Archive of Our Own

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“Time does not change us, 

it just unfolds us.”

~ Max Frisch

It begins in a corner of the universe where space as such does not exist; where time both exists and doesn’t, begins and ends, all at once. It’s to be expected. After all, it’s the realm of Time itself. So it is there Dream of the Endless goes, the third of seven children, one of the personifications responsible for the continued existence of the universe, the one who shapes and guards all dreams and nightmares of all creatures big and small. He’s there to ask for help, even though he does not have high hopes of his request being granted. He still has to ask, has to try, he’s not ready to give up…

Time’s response is exactly the one Dream expected, though the manner in which Time chooses to deliver it… He’s sharp, needlessly cruel. Expressing without hesitation how little regard he has for his children, how much he dislikes any and all visits from them. It’s… sad, though not surprising. At least not to Dream. 

“I think I knew you wouldn't help me,” Dream admits, sad but accepting. “I think the reason I came here was to thank you. For everything you have given me, for my... existence. Every moment of it. Even this one. And I think I came here to say goodbye. I don't believe we will see each other again.” 

“And if I were inclined to help you, Dream, how would you propose I do that?” Time’s question is completely unexpected, even as Dream cannot begin to imagine it will lead to anything good. “Shall I send you back in time? So you can go to Hades on your son's behalf? I could do that for you, if you'd like. But Hades will refuse your request. And your son will find his way to the underworld, no matter what you do.” 

Dream breathes out. He had known it wouldn’t be that simple and yet… he’s not sure what to think about what his father just revealed. It doesn’t sound like the kind of thing one would say, just because, like something they’re making up. It sounds almost… almost like Time does in fact know, as if it’s something he’s already seen, already lived. A variation of a choice that ended up with the exact same result. Did he? Did his father in some parallel reality choose to help Dream, only for both of them to discover it was pointless? Or is it just that being Time allows him a certain omniscience, lets him know these things? Or perhaps something else entirely? 

“That is the only help I can give you,” Time continues. “The peace that comes from knowing it could not be other than it was. There is nothing you could have done then to save your son.”

Isn’t there? Regardless of how pointless it might be, Dream cannot help but keep asking the same question to himself. Was the option his father mentioned the only alternative available? 

“Just as you cannot save yourself now,” Time finishes the previous thought, trailing off as he tilts his head to the side. “You’re still thinking it, aren’t you? You still believe you could change things. Could make things better, if you could only try. Like some kind of do-over. Like it would change anything at all. You understand so little of time, and of inevitability… But you will. You will.”

Dream opens his mouth to ask what that’s supposed to mean, but he never gets the chance. In an instant, something happens… 

xXx

Time wouldn’t say he’s a bad father, or a cruel one. Then again, if asked, he’d say he’s no father at all. He did not choose to father children. It was, in the end, nothing more than an inconvenient consequence of his love affair with Night. Well, inconvenient to him. Very convenient to others, perhaps, seeing how the universe as a whole would not exist if it weren’t for his children.

Still, if it were up to Time, none of his so-called offspring would ever darken his doorstep. Especially not looking for boons they should know better than to request of him. What do any of them know about Time, about the universe, about inevitability? It’s pointless to try and change the past, things will always be as they’re supposed to be. 

Time is no father, but that doesn’t mean he’s not more than capable enough of teaching some lessons, especially the hard ones; and of course, dispensing punishment when appropriate (when he finds it appropriate, what anyone else might think about it is of no concern to him!).

“You understand so little of time, of inevitability…” Time tells Dream, once he’s made his decision. “But you will. You will.”

There’s a flicker in the air, a shift in the timeline as everything and nothing changes, all at the same time. Dream is still standing right there, in front of him. Which just confirms to Time what he’s always known. That nothing ever changes. At least, that’s what he thinks until his son opens his mouth and says the last thing Time ever expected to hear…

xXx

For Dream, the change feels like blinking and finding that from one moment to the next, with no warning and no movement on his part, he’s gone from standing in his father’s realm, to a beach somewhere on Earth. It’s confusing and unsettling, so much that a lesser man might have been sick. Dream doesn’t allow himself to so much as stumble before taking a step forward, completing a motion he had and hadn’t been doing before appearing there, looking around.

He realizes where he is, exactly, a moment before the reality he’s abruptly living fully hits him. He’s on a beach, on the coast of Greece. In the distance he can almost imagine he can see the island of Naxos…

And there is Orpheus. Dream doesn’t doubt, not even for a moment, that he is, in fact, back in time. He might not understand why his father would give Dream such a chance, but it is, in fact, happening, and the best thing Dream can do is take advantage of it. It’s in that very moment that Dream realizes what day it is: the day of Eurydice’s funeral. Already Dream is too late to try and save her. But then again, he never asked for the chance to save her, did he? He wanted a chance to save his son…

At first the conversation goes very much like it did the first time around, until they get to the point of it, the precise moment where things went wrong before:

“Will you not go to King Hades and Queen Persephone and plead my case?” his son asks of him. “They will listen to you.”

But will they? Time said they wouldn’t, and Dream believes him. Which means that’s not an option. Doesn’t mean it’s the only one… 

“And when they demand your life in exchange for hers?” Dream asks, not because he expects the answer to be any different, but to give himself time to make a plan.

“I will gladly give it,” Orpheus answers, as expected.

“But I will not. I will not trade my son's life away.” Of that, Dream is certain.

Orpheus might not be able to see that Dream loves him, and Dream himself might not be very good at showing it, but he does, in fact, love his son, and refuses to just give him up! 

“If I'm your son, then you will do this for me,” Orpheus insists. “I've lived my whole life. I've asked you for nothing. Will you do this for me?”

Already once before, Dream’s answer was no. Truth is that even before Time told him what he did, he already suspected that Hades would not have accepted to give Eurydice back, regardless of who asked. That’s not how things work! And yet, there must be something he can do. Dream cannot ask for a favor, and he cannot make demands (Hades would react even worse to that). Which means…

“I will plead your case,” Dream concedes. “But that is no guarantee that you will get her back.”

“Thank you father!” Orpheus exclaims, exuberant. “Thank you, I love you.” 

Dream wonders what it says about him that the people he loves only declare their own love for him when he’s doing something for them…

xXx

The events that take place over the following day are so alike, and so unlike how things were that first time, that Dream can barely process it all.

As expected, Hades isn’t willing to just surrender one of the dead to return back to the living. Exactly how Dream tried to tell his son, that’s not how the universe works. However, he agrees to let Orpheus try to earn the return to his wife. So Orpheus finds himself, just as he had before, leading Eurydice’s soul out of the underworld, and just like the first time, he cannot bring himself to trust, in himself, in the deal, in Eurydice, and ends up looking back…

Except this time around there was no meddling from Destruction, no deal done with ‘Aunt Death’. Orpheus is not immortal… When he fails the test, it’s not just Eurydice who ends up back in the Underworld… so does Orpheus.

Dream is left standing once again on that beach in Greece, mourning the loss of his son. His ears are still ringing from the shouting done by his now former-wife. She’s angry at him, claiming he did not do enough, that he failed her, failed their son. She has no idea how things could have gone. Would she have preferred the outcome from the other universe, he wonders. Orpheus would be alive, yes, but he would not be living. It’s something Dream has now come to understand: Orpheus might not have been able to die, because of the deal he recklessly made with Death, but that does not mean he truly lived during all those years.

Is it better, Dream wonders, for him to have died as he did? He tried to save Eurydice, and he still failed, but at least they’re now together. Dream knows that much, Persephone shared that information with him, and he believes her. Dream suspects that his son, at least, would have chosen this outcome over the other one, given the chance.

As for Dream… he thinks he’s beginning to understand why his father chose to send him back. It wasn’t about giving him a chance to save Orpheus. No, it was meant as a lesson. Time said it himself, didn’t he? Something about inevitability, and how Dream would understand… So no, being back isn’t a gift, it’s a punishment, and Dream suspects that there won’t be an easy ending for it. No, knowing his father as Dream does, he’ll have to take the ‘long way’ back to his time. Which means living the following millennia all over again. To eventually end up in exactly the same place, the same circumstances, with nothing having truly changed. Inevitability indeed…

xXx

Do-overs are boring in the long run, Dream decides. He might be a different personification, a different ‘Dream’ than he was at this stage of his existence the first time around (at least as different as he can be without being a different facet entirely), but that doesn’t mean the world around him is ready or even willing to change with him.

