Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Outside of the New Inn, the sky is grayish. Sadly not in a dramatic, melancholic way, just good old British dreary weather. Nothing to properly match his mood and his sorry state of being another sod sitting alone at a bar, clearly drowning his sorrows with beer. It’s his pub though, so even the cheap beer is decent. If you need to wallow you should at least not have to do it with fox piss and today Hob is grateful for that decision.

Through the years Hob has lost a lot of people. That statement alone is a crude understatement. Counting friends alone, he has probably lost more people than he even cares to remember. Because unlike him, people die. He mourns them of course. He bows his head and pays his respects for every one, but at the end of the day, he gets up and trudges on. Death is a fact of life and no amount of stomping your feet and throwing tantrums, will change the order of nature.

Actually, that might only be partially true. Morpheus might have been able to. If he had gone to his sister, and she had been in a particularly humorous mood that day. She would probably do it, but he won’t be able to do that now.

Because Morpheus, lord of dreams, died this summer.
How he could die in the first place is beyond him, but Hob knows he is dead. Because he went to the funeral, and he saw his body veiled in black. Saw the fairy queen weep, and all the gods bow their heads in respect. Watched them one by one, singing his praise in eulogies more elaborate than the last. In languages he should not have understood, but intrinsically did.
He had wanted to send him off with a last word himself but when the chance came, he didn’t.
Because what is there he could have said?

He had just sat there while eulogy after eulogy made it more and more clear to him, that he had never understood the true shape of his friend. He thought he knew a god who, despite everything, was still a man, but apparently that could not have been further from the truth. What could he honestly have said?

So he did the only thing he know how to do. Add him to the ever-lengthening list of people he outlived, and then trudge on. He trudges on because every day, new and wonderful things get brought into this world, and come hell or high waters, Hob is gonna be there to see it. Even if he now only has to do it for himself.

Harriet comes out from the kitchen out back. She clears her throat, and starts putting glasses away with more noise than strictly necessary. He knows it is an attempt to get him to move, so she can do the last round of cleanup and finish up. He pretends to not have heard her. Frankly, he does not care. She knows where to leave the keys, and she can leave when she gets tired of waiting around.

See, this is the kicker. The actual question that is left. The thing that still keeps him up. What had he been to him?

With the revelations from the wake in mind, Hob doubts his stranger was ever ignorant of the happenings of the world. If he was something beyond a god. Some kind of fundamental force of reality. He hadn’t needed Hob to tell him steam engines and electric toothbrushes were invented. He was probably notified of the Berlin Wall being built and torn down by the seismic shift of human conscience or something.

So what was the point of turning up every century, and after the long hiatus, every so often with a couple of months in between to hear it from him?
Hob told stories like Scheherazade for nearly 600 years. He kept his attention, and Hob will wear that honor like a badge, but that still leaves a question and the only one with the answer is dead.

Hob is brought out of his stupor when a hand lands on his shoulder. It’s Harriet who sends a nod towards The Table.
In The New In, Hob and Morpheus’s designated table is still here. It is now missing the chairs, permanently “Reserved” and there is a strict note to the staff to shoo away anyone who tries to sit there.
He might not be able to stand the sight of someone else sitting there enjoying themselves, but he can bear even less to destroy that last bit of his stranger, reaching as it may be. So you can guess how Hob feels when he notices a kid has somehow made it to the spot without anyone noticing. He hasn’t even had the decency to order something.

Hob shakes himself out to put his best genial but authoritative customer service smile on. Leaves his two-pint glasses on the bar for Harriet to deal with, so he can go over and politely tell the kid to either find another table or piss off.

He’s halfway across the room. The kid’s attention is fixed towards something across the courtyard. He has not given a single sign to have noticed someone making their way towards him.

“Excuse me, but you’re gonna have to move to another table.” He's three meters away and the kid still hasn’t moved. Then Hob stops as his world tilts sideways.

He doesn’t know how he knows. He’s seen a lot of black-cloaked figures since the funeral, and nearly shouted in joy, until he realized it wasn’t his stranger. It has broken his heart each and every time leaving him feeling stupid, but this one? Something in his hindbrain has slotted into place. Like the subconscious animal recognizing him. This is Morpheus.

