Chapter Text
For Thine is
“Is it completely beneath you, as a… primordial eldritch god,” Lyta begins, “To babysit?”
Hob looks up from where he lies on his belly on the floor of her living room, crayon in hand and a coloring sheet graciously torn and gifted from Daniel’s book before him, and tries not to laugh at the question lest she take it back.
“Not sure much is beneath me right now,” he can’t help but quip, grinning in triumph when she reluctantly snorts.
It’s been a few weeks since the whole Barbie-Porpentine-Yet-Again-Apocalyptic incident, and despite Dream’s reluctance in the matter, Hob has been visiting the Hall-Walker residence on the regular. The term has started, but it’s not too busy for him, especially now that he can sort of find the time for everything if he thinks about it hard enough, and though he’s perhaps been neglecting the Inn in the meantime, the desire to never let Daniel out of his sight when he can help it far supersedes the puppy eyes Gwyn gives him when there’s one too many customers at the bar.
“It’s just, I’m trying to start work again. Rose has been taking care of us with her inheritance which is great, and I love her for it, and it’s not like I didn’t have any savings, but I don’t want to be reliant on her after she’s gone through so much, and I do miss it…”
“I would’ve said yes regardless,” Hob soothes, gaze falling to Daniel, who is tracing a shaky blue outline around a lion he’s coloured lime green as though it has an aura.
“Yes it’s beneath you?” Lyta asks just to rib him. It’s a bit stilted still, though she’s gotten better about seeing him as a friend and ally rather than a threat.
“Just say when. Time difference’ll usually mean I’m done with classes anyway. And if not, I don’t think my students would mind a day off occasionally.” He pushes himself up with a grunt and Daniel looks up from his coloring to watch him.
“Quédate,” he says with a furrow of his tiny brow, apparently disgruntled that he’s leaving.
“It’s your bedtime,” he replies matter-of-factly, ruffling his hair before standing, rubbing his knee with a wince. “And your mum’s gonna let you come with me soon, how does that sound? Good?”
Daniel, already focused once more on rushing to finish his lion before Lyta whisks him off to bed, only nods. The solely Daniel-activated muscle in Hob’s chest squeezes.
“Only if you promise not to take him to the Dreaming,” Lyta says sternly, standing as if to show him out even though he doesn’t truly use the door. “And you have your ringer on. And you send me updates every half an hour. And you don’t let him skip naptime, and you baby-proof your place. And I want photo evidence.”
He decides that telling her the Inn technically now exists on the outskirts of Dream Country is a conversation for another time, closer to when she wishes to relinquish him. “I am a ‘primordial eldritch god.’ And a dad.”
“A dad from the fifteen hundreds,” she gripes, hands on her hips. “You literally told me you didn’t start raising your son yourself till he was five. And by raising I mean taking him hunting or some shit. And there weren’t any baby locks for the pantry back then.”
“Lyta,” he says placatingly. “It’ll be fine. I promise.”
Life is
Fine is Daniel turning into a cat.
In Hob’s defense, it’s not particularly his fault. He’d only turned around for a moment- less than five seconds, even- to retrieve his snack from the counter, but where Daniel had been sitting in his highchair at Hob’s kitchen table, there instead is a pure-white kitten, wriggling free of the straps and attempting to sidle down the too-smooth plastic of the leg.
Hob, in a flare of panic, centuries-dead parental instincts, and uncharacteristic reflexivity, drops the small plate of food and lunges for him, catching him by the scruff and paying no mind to the mess of Cheerios and sliced grapes now skittering across the floor.
“Fuck,” he exclaims, “What the fuck?” Because, what the fuck? This seems like pertinent information to receive before babysitting, and Lyta is so protective and doting of Daniel that he finds it hard to believe she would just omit this ability, which draws him to the conclusion that this isn’t normal. “Nuala!” he bellows, willing her to hear him through the walls as Daniel(?) meows angrily and wriggles in his hand, tiny limbs flailing in the air, sharp claws reaching in vain for Hob’s wrist.