Calliope hates him. The reason might not be the exact same as it was in the other timeline, but perhaps it may be even worse, this time around, with Orpheus well and truly gone. Dream has every intention of ensuring this Calliope never has to go through what the other one did. Which means that she probably will never have a need to call for him, never have a reason to want to make peace with him. But that’s okay. Dream can accept that, if it means she’ll never have to suffer at the hands of those vile human men…

Then there are his creations. The dreams are so shy around him, the nightmares don’t really trust him, and even his Arcana… At times it feels as if the harder Dream tries, the worse it gets! He’s been so distant, cold, almost cruel to them for so long, believing that it was for the best, that he should focus on his duty and nothing else. And what has that got him? Nothing at all!

Something Dream realized as his life was slowly but surely coming to a close was how little some of the things he’d long believed most important, truly mattered. All the centuries, the millennia, that he spent working so hard, devoting himself to his work, his function, and for what? Humanity kept going just fine when he was held captive. Yes, a great many of them were hurt by his captivity, but aside from the sleepy sickness, humanity was largely unaffected by Dream being gone. And it wasn’t just the humans, but all creatures great and small. In short, the world would keep on running, no matter how much or how little he did, so what was the point then in the end?

And if, like Death once said, his function is his purpose, what has he left when he’s turned out to be utterly superfluous for it all?

As Dream learns, it’s not a good thing for him to have so much time on his hands, with so little to do. His mind spirals, reminding him over and over of all the ways in which he’s failed those he cares about, those he rules over, and those he’s meant to serve (which means, in the end, everyone). The thought of going through everything all over again, knowing there’s nothing he can do to truly change anything in the long run… It makes him wonder more than once what’s the point of it all. It also serves to reaffirm how cruel his father can be, to have put Dream in such a position. Though, is it truly Time’s fault when Dream was the one asking for the chance? When, even after his father’s warning, Dream kept wanting to believe the past truly could be changed?

All this makes it so that when Death drops by and demands that the two of them spend time together, Dream hardly pays it any mind. It’s not like it’s the first (or the last) time Death goes to him, hoping to ‘brighten up’ Dream’s mood. He has to wonder why she even does it. She has to know how pointless it all is, how pointless it’s always been. So, Dream follows her, paying little attention to his surroundings and really, to anything going on, until a voice reaches him, words he knows so very well…

“Look, I've seen death. I lost half my village to the Black Death. I fought under Buckingham in Burgundy. It's not like I don't know what death is. Death is... stupid.” 

Just for a moment, a mere fraction of a second, Dream freezes. Then he turns and… there he is: Hob Gadling, dirtier, smellier, younger in every possible way. This Hob is nothing like the man Dream met with in that dream the last time, the one where Hob was trying to sell an old computer to Queen Elizabeth I. The one where they shared some wine and Hob made a toast…

The Hob on the other side of the White Horse in this moment isn’t that Hob, though the potential for that man, lives in this one. Dream wonders, just for a moment, if perhaps it’s one potential he should let die. If perhaps Dream should just… turn around, walk away, before his sister meddles (good as her intentions might be), before Hob is made immortal. is turned into the man who’ll live for centuries, never able to settle down, never able to form truly meaningful friendships, to have a love that truly lasts. A Hob who will be ultimately lonely… much like Dream himself.

It’s something Dream came to understand, while in his own captivity. That Hob’s knowledge of Dream’s loneliness in 1889 didn’t come from the human seeing Dream as weak, or wanting to exploit a vulnerability. It came from Hob’s own loneliness; perhaps even, a hope that they might be able to abate that loneliness, together. It’s certainly something Dream would have liked… if only the universe weren’t so focused on making such things impossible!

Maybe it’d be better for Hob to be left alone. To live and die like all mortals should… And yet, by the time Dream reaches that tentative conclusion, it’s much too late already.

“Dream!” Death hisses to call his attention.

There’s a glint in her eyes, and Dream can tell, before she says a word, that she’s seen where his attention was, or rather, on who. Dream also notices that he’s been so lost in thoughts of Hob that he completely forgot to interject like he did the first time around.

“You’re really interested in this one,” Death says, curious. “Very well. I will grant him his wish.”

Before Dream can bring himself to say something to Death, anything that might stop her, he senses it, like a shift in the air in the very room. He knows then that it’s already too late. Hob is now immortal.

There it is again. The inevitability Time warned him about. Once again Dream is left watching an event he’d have liked to change, unable to do a thing about it.

He still chooses to be the one to deliver the news to Hob, and even uses the exact same words as he did the first time around because, why not? It’s not like it’ll make any difference at this point.

xXx

Somehow, a hundred years seem to happen almost too fast. Perhaps it’s all the years, centuries, even millennia of ennui Dream’s had to endure since being thrown back in time. But it truly feels like 1489 comes around much too fast.

Dream meets Hob, just as expected, at the White Horse. At first, the meeting is going exactly as it did the first time around. 

“I'm here because I'm interested.”

“In me?”

Dream makes the decision in a split second and changes his answer, just a bit: 

“In your experience.” He states, then adds. “I want to know what makes someone want to live forever.”

“Someone…?” Hob repeats, head tilted to the side. “Aren’t you immortal as well?” 

“I am,” Dream confirms. “And yet the point stands.”

Hob just stares at Dream for a little while, and the King of Dreams wonders if the human is perhaps reading a bit more than planned into those words… But that’s not possible, is it? This Hob is not that Hob. This Hob doesn’t know Dream enough to know that, to know anything at all.

“What do I have to do?” Hob asks, eventually.

Dream exhales slowly, deciding that his small deviation must not have been enough to change much of anything in the end. And this time, that’s just fine with him.

xXx

Another century comes and goes, and Dream makes his way to the White Horse. He notices the young Will Shakespeare the moment he steps into the pub but says nothing, not yet, the time will come for that. It’s something that Dream decided before ever leaving the Dreaming this time around. The deal he made with the playwright the first time around is a good one, it will give both of them what they want. But that does not mean Dream has to abandon Hob for it. It’ll be easy enough for Dream to find a dreamer such as Will, even if he happens to leave the pub before Dream does.

“My friend!” Hob calls to him right then, seemingly just noticing Dream standing there.

It’s a stark reminder to Dream of how quickly, how easily, Hob decided Dream was to be his friend. Long before ever knowing… anything, about Dream himself, even his name! Even that last time the two of them met before the time-travel, in that dream, Hob might have known Dream’s name, his function, but he didn’t really know what it all meant…

Dream wonders if he might be able to change that much… Then wonders what the point of it all would be. Like his father said, some things are inevitable. Which means that eventually, Dream will find his way back to that moment, that moment where he finally knew he wanted to live, only to know he was to soon die… 

In the end Dream cuts those thoughts short, leaving them for another day, instead focusing on joining Hob at his table, on hopefully doing right by his friend this time around.

Dream goes as far as accepting some of the food Hob keeps offering him and the result is… more than he expected. Usually, Dream has no need to bother with food while in the Waking World. Why should he? It doesn’t really sustain him, and unless he has to spend a considerable amount of time there, he doesn’t actually need it. Also, whenever he eats something he can pick up on the dreams attached to everything, traces from every person who touched every dish and drink at one point: from the farmer who harvested the ingredients, to the server attending them. Yet this time, somehow Hob’s own dreams, his hopes for the sharing of this food, of his good fortune with someone he sees as both a benefactor, and friend, those dreams are stronger than any others attached to the food. It somehow makes things tastier than they’ve ever been.

When Hob mentions his wife and son, and shows Dream the portrait miniature, the King of Dreams cannot help but remember Orpheus. The first time around, Dream’s choice to leave Hob when he did wasn’t just about Shakespeare, his dreams; it was also because he was all too aware of what awaited Hob, with a mortal wife and son. It had hit Dream harder than he expected it to, when he was still trying so hard to maintain a distance. The realization that he liked Hob, the belief that sometime soon, after having lost his wife and son, Hob probably would stop wanting to live… The thought was too much, and like Dream often did, he chose to push it aside, to ignore it (at least until 1689…); and so he left.

This time, he decides to handle things differently.

