Chapter Text
“My name.”
Hob looks back to the Stranger sitting across from him, away from the bustle of the Inn and the internal war it provokes of whether he should say that it’s his, and raises a brow.
“Your name.”
His Stranger had been silent for the half hour leading to this moment. He’d smiled when he’d sat, indulged Hob his quips and queries (and said the word friend!), but after only a minute reacquainting himself with his company, Hob had sensed some bone-deep weariness in him, an exhaustion that seemed to tangibly drag his shoulders toward the floor. It was enough to make Hob shut up for once. He’s learned his lesson there, after all. He hopes, anyway.
“You asked, when last we met.” The Stranger’s hands fidget together between his thighs where he sits back in his chair, fingers picking at skin and cuticles Hob isn’t quite sure are real. “In truth I have many. Long ago, humans knew me as Oneiros. Longer still I was known as Kai’ckul. Every culture across the universe and across history has given me a name, though most are long forgotten but in my memory. Mamu. Caer Ibormeith. L’Zoril. Morpheus. The Shaper of Form. The Sandman.”
“Hang on, Morpheus?” Hob asks incredulously, sitting up and nearly knocking the tests he’d been grading off the table. “As in Ovid?”
“As in many of the great authors and poets of antiquity,” the Bastard says smugly. “For I am also known as the Prince of Stories. The King of Dreams. The Lord of Nightmares.”
“Of course you’re royalty, you prick,” Hob replies, unable to keep the grin from his face any longer. “And a god, apparently. Jesus.”
“Not he,” his friend amends.
“Fuck off,” Hob says affectionately, looking back to the bar and waving Alan down for another round.
“And not a god,” his friend continues, seriously now. “It is simplest for humans- and indeed most creatures- to think of me as such, but in truth I am… more.”
Hob, in his many, many years, has seen things. You don’t walk around for six centuries and not see things. Ghosts, witches, great bloody sea monsters, other immortals- Mad Hettie and the old king from Mumbai, just to list a couple- but gods… he’d given up on religion a long time ago. Figured if there was a God, any god, that he would’ve seen that, too, by now, but instead has only ever seen that the single greater force worth caring about (or even just his spit) was life itself. He supposes he doesn’t need to change this worldview for the new information that his friend has given him, but it’s still a bit jarring. More than a god implies the confirmed existence of them (plural!), which is more than Hob has believed in in centuries. And yet, still, upon looking on his friend, he does not see more than a god. He sees a man, hunted and fragmented, nothing like the awesome, awful being that until now has, in Hob’s eyes, dimmed everyone around them with his presence.
“What… what would you like me to call you?”
It seems to be the right question, though his friend looks surprised by it, as though he doesn’t know how to answer, until-
“…Dream,” says Dream, apparently. “…of the Endless.”
“Dream,” Hob repeats in a breath, overwhelmed by the simple fact that Dream has given this to him while simultaneously biting down on at least five flirtations based upon it, never mind what Endless means or why it sounds like a title in itself. Hasn’t even had him back for an hour and he’s ready to risk it all. The past hundred and thirty-three years have taught him a lot- more than the previous five hundred had, it feels- about patience and keeping his bloody mouth shut, but apparently not enough.
Dream’s lips twitch at the sound of it but he says nothing more, his eyes falling to the stack of quizzes on the table before drifting back to the window and the warm golden light that streams in from it. Hob has about a million more questions than he’s ever had, perhaps the largest of them being ‘Why now?’ in great flashing neon lights, but they are gone in the now-familiar flash of anxiety and the accompanying vision of Dream stalking into the darkness. Alan comes by and sets his fresh pint in place of the empty glass he takes away, glancing at Dream but not saying anything which Hob nearly weeps in gratitude for. There’s a slight flinch, a jerk of Dream’s eyelids and a sudden stiffness at the presence of a stranger that Hob recognizes.
“Like the song?” he blurts out, startling both Dream and himself. He toys nervously with his own fingers, his elbow still draped across the back of the booth, as he curses his inability to just… not with Dream. He just wants to know more about him, always has, the urge as insatiable as his lust for life. They’re both lust, really. “The Sandman,” he continues, though, when Dream makes no move to leave. “Like the song?”
“…Which song?”
This gives Hob pause. “Any of them, I suppose. Mr. Sandman. Enter Sandman. You know.”
“I do not,” Dream says with a befuddled frown that makes Hob’s heart trip nearly harder than it had when he’d first laid eyes on him. “I have been… away. For more than a century. I-”
There’s more there. Hob can see it, and he doesn’t need to have known Dream for six hundred years to either. “C’mon,” he says, rising and gathering the quizzes into a mess of a pile that it’ll be annoying to sort later, but Dream is growing visibly uncomfortable with each unfamiliar sound and question, his shoulders inching higher and higher toward his ears as he seems to remember himself, so the longer Hob can distract him to delay that process the more he might learn about what happened to Dream that’s so drastically changed him before he storms off and melts into the shadows for another century. Perhaps it’s selfish. Hob’s come back around to accepting that about himself on occasion.
It works. Dream stares after him quizzically as he tucks the papers under his arm, the pen behind his ear, and lifts his pint with a nod to the stairs. Alan acknowledges this in turn with a raised brow, a glance at Dream, and a pointed, disapproving look at the clock on the opposite wall as if to say, ‘It’s still light out, for fuck’s sake.’ Hob ignores him.
