Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hob does very little these days to disguise himself, outside of ID forgeries and switching jobs and addresses. London has gotten so big, and the sense of community so small, that it isn't overly necessary. He's just another man on the tube, with dark hair and tired eyes. He'll wear a beard for a few years at a time, cut or grow his hair, and rotate his wardrobe regularly. The citizens of London pay so little attention to others around them that he's more concerned about getting clipped by a bike courier than clocked by a witchfinder. The place is constantly in flux, so big it seems to heave under the weight of its own population. And somehow, Hob can go through entire weeks without talking to a single soul outside of the odd grunt in a cafe or pub.

He's moved out of the little flat he shared with Audrey, and now he's in the penthouse of a skyscraper out of the centre of London but with a view of Parliament that catches the balmy light of sunset on its windows like tiles of molten gold. It's an enormous building, with a nearly silent population - or good insulation. Good security. Temperamental lifts. His apartment is big, and bland, and all he really knows outside of that is that the sofa is comfortable and the bed is too far to crawl some nights.

It has been so long since Hob has been outside that he does not know what day it is. Doordash is his new lifeline, followed closely by daydrinking. He sleeps for twelve hours of the day, and spends the other twelve staring out of the window or at the TV.

Remotely, he can acknowledge that he is depressed. That he has not been this depressed since the death of Eleanor and the babe - and later, his poor Robin. He's seen death. It has been his intimate companion since he was a child, taking his younger sister and mother before he was thirteen, stealing countless other loved ones since. It is the kind of familiar a lover can never truly be. Something that steals inside of you and guts you afresh with every stray memory. That knows every tender, sacred spot, and digs into each like a dealer extracting pearls from within the bowels of an oyster with cruel, prodding motions.

He had thought he was growing hardened to it, but truthfully he knows he had started to avoid it. Ten years has been about his limit for friendships and relationships, and that's been pushing it in some cases. Audrey's premature death had certainly been a shock, and a keen reminder, like unsheathing a quick blade so carelessly as to not even feel the slice at first.

Dream's death has been something else entirely. Hob remembers being run through in one of the tussles of the fifteenth century. Remembers first the shock, and then the numbness, his own insides pulsing hot in his cradling, scrabbling hands.

The pain had come after, when the blinking confusion had retreated, and he'd lay in the mud with the other poor dead fucks and screamed himself hoarse for help that never came. It had been like ice needling, and then fire scorching through that cold flesh. The nerves had quailed and squalled for relief, the waves of it rising and receding in turns. His flesh knitting itself back together had still protested the unnatural workload. It had taken him three days to lift himself out of the stinking mud. Longer to pick out the maggots and cauterise what was left of the wounds when he finally made it to one of the last medical tents. The men there had stared at him with the knowing fear of people seeing something Other. Hob had known how they felt.

Dream's death… has been worse. There is a cowardly, hateful thing in Hob that is furious with him. An equally snivelling voice in the back of his head that blames himself for not seeing the signs - no. For seeing them, and not doing enough. Dream had always seemed so ready to rush headlong into danger. Of course that recklessness was calculated. A wounded animal wariness always lingered, and Hob knew what that looked like too. Dream had always been like a cat - leery of the scraps he needed to survive, occasionally moved to affection - and going far from those who loved him to die.

The biggest part of it is really… the things left unsaid. Hob never got the chance - no, not the chance. He had a dozen chances. A handful at least. Hob never got the guts to tell him…

Well. It doesn't matter now.

He is building a tower out of the booze bottles in his kitchen, on the counter. He likes squared ones so he can lie them on their sides for stability. He has started to erect the notched wall of a small battlements, guarding him from the invading force of sobriety. So far, the fort has been incredibly well-defended.

Becoming a fully fledged alcoholic is not his last resort. He has tried it a few times before, and it does not come naturally to him. He is in this case, however, extremely determined to drink through the next one hundred years. Or at least fifty. That ought to be enough to get past the first crippling, eviscerating waves of grief for his oldest friend that have thus far held him captive.

