Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Missed Meeting (1989)

The White Horse was alive with chatter and smoke, the air carrying that particular heat of a London pub in summer — windows fogged despite being open, the clink of pint glasses constant, the rumble of football commentary spilling faintly from a battered radio behind the bar.

Hob Gadling sat at a corner table, back to the wall, eyes trained too often on the door. He’d told himself he wouldn’t — he’d told himself he would act as though this meeting were like any other, as though he hadn’t spent a hundred years waiting, counting down until the clock brought him here again.

But his pint was already warm, and the seat across from him was still empty.

He remembered, with a sharp twist in his chest, their last parting.

A careless slip, that was all. Words spoken not with calculation, but honesty — and honesty had never served him well where the Stranger was concerned. He’d admitted it: that he was lonely, that after all these centuries he longed for constancy, and that their meetings had been the one thread he could follow through the endless, shifting years.

The Stranger’s eyes had gone cold then, colder than Hob had ever seen.

“How dare you presume,” he had said, voice like flint striking. “That one such as I would require companionship from one such as you.”

And then he had gone.

Hob had stood in the rain outside for a long time after that, trying to decide if what he felt was heartbreak, or simply the weight of eternity pressing down on him again.

And now, tonight, the seat remained empty.

Laughter broke out near the bar, loud and sudden. A group of young men in suits, their ties loosened, raising glasses and shouting to the barman. The sound felt distant to Hob. He had lived long enough to know joy could always be found, somewhere — but for him, at this moment, it rang hollow.

The door opened. He looked up, heart clenching.

Not him.

An older woman shuffled inside, draped in baggy, mismatched layers that hung from her frame as though she’d slept in them for years. Her hair was wild and grey, her face lined and sharp, eyes darting with an intelligence that seemed out of place against her dishevelled clothes.

Hob recognised her. Everyone in this part of London did.

Mad Hettie, they called her. A local legend, the sort who was always around, always muttering, the kind of figure that slipped into stories told at the bar with pints in hand.

She muttered something now, words too low to catch, eyes sweeping the pub once, twice. Her gaze slid past him, then she was gone again, the door swinging shut behind her.

Hob stared at the door long after it closed.

The warmth of the pub pressed in on him, sticky, stifling. He swallowed the last of his pint, bitter and flat, and stared at the empty chair opposite.

He didn’t know it yet — but that was the night the waiting truly began.

Oxford, 2022

For weeks after that night in 1989, Hob had carried the hollow ache of it like a stone in his chest.

He had tried to tell himself it was nothing. That he had survived worse — wars, plagues, betrayals, centuries of solitude. But this was different. Their meetings had been the one constant in a life that had been nothing but change, the one proof that eternity could have anchor points. And now, with one slip of honesty, he had lost it.

The Stranger hadn’t come.

Perhaps he never would again.

So Hob did what he had always done in the aftermath of loss. He moved on.

He left London. Packed away the life he had built there, as he had so many times before, and shed the name Gadling for another. This time: Robert Gladstone. Respectable, ordinary, easy to place on a payroll and a passport.

And then, with the stubbornness that had kept him alive through six centuries, he signed himself up for another round of higher education.

It was almost laughably easy, slipping back into the role of a student, though he had been one at Oxford centuries before, when the colleges were little more than draughty stone halls with leaky roofs. He chose a field close to his heart — Medieval English history. Why not? He had been there for most of it. He could write essays about Chaucer with the faint amusement of someone who remembered the man’s fondness for bawdy jokes over wine.

By the time the 1990s turned into the 2000s, Robert Gladstone had his doctorate, his publications, and eventually a lectureship at **Merton College**. His accent had softened, his manner was approachable, and his students liked him. He had carved out a steady place in Oxford, with its honey-coloured stone and ancient libraries, its air of permanence that suited him more than any city of glass and steel ever had.

And yet — he thought of the Stranger often.

Sometimes when he stood at the lectern, looking out over a hall of young faces, he would remember the dark eyes across the pub table, the voice like winter air, the faintest curve of amusement at the corner of the Stranger’s mouth when Hob’s optimism outpaced his sense.

He never spoke of it. He never dreamed of him either — but then, no one really dreamed anymore.

That was the strangest thing.

---

The afternoon sun spilled through the mullioned windows of his office. Papers were spread across his desk in untidy piles, the detritus of term-time: essays on Beowulf, reports to mark, half-read journal articles. Hob leaned back in his chair, rubbing at his temples.

A freshly delivered copy of *Scientific American* lay on the edge of the desk. He picked it up idly, flipping through pages until a headline caught him:

“The Century Without Dreams: A Retrospective.”

His fingers stilled.

The article traced how, since the early 1900s, dreaming had declined. Vivid landscapes, flying, whole lives lived in sleep — such things had dwindled to scraps of colour and fleeting emotion. Interviews with the elderly described the difference. A woman of ninety spoke of dreams so sharp they felt more real than waking life. Her grandchildren, she said, only ever dreamt of being anxious in exams, or missing trains.

The phrase used again and again was *sleepwalking world*.

Hob stared at the page for a long time.

He knew instinctively: this was not just science. This was not coincidence.

This was connected to him.

To the Stranger.

And as the late light slanted across the desk, painting long shadows over the papers, Hob felt the old ache rise again — sharper this time, and edged with a question he could no longer ignore.

Where had he gone?

Chapter Text

Evening had settled soft and dusky over Oxford by the time Hob finally pushed away the last of the essays. His eyes were tired, his head heavy with half-formed thoughts about kings and battles long past. He’d marked as much as he could stand, left the rest stacked in a neat pile, and shrugged on his coat.

The streets outside were cooling now, the heat of the day leaching from the stone. Oxford had always been a city of ghosts to him, though few others noticed. He’d walked its streets in doublet and hose once, dodging chamber pots hurled from windows. Now it was bicycles and tourists with cameras, but the bones of the city were the same.

He turned down a side street, boots ringing softly on the cobbles. And then—he slowed.

Someone was following him.

It wasn’t a sound, not exactly. More the sense that the rhythm of another set of steps shifted when his did, that faint prickle at the back of his neck honed over centuries of soldiering and survival. He forced himself not to turn too soon, keeping his pace steady.

When he rounded the corner, she was there.

An older woman, baggy layers of clothing hanging loose from her thin frame, hair wild as a stormcloud. Her eyes were too sharp for the rest of her — darting, assessing, like a crow’s.

It took Hob a moment, but then he placed her. He knew her. Everyone in London had known her.

Mad Hettie.

He had seen her flitting about in his younger days, a figure whispered about but never quite gone. Always muttering, always watching. He hadn’t thought of her in decades. And yet here she was, in Oxford, standing in his path as though she had been waiting for him all along.

The shock of it made him start, but he recovered quickly enough. She was no threat — at least not in the way that drew blades.

“You,” she said, in a voice roughened by age but steady as bedrock. “You were meant to meet someone. Back in ’89. The White Horse. You were stood up.”

Hob’s breath caught. “What did you say?”

Her gaze sharpened. “He’s missing.”

The words landed like cold water.

“What?”

“Gone. Been gone a long time. Too long, by my clock. That’s why the dreams stopped. Why people don’t remember flying, or weeping, or building cities in the clouds when they sleep. The world’s been sleepwalking.”

Hob felt his throat go dry. “Are you saying—” His voice was tight. “That he can’t come back? That something happened to him?”

“I’m saying,” Hettie replied, “he’s been gone since before you noticed. And no one’s gone looking. ’Cept maybe one.”

“One what?”

“One friend.” She leaned forward, eyes glinting in the dim light. “And I think that’s you.”

