Archive of Our Own

And so he returns to him.

“You’re late.”

***

“They call me by many names. Dream of the Endless, Lord Morpheus, King of Nightmares, Oneiros. The Shaper of Forms, Prince of Stories.”

“Wow. Do you, uh. Have a preference?”

“Whichever you prefer.”

“What do your friends call you, then?”

“…My sister calls me Dream.”

“Well, then.” A smile, returned. “Dream it is.”

***

Dream is different. Not that Hob has a whole lot to go on, but six hundred years of replaying the same handful of hours has given him some frame of reference. Somewhere in the eyes, about the lips—he is more open, more…forthcoming. Less like he has an iron rod jammed up his ass, more like the iron merely supports his spine.

Hob learns of Roderick Burgess. Dream delivers his account of the events like a report, as an explanation for his tardiness, and it breaks Hob’s heart. Had he known, had he been there to help—

But he doesn’t press, despite how badly he wants to.

Instead, they talk for hours about music streaming apps and supermarkets and commercial airlines—or rather, Hob talks, and Dream listens, reclined back in his chair like a cat. His first, blinding smile fades from around his lips but never his eyes, and Hob is so royally screwed it’s not even funny, but he can’t bring himself to care.

When twilight sneaks up on them, Hob braces himself. “Well,” he says carefully as he sees Dream to the door. He still has some clean-up to do; even though his university work usually keeps him away from the pub he’s built to replace the White Horse, he still closes on some nights. Just to keep his face around the place. Plus his bartender, Erin, just had another baby, so he’s here more often these days anyway. “I suppose I’ll see you in another hundred years. Or would it be seventy? Anyway.” He can’t quite help the smile that spreads across his face. “It was really, really good to see you, my friend.”

Dream is quiet for a moment. “Perhaps sooner,” he murmurs, and Hob barely has time to blink before he’s gone, slipping away into the blue night.

Behind him, Erin says, “Who was that then, Hob?” The bottles clink as he puts them on the shelf. Hob can hear it; past and present overlapping.

Hob swallows, the pull in his gut towards Dream’s retreating figure no weaker now than it had been six hundred years ago. “A friend,” he says.

***

At first, he thought “sooner” meant perhaps thirty years, maybe even as little as ten if he was lucky. But no.

He’s in the faculty parking lot fumbling for his car keys when a presence materializes beside him, and in the reflection of his window he sees none other than Dream of the Endless himself.

“Christ,” he says, dropping his keys. “D’you mind?”

“Apologies, Hob Gadling,” Dream says. Hob turns around; his friend is nearly smiling—it’s in the tension around his lips, Hob can tell. Prick. “Your keys,” he says, holding them up on a single pale finger.

Hob snorts and slides them off onto his own. “Thanks,” he says. He smiles at Dream, because it’s only been a month since they parted ways at the New Inn. Not that he’s been counting. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

And there’s no better word for it—Dream fidgets. “The weather is fine today,” he says, as if it were a completely normal thing to say. With a start, Hob realizes that it kind of is, except Dream is not human, so it sounds weird as hell. “Would you walk with me?”

Hob glances at his car. Well, he does have parking privileges as a staff member, although if he recalls the date correctly tonight there’s going to be a poetry reading in the English building, and there might be a bit of a crowd in this lot by the time they get back. He figures Madge—a coworker with whom he shares a dear friendship and a playful feud over That Priss Shaxberd—will recognize his plates and won’t call for his car to be towed. Hopefully. “Of course,” he says. “Just let me pop my bag here, if that’s alright?”

Dream nods, and once Hob’s messenger bag is safely tucked away under his car seat (ah, that’s where that copy of Consolation of Philosophy went), they set off towards the edge of the little village that makes up campus, where the New Inn and several other little eateries reside.

Hob is more than happy to follow Dream through the tree-lined streets (no cars allowed here, thank the gods. Despite his love for convenient, fast travel, Hob is not really a fan of how cars clutter and choke cities these days). His friend’s hands remain in his pockets, and he walks almost leisurely, as if he has all the time in the world, which Hob supposes that he does, in a way. They both do.

All the time in this world, however long that may be. He feels giddy with it.

The air is crisp and cool—autumn at its best, the trees a violent display of gold and red. When they’d first met this century, it had been the end of summer. Hob can hardly believe it—that the time between their meetings spans mere seasons now.

“How have you been keeping, my friend?” Hob says. For some reason, the question seems to amuse Dream, the corners of his mouth twitching up in that way that Hob is growing to love. “I know that you must have duties—how are they going?”

Dream slants a glance at him, then looks forward. “My realm is still healing from my absence,” he says. “But it improves with every passing day.”

“Glad to hear it,” Hob says, his voice warm. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask, now that I know who you are. Your work—is it interesting?”

“Interesting,” Dream says, like the word is foreign. “You ask the strangest questions.” Which, oi. Just trying to make conversation here, although Dream seems more amused than anything. Before Hob can retort though, he says, “I suppose that is a word for it. I have…never considered whether what I do is enjoyable.” He frowns. “I was fashioned for this. It is my purpose.”

“What,” Hob says. “Making dreams and nightmares?” He’s done a bit of reading—well, a lot of reading. Six hundred years of not knowing your only immortal friend’s name, and then suddenly there were entire mythologies to explore. Of course he did his research, although there is only so much books can tell you.

Dream nods.

Hob blinks at him. “You’re telling me you’ve had this job for—” he tries to do the math, gives up nearly immediately “—however long you’ve had it for, and you’ve never once considered whether or not you enjoy doing it?”

There’s an undercurrent of danger when Dream says, “Not in the way you put it, no,” but it quickly dissipates once he sees that Hob is not teasing him. Instead, his mouth gets smaller, pursed, and he looks away from Hob, out at the street.

Is he…pouting? Hob tries his best not to find it adorable and fails. “It is my duty,” Dream continues. “The reason for my existence. I have no other, and there is no universe in which I am anything but myself.” He looks at Hob. “Do you enjoy your purpose, Hob Gadling?”

Changing the subject—Hob has so many questions about what the hell the Endless even are, but the answer to the question is easy enough, so he obliges. “If you consider my ‘purpose’ to be living as long as I can, then yeah, I do,” Hob says. He’s had some variation of this conversation hundreds of times, both alone hidden in barn lofts and stables while hunger slashes his belly, and with friends and colleagues in chilly lecture halls and from across warm bar tables.

For the most part, he’s content with the conclusions he’s come to. So much to live for, as much time as he can steal. He has always been greedy in this way. “If I didn’t enjoy living, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?” he says. “But…I dunno. ‘Purpose’ is a strange word to me.”

“Elaborate,” Dream says.

They come to a stop at a streetlight; they’re nearing a park now, and they follow the gravel path that leads within. To their left emerges a small creek, gurgling and clear.

“I don’t think you need some…all-encompassing purpose to live,” Hob says. “I live because I can. For the sake of it. No need to make it more complicated than that.” He thinks about Dream’s duties. There is no universe in which I am anything but myself. “For you especially, though, it seems like it’s less of a question of what you do and more what you are. That must be hard.”

“In what way would it be difficult?” Dream says, that undercurrent of danger back in his voice.

Hob holds up his hands “You misunderstand.” It’s not pity, he doesn’t say—he doesn’t think Dream would appreciate that, if the disaster that was 1889 is anything to go by. “I’m just—amazed, is all. You feel things, you have things you like and dislike, you have family members who get on your nerves and arrogant friends who lecture you on walks. You probably feel annoyed when said friends lecture you on walks.” He gives a wry smile, and with a daring he knows could ruin everything, he nudges Dream with his elbow. “Pardon me for saying so, but it’s very human of you. I think it’s admirable, how much you feel when you have such a heavy burden to carry.”

