“What do I owe you?” Hob asked as he stood, grabbing his wallet from his back pocket. It was 1997 and he was once again in the White Horse pretending that he wasn't waiting for his Stranger to walk through the door. He didn’t go every day, but at least once a week Hob found himself sitting at the bar either watching a match or chatting with the staff that he’d become quite good friends with over the past nine years.
Jay, the bartender who had been there for decades and was the person that Hob spent most of his time there talking to, shook his head. “Nothing.”
Hob hesitated for a moment. He hated to look a gift horse in the mouth but it wasn’t like he couldn’t pay for the two pints he’d had. “Why?”
“I don’t feel like chargin’ you tonight,” Jay said, his jaw tight and glaring at the bar as he wiped it down. Hob realized then that Jay had been unusually quiet that night, but he’d been so absorbed in his thoughts about what he would make his next career that he hadn’t noticed.
Hob slid back onto the bar stool, leaning heavily onto the bar, close as he could get to Jay. “And why is that?”
“Because I’ve worked here longer than that bloody ingrate’s been alive and he didn’t have the decency to tell me he was selling,” Jay said with a shrug. Jay had worked for the current owner’s grandparents and they had always done right by him, but after they’d died about three years ago the White Horse had been passed on to their grandson which drove just about everyone mad - Jay most of all. Jay had tried to buy it off him when it’d first been passed on to him, but the kid had insisted that he keep it in the family.
“He’s selling?”
“Fucking developer came in to sign the papers with him this afternoon.” Jay had stopped pretending to work and just crossed his arms as he told Hob the story, shaking his head.
“Developer?” Hob asked. So few words sent him on a rollercoaster of elated curiosity and aching homesickness as the word developer.
“Shiny new flats,” Jay said with a frankly hilarious amount of disgust. Hob was a little surprised he didn’t spit after he said it. “Jumped up little shit said the last hold out is Marnie and her wife…God, what’s her name?”
“Carol,” Hob provided.
“Right, Marnie and Carol are the last hold-outs. Seems they want the whole block.”
Hob’s mind was already spinning with plans and ideas and gave halfhearted commiserations but Jay wasn’t paying attention to him anyway.
“Called Mary and she’s not even upset, she thinks it’s perfect timing for us to move out to Bristol since James just had his second kid.”
Hob tuned back into the conversation to smile. “Go retire and be a grandfather to the little monsters?”
Jay smiled reluctantly. “This one's named after me so I should probably be around to know it,” he said with a laugh.
Hob got up again. “Well, thanks for the drink then. When’s the official closing?”
“Got another month before you’re rid of me,” Jay said with a laugh. “And I’ll need some help the day after closing to help carry some boxes out of the basement.” He winked and laughed.
“Oh, I’ll be there,” Hob said, laughing. He was always happy to take excess inventory and he was curious about what would be in the basement of this place.
Hob’s flat was to the right as he came out of the pub but he hooked a left and headed straight for Marnie and Carol’s house. It was two stories and used to be a boarding house for students which is how Marnie and Carol had met, and where they had fallen in love all those years ago. Hob had known them back then before he’d hoped across the pond to take on a new identity. He had come back as his own son just in time for his centennial meeting.
“Carol,” Marnie yelled back into the house as soon as she opened the door. “Robbie’s here, put the kettle on would you?” She stepped back into the house and waved a hand at the coat rack but didn’t stop beyond that as she made her way to the kitchen, knowing that he knew the way.
“Now what happened to the nice boy who used to call before he came over so late?” Marnie asked as he joined her at the table in the kitchen. Carol was getting out mugs for their tea and fixed him with a look like she could figure out what he wanted just by looking at him.
“He heard developers were trying to buy up the block,” Hob said, quiet and solemn. They would sell, he knew that. The house was far too large for just the two of them now that they didn’t take in boarders. The house used to always be full to bursting of people, usually people who had trouble finding housing elsewhere because they were just a touch too different a touch too loudly. But over the past few years he’d noticed that it was emptier and emptier every time he visited and the only shoes by the door as he’d come in had been Marnie and Carol’s.
Carol heaved a heavy sigh. “Offers have been made.”
“And?” Hob prompted when the only sound in the room was the fire.
“Carol doesn’t want to leave, but we can’t keep this place up,” Marnie said with a pointed look at her wife. Sure they weren’t legally married but a few decades ago, not long before Hob had left for Canada, he’d attended a little ceremony in their living room with the blinds drawn tight, both women in white sundresses as they’d committed to each other for life. Hob still smiled whenever he thought about it.
“It’s not just the house.”
“If you say it’s because the house in Bradford has a draft one more time,” Marnie said, exasperated.
“First of all, it absolutely has a draft,” Carol said to Hob, laughing silently.
“You have a thousand jumpers for a reason,” Marnie interjected but her wife continued on like she’d said nothing. Marnie was laughing now too.
“This house was our home for decades and I don’t want it torn down for some overpriced flats.”
“So we should let it fall down around our ear because we can’t take care of it?”
“What if I bought it?” Hob cut in. This was clearly an argument that could go on for a while.
The kettle boiled and Carol poured their tea in silence, a soft frown identical to Marnie’s on her face as she brought over the mugs.
“Robbie, this isn’t your problem,” Carol said softly after they’d each taken their first sip.
“I know,” Hob said just as softly, reaching over to put his hand on hers. “But Dad loved this place and you and he’d hate to see it go this way.” Hob had stopped feeling bad about lying to his friends centuries ago but this particular lie always made an uncomfortable feeling crawl up his spine.
Marnie and Carol looked to each other. “What would you even do with a place like this?”
Hob smiled. “I’ve always wanted to own a pub.” Which was true, he just always thought it would be the White Horse. “I just found out about the developers from Jay a little bit ago so I don’t know what’s a fair offer yet but I have an inheritance from Dad yet, and striking out on my own seems a great use for it.”
They looked to each other again. Carol sighed. “You put together a decent business plan and then we’ll talk.”
“We’re not going to set you up for failure just so I can move back to my drafty childhood home,” Marnie said with a wink to Carol.
The thing Hob never got over about people, or at least one of the things he never got over, was how much people loved and held onto that love. Hob floated in and out of people’s lives twenty years at a time, thirty if their eyesight was bad, and then he disappeared. Time had changed some of that, letters, telegrams, and phones had made it possible for him to stay in touch without anyone catching on to the fact that he wasn’t aging. If it had been long enough, he would return under some guise or another, a son or a cousin, and every time someone remembered him fondly to this “new person” they were meeting he felt like his heart had been replaced by a small sun.
Which was how he ended up with an architect doing the plans for the New Inn, including getting the thing rezoned, for a steep discount since the man had known Hob’s “father” and was a friend of Marnie and Carol’s. When Hob had sat down in his office the fifty-something-year-old man ginned and told Hob a story about that Hob didn’t even really remember, but he’d gotten into lots of fights outside of lots of gay bars defending himself and his family. “Your father was a good man.”
Only centuries of practice kept Hob from wincing at that. He really wasn’t. “He certainly tried,” Hob conceded. “Mostly he just wanted to be the kind of man his friends would be proud to know.” He thought back to advice given more than two centuries before and the years he’d spent after washing his hands of the business, trying to figure out what kind of man he wanted to be. In the end, he’d decided that while his gift from his Stranger had made the world his playground, it still mattered what he did because he was not alone on the playground.
The man laughed. “Either way, you look just like him.”
“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or an insult,” Hob said, laughing along. They were able to lay the whole place out and get it rezoned with a flat upstairs for Hob, or someone else when he inevitably left the country for a few decades. It also gave Hob a few daydreams of inviting his Stranger upstairs to the privacy of his flat when he deigned to come ‘round again without it seeming odd.
Then Hob pulled on his rather extensive knowledge of land and estate laws to start throwing small but expensive wrenches into the development, he still didn’t want them to tear down the White Horse and this was a guarantee of that if the multiple visits from lawyers and fixers were any indication.