“C’mon,” he says again, looking down at Dream expectantly. “We’ve already broken with tradition.”
He doesn’t wait for Dream. It’s a gamble, but one he wins, because he hears Dream’s slow, apprehensive footsteps following behind him as he leads the way up to his flat.
“You live here,” Dream says, watching unhelpfully as Hob fumbles single-handedly for his keys. Far be it for more than a god to bear his cups.
“Guilty,” Hob replies distractedly, unable to look at him as he continues. “Figured I should stick close by for a while.” He opens the door and drops the stack of quizzes on the table in the entryway, making immediately for his records on the other side of the living room.
“A while,” Dream repeats, tone inscrutable.
“I’d say about thirty-three years, give or take a couple. Had to give myself time to die, come back as my nephew.” The room falls a bit awkwardly silent on those implications, save for the shuffle of record sleeves, until Hob finds Metallica’s self-titled with a triumphant hum and goes about putting it on. “Don’t even need these anymore, did you know that? I could just put it on with my phone, instantly! Wouldn’t bother with the analog if it wasn’t such a special occasion. You won’t believe what they’re doing with music nowadays. Not that this is contemporary or anything. Hard for me to keep track in my old age, though.”
Vaguely aware he’s babbling, he goes for a self-deprecating grin, but is brought up short by Dream’s expression, nothing less than adrift. Hob’s thought a lot about this scenario over the centuries, of convincing the Stranger to stay for just one more round of watching him drink, convincing him to come back with him wherever, but now, when it was as easy as simply expecting him to follow, he doesn’t know what to do with him. It doesn’t seem like he knows what to do with himself.
“Why are you here?” he asks quietly when the silence drags on, filled unfittingly by the record which by some miracle he’d left quiet enough to hear himself over when by all rights Metallica should be blared as loud as one can handle. He immediately swipes a hand over his mouth, dragging it down the stubble on his chin and neck to quell the anxiety, the fear over the question he’s just asked, and gestures vaguely at Dream. “I don’t- mean that, I just mean-“ He doesn’t know what he means. Or rather, he means too many things at once.
“We are… friends,” Dream says slowly, gaze casting downward to the sofa between them. He hasn’t really moved from where the entryway opens up into the living room and kitchen, and Hob just looks at him, how lank and grim he seems. “I do not have many. My sister suggested that you would be pleased to see me after I was forced to miss our last appointment.”
“I am,” Hob says immediately. And then, “Sorry, sister?” And then, “Sorry, forced?” He scoffs and sits on the armrest of the nearest leather armchair, pint forgotten next to the record player. “I just figured you were still… Well, doesn’t matter what I thought. What could force ‘more than a god’ to anything?”
Dream straightens a bit, a hint of the pride Hob had known so well returning with a glint of fire, the spark of some faraway light actually, visibly flashing in his blue eyes. “I told you once that immortality did not protect you from those who truly wished you harm. There are few creatures as cruel as man, Hob Gadling, and they will always seek to imprison and exploit that which they cannot comprehend.” Dream spits his words but Hob can hardly hear them.
Imprison. More than a century. Hurt or captured. More than a god. Morpheus. Dream. The vague thoughts filter through Hob’s mind in a slow trickle, fuzzy and stinging like he’s going to be sick, the thought of which slams the term ‘sleepy sickness’ to the forefront with what feels like material weight.
“Oh, fuck,” he manages weakly.
Dream is… bigger now, physically bigger, and seething, and yeah, Hob is, too, but when he looks closer he can see that Dream’s eyes are filled with tears. He gets only that glimpse before he’s turning around and stalking to the door which has been flooded in shadow, and it’s all Hob can do to wrench himself to his feet, to launch himself at Dream’s sleeve and keep him there like he’d been too angry and, perhaps, cowardly to do at their last meeting.
“Wait,” he cries, fingers twisting into a fabric that looks like wool but feels like silk so light it hardly exists. His eyes land on Dream’s chest as he turns him around, unable to meet his furious gaze, like a dog that’s been scolded for doing something it knows isn’t allowed.
“You dare-“
“No, I just-“ Hob releases his sleeve at the wrist in exchange for the fabric at the fore of his bicep, still not looking him in the eye. “You don’t need to tell me. I think you should, but you don’t need to, not yet. And it doesn’t need to be a century from now, or even… what, seventy years? It doesn’t need to. I’ll be here. Any time, for anything, not just this. And I think you have ways of finding me if I’m not. Just- don’t leave here the way you did last time.”
Dream doesn’t answer, so Hob loosens his grip, because he’s not about to be another cruel man keeping him here. It’s only when Dream remains, unmoving, that he has the courage to meet his eyes again.
The shadows in the doorway have come swirling around him, shrouding him half in darkness, leaving a distant, sparkling star where his left eye should be. The right, still human and blue, is lined in red, the line of his mouth twisted between a frown and a sneer. Hob supposes, now that Dream’s fessed up to what he really is (sort of) that there must be no reason to hold back, and wonders even at their impasse what Dream must really look like, the whole scope of him. Is there a whole scope? He’d called himself Endless after all. What did that mean, as a concept?