No wonder it is so difficult for him to change. And yet…

Dream is quiet for a moment; Hob risks a glance at him. He seems to be looking at something far away, his lips pursed. Considering.

When he looks back up at Hob, there is something there that Hob has only seen a handful of times. Perhaps only once, in a tavern after the worst eighty years of his long life. It sends a rush through him, like the stream of life itself has been shot through his back—the feeling now not unlike actually being shot in the back. But this time there is no pain; just the adrenaline, coursing through his veins, making him feel like he could fly apart under Dream’s careful gaze.

“I had not considered that,” Dream says. Hob, still buzzing with the feeling, finally puts his finger on it—eyes wide, smile slipping away as quickly as it had appeared. Like he had been startled by something. Dream is surprised.

Dream stops walking; above them is a ginkgo tree, her leaves a brilliant gold. He turns, his hands in his pockets. “Thank you, Hob Gadling. I have learned something today.”

Hob grins. Every morning when the sun rises and he is there to see it, it feels like this. “I’m kind of amazed that that made any sense for you,” he says, as the chilly breeze threads its way through the fanned leaves above them, “But for what it’s worth, I’m glad to have helped." He tugs his ear, and by some small miracle, a leaf finds its way to the cup of his hand; he holds it, then twirls the stem between his fingers behind his back. “You up for a quick bite to eat before you have to head back?”

“My apologies,” Dream says, and despite the disappointment Hob feels in his stomach, he recognizes his friend’s sincerity. “Perhaps next time.”

Hob can’t help it—he smiles. “Until next time, then.”

***

Next time is few weeks later, when Dream shows up in the alley between Hob’s neighbor’s door and his own. Hob doesn’t jump out of his skin this time, since Dream was polite enough to materialize at the bottom of the little stairs that lead to Hob’s townhouse, then walk up to meet him.

“I have a question,” Hob says as he stirs sugar into his cup of coffee.

They’re in Hob’s kitchen, which Hob is still trying to wrap his mind around. Morpheus, King of Dreams, Lord of Nightmares, etc etc, is in here, one leg propped up in Hob’s spindly chair, sipping from a pear-shaped mug that was a gift from one of Hob’s students this year. He had asked for chamomile tea when Hob had offered. Hob makes a mental note.

“You may ask it,” Dream says. His coat is folded over the back of his chair, and his arms are bare and pale.

“And you might answer it, yes,” Hob says, grinning. He sits back. “Do you make the dreams yourself, or do we sort of…” He makes a vague gesture with his hand not holding his coffee. “I dunno. Bring them to you?”

“Both are correct,” Dream says. “You provide the material; I merely give it shape and form.”

“What happens when there is no one left to dream?” Hob asks. He figures that at some point, even beings like Dream will return to…well, wherever they came from. The thought chills him. Can Dream die?

Dream considers this. “The Endless do not rely on belief to exist,” he says. “We are above gods.” He spots Hob’s raised eyebrow and gives a little huff which from anyone else would be a laugh. “But one day, we too will find our way back to the beginning. For us, it is the same as the end.”

“Hm,” Hob says. That was about what he had expected, cryptic and circular, but it is an answer. A marked improvement from past centuries. “You say ‘us.’ How many of you guys are there?”

Dream inclines his head. “Seven.”

“And you are…?”

“The third eldest. Above me is my sister, who is responsible for your continued longevity.”

Huh, Hob thinks faintly. “Your sister is...?”

“Death.” Dream takes a sip of tea, his nose disappearing into the green pear. “She is the kindest out of us all.”

Hob has his own opinion—in his experience, death isn’t necessarily kind, but perhaps the anthropomorphic representation of death is. He is still alive, after all.

“Well, then,” he says, taking a shaky breath. He stirs his coffee. “Your sister gave me this gift?”

Dream nods. “It is more that she has withheld her gift from you, but yes.” He blinks. “I neglected to tell you earlier,” he says. “But she sends her regards.”

Well that’s…terrifying. “Regards received,” Hob says faintly. He laughs and shakes his head. “Although I hope to not meet her anytime soon. But do tell her thank you, please. If that’s alright.”

“I will,” Dream says, a promise.

Hob takes a sip from his mug—his taste changes over the years, based on what’s been available and what is popular, but this century he likes his coffee strong, with a few dollops of milk and sugar. It was how Eleanor liked it best, back in the day. “So once…everything dies,” he muses, “Then will Death…return to wherever you lot came from too? Pack it all up, I suppose.”

Dream looks at the floor, considering. “That is what she has told me.”

And there it is—the answer to the question Hob didn’t even know he had been asking. Apparently, it will end one day. In some form or fashion. He wonders if he can outlive Death herself, but quickly discards the idea. If there is nothing left to experience, then…well. Maybe that will be the day he finally calls it.

“I guess that’ll be it, then. For me,” he says. Dream looks up sharply, and Hob smiles. “No, not anytime soon. But if there comes a day when even Death leaves...I mean, I don’t know what the universe will look like then, or if it’s even possible for me to see it as I am now. But…”

He thinks about the woman in his bar today who brought her knitting. The older gentleman beside her who saw her and struck up a conversation with her, telling her about how his late partner used to love making sweaters for him every year. The couple across the counter who split a plate of chips and dipping sauces, each one swirling in their little metal cups that all got washed down the drain of the New Inn’s kitchen sink after they left.

Dream waits.

Hob looks up, grinning. “Well, you already know. Until then, I’d love to be there to see what’s happening all the way till you lot close up shop. That way I’ll know I haven’t missed anything.”

Dream nods; his lips aren’t smiling, but his eyes are, Hob can tell. “We shall see, Hob Gadling.” He sets his mug on the table, his tea no longer steaming. “To the end of the universe, then.”

They talk a while longer, about new poetry (So many new voices, Dream, the Information Age can be bloody brilliant) and his classes (The vocation suits you well.)

Dream remains silent on Hob’s further questions about his realm, his subjects, his family, but Hob figures it’s just as well—it’s taken him this long to get his name, and Hob is nothing but patient.

Still, for the next few nights, just before he drifts off to sleep, he sees a wave of black hair, a pale wrist draped over a spindly knee, long fingers grasping a mug handle. Wishes for equally pleasant dreams.

***

Whether through sheer force of will or some blip in Dream’s realm, Hob finally does it. A few weeks later, he dreams of a library, with rows and rows bookshelves that rise into infinite rafters; worn wooden walls that seem to breathe; fireplaces and soft couch cushions that appear before he even realizes he wishes to sit.

He does so now, and finds the book he was reading before he slept, sitting innocently on the table beside him. Troilus and Criseyde—for his lecture next week.

“Hello,” says a voice, and Hob looks up to see a woman with dark skin, round glasses, and pointed ears. She wears a suit and seems surprised to see him, but she hides it well.

“Oh, hello,” Hob says. “Was just doing a bit of reading. Am I dreaming?”

She blinks. “Yes. This is the Dreaming.” She considers him, his pajamas and socked feet, and seems to come to a realization. “You are a guest.”

Hob doesn’t think it incorrect. He nods.

She inclines her head. "Welcome, then. May I help you find anything?”

“Ah, no thank you,” Hob says. He stands and straightens his sweater. “Although if it’s alright, I’m am looking for someone. Is Dream around?”

Understanding crosses her face. “You are Hob Gadling,” she says, and something in her eyes turns almost sharp. Assessing him. “He is away on business at the moment, I’m afraid.”

“Oh,” Hob says again, feeling himself deflate a bit. “Well.” He shakes it off, offers her a smile. “It’s nice to see finally see his place, even if he isn’t here. It seems you already know my name—” Perhaps denizens of the Dreaming knew everything; Hob can’t really imagine Dream telling her of him— “May I ask yours?”