The stronghold is coming along nicely after several weeks of this behaviour. Hob ventures stumbling and barely dressed into his kitchen in the late afternoon, after a distressingly sobering sleep of fourteen hours. He pokes through the dire contents of his fridge, eating a few slices of tragic plastic cheese straight out of the wrapping with the door open and marvelling absently at humanity's innovation in manufacturing a food completely devoid of nutritional value. He is absently studying the Best Before date on a couple of deeply suspect eggs when he hears a tap on the glass of his balcony doors.

The unfamiliar surroundings, coupled with the bleary emergence from several days of extreme drunkenness, keeps him from registering that he is on the twentieth floor of the tower block as he wheels toward the sound, a scrap of square plastic cheese still hanging from his gob. Gravity snatches it as he takes in the sight that greets him, agape. The refrigerator starts to peep at being left open for so long.

Desire and Despair of the Endless stand on the balcony, twin pillars either side of the doors. Desire is all in white, their icy hair falling in an artful sweep over one side of their face. Their clothes are as ornate as Hob has ever seen them. Their sister, Despair, is all in grey, less sartorially accomplished. Her somber face is gently freckled, hair in a greasy, unkempt plait over her shoulder. It occurs to Hob that she might be missing her older brother, and the thought wounds him anew.

The second thing that occurs to him is that two of the Endless are on his balcony, surrounded by pigeon shit and a slowly dissolving plastic lawn set that predates Hob's arrival, and he is just staring at them in his underpants with the fridge door mournfully pleading for closure.

It's not the only one.

Unsteadily, he goes to yank open the door. It groans a protest and forces him to tug several times before it shrieks open a few inches. Desire stares at him, their golden eyes heavy lidded with a cat-like amusement.

"Oh, darling," they say. Hob wrinkles his nose.

"What do you want?"

"What do I 'Desire'?"

"Just tell me, mate. I don't have much desire to play twenty questions with the person who directly contributed to the suicide of my best friend."

Desire opens perfectly painted lips, the exact colour of a bruise, and then closes them again. They look to Despair, who shifts anxiously.

"It is a delicate matter. We'd like to come in, Hob Gadling. It is about our late brother."

An accusatory silence settles for a few seconds, and then Hob disrupts it like a startled flock of birds, shoving the door open wider.

"Fine. Make it quick though, I've got stuff to do."

"Of course." Desire looks around as they step into the flat, their gaze sliding around articulately from the still-screeching fridge to the steadily rising wall of bottles. "Every second spent with us is a second another drop of alcohol in the city remains free of your clutches. Can't have that."

"If you've got any life advice from people who haven't driven anyone to suicide recently, I'll be happy to hear them out," Hob says darkly, "but not from you."

"Darling, I didn't need to make Dream kill himself. He was already on the precipice. But if it makes you feel better to blame me, then I suppose I cannot stop you."

"Your permission does make it much easier, thanks."

"Enough." Despair's voice has the usual thickness that comes with hours of weeping. Her soft brown eyes shine with unshed tears, and her hands wring nervously at her sleeves. Still, her mouth is set in a firm line. "We have come to talk to you about our brother. About his last wishes."

"His last wishes? He - he told you what he was going to do?"

"Not exactly," Desire puts in. They hitch themselves up onto the kitchen counter, swinging their legs so that the toe of one elegantly pointed boot bumps Hob's thigh. He manages to simply step back rather than grab them by the ankle and yank, and pats himself on the back for it mentally. "Dream was not exactly chatty with us."

"But he had bestowed a series of visitations upon us… in Dreams," Despair adds.

"You… Dream? You sleep?"

"After a fashion. It's complicated stuff. We contain the entire spectrum of the human experience - even if we don't actively… participate," Desire explains. "We just sort of… remembered the dreams. Together."

"Because you're twins," Hob deduces slowly.

"And because - despite how much he hated it - Dream was part of us. Desires, fears, they're all interconnected with dreams. It's why, perhaps, we were all so wary of one another. Why we all affect one another so greatly." They sound very pragmatic about it all with the benefit of hindsight. Hob wonders if some of this might have been more helpful whilst his friend was fucking alive, and the thought stokes his temper again.

