Chapter Text
*
He stank.
Morpheus could smell him halfway across the room.
He stank as if he'd just crawled out of a bog, taken a shortcut through a landfill of horse dung, showered in a gallon of sour wine, and, as a finishing touch, fallen asleep in a plague pit.
But then again, perhaps he was being too harsh on the man, when he was no worse off than his comrades. Or the rest of the pub for that matter. It held an overarching scent of unwashed bodies, stale sweat mixing with spilled wine. That, combined with a pungent smell of what must have been goat urine, and the smoke accumulating inside due to a lack of a proper chimney, made breathing in the tiny pub quite unpleasant. It's been so long since Morpheus had left the Dreaming that he'd forgotten just how awful the waking world could stink. The recent black death pandemic hadn't really helped their case either.
And yet, here he was, pushing through the crowd of sweaty mortals, half of them drunk, the other half well on their way there. One of them almost bumped into his side, but he managed to sidestep her with a dancer's grace before she could spill her mead on his gown, only to very nearly collide with the hunk of a man behind him. He had to raise his head up so far his neck hurt just to see his face, and when he finally reached the mouth, he found the stranger grinning a brownish-yellow grin that looked a smidge too salacious for Morpheus' liking. Besides, the stench of onion in his breath was overwhelming, so Morpheus didn't dally, just pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and covered his nose and mouth with it as he turned on his heels to walk away. A bit perturbed, he didn't notice the goat pissing onto the ground, so he stumbled over it. He caught his balance at the nearest table, and his hand came away wet with spilled mead. He straightened up again and wiped himself off with the handkerchief, then crumpled it in his hand until it caught flame and turned to ash. Sharp nose scrunched up and lips twisted into a snarl, he turned around to find the goat was now munching on the hem of his gown. He was about to reach for his pouch of sand and curse the stupid animal with eternal horrors when someone interrupted him.
"Now what did the poor creature do to you?" came a familiar voice from behind him. He huffed out an irritated breath, and turned around to find Death grinning at him.
"I was under the impression you had left, sister," he muttered, refusing to let the goat out of sight. She chuckled and reached up to pinch his cheek, but he ducked away from her touch, scowling. He was the Lord of Dream and Nightmare, not a human child to be treated like this.
"Think I wasn't gonna stick around for the meet-cute?"
Morpheus blinked.
"The what?"
"Oops, wrong time period," she giggled and dismissed the blunder with a wave. Then gave him the most mischievous smirk he'd seen her wear since the last time she'd found him drunk. "So will you go meet Hob, or are you just gonna spend the next few centuries glaring at the goat?"
Reluctantly, he allowed the animal to slip from his sight and met Death's gaze. He ran a hand down his raven hair, unused to wearing it so straight.
"Must I do this, sister?"
She rolled her eyes.
"Having second thoughts just because he stinks?"
"He is a filthy human."
"You thought he was funny!"
"I did no such–"
"Sure you didn't."
He closed his mouth, swiping a strand of hair away from his forehead, then changing his mind and straightening it to lay in the exact same place as before. Then finally admitted, albeit reluctantly. "Perhaps…"
"No, don't perhaps me, Dream, I saw you when he spoke. It was the first time you laughed in five hundred years." Her eyes softened and she nodded her head in the direction of the loudmouthed mortal. "C'mon, he's waiting for you, all you gotta do is talk to him."
"He is not waiting for me, he is ten minutes away from passing out in a drunken stupor."
"And he's got an empty space beside him saved just for you even if he doesn't know it yet," she insisted, ignoring him. "Just look at him!"
Morpheus followed her gaze back towards the mortal. He couldn't tell what his sister meant by that. Hob Gadling was nothing special to look at: about average height and build, no taller than Morpheus, dressed in a coarse linen tunic and loose breeches, both earth brown, as was usual for a man in this time. There was a bloody bandage wrapped around his left bicep and a thin cut along his neck, stitched closed with black wire. His hair and beard were trimmed unevenly, something he'd probably done with blunt scissors. They were a coppery red colour, sunset orange where the meagre torchlight caught in them, not unusual among Englishfolk in this era, but appealing enough to make the overall effect of Hob's appearance a smidge less unpleasant.
"'tis a mug's game, I tell ya!" he shouted for the tenth time, only to be met with condescending cackles from his mates. He just laughed right back at them, his tankard wobbling in his hand as he took another long gulp from it. In spite of himself, Morpheus felt his lips twitch into the faintest of smiles. He admired the human's perseverance if nothing else. Turning back around, he found his sister smirking triumphantly, so he gave her one more stormy look. But she just winked at him and waggled her fingers in a goodbye.
"Now off you go, little brother."
And she was gone, nothing but the crowd of smoke befogged mortals where she'd once stood.
Morpheus sighed. Then scrunched up his nose when he remembered breathing deeply in here was a bad idea. Figuring he might as well get this over with, he refocused his attention on the human who'd managed to pique his interest with his ridiculous speech– and had just burped like a wild boar after emptying his third pint… Morpheus contemplated whether he should just bail, but he was relatively certain his sister would drag him back herself if he tried. So he took the few remaining steps that separated him and the mercenaries' table.