Hob stared at her. The sounds of Oxford drifted faintly from the High Street — the rattle of a passing bus, the laughter of students — but here, in this narrow lane, the world felt narrowed down to her words and his hammering pulse.

“How do you know any of this?” he managed.

“I see things,” Hettie said. “Notice things others don’t. Always have. Not everything, mind you. But enough.”

He should have laughed it off. He should have shaken his head and walked on. But he didn’t. Because something in him — something that had been waiting since 1989 — told him she was telling the truth.

“Do you remember,” she asked then, “Roderick Burgess?”

The name stirred something faint in Hob. “The occultist? Yes. He made quite a noise of himself, didn’t he? Though I was otherwise engaged in those years.” He gave a bitter half-smile. “Mud and rats and bullets in the trenches.”

Hettie nodded, as if that made no difference. “During that war, he was said to have trapped a devil in his cellar. A prize to show off to his circle of followers.”

Hob frowned. “And you think—”

“I think it wasn’t a devil.” Hettie’s voice dropped, almost reverent now. “I think it was your Stranger. He didn’t get out. Not for a very long time.”

The words seemed to hollow out the air between them.

Before Hob could speak, she pressed on. “I’ve been waiting. Waiting for someone who might do what needs doing. His kind—” she gave a dismissive shake of her head “—they’re strange. Godly. And like all gods, they’re often unconcerned with matters that don’t touch them directly. So he’s been gone too long. And it needs to change.”

She reached into her bag, pulled out a yellowed clipping. A newspaper advertisement.

“They’re hiring,” she said simply. “Security job. The house is called Fawney Riggs.” She held out the clipping with thin fingers. “That’s where they’re keeping him. You’ll need to act soon.”

Hob took it. He didn’t hesitate. Not even for a breath.

She studied his face and gave a small, grim smile. She knew. She’d found the right man.

Draining the last of her breath like a closing ritual, she said, “Do it quickly, Robert Gladstone. Time’s been wasted enough already.”

And then, as suddenly as she had appeared, she turned and vanished into the twilight.

Hob stood there, the clipping trembling in his hand, heart pounding. For the first time in decades, he felt something that was not despair, nor routine, nor resignation.

He felt purpose.

__________

It had been surprisingly easy to get the job.

In six centuries Hob had forged more identities than he could count, and more importantly, more contacts than he could list. A falsified reference here, an old favour called in there — by the time he’d finished pulling strings, “Robert Gladstone” looked like the most reliable, trustworthy security hire an eccentric estate could want.

The process was brisk. A few daytime shifts, mostly tedious: filling out paperwork, reading through thick binders of rules, and signing an NDA so dense and threatening in its language it might as well have been a curse in itself. The estate manager, a lean, tight-lipped man in a brown suit, had been clear. *No unauthorised access. No questions. No sleeping on shift. Stimulants will be provided. You’ll be paired with an experienced man, Fred. Follow his lead.*

And now it was time. His first night.

---

The drive to Fawney Riggs took him past rolling countryside that seemed to press in darker the closer he came. The house itself stood hunched behind high stone walls, its windows narrow and blind, the kind of place local children might dare each other to run past after dark.

Hob had fought in sieges. He’d stood before castles and fortresses that bristled with cannons. But this place… this place *watched*. The very air seemed charged, prickling against his skin as he walked up the gravel path. He told himself it was imagination. But in his gut, he knew it wasn’t.

The estate manager greeted him at the door, as curt as ever. “Gladstone. You’ll take the night watch with Fred. He’ll show you what you need to know. Remember what I said. Stay awake. No exceptions.”

Hob signed where he was told, pocketed the torch and the heavy ring of keys he was given, and descended into the belly of the house.

---

Fred was waiting at the base of a flight of stone steps, leaning against the wall with the casual patience of a man long accustomed to the strangeness of his post. Late forties, solidly built, a little overweight, with thinning hair that gleamed under the bare bulbs. His uniform shirt strained faintly at the buttons, but his eyes were steady.

“You’re the new lad then,” Fred said, giving him a quick once-over. “Robert, was it? You’ve drawn the long straw. Nights here are… different.”

Hob adjusted his jacket. “Different how?”

Fred’s mouth twisted, half a grimace, half a smile. “Best not to think too hard about it. Questions don’t do you any good. Only answer is: it is what it is.”

He pushed open a heavy door and motioned Hob inside.

And that was when Hob saw him.

The Stranger.

For a heartbeat, Hob’s chest clenched so hard he thought he might collapse. He had imagined this moment a hundred times since 1989, in a hundred different guises — anger, relief, apology. None of them prepared him for the reality.

The man who had once sat so immaculately across from him, proud and perfect in his bearing, was now diminished. Naked, thin, his strength leeched away. He lay curled on his side in a glass-and-iron sphere, as though sleep had claimed him at last — though Hob knew better. His hair was wild, mid-length and dishevelled, but his face… his face was still unmistakable.

It was him.

The Stranger.

Hob had to force himself not to move forward, not to call his name. Fred was still there, watching.

Fred nodded toward the sphere. “That’s the boss’s prize. Don’t know what it is — devil, angel, something in between. Don’t matter. You’ll see stranger things working here, trust me. Best advice I can give you: don’t think too much about it. Tea?”

Before Hob could answer, Fred lumbered off toward a little side table with a kettle and mismatched mugs.

Hob stood frozen. Then, slowly, his soldier’s instincts resurfaced. He let his eyes trace the room: the intricate runes burned into the stone floor around the sphere, the faint shimmer of power in the circle, the reinforced glass of the prison.

The glass could be broken — Fred’s sidearm would prove that later — but the circle, he suspected, was the key. Break that line, disrupt the sigil, and the prison might fail.

His heart hammered. He dragged his gaze back to the Stranger.

Alive. After all these years, after the silence, the absence, the grief of thinking it gone forever — alive.

And Hob Gadling knew, in that moment, that he would do whatever it took to free him.

Chapter Text

Fred busied himself at the little side table, rattling mugs and tearing open packets of powdered milk. His back was turned, his humming off-key.

Hob’s pulse thrummed in his ears. Now or never. He stepped closer to the sphere, boots careful against the stone, eyes fixed on the figure within.

And then — movement.

The Stranger stirred, slow but deliberate, his eyelids lifting. Pale eyes widened, and though no sound escaped him, Hob felt the weight of recognition land like a stone between them.

With a slow, fluid motion, the Stranger shifted, drawing his knees up, curling into himself as he rose to a seated position. The movement was unnatural in its grace, like a marionette tugged by invisible strings, both fragile and terrible at once. His hair, dark and wild, clung in uneven tufts around his face, but his skin gleamed almost unnaturally white in the dim light.

He was gaunt — so thin Hob could see the motion of muscle under skin, every tendon stark beneath the surface. This was not the man Hob remembered across the centuries: not the proud, untouchable presence who had swept into taverns and parlours like a shadow carved into form. This was a being diminished, hollowed by time and hunger and confinement.

Hob’s throat tightened. He had imagined this reunion a thousand ways. None of them had prepared him for the ache of seeing his Stranger like this.

He tore his gaze away for a moment, the weight of shame not his own but borne all the same pressing heavy in his chest. To see him reduced, humiliated, imprisoned — it made Hob’s hands clench with fury. Fury at Burgess. Fury at every soul who had stood by and done nothing. Fury at himself for waiting so long, for not searching sooner.

And beneath the anger, something sharper: determination.

*I will get you out,* Hob thought fiercely, even as he kept his face carefully neutral with Fred still a dozen feet away. *I swear it. Whatever it takes.*

The Stranger’s pale eyes stayed fixed on him, unblinking, as though reading that oath straight from his heart.