“Do you love them, Robert Gadling?” Dream asks, his voice full of a quiet intensity.

“I… but of course!” Hob exclaims. “My sweet Eleanor, and little Robyn, they’re the best things to ever happen to me!” 

“I had a son, once,” Dream says very, very softly.

Hob freezes, hand inches away from a pasty and Dream can see his mind working to process the revelation, and what it might mean, exactly. 

“I bid you remember that love, always,” Dream tells him. “Value your family, hold them close. And remember that one day they’ll be gone. Enjoy what you have while you still have it.” 

For a moment he wonders if Hob will perhaps try to ask for his wife and son to be made immortal. Wonders what Hob’s response might be when Dream refuses him. And yet, Hob never asks…

“Thank you,” is what the human says instead.

His tone is quiet and solemn, as if he were truly capable of grasping the full depth of what Dream has said, of what he knows lies in Hob’s future. It’s ridiculous to even consider it, and yet…

xXx

In the years that follow the 1589 meeting, Hob seems to frequently be on Dream’s mind. He thinks back on their conversation often, bringing to mind Hob’s wide smile as he named Dream friend, the seriousness with which he received Dream’s words regarding his mortal family, the solemnity in his voice as he gave his thanks. Even as he keeps an eye on Shakespeare, as he deals with the Fair-Folk’s departure from Earth, and so many other things; including the knowledge that sometime soon his little brother will leave and never come back. Even with all of that, his mind often returns to one Hob Gadling.

At some point, Dream starts to think about how he might help his friend (because Hob is his friend, even if Dream has failed to communicate this fact to the human, thus far). Hob is his friend, and Dream would like to make the following century… perhaps less terrible than it once was.

He remembers an offhanded comment Hob made during their 1689 meeting, in the other timeline, about the last eighty years being so terrible. Dream assumes that must have been when he lost everything. So on the appointed day, he seeks out Hob, not in the Waking, but in the Dreaming. Dream approaches slowly, from the shadows, not wanting to startle his friends, or to interrupt if there might be no need. What he finds, is more (and worse) than Dream would have ever expected.

In the dream (though one that involves no dreams, and no nightmares of Dream’s creation), Hob is kneeling before the ruins of a grand estate. The place looks like it was destroyed in a terrible fire, probably looted as well, considering the ruined doors and windows and the objects strewn at the doors. However, it does not stop there. To his left, there’s a dock (impossible as it might be in the real world, this is a dream so impossibilities matter very little). The dock is somewhat damaged, though the ships  are the star of that section, or rather the detritus and flotsam of what must have once been quite a few grand ships. Yet, it is perhaps what’s on the right that gives Dream true chills: a pair of graves. Dream wouldn’t need to read either gravestone to know who they must belong to; which, perhaps, may be a good thing, since they’re broken into pieces. An additional detail catches his eye. It’s… it’s like someone dug into the graves to pull the bodies back out, which makes no sense! Who would want to desecrate those graves?! Then Dream’s eyes finally return to Hob, and he notices something he failed to see initially: the fact that the human is wearing nothing more than a long nightshirt; no robe, or coat, not even shoes, and what’s more, he’s soaked to the bone!

Dream abruptly remembers Hob’s comment about how they tried to drown him as a witch. At the time, Dream had taken that to mean that they had failed and saw the failure as no one ever managing to actually do it. Perhaps instead he should have considered the now obvious answer: that they failed simply because Hob did not die of it, rather than because they didn’t get to drown him. How long did he spend under the water? How many times did he drown before he got the chance to escape? Was there anyone there for him, willing to aid Hob when he needed a kind soul the most?  Why couldn’t Dream be that someone?! 

It’s then that Dream comes to a sad realization regarding how little he truly knows of Hob. Even with their meetings, with all Hob would tell Dream about his life, his experiences, there’s so much Dream just doesn’t know. It should come as no surprise, for what are a few hours every hundred years in the face of the actual centuries? No matter how much Hob talked, he’d have never been able to share everything that happened to him during that time, which means that now, Dream does not know nearly enough to truly be of help.

In the end, Dream never approaches Hob, neither in the Dreaming, nor in the Waking World. For what difference would it make? It wouldn’t change a thing, and how could Dream ever explain that he had the best of intentions, yet once again failed to do anything of significance? It’s too much.

The best he can do, what he ends up doing, is visit the dreams of a man who has the means and who, after so many years watching men and women being unjustly executed for presumably being witches (regardless of whether they were or not) wishes to do something to try and help. He gives this man a dream, which leads him to recover the bones of Eleanor and Robyn Gadling and rebury them properly, with new gravestones. There’s even a blessing from a priest. Dream also makes sure that the news reaches Hob indirectly. Dream may not be able to make life easier for his friend in any way, but at least he can give him some peace; a resolution to one of the things that torment his sleep most…

Many a night Dream considers visiting Hob in his dreams, considers offering him comfort there, even if he cannot do so in the Waking. However he never does so. The truth is, a part of him is too afraid of what acting so out of the ordinary, so far from the established routine, would lead to.

And then 1689 comes…

This time, there’s already food on the table by the time Hob arrives; filling, hearty fare Dream asked be brought; he’s also using just enough power to ensure it’ll remain warm until Hob finds his way there. Dream also makes arrangements so Hob will find his way to their table unimpeded (once there, he will be able to make sure that the people around them, if not forget about them, at least find themselves uninterested, so there will be no stares and no gossip this time around). Finally, Dream’s rented a room for Hob for a week. He will tell Hob about it at the end of their meeting, give his friend a chance to bathe, sleep in a bed, and truly rest before he starts over.

When Hob arrives, he looks suspiciously at the woman who leads him to the table, as well as the men who watch him pass without saying a thing. Hob says nothing, simply dropping into the chair and nodding at them before turning to Dream.

“Hello, my friend,” Dream greets him softly when Hob doesn’t immediately start talking.

Something happens at that moment. Like some sort of force transforming the human’s face. There is a smoothing out of his features, the suspicion vanishing and leaving in its place something that might be called wonder, hope, perhaps even joy. Dream blinks, hardly able to believe it. Such a great change just for… just because Dream called him friend?! But then the Endless remembers the way Hob had smiled at him in the other timeline too, the first time Dream called him friend. It had been in a roundabout way, and after having rather cruelly turned down Hob’s first offer of friendship more than a century before; and yet even that was enough… Of course, the change then hadn’t been quite so stark, because that Hob hadn’t been suffering for decades, not like the one before him now. It makes the change all the more evident.

It seems that this certain change will have an effect on the entirety of their meeting. Hob’s much less morose than he was the first time around. He talks, rather frankly, about having lost everything, but he also speaks about the strangers who’ve helped him, including the two men who saved his life during the Great Fire of London. Two men who had never met him, who must have seen in Hob nothing more than a poor vagrant, emaciated and stinky, and yet they still helped him, got him away from the danger, and to a barge that carried them out of London. They even gave him a few coins, which allowed him to eat for a few days!

Another story Hob tells is about a lord, Dream pays no attention to the name, a man who saw to the reburial of several dozen individuals whose bodies had been pulled out of their graves and placed in unconsecrated tombs because of some connection to individuals being accused of heresy. Among those who were reburied were Hob’s own wife and son.

“You cannot know how…” Hob swallows. “It’s not like this brings them back; of course not, nothing can do that. But knowing they’re… that they’re at peace? That their remains are properly buried, as they ought to be? As they deserve to be? There is a certain comfort in that. And also in… in having a place to go to, where I can… can remember them, can feel like I’m close to them, like I can talk to them.”

“There is,” Dream agrees gravely. He ponders things for a moment, before deciding he might as well. “I told you before, I had a son. This was… a very long time ago. He died, much like your Robyn, when he was still young. Young, and impetuous and reckless… so much like myself.” It’s taken Dream a long time to comprehend how much like him his son truly was. “His name was Orpheus.”

By Hob’s sharp inhalation, Dream guesses he doesn’t have to tell the story. He wonders if Hob came across the classics during his time as a Lord, or perhaps back when he was working in the printing press business. It doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, but still.

“I am sorry, my friend,” Hob murmurs quietly. And then comes the last thing Dream would have ever expected: “What was he like?”

