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It’s been over a month since Dream had visited Hob, their longest break yet since he escaped captivity, and far too long for both their likings. Dream had at least warned Hob this time – a series of Dreaming affairs occurred in rapid succession and kept him busy. The most recent of these being a family dinner with his siblings. It was a spectacular disaster that ended with Death and Despair hauling Desire and Dream back from each other like a pair of spitting cats.
Desire had let a comment “slip” that revealed to everyone that they were essentially to blame for Dream’s imprisonment. When Dream left, Death had been reaming Desire out in a way he’d never seen her let loose before, and loathe as he was to miss it, he needed to leave. Immediately. Before he spilt family blood.
His arrival back into the Dreaming was announced with a raging storm that shook the very foundations of his realm with every thunderclap. Lucienne and the others had enough sense to stay out of his way.
Dream spared only long enough to make sure his realm was in good order before rushing to the Waking.
London is just as rainy and miserable as the Dreaming is, perhaps even more so, with an early winter chill in the air and November solidly underfoot. Everything is water-logged in brown and grey.
At this hour, Hob should still be at the university, with a lecture at 3:30. Dream materializes in a quiet spot between two buildings, knowing he appears as nothing but a shadow from the corner of an eye, something to make one feel silly when they jump and realize it’s just a stranger they didn’t initially notice.
He hasn’t made it three steps before a series of pitiful mews reach his ears, breaking through his furiously scribbled thoughts. He sinks carefully to one knee to look under the scraggly shrub that the sounds are coming from.
A ball of bedraggled black fur is huddled against the base of the shrub, clearly shaking from the cold.
“Hello, little one,” Dream murmurs, offering a friendly hand to coax it out. The kitten immediately darts out and crawls into Dream’s hand.
“What are you doing out here?” he says, cradling the creature against his chest. She pushes instinctively into his touch with another miserable cry.
It’s an entirely rhetorical question, the cat has already told him, in snatches and bursts before she even reached his hand.
A scowling man and a cage of cardboard walls, she and her brothers crying in confusion. The frightening din of a rushing freeway and confusing smells of an unfamiliar place, the realization that they’re far from their mother. They escaped the box, intent on returning, and were separated in this wretched, perilous city before long.
Dream spares of a moment of righteous fury of the banal, casual cruelty of humans. Creatures such as this are especially precious to him, their dreams and follies the result of their inescapable, intrinsic nature. Humans have no such excuse.
He fully intends a visit to the man with a plethora of nightmares in tow.
As he tucks her into the front of his coat, she wonders where her brothers are, if they’re safe.
They’re not, but Dream doesn’t think he needs to tell her that.
“I have the perfect place for you,” he says, uncaring of the double-take a student gives him when he walks by whispering to a squirming lump in his coat.
Hob’s lecture hall is completely empty. Dream turns a full circle in the doorway, wondering if he somehow misremembered the location. If he wasn’t here for whatever reason, he will surely be in his office. He makes his way over but finds the door locked and no light spilling out from beneath.
This is…unusual. A tiny thread of concern weaves its way into Dream’s middle. It’s never more obvious to him than now that Hob has no way to contact Dream aside from the time-consuming and inconvenient methods of summoning him altogether.
A student sitting on a bench nearby had abandoned clacking away at their computer to watch Dream with obvious interest from the moment he arrived.
“He’s not here today,” the student offers up.
Dream turns his full attention to the student right as the kitten pokes her head out from his coat. The student’s mouth parts in surprise.
Ricardo Garcia, an exchange student from Spain. He dreams often of his childhood in his sunny hometown, especially during the approach of another gloomy London winter. He wasn’t in the lecture when Dream made an unexpected visit weeks before.
“Why?” The word is curt, cold.
“Umm…” He eyes the soggy cat nestled in Dream’s immaculate coat, clearly struggling not to ask about it. “He uh, he’s sick.”
Dream grits his jaw, nodding a quick thanks and already pacing down the hallway, his long legs eating up space until he can turn the corner and vanish.
