles as an example of anything was futile because everything about them was different. There was nothing in their experience that could help her save Astra the same way there was nothing Dream could do to save her either. Johanna didn't even realize how tightly she was clutching the notebook until cool hands reached over and carefully maneuvered her fingers out of a fist.
"They can't help save her," Johanna whispered, and Dream shook his head. "You can't save her, I can't save her, she doesn't deserve to be there. She's just a little girl, a kid. Edwin called it a clerical error, and he was right. Astra is the same as him, and innocent kids don't deserve to be there." Johanna didn't realize she was crying until Dream reached up and brushed her tears away. It was rare that she let herself cry like this, but Johanna buried her face in Deam's warm jacket and let herself cry. Dream carried her into her room and laid them both down so she could cling and cry as much as she needed to.
For a moment, Johanna thought the map and the notes offered hope, and it felt like mourning when that hope was lost.
+++
Early in her relationship with Dream, Johanna would have solved her emotional crisis with sex. Or that would have been the angle she would have attempted to take, but she liked to think she had matured slightly in that time. It felt good to let him hold her for a while, even if he was so still that sometimes Johanna wondered if he was still there. However, she knew he was busy and had other things to do, so she sent Dream on his way, promising she was okay. Johanna had an errand that would keep her a little busy for the rest of the day.
Jenny Green was fascinating. She got all of the nitty-gritty details about Jenny from the dead boys, but Edwin approached her one day and told Johanna that he had slipped Jenny her card.
"She doesn't feel safe, and I know if there is anyone who can help her feel safe, it would be you," he explained. It was a loaded statement, if there ever was one, and Johanna nodded.
"I'll see it done," she replied.
"Send the invoice to the office. I'm sure we have something that we can pay you with," Edwin said which was probably true. They had more random shit lying around their place than she and Hob combined, and that was saying something. The light hoarding was endearing, and it sounded like it was useful when it came to paying those who helped them with cases.
Jenny looked like someone that Johanna would have heavily pursued if she was still someone looking to date a woman. Hob was right; her voice made it clear that she was Johanna's type. What Johanna wasn't expecting when she got to the shop to do the consultation with Jenny were two teenagers. One gave off so much psychic energy that it nearly made her eyes water, and the other carried the air of something that even Johanna couldn't put her finger on. That was how she also met Crystal and Niko and started getting Jenny what she needed to feel safe.
It was a little while later, and the protection spell that Johanna was working on was nearly complete. It was delicate work because it needed to be extremely powerful while also subtle enough that it didn't act as a beacon for trouble. Jenny looked up when Johana entered her shop, and it was clear that the bat Edwin and Charles made for her was very close. Most people wouldn't be able to feel the work they put into it, but she could, and it was impressive.
"Oh, Jo, it's you," Jenny said. Usually, Johanna didn't let many people call her "Jo," but it was clear that Jenny needed a friend who wasn't a teenager, so she let the nickname slide.
"Just me," Johanna replied. "Any issues I need to know about?"
"When I first said I wanted to move here, the boys came and warned me about what I would see if I moved not only to a city but an old city," Jenny said after a moment of silence. "I told them I could handle it, but I didn't realize how bad it would be. There are so many of them out there, and I keep seeing these things that I'm not sure are real or not. It makes me feel like I'm going insane."
"I know," Johanna said quietly. "Let's just say there is a long history of people with my name ending up locked in hospitals. This protection spell will keep anything you don't want in here out, and it'll be for the entire building, including your flat upstairs." She studied Jenny carefully and tilted her head. "Do you want me to see if there's a way to take away the sight?"
"What?" Jenny whispered.
"You can see them because of a near-death experience, not because of any underlying power or condition. Do you want me to start researching to see if there's a way to turn off the sight?" Johanna took a step forward and made sure that she was looking into Jenny's eyes. "If I found a way, you wouldn't be able to see the boys anymore, but there's more. You wouldn't be able to see anything out there, but you’d know it's out there. There are ways to take away memories as well, but you saw what that did to Crystal; you don't want to do that. You want to unlearn all of this, but you've opened Pandora's box, Jenny, and there isn't any going back, I'm afraid. Blindfolding yourself will just make you blind but no less aware of everything out there." Jenny stared at her but eventually nodded and released a breath.