“I…” Dream blinks, somewhat in mild shock. “I’m sure you must know the stories…”

“I’m not asking about the stories,” Hob corrects gently. “And aye, I’ve read them. I’ve read what other people have to say about your son: his adventures, his love, his loss, his tragedy. What I’m asking is what you have to say, not of the deeds he might have done, but what he was like…”

Dream blinks, again, still not quite understanding.

“My Robyn was a wildcard,” Hob begins, pondering. “He used to be so shy as a boy, but as he got older, he changed. I think part of it was the loss of his mother, but also… He heard way too many of my own stories. Most of them not from myself, mind you, but from others. Stories of my travels, of all the things I got up to before he was born, before I was even married to Eleanor. And I think… I think he felt like he had to… to live up to it all, in some way. Like maybe he had to go out and do crazy things so he could prove that he truly was my son… It eventually led him to his death. Though before that, he got the chance to know people, to experience things I never did. He was happy, despite everything and… I think that’s a good thing. He got to enjoy his life, while he had it.”

Dream examines Hob for a moment, considering everything the human just said. He never revealed that much to Dream the first time around, not at any point in their friendship (then again, they had so little time to truly be friends…). It helps Dream make up his own mind.

“Orpheus was… he was intense, and passionate, in love with life and the world, and with music… He loved music deeply…” Dream says quietly. “Listening to him sing was… I haven’t been able to properly enjoy music since he’s been gone.”

“It makes something inside ache” Hob agrees, unexpectedly. “Seeing something, or tasting something, or doing something that reminds you of them. It can be excruciating. But… I think it can also help us remember the good things. Like…” His eyes dart down and around the table before landing on a bowl, to which he points. “Like the pottage. Many looked down on me when I asked the cooks to make it, considering it as peasant food. They saw it as a sign that I wasn’t ‘truly noble’. But it’s good, hearty food, and Robyn came to love it in time. Eleanor would often reminisce that she kept wanting more and more of it when she was pregnant with him… Or,” he looks at the honeyed tart, picking one up. “Eleanor kept asking for these during her last pregnancy. I often wonder… I’m sure our baby girl would have been born loving all things sweet.”

“I have a preference for sweet things myself,” Dream admits, surprising even himself by the revelation. “Orpheus and I would often share a big piece of kortoplakous in the middle of the afternoons; it’s sort of an old version of baklava. Calliope, his mother, would often complain to me that I indulged the boy too much but… It was our time. Something the two of us shared…”

The meeting that day goes on well into the night, when all the patrons have gone and Hob’s yawning so often he’s practically half asleep at the table already. Dream is pretty sure that it’s only his power that has kept the attendants from asking them to leave. So he tells Hob about the room he’s rented, and bids his friend get some proper rest.

It’s… it’s honestly the best afternoon Dream’s had in a very long time. Spent with a friend, talking about their experiences, with both of them talking. Also… Dream thinks that perhaps, thanks to all their talking, he might actually be mourning his son, this time. It’s… it’s good. He wouldn’t say he’s changed anything in the end, not really. But it makes Dream feel more at peace than he ever did, the first time around. And that… that’s good. 

xXx

Hob’s the one who arrives first for the 1789 meeting, paying for a private room and everything. When Dream arrives he takes a small detour, using his power to ensure that when Lady Constantine comes calling, she won’t find what she’s looking for. It might be selfish of Dream, but he wants absolutely no interruptions now that he has the option to avoid them. (It’s not like he needs to know the lady, or for her to become aware of him, he won’t be needing her services… ever).

Hours later, things seem to be going particularly well. They’ve talked about Hob’s current life, about the theater, Shakespeare…about Hob’s contingency plans in case he ever has to get away in a hurry (Dream’s glad he’s prepared, and might never go through something like what he did in the early 1600s again). They even talk a bit about the unrest in France, and how things aren’t looking very good over there. Hob seems especially animated when he gets talking about all his years spent at sea. Talking about pirates, and how life as one is nothing like he expected it to be, and at the same time, exactly as he expected it would be.

“Which makes not a lick of sense, I know!” Hob exclaims.

“Hob Gadling…” Dream begins.

“Look, I know piracy isn’t exactly, you know, what you’d call honest work,” Hob says, a bit self-conscious, pulling at his earlobe just a bit. “Since we’re stealing other people’s goods and all that. But since most of those ‘goods’ are actually people themselves, I think that ought to count for something!”

“What…?” Dream’s suddenly at a bit of a loss.

“Haven’t you heard about it?” Hob asks, suddenly more serious. “Most people around these parts call it the shipping business. Like it’s like any other trade, like they’re selling and buying… I don’t know, raw cotton or sugar, or luxury items, and not… and not fucking people!” He scoffs. “To think that some people actually see that as normal. Say it’s how things are done! Well, we know better, don’t we?”

“Yes, we do,” Dream agrees.

Though a part of him cannot help but wonder what exactly led Hob Gadling to this conclusion in this particular timeline. Was it this pirate friend of his? Or someone else…?

“You know, sometimes I don’t understand how some people can be so blind…” Hob says, thoughtful. “Then I remember what I was like, all those years ago; after my first century, even after my second. And I realize I was just as bad as them! Might still be, if it were not for you, my friend.”

Dream blinks owlishly; that makes absolutely no sense.

“You’re not human,” Hob points out, seemingly apropos of nothing. “What’s more, I’m pretty sure that whatever you are, wherever you come from, you’re highborn, probably a lord or a prince or something along those lines. Yet you’ve never treated me as any less than you; not for my humanity, or even my status as a peasant. You treated me no different when I was nothing more than a farmer and sometimes mercenary, a printer, or when I was a lord. That’s what made me see how wrong it is for some people to see others as less for… for things like their origins, or their circumstances. You told me once I was to live my life as I choose. I think everyone should be able to do that, and it’s terrible that some do not get that choice, because others believe themselves with the power to take that choice away…”

“While I am honored that you believe I’ve aided you in any way, in the end the choice has always been yours.” Dream points out. 

“It has,” Hob agrees. “Yet it was you, your example, that helped me make the right one.”

Dream doesn’t believe that to be true. That he could have affected Hob’s life in such a way.  Yet he doesn’t try denying it again. Denial also doesn’t feel right. One thing does feel right though, what’s more, it feels very long overdue.

“Dream,” he blurts out.

“What…?” Hob looks at him, cup in hand, looking more than a bit confused. 

“That's my name,” Dream clarifies. “Or well, one of many. I’ve been known by many names, depending on the era, and the culture. But my truest of all, is Dream of the Endless. I am the Lord of Dreams, King of the Nightmare Realms, the Shaper of Forms, the Oneiromancer, the King of All Night’s Dreaming…”

A second passes, two, and then…

“So I was right then,” Hob blurts out unexpectedly. “You are a royal! Bloody hell…”

Of all the things for Hob Gadling to fixate on… And yet, Dream supposes it’s just like him, to react in the last way the King of Dreams would expect! Dream cannot help himself at that point. He laughs.

xXx

“You know, friends don’t need to wait a hundred years to meet each other.” Hob says that to him, at the end of their 1789 meeting. “You don’t have to decide anything right now. Just… just know you’re welcome, wherever I am. Any day, any time, for whatever the reason, and even for no reason at all. You will always be welcome.”

When Hob first makes that offer to him, Dream doesn’t really intend on taking him up on it. And yet one day, sometime in the early 1800s, Dream has just left Destiny’s Garden after the latest attempt at a ‘family dinner’ (they aren’t the same anymore, not without Destruction, they never will be again). Dream just… he’s in a stormy mood, and as always, Desire is to blame. Dream knows that if he returns to the Dreaming there will be thunderstorms and Jessamy will be drenched, trying to keep warm while at the same time refusing to leave his side. Lucienne will look at him forlornly, worried about him yet not quite daring to comment on it. Dream has tried hard to make Lucienne open up more to him, like she used to be in the other timeline and truth is, their relationship is much better than it was at this stage, once; but it’s still not the same. This Lucienne has never had to deal with Dream being gone for over a century, with being the only reason that the realm remains standing through it all. She hasn’t been there for Dream through that, through his return, and every other mess that followed. She doesn’t yet know how strong she can be, how strong she already is! And Dream doesn’t know how to explain it right… The best he can do is be respectful, and little by little show that he trusts her, that he knows her to be capable.

