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Glass is now complicated. It comes from sand. It is liquid sand moving on a scale so impossibly slow that no one will ever see it. It is the barrier between Dream and the outside world for over a hundred years, reflecting his corporeal form and smeared with Jessamy's blood for years.
It is the ethereal beauty of the windows in his throne room. Glass, which comes from sand. Glass, which is so, so breakable. Sweet, sweet Dream. Fits of fancy and storytelling. Fragile. Insubstantial. Dream can see his broken reflection in the pieces of the throne room windows. He doesn't have enough power to restore them, the glass and concrete crashing around him.
The windows of the church where he finds Constantine are stained glass. They shimmer, reflecting scenes its worshippers find meaningful. He can hear glass tinkling, clinking, in the New Inn where he meets Hob. The windows of the Inn. The curvature of the glass undoes something in him.
Dream turns his head to the stained glass in his palace, restored, shifting them to his missing Arcana. Gault. The Corinthian. Fiddler's Green. Glass shatters occasionally. In the Dreaming. In the Waking. Dream feels more jagged lines in him ripping open, dragging his essence out with each noise.
Glass cracks through the library windows. He can see his reflection. He cannot breathe. He does not need to breathe, but when has that stopped the force of narrative? It is the Vortex's doing.
That, too, passes. And Morpheus does not rest. When he closes his eyes, he sees Jessamy's blood against the glass. His own reflection. He is distant. Sometimes he's still behind the glass, the world distorted and watery and Lucienne looks worried at the replies he gives that he does not remember. Matthew startles him more often, even when Dream should have heard the raven coming.
Sometimes Dream hears glass crack and break but cannot find the cause. Sees blood and feathers smeared on a pane in front of him, only to blink and they are gone. He cannot focus. His head is a constant blur of ache and racing thoughts. He's in the throne room. He's in the Library. He's in Fiddler's Green. He's in his own chambers. He's on the Shore of Dreams.
Dream cannot remember all the journeys.
His head throbs, now. Whenever 'now' is. He's only halfway aware, mentally checked out of whatever Lucienne's saying. He should be paying attention. The lights burn. His vision warps, bright dots and spots clouding his vision. And, stars, his head. The gut that he doesn't normally possess clenches painfully in an unidentifiable sensation. His body doubles over, without his permission.
"Lord Morpheus!" Lucienne is at his side in an instant.
He grits his teeth, expecting it to pass. It does not. His balance feels a bit like mortal drunkenness, off-kilter and staggering, and only Lucienne's sudden grip on his arm keeps him from stumbling. Closing his eyes helps with the pain of the light.
"Sir?"
"Leave me," he tries to snap, but can't get the words out, not around the sensation he's identified as nausea. He is ill-equipped to protest when Lucienne tugs him by the arm to his chambers – and Morpheus stumbles, landing facedown onto the bed with a muffled groan.
His head hurts, mostly to one side, and Dream is very confused. The pain has brought a little clarity to his senses, paradoxically, telling him the last several… weeks? have not been normal, he is supposed to remember more of it, he is not supposed to see Jessamy's blood on glass. What weakness is plaguing him now? How has he been losing so much time, losing himself in his own head? How is he experiencing head pain and nausea like a mortal?
Lucienne is saying something. He strains to listen. She's asking if he's all right. Plausible deniability is out the window, so to speak, but he can recover the situation. "I will be. Thank you. That will be all."
She finally leaves, and he curses, muffled, into the pillow. It will be fine. Now that he knows, it will be fine. He lies there for an eternity until he slips into a semblance of rest, and wakes up, the headache mostly gone.
Except the head pains, the sparkling lights, the nausea - they come back. Again. And again. He gets better at hiding the signs, cursing whatever has caused this. He gets better at pretending he's not constantly behind a barrier of glass, that he's free, that he's fine. Dream is constantly behind glass. Stained glass, bloody glass, rounded glass, broken glass, all muffling the world around him, filling his head with cotton. Sometimes he wonders if it was easier being in the glass cage. At least then he didn't have to pretend.
It's occurring to him that in some ways, he never really left.
He's with Hob Gadling in Hob's flat, trying very hard to sip the drink Hob's poured for him normally. The side of Dream's head aches fiercely, the light sending fresh twinges above his eye, his gut is twisting. His hands don't seem to want to hold onto the glass. He tries to set it down. It breaks, shining pieces scattering across the hardwood.
He should help clean that up, a voice in his head notes detachedly.