"My only option is to figure out how to keep myself safe, right? That's where you come in?" Jenny said.
"That I do, and I'm very good at what I do. Not to mention Edwin and Charles are paying me very well," Johanna replied. Jenny seemed surprised that she was being paid and that Edwin and Charles were the ones who were footing the bill. Johanna said nothing about it and finished the protection spell on the building. It took several hours and a lot of energy, but the spell clicked into place, and the building was secure. Jenny looked up when Johanna walked back into the shop. "It's all done, but you have my number if you need anything or if you just want to grab a drink with an adult who knows what the fuck is going on. I know where all the good drinking spots are, and I can bring Hob; he's very good at listening."
"I'll be sure to keep that in mind, thanks," Jenny said. "Hey, Jo?" She asked as Johanna was about to walk out the door. "You were bullshitting with me earlier, right? You can't take away my ability to see all of this shit? You were just saying all of that to prove a point?" Johanna smiled, shrugged, and left Jenny's shop without another word. It was a long time since someone managed to clock her bullshit that fast; Jenny was going to be a wonderful person to have around.
+++
Johanna wasn't sure who she was angrier at: the client for hiring her for this exorcism and telling her that it seemed pretty run-of-the-mill or herself for taking the client's word and going in with the idea that this was going to be an easy job, or the demon that managed to fool everyone and hide the fact that he was a fucking Duke until the eleventh hour. Now, he was wandering around at a university student whose body he had stolen, smirking at her because the order of the day was letting Johanna Constantine bleed out on the floor.
This was not how she saw herself going, but Johanna also made it longer than she ever thought she would when she was a teenager. Back then, she thought she wouldn't see twenty, and here she was now, in her late thirties, staring down the idea that she would have to answer for any transgressions she had made over her life. The Duke had revealed that she was targeted because Lucifer wanted to get her soul down to hell as a bargaining or possibly blackmail to Dream. Johanna wasn't an idiot; she knew that paradise wasn't waiting for her, but facing down hell as the pawn in the game of the Endless was not something she was looking forward to.
"Is there a reason we're dragging this out?" Johanna asked. The Duke managed to stab her in just the right place, so she was bleeding heavily but didn't knick an organ that would have made this quicker.
"My own amusement, and I'm hoping a little extra Wrath will work to our advantage once everything is said and done," the Duke replied. The kid was dead, burned alive in his own body, so this was not going well at all. It seemed that things would get worse because a cricket bat spun through the air and clocked the Duke so hard that he was probably seeing stars. In any other circumstance, that would have been hilarious, but she only knew one person who used a cricket bat that could hurt a Duke of hell, and she did not want them to be here.
The Dead Boy Detectives did not get the memo as they appeared in the room and began to walk toward her and the Duke. Johanna was about to tell them to get the fuck out of there when the Duke waved a hand and silenced her. She wordlessly screamed because this was above their pay grade, and Johanna could not sit by and watch two more innocent children get dragged down to hell -- she couldn't do this again.
"If you're smart, you'll sit back and let us do this exorcism without any issues. That's the easy way of doing this," Charles said. Both boys put themselves between her and the Duke, and Johanna wanted to tell them to run. This was not an ordinary demon; this was so much worse, but the Duke was amused by their appearance and wasn't about to let this opportunity go by. Johanna kicked herself because she must have given away how terrified she was to see them, and the Duke was taking advantage of it now.
"That little toy of yours is fun," the Duke said as he looked the boys over. He took a deep breath and smiled. He looked at Edwin and grinned. "You've spent some time in our ranks, but your little friend smells like a soul that also went below."
"We are going to save the young man you are possessing and get our friend's help," Edwin said, ignoring the comment about him spending time in hell. That was a smart move on his part, but a Duke wouldn't take being dismissed well. Something was rolled up in one of Edwin's hands and a vial of holy water in the other. Charles had his cricket back and a rosary wrapped around one of his hands. The Duke smirked as he looked at the two of them.
