Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dream closed his eyes when the realization finally hit him.

Oh. Oh, of course. This would happen sooner or later, would it not? Dream of the Endless existed because there were things that dreamed. He was no god, he had not been created by belief and prayer. He simply was.

The Endless could not die because they had to exists.

That did not mean aspects of them could not die.

What Dream had failed to consider was this: What would happen to one of the Endless if they were cut away from what made them themselves for too long? Who were they, without themselves?

And what steps might reality take to remedy the problem of their absence when they needed to exist?

The answer, as it turned out, was easy: Dream was dying.

Or maybe he should call himself Morpheus, under the circumstances. He was, after all, unbecoming.

He wondered if it would hurt.

Probably. Everything hurt, these days.

What would Alex Burgess think, he wondered, when his prisoner died on him? Dream would at least have the satisfaction of forcing the man to dispose of the body. If a nuisance was all he could be anymore, a nuisance he would be.

Dream rested his head against the cold glass of his cage, staring up at the dark ceiling. What would become of his successor, he wondered. Would they remember his imprisonment? Or would they never know what happened to them—to him?

He almost hoped they wouldn't have to remember. His imprisonment had given him time to think, but most of it had not been good thoughts.

He only regretted that he would not be able to avenge Jessamy. She deserved better.

Dream did not turn his head when he heard voices outside his cage. The guards were changing again, he assumed. He had no reason to care. Let them earn their living by robbing him of his freedom. He was not capable of doing anything about it either way.

Unless someone decided to break the circle before it was too late, Dream could do absolutely nothing to anyone.

Desire would probably be happy about this. Maybe Dream's next version would be more to his sibling's tastes. The others would mind, all except maybe Destruction, who he could only assume was still missing.

Maybe Destruction would bother showing up for Dream's death. At least then the whole thing would have one good side.

It bothered him, he found. How pointless it all was. Nobody had gotten anything good out of this. Nobody at all. Just suffering, because they were all too stubborn to relent.

Too stubborn, and too afraid.

He wondered if this situation would allow him to curse someone with his dying breath. Even humans got to do that. But maybe he would not have a dying breath at all, would fade away without noticing, the way he had come into existence.

But he would like to, being able to avenge Jessamy. She had earned that and more from him.

But it was too late now. All choices had long since been made.

Suddenly, another thought came to him, and that one hurt in a whole different way.

Hob would think Dream had abandoned him. And Dream would never be able to cahnge that. The others would figure it out, eventually. But there was no reason to assume his successor would care in the slightest about one immortal human.

It was strange, to wish to explain himself now. He never had much of an impulse to before.

Deathbed confessions, he thought, amused. Not something he had ever expected to have.

There were other things people did, when they knew they were dying. Remember. Regret.

Dream.

Dream was not used to dreaming. He was dreaming, which made actually experiencing the process somewhat difficult.

But he was cut off from the Dreaming now, the essence of what made him himself fading quickly.

Maybe he could dream, like this.

Dream stared at the ceiling, wondering. What would he dream about, if he could? Where would his dying mind wander, if he let it?

Ah, yes. Of course. He did have regrets about that, didn't he?

And so Dream of the Endless lost himself in dreams.

Of 1889 and not walking away when Hob Gadling called him his friend.

Of 1789 and taking Hob up on his offer to take their evening elsewhere. He knew what Hob had wished for, that night. And he had not been opposed. Sex had always been pleasurable enough. He just... he had been afraid.

He dreamed…

He dreamed of 1589, of Hob's eyes on him. Of the human's attempt to impress him. Of the prickle against his spine that told him Hob wanted him. Not just for pleasure. Hob had wanted to have him, for all that he hadn't breathed a word of it.

It had scared him, he could admit now. People wanting to possess him never ended well. For anyone.

But. But he could admit now that Hob's desire hadn't been like that. Not when Hob had let him leave without protest, over and over again.

Will Shaxberd had been interesting, but Dream had had no need to make their arrangement that night.

Yes, if there was anything Dream wished he could change about their meetings, it was this: He wished he had not abandoned Hob in 1589.

He wished he had not made Hob feel like he was not worth Dream's attention.

He wished he had listened to Hob, so proud of his life.

So very happy.

Dream lay there, at the bottom of his cage, looking up at the ceiling without seeing it. He didn't bother to pay any attention to what was happening around him. There was no point in it. Instead, he dreamed. And he imagined. And he wished.