As he keeps looking, he kicks himself for not noticing something was not quite natural from the get go. A thing he has come to learn about the supernatural, is that few of the them really know how to blend in. Morpheus had been mostly convincingly human shaped, but he had also dressed in a black so impossible dense you could almost imagine it swallowed light. No matter the surroundings he almost stood like a flat empty void in reality.
This entity is at the other end. Impossible, pristinely white. from the shock of hair like dandelion fluff down to the sneakers. There are so many things that should have obviously disqualified him from being him, but somehow they don’t.

He should be happy. He should be relieved. His longest, dearest friend is standing in front of him and yet Hob finds it exceedingly hard to look at him.

“Oh, I knew you could be cruel. But I did not expect it to be like this. “ He hisses out with a mirthless laugh. If this had been anyone else, he would have grabbed him by the collar and started shaking him. The bastard is still not looking at him, despite him standing at the edge of the table and staring him down.

“A year? You made me think you were dead for a year?” The stranger is sitting stock still. The kind of still, no breathing creature can achieve, but then again, does his kind even need breath? Is that just a courtesy they perform for the small creatures like him?

“ you did it again” and oh Hob hate the hysteric note that is trickling into his voice “A bloody year without as much as a word, you bloody did it again—”

“Much has happened since the last time we spoke, but nothing you need to concern yourself with. You can probably say the same so why don’t you fill me in on the things I’ve missed?” Hob stares at him lost for words. Stumped not only by the fact that that was the longest sentence he has heard coming out of the mouth of his stranger. He doesn’t know if trivialization is just a trait of Morpheus, or of all beings beyond the league of puny humans, but he can’t live like this didn’t happen. Like Dream can just go and “die”, and expect to just be able to return like nothing happened.

“You had the time to make a change in wardrobe, but not to inform your friend you weren't dead.”

Morpheus has been picking at the wood grain of the table. A loose splinter comes off. He’s fidgeting, such a human, nervous tick and an indignity Hob though he would never see Morpheus do so openly.

“Things— came in the way”

“Morpheus I swear to god—“

“I’m not Morpheus.” He says and goes silent. He stares at him like he had just let something he did not mean to reveal slip and Hob stares right back at him. There is not as much as a buzz going through his head. Confusion is settling in. The being that is not Morpheus finally meets his gaze. Morpheus has always had the uncanny ability to both look young and impossible old depending on mood. This one just looks young as he sits there measuring his words. “I am Dream— You can call me Daniel. Until we sort everything out I’m just gonna be Daniel.” He hurried out. There’s a hint of something hopeful in his voice.

Hob stares at this being he has never met before.
“No. No can’t do. “

”What do you mean you’re not— Are you Dream?” The kid looks at him. To his mounting horror, they both seem to be out of their depths.

“For the most part—” he starts and Hob stops him because that’s not good enough.

“How can you— are you Dream or are you not Dream— Morpheus?” The stranger’s mouth is pulled into a thin line. He has a look that tells him he is fumbling to find the right words to take control of the situation but coming up short. Hob can feel how his voice is about to start wavering. He clamps down on it. Anger is a good motivator.

“Last year I went to your funeral. Dear stranger, I mourned you still, until this very moment when you saunter into my pub fresh as a daisy. “

“Is this what gods take as a joke? Were you all leering at us mortals not in on the joke?”

“The full story is a long one—” The kid who claims to be Dream adds weakly. Whatever he expected to happen has obviously gone sideways and now his eyes are roaming for an exit. For once in this soft, modern life, and especially with his stranger, Hob does not care one bit.

Hob can feel something old and ugly rear in him. The same dead thing that shrouded him, when he decided laying in a dark ditch, waiting for an unassuming coach was better than honest work because it was more profitable. That dead thing that ended with him in a flooded trench. Fighting an unknown enemy, god knows where and for what. Because the professionals, the chosen few among the scrawl of youth. They had been promised a brief skirmish and handsome compensation when the fighting was over.

The creature that calls itself Dream flinches as Hob leans over the table.
“ —and I have all the time in the world.”

“Lay off the kid” a voice croaks from above. Perched in the rafters is a giant pitch-black bird and the moment breaks as Hob stumbles back. Free from scrutiny and with his personal space finally his own again, the stranger collects himself and looks at the standstill between man and bird.

