Chapter Text
It’s cold, in the sphere. Cold and bright and suffocating. This is what it must feel like, he thinks, to be buried in an avalanche.
Buried, and yet somehow on display.
He sits still. Undesirous of giving his captors any movement of note.
And yet the chill is so intense that his muscles are fighting to move of their own accord…
*
It’s Friday, December 9, and Hob wakes shivering. It’s not a problem he’s had to deal since—when were radiators invented? late 1800’s?—and it isn’t one he’s missed. He crawls out of bed with a grumble. Goes to check the thermostat, sure that he’ll find the heat has broken; but the reading is where it always is.
Odd. Odd, but hardly the worst thing he’s ever had to contend with, besides which if the boiler’s fine then that means he can have a long, hot shower before work. The cold must be his mind playing tricks.
Technically speaking it’s not even winter yet, but that doesn’t matter much. It’s winter in all the ways that count. And though he finds specific enjoyments in all the seasons, this might be the one he favors least. Late sunrises make him groggy. And motivation among the students tends to be at its lowest, in the weeks leading up to their winter holiday.
Ah well. Spring will come. And for the moment: that shower. He leaves the lights off and enjoys the simple peace of darkness, of clean, hot water; it doesn’t fully ease the chill, so he puts on his favorite old jumper before heading in for his first class.
And he thinks no more of it, that day.
*
He cannot breathe, in the sphere. There must have been oxygen, in the earliest days, but it has long since been used up. The air is stale, now. Lifeless.
He cannot die of this. But oh, he can suffer: trapped in a flesh body, skimming Death’s surface like a stone across water. The void is in lungs is a constant thrum of agony. An unending battle against the urge to inhale, though nothing breathable will come, and he knows this… he knows this… and yet…
The body tries…
*
It’s Wednesday, December 14, and Hob wakes choking. There is no air getting in. This registers first, followed a full second later by the realization that he is coughing with downright violence.
He bolts upright, clutches both hands to his chest. One raises to his mouth as the coughing verges on gagging, and amidst the flurry of other half-formed thoughts he manages to wonder if he’s actually going to be sick.
Hob tastes blood. His imagination is running away with itself, or maybe misinterpreting the sharpness of bile. If he didn’t know better he’d say he’d woken up with a flu. But he doesn’t really get ill, is the thing—maybe a bit of hayfever in the spring, not sure why pollen can get to him when viruses can’t, but it’s not at all the right time of year for that—
Fuck he misses Peggy. Misses them with a similarly sudden brutality, as he sits there hacking, half-retching, nobody there to pass him the water from his nightstand. Lack of oxygen sets off little sparks of light against the darkness of his bedroom. When the fit calms enough for him to fully take in his surroundings, he realizes that even Winnie has left, likely just as startled as he was.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Maybe when she comes back he’ll try to get her to summon Dream for him. He’s usually fairly good at being by himself. But, feeling awful, alone in the darkness, a kindly touch on his hand or his shoulder would be like salvation itself…
But the angst, like the coughing fit itself, ebbs eventually. In control of himself enough to reach his nightstand now, Hob drinks some water and blows his nose, then lays down carefully on his side. He does not have flu. It’s acid reflux, most likely; his immortal constitution protects him from illness but not from overindulgence. And he knows better, by now, than to feel sorry for himself so readily. He’s allowed to grieve those he’s outlived, but he decided a damn long time ago to save this for special occasions, and not random middle-of-the-nights in December, dammit.
Why is it suddenly harder to fight off than usual?
*
Despair’s touch is ever-present, in the sphere. Perhaps that itself should be a comfort, a reminder that he cannot possibly be altogether isolated.
Or perhaps it is foolish to think that way. Perhaps his is a Despair that will never reach her kingdom, will never join with its like, but will wither here isolated just as he himself will.
If he died, would Death come?
That is certainly foolish; he will not die. But, oh—he aches for Death—not to free him from the circle, nor the glass, but from being altogether.
He wants to— end.
He settles into the thought like a blanket, the only thing that’s brought him comfort in ages. He wants to end. He wants to end.
He wants to end.
*
It’s Monday, December 19, and Hob wakes crying. The heat and the wetness of the tears startle him, and as he grasps instinctively to remember the nightmare, all he comes away with is a sense of absolute, utter loneliness. At least Winnie hasn’t bolted this time. He hunts for her warm fur amidst the covers, and hears her rouse with a trill as he strokes along her back.
But she does not, of course, come closer. Doesn’t roll over and ask in a sleep-stuffy voice, what’s the matter, love, did you have a bad dream—?
And there he goes missing Peg again. Missing Elsbeth. Missing Eleanor. Missing—well, fuck, he’s tried not to let this happen, but in a way all of his wives and lovers have sort of coalesced in his mind. He misses a nonspecific someone. He misses having someone. He just misses being one of two, because at the moment he is unquestionably on his own: fresh from a nightmare in the small hours of the morning, crying into his pillow for no singular reason.
Maybe it’s time to take up smoking again, he thinks, and in the moment it’s mostly a passing fancy.
But on the way home that afternoon he stops and buys a pack.