Dream jumps straight to Hob’s doorstep with a toss of sand, apologizing in advance to the kitten for the fright he’s about to give her. Cats don’t appreciate his preferred form of travel.
He knocks twice to no answer and that thread of concern grows larger, snagging his ribs and pulling tight. He doesn’t wait a second before letting himself in. He finds Hob at the entry, hand raised to undo the lock. Dream takes in his appearance greedily, searching for signs of harm or injury.
The other man is slouched oddly, like he’s nursing a wound in his middle, his usually neat hair in tangled disarray around his face. He squints at Dream for a second, before brushing his cheekbone with his fingertips, like he’s checking to see if Dream is real. Heat rolls off him in waves and it’s all Dream can do not to fold into him right there in the doorway.
“You have terrible timing, darling,” Hob says in a hoarse, crackling voice that’s far thicker and more nasally than normal. And then he throws his arms around Dream and slumps against his frame.
The kitten makes her presence known with a high wail and fresh squirms.
“What is that?” Hob jerks back and Dream takes the struggling animal from his jacket and hands her off to Hob with no explanation, making sure the cat is firmly within his grasp before moving to untie his boots.
“A cat?” Hob holds the animal up in confusion. He sneezes into his arm, a wet and mucusy sound that Dream would ordinarily find repulsive.
He scans Hob again, notes the dark smudges under his eyes and the slight rattle of his lungs that signals something is amiss.
“You’re ill.” It comes out like a question. Hob shouldn’t be able to get sick, should he? Fresh anxiety wells in him, woven with dread. He knew being close to Hob would make him a target, he just didn’t think it would happen so quickly. If this is Desire’s work, some kind of enchantment to make Hob susceptible to sickness…
Hob is still holding the cat in one hand and looking at Dream in bewilderment. He blinks a few times, taking in Dream’s appearance. “You’re wet.”
“It’s raining,” Dream replies in a dry tone as he unbuttons his jacket and hangs it up.
“Your pants are dirty. And you brought a cat. I’m hallucinating. I’m hallucinating at least one of these things.” He eyes Dream sideways. “Perhaps more than one thing.”
“Lay down, Hob,” Dream says, guiding him to his bedroom with a hand on his lower back.
“I can’t bring this cat into bed,” Hob protests between a series of coughs. But the cat is already snuggled against his chest, drowsy and basking from the heat of what’s surely a fever. She looks comically small in Hob’s arms. It makes something soft and liquid fill Dream’s chest.
“She’s dirty,” he complains again as he crawls under the covers and lays down.
Dream bends over him with an amused smile. “I’ll wash her off.”
“You, Mr. King of Dreams, are going to give this kitten a bath.”
Dream lightly plucks the cat from his hold. “Rest,” he commands in a soft, rolling voice that sets Hob’s eyes drifting shut almost immediately. They don’t call him Dream for nothing.
He sets the kitten in Hob’s deep, stainless steel kitchen sink. He and the kitten eye each other dolefully.
“I’m certain you’re right,” Dream tells her. “I have very little experience bathing dirty creatures.” Knowing what to do and being able to do it are very different things.
The kitten is still and cooperative as he rinses her several times with only warm water, positive that none of the chemicals in Hob’s kitchen are fit for a cat’s coat.
He ruffles her fur with the nearest tea towel and carries her back to Hob’s bedroom. She immediately huddles into Hob’s chest again and promptly starts purring.
He perches on the edge of the bed and smooths Hob’s tangled hair back from his face, the skin damp and scorching with fever.
“Do you have any idea how this happened?”
Hob scrunches his face in confusion. “How what happened?”
Dream’s words grow in speed and intensity as he speaks. “Has a new person made an appearance in your life in the last few weeks? Or have you found any unusual objects in your possession that you don’t remember acquiring? Or have – “
“Darling. Morpheus, stop,” Hob interrupts him, laying a hand along his cheek. “What is this all about?”
Hob’s use of that name throws him. “Someone is clearly interfering in my affairs.”
Hob groans. “For once in your life, please speak plainly.”
Dream resists the urge to stomp his foot like a child. This man is infuriating sometimes. Can’t he see how dire the situation grows?
