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***
She stares out the window as it rains, watching the mist of her breath cloud the glass. Outside, bars of metal impose her view of the street, almost laughing at her in their reminiscence of a jailer's cell.
It is miserable here.
Compared to her home, so filled with beauty and sunlight and joy, the narrow passageways of the overcrowded London streets feel like being swallowed into the depths the underworld. There is a suffocating nature to this confinement, a claustrophobia, like rocks caving in around her.
She winces at the thought, swiping away the fog from the chilled surface so that she may, for only a moment, regard herself in the reflection.
In the six thousand or so years she'd walked amongst the humans, she'd never found herself so gaunt, so hollow as this.
She'd never worn her age, but now, the sixty years she's been imprisoned seem to press lines into her face, they colour the skin beneath her eyes a most dreary shade of blue.
She barely recognises herself, in truth. She barely recognises the woman she has been forced to become. Pliable, complaint, quiet.
There was a time when humans worshipped she and her sisters.
A time when to be someone's muse meant to be lavished in gifts and admiration and adornments. To be asked to share her gifts in return. To be praised for such feats.
Now, it meant being taken advantage of.
She tries her best not to put her hand through the glass in her agony.
It would not do her well to cause a scene.
This new man, this new horror, is angry. The same way Erasmus had been. He feels he is owed to what he takes. He feels as if life were in his debt.
He had tried -at first- to placate his own guilt with paltry things. He had tried to satiate her with gifts. But she could feel his lack of reverence.
She knew he was hollow.
Now, he does not even try.
He takes what he wants.
He allows others to do the same.
She hesitates to place even a speck of gratitude on Fry's name, but at least he did not share her around like some cheap, inconsequential thing. She'd never known such shame as being passed between hands like an ornate lighter in a cigar room, providing warmth for others, having them use her until she was good for nothing more than her pretty outer casing.
Erasmus had been selfish, but at least it had lessened her horror.
Madoc is selfish in a different way.
The fame of his novels is nary enough to satiate him.
He needs money. And more money. Always more money.
More book deals and movies. More endless hours of television. And he needs connections to do it.
And so he offers her to other wretched writers, producers, directors, in hopes that they too shall be inspired, and that he might receive a lofty sum of their profits (as well as the thousands of dollars he requests for even the privilege of their meeting).
It is a sorry shame that most of these storytellers are so desperate to be seen, that they would defile her, if it meant that their work could shine.
Sometimes her fall from glory is so visceral that her chest aches with the pain of hitting the ground.
She had thought after her son, that there might never be pain like that again, that fate had taken the ultimate sacrifice and that she might finally be at peace.
Oh how wrong she was...
***
As he walks upstairs toward a seemingly innocuous, London flat, Hob cannot help but think about the desperation that would have him meeting strangers in their homes, without so much as a day to vet them. Or to ensure that they posed no threat to him and his secret both.
Hob had met Ric Madoc (as he was so pretentiously calling himself now) at a party last evening. What he thought would surely be his last in the popular writer's circle, given it has been nearly four years now since he had published his novel.
Since the interest of the world had been sparked by an honestly impulsive and desperate ode to his stranger.
Hob remembers sitting down and writing half the novel in a single evening. He remembers closing his eyes, placing his fingers to the keys and writing down every thought he had ever had about the unknowable man that flitted in and out of his life every hundred years. To Hob it was half love letter, half therapy, and entirely a cry for help.
He had hoped that his stranger might read it, given his fondness for print. He thought he might know then, how truly sorry Hob was.
Hob thought his words might bring his stranger home.
Alas, his calls remained unanswered. Instead, the rest of the world drew inspiration from his words, from what they decided was a piece of historical, science-fiction. A gripping look into the psyche of man. Of one's relationship with an unknowable god.
An unfinished one at that.
Hob has been promising a satisfying resolution to the gargantuan cliff-hanger he'd left readers on for years now. And was yet to find any new inspiration.
Mostly, he didn't want to lie.
He didn't want to pervert the story of he and his stranger for money.
He wanted the ending to come on it's own.
Though he knew that would never happen.
And so when Richard Madoc offered him a surefire cure for writer's block, alluding to something... more than natural that might help him, his interest was surely peaked.
He raps on the door to the apartment with a nervous hand.
He expects, with the seemingly covert nature of their dealing, for the house to be cloaked in darkness. He expects some nature of spell-work or prayer.
Instead, as Richard welcomes him inside, he is met with a perfectly typical flat. Emerald green walls and antique furniture, pages of new ideas sprawled atop every free surface.