*
It’s Friday, December 23. That first pack of cigs is long gone, as is the second, and the third. Hob buys three more on the way home and wonders if it will be enough to last the holiday. He hasn’t smoked this much since the 40’s. But then, he hasn’t had nightmares like this since the 40’s, since the aftermath of the war.
And somehow, this bout is striking even more deeply.
It makes no kind of sense, really. Hob’s no stranger to nightmares. He’s a solider; he’s a widower; he’s a father who’s lost a child. He’s been burnt alive once, and drowned a few times.
(And beyond all this, or maybe behind it, is the truest of all his nightmares: the rumbling of the death cart and the stench of shit and onions, smeared onto the pustules by a hand that trembled with a fever of its own...)
But all of these nightmares, he tends to handle well. Maybe once in a while he’ll end up crying a bit, but even then he dusts himself off before too long and gets back to things.
This isn’t that. This is something heavy, and aching, and awful. Even in the daylight, he can’t get comfortable. He can’t get warm. His stomach is a mess, his chest tight and panicky, and he wants a fucking hug so fucking badly that he could burst into tears at any moment, if he let himself.
It’s been every night this week, and they’re getting worse.
School’s out for the winter holiday. He has no plans. Most years that he’s single, he goes abroad for the winter term break; but he hasn’t found a sitter yet for Winnie, besides which, it’s her first Christmas. She might not give a shit about that, but he does.
And that aside, if he’s being honest… Hob’s tired. Just, drained dry. Doesn’t feel like he’s had a decent night’s sleep in years, and though that’s absolute hyperbole, it’s definitely been a few weeks.
Maybe he’ll catch up over break, he thinks (and knows that that won’t be the case).
*
It’s Tuesday, December 27. Those syrup-slow days between Christmas and New Years are meant to be filled with nothing but naps and wine and on-sale chocolates.
Now, even a fifteen-minute stretch of sleep brings Hob—there.
He knows the sphere intimately, by now; knows the way the lights glance off its surface, knows the shadows of the iron cage fixing it in place. It is cold and stale and lonely, on a scale not even he is used to.
And what’s more, as time goes on, nothing about it changes. Nothing like the shifting landscapes he is used to, those pastiche puzzles of normal human dreaming.
If anything the sphere feels more like a memory.
Objectively speaking, he’s kept his wits through worse. Still this feels an awful lot like losing his mind.
*
He has stopped trying to see outside of the sphere. The lights are too bright, the glass too warping; the world beyond too harsh to want perceiving, at any rate.
His entire world is too small to stand up straight.
Years pass. Air fades and senses atrophy before the brave attempt—before she takes her chance and comes for him, at last.
When he recognizes her it is the first time in a decade he has tried to look beyond the glass. Her beautiful feathers, her familiar markings—it fills his vision like a well-held note fills the air.
And then: a gunshot. Feathers; blood.
His own face, clear against the darkness of the ruby stain.
Jessamy—
*
It’s Thursday, December 29. Hob wakes with a name on his lips and vomit in his throat; he scarcely has time to roll onto his side before the latter is spewing from his mouth, soiling his pillow and sheets.
He’s freezing. Teeth chattering, muscles juddering; can’t remember ever being this cold before, and he’d frozen more or less to death plenty of times in his destitute years. The only warmth he can feel is the heat that rises from his own putrid emissions and yeah, about that, what the actual, ever-living fuck? Not exactly a pleasant way to wake.
Despite the stench, he remains locked in place for full minutes: it’s shock and it’s grief and it is terror. Eventually he fumbles his way upright. Gets the linens in the laundry, and himself in the shower, and that helps a little but it doesn’t help much.
Jessamy.
Who’s Jessamy?
Damp-haired, in fresh pajamas, Hob sits at the foot of his bare mattress with his phone in his hand. In a way he wishes school were open. Even the nameless voice he’d speak to, to request a supply teacher, would be a comfort. Though the sheets are gone, the room still reeks of vomit. It wouldn’t feel like much of a lie to report that he’d caught a stomach bug and won’t be in today, nor very possibly tomorrow, and though it’d be a stranger on the other end, they’d probably tell him to feel better at least, and even that would feel nice right now—
Hob puts his phone back on the charger. Contemplates the act of putting new linens on the bed; but he knows in his heart he won’t be sleeping anymore, anyway. Can’t even bear to stay in the bedroom any longer.
December at 3 in the morning be damned, what he needs is some fresh air.
He’d only been sick the once but his stomach says it could definitely happen again; so he empties the little wastebasket from his bathroom and brings it out with him for emergency use. On his tiny balcony he sets it at his feet, lights up a cig, and smokes in silence; and thinks that for as much time as he’s spent alone in life, this might be the loneliest he’s ever felt.
(Well, no. It’s a bit of a betrayal of his 1600’s self to actually pretend that this is the worst it’s ever been. But. It’s not good, that’s for sure.)
Being close personal friends with the literal authority on nightmares hasn’t even been of help here, because the (not-)god hasn’t shown his improbably pretty face for a month now...