Her face is nearly as unreadable as Dream’s. “I am the librarian of the Dreaming. Lucienne.”

“A pleasure to meet your acquaintance, Lucienne,” Hob says. He debates the merits of asking her if he can explore—he has no idea how he ended up here, or if he’ll ever be back again, but he certainly doesn’t want to pry in Dream’s house. Library. Castle? Did the King of Dreams have a castle? He thinks of Dream’s dark, stalking gait, the pride with which he carries himself, and fights a smile. Of course his friend has a bloody castle.

But curiosity aside, it would still be rude, as his friend, to just snoop around while he wasn’t home. “I suppose I’ll just, ah. See myself out, then?” he says, tentative. “Is there an exit?”

She extends an arm down an open stretch between shelves that he had not seen before—there are long wooden tables with books cracked open at their spines and lamps and parchment, just like any other library, although Hob can’t make out any of the writing. “This way.”

He stands and follows. After a few minutes of walking, or perhaps years, she leads him to the end of the hall, where he sees his bedroom door.

“Well,” he says, trying not to the let the disappointment show on his face. “Lovely meeting you.”

She looks at him over her spectacles. Beneath the no-nonsense quirk of her eyebrows, her eyes are kind, Hob realizes. Kind and very, very old, in a way that Hob recognizes from his mirror, although there is something else there, he knows, that is not human. “Would you like to leave a message for him?” she says, after a moment.

Oh. He would like that very much.

But what to say?

“Please,” he says, his hand on the doorknob. “If you wouldn’t mind—next time I visit, may I ask for a tour?”

Her unreadable face flickers into a smile. She nods. “I will pass along your message.”

***

Hob wakes up that morning, fire-warm and a little dizzy, like he’s been falling.

It takes him until lunchtime to realize that he can’t find his book.

“Dammit,” he mutters, after he’s checked under his car seat. He had rescued Consolation of Philosophy earlier this month, and now only sees a few coins and some gum wrappers.

He sighs and rings Madge for her copy.

***

When Dream walks in at the end of his lecture, Hob feels a new kind of warmth, familiar in its color and shape but not its frequency. So they really are doing this, then. No more century-long waits.

“Don’t forget the discussion post,” he calls out after dismissal. Another thing delightful thing about today’s world—the ease with which one can communicate online. Well, delightful in many ways, Hob supposes. He could rather do without all the tracking bits—makes it harder for him to disappear.

“Your book,” Dream says in lieu of a greeting. He hands it to Hob, and their fingers brush for a moment. Dream’s hand is cool and dry, which Hob tries not to linger on for too long.

“Oh!” Hob says, shaking himself. “Thank you. I met Lucienne, did she tell you?”

Dream nods. “She mentioned. You have the uncanny ability to show up at opportune moments, Hob Gadling. Had I been there, you would not have been granted access to that part of the Dreaming.”

Hob can only smile wryly. Well, alright then. Still, he chooses to focus on the positives. “So there are other parts that I am allowed to visit,” he says as they fall into step with one another on their way back to Hob’s office. “Which might those be?”

“Hmm. Your notes and lecture indicate that you do not like the ending of the story,” Dream says, instead of answering. He gestures to the paperback in Hob’s hand, which—oh. He had read Hob’s notes.

Hob feels a bit light-headed.

It is one thing to understand that the King of Dreams literally fashions the unconscious lives of everyone in the universe, himself included, but for some reason it feels…weirdly intimate, that he went through Hob’s little highlights. So give us grace before ten nights to meet here in this place, so that it may your heart and mine suffice.

He supposes they’re even now, since he accidentally dreamed his way into Dream’s house while he was away.

“Yeah, well,” Hob says. “Poor bugger got shafted, didn’t he? They both did.”

Dream studies him. “You understand their feelings.”

Hob suddenly feels like he’s missed a step, somewhere. He laughs to disguise the discomfort. “Well, I’ve been around that block a few times myself, on both sides. So I sympathize.”

Dream is quiet beside him, his black boots—are those Doc Martens?—soundless on the wooden floors of the old building that houses the English department. (Not as old as Hob, though). “Do you think she was wrong, then, for placing her affections elsewhere?”

Hob considers the question. “Not wrong, no,” he says. They’re at his office door now, but neither of them make a move to enter. Hob scratches his cheek. “But I think Troilus wasn’t wrong either, exactly. Sometimes it’s just as hard to move on as it is to stay.” He shrugs. “In my experience, that is.”

“And in this experience you speak of,” Dream says, his words as pronounced as ever, as if placed in the air between them with his long, pale fingers. They’re still standing in front of Hob’s door. “Which is more difficult?”

He is wearing Doc Martens—Hob has seen many of his students wearing them. Hob chews his lip, chooses his words carefully. “Are you asking me this out of—” He clears his throat “—a general interest in humanity, or…?” He trails off, his voice dying in his throat. He probably shouldn’t have tacked on the “or.”

Because here’s the thing: Hob isn’t stupid. He’s made mistakes, done unforgivable things he will never atone for. But he’s also had the benefit of hundreds of lifetimes of learning experience, and he knows that the gulf between them spans more than what they are, goes deeper than their stations in whatever pecking order the universe has laid out for them. I’m interested in your experience Dream had said, that day in the White Horse, and Hob didn’t mind it—that Dream’s interest lay not in the envoy, but the message.

After all, any kind of attention from an immortal being like Dream is, in its own way, a compliment. Hob doesn’t split hairs over this kind of stuff, even if it sometimes bruises his own, all-too-human feelings.

Dream doesn’t answer, just looks at him, his face back to being unreadable and stony.

The grandfather clock in the lounge chimes, and Hob gives in with a little huff. A laugh, this time genuine. Ah, well.

One of his lovers in the sixties—a young man with brown eyes and a habit for humming showtunes in the mornings—would always say something about this kind of longing. Hob had been a little looser then than he had in decades prior, emotionally speaking; far enough away from the disaster of 1889 that it didn’t sting as often; close enough to reunion and potential reconciliation that he could let himself hope. So it goes, Stephen would say.

So it goes, Hob thinks now. He will take what he can get—that’s how he’s lived this long to begin with. Life is so rich, after all, and there is so much to do; if his life revolved completely around Dream’s attentions, then. Well, he wouldn’t get any living done, now would he?

“I don’t know how it is for Endless,” he says slowly. “But at least for humans, I’d say that staying is harder, and often stupider, than moving on.” He tugs his ear, helpless. His mouth keeps moving, because of course it does, but it’s the truth and he would not be Hob Gadling if he did not say it. “But there’s just something about hope, I guess. Can’t get enough of it. It’s why I’m still here.”

Dream’s lips part, then close. Open again. “Hope can be powerful, yes,” he says, his voice a near-whisper. “But it has the capacity to heal just as much as it does to hurt. One can hope for too much.”

Hob tilts his head. He gets the feeling that this conversation has several layers, only some of which he understands. The layer he does understand, loud and clear, feels like a rejection, which. He can deal with that—has been dealing with it, in fact, for six hundred years now, to varying degrees of success. “Well, yes. But it’s never stopped me, has it?”

Dream blinks. “No,” he says slowly. “No, I suppose it has not.”

Hob is still trying to think of something to say to that, when—

“Dr. Gadling!” someone calls down the hallway—it’s Percy Santiago, one of Hob’s second-years. Bright young student, with flaming red hair and wearing today, funnily enough, the same shoes that Dream is wearing. They carry a small instrument case—Hob thinks he remembers them saying they play the viola for the university’s orchestra.

Hob glances at his watch, and ah shit, that’s right—they were going to drop by his office to talk about their final paper topic.

“I see you have an appointment,” Dream says. His voice sounds as smooth as ever, but there’s something there. Something considering and almost…sad. “I will take my leave. Until next time.”

