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“Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.” -Voltaire
Two weeks to the day after his ill-fated trip to the British Museum, Hob spends the afternoon in his office grading papers. Normally grading is his least favorite part of the job, but he’s getting a bit of a warm feeling about it after thinking he might have gotten fired. Maybe he should get nearly fired more often—it really makes you appreciate what you have.
He hasn’t been fired, obviously. Dean Carraway, as far as he can tell, didn’t bother to write a report about it. No one’s even brought it up, although he can tell his students have been talking about it because they’re extra whispery but shut up when he gets too close.
Hob doesn’t have office hours that day, which makes the knock on the door a surprise. His undergraduates don’t tend to show up outside his scheduled hours, and his grad students know him well enough to not bother to knock.
“Come in,” he calls, and gets even more of a surprise, because it’s not one of his students—it’s Dream, who steps inside and shuts the door, somehow managing to do it silently even though Hob’s never been able to prevent it from banging shut.
“Hey, stranger,” Hob says. Visits from Dream are not separated by a century anymore, but still rare enough that every one seems to come out of the blue. Even more of a break in pattern: Dream’s never come to his office before. Usually he finds Hob at the inn, and occasionally on the street.
“ Hob Gadling,” Dream says, gravely. He stands there, looming.
“Sit down?” Hob asks, gesturing at the two chairs opposite him. Dream obliges, gracefully settling into the one nearer the door. “Just come to see me, or is there something I can do for you?”
“ I came to see if there was something I could do for you ,” Dream corrects.
“For me?” Hob frowns at him. He isn’t sure what that could be. Not that he doesn’t want to see Dream—he almost always does—but he doesn’t have anything in particular to say to him. Hob’s honestly been waffling on whether to tell Dream about his encounter with Paul McGuire at all. He’d thought he’d have more time to think it over.
“ Your dreams have been unsettled ,” Dream says, leaning forward. “ I fear I am responsible.”
“What,” Hob says, startled, “You’ve been sending me nightmares?” He hasn’t been sleeping well, it’s true, but it had never occurred to him that Dream was behind it.
“No,” Dream says, frowning. “ Not…intentionally.”
“You’re sending me nightmares unintentionally ?” Hob isn’t sure if that’s worse or better.
“Perhaps,” Dream says, and then, with an air of confession. “There are—figures in your dreams for which I feel I bear responsibility.”
The penny drops. “Ah, no,” Hob confesses. “That’s not—you mean Paul McGuire, don’t you?”
Dream stiffens. “How do you know that name?”
So much for not telling Dream; he clearly needs to make a full confession. Maybe he should have figured—it’s hard to keep secrets from a man with direct access to your subconscious.
“I met him,” Hob said, carefully. “Took my class to the British Museum last week, bit of a field trip, and he was there.”
Dream is still as a statue. Hob leans across the desk very carefully and lays his hand, palm-up, in front of Dream. Better to let him initiate contact if he wants it.
“The curator introduced him, said he was the caretaker at Fawney Rig. I punched him in the face,” Hob says.
That gets Dream to unfreeze. “You—?” His voice is full of wonderment.
“Yeah, just decked him,” Hob says, with a bit more satisfaction than he entirely means to have in his tone. “Sorry. I know— need not have come to your defense and all that. Just saw his face and—” he shakes his head. “Anyway. A little unsettled about it, I guess, but they’re my dreams, so don’t worry about it.”
Dream gives Hob a tiny smile. “You remain a source of wonder,” he says, and settles his hand across Hob’s open one.
“I couldn’t just let him go,” Hob says, a little indignant.
“Why not?” Dream asks. His depthless eyes are fixed on Hob’s, like he’s searching for something in them.
Hob isn’t sure what that is; he wishes he knew. All that comes out of his mouth is the simple truth. “Because he hurt you.”
Dream sighs a little. Hob doesn’t know how, but he gets the sense that he said the right thing. Dream’s hand settles more firmly into his own. Hob squeezes it.
“Anyway,” Hob says. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. But I can tell you about it if you want to know.”
Dream visibly hesitates. “Another time, perhaps,” he says. “Should I leave you to your work? I have intruded, I know.”
“Never,” Hob says instantly. “You’re never intruding. Keep me company while I grade? If you’re not busy.”
Dream is, as far as Hob knows, always busy, but he says, “I can spare the time ,” and settles back into his chair.
Hob thankfully gave Dream his left hand, which leaves his right free to keep marking papers without letting go. He narrates as he does, telling Dream about whichever student’s paper is on top. Dream contributes occasionally, eyes on the names—Hob learns that a lot of his students aren’t getting enough sleep.
“That’s university,” Hob says, ruefully.
“Have you done it?” Dream asks.
“Oh, yes,” Hob says cheerfully. “Three times.”
