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whisperprime · 2 years

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Hob blinks into awareness, staring at a blank wall.

A blank wall that should have a door in it.

He turns, putting his back to the offending wall. Takes in what appears to be his flat, at first glance. It gives him the surreal feeling that everything that had come before - Dream showing up, their talk, the offer to fix his ankle - had been the dream, rather than what he was currently experiencing.

Upon a second glance, he can pick up on the things that are out of place, like the pleated coat he’d bought back in the 15th century hung on the coat rack or the claymore he was still mourning the loss of mounted over a couch he definitely wouldn’t be buying again this go around.

Littered through out the flat are also things that didn’t exist yet - if they ever came to exist in this new timeline, such as a cellphone that made the iPhone 14 look like a MicroTAC Ultra Lite or the 22nd century style coat hung up next to his pleated one.

For a moment, he feels nostalgic for the time period he had left behind when he agreed to take up the Herald’s mission. He misses the friends he never got the chance to say goodbye to. Misses the advancements in technology. Is glad he doesn’t have to worry about missing the latest medical advancements.

Oh, what a world they were heading into. He looked forward to not only meeting it again, but also to experiencing it in new ways he hadn’t the first time.

There’s the feeling of displaced air, of a shift, that Hob has begun to attribute to something entering the dream with him, that tips off that he has company. Leaving the room to itself, Hob shifts his attention to Dream, who is peering at a future piece of technology that won’t exist for another 110 years.

What is it like to be a creature existing in the now while also retaining knowledge of things that existed in the tomorrow, he wonders. What strange things might this Endless being have seen that now only exists in the memories of those who have walked times that no longer make up their existence? What did time travelers bring to the collective unconsciousness?

Hob puts a pin on those thoughts before they can carry him away. He may have been improving when it came to lucid dreaming, something that was far easier at the moment with Dream being there, but it was still far too easily to get distracted and lose the thread on things. ��It’s done?”

Dream pulls himself away from the cell phone, turning to meet him. Here, in his domain, Hob is struck once again by how much more substantial he is. His eyes, usually blue in the Waking world, are their more natural reflection of the cosmos.

“Yes. You might feel sore in the morning, but the bone was set back correctly.”

Oh, to be able to walk without the feeling of bone not sitting correctly. He could not wait.

Near bouncing on his feet, Hob turns back to the blank wall. He places one hand on his hip, while the other goes to his chin as he debates his dilemma. “I might need your help, dove.” He points at the wall with the hand that had been on his hip. “I’ve gotten decent at controlling my dreams, but I never got the hang of changing them.”

Dream steps up beside him, intrigued. “You were not a lucid dreamer in the past. When did you learn?”

“It’s a recent skill.” Well, ‘recent’ if one took into account that Hob has roughly 379 years worth of lived experience that Dream knows very little about. “It took way longer than I thought it would to get even to my current level. I’m jealous of those it comes freely too.”

He gets a thoughtful nod. “Everyone who sleeps experiences it differently. The only thing they have in common is that they dream at some point in their lives.”

Hob has always wondered: “Do you sleep?”

Dream is silent in a way that Hob knows that he’s weighing whether or not to tell him something. He’s a little shocked when he gets, “No. The closest thing for me is unconsciousness.”

Another thought to put a pin in.

Not wanting the conversation to take a darker turn - they are supposed to be having a bit of a dinner date, even if they’re not calling it that - Hob forces himself to face the wall. “I know the place I’d like to go, but I don’t know how to get there. Any suggestions?”

A considering silence, this time. “Emotional attachment can help shape dreams.”

Hob suddenly remembers that he has, just once, changed a dream before, although he hadn’t been trying to do it on purpose. Remembers the brief flash of The Wake during his revisit of the 1889 dream right after the seal broke.

Dream tilts his head down to make eye contact, and Hob suddenly realizes that Dream is taller than him at the moment. “Does this place have any such attachment for you?”

Hob closes his eyes and imagines the place he’d like to go. Feels the tug of it, like a call home. “Yeah. Yeah it does.”

He feels cool fingers wrap around the hand that had still been pressed to his hip. Nearly opens his eyes, until he hears, “Hold the image of the place in your mind.” His hand is guided out until he feels those fingers wrapping his hand around a door knob that wasn’t there a moment ago. “Let the attachment be the thread to guide you to where you want to go.”

Holding tight to the image, Hob turns the knob and pulls on the door. When he opens his eyes, there before him is the New Inn. But it isn’t a version from any specific era, nor is it the one he’s trying to build back in the Waking, although it might be close.