Hob’s issues aren’t with the bird. Eying it up, he’s not sure how he would approach it, Matthew decided to attack. “Could you bugger off and give us a minute”

“Nope can’t do. Need him now” It says conversationally, the last bit, accentuated with a click of his beak. Morpheus has told him about Matthew before. Hob used to even be pretty sure he had seen him around. Looking at the beast now, just like with Morpheus, the creature is unmistakingly unnatural.

“I’m owed some answers.”

“You are, and you probably deserve them too, but wrestling them out of him isn’t going to do either of you any good.” It says, and there is an edge of understanding in it. Morpheus had once joked that Matthew thinks he’s Morpheus’s manager. If this really is Dream, it looks like it is now true.

“Hey kid, we gotta go” The entity that calls itself Daniel gives a stiff nod which the massive raven takes as permission to board his shoulder. Matthew prens a tuft of white hair in an attempt to make it lay flat, then they are off. In a blink they are gone, and for a moment he could almost convince himself the whole thing had been a hallucination. He runs his hand over the surface of the table. Finds the grove where Daniel has picked out the wood.

He makes his way back to the bar, grateful that this is so almost closing hours and only his staff was there to witness his fit. He waves down Harriet. A third or fourth pint doesn’t seem like a bad idea.

Chapter Text

Between the first and the second appearance of the stranger, time goes on quietly. A new semester starts at the university where he currently teaches chemistry. At The New Inn, the summer menus are exchanged for the autumn season and he hires a new lad for the afternoon shifts. It’s a monotony Hob would usually appreciate. If not for his brain being stuck on processing Morpheus’s miraculous ascension from the grave.

Hob had almost gotten used to the thought of someday reaching the point where he could talk about his death with the grace of an old widower. Measured, at peace, and with only good things to say.

This is also the point where you need to put a heavy emphasis on the “almost” and as it now turns out, not actually needed after all. He feels unmoored.

“Did you still love him?” Harriet had asked that quiet evening when he finally let it spill, because the pressure felt like it might suffocate him if he did not find a way to let it go. So he vents about it. So what? It’s better than giving in to his other impulse to start yelling and throwing shit around. Hob is also not stupid. He knows he cannot tell her what the issue is about, without landing himself in the looney bin.

He doesn’t know what he expected when he blurted it out, especially not when it is also clearly about a man. Harriet is of that dying breed most commonly spotted in the restaurant business. Stubbornly clinging to the past and clinging to the mantra that things be done “the right way”. With that being said, while she has never mentioned a husband, she does talk fondly of an “old friend” of hers.

“I’ve known the bloke for most of my life. Moved around a lot, so did he. Busy fellow, important one even though I can’t say what for what.

“We had this “deal” once— once a year, we would meet up and despite everything else, he always kept his part of it.”

“That alone meant a lot. “It’s easy to love the only person in your life who sticks around and I sure did resent him a lot too, so does it count? If it’s only in hindsight and —''

“That doesn't sound like a healthy relationship—'' It's probably not. But what good is that kind of thinking when you are vying for the attention of something that might as well be smoke. A petty part of him resents her for not understanding that that wasn't an option.

“I knew what I signed up for to keep him in my life.” And I was right to be weary! I had the audacity to imply that we were both lonely. What we had was friendship.”

“Didn't see him for years afterward. I thought I had scared off my only companion because I got presumptions.“ because Hob had made the mistake of revealing a glimpse of his feelings.

“And then he came back.”

I don't know what had happened in the meantime but he came back a changed man and I was so relieved to have him back and for him to acknowledge our friendship. I didn't want to risk it by digging further.”

"I should have, because he goes and dies just as I got my hopes up and it’s so in character with the version I was familiar with, it almost feels deliberate.” The words are like a spool of thread he lost his grip on and things that were not supposed to have been said continue to unspool on the floor and the only way to stop it is to clamp down hard on what little threat he has left. The awkward gap that leads to this is palpable.

“Is that a man worth losing your heart to?” The breath he had been holding onto comes out as a quiet self-deprecating laugh. Looking down hides his glassy eyes. There are days when he wondered the same. It’s always a brief thought. He’s also perfectly aware of how much of a sucker these admissions make him out to be.

“My friend wasn't an acquaintance whose death you can just get over” Her asking if she had met him is a redundant courtesy really. So is the nod towards the table. He doesn't need to confirm that the man in question had been the bloke in black who used to wait for his shift to be over. She asked how the kid he shouted at got involved. That’s when he backpedals hard because how is he supposed to explain that part?

