Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Mind if I join you?"

Hob can’t keep the smile off his face as he gestures at the seat opposite him. “By all means, take a pew, my friend. What’ll you have to drink?” He gestures behind him at Lucy behind the bar. “We have some excellent West Country ales, if I say so myself.”

“Whatever you think I might like,” his friend says in the low voice that Hob hadn’t realised he’d missed so much until he heard it again, leaning back in his chair. “I take it that this is all your doing? This inn?”

Hob nods. “They were going to tear it down. Make way for bougie new flats, like they’ve always done in this city. I- well, I stopped them. Managed to delay them, funded and organised a campaign to keep it standing- Save the White Horse, I called it, not too original, but then we can’t all be Shakespeare.” He huffs a laugh, shuffling his papers still left to grade into somewhat more of an organised pile as Lucy brings over a couple pints. “And bought and built this place.” He glances up at his friend, who has a small smile curling his lips. There’s an answering one on Hob’s own face, he knows. “You know. Just in case.”

“Just in case,” his friend echoes. He studies the pint, and then carefully takes a sip. “That is…not unpleasant, I suppose.”

“High praise,” Hob says. He studies his friend for a long moment. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you actually eat or drink anything, in all the times we’ve met. Does that even do anything for you? Whatever you are?”

His friend sets the pint glass down, twisting it between his fingers for a moment. When he looks back up at Hob, there is a determined set to his mouth that somehow still doesn’t make Hob nervous. “I understand that it is unfair for me to know your name, when you do not know mine,” he says slowly. “And especially between friends. I have…many names, Hob Gadling, but you may call me Dream.”

Dream . Slowly, pieces begin to fall into place around his friend. William Shakespeare and his gift. The sand, blown into Johanna Constantine’s face. One such as I , as he said the last time Hob saw him before today, nearly one hundred and thirty years ago. As if what he was, was something entirely different from Hob. So far beyond a human who merely cannot die.

He’s a history teacher now, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t studied mythology and folklore. Just a passing curiosity, of course.

“Dream,” he says slowly, savouring the name on his tongue. “And is that…what you are?”

“I…yes,” Dream replies. “I am the anthropomorphic personification of dreaming, and I rule the realm of dreaming, existing both far beyond and close beside this plane. I hold the collective unconsciousness of humanity within me.”

Hob arches a brow. “Sounds like a busy job.”

To his surprise, Dream laughs at that. “Yes. At the moment, it very much is.” His smile fades abruptly. “There is a lot I have to repair in the dreaming. A lot I must fix.”

And that contains a whole world of implications that Hob is trying to not think too much about, ones that are starting to fit in alongside the pinched look on his friend’s face, the slight hesitation as he picks up the pint glass and takes another sip. He doesn’t know what could happen to result in the dreaming, wherever that is, need repairing, but it couldn’t have been good.

Whether or not it is something to do with Dream not appearing in 1989, he’s not sure yet, but he doesn’t like the picture he’s beginning to build.

Hob gets the sense that asking outright wouldn’t do anything to help his friend, even though his curiosity is still burning away even after six hundred years. “And you’re here,” he says instead. “Talking to little old me.”

That gets Dream to smile, just a fraction. “As I said. It is considered rude to ignore one’s friends.” Once again, Hob watches as his friend’s smile fades. “And…I could use a few moments of peace.”

“Once every hundred years,” Hob replies. He reaches for his own pint. “Shall I fill you in on my comings and goings the past hundred and thirty years, then?”

Dream gestures at him. “Please.”

Hob breathes out. “Well, where shall I start? I’d had enough of war for even my lifetime, so avoided the first world war pretty easily in America. Got caught out with the second one, though, was in France when it kicked off and spent a few utterly horrible years running around with the French Resistance before the British and Americans got their act together and kicked Hitler out.” He knocks back another gulp of ale. “Went back to shipping and moved back here. Got stood up- thanks for that, by the way, but bought the inn and kept it standing, and built all this.” He gestures around them. “I’m a history teacher now, by the way. Been doing that for nearly five years now.”

Dream inclines his head. “And do you enjoy it?”

“Dream,” Hob says, leaning forwards over the table. “You have no idea how much the books get wrong. It is infuriating . And how could I possibly explain knowing anything different to what I’m meant to teach?”

“Such as?” Dream asks, and before he even knows it, Hob is off.

The lunch rush has died down, and been replaced by the beginnings of the afternoon rush primarily dominated by the cheaper variety of university students, in search of a cheap pint and somewhere that won’t kick them out for nursing one drink for an hour, by the time Hob has finished his rant. “Well, then,” Dream says wryly. “One might say you are in the right profession.”

“For now,” Hob replies. “If I ever step foot in a renaissance fair, I might actually lose my mind.” He sees the briefest glimmer of confusion on Dream’s face. “It's a fair where they all pretend to be in the middle ages, often interspersed with some fantasy elements, and likely hugely anachronistic. There’ll be fake taverns and jousting and archery and people selling things for far more than they’re worth, all of that.”

“It is endless, the inane things humanity will come up with,” Dream remarks. “And they find this fun?”