Hob turns back to him. “Wait, Dream—”

But Dream is already gone, not even a swirl of sand to see him off. Hob stares at the empty hallway, sees only the dappled light from the trees just outside the window in Dream’s place.

Hob thinks, At least it’s not raining.

Then he thinks, Fuck.

“Is everything alright, Professor?” Percy asks. They adjust their glasses and peer over Hob’s shoulder, looking where Hob is still staring.

The feeling of loss is familiar as it rushes over him. Had he said too much?

He turns back to Percy. “So sorry.” His voice comes out a little cracked; he clears his throat. “Come in, come in. Have you figured out your thesis statement yet?”

***

Autumn passes by in a whirlwind of color. Midterms come and go, and before Hob realizes it, it’s been two months since he’s last seen Dream.

One night, he dreams of a church stripped of its pews, full from altar to entrance with the mottled bodies of the dying. The buzz of flies makes his skin crawl, and the smell of decay makes him retch.

“More water,” barks a priest, and Hob complies, hurrying out the door to escape, if nothing else, the death within.

He comes to a stream and dunks the stained bucket straight in without a care for how it overfills. He just needs—he just needs some relief. The water is cool and almost smooth against his skin; oddly familiar in a way he cannot place.

When the ripples fade away, he sees that his face is unfamiliar—a face that he will not wear for another six hundred years.

You should have stayed, his reflection says.

“But I did,” Hob says in protest. “I built a sanctuary for him. I waited a hundred and thirty years.”

Yes, says the river. But it was not enough—look.

Hob turns and sees the steps of the church. He sees the priests carry out yet another wooden plank with a stained sheet atop, then sees the shape of a man beneath. He sees a familiar, pale limb fall, jostled in the move. He sees Dream’s lifeless hand scrape the steps, the stone drawing no blood but instead peeling back the flesh—

***

He wakes up shivering and gasping for breath. His chest feels hollowed out, aching.

He pulls himself in tightly, knees to chest, like he used to when he was a boy, when the first wave of plague took his village and the moans of the dying in the street finally stopped.

He tries not to hyperventilate; takes deep breaths in time with the ticking of the clock in his empty kitchen, and listens to the rain fall against his window, until his heart rate slows and his limbs become loose and warm.

He’s crying. “Fuck,” he whispers.

Outside his window, he hears the faint flapping of wings, and then, again—silence.

***

Autumn slides into a dreary winter. Hob brings donuts and coffee to the students who brave the cold and wet to come to class and sets up the portable heater in the New Inn’s seating area.

He does not think of Dream.

He does, however, think of the weather, and wonders. Wonders such things as: Does it rain in the Dreaming? Do they even have weather patterns there? The Library had been warm; it had a roof, which suggested that the building, if it even was a building to begin with, sheltered its inhabitants from outside elements. So maybe the Dreaming did have weather, and sometimes that weather had to be dealt with, just like it was dealt with here.

And also: Do dreams ever get cold?

One evening, while he’s taking out the trash from the New Inn, he spots a black cat lounging in the alleyway, blue eyes unblinking as he wrestles with the tinkling bottles.

“Hello, little one,” he says, bending down to scratch under its chin. “You cold out here?” It looks at him for a moment, blinks slowly with its blue eyes—once, twice—then stands, tail-up, before gliding out of the alleyway and into the night.

“Hob!” Erin says, poking his head out the door. His dark curls are a bit disheveled, and they become even more so when he pulls his apron over his broad shoulders. “I’m heading home for the night. See you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Right,” Hob says, waving him goodbye. “Thanks for today. Say hello to little Ella and Tim for me.”

He finishes putting the bottles in the recycling, his breath clouding in front of him, then heads inside as well.

***

Madge asks him out for drinks the following week. The faint lines around her eyes are more pronounced than usual when she asks, her brow slightly furrowed, and that’s when Hob knows that he’s been worrying her.

It’s mostly platonic between the two of them—agreed upon for the sake of the entire English department and also because Madge is divorced and has no intention of dating again anytime soon. Hob knows that perhaps if they had met two lifetimes ago, it might’ve been something else, but as it as it stands now, she mainly needles him about his annoyance with That Priss Shaxberd, and sometimes asks him to read her various passages in Old English for her classes. She is also, perhaps, his closest friend this century, apart from. Well.

“Oh, c’mon,” she says, giving his arm a poke. Her brown hair has streaks of grey in it—Hob has a few to match, although he knows that those few hairs will remain few. “I promise I won’t make you listen to the lecture I just gave on The Merchant of Venice.”

He pretends to consider it. “You’re paying,” he says, and they both know he’s joking, since they always split.

They go to a bar that isn’t the New Inn, because Hob does in fact know other places other than The Place He Built Just In Case.

“So,” Madge says as she slides onto the barstool beside him. It’s nearing the dinner rush, and the television has a football game on, muted by the sound of dishes clinking and chattering at the tables behind them. They order whiskey that is older than Madge’s father but not Hob’s. “Tell me the truth—what’s been up with you lately?”

Hob takes a sip from his glass and considers his options.

He could deflect, which usually doesn’t go over well. Madge has always been good at reading people, himself included, which was one of the first things he liked about her. She can see through a person to the heart of them, even a person as layered as Hob. Sometimes, on days when it catches up to him, all the years and people he’s left behind, he needs someone like her around.

“Just been. Thinking,” he says.

She nods. “About?”

“About an old friend. We met up again after a fight we had some time ago, and now we’ve…made up? I think.” He swirls his drink. “He’s a bit of an odd duck.”

She nods, nursing her own glass. “Ah. Old flame?”

Hob considers it. “Old, yes,” he says. “Flame? Not really. I mean.” He takes another sip. “Somewhere in between, probably. ’S not super important to me, so long as he sticks around this time.”

“Hmm,” Madge says. She taps a manicured nail against the wooden countertop. “Have you told him? That you’d like something more…” She searches for a word. “Committed.”

Hob shakes his head. “Not in so many words, no. He probably knows, though.”

Wait. Does Dream know?

Madge purses her lips. Her eyes look far away behind their red rhinestone frames. “When Darren and I split, I told him it was for both our sakes. He disagreed.” She barks out a laugh, a little bitter but mostly sad. “I used to think—how did we get here? Ten years, and we disagreed on something as fundamental as our happiness as a couple. But maybe that was why we didn’t work—we never said anything important.” She shoots him a wry smile. “So I think it’s still important to tell him. For yourself, at the very least.”

For himself, huh? Hob has done a lot of things for himself; namely, his entire life has been for himself.

“What would I even say?” Hob asks.

Madge nudges him with her shoulder. “Well, do you want anything to change?”

Hob considers this.

All this time, he’s been giving Dream parts of himself—the joys, despairs, sins and miracles all. And Dream…

These past few months, Dream has begun to open up. Hob now knows that Dream has a sister, that he has a librarian named Lucienne, that a part of his realm includes a library that Lucienne oversees. He knows that Dream does not speak of his time imprisoned, but that it has changed him in a way he cannot articulate, or at least refuses to.

He suddenly feels ravenous—the kind of hunger one can only feel when they’ve had the first sweet bite and nothing more. He would like more, he realizes. As much as Dream is willing to give. Like he is for life itself, Hob is greedy for it.

But how much to push? How much can they, immortal and stubborn and selfish in their own ways, really change?

Maybe…maybe they can start somewhere small. He wonders if it’s selfish to want a little more in return—nothing so large as Dream’s hand, but perhaps a story or two of his own. How he and Lucienne had met. What his favorite book in that huge library of his might be. And…

If there’s anything Hob can do, in his own limited way, to help him untangle the mess that Roderick Burgess no doubt left behind.

Hob has never been afraid of what he wants. Never, except for perhaps when it comes to this one thing.