———————- 

He could probably have been perfectly content with spending the next two hundred years pretending he knew nothing of the forces that made up the universes, but whatever the new stranger wanted, he seemed to refuse to just leave him be.

Call it a soldier's intuition, but Hob had always had a sixth sense for when unwanted attention was being directed at him. It’s probably the only thing that made him make it past thirty-four.

One late evening as he is about to start the washer, that bad feeling skitters down the back of his neck. He follows it into the front of the pub. Barrels in only to find nothing. The only soul in the building is a business casual woman sitting at the back. From the looks of it, she’s busy with her seventh neat whisky of the evening, so he doubts she has noticed much.

He knows of Matthew the raven but not what other possible agents the stranger could deploy to spy on him. He keeps an eye out for anything lingering around with just too much attentiveness for a mere beast. It sure can’t be a coincidence that the most suspicious tend to also be black. There must be more. He can’t imagine his stranger, the conniving bastard, would be such a lousy spymaster to not have at least a second, more covert division. He just has to bid his time and wait it out. Nothing has yet to out stubborn Hob Gadling, so he settles down for the long game.

Weeks turn into months. Nothing is happening, and that is probably the point where a normal person would have stopped to ask themselves if maybe they had been wrong. Maybe when the stranger left, he left for good.

The new hirer Mihail asks him if he is doing something wrong. He realizes he has been glowering intensely down at the tray of cutlery the lad just brought in from the outside area. Most of the knives and half of the salt shakers are inexplicably missing. Yet despite how ridiculous the whole scenario is, he cannot stop himself from trying to puzzle out what it must mean. Harriet takes the tray and gives him a sympathetic pat on the back as she shoulders past to get inside. It takes three more rounds of incidents like this before the absurdity of the whole situation gets through his head. Not that that is gonna deter him.

It comes to a head on a Wednesday in a wholly anticlimactic way. He walked out when a rainstorm hit London and as luck would have it, this was the day he had chosen to take the bike. When he finally makes it through his door, he is tired, wet, hungry, and his sight is swimming so badly he wonders if age has finally caught up to him and he should start wearing his glasses.

Eager to hit his bed before the urge to just curl up on the floor overtakes him, he doesn't notice the shape until he’s nose to nose with it.

A massive black blob with two white beady eyes staring through his window.

He trips over the carpet, hits the corner of the table on the way down, and then he’s on the floor, blinking owlishly towards the ceiling. Looking past his swimming gaze and through the distraction of his bruised side, he barely manages to catch the black mass scrambling out of view. His brain might be mush at this point, but he recognizes a raven when he sees it, and what bird beyond Matthew is that big?

Before he even realizes what he is doing the widows are thrown open. Damn, the water already soaking him, his aching body, but most of all, damn the fucking bird spying on him.

“Cut the private Dick shit. If he wanna talk, he can use the fucking door! The rest of you can all piss right off!” Slamming the window shut feels good. So did the cold air and the taste of decaying plant matter now coating the back of his throat after shouting the heavens down. His neighbors probably think he’s a lunatic now and with that now concluded he passes out on the couch, shoes and all.

—-

Emboldened by the vindication, he is pleased when a shape in white breezes through the door a couple of days later and settles down at the same table as last time. Mihail is on his way to move him and Hob redirects him, dragging a chair along to settle down in front of the figure.

“So he was spying on me,” he says in lieu of a greeting, pleased as can be.

“So you came back. ”“ Found your words?”

“There were, matters to attend to.” The entity starts, then cringes like he should. Hob doesn’t really care, too precured with enjoying the small pleasure of having made the imposter uncomfortable. It might be his current high giving him courage but the entity looks less alien in proper daylight.

Young but knobby kneed like an actual young adult, limbs tucked awkwardly to his sides, tangible in his uneasiness in how he fits into space. As the entity tries not to squirm in front of him, he takes his sweet time to shuffle through the list of questions he has been compiling in his head.

“Who is spying on you?” The stranger blurts out.

“What?”

His carefully curated list of questions is on the floor. The entity is looking at him with such a naked sort of distress it catches him breathless and for a moment he forgets that this is a stranger who should not harbor such concerns.