"This better be coming around to you telling me what the hell you're doing here sharpish," Hob mutters, "because I'm getting impatient."

Desire laughs at that, but it's Despair who redresses him.

"You think you are angry at us, Hob Gadling, but even you know it is impotent, and disingenuous. Like the storm lashes the coasts, we are unmoved. Your troubles are in your currents and riptides, and they're something quite separate from us. It's all simply roiling inside you." She tuts, and then moves on. "This is not about us. It is about him. You cared for him, didn't you? More than anyone, maybe."

"I." He frowns. "I mean - Lucienne. And Matthew…"

"They do love him. But their purpose is to love Dream of the Endless, and our late brother… is that no longer. They have a new master. And they will not forget Morpheus, but it would not be right or just to ask them to be faithful to their new Lord, and to carry out this task for us. This is a task… that must be completed by someone who came to love our late brother of their own accord."

"Which does narrow the field somewhat."

Desire's voice is a drop of acid in Hob's ear. He gives them a look that could turn the already sour milk in his wailing fridge into fucking yoghurt, but then looks back to Despair.

"It's something he wanted?" He confirms. "Not something… to spite him."

"It is something he desired with such a strength of heart that I could not even hope to deny him." Desire sounds as sincere as it is possible for them to sound.

"It is the thing he imagined, which might alleviate some of the atom-deep pain in him," Despair says. Her lashes are ringed with tears again. "It was his last wish, and one I did not entirely know we would be able to honour, but he…"

"He wanted it into being," Desire finishes. "He manifested it, in all his grief, and desperation. And now we are entrusting it to you. Will you accept this charge, Hob Gadling?"

"Yes." Hob does not think of all the awful, painful things this could entail. He does not think of whether it will hurt. All he thinks is that Dream - his Dream - wanted something so badly he hired an astral sky writer to transmit it to his siblings, so that they might charge it to him, of all the peons on this miserable planet.

He would have done anything to keep Dream alive. He'll certainly do anything he can to honour his death. Even if it is going with him. If he'd asked. If he'd really wanted it. Hob would go, if it meant staying by his side.

Desire and Despair exchange looks.

"Told you," Desire drawls. Their twin hums in amused agreement, and then turns as if reaching for something.

When she turns back to Hob, she holds a baby in her arms, swaddled in a blanket of swirling stars.

*

Chapter Text

The sleeping child that Despair deposits into Hob's arms is older than maybe he realised - not quite a baby, but a toddler perhaps, with a shock of thick, fluffy black hair that defies gravity. He appears to be a boy, wearing a sleep suit of marled grey, patterned with little black moons. Nestled in the shelter of his little arms is a raven, also sleeping. A shock of white is visible on her breast, her sharp beak tucked carefully under one wing. She is nearly as big as the child.

Hob gazes down at them both, his vision misting with tears. One plops onto the little boy's hand, and Hob wipes it from the pale skin with a thumb. He feels warm. Not the tepid facsimile of Dream's apple-flesh complexion, but warmth with real human blood. Still, he is so small. Smaller than a child his apparent age ought to be. And he is pale, the dour little mouth tucked against the back of his friend's feathers.

Hob raises his head. The twins watch him. Despair's grief at letting go of the child is plain in her round face, round eyes. A face made to mourn, Hob thinks, and feels a stab of reluctant pity for her.

For their part, Desire is still watching the child in his arms. Their expression is nearly imperceptible, lips pursed in a soft moue of what Hob might call unfeeling curiosity, if not for the faint shine in their golden eyes.

"Is it… him?" Hob whispers.

"We believe so. Or - a version of him, maybe. A version that badly wanted to be… with you, I suppose." Desire shrugs. "Our eldest sister has always had such a soft spot for him. Maybe this was… the only way the Kindly Ones would not notice…"

Hob nods, looking down. Another hot trail slips down his cheek, and he flinches instinctively when Desire gently swipes it away before licking their thumb. Not bothering to admonish them, Hob cuddles the babe tighter.

"And who's this? His friend?"