“Okay,” he says, smiling at Madge. He nudges her back. She’s been a good friend to him, perhaps one of his best this century. He was there for her father’s funeral and her daughter’s twelfth birthday, when she achieved tenure and when she signed her second book deal. She drove him to the hospital when he got in a motorcycle accident that would have killed another man, was there to pop the champagne bottles with Erin and everyone else on the fifteenth anniversary of the New Inn. She is another friend he will have to leave one day, but a friend he will and does cherish. “You’re right.”

“’Course I am,” she snorts. “Glad I could pass some wisdom onto ya.” She drains her cup, and Hob follows suit. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna order something to eat. I’m fucking starving.”

“Me too,” Hob says quietly. He gives himself a little shake, then smiles. “Go ahead; you look like you’re ready to eat the table.”

***

The moment Hob steps into his foyer, full and semi-sloshed with good whiskey, the rain begins to come down in freezing, silvery sheets.

“Damn,” he says to the rain.

He semi-washes up, knowing he’ll regret it in the morning if he doesn’t, then stumbles into bed, warm and mostly dry.

Just before he drifts away, he thinks maybe.

***

He’s back in the library.

“You’re new,” says a voice. Hob turns.

A raven is perched on the back of a chair. “You talk,” Hob says, more an observation than an expression of surprise. Weirder shit has happened to him these past few months.

“How’d you even get in here?” the raven says. “This section’s off-limits to humans.”

Hob shrugs. “Same way I got in last time, I expect. I dreamed it.”

The raven cocks its head, the movement oddly human. “Well, however you came, you should probably head back. The Boss doesn’t like it when things slip through.”

“Is he here?” Hob says. He assumes that the boss is Dream, although maybe the bird reports to the librarian lady. “Or Lucienne?”

The raven squawks. “You know Lucienne?”

But before Hob can answer—

“Oi, new kid,” says a new voice, and they both turn. “Bossman’s looking for a book, have you seen—?"

A…guy with a pumpkin for a head looks down at them. His eyes narrow at Hob. “Who’re you?”

Well. Hob supposes that he might as well introduce himself. “Hob Gadling,” he says, holding out a hand. Pumpkin looks at his hand like it’s a foreign object, but Hob doesn’t let it get to him. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Oh,” the raven says. “You’re Hob Gadling?”

Hob looks at him. “Everyone keeps saying that,” he says. “I’m sorry—do you know me?”

The raven and Pumpkin Guy exchange a glance.

“I’m Matthew,” the raven says, bowing its head. A deflection, which, fine. Dream’s subjects are apparently as cryptic as he is.

“Merv,” says the Pumpkin.

“Matthew,” Hob says. “Merv.” He laughs. “And Morpheus. Was that on purpose?”

“It most decidedly was not.”

Hob feels his entire face light up.

Dream glides out from between the shelves and stops at the other end of the table. He wears a long black coat that, much like the rest of him, seems to float on its own air.

“Hey, stranger. You here to give me the tour?” Hob says, leaning forward on one of the chairs. Merv and Matthew are outright staring now. It’s probably really rude to show up uninvited and then demand a tour, but Dream is here, even after their less-than-stellar last conversation, and he feels giddy with it.

Dream’s mouth twitches. “I have heard it is also impolite to leave your guest unattended in one’s home.” A usual non-answer, but Hob will take it.

Matthew and Merv gape at Dream, then Hob, the dark slash of Merv’s mouth growing wider and wider and Matthew’s beak falling open in disbelief.

“However, I believe Lucienne would be better equipped to give you a tour of the Library at present,” Dream says, stepping around the table to come closer. “I must admit that I am still re-acquainting myself with her new shelving system.”

“Bummer,” Hob says, still grinning. He lifts his arms off the chair and stands up straight, his hands on his hips. “Well, since you offered…” He clears his throat, tugs at his ear. “You never did tell me what wasn’t off-limits.”

Dream looks at him, something unknowable in his eyes.

“Follow me,” he finally says.

Dream shows him the black-sand beach abutting an ocean that stretches out to forever; the carved ivory and horn gates that seem to move when Hob isn’t looking directly at them; the verdant fields of Fiddler’s Green that rival storybook paintings and, well, dreams. Dream shows him the throne room, with its shifting stained glass windows and the endless universe of its ceiling.

Hob takes it all in and tries his hardest not to hyperventilate.

“You built,” he gestures to the ceiling that stretches out into the cosmos above them “—all of this?”

“From the gates to the rafters,” Dream says solemnly. There’s a hint of pride in his voice. “The Dreaming is as much a part of me as I am of it.”

“Holy shit, Dream.” Hob cranes his neck and sees galaxies, supernovas, comets. “It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

“Hm,” Dream says, pink staining his cheeks. Hob feels a rush of fondness; vanity is a good look on him. “Much was destroyed in my absence, but with Lucienne’s help, the realm did not fall entirely to ruin. It is now fully restored, with a few…changes.”

Hob grins at him. “The shelving system, huh? What was it before?”

Dream looks away. “It was not organized in any such a way that a mortal could understand.”

“What he means to say is,” says Lucienne. She steps through a doorway near the end of the hall, a book in her hand. She hands it to Dream, who takes it and slips it into his long coat before Hob can catch a glimpse of the title. “It has been greatly improved. It is far easier to find things now.”

“Thank you, Lucienne,” Dream says stiffly. “That will be all.”

The look she gives him reminds Hob of one Madge often gives him; disbelieving, deeply caring. Hob finds that, despite their brief acquaintance, he likes her quite a lot.

He likes her even more when she turns to him and nods. “Hello, Hob. I hope your visit has been pleasant.”

“Very,” he says, grinning. “His lordship was kind enough to give the tour. Thank you, by the way.”

She gives him a brief smile. “Of course. It is not often that Lord Morpheus brings a friend to visit."

“Lucienne,” Dream says, and there is that current of power in his words, but it sounds less of a warning and more of a protest.

She holds up a hand. “Apologies,” she says, not sounding very sorry. “I’ll be on my way.” She heads for the door, her steps brisk and echoing. Before she exits, however, she turns to Hob.

“You are welcome in the Library at any time, Hob Gadling,” she says.

He smiles at her and waves goodbye. “Thank you kindly, ma’am.”

She nods and leaves, her tailcoat disappearing as the door closes behind her.

“Wonderful to finally meet some of your folks,” Hob says, turning to Dream with a smile. “Does that Matthew fellow give you a hard time too? He seems young.”

Dream tilts his head up, the line of his jaw proud. “They take many liberties that, at one time, I would not have tolerated.” A brief hint of a smile surfaces on his lips, then fades. “But things changed while I was away.” He pauses, as if to search for his words. Rare, for him. “Things will continue to change.”

There’s something there, Hob thinks, in the little line between his brows. Something beginning, perhaps.

Hob stretches his arms above his head and looks up at the ceiling with Dream. Hob Gadling, standing here with the King of Dreams and Nightmares, the entire universe above them both. He looks at Dream and offers a small smile. “Even you?” he asks.

A pause. Hob feels like he’s teetering on the edge of something vast and unknowable, as deep as the sky and twice as wide. He feels the urge to record and store it where he holds the deepest, brightest part of himself—the part of him that wonder things like what comes next? and how much more?

“Perhaps,” Dream finally says.

***

The cat returns once to the New Inn, just before Christmas. Hob is smoking a cigarette in the back alley—a habit he picks up every few decades mostly because he can, but also because it’s better than the hard substances he’s learned are probably best left alone—when he hears a chirp from the wall.

“You’re back,” Hob says, pleased. He bends down to scratch the cat under its chin. It’s gained some weight since he last saw it; its ribs are no longer as defined on its belly. He remembers Matthew and smiles. “You don’t talk too, do you?”