He feels nervously for the cash within his jacket pocket.
It was supposed to be the first and last on a new apartment.
Something easier to... maintain given his current financial status. Instead he is here.
He inwardly curses his love of the death-knock gamble, his love of things that are destined to hurt him. He feels the notes crumple beneath his tightening grip.
He shouldn't be here.
"Why am I here, Richard?" he asks tautly.
He's never been too fond of the other man. Sure his novels are the stuff of legend. Ideas spanning genres and time and the full spectrum of human emotion.
But in every interview he's seen of the man, there has been something- missing. He seems hollow. As though he is without.
Even with the faux feminism excluded, Hob has never been the biggest fan of Richard Madoc.
"Oh, come now Robin," the other man chides, a deceptively welcoming smile on his face.
Hob is once again floored by the feeling that he is watching the writer put on a show. That every movement, every word is calculated to make him seem approachable, amenable, that his actions are the proverbial magician's hands to the hidden trap door of his personality.
"You wouldn't be here if you didn't need my help," he adds, gesturing for Hob to take a seat.
He's right of course.
Infuriatingly so.
He knows of Hob's shortcomings. Of his desperate desire to complete the story that so many are aching to see finished.
If he is honest with himself, he wants the bloody sequel done, so he can forget about his cruel muse and move past his betrayal.
Hob says nothing, but takes a seat in front of the author, eyes still roaming the flat, waiting for the other shoe to finally drop, waiting for the curtain to fall away. He's waiting for the fall. For the farce to be divulged.
In his experience there is very little true magic. Very little that is unexplainable.
And that which there is, rarely wants to be found.
"You've brought my money then?" Madoc asks, eyes searching Hob's face concernedly.
Hob imagines he mustn't normally deal with men who so abjectly dislike him. He supposes that he is too acquainted with the world of yes men and sycophants.
He secretly enjoys shattering the shell of superiority that has seemingly formed around the man.
"I've got it," Hob manages, pulling the wad from his coat and holding it out to the other man. His throat feels tight. There is something unexplainable, something unsettling about the whole arrangement. It feels too much like selling his soul.
When Richard attempts to take the money, Hob does not let go.
"Mr. Gald?" Madoc inquires, fingers tightening imperceptibly around the cash.
Hob yanks it away.
"This was a mistake. I will finish my novel on my own," he says quickly, standing with such haste that papers topple the the floor from the lounge chair beside him.
He only stops his feverish exit when Richard's hand reaches his arm.
"Mr. Gald," he says, voice low, serious.
"I've been exactly where you are," he continues.
"You and I know well enough that that novel will not finish itself. I'm sure you've seen what I've done for others. Allow me to do the same for you."
For a moment Hob is almost convinced. He knows many novelists that have continued onto greatness under the tutelage of Richard Madoc. But succeeding under the guidance of a man he has so much distaste for, feels like cowardice, it feels like giving up. It feels like something his stranger might actually despise.
"I'm not so su..." Hob's disagreement is interrupted by Madoc once more.
"If you'll just meet her," he says nonchalantly.
Hob feels the blood in his veins turn to ice. There is an implication to the other man's words that frightens him.
"Her?" he tries to be similarly casual.
He needs to know what this man is hiding, what he has been doing to ensure his success all these years.
"Calliope!" Richard's voice echoes throughout the apartment. The woman's name bouncing off the stacked books.
Hob feels the coil in his stomach tighten.
"Calliope!" he says again, anger flushing his face in red.
Hob's hands clench into fists before he can stop them.
Watching this supposed feminist author call a woman as though she were a dog, is almost enough for Hob to put him on his ass.
The creaking of the stairs interrupts his fury. A woman walks down the steps meekly, dressed only in her nightclothes.
Hob's fear turns to horror.
"You may have heard of the late Erasmus Fry?" Richard asks as Calliope descends the stairs. She stops hesitantly in the hall, kind, brown eyes wet with her own fear.
"We were acquainted," Hob bites, desperate to keep his tone level. In truth he'd met Erasmus a lifetime ago, when he went by another name.
"Fry found her on Mount Helicon," he continues in his explanation, beckoning the woman over with a swift hand.
She takes a begrudging step forward.
"She's a muse," Madoc offers, a wide grin on his face. He grabs the woman roughly by the wrist, guiding her to stand in front of Hob as though she were an antique in need of his appraisal.
"You know what a muse is, Robin?" he asks, as if Hob were a schoolboy he were educating.
