Chapter Text
Dream was there.
Hob was sitting in a small boat sailing a lake at night. The sky was a rich tapestry of stars, of constellations known and unknown to him. The night was lovely, and the surface of the lake was so still and peaceful that the stars reflecting on it could have been the firmament, and the sky above the lake the boat was softly floating in. Hob could not remember how he got there, but the lake was familiar. A flutter of wings was what he heard when he tried to think.
It must be a dream. After his brief - albeit adventurous - stay in the Dreaming, Hob had been more adept in recognizing when he was dreaming. Between one moment and the next, a black-clad figure was sitting in the boat with him, looking at the stars in the lake.
Without knowing why or what urged him, Hob turned to touch the face of his companion, but not the real one next to him. Instead, his arm brushed over Dream's face on the lake. Strange, he thought. Lake Dream had the stars reflecting on it for eyes, but when he turned to Dream next to him, his eyes were as blue as Hob always remembered them.
"Dream? Is that you?"
"Hello, Hob."
"What are you doing here?"
Dream was momentarily taken aback by the question. "If you don't want to see me, I shall take my leave."
"No!" Hob panicked. "Please stay, I was just surprised... I thought you didn't want to see me."
"Do you? " Dream sounded uncertain.
"Do I what, Dream?" Hob asked softly, feeling his heart flutter now that the initial shock of seeing Dream had abated.
"Want to see me? Want me to see you?"
"So much, Dream. I missed you so much."
Dream lifted his left arm and touched Hob's cheek. His hand was cold but careful. Hob realized that Dream had never touched him thus, before this moment. "Did you miss me?"
"Hmm," Dream softly smiled. "I have, Hob. Certain events have taken place recently that made me consider how I have treated the ones I have loved. But you hurt me deeply, and I am not quick to forgive."
"It's been more than a century, my King."
Dream inhaled sharply at that, and removed his hand from Hob's face. Hob found the loss terrible.
"I am not your King, Hob. Never have been."
Hob smiled. "And yet, you are the only monarch I'd ever pledge my loyalty to. My heart, everything I am."
"Would you pledge yourself to me thus? What worth is the pledge of a traitor?"
If Dream had slapped him, Hob would have been less hurt. "I... You are right. Nothing of me will ever be worthy of you, nothing I can give you, nothing I want to give you will erase what I have done."
Dream turned his gaze towards the lake, a deep exhale coming from his lips like he had been carrying a very heavy burden. “That was cruel of me. You have been warned of my cruelty... ”
“I deserve your ire for what I did to you, Dream of the Endless.”
Dream turned to look straight into Hob’s eyes. “You do. And I deserve to learn that love is a painful endeavor.”
Hob felt his own heart hurt in his chest. Do hearts hurt in dreams?
"Hearts feel everything in dreams, Hob. Dreams are the deepest truth of our hearts." Hob was sure he hadn't asked it out loud.
"Indeed you are, sweet Dream. If you aren't here to forgive me... Why are you here? To punish me?"
Dream's eyes glimmered with tears, threatening to spill at any moment. "I wanted to see you. To tell you that I will be at the White Horse Inn in 1889."
Hob's pain melted away immediately, a new surge of hope rushing through him. "You will?"
"I give you my word."
"I will be waiting. I will always be waiting. I will be waiting for you to forgive me. I know I can't possibly hope for you to still love me, not after everything I did. But even your forgiveness will be enough."
"I thought you were greedy, Hob Gadling. Have you really changed this much?" Dream said with a smirk, and Hob felt he wanted to kiss that smirk, an urge so strong that it must have made its way to Dream, because his smirk widened. His eyes now sparkled.
Before Hob was able to understand what was happening, Dream had laced his right hand behind Hob's head, softly grabbing at his hair, and pulling him in for a kiss.
A kiss like his Hal had given him. Like Eleanor, like the first girl he had kissed, like the hundredth person he had kissed, because it mattered not to him at this point. A kiss like no other he had ever been given. Dream’s lips were soft on Hob’s mouth, and Hob felt Dream’s other hand wrap tenderly around his neck.
How long it lasted, Hob could not say, for that is the way of dreams. “Time is subjective for you, here.” That was what Dream had told him when he first took him to the Dreaming. And Hob wanted this moment, this kiss he had been aching for for centuries to last as long as we had been craving it.
Dream was the one to break it, softly pulling his face away, revealing that his eyes were now the same stars that were shining above and below them. “I still do not forgive you.”
Hob laughed, almost delirious with joy. “I wouldn’t expect anything less of you, Dream of the Endlessly Frustrating.”
“Fortune be with you, Hob Gadling. Until we meet again.”
Hob desperately wanted to stay there, to sit next to Dream until the stars in the sky were no longer, and their reflections on the lake were merely the ghosts of shadows projected by a sun that no longer existed.
Dream laughed. “Aristocles of Athens will smile upon hearing this.”
“Wha-”
“This dream is over.”
Hob woke up with the most wonderful feeling in his chest. He realized that he had spent the past century with sleep which did the bare minimum to rest him, but now his body felt the lightest it had been since…
Since the Dreaming. Hob knew enough about how dreams worked to know that it was the Dreamlord himself who visited him in his sleep. Hob tried to remember what his dream was… Dream talked to him on a lake, told him that he will meet him in 1889, and then. Dream had kissed him.