He dreamed of Hob. He imagined that table, laden with food and Hob sitting behind it, smiling so brightly. He wished he could go back and change it all.

Dream did not know how much time passed, didn't pay any attention to it.

And so, slowly, with images of a dim, smoke-filled inn, he faded from the world.

Dream of the Endless was smiling as he died.

Then sharp pain shot through him as his knees collided with the cobblestones.

Chapter Text

“Sir? Sir, are you well?”

Dream blinks, dazed. He is used to pain. He has spent the last several decades in pain. The current stabbing in his knees is nothing compared to the way his whole body still aches.

But he finds that he has grown unaccustomed to change.

He looks up at the person standing over him. A young man, working class clothing, roughly 16th century.

“Are you well?” the young man asks. “Should I fetch someone to help?”

Dream opens his mouth, about to ask where he is, when his eyes slide past the man and towards the building standing above them. It is very familiar.

He looks around, at the other people milling around the London street, then down at his own clothing, and realizes that something has gone very, very strangely.

“I apologize,” he tells the young man, and Dream knows his voice sounds wrong. He feels almost like he has forgotten how to speak, after decades without as much as a sound. “I am meeting someone here.”

The young man nods. “Do you need aid, Sir? I can help you inside.”

Dream shakes his head. Whatever is going on—and he would think himself caught in a dream if he didn’t know he wasn’t—there is no need to concern Hob. Dream can play his role for an evening, listen to Hob, smile when he tells him about the wife and son that will be lost too soon, learn all the things Hob has done over the last century Dream never got to hear about.

Didn’t care to hear about, fool that he was.

He will play his role, Hob won’t have to worry, and then Dream was going to figure out what had happened to him. Easy.

Getting to his feet is a struggle. His legs seem to have forgotten how to carry him, and the rest of him doesn’t seem to remember how balancing works. But Dream is stubborn, if nothing else, and he manages, even as the young man watches him in concern.

Dream can feel him consider if he should offer his help again, but Dream is dressed as a man of considerable wealth—the ruby ensuring that, if nothing else—and the man doesn’t dare offend him. Good. It means he doesn’t try to stop Dream as he unsteadily makes his way across the street.

Get yourself under control, he tells himself. You are of the Endless. You can walk like a functional person.

So Dream forces himself. His body hurts down to the bones from lack of use and sudden overuse both, his head spins with the sudden intensity of the world around him and his stomach revolts at the mixture of smells, good and terrible, handing like fog in the London air. But Dream is of the Endless, as old as life itself, and he has managed worse for less reason. So he straightens, gets his feet under control and enters the White Horse

The noise hits him like a punch to the face, and he almost flinches. Just the iron control required to keep himself upright keeps him from reacting visibly.

He let his eyes wander of the dim room, reaching for his friend. He found Hob quickly, throned up on his feast table, dressed in finery that outshone the whole place. Dream wondered if the man realized the way he had positioned himself at the table, or if it has simply become habit.

Dream passes Marlow and Shakespeare—once more talking about deals with dark powers, now of little interest to Dream—and into view of Hob, who jumps up with a grin the moment he spots Dream.

Ah, but Dream had been so surprised by the shift in regard the human held for him that day. The last time they met, Hob had still been weary of him, uncertain of his stranger and his gift that had not been his at all. Now he was greeting him as a friend, bright and happy as the sun. Dream still wonders what he did to deserve this regard.

Hob directs him to a chair and Dream sits gratefully, doing his best to disguise his relief by going as still as possible, a tactic that usually serves him well.

Hob talks, cheerfully, animatedly. He was so proud, so happy during this meeting. Dream, for all his attempts to remember it, had forgotten the intensity of it.

“Pastie?” Hob offers, a hopeful look in his eyes. Dream wants to accept, both to make Hob happy and because he is starving, but his stomach rebels at the mere thought.

Isn’t it ironic, that you can be so hungry you are nauseous? He equally has to decline the alcohol, knowing that it would be an even worse idea than food.

At least it serves to reinforce his inhuman image. Dream knows he is too thin even by his own standards, too pale. He can only hope that his friend doesn’t notice, or, if he does, doesn’t think anything of it.

Dream encourages Hob to talk, about the past century and then about his family, and he lets himself enjoy the man’s happiness.

Listening to Hob talk about the joys of the world had always been a bit like sitting in front of a roaring fire: Warming, but always with the awareness that it might burn you in its intensity.