"I'm afraid you're a little late to save this meat bag; I burned him out almost as soon as I got in," the Duke replied. They started to circle each other, and Johanna tried to get Edwin's attention. If there was anyone she could try to communicate with without words, it would be him, but they weren't looking at her. They were entirely focused on the Duke, whom they still thought was just a regular, run-of-the-mill demon, and the Duke seemed to know it. "Two teenager spirits running around on top with the stink of hell on them? I know exactly who you both are. You've gained quite the fan club."
"We'll pass on any fans from hell if it's all the same to you," Charles said. He rushed forward with Edwin not far behind. They were doing their best to try and get the Duke in a place where they could throw the cloth in Edwin's hand over him like they did for Crystal's demon, but that wasn't going to work with a Duke. The circle wasn't going to be strong enough. The Duke barely flinched when Charles cracked him upside the head with the bat, and he backhanded Charles so hard that he was briefly airborne. Charles landed with a pained grunt, but Edwin used the opportunity to get the cloth with the circle over the Duke. He collapsed to the ground, but Johanna knew it wasn’t real.
"Are you all right, Charles?" Edwin asked as he pulled out his book. They were both letting their guards down, and Johanna was terrified for them.
"Yeah, that hurt like you wouldn't believe," Charles said as he pushed himself to his feet. He turned like he was about to help Johanna when the cloth over the Duke suddenly burst into flames. Both boys stumbled back in surprise as the Duke cracked his neck and looked at them. In one moment, he was several steps away, and the next, he was in front of Edwin with a hand wrapped around Edwin's neck.
"Clever little trick, but that won't work on a Duke of Hell," the Duke replied, and Johanna could see Edwin's eyes widen. He knew what that meant, but judging from how Charles mindlessly charged at the Duke, it was not information Edwin had shared. The Duke slammed Edwin into the ground, and interactions with the damned must have made them tangible enough because the floor cracked. In the next second, the bat was out of Charles's hand, and the Duke twisted his arm painfully behind him. Johanna tried to get the Duke to look at her now because maybe if he looked at her and let her speak, she could try and save the boys. Perhaps if she peacefully sacrificed herself, he would leave them alone.
"Not a smart move," the Duke said. He twisted Charles's arm in the right way, and a crack echoed in the room. Charles cried out in pain, and the Duke threw him to the side. He hit the wall near Johanna and did not get up again.
"What is a Duke doing here?" Edwin asked as he tried to move away from the Duke.
"Oh, I'm here to collect Miss. Constantine. My Lady wants someone of value to the Lord of Dreams, and she's moral, so I volunteered to get the job done." The Duke shoved his hands into his pockets and watched Edwin carefully. He looked amused by the fact that Edwin was trying to put some distance between them, but he didn't say anything. "I have to say, I wasn't expecting to run into you two little rule breakers either. Everyone loves to gossip, and when you attract attention from the Endless, everyone tends to talk. You're still one of ours, so maybe I should return to your rightful owner."
"I am protected," Edwin said through his teeth.
"I have to say, your friend is interesting too," the Duke said, looking over at Charles' crumbled body. He was starting to twitch like he would wake up, but Johanna could see that he was still out like a light. "He's got the sink of hell but didn't spend long there. If we were looking for a little fun with you, Edwin Payne, I wonder if we should bring him too. That seems like an excellent way to torture you."
"You can't do that," Edwin said, but he didn't sound so sure. "He's not claimed by hell, he's not a sacrifice, that's against the rules." The Duke threw his head back and laughed.
"Oh, now you care about rules? You two running around up here are already breaking a bunch of cosmic rules," the Duke said. He looked between the boys with a hunger that turned Johanna's stomach. She just wanted to move, but Edwin was fairly close to her. It was now that Johanna noticed that Edwin was sneakily trying to make his way toward her spellbook under the guise of cowering in fear. "You're already breaking the rules, so why not break a few more and bring your little friend down to play, too? He's just as marked as you are from the Endless; maybe we can also use that to our advantage."
Johanna could see Charles struggling to get himself together, and the Duke stared at him like he was fresh meat. He was distracted enough that he didn't notice that Edwin was losing his mind. Johanna knew fury; she had seen fury, but that was nothing compared to the expression she saw on Edwin Payne's face when a Duke of Hell said he was dragging Charles Rowland down to hell because that is the thing that would hurt Edwin the most. The Duke must have thought he had this in the bag because Johanna felt the spells on her start to fade, and she managed to kick her book the last few inches into Edwin's hands.
