Work Text:
1969
Somewhere in the beyond, he wonders if Despair is laughing at him - revelling in his regrettable state, or as much as one such as her is able. Perhaps Desire is at her side, their lips painted beautifully with a cruel smile, their burning eyes filled with mirth and derision.
The beyond, where all of his siblings dwell, where humanity lies - beyond the confines of the glass prison that has kept him captive all these years. He'd never realised how utterly encompassing the human world and its overseeing realms were until he'd been violently and unequivocally severed from them, with no power to liberate himself.
Before, he'd been able to sense everything around him, from the dreams and nightmares that filled the minds of men half a world away, to the constant movements of his subjects within the Dreaming. Now, he has been stripped of all of this - his pride, his power, his intrinsic understanding of the hearts of humanity, leaving him unable to glean even the dreams of those assigned to guard his cage. He'd been unaware that Jessamy, his most loyal companion, had remained close until she'd returned to him, moments before the fateful gunshot that had shocked him to his very essence and compounded the hatred in his heart.
He hardly recalls his untimely capture, the memory tainted by bleary confusion and all-consuming pain, as his body had trembled from the agony of being forcibly ripped out of space and time. He remembers the sudden drop to the ground, the way the thud of his body against the stone floor had resounded in the silence of the basement. He'd been barely lucid since then, disorientated from the fall and struggling to maintain consciousness, feeling only distant outrage as his sand was pulled from between his fingers and his ruby from around his neck. There had been voices, he's certain of it, but they'd been low and incomprehensible to his ears.
He does remember the sudden chill as Jessamy had flown from him, his body exposed to the cool air and to the enthralled gazes of those audacious enough to summon him. Then, his helm was removed from his head, and he remembered no more.
When he was strong enough to once more open his eyes, it was to the awful discovery of his situation, of the creeping realisation that he was truly at the mercy of the lowest types of mortals he'd had the misfortune to encounter - those who would willingly contain another being in a cell, and feel nothing.
He'd experienced only intense rage for the first stretch of his imprisonment, fury that they had dared detain an entity such as he, that they were inciting disaster throughout the Dreaming and the waking world alike merely for their own benefit and selfish desires. He couldn't fathom how a mortal could be so impudent as to entrap an Endless, and it only enraged him when Roderick Burgess demanded wealth, immortality and power; rewards he had done nothing to deserve, yet demanded with an entitlement he'd come to expect from men as despicable as Burgess.
Then Jessamy had been murdered, and his ire had dissolved into Despair.
His sister's realm calls more to him with every passing second, as his dwindling hope - the very thing he indirectly governed - diminishes further still. The slow, aching realisation that no one is coming for him, that perhaps no one cares to save him, settles painfully in his soul.
Is he truly of such little import that no one cares to free him? That no one has sought him out after all this time? His siblings must have an awareness of his situation, and yet none have stepped into this basement to see him with their own eyes, or even to gloat. But even gloating would suggest that he holds value to them, that seeing him as such arouses feelings in them - perhaps he's not even worthy of that.
Perhaps they are glad to be rid of him.
The thought creeps in through the darkness, and he despises the hurt it sends through him. He expects that the twins are enjoying his absence, as they'd always been affronted by the way their aspects of humanity coincided with his own, for what is despair if not a dream never to be fulfilled? What is desire but the yearning for a dream to be realised?
And yet he'd foolishly believed that, at the very least, Death and Destiny cared for him, perhaps even Delirium also. Death has always seemed to hold a special affection for him, in spite of his many blunders and his unassailable pride - she's always viewed him as something in need of gentle guidance and protection, in the way only an elder sister can understand and provide. Destiny, while more reserved, has always behaved kindly towards him, has never begrudged him for his simple act of being, as Desire and Despair seem to.
He can understand Delirium not visiting him for she has a myriad of problems of her own to handle - including her own identity and lucidity - yet he cannot fathom Death and Destiny's absence. The only explanation he has yet to consider is that perhaps he has overestimated his own worth, that his pride has driven him from them until they are quietly grateful to be relieved of his presence.
It's difficult to rid himself of such thoughts, when surrounded only by his own reflection.
Here in the darkness, Dream of the Endless fights not to fall into despair.
1979
He is cold, and growing weaker by the year. He's never felt more mortal than he does within these glass walls, his body desperate for rejuvenation and for power to course through his veins once more, yet not comprehending why this isn't possible.
It is painfully chilled in such a deep basement, the floors and walls erected from stone and the glass like ice against his skin when he requires support, when his head is too heavy to hold high in defiance. His skin resembles marble, accentuating the unhealthy pallor that clings to him, speaking of 63 long years of stagnation and imprisonment. He is not hungry, has no need for human nourishment, and yet here in this harsh reality - everything a dream should not be - his body craves something, anything with which to sustain himself.