“Are you not worried then?” Dream asks finally. “About loosing them?” Hob has lived long enough to know what it feels like to lose people while you yourself stay unchanging. He must know he will lose his wife and son in time. And considering how much it had hurt him in the end, Dream had never quite understood why he had done it anyway.

Hob’s expression sobers. “Of course I am. I know I will, in time. All I can hope is that I will have long and prosperous decades with them before then.”

“Then why?” Dream asks.

“Same reason I do anything,” Hob says. “It’s good while it lasts. What point is there in living if you can not enjoy it?”

He doesn’t realize, Dream realizes suddenly. He has never done this before. He does not understand the pain of loosing a wife, a child. But it is too late already, Hob will have to learn.

Has already learned, Dream corrects himself. These events are long since done with.

“Why now, then?” Dream asks. “In two centuries of life, why now?”

“Chance,” Hob says. “Fortune, really. Eleanor was simply… I was in love with her before I ever knew it. And she with me, even though by rights I am nowhere near good enough for her. I told her, you know. Before I married her. Seemed only right to.”

“A great risk,” Dream says. “Immortality does not prevent you from being hurt, or imprisoned.” And the mortals of this time were not friendly towards the concept of immortality, as a rule.

“No,” Hob says, and there is something grim in his eyes for a moment, before it vanishes again. “But she deserved the truth if she was to spend her life with me. And she decided to marry me anyway.”

Dream looks away. It is ironic, how much he has longed for a second chance at this meeting and how much he wants to escape now. But it hurts, knowing how quickly his friend’s happiness will be taken away.

And really, who is he kidding. A part of Dream aches at the knowledge that Hob has found such joy with someone else. What a fool he is being.

Dream steers the topic away from Hob’s family for his own benefit, gets him talking more on his activities over the last century. It has, after all, been a century. There will always be more to tell.

Hob looks at him with eyes that seek approval and hide it badly as he talks of his successes and Dream doesn’t keep himself from smiling while Hob tells him of his favorite books, both in printing and since then, and the first editions by his own hand that still keep a place of honor on his bookshelf.

There is, plainly, a ridiculous amount of food on the table. Another attempt to impress, no doubt. It is a shame that Dream can not eat any of it without making himself sick.

He is not sure if he could have eaten it before his imprisonment, truly. His body in the waking world has always been a complicated matter of fiction and half reality, and food that did not come from dreams needed to be treated with care. Mostly, Dream just didn’t bother.

Dream doesn’t realize he has made a mistake until Hob is calling him, concern audible in his voice.

“My friend, are you well?” The concern is in his eyes too, and Dream should have known the man wouldn’t have made it through two centuries of life without learning some observation skill.

Dream is flagging and he is doing so fast. His imprisonment, in whatever strange way it relates to his current circumstances, has left him with little endurance, and Dream didn’t think to leave before he could no longer hide it from Hob.

What now?

Hob’s expression makes it clear he will not believe Dream if he brushes him off. He might not argue it, still too intimidated my his mysterious stranger, but he will not forget.

And he will not see Dream again for another century, provided any of this is real in the first place.

“I am simply tired,” Dream says instead, hoping it will be close enough to truth to believe. “You need not worry.”

“I did not realize you could grow tired,” Hob confesses.

“For all that I am, Hob Gadling, I am still a person.”

Hob, because he is Hob, just grins. “So you are.” He sobers. “Guess I should let you leave then. Let you get some rest, however you do that.”

“You could not keep me if you tried,” Dream says, and thinks it might be a lie. He feels terribly vulnerable in this moment. But he knows Hob won’t try.

As if hearing his thoughts, Hob says: “Wouldn’t occur to me to try, old friend.”

“Good,” Dream says. “You would not like the consequences.” He rises to his feet and immediately knows he has made a mistake.

Stars above, but Dream hates loosing consciousness.

Chapter Text

Sir Robert Gadlen—oh, who was he kidding. He was always going to think of himself by his first name, no matter how many times he changed it. Hob Gadling stood in a crowded tavern and stared down in shock at the man now unconscious in his arms.

He had barely realized what was happening—too busy grieving that their meeting was already over, no matter that it had lasted significantly longer than the previous two combined—before his body had moved, decades of war honed reflexes letting him catch the slumping Stranger before he could hit the floor.

Christ almighty, but no living person should be this light. Certainly not a man as tall as his Stranger.

