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Gravel crunches beneath the minuscule shuffle of his feet. Crows and blackbirds peck at any crumbs dropped from the loaf in his hands, the only sound for miles beyond wind whistling through bare trees. Beyond the horizon, the sun climbs sluggishly into a pale sky. Light pours over autumn leaves in brilliant red, orange, and yellow.
While the rest of the world rests in his realm, Dream takes comfort in theirs.
At four in the morning, everything is quiet. The human world has not yet woken and the Dreaming, despite its current disrepair, is at its busiest. Bookshelves in his library fill rapidly with stories invented in every corner of his vast creation, each as unique as the last. Lucienne, he trusts, keeps all of it in hand.
Pathetically, this has become his tradition. As his realm grows in noise and activity, he becomes overwhelmed so he comes here. Exchanging one space for another, and again when the human world begins to wake.
Every day, at the same hour, in the same park, he sits with the birds drawn to his presence. Deferent to his preferences and respectful, regardless of the occasional errant caw, they are easier to be around when his mind staggers under the weight of his purpose. Unlike some, who refuse to leave him be.
“I just think maybe you should talk to someone,” Matthew says from where he perches at Dream’s side. Concluding a speech perhaps long overdue yet lasting much, much too long. “Lucienne, me, God. Anyone. Therapy, you know, it helps.”
“God has stopped listening,” Dream murmurs.
“I could try. We could.”
“No.”
Matthew clacks his beak worriedly, feathers ruffled. He means well.
There is nothing to fix. Dream has his tools of office, his power and authority. Heartache like this serves no purpose but to be persistent. It comes and goes with all the horrifying power of a natural disaster, leaving no succor for the helpless or in need.
There is nothing to be done. Giving voice to his doubts, his fears, wouldn’t ease the weight that presses against his shoulders. Sharing the burden does not divvy up the weight as one would hope.
Matthew nudges a little closer, pressing against Dream’s thigh, a line of living heat against the present chill. August in London is cold. Everything, everywhere, is cold and grey and meaningless.
Dream pinches off a fingertip of bread for the birds hopping at his feet, then again for Matthew who takes his share with a soft croak.
Perhaps it is that Dream's only purpose is to suffer for the greater good— to persist in continuing to provide sanctuary to the weary regardless of the necessity of presence.
That has been the case since the dawn of the first who could dream. Those under his domain have never known him; To most, he is only his title and seat, fewer still have so much as seen his face. Strange, that only now does it seem so unreasonable. So unbearable.
Is this not what humans do? Is Dream not living in the way of man? Live to work and die on the job, and do so without complaint. Leave no trace but for the soft brush of shoulders on a crowded sidewalk, no lasting impression on the world or each other. Innocent sacrifice to a machine never-ending.
Someday he will sputter out and cease, and be replaced in the next breath. Hardly anyone will notice. Though his work is grand and glorious, it matters little who manages so long as the work is done. He, himself, is nothing in the grand scheme of the cosmos.
Why is too large a question. He knows why. He knows the correct answer. But knowing doesn't mean understanding, doesn't mean clarity. There's no comfort to be found in the basic knowledge of an answer. Asking is meaningless. Yet, he can’t stop. The answer he has isn’t satisfactory. Why?
“Dream. Aren’t you cold?”
Robert Gadling appears before him in a whirlwind of black-grey feathers. He stands in the low light of the dawning sun having not broken a single sweat. Thirty years of age and haunted by a war long before this era. He dreams of mud, rain, broken blisters on his hands, corpses and blood. Widower, father, soldier.
Plagued with nightmares, Dream knows this man.
“No,” Dream says.
Hob's eyes crinkle with laughter. “Of course not. What was I thinking?” Smiling appears his face ten years younger. Handsome already, but more so when he laughs. Kindness curls into the beginnings of wrinkles on his face, lines of age that suggest what could be instead of what will.