In that time, the White Horse officially closed. Hob was there on that last night, the place was packed as if the whole neighborhood was coming to its wake. It seemed appropriate, to have a raucous send-off for the place, so much life had happened there, not just his own but thousands of friendships bloomed over millions of ales and wine and teas. Billions of laughs had echoed off the walls and countless moments of serenity had been found at the tables. Every inch of it had been replaced a few times over, over the hundreds of years Hob had been coming but it was the same place, a second home, and his only home for those wretched years when he’d had no place to lay his head.
He was one of the last out, smiling and having a quiet moment by himself to look around and toast silently to the history that had transpired there, a small smile on his lips. He allowed himself a moment of grief, to feel deeply the pain of letting go of one of the few constants in his life, a touchstone that he was going to remake elsewhere for himself. But then the moment passed, he took another sip of his whiskey and he laughed at someone losing a game of darts quite badly somewhere to his left.
/Don’t come back just yet, my friend. I’ve got to get our new place ready yet,/ he thought as he stepped into the cool night air for his walk home, wondering just a little if his Stranger had some connection to this place and if Hob just concentrated hard enough he could reach him. /But I expect to see you opening day./
Months passed. Blood, sweat, and tears were poured into the New Inn, mostly because Hob had tried to install some of the plumbing himself and cut open one of his fingers on the pipe cutter. After that, he’d accepted that while he’d probably work construction again someday, it was not today and called in professionals.
The finished space was cozy, warm, and someday he hoped that his Stranger would like it, so much he might agree to visit more than once a century, or at least more than once every other century which seemed to be what they were on track for these days.
He hired staff, moved into the flat upstairs, picked glasses and plates and silverware and napkins, and a million other things that made him laugh. There were so many choices these days.
Then they opened. It wasn’t as raucous as the White Horse’s going away but it was a busy night with lots of people coming by to sate their curiosity. Hob was only a little disappointed when his Stranger didn’t appear, but he hadn’t really expected him.
Years passed. A decade and then another. He got a job as a history professor, and cycled through a good staff, pushing them to bigger and better things so that they never noticed Hob wasn’t aging as quickly as he maybe should be.
One day in 2022, early in the spring a woman came in, just after opening when he was manning the bar alone while the other staff finished prep in the back. She was gorgeous and something in Hob’s spine cracked at the sight of her. She was familiar the way a friend of a friend might be after attending the same parties but never having been introduced.
“What can I get you?” he asked.
“I was wondering if my brother had been by recently,” she asked, sitting on a stool as she looked around the place.
“That depends on who your brother is,” he said with a shrug.
She smiled at him wide like she knew a joke but he wasn’t allowed to hear the punchline. “You would know him if you saw him. Tall, brooding, a bit goth looking.’
Hob raised an eyebrow at that.
She laughed loud and bright but said nothing.
“Haven't seen him but I’ll ask the staff. And if you have a picture you can pin it to the board,” Hob said, nodding to the pin board by the restroom that was covered in business cards and lost pet flyers.
She looked over and smiled at the board before sliding off the stool. “Thank you for your help, Hob Gadling,” she said before walking out, her voice taking the same resonant property that rattled in his bones that his Stranger’s voice did.
The next afternoon Hob was trying to grade papers and seriously failing since his mind kept going back to the woman who had been looking for her brother. When he thought about it the description could certainly fit his Stranger but he’d never mentioned a sister though he’d also haven’t mentioned his name. He was so lost in thought he didn’t notice he was being watched until a shadow fell over him.
Dream was fairly certain that grief was an uncommon emotion for his siblings, but Dream was always filled with some measure of it. Humans rarely explored their grief as thoughtfully as they did in their slumber where no one could see them, where there was no one to judge as they worked their way through the thick mud of emotions. But as used to it as he was, Dream was still unprepared for the sharp stab of sorrow as he stared at the overgrown and shutdown tavern.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t find Hob, no Hob dreamed the same as everyone else and Dream could find him the easy way if he wanted, but he looked at the building and saw their friendship, broken and abandoned with no one caring for it. It was his fault, of course, he had been the one to leave first and Hob had no way of knowing that Dream had been kept away from their meeting against his will.
Still, Dream would face Hob and apologize. He would not run from the people he cared about just because he was afraid they would not return his feelings, not anymore.
With a deep breath he didn’t need, Dream started to rally his power to aid his search when he noticed the power of the Dreaming coming to him from red spray paint on the metal fence with the same clarity as if he were standing outside the gates of the Dreaming itself. It had been centuries since Dream had felt such a feeling in the Waking but it was not one that he would have forgotten, a piece of the Dreaming was here, a temple built in Dream’s honor.
He hadn’t noticed it before, too wrapped up in his own heartache to notice what was right in front of him, so accustomed to the feeling of dreams that he hadn’t registered that they didn’t belong there until it was almost too late. Now he followed the feeling, and the red paint, to the New Inn. With every step, Dream felt more connected to it, a place that was built out of the dedication of the only human who knew enough about him to build such a beautiful temple for him. It was a place where people gathered to tell stories and create new ones together. Before that, it had been a place just as bursting with stories, ones of heartache sure, but mostly of love. Before that, a place people came to so they could start to write the stories of their lives how they wanted. He could reach farther back and every time he did there was just more stories, remembered and told by the man who had dedicated this place to Dream.
Along the edges of the property, where temple faded back into the normal Waking world, Dream could feel the footprints of his siblings who had skirted the property when it had first been dedicated to him. More recently he could see the footsteps of Death who had walked directly in, sure of her welcome.
As he crossed the threshold he felt almost on par with the self he was in the Dreaming and there was poetry somewhere hidden in the fact that Hob had been rejected by Dream the last time he saw him and yet had built him a place where Dream could be the most himself he could outside of the Dreaming. Maybe he would find a poet tonight and grant some inspiration so that this feeling could be shared and live on.
He spotted Hob at a table, bent over a stack of papers with a red pen in hand. Dream made his way over and stood, allowing his shadow to pass over Hob, sure of his welcome but waiting politely for it to be extended to him.
Finally, Hob looked up. “You’re late.”
All over the Dreaming, Nightmares of loss and grief were given the night off as Dreams of warm reveries of days gone by took their places, granting dreamers everywhere the kind of peace that would linger with them for hours after they had left Dream’s realm. “I believe I owe you an apology. I heard it’s impolite to keep one's friends waiting.”
Hob’s grin grew wide and warm. “Sit, please,” he said, motioning to the chair in front of Dream. “Mark!” he yelled to the bartender who looked up. “Will you get the bottle out of my office and a couple of glasses?”
Mark stood still for a long moment before smiling and nodding, though it seemed to be more to himself than to Hob.
“So, where do you want to start?” Hob asked as he set aside the papers and made himself comfortable. “A hundred and thirty years is a lot of ground to cover.”
“Wherever you wish to start,” Dream said, in no particular hurry. He had already decided that now that the standard one hundred years appointment had been broken, and he had been gifted such a wonderful temple that he would return more often if Hob allowed it.
“You don’t want to start where I want to start,” Hob said with a grin. “I already know everything I’m going to tell you but I’ve got lots of questions about you.”
“Do you?” Dream asked, he would answer some, if Hob asked. They were friends now, after all.
Hob fixed him with a long look before shrugging. “Same questions I’ve been asking for six hundred years though, so they’re not that exciting either. Other than I did learn something about you, yesterday.”
“Did you?” Dream asked.
“Your sister came by,” Hob said. “She was looking for you.”
Dream looked to where he could still see the path Death had made through the room like footprints in the sand. “Ah, that sister,” Dream said, smirking when he saw the moment that Hob registered that he was admitting to having more than one. “You have met her many times, so it’s not that exciting either.”
“I have?”
“Many times. Though it would not be surprising to me if this is the first time she has decided to show herself to you, since you have been rejecting her gift for the last six hundred years,” Dream said with a smile.
Hob’s smirk faltered into a wide grin, his eyes sparkling in the sunlight.
Before he could say anything, though Mark approached with four glasses, a dusty bottle of wine, and a corkscrew. “Couldn’t find a decanter so we’ll have to make do,” he said as he set everything down on the table.