---

Fred clattered about at the table, muttering to himself, the clink of mugs covering the quickened rhythm of Hob’s breath.

The Stranger’s gaze never left Hob. Then, with deliberate slowness, his eyes dropped to the chalked runes circling the prison. His meaning was unmistakable.

Hob’s heart hammered. No words. No time. He darted forward, dropped to one knee, and with a sweep of his hand smeared one of the delicate lines, breaking apart the careful symbols. Chalk dust smudged across his fingers.

The air changed at once. Heavy. Alive. It thrummed like the intake of breath before a storm.

Fred turned, two steaming mugs in his hands. He froze, eyes wide.

“What have you done?!” The mugs slipped from his grip, shattering on the stone, tea pooling in the runes.

He looked wild, his hand darting toward the red panic button fixed high on the wall. Hob’s pistol was in his hand before the thought had fully formed.

“Don’t,” Hob barked, voice like steel.

Fred froze — but only for a moment. His face contorted with panic, his eyes rolling back, and then — as though struck by some unseen force — his knees buckled. He crumpled to the floor in a heap, breath rasping but steady.

Hob spun back.

Inside the sphere, the Stranger was awake in full now, braced forward, long arms taut as he leaned into the glass. His eyes burned with intent, with a need so sharp Hob felt it pierce him.

“Back,” Hob muttered, lifting the gun. He gestured firmly. “Step back.”

For a breath, nothing. Then, with that same inhuman grace, the Stranger pushed himself away, crouching low, muscles strung thin as bowstrings.

Hob exhaled, steadying his grip. He aimed at one of the iron joints, where glass met frame.

One shot. Then another. Then two more.

The thunder of the pistol cracked through the chamber, the smell of gunpowder mixing with spilled tea and dust. Shards burst outward, glittering like shards of ice.

The sphere groaned — then gave way.

With a sound like the end of a storm, the prison shattered.

The Stranger swung free, hauling himself out over the jagged frame with fluid, trembling strength. Bare feet hit the stone floor. For the first time in over a century, he stood outside his cage.

Hob lowered the gun, his ears ringing, his breath uneven. His Stranger stood before him, silhouetted in bright, cold, unnatural light.. Hob’s breath caught in his throat, and for a moment his heart felt like it had finally stopped. The expression on the Stranger’s face was terrible to see… more than ever before Hob felt the weight of knowing that this person, this being, the one great constant and one great mystery of his long life was something very old and very powerful.

At the moment he was also filled with rage.

Chapter Text

For a moment, the chamber was filled with silence, broken only by the faint drip of spilled tea cooling in the dust. The Stranger stood before him, free of his glass cage at last.

Otherworldly, yes — there was no mistaking the way the air bent faintly around him, the way shadows seemed to cling to his form as though reluctant to let him go. But Hob saw, too, the tremor in his limbs, the way his narrow chest rose and fell too quickly. Freedom had come, but strength had not yet returned.

Hob swallowed down the knot in his throat. He wanted to say something — anything — but time pressed too sharply against them. Practicality over sentiment.

“We have to move,” Hob said firmly.

He crossed to where his duffel bag rested by the guard’s desk, tugging it open with quick, steady hands. Out came the bundle he had packed: dark grey jogging bottoms, socks, and a thick navy jumper. Clothes that would hide him, make him look like any man on a midnight street.

Hob held them out, but did not move closer. Some instinct — or perhaps just centuries of experience — told him what was needed here. Not assistance. Not pity. Dignity.

“Here,” Hob said. “Get these on. We need to go.”

And then, without waiting, he turned deliberately away. He crouched over the duffel bag, rummaging among its contents with exaggerated purpose. “Looking for the car keys,” he muttered, keeping his back turned. “We’ve got to be gone before anyone wakes.”

Behind him, there was only silence — the faint rustle of fabric, the almost soundless movement of limbs.

Then a voice. Low, cold, and familiar enough to make Hob’s heart jolt.

“No one will wake, Hob Gadling.”

Hob froze. The words curled through him, undeniable, a truth more than a promise. Slowly, he turned.

The Stranger stood fully dressed, the borrowed clothes hanging oddly on his too-thin frame, but cloaking him nonetheless in a semblance of the ordinary. His wild hair shadowed his face, but his eyes gleamed in the dim light, steady and intent.

For the first time in more than a century, he was himself again — diminished, but unbroken.

---

“Ok,” Hob said, slipping the keys into his pocket. “I’ll take your word for it. Nonetheless, I don’t want to be here a moment longer.”

The Stranger gave no reply, but his eyes followed Hob as he moved to the stairwell. Hob offered an arm — not quite holding, but steadying, ready. When the Stranger leaned into him, light as a shadow, Hob felt a fierce surge of determination.

Step by step, they climbed from the cellar, through the silent corridors of Fawney Riggs. The air in the house felt heavy, charged, as though the very walls knew what had been taken from them. Hob kept his eyes forward, his jaw set, guiding the Stranger past darkened rooms and sleeping guards. No alarm sounded. No footsteps stirred.

At last, the cool air of night touched his face as they stepped out into the grounds. The gravel crunched beneath their feet, the hedges looming black against the sky. Hob’s little car waited just beyond the gates, as ordinary and unremarkable as he could hope for.

He opened the passenger door, easing the Stranger down into the seat. The borrowed clothes hung loose, but the hood shadowed his face well enough. Hob bent, tugging the seatbelt across and clicking it into place. For a moment, the mundanity of the act struck him — fastening in this otherworldly figure as though he were any tired man being driven home.

“Right,” Hob murmured, climbing behind the wheel. “Let’s get you out of here.”

The engine rumbled to life. He pulled away, headlights sweeping over the high stone walls before the country road opened ahead.

For a while, the Stranger was silent, his gaze turned outward, pale face limned by the glow of passing streetlamps. Hob gripped the wheel, unable to help himself.

“Wondering if you’ve ever seen one of these before,” he said lightly. “A motorcar.”

The Stranger’s mouth curved — not fully, not warmly, but enough to draw Hob’s breath. A smile, of sorts.

“This one is… different,” he said, voice soft, steadying as he spoke. “But not the first. I saw the dream of it, long ago, in the minds of those who would make such machines. Their visions came to me first, before they wrought it into the waking world.”

Hob blinked, then huffed a quiet laugh. Of course. *Of course* he had.

The Stranger settled back against the seat, eyes drifting closed — not in sleep, but in weary stillness. Hob’s hands tightened on the wheel.

They were free. For now.

---

The road unspooled before them in long, empty stretches. Fields rolled away into shadow on either side, hedgerows flashing past in the headlights. The Stranger sat in silence, his gaunt profile turned toward the glass, until his voice cut through the hum of the engine.

“I should go back,” he said. His words were soft, but heavy with intent. “The son of Burgess still breathes. He must be made to answer for what was done.”

Hob’s hands tightened on the wheel. He didn’t look over. “That’s not the way.”

“You do not understand.” The Stranger’s gaze was fixed on the darkness outside, his voice sharpening. “For more than a century he profited by my suffering. He held dominion over that which should never be bound. He deserves to—”

“To what?” Hob cut in, sharper than he intended. He eased his foot on the accelerator, steadied his tone. “Be punished? Maybe he does. Maybe he deserves worse than anything you or I could dream up. But listen to me: vengeance won’t give you back what you lost.”

The Stranger turned his face toward him then, eyes like stormlight, and for a moment Hob wondered if he’d overstepped — if he was about to be crushed under a force he couldn’t begin to comprehend.

But Hob pressed on, steady.

