The Sandman CHBB Fic: To Be Brand New, Chapters 1-4

Title: To Be Brand New

Chapters: 25
Estimated final word count: 140,000ish
Rating: Explicit

Relationships: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus/Hob Gadling, Dream & his siblings, Hob & the Endless, Dream & Orpheus, Dream & Daniel

Characters: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Hob Gadling, Daniel Hall, Destiny of the Endless, Death of the Endless, Matthew the Raven, Odin (The Sandman), Delirium of the Endless, Lucienne, Despair of the Endless, Desire of the Endless, Orpheus (The Sandman), Destruction of the Endless, Lyta Hall

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Additional Tags: Sandman: Brief Lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Everyone Lives, Age Regression/De-Aging, Slow Burn, Like the Slowest Burn, Like One of Them Is a Pre-Sexual Child for the First 100,000 Words of the Fic, What If The Red String Of Fate Was Also A Toddler Leash, Touch-Starved Dream of the Endless, Protective Hob Gadling, Cuddling & Snuggling, Caretaking, Bathing, Bed Sharing, Crying, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Injuries, Illness, Depression, Suicidal Ideation, Explicit Sexual Content, Masturbation, Not Exactly Loss of Virginity But Not Not That?, Happy Ending


This fic is also posting (though more slowly) on AO3!

Chapter 1

Rain had been falling in the Dreaming for several days when the boy wandered in. It was not the first time he had done so, but it was the first time Dream truly took notice of him; he was so small and bright and cheerful, the only creature in all the Dreaming who was untroubled by the storm.

He was a living child, not just visiting through his own dreams, but actually walking in the Dreaming—as he had been able to do since he had been able to walk, because the Dreaming had been his first home, where he was conceived. He had grown within the Dreaming as much as within his mother's womb, and the Dreaming would always welcome him back. Even the rain did not fall too heavily upon him.

The Dreaming knew him, and knew what he was for—and Dream knew it too. Here and now, with the rain pouring down, he could feel the line that led from him to the child. From his present misery to the child coming into his greatest potential.

Dream tried not to know it, but what good was there in the not-knowing? Was he not already as wretched as he could be? What would it aid him, not to know that his time was coming to an end, that his death was before him, and that the little boy now being lifted gently over puddles by Eve, hovered over by Matthew, doted upon by Cain and Abel as they dried him off and settled him by the fire...

That little boy would be the next Dream of the Endless, when this one had run his course.

The Dreaming doted upon the boy. The dreamfolk did not know, consciously, what they knew about him, and yet they knew he was theirs. They knew he was precious to the Dreaming beyond all other treasures. He was its future.

He would be better at it than the current Dream. His time as Dream of the Endless would be kinder, warmer, sweeter. He would understand his dreamers better, for he had begun as the most potent kind of dreamer: a mortal child. He would know how to love his subjects, because he had been loved—by his mother and father, first, and by Rose and Jed Walker, and now by the very dreamfolk who would be his subjects one day.

Dream, for all his powers, all his might, could not demand that anyone love him. His latest failure as a lover only made that more apparent. Thessaly did not love him and in truth he was not sure he had loved her, so much as he had loved the idea of her. Of being loved—of being beloved of anyone. That was the loss he could not stop mourning now.

He did not deserve it, could not earn it, and yet he wanted it more than he wanted anything. He could never have what was given so easily by everyone who met the child.

He could never have been what the child would be, because he had never been what the child was now. Even when he had been young as an Endless, smaller and less powerful than he was now, he had been Dream of the Endless. He had had his duties, his position. He had never been rocked in anyone's arms. From the time he met Cain and Abel, he had been their lord and protector, not a child to whom they told stories and offered sweets.

Dream was, he realized slowly, envious. Furiously so. The rain lashed harder through the Dreaming, pelted against the windows of the House of Mystery, and inside Dream's own self rage boiled up.

It. Was not. Fair.

Nothing was fair, and Dream knew that very well, and yet—

He wanted it to be fair. He wanted what he had never had, wanted to be what he had never been. He wanted that, and only that, with such wild, furious passion that he felt himself begin to crack apart.