Hob took the bottle and corkscrew as Mark sat in the bench seat near Hob. “We don’t have one,” Hob said, offhandedly.
Mark looked to Dream with a flat expression. “We have a seven thousand pound bottle of wine but the decanter would be a bridge too far,” he said and then smiled in what Dream recognized as a commiseration at Hob’s absurdity. “I’m Mark, by the way. It’s nice to finally meet you.”
“Finally?” Dream asked.
“Oh, yeah. He won’t tell us your name but he also won’t shut up about his friend who is totally coming someday to share the most expressive bottle we’ve got in this place,” Mark said with a laugh.
“Are you a friend of,” Dream started to ask before realizing that he didn’t know what it was that Hob was going by these days.
“More like a nosy employee,” Hob cut in so that Mark would not notice the hesitation. Hob handed each of them a glass and then raised his glass in a toast. “Here’s to hoping it hasn’t turned to vinegar in the last century.”
Dream raised the glass but didn’t drink yet, too taken in trying to untangle the knot of Hob’s devotion so that Dream could see it all laid out in front of him. The wine and the temple and the telling his friends that Dream would return. He wondered how long Hob had been telling people he would return — if he’d told his friends about the argument they’d had but had shrugged because Hob would see him again in ‘89, or if he’d started that recently. He wondered if it’d started when his sister arrived yesterday.
Mark stood, “Well, I won’t intrude any longer, thanks for the wine, boss,” Mark said taking his own glass and the extra that Hob had poured.
“His girlfriend's a wine buff, I promised that when you came back I would share,” Hob said with a shrug. “He probably texted her when he was in the back and she’s probably already cut her class short and is on her way over.” Hob laughed and took another drink.
“I see.” Dream hummed, realizing a second too late that Hob had assumed that Dream would find it odd that the man had taken two glasses. “Dream.”
Hob looked surprised but nodded. “You want to know about my dreams? They were weird there for a while.”
Dream nearly laughed. “One of my names is Dream, that is what I would have you call me. And what you may tell your friends and nosy employees.”
Hob stared at him for a long moment, clearly fighting to keep the smile off his face and losing badly.
Dream turned away from the scrutiny and took a sip of his wine to distract himself, which turned out to be a mistake. The wine tasted of a thousand dreams all hitting Dream at once. Most were bright and warm with the soft easy companionship of two friends reconciling over the bottle. Others were hot and desperate, colored by a deep lust that had motivated the two new lovers to forget the wine in favor of tasting each other. Very few were dark and spiteful, bitter as the two who spit venom and tried to wound just so that they would not be alone in their pain. It tasted of every dream, every nightmare, and every daydream that Hob had ever had featuring the wine.
“Or am I not allowed to ask that?” Hob asked, his smile tense. Dream must have been exploring the dreams too long and allowed the silence to stretch.
“You may ask me anything you wish, though I may not answer. Some things are not for humans to know.”
“Even immortal humans?”
“Especially immortal humans. You are capable of being an annoyance much longer than your mortal counterparts,” Dream said with a whisper of a smile.
Hob laughed loudly, bright and happy.
“Though you will have to repeat your last question. I was distracted.”
“The wine that good?” Hob asked, taking another sip and then frowning. “Better than the night I bought it but still not the best I’ve had.”
Dream smiled. “You misunderstand, my friend. This tastes of forgiveness which I do not deserve.”
“From me?” Hob asked, looking to be genuinely confused, though Dream couldn’t fathom why he would be confused. Dream had walked out so rudely in their last meeting, there was no way that Hob could have forgotten. “You were forgiven a long time ago. Friends fight sometimes. And you already admitted we’re friends and I’m going to have to enforce a no-take-backs rule on that.”
Dream cracked a smile reluctantly.
“Now how does wine taste like forgiveness?” Hob asked, leaning forward and curious. It wasn’t anything like the curiosity that the Burgesses and their staff had looked at Dream with. That had been cold and cruel and desperate, this was softer. It was as if Hob would be content with any answer Dream decided to give him.
“My name is also my function. I am all dreams and all nightmares and all daydreams, projected onto a human form. You have dreamt of this wine often, of us enjoying it together and when I tasted it I experienced all of these dreams as they returned to the Dreaming,” Dream explained.
Hob nodded along but was silent for a long time as he processed what Dream had told him. “All of them?”
“Yes.”
Hob’s face went a little red but he didn’t seem to be embarrassed since he moved directly to his next question. “Is your sister’s name Death?”
“Yes.”
“Do all your siblings' names start with “D”?”
“Yes.”
“Do they all start with the same letter in other languages too?”
Dream narrowed his eyes. “A summoning is no more or less effective in Latin.” He’d only had control of the dreaming again for a few days but it had been the belief for hundreds of years that magic was more powerful in Latin. Dream could never fathom why. Magic was clearly the most powerful in the mother tongue of the caster, closely intertwined with the soul as language could be.
“That’s real? I kinda figured all that magic summoning demons nonsense was made up after going through my seventh decade of witch trials.”
“You are immortal.”
“Yeah, because you happened to wander into the right pub when I happened to be mouthing off. Not because I summoned you and demanded immortality,” Hob said with a laugh that stuttered to stop. Dream knew that he had flinched at Hob’s words and he could feel that his face had frozen in a deeper than usual frown, but he couldn’t help it. “Dream?” Hob asked softly. “Is it my turn to start talking and stop asking questions?”
Dream smiled at him, though it felt strange on his face and he could see Hob’s frown get deeper. “Yes. I would hear of how you have been fairing.”
Hob gave him a sad smile and leaned back. “I guess the easiest place is to just start where I left off last time we saw each other then.” Hob took one more sip of his wine and then dove into the retelling of the last one hundred and thirty years. It had been early afternoon when Dream had come into the bar and as the day became night more drinks were brought to the table, as well as food and more than a few stares from the staff and regulars who were curious about Hob’s friend who most had assumed was fictional until the moment they saw him.
Dream did not notice the passing of time beyond when the lights changed, but realized that it had been hours when Hob waved to one of the other bartenders, Josie as she left and yelled to them, “I’m locking the doors behind me,” and left without waiting for an answer.
Dream looked around and realized that the bar had closed around them. “I did not mean to take up your evening.”
Hob waved a hand at him, dismissing his worry. “We can move upstairs, my couch is much more comfortable than that chair.”
“Do you not have class tomorrow?” Dream asked, already knowing the answer since Hob had gotten distracted around the time their chips came and had told Dream about being a professor at one of the local universities and that was how he convinced his staff to put one rotating dish from his youth on the menu. His youth was defined as anything before his five hundredth birthday.
“I’ll email the kids and let them know class is canceled because I’ve come down with a terrible cold. They’ll be ecstatic, there was supposed to be a quiz tomorrow.” Hob laughed. “I’ve still got another decade to get through before we’re even caught up to where we would have been in ‘89.”
Dream nodded. “I did not intend to miss our last meeting. I was...detained.”
Hob went quiet. “Figuratively?”
“Physically,” Dream said. “First by a man ruled by his greed and grief and then by his son who was ruled by cowardice.”
Hob’s breathing was slow and deliberate, his knuckles white where he had curled his hands into fits on the table. Rage was not something that Dream had seen on Hob before and he found it comforting. “Are you okay?”
“My realm has suffered, as you have experienced with the odd dreams and the sleepy sickness, and there is still much work to be done but I have gathered the tools of my office once more which makes it possible to do that work."
“But are you okay?”
Somewhere deep in the Dreaming, in one of the oldest parts the sky opened up over a meadow turning it into a lagoon with a waterfall coming from a perfectly clear blue sky. ”I am Endless,” Dream said. “I have lived for millions of millennia — since the first being dreamed — a hundred years to me is what a breath is to you. Yet I find that this hundred years of captivity has changed me more profoundly than any other than the decades when my son lived and died.”
“You had a son?”
“Yes.”
“What was his name?”
“Orpheus.”