“Well, they’ll have working toilets there, and everyone will go home to hot showers and a distinct absence of fleas.” Hob shrugs. “Seems bizarre, but then I suppose most of this must seem like that to you.”

Dream is quiet for a long moment. “It does,” he says eventually, his voice low. “Seem bizarre, sometimes. But as I was recently reminded by my sibling, I exist for all of you.” He smiles, ever so slightly. “It is, after all, the humans that are dreaming.”

Hob frowns a little. “I suppose. Hang on- sibling?”

Dream smirks. “You flatter me, Hob Gadling. Did you think I was the only one? That dreams are the only power within this world?”

Hob leans back in his chair. “I guess I’ve never really thought about it,” he muses. “I guess I stopped believing in the God that they preached about from the pulpit about the time I realised I couldn’t die, and realised Hell was just a story used to scare people into compliance.”

To his surprise, he sees Dream glance away from him. “Hell is very real, Hob Gadling,” he says, his voice so low Hob can barely hear him. “I hope that you never find yourself there.”

Hob stares at him. “Have you…been? To Hell?”

Dream doesn’t answer. “Oh,” Hob says. “Right. Is it anything like depicted in the Bible or other religions? Is it the same for all people, or do those who imagine it differently in life experience it differently once they’re there? What do you have to do to get sent there? It must be- and I am seeing by the look on your face that these aren’t questions I should be asking. Sorry.”

Dream flicks his fingers. “No need to apologise. It was nothing I was not able to handle.”

Hob doesn’t doubt that at all. He has probably only seen the barest fraction of his friend’s powers and abilities. The Lord of Dreams must have almost endless power, after all. But still. He may only be a human who cannot die, but he has lived six hundred years and seen plenty of people in his long life, and he is beginning to think that something pretty fucking terrible must have happened to his friend.

Dream has never spent so long with him, for one. Or ever touched the drink Hob has always gotten for him. For over five hundred years that drink across the table has always sat untouched. Now, his pint glass is nearly empty.

“Another?” Hob asks, nodding at his glass. “We have some good Somerset ciders as well.”

Dream doesn’t refuse, so Hob gets Lucy to bring over two more pints, and a bowl of peanuts. “What do you think?” he asks as Dream takes a sip of the new drink.

Dream stares down at the pint for a long moment. “It is…refreshing,” he says eventually. “Surprisingly so. I cannot yet quite surmise why humans drink this to the point of being unable to have any control over their functions, but I can appreciate the taste.”

“If you could answer that question, my friend,” Hob replies, “then you would be the most powerful person in the world.” He raises his glass to Dream. “Cheers.”

The pint glasses clink together, and Hob takes a long gulp. This cider has been a good find of his. Nothing to do with him having perhaps accidentally spilled ten barrels of the stuff, back in the day.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out to see a reminder about the question papers he should be marking, and an email telling him that once again, he is a lucky winner of a small fortune that he can find by clicking just this one link. Hob flicks his phone to silent, and looks up to see Dream watching it. “Utterly fascinating, aren’t they?” he asks. “I swear we’ve had more advancements in technology in the past hundred years than in most of my years before then combined.” He huffs a laugh. "I did wonder if you were around this past century. Nudging people in the right direction like you did for Will Shakespeare."

Dream purses his lips. "I never nudged him. I just made a deal."

Hob looks back at his phone, turning it over in his hand. "All the inventions that have come to life recently, I thought for a while you must have had a hand in them. I mean, look at this!” He holds the phone up to Dream. “The entire world in the palm of my hand! I thought, when the first smartphone became a thing, I thought that could have been you, whispering in Steve Job's ear."

Dream stares at the phone. "It wasn't,” he says, his voice low. “Humans did this all by themselves. As they have done so many things."

Hob is too caught up in trying to remember all the advances that have happened in the past century to notice the expression on Dream’s face. "And the moon landing!” he exclaims. “People walking on the moon!"

"Yes,” Dream says slowly, slowly enough for Hob to stop waving his phone around like an idiot and take notice. Dream is staring down at the table, tracing a line down through the condensation on his pint glass. “I remember the guards talking about that,” he says quietly.

Hob drops his phone on the table. “The guards…Dream.” His friend looks up at him, eyes dark, and Hob leans forward over the table. “Dream. Where have you been? ”

Dream glances away, staring down at the table again. He slowly draws a line through the ring of condensation from his pint glass on the wood of the table, over and over until the water is no longer recognisable as a circle. “I apologise, again, for my absence,” he says. His voice is barely a whisper. “I was…unavoidably detained.”

Hob stares at him. Unbidden, he remembers their encounter with Johanna Constantine all those centuries ago. He hadn’t realised at the time, but Dream had looked almost pleased at Hob trying to defend him, despite him asserting that it was not necessary. What was it he had said, back then?

You can be hurt, or captured.

"Oh.” Hob reaches out without thinking. He clasps Dream’s pale hand, where it rests on the table. “Dream. I’m sorry.”