"Is this stool taken?" Morpheus asked, standing beside the red-haired mortal, trying and failing to keep his nose from twitching. A part of him was hoping he wouldn't be heard, but he had no such luck.
"Huh?" The human muzzily turned his gaze up and jumped a little when he saw the black-clad figure standing beside him. He recovered quickly and, smiling, beckoned him closer. "Not that I know of. Come, sit with us."
"Gonna 'ave to buy a round at thyne turn," burped a gap-toothed mercenary as Morpheus took his seat next to Hob, making sure to leave at least a foot of distance between them. He listened to the conversation although it was of no real interest to him. The other mortals were half-wits at best and utter morons at worst. Nothing of note came from their mouths. But in the end, they weren't what he was here for.
Up close, Hob Gadling smelled no better. There was a sharp coppery tang about him Morpheus had missed before coming from his bandage and the cut on his neck. It provided the mortal with yet another dimension of stench, so Morpheus held in a tired sigh, figuring he might as well get this over with.
"Did I hear you correctly?" He turned to the human. "That you have no intention of ever dying?"
He attracted a few curious glances as he spoke, a few hands stilled before tipping the pints to their lips, a few rough voices cackled again. He paid them no mind and neither did Hob as he answered with drunken enthusiasm.
"Aye! Aye, that's right."
Morpheus couldn't help but let his amusement leak into his voice at the next words. The human's confidence was astounding.
"Well then you must tell me what it's like…"
The whole table burst into laughter as if he'd just told the funniest joke those dimwits have ever heard, cutting off his words. He spared them a condescending glance but otherwise didn't shift his attention away from Hob. He continued as soon as the ruckus died down a bit.
"Let us meet again, Robert Gadling. In this tavern of the White Horse in let's say…" He paused for effect as if he were considering. "...a hundred years."
At that, the hoots of laughter returned tenfold, all the while, Hob Gadling was looking straight at Morpheus, dead serious and surprisingly sober. He held eye contact for a few seconds before finally answering.
"A' nundred years you say?"
Morpheus nodded, and the human grinned a grin that wasn't entirely pleasing to the eye. At least there were no missing teeth… Without further hesitation, he pulled Morpheus' hand from beneath the table and shook it.
"A hundred years! I will see you again, in the year of our lord fourteen eighty-nine, then."
Morpheus didn't have the presence of mind to answer as he stared at the hand gripping his in an uncomfortably tight hold. It was rough to the touch, calloused and scarred from all the battles it had seen, the palm bigger and fingers thicker than Morpheus', big enough so that his artist's hand, slender and unblemished and much paler than Hob's, got lost in the hold. Before he'd had the chance to react, the grip disappeared, leaving Morpheus' hand to hang uselessly in the air. But then, Hob laughed and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close to his side, and Morpheus tensed and froze on the spot.
"That's right! Keep laughing, what's it matter to me, I'll outlive you all!" Hob shouted to his mates who were doubled over in their seats, guffawing into their mead.
All the while, Morpheus didn't move. And didn't know what to think.
The hand had shocked him before, but now there was… an arm around him. He could recognize it as a gesture of comradery, but this… this was a human, a filthy human who stank, oh god, he stank to high heavens. Up close, Morpheus could see that his shirt was a sweaty patchwork of crude linen, his hair and beard a flea-ridden nest, the stitches holding his wound together a bloody mess.
A human…
What right does he have to touch me?
Then, before his anger had gotten the chance to properly ignite, it evaporated and turned into confusion as he realised something.
There was warmth spreading down from Hob's arm. It fell over his shoulders and his chest and his biceps, feeling so much like sunlight warming a shadowed corner and melting away the frost that had gathered there across the millennia, layer after layer until all that remained was the gentle heat of sunlight. He knew this was the arm of a filthy mercenary, but it felt…
It felt nice. Pressed close to the other's side, Hob's shouts reverberated through his body, shaking his physical form like tiny earthquakes. They drowned out the sounds of the inn, muffling the clatter and the chatter and the hooting and the shouting until all that remained was Hob. Stinking and bloodied and- and solid and warm and…
Comfortable.
It was so strange.
And a bit overwhelming.
"Mark my words, you'll be rolling in your graves while I shag a wench over this table!" One of the mercenaries leaned back in his chair and overbalanced, crashing to the floor with a pained hoot of laughter. Morpheus looked up as Hob emptied his pint, drops of golden liquid ending up on his beard. And decided not to stick around any longer. Before the human had had the chance to turn to him and talk some more, he was gone, leaving nothing but air behind.
He rematerialised on the gravel path, not more than a few paces from the tavern door and just stood there, staring at his feet. He could hear that the mercenaries were still laughing inside, Hob among them. When he finally awoke from his stupor, he walked away, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched as he felt the ghost touch of Hob's warmth around him. He walked, thinking and remembering…
Remembering that it had been more than a thousand years since the last time he'd felt another's touch.
*