Hob nodded quietly and took a drink. They sat in silence for a while and for once Dream did not feel suffocated by it. Many times, unless he was with Death, silence felt like he had made a misstep, or he was deficient. It didn’t happen often, as humans, demons, and Endless alike, loved few things as much a hearing themselves talk. “I’m sorry,” Hob said suddenly, shaking himself like he had just woken.
“Whatever for?”
“That’s not what we were talking about,” Hob said, smiling though it didn’t quite have the brilliance of his usual grin, it was warmer and more comforting though. Dream wondered for a moment if that warmth was something he should have extended to Hob in 1689 after the loss of his son.
Hob topped off both their glasses before he froze, his expression concerned and confused. “Did you say hundred years?”
“One hundred and six to be precise.”
“And just some bloke had you?”
“Roderrickand Alex Burgess.”
Hob blanched, looking as if he might be sick. “You have to believe me that I didn’t know.”
Dream reared back as if slapped by the implication that he had to do anything. “Know what?”
“That he had you. I would have done anything to break you out,” Hob said leaning forward, terror and guilt written across if face.
Dream nodded once before reaching out and laying his hand on Hob’s in comfort. “I believe you. As you believed I would return, I believe you would have come for me had you known.”
Hob turned his hand over under Dreams and gave it a light squeeze. “If you ever want to talk about it you can talk to me,” Hob said with a tight smile.
“I do not wish to talk of it. Perhaps another time,” Dream conceded, pulling his hand back into his lap. “If you would permit me to visit more often than every century.”
“Are you kidding? If I had it my way we’d have a standing appointment every - what day is it?” Hob checked his phone. “Tuesday until the sun burns out. After that I assume I’ll be living on a spaceship or another planet so I assume days of the week will be a little different.”
Dream smiled. “A week might be too soon given the amount of work to be done in my realm, but I will visit again before long.”
Hob grinned up at him. “You know where to find me.”
It had been a month since Dream’s visit and Hob and he was finally starting to feel like himself again. He loved his visits from his Stranger but it always left him in a little bit of a haze after he was gone It was like staring at the sun; wonderful, beautiful, life-affirming, and awesome in the old sense of the word, but it left a mark.
The day after their meeting had been exponentially worse than any before, including 1889. He’d ridden so high on learning so much about Dream that the crash the next day had been nearly unbearable. And since they hadn’t set a new meeting time a small kindling of hope followed him everywhere, even with the reasonable part of his mind yelling that it would be years, if not decades before he was likely to see Dream again.
Usually, he could push Dream to the back of his mind, knowing for certain when he would see him again, but now every black coat and mess of black hair caused his heart to pound.
That particular Tuesday the inn wasn't too terribly busy but there was a nice buzz as Hob came through the front door. He just wanted to go upstairs, make some tea, and go to bed after a long day of department meetings, but first he needed to make sure his staff didn’t need anything from him.
“Whether or not I’m sleeping better is beside the point, why does my brain feel the need to do more stuff why can’t it just go blank like before?” Jean was complaining to Mark as she sat at the bar and drank her post-work wine.
“Did someone have a bad dream last night?” Hob teased as he walked by. Jean had been coming around for as long as Mark had worked there, first to sit there and flirt and now to squeeze in a little more time with her boyfriend.
“Irrelevant,” she said with a grin that made it clear that she had.
“Dreams are good for you,” Hob said with a laugh. He found himself more inclined to them these days. “Everything good?”
“So far,” Mark said. “You’re doing ordering tomorrow?”
Hob nodded.
“I’ll leave my list on your desk before I head out tonight.”
“Ta,” Hob said turning away and heading to the stairs.
“Oh, hot date with tall, goth, and handsome?” Jean asked with a laugh at his fast escape.
Hob laughed. “Nope, just me and seventy-two five-page essays to grade.”
“You want me to get rid of him then?” Mark asked while half turned to Hob, but watching someone that Hob couldn’t see from where he was on the steps.
The spark of hope flickered in Hob’s chest, as he leaned out of the stairway to see where Mark was looking. When he saw Dream, standing there like he belonged there, his heart soared. “I wasn’t expecting you tonight.”
Dream raised an eyebrow. “I can return another time if you prefer.”
“I absolutely do not prefer,” Hob said quickly, shooting a glare at Jean as she bit her lip to stop herself from laughing. “Do you mind if we go upstairs? It’s loud and the customers are nosy down here tonight.”
Dream nodded once and came around the bar as if he had done it a thousand times — as if he lived there — it made the hot, burning joy in his chest settle into embers he was pretty sure would keep him warm for the next few decades.
They had barely disappeared from sight before Hob heard Jean say, “And now I’m probably going to have a dream about that bloke because he’s got a weird coat on and my brain wants to keep talking about it! Dreams are dumb.”
“Sure, it’ll be his coat you dream about,” Mark said, laughing at her squawk that followed.
Hob winced as he unlocked his door. “Forgive her, she’s too young to remember dreaming before and it freaks her out.”
“Many, I have found, find my return disconcerting.”
“I don’t. Last night I dreamed of a lovely green meadow and bees and somewhere in the distance I could hear children playing, happy and completely safe in a late summer sun,” Hob said, recalling the peace that had settled over him when he’d woken that morning. He’d carried it with him all the way to campus.
Dream smiled, small but proud. “I will pass along your compliments. Perhaps Jean Montgomery would appreciate a visit from Fiddler’s Green as well.”
Hob grinned at him as he went to the kitchen, laughing quietly.
“Something amuses you?”
“Yes, but last time I made an observation about you you stormed off and you just got here.”
Dream frowned. “I have -”
“I’m teasing,” Hob cut in before Dream started to get the idea that maybe Hob hadn’t accepted his apology.
“Then tell me what amuses you.”
“You act cold and distant but you care about what we think of your realm,” Hob said with a soft smile.
Dream glared at him but Hob could feel the warmth behind it that said that he’d hit the nail on the head and that Dream had no intention of continuing the conversation.
“Can I tempt you?” Hob asked, holding up the tupperware of leftovers.
“No.”
Hob shrugged and put the food in the microwave as he flicked the switch on the kettle. “Sorry I don’t have anything better. I can call downstairs and have them whip something else up if you prefer.”
“I do not need to eat.”
“Neither do I but it’s nice,” Hob said, just to be difficult.
“You must eat,” Dream said, curiously firm. Hob couldn’t help but push it a little
“I won’t die.” He had no intention of ever going hungry again, as evidenced by the squirreled away money and nonperishable in storage units all over the world.
“But you do experience hunger, which I do not. I do not receive the satisfaction nor comfort from food.”
“What if,” Hob started, already laughing, pulling on the little thread of a hint Dream had given him last month. “I made you something and while I did I daydreamed you found it delicious and satisfying and comforting?”
The frown disappeared from Dream’s face, replaced by a shimmer of amusement. “Yes, then I would find it delicious and satisfying and comforting.”
Hob smiled wide. “Next time, I’m making dinner for you.” Hob’s food beeped and he pulled his jumper’s sleeves over his hands to pull it out carefully.
“Why?”
Hob thought about being honest, about admitting what he’d realized in the last month. About how he still remembered that for years after his meeting with Dream in 1689 he had woken every day with the phantom feeling of being full and, how it had faded slowly, not suddenly so that the hunger came back slowly as if he really had eaten while asleep. How in the last month, since learning what Dream was and what he could do Hob had come to understand the gift he had been given by his friend. And he wanted to give what he could back. “Gotta give you a reason to come back.”
Dream gave him a look like he didn’t believe him. “I did not think I needed a reason to visit my temple.”
Hob coughed hard, choking on his mouthful of rice, and trying desperately not to spew it all over Dream. “Your what?”
“Temple,” Dream repeated as if Hob genuinely hadn’t heard him.
“Huh,” Hob said, processing and trying to figure out how to pass off his obvious surprise so that Dream didn’t catch on that Hob hadn’t known.
“You dedicated it to our friendship, built it with the hope that I would return. Your dedication to me is built into every floorboard, it’s in every drink that is poured downstairs, it is in the walls, and blooming in the floors. Were you under the impression I could not feel that?” Dream asked, head cocked to one side the way a bird or a cat might inspect something new and baffling to them.