(That face, Hob thinks, flashing back without warning— that wasn't my face—)
A thousand puzzles pieces fall together in an instant; and though the picture they display is grim, at least Hob can make sense of it, at last.
“Ridiculous eldritch bastard,” he mutters, clenching the cigarette between his teeth in order to root around on the little balcony table for anything that might serve his purposes. He finds there a book of sudoku with a pen shoved inside: good enough.
He tears out a page— an extreme-level puzzle completed in ink, because he’s a bit of a bastard himself— and writes, in the margin, DREAM!!! (Then below that, Morpheus??!!, because he’s still not entirely clear on that distinction.)
Thin and pulpy, the paper burns easily. It burns so well, in fact, that the flames dwarf the ashtray he’d been planning to set it down in, and on instinct he tosses it into the wastebasket instead. Not the emergency use he expected, Hob thinks. The laugh this prompts has turned into a sob before it even escapes his mouth, and Hob huddles up and watches the paper burn itself out.
“Please be listening,” he grits out. “Dream, please.”
He finishes the cigarette. Stamps it out in the ashtray and thinks about smoke and embers and how fucking cold it is out, and how he doesn’t really know what he’ll do next, if his friend doesn’t answer.
He needn’t’ve worried (about that, at any rate).
He goes back inside to find Dream in the center of the living room, coat and boots on, which Hob takes to mean he doesn’t plan on settling in. He looks—well, he looks just as bad as Hob feels, to be honest. His eyes are dark and his posture flagging: he looks, ironically, as though he hasn’t slept in ages.
“You summoned me.” He sounds tired, too.
“You told me how,” Hob replies, trying and failing to smile.
“What do you need, Hob?”
“Nothing,” he lies. “Just. Been a minute.”
“I have a realm to oversee. I apologize I have not found time to come and— watch a movie with you.” His expression is blank, but the sneer in his voice is sharp enough to tear flesh.
“Well, actually, I was hoping to talk to you about something.”
“Yes?”
Hob rubs between his eyebrows; a headache is settling in, renewing the nausea and bringing discomfort in its own right. “Um. I’ve been— having nightmares? Not my normal ones, I mean. Bad ones.”
“You would ask me to stop them?”
“No, I can handle them. They’re just, um, odd? And I think they’re—yours.”
“All nightmares are my domain.”
Christ, Dream might be a billion years old but he’s as snotty as one of Hob’s students sometimes. “Right, obviously, but.” He forces himself to soften. “Tonight, in the glass, I saw my reflection. But it wasn’t my face. It was yours. I think I’m having your nightmares. I mean, dreams about what you, personally, went through when you were captured. And since it took me over six hundred years to learn your name, I’ve got to assume you’re not in the habit of spilling your own business just to give someone a fright.”
Dream’s arms hang at his sides. His lips barely move as he speaks. “It is the case that I may— indirectly influence the dreams of humans. On multiple occasions my staff have reported to me a general wave of unpleasant dreams when I am in an unpleasant mood.”
“Well, I think that’s happening with me.”
“It was unintentional. I will see to it that it does not continue. If that is all—”
“Who was Jessamy?”
He’s worried, almost instantly, that he crossed a line. Dream stiffens, and his eyes go oddly dark. But he stays where he is. “How much have you seen?”
“Seen a lot of glass. Just, images of glass. Blood, feathers. The air ran out. The guards looked at me— looked at you— like you weren’t even human.”
“I’m not.”
“I mean. Like you weren’t even, y’know. Intelligent. Like an animal in a zoo. And the lights were always too fucking bright—” He shakes himself. “Dream, who was Jessamy?”
“My raven.” And then, perhaps sensing Hob’s confusion, he adds, “my dear friend. She was murdered, as she attempted to free me.”
“You saw it happen.”
Dream wilts, that kingly stiffness dissipating. “I could do nothing to prevent it.”
“I know,” Hob says. “I know you couldn’t, love. This makes no kind of sense, but, I honestly know that. Like if I’d been there myself.” He sighs, and steels himself, though Dream looks incapable of anything as taxing as anger, at the moment.
“Love, what it comes down to is, I’ve been dreaming in your memories. And obviously you don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to. But the fact that you’re showing me— even if it’s an accident— it makes me think that you, y’know. Want to. Subconsciously.”
“I don’t have a subconscious. I am the subconscious.” Probably Dream’s trying to sound intimidating, but he just sounds petulant.
“Right, I—I know that too.” Hob smiles. “You’re the king of dreams, and you’re a billion years old, and all of the rest of that. But right now? I’m not sure that changes much. Something really horrible happened to you, and I think that maybe you haven’t really dealt with it. But the thing about trauma is, it’s gonna make you deal with it. Sooner or later. Whether you decide to or not.
“Dream. You don’t have to talk about it, I mean that. But. Can you please just—stay for a drink? Or, watch me have a drink, or whatever?”
Dream’s head has sunk so low that his chin is nearly to his chest. It occurs to Hob that his coat and boots have disappeared, and in the dim light his feet and forearms are moon-pale.
“I would have a drink, Hob Gadling,” Dream murmurs, “if you were offering.”