“We are friends,” he says fiercely, voice breaking, and he does feel one hundred and thirty-three years younger, the things he’d wished for so long to be able to say spilling from him uncontrollably. “And I don’t mind saying it even when you can’t. You’ve said it once- twice- that’s enough. I’ll be here any time you need reminding, alright? But don’t just- leave me behind in the dark again to say it to myself.” He releases Dream’s sleeve, content that he’s said his peace, and shoves his hands into his pockets, looking over his shoulder at the stereo system. “Doesn’t always have to be the hard stuff, either. Think you’ve got more to catch up on this century than all the others combined.” He lets that thought sit for as long as he can (about three seconds) before it annoys the history professor in him. “That’s a lie. But still. Music, books, movies, bloody- coke benders, all of it. I’ll show it all to you. ‘S part of the deal, right? Give Shaxberd a run for his money, if you’d just let me. Alright?”
For a moment, Dream remains immobile, until finally, slowly, he dips his head. Maybe it’s a nod, or just an unconscious movement as he considers Hob’s words, but when his head lifts again, something in his eyes is softer. Not warm, or any less angry, but as though something in him has loosened just as it had when he’d first sat down at Hob’s table. And then he’s gone, taking the shadows and the chill Hob hadn’t even noticed with him, leaving in his place only a swirl of sand across the floor. Sandman, Hob thinks affectionately. Their encounter with Lady Johanna in 1789 suddenly made much more sense.
Later, he’ll likely be angry; will worry, will curse Dream’s newfound name and all the bastard had put him through by only some fault of his own, get sick on ‘over a century’ and hate himself for being upset, get mad all over again at the fact that he was made to beg as he gets silently drunk and processes all that had happened in these forty-five short minutes. For now, he mindlessly gathers the broom and dustpan next to his refrigerator and sweeps the granules up, idly thinking of music to show Dream next time around. Maybe, he thinks, Dream would like Billie Holiday. Maybe, he thinks, he could see how many dream-related songs he could cram into a playlist without him noticing. Maybe, he thinks, Dream would be gone for less than a century.
Dream, to his credit, shows up the next month.
“We were friends once,” Hob laments to Nuala over morning tea one early-September day in the looming threat of the start of term. This has become a habit, mostly because he’s not entirely sure Nuala’s ever made her own tea, living at court her entire life the way that she has. That’s fine, it’s good, Hob likes making tea for people and he thinks one day that she might be amenable to learn. She’s ventured down to the pub once or twice already, has spent those afternoons watching the goings on with a small glass of wine like a fascinated if nervous cat, much in the same way he’d seen Dream observe the New Inn the first few times he’d visited.
They are talking about Dream. Not unusual, and not surprising, but Hob still feels a bit bad that their conversations tend to veer this direction at some point or another. She’s a cool head with the wisdom of age, a stunning wit, and isn’t the sweet and demure picture that she had presented under Cluracan’s watchful eye and the threat of Titania’s ire. What’s more is that she knows of what he speaks where his Earthly friends do not, but is not so closely and literally related to the subject as Death. She is by no means comfortable speaking to him with any sort of the harsh frankness Death serves him, but she is getting better about challenging him. Like now.
“I think you know that hasn’t changed,” she replies, not quite rolling her eyes as she takes a sip. She prefers it without any condiments as it were, probably for the same reason she enjoys eating flowers. He’s had to start carrying higher quality stuff because of it, though she doesn’t take offense to the occasional Twining’s like he thought she might.
“It won’t ever for me,” he says, beyond feeling embarrassment about it at this point, “But he can’t decide whether he can even look at me or never wants to let me out of his sight again. Like I haven’t gone six hundred years looking after myself. Not sure he remembers how to be just… normal friends.” This is muttered into his teacup- genuine, regency, dug out from the depths of a china cabinet he hasn’t gone through in decades because Nuala seemed dubious of the propriety of his student-gifted novelty mugs. “Not sure I do either.”
“Were you ever…. Normal friends?” Nuala asks doubtfully.
Hob opens his mouth to form some kind argument but finds he has none. “Fair.”
Nuala sets her teacup down and folds her hands primly upon the table, looking down at its surface like she is nervous about whatever she might say next. “What did you do? As friends, before everything happened.”
Hob considers this with a frown. “Talked, I suppose. Had dinner. Drank. Well, I mostly did all that and he would just sit there, but recently I’d gotten him to reciprocate a bit. After… After that bastard Burgess, when he came back, he seemed more interested in being friends. Real friends.”
“But have you tried doing any of those things since… since you became what you are?”
“No, I just-” Hob begins defensively. “I just didn’t want to- you have to be careful around him when he’s like this or else he’ll-“
Nuala doesn’t say anything behind her teacup. On one hand, Hob hears himself, too, and thinks that if it were any one of his friends telling him this he’d lovingly and affectionately tell them to bloody stand the fuck up, but on the other, they don’t have the vision of the only constant in their very, very long life repeatedly slipping through their fingers at the mere suggestion that they are friends, at the slightest hint of an overstep. Hob supposes he is a lot less alone now, present company and even the rest of the family- Desire included, though unlikely to be much accommodating- there to help carry the parts of him that Dream does. But he wants Dream to be the one carrying them. He wants Dream.
“No,” Hob says instead in resignation, taking another annoyed sip.
Well. It’s not like he’s got any better ideas.
“Hello, Hob-“
“God’s-“ Hob exclaims, nearly hitting the ceiling. “Bloody wounds,” he finishes, quieter now that half the pub is looking at them. He’d only looked aside for a second, but that had evidently been enough for Dream to appear in the seat across from his without so much as stirring a draught. “Oh, that’s funny, is it?” he asks a smirking Bastard, only moderately annoyed as he mops up the small puddle of Strongbow he’s now splashed out of his glass before it can creep toward his never-ending stack of grading.