Still, his realm ending up flooded will not help Dream with either of them. Or really, with any of the other denizens of the Dreaming, whom he has also been trying to get along better with, especially when he’s finally been seeing improvements! 

All in all, Dream doesn’t exactly plan on going to the Waking World, straight to Hob. It just… kind of happens. Dream doesn’t regret it. Hob is currently living in America. Where, he explains to Dream, he’s bought several homes in the South, and moves between them, helping the Underground Railroad.

“Still helping free slaves, then?” Dream inquires, intrigued.

“No one should ever be a slave,” Hob retorts. “No one should be forced into a prison when they don’t deserve it; when they’ve done nothing for it. When their only way out is… is either death or someone with undeserved power having mercy on them.” He scoffs. “Which of course they won’t, because if these people had any mercy, they wouldn’t be keeping slaves in the first place, would they?”

The visit ends up being rather short, and it does fulfill the purpose of getting Dream’s mind away from Desire and the absolute disaster of a family dinner. Afterwards he cannot help but think back on Hob’s words, repeatedly. ‘No one should be forced into a prison when they don’t deserve it. When they’ve done nothing…’ It makes Dream think about Nada, about their love, and how it destroyed them both in different ways.

A week later, Dream heads to Hell. He might never be able to forgive Nada for forsaking him; for choosing death, and not only that, but committing suicide, rather than staying with him, after she claimed to love him… But he’s finally realized that it’s not fair for her to remain in Hell, either. They both made mistakes, and maybe it’s time for Dream to accept his own and move on…

xXx

It becomes almost… easier, in a way, to keep visiting Hob outside of their agreed centennial meetings, after that first time.

Hob Gadling stays in the United States until 1865, when the Civil War ends, and slavery is officially abolished. Though as Dream learns throughout his visits, he isn’t always to be found in the South. Hob acquires a number of houses in the North as well, and aside from using them as refuge for the fleeing slaves the Underground is helping escape, he also uses them as he, and several others, hunt down the people working in what they call the ‘Reverse Underground Railroad’, those kidnapping free black people to sell them into slavery.

“You know, I’ve been a fighter my whole life,” Hob tells Dream at one point. “Haven’t always been proud of it. Especially of my times as a highwayman,” he shakes his head. “But it’s kind of what I know how to do, you know? I’ve always been a good fighter. But now, doing this? It feels like I’m finally doing it for a good reason.”

“It’s good that you’re so willing to take care of others, to help protect those who need it,” Dream says solemnly. “But I bid you take care, Hob, my friend. I would hate for you to end up in a bad situation. I know you cannot die, but there are things in this world worse than death.”

“I know,” Hob nods. “I am being careful, my friend, I promise.”

Hob manages to make it back to London by 1889, and their meeting on the 7th of June of that year takes place in the White Horse. And yet, they’ve been meeting with increasing frequency in the last century, and thus there’s very little Hob can tell Dream about his century that the Endless doesn’t know about already. He was even there for some of it! Still, that doesn’t stop them from enjoying the evening as they drink wine and talk about how much and how little London and the people in it have changed.

A part of Dream cannot help but compare this meeting with the one in the original timeline. So much has changed, and there’s no way things could go as they did then. Everything’s just too different… isn’t it? And yet Dream still fears, he can still remember Time talking about inevitability, cannot forget that going through things all over again is meant to be a punishment. And then Hob starts talking…

“How much do you think we people ever change, really?” Hob asks quietly. “Suppose it’d depend on the person. Some of us have more time, more opportunities to change, don’t we?”

“Hob…” Dream begins, hesitant.

“You know, I still remember what you said to me that day,” Hob says, looking straight at him, almost piercing the Endless with his eyes. “In 1489. You said you wanted to know why someone would want to live forever. And I remember wondering how you could ask something like that, being immortal yourself. It didn’t occur to me back then. I chose to be immortal, I wanted to never die, and was such a lucky bastard that the right individual happened to hear me and decided to grant me my wish. But with you… it wasn’t your choice, was it? You didn’t choose to be immortal. That’s why you wanted to know. Because you would have never chosen it yourself.”

Dream is extremely tense. He doesn’t know what he feels most in that moment: anger, or sadness. How is it that Hob always ends up knowing him so well? Too well…The way he so fearlessly goes ahead and says things… It makes Dream want to cry, makes him want to scream, makes him want to flee…

In the back of his mind, Dream can almost hear his father’s voice whispering: inevitable…

“When I realized the truth,” Hob continues, either not noticing what’s going on with Dream, or choosing to ignore it for the time being. “It made me sad, you know? Sad that you weren’t happy to be alive, probably still aren’t. It’s… I hate that, you know? Because me? I’m so, so happy. So terribly, selfishly happy…”

And of course Hob Gadling is happy to be alive, it’s his choice, isn’t it, it’s always been… And yet what Dream doesn’t see coming, is what the human ends up saying…

“… that you’re alive.”

Dream just… freezes. He cannot have heard that right.

“I don’t think you realize this, my friend, but you’re my one constant,” Hob continues. “You’re my… my axle, my pivot, the point upon which my world, my whole existence, turns. My centuries begin and end with you. Simply put, my friend, I wouldn’t be the man, the person I am today, if it were not for you. And I don’t mean it just because of the immortality I was granted because of you. And yeah, you might not have been the one to give it to me, but we both know you’re the reason. Everything I am today, I owe it to you. You gave me a reason to improve myself, to want to be more than what I thought I had to be. More than just a farmer, more than a soldier, more than just a boy without a family, without a home… Even when I’ve been at my lowest, you, your mere existence, gave me the motivation to keep going, because I had to see you again… All this is to say that, you’re what has made this immortal life of mine worth it, and I dearly hope that some day I might be able to give even just a fraction of all you’ve given me, back to you…”

It hits Dream then, with such strength and in such a way that he cannot help but wonder how he could have ever missed it: Hob loves him. As easy as it might be to believe that this is a new development, or at least, one that only concerns this timeline, Dream cannot lie to himself. As oblivious as he might have been until this very moment, the moment he realizes it, he cannot help but see everything much more clearly. Hob loves him, always has. Not just this new Hob that seems to have been shaped by Dream’s own changes, but the old Hob, his best (first… truest) friend as well.

Dream’s own power acts almost before he consciously calls upon it. As he stands up abruptly, Hob follows immediately, almost as if on instinct alone. Only by the moment they’re both on their feet they’re no longer standing by their table in the middle of the White Horse, but instead in the middle of a room Dream has never seen before, a room he only knows to be a safe place in Hob’s mind, probably his current place of residence…

“Dream…?” the human begins, questioningly.

He never gets the chance to ask any questions, not really. Dream doesn’t allow it. What need is there for questions, when the answers are already so obvious? Or they will be, soon enough. They become so the moment Dream presses himself against the human, pressing their mouths together in a kiss that doesn’t feel like a first kiss at all. There is no nervousness, no hesitation, no fight for dominance, no need for one to lead the other… It’s a give and take, a perfect balance. It's tenderness and passion and trust and friendship and so much love that Dream cannot imagine how he could ever be without it. Then again, just because he didn’t know it was there, doesn’t mean he didn’t have it, does it?

xXx

It’s strangely fascinating the way everything and nothing seems to change after 1889. It’s almost as if realizing that the love has been there all along has made it so their relationship doesn’t really feel like something new. Not really. It’s as if a part of them has always been working towards it, working towards being in the right place, to truly be together. It’s made things so much easier. Hob doesn’t feel insecure of his place in Dream’s life, despite knowing he’s so much greater, more powerful. Dream too feels confident that he has Hob’s absolute love and devotion, that no matter if he may be able to spend all day, every day, by the human’s side, their dedication to each other is absolute.

It’s, in many ways, the easiest relationship Dream’s been involved in his whole life. For so long he’s been seen as too much in some things, not enough in others. Some lovers saw him as too intense, too clingy; others as too cold, too distant. None of them seemed to like the way he can sometimes focus so much on his function that he’ll be absent for long stretches of time. Then again, that doesn’t happen as much anymore, as Dream has been trying to keep a better balance of his work.