Dream is staring down at their hands on the table. His skin is cold, his hand stiff beneath Hob’s touch. Hob almost gives up and withdraws, but then all at once Dream slouches in his chair, and he turns his hand over to gently clasp Hob’s. “Thank you, Hob Gadling,” he says quietly. “The sentiment is not…unappreciated.”

Hob squeezes Dream’s hand, and then pulls back. Dream isn’t quite meeting his gaze, his hand still resting on the table. He looks unexpectedly fragile, somehow, and Hob thinks if he were to push it, Dream might just collapse in on himself entirely. If an anthropomorphic personification of humanity’s penchant to dream could ever do such a thing.

Dream doesn’t look like he’s at all ready to talk about whatever it is he went through, whatever captivity he was in, but Hob can’t help his curiosity. “When did you get out?” he asks. “From wherever you were.”

Dream pauses for a moment. “It’s Friday today for you?” he asks. Hob nods. “Tuesday, then. That would be the closest approximation, based on your admittedly primitive linear understanding of time.”

“ Dream .” Hob reaches out again and clasps his hand. “I am so sorry. If I had known…”

Dream looks up at him, lips quirking ever so slightly into a smile. “Hob Gadling. Would you have tried to rescue me?”

“Of course!” Hob grins at him, and ignores the thudding in his chest at the thought of his friend needing rescuing, and him having no idea at all until he apparently freed himself. “That is what friends do, after all.”

Dream is still smiling. "I suppose that it is."

Hob glances out the window. The afternoon student rush is giving way to the dinner rush, which is always encouraged considering this clientele actually spend enough for them to make a profit. Already Hasan behind the bar- Lucy's shift ended an hour ago, he thinks- is eyeing their table with a poorly-disguised hope.

Hob drains his drink. "The dinner rush is about to start, but if you don't have to rush back to your realm, I have some damn good scotch back at mine." He hesitates. This seems to suddenly be stepping beyond a boundary he maybe hadn't even realised was there until it was behind him. "If you like."

Dream studies him for a moment. "Lead the way, Hob Gadling."

Hob stuffs his papers into his bag and they head out the back, their table almost immediately cleared by a grateful Hasan and claimed by two friends. "My car is just over here," Hob says over his shoulder. "Climate change and all, I know, but the Tube is a bloody nightmare."

Dream smirks at that. "One I did not invent, I assure you."

"What about the M25?" Hob asks with an answering grin. "That must have been one of yours."

"Unfortunately not, I'm afraid," Dream replies. "I can claim no credit. Besides. My own work tends to be a little more…cerebral."

Hobs stutters to a stop, keys dangling from his fingers. "Wait, are you telling me that the M25 actually is a nightmare?"

"Not a nightmare," Dream corrects as he circles the car and opens the passenger door. Hob isn't entirely sure he actually used his hand. "I don't let my nightmares roam the waking world, as a rule." He pauses, brow furrowing for a moment. "Something else I must fix now."

Hob pauses, leaning on the open door and studying Dream across the top of the car. "If you do have to go back to your work…"

Dream hesitates, and then shakes his head. "I have time for one more drink."

"Hop in, then."

Hob has to concentrate for a few minutes to fit them in the flow of London traffic. Dream watches the city go past out of the window. "That block of flats used to be the old fire station," he remarks as they drive past. "Bombed to the ground in the Blitz, as was a lot of this place." He nods at a small square. "The guildhall was there, remember? Almost got burnt down in that fire in…what was it, 1783? It got gutted again back in the sixties, so the council tore it down."

Dream is silent, still staring out the window at something. Hob glances over at him as they stop at yet another set of traffic lights.

Dream is still, watching London out of the car window. Hob doesn't think he can even see his chest moving.

"Nearly there," he says as the lights turn green. "Maybe it would have been nicer to walk, but honestly who can put up with the crowds these days? Plus the occasional tourist that wanders down here, no matter how hard we try to keep them out. Could you perhaps make fewer Americans dream of jolly old England?"

Dream doesn't reply.

Hob puts his foot down. He has enough money to pay off any speeding fines, and knows where all the speed cameras are besides. He's got a nice little flat nearby in a building that he owns, handed down from himself to himself to avoid shelling out for the extortionate London prices every couple decades. If something is wrong, which he is beginning to expect there might be, then the flat is somewhere quiet that they can sort it out.

A few more agonising waits at traffic lights, and then they're finally there. Hob turns into the underground parking garage, the car lights automatically switching on as they suddenly descend into darkness. "Still haven't fixed the bloody lights in here," he mutters. "The amount of money spent on taxes, you'd think-"

On the other side of the car, Dream shudders. He raises one hand, fingers almost touching the glass of the window before dropping back down into his lap, like a puppet whose strings have just been cut.

In the dark, Hob can see the reflection of his face in the car window. He could be set in stone his face is so still, a statue carved of the finest white marble.

He looks scared.

Dream, the immortal being, the one who holds the collective unconscious of humanity, looks terrified.

"Fuck. Right, hang on."

He's never parked more quickly in his life. Hob throws the handbrake on and is leaning over the middle of the car before he can think about how bad an idea this is. "Dream. Hey, Dream. "

Hob grasps Dream’s arm. It’s like grabbing hold of a mannequin. The car is suddenly freezing cold, Hob's breath misting in the air as his fingers slip from Dream's coat. "Dream?"