“I wasn’t aware that I had done that at all,” Hob admitted with a sigh. He busied himself making tea for them both to buy himself a moment to process what he’d done, and how clearly he’d just laid all his feelings out for Dream. He needed to start being more careful or he was liable to become the friend who was so obviously in love that Dream didn’t want to see him anymore. Between this and Dream knowing about every dream Hob has ever had of him it was beginning to be a problem.
“Do you wish to strip it of its…bond to me?” Dream asked, a flicker of hurt in his voice though his face was as impassive as it had ever been.
“No, no, no,” Hob reassured quickly. Now that Dream pointed it out it felt obvious, of course this was a temple, it was a building dedicated to enticing a supernatural entity to come and interact with the low mortals who occupied it. Finally he laughed, shaking his head and starting to eat again. “Do you like it?”
“There are few places in all of the universe, across all of the realms, that I enjoy more,” Dream said, eyes black and swirling with galaxies, boring into Hob.
Hob flushed, hot all over. “Well, good,” he cleared his throat, desperate to break the tension between them. Dream was his friend. “Wouldn’t do if your temple wasn’t to your liking.”
Dream fixed him with a long look.
“Does this make me your Pope?”
Dream frowned. “If you choose. You…seem disquieted by this information and I would not have this cause you discomfort.”
“Everyone’s always said I come on too strong. Building a temple after only meeting someone six times is a new one for me but honestly not by much,” Hob said with a laugh.
“Does your reticence come from the word temple?”
“I don’t have a pr-”
“Perhaps home would be a more fitting word,” Dream said, talking over Hob as if he hadn’t opened his mouth at all.
All of the air left Hob’s lungs, which was fine because he was pretty sure his heart had stopped beating too.
“Yes, that seems to be a better word for this era. You built me a second home, outside of my realm, here in the Waking and you tend to it not as a priest as you do not, nor do I wish you to, worship me. No, it’s more like a…”
“Housekeeper,” Hob cut in.
Dream narrowed his eyes at him. “Like a friend, who has opened their home to me. It is a home we share.”
It was a good thing that Hob couldn’t die because if his heart hadn’t stopped before it sure had now. “How’s your sister?” Hob asked, in a blatant bid to change the topic. His face was so hot he felt like he might start sweating.
“I have not seen her since the last time we met but I assume she is well given that people are still dying at the usual rate,” Dream said, seemingly unfazed by the topic change.
Hob snorted a laugh. “Then how’s the realm?”
“Much improved since I last saw you. The last of my dreams and nightmares have returned, though there is much work to be done,” Dream said.
“Dreams can leave the Dreaming?” Hob asked, trying to wrap his mind around the idea of a dream as something that existed and wasn’t just experienced.
“I am here.”
“Yeah but it’s your realm,” Hob said with a wave of his hand, knowing that he’d failed to make a decent point.
Dream gave Hob his little half-smile. “Dreams can leave, but they often lack the ability to survive outside of the Dreaming. Nightmares, however, tend to thrive in the Waking world.”
“Yeah that tracks,” Hob mumbled to himself. Most of his worst nightmares he’d been wide awake to witness.
Dream frowned. “They are all returned to the Dreaming. Fiddler’s Green is the only one who remains, I unmade the nightmares who had escaped.”
“My dream from last night had escaped to the real world?” Hob asked. Something about that bothered him, but he couldn’t pinpoint why. Like he’d spent the night with someone only to find out the next day that they were his friend’s ex. He hadn’t done anything wrong, but it still sat uncomfortably in his stomach.
“Yes. He did use it to improve himself, I had not thought to include children playing as something so comforting, and yet you say part of your dream was the sound of children playing safely in the distance and it brought you joy,” Dream said with a small smile.
Hob smiled back at him. “You’re proud of them.”
Dream nodded. “I am proud of two, disappointed in the other.”
“Not bad odds,” Hob said, finally standing up straight again and going to the couch. “Will you tell me about the others?”
“Do you not wish to continue your telling of the century?” Dream said, taking a seat in Hob’s favorite armchair. It had a high back and arms at just the right height and Hob found that sinking into it was almost like being hugged by his flat. He hoped Dream enjoyed it just as much.
“I’m happy to,” Hob said. “But if you want to talk about things you care about I’m all ears too. Friendship’s a two-way street.”
“I have taken too much of your time with updates about my realm,” Dream said, looking uncomfortable suddenly.
Hob shrugged. “Last month I spent seven hours talking about myself.”
“I enjoy your stories. I am the Prince of Stories after all.”
“And you think I would not appreciate a story from the Prince of Stories? Blasphemous!” Hob laughed, tucking the new name into the back of his mind to Google later and see what he could find. “But I will tell you about my time in a rock band that only ever made half an album before we got into a fistfight over the drugs and broke the lead singer’s jaw. I was the drummer.”
Hob talked for hours again, sitting on the couch, turned towards Dream like a flower to the sun. In the privacy of the flat Dream was much more open, his expressions more obvious than they usually were. Hob decided that meeting in the pub would no longer do. No, he was already addicted to this new version of Dream who outright laughed at one of Hob’s follies, and Hob would do anything to keep him.
It was just after midnight when Hob yawned so wide his eyes watered. “You need rest,” Dream said, already rising from the chair.
“No, I don’t. I’ll just have an extra cup of coffee tomorrow, I’ll be fine,” Hob said, pretending he didn’t notice how close to a whine it was. “You’re better company than Fiddler’s Green.”
“I hardly think that’s true,” Dream argued, Hob thought just because he thought he should. He didn’t look like he wanted to leave, standing awkwardly over Hob who was still lounging on the couch.
“It is too! Though maybe in the future we can do this on a Friday or Saturday night, just so I don’t have class the next day,” Hob said with a grin and a wink. And then a yawn that made his jaw crack.
Dream nodded once.
“In a month?” Hob asked, just to push his luck. He forced himself off the couch and walked Dream to the door. He’d probably have to walk him all the way out and lock up behind him unless someone was still downstairs.
“A month. I expect you will enter my realm shortly?”
“I’ll be asleep the second my head hits the pillow. Promise.”
“Sleep well, Hob Gadling.” Then wind whipped sharply, throwing sand into his face like they were standing on a beach in January, causing Hob to flinch back and close his eyes. As soon as he did the wind died and Dream was gone, just some sand on the ground.
Dream had made many mistakes in the history of his existence. Many of them still haunted him, ghosts that hid around unsuspecting corners to jump out when he least expected it. He had added another to the long list the night he left Hob after their second meeting since his escape from Fawney Rig. Dream had been worried about Hob, the man had clearly been exhausted but refusing to rest so once Dream had returned to his realm he kept a part of himself consciously looking for Hob. Sure enough, about twenty minutes after Dream had left him, Hob entered the realm. Which was not the problem. The problem was that now, ever time Hob entered the realm, or left it, Dream was aware of it. He could feel Hob, or his absence, every moment.
“Perhaps once you see him again the feeling will fade,” Lucienne said after Dream had told her about the problem and asked if she’d come across anything similar in her readings that could assist him. “The Dreaming reached out to him in worry and once you are assured of his safety the feeling will subside.”
“He is entering and leaving the realm at intervals that are healthy for humans,” Dream explained. “There is no reason to be worried.”
“You have said yourself that the Dreaming is not always a place for reason,” Lucienne pointed out. Dream arched an eyebrow, clearly conveying that he had heard her jab and would be ignoring it.
“I hope you are right. I do not wish to spend the rest of time like this,” Dream grumbled.
Lucienne smiled and nodded with a half bow before turning away to go attend to her other duties.
Now it had been a month and three days since their last meeting and Dream was walking into the New Inn, finding Hob behind the bar and talking to a patron. Dream almost let himself out, but Hob caught his eye first, a smile blooming across his face. He waved him over and said goodbye to the person at the bar who waved him off.
“You’re here,” Hob said as Dream took at seat at one of the bar stools.