Whether because he willed it or he was loud enough to be heard without it, Nuala comes rushing in seconds later with panicked look of her own, a long, silver letter opener in her fist as though she’s ready for whatever threat could possibly cause one of the Endless to call for help. When all she finds is a messy kitchen and a yowling juvenile cat, she is, understandably, confused enough to lower her guard.
“Is this your lot?” Hob asks her desperately, extending his arm to dodge as Daniel(?) makes a particularly well-aimed swipe.
“It isn’t Fae magic, if that’s what you mean,” she shouts back over Daniel’s unhappy screeches. “Is that the baby?”
“I- Jesus,” he mutters, switching hands as Daniel twists in his grasp with a growl, “I think so, but- but I didn’t know he could do that, I thought he was just a kid.”
“A Dream child,” Nuala reminds him like it’s obvious, and yeah, Hob maybe should’ve put two and two together and foreseen this, maybe would’ve if he hadn’t been so excited to babysit in the first place. “Lord Morpheus possesses the same ability, as do you, and we are in his realm.”
“Right,” Hob gripes, striding briskly to the gallery wall in the entryway and snatching up one of the magnets on the table, panic not assuaged for the fact that Daniel won’t stop wriggling and biting long enough for him to think clearly. “Dream, I stand in my gallery, and I hold one of your bloody magnets. Come help me.”
Nuala, still unused to the Endless being so casually around, jumps when Dream nearly immediately appears, tense, large, angry, as though poised for the same fight she had been. “What,” he says, hardly a question more than a noise that happens to be a word.
“Daniel,” Hob grits, trying to get a hand beneath the kitten’s squirming hind legs, “Is a cat.”
Dream, still unnecessarily large, deflates a bit at the sight of him, though there is no less of a fight-or-flight response at war in his eyes. “It is a Dream child,” he says, and Hob rolls his eyes.
“I’m aware he’s- he, not it, unless he says otherwise- is a bloody Dream child, but- ah, for f-“ he drops Daniel on reflex as, finally, he manages to twist enough to land a solid bite to the butt of his thumb. “Christ,” he swears, not yelling, twisting to see where he’s gone whilst rubbing at the sting of the bite, trying to breathe through his nose and remember all the things he’s read about gentle parenting.
“I did warn you that this was ill-advised,” Dream says, sounding infuriatingly smug despite remaining visibly aloof.
“Shut up and help me find him,” Hob snaps, immediately getting on his hands and knees and peering under the nearby sofa. “Christ, Lyta’s going to kill me.”
“I assure you she will not,” Dream says, making no move to assist him. Nuala, at the very least, has begun to gather the remnants of Daniel’s snack from the floor.
“Can he still eat this if he’s a kitten?” she asks thoughtfully, looking underneath the oven and shaking the Cheerios in her hand as if to coax Daniel out.
“I turned her son into a bloody cat,” Hob says, panic kicking back in as he sits back on his heels, looking around the flat despondently. “She finally started to trust us, and I turned her son into a cat. She even said not to bring him to the Dreaming, and I promised her it would be fine.” He crawls further into the living room, crouching again to search beneath the media console and china cabinet. “And at least Nuala’s helping, thank you Nuala.”
It's a bit pointed and perhaps a low blow, but it does the trick. There’s a soft breath behind him, like an incensed sigh, and then the shift of fabric and near-silent thud of four paws before the largest black cat Hob has ever seen, as large as he is on his hands and knees, darts past, stalking into the hallway that leads to the bedroom. Scrambling up, Hob makes to follow, though Dream is much faster with his head start. By the time Hob catches up, Nuala close behind, Dream is emerging from underneath Hob’s bed with a squirming, mewling Daniel held by the scruff in his mouth.
Assured that the kitten is fully surrounded now, Dream drops him and sits, tail curling gracefully around his paws as he towers over Daniel. For a moment, they only stare at one another, Daniel’s hisses dying as they apparently telepathically communicate in the manner cats are wont to do. Dream’s eyes glow in the shadow of the bed as Daniel crouches, ears pinned flat, but the longer their staring contest goes on, the more scolded and remorseful he looks, until eventually, Dream lowers his head to briefly press his nose to Daniel’s forehead. When he draws away, Daniel is his usual shape, though he still pouts as Dream winds around him to pick him up by the back of his shirt and deposit him properly at Hob’s feet.
