Work Text:
"I am Dream," Morpheus says, a bit haughtily. "I do not sleep."
Hob blinks. Takes a moment to process this. "How old are you?"
"What relevance does this have?" Dream says.
"Humor me."
"...Billions of years old," he finally answers.
"And you have never slept. You have never taken a nap. You have never laid down in bed after a hard day and slept." Under his breath: "No wonder you're like this, Christ."
"I... have had rest before," Dream says, clearly looking for a technicality. "But I do not need it. I am Endless, Hob."
"Rest... being defined as falling over unconscious?" Hob asks. It's a fair question. It's how he'd recently found Dream on the floor of his flat.
(Something is wrong, there are some things knocked askew where they shouldn't be, but the locks haven't been forced, and Hob moves through the flat as silently as he can, until he reaches the sitting room. There is a crumpled pile of black fabric on his floor, books fallen off the end table, as though the man on the floor had tried holding onto it to stay upright.
"Dream? " Hob asks. "Dream, are you hurt?" His instincts kick in, and before he can think better of it, he kneels by his oldest friend, shaking his shoulder lightly. Does Dream usually have a pulse? Does he usually breathe? He thinks the breathing Dream does normally is an affectation for Hob, but...
"Mmph," the lump on the floor says, very undignified, and rolls onto his back. "...Hob?" His eyes are unfocused and starry.
"Are you hurt?" Hob asks again, hands fluttering over him.
"...No," says Dream, and sighs. "I apologize. I did not intend to come here." He's tired, Hob thinks. His oldest friend was just passed out on Hob's living room floor because he was tired. And that tiredness seems to lend itself to explaining, in more verbosity. "I was navigating the sea of dreams, and I lost focus. It happens, on occasion."
"You're tired," Hob says, frowning, as Dream sits upright. "Well, you're here, go sit on the couch, I'm making us tea." Morpheus's eyes glimmer in amusement at Hob ordering him about, but he goes anyway.)
"I was not unconscious," Morpheus says, and it's... very technically true, he had not been all the way gone. This conversation is setting him on edge. He is tired. Hob had been right. But he doesn't... sleep.
Hob points a finger at him. "Oi. Quit the semantics, love. You're killing me here."
...Dream does not know how to sleep is the more salient point, perhaps. He wants to admit these things. He is afraid. "I am sorry for worrying you," he finally says.
Hob Gadling won't hurt you.
He's human, he argues back to himself. He's ... too kind to me. There is a catch. Knowledge is a weapon.
Hob watches him, with a sigh, and then plucks the teacup out of Dream's hands. "Have you ever tried to sleep? Rest properly?"
He opens his mouth. Closes it. His thoughts are a rubber band stretched beyond their limit, about to snap back. The clock is too loud. Dream's own mind is too loud. He is tired and the past millennia catch up with him like a ton of bricks. Has he ever been this tired? Has he always been tired? Has he always been this afraid?
"Morpheus... Dream," Hob says quietly. "Hey. You still here?"
The rubber band snaps back. "Stop," he grits out, the lights in the flat flickering. He cannot think. It is raw agony, the fatigue in his bones turning to hot metal, the lights in the flat starfire against his eyes. When Hob stands up again, reaches over to collect the tea mug from the end table, he flinches at the noise and motion.
Hob's eyes have gone wide. Dream feels like he's the tea mug, cradled in Hob's hands, which would shatter into a million pieces if Hob dropped it.
"I cannot –" Dream manages. "I cannot, Hob. I can't sleep." He doesn't know why anymore. He is so tired. You have never tried to sleep because you are afraid. Of what? he wonders.
"Why did the sea of dreams throw you out into my flat?" Hob asks, instead of Why can't you sleep?
Because you are good to me, whispers part of his brain. Safe. Familiar.
"You could rest here, if you wanted to," Hob adds, so quiet Dream barely hears him over the turmoil of his own thoughts.
"You rend me vulnerable," Dream finally says, almost as aside. It's not safe. "And I have not the first idea of how I would start."
"May I touch you?" Hob asks.
Dream's breath catches, and he has to think about it. "You… may."
Hob settles on the couch next to him, and puts his hands firmly on Dream's shoulders. He gasps, the touch burning, before it becomes welcome. He lists into it almost involuntarily, and Hob arranges him so that Dream's head rested on his shoulder, knees almost in Hob's lap.
"Just close your eyes, love," Hob says.
Dream, busy trying to melt directly into Hob's warmth and touch, obeys. Hob wraps his arms fully around Morpheus, tight and grounding. For a second he stiffens, feeling trapped, but then goes liquid and loose in Hob's arms.
"That's it," Hob soothes. "That's it, myn sweting."
"You mean it, don't you," Dream says a bit wondrously, almost deliriously tired. "Beloved mine." He does not care what term they use for it. He does not care if they end up lovers or not. He only cares that Hob will hold him like this, carry part of the burden.
Sleep takes him like a light switch has been flipped off.