"I'm familiar with the idea," he responds shortly. The woman will not meet his eye, no matter how hard he tries.
He struggles to ascertain whether Richard Madoc is insane, or whether there is a true power to the woman before him.
Either way, her seemingly unwilling participation in this conspiracy leaves Hob filled to boiling with righteous anger.
"She was Homer's muse and Erasmus' and now mine. He gifted her to me before he died," he states proudly.
Calliope's nose trembles with the effort of holding back tears.
"Gifted her to you?" Hob cannot hide the vitriol in his tone.
Madoc laughs as though his anger were preposterous.
"She's not human, Mr. Gald. She's six thousand years old. She was captured lawfully and as such she is my muse. And for a small portion of your book sales, plus the sum we agreed upon, she can be yours, for the evening," he barters.
His foul words are finally enough for Hob, the man moves forward with a ferocity he usually reserves for battle, sweeping past the trembling woman and taking the man roughly by his collar.
"You're not getting a fucking cent from me," he hisses. He hears Calliope gasp.
"Mr. Gald, I think you're being unreasonable," Richard attempts, grabbing at Hob's wrists.
"I'm being unreasonable?" Hob tries his best not to shout, not to frighten the woman who now quivers beside him.
"Get out of here," he tells her, his hands moving from the man's collar to his throat as he struggles under Hob's grasp.
Calliope looks hesitantly between them, the tears she has been so valiantly fighting finally cresting her waterline.
"Go!" he shouts, his hands tightening around the writer's throat.
Madoc laughs then. The cruel, shrill noise fills the room for only a moment before Hob's fist is in the writer's face, silencing his wretched guffaw with blood. The blow leaves him nearly unconscious, Hob has to strengthen his grip on the man to keep him upright.
"I cannot," the woman speaks with a gentle, willowy voice. She is beautiful, in the way sunsets and architecture and the sound from a cello are beautiful, with a perfection removed from humanity. Hob can only think of one other being he's ever known to be so beautiful.
The idea of someone hurting her, of hurting either of them, is akin to setting a snowy forest alight. Of destroying something enchanting and ensnaring. Of the destruction of that which is pure.
"She belongs to me," Richard spits, blood spattering across Hob's shirt. The man earns a backhanded slap for his treachery. He falls to his knees, Hob's hand still around his neck, the other curling in the fabric of his blood-stained shirt.
"Let her go!" he demands.
This time when Richard laughs, it seems to curdle in his throat.
"Without her I'd have nothing, be nothing. I'd sooner die," he admits.
Hob feels fire lap at his insides.
"So be it," he condemns the man, throwing him to the floor so he might connect the point of his boot with the man's abdomen. Over and over and over again.
He allows himself to get lost in his fury, to enact what he hopes is an appropriate amount of vengeance for the woman, when he feels a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"Stop," Calliope whispers. It is not a demand, but Hob ceases his action immediately.
He hears Madoc draw in a wretched gasp.
"You'll kill him," she says, looking down at the man with wet, piteous eyes.
"Isn't that what you want?" Hob asks breathlessly. He can hear his own pulse thumping in his ears.
He looks down to see Richard curled in upon himself, sobbing gently.
"I want my freedom. I believe he'll give me that now," she corrects, kneeling so that she might look directly into the eyes of her captor.
"Free me," she says, placing a hand on his shoulder. Hob is floored by her compassion for the man who has so deeply wronged her.
"I- I can't," Richard's words are accompanied by a trickle of blood from his lips.
"I do not want him to kill you, Richard," she responds, looking up at Hob. Her face is filled with grief and relief in equal measure. She does not fear him.
"But I will let him if that is what must happen, with Erasmus dead, there is no one for my ownership to fall back upon. I will be free of you, one way or another," she explains.
There is a moment of tense, aching silence. Hob's chest heaves with the effort of Calliope's vengeance.
Richard turns bruised, watery eyes on him, hacking a sad, defeated laugh.
"Go," he says weakly, returning to his foetal position on the ground.
"You're free to go," he concedes.
Calliope stands, throwing a disbelieving hand over her mouth. She lets out a heartbreaking sound, something like bereavement and joy.
"Thank you," she says. It is more than he deserves.
Hob moves to finish what he has started. He watches Richard flinch pathetically away, before seemingly losing consciousness.
"Spare him," Calliope asks, placing a hand on Hob's heaving chest.
He blinks confusedly at her.
"He imprisoned you," he tells her, voice strained.
"Sold you, hurt you," he continues desperately.