“What was that all about, fauntlet?” he asks gently, hoisting Daniel up by the armpits and mouthing a silent thanks to Dream, wondering if giving him a pet would result in another bite to his hand. This one being significantly larger and meaner, he decides not to risk it, and at any rate, Dream takes his usual shape a second later.
“No nap,” Daniel says with his fingers in his mouth, though his uncanny gaze has fixated on Nuala, eyes darting across her body like he’s looking for something, like he, too, can see the part of her Hob’s never been able to parse. She nervously offers him a floor Cheerio, which seems to satisfy him.
“We weren’t having a nap,” Hob says reasonably, drawing his hand from his mouth. “We were having a snack.”
“According to young Daniel,” Dream says, “After the snack comes the nap.” He looks at Daniel so uncomfortably, his hands held stiffly in his pockets with a forced air of indifference that Hob can see directly through. He also tries not to smile at the words ‘snack’ and ‘nap’ coming from his mouth entirely seriously.
“You’re a Dreamling and you don’t like naps?” he asks Daniel, bouncing him slightly to get his attention. “Your mum did warn me not to let you skip them. But I thought you of all people would know the Dreaming world is just as real as the Waking one. You’d have just as much fun. Uncle Murphy would make sure of it, wouldn’t he?” he asks, smugly glancing at Dream, who looks mortified.
“Do not. Call me that,” he grits. Nuala stifles a giggle.
Hob sighs happily, content that Daniel is safe and human-shaped again, and leads his small posse back to the kitchen as Nuala coos over the baby and hands him more Cheerios. “All those times I called you a sad wet cat,” he hums to Dream, who doesn’t deign to respond.
Daniel, it seems, has been properly chastised for his little stunt, because he returns to his highchair without fuss. Perhaps, too, it’s because he has Nuala fussing over him, setting off little sparks of magic as though putting on a fireworks show to keep him entertained while Hob goes about preparing another snack for him.
“I don’t think I’ve ever met such an agreeable child,” she says politely, sending faerie lights dancing around his head with a wave of her fingers. “Faerie or otherwise.”
“Do I need to worry about you eating him? Giving him to Titania as a gift to get back in her good graces?” he asks jokingly, though she scoffs at the notion.
“I’d sooner invite my brother for tea.”
“I’m not sure what that translates to, to be honest.”
“I won’t steal the babe,” she says frankly. Hob laughs.
When he turns back to the table, the sliced grapes replaced with blueberries and more Cheerios gathered from the cupboard, he’s surprised to find Dream has conjured his own magical display for Daniel’s entertainment. The table is filled with tiny spectral rabbits made of blue and white stars, like the drawings of constellations brought to life as they hop around, darting just out of Daniel’s reach.
“Bunny,” Daniel says firmly to Hob.
“Those are bunnies! Very good,” he praises. “Now, are you going to eat your snack, or throw another tantrum like Uncle Murphy?”
Dream disappears his rabbits with an angry huff, hands returning firmly to his pockets as he definitely doesn’t pout.
For Thine is the
Ultimately, it does take some convincing to encourage Daniel to actually eat his snack, mostly with bribes from Dream (prompted by Hob) that he’ll be properly entertained by a visit to Goldie and Abel during his nap. Once his plate has been cleared with no further meltdowns, Nuala stands to return to her own rooms, giving Daniel a very serious handshake goodbye with her finger.
“Thank you for helping,” Hob says earnestly, replacing her finger with his own so Daniel doesn’t fuss too much as she leaves.
“It was my pleasure, my Lord.” Hob lets this slide for Dream’s presence, given his tendency toward ‘respect for his station,’ but he can’t help the face he makes. “I admit I haven’t had much experience with younglings, but this one is lovely. Kitten fit aside, of course. And you’re… you’re a beautiful cat, Lord Morpheus,” she says to Dream with a small, shy smile.