"It's Jessamy," says Despair. She smiles sadly. "Don't know how he managed that one, but perhaps because she was so intrinsically his…"

"She died, while Dream was trapped," Desire explains. Hob winces. "Yeah, he took it well."

"Is he… himself?"

"We don't know. We do know that he's… grown, quite a bit. Since he appeared. Faster than any human child."

"Do you think he'll… still be… I don't know. Endless Lite?"

"He's certainly something," Despair puts in. "My rats loved him."

"Where did you find him?"

"In my realm," Desire says quietly, "though how in the Circle he got there, I do not know."

"Maybe you wanted him back, a little bit, too," Hob hedges. He does not expect the silence that greets the words, nor the smile that curls at the corner of their lovely mouth.

"Maybe I did. Perhaps… this time…" they bend, and press a soft kiss to the centre of the sleeping boy's forehead, "he will be a little more cheerful."

"We will be at hand, if you need anything, Hob Gadling." Despair reaches out and touches the babe's soft, white little fingers. "Call us if you do."

"I will. Thank you… Uhm." He looks down at the sleeping Dream again, marvelling at his long lashes; the faint purple lines of veins under his eyelids. "Do the others know?"

"We haven't told them, but Destiny usually does… perhaps you'll be seeing him. Think you can handle it?" A sassy little wiggle of their shoulders at that. Hob doesn't want to like Desire, though it is hard.

"I think if I can handle you, I can handle anything."

"Oh, darling," Desire purrs. They reach out and gently scrape a nail against Hob's jawline, shadowed with a thick layer of stubble. "Maybe one day."

Hob shies away from that touch, wrinkling his nose. The thought of desire - of the reason he's been at the bottom of a cavernous, yawning grief so deep he didn't know if he'd ever come out - catches him between its teeth.

"Your brother. Before. Morpheus. I…" he hesitates. "I don't know… if I am the best person for this. I - I was in love with him. I - it's not right, surely, for me to…"

"That isn't how you feel about this child though," Desire points out. "Our brother is gone, Hob. That version of him. And he wanted you. Enough that, unconsciously, this is how he appeared to us. He dreamed it. He's been dreaming of you even in this form. And your relationship with this child will be different, but it will be a way to love him. He is not… a human child. I think you know that. I do not know how much of our brother is in him, but I do know that he trusted you. You'll do the right thing."

"Of course. Of course, I would never-"

"We know that." Despair puts her hand on his arm. "Or we would not bring him to you."

"We knew how he felt about you, too," Desire adds. "It was only Morpheus who would not allow himself to acknowledge it. Until his end."

Hob nods. He's crying again, of course he is. He raises one hand, the bundle of sleeping baby and animal coming up with it, and knuckles at his eyes. The sob that bubbles up is raw, and he manages to stifle the sound of it in the fluffy black hair, softer than goose down, softer than rabbit fur. He feels two sets of hands gently guiding him until he's sat on his sofa, cradling a child and a sleeping raven to his breast and sobbing his heart out. The hands gentle him, and hold him, and then withdraw.

When Hob finally opens his eyes and draws back, he is alone with the child, and the bird. The twins are gone, the balcony door shut behind them, the fridge door closed. Breaths evening gradually, Hob wonders if Despair had somehow spiked him with her touch, but he feels clearer now, brighter, and when he looks down again at his charge, he sucks in a breath.

Eyes a pale cornflower blue, Dream looks up at him from his swaddling of glittering stars. The bird in his arms has shifted too, and both of them watch him with identical looks of curious caution.

Hob, aware of how he must smell, and look, wipes his face on a hand and tries for a smile.

"Hello, Jessamy. Hello, little Dream," he whispers.

A few heartbeats of quiet, and then Dream's mouth curls in a dear little smile, tiny and shy.