Of course there are still times when he’ll get lost in a creative fugue. Times when inspiration will hit and he’ll devote his whole attention to shaping a new dream or nightmare. The first couple of times this happens, after starting a relationship with Hob Gadling, Dream comes out of it nervous, afraid that Hob might be angry, or worse, upset, by Dream’s extended absence. That at some point he too might decide he cannot be waiting for Dream all the time. But that never happens. Instead, Dream comes out of it to find Hob curled up on a very comfortable armchair in the library, going through one of the many books he’ll never be able to access in the Waking World. Later on, as the inhabitants of the Dreaming come to know him better, to see and accept Hob’s place as Dream’s lover, it becomes normal to find Hob in the throne room, sitting at the foot of the stairs that lead to Dream’s throne, talking to some dreams or nightmares, helping them through whatever issue they might have been having (which, in turn ends up being a huge help with Dream’s own duties).

“He’s good for you, my lord,” Lucienne tells him one day, out of nowhere.

It’s still rare for her to offer advice or any sort of comment whatsoever without Dream asking for it first. That she’s chosen this moment, this reason to do so, sends waves of elation throughout Dream’s true manifestation.

“He is,” Dream agrees wholeheartedly.

“We’re glad to see you happy, my lord,” Lucienne says, a small, impish smile gracing her face before she adds. “And not just because the weather’s much improved nowadays.”

Dream’s jaw actually drops at that. For Lucienne to feel comfortable enough to say something like that, to actually tease him! He laughs. They both do.

xXx

After telling his lover about the Corinthian, (about all the nightmare is, all the ways things have gone wrong with him, and the fact that said nightmare has totally rebelled and started killing in the Waking World; and not only that, but that Dream has decided that he must go after him as the Corinthian needs to be stopped before more innocents end up dead) Hob, of course, decides that if Dream’s going after a rogue nightmare, he’s tagging along as well.

Which is, pretty much, how Dream and Hob end up cornering the rogue nightmare in Germany, one summer night in the mid 1910s. Dream approaches the Nightmare first, Hob hanging back at his lover’s request, at least for the time being.

“Corinthian,” Dream addresses the Nightmare. “My creations stay in The Dreaming. They do not walk amongst the living, killing mortals for pleasure.”

“Isn't this why you created me?” the Corinthian asks in a challenging tone. “Why should we confine ourselves to their sleeping minds? Here, in the waking world, we're unstoppable. There is nothing preventing us from taking whoever, whatever we want.”

“There is though.” He is the one.

Dream extends a hand to begin calling the power that makes the Corinthian back, to unmake him, but the nightmare isn’t done just yet.  Having noticed Hob standing back, the Corinthian grasps onto what he believes to be a weakness of his maker:

“I've done my best to be what you made me,” the Corinthian points out.

“No, you've done your worst, which was in so many ways what I had hoped,” Dream admits. “You were my masterpiece. A dark mirror made to reflect everything humanity will not confront.”

“That's what I am,” the nightmare agrees. “That's what I'm doing.”

“No,” Dream shakes his head, almost sad. “Killing others is not giving you anything, it’s not giving me, or the humans, anything either.” He exhales. “You’ve become nothing more but another thing for people to be afraid of. Not anything extraordinary, just one of many…”

The comment is meant as an insult, and the Corinthian clearly knows it, by the snarl that comes from him. He’s angry now, furious. Dream has a very good idea of what he’ll be doing next. And he’s right.

“So what now? You send me back into their dreams?” the nightmare scoffs. “You think I'm going back to the Dreaming with you…”

“You're not going back,” Dream cuts him off. “I brought you into this world to serve humanity. Not to feed upon it.”

“Do you know why I do it?” the Corinthian challenges. “So I can taste what it's like to be human. And you don't care about humanity. You only care about yourself and your realm and your rules.” he turns to Hob then. “Has he told you what I’ve done? What I’ve become?”

“You’re a killer,” Hob answers simply. “Nothing extraordinary.”

And there it is. Dream knew, from the moment Hob insisted on going with him on the hunt for the Corinthian, from the moment he chose to allow it; he knew that the nightmare would see the human as the weak point. Would seek to hurt Dream through him. Then again, the Corinthian doesn’t know Hob…

“I am what he made me,” the nightmare hisses. “Did he tell you that? All of us, but especially the Major Arcana. He put pieces of himself in each of us. His own dreams, nightmares, his own desires… So really, my own actions are but a reflection of what he truly wants, deep down. What he’s so afraid to admit to wanting, even to himself.”

“How little you know your own creator…” Hob’s words take the Corinthian completely by surprise.

“What…?” the nightmare’s left entirely at a loss.

“You said it yourself, that you do what you do because you want to taste what it’s like to be human,” Hob elaborates. “And see, that part I did know already. He pretty much laid it out for me from our second meeting! The difference is that while he’s chosen to experience all of humanity in order to get to know it, to better understand it, you’re limiting yourself to the very worst of it. There’s so much more to being human than just dying.”

“I am a nightmare,” the Corinthian snaps.

“You are,” Hob agrees. “And the nightmares humans may have while alive are so, so much greater than a few seconds of fear and misery when death is upon them.”

“Who says I kill them that quickly?” the Nightmare refuses to give in.

“You’re missing the point,” Hob rolls his eyes. “You’re acting like a spoiled toddler. And like immature children the world over, you’re then trying to blame your own faults on Dream instead of aiming to be better. To be more. Like he did.” He shakes his head. “Instead of whining about how ‘daddy didn’t love you’, and believing that bad attention is at least some form of attention, you should be seeking to improve yourself. To make Dream proud of you.”

“What would you know?” the Corinthian scoffs.

And yet, there’s something in his tone. It reminds Dream of his own mixed-up feelings the very first time Hob confronted him with something he wasn’t yet ready to hear ‘I think you’re lonely…’ It makes Dream think twice about his original plans for the recalcitrant nightmare.

“Oh, I know,” Hob states with a smirk. “I am, after all, exactly what you want to be, deep down.”

The Corinthian says nothing for a moment, standing there just looking at Dream and Hob in turn. There’s something there, a certain hesitance. It once again reminds Dream so much of himself… It is true what the Corinthian said, regarding Dream putting pieces of himself in all his Major Arcana: Gilbert got his nurturing side, Gault his overprotectiveness, the Corinthian got his intense, uncontrolled desires. His want for more, always more… It is, in many ways, what made him such a good nightmare. And perhaps it still might.

When it’s all said and done, the Corinthian agrees to return to the Dreaming, with the promise that he won’t be unmade, and in return he’ll stop killing people outside of their dreams. Together, all three of them will find a way to make things work, so the Corinthian can be happy, fulfilled, as a nightmare, without having to turn to violence in the real world again… When that’s all been fixed, Dream can barely believe it. It feels like he’s been bracing for a fight for so long… He spent years preparing for when the Corinthian would rebel, knowing there was nothing he could do to stop it from happening. And while some probably might say that he could have simply unmade the nightmare before he ever got to that point, the truth is, Dream never wanted to do that.

It might be hard for some to understand, but the Corinthian is one of his creations, one of his finest too. And Dream… Dream cares for every single one of his creations. He wouldn’t say he loves them like they were his own children, not really. He’s had a son, and the relationship was nothing like that. However, in many ways, every dream and nightmare holds a piece of him; the Major Arcana more than any of the others, and the thought of unmaking any of them… It is, in many ways, like trying to cut out a part of himself.

So the realization that he might not have to do that, that there might be a way to fix things without going that far… it’s almost more than Dream can bear. And to think it’s all thanks to Hob… He cannot stop looking at the human, as the two of them stand in the middle of the throne room, the Corinthian having left them to spend some time on his own for the time being.

“You know, if you keep looking at me like that I won’t be responsible for my actions,” Hob blurts out at some point.

“Like what?” Dream asks, coy.

If there’s one thing Dream regrets about the small things that have changed, due to his different choices, it's the loss of some… opportunities. Like in 1789. He ensured that Lady Constantine wouldn’t be able to interrupt them, and later on ensured that she’d forget about the legend of the ‘Devil and the Wandering Jew’ entirely, to help protect both himself and Hob. However, it did not occur to him until after the fact that, because there was no interruption, no thugs there to threaten their lives, Hob would be missing out on the chance to be all brave and dashing in Dream’s protection.