The compliment seems to catch Dream off-guard, for he blinks in surprise. “…Thank you, Nuala,” he replies somewhat stiffly. Her smile still brightens, and Hob can’t help his own, pleased they’re finally getting along. Quietly, with a nod to Hob, she curtsies before shutting the front door behind her.
“Alright, miting,” Hob says to Daniel, standing and unbuckling him from the highchair to pick him up once more and feeling a bit like he could do with a nap himself. “Are you ready to visit Uncle Abel and Goldie?”
“I would hardly call Abel his uncle,” Dream murmurs, following closely behind
“Uncle hardly means uncle anymore,” Hob waves him off. “I’ve been Uncle Robert probably hundreds of times at this point. Till the kids are old enough to actually remember me anyway. This little one’s gonna have the biggest extended family in the Universe, I think.” It’s more of a hope, but that’s his whole thing, really.
“No nap,” Daniel tries valiantly, reaching over Hob’s shoulder as though he thinks Dream will save him.
“You’ve got to, darling. And I don’t think the King of bloody Dreams is the one who’s going to let you get out of it.”
“I am afraid Hob is correct,” Dream says gravely. He looks distinctly more neutral toward him than outright prickly after the day’s events. Hob marks this as progress.
Daniel is a bit old for a cot, but Lyta had sent Hob off with a portable playpen she says works in place of his proper bed when they visit their friends throughout the building. He fusses immediately upon being deposited, though, springing up every time Hob turns to grab a blanket or even just lets go of him long enough. Hob has never truly had to deal with this part of it; Lyta had been right, saying he hadn’t truly raised Robyn until much later, and needless to say he’s sure the wet nurses and other nannies of the time would have had far different solutions to a stubbornly conscious child anyway.
“I’m begging you,” he pleads, holding Daniel’s hands where he grasps the top of the playpen. “And I don’t stoop to begging often. But if I give you back to your mum without a nap, I’m fairly certain it’ll be no more Hob forever.”
“He wishes to see the sword in your bedroom,” Dream finally says. “And what resides in the trunk it leans against. The things you keep in your antique cabinet and the records on the media console.” He reaches toward Daniel, offering him a finger, which Daniel shakes Hob off to take immediately. Hob tries not to be a little offended (he couldn’t be if he wanted to be).
“After your nap,” Hob promises, hooking a finger underneath Daniel’s other hand.
“You see?” Dream asks Daniel very seriously. “Hob would not deny you. He will show you each and every thing in his realm if you wished, and tell you each story to go with it. He is a very talented storyteller.” Hob does also try not to let it go to his head (couldn’t if he wanted to), the Prince of Stories (being he’s desperately in love with) saying he’s good at them. “So, the sooner you get to sleep, the sooner you may see the sword.”
“Yes, see the sword. Look at the sword. Hear lots of stories about the sword,” Hob belatedly emphasizes, coming around from his Dream-compliment haze and wondering what Lyta would say if she found out he had one at all. Dream does not acknowledge it, only smooths Daniel’s hair back. No power is necessary as the morning’s antics, full of new environments and people and abilities, catches up with him, his eyelids beginning to droop. “What, no visions of sugar plums?” Hob asks, softer, watching as Dream coaxes Daniel to lie down once and for all.
Dream smiles, a small, brief quirk of his lips. “’Tis not the night before Christmas. Though Jed Walker has apparently shown him videos of dancing fruits, which Lyta and Rose do not approve of.”
This he doesn’t recreate, though he does conjure a small nebula to hover above them, more animated constellations of animals and legends coming to life and drifting through the clouds of dust and gas like the world’s most technologically advanced mobile. Hob is nearly as entranced as Daniel is, head pillowed on his arms as he leans against the playpen to gaze up at it. He is exhausted in the way he’d forgotten parenthood and childcare could cause, let alone involving a very apparently magical kid, yet despite the chaos he feels remarkably content. Satisfied. Happy. Plus, Dream hasn’t run screaming, so.
“You truly… care. For the child,” Dream says, looking down at Daniel’s now sleeping body, his hand still nestled in his soft white curls so delicately it pulls at something in Hob’s chest, something that’s only been growing in the past weeks.