Mrrp, it says, nudging his hand, and Hob nods. “I see.”

Hob had hosted the department holiday party at the New Inn last week; he and Madge had both drunk far too much and ended up having a heated argument over…probably something to do with That Priss Shaxberd (to be quite honest Hob doesn’t really remember much of it). He had extended an invitation to Dream via a sticky note left with Matthew in the Library one night, but as he had kind of expected, Dream hadn’t shown.

Hob hadn’t been too surprised or disappointed, but it would have been nice to have him around, he tells the cat.

“Still, I’m sure he’s busy. Gotta keep moving,” he says, scratching under its chin. “Life continues on, for humans and for Endless. Even for you, little one.”

Like last time, it tolerates Hob’s petting for a moment longer, then uncurls itself and stands, winding around Hob’s crouched legs and brushing his nose with its tail. It walks out of the alley and into the snowy night.

“Stay warm,” Hob calls.

***

Winter gives way to tentative spring; the birds return, and although it is still rainy in London, come April there are a few days of sun.

“Is Hell real?” he asks Dream on one such day. They are sitting on the bench; Hob feeding pigeons, Dream watching him.

“Yes,” Dream replies easily. Many things between them feel easier these days, like leaves unfurling; Hob wonders if it’s because of the change in the seasons, the relief of warmth after a long winter. “Why?”

“Percy is writing their thesis on The Divine Comedy,” Hob says. He tosses another chunk. “Was just wondering how accurate the good poet was.”

Dream is sitting back in the bench, like he had the day they’d reunited in the New Inn. Relaxed. He looks more filled out, more present in the shade of the tree beside them than Hob has ever seen him. “A version of Dante’s Hell does exist,” he says. “Though it is a bit different.”

“What are the differences?” Hob takes a bite of the bread himself, just to see. It’s only a little stale.

Dream considers this. “The terrain is much the same. But Lucifer Morningstar is not as depicted as they are in Dante’s verse. They do not stand immobile in a frozen lake, and they are certainly not powerless.” His eyebrows knit together, as if remembering something. “They may be angry with me, after our last encounter.”

Hob nearly chokes on stale bread. It has been many, many years since he believed in God, but he was raised in a world where Satan had been as real as Death herself.

And Dream fucking knows them? Has apparently pissed them off?

He huffs in disbelief, tosses another chunk to the birds. “Well, shit. What happened?”

Dream holds a hand out for the bread; Hob gives him a chunk. “I bested them.”

“You beat Satan.”

Dream picks apart the chunk delicately, then flicks a piece skyward. It makes a parabola in the air, almost comical, before arching down into the grass. A pigeon pecks at it. “Yes. One of their demons had something of mine.” He flicks another piece. “I took it back.”

Hob shakes his head. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” He looks at Dream sideways. “Are…are you gonna be okay? Like, they won’t come after you?”

“The terms of the challenge were fair,” Dream says, which is…not really an answer. He’s out of bread; Hob gives him some more. “Lucifer Morningstar is more powerful than I, but I am Endless. They are not.”

Hob waits. Dream doesn’t speak again, though; apparently that’s all he has to say on the matter, as if that were an adequate explanation.

“Okay, but,” Hob says. The bread in his hands becomes gritty as he worries it. “Can Endless die?”

Dream’s hands go still between his knees. He considers the ground, as if the answer is written there. “Yes,” he says. Hob’s heart claws its way up his chest. “And no. Our current iterations can die. But our burdens must always be carried.”

“‘Iterations…?’” Hob shakes his head. “Okay, so you can die. It’s possible for you to...die.” He stares out at the birds, watches how their grey, round heads bob up and down. He sees a pale hand in a nightmare from months ago. “I didn’t know that.”

“Fear not, Hob Gadling,” Dream says. “Even should I perish, the dreams of humanity would still be safe. A successor would arise. For as long as dreams exist, so too must Dream of the Endless.”

“Yes, but,” Hob says, and he feels the argument coming on, but he can’t bring himself to stop. “It wouldn’t be you.”

Dream tilts his head. He looks at the ground again, seems to gather his words. “It would upset you, if I were gone." He sounds…not surprised, exactly. More like he’s seeking confirmation, which, Hob supposes, is a marked improvement from how this would’ve gone two hundred years ago.

“Dream,” Hob says, trying to keep his voice gentle. “It did upset me. I…I thought you were…” He crumbles the remaining piece and lets it fall between the slats of the bench. He can’t bring himself to voice it, so he says something else. “When you were…away, I had no idea where you had gone, or if you were even still alive. So yes, it would upset me. Very much.”

He chances a look at Dream, and finds him staring at him. There’s a crumb in the dark hair at his temple. Hardly believing his own daring, Hob reaches out and swipes it away gently. “You’re my friend, Dream. I don’t want to lose you, and for a while…” He swallows. “I thought I did.”

Dream is frozen, his back rigid. Slowly, Hob lowers his hand, but—

Dream reaches up and catches it on the way down, his palm against the back of Hob’s hand, and Hob can’t breathe.

“I did not miss our appointment by choice,” he says quietly, his voice low and urgent. “You must know that.”

“Dream. I do,” Hob says. He thinks he will never let go of Dream’s hand. “I know that. I just…” He curls his fingers, slowly. Slowly enough so that Dream might let go if he wished. He doesn’t. “I just wish that I could have helped you, is all. Held you,” he says, squeezing gently. “Just like this.”

Dream’s eyes are locked on Hob’s, blue and unmoving. To anyone who didn’t know him, his face would seem carved from marble. Unreadable.

But Hob knows him. And he sees...

Dream’s lips part. “I will show you,” he says, fire in his eyes.

The birds disappear.

***

They stand in freezing room made of stone. Hob’s ears ring with the silence. In the center, in an airless cage of glass and iron—lies Dream. His limbs slope up its sides, and his head rests on his arm. His eyes are closed, and he is still.

Hob takes a step, then another. “Dream,” he says, reaching out. His fingers are nearly at the glass when Dream’s eyes open, and Hob feels his gaze like a physical blow. He reels.

“Would you have held me in this state?” In the glass, Dream’s lips don’t move; his voice seems to come from everywhere in the room, echoing in Hob’s head.

“Is this what it was like for you? For all that time?” Hob whispers. Alone? he doesn’t say. Even to his own ears, his voice sounds weak. “I’m so—”

“Don’t.” The lights flicker, and Hob feels the cold cut through him.

“Dream,” Hob says softly. He tries again. “I’m so sorry.”

“I do not need your pity, Hob Gadling,” Dream says. “I did not need it then, and I do not need it now.”

In the bowl, Dream’s eyes are rimmed red. His lips still don’t move, and he stares up at Hob, or maybe past Hob, his eyes full of a fury and hatred Hob has never seen. Hob nearly recoils with the force of it, but he holds himself rooted.

So Hob looks at Dream in the glass, how he holds himself inward. The pale slope of his limbs, graceful even in captivity. “Oh, love,” he whispers.

Then he looks up and sees Dream through the glass—the current Dream—standing there, watching him. Hob sees how, beneath the blinding anger and bone-cutting pain, both Dreams look as if they may fall apart at any moment.

I think you’re lonely, Hob had said to him, and he thinks it now, but not with pity. Never with pity.

“Dream,” Hob says quietly. “Why did you show me this?”

Dream stills. A part of Hob, the part honed by six hundred years of mostly-successful survival and something deeper, something primal, senses danger, but still he refuses to move. He needs to witness.

The Dream across from him disappears in a whisper of sand. Hob feels him materialize into shadow beside him. “What?” His voice is dangerous, but Hob is not afraid.

He knows his friend.

“Why did you show me this?” Hob repeats, turning to Dream now.

Hurt spasms across Dream’s expression, and Hob feels a jolt of panic.