Instead his stomach lurches and he bolts for Hob's bathroom. Everything is too much. The clothes, the sickness, the weakness, the sounds and the lights. The world narrows to the toilet bowl and his own disgusting heaves and how much it hurts.
And the indignity of Hob witnessing it - who is even now rubbing Dream's upper back and shoulders with soft soothing motions. The contact burns and he never wants Hob to stop and he wants Hob to leave and he wants to leave and have no one see this display of weakness and he didn't give Hob permission to touch him. His muscles spasm again, painfully, and this time he's dry heaving.
By the time Dream is sure he's done, his mouth tastes awful, his head still hurts on the one side, and he wants to vanish or scream in mortification and rage. He stands.
"I did not give you permission to touch me," he finally snaps, interrupting Hob's "What's wrong?" "I am sorry for interrupting our evening, but I assure you I will be quite all right… and will take… my leave…" He looks at the mirror. His reflection, exhausted and pale and trembling, stares back. Dream closes his eyes, instinctively takes a step back, not wanting to see Jessamy's blood again. His eyes well with tears. He stumbles, badly, on the bathroom rug.
"I am fine," he says, even as Hob catches him from falling. "I need to take my leave, is all." Even as he is so, so stupid and foolish, afraid to open his eyes and face the mirror again, it was just a mirror, he wasn't back in the cage, and Jessamy had died over ninety years ago.
"Let go of me," he insists, trying to pull out his sand, even as tears start coursing down his face.
Hob does not let go, just lowers them both to the floor, making impossibly soothing noises. Not asking questions. Dream wouldn't be able to answer anyway. He turns his face by instinct into Hob's chest, blocking more light and unable to face the world.
Dream cannot stop crying. It is utterly mortifying.
Distantly, someone wipes at his face with a soft cloth, at some point. Dream still can't speak, or really react to much of anything, exhaustedly pressed against Hob's chest. He could sleep like this, he thinks. Doesn't want to let go. His head still hurts.
Hob murmurs something that included his name, but he is too far gone for it. Strong arms lift him, cradling him like precious cargo, and carry him somewhere impossibly soft and warm. Gentle hands fumble at his coat, his boots, and he doesn't remember them finishing the process.
It is pitch dark. Every sensation around Dream is unfamiliar, his head hurts. Had he slept? Had he been – He lurches upright, and falls in a tangle of something soft to the ground. There's a clattering sound as something falls with him.
He manages to recognize, finally, that he's tangled in bedsheets, that he fell off a bed. He squeezes his eyes closed by reflex. He is the King of Dreams. He will not be bested by blankets. He extricates himself, carefully, to sit on the edge of the bed, just the hall light flicks on. A figure is silhouetted in the fluorescent, blinding light, and Dream can't contain the flinch backwards at the footsteps into the room.
"Dream?" whispers the figure. "Dream, hey, are you okay?"
There's an uncomfortable heat behind his eyelids, like tears and the transition to burning stars, and pain behind one of his eyes. He tries to catalogue the voice, remember how he came to be here.
He opens his eyes, and Hob – yes, it is Hob – starts back. "Whoa. Was not expecting that. I'm sorry if I startled you, Dream."
"I am sorry," he finally whispers, licking his lips a bit. "I – I should go –" His hands shake too badly to reach for his sand, however. Hob slips into the room, still not approaching Dream. The hall light that had been blocked a bit by his body hits Dream's vision like the sear of Lucifer's nova. Before he processes what's happening, his hand is clamped over the side of his face where it hurts, a small wince of pain escaping.
"Bollocks," Hob mutters, and moves back to the hall, flicking a switch. "I'd ask you to talk about earlier, but I don't think you're in any state to. Do you have a headache?
He should be offended by that, Dream thinks. But he's tired and feels generally unwell. "Yes. My head hurts," he admits.
There's chatter about Dream needing to stay hydrated, and he sighs, unsure how to respond.
"Do you think you could drink something?" Hob had left and come back already. He's holding a cup of colorful liquid. Dream blinks, but drinks it anyway, in slow, careful sips.
There's the ice packs and cold cloths.
Dream tries to shape the words thank you, but he's so fatigued they come out a bit mangled. Hob seems to understand, though. "You're welcome, old friend." The cold cloth and compress get adjusted a bit, Hob's warm hands brushing hair out of his face.
Hob shuts off the lamp. "You should try to sleep again," he says, creak of the chair belying his intentions.
