Chapter Text
Hypnos was not new to feeling out of place.
For one, it was common for shades to make funny faces at the chipper sleep god as he guided them into The Realm of The Dead, expecting a brooding soul keeper instead. Some shades wouldn’t even take his job seriously, criticizing the task delegation of the underworld or calling it understaffed. At the beginning of Hypnos’ employ, he had blamed it all on Shade Eccentricities, exotic little standards and beliefs no doubt learned through a lifetime of the surface.
Shades reacted similarly to seeing Dusa as the housekeep after all, or to Achilles brooding across the hallway - if anything, Hypnos was not nearly as gawked at as those two were. Unsubtle comments and rumours that, surely, Achilles and Dusa heard but chose to ignore. It was the same for Hypnos.
Though, as he settled into his role, he found that it wasn’t so. No one was ever surprised to see his brothers. Thanatos and Charon were promised encounters in a mortal’s death - The Stygian Boatman, visceral and unfriendly, the ferryman across the Styx - and Death Incarnate, solemn and intense as the psychopomp of the soul. Shades were never puzzled by either of them, nor were they puzzled by the other gods who frequented the house. But no one expected that sleep would station himself at the very entrance of the realm of death. Nor did people expect that sleep would hold the appearance that he did.
He has asked Achilles about it once over a bottle. Despite Achilles having been somewhat of an atheist in life - ironic, really, for a demigod son - Achilles had told him there were not many depictions of Hypnos that he knew of. Hypnos’ worship was rather sparse, he’d said, and the statues that were erected in his name looked more like Thanatos than they did him. Immediately as the words left his mouth, Achilles fretted to reassure Hypnos that all mortals did know of him, being a well respected son of Nyx, paranoid that his words may have hit a nerve. But they hadn’t, not really.
It was natural for Sleep to be forgotten.
Unlike Hades, the people Hypnos ruled over did not stay in his realm forever. His realm was not composed of every generation that had lived and perished, nor did Hypnos share his realm with other gods to split the burden. The only entity he really worked with was the Lethe, river of oblivion.
It made sense for him to take on the job as list keeper of the newly deceased, for it would mean he would know who no longer entered the realm of sleep on a nightly basis - at least that was the reasoning he was given at first.
When he first got the job he found himself excited to see familiar faces in the procession of shades, favourite mortals he had visited and carefully crafted pleasant dreams for - he thrilled at the idea of chatting them up in the lounge, filling each other in on the juicy details of each other's lives. But these desires were never reciprocated. The shades never remembered him. It was asif nothing he’d made had ever existed.
It had been a harsh realization at the time - he remembered his mother coming to his room in Erebus to comfort him. Nyx, in her own way, tried to make sense of it. That being Nyx’s son meant living without reverence - all powerful if pushed but reclusive and unassuming otherwise.
Since they all came from primordial nothingness.
That was why they could never be revered as the master was, nor the great heroes of old, nor by anyone other than themselves.
He had cursed his mother when she said it, for she knew nothing of the gaping loss he felt. A million friendships that may well have never existed.
He regretted cursing her as he aged, no longer a teenager stepping into his first ever job - but he was not wrong for thinking it. It was true, Nyx, Charon and Thanatos never bothered to learn about his duties like he did theirs - and whilst Nyx was allowed to commit to her own needs as she pleased, Hypnos was not as respected for his work as she was.
Charon had one eternity-long task, Thanatos did too - both their purposes and job occupations married into one. But not Hypnos. He was forced to multitask.
And again, it was not the god’s fault that they knew nothing of dreams - many were too preoccupied with the waking world to ever desire sleep. There were exceptions to that, though. Hypnos had met Dionysus many times, the god seeping in and out of his realm in drunken disarray after feasts, the sight having become a weekly occurrence by now. They got along fairly well too, not like the pleasure god had much of a choice as he’d lay his head on Hypnos’ lap by the river Lethe, mumbling whatever came to mind without a social filter.
He was complimentary, if anything, inviting Hypnos to banquets and feasts, encouraging him to drink and let his mind off things. Hypnos never really heard back from him when the two were awake, though, and assumed he didn’t recall the hours he’d spend serenading the boy. It was quite flattering, and a much needed confidence boost on some nights, but Hypnos made a point to remind himself that it was the wine that made him so kind.
Sometimes he’d see Hermes as well, the one god who did seem to recognize his appearance as Sleep Incarnate immediately - likely through his closeness to his brother Charon.
Hermes would be quick to put two and two together and realize he was dreaming when he saw Hypnos. They’d have fun together, racing around, having little competitions on who could manipulate the dream more than the other.
Whenever Hermes would dream again he would often be able to recall where they had left off in a previous one. At best, any other dreamer would only really be met with a faint sense of deja vu if they experienced the same dream again. Hypnos would be lying if he said he wasn’t deeply biased when it came to Hermes - as he was the only company where he felt his duties were seen as real. It was refreshing to have a friend who remembered him, one who would light up at seeing him and greet him by his name.
Admittedly, they weren’t very close in the waking world - having only met a handful of times when Charon would still let his little brother accompany him on his duties after Hypnos would pull out his best puppy-eyes. Back then, Hermes used to treat the little sleep god with the same paternal attitude that Charon did, doing all he could to make him smile and bringing little flowers from the surface as gifts. That’s where Sleep’s love of poppies had stemmed from. The many red sprouts that lined Hypnos’ room in Erebus and grew along sleep’s glade by the Lethe had all been enabled by Hermes.
But those were times of the past. Charon no longer allowed Hermes to tag along on his boat, saying he had grown too large and would capsize it. Which couldn’t have been true - Hypnos and Hermes both shared a similar small frame, Hermes no doubt being heavier with the muscle he had accumulated, and he was allowed on board all the time. It was likely just an excuse, but he really missed being on long boat rides with his brother and his talkative business partner.
But he was probably getting ahead of himself, the dreams were more than enough, and he should be grateful for them.
Still, when all was well and he could slip away without being missed - he would craft dreams with the people he knew and loved and would dream up a world where he got the love he craved. Dreams for only himself, dreams he would not forget, to make up for the loss he felt when the dreaming woke up.
He knew it was self indulgent and unhealthy, but no one else did. No one else paid him or his duties any mind to know he was doing it at all. Everyone had a bad habit of some kind, did they not?
It did not matter that others would scorn if they ever found out, because Hypnos never planned for them to ever do so in the first place.