“You said someone was spying on you—“

“What do you mean who’s spying on me— You are!?” What should have been an accusation rings painfully doubting instead. Chair legs screeches against hardwood as he stands up. Ready to give him a piece of his mind except it only gives him ample view of the people staring in his direction. Embarrassed he sits down again pulling his chair closer to the table.

“Aren’t you?” He whispers back.

Silence drags on as the stranger goes from alarmed to confused.

“No.”

“Who are you?”

“I am Daniel. Dream of the Endless” And they are back in the previous conversation track.

“You keep saying that.” God's sake, you’re not even pretending to look like him. How do I know you’re not just some other god or whatever else trying to take his place?”

“Whatever you think you can get out of coming here like this. There's nothing.”

“Hob.”

“Hob isn’t exactly a name you see much nowadays. It’s Robert right now” leaning forward over the table he settles down so he can track every minuscule reaction. Sadly he must have lost some of the fear he leveled because the entity no longer seemed cowered by such interrogation tactics. A bit self-conscious he shuffles just a tad back.

“1500 when you left with Marllow—”

“It was Shakespeare.” The answer is shot back with such conviction that it makes him pause. It’s only 600 years of hazard games that make sure it doesn’t show in his expression. Who’s to say whoever sitting before him doesn’t have the power to procure that kind of information?

“Correct,“ he says and to his astonishment the stranger follows it up by giving a detailed rundown of every encounter including details he, despite Hob coveting every interaction, hadn’t known or cared to remember until now.

The first one, 1400 where they made the deal. He’s left mouth agape as Daniel informs him that the woman he left with was Death herself.

1500, He’s not really surprised to hear that “Midsummer Night’s Dreams” was written as a commission by Dream. Albeit it does leave him a bit impressed to know it was used to bridge a peace treaty with the fairy realm which apparently is a thing. Doesn’t make up for the anecdote about what actually had happened to poor Hamnet Shakespear. It’s almost tacked on.

1600 when as embarrassed as he is about it, didn’t get to walk in but had to fight because the guard had only taken one look at his bedraggled form and spat at him when he tried to. His hand clutched around the table edge as anger stirs in his guts at the bit too blaze rundown of the worst tragedy of his life. Although the entity has the decency to shut up fast enough that his teeth must have made an audible click.

“1700 was when we got accosted by a Constantine”. That family line is apparently still around and kicking. An almost grin skitters across the entity’s face at the mention the caricature. Hob is pleased to be able to inform him that he is now the owner of it. It’s upstairs, framed and everything.

1800 Why did you walk out?” He injects and the comreraderly atmosphere they had almost built up halt with a screech.

“You don't know. "Do you?"

The stranger draws himself back again. Studies the grain of the table before he replies. “What I don't know is how I should answer that one” and if that isn’t the kicker.

“I don’t get it.”

“We are in a similar position then.”

Hob looks at the entity in disbelief. “What do you mean by that? ” Listen, I don't know how this is supposed to work. Do you know why I hesitate to trust you even knowing you have this information?”

“These Memories—” he interjects.

“Because I didn't even know Morpheus’s full name until you said it just now.”

“And you should know that. So explain it to me. Why is Morpheus dead and why are you here claiming to be him?”

“The circumstances from where I took over were less than ideal. Reality was crumbling, the transition was less than smooth. I'm still trying to make up for it.”

“So you were a rush job.” It’s cruel. While it doesn't seem to shake Daniel it doesn’t change that those words are just all-around cruel.

“I’m sorry. That came out wrong. What I'm saying is you got pushed into this with no backup or directions.” If it isn't just Morpheus to a .

“Why did you come here?”

”I came looking for an old friend.”

“How did you know you would find one?”

“Sometimes habits carry your feet.”

“I am sorry. ” He doubted his stranger had ever said the words but it sounds so practiced by Daniel it makes him wonder how many he has also had to apologize to in Morpheus sted.

“You should be. What was the point of it all? What did dying gain?”

“Fate must be having a laugh on us”

“The fates are not currently too pleased with me. So it is not unlikely.” And it takes him out again because how do you even respond to that? Slim into his seat he rubs at his eyes but they aren’t watering so that’s good.

“I had this whole spiel, made an XL ark for god sake. Questions I wanted answered but here we are and I wonder if you could even answer them. “

“I will try, to the best of my ability. I will try, but I’ve still yet to make sense of it all”

“I have a confession” Daniel interjects curdly.

“Of what kind?”