He licks his lips, and whispers: "Stay?"
Dream doesn't fall asleep as easily this time, not until the bed creaks and shifts with the weight of Hob settling in.
Once Hob is reasonably sure Dream is asleep, he takes some time to quietly panic. Dream – regal, untouchable Dream – is asleep with a migraine in the bed next to him. He probably could have avoided panicking as much if that was the only thing that had happened. But Hob has seen the look in Dream's eyes, the mental clocking out, the flinching, in his fellow soldiers and sometimes other people.
It's the look of someone who has been wounded, badly, and it didn't heal over right. The wound lingers. Shellshock, it was called at first. Now it has the name PTSD – post-traumatic stress disorder. Dream had never said where he was in 1989, only 'detained.' Hob had suspected, a bit, that something had happened – but he'd kept his pushing on the subject to a minimum.
The way Dream had crumpled in his arms, sobbing himself into exhaustion, means Hob needs to concern himself with it more than he already has. Something terrible happened, and he doubts Dream has really talked about it with anyone. Said man shifts in his sleep, moonlight spilling silver over his hair, and makes a soft noise.
Hob stays with him, only getting up to check his phone, use the bathroom, refresh the ice packs and damp cloths on his friend's head and neck. Dawn light finally starts bleeding through the window, splashing his friend in gold, and Dream shifts, then opens his eyes.
Dream wakes slowly. The first thing he is aware of is something soft under his body, warmth and light over his face. He is not wearing his coat or boots. His head rests on a pillow, something cold and damp over his forehead. He twitches his fingers, then brings a hand up to brush at the damp cloth.
"Good morning," a voice greets to his left. A few sluggish moments later, he identifies it as Hob Gadling, and opens his eyes.
His head aches considerably less. Right. Yes. The pain in his head. The breakdown in Hob's arms.
"Hello," he finally says softly. He sits up, opens and closes his eyes, and draws an even breath. He can still fix this. "I apologize for worrying you, Hob. I am unused to feeling physical conditions."
"That wasn't the only issue you were having," Hob answers.
"Merely exacerbated by the head pain, I assure you." It might be a lie. Probably is a lie. There's a chasm in Dream somewhere, an empty spot that never quite got refilled. A fault line.
"Dream – if you want to talk about it –"
"There is nothing to speak of, Hob Gadling. I thank you for your help; such care has not gone unnoticed. But you need not worry yourself further." Dream pours the sand, even over Hob's protestations.
Hob is in a cellar basement, behind his oldest friend. There's a large glass cage suspended in the room. Dream stares at it, not noticing Hob's presence, his fists clenching at his sides. A dream, then. Dream's?
"I need not concern myself, further, huh?" Hob asks. Was this where Dream had been for so long?
Dream whirls. "Hob Gadling. What are you doing here? You cannot be here."
"Well, I am," says Hob, trying to see past the rising mist and shadow to what he'd glimpsed, the glass orb with a pale figure in it.
Dream's gaze turns to flint, his presence growing. "This dream is over."
Hob wakes with a gasp, feeling like the chill of that basement has followed him.
They're in the park behind the New Inn. There's something off to the cadence of Dream's tone. Not entirely present. Almost… dissociated?
"Dream," Hob says cautiously. "Do you even remember coming here?"
"What kind of question is that, Hob? Of course I remember –" Dream cuts off, mid-sentence, gaze flickering around him. A split second of recognition and panic. "I am sorry," he says, and vanishes in a puff of sand.
Hob doesn't dream for a week, his sleep poor.
"Do not."
Hob turns with a glare, sleeping pill bottle in his hand. "Oh, or what? You've already barred me from the Dreaming for a week."
Dream blinks, startled. "I … have?" He had not meant to. What? When did I do that?
"How do you not know?" Hob asks. "Dream, what's wrong? What happened to you?"
Dream doesn't understand. He doesn't understand what's happening now, he doesn't understand what happened then, and it terrifies him, and none of it will go away . "Ask anything but that. Please," Dream finally says, hating the way his voice breaks. "I do not – there are things you need not know, Hob."
The sand is unformed glass, he thinks, without knowing why his head has gone there. His vision is full of sparkling lights. He needs to go. He tries. The sand is just another glass – It resists him so violently that he's thrown back instead, into Hob's kitchen wall. He doesn't understand –
"Dream!" Hob is next to him in an instant, though it feels like Hob is far away, under water.