*
Hob's first act is to Deliveroo groceries to the flat, paying extra for quickest delivery and tipping the courier generously in light of the stairs. He orders toddler formula, baby food, a heap of different pouches of smoothies and puddings that might do the trick, and then more actual human food than he's ever attempted to wrangle in his life. The medieval peasant in him is still a hoarder at heart, preparing for a bleak winter, and the solemn contents of his fridge currently are causing him distress. He might have been willing to subsist on nothing but middle shelf whiskey for the next week, but he will not be letting his guest want for anything. He takes his time picking through the digital veggie aisle, marvelling at modern day ingenuity: strawberries, in Autumn. What a time to be alive.

He orders more than they'll need in the hopes that at least eighty per cent of it will actually arrive and not be out of stock or terrible quality. He also orders baby clothes in various sizes - eighteen months plus, though Dream is a skinny little thing no matter what age he is apparently - and even remembers to google what he can feed a fucking raven before he completes the order.

The whole time, he has Dream balanced on his lap. He is quiet, chewing uncertainly at his own fingers as he looks around the living room. When Hob flicks the TV on, his mouth drops open in apparent awe. Hob chuckles.

"Hold onto that feeling, little guy."

Nearby, Jessamy is perched on the arm of the sofa, preening herself. She has a few fluffy juvenile feathers peaking through her glossy teenage coat, and Hob arrives at the conclusion that her and Dream appear to have the same quality in that sense of agelessness. She senses Hob watching her and tilts her head, a bit of dander still caught in her beak.

"Very nice," Hob tells her. "Very pretty girl."

That seems to please her, because her beak opens and a soft, low caw drifts out.

"Yes," Hob agrees, "you are. Very pretty. What a little stunner."

The attention Jessamy is receiving has caused Dream to stare up at him, expression of incredulity such a perfect echo of his adult predecessor that Hob's eyes sting again.

"You, too," he tells him. "Aren't you? A perfect little prince. Look at those big eyes. My Robyn had blue eyes too, but not like yours. Bit darker like his mammy's. He was blonde, when he was little. Don't know where he got that from. Soon changed - but it was never as dark as yours, his hair. More like mine, poor mite."

Apparently satisfied, Dream goes back to chewing his hand, smiling around it. He has teeth, Hob notes. Maybe not all of them, but a good set. That would put him around at least two. For now.

"Oh, you're happy now I'm paying attention to you, are you?" He teases him. He tries a gentle little tickle under one armpit, laughing when Dream clamps his arm down with a little squawk of surprised giggling. "No one can have my attention but you, is that it?"

More tickling elicits a riot of whoops and screeches. Dream has never laughed in his presence as an adult, and these sounds are nearly like Jessamy's caws and croaks, surprisingly low, not quite human. The novelty of it makes Hob laugh more, and soon the raven joins in and they are a choir of carcophanous noise.

Dream crosses over into overwhelm with visible clarity, and Hob stops and strokes his skinny shoulders with a hand that seems to dwarf him. "Ah, okay. Enough now." He smiles, stroking up through the wild hair. "Do you talk yet, mm? You been telling that big sibling of yours 'No'? That was always your favourite word before."

Still dizzily hiccuping with delayed giggles, Dream seems soothed by the touch. He looks over at the TV once more, and slowly offers his other hand for Hob to hold, stabilising him as he leans to look. The casual physical trust hits Hob with a powerful blast of nostalgia. Robyn had always climbed all over him like he was part of the landscape, using him as a chair, a bed, a step-stool. What an honour it had been, Hob had always thought, to be trusted so intrinsically. Dream is doing the same now, relying on Hob to support him, even in a new place, in a new life.

It won't be misplaced. Desire is right - the complex, needful ardency Hob felt for Dream's former self is not present when he looks at the little boy sat on his knee. What he feels instead is a fierce, clear need to protect, to cherish, to provide for. He remembers that same clarity with Robyn too. He'd felt it when he'd held his baby girl too, and the piercing wound of failure. It had never applied to sweet Eleanor, that feeling. She had given everything trying to safely bring their daughter into the world. It was Hob that had failed them all.

A snide little voice in the back of his head asks what will be different this time, and Hob forces it away as he scrolls on his phone to look for a local soft play he can take Dream to. Maybe an outdoor one, so Jessamy can stay close by. It might not be a thing for just yet, but it can't hurt.