Hob is getting Dream to straighten papers for him—a task that he does impossibly gracefully with one hand, while Hob would undoubtedly drop them all over the floor—when there’s a quick rap on the door, and then before he can say anything, it’s swinging open.
“Robert,” Dean Carraway says, stepping in, “There’s something I need you to weigh in on. The office—” she breaks off, seeing Dream. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You don’t usually have an appointment at this hour.”
Hob checks the clock. Not only is it not an office hours day, it’s past five. “No worries,” he says easily, slipping his hand out from under Dream’s in a manner that he hopes is more surreptitious than it feels. “Just had a friend stop in. This is Dean Elizabeth Carraway,” he introduces. He likes to use full names with Dream, when he can, because Dream has an annoying habit of using them whether or not they’ve been said before and it’s less to explain.
Dream stands, and offers his hand. “Morpheus,” he says, which spares Hob guessing which name he ought to give.
Dean Carraway shakes his hand. “We’ll catch up later,” she says to Hob.
“I will go,” Dream says, overlapping with Hob asking, “Is it important?”
Dean Carraway glances between them, hesitating. “It’s, ah—it’s about the man you… met on the museum trip last week.”
The bottom goes out of Hob’s stomach, because after two weeks he really had thought he’d gotten away with it. Meanwhile, Dream goes perfectly still.
Dean Carraway sees the stricken look on Hob’s face, and says, “It’s not—it’s a separate matter, from last week.”
It takes a moment for the meaning to sink through into Hob’s panic-stricken brain, but eventually he processes that this is something new, not that she’s belatedly decided to fire him. Dream gets no such comfort from the statement; he remains like a statue.
Hob is abruptly seized with the fear that Dream is going to recover himself enough to slip out, and he will absolutely not let his friend do that. He stands up so that he can lay a hand on Dream’s elbow. “Come on, sit down.”
“I’ll talk to you later,” Dean Carraway offers.
Dream has not sat; it’s hard to tell through the wool of the coat, which he has yet to take off, but Hob thinks he’s trembling faintly.
“He can hear it,” Hob says. “If you want to,” he adds, tugging a little and getting Dream to look at him finally. “Or I can talk to her later, if you don’t want to hear it. Don’t go like this.”
Dean Carraway is a smart woman. Her gaze flicks between them, doing the math. She takes a step back, giving Dream some space, although Hob isn’t sure he’s noticing her enough to appreciate it.
At length, Dream nods. “I will hear it,” he says, and finally sits. With effort, he looks back at the Dean, as though just remembering she is in the room. “If it is no trouble for you, Elizabeth Carraway.”
Dean Carraway shuts the door with a click and comes and takes the other seat opposite Hob. “I am guessing Robert told you what happened two weeks ago?”
Dream’s tone doesn’t give anything away. “He encountered a man called Paul McGuire at the British Museum and struck him.”
“Yes,” she says. “As it happens, Mr. McGuire was very insistent that there be no repercussions for the action.” Hob realizes, as Dean Carraway says it, that he never told Dream that and Dream hadn’t asked—as though it hadn’t even occurred to him that Hob might have gotten in trouble for it.
“And he’s changed his mind?” Hob asks, grimly.
“No,” she says. “In fact, he’s reached out and asked to make a donation to the university. Sixty thousand pounds a year for scholarships for graduate students in history.”
Hob whistles. That’s not small change; on average, that will set up six students a year with full tuition, or make up the difference between what they can afford and what they have to pay for a great many others. He’s not sure how he feels about it, though.
“What’s the catch?” Hob asks, suspicious. He glances at Dream, but doesn’t get much of a read off of him.
“We can’t take his money and shut him out,” Dean Carraway says, blunt and grim. “Donors always get tickets, access…if we don’t want him near the students…”
“Why would you not want him near the students?” Dream asks, into the silence.
Dean Carraway looks at him, startled. “Robert was—he didn’t think it was a good idea.”
“He won’t hurt them,” Dream says. Abruptly, he rises and goes to the window, staring into the glass. Hob can’t tell if he’s looking out over the lawn—he’s got a decent view from the third floor—or if he’s just staring into his own reflection.
Dean Carraway has surely guessed, if not the actual shape of what happened, that Morpheus is the friend that Hob mentioned, so Hob doesn’t bother holding back. He stands up and joins Dream at the window, stepping a little heavier than he needs to make sure he’s telegraphing his movements. Apparently he does a fair job; Dream doesn’t startle when Hob takes his arm.
“He hurt you ,” Hob points out, quietly, even though his office is small and Dean Carraway can definitely hear them.
“He enabled the harm, he did not enact it,” Dream says. “And besides.” A flash of something that might be dark amusement, might be grief. “I think it fair to say I was a special case.”
“I don’t know him,” Dean Carraway says, into the ensuing silence. “That is why I came to ask you, Robert. And now you,” she adds, looking at Dream.