Hob is cautiously optimistic; this is three or four visits in as many months after the mess of the so-called dream vortex (mentioned once, in passing, whatever it was), and though Dream is hardly any more forthcoming about the events of his own life, he seems to be relaxing, trusting Hob with parts of himself he’d never deigned to share. Hob thinks, as more time passes, that he’ll never get the full measure of him and all that he can do, but he covets each new piece of information all the same. For now, Dream seems content only to listen to him and his tales of the past two centuries (since they hadn’t really gotten to that the last time around), and Hob is always content to tell him to the backdrop of some album that Dream can focus so dually on that it’s a gamble, when he makes the occasional comment, what he’s referring to.
“Have I come at an inconvenient time?” Dream asks, not sounding as though he truly cares about the answer.
“Never,” Hob replies smoothly anyway, even though he really does need to get his grading done, because after 600 years he can at least be honest about his priorities. “Would you like a drink?” he asks, knowing the answer. Dream shakes his head, a movement so miniscule it could easily have been missed, but it’s one of several sweet, human gestures he’s picked up even as Hob continues to learn just to what extent he isn’t. “I suppose you don’t need it,” Hob begins, mostly fishing for confirmation, “But even back then you would at least order something. Not even a glass of wine?”
“You may order me a glass of wine, if it pleases you.”
“If it pleases me?” Hob asks in mock incredulity to hide his delight at the prospect, even as he slides from the booth to order from the bar with an immediacy that is distinctly uncool.
“In truth, I am sustained more on your stories than any Waking food or drink.”
Hob blinks, stunned only momentarily, before losing the fight to a grin so wide it makes his cheeks hurt. “So it is my charming personality.”
“I was speaking in general terms,” Dream argues mildly, though he has gained a small smile, too. He isn’t very expressive, and there is always an air of indulgence when he condescends to be with Hob. Besides, Hob calls bullshit, because every word that comes from Dream’s mouth is agonized over, so if he says Hob’s stories, he means Hob’s stories. Not that Hob’ll call him on it.
“Just for that, you’ll get the worst wine I can find,” he replies, and foregoes ordering to root around under the bar himself, much to the dismay of Sally who picks around him to serve the actual customers with an annoyed glare.
“Should you be taking such liberties in a place of business?” Dream asks in that same, new bewildered tone that Hob’s grown very fond of these past months. “I understand you are close with the staff for living upstairs but I did not think social convention had changed that much.”
Whoops.
“Right.” Hob doesn’t look away from his task as he answers, mostly to save himself the embarrassment. “Er, she’s mine. The Inn. Business and building.”
“And he abuses his privileges frequently,” Sally says pointedly, nudging him off balance and squawking with a kick of her ankle. Sally’s fun, around his age (at least, the age he lets people assume he is) and fierce, and something in the air tells him he’s going to need to find a replacement for her soon when she moves onto bigger and better things.
Dream doesn’t respond to this new tidbit of withheld information, and he quietly follows Hob up the stairs as he rambles through his reasonings and excuses (what, is he gonna be six hundred-something years old paying rent and leaving a paper trail? And the White Horse shutting down meant they needed somewhere to meet, and the Inn just happened to be up for sale and needed refurbishing, and-). It isn’t until the wine (nicer than the swill he’d threatened Dream with) has been decanted and poured and Hob has put his album of choice (Quadrophenia) on that Dream finally speaks, apparently not noticing that Hob is in the middle of a riveting tale of beach fights and moral panic.
“I mean, I was just a bloke, I thought, but you couldn’t really wear leather or mention you listened to the wrong band without sending some message, which was unfortunate for me and my bike-“
“I would have come,” Dream says. It’s almost halting, like he has to rip each word from his own throat. Hob’s thoughts die on his tongue as he blinks, lowering his glass from where he’d been gesturing loosely with it and watching Dream as he sits stiffly in the armchair across the coffee table. His hands are folded tightly around his own glass as he stares intently into it. “Had I been able.”
“I…” Hob tries. He swallows. “Thank you.” He gives a self-deprecating huff of laughter, eyes falling to the wine in his hand. “I’d say I know, but I didn’t. So that… Well. It means a lot.”
“The irony. Is that I was close,” Dream continues, still disjointed, looking as though he’ll bolt any second. Hob feels an instinct to hold very, very still kick in. “An hour, perhaps, by automobile, if what I can ascertain of them from dreams is true. But I was well-hidden and well-guarded, though my captor, I’m told, enjoyed gloating of my presence to friends and strangers alike. He, too, called me the Devil.” Dream says this like it’s funny, though his eyes seem ablaze.
It gnaws at Hob for only a moment before he remembers, with sharp clarity and a soft gasp, the rumors of lavish parties and magicks and the Devil in the basement of some crackpot’s mansion in Sussex. Had he not been establishing his business in Manchester after returning from abroad, he might even have gone to one, indulged in some of the wildness the dawn of the twenties and the end of the Great War had to offer.
“Roderick fucking Burgess,” Hob says lowly, slamming his glass a bit too hard upon the side table as he gets up to pace. “That slimy fucking geezer had you locked up? I thought he was a hack, I thought-“ He breathes angrily through his nose, wearing a hole in the rug for a few moments before rounding on his friend and making sure that he meets his eye as he says fiercely. “I would’ve come for you. I would’ve, if I’d only known. I would’ve come for him.”