It's been nearly a century since he has ended another human beings life- but if anyone deserves his wrath, it is the pathetic man before him. He knows the guilt of trading in other's lives. He wants to kill the man for what they have both done, his hatred of Madoc and himself compounding so ferociously in his chest that he is sure to combust.
"And I must forgive him," Calliope responds gently.
"If I allow you to kill him, then I am forever linked with him. Righteous or not I will be the cause of his death. I want nothing to do with him. He is nothing," she insists.
Hob feels his anger leech away with the understanding of her words.
"Whatever you want," he concedes.
Calliope sighs like he must have given her the universe. She pulls him to her before any more words can be spoken between them, wrapping her arms tightly around his shoulders.
Being held by Calliope feels like being welcomed home by family after a long, cold battle. It is warm, and gentle and heartening. Hob feels a kinship that has been lost to him for nearly five hundred years.
"Thank you, Robin Gald," Calliope says devoutly, her tone and speech so proper that Hob cannot help but be reminded of his stranger. When she pulls back to look at the man she is no longer in her night clothes. She wears a long white dress, her hair pulled back into elaborate braids, a single curl dangling across her face.
"It's Hob, actually," he corrects with a gentle smile.
Calliope returns the favour, she wears a grin a bit unsurely, but it is ultimately relieving to see her smile.
"Hob Gadling," he says offering her his hand.
Calliope takes it, shaking it twice gently.
"Hob Gadling," she tests his name on her tongue, her smile widening.
"I owe you my life," she says seriously, looking down at the unconscious, but breathing man below them.
"I would be happy to provide you with the inspiration you came here seeking, in thanks," she offers.
Hob feels a protective sort of fondness tug at his heart. He could never take from this woman, who has already lost so much.
"You owe me nothing," Hob says solemnly, moving to the door and holding it open to the woman who follows hesitantly behind.
She stands worriedly at the threshold for a moment before taking a step over it. She gasps with a breath that might suggest she had been holding hers since she was first imprisoned.
Hob cannot help the smile that graces his face.
"You don't owe anyone, anything," he says.
***
The cursor blinks mockingly at him as he stares at the empty page.
Hob Gadling sits at his computer, determined, but ultimately inspiration-less.
He had meant what he said to Calliope when he saved her nearly a month ago now. She owed him nothing, and moreover he was determined to do this on his own.
Nonetheless, Calliope had been popping in and out of his life with an endearing sort of determination. It seemed every time he sat listless at his computer, she found her way into his apartment, without knocking. Unyielding and thankfully in more modern attire, lest she raise any suspicion from his neighbours.
He feels the energy shift in the room around him, and suddenly she is behind him, he can practically feel the smug grin on her face.
"And still no luck?" She laughs teasingly in his ear. Hob cannot dampen the smile that pulls at his lips at the sound of her familial chiding.
"I'm sure you're very pleased," he jokes in return, sighing defeatedly and clicking out of the empty word document.
"Not a single sentence? Even after the reemergence of your handsome stranger?" she interrogates, her eyes lighting up with her excitement. He is pleased if nothing else he can make her smile again.
"I never said he was handsome," Hob dismisses her musings, though he cannot stop heat from creeping up his neck, toward his cheeks.
"His handsomeness was implied by your willingness to meet him every hundred years, and to build yourself a home atop the bar you erected in his honour and moreover to stay here when you're a month behind on rent," she rebuts, spinning his computer chair around so he is forced to look at her.
"Write about that. Write about finally seeing him again in the place which you painstakingly crafted for him," she suggests.
Hob sees the story splay across the page in his mind. Sees the perfect words to use to explain the stranger's sudden reemergence, and Hob's own shock the moment he walked into the bar. He even sees the way in which he might describe the man's eyes, so deeply, fiercely blue and the haughty, regal tilt of his fine neck. He can feel the stirring of their encounter flutter in his stomach even now.
"Hey!" he chides, blinking himself back to reality. Calliope pouts disappointedly.
"We agreed, no musing!" He laughs.
"You agreed. I've merely withheld my gift in honour of your wishes. But now your gentleman is back, and there is nothing you want more than to finish your dedication to him. And I want that for you. You saved my life, Hob. It is not something I'll likely forget," she responds seriously.
Hob sighs.
"I don't want you to think that I only saved you because you could help me," he insists.
Calliope's face softens.
"Do you think so little of me?" She chuckles.
"Do you think me incapable of judging the morals of men?" she continues. Hob shakes his head.