“As I said I would be,” Dream said.
“It’s Friday.”
“You requested we move our meetings to Friday or Saturday so you would not have class the next day,” Dream pointed out.
Hob’s smile got a little brighter. “I did say that, didn’t I? You want something to drink or eat before we go upstairs? I made you something on Tuesday but when you didn’t come I ate it for lunch,” Hob said with a shrug.
“You seem to be working. I can return on Tuesday,” Dream said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Josie Liebermann said as she stepped behind the bar. “Man’s more of a hindrance than a help. He was just covering while I ate so Katie didn’t end up swamped.”
“You make it sound like I can’t pour a drink,” Hob said, his voice sounding suspiciously like a whine.
“You’re fine by yourself. The problem is you have no spacial awareness and bump into whoever you’re working with back here,” she said with a laugh.
“I think I just got fired by my staff,” Hob said with a laugh, stepping back onto the stairs behind the bar and waving for Dream to follow him.
“She has provided good reason to do so,” Dream agreed, following him.
Josie laughed. “I knew I liked you.”
“Come on, before I get fired from something else,” Hob said with a laugh as he went up the stairs. Dream decided to give Josie a dream of the vacation she desperately wanted to take her girlfriend on that night.
Dream followed Hob upstairs and sat in the same chair he had before when Hob flopped himself down on the couch. “You’re certain I can’t get you anything?”
“I am fine,” Dream said. “How have you been?”
“Well,” Hob said, settling into the couch further, still turned toward Dream but with his legs tucked under him. “Or as well as can be. Finals are coming up and all my students are remembering that their term projects exist, and are due in two weeks. They suddenly have a lot more questions about it.” Hob laughed quietly. “What about you? From what I hear people are really coming around on this whole “dreaming” thing again.”
Dream quirked a small smile. “The Dreaming is doing well, happy to have its guests returning and properly enjoying it.”
“I’m glad. People are much more enjoyable to be around these days too. I’d forgotten how much nicer people are when they’ve had a good night’s rest,” Hob said with a laugh. “I wish I could remember my dreams better now. I have so many questions for you when I wake up in the morning but then I look at my notebook later and it just says ‘Shaxberd strawberry lemon crepe?’”
Dream could see exactly what Hob was doing and after letting the wave of indignant irritation at Hob for thinking he could manipulate Dream into anything he decided to indulge the man. “Do you wish to visit the Dreaming consciously?”
Hob’s whole face lit up and somewhere in the Dreaming, the clouds cleared over the moon and lit up the forest floor while fireflies took off. “It’ll be different than just going to bed?”
Dream nodded. “You will be conscious when you are there, alert and aware. You will also be with me and will see the dreams and nightmares as I see them, not as a dreamer experiencing them,” Dream explained, standing and going to the small space between the back of the chair and Hob’s small dining table.
Hob jumped up and followed him. “Is it hot there? You’re always wrapped in a coat is all...so.”
“Do you wish it to be?”
“I wish it to be the way it is,” Hob snarked making the small tendril of anxiety that had moved into his chest dissipate. Hob wanted to see the Dreaming as it was, he would accept it as it was.
“You will not be cold unless I wish you to be,” Dream said, taking a handful of sand from his pocket.
“Okay then, I’m ready,” Hob said. By the time Hob finished his sentence they were standing at the bottom of the stairs leading to Dream’s throne. “Whoa, that’s weird,” Hob said, blinking hard wavering slightly before he seemed to get his bearings. “Just remembered what I think is every dream I’ve ever had and that’s a lot.”
Dream hummed, maybe he should have warned Hob of that. “You have had a larger than average number of dreams. We will wait for you to regain your bearings before we continue.”
“Ta,” Hob said, taking a deep breath. Dream took the moment to look around the Dreaming and take notice. Since he had left the weather seemed to have gotten better, bright sunshine streaming in through the stain-glass windows, making a kaleidoscope of colors on the floor. There was a light breeze too, like the first breath of fresh spring air. The Dreaming seemed to be in excellent shape to receive a visitor as important as Hob. “Oh I haven’t been here in ages,” Hob said brightly after a long minute of breathing exercises.
Dream turned to Hob sharply, confusion causing panic to rise in him. “You have been here before?”
Hob blushed, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah, right after our meeting in 1689. Is Lucienne here somewhere?”
“Lucienne,” Dream called her and she appeared.
“Yes, my lord?” she asked, half bowed. He saw her eyes catch on Hob for a moment and her expression become pinched.
“You didn’t have to interrupt what she was doing,” Hob said, with a tense shrug. “I just wanted to say hi.”
“Hello, Sir Gadling. I am pleased to see you doing so well,” she said with a smile. She looked over at Dream who could not help but feel a cut of betrayal. How could she not have told him that Hob had been to the castle before? Why had he not been informed of it at the time?
“When was the last time that Robert Gadling was in the castle?” he asked, stern and trying desperately not to be the man he’d been before but feeling himself slipping back into it. This was why he did not trust, because even the most trusted and oldest of companions could still keep secrets.
Lucienne opened her book. “September twenty-second, 1704,” she read.
“And the first time?”
“June 7th, 1689,” she read. “For a total of one thousand and twenty-seven visits.”
“Wow, that many?” Hob asked, with a tense laugh. Dream could sense the discomfort rolling off of Hob in waves and he wished to soothe it, but he needed to know what exactly was causing
“And what was the subject matter of these dreams?”
“Primarily he ate in the dining hall alone, or rested in his chambers also alone. On a few occasions - no more than twenty - he attempted to explore the castle. He was not granted access to the library or to your chambers.” Lucienne squared her shoulders and closed the book as she looked up at him.
“His chambers,” Dream snarled. Someone had altered his castle to make room for Hob and had not informed him?
“Yes, sire,” she said with a nod.
“Can I still go to those because I’m feeling a bit like I shouldn’t be here for this conversation,” Hob cut it.
Dream just stared Lucienne in demand that she answer.
“It is not, and has never been, the place of any resident of the Dreaming to remove what you have made, Lord Morpheus.” Lucienne said. “The chambers are as they were left.”
“What I made?” Dream asked, horror dawning on him. 1689 would have been the meeting where Dream learned of Hob’s loss, when Hob had been at his lowest. Dream had been distracted and mournful when he’d returned. And a little ashamed that he had not assisted more, hiding behind the fact that it was not Dream’s responsibility to look after Hob Gadling, just for him to meet him and ascertain if he wanted to live.
It had also been the year that Dream had fallen in love with Hob. And apparently made that clear to everyone in the Dreaming by inviting him in and building him his own chambers without even being conscious of it. How humiliating.
“You didn’t know?” Hob asked, his voice strangely small. “I thought…you did it on purpose because we were friends. But you didn’t even mean to do it?”
Dream turned his attention fully back to Hob. “This dream is over.”
Hob disappeared, and Dream turned back to Lucienne. His humiliation made his anger and hurt flare up bright and painful. He wanted to take it out on Lucienne, to demand why she hadn’t told him, why he hadn’t been informed. But the answer was clear. He’d already known, his deepest most base part of himself had been the one to invite Hob into the castle, into the very heart of the Dreaming. It was not her job to tell him things he should have already been aware of.
“I will be on the Shores of Creation,” he said, and then disappeared from the castle. The shore wasn’t completely empty, there were a few works in progress, waiting for his attention there. But there was no one to see him and so he let himself feel the wind in his hair as the Dreaming itself attempted to comfort him. He had been too forward and Hob had been distressed by this, his face had not shown disgust and finding out that Dream had not consciously decided to invite him in, that it hadn’t been an act of grace from something far more powerful than Hob could fathom. But he had pulled away, he had been disappointed in Dream for wanting him so deeply that Dream could not help but make him his own chambers in Dream’s own castle.
Dream would not make this mistake again, he would channel the part of him that wanted to bestow comfort on his friend into a new dream, something that Dream could send out into the dreaming to do this work and never overstep the boundaries that Hob so clearly wanted again.