Dream looks cool and collected, though his blue eyes burn with a glimpse of that starlight Hob has only seen once before. “And what would you have done, if you had found him there?”
Hob snorts. “In the old days? Started by cutting off his ears and feeding them to him. Taught him a lesson to think on while he spent the rest of eternity burning in Hell, or whatever else exists.”
Dream seems to consider this seriously for a moment, like Burgess was still around to make good on. Then his lips turn upward in a smirk. “I do not recommend revenge. It tends to have repercussions.”
“I know,” Hob replies simply, “But he needed to know who he’d captured. What he’d done.”
Dream’s smirk heats as though he’s preening at the thought. “Your chivalry becomes you, Hob. It is a fanciful idea. In the end, however, Roderick Burgess died never truly comprehending the damage he had done to his world or to mine. He was killed by his son, who kept me for another eighty-three years. And I have already taken my revenge on him.”
“Good,” Hob says with a smile of his own. Discontent to stand awkwardly in the middle of the room now that the intensity of the moment is gone, he turns to the fireplace and goes about lighting it. It’s mostly to have something to do with his hands, though he’s noticed that Dream has never taken his coat off at the Inn when before his return he’d been content to dress in whatever helped him to blend in the most. When he finally returns to his seat and takes up his cup once more, he says delicately, “You don’t need to, but, er. You could tell me the rest of it. S’not just a one-way street, you know, friendship. S’what I’m here for. What I’ve been here for.”
Dream considers this, too, observing him carefully like it’s the first time the notion has truly crossed his mind. “Despite all of the wrongs I have done you.” Hob considers protesting, but the vindictive side of him decides he should sit in that satisfaction for a moment, long enough for Dream to continue. “Yes,” he murmurs. “Perhaps it is.” The last time Hob had offered, he’d swirled away into his sand, angry and tormented. Now, though, he sits back, still tense but holding a deliberate indifference, canting ever slightly to his right as though the few extra centimeters will bring him meaningfully closer to the fire, and speaks.
“We begin,” he starts, “In the waking world.”
It has been over one week since he’s seen Dream. It’s the longest stretch they’ve gone since Hob’s ascended as everyone calls it, and Hob is- unsettled. He remembers well when he was lucky to see him once a month or even once a century, but while he spent a long time being human without him, he’s always been Endless with him. Nevertheless, as much as he’s been missing Dream and as ever wishes he were always around, it’s nice not having to worry about Dream’s worry. He keeps busy at the Inn, working the bar before term is set to start and he well and truly becomes too busy (he’s still not gotten the hang of the whole Being Everywhere All the Time thing) to help out.
It’s easier, also, to convince Nuala to come down if he’s there with her, and he thinks she benefits from the exposure. The 21st century is very loud (he still feels this way himself, sometimes), so it’s better for her to build up toward throwing herself into a Friday night. She’s even started watering the window boxes and garden patches around the building, coaxing them (either by faerie magic or Hob inadvertently using his connection to the place in his desire to see her happy and settled) into seasonally appropriate blooms more vibrant than Hob and the rest of the staff have ever gotten them.
It's perhaps because it’s been so long, or maybe that Hob had been intently thinking of the subject of his conversation with Nuala, that Dream comes in. It’s near closing on a Tuesday; the kitchen closed over an hour ago, Nuala is in her rooms and Gwyn had asked for the day off last minute, no doubt taking advantage of Hob’s ability to help out while she could, so he finds himself wiping the bar down for the thirtieth time as he waits in vain for the three blokes in the corner to leave when Dream appears across from him.
“Ah,” says Hob, pleased he can put his plan into motion. “Just the primordial alien I wanted to see.”
Dream raises his eyebrows with a light smirk. In rare, good spirits tonight, then. “Alien?”
“I’m one, too, now, so you can’t get offended. Look, I was thinking- can we get drunk?”
Dream’s eyes cast to the strangers in the corner briefly. “It is… possible, though a matter of choice.”
“Alright, but have you ever chosen?”
“I have responsibilities,” Dream frowns.
“So do I,” Hob says. He nods at the kids in the corner. “So do they. We have endless responsibilities, dove. Including,” he says, placing a bottle of well tequila between them on the bar, “To ourselves. And I think we need to go back to the basics.” It’s stern and pointed, so many of the Things They Haven’t Talked About Yet loaded behind it. “Been a while since we just had dinner.”
Dream gives the bottle a barely-there grimace. “Liquor is not… dinner.”
“It can be,” Hob argues, offended. “Made it this far, haven’t I?” Dream’s face does a funny maneuver as he processes this with the consideration of just how Hob has lasted this long, but Hob has already moved on to their friends in the corner. “Sorry, guys. Closing up.”
“S’only ten thirty,” the one furthest in the booth whines.
“Yeah, and I’m the owner, and I’ve decided we’re closing at ten thirty tonight.”
“We could leave a bad review.”
“Or I could give you a round at the door.”
“You could just convince them to leave,” Dream murmurs, glaring at them like the prickly shadow he is. “It is in your nature. This is your domain.”
“I did,” Hob says brightly, pouring shots for the five of them. “Without magic.”
“No lime?” one of the boys sniffs as he meets them at the door.
“It’s free shots. Drink up. You too, dove,” he calls over his shoulder before tossing his own back with the lads and sending them on their way out the door.