It will be different. Medicine is better now, and Dream is not so fragile as a human, he doesn't think. He's better, braver. A little wiser, he hopes. He'll be able to do this.

With a hum, he glances at Dream when he sees a flicker of movement. Jessamy has come to perch on the coffee table, and she leans forward to gently preen Dream's hair now, letting out a soft trill when he giggles and grabs a fistful of her feathers.

"Gently with Jess," Hob tells him, "soft hands- there's a good lad. Yeah, she's going to be your little nanny, isn't she?"

Despite the coaching, Dream isn't being overly rough. Rather, he appears to be studying the feathers between his fingers, softly scrunching and relaxing his fingers. When Jessamy nibbles at his ear, he squeals in delight, setting her a-flutter briefly in apparent surprise. Hob watches them together, watches Dream nuzzle his nose into her breast as she grooms him, and feels his heart swelling in his chest. He keeps secure hold of Dream's waist, but shifts to let them closer together, and the bond between them… well. It is that of two souls who have been reunited.

Hob is having a little sniffle about it when his phone buzzes to tell him that his grocery order is on the way.

*
It occurs to Hob, once he's set Dream up with a make-shift picnic on the living room carpet, that he's going to have to take him out shopping for some actual kid things shortly. Toys, for one. A high chair, depending on how fast he decides to grow.

He's also quite glad of the timing of things. No one here knows him, and he's had to jack in teaching for now, so he's in no danger of having to explain to anyone why he's suddenly arriving to work with a child in tow when the babysitter falls through. Not that he could imagine letting Dream out of his sight. How is that going to work? How long will Dream be with him? It doesn't matter to Hob if it's forever, but part of him - a large part - fears the uncertainty. Will he outgrow Hob, if he's aging quickly? Will he have powers? Hob has made himself fairly open to the supernatural over the last six hundred years, but he'd have no clue how to go about helping a child with that sort of thing. He needs allies - people who already know about him, preferably. Humans, even more preferably.

Stirring a rather suspect looking pot of mashed carrots and potato, having sufficiently cooled to just tepid, Hob spoons some out and holds it out for Dream. He's sat cross-legged with him on the oilcloth he'd found shoved in the back of the linen closet - certainly not his - and it creaks when he shifts.

"Here we are, your highness. Try that. When Robyn was a bairn we used to mash him carrots from the garden, he loved them. He was always a very happy little guy. No idea where he got that from."

Dream eyes the spoonful of mush with apparent mistrust, and then turns his face away decisively.

"Hey, don't be like that. I'm sure it's delicious, look-" Hob makes a show of trying some, and tries not to pull a face. "Oh, bloody hell. That's… wow. Okay, never mind. Onto the next."

Some cucumber slices go down better. Dream gnaws at one delicately, holding another out to Hob in an offer.

"Oh, ta very much." Hob takes a little bite, exaggeratedly uhm-ing and aah-ing. It does the trick, because Dream takes a bigger bite of the same stick, grinning that adorable little grin when Hob gasps in mock surprise. "You! I thought that was for me!"

Slices of cheese and on buttered crackers go down well, too. Dream feeds some of his quartered grapes to Jessamy, who coos appreciatively. Hob can't get over how neat he is, his little grey sleep suit still spotless, not a crumb on cheek or chin.

"You're definitely him," Hob muses aloud. "He'd have never let a bit of Ritz get stuck to his chin either."

The final thing Dream is willing to sample is a chocolate flavoured fromage frais. This, he immediately confiscates from Hob's hands and feeds himself with surprisingly deft movements of the spoon. With his little brows creased in concentration, lips pursed, he makes Hob's heart melt entirely.

"Guess we'll be ordering the mega-pack of those next time, then."

Watching him demolish the yoghurt, Hob gets out his phone once again and searches out a familiar name. He might need some backup at some point, he reasons.

*

After lunch, Dream sags back against Hob on the couch, eyes growing heavy. It is tempting to let him go to sleep on Hob, to feel the weight of him, relaxed and at rest, and let himself remind himself he's real. But, he acknowledges, he needs to shower, and clean up, and put some of the non-refridgerated groceries away.