Dream had kissed him! Hob recalled that it was soft, Dream’s lips cool to the touch but careful. For how chaste it was, it was still the best kiss in Hob’s long life. The most meaningful, the most anticipated. Hob thought that waiting for a century was worth it, and he would be glad to wait a century more for another one. Although… Dream said that they will meet again, not that necessarily their next meeting would not be until 1889. Maybe it was wishful thinking that made him grasp at straws.
But Dream never says anything carelessly.
“Did you sleep well?” Ollie’s voice boomed from the direction of his little hut, as he made his way towards Hob with Barnabas on his heels.
“I slept great,” Hob stretched his limbs lazily.
Ollie tilted his head with a frown drawing his brows together. “As you sure? The hammock gave way during the night.”
Only then did Hob realize that he was not lying on the hammock anymore, but on the ground. The hammock - or rather what was left of it - was blowing in the morning breeze, torn in two.
“Apologies, I will fix it. And I was so happy when I made it!” Ollie said while extending his enormous arm towards Hob and helping him get up. Hob had the suspicion that Ollie could fix the hammock 1000 times, only for it to break 1001 times more.
“Do not concern yourself with my sleep, Ollie. I have slept on the ground more times than I have in a bed.”
Ollie laughed and bent down to scratch Barnabas behind the ears. “You are in a good mood. Do you always wake up like that?”
Hob blushed way too much for it to simply be a sunburn. “Only when I have had pleasant dreams.”
If Ollie thought of anything about Hob’s words, he hid it well and kept petting Barnabas. “Happy as I am to have you here, Hob. I am afraid you will have to leave soon.”
“Not used to guests, are you?” Hob said kindly.
Ollie stood up, a pained smile adorning his otherwise pleasant features. “I didn’t exile myself in this death trap to have visitors. Do you know what you want to do now?”
Hob thought about this. “If I am being honest, my quest was to find information about Morpheus. Not necessarily to find his son, or you. I just ached to learn more about him, be closer to him.” He felt maybe he should not be so honest, but something about Ollie made him feel that he could be open. That Ollie would appreciate that honesty.
“Well, if that is the case… I know that Orpheus is on his way back, my brother arranged that with the help of another mortal.”
Jealousy spiked within Hob. Who was the mortal? Why hadn’t Dream trusted him with the task? Was he not capable? Was he not trustworthy?
Hob shook his head, trying to disperse these thoughts. No, of course I am not trustworthy. But maybe Dream did not want me implicated in a matter so obviously painful to him. Dream came to me in my sleep, he kissed me, the logical part of his brain supplied. Can that mortal claim the same? Well… Hob didn’t know that, but he was certain of Dream’s devotion, even after all the pain Hob put him through.
“So,” he said, “Orpheus is coming back. Do you think I could meet him?”
Ollie sighed heavily. “Why would you want that?”
Hob sat down on the grass, looking out towards the sea. It was a lovely day, sunny but cool. He could feel a storm coming, though. Could smell the petrichor in the air. “Have you ever had kids, Ollie?”
He more felt than saw Ollie sit next to him. “No.”
“I have. I had a son, Robyn, and a baby who died right when it was born. But Robyn… he grew up to be 20 years old.”
“Your son was named after a songbird.”
Hob had not thought of that, or what it meant, until now. “He was,” he said softly. “And then I lost him, he died in a tavern brawl.”
“Death is the way all things come to an end. Even for the Endless.”
Hob’s heart fell in his chest. “You mean… Dream can die?”
“Yes. And I do not mean in the end-of-this-universe kind of way. Despair died before, and a new one took her place. We mourned her greatly. And that is why I want to help you, Hob. You are the only one who showed my brother what happiness can be like.”
“Are you worried about him?”
“Of course I am!” Ollie almost shouted. “My brother will rather die than abandon his duties, than change. And yet, he changed for you, I told you.”
“Then let me talk to Orpheus. I know how he and Dream parted ways, how much it hurt Dream, and it still does.”
Ollie looked lost in thought for some time, so long that the sun had moved up in the sky. “Don’t you think Dream will be cross with you if you interfere?” he finally asked.
“Probably,” Hob said honestly. “But I would rather have him mad at me if it means he has a loving relationship with his son. Or any relationship, for that matter.”
Ollie narrowed his eyes, disbelief visible on his face. “Really?”
“You said it yourself. You worry that he would rather die than change. He is so proud, your brother. So stupidly stubborn, even when it breaks his own heart. He would rather see himself hurt than take anything from others. And yet, he is cruel and unforgiving. He is known to take his anger on others, to keep everyone at a distance. Or that is what he thinks because, for all his wisdom, he is still a monumental idiot.”
“You know about his previous relationships?”
“Do you mean Nada? Yes, I know about her, as I know that when I learned about it it did not bother me. If anything it confirmed to me that Dream is who I thought he was.”
Ollie shifted to look at Hob. “My brother has changed since then.”
“I know,” Hob sighed. “Which is why I have a plan.”
Ollie laughed. “Hob, you cannot fix all of Dream’s mistakes for him.”
“Why not?” Hob said angrily.
“Because that’s not how this works, and also you cannot ease your guilty conscience by running around on Earth and playing healer and diplomat to save him from himself.”
Hob was confused now, angry and confused. “But isn’t this exactly what you want me to do? To save him from himself?”
Ollie threw his arms up in the air. “Humans! So strong, so complex, and still so stupid. I don’t want you to try and fix him, Hob. You cannot fix others. I want you to help him fix his own mistakes.”
“And how will I do that?”
Ollie stood up. “You can start by making sure he is safe. And I have an idea on how to do that.”