“What matters now is you’re out. You’re free. Don’t waste what little strength you’ve got left chasing after the likes of Alex bloody Burgess. He’s nothing compared to you. Nothing.”

Silence filled the car, so thick it seemed to press against the windows.

At last Hob broke it. “What did you do to them, anyway? You were right — no one in that house woke. I fired a gun in there, for God’s sake.”

The Stranger’s eyes stayed on the darkness ahead, but his voice dropped low, almost a whisper. “I had… just enough left. Enough to lead them all into sleep.”

Hob exhaled, long and slow. That explained the strange, heavy quiet of the house as they’d passed through. A whole household, dreambound, while this gaunt figure at his side clung to scraps of power.

“Right,” Hob said finally, gripping the wheel. “Then let’s keep moving forward. Leave them to their dreams.”

For a time, neither spoke. Only the steady hum of the engine carried them onward, toward Oxford and the unknown waiting there.

Chapter Text

The Flat

The drive back to Oxford passed in silence. For the better part of an hour, the Stranger had not spoken, his gaze fixed somewhere beyond the windscreen, unblinking. Hob kept sneaking glances at him, watching the hollow planes of his face lit and shadowed in turn by the passing lamps.

If he’d been human, Hob would have said he’d gone into shock. The stillness, the way his eyes didn’t move, the faint rise and fall of his chest like he’d forgotten the rhythm of breathing. But the Stranger was not human, and Hob didn’t know what to call this.

By the time they pulled into the quiet street where Hob’s flat sat, dawn was only a hint at the horizon, pale grey creeping into the edges of night. Hob killed the engine, eased the door open, and went around to the other side.

“Come on, mate,” he said softly, crouching a little as he opened the passenger door. The Stranger moved without resistance, leaning into Hob’s steadying grip as they climbed the narrow staircase.

Inside, Hob led him straight to his own bedroom. The sheets were fresh, the room plain but warm. It felt absurd, somehow, to be guiding this otherworldly being toward something as ordinary as a bed — but Hob trusted his instincts.

“Here,” he said, tugging back the covers. “Best thing for you.”

The Stranger lowered himself stiffly, lying back against the pillows with a kind of careful detachment, as though the act itself were foreign. His eyes stayed open, fixed on nothing.

Hob lingered a moment, then drew the blanket up. He didn’t try for words. Didn’t ask questions he knew wouldn’t be answered. Instead, he did the only thing that felt right.

He went to the kitchen, pulled a tin of soup from the cupboard, and set it on the hob. The simple motions grounded him — the hiss of the gas, the metallic clink of spoon against saucepan, the rising warmth of steam.

Something normal. Something human. Something he could share.

---

Hob stirred the pan absently, the spoon clinking against the sides in a slow, uneven rhythm.

Now that the rescue was done — now that the Stranger lay safe under his roof — the weight of it all came crashing in. What next?

He’d told himself for years that if he ever saw him again, he’d know what to say. That he’d be ready. But he wasn’t. The truth was, the last time they’d spoken had been an argument.

*If you come to the meeting in 1989,* Hob had said, *then it will be because we are friends.*

He’d waited at the White Horse until the pint went warm, until the light died outside, until the empty seat across from him made its own answer. He had been heartbroken that night. Heartbroken in a way only centuries of loneliness could carve.

And then he’d been angry. Angry enough not to imagine there might be another reason for the absence. Angry enough to believe it could only mean rejection.

Now, standing in his narrow kitchen, the truth twisted like a knife in his gut. The Stranger had not abandoned him — he had been trapped, suffering, all that time. And Hob, self-pitying fool that he was, had taken it for cruelty.

Even now, he could not shake the doubt. If his Stranger had *not* been caught in that thrice-damned cellar… would he have come? Would he have chosen to sit with Hob, to share that pint, to be the friend Hob had so desperately wanted? Or would the chair still have sat empty?

The soup bubbled, threatening to catch, and Hob pulled the pan off the flame with a muttered curse. He ladled it into two bowls, set them carefully on a tray, and carried it through to the bedroom.

The Stranger was exactly as he had left him: lying on his back, eyes fixed somewhere beyond the ceiling, pale against the dark pillow. Hob set the tray across his lap, settling one bowl before him and keeping the other for himself.

“Here we are,” Hob said quietly. “Nothing fancy. But it’ll do.”

---

The Stranger did not move at first. His gaze stayed distant, fixed somewhere Hob could not follow.

“Go on,” Hob said, easing himself into the chair at the bedside and lifting his own bowl. “Eat while it’s hot.”

For a long moment, Hob thought he wouldn’t. But then the Stranger’s thin hand lifted, the spoon dipping into the soup with slow, deliberate movements. He ate with a kind of careful precision, each mouthful taken as though relearning the act. Hob mirrored him, spooning up the broth in quiet solidarity, not pressing with words.

The silence between them was not uncomfortable — not quite. It was heavy, but it was shared.

Then, soft footsteps padded across the floorboards. Sausage, Hob’s nervous little rescue cat, slipped into the room. She rarely trusted strangers; often she bolted from visitors before they could even reach out a hand. Hob half-expected her to retreat at the sight of the gaunt figure in his bed.

Instead, she leapt lightly onto the bedframe, nose twitching. She nuzzled the hand that held the spoon, as though she had known him always.

The Stranger paused, spoon hovering, eyes lowering to the small creature pressing against his fingers. He said nothing, but his hand shifted, turning just enough for Sausage to rub against his knuckles. With no hesitation at all, she clambered onto his lap, curled herself into a perfect circle, and fell asleep.

Hob blinked. He couldn’t help a soft huff of surprise. “Well, that’s a first. She usually doesn’t like anyone.”

The Stranger glanced at him then, and something softer flickered across his face. Not amusement, not quite a smile, but relief — the faintest sign of a wall lowering.

They finished their meal in silence, the only sounds the quiet clink of spoons against bowls and the gentle purr of a cat who, impossibly, had chosen to trust the Stranger without question.

---

When the bowls were empty, Hob set his spoon aside and rose quietly, careful not to disturb the cat curled in the Stranger’s lap. He gathered up the tray, balancing the crockery, and carried it back through to the kitchen.

When he returned, Sausage was still purring faintly. The Stranger had not shifted, his posture as precise and still as it had been since Hob first laid him down.

“You should rest,” Hob said gently, leaning on the doorframe. He hesitated, then stepped closer, adjusting the blanket so it lay smooth across the Stranger’s chest. “Get some sleep. That’s what you need.”

The Stranger’s pale eyes slid toward him. For the first time since the cellar, there was something almost like warmth in the glance, though it was sharp-edged, brittle.

“I do not sleep, Hob Gadling,” he murmured. His voice was quiet, but it carried with it the weight of centuries. “I am sleep.”

The words hung in the air, vast and unanswerable. Hob felt them settle into him like stones cast into deep water.

He swallowed, forcing a nod. “Right. Well. Even so. You’re safe here. That’s enough for tonight.”

---

The next evenings passed in a slow rhythm of meals, silences, and small recoveries. Hob asked for nothing, pressed for nothing, but at last, one evening, he could not hold back.

“I think,” Hob said carefully, “I’ve earned the right to know who it is I’ve just broken out of a bloody prison.”

For a moment, silence stretched. The Stranger’s eyes, dark and fathomless, fixed on him. Then he set aside his untouched spoon.

“You know me already, Hob Gadling,” he said softly. “You have known me for six hundred years.”

Hob blinked. His pulse stuttered.

The Stranger’s voice deepened, resonant now in a way that seemed to stir the very air. “I am Dream of the Endless. Lord of Dreams, and prince of stories. The shaper of all that mortals see in sleep. The one you named ‘Stranger,’ when first we met in your tavern long ago.”