"Hob, you were the first man, the first man of many that Richard brought to me, to even bat an eye. Men are so used to cruelty that they no longer perceive it is as such. But you did. You knew that Madoc was no good well before I came along. You wanted to leave but stayed to protect me. You would have killed for me, in defence of me. It is a debt I want to repay. It's been so long since I've allowed myself to want something," she explains.
"You're sure?" he whispers. The last thing he wants in this moment is for her to make sacrifices for him. She's begun to feel a lot like family. Like an ancient little sister who he'd rather die than lose. It's been so long since he's had a friend that cannot be lost to injury or age.
"I am sure. Would it not be wonderful to have the novel finished before your next promenade?" she questions excitedly.
Hob huffs defeatedly.
"I don't even know when that is." He chuckles.
His stranger had agreed to drop in more frequently into Hob's life. Had agreed to a not-too-distant meeting in which Hob could regale him with the century he had missed, but that was all yet to occur.
Still, there was not a single moment since their meeting a week prior, in which Hob had stopped thinking about that confounding man.
"But if you're certain," he concedes.
"I'd gladly take the help."
Calliope's face lights up at the prospect.
"I am more than certain, dear friend. Who else could reign in your chaos-addled mind if not me?" She grins.
A laugh escapes Hob before he can contain it.
"I believe they call it ADHD now, but 'chaos-addled' will suffice," he agrees.
Any further conversation is interrupted by a knock at the door.
***
The wait for Hob Gadling to answer his door is agonising. Despite the empty street, it feels as though a thousand pairs of eyes behold him as he stands upon Hob's threshold.
He had ached to see the man again after their last meeting, in a way he hadn't in millennia. In a way he hadn't known since love was something he still believed in.
He just about collapses with the effort of holding his breath when the door opens.
Hob Gadling stands before him, donned in loungewear, some grey joggers and a navy tee that compliments his suntanned skin.
With his smile, all of Dream's anxieties melt away.
"Hob Gadling," he cannot keep the relief from his voice. After all he has faced, seeing his joyous friend again feels like breathing light once more into the abandoned castle of his heart.
"My friend," Hob greets in kind. He's so wonderful, so caring, so understanding of Dream's insistence of remaining anonymous.
He's much more than Dream deserves.
There is a rapid clacking sound behind Hob, further down the hall, coming from another room, like keys being pressed in quick succession.
"Hey!" Hob calls into the flat.
"You better not be writing for me!" he demands playfully.
A muffled woman's voice sounds in reply.
Dream feels his heart sink to the pit of his stomach like weighted remains someone wishes to conceal within a lake.
"You're not alone?" he asks, trying to sound less disheartened than he is.
"No, just a friend. She's helping me with my novel. It's a very long story. Why don't you come in?" Hob explains, gesturing Dream inside.
The Endless steps hesitantly over the threshold.
The inside of Hob's home is as warm as Hob himself. Dream had expected very little of one of three apartments set above a pub, but this itself is wonderful.
The walls are a cosy terracotta colour, the couches all worn, umber leather. It's a home, a real home. And for a moment Dream is made breathless by Hob's humanity.
"I didn't expect to see you so soon," Hob says, scratching at the back of his neck with a nervous hand. There is a soft blush on his cheeks that Dream is sure must be for the woman in the other room.
"I hope my timing is not too inopportune," Dream worries.
"No," Hob covers quickly, clearly distressed with the idea of disappointing Dream.
"You're welcome any time, as I said I have a friend..." Hob's explanation is cut off by padding footsteps moving down the hall.
Dream watches a woman put her hand on Hob's shoulder.
"Is this your gentlema..."
For a moment, it feels as though time stops. Dream feels the very fibre of his being shatter down the centre, as the realisation of who Hob's companion is sinks beneath his bones. For the women standing in this apartment, in a white t-shirt and jeans, with her finger's curled around Hob's shoulder, is not just any woman.
"Dream," Calliope whispers, her face drawn with the same shock the Endless feels.
The man's name ricochets off of the modest apartment walls. The singular word threatening in its utterance to tear them all apart.
He watches the moment register on Hob Gadling's face.
"Dream?” the name falls in dreaded repetition from the mortal’s lips, his eyes grow wide with understanding.
"You know each other?" he asks desperately, his pupils the size of saucers as they flicker between the two non-human beings in his living room.
"I suppose you could say that," Calliope offers modestly. When she regards Dream there are barely quelled tears in her eyes. She draws tiny hitching breaths that seem to burn her lungs.
"I thought..." she whispers, but her words are lost to another jagged breath.