"I do not understand," his voice says, as he stands. "There must be something wrong with the sand. It will be fine." The sparkling lights have abated. He raises his hand again to try the sand.
Hob grabs his wrist. "Stop running from it, Dream."
"I am not running from anything," his voice says again, mechanically, and then the sand takes him away. He hits the throne room floor with bruising force, sand scattered around him. Thankfully, no one witnesses it.
The next day, Dream's vision is strange. Tunneling, a bit. Sometimes there is grey spreading over the left side of it. Still, his hands continue to shape the dream. A familiar ache lodges itself above his eye, however, and he hisses. With a thought, he's in his chambers. He cannot work through them with willpower alone, but he never wants anyone to witness them again.
But maybe it is foolish to keep refusing Hob's help. Hob is not one of his subjects, foes, allies, or siblings. There is no reason Hob wants to help him other than to help him. Dream's pride is the only thing preventing him. And Dream is certainly not having any success solving it on his own.
He has also been worrying Hob, he knows. Dream frowns, then makes a decision.
"Warn a guy, Dream!" Hob yelps.
"I am sorry," he says, listing slightly to the right. There's sand on Hob's carpet, glinting in the light. It looks like fallen glass. Glass cracks somewhere, and he looks for the source, and finds nothing.
Hob has risen, concern on his face.
"You told me to stop running," Dream finally says, head aching, lights distorted, hands shaking. "This is me not running anymore." His eyes are glassy with tears again. He's not sure when that happened.
Hob's hands are solid, real, and he sighs, swaying slightly forward before regaining his balance. Then Hob is guiding him into the hall, to the guest bedroom, dimming the lights and sitting him firmly on the bed. He's saying something else but Dream only catches parts of it, something about please wait here and get some tea and maybe meds.
Hob comes back, bearing ice packs and hot ginger tea and electrolyte solutions – well, he's not sure what medications Dream can take or if they'll do anything, but he has over the counter stuff. Dream is still fixed in the spot where Hob left him.
He is definitively unwell in more than one way.
"Dream," he says quietly. Dream jerks his head up, then winces in pain. Hob sits on the bed next to him.
As if by instinct, Dream lets his head fall slowly into Hob's shoulder. "I am sorry," he whispers.
"I know," Hob says, gently. "Let's get you lying down, yeah?"
Dream flinches when Hob tries to take off the coat, so Hob leaves it; the boots, however, are apparently fine to come off.
"How nauseous do you feel?" Hob asks.
"Not very much at the moment," Dream says.
Hob has him drink some of the ginger tea anyway, along with some of the electrolyte solution, though he declines the medications. Then Hob guides Dream down, hand on his friend's shoulder blades and behind his head, into the pillows. The ice pack goes on next. "Just try and get some rest, dove."
Dream's hand shoots out when Hob starts to rise. "I cannot – I do not know how to – I do not know how to sleep alone. Only when you are here," Dream confesses.
Well, fuck, that was sure something. "All right. All right, just let me get some stuff from the other room, all right?"
Dream should tell Lucienne and Matthew where he is, he thinks. It hurts, focusing long enough to tell Matthew via their connection.
Hob settles back on the bed.
"I am stories, Hob Gadling." Dream turns his head slightly, though his eyes remain closed. He reaches out, blindly, knowing tears are about to start tracking down his face from under closed eyelids.
Hob takes his hand, and then shuffles closer, until Dream's head rests on his ribcage.
Dream can feel each breath, each rise, each fall. "I will tell you some of them. Tomorrow. If you still wish to hear them. If you still wish for me to – to stay. I am not sure you understand what you ask. But I would offer." He is not sure that made sense, actually. Morpheus thinks he might want to stay, as long as Hob Gadling would have him.
"I will always want you to stay, Dream. As long as you could spare," Hob says. One hand he still has in Dream's. His other hand, wrapped around Dream's shoulders, kneads at a tense muscle knot. "And I would have whatever stories you tell me," Hob adds.
The humanity under him, Hob's breaths and the pulse he can feel in Hob's wrist (alive, alive, alive). Not like Jessamy. Warm. Here. Immortal. A breath he doesn't need to take stutters out, and the tears start falling. Hob says something soft, soothing, in what sounds like Middle English. There's a soft brush of contact on the top of Dream's head.
"Hob," Dream gets out – and then realizes that is the entire sentence. There are not additional words for it.
"I got you," Hob whispers.
Dream thinks, just before the pain in his head and the tears and exhaustion drags his consciousness away into sleep – that he believes Hob.