His Stranger, who was currently dead weight in Hob’s arms.

Right. Focus, Hob. Focus. The last thing they needed now was for the rest of the tavern’s patrons and staff to try and help, or worse, to try and call a doctor. Whatever his friend was, he had just proven that he was not immune to injury and Hob might be immortal, but even he was no match for a determined mob.

So, priorities: Get both of them out of here and to a safe place without attracting more attention, then try to figure out what was wrong with the Stranger.

“Excuse me,” Hob addressed the waitress, putting on his most charming smile,
“it seemed my friend is not as recovered from his illness as we thought and has overextended himself. Could you call a carriage, so I might return him home and call for his doctor?”

The woman’s expression cleared from awkward uncertainty to a compassionate smile. “Of course, Sir. Just a moment. Here, sit him down in the meantime.” She pulled back a chair and held it steady as Hob deposited his friend into it. Then she hurried away, hopefully to find that carriage.

Which left Hob with the question of where to take the Stranger.

His townhouse would be the easiest option. It was mostly empty at the moment, only the staff needed to maintain it at hand, but he could not predict what would happen when his Stranger woke up.

Or—and he dreaded to even consider the possibility—how he might explain it if his Stranger did not wake up.

But what other options did he have? A hotel would carry equal risk and arouse additional questions, and it was too late in the evening to justify starting the journey back home, even if he could explain why he was taking an unconscious man with him.

So then, he had to risk the household staff and just pray nothing went too badly wrong.

And hope his Stranger would not take offense to his very necessary kidnapping.

---

The driver of the rented carriage looked at the unconscious man in Hob’s arms curiously as Hob carried him out of the tavern, but someone must have told him of the supposed illness, because all he said was: “Poor man probably shouldn’t have gone drinking after being ill. My Ma always said drink was the worst thing for recovery.”

“Your mother was a smart woman,” Hob said. “I fear habit made us foolish.”

“That will happen to the best of men,” the man said with a nod. “Where to then?”

Hob gave the driver directions and added: “Drive carefully, I do not wish him to be rattled too badly.”

“Certainly. Take care with his head.”

Hob climbed into the carriage and contemplated the situation for a moment. On one hand, the driver had a point. Getting his head banged repeatedly against the wood of the carriage was unlikely to do any good for whatever was already wrong with his friend. The man could drink and could faint, it stood to reason he could also suffer head injury.

On the other hand, Hob could only imagine how offended the man would be if he woke up during the ride and discovered that Hob had deposited his head in his lap. But, Hob reasoned with a strange feeling of guilt, it would be the most secure option.

In the end, that feeling of guilt won out and Hob settle on a compromise, wrapping an arm around his Stranger’s back and resting the man’s head against his shoulder.

The evening was warm and humid, and Hob found that he had not missed the London air. Before tonight, anticipation had kept him distracted from the cities unpleasantries, but now that their meeting was over, and he was unlikely to see his friend again for another century—once he woke up, which was going to happen, it was—Hob would be glad to leave the city and to return to his family and cleaner air.

Odd, the things you thought about while trying not to contemplate all the reasons you had for panicking. Not that panicking had ever done anyone any good.

The carriage stopped, and the driver knocked on the door. “We are here.”

Hob opened the door, pulled out the driver’s pay, and said: “If you would be so kind as to knock at the door for me? The housekeeper should still be awake.”

The man took one look at the coins—and the generous tip Hob had given him—and smiled. “Of course, immediately,” he said, and hurried to the door of the townhouse that served as Hob’s residence while he was in London.

The door opened a few moments later and Hob’s housekeeper, an older woman with a kind face, looked at the driver in surprise. “Yes, what— Master Robert!”

Hob lifted his Stranger into his arms and stepped out of the carriage. “Ah, Margery, I fear a friend of mine has fallen ill suddenly, and we will be temporarily hosting him. I will take him to my bedroom to rest for now. Could you have the maid make up the guestroom?”

It took Margery only a moment to get her surprise under control. “Of course, Master Robert. Should I send for a doctor?”

Hob waited until he was inside the house and the door was shut before answering. “I am afraid my friend can be quite prickly when unwell, and I do not wish to surprise him with a stranger this late in the evening. We will call a doctor in the morning if necessary.” Hopefully by then his Stranger would be well enough that Hob could justify not calling a doctor to his staff.

And if not… well. If his friend was still not awake my morning, Hob would have a whole new set of problems.