Dream would have loved to take him up on the offer hidden behind those smoldering looks this time around! Except that never happened! Or, well, it didn’t happen back in 1789… It seems, however, that Hob’s competence brings about that same feeling in Dream, no matter how that competence is expressed. By the looks of things, Hob is very interested as well…

It’s probably a good thing Lucienne and Jessamy both know better than to burst in on any place where they know their lord and his lover to be together, alone…

xXx

Somehow, it isn’t until the early 1920s that Dream realizes something’s changed, something big. Lucienne warned him the moment she realized a new Dream Vortex was emerging and Dream decided to handle the matter immediately. As much as he might not like killing an innocent person, especially someone so young, he knows better than to leave it. He even had the chance to offer Unity Kincaid the time to settle her affairs, to say her goodbyes, to her parents, and to her young daughter. Dream even went as far as offering her a chance to stay in the Dreaming, at least for a while. She’ll be able to watch over little Mary, spend time with her, even if for the young girl her mother would only ever be a dream. Unity agreed, grateful for the opportunity, even with the limitations.

Still, it’s after the business with Unity has been handled, that Dream truly starts paying attention to the date. While he has been spending a fair amount of time in the Waking World, with Hob, that doesn’t mean either of them ever pay much mind to things like calendars (other than to keep track of how long Hob’s been in any one place, to ensure people do not become suspicious of his unaging appearance ever again). They were aware of the end of the war, among other things, but still.

And that’s when it hits Dream. The fact that 1916 is more than half a decade behind him now, and he’s still free! He was never summoned, or if the attempt was made, it was unsuccessful. The Endless has no idea how that’s possible!

Then again, thinking it over for a bit, he’s long believed that it was only his weakened state, following that mess with the universe that was collapsing because Dream thought he knew better, that he could get away with not killing a Vortex, only for a star to go mad and everything that followed from there… He’s always believed that was the only reason he could ever be captured. That never came close to happening this time around. That issue was one of the very first things Dream chose to solve, after being thrown back in time by his father, long before it could truly become a problem.

Which means he was probably right. Without him being weakened, Burgess could never have captured him, and he certainly couldn’t in this timeline. And with things being much better with the Corinthian nowadays… It’d seem that, somehow, despite his father’s claims to the contrary, Dream has, in fact, managed to avoid something. So maybe not everything is inevitable, after all.

For perhaps the first time since being thrown back in time, Dream allows himself to consider the possibility that he might not end up in the exact same place he did, in the first and far distant future. He allows himself to hope that maybe, just maybe, he might not end up dying…

xXx

The growing sense of possibility, of hope, emboldens Dream. He doesn’t wait until Erasmus Fry finds his way to Mount Helicon, ready to capture Calliope, to rescue her. Instead he goes into his dreams, manipulating them, and through them, Erasmus Fry himself; just enough to ensure that Fry will never believe that gods and muses are real, and that there are ancient rules that would allow him to ‘own’ one. (Dream also starts wondering if, just like humans have managed to outlaw slavery in so many parts of their own world, like other races have done the same in their own planets and realms, if there might be a way to get the Council of the First Circle to change that law, to better protect them all.)

When 1989 comes, there’s no meeting in the White Horse. Simply put, neither Dream nor Hob are anywhere near it. Hob is once again the United States, where he’s gotten involved in all sorts of things since mid-century. From the Civil Rights Movement, to the LGBTQ movement, and nowadays with the AIDS epidemic.

Dream can see how much it hurts his lover, seeing his friends sick, in pain, knowing they’re going to die and there’s nothing he can do about it. And yet he still stays. He stays because he knows that he won’t die, and even if he happens to get sick, it won’t kill him. So he can be there for his friends. When they have no one else; when even the nurses and doctors are afraid of going near. Hob will be there, will still smile at them, promise them that things will get better. He will stay by their side until the day Dream’s sister comes and takes them away with a gentle smile…

So 1989 comes and goes, and Hob’s still in the US. Dream keeps visiting him right there. He never tries to tell his lover that he should give up, that he should leave. Dream knows this is important to him. That for Hob, this is something that he can do for others, for his friends. That as much as it might hurt, it’d be worse for him to know he could have been there, and wasn’t.

When the pair eventually make their way back to London, it’s to find that the White Horse has been closed, and apparently there are plans from some developers to bulldoze the place and build some flats or something. Hob is livid.

“What the hell?!” he demands hotly. “They’re planning on destroying a… a historical landmark?! Are people absolutely nuts?!”

“I’ve always believed that, yes,” Dream says in a perfectly blase tone.

Starting with Hob himself, he does not add. Though he doesn’t need to, his lover is well aware. At least the comment is enough to pull the human out of his funk as he starts making plans to find a way to stop ‘all that nonsense’ as he keeps calling it.

It feels a bit strange, to Dream, watching events he’s only ever heard about, take place. In the other timeline, Hob told him about learning that the White Horse would be closed on the very day Dream ended up unwillingly missing their meeting because of his own status as a prisoner of Alexander Burgess. Hob never went into a lot of detail of all that he did, that he attempted in the following 33 years, in between keeping the White Horse from being bulldozed, and eventually building the New Inn. Granted, the building itself might have already existed, but it was Hob who actually turned it into the New Inn, into the closest thing to a Temple Dream’s had since the days of Ancient Greece.

That last part seems to be all the more pronounced in this timeline. Not only the building itself, but the land around it, all that Hob manages to buy through a number of corporations and shell companies feels, to Dream’s senses, as if it were soaked in the power of his own realm. Like a piece of the Dreaming smacked dab right in the middle of the Waking. There’s more power in the place than there ever was in the other New Inn, and Dream isn’t sure if the difference comes from the change in their relationship, or from the pendant Hob carries…

It’s a dreamstone, one that took the shape of a black opal. Something that not many know is that not only are his dreamstones not actual gems, the shape they take is always influenced either by the circumstances in which he brings them into being, or the people he gives them to. His stone is a ruby because of what it signifies: passion, wealth and power, all things that represent him in one way or another. The stone he gave to Alianora took the form of a rose quartz, because that was the closest Dream could come to give her what she truly wanted: ‘unconditional love’…

In another version of history, one that Dream’s coming to believe will never be now, he might have given young Daniel Hall (his successor, regardless of whether either of them wanted it or not) an emerald: hoping it’d grant the boy the love Dream feared he as Morpheus couldn’t truly give, wisdom so the new Dream might be better than Morpheus, and renewal, for obvious reasons.

And in that same vein, when Dream manifested a dreamstone to give to his lover, it took the shape of a black opal, a stone that represents protection, deep intuition, mystery and transformation. There was never a doubt in Dream’s mind that the stone fit Hob, and then there was Hob’s own reaction upon receiving it:

“Oh…” he gasped, marveling. “It… it looks like your eyes… so dark and with all the colors, like stars and galaxies deep inside…”

Dream blushed in a way he never had before, that he didn’t know he could!

When he first gave the dreamstone to Hob, the excuse was that it was for his own protection. They were going after the Corinthian and Dream wanted his beloved to be able to defend himself if necessary. Then, Dream knew, even before he actually told Hob to keep the stone, that there would be no taking it back, the dreamstone wanted to stay with Hob (not that it was a surprise, the dreamstone was a part of him, after all…). Perhaps the closest thing to a surprise came from how Hob treated the pendant, often touching it, running his fingers on the chain; sometimes he’d even bring it to his lips, placing small kisses on the glossy surface (Dream could almost feel those kisses… and when Hob found that out, it only seemed to spur him into doing it even more!).

“You gave it to me,” the human told Dream at one point. “It’s a symbol of you, of our love, how could I not love it?”

In any case, Dream knows not whether it’s the change in their relationship, that he spends more time around than he ever did in the other timeline, or the black opal, that’s the cause of the change to the New Inn and its surroundings. He likes it, though. Likes being able to be with Hob, in the Waking, and feel like he’s still home, safe, to be surrounded by a power that’s been built, in one way or another, by the both of them.

xXx

Dream cannot help but feel that he notices the passing of time, becomes more aware of the date, the closer he comes to the day when he was first thrown back in time by his father.