The words struck like a bell — ringing through Hob’s bones, making his skin prickle. For centuries, he had wondered. He had guessed at god, at devil, at something between. But hearing it laid bare…

Dream of the Endless.

And he was here, in Hob’s bed, wearing a borrowed jumper, with a nervous rescue cat purring contentedly in his lap.

Hob leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “So — I have so many questions. So many. And I hope you’ll answer at least some of them. But for now, I need to know two things. First — what do I call you? By your title?”

Dream’s eyes lowered, thoughtful. When he spoke, his voice carried the weight of centuries. “I have been known by many names. In the tongues of men long turned to dust, they called me Oneiros. To the Hellenes, Morpheus. To others, Shaper, Sandman, Kai’ckul… and countless more besides.”

He looked back at Hob, and this time there was a gentleness there, a quiet relief. “But my family, and those few I count as friends, call me Dream. I would be… honoured, if you would do the same.”

The words landed with a quiet gravity. Hob nodded once, slow and certain. “Dream, then.” He gave the name its own weight, its own vow. “Alright. Dream. You’re safe here.”

Dream’s gaze lingered on him. “And the second thing you wished to know?”

Hob’s lips curved in a small, rueful smile. “Your first answer took care of both.”

At that, Dream let out the faintest breath, almost like release. “Though I do not sleep,” he said quietly, “I am weaker than I should be. And so… I will rest.”

His eyes closed, and the room softened around him, as though the very air exhaled.

Hob sat back, watching over him. For the first time in more than a century, Dream was free — and for the first time in his long, strange life, Hob Gadling knew his name.

Chapter Text

Dream had been Hob’s unexpected houseguest for more than a week. By the fourth day he had abandoned the bed altogether, insisting he was strong enough now to go without. It was true, in a way. Dream did not sleep, did not need to. But he was insistent that Hob did. Hob had lost count of the number of times he had woken to find Dream standing sentinel at the window, pale hands clasped behind his back, keeping a quiet watch while the mortal world rolled through the night outside.

One morning Hob woke to find the kitchen in disarray. A frying pan abandoned on the stove, the sink stacked with unfamiliar dishes, and something blackened and slightly smoking in the toaster. Dream stood by the counter with the air of a man who had braved a battlefield and returned, and he placed before Hob a plate with a slightly burned piece of toast.

“It is… breakfast,” Dream said with a formality that made Hob want to laugh.

The gesture caught him off guard. For a second he was back in trenches, or in taverns, or in cottages with other well-meaning hands trying to feed him in the way they knew how. He looked at the toast, then at Dream’s face — intent, reserved, and yet with something almost vulnerable behind the eyes. Hob sat down, picked up the toast, and ate it without complaint. “Perfect,” he said around a bite, and he meant it.

Their days fell into a rhythm after that. Dream would watch Hob read the papers, or feed the cat, or mark essays in long red strokes across undergraduate scrawl. And Hob, seeing the restlessness in him, began to coax him outside. They started small: circuits of the nearest park, walking in wide loops under greening branches. Dream walked with the poise of someone relearning a skill he had once mastered — steady, regal, but faintly uncertain, as though his balance came from will alone.

As they walked Hob filled the silences with talk of what Dream had missed. The fall of empires, the rise of machines, the quiet miracles of science that had become ordinary household magic. Dream listened without comment at first, but gradually, he began to ask questions. The names of cities, the wars that had redrawn maps, the songs that had travelled across oceans.

“Ordinarily,” Dream admitted once, when they paused on a bench to watch the slow drift of clouds, “I would not require this. All I needed, once, I could glean from the dreamers themselves. The collective unconscious bore their fears, their triumphs, their desires. But now… I cannot reach them. The Dreaming lies just beyond me. I am diminished.”

Hob looked at him then, at the sharp cheekbones and the eyes that seemed older than language itself, and thought not for the first time how strange it was that such a being could look so fragile. He put a hand briefly on Dream’s arm. “Then until you can, you’ll have to make do with me filling you in.”

Dream inclined his head — the faintest nod, but one that carried weight.

---

That evening, Hob set out two glasses and uncorked a bottle of red. The flat was quiet — the cat had settled into her basket, and the muffled sounds of Oxford at night barely made it through the thick windows. Hob poured generously, handing a glass to Dream, who turned it slowly in his hand as though examining its colour was a more serious ritual than any Hob had ever seen at table.

“Can you even get drunk?” Hob asked after a few mouthfuls, leaning back in his chair, letting the warmth loosen his shoulders.

Dream regarded him, the faintest trace of dry humour crossing his face. “If I wish.”

Hob barked a laugh, shaking his head. “Unfair. You get to decide. I’ve been drunk more times than I care to count, and believe me, half of those weren’t by choice.”

A silence settled then, not uncomfortable, but heavier than the earlier ones they had shared. Hob watched Dream tilt the glass, the liquid catching the lamplight like blood or ink. “You said before that the Dreaming is your home,” Hob ventured. “Could you… tell me more about it?”

Dream’s gaze lifted from the wine. For a moment, Hob thought he might refuse — a deflection, a cool silence. But instead Dream’s voice unfurled, low and deliberate. “The Dreaming is… every dream ever dreamt. A realm shaped by human imagination, and by the minds of all living things that slumber. It is endless halls of story, it is nightmares crouching in the dark corners, it is wonder spun into form. Its fields shift with every mortal’s breath. Its skies change with every dreamer’s hope or terror. It is at once fragile and eternal. And I am bound to it as I am bound to breath.”

Hob swirled the last of his wine in the glass, emboldened by warmth and by the strange comfort of sitting across from Dream like this. “I’d love to see it one day. Your Dreaming. Sounds like the sort of place a history man like me could get lost in.”

Dream’s eyes lifted, steady and almost pitying. “But you do, Hob Gadling. You have visited every night of your long life, as does every dreamer. Or at least… you did. When I was captured, the dreaming of humankind faltered. Dreams became shallow things. Fleeting shadows. That absence—” His jaw tightened. “It is mine to mend. My responsibility alone.”

Hob frowned, leaning forward. “Why? Why’s it down to you? Who put you in charge?”

A strange, still pause. Dream’s gaze drifted to the dark glass of the window, where his reflection wavered like smoke. “It is not a job,” he said at last. “It is my function. My purpose. I am not merely keeper of the Dreaming. I am its monarch, its caretaker. Its denizens are my responsibility, as much as its skies and its shifting halls. I am the Dreaming — and it is me.”

Hob blinked. “That’s… that’s a lot.” He tried to smile. “And here was me thinking my job was stressful.” He took another sip, felt the burn. “You said your siblings before. You’ve got family?”

The barest inclination of Dream’s head. “Yes. There are seven of us. Destiny. Death. Desire. Despair. Delirium, once Delight. Destruction, whom we called the Prodigal. And myself. Each of us bound to our function, eternal, unyielding. We are family — and yet we are more than family. We are necessity given form.”

Hob let out a low whistle. “Bloody hell. And here I was thinking my family reunions were awkward.”

For the first time in days, Dream’s expression softened — not a smile, but a shadow of amusement that flickered and passed.

“One of your siblings is Death?” Hob asked after a moment.

“Yes. My older sister. She is the reason for your… longevity, Hob Gadling. She has withheld her gift.”

Hob felt a small, absurd laugh die in his throat. “She’s been holding back on me all this time? For what? Sport?”

“Not sport.” Dream’s voice was a low thing, threaded with something like remorse. He set his glass down with careful precision. “At the beginning — in those first stirrings of the world as you would call them — my sister and I made a wager.”