Dream is staring at his now-empty shot glass in disdain when he wanders back over after locking up and clearing the only dirty table, which puts what even feels like a goofy smile on Hob’s face. Taking pity, he removes the offending glass and begins his search for something Dream might enjoy more.
“Nuala’s settling in, I think,” he says, rooting around in the refrigerator under the bar for some Bailey’s, or some other sweet liquor that might do better in his peer-pressuring attempts. “It’s sort of fun, showing her all the stuff I had to show you when you came back. More, actually. She’s become quite attached to my Austen first edition. Think I might have to duel her for them.”
“You shouldn’t let your subjects take such liberties,” Dream says sourly. Hob rolls his eyes.
“She’s not my subject, she’s my friend. I don’t know if I’m hers yet, but-“
“Is it so important that she see you as one?”
Hob pops back up from the refrigerator with a chocolate liqueur and tries very hard not to let his annoyance show. “Dream, for the same reason that I didn’t give a toss that you were, on the surface, a lord, I don’t care that she is technically now my subject. We don’t have subjects anymore. Ignoring 21st century political nuances,” he adds as an afterthought. “My point is, I, like most humans, operate on the potential for connection. We have to. We evolved it as an instinct so we didn’t kill each other en masse two million years ago. Never mind that we’re working on killing each other now, that’s not the tone I want to set getting you drunk for the first time.”
“I only worry that your casual attitude may distract from the respect you are owed in your station.” He looks bitterly at the bar, the picture of guilty-Dream that Hob knows too well. “The Endless do not have friends, and for good reason. There is the risk that we overextend our favor, but the greater risk is that harm will befall them.”
Hob deflates a bit. “I’ve told you, pigeon, it’s not-“
“It is. Furthermore, it is very likely that she still will report to her brother, and thus Titania, the details of her time here. How do you know she can be trusted?”
“Ah, Cluracan,” Hob says, unable to help the sly smirk even as he burns at the memory of what he’d put Nuala through. “Would you like to talk about that, or do you need more liquor?”
Dream glares silently for a moment, giving Hob opportunity to go about mixing their next drink. “I only meant to question the speed at which you bestowed your friendship upon one you knew so little, and I admit I take satisfaction that I was correct in my judgement-“
“And I told you, then and now, that if I didn’t, we wouldn’t be sitting here having this conversation. Drink this,” he says, placing the chocolate vodka shot before him only a little aggressively. “And choose to feel it, please, because I’m not going to make a fool of myself.” Dream, for all he’s worth, complies. Hob tries not fold when he looks down at the empty glass, visibly surprised that he’s enjoyed it. “I’m going to have other friendships, dove. That doesn’t mean I value ours any less.” He swallows, taking Dream’s glass back so he can make them both another, wondering if he can let himself feel the liquor without the sugar-induced hangover he’s setting himself up for tomorrow morning. “You… You’ve always been more important. The most important person in my life. Even Nellie knew. She and- she and Robyn were the only ones I’ve ever told, about any of it. She was my wife, and she knew no matter how much I loved her that I’d choose you any time, because without you, I’m well and truly alone. Maybe-“ he clears his throat, spurs himself back into action to shake the weepiness away. “Maybe not now, with the Family and everything, all these new immortal creatures hanging around, but I still choose you. Do you understand?”
Fuck if that isn’t a loaded question. There are many things to understand about what he’s just said, and he’s not sure he wants Dream to understand them. When Dream doesn’t respond anyway, Hob sighs, placing another drink in front of him.
“Go on.” And then, when they’ve both drained their glasses: “Would Lucienne let me show Nuala around the Library?”
Dream glares at him.
“Oh,” Hob breathes, jaw dropping at the view.
They stand at the end of a long bridge, rising from the water and suspended by stone hands the size of a Titan’s. At the other end looms a magnificent castle, grander than Hob has ever seen in the real world- the Waking, he’s been pointedly told by Dream many times now- decorated in figures from all the great stories Hob knows and even ones he doesn’t. Above the palace doors stand guard a griffin, a wyvern, and a hippogriff who raise a cacophonous cry of greeting to their king.
Turning slowly on his heel as they begin to cross the bridge, Hob tries to take everything he can in. The landscape is reminiscent of the glens of Scotland but also something distinctly tropical. In the distant mountainside the stone figure of a woman sleeps; from the crevices of her fingers and the folds of her tunic, small dragons so far away they look like sparrows swoop and play in the currents of air that rustle the trees.
A pirate ship lazes slowly across the loch- or sea? Hob isn’t sure- and for a moment, he’s reminded of the Sea Witch. As if on cue, thousands of flying fish launch from the water and soar over their heads, quickly overshadowed by the Leviathan, as though they were all just pilot fish. Hob ducks unnecessarily, yelping in surprise, perhaps closer to the reaction he should’ve had on the deck of that ship. As the Leviathan disappears beneath the waves once more, Dream- taller paler, wilder, with eyes like the night sky and a cloak that melts into flame- watches it with a small smile, amused, too, by Hob’s shock.
“A tale I would have thought you’d share with me sooner. I am eager to hear it.”