Frozen in time, Hob shows no signs of weariness in his appearance despite the unusual number of years on his belt. He blends in. No more fatigue in his face, hands, or shoulders than any other mortal.
All this time living the same way for hundreds of years and he shows no signs of flagging. But he has no grand purpose, the way Dream does, he works for nothing he doesn't believe in. In some ways, Hob is freer than Dream will ever be.
Sun shines behind Hob’s head as though the rays themselves can’t help but be drawn to him. Attracted to the natural hedonistic joy he receives from simple things. Perhaps it’s the sun itself that sinks into his skin through to his heart, filling him with such uncomplicatedly generous warmth, yet to say so would invalidate the cruelty it took to become that kind.
Endless do not bleed. Dream is made of spacestuff and sand, and if he were cut then nothing would pour from the open wound. Pain isn’t a sensation he understands, at least not in the physical variety. Cruelty teaches him nothing but that he is capable of an immeasurable amount of it.
Hob’s face comes into focus, his mouth forming the shape of Dream’s name.
“There you are. You went off for a moment there, mate. I’ve been calling you.” He tugs Dream to his feet. “Come on, I know this great little place ‘round the corner, and they’re open early as sin. Biscuits to die for.”
“I do not eat.”
“Then come watch me. I could use the company. Let me tell you, one of your stranger beasties visited me last night.”
Together, they walk side by side out of the park with the gravel crunching beneath them. Trees pass, people pass, Matthew flies ahead, and Dream barely notices. If he were human, he would feel the cold, his skin would gooseflesh.
As he is, his form is static. He feels, smells, tastes, hears, needs nothing but what he chooses. Unbound to the physical plane, he drifts along the sidewalks at his friend’s side like a ghost. A specter haunting where he doesn’t belong.
Simultaneously, he senses everything— all things, all at once. He knows the name of every creature for several miles, knows their aspirations and fears like he knows his own name. Whispers from his dreamers tickle his ears every moment of his existence, seismically loud.
A small bell rings above the door Hob holds open for him. The coffee shop is a small affair with only one employee still blinking sand from bleary doe eyes. A college girl, working to pay for her tuition. She smiles as she lays eyes on them.
“Good morning, professor,” she greets. “Who’s your friend?”
“Hello, Emily. This is Dream. How are you?”
“I’m good. Your usual today?”
“Yes, thank you.”
She takes Hob’s drink order with quiet tap-tap fingers and smiles at Dream expectantly until he declines to order.
Big enough to fit only three two-person tables, one of which is taken by a man with a computer, the shop smells strongly of ground coffee beans and baked goods. The walls are painted a warm, comforting brown and are covered in locally sourced paintings of landscapes and women. Green plants almost as tall as the counters break up the monotony in the corners.
It’s quietly alive, the numerous stories written and fabricated here dancing above the heads of its patrons. Whistling machines blow steam into the air, cradling slanted cups as they fill with dark liquid. The girl moves with all the absent efficiency of someone who’s done this for a while.
Hob leads him to the table closest to the back window where Matthew has taken up temporary roost outside.
“You’re sure you don’t want anything? I’d told you I’ll pay, it's no hardship.”
“No, thank you.”
Human food most often tastes like ashes on his tongue, curdled milk and rotten wood. Nothing at all what is touted or dreamed. It would merely be a waste. Of the food, of hard-earned currency, of time, of effort. Wasted on him.
“So, not that I'm not glad to see you, old friend, but what brings you here? Surely not a hundred years passed?”
“Matthew should not have bothered you.”
“Hey now, who said anyone told me anything? Maybe it was a coincidence.” Crumbling like wet cardboard beneath a deadpan look, Hob chuckles. Outside, Matthew nervously caws. “Don’t be angry with him, he was only worried.”
“It does not concern you.”
“No? So you haven’t been moping in the park every morning?”
Dream ducks his eyes without a word. Shame curdles in his empty stomach.
First he stumbles in his purpose and now he has dragged his one and only friend to listen to him whine and complain like a child. Pathetic doesn't begin to describe him; Impossibly, he only gets worse.