Here, in this dream, it is more the concept of the place than an imagining of the real thing. The hopes, new and old, he’s poured into it. What it was and what he wants to it be again. His hands itch with the desire to pick up a hammer and attempt, perhaps in vain, to try and make it a reality.

Remembering he isn’t alone, Hob uses his free hand to indicate that Dream should enter first. “After you, dove.”

Dream pauses in the door way much the same way he had when he’d entered the New Inn in the Waking world. He looks back at Hob over his shoulder, briefly, eyes narrowed in scrutiny, before he turns back and passes through the door.

Hob follows behind him, coming to walk beside him as they enter the seating area. In the Waking, the New Inn would be full of tables and booths if it was this far along. Here, in this place that Hob has imagined just for the two of them, is just a single bar stool up against a more richly colored version of the real bar table.

“Feel free to take a seat, if you’d like.” Hob points over his shoulder to the double doors that should lead to the kitchen. “I shouldn’t be too long with the food.”

Dream eyes the seat for a moment, before he shakes his head. “I should like to come with you.”

Hob feels the phantom sensation of sweat down his neck. This is hardly the first time someone will have watched him cook before, but there’s a certain level of stakes here that he hasn’t felt since that one time he had the Queen over. Higher, even.

He covers it up with his usual bravado, offering a welcoming smile and a ‘follow me’ as he heads for the kitchen.

He hadn’t ever given any heavy thought to what he might make Dream if he ever had him over for dinner. Even if he had, food in the Dreaming was different than anything in the Waking world. In the Waking world, the quality of the ingredients and the skill of the chef determined the taste of the food.

In the Dreaming, food was more memory and emotion. To feed someone in the Dreaming was to share with them an experience and to pour it into being.

Hob had only shared a meal once with the Other Dream, but he hoarded that memory like a dragon hoards it’s most precious gold.

Doing this prods a little at that loss, but it feels like pressing on a bruise that will always be worth the hurt to have gained the experience.

Without it, he would never be able to do what he was doing now. To share this gift with any of the knowledge that give in the full impact of the thought that went into it.

It is with this in mind, that he lets the doubts fall away and gets to work. The kitchen, as it can only in a dream, has everything he needs. The dish itself is simple, but still something he’d feel comfortable feeding a king. He preps the venison with the curiosity he felt during their first meeting. Preps the vegetables with the trepidation he’d felt going into their second meeting. Spices the venison with the love he’d newly discovered going into their third meeting. The vegetables are sauteed with the light that was the remembrance that he had someone waiting for him going during their fourth meeting. Roasts the venison with the wonder he’d felt at the end of the their fifth meeting and the empathy he’d felt for the loneliness he’d felt himself during their sixth meeting.

Food finally cooked, he fashions a plate to serve it on, made of the faith, despite the fears, that they’d see each other again he’d felt going into what should have been their seventh meeting. The same faith that had carried him beyond it when it was missed, both the original and repeat time around.

Carefully lifting the plate, Hob turns to head back into the sitting area. Has to pause when he gets a look at the expression on his friend's face.

The Lord of Dreams and Nightmares stares back at him, the heat behind that gaze a supernova at the height of it’s explosion. He looks like he wants to crawl into Hob’s psyche and see what makes him tic. To preserve it for him to return to and gaze upon at his leisure.

Hob swallows feeling not unlike a pinned butterfly on display, carefully asks, “Dove? The food is ready.” Needlessly, he holds up the plate.

Dream blinks, with all the effort of a titan willing itself back into something small enough for something a human could perceive. Eyes the dish like a predator would prey.

What would you feed a creature that is beyond that of a god?

“Yes, let us see what you have come up to thank me.”

Hob wills himself not to allow his trepidation stop him now. He once shit talked Death and earned an eternity to enjoy life. He's not stupid enough to do anything like that again - not rudely, anyway - but it is that kind of courage he reacjes for, foolish as it is.

He just hopes that this doesn’t turn out to be foolish, as well.

Dream takes his seat on the stool, somehow looking like a king set at the head of a grand table rather than someone sat at a bar table. Hob lays down the dish in front of him. Once his hands are free, he turns to the shelves behind him and reaches for one of the bottles. Imagines it filled with the joy of drinking with a companion that knows him better than anyone in the world as he pours it into a glass he’s pulled up from beneath the bottles. Lastly, he lays out a pair of utensils.

Once finished, he steps back, hands trailing palm up along the table as he withdraws. “I present your meal, milord. Roasted venison and vegetables, served with a Bordeaux wine. I hope it is made to your liking.”