He turns around fully to look at her. “His money,” Dream says, with an edge to it that Hob thinks Dean Carraway will read as disgust, although Hob himself thinks that it’s the tone of someone unaccustomed to saying to word or considering the concept. “It would do good, here?”
“Yes,” she says. “It would do a lot.” Hob nods to confirm it.
“Then take it,” Dream says, with a shrug. “I do not think he has the wish or heart to harm your students. He must live with his regrets, and nothing will take them from him. But it would be a much worse world if one who had once done harm was forbidden from doing anything virtuous.”
Dean Carraway nods, and looks to Hob.
Hob shrugs, gestures to Dream. “He knows best.”
“I’ll tell him we’ll take the money, then,” she says, and rises. Then, halfway to the door, she stops and looks back. “You can’t punch him again,” she warns.
“Damn,” Hob says, only half-joking. Dean Carraway politely ignores him.
“It was good to meet you, Morpheus,” she says at the door.
“You as well, Elizabeth Carraway,” he answers.
When she’s gone, Hob moves to stand in front of Dream and get a full look at his face. “Alright?”
“Yes,” Dream says. “I am…yes. I am well.”
He doesn’t seem to be lying. “You don’t have to forgive him,” Hob says.
“I do not,” Dream says, bluntly. “Perhaps I will never. Or perhaps in ten thousand years…though I doubt it.”
“You could have said no,” Hob says. “I can still catch her.”
“Why should I have said no?” Dream shakes his head. “To let him make restitution is not to forgive him.”
“No,” Hob says, after a moment. “I guess it’s not.”
“I have done things I regret ,” Dream says, abruptly. “As have you, Hob Gadling. Nothing may change those things, but that is not to say that what follows cannot be better.”
Hob picks up his coat. “I’ll drink to that,” he says. “Come to the inn with me, I’ll buy you one.”
Dream nods, and waits while he gathers up his papers and finds his keys. He’s not going to get any more grading done, anyway. He locks the office door and he and Dream head down the hall towards the stairwell.
“I still do not wish to see him,” Dream says, when they reach the landing for the second floor.
“Yeah, fuck that,” Hob agrees, instantly. “I won’t bring you anywhere he’s at, I promise you that.”
“Thank you,” Dream says. Then, he adds, “Although I confess I am comforted by the fact he may see you.”
“Me?” Hob asks, stumbling a step. “Why?”
“Because he need not see me again ,” Dream says, with satisfaction. “He only need see you, and he will remember what he has done. That it was not a nightmare he has woken from, but something he has wrought, and must carry.”
Hob nods. “I’ll go to the donor luncheon and stare him down,” he offers.
He gets another small smile for that. “You need not.”
“But I could,” Hob says. “Offer’s open.”
“I thank you,” Dream says. “For—all of it. And your Dean Carraway, too.”
“She has her moments,” Hob allows. “She’s kind of uptight, but—she’s good people.”
“She will have good dreams, tonight,” Dream says. “Is it strange that I—” he breaks off.
“Probably not,” Hob says. “Whatever you’re about to say.”
“I am a king,” Dream says. “I am Lord of Dreams and Nightmares. I am not sure why it matters to be listened to, by some human woman.”
“But it does,” Hob says.
“Yes,” Dream agrees. “But why should it ?” He sounds genuinely aggravated about it, like his own emotions are deeply inconvenient.
“Because it was real,” Hob says. “You were hurt, and it was real, and she’s acknowledging it.”
“But why should it matter?” Dream asks, addressing the question to the air rather than Hob.
“I don’t know,” Hob admits. “Why do we tell stories out loud, instead of keeping them inside our heads?” He’s just throwing out an analogy, but Dream nods, as though it’s all suddenly made sense.
“Thank you,” he says.
“Now explain it to me,” Hob says. “Because I don’t actually know the answer.”
Dream gives him an amused look. “We share stories for the same reason we share anything,” he says. “Because it is context , it is understanding . You humans, all of your language, your culture, everything you tell each other—you cannot relate to each other without it. All of it is a tie to each other. You tell a story so that it is heard, and so that you are heard. And when you are heard, you are not alone.”
Hob remembers the thing that haunts him the most about that encounter with Paul—that Dream was silent for more than a century. That he had not bothered to speak, all that time. And here was Dream, without Hob even asking, giving him the answer why —because he was alone. Because there was no one to hear it. Why bother with words, then?
He feels, again, the upswell of anger, of grief. Of the desire to grab hold of Dream and not let him go.
He settles for hooking his arm into Dream’s and guiding him down the block towards the New Inn. “Let’s do it differently this time,” Hob says.
“What do you suggest?” Dream asks.
“This time,” Hob says, “You tell me a story.”
“What would you like to hear?” Dream asks.
“Whatever you want to tell me,” Hob says.
“…in the year 1916,” Dream begins, “I left my kingdom to hunt a rogue Nightmare…”