“I did not lie when I said I haven’t been spying on you.” —At least not until thirty minutes before I walked in”

“You—”

“I wanted to look around a bit before I went in.”

“—I would have seen you. You’re not exactly…. Inconspicuous"

“I went as a pigeon.”

"Eh?"

”It seems like a leftover impulse from Morpheus. He seems to have done it a fair bit” he says with an expression of befuddlement like he has a hard time wrapping his head around it too.

“As a pigeon too?” He asks with a mental picture of a dour-looking pigeon. putting the voice to the animal is almost too much for his strained imagination.

“Mostly cats". ” His voice is going a bit faint. “I remember gravel under paws. A lot of fur. But also plugging out loose down from a wing.

“How often?”

“A fair bit”

”you’re not gonna tell me why, are you?”

"No. I think it will cause an equal amount of embarrassment for the both of us.”

They talk. They talk, more than Hob thinks he has talked with anyone for a while and if it feels like a lot to him it must be an astronomical amount for anyone else. Daniel seems to be a bit overwhelmed yet still going strong. If there was any proof of him not being Morpheus it would be his willingness to chat. He’s a funny sort. Odd kid when you get him going. It’s hard to reconcile with the sober presence of Morpheus.

"Endless." It’s more than a name ain’t it? What does it mean?”

”I have a domain.” “Subjects to care for, a duty to fulfill yet it seems nobody wants to tell me how to do so and what happens if I don't.” The reply is supported by vague hand gestures that Hob can only look at and then guess what they are supposed to encapsulate. Not that Daniel looks like he expected him to know what they should encapsulate either.

“Sounds stressful.”

“It means I have a family.“ Which comes as a surprise to Hob. Daniel seems to try to gauge his reaction to it. Finger scratching at the seam of his cider glass. When he had offered he didn’t actually expect Daniel to take it up. When he had asked him if he liked it, he had looked at him and said it tasted like faith. Hob does not know what that means but Daniel kept a hand loosely cradled in front of it until he was done so it must be a good thing.

“Morpheus always struck me as lonely.” Then again to be estranged by family. Isn’t that the loneliest one can be?” Hob is the oldest child of a family of farmers. when he met Dreams he hadn’t been on one in decades.

”I’m getting the feeling he was, and that using the term family for them was never fully satisfying to begin with.”

At some point during their conversation, the lights have taken on a golden hue to announce the day waning. They are closing early today. No evening bar services so it's the last cafe patrons shuffling on coats to presumably go home for dinner. Daniel’s gaze keeps flickering to the left.

“He’s out there isn’t he?”

“Matthew was worried. I convinced him to stay outside at least.” Squinting in the same direction as Daniel, he believes he can make out a black patch that could be a bird awkwardly huddled behind a cluster of branches. A knock on the windows makes the branch make a suspicious jump as if startled.

“He seems to do a fair bit of that. Sounds like a good bloke.”

”I’ll not keep you up. Go out and say hello to your chaperone from me.” As he gets up his knee makes a resounding crack like he did not know just how long they had been sitting around for. Daniel has not followed his example to get up. instead looking up at him with a vulnerability he had not had a moment ago.

“Will we talk again?”

“I am here most evenings so I’ll leave the table open. We can even see if we can find a way to smuggle Matthew in.”

“Maybe a giant cat carrier or something” he adds in jest.

“He will not be pleased about that.” Daniel’s smile is broad and dimpled. A good smile if a bit lopsided. There’s another thing he never got to know about his stranger.

”You can still say hi from me to him.” Picking up loose glasses on his way to behind the bar, he only gets to hear it when Daniel leaves the building but he does get a glimpse when Mathew comes out of his hiding spot to land on his charge.

With the wind picking up the coattails and the big black feather ball sitting on his shoulder, the silhouette almost looks familiar.

Chapter Text

It’s a quiet afternoon when he finds Daniel sitting at the bar with a sour look that could probably turn wine into vinegar. There’s already a bone dry glass standing by his elbow. Mihail gestures if he wants a refill but Daniel waves him off.

“Daniel! What woe brings you in today?” He looks up but does not answer beyond a grumble. Then he drops his head to the counter along with all pretenses of graceful aloofness. Okay… This is a new situation, but like most challenges he has encountered, he might as well get into it. Fate favors the bold and all that.