Dream decides to taste the venison first. The moment the meat hits his tongue, Hob watches as his eyes fall close with a flutter. Raw pleasure lights his face, subtle that it is, like Hob has rarely seen, and he can’t help but feel an answering, pleased flush of his own.

Dream does not do anything as undignified as inhale the food. He takes his time with savoring the food, the wine. Somehow leaves not a single trace of it behind when he is finished.

This might be the closest to sated Hob has ever seen Dream.

Hob very happily adds this memory to his treasure trove of moments to look at on a rainy day.

Food consumed, Dream picks up his glass of wine. Swirls it a bit, something heavy on his mind. When he looks up at Hob for the first time since starting the meal, his eyes are deep and terribly, terribly knowing.

This is hardly the first time Hob has bared himself to this impossible creature. It will likely not be the last.

He does not back down, but rather rises up and meets it.

“Why do you not call me by my name?”

Hob blinks at the seeming non-sequitur. Rolls with it and shrugs. “You haven’t given me permission to use it.”

Dream hums at him, recognizes the insolence and decides to find it amusing. “Having my love would not be the safest thing for you, Hob Gadling. To have it would be your ruin.”

Fog, briefly, skirts the floor of the New Inn before vanishing. Hob can almost taste the Chateau Laffite 1828 on his tongue.

And may each and every one of us give always the Devil his due.

It is far too late to be warned about what loving Dream of the Endless could mean for Hob Gadling. He is too far past the point of no return to worry about something as simple as being ruined.

He will claim, and even mean, that he spent those 106 years in Roderick Burgess’ basement because he wanted the world to keep spinning for the selfish reason of wanting to continue to live in it.

But that does not change the fact that he still took Dream’s place in what turned out to be the closest he has ever gotten to Hell on Earth because Hob was in love with him.

That he would do it again, no matter the cost.

“Some things are worth the danger, dove.” Hob stepped back up to the table, leaning forward until they were eye to eye. “You are worth it and I would say that every day if it would help you to believe it.”

Dream appears to be holding himself back with every ounce of his control. His emotionless façade long cracked down the center, laying bare the controlled urge to claim and possess. “Be sure, Hob Gadling. I may not let you go.”

Hob leans in, not away. They will talk about boundaries after Dream is convinced he is allowed to touch. “You may have me, dove. Now and as long as you will have me.”

Dream’s control finally snaps as he near springs up from his chair. Hob barely has time to register the hand reaching around his head and tangling in his hair, before he is pulled into a kiss that borders on desperate. He sinks into it, melting into that mouth that steals his breathe from him and leaves him thanking it for him. He can still taste hints of the wine and meal as he chases that clever, sharp tongue.

Dream pulls away, as if belatedly remembering that Hob is human and it is human habit to breathe, even in dreams. Licks his lips as if Hob has a taste and he wishes to savor it.

Hob watches the flash of pink like a parched man would water in the desert.

“You may use my name.” The Dream Lord’s fingers loosen their grip on his hair. His touch becoming a caress along Hob’s check as he begins to pull his hand away.

Hob, feeling brave, catches his arm and presses his lips to that wrist were a pulse might have been were this being anything as simple as human. “Thank you, Dream.” Whispers the name against the skin beneath his lips like a prayer.

He feels the shiver as well as sees it this time. Reluctantly releases his grip when Dream pulls away.

“Thank you for the meal, Hob Gadling. Your gratitude has been received.” He stands in one smooth motion, more graceful here in his domain than he ever is in Waking. “I will see you again, soon.”

With a wave of his hand, Dream sends Hob back to the Waking world.

Hob opens his eyes to the ceiling of his bedroom. His ankle, true to prediction, is a soft ache that will be gone by the end of the day, if he is careful.

For the next hour before his alarm goes off, Hob lays there as for the first time since he met the Herald of Destruction on that ordinary day in 2189, he feels the unintended consequences of his choice - and the wish behind it - fully sink in.

There is no possible ruin that could come from bearing Dream’s love that will compare to the pain of outliving him when Hob inevitably loses him.

He had thought he knew what he was getting into when he decided to marry Eleanor and father children with her. It had nearly destroyed him when he vastly underestimated how terrible it was to lose someone you loved with all you had.

Yet he knows, just as he did with Eleanor, Robyn, and his unborn daughter, he will weather this pain because getting his heart broken will have been worth the happiness, however short it lasts.

He had survived her death and the death of their children. Eventually.

He had survived Dream’s death, the first time.

He can only pray he will survive it a second time.

Interlude: 1989

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