Chapter Text
Chapter Eighteen: Dying to Let Go
Hob situates Dream on the couch again – the cat practically melting into the cushions. A boneless heap – he worries but says nothing as he moves away. Hob carefully checks the wards carved into the doorframe – not that he understands it – but at least, it looks done, and there’s a bill on the counter, that he ignores. For now. He’ll get to it, but first, he needs to clean up. He checks on Dream again, who’s struggling to stay awake. Hob suspects exhaustion – between everything of late and then… what happened in the street.
It’s not a difficult decision for Hob to let Dream rest, while he heads into the bathroom to take care of himself. The cut wasn’t bad, but he’d need to at least bandage it. Ideally stitches, but the location would make that hard for him to do himself. It was just to the side enough that he’d need to turn to close it and turning that way reminded him he was stabbed. It would heal without stitches – merely take longer. Something he’s willing to deal with, he decides.
Instead, he wraps the wound with a few layers of gauze and tape, the bleeding slowing and then appears to stop completely, and then, when he checks on Dream again… the cat is deeply asleep.
Which is good – Hob assumes, at least. It wasn’t like there was a manual for Endless or Endless turned cat because trauma. If there was – well, he would have certainly bought it.
With everything now quiet, Hob sits – in a chair. He won’t risk disturbing Dream – not with how nice and deep the breaths the cat is taking… Breathing… he wonders about that. If that’s a conscious thing or if Dream is just too strained to realize he doesn’t actually have to.
Lord above, does Hob’s head hurts – not as bad as his side, but enough that he goes into the kitchen to down three pain pills. He forgets which ones he grabs, just something – chugging them down with a glass of water, and for good measure, drinking another as well.
With nothing else to do for the moment, Hob retrieves their groceries. It’s a few hours until it’ll be late enough for dinner, but nothing wrong with starting on a handmade sauce now. That’ll take time to simmer and reduce, he supposes, and it’ll keep him active and alert… and not thinking about his side or Dream…
He can’t help but be worried about Dream. He gets to work on the sauce, cutting up the tomatoes and the spices – throwing them into a boiling pot of water – before finding garlic and clover and starting to mince that next. For now, he focuses on his dish – unaware that just a few feet away, the once slumbering cat is starting to stir and twitch and shake.
Sleeping as an Endless was… odd. It happened – generally when they were too exhausted or injured to regain their energy elsewhere, or if they truly felt like resting. Otherwise, it was rare; rare enough that Dream doesn’t even recognize he’s asleep… rare enough that he forgets his own function for a moment and tumbles right into a nightmare.
Hello Father
Dream stumbles back from the voice. He can’t… not again… not…
He drops to his knees, covering his ears – hoping this time to block out the sound. Hello Father. Hello Father. Hello Father. Hello Father. Hello Father.
Over and over. He’s in complete blackness, but it doesn’t matter. The voice, the sound - it comes from every direction.
Hello Father
He can’t do this again. He can’t. He somehow summoned Desire last time… perhaps, Desire will come again… or perhaps it was a trick – Desire merely made him believe he was out, because that was what he wanted so desperately but instead… brought him back here.
That sounded like something Desire would do.
Dream can’t do this… he hears his son, he hears the words, but all he can get out, “Please sibling.” Without hesitation, he asks for each of them – every brother, every sister, every sibling… any of them… if they’d just hear him and wake him from this. And yet – he remains alone… as he always had.
Hello Father
It’s a quiet thought but takes hold quickly. Maybe he never left.
………
The shifting is what Hob hears first. Over the sound of boiling water, popping vegetables, and grilling meat that he needs to put in the oven to finish… there’s a rustling – more than Hob expect from a cat… but no one can get into his place, - or at least no one should be able to - although they had yet to test it.
However, it’s enough of a sound that Hob makes his way back into the main room. Seeing Dream… as he was… takes Hob by surprise. It’s… It is Dream – not that he doubted Desire. Ok, he can admit he doubted Desire a bit, but still…
Dream lays curled up on the couch – his Dream, and Hob… Hob pushes aside any sentimental thoughts at the sight of his friend’s eyes clenched shut, arms pulled over his head – in what appears to be a throe of a nightmare.
Hob’s not even sure if Dream can have those, but he figures better to ask for forgiveness from waking his friend than permission in this moment. Without hesitation, he goes to his knees, starting to shake Dream and call his name. However, Dream doesn’t hear him or appear to.
“Dream,” Hob says urgently, refusing to accept the non-response. “Dream, wake up.” He tightens his hold, practically pulling the Endless from the couch in his attempt – which Dream pushes back again. And in turn, they end up in a heap on the floor… but that’s enough. Dream curls in tighter, but his breathing changes – short and shallow but more purposefully, and he can feel Dream’s hands clenching and unclenching. “Mate, are you…”
“I am awake,” Dream says quietly.
Not that it matters. Waking world or the Dreaming - it echoes even now.
Hello Father
Dream doesn’t feel any blood at least. Did he… he glances down, only to realize the form he was in. He was – just as he was in the Dreaming – back in this form… he shudders, but he needs to see… he had to see – he pulls roughly away from Hob, checking his hands, checking every inch of skin, even as Hob tries to calm him.