Hob’s head tipped. “A wager?”

Dream looked at him then in a way that made Hob feel older than he’d ever wanted to be. “I could not imagine a human choosing life beyond that portion allotted to them. I thought it an error of arrogance or folly. Your kind’s mortality has shape and meaning. I did not understand how one could want to hold on.” He closed his eyes for a heartbeat as if recalling a long, distant chamber. “One night I heard you, Hob Gadling. You said, plainly, that you had chosen not to die. My sister proposed this: that within a hundred years you would come to her and beg for the end. I agreed to meet with you. It was—” He paused, and the single syllable that came out was small. “It was meant to be a study. An experiment.”

The words landed with the clatter of a dropped plate. Hob’s hands went still on his glass. For a second his face went very still; then anger rose, hot and immediate. “So I was a… what? A wager? One of your curiosities?”

“No.” Dream’s voice broke slightly, which was more than Hob had seen any god do and it unbalanced him. “I am ashamed to say it began so. But I misjudged. As the centuries passed, your refusal to go—your appetite for the world, the small rebellions, the foolish loves, the quiet defiance—those things taught me. I learned. I was… impressed by you. I looked forward to our meetings. It changed. I am sorry. That is all the small word I have for it.”

Hob felt the sky tilt. He had spent six hundred years constructing reasons for why the world had singled him out: penance, punishment, some divine plan. To learn it had started as a bet stung in a way logic could not shelter. Part of him wanted to roar; part of him wanted to fold in on the old hurt and never look up.

But there was also something else, insistent and stubborn: the memory across the years of the Stranger’s presence — the cold voice that had once cut him — the small acts, the company on long nights. Hob had loved that company, rotten as that confession made him feel now. He had been foolish; he had been proud; he had been lonely enough to mistake silence for cruelty. Anger flared, and then, less dramatically, settled. The world had a grotesque sense of humour.

“You made a bet,” Hob said flatly after a moment. “And you lost it.” He set his glass down with deliberate slowness. “Because you kept coming back.” The statement was neither triumph nor forgiveness; it was a fact noted, as if tabulating what had actually occurred might make the world right again.

Dream’s eyes were dark and long. “I did not mean it to become what it did. I… became attached. That is not a flattering confession for me to make.” He inclined his head, the motion intimate in its smallness. “If I had known the cruelty of my assumption, I would have acted differently. I apologise.”

Hob folded that apology into the long catalog of things that had happened to him and that he had survived. The indignity of being the subject of a wager sat next to the odd comfort that even gods could learn and err. He picked up his glass again, tasted the wine, let it burn down into the parts of him that had been surprised into softness.

“You learnt,” he said finally. “That’s the part you’ll have to live with, then.” There was bitterness there, yes; and also a small, rough gratitude for not being simply a cruel experiment. “You could’ve left it as a wager and gone on being right. You didn’t.”

Dream’s face altered by the smallest degree — a slackening at the mouth, an openness around the eyes. “I stayed,” he said. The single verb carried more weight than the longest of apologies.

Hob’s laugh this time was short and dry. “And here we are then. You stay, I fed you burnt toast, and the universe keeps humming.” He looked at Dream properly, as one man inspects another after bad news, checking for fractures. “I’m not sure what to do with your honesty, Dream. It’s… humbling. And it’s galling. Both. I suppose that’s life, isn’t it? Or whatever you’d call this.”

Dream met his gaze, wholly and without the layered distance he often wore. “Perhaps,” he said quietly, “that is what this is: life for you, duty for me, and something that sits between us that neither word quite contains.”

Hob nodded once. The anger didn’t evaporate — it didn’t shrink into submission — but it softened, edged with the complicated truth of long acquaintance. “We’ll have to do better than wagers from now on,” he said, half a grumble, half a promise.

Dream’s eyes crinkled in something like relief. “Agreed.”

They sat then in the quieter room — two beings, very differently made, holding a new, awkward truth between them. The night outside was ordinary and unknowing; inside, where gods and men met, the conversation moved forward, as fragile and human as a footstep on an old stair.

Chapter Text

It was Hob’s idea to leave Oxford. The longer Dream lingered in the flat, the more Hob worried. Not just about what it meant for him to have a god sprawled on his sofa playing with the cat, but about who else might come looking. Burgess’s followers. Some stray occultist who’d heard the old whispers. The stranger was stronger now, yes, but still fragile, still haunted by the pull of a realm he could not yet reach.

“I’ve got a place in Scotland,” Hob said one evening, pouring another cup of tea. “Remote. Quiet. Been keeping it for years. You’ll be safer there.”

Dream studied him, unreadable as always, then gave the barest incline of his head. “Very well.”

---

The drive north took the better part of a day. Hob had half-dreaded the journey, certain that Sausage would yowl the whole way from inside the carrier. The little cat hated confinement and had never tolerated travel. But Dream had insisted she come with them.

“She told me she would sit calmly on my lap,” Dream had said with that strange certainty of his, and Hob had been ready to laugh him out of it — until the cat had done just that. The moment Hob opened the carrier, Sausage leapt onto Dream’s knees and curled up as though she had belonged there all her life, purring with a steady, soothing hum. She stayed that way for mile after mile, only stretching now and again to nuzzle against Dream’s hand.

“Can you… talk to cats?” Hob asked at last, glancing from the road to the sight of his notoriously difficult rescue animal melting in the lap of a god.

Dream’s hand moved with absent elegance, stroking behind Sausage’s ears. “We have an affinity for one another,” he said simply.

Hob huffed out a laugh, shaking his head. “Of course you do.”

With the cat a silent, vibrating passenger, Hob filled the car with music. His taste was a patchwork of centuries, from old ballads to modern bands, all jumbled onto a stack of CDs and playlists.

Dream listened with the kind of focus Hob had only ever seen from scholars and poets. A plaintive folk song filled the car, the singer’s voice rough and aching. Dream’s gaze was fixed on the horizon, but Hob could see the faint tightening around his mouth, the way he breathed in as though the song carried more than sound.

“You like that one?” Hob asked.

Dream’s eyes shifted toward him, the faintest glimmer in their depths. “It is raw,” he said. “Unpolished. But it carries truth. Grief and longing, shaped into form. That is… art.”

Hob grinned. “Wait till I play you some Bowie, then.”

Later, when the stereo crackled with the brash energy of rock and roll, Dream turned his head slightly, considering. “This is different,” he said. “Rebellion. Defiance turned to rhythm. Humanity insisting upon itself.”

“Exactly.” Hob drummed his fingers on the wheel, delighted. “You’ve missed a lot. But don’t worry — I’ll catch you up.”

For mile after mile, the music filled the car, bridging silences that might otherwise have grown too heavy. Dream said little, but the small shifts in his face, the glint in his eyes when a note soared or a chord struck true, told Hob enough.

---

By the time they reached the Highlands, night was creeping in. The road had narrowed to a ribbon between dark hills, the air sharp and damp with peat and heather. Hob pulled the car up beside a low stone wall, headlights catching the outline of the cottage beyond.

It was small and weathered, built from thick stone blocks that looked as though they had grown from the earth itself. The slate roof shone slick with rain, a chimney leaning just enough to suggest a hundred winters’ worth of storms endured and outlasted. Behind it stretched moorland and forest, open sky rolling out in a great sweep that made the place feel both hidden and endless at once.

Hob cut the engine and grinned across at Dream. “Bought this place at the turn of the century. The nineteenth into the twentieth, of course — still getting a handle on the twenty-first.”

That earned the faintest quirk of Dream’s mouth, almost a smile.