He doesn't think he even hears him. Hob scrambles out of the car and around the front of it, whacking his knee on the front grill in an effort to get to the other side as quickly as he can. He wrenches open Dream's door. "Dream?"

Dream's gaze follows the car door window. He frowns, his head tilting to one side for a moment. “Dream,” Hob tries again. He crouches down at the side of the car and carefully rests one hand on Dream’s knee. “Can you hear me? Are you okay?”

Dream is shuddering, shaking apart in the passenger seat of his car. It’s so fine that Hob can barely see it, but he can feel the shivers beneath his hand. “ Dream ,” he tries again. “What’s wrong? What can I do?”

Dream’s lips part, as if he is going to say something, but there are only a few ragged breaths before he swallows and presses his lips back together. A muscle jumps in his jaw. He is still staring at the car window.

Hob follows his gaze. He can see Dream’s reflection staring back at him.

“Please.”

Hob snaps back to look at Dream so fast that his neck hurts. “Please,” Dream murmurs again. “Don’t-” He swallows sharply, cutting himself off, and then falls silent.

“Hey,” Hob says, gently shaking Dream’s knee. “Hey. Wherever you think you are, you’re not there, right? You’re in the car, with me. Hob. Your friend. You’re not wherever you think you are.”

A crow caws nearby. Hob jumps at the noise, and then jumps again when a magpie sweeps overhead and lands on the concrete nearby. Someone has dropped a few chips from an ill-advised night out last night, and the magpie hops over to investigate.

Dream flinches. His gaze, for the first time in a long few minutes, seems to draw past his own reflection in the glass. “Jessamy,” he whispers. “Don’t.”

Hob twists to look at the magpie. “It’s just a bird,” he says as it hops closer, chasing a few stray chips.

Dream is shaking beneath his hand. “Jessamy,” he says again. “Leave.”

The magpie, as birds tend to do with people, ignores him. It hops closer again, aiming for the final chip that is little more than a smear on the concrete.

Dream is trembling beneath his hand. “Shoo,” Hob hisses at the bird. He has no idea why his friend has fixated on this bird, but he can start fixing things by at least getting it out of here. “Go on, get. Shoo!”

The bird ignores him, its beady eye fixed on the final chip on the floor. It hops closer.

“ Don’t! ”

Dream’s hand is suddenly outstretched. The glass of the car window cracks, splinters and then shatters all at once. Hob ducks down as glass sprays out across his back, and there’s a loud caw as the magpie, affronted, takes out and shoots out of the garage.

Hob slowly straightens up. Glass falls in plinks from his back and hair to the concrete, crunching beneath his feet as he shifts in his crouch next to Dream.

Dream, who’s hand is still outstretched, his fingers inches away from where the window once was. They are trembling.

“Hey,” Hob says softly, over the sound of Dream’s ragged breathing. “Hey, you’re okay. It’s okay.” He rubs at Dream’s knee. “Dream?”

Dream sags back in the seat. Slowly, and then all at once, his hand drops back down to his lap. He blinks, once and then again, and then ever so slowly his gaze turns to Hob.

“Hob?” he breathes.

Hob manages a smile. “Yeah, it’s me. You back with me?”

Dream breathes in. There is a frown on his face, one that deepens as he studies Hob. His gaze cuts abruptly to the broken window, and Hob can already see the conclusions being wrongly drawn in his head. “I’m fine,” he says quickly. “I’m fine, I’m not hurt at all. I know you wouldn’t.”

“I-” Dream is staring at the broken window. “I was…I was so far away.”

His gaze is going far again, stretching out to somewhere that Hob can’t see. "Well wherever that was, you're not there anymore," Hob says firmly. "Come on. You need a stiff drink."

To his surprise, Dream lets Hob pull him out of the car. Hob turns to shut the car door, and then spins back round again when he hears a quiet thump and groan.

"Dream!"

Dream is slumped against the side of the car. As Hob watches, he tries to push himself back up to standing, only for his legs to give out from underneath him and send him stumbling back against the car.

"Shit," Hob mutters to himself as he rushes back to Dream's side. "Come on, let's get you up. There we go."

He slips an arm around Dream's waist and pulls him up onto his feet. "Don't worry about the window," he says as he pulls Dream up to lean against him. "Literally worth peanuts in terms of the money I have now. Got your feet, yeah? Right, let's go."

Despite the heavy coat he's wearing, next to him Dream is shivering. Hob tightens his grip around his waist and hopes to hell he doesn't have to carry him up three flights of stairs. The anthropomorphic personification of dreaming is surprisingly heavy. He takes a step, and breathes a sigh of relief when Dream steps with him. Shivering still, and leaning against him with every step, but at least they are moving.

Across the thankfully empty car park, through a door and then another, with a brief pause so that Hob can fish out his key fob, and then they're in. Dream is silent beside him, staring at something Hob can't see.

Hob is staring instead at the steep stairs up ahead. "Right," he says. "Here we go."

Chapter Text

It had been fine.