“He’s yours,” Hob lifts his head to say, because there’s no other way he feels he can explain it. “I know,” he continues before Dream can do more than open his mouth to protest. “But he is. I can’t not see that bit of him. So of course. Of course I do.” He looks down at Daniel, too, tries not to cry outright as his tiny, sleeping hand once again wraps around his finger the second he touches it. “I know you’re not his dad, and that nothing could ever replace the one he didn’t get to know, and nothing could replace our sons, but that’s not- I don’t want him to. If this is what he is, if this is how life is going to be for him, I just want him to have us. I want-“
This is the way the world ends
Hob wants a lot of things. He wants Rose and Jed over for dinners, and Lyta to come on walks in the park to take Daniel to feed the ducks. He wants, as ever, family, and for the first time in a very, very long time, it feels within his grasp. Not only the Family, but a family, with Dream, this unknowable creature he’d spent centuries pining after now sat beside him over a child that they are, however distantly, helping to raise.
He wants Dream. Dream, his best, closest, oldest friend, with everything that is undefined between them. Dream, this reluctant yet good parent, so stern yet gentle and outwardly sweet in a way Hob has rarely known him to be, in a way that he seems to loath comes so easily to him. Dream who has been everything, every feeling and idea and story converging on this point where the facets of him blur together, until Hob sees someone so deeply flawed yet deeply perfect it takes his breath away.
He wants Dream, with a sudden yet ever-present ferocity that reminds him of Desire sitting in his kitchen. He wants Dream in body, carnally, primally, wants to kiss promises and prayers to his mouth and skin, to take him to the highest peaks of ecstasy and catch him as he falls from them, to be rough in their undoubtedly mutual frustrations but gentle in love. He wants Dream in mind and soul, to give Dream all of him once and for all, to get Dream in return. He’s loved many people very well, but never once considered marrying anyone since Eleanor. He’s wanted Dream in every way possible since before he’d met her, and she’d known. He would proudly wear Dream’s brand knowing full well she’d be smiling down on him, wherever she is.
He already does, he realizes. He’s not taken the Dreamstone off his person since he’d gotten it, has even worn it as a bloody ring most of the time. Would switching the finger it’s on really be so different? He can see it, he can’t help it now, the vision of the stone as a wedding band, of vowing himself to Dream for eternity and meaning it. He’s not sure he’ll ever feel truly worthy of him, feels as though he’s taken rather than earned his mantle, doesn’t even feel as though he has a mantle most days, but now, with the dust mostly settled and the Family at something of a peace, he can see it.
Dream, evidently, can see it, too. His gaze snaps to Hob’s hand, where the stone has quietly slithered to his ring finger by no conscious effort on Hob’s part. Yet the sight of it seems to ignite something in Dream, some flare of Hope so rare Hob almost doesn’t recognize it in him. He’d told Dream, once, that he was his, and everything had gone to such shit so quickly it’s almost like it never happened. But now, there are no Fates singing to them (no more than usual, anyway), no power of creation crackling and stirring the Earth. There’s just Dream and Hob, two feet apart, observing each other. Just as ever, it seems. And yet Hob wants.
This is the way the world ends
With his free hand, he darts to take Dream’s, too quickly for him to turn and run as he has so many times before. Dream regards him with a mix of apprehension and fear that is entirely meaningless against the thrum of his hope even as he goes eerily still.
“You can tell me to stop,” Hob says hoarsely, not daring to break his gaze, gleaming in the darkness, as he traces his thumb across Dream’s knuckles. “Tell me to stop, and I will.”
“No,” Dream says, ever soft. “I don’t think I shall.”
Some soft, tormented sound is wrenched from Hob, though he’s hardly conscious of it. He is too focused on reclaiming his hand from Daniel as swiftly and gently as he can without waking him; it blessedly doesn’t take much, and within seconds, he has it buried in Dream’s hair, drawing him in, in, knocking them both off-balance as they finally meet in a burst of golden light behind Hob’s eyelids. It’s messy for a moment, all teeth and tongues and lips as they unexpectedly jolt together with the weight of their tumble, and then it’s messy in every single right way Hob can imagine.