Things have turned out so different from anything he could have ever expected…

In the other world, he spent a century trapped in a cage made of iron and glass, behind a circle of runes that made it so, even if he’d been tempted to ask for his siblings’ help, he would not have been able to. And then there was the decay of the Dreaming in his absence, all the missing dreams and nightmares, the Corinthian… and then, of course Rose Walker, the Dream Vortex, Desire’s descendant, the one who came so close to being the cause of Dream’s own destruction… She was also indirectly the reason Daniel Hall ever existed…

In this new timeline, Rose Walker does still exist. Because of how different Unity’s life was, her daughter was never given up for adoption, her own grandparents raised her after Unity’s tragic passing. So when Mary’s own daughter, Miranda, left her husband for irreconcilable differences, she had the means to support herself and her children, and a lawyer good enough that she didn’t have to give up on her son. The three Walkers live in London nowadays, and Dream has even seen both Rose and Jed in passing, being able to reassure himself that there’s nothing dangerous about either of them.

Unity herself is still in the Dreaming. She visited her daughter’s dreams during Mary’s whole life, and nowadays does the same visiting her granddaughter and great-grandchildren. Sometimes she’ll drop by the palace and tell Dream about them: the granddaughter who’s going to be a famous writer one day, and the boy who’s going to be a fantastic artist… 

Daniel Hall does not exist and he never will. Just like in the first timeline, Hector Hall died in a traffic accident early one spring. Since Dream wasn’t captive, or recovering this time around, he became aware of his presence immediately and was able to send the man to the Sunless Lands with little issue. Dream knows not what became of Lyta Hall after that, and made the conscious choice not to go looking for her. 

Things are much better with the Corinthian. He’s still very much a nightmare, and he even managed to keep his position as one of the Major Arcana. But nowadays he actually seems to enjoy what he does, and Dream is there to make sure that his little nightmare has what he needs. He has no desire to cross the line ever again.

In the other timeline things were so far out of Dream’s control, and it felt like the harder he tried to get the back on track, the worse everything got! To the point where an attempt to better get along with his youngest sister somehow ended up with Dream walking to his own destruction. And wasn’t that the greatest irony of all, considering who it was they were searching for, exactly… Dream’s wondered, more than once, if his own demise wasn’t precipitated by his brother, albeit unknowingly on his part. After all, he was the one who set up things to bring destruction to those who might help others find him, didn’t he? It was what led to the deaths of Ishtar, Wanda, and all those other humans? So why not his brother too?

Destiny warned him, told him that those who seek Destruction, eventually find it, and Dream failed to see that for the warning it truly was. Or perhaps it was just that by that point, so much had happened, he’d been through so much, that a part of him just wanted it all to end… He didn’t want to die, not really. He just wanted to not have to fight. Just for a moment, he wanted a break, a rest and he didn’t think he could take it…

Dream was heading straight towards his own death, with nothing he could do about it… or so it seemed. The Endless can almost believe that Hob would have found a way to save him, even against all odds. Because that's what his lover does, isn't it? He looks at the odds, laughs at them, declares what he wants, (to never die, to become better, to start over) and he somehow makes it happen. In a way, Dream thinks it could even be said that Hob has saved him, in this time. After all, it was him, his love, that set Dream on a different path.

Before Hob, Dream was convinced his father had been right. That some things just were inevitable, that he’d been cursed to go through all those years, watching things go so wrong, watching his own mistakes repeat themselves, being unable to do a thing about it all. Because even though he tried, Orpheus still died.

But that’s just it, isn’t it? The changes started right there, from the very beginning, and Dream failed to see it. Because this time, his son did die. He wasn’t left in a cursed existence, one that he’d come to hate so much he’d ask his own father to kill him, even knowing that would in turn cause Dream’s own demise. This time around, Orpheus was never made immortal, so when he failed Hades’ test, he died, and that was it. That was the end of his story. And though Calliope might forever hate Dream for it, the King of Dreams has come to believe that perhaps that was, in truth, the better end. Because it was the one Orpheus ultimately wanted. To be with Eurydice, no matter where…

Dream never really plans on confessing the truth to his beloved. Telling him about his do-over, about how it came to happen. How it was supposed to be a punishment, yet ended up being anything but. It just kind of happens…

“Well, clearly your father didn’t know me very well!” Hob scoffs when Dream finishes. “If he thought I’d ever allow something like that to happen! That I’d accept you dying and just… do nothing about it.” He starts muttering under his breath, though Dream can still hear him: “Inevitable my ass…”

Dream laughs. It’s so strange, because he can still remember there being a time (a timeline) when he hardly ever laughed. And yet with Hob in his life, it’s rare for there to be a day without him at least smiling, and more often than not he ends up laughing. It’s a good life he has right now, and he has no plan of giving it up anytime soon… or ever. Like Hob likes to say: death is a mug’s game!

When the decision is made to marry, it’s not exactly planned. Or rather, Dream would say that they’ve been as good as married in all the ways that truly matter for over a century. They’ve both declared themselves, in one way or another, made their own vows; all who know them in either realm are well aware of their relationship and of how devoted Dream and Hob are to each other; Hob carries a dreamstone! (The inhabitants of the Dreaming have even started calling him Consort, though neither of them actually noticed when that began, exactly).

And then Titania shows up in the Dreaming, claiming to want to join their realms through marriage. According to her, because there’s never been a wedding, never been an actual ceremony, their relationship doesn’t count. So Hob and Dream decide they’re getting married!

He ends up announcing his upcoming nuptials to his siblings during Destiny’s latest attempt at a family dinner. Death congratulates him immediately. Despair makes some comment about how long she’s known Hob, and how it’s always been impossible to keep him (she seems to almost admire him because of that). Desire makes a quip about Hob but Dream easily ignores them, he already knows that Desire’s tried to seduce Hob, more than once, and could never manage it…

“It was the strangest thing, love,” Hob told him once. “All these goth guys who kept trying to seduce me. Some even seemed to be trying to look like you. Except their eyes. Not sure when golden eyes became part of the goth aesthetic but… well, what do I know of fashion anyway?”

It took forever for Dream to stop cackling long enough to explain to Hob what the gold eyes were all about. That seemed to baffle his beloved even more. As he failed to understand why Desire would want so badly to seduce him. Dream wouldn’t say he knew, exactly, he couldn’t bring himself to care, either. All he cared about, always, was his Hob…

Delirium shrieks at Dream, throwing rice, and bubbles and confetti at her brother, making him actually chuckle, which seems to thrill her even more. Destiny says not a word, but then again, it’s not like Dream was expecting him to. Though… sometimes, when they meet his eldest brother will look at Dream and the strangest expression will cross his face, just for a moment. It makes Dream wonder how much his brother knows of the original timeline, of how things used to be for Dream, of all that’s changed. Does he know? Is he aware of the changes? Does he know the reason why? Dream supposes in the end it doesn’t really matter, things are what they are.

“Have you told Mother and Father?” Death asks him right as they’re all leaving to return to their respective realms.

Dream’s expression twists, because no, he hasn’t told them. He’s not sure they’ll care, really. Though knowing Hob as well as he does, he’ll probably insist that Dream should at least try. So off Dream goes, to visit his parents in their realms…

xXx

“You understand so little of time, and of inevitability…” Time tells Dream, once he’s made his decision. “But you will. You will.”

It being his realm, Time knows the exact moment when the universe shifts. Whatever changes his son might have caused through his actions, it’s now in effect. And his son is still there. It only seems to confirm what Time knew already. That nothing ever changes. Some things are just inevitable. At least, that’s what he thinks until his son opens his mouth and says the last thing Time ever expected to hear.

“I knew it was a bad idea, coming here,” Dream states. “Mother cared not at all for my news, why should you! But this is my wedding, and granted, it might not be my first, though I know very well it will be my last. And I know Hob, he would say that I should at least give you a chance. After all, it was thanks to you we had this chance at all…”

Dream’s speech comes to an end as he steps past the limits of Time’s realm, but the Father of the Endless says and does nothing, he can only stand there, watching the spot where his middle son just disappeared, trying and failing to comprehend it all. The proof that things did, in fact, change. That Dream, his son, somehow managed to change things, and Time has no idea how… It should be impossible, and yet…

xXx

For Dream it’s like all the tension washes off his body the moment he sets foot in the Waking World, in his temple. Even before he sets eyes on his beloved, on the man he already sees as his Consort, and who all the worlds will soon witness his marriage to; even before he sees him, Dream can feel him, deep inside, feel the love that binds them together.

Dream cannot help but think that perhaps his father was even right. Not in the way he might have expected, but right nonetheless: Some things truly are inevitable.

Hob and him. Their love… Their love was always inevitable.