“Bolt-hole,” Hob explained as he hauled their bags from the boot. “Sometimes a man needs somewhere to lie low, let the dust settle before he walks back into town with a new name and a new story. Done me well for that. Sometimes I can manage a decade here before I fancy civilisation again.”

Inside, the cottage was sparse but sturdy. A single main room with low beams and a wide hearth, two small bedrooms tucked off to the side, shelves lined with jars of dried herbs and tins of food. A battered table and mismatched chairs sat on flagstones worn smooth with time.

“I keep it stocked,” Hob went on, lighting the fire with a practised efficiency. Sparks caught and flared, filling the room with the scent of woodsmoke. “Self-sufficiency’s the trick, when you’ve been around as long as I have. You pick up things that most people forget — mending, planting, hunting when it comes to it. No one to bother you out here.” He glanced at Dream. “Just how I like it.”

Dream stood in the hearth’s glow, the firelight casting his features in sharp relief. He looked out of place, otherworldly against the rough timbers and the worn chair by the fire — and yet, somehow, Hob thought he seemed steadier here than in Oxford. The vastness outside, the silence, the space: they suited him.

---

Hob insisted Dream make himself at home while he brought in the last of the bags. There wasn’t much to carry — a duffel with spare clothes, a box of dry goods, the battered carrier that Sausage had barely spent ten minutes in before demanding Dream’s lap again.

When Hob came back through the door, shaking the drizzle from his jacket, he stopped short. Dream had already claimed the armchair by the fire, the cat draped across his knees like a spill of ink. His long fingers traced slow lines down her back, each stroke precise, reverent, as though she were some sacred creature rather than a scrappy rescue. Sausage purred so loudly it seemed to fill the room.

“Well,” Hob said, setting the bags down with a thump. “Looks like she’s adopted you permanent.”

Dream looked up, his eyes reflecting firelight. “She is… loyal.”

Hob chuckled, moving to the kitchen alcove to fetch glasses and a bottle of red wine he’d picked up on the drive north. “That’s one word for it. She usually takes years to come round to people. Suppose she knows quality when she sees it.”

Dream tilted his head, as though turning the comment over, but said nothing more.

When Hob returned with the wine, he poured generously into two mismatched tumblers and handed one across. “Here. Warm you up.”

Dream accepted it with that same precise grace, though he did not drink at once. He studied the dark liquid as though it might reveal a hidden truth, then finally raised it to his lips.

Hob settled into the other chair with a sigh, stretching his legs toward the fire. “I should warn you,” he said, “I don’t stand on ceremony here. No servants, no fine meals, no endless teapots appearing by magic. Just me, the cat, and whatever I can cobble together. But it’s quiet. Safe.”

Dream inclined his head in a small bow. “It is sufficient.”

The words might have sounded cold in another voice, but Hob had begun to learn the subtle shifts in Dream’s tone. This was no dismissal — it was approval, cloaked in formality.

For a time, they sat in silence, listening to the hiss of the fire and the low, steady rumble of the cat. Hob took a sip of wine, feeling the tension of the journey ease from his shoulders. Out here, the world was far away.

He glanced at Dream over the rim of his glass. “So. You never did answer me, back in Oxford. Can you actually get drunk?”

A faint flicker of amusement passed over Dream’s face. “If I wish.”

Hob groaned, leaning his head back against the chair. “Unfair. Entirely bloody unfair. Some of us have to pay for our wine in hangovers.”

Dream’s gaze softened, his eyes drifting toward the fire. For the first time since Oxford, Hob thought he looked almost at ease, shadows of centuries slipping from his shoulders.

Chapter Text

Hob awoke with the simple knowledge that the other side of the bed was empty.

Dream had insisted that they share, with a nonplussed innocence that Hob found both endearing and maddening. The cottage had two bedrooms, yes — but Dream had declared, in that imperious way of his, that the smaller bed offended him with its size and its lumpy mattress. He had said it without arrogance, almost with childlike bluntness, as though the concept of personal space were something for mortals alone.

Hob hadn’t had the heart to argue. Sleeping on the couch would have been uncomfortable, and sleeping alongside the man he’d long harboured feelings for was infinitely worse.

He lay still for a moment, eyes on the ceiling, the faint morning light spilling across the rough-hewn beams. The bedsheets were cool where Dream had lain. Of course they were. Dream’s body was rarely warm — his presence was something else entirely: the faint hum of power, of old silence, of dreams themselves.

With a sigh, Hob swung his legs over the side of the bed, reaching automatically for his jumper. He didn’t know what time it was, but the grey light filtering through the curtains spoke of dawn. He didn’t need to look far to find him — through the small window he could see the pale figure standing in the garden, motionless, a dark slash against the fading stars.

Hob hesitated, hand on the latch. There was something private about the scene — almost sacred. Dream stood barefoot in the cold, head tilted toward the horizon as though listening for a sound just beyond human hearing. The air around him shimmered faintly, like mist caught in moonlight.

Hob opened the door anyway, stepping out into the chill. “You’re going to freeze,” he said softly.

Dream did not turn. “The cold does not trouble me.”

“I noticed,” Hob muttered, wrapping his arms around himself. He stood beside him, though not too close. “You’re out here every morning now.”

Dream’s voice was quiet. “The Dreaming calls. It has been… persistent of late.”

Hob hesitated, watching him. The light was growing now, washing the moor in shades of grey and gold. Dream looked like a figure carved from the dawn itself — unearthly, sharp-edged against the soft world.

“You’re not getting stronger, are you?” Hob asked at last.

Dream’s gaze stayed on the horizon. “Not as quickly as I must. My imprisonment depleted me beyond expectation. Without the tools that once channelled my power, I cannot rebuild myself.”

“The tools you told me about,” Hob said. “Your sand, your helm, your ruby.”

Dream inclined his head once, a shadow crossing his face. “They were scattered when I was taken. To find them, I must return to the Dreaming. But without their power, I lack the strength to bridge the gulf.”

Hob let out a quiet, rueful laugh. “A chicken-and-egg situation, then.”

Dream’s brows drew together slightly. “I do not follow.”

“You can’t get back until you’re stronger, but you can’t get stronger until you’re back,” Hob explained. “Round and round.”

Dream considered this, the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth suggesting the ghost of amusement. “An apt analogy.”

They stood in silence for a while. The wind rippled across the long grass, carrying the smell of damp earth and heather. Hob found his gaze drifting from the horizon to the man beside him — tall, pale, not-quite-human. After centuries, he still wasn’t sure if Dream was the loneliest being he’d ever met or simply the most self-contained.

He would have kept him here, if he could. The thought struck him suddenly, and it hurt to admit it. To keep him safe in this quiet corner of the world, to have him stay, to let mornings like this stretch on forever — the selfish part of him wanted that more than anything. But he knew it wasn’t right. Not for Dream. Not for anyone. The world still needed its dreams, and Dream still had a duty.

So instead, Hob said softly, “Can I help?”

Dream turned to him then, eyes deep and strange in the early light. “No, Hob Gadling. This task falls to my family. I must call upon one of my siblings.”

Hob frowned, rubbing his arms against the chill. “You can call them from here?”

“I can try.”

“Then you can bloody well do it inside,” Hob said, exasperated affection creeping into his voice. “Some of us actually feel the cold.”

For the briefest moment, Dream’s expression softened. “Very well.”

They went back into the cottage. The hearth had burned down to embers overnight, but Hob was quick to coax the fire back to life. Dream moved with quiet efficiency, setting the kettle on the stove as though he had lived there for years.

Hob cut thick slices from the sourdough loaf he’d baked back in Oxford and laid them under the grill, the sharp, comforting scent of toasting bread filling the air.