Dream has to stop himself from screaming. From wailing. The idea that in his absence the two beings for whom he would risk his life have found one another, have been happy together, have been together - threatens to drown him.
"What are you doing here?" Dream snaps, his eyes narrow at the woman he once would have fallen to his knees for.
The betrayal stings like bile, like acid, it burns down his throat and into his intestines, churning within his insides, ensuring they too scream with the agony of it.
"I thought you were imprisoned," she chokes out, looking at Hob for reassurance. The mortal is stunned into silence, wet eyes regarding them both as he tries to puzzle out the level of disaster they now face.
Dream has to push down the desire to flee once more.
"The Fates- they told me..." she continues listlessly.
"It matters not what the Fates have told you. Unless they brought you to my companion then you have not answered my question," he hisses.
"Woah, Dream," Hob rejoins the conversation seemingly to chide the Endless. The sound of his name in Hob's mouth, the realisation that Calliope has stolen that revelation from him...
He takes two involuntary steps backward.
"You can't talk to her like that. She has been through a lot," Hob explains gently.
Though his defence is commendable, it is sickening. Dream is turning his back on the pair before he can think better of it.
He is once again exposed to the drizzly London afternoon before either of them can stop him.
"Dream!" he can hear Hob shouting for him. Hear the man tearing down the stairs after him.
He doesn't look back.
***
"Go," Calliope says the moment Dream's dark coat leaves view of the doorway. Hob can hear his feet on the stairwell, hear the anger beneath his impeccably tailored shoes.
"Go after him!" she insists once more.
Hob feels his heart throb inside his chest.
"Shouldn't you?" he whispers defeatedly.
He is not a fool. He's been in love, enough times to know the look of two people who have loved and lost one another.
Perhaps all that had been keeping them apart was their confinement. Perhaps Hob had saved the love of Dream's life.
The knowing of his name, the knowing of the woman beside him, intertwined with the horrid realisation that his stranger too had been trapped, and that he had not saved him, it threatens to bring him to his knees.
"The last time I spoke to Oneiros- Dream- I told him I never wanted to see him again. I am sure he feels the same. He wants you, Hob. I've seen the look in his eyes. You would be a fool not to follow him," she explains, her voice thick with tears.
"What if he doesn't want me to?" Hob asks hopelessly.
Calliope smiles wistfully.
"Dream only ever runs with the hope that someone might chase him."
***
When Hob finally catches up to Dream, his chest is heaving with the effort of running. The other man refuses to acknowledge his presence, even as he grabs him by the arm, his hand wrapping entirely around the smaller man's bicep.
"Dream, stop!" he insists.
The other man tears himself harshly from Hob in a desperate attempt to be away from him. The mortal can see the tears welling in his eyes as he tries to flee.
"Oneiros!" Hob shouts. Dream stops like he's been struck.
"You dare," he spits. He turns with such speed that for a moment Hob thinks he's to be slapped. Instead, Dream grips either side of his face with frightening intensity.
"You poor, foolish man," his voice rumbles darkly as he speaks, his eyes a daunting shade of midnight.
"I've done nothing wrong," Hob insists, clinging to Dream by the wrists. They're so close to one another that Hob is sure that they're breathing the same air, that each breath they take, they take together.
He's terrified and entranced by the wrathful man before him.
"You address me by the name my ex-wife has taught you, by means of chiding me, and you find no wrong in it," he hisses. Seemingly unwittingly, his thumb moves from the hollow of Hob's cheek to the corner of his lip roughly.
The mortal gasps.
"I'm sorry," he concedes, his heart racing fervently in his chest. A ray of sun peeking through the unyielding grey clouds cast light on Dream's face, making his tar-pit eyes sparkle like the night sky on a clear evening.
"I didn't know what the name meant to you, or what she meant to you. I just- I couldn't let you leave again," he admits, swallowing hard. He watches Dream draw a shuddering breath, his eyes flickering between Hob's as if deciding whether or not to trust him.
"Calliope was captured by a man named Erasmus Fry," Hob begins, when it becomes clear Dream has no words for him.
The smaller man flinches at the admission, hands stuttering beside Hob's face. The mortal does not relinquish his hold on the other man's wrists.
"In 2018 she was traded to a writer called Richard Madoc. He used her for stories, made her his muse against her will and for money he... he allowed others to do the same."
Though he tries his best to be gentle, the words wrack Dream. He attempts to pull away, his face distorting in his despair, but Hob continues to cling to him. Now it is his turn to hold Dream by the face. He puts a warning thumb over his lips.