“Need you to use your words, love. "The oversized powderpuff on the counter shakes as it lets out a despairing grumble, but it still turns in his direction to reveal a face

“A lord of the Fay’s came to renegotiate the terms for the borders between the dreaming and Fairy realm. “

“Can’t say I like bureaucracy either, but what’s so bad you had to come here outside of our normal arrangement?

“They send a lord.” He hisses out and yeah, that’ll do it Hob thinks. As someone who’s both familiar with the rules of courts and kings from personal experience, as well as an academic one on more than one occasion. That sure would do it. Good to know the art of throwing shade without starting wars or getting beheaded is still alive and well.

“Millennials of the queen coming herself to renegotiate and then suddenly they think a lord will do?” If the venom in that tone had been physical enough to drip, he would probably have had to replace the bar desk. It should be intimidating but it doesn’t help that Hob is currently being reminded of an angry cat and every sulky youth he’s ever met across his six hundred years. He can't tell him that of course.

“So even gods have scheduling conflicts?” Hob adds weakly for a lack of better responses. He knows he made a terrible mistake as Daniel's expression turns sour and his eyes glassy.

“The impudence— Am I still not an Endless? the lord of dreams! Do they not understand that I am just as capable of have their entire species conscious be overrun with nightmares until the end of their bloodline, should I wish so.” That statement makes Hob straighten in his seat. Slots into the routine all those de-escalation courses universities nowadays make mandatory for all professors.

“But you are not going to, are you?” Daniel stares at him in defiance of the tone in use. Scowling and with the indignance of someone who’s used to being obeyed. Hob meets the entity’s gaze unflinchingly. This is probably the same impudence that made Morpheus abandon him back in the 1800s. Still, Hob is pretty sure he could have met the wizened 21st century Morpheus with reason without repeating the incident. So why not with this version? Daniel folds and scrubs his face with both hands and lets out a moan so long Hob thinks he forgot he’s supposed to have a set lung capacity. Lo and behold it worked. With the tense atmosphere now defused, Hob lets out the internal breath he is holding.

“My last iteration would be rolling in his grave.” He says with a self deprecating laugh. Hob does not find that funny but he lets it go for the sake of saving this situation.

“I wouldn’t say this is a digression into weakness. A king with humility usually lasts longer. What good is a ruler who only knows how to rule by threat?” He says in a reassuring tone. Daniel takes a moment to stare at him like he’s the one humoring him. A beat of silence as he turns to look out into the darkened courtyard. The way he’s staring, you would think something was prowling in the darkness.

“The king who usually ends up brutally unthroned and his kingdom uprooted.

“Well, the human ones do.”

“My world does not abide by the human rules of diplomacy. Weakness is exploited and penalized by realities collapsing” He says in a somber tone. Like this, he seems both impossible young and old.

“I might not know terribly much about the rules of gods, but if you ask this lowly human, it might be time to catch up, don't you think? ” Daniel takes a moment to stare at Hob in silence.

“You humans work on such a short notion of eternity.” Reaching over the counter, he pours Daniel another pint of cider from the tap. Daniel squints at him but nonetheless, he picks up the glass and sips at it. Hob will call it a win.

The rest of the evening is spent doing the thing Hob does best, which is raising the mood. Possible by bribery with large quantities of alcohol, brute forced enthusiasm and good conversation. Daniel is on this fifth pint, Hob is on his sixth. As it turns out an Endless does have a tolerance to alcohol unless they wish to not have it.

If an onlooker saw them now, they would probably be aghast at the scene of a distinguished man like himself, getting absolutely hammered with what looks like a college kid. If he was in the position, he would probably have stopped the whole thing three drinks ago. That though alone sets him into a fit. He is drinking with a fundamental force in reality. If he can wish himself drunk then Hob assumes the lad can also wish himself sober again.

Presumably.

_____________

“Do you remember the period when cats ruled the world?” Daniel warbles out of the blue, head canted slightly to the side. An ugly sound escapes as he takes it in and tries his darndest not to spew his drink all over the bar counter with that revelation. Daniel performs the drunk man's head roll, one eye squinting and looking very pleased with himself. His best attempt at focusing on Hob, who’s going through his most humiliating death to date.