“Tea and toast,” he said, smiling faintly. “Not exactly divine fare, but it’ll do.”

Dream took the cup he offered, holding it delicately between long fingers. “You continue to astonish me, Hob Gadling.”

“How so?”

“You persist,” Dream said simply. “In kindness, in care, in hope. Even now.”

Hob laughed, a little too quickly. “Well, it’s either that or sulk, and I’ve had a few centuries to get good at the first option.”

They ate in companionable silence, the crackle of the fire and the soft creak of the cottage settling around them. Outside, the day brightened. The air felt charged, waiting.

When the last of the toast was gone, Dream set down his cup. “It is time,” he said.

Hob looked up from buttering the heel of the loaf. “Who will you call?”

Dream’s gaze drifted toward the window, where the pale light of morning crept across the moor. “Of my siblings, few could aid me — and fewer still would choose to.”

Hob leaned back, mug in hand. “Tell me about them. Properly, this time. You mentioned names, but not much more.”

Dream inclined his head slightly, as though weighing what could be spoken. “Destiny is the eldest. He sees all things — past, present, and that which may yet come. He rarely leaves his garden, for his book binds him to the order of what is and what must be. His oath forbids him from intervening in the affairs of mortals, or of his siblings. He would not come, even if I asked.”

Hob nodded slowly. “All right. Destiny’s out. What about your sister — Death?”

At that, Dream’s expression softened, but only briefly. “My sister carries a heavy charge. She walks among mortals every day, guiding them at their end and welcoming them into the next realm. I would not add to her burdens — nor do I wish her to see me thus.”

“You mean weakened.”

Dream did not answer, which was answer enough.

Hob sipped his tea. “Then there’s… Desire, wasn’t it?”

A faint tightening of Dream’s mouth, something like irritation or pain. “My sibling Desire has ever sought to complicate my existence. To make sport of my principles. Desire’s realm lies within the heart of all living things, but their games are rarely played kindly. I will not call them.”

“Right,” Hob said quickly. “So that’s a no.”

“Despair,” Dream went on, “is Desire’s twin. They are bound by shared understanding. Despair seldom acts of her own will, and I have no wish to bring her sorrow here.”

Hob nodded. “Fair enough.”

“Delirium,” Dream said last, and his voice softened again, touched with something like grief. “She was once Delight. Her mind does not move in straight lines. She drifts, lost between what was and what will never be. Even if she heard me, she could not find her way here. I would not ask her to try.”

Silence stretched between them, filled only by the hiss of the fire.

“That leaves one,” Hob said quietly. “The Prodigal.”

Dream’s eyes flickered toward him, catching the light like glass. “Yes. Destruction.”

“The brother who left?”

Dream inclined his head. “He abandoned his realm long ago, though not his nature. He chose to walk among the living — to understand them, to learn creation through the act of ruin. He has ever looked upon me with kindness.”

Hob gave a wry smile. “So he’s the sensible one.”

“If such a word can be applied to any of us,” Dream murmured. “He may hear my call. He may even answer.”

Hob met his gaze. “And if he doesn’t?”

Dream’s expression grew distant, the firelight catching in his dark eyes. “Then I shall endure, as I have always done.”

Something in the way he said it — quiet, resolute, unbearably lonely — made Hob’s chest ache.

Hob broke the silence first. “So… how do you call a god, then? Some kind of spell? Ritual? Do I need to draw a chalk circle on the floor?”

For the first time in hours, Dream’s lips curved — not into a smile exactly, but close. “Nothing so unsubtle,” he said, voice low, almost amused.

He rose, moving with that quiet, deliberate grace Hob had come to recognise, and crossed to the door. When he opened it, the air that rushed in was sharp with the scent of wet grass and cold stone. The moor beyond the threshold lay washed in the pale blue of early dawn.

Dream stepped out, barefoot again, though the ground was slick with dew. He stood there a long moment, the wind stirring his hair. To Hob, he didn’t appear to do anything at all — no gestures, no incantations, no sudden flash of power. Just stillness.

And yet the light seemed to shift around him, faintly, like the world itself was holding its breath. The birds that had begun their morning chorus fell quiet. Even the breeze seemed to pause, expectant.

Then, as suddenly as it had come, the feeling passed. Dream turned back toward the cottage and stepped inside, closing the door softly behind him.

“I have called,” he said simply.

Hob blinked. “That’s it? That’s the whole thing?”

Dream inclined his head. “He will come, if he chooses.”

“Right,” Hob muttered. “And if he doesn’t choose?”

“Then he is no longer the brother I remember.”

There was no threat in the words, no anger — only a weary certainty, as if Dream had already prepared himself for that possibility.

Hob ran a hand through his hair, looking him over. “So now we wait?”

“Yes.”

Hob poured what was left of the tea into his mug and took a slow sip, the warmth grounding him. The cottage felt smaller now, as though the very air had thickened. “How long will it take?” he said.

Dream looked toward the window, where the pale horizon was already beginning to darken again — not with cloud, but with something stranger, a flicker of gold and red against the sky.

‘It will take, the time it takes Hob Gadling’

The day passed slowly.

Hob tried to read, to busy himself with repairs around the cottage, but his mind kept circling back to the same thought — he will go. Dream would leave, and the quiet rhythm they had built here would end.

He told himself it was right. Dream belonged to another world, and that world needed him. But knowing didn’t make it easier. Every time he looked up from his book and saw the empty chair by the fire, or heard the faint creak of the floorboards as Dream paced somewhere out of sight, the ache settled deeper in his chest.

Outside, the weather shifted through moods — bright morning sun dulled into grey afternoon drizzle, then cleared again toward evening. The air felt heavy, charged, as though the earth itself was bracing for something.

By the time they sat down to a light supper — bread, cheese, and a pot of vegetable stew — the quiet between them had grown companionable but taut, stretched thin by all that went unspoken. Dream ate little, his movements precise, distracted. Sausage curled on the windowsill, tail twitching in sleep.

When the dishes were cleared, Dream rose. “I will rest,” he said softly. “Your hospitality has been… kind, Hob Gadling.”

“Don’t mention it,” Hob said, forcing a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m just glad you’re on the mend.”

Dream inclined his head and left, the soft pad of his bare feet fading down the corridor. The bedroom door clicked shut.

Hob turned back to the sink, sleeves rolled up, hands moving automatically through the warm, soapy water. The small sounds of the cottage — the pop of the fire, the whisper of wind through the thatch — filled the silence. He felt oddly suspended, waiting for something he couldn’t name.

He was drying the last plate when the air changed.

It wasn’t a sound at first, not exactly — more a low, thrumming vibration that seemed to hum in the bones of the walls. The scent of rain and iron filled the kitchen, though the night outside was clear. The lights flickered once.

Then came the knock. Three heavy, deliberate raps that seemed to echo from the foundation to the rafters.

Hob froze, dish towel still in his hands.

The cat, in the other room, gave a single questioning mewl.

He turned toward the door just as the latch lifted on its own and the heavy oak swung inward. The air rushed in cold and electric, smelling of sea spray and stormlight.

A figure filled the doorway — broad-shouldered, ruddy-haired, with a weather-beaten face that could have belonged to a sailor or a blacksmith. His clothes were simple — a worn leather coat, boots scuffed from travel — but the presence that entered with him was immense, ancient. The very air seemed to bend around him, shimmering faintly with warmth and life and endings.

Hob took an involuntary step back, heart hammering.

“Evening,” the man said, his voice deep and kind, carrying the weight of laughter long remembered and sorrow long carried. “I hope I’m not intruding.”

Before Hob could find words, a voice came from the hall — soft but unmistakable.

“No,” said Dream. “You are expected, brother.”