Hob, straightening and continuing to walk, swells a bit at the thought, wondering too why he hadn’t told Dream about it yet. Maybe because he figured Dream gets enough of the supernatural in his day to day and had always claimed to be interested in the human experience. “Remind me, one day. You’ll like it. Proper narrative fantasy, complete with handsome cabin boys, foreign kings, sea monsters, mysterious immortal strangers…” He continues to take the Dreaming in as they draw nearer to the castle, still somewhat in awe even after months of Dream explaining his powers and those of his family. “You really made all this?”
“In a manner of speaking. The Dreaming is me, and I am the Dreaming. All you see is an extension of myself. When I was imprisoned and my tools lost, the Dreaming crumbled, neither of us able to sustain the other being cut off as we were. Most Dreams and Nightmares left, whether because they were unable to do their work here or because they wanted freedom. I had only just restored it when the Dream Vortex threatened to destroy it once more.”
Hob is about to ask more about the Dream Vortex when there is a loud caw above them. He only has seconds to process before a large black raven swoops around to land on Dream’s shoulder, fluffing its feathers as it hops to steady itself.
“Welcome back, boss.”
“Hello, Matthew,” Dream says. “How fared the Dreaming while I was away?”
“We- wait, who’s your friend?”
“Er,” Hob says. “Hob Gadling. Sorry, why are you American?”
“So you’re Gadling. I’ve heard a lot about you.” He hops to the edge of Dream’s shoulder to get a better look at him. “Not usually the first question people go with. Because I’m American? Why are you British?”
“Because I was born there. Can’t say the same for this one though.”
Matthew caws in laughter, a harsh grating sound at odds with his speaking voice. Hob wonders how that line is drawn in the magic of it all. “You’re a funny man, Gadling. Look, boss, we got a problem. Cain is fighting with the Fashion Thing and it’s making Goldie cry, and Lucienne hasn’t been able to even calm them down enough to talk.”
Dream sighs, a bored and disinterested sound to match the regal comfort he exhibits here. “Very well. Inform Lucienne of our guest’s arrival and tell her that I shall take over. She may show him around the palace until I have negotiated a peace.”
“You got it. Nice to meet you, Gadling. See you around.” Hob waves uncertainly as he flies off, trying to quell his disappointment that Dream has to leave so soon.
When they reach the doors of the palace, they are met by a tall, dark-skinned woman in an aubergine suit with elfin ears and round glasses. She slides awkwardly off of an honest-to-God flying broomstick, looking rumpled and agitated, though she quickly schools her expression in the presence of Dream, who regards her with fond amusement.
“Is that not the Fashion Thing’s broomstick, Lucienne?” he asks her, drawing to a halt just before her.
“She can have it back when she learns to respect my limited authority, my Lord.” Her eyes fall on Hob and gain an almost predatory gleam, though her formal facade doesn’t waver. “Is this…”
“Robert Gadling,” Dream rumbles, face turning to the sky dourly, as though no longer fully present and focusing on something very distant. “You will attend to him as an esteemed guest. Ensure the other palace staff are aware of his presence should he require anything.”
“Ah, I’m sure that won’t be-“ Hob starts, but Dream is gone in a swirl of his cloak, wisps of flame flying away from where he’d stood only a second before. “Hello,” he says gracelessly to Lucienne, who gives him a cordial, shrewd smile.
“Hello, Mr. Gadling. I have heard a great deal about you.”
“I must admit, you are not what I had pictured after all these years,” Lucienne says. Hob likes to think they’ve become fast friends, though it’s only slightly easier to tell in comparison to Dream given her endlessly professional manner. “My Lord is… very insular, and you…”
They have finished their tour in the grand Library, where Lucienne apparently spends most of her time tending to the books, cataloguing and sorting entries old and new. Hob thinks he could spend years here just for his profession, never mind personal interest; could find primary sources that don’t even exist on Earth, books never published. How he would cite them, though, he isn’t sure.
“I don’t understand it myself, most days,” Hob says truthfully. “Not sure I ever will. Not that I’m complaining.”
She draws to a halt amongst the stacks, turning to face him, observing him keenly in a way that makes him feel like a specimen under a microscope. “Indeed,” she agrees. “Lord Morpheus has always longed for companionship, and has occasionally found it, though due to his nature, it has never ended well. The Endless are not meant to meddle in the lives of mortals, and there have been severe repercussions in the past. Whatever the nature of your relationship, I only ask that you endeavour to prevent it happening again.”
“Sorry, are you giving me the ‘hurt my daughter and I’ll kill you’ talk?” Hob asks incredulously. “Because I think you’ve got the wrong idea-“
“I would never presume to hold such a position of power over those my Lord chooses to acquaint with. I only wish for you to know that he has been hurt most severely in the past, and his subjects are uncertain how he would handle being hurt again by someone so dear to him again.”
“I’m not- we’re not-“ he splutters. “I didn’t- think we were that close. I mean, to me, yeah, but to him…”
She turns face toward the bookshelf they stand next to, reaches out and touches the spine of one before pulling it out and handing it to him. As he takes it, he gets this funny feeling in his core, like someone has taken hold of his diaphragm and squeezed it metaphysically. When he looks up to see her watching him expectantly, he opens it to the first page and nearly drops it in surprise, flicking through the following pages just to make sure he isn’t imagining it. Rows and rows of shaky letters, growing steadier and bolder as the book progresses, until finally, the first words emerge; his name, days of the week, colors.