His sister had been right. He did not need, nor should he want, some new quest to follow. The empty feeling sitting somewhere deep in his chest, the one that had been haunting him ever since he had set John Dee down on his bed to sleep, it has receded inch by inch. He still is not quite sure why. It is as if he has taken a few cautious steps back from a precipice, perhaps turned away from what he thought he must be seeking.

Finding Hob Gadling in the New Inn, when he had half been expecting his search to be fruitless, had been an additional boon he had not thought he would receive. It was another few steps away from what still beckoned in the corner of his eye. And it was perhaps that which made him take the first sip of the pint in front of him, to stay far longer than he had ever deigned to stay in the White Horse before.

But the precipice still lingers behind him. Follows the condensation slowly coalescing and winding its way down the side of his glass.

He is Lord Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, ruler of the dreaming. And when he gets into Hob’s car, following a strange whim he had not known existed until he was following Hob out of the New Inn, he cannot help the catch of breath as the car door shuts on him and he is trapped inside.

He knows he is not trapped. That he could open the door and fall out onto the streets of London and be free within a moment of time. But compared to the expanse of the dreaming, the inside of the car is so small.

He stares out of the window and watches London go past.

That is perhaps his mistake.

He is unprepared when they suddenly descend into darkness. There is light from the car headlights as they suddenly turn on but it is little, too little, and he goes from staring out of the window at London going past to his own reflection.

He cannot breathe.

He does not need to breathe, but still breath catches in his throat as he stares at himself in the glass. His own reflection. His pale face, stark against the dark of the room beyond, distorted slightly in the curvature. It had once almost been unfamiliar, his reflection, something he glimpsed out of the corner of his eye in a mirror as he walked past, but he has had so long to sit and see his own face staring back at him.

He does not want to be back here.

He cannot be back here.

Please.

Please.

There are muffled voices from nearby. The guards always talk to each other to stave off the boredom of his captivity, but their voices have become so grating by now, and he cannot hear what they are saying. The glass of his prison muffles so much, distorting everything around him, even his own face. So familiar now, after so long staring at his own reflection, and yet he knows it is not what others see when they look at him.

He is Lord Morpheus, Dream of the Endless. And he is imprisoned here, helpless in his cage, at the mercy of his captors. The guards’ voices have taken on an urgent tone, and he cannot help the fine shudder that runs through him. It is never good for them to sound like this. It is never good when something changes.

Once he has started shivering, he cannot stop. If there is one mercy, it is that the glass that holds him here helpless is thick enough that the guards cannot see his weakness from their slouched positions across the room of his prison. He allows himself a few breaths, air stuttering over his lips, before he forces himself to regain control.

He cannot lose control.

There are raised voices suddenly beside him. He cannot look away from his own face staring back in the glass, but he can see movement out of the corner of his eye.

“Please.”

He has been here so long.

“Please,” he says again. He can’t help himself. “Don’t-”

There is movement in the darkness, out of the corner of his eye. He makes himself stop. He has to stop. His jaw hurts where he is clenching it so hard he cannot breathe, but it is the only way he can make himself stop.

There are voices again, muffled behind the glass. He does not know what they say. It does not matter what they say. It does not change anything for him, not when all he can do is wait.

There is a caw from overhead, breaking through the class like an arrow through silk. A shape flies overhead, and then lands nearby.

“Jessamy.” His loyal raven.

She cannot be here. She cannot be here.

“Don’t,” he tries to tell her, but he is helpless. Helpless to do anything, helpless to stop her as she hops across the ground, helpless to do anything but watch as she comes closer and closer to her end. Because of him. Because he is here, he is trapped, and he can do nothing as she comes closer.

“Jessamy,” he tries again, because he is weak and he cannot help trying even when he knows it will do nothing. “Leave.”

She comes ever closer.

He is shaking apart in his glass prison as his loyal raven stares at him, and then flaps her wings. Preparing to fly up to the glass, to try and help him, to end up dead on the floor.

“Don’t!”

He does not remember moving. He does not remember doing anything, but his hand is outstretched, and then the glass is splintering and cracking and shattering apart with one great rush of noise, and he can breathe.

A bird that he does not know takes fright and leaves.

The glass is broken. He is not sure how. He is not sure where he is, because he is beginning to think that it did not happen like this before. That something about this is wrong. His hand is trembling out in front of him, fingers outstretched, and he can feel a power within him that had been achingly absent for so long.

He is…

“Dream?”

Dream slumps back, and finds himself leant against the soft leather of a seat instead of the cold glass he still half-expects to feel beneath him. His gaze falls to his hands, trembling in his lap, and then he manages to look up to see Hob Gadling crouched at his side.

“Hob?” he asks.

Hob is smiling softly at him, one hand resting on Dream’s knee. “Yeah, it’s me,” he says. “You back with me?”

There is glass in Hob’s hair. More glass scattered across his back and over the concrete around his feet. The car door window is broken, and Dream looks between it and the glass shards in Hob’s hair.

He did this. He broke the glass, he lost control and put Hob in danger.