He looked at her, and Johanna made an educated guess that might be the thing that either damned them all or saved all three of their souls at this moment; she mouthed what page he should turn to and hoped it was the right one.
Charles was awake, for the most part, and struggling to his feet, his cricket bat in hand. He looked like he was in a fog and didn't even register the rage on Edwin's face. For Charles, the Duke keeping his focus on him was the only thing that mattered, and that was what he had right now. Charles had put himself between her and the Duke, which was sweet and probably would get him torn in half if something didn't change soon.
"You've got our stink, boy," the Duke said. "And I can't wait to get my hands on you. You're going to scream, and then you're going to beg." That was the limit for Edwin because his voice suddenly filled the entire room.
The spell that was holding Johanna in place dropped suddenly, and despite the spiking pain in her gut and the fact that the world was starting to go grey, she began to draw on the ground using her own blood. Bodies held power, and if she was about to shift off this mortal coil, Johanna was going to make sure the last thing she did was prevent two more kids from going to hell. The Duke clamped his hands over his ears as he bared his teeth at Edwin. Johanna didn't like to use the spell he was using because it required a lot of energy. Ghosts, however, were pure energy; her working theory was that their spectral energy would be more powerful than regular human energy.
It seemed like her theory was correct, considering that the Duke seemed like he was crumbling under the weight of Edwin's chanting. Charles was at her side, digging into his backpack and tying a bandage around her waist. It was awkward, considering that Johanna was not making it easy on him, but all Edwin needed to do was finish the chant. She could hit the enchantation she had drawn on the floor, and this would be over. The Duke would be kicked back down to hell, pissed off, but very much back where he belonged.
Edwin didn't finish the spell, though. He looked furious, rabid even, as he began to rattle off spells that were there to hurt and nothing more. With a flick of a hand, he snapped the Duke's arm; with a word, the Duke collapsed like he'd been stabbed, and Johanna could see that the spell was still draining him. Edwin was too far gone to care, and she could hear him spitting venom back at the Duke, promising they would never get their hands on Charles while he still existed.
"He needs to finish the incantation," Johanna said to Charles. "It's draining him; it would have killed him if he had been mortal, but he's running out of time. You need to snap him out of it." Charles glanced at her, his eyes wide, and was on his feet in seconds. She thought he would yell at Edwin to try and bring him back with his voice because that was the safe and sane thing to do, but when did the Dead Boy Detectives ever do the safe and sane thing? Instead, Charles raced over, pressed himself against Edwin's back, and held on.
Johanna wanted to scream because now the incantation was draining both of them. That wasn't helping, but as Charles held Edwin from behind, she could see him whispering to his partner. It was far too quiet for her to hear, but the words must have been enough because Edwin snapped out of it and finished the incantation. The Duke cursed their names as Johanna slapped her hand on the rune on the ground.
The world beneath the Duke opened up, and Johanna could hear the screams of the damned. The poor soul the Duke had possessed burned to ash immediately, and there were staring down his monstrous, true form. He sneered at the boys and her until the Duke was pulled below, and the circle closed. The silence hung heavy in the air, and Johanna tried to slow her breathing. That certainly did not help her blood loss. She wasn't worried about herself right now. She looked up and watched Edwin and Charles both fall to their knees, Charles with his arms still wrapped around Edwin.
They looked a little more transparent than usual, but Johanna could tell they were both still here, which was all that mattered. She didn't lose two more children to hell, so nothing else mattered. When the world finally started to go dark, Johanna realized that the Duke might have gotten his wish about her bleeding out. The last thing she saw was Edwin and Charles looking up at her with wide eyes simultaneously.
They were safe, and it was enough.
+++
Johanna was lying on a beach and could hear the ocean in the background, which was how she knew that she probably wasn't dead and this was a dream. She wasn't keen to move, though, because the sand that she could see out of the corner of her eye was the same sand she saw the few times she directly went to the Dreaming, and Johanna had no idea if she somehow managed to get herself here or if Dream brought her here. And if Dream brought her here, why would he leave her on this beach?