"I think it's time for a nap, my darling," he tells him. Dream yawns at the word, but scowls, looking like a little bat for a moment. "I know, I know. But you need to. Look at you, you're falling asleep right now. Come on, sweet."

Decisively, Hob lifts him and carries him carefully upstairs, Jessamy hopping up on his shoulder to hitch a ride. He takes the star-patterned blanket up with him. His bed probably needs changing, but it's not too bad thanks to Hob's own fastidious cleanliness. Even drunk and pathetic, he could never stand dirty sheets. In fact, not having showered this far into the day is itching at him. He takes the pillows off the bed and shoves his duvet down, terrified at what he remembers about smothering and cot-deaths. Dream is bigger than that, he thinks, and likely not human besides, but he'd rather not take a chance. He carries Dream to what he thinks of occasionally still as Eleanor's side, glad the curtains are already drawn. He can see his eyes slitted with tiredness in the sepia gloom, and he coos to him as he lowers him down onto the mattress.

"Here you are, little prince. Plenty of room, so you won't roll off. Jess, you'll watch him, won't you girl?"

Jessamy croons in answer, and Hob scratches the top of her head. "That's a good girl. Go on then."

He watches with abject adoration as the raven hops down onto the mattress, settling against Dream's side where he's still fighting his yawns. Flicking the blanket out, Hob tucks it over Dream, leaving one arm free so that he can hold onto Jessamy's feathers. He is, Hob notes once more, very soft-handed with her. He wonders if he always was. He never witnessed his adult self touching Matthew- perhaps it was not an informality he allowed himself often. Perhaps he was afraid to grow close to another.

Heaving a soft, empathetic sigh, Hob strokes through the spiky mess of Dream's hair. The action garners a little humming sound, and Dream curling up smaller under the blanket. His eyes gleam with stars in the dark, and then drift closed as his breaths steady.

Ready to take over, Jessamy starts to groom him again, beak occasionally clicking. She is very, very gentle in turn. Hob is going to cry again.

"You shout for me if you need me, won't you, sweet girl?" Hob whispers. Jessamy croaks in apparent agreement. "Thank you. Thank you for looking after him."

It is tempting to stay. To watch over him. But he knows that is not a good precedent to set. Instead, Hob rises slowly from the edge of the bed, and tip-toes to the bathroom across the landing. He is going to need a baby monitor, he decides. And a nightlight.

Making mental lists while he showers, Hob notes to himself that he has not wanted a drink today. Good. That shit is the last thing he needs. What he needs, he decides, is a cleaner to come in. Get the place sorted for Dream, so it's safe. Needs to get a playpen, because he can't just shower when Dream is napping. God, he needs baby gates. He needs-

He needs to calm down, is what he needs. Did he even wash his hair? He can't remember.

After successfully concentrating long enough to accomplish cleaning himself, Hob does a huge Amazon order whilst he brushes his teeth. When he peers into the bedroom after, Dream is still sleeping, the watchful shadow of his raven silhouetted against the rusty suffused light of the curtains.

Hob checks the time, and then goes slowly, quietly downstairs. He needs to clean up. And he needs to make a call. He needs… to absorb this all.

He gets the bottles into recycling bags and on the balcony, and is halfway through loading the dishwasher before he has to nip up and check Dream again. Still sleeping. Still guarded by his watchful friend. Hob sees Jessamy squint at him, and smiles unsteadily. There is so much noise in his head, but it quiets when he sees Dream, little body rising and falling with his breaths, face lax with restful sleep.

With a long sigh at himself, Hob comes to his side of the bed. Sticking his phone on charge, he keeps making lists and googling numbers of cleaners in the area, accepting that for now, he's simply not ready to let Dream out of his sight for too long. It's only natural, he thinks. He'd thought he had been ripped from Hob's life forever. That he'd made the choice to leave him behind. That Hob was not enough to tether him to this world. Desire's words spin around his head like Jupiter's many moons making their dizzy way around its great surface. "We knew how he felt about you, too."