Hob is suddenly frowning up at him. “I’m fine,” he says quickly. “I’m fine, I’m not hurt at all. I know you wouldn’t.”

Dream suddenly has to repress the urge to reach out and brush the broken glass away from Hob, to make sure that he is unhurt by whatever it is that he did. He looks back at the broken window. “I-”

He doesn’t know where to start. If he even can.

“I was…I was so far away.”

In a cellar far below the waking and the dreaming world.

Hob is talking to him quietly, saying something about a stiff drink. He reaches for him and Dream lets him, lets Hob pull him out of the car and into the underground car park. It is not even that dark down here, now that he has a moment to see it, and a frisson of shame skitters down his back, beneath his skin.

He should be better than this.

Hob lets go of him, and suddenly his legs don’t quite know how to hold him up anymore. The car is cool against his side as he slumps against it, and he cannot help the sigh of relief.

“Dream!”

Hob sounds worried. Dream tries to stand, but the trembling has only spread, and he finds himself slumped back against the car again. Hob is at his side in moments. An arm is slipped around his waist, and then Dream finds himself leaning against a solid warmth. Hob is saying something about the car window and money, and Dream tries to listen, but mostly he is concentrating on keeping his feet beneath him.

“Right,” Hob says, his voice warm in Dream’s ear. “Let’s go.”

What a strange pair they must make, Dream finds himself thinking as they slowly make their way inside, but Hob is warm where he is leant against him, and he cannot bring himself to pull away.

0-o-0-o-0

They make it upstairs and to Hob’s front door without any incidents, if a stumbling anthropomorphic personification of dreaming still possibly half-submerged in whatever horrible trauma he has suffered doesn’t count as an incident in and of itself. Hob manages to fish his keys out of his pocket without letting go of Dream, and gets his front door open.

He’s quite pleased with this flat that he’s put together. He doesn’t tend to keep too many objects, too prone to losing them in his many moves or forgetting when something is perishable and only remembering it when it’s already half-disintegrated into pieces, but out of what he has managed to keep intact, he has some of his favourites here. A few pieces of art from over the centuries up on the walls, an old leather sofa from the seventies that is the perfect place for a nap, the dumb lobster lamp he found in Maine and just couldn’t resist buying. Those cushions he may or may not have nicked out of Andy Warhol's studio after a party.

The sixties had been a very interesting time.

“Just sit down here,” Hob says, lowering Dream down onto the nearby sofa. “Whiskey or tea?”

Dream looks up at him. “What?”

“There are two ways to solve a problem if you’re British,” Hob says, dragging over a nearby blanket. He refrains from actually wrapping it around Dream’s shoulders, even though he is still shaking ever so slightly, but leaves it within reach. “They're both very important social conventions. Getting drunk, though I have no idea if that can actually happen for you, or a brew. Hence, whiskey or tea.”

Dream is frowning slightly, head tilted to one side. “I was unaware that tea was a social convention in this country.”

Hob is about to make a joke about asking where he’s been, if he doesn’t know this, but any humour at the oncoming joke dies on his tongue as he remembers that he actually has an idea about where Dream has been. And it’s nowhere good.

"Tea it is, then," Hob says. "I'll put the kettle on."

He lets himself freak out for the minute that it takes for the kettle to boil, fishing out two mugs in between panicked breaths. One is a kitsch tourist mug from a school trip that he picked up whilst bored out of his mind and unwilling to argue with the museum curator on their exhibit, and the other is a mug that says twat on the bottom when it's drunk from. He takes that one for himself. It's unlikely to actually make Dream laugh, but it might confuse him enough to jolt him out of wherever his head is right now.

He dumps a whole lot of sugar into Dream's mug, figuring he isn't really at risk of cavities, and then adds a splash of milk to both.

"Dental care," he proclaims as he comes back out into the living room. "That's another amazing invention. I remember when people's teeth just rotted in their mouths and we just all had to live with that!"

Dream doesn't respond, but he's also not a shaking wreck on the floor, which Hob had in his head as the worst case scenario. Instead, he is staring at a cushion in his hands.

"Ah," Hob says, setting down Dream's mug in front of him and flopping into the nearby armchair. "Yes. Have you encountered sequins yet?"

"Not in this form," Dream murmurs. "This particular trend seems to have passed me by." One pale hand reaches out and swipes across the garishly multicoloured surface. The sequins change direction to reveal a picture of a pug.

"Charming, isn't it?" Hob asks.

"I am…concerned, for whoever decided to make this," Dream murmurs. He turns it over in his hands. "Ah. It is double sided. How novel."

The anthropomorphic personification of dreaming is sitting on his sofa, staring at a sequin cushion in his lap.

His day could be weirder, but Hob isn't quite sure how.

Hob sips at his tea and uses the opportunity to watch Dream over the rim of his mug. He seems better. A little more settled, perhaps, no longer staring at something that Hob can't see. Dream studies the cushion for a few more moments, and then sets it aside in favour of the mug of tea. He wraps his hands around it and breathes in the steam.

"You're looking better."

Hob can't quite help himself sometimes.

Dream's hands tense around his mug. "I am, thank you. And I am sorry. I don't know what happened."