The man in question walked into her line of sight and looked down at her with a slightly troubled expression. That wasn't a good thing for her because maybe he was giving her a good dream before her body gave out and she finally died. They seemed to be in some weird stalemate, staring at each other before Dream offered her a hand and pulled Johanna to her feet. She was on the beach directly inside of the Dreaming.
"I believe I told you very recently that I would like you to stay out of trouble," Dream said.
"In my defense, I didn't go into it thinking it would be a problem," Johanna replied as she slipped her hands into her jacket pockets. "I need to tell you what they said."
"I'm aware of what the Duke was trying to accomplish with you first, but also Edwin and Charles," Dream said. He frowned as he took one of her hands and ran his thumb over her knuckles. Dream was holding her hand like she was something delicate, something precious, and Johanna was still unsure how to respond to someone giving her such kindness. "I never wanted anyone else to get hurt because of my squabbles with others, but it appears that option has been taken away from me." She was about to remind him that pushing her and Hob away for their own good was probably not a good idea and wouldn't work, but something else made her heart stutter.
"Edwin and Charles," Johanna said breathlessly. "They weren't as solid as usual when I fell asleep; they looked weak. I told Edwin to use a spell I shouldn't have, but I didn't think we had any other options, and now they are--" Dream reached forward and cupped her face in his hands and leaned forward so their foreheads were pressed together. The motion was gentle enough that Johanna's panicked blathering immediately stopped.
"The boys are fine," Dream said. "In fact, they are not far from you right now. You are resting in your flat, and they didn't want to leave until they were sure you would recover. Once you open your eyes, you'll be able to see them, and you'll see they are resting and recovering the same way you need to. It did not take them; you did not lose two more." Johanna closed her eyes and struggled to take a deep breath so she wouldn't start sobbing in the middle of the Dreaming.
"I'm at home?" Johanna softly asked because the last place she wanted to wake up was in a hospital.
"Hob tended to your wounds and donated some blood as well," Dream replied. “He wanted me to tell you that it is a good thing that, as an immortal, he is O-negative." Johanna laughed softly to herself because Hob would be a universal donor. The cosmic universe just worked out that way sometimes. “Johanna, please rest; I care about you far too much to lose you."
Johanna opened her eyes and could see the entire universe in Dream's gaze. She closed the distance between them, and this kiss felt different from the ones they had shared. In her mind, Johanna told herself that Hob and Dream had a deep emotional connection, but the way he held her right now and kissed her, maybe it was time to admit to herself that this was more. "Who has the fucking time for romance?" she said to him once, and as Johanna broke the kiss but remained close, it appeared that she did, in fact, have the time.
"Could you take it away for a little while?" she whispered, and Dream frowned. "The memory, the nightmare. You said I need to rest, and I think I'll rest better without it for a little while." Something shifted in Dream's expression that Johanna couldn't put into words, but deep down, she knew that taking away that memory for a little while wouldn't change how badly she wanted to save Astra. She would ask for it back again because it was part of her, but Dream wanted her to rest, and this was how he could genuinely help her rest.
"Your dreams will be peaceful for as long as you'll permit to keep them as such," Dream replied. "Right now, it's time to wake up because you need to do one more thing before you rest properly."
+++
Johanna opened her eyes slowly. It was early morning, and her entire body felt like one giant bruise. That exhaustion settled into your bones when you were injured, and that could only be rectified with rest. She couldn't rest because she needed to see something with her own eyes. It took some work for Johanna to shift enough to see out her open door and into the main room without ripping the stitches she could feel in her side.
From her bed, she could see her couch where Edwin and Charles appeared to be sleeping or whatever version of sleeping the dead needed to do. They were so wrapped up around each other that it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began, but that made sense, considering what Johanna had learned about them recently. They were still but solid, no longer transparent, no longer fading.
She didn't lose two more. Dream told her that, but Johanna needed to see them to honestly believe it. She didn't lose two more, and now she could rest. The vial in which she kept the grains of sand that Dream left behind was on her dresser, and Johanna fell back asleep with it in her hand.