It doesn’t matter, not to Dream – not until he can see that his skin is clean. It takes more than a minute, only because he’s thorough. He doesn’t recall completing the cycle in that nightmare… this time… but he can’t… he needs to check. Thankfully, he finds nothing. Dream drops his head into his hands – there’s no blood. None. Not a trace.
He didn’t… he didn’t kill his son again. Not this time. Only heard his son’s voice – over and over… and…
The Fates… he recalls the Fates from his – nightmare. They were there, watching. They didn’t say a word, nothing about his escape, nothing about his refusal to do it again. Nothing, and it shakes him almost as much as knowing that he hadn’t killed…
But he had killed his son. Orpheus was gone. By his hand. He would again. The Kindly Ones would see to that.
“I need you to call my sister,” Dream says quietly, gaze flickering up once to meet Hob’s – it almost takes the immortal’s breath.
“No,” Hob says, immediately in turn.
“Hob.”
“No.” Hob gets up without a word, pushing away – not because he’s angry but because he’s upset. He knows why Dream’s asking for this; even without Desire telling him, he would know. He recognizes, knows the stench of death about someone, and the look Dream gave him.
But Hob can’t do that. He wouldn’t. His friend… his best friend, if you asked him, had gone through Hell, and Hob had just gotten him back. He wasn’t about to let his friend decide death – even if it was his sister – was a better option than living.
Desire was right about one thing – which Hob would not readily admit to their face. But Hob loved life, and if there was anyone that could convince Dream it was worth something, it would be him. He would find a way. If not… then, maybe… then worse comes to worse, he’d just walk with Dream this time – his friend wouldn’t go alone.
“Hob, I…” Dream trails off. He did not know how to confess to Hob that he killed his son – no matter the times he had done it. But he had… and his punishment, his failure belonged to the furies… Kindly Ones now. Either they took him back – and he couldn’t do that again – or his sister did. If he was free, then he wanted… he needed… he couldn’t go back… even if that meant not staying here.
“I get you went through something terrible,” Hob says. “But I’m not letting you give up. No.”
Dream falls silent, and Hob can do nothing but take a seat next to him. He understands, he does, that Dream… that whatever this was – that he was gone, trapped in a perpetual nightmare it sounded like -, but he wasn’t about to let Dream go.
“You do not understand,” Dream whispers.
“Maybe not,” Hob says. “But I know you went through something terrible.” The Kindly Ones had done something, and it wasn’t take his life obviously. He knew some but not all of it, and he wishes now he had asked more – from Death, Desire, any of them. Except it didn’t matter – not really. It wouldn’t change Hob’s answer. “But I’m not letting you just give up.”
“You have no right…” Dream hisses, and the room darkens considerably.
However, Hob’s unafraid. Dream was many thing, but he did not frighten Hob – even if he was trying. He couldn’t find it in himself to be scared of Dream, but he was certainly scared for his friend. He tries to decide how best to overcome this moment – after all Desire and the rest of the Endless seem to think, he was the best for the job. For some reason…
Finally, Hob slowly decides on a compromise. If he doesn’t understand – as Dream said – then he couldn’t help Dream, and it was obvious Dream needed to talk about what happened, and not just… whatever this was.
“I’ll make you a deal,” Hob says. “You tell me what this is actually about and where you’ve been for the last fifteen years, and at the end, once we’ve talked… if you’ve convinced me that you deserve Death…” Not that there was any possibility of that – but Dream seemed to think so. As such, Hob trails off here, not wanting to do anything of the sort, but it’s the only way forward he can see here.
Carefully, Dream examines Hob for any sight of deception, but when he sees none, he nods. He goes to open his mouth, but Hob shakes his head. Dinner first, he says. If they’re going to have a long, difficult conversation, then he wants some food in front of them – or at least himself… although he promises to make Dream a portion as well.
Hob realizes he has his work cut out from him, however, the moment Dream follows him into the kitchen and balks at the sight of tomato sauce.
So not spaghetti tonight, Hob thinks – alfredo instead.
……………….
A pang of pain catches Desire off-guard, enough so that they pause mid-step in following Death into the Dreaming. It isn’t just Desire that feels it, however; when they look around, Despair and Delirium and even Death, are frowning and rubbing at a sore point.
Despair catches Desire’s eye and mouth their brother’s name. They figured that was the source… they just can’t do anything about it. Not right now. They can only hope Hob is doing whatever he can, while they deal with the Dreaming.
Stepping back into the realm, after recent events, is… different. The realm is different. The colors remain muted; there’s still a dreariness to it all, but there’s a quiet storm brewing in the distance. One they hadn’t seen before – nor had the residents.
The nightmare had been watching it closely, and he did not entirely understand it, but Matthew suspected… Matthew realized something had changed, and it had to do with Dream. He doesn’t stay long enough to meet with the other Endless – they had only mentioned they were coming and made no other comment about why. It was rude, but Matthew didn’t care. No, instead, he takes to the skies – heading for the Waking.
He needs to talk to Hob.
Quick Notes: Important chapter next where Dream explains why he was punished, and Matthew arrives…