“No, no,” he says, trying to keep his voice soothing. “Not like that, love. I mean—”

Once more, he brings his hand up to cradle Dream’s face. His skin is cool to the touch. Hob thinks he imagines it for a moment—Dream’s eyelids fluttering ever so slightly. “You don’t need to prove your hurt to me.” Slowly, he lowers his hand, then crouches down to look at Dream in the glass.

“It changes nothing about what happened,” he says to Dream, to both of them, “But I wish I could have helped. I wish you hadn’t had to go through this.” He brings his hand to the glass; slowly, as if he were a mirror, the Dream within reaches out in parallel. “If I had known, I would’ve found you. You know that, right?” He feels so full—full of love, of grief, of a yearning to touch that only comes every hundred years. “I would’ve done anything to see you safe.”

“Hob—” Dream begins, but Hob isn’t listening; has never been good at listening when he should.

Their fingers touch, glass between them, and—

***

He’s standing in the White Horse, but back when it was new and there were no chimneys in the walls or napkins on the tables. He blinks and the scenery changes once more—tables shifting and stairwells moving and walls coming up and down and up again.

He blinks again, and it’s the New Inn.

“For how long have you had these feelings, Hob Gadling?” Dream says quietly.

Hob sighs. Okay. Time to face the music, then.

He’s still crouching, so he stands. He tugs at his ear and tries for a smile; it comes out a little sheepish. “I don’t really know, to be honest? Something changed, over the years.” We both did. Probably best not to say that, though. “But by 1889, I knew for sure. I just did a piss-poor job of telling you. I am sorry for that, by the way.”

Dream is silent.

Hob tries to make out his expression. Still blank, although Hob can tell that it is an effort for him. “Well,” Hob says. He puts his hands in his pockets—he’s still wearing his jeans, which is kind of weird given that he’s in the White Horse as it was when they had met. “What’s with the location?”

Dream continues looking at him, as if he is lost and Hob has the map. “I…This is your memory,” he says. “Your dream.”

“Why here?”

“It is the place you dream of most often. Particularly in recent years,” Dream says. “I have been…doing some reading.”

Hob thinks about Lucienne handing Dream a book, about how he has stumbled into Dream’s realm as easy as breathing. As if the path had already been paved for him.

This is a confession, Hob realizes. Dream looks like he expects Hob to hate him for it, but Hob doesn’t care; he’ll give it all. His dreams have always belonged to him; have been of him and for him for a long, long time.

Dream waves a hand, and a table and chairs appear. His eyes are pleading when he looks at Hob.

A genuine request, one Hob can refuse if he so wishes.

Hob sits.

“I’m sorry,” Dream says. “I believed you thought me weak. Instead, you have replied only with your kindness and care, care that I do not deserve.”

“You don’t need to apologize, Dream,” Hob says. He feels like his heart is breaking—wrong, this is all wrong.

Dream shakes his head. “You have shown me what you wish you had done. Now it is time for me to show you what I should have done.”

Across the room sit two men. Hob stares at the scene from 1889, when it all went wrong.

Good lord, Dream really is dense. The love on Hob’s face is unmistakable.

Still the same as ever.

“Dream,” Hob murmurs. He already knows what Dream is going to say. The worst part is—he doesn’t regret it. How could he? It was all the truth.

I think it’s you that’s changed.

Hob doesn’t know if he can relive this again.

Yes. Yes I do.

He closes his eyes.

***

(“What book are you reading?” Hob had finally thought to ask, last winter. They were lying beneath the shade of an apple tree; one from Hob’s childhood, sunlight spreading slow warmth across his face. The warmth was a nice reprieve from the waking world, which was well on its way to a hard freeze in London.

Dream said nothing at first, and Hob sat up on his elbows. “Dream?”

“…It is a book of poems,” Dream said, thumbing through the book now. The cover was white, the same color as his pale fingers. He seemed to be avoiding Hob’s gaze. “You mentioned that you enjoyed this century’s poetry.”

Hob brightened. “Oh? Have you made any deals with anyone this time?” Because as much as he hated to admit it, Shakespeare's writings ended up on every class syllabus he’s taught in this lifetime for a reason. That reason being, namely, that his poems were actually worth remembering, despite Hob’s personal grudges.

Yes, Hob thought. The world would be all the better, if more dreams came to pass like they had for Shaxberd that night.

Dream tensed for a moment, his hands stilling. “No. I have not.”

His musings came to a halt, and Hob hated himself in that moment. Of course Dream hadn’t been able to go around making deals with contemporary poets. Right.

“Well,” he said, and it was a blessing that his voice did not come out tinted with shame, only neutral curiosity. “Read to me?”

It was the right thing to say. Dream relaxed, his shoulders easing.

“‘Early one morning words were missing,’” he began, and Hob leaned back against the tree. Closed his eyes as his friend’s dear voice washed over him. He heard a small thump, like an apple falling, or perhaps a book closing. And still, Dream continued. “‘Before that, words were not. Facts were, faces were. In a good story, Aristotle tells us, everything that happens is pushed by something else…’”)

***

“You were right.”

Slowly, Hob opens his eyes.

They’re sitting on the park bench; it is spring again. They are awake.

“I was too proud to see it,” Dream says, in that quiet way of his. Around them, people are having picnics and throwing frisbees; a couple walks their dog past them, laughing. The pigeons are still pecking at the ground. “But you were right. You are still.”

Hob tries to steady his breathing.

Dream seems to shore himself. Says, “I am lonely. The burden of my station demands every part of me. But it does not give me leave to push away the care given freely, willingly, to me, by my family, and…” Belatedly, Hob realizes that they’re still holding hands. “My friends.”

“I,” Hob says. In wonder, he lets go of Dream’s hand. The soft noise of protest Dream makes rends him apart, but the brief moment of distance is worth the way his lips part when Hob thumbs at the tears forming at the corner of Dream’s eyes. “You’re crying.”

He feels the urge to cover him, away from prying eyes—the tears of the King of Dreams must be something sacred, Hob thinks wildly. Something that people like Lady Johanna Constantine or even Lucifer herself would pay a pretty penny for. The urge to protect rises up, unrelenting. “Could we—?”

Dream waves a hand, and the landscape changes once more; they’re in Hob’s living room now, sitting on his overstuffed couch. He sometimes hosts study groups on this couch; has slept on it when Erin needed a place to crash after a long night at the bar, a brief respite from the trials of new parenthood; has watched movies with Madge on it, swapping beer and popcorn from the supermarket.

Dream’s cheek is still cradled in the palm of his hand. Slowly, Hob wipes a thumb down his cheek. “Love,” he says, his voice soft.

Dream’s eyes close. “You continue to call me that.”

“It’s because I do. Love you, that is,” Hob says. The words feel like a release; like something within him is finally being set free. He feels light, unmoored.

“You dream of me,” Dream says.

“I do.”

“You should not. It is not wise.”

He remembers Dream’s words, from the night he had shown him his realm. As much a part of me as I am of it. Madge's advice. For yourself. “I can’t help it,” Hob says. “It’s okay if you don’t want it; just know that I’ll do it anyway.”

Dream looks wrecked. Beneath his palm, Hob can feel him swallow. “Why?” he asks, and it sounds broken. Small, in a very human way.

Hob’s smile is gentle. There a lot of questions he has even after all this time; he thinks he will never grow tired of discovering new ones.

And yet this—this is perhaps the easiest question he’s ever had to answer. “You give me hope,” he says, his voice soft. “That’s who you are for us, isn’t it? For all of us. Something to look forward when we close our eyes, whether it be for just the night or forever. Our dreams and our nightmares, the good the bad and the ugly—all of it. Everything.” He leans forward. “Dream, darling?”

Dream’s lips part. A question to meet Hob’s own, one it seems he can’t bear to ask.