He takes a deep breath and grits out, “You’re ill. Someone is targeting you.”
Hob stares at him for a second before breaking into a low laugh that devolves into hacking coughs. “I have the flu, Dream. Just a common human virus. Nothing more.”
Dream knits his brows. “But you’re immortal.”
“I can still get sick. Just like I can still be injured. It just doesn’t last as long as a regular person. In a couple days I’ll be right as rain.”
Dream freezes. It never occurred to him that Hob is still susceptible to human illness. How silly of him not to see something that simple. It opens a whole new world of things to worry about.
Hob cuts off Dream’s slowly spiraling thoughts. “I appreciate the concern. I didn’t think to keep an eye out for new people or things. Is that really – are you truly worried about someone trying to harm me?”
Dream just nods, not trusting his voice at the moment. Instead, he leans over, slowly, and rests his ear against Hob’s chest. The comforting thump of a healthy, beating heart greets him.
“My siblings and I are forbidden from harming humans without a direct threat. But some of them don’t always follow our rules. And there are other powers in the universe. I have enemies.”
Hob’s hand settles on the nape of Dream’s neck, plays with the hairs there. Dream shivers despite the heat of his touch. After a minute, Dream lifts his head to see Hob watching him with misty eyes.
“I’m going to be fine, Dream. I promise.”
For now, Dream thinks. Gambling that the enforcers of the Endless’ rules don’t see Hob as a mortal is one thing. Threats from other sources is guaranteed, eventually.
Supernatural cause or not, Dream does not like seeing Hob like this. What do humans need when they’re sick? Medicine, sometimes. Food, probably. Human bodies always need food.
“Have you taken any medicine?”
“Cough syrup,” Hob croaks, then breaks into a round of deep coughs. “But I think it’s wearing off,” he finishes with a wry smile.
Dream must look lost, because Hob lays reassuring hand over his. “Dream, I’m okay. I can take care of myself just fine when I’m sick, I’ve been doing it for centuries.”
Dream purses his lips. Well-intentioned as Hob’s words are, they do not make him feel more at ease. Quite the opposite, really. Images of Hob wracked with fever and illness, alone in bed, century after century plague his mind.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Hob grouses, but he’s smiling. Still. Always smiling.
Dream watches Hob’s eyes drift shut again and, to his surprise, wishes his sister was here. Death is so good with humans. He has no doubts that she’d know what to do. He briefly considers calling her. But he’s not ready to share this new part of his life with her. It feels too fresh and tender, it belongs to Dream and Hob alone right now. And she’d never let him live it down, needing her help to tend to a sick human. Plus she’s a terrible gossip. It would be all anyone talked about at their next family dinner.
“I’ll be right back,” Dream promises, placing a lingering kiss to Hob’s forehead.
“Wait, what – “ Hob begins, but Dream’s already tossing sand into the air.
He pops into the royal library, honing in on his destination immediately.
Lucienne is stretched across a green velvet settee and they blink at each other for a moment. He’s never seen her at ease like this.
“Short trip, my Lord,” she remarks neutrally, setting aside the book that’s in her lap.
He hesitates. “I require references on caring for a human that is…unwell.”
Her eyebrows flicker, puzzled.
Belatedly, he realizes he could have just sought out the dream of a doctor. But that could take too much time.
He’s already striding to the appropriate section of the library and she follows after him.
Dream starts looking through books on basic medical care. Much of the library is full of works that were only completed in dreams and today he avoids those, knowing that dream knowledge can be riddled with fantastical inaccuracies.
“Is it Hob?”
He pauses with a hand splayed against the book spines, eyes fixed on their gold embossed lettering. “It is,” he confirms softly.
“My lord…have you ruled out the possibility – “
“That someone is trying to harm him? It seems unlikely, in this case.” He glances at her sideways, surprised to see worry all over her face. He turns back to the books. “It’s just a common illness. The flu.”
She reaches up and pulls a book out and presses it into his hands. “Then this is the one you’re looking for.”