"You need to hear this," he whispers, resolutely.
"Madoc invited me one evening to his place, with the intention of making the same deal..." Hob's story is interrupted by Dream's attempt to interject. The mortal presses his thumb tighter against the man's soft, rosebud lips.
"I beat him within an inch of his life, Dream," he admits. He watches the confession placate Dream. He softens in his arms, far less furious, now only bereft.
"The only reason I didn't end his sorry life is because she didn't want me to. And after 60 years with those horrid men, I wanted to give her what she wanted," he admits.
"We've been friends since then, she and I. She is insistent on helping me with my novel, because she feels she owes me a debt. That is all," he whispers.
Dream again begins to interject.
"I didn't sleep with her, Dream," he swears, the words silencing his companion.
"If that is your concern. If that is why you fled, for anger or jealousy. I don't love her- not like that- you don't have to worry about me," he insists. The words feel like bile in throat. The irony of assuring the man he loves that he does not love his ex wife tearing at his insides with its cruelty.
"I..." Dream is seemingly similarly afflicted by the confession. He has to swallow past the lump in his throat to speak.
"Calliope has not been mine for a long time. She might do as she pleases. And though I ache for her suffering, the idea of another having her, if that is what she wishes, is not what pains me," he admits, closing his eyes as though he might hide from his feelings.
"Why then?" Hob begs.
"Why leave?"
Dream tuts sadly. All of the vitriol has abandoned him, a deep sadness remains in its place.
He raises a hand to sweep stray hair from Hob's face. The mortal shivers.
"I anger not for jealousy of you, but for desire of you," he confesses, his voice meek, guarded.
"What?" Hob whispers, disbelievingly.
"This was never about Calliope. What she and I had is long buried. And while I shall always love her, in that irrevocable way one loves someone they've created a child with, I no longer want her," he admits.
Hob swallows hard. Dream cannot possibly be saying what Hob thinks he is. It's too incredible, too perfect, like something he might have thought up for the end of his novel. Were the man in his arms not trembling so fervently, he might think he was still in the midst of one of Calliope's visions.
"What do you want?" he asks breathlessly.
Dream answers his inquiry with his lips. He reaches up determinedly to bring the man's mouth to his.
He kisses with the desperation of a soldier hanging out of a train window, pressing his lips to his lover's for the last time. He kisses with the fervency of a poet, with the devotion of a priest. He kisses like he'll never be kissed again, like he may be damned for the very act of doing so.
In truth, Hob would not care if they were. If this were the thing that finally damned him. If having his lips pressed to Dream's meant eternal damnation, he would suffer the flames.
There is no suffering, that could revoke the beauty of this moment.
He would walk through hell, if it meant holding the other man as he does now.
Both men pull away breathless. Dream running a most-tender thumb across the angle of Hob's cheek.
"I never could have imagined you might feel the same," he whispers, gazing wondrously up at Hob. The larger man's laugh shakes both of them.
"You clearly weren't paying very much attention," he whispers jokingly.
"Even Calliope could see it, and she didn't even know you were you," he adds gently.
Guilt pulls across Dream's face.
"I feel I should apologise to her. It is no fault of hers that I was maddened by the want of you," he admits.
Hob makes a sympathetic noise in the back of his throat. He has yet to extract himself from the other man's determined hold.
"It sounds like you've both been through a lot," he offers kindly, pressing his lips to the other man's temple as he draws him nearer.
The idea of Dream being imprisoned makes his lungs ache, but he fights past his own grief in favour of comforting the man.
"I'm sure she'll forgive you," he reassures the smaller man.
Dream pulls himself from the embrace then, holding out his hand to Hob in offering.
"I suppose we shall see."
***
She does forgive him. Mercifully.
Calliope leaves Hob's flat with a promise from Dream that they will one day meet in his realm to talk about the son they lost, and finally grieve him as they should.
Hob leaves them alone to say their goodbyes after that. Sitting on the edge of his bed in a feeble attempt to give them privacy as Calliope disappears. In the silence that follows, he begins to fear that Dream has abandoned him again, until the Endless walks through his bedroom door, eyes red and rimmed with tears.
"Come here," Hob offers without hesitation.
The other man takes the offer similarly enthusiastically, standing in front of Hob and throwing his arms around him. He sobs into the mortal's shoulder.
"Hey," Hob croons, running a gentle hand up the smaller man's back. He pulls him tighter by the waist, as if he may repair the man's shattered heart by force.
"It's all going to be okay now," he comforts, pulling away so that he may grasp the man by the face. He wipes away Dream's tears with determined thumbs.