Slowly, slowly, Hob brings their foreheads together. Closes his eyes. “If you would allow it, I would gladly carry some of it with you. The loneliness. As your friend, as your lover—it doesn’t really matter to me. Just know that…” He takes a stuttering breath that rattles in his lungs. “I am here. If you want.”

Hob opens his eyes and find that Dream is already looking at him. He looks…

Desperate. In a way that Hob has never seen him before.

“Hob Gadling,” he breathes. “It would be remiss of me to tell you that I do not feel the same. But…” His lip trembles, and Hob can’t tear his eyes away. This one small movement, proof of Dream’s undoing.

Hob is the reason for that—that quiver. Oh, fuck.

“I am,” Dream says, “both host and witness every story. This story—” He raises a hand to hold Hob’s again. “This story I know. I have lived it many times; by its end, I will have lost you, as I have lost all the others.”

“Then I will have lost you as well,” Hob says, squeezing his hand. “That’s just what it means to be human, love. That’s why we—” He fights the wild urge to laugh “—that’s why we’ll just have dream of something new. A new story. A new age.” Dream’s breath hitches at the last words.

Hob remembers that evening in the kitchen just a few steps away. Dream’s smile, his cup of tea. “Till the end of the universe, remember?” he says. “And if we don’t make it there, then at least we hoped for something. Would that not be enough?”

Dream is silent for a moment, scanning Hob’s face. As if looking for something. Hob doesn’t know what it is, exactly, but he tries to give it to him anyway; he’s never been subtle in his staring, but this is the first time it feels like he’s been given explicit permission.

So Hob does what he does best, and he takes the chance. Grabs it with both hands and swallows it; feels it grow bright and his chest as he runs and runs and runs. He stares back at Dream’s eyes, ringed with the blue of twilight and containing twin stars; both the glorious mundanity of humanity and the terrifying infinity of the cosmos before him—Hob wasn’t kidding, when he said that Dream held it all.

He tries to put it all in his grip of his hand, gentle but steady; in his eyes, wide and earnest. He wills Dream to hear his own.

An infinity passes between them.

Finally, Dream takes a breath. His ridiculous hair tickles Hob’s forehead when he comes closer, and Hob lets him.

“I concede,” he says, and it comes out as a huffed breath against Hob’s lips. Miracle of miracles—a laugh. “Hob Gadling,” he says. Hob feels like he could fly apart. He grounds himself to the line of Dream’s palm. “You honor me with your companionship. Would you continue to grant me this honor, in this new age?”

Actually, scratch what he thought earlier—this is by far the easiest question Hob has ever answered, in all six hundred and thirty-odd years of his long, long life.

In answer, he pulls Dream closer. He feels Dream’s lips against his teeth as he smiles; he doesn’t think he will ever stop smiling.

“Yes, you silly creature,” he says, adoring. “Yes, yes, yes.”

***

They eat lunch at the New Inn. Well, Hob eats lunch, and Dream watches him, his own pale fingers wrapped around his cup of chamomile tea. They sit in a warm patch of sunlight near the window; summer is just around the corner, and Dream tells Hob of how humanity is already dreaming of cooler days.

“Well, that’s just how it goes sometimes, love,” Hob says. He swirls the remaining dregs of his lemonade around—only a little bit of gin in it this time, and plenty of strawberries. “The moment the weather starts turning, people already want to move on.”

“I will never understand it,” Dream says, that smile small and dear twitching at his lips. “In my realm, the weather is controlled by only myself. I hear no complaints.”

Hob raises an eyebrow. “I think Lucienne might disagree. Although…” he clears his throat. “She did say earlier this month that, ah, it’s been quite pleasant over there. A little warm, just like it is here.”

Dream’s eyes gleam. “I cannot imagine why,” he says.

“Dr. Gadling!”

They both turn; Percy is walking past, their bag slung over their shoulder and several sheets of paper in their hand. They look at Dream and blink. “Hello.”

“…Hello,” Dream says.

“Hiya, Percy,” Hob says. “How are you enjoying break?”

They smile, quickly moving over Dream to raise their sheet music. “Lots of practicing to do,” they say. “New piece just got passed around, and chair tests are soon.”

“Oh?” Hob says, leaning forward. “What’s it gonna be this cycle?” He makes a mental note to buy tickets; this year Madge will be going to Italy over winter break, so there is a concert-going friend vacancy that could, perhaps, be filled.

“Schubert,” Percy says. “Symphony No. 8.”

“Ah,” Hob says. “The unfinished one, yeah?” Across from him, something flickers in Dream’s eyes, some kind of recognition. Hob raises an eyebrow at him, but being the insufferable, endearing thing he is, he chooses to avoid Hob’s glance and take a sip of tea instead.

“Unfinished, yeah,” Percy says. They heft their bag over their shoulders; Hob hopes that it’s not too heavy. Kids these days carry so much. “But I dunno, I’m kinda excited. It’s a miracle we even get to play it, yanno? Like, he gave it to his friend and it sat in a desk for decades. Makes you wonder what else we might’ve missed out on.”

Hob can’t help but smile. “That is true,” he says. “Guess we’ll never know. Maybe someday someone will find the ending.”

Percy grins. “Or maybe someday someone will write something new to remember.”

Hob laughs, delighted as always by the bright optimism of youth. “And maybe it’ll be you, if your essay is anything to go by. Phenomenal work, by the way.”

They smile with pride, shift on their feet a bit with humility. “Thank you, sir. And thank you for your help.”

“Of course.”

Something catches their eye through the window, and they make a thumbs up past Hob and Dream. “Well, gotta go—friend’s calling. It was nice seeing you, Professor. And nice to meet you, too,” they say to Dream, giving a wave.

Dream waves back, the movement slow and a little awkward, and Hob feels a rush of fondness so overpowering he finds it difficult to breathe.

He waves Percy goodbye as well. “Good to see you, Perce.”

They leave with a smile.

After the shop door closes, the bell tinkling Percy’s goodbye, Dream turns to Hob. “The Library contains the rest of Schubert’s work,” he says, setting his glass down. “Would you like to hear it one of these nights?”

Hob raises an eyebrow. “You’re serious?”

Dream nods. “Every work that has ever been written, and every work that never was. If its creator dreamed of it, it is there. Lucienne would know more, but I believe there are three more of Schubert’s symphonies, each in various stages of completion.”

“Hmm,” Hob says, considering. In his cup, the ice clicks against the glass. He gives it a good swirl. A concert in the Dreaming; now that would be something.

He takes a look around at the busy shop. Erin is behind the bar, wiping down the countertops; he gives a wave when he sees Hob looking over, and Hob waves back. There’s a group of students that he recognizes as Madge’s over there by the other set of windows, bemoaning deadlines and sharing straws. Two girls walk in, holding hands and laughing.

Dream, in front of him, still waiting.

“I would love to,” he finally says, smiling. “On one condition.”

Dream sits up, suddenly serious. “Oh?”

He’s heard thousands of concerts over the years—from within crowded bars, arm in sweaty arm with strangers as a fiddler tapped a heartbeat with their feet, to velvet concert halls, awash with lamplight and peppered with powdered wigs—and now one day, perhaps soon, in the endless Dreaming itself. He fiddles with his glass, turns it in a circle on his napkin. “Go to Percy’s concert with me?”

To an outsider, Dream’s face is as impassive as ever, but Hob can read it. He sees the beginnings of a smile.

“Hm,” Dream says. “Is this what you call a ‘date’?”

Hob raises an eyebrow and taps the side of his glass, now empty. “Depends. Are you saying yes?”

“Perhaps,” Dream says, in that prim and proper and ridiculously grave way of his. The smile finally breaks free, his cheeks dimpled and rare, and Hob loves him, loves him.