He stares down at it, a little blurry-eyed and unseeing of the title.
“I’m sure he’ll recover quickly.” Her voice is too kind, too nonjudgmental.
“Thank you, Lucienne.” He knows he hasn’t sounded this distressed since he returned to the Dreaming and spoke of his siblings’ abandonment.
He takes a fortifying breath and flips through the chapters until he finds what he seeks.
She waits nearby, hands folded in her usual repose. After a moment she ventures to ask, “Is there anything else you need?”
Without looking up he says, “A similar reference for caring for cats.”
A quiet breath in and pause tells of a comment she must hold back. “Of course.”
By the time Dream finishes perusing the book, Lucienne is back with his request. She hands it to him, already open to the correct page.
He takes another few minutes to absorb the new information and then hands the books back to her with an incline of his head.
“Thank you, Lucienne.”
He strides off to unformed waters of the dreamers, an orderly list of necessary supplies in his head. He plucks them from dreams one at a time, storing them into his coat.
He hesitates for one second, looking into the sky before calling to Matthew, who immediately wings down to his shoulder. He’s been doing that of late – inviting himself to perch on Dream’s shoulder instead of following along on the ground next to him. Dream…tolerates it. The familiarity reminds of him of Jessamy, and thoughts of her always prickle.
“Where are we headed, boss?”
“The Waking world.”
Hob laid in bed and let himself feel as sorry and as miserable as he wanted. He got sick so infrequently, he figured it was fine to indulge every so often.
He knew that “be right back” could mean anything from five minutes to five weeks for Dream, so after a particularly bad round of hacking, he dragged himself from bed and choked down a hefty dose of Robitussin, already thinking about which takeaway would get soup to him the quickest.
The cat meowed piteously from his bed the whole time, apparently she had already decided she was in charge and didn’t like it when her new human left. He had some old cat supplies around here somewhere, but he'd have to replenish the food at least. He groaned, hoping against all odds that Dream comes back sometime within the next 24 hours.
He crawled back under the covers and she wasted no time settling on his chest. He patted her head gently. It’s not that he didn’t like cats – he liked all animals, really, but he did find their imperious nature somewhat off-putting at times. All the cats he’d owned over the centuries came and went as they pleased, sometimes disappearing for days. They could be capricious and cold, or unbearably clingy and overwhelmingly affectionate in equal amounts. You had to really earn their friendship. Almost like…hmmm…maybe he was a cat man after all.
“You are pretty, though, aren’t you,” Hob murmured to the kitten, scratching behind her ears. She meowed in confirmation and started purring, her jade-green eyes drifting shut.
“Just a little lady. A little miss,” he baby-talked her. “And of course, the cat Dream rescued is black as midnight.”
She just purred, settling her head on her dainty paws. “I think I’ll call you…Miss Midnight. Yep. That’s it. How do you do, Miss Midnight? I’m Robert Gadling and I guess I’m your dad now.”
She didn’t even deign to open her eyes. He snorted. “Figures.”
He got more comfortable and nestled down in his blankets. “You have the right idea, Miss. Who knows when your papa will be back. Nothing to do for it except take a nap.”
When he woke again, the room was nearly dark, marking the passage of at least a few hours. Dream had been gone much longer than what a human would consider right back.
He strained to flick on the bedside lamp without dislodging the cat, who blinked a few times in irritation when the warm light flooded the room. Clinking from the kitchen and a low, rumbling voice alerted him that Dream had returned. But who was he talking to? Was that a caw he heard?
When Dream entered the room, Hob was already struggling to sit up in bed without waking the kitten. He stopped short at the sight of a raven on Dream’s shoulder.
“Hob, you remember when I mentioned my emissary, Matthew.” It was phrased like a question and sounded anything but that.
Miss interrupted whatever Hob was about to say, catching sight of the raven and letting out a series of hisses and low growls.
Dream gave her a stern look. “Behave yourself. Matthew means no harm.”
Hob made a strangled noise. “Are you talking to Miss Midnight? Can you talk to cats?”