Creating dreams was of course so easy feat, not if Dream wanted it done properly. And this one was precious to him. This one was to reassure Hob that he could have comforts in the Dreaming without it being connected to Dream’s desire for him. This would allow their friendship to continue. It took time to build something so good, and to craft it just the way that Dream needed it. He barely turned away from his work in all that time, only speaking to Lucienne when she brought him problems within the Dreaming, though even that was rare.
By the time Dream was finished a year had passed. Certainly not the longest time he’d spent working on one dream, but it was longer than most.
Lucienne was there when Dream gave it the final spark of life but she brought another problem with her that she mentioned only once the dream was sent off to do its work. “Some of the nightmares could use reassurance that their impersonations of you are not a problem and that they will not be punished for doing their work.”
“Why would they be impersonating me?” Dream asked, sweeping them back to the throne room, in almost the exact spot Dream had teleported himself from a year ago.
“Hob Gadling had a reoccurring nightmare before your… absence which has come back in the last year. Before, it was not a problem as he did not know who you were so the nightmares were not aware that they were impersonating you. But since he has learned who you are, that information has also been given to the nightmares and they do not wish to offend their king. I have assured them that it is fine, as they are only serving their function.”
“What is the nature of the nightmare?” Dream asked. He didn’t want to interfere in Hob’s dreams, and nightmares were an important part of the Dreaming, but he could not fathom why Hob would be having nightmares about him.
“You and he are on an infinite street in the rain in 1889. Quite often he runs after you but is unable to catch you. Other times he is able to catch up only for you to reject his friendship,” Lucienne said.
Dream frowned, why would Hob be dreaming of that night? It was Hob who had pulled back from him, it was Hob who had so clearly desired space from Dream’s overwhelming affection. “It is nightmares doing this work? Not dreams, granting him the space he desires?”
Lucienne fixed him with a look that made him feel like he was being particularly stupid that day. “Nightmares of Loss, sire.”
Dream could not understand why thees nightmares would be drawn to Hob, Hob was not in danger of losing Dream, nor had he lost him. There was no courage to be mustered up to talk to Dream, there was no loss to grieve. “Tell the nightmares that they will not impersonate their king any longer. If they are drawn to Hob Gadling for this purpose they will redirect him to Fiddler’s Green. He has nothing to gain from their work.”
“Of course, sire,” Lucienne said, but did not immediately leave.
“Yes, Lucienne?”
“Might I speak freely?”
“You know I value your input.”
“Humans are odd, and I have noticed that they value conscious action above the unconscious. To them it is far more precious, to them it is the only type that they believe matters.”
“Why are you telling me this, Lucienne?”
“I thought it would help, should you choose to speak to Hob Gadling about his recent attempts at lucid dreaming now that you have finished your work,” she said carefully.
Dream felt himself bristle. “He is not satisfied with the dreaming?” Be as it may that Hob had been given more nightmares than he rightly should have, but to attempt to lucid dream? To attempt to control the Dreaming when Hob knew what it was?
Lucienne shook her head. “Matthew thinks that he is attempting to find his way back to the castle. To speak with you.”
Dream nodded, not quite comforted by her answer. “Thank you for the information. And...your insight. I will speak with Hob Gadling soon and put a stop to this nonsense.”
Two meetings. That’s all it took to completely ruin Hob’s ability to think about Dream in the long term. Two extra meetings and Hob spent all his time trying to find his way back to Dream, to find out what went wrong. It wasn’t as obvious as 1889, when Dream had told him exactly how he’d fucked up.
No, instead Hob had woken up in his bed, comfortable as can be until he realized that he was still wearing the clothes he’d left for the Dreaming in. Including his shoes. He’d stared at his ceiling – lit up only by the street lights coming in through the blinds – for a long time before yelling “FUCK.”
The first month he held out hope, because that’s who they were. Dream threw tantrums, and Hob hoped he’d return. Dream had to calm down eventually. It wasn’t like Hob could control where his dreams took him, so it’d taken him to the castle, so he’d hung out with Lucienne, who cares? Why should Dream be so upset about that? For God’s sake, Dream pointed out that he could see every dream Hob had ever had about that bottle of wine and Hob knew that more than a few of them featured the two of them in much more compromising positions than standing fully clothed in a thrown room.
But just the realization that Hob had been there before hadn’t made Dream send him away, no that had been after Hob had said they were friends. He’d thought they were past that, Dream himself had called him his friend. So why?
It was a week later when it fully dawned on him what he’d done. He was in the middle of class and the students were broken into small groups for discussions which usually gave him a chance to check his email, but for the last week his mind had tended to wander. It was the fourth time he’d attempted to read the email from one of his students looking for help on their dissertation when he cursed, louder than he’d intended if the glances from some of the students were anything to go on.
It wasn’t that Hob had called Dream his friend, it was that Hob had been hurt by the realization that Dream hadn’t actually meant to care for Hob the way he had assumed. And instead of hiding it well he’d worn it on his sleeve for all the world to see. Of course Dream was uncomfortable with him now, of course he’d been sent away. Hob had once again asked for too much, this time by asking to be cared for.
He let himself mope about it for a few days, to feel sorry for himself because his friend had taken such a strong reaction to the idea of caring for him in such a deep and profound way. Maybe they weren’t the type of friends who loved each other, maybe they were more like Hob’s work friends, the kind of people he saw on a strict schedule, and never outside in the real world. Which certainly fit, as soon as they’d broken out of their 100 year schedule, Dream had put them on a monthly schedule.
Well, Hob supposed, as he tucked himself into bed on what he’d decided would be his last day of moping. I’ll just have to tell him that it’s a little hypocritical to freak out when he’d assumed I’d built him a temple on purpose.
But then Dream didn’t show up the next month. Or the month after that. Or six months after Hob’s trip to the Dreaming. There was no sign of him anywhere except Hob’s dreams, where he kept having nightmares about their fight in 1889. And Hob wasn’t able to keep his mind about him enough to break himself out of the usual run of the dreams and ask him about it then and there.
Which is how Hob came to his next course of action. He’d learn how to lucid dream and force Dream to talk to him. Or at least talk to Lucienne. Maybe she’d have some advice on how to get Dream to talk to him again.
Hob started with Google, and then with books, then guided meditations, and then a tense conversation with Joanna Constantine. He didn’t get any closer, the only thing he gained after talking with Joanna was a raven following him. He was pretty sure it was following him, that or Hob was getting paranoid in his old age.
Hob was posted up in the New Inn, it’d been a year since his trip to the Dreaming and Hob was still Hob, so he held out hope that Dream would appear. Maybe he’d been taken off the monthly schedule and put on a yearly one, which Hob could deal with if he had to.
The raven was outside the window, still watching him but over the last few months Hob’d gotten good at ignoring it. Until a flurry of black feathers moving about caught his eye and he turned to see the raven hopping around and cawing at...Dream. Hob stood up and rushed out of the pub, certain that if he didn’t run now he’d never see Dream again.
“-Mathew,” Dream said just as Hob burst through the door.
“Dream!” Hob yelled even though he couldn’t have been more than ten feet away and closing fast.
“Hello, Hob Gadling,” Dream said, turning to face him fully. He was frowning, and his eyes were fixed on him.
“I think that’s my cue!” the raven said suddenly and then took off flying.
“It can talk?” Hob shouted, turning to the bird and watching it disappear into a cloud.
“Yes.”
“Been following me for months and hasn’t said a fucking word,” Hob said, shaking his head. “I take it he’s a friend of yours?”
Dream cracked half a smile. “He is my raven,” he said like it was an explanation.
Hob had a lot of questions about that but he waved a hand at the inn. “Will you come in?”
“I would very much like to. There is much for us to discuss,” Dream said firmly, Hob pretended that didn’t send a jolt of anxiety through him.
“I got a bottle of scotch a few months back and have been trying to daydream about you enjoying it so hopefully you like it,” Hob said, holding the door open for him. Dream went to the table where Hob’s drink was still sitting as Hob grabbed the bottle and two glasses from behind the bar.