"I want more than anything to believe that," Dream agrees.
"I spent so long- alone- trapped. I spent so long thinking I should never see you again. Being with you now, knowing you feel the same maddening desire that kept me sane in my cage- it feels like I may for once know peace- that I might find it with you," he explains.
Hob cannot help the endeared noise that escapes him at the idea that they might finally be happy, together. That he might finally love someone who can love him back, unendingly if they so choose.
"I want that too," Hob agrees, pulling Dream into an achingly tender kiss. He feels the immortal's hot tears against his cheeks, feels his shuddering breath vibrate through them both. He aches once more for the other man's sorrow.
"What can I do?" he asks huskily, his lips barely a whisper from Dream's.
"What can I do to ease your pain?" he begs.
Dream laughs sadly in response, moving so that he might curl himself entirely around Hob, so that he might sit in his lap with his arms drawn around his shoulders.
"Hold me," Dream offers into his ear, making all of his hairs stand on end. He places a gentle kiss to the space below Hob's ear. The mortal could weep with endearment.
"Love me," he asks, as if it were ever a question. As if anyone could ever hold Dream as this and come away without loving him.
"I will," Hob oaths, drawing their lips back together.
"I do," he swears into the soft skin of Dream's cheek.
The Endless smiles down at him, cradling him by the face as if he were the most singularly precious thing in all of creation. His tears have dried, in their place a longing so intense it threatens to drive Hob mad.
"That's all I'll ever need."
***
When Hob wakes the following morning, he is surprised to see the Dream Lord still wrapped around him. He had expected him to have left, that by virtue of his purpose, he would have more important duties than warming Hob's bed. Moreover, he had suspected that he had dreamt the events of the night prior, that there was no more logical explanation than Hob having finally lost his mind.
Alas, the man remains, using Hob's diaphragm as a pillow, his arm wrapped (even in sleep) protectively around the other man's waist.
Hob feels a familiar endearment thrum through him. He aches for the man. Aches to protect him, to hearten him, to love him as he so desperately deserves to be loved.
He runs a hand through the other man's inky hair, still not quite believing him real. The Endless stirs disapprovingly in his arms.
"It was my understanding, that human's enjoy sleep," he murmurs into Hob's chest.
Hob laughs, disrupting the being further.
"Nothing I could dream up, could ever compare, duck," he offers, drawing the man upward by the chin, so that he may reunite their lips.
"Oh, Hob Gadling I should have known you would be an insufferable romantic," he jokes into the other man's mouth.
"Oh, just wait until you read my novel, love," Hob agrees teasingly, he cannot help but grin at the man in his arms.
"That reminds me," he says quickly, reaching into his bedside drawer. He has to contain a chuckle at the look of puzzlement that passes across Dream's face.
It isn't until Hob withdraws a small velvet box that his features morph from confusion to alarm.
"Do you not think it is a little soon for matrimony?" he asks, drawing another laugh from Hob.
"Well, you've only been divorced thousands of years," the mortal teases.
"I'm kidding, dove," he adds when it is apparent that morning-Dream has no use for sarcasm.
"It's nothing as special as a ring," he confirms humbly as Dream sits, the sheets falling to his waist as he opens the box.
"It's..." whatever Dream was going to say is lost to a stifled sob.
Hob is pulling the Endless into his arms before anymore can be said.
"I noticed at our last meeting that you didn't have your ruby- I'd never seen you without it. The park next to the University was having a market, when I found that, I knew it was meant to be yours. I hope I haven't upset you," he explains quickly, he knows Dream must be able to hear the pulse from his throat racing in his ear.
The Endless pulls back, wiping abashedly at his eyes.
"It's wonderful," he whispers, voice strained.
"I've not been cared for like this..." He swallows hard.
"In quite some time," he continues, running a thumb across the small, circular ruby pendant, inlaid with gold. It is different enough not to be mistaken for his old jewel, but much the same that it stirs fondness and nostalgia within his chest.
"I only wish I had something to give you in return," he adds, pulling the jewel from its place and handing it to Hob, before manoeuvring himself so that the man might clasp it around his throat.
He gasps as the cool metal stings his chest.
"You have," Hob whispers, pressing a kiss above the drawn clasp on the back of Dream's neck. The Endless shivers.
"You've given me so much," Hob insists, pulling the man backward into his arms so that he can run a tender hand down his chest, so that he can toy with the ruby, in its rightful place by his lover's throat.
"You're all I'll ever need," he oaths.