Dream chuckled, just a soft, rumbling sound and a puff of air but longer than any Hob had yet to hear and it struck him silent. “Did you name her already?”
“Boss, did you just laugh?”
Hob jumped in place, startling the cat from his lap. She turned in an aggrieved circle and settled down near his hip with a glare at the bird.
Hob flopped back onto his pillow and threw an arm dramatically over his face as Dream perched next to him.
“I’m…no, I’m definitely hallucinating this time. You’re talking to a cat and a bird is talking to you and you’re just laughing. Laughing .” He noticed the steaming bowl in Dream’s hand. “Is that soup?”
Dream shifted a fraction. “Infirm humans require appropriate nutrients.”
“I am not infirm.”
But Hob sat up anyway, accepting the bowl and shooting Dream a grateful, albeit still astonished, smile.
Miss Midnight crawled into Dream’s lap and started purring again, apparently having determined the giant bird on his shoulder was indeed not a threat. Dream stroked her head absent-mindedly.
“What do you think of her name?” Hob asked between bites.
Dream made a low sound and the corners of his mouth pulled.
“You don’t like it.”
“Cats are regal creatures,” Dream answered. "They deserve regal names.
Hob snorted, causing him to nearly choke on a noodle. “I don’t know how many cats you’ve met, but that’s not a word I’d use for them. They’re very silly.”
“Cats are not silly.”
“They’re ridiculous!” Hob argued, waving his spoon for emphasis. “They’re full of teeth and fangs and attitude to their eyeballs except they’re so small you can pick them up and kiss them on their furry little heads anytime you want. And when they’re not full of unearned attitude, they’re asleep or crying for food when they already have some, or being a nuisance and walking all over your books and face.”
Dream’s lips thinned and folded his arms. “If you dislike cats so much, Hob Gadling, I will find this one a better home.”
“Absolutely not!” Hob said with a stab of his spoon toward Dream. “And I never said I didn’t like cats.”
Miss Midnight let out little huff that Hob would call annoyed, if he thought she could understand anything he was saying. She stared at Dream with half-slitted eyes and he returned it with an amused purse of his lips.
“No conversations with Miss Midnight that I can’t understand,” Hob insisted, looking back and forth between them with incredulity.
Dream smirked, a clear statement of no promises, and let Hob eat the soup in companionable silence for several minutes, the only sounds the clink of his spoon against ceramic and soft kitten purrs.
Naturally, Matthew felt compelled to break it.
“So, you’re the infamous Hob Gadling everyone has been talking about.”
Dream shooed the raven off his shoulder with some irritation.
Hob turned a radiant smile on Dream. “You talk about me?”
Dream’s lips thinned and he shifted in place again, looking distinctly caught out. “Only to Lucienne,” he conceded.
Matthew ruffled his feathers. “Well, Lucienne and I talk about him.”
Dream looked at Matthew with an icy glare that would terrify a lesser being. “I’m well aware, Matthew. If I were you, I would not be so forthcoming about such behavior.”
The raven lifted a wing as if in salute. “Lie to you then, you got it boss.”
Hob raised a hand like a child in a classroom. “I have a question. Who’s Lucienne?”
“My librarian.”
“The librarian who recommended the wine?”
Matthew looked at Dream askance.
“Yes, she is my only librarian.”
Hob rubbed his forehead. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I can’t take in any more information about talking birds and sommelier librarians and communicating with cats.” He set his empty bowl on his nightstand. “I need to do something normal. We’re going to watch a movie.”
Dream watched him with some self-satisfaction as Hob swung his legs over the edge of the bed. The soup apparently helped greatly.
“You seem to be much improved,” he remarked.
“Ah, well, I took a shit load of cough syrup while you were gone,” he said, hooking a thumb to the bottle of dark green liquid next to the soup bowl.
“I don’t think humans are meant to ingest substances of that color.” Dream eyed the bottle like it was filled with poison.
“You’re not wrong,” Hob said without explanation.
Dream let out a low, vexed sound. “It’s illogical for such a vile fluid to be more healing than the soup.”
Hob pinned him with an amused stare. “Are you upset your soup didn’t fix me?”