Hob scoffs before he can stop himself. "I do," he says when Dream looks over at him. "It's called trauma. And you don't apologise for it."

Dream arches a brow. "I don't, do I?"

"No," Hob says firmly. He sets his tea down. "Now, we can sit here in silence until you leave, which I'm perfectly happy to do. Or, if you want to, you can talk to me."

"And what insight would you offer, Hob Gadling?" Dream asks quietly. "What could you possibly know of being trapped and caged like an animal?" His voice grows louder. "Of what it felt like to be cut off from everything you have known, drained and weak, utterly helpless? Of how much vengeance aches after a hundred years?"

By the last few words, Dream's voice is echoing through the flat. Hob's windows rattle in their frames. The tea in his mug ripples, and then stills.

Dream presses his lips together, and everything suddenly falls quiet. Quite literally. A hush falls over the flat. The ever-present London noises from outside are muffled, the cars driving past and voices rising up from the street below. Even the hum of the fridge is absent for once.

"Dream?"

His own voice is quiet, quieter than he had meant it to be. Hob clears his throat. "Dream."

All at once, sound rushes back. Dream carefully sets down his mug. "Apologies."

Hob leans forwards. "If you want to tell me what happened, I will listen."

Dream is silent for a long moment, one that stretches out to what feels like minutes. Hob waits patiently, hands clasped around the warmth of his mug, and is rewarded when Dream swallows, and looks up at him. “It was the glass,” he says quietly. “The cage that they held me in was glass. I…” He pauses. He almost seems surprised that his words had run out. “My reflection,” Dream says helplessly. “In the car window.”

“Ah.” Hob hums. That makes sense. “And…how do you feel now?”

Dream stares at him. “I don’t know how to answer that,” he says eventually.

“You don’t have to,” Hob points out. He takes a sip of his tea. “As I said before, we can sit here in silence with each other, if you want. Or fill the silence with mind-numbing entertainment.” He picks up the remote. “Have you encountered the show Say Yes to the Dress?”

Dream is frowning ever so slightly, in that way Hob has come to realise means he is confused but, being the Lord of Dreaming and all that, doesn’t want to show it. “You’re in for a treat,” Hob says as he turns the TV on. “How many wedding-related nightmares are there, by the way? I feel like it must be a common stress dream.”

Dream seems to think for a moment, head tilted to one side. “Tens of thousands a night, I believe,” he replies. “Most are banal. The most common are those of clothes not fitting, and I do not have such a direct hand in creating those.”

Hob hums in acknowledgement as the show starts in its usual dramatic way. Dream sips at his tea, watching the title sequence give way to the first bride being interviewed. “I do stray into them sometimes, when I am wandering through the dreaming,” he muses. “Dreams of weddings past and future. They can be peaceful to observe.”

“In my experience, they’re anything but peaceful,” Hob says as he watches the bride’s mother immediately shut down her daughter’s first dress choice.

Dream seems not to have heard him. “There was an old woman, a while ago,” he says quietly. “Her husband had died, and she was swiftly following him. I could see my sister waiting for her, but they had been married for sixty three years. I gave her the dream of her wedding day once again, before my sister took her hand.” He blinks, and then smiles slightly to himself. “I had forgotten that.”

Hob blinks. “Your sister?” he asks.

“Death,” Dream replies. He looks over to Hob, hesitating for just a moment before continuing. “She is who you should thank for your immortality, and not I.”

There is something to his voice that Hob can’t quite place. "Well, it's not her who turned up every hundred years, is it?" he just asks.

Dream smiles, ever so slightly, and sips at his tea. "No, I suppose it is not."

0-o-0-o-0

The programme is one of the more confusing aspects of humanity, but it is somewhat entertaining. Dream is almost tempted to step through into the dreaming and find a few of these people, but that would mean relinquishing the mug of tea and sequined cushions, and leaving Hob, and he cannot quite bring himself to do so yet.

He knows that he will have to leave, soon enough. There is still much work that must be done. Lucienne is still busy with the library, and he must ask her to conduct a census of the dreaming soon as well. He has to know who remains, and who he must find and bring back to the realm.

And yet, he does not get up from the sofa. The program ends and another begins. Hob disappears briefly into the kitchen to bring out two more mugs of tea, and Dream of the Endless remains sat on the sofa, in this small London flat.

This time when Hob comes back, he sits down next to him. "Here," he says, setting the mug down in front of him, and then starts explaining the next show to him, something about New York and a bakery. Hob gestures at something on the screen, and when his hand comes back down it rests against Dream's leg without a second thought. The tea is sweet, and the mug is warm where he clasps it in his hands.

It's…easy.

Dream didn't think that companionship like this could be easy.

Hob is evidently fighting sleep as the afternoon draws on, his head lolling against the back of the sofa. "You'll have to go soon, won't you?" he murmurs. His eyes are already sliding shut. Dream can feel the allure of sleep coalescing around him.

"I will," he replies.

Hob hums. His eyes are all but shut now, his head lax on the back of the sofa. "Let's keep it to less than a hundred years, next time?" he asks. "I'm sure you must be busy, but it would be nice to see you again before the next century."