In truth, it doesn't matter how he feels. As long as there's life, and until the last snuffs out— until his dear sister Death turns off the lights, there will be dreamers. There will be dreams. He only needs to perform his function, and not have a single thought on the matter beyond that.
Dreams aren't made to feel.
Callouses stand out on Hob’s strong palm, remnants of a sword no longer in use and missing those indicative of writing. He had not yet learned to read when he discovered he could no longer die, and now his body is unable to reflect his new skills or the lack of practice in the old one.
Dream’s hand is pale as snow by comparison. Unblemished, unscarred. Corpse-like. To a human, he would look as if he had never had a hard day’s work in his life, had never labored. He wonders if his hand reflected the weight of his office, if it would be as unblemished or unsightly.
(It’s been some time since he’s gazed upon his own true form, the reflection of which he habitually avoids. God did not make them in His image as He did for Man— the Endless are amorphous by nature, concepts not creatures, repugnant in the eyes of those He truly loves for their differences.)
Hob's rough fingers brush the back of his hand. “You're allowed to have a bit of a mope, Dream. If anyone's earned it, it's you.”
“No.”
“Yes. Of course, yes.”
“I could not burden you with such things.”
“What are friends for?”
“No.”
“Dream—”
A soft chime interrupts Hob’s words. He sighs, turning around in his seat to look at where Emily the Barista has set his order at the end of the counter. Eyes flicking to Dream one more time, he stands and goes to retrieve the little silver tray. A few words are exchanged with the girl in voices too soft to be overheard.
Hob returns with little fanfare. The tray holds two mugs of dark, steaming liquid, one darker than the other, and a small plate with a handful of little round biscuits. He sets the lighter drink in front of Dream and takes the other two items for himself, returning the tray to Emily before he sits again.
Before anything else is said, he takes a long sip of his coffee and sighs. Sinking back into his chair as though some tension were loosened from his spine, he considers the entity across from him.
“If you hate it, you don’t have to drink it,” Hob says.
It’s tea that Dream’s been given, the scent slightly bittersweet. Unsure, he wraps his hands around the ceramic. It’s pleasantly warm.
“Look, Dream, we don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want.” Hob fiddles with the handle of his own mug, eyes downcast. “I just— Well, I want you to know you can come to me. That I won’t hold it against you if you’re struggling. Lord knows how many times you’ve— for me—”
He cuts himself off with a sigh, running a hand through his hair, and rubbing his mouth. Tense silence stretches between one moment and the next as he searches for the right words, punctuated only with the quiet tapping of his nails against the ceramic.
“Friends take care of each other,” he says finally. Let me take care of you.
Something cold and forgotten in Dream trembles like a dog left out in the rain. Sunlight cuts through the wet fur of this tiny, ugly thing that raises its head to the beam. Hopeful, still naive despite its lifelong history of begging for scraps just to be kicked.
Wet and cold down to its bones, this ugly thing keeps waiting for the sun. For the owner to return, and loosen the collar, and let it inside. All hurts forgiven, because it doesn't know how to hold a grudge and never learns. It's shaped like a dog. It's shaped like a man. It's shaped like blood stains on a glass prison.
Against all odds some soft, forgotten part of Dream is warmed.
“Thank you,” he murmurs.
Hob flushes handsomely, shaking his head and huffing an excuse. Something about always as he hides a shy smile in his coffee.
Soft taps against the window draw their attention to where Matthew is impatiently shifting from foot to foot. The world is waking, so they must return. After putting them off for so long, there are always duties in the Dreaming that must be taken care of. Repairs, management, mediation. Work. Exhaustion washes over Dream, and he sighs.
“So soon?” Hob asks, a rueful twist in his mouth.
Dream stands, cloak flowing around him fluidly. He inclines his head in farewell. “Goodbye, Hob Gadling. Be well.”
“Be well, my friend.”
In a whisper of shifting sands, both he and his raven disappear.