He can't recall the last instance in which he ate human food, and yet now that he has been denied it, he finds himself wishing for it in that awful, maddening way the mind does when something is inaccessible. Like walking, speaking, being able to feel the world move around him - all inaccessible, and now desired more than anything.
The worst sensations are those rare moments when he catches his facade slipping, when his carefully maintained air of indifference begins to fall and his true, weak human form becomes visible; his fatigue, starvation, hopelessness, all brought to light when once they would have been cruelly rejected by his pride. It's those moments when his head falls to chest and his body sags against his will, and he's unable to prevent those intrusive thoughts that clamour for his attention, gleefully vying to remind him how alone and helpless he truly is - how no one cares to save him.
Sometimes, his mind wanders to Hob Gadling. He wonders whether the man would risk himself to save him, or whether the unceremonious conclusion to their last meeting had rid Hob of any attachment to him.
He doesn't take pleasure in these thoughts, so he closes his mind off from them.
He's become familiar with the new round of guards assigned to his prison, and if he'd thought that Alexander Burgess might provide him with more sympathetic wardens than his father, then he's sorely mistaken. He supposes that humans never truly change from their primal selves; he's certainly never seen anything to prove otherwise, at least to him.
He despises their long, roaming appraisals of his physique, the silent thrill in their eyes upon seeing a creature such as he - ethereal, inhuman - naked and completely at the mercy of his captors. The men, he finds, are the worst culprits, for there always seems to be some air of superiority about them, as if seeing him so low and vulnerable enforces their sense of identity as men, himself just a body at which they can leer freely.
Death has never stopped trying to convince him of the goodness of humanity, and yet staring into the eyes of these men, Dream is reminded of why he has never agreed. There is no goodness here, no charity nor kindness; only twisted pleasure and sadistic glee.
Alexander Burgess himself, the murderer of Jessamy and his captor, rarely makes an appearance in Dream's basement, as if it shames him to look upon the being he could free so easily, and yet does not, like the coward he is. Dream would like to say that Alexander would be spared from his wrath were he to be liberated, but the memory of Jessamy's frail body coming apart in a millisecond, the awful thud of her body against the stone floor and the splatters of blood marring his cage prevent him from feeling any mercy. Not when she could still be alive, not when her only crime was caring for Dream.
No, Alexander would not receive any mercy.
1989
He is roused from the numbing apathy he'd fallen into to discover that the year is 1989, the very year he would expect to meet Hob Gadling, the confounding mortal who refused to long for death and dared to call him friend.
The first he can forgive, for what understanding does he have of the human experience, though it has never appealed to him. The short life spans, the obstacles they always seem to put in place themselves, their inability to live harmoniously - well, it has always seemed so terribly dull. Only their dreams indicated a greater imagination and lust for life than anything they do in reality, and yet he'd always felt a certain kind of pity for all those unfulfilled dreams that were too grandiose for the human world.
However, Hob Gadling having the temerity to call him friend had offended him so deeply that he'd considered never appearing to him again, for how could a being as lowly as a mortal dare to call Dream of the Endless their friend?
And yet, now that he is unable to see him, he finds himself wistful of what could have been, had he deigned to honour his annual appointment with Hob. How would the mortal have interpreted this action, he wonders - would he have believed that Dream was conceding that they were, indeed, friends, or would he have understood that Dream had decided to forgive him for their last transaction? He's uncertain, but rather believes the former to be more likely. He had always seen the positive in everything he did, even when his family succumbed to death around him and he was left wanting for everything a man needed in life. Even then, he had not given in. Dream doubts the thought had even crossed his mind.
What a vexing man. Luckier than he deserves, audacious too, but a mystery.
Now, starved of contact, cut off from his realm and Lucien, Dream realises that perhaps it would be prudent for him to swallow his pride and forgive the man. He likely hadn't understood the gross overstepping of his station that he'd committed, by daring to call an Endless his friend, claiming him to be lonely, as if Dream were the one in need of companionship.
Still, he rather misses the mortal, as much as one such as he can.
Beyond Jessamy, Lucien and his elder sister, Dream has few who are pleased to see him, and yet, Hob's smile had never once dimmed when he'd arrived. If anything, his face had brightened, as if he'd been - glad to see him? It doesn't bother him that many are intimidated by his presence, or find him too prideful and arrogant, for what need does he have of the opinion of others? And yet, Hob's obvious pleasure to see him warms him, and he clings to this now as he glowers into the eyes of his captors and vows revenge upon them all.
They do little more than sneer, but he knows. He knows they will suffer.
All he must do is wait a little while longer.