Dream frowned. “No.”
“Don’t pout. It was absolutely delicious.” Hob grinned and leaned forward to kiss him. “Thank you for the food, sweetheart.”
Dream has a slight, shy smile playing at his lips. Hob can only guess at what prompted it but he was keen to try sweetheart out another time to test a theory.
Dream pulled him in for another gentle kiss, apparently not even minding that Hob’s mouth is salty and a bit stale or that his nose was threatening to leak more goo.
They exchanged another kiss and Hob grinned again before shuffling to the living room, dragging his comforter behind.
Dream trailed after him, Miss Midnight limp in his hold, and Matthew after them both. “You are also supposed to consume warm liquids,” Dream informed him.
“Too tired to make tea,” Hob grumbled, settling into the couch. “Come sit down.”
Dream didn’t; he disappeared to the kitchen without explanation and returned with a mug of steaming tea, handing it to Hob without a word.
Hob took a sip and his eyes widened. “What is this?”
“Tea.”
Hob narrowed his eyes, mouth hovering over the rim of the mug. “I didn’t know you could make tea. And what kind is this? It’s heavenly.”
“Dream-like, actually.” He shed his coat finally and sat next to Hob.
“You brought me tea from a dream?” Hob took another appreciative sip. “I could get used to this. Never drank anything from a dream before.”
“Actually, you have,” Dream corrected him with a sly smile and sideways glance.
A beat of silence and then Hob choked on his drink, sending a fine mist of it into his lap. “Bastard,” he said in between coughs.
Dream smirked and pulled the blanket around them. He watched Hob from his periphery while he searched for whatever particular film he picked. Hob could feel the cool radiating off him from here, perhaps heightened by Hob’s lingering fever. That won’t do.
“You always sit so far away,” Hob grumbled, snaking a hand around the other man’s waist and practically dragging him into his lap.
Miss Midnight was curled into Hob’s other side, and she gave Dream a knowing, smug look.
Matthew settled down on Dream’s side of the couch, fussing with a corner of the blankets until Dream got fed up watching him struggle and tucked him in like it was a nest. He was uncharacteristically silent and Dream was deeply grateful. He especially didn’t need Matthew’s commentary today. He was sure Matthew was gathering up every detail possible to report back to Lucienne. Was everyone in his life a massive gossip?
Hob noticed Dream looking about them, surveying each being carefully, and then himself, with a kind of searching, puzzled expression.
“The word you’re looking for is cozy,” Hob said.
“…Cozy.”
“You’ve never felt cozy before?”
“Endless do not need to feel cozy.”
Hob sniffed. “Doesn’t mean you can’t like it,” he grumbled.
“I have seen such things in dreams…”
“It’s different first-hand, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps.”
Hob rolled his eyed at this characteristic response. He knew perhaps meant yes, but the other man would never deign to admit it. He thought Dream might be starting to prefer the first-hand experience.
After a long series of remote-clicking and irritated grumbles, he found his movie and informed everyone in the room that the film was called Pan’s Labyrinth . Miss Midnight barely cracked an eye when he said this, but Matthew let out a shrill noise.
“Oh, hell yeah! I haven’t seen this in years!”
Hob blinked at the bird and then shook his head. “A question for a different time.”
Dream watched in silence for a while but when the Pale Man came on screen, he made an appreciative noise. He can certainly respect a creature with body parts where they don’t belong.
“An excellent nightmare,” he murmured with admiration.
When the movie ended, Hob gave him a questioning look, eyebrows raised.
“Yes,” Dream responded simply. “I appreciate your choices. They make the Waking world more comfortable.”
Hob grinned, the smile lighting up his tired face. Getting the flu was almost worth getting Dream’s film approval. Almost. But having Dream nurse him back to health? Well, that was certainly worth the trouble.
Dream flicked a questioning eyebrow his direction, probably at the wide smile nearly aching on Hob’s face. He simply shook his head and sunk one hand into Dream’s soft, wild hair, pulling him in for a deep kiss. The flu wasn't so bad.