“You know,” Mark said as Hob came around. “You once told me that it’s always a bad idea to get back with your ex.”
Hob glared at him. “He’s not my ex.”
Mark shrugged. “My bad,” he said in a way that made it perfectly clear that he didn’t believe Hob. And he was probably right not to. Dream might not have been Hob’s ex-boyfriend but he certainly was something. Something that carved out parts of Hob and replenished them in equal measure. In a few hours when Hob was once again nursing a broken heart he’d probably appreciate Mark’s attempt.
Hob went to the table and smiled. “Here we are.” He poured them each a drink. “So, are we on a yearly meeting now?”
Dream frowned deeper and looked at the table, running on finger across a scratch. “If you would like.”
“You’re the one that kicked me out of the castle,” Hob pointed out.
“Yes,” Dream said then hesitated. Hob fought off the urge to fill the silence that followed. Dream had come here voluntarily, Dream could explain himself. “There was work to be done to ensure that I did not overstep the bounds of our friendship again. The work is completed now.”
Hob stared at him for a long moment, his mind completely blank as it tried to figure out what in the fuck Dream was talking about. After a full minute he gave up. “What are you talking about?”
“You were clearly distressed that it had been an unconscious action that brought you to the castle before our visit. I created a dream so that this would not happen again.”
Hob’s eyes burned and he closed his eyes to stop himself from crying. “So I’m not allowed back? Just nightmares about you leaving for the rest of my life.”
“No. They will be dealt with,” Dream snapped, his voice like thunder. Hob opened his eyes to see Dream’s anger bright, but not directed at him for once. “There was nothing for you to gain from them and they should not have tormented you so.”
Relief hit Hob like a wave. “So, that wasn’t you?”
Dream shook his head once. “Nightmares of Loss were impersonating me for reasons I have not obtained as of yet. But rest assured, that you will return to pleasant dreams tonight.”
“I can tell you why,” Hob offered with a laugh. Dream inclined his head in a silent bid for Hob to continue. “Because I’d lost you again.”
“You had not.”
“You -”
“I was correcting my mistakes so that you would not be subjected to them again,” Dream argued, frustration taking the place of confusion. He was firm, and every word seemed deliberate, like he was discussing immutable facts of the universe. “I was providing you distance so as not to overwhelm you with my feelings.”
“What feelings?” Hob snapped. “You didn’t even mean to take care of me back in the day. It was a fucking accident.” Hob wondered at himself, cringed internally as the words just kept pouring out of him. If he hadn’t lost Dream before he sure as shit was about to. “I get it. You don’t care about me the way I care about you, I’m just your funny little human who accidentally builds temples and puts his foot in his mouth every other meeting.” Hob took a deep breath and steadied himself so he didn’t break into a full yell, but his frustration was still thick on his words. “I am trying to be the type of friend you want me to be, I’m learning the rules but I don’t know what feeling you could possibly be thinking I’m overwhelmed by because most of my life I’ve been pretty sure that the only thing you feel towards me is the same vague curiosity that a kid feels as they watch ants march away with crumbs from a picnic.”
Dream stared at him Hob for a long time, un-moving, un-blinking, un-breathing. Hob’s anger had faded as soon as he was done talking but he was stubborn and he wasn’t going to take back what he’d said. He wouldn’t bury his feelings in excuse of being tired from the constant nightmares, or pretend he’d drank more than he had. If Dream was going to keep pushing him away Hob would at least give him a good reason.
All through the Dreaming a frozen wind ripped through, snapping branches and snuffing out campfires. And it wouldn’t stop. Usually, when Dream’s emotions got the better of him he could reach out and soothe the consequences of it so as not to make the Dreaming suffer, but for a long minute the wind was relentless. He wished to be swept up in it as well, but Hob was staring at him and waiting for Dream to ruin everything again.
And so he did.
“Love,” Dream admitted, and the wind calmed. There was no warmth of hope to follow it, Dream was not that foolish. But at least now the complaints that were sent Lucienne’s way would be minimal.
Hob’s eyes went wide, and the flush of anger drained from his face.
Dream kept talking just so he didn’t have to hear Hob reject feelings that Dream had not wanted to show him in the first place. “I fell in love with you in 1689 when after everything you had been through you still wished to live. I am Endless, I have lived for billions of years and they weigh heavily on me. I could not imagine having your love of living and found that I not only wanted it but that I wanted to share it with you. A small part, unconscious as it was, pulled you into the castle and cared for you. I am grateful that you found comfort in those moments, but I loved you so deeply that I could not control myself, and that is dangerous. I am Endless and we are not to love mortals. So long as I do not let it thrive, so long as my love is contained and suffocated deep in the Dreaming it cannot hurt you. The bounds of our friendship will be respected.”
Hob stared at him for a long time, his eyes wet with tears he would not let fall. “Fuck that,” he finally said, voice cracking and angry. “We can do whatever we want. Why are killing ourselves trying not to show the other that we’re deeply and madly in love with each other?” Hob smiled and reached for Dream’s hand on the table.
Dream pulled his hand back. “You do not understand the calamity that will befall you.”
“I don’t care.”
“Or the pain that my love will cause you.”
“You’re talking like gravity is going to reverse,” Hob teased.
“The pain my love will cause you is separate from the calamity that is caused by the love of an Endless. We are not made to love mortals, and I am not made to love any,” Dream argued. He had to make Hob understand, he had to make them both content with friendship where Hob would be safe, and Dream could keep some part of him. Hob would move on in time, Dream knew this.
Hob was silent for a long time, mulling it over. Hopefully seeing sense. “I love you, too. Does that count for anything?” Hob asked, simply. Somehow, Dream realized, it counted for everything. “I want you, I have for centuries, and every time we see each other I fall a little bit more. And believe me I didn’t think I could. And you’re right, you’re an asshole. And I’m an asshole. We’ll probably break each other’s hearts a thousand times. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. It doesn’t mean that when we sit down and talk about it there won’t still be love and forgiveness.”
Dream placed his hand back on the table, just a hair’s-breadth away from Hob’s. “And what of the calamity that befalls all mortals unfortunate enough to be loved by an Endless?”
Hob shrugged and took Dream’s hand. “I think as long as neither of us pisses off your sister so bad she revokes the deal, we’re in the clear. Not mortal.”
Dream laughed, more a release of the tension he’d been holding than an actual laugh but Hob’s smile spread nonetheless. “I suppose we can face that problem together if it comes to that,”>/b> Dream said, squeezing tightly. "She is easily appeased by freshly picked fruit.”
“I’ll start an orchard in my next life just to be safe,” Hob said, smiling brightly. “Now, how about I make that dinner I promised you?”
Dream nodded and stood, not letting go of Hob’s hand. The moat that surrounded the castle in the Dreaming was filled with blooming waterlilies.
That night Hob cooked Dream a simple dinner of pottage that had been in the slow cooker all day being infused with Hob’s daydreams of Dream returning to him, and of their reconciliation. Of one particularly vivid daydream featuring them breaking the banquet table in the castle. Hob just winked at him when Dream mentioned it. They shared wine as Hob explained everything that he’d done over the past year, and reassured Dream that he wasn’t upset with the nightmares and that they shouldn’t be punished (that had been a lively debate lasting nearly an hour).
Then Dream kissed Hob with no preamble or lead-up. There was simply a lull in the conversation and then Hob was being pushed back onto the couch with a lap full of Dream. He was absolutely not complaining.
“How do you want to do this?” Hob asked as Dream started to pull at the buttons of his jeans.
“I would fuck you in your chambers in my realm if you are amendable. I want the first time I have you to be in the heart of the Dreaming, where I first carved out a place for you.”
Hob nodded and had to clear his throat before he could say “Please.” The moment the word was out of his mouth Dream transported them to the chambers deep in the Dreaming. He found himself straddling Hob who had become shirtless upon entering the Dreaming, on a large feather bed.
“I love you,” Dream said, just to say it within his own realm, to have it admitted here where he had first shown it.
Hob smiled up at him, running a hand through his hair before pulling him down to whisper against his lips, “I love you too.”