Almost immediately, his hand abandons Dream’s, diving for his waist, his back, whatever he can reach; his other is loath to leave Dream’s hair but does anyway, dragging down the side of his face to trace Dream’s cheekbone with his thumb. He’s touched Dream before, his hand and hair and cheekbones and body, all tender and soft, but this is different, this is unrestrained. This is everything he’s wanted since he’d first laid eyes on him, all the daydreams he’d had just on seeing him walk into the White Horse and up to his table. He knows Dream can see them too, can feel it in the way he gasps and pulls Hob closer, spurred to action and seemingly determined to taste every bit of it, to draw every fantasy he can out of Hob just to feel it on his tongue. Hob goes willingly, pouring it all into him with a breathless, panting laugh, centuries of them spent tightly leashed now loose and wild and braying like hounds on the scent.
There’s a thumb in his mouth, his hand up Dream’s shirt, a knee between his own as he is simultaneously pressed into the rug and pulled upward to meet Dream’s body. He isn’t sure when he starts crying, but it doesn’t surprise him that he is, and beyond that, he scarcely notices it; all he can feel is the relief of having, after all this time, the one thing he has never been able to have. All he can feel, too, is the relief of being wanted in return, the desperation with which Dream drags him ever closer, like he wants their bodies to merge into one.
Somewhere, distantly, they are. It feels as though the very essence of them has united in some way so large and incomprehensible that words could never express it. He sees, behind his eyelids still, the shadows of Dream dripping and dissolving into the light of him like cream in tea or coffee, swirling wisps of smoke caught in the vibration and shimmer of all that he is. Dream is the boundaries of the Universe, and Hob is rushing to meet him, feels it in a way he hasn’t allowed himself to feel since his first moments of Endlessness, losing himself in the corner of his own kitchen and Dream the only thing keeping him there.
This is the way the world ends
With that thought, it’s over. Dream draws back with a gasp, and Hob only has a moment to open his eyes, to see Dream’s horrified face, the way it darts between he and Daniel, his tears mixed with Hob’s own, smeared golden across his cheeks and bright against his shirt where Hob had clutched at him. The hope that had ignited in him goes out like a stuttering candle, his hands flying from Hob like he’s been burned, and then he is gone.
Hob is alone.
No. Not alone. Daniel still sleeps just beside him, blissfully unaware.
“Fuck,” Hob chokes to the nearly empty room, as quietly as possible. “Fuck. Fuck. F-“ He presses the back of his hand to his mouth, breaths shuddering, heaving as he tries not to panic and wake Daniel.
The Inn exists on the edge of Dream Country, but it suddenly feels as though it’s been cut loose, carved into a skerry and set adrift on the waters of Creation, rooted materially in its place on the Earth, as it always has been, but metaphysically unfastened. Dream, it seems, has cut him off from the Dreaming.
Hob feels seasick, goes running for the kitchen sink to dry-heave into it as he reckons with the loss of the Dreaming in his mind and self. Even the Dreamstone, still on his ring finger, no longer hums with the energy of it; when he looks at it, it no longer shines from within, just a stone on a band, a symbol of devotion that has been utterly, bodily rejected, no matter the reason. What’s nearly worse is that he can feel the shockwaves it has sent across the realms; the separation of Hope and Dream has been felt by the entire Family, by every creature on every plane that knows where to look. It reverberates, he can’t help but think, with resounding finality.
Daniel begins to fuss in his playpen, undoubtedly because he’s felt it, too. Hob, at a loss for what to do, the tears apparently unwilling to stop, approaches him with dread. Daniel is still part of Dream, and though it sends a pang of anguish through him, he can only look down and see an innocent toddler, possibly the only part of Dream he truly has left. The thought is all he needs to pick Daniel up, gather him close to his chest with his favorite stuffed lamb and hold him, sitting against the wall of the playpen, until he returns to sleep.
Not with a bang but a whimper
“Fuck,” he whispers into Daniel’s hair.