It’s past the closing hour. Mihail left the keys on the hanger and they have turned all the lights off except the ones in the bar. Hob is sitting behind the counter, back to the wall of bottles dimly shining in the yellow light. Easy reach to the tabs so their glasses never stay empty, it might have been a mistake. But back to the light. Reflected in Daniel’s black eyes, it returns the oh so familiar spark that Hob dearly misses, it also makes them flash like a predator if he turns his head just so, but it doesn't bother him.

“I always wondered if your deal would place you outside the reality and space continuum”

The “Say that again?” Is a strangled sound forced past the burning feel of liquid still stuck down the wrong pipe. Like the terrible entity the kid is, Daniel gleefully performs a kind of full body wriggle to settle into the proper storyteller mode. Morpheus used to do the same, just with a lot more grace, but the boy will grow into it eventually. He waits for Hob to get himself together. Alcohol bright eyes zeroing in, along with a smile so wide, it looks like the jaw of the shark Hob used to have mounted over the door of his ship cabin.

“A mother loses her kittens for the simple reason that man found them to be inconvenient, she traverse the frozen planes and fiery valleys of limbo, just for the silver wisp of hope that she can ask the king of cats the question as to why.“

“And he told her to dream of a better world and make as many cats do the same. All the cats dreamed about a world where they were kings, and the world became so.“

“But why, pray and do tell me. Why would you do that?” Daniel looks at him with a questioning look. Like this with his head cocked he looks like the bird he so dearly favours. This is one of the days where he gets reminded again that a cat and mankind probably don't look that dissimilar to him.

“Does a grieving mother not deserve just a glimpse of a world where her child would have been safe and happy?”

“Yes— of course! that's not the part I’m on about— Just, how would cats even have developed into cats, if they had not been tied to the agricultural revolution? Without people, there are no cats.” The statement feels very logical when said out loud, but there is a foreboding mischievous glint in Daniel’s eyes.

“What makes you think the reality sprung from human consciousness is the original one to begin with?” To that Hob has no comeback. The idea has already burrowed into his brain and it has left space for a new existential crisis. Maybe a response will reveal itself if he just looks for one really carefully into the bottom of his glass.

“An ape grasps fire, and learns to crack bones and that gives them the right to rule?”

After a short moment, Hob abandons the attempt “How does it even work?” he ads for a lack of better ways to put his thoughts into words.

Squinting, his gaze turns towards the card house Daniel had built earlier out of bar tissues and has by some miracle managed to keep standing. He did not question the deft hand used when he built it and somehow he hadn’t even questioned how it broke every single law of physics.

“Dreams are rarely built on logic. But they still hold nonetheless. If enough beings dream that something will work, poof and reality are created anew.” The statement is accompanied by Daniel making an explosion gesture with his hand. The dramatics of a magician.

“Simply put like that?”

“Simply put” with a smug expression Daniel raises his glass to take another sip of his cider. It’s brewed on the last summer apples, it probably tastes like the last dredges of hope for the summer to last just a bit longer.

“But would that mean that any state of reality can be brought back? If just enough people wish for it to be true?” The cover of lazy satisfaction that has until this point enveloped them drops like a curtain. He puts the glass down before the liquid touches his lips. The lad has fallen silent, looking at him with an unreadable expression. Through the shroud of alcohol, he realizes Daniel must be fully aware of what thought just went through his head and for that Hob is sorry. The train of thought is banished.

“Forget it. I think we should just stick with this reality for the time being. Cheers mate” He lets his head drop as he thrusts the hand with the glass into the air with maybe a bit too much force. Then bottoms up to get the last dredge, in doing so he does not see the look directed at him. The empty glass hits the table and with that out of the way, he tries to pick up the conversation.

“So about those cats. Let's just for a moment run with the idea of a world run by cats. What happened to our deal then? Was I even born? What if I was a bad cat servant and got eaten before we even made the deal?” Daniel mulls the question over and the previous atmosphere slowly seeps back.

“Maybe you were a cat?” Hob looks at him skeptically.

“Hob the cat?”

“R’hobert-cat” Daniel wheezes out, looking mighty pleased with himself for that pun despite it not making a lick of sense in the context of the conversation. They are back to before and to Hob astonishment, he can see the mental picture before him. Maybe he finally achieved that level of imagination or maybe Daniel is beaming the image into his head. But he very much can see himself as a robot cat. His legs are space thrusters. He’s pretty sure he could go to the moon like this.

He does not manage to hold the mask for long and they both dissolve into giggling messes. All in all, It’s a good evening.