Dream carefully gets up from the sofa, making sure not to disturb Hob as he does so. "I will make sure of it," he says quietly.

He will. He is not even surprised by the conviction in his voice. Hob cracks open one eye to smile up at him. "Until next time then, Dream."

"Until next time, Hob Gadling," Dream replies. He teases at the whispers of sleep coalescing around Hob, gently guiding them to the right form. Hob sighs, and falls asleep.

He will be uncomfortable in this position. Dream carefully eases him down to lie fully on the sofa, and then after a moment's thought takes the blanket and drapes it over him. He leans down, and presses a kiss to Hob's forehead.

"Sweet dreams, Hob Gadling," Dream murmurs.

A pinch of sand, and then he is gone.

0-o-0-o-0

He's sure that he is dreaming, but it doesn't make it any less pleasant.

Hob wanders through the gardens. He has a glass of elderflower wine in his hand, perfectly tart, and he has just had an excellent lemon cake, with more waiting on the table in the courtyard he has just left. He can still hear the music from inside, but the sun is just starting to set and the lavender is in full bloom, and he's content to wander through the gardens for a while longer.

Someone falls into step beside him. Hob offers him his glass. "I take it this is your doing?" he asks.

Dream is in his usual black, but he has tailored it to the late eighteenth century fashion that Hob has also dreamt himself into. There is gold piping around his collar and cuffs that Hob particularly likes. 

One day, Hob will get him into something with sequins on. They will have to likely be black sequins, but he'll take what he can get.

"You were already dreaming," Dream replies, taking Hob's wine and having a sip. The wine replenishes itself as Hob takes it back. "I just tailored it a little."

"I always did like this period," Hob muses. "How much longer do I have to sleep? And don't tell me it's as long as I like, because you know I have to teach tomorrow."

"A few more hours," Dream says. "I will let you wake in time."

"You always do." Hob turns down a grassy path at random. This one leads them into an apple orchard. The trees are blooming and in fruit all at the same time, the smell of apple blossom heady in the air, and Dream reaches up to pluck an apple from a branch over his head.

"Here," he says, holding it out to Hob.

It tastes perfect, of course.

The dream comes to an end, as they always do, and Hob surfaces slowly to waking. The light is just peeking through the tops of the curtains when he opens his eyes, and he's comfortably warm beneath the duvet. Hob hums, stretching out and then rolling over in the bed.

Dream is sat up against the headboard, and Hob presses his face into his hip. "Morning," he mutters into Dream's bare skin.

There's a hand gently stroking through his hair. "Good morning," Dream replies, and Hob can hear the smile in his voice. "Sleep well?"

"You know I did," Hob says. He slings one arm over Dream's waist. "You don't need to ask every time."

"I'm reliably told that it's good manners when in a relationship to enquire about such things," Dream says. The hand in Hob's hair continues to gently scratch at his scalp. "I thought you might like that."

"I'm going to have to try and replicate those lemon tarts, you know," Hob murmurs. He presses a kiss to the bare skin of Dream's hip. "Are you busy today?"

"I have a new dream that I'm working on," Dream replies. "But I won't even come close to completing them by tonight. I can return in the evening."

Hob lifts himself up on his elbows so that he can see Dream's face. "I'll make dinner for two, then. Lucienne won't be too annoyed?"

Dream smiles down at him, one pale hand cupping Hob's cheek. "She'll be pleased I'm not endlessly working, as she has said before. When the realm is quiet and we are both able to step away, I will bring her for dinner." One thumb brushes against Hob's lips. "That is what partners do, is it not?"

Hob presses a kiss to Dream's lingering thumb. "I'd say so, yes. Think she and I will get on?"

Dream smirks. "Not in the slightest. But it will be entertaining for all of us. And she has been wondering when she can meet you."

"Do you talk about me to her?" Hob asks. Dream's incredibly faint blush and the way he doesn't meet Hob's gaze for a moment is all the answer he needs. "You sap," Hob teases. "How I ever thought you were cold and aloof is beyond me."

Dream hums. "I don't let just anyone see me as this," he points out quietly. "Just a few."

"Well then," Hob says, leaning up to kiss him, unable to keep the smile off his lips. He can feel the answering smile on Dream's lips as he kisses him, and pulls back so he can see it. "I am honoured."

Dream captures Hob's chin with one hand, and kisses him back. "You should be," he murmurs against Hob's lips. "Are you sure you have to teach today?"

Hob huffs a laugh. "The British school system is somewhat insistent on school being a regular thing, I'm afraid. And weren't you just saying you have a dream to work on today?"

Dream scowls at him, and Hob relents. "I have half an hour until I have to get up," he says, leaning in to kiss him. "Half an hour only."

Dream smirks. To anyone else, Hob thinks they might not even see the expression, but he has become rather an expert in all things Dream of the Endless, if he says so himself. "I can do a lot with half an hour," Dream promises.

Hob is absolutely going to hold him to that. He leans in and kisses the smirk off Dream's lips.

There might be better ways to spend a morning, but Hob really isn't sure how.

finis