“When my Lord was imprisoned by Roderick Burgess, the Dreaming withered- the Library with it.” She watches as he abandons the book upon the cabinet built into the shelves, drawing his finger across the spines of all the books with his name (or his monikers, depending on the context) printed upon them. Even his bloody dissertations are here, identical to the copies he still keeps at home or his office at King’s. Some of them are dream journals, others records of his life, but there are at least three shelves dedicated solely to him. “All the books were slowly lost to time without him to maintain them, even those of other immortals like yourself. The only books that were spared were yours.” She looks to the books as well. “I do not know what it means, if anything. But that you are here now, after all this time, after your last meeting before his imprisonment… I just wished you to know, in the hopes that you might spare him from the fate befallen on him so many times before. The Endless do not have friends, but Lord Morpheus has you. I only wish it to remain that way.”
Hob, hand trailing from the books, looks up to the ceiling, a swirling nebula of twinkling stars. It is silent for a long moment.
“Yeah,” he says. “Me too.”
“Something,” Dream says slowly, “Is wrong.”
“That’s the alcohol. Don’t let it fool you. Unless you’re going to be sick. Then please listen to it and find a toilet. I’ll make you a toilet.” Hob frowns. “Make one for you, not turn you into one.”
He is laying on his stomach on the floor of the pub, wings splayed out around him. He’d brought them out to see if he could get Dream to smile like he had at their Family Dinner (with marginal success) but had grown too tipsy to remember how to put them away again. Dream still sits on his barstool, though his coat is rumpled and his hair even wilder than normal, and his eyebrows are furrowed very sweetly as he considers Hob’s words.
“I am not going to be sick,” Dream says, offended. “I meant that something is wrong. With a Dream.”
“You’re a Dream.” This makes Hob giggle a bit, because there’s no way Dream could even tell he was flirting.
“That is precisely my point. You are being distinctly unhelpful.”
Hob frowns, pushing himself up onto his elbows and focusing on the tug in his gut he’d thought was just to do with the booze. “No, hang on. I feel it, too. How do you- how do you sober up?”
The question seems to do the job well enough, his mind clearing as if at will as he pushes himself to stand. It’s a feeling similar to being drawn to his function, to places he’s needed, though it feels patently of Dream, not just Hope.
“I’ll be back,” he says, and leans into the feeling with a flex of his wings.
The streets teem with life, and he thinks that if he’s not careful, he could get drunker on it; just stand here for hours in the middle of the sidewalk on this city block and let the hopes of every person that passes him by graze his body and mind. It’s only for being drawn here by the hope of something very specific, something that tugs at him the way Nada had, the way that Lucifer had beckoned before he’d even known what he was and could be, that he doesn’t lose himself and drift.
That, and the fact that he appears to have materialized in an active crime scene.
“Sir, with all due respect, where the fuck did you come from?” a police officer shouts at him from behind a pistol.
“Don’t worry about it,” Hob replies brightly.
“Are those- are those fuckin’ wings?” the cop says, not lowering his gun. Hob ignores him, taking in more of the scene before him.
The street has been blocked off, and there is a crowd of people just behind him, pressed up against caution tape as they try to see what’s wrong. He starts picking his way toward where more police are conglomerated behind a SWAT van and milling about cluelessly, paying no mind to the one who continues to demand answers as he waves his gun carelessly in the air. Jesus, there’s even a bloody helicopter, loudly hovering as near as the skyscrapers will let it.
“Listen, you can’t just-“ the first cop shouts, following him at safe gun-slinging distance, but Hob only waves a hand dismissively, and though the cop sputters, drawing the attention of the others, he doesn’t say anything more.
There are about ten more guns pointed at him by the time he makes it around the armoured vehicle, but he knows that they won’t shoot. He is more focused on the massive, hulking, bear-like creature that lays on its side beyond them all. It’s a Dream, he knows instinctively, though not one Hob has ever been introduced to. Dream- the Dream- appears next to him, wavering slightly on his feet, and Hob steadies him with a hand on his bicep.
“Barbie!” someone shouts, and Hob looks away from the creature just in time to see a young blonde woman with her face half covered in gothic makeup tear away from the crowd and run up to it. The Dream’s ‘soul,’ whatever its equivalent, flares with hope at the sight of her.
“Hey, lady- back off! That thing could be dangerous!” one of the cops- again, uselessly- shouts at her, barely restraining her friends- a young woman with locs in streaks of color not unlike Delirium’s, another with hair dyed ruby red, and one a bit older, hanging back and clutching a toddler tightly to her chest- from following.
“No,” she spits venomously, cradling the Dream’s head in her lap. “Martin Tenbones?” she whispers to it.
The Dream is dying, Hob knows. But even so, its hope is as bright as a star as it fights for its breath and its words, too quiet for Hob to hear.
“But you’re from my dream,” the girl says, tears already streaming down her cheeks. Hob can only catch snippets- something about The Land, and Porpentine- but he is far more focused on-
“Oh, fuck,” the girl with locs swears, finally catching sight of Hob and Dream where they stand. “Barbie, we’ve got to get out of here. My Uncle-“
“Shut up,” Barbie snaps over her shoulder.
“Your Uncle?” the woman with the baby asks sharply, following the girl’s gaze. “Fuck,” she says upon seeing Dream, already backing away.
“What’s going on?” the redhead asks.
“Rose-“ the mother says, clutching her child even tighter.
The toddler’s head turns; his little fist is clenched in his mother’s collar, his little eyebrows and his curly hair so blond they’re nearly white, stark against his tan skin, but his eyes-
His eyes are pits of stars.