There was a moment when he could have taken it back, could have resigned himself to the inevitable, could have stayed locked in his impotent grief playing out the same old pattern one more—one last—time.

But he did not take it back. He knew what he wanted, and he knew which part of what he wanted was something he could create for himself.

And so, he changed.

---

When he was aware again, his awareness was different—so different that he could not fully remember what it had been like before.

He was... small. He looked down at his small hands and small bare feet, and at the clothing he wore. Soft black overalls, embellished with silvery stars on the chest, and a black-and-white striped shirt.

The overalls had a pocket in the chest. Dream reached into it and pulled out the book that had to be there. He held it in his hands for a moment, feeling unsure about whether to use it.

They might be angry with him. They might not come. They hadn't come sometimes before, and now... Dream had done this. Dream even knew how he could undo it.

At that thought, he looked around him, at the great black mantle full of stars which he had shed. He tucked his book away and got two handfuls of the mantle, and hauled it across the room to where he could hide it under the bed.

There. Now it would not be so obvious what he needed to do to fix it, and so perhaps they would not make him.

He did not want to fix this. He wanted to stay as he'd made himself.

But he didn't want to be alone. He couldn't bear to be alone. He didn't know what they would think, what they would say, when they saw him like this. They would know even better than he did that he shouldn't be like this.

But he was very small, and he wanted someone bigger than him, someone who would know what to do next. They were the ones who always knew. He drew his book out again and opened it to the correct spot, and he looked at the pictures of his eldest brother and sister.

"I touch your sigil," he whispered, though even that did not disguise the way even his voice had become so much smaller—perhaps a voice no one would listen to, perhaps a voice no one could even hear. "I say your name. Destiny. Death. I call you."

Destiny appeared at once, and Dream clapped his own book shut and hid it back in his pocket as he looked up, and up, and up at his brother, who looked down at him.

Even from this angle, Dream couldn't see the part of his face that the hood shadowed.

"I knew that you would call upon me, of course," Destiny said. "I know what you have done, and where it will lead. It is all written."

Dream looked up at him and wanted to ask Destiny to tell him it would be all right, then. Or tell him that it wouldn't be all right, so he'd know. Or—anything.

Destiny simply continued looking down at him.

Dream blinked against the feeling of tears stinging his eyes and shoved two fingers into his own mouth, sucking on them to try to fight the urge to say something that wouldn't get any kind of answer he wanted. He couldn't bear to hear himself ask Destiny for more, just to have Destiny stare down at him in silence.

Before he could speak, or begin to cry, Death appeared.

She immediately crouched down, so that she was nearly at eye-level with him as she looked him over.

Dream took his fingers from his mouth and reached out to do what he had never, ever done, and poked one of the springy curls of her hair.

Death let out a startled laugh, closing her hand over his. His own hand disappeared in her grip, and Dream was wholly distracted from the texture of her hair (as pleasing to touch as he had always thought it must be) by her hand, warm and strong and infinitely reassuring around his. He wiggled his fingers; she didn't let go.

"Dream?" His sister asked, as if to confirm that he was really himself.

He nodded, feeling bashful at the thought of what she might ask next. Death was holding the hand with the fingers he'd been sucking on, but his other hand was free. This time he tried his thumb in his mouth.

Death looked up at Destiny, then huffed and wrapped her arms around Dream, drawing him against her body before she stood.

Dream had always thought it must be unpleasant for babies and young children to be picked up and moved at another's whim, like objects, but his sister's motions were not troubling at all. And having her arms around him, being pressed against her side, was like her hand wrapped around his but multiplied by his entire body.

He had never been so safe. He rested his head on her shoulder, and played absently with the ankh around her neck.

"You couldn't have mentioned that you saw this coming?" Death was asking Destiny.

"It was an abrupt development," Destiny intoned. "Dream's path appeared to continue on a much more predictable line until it... did not."

"Wait, are you saying he surprised you?" Death demanded.

Dream swung his feet and smiled around the thumb in his mouth, feeling pleased with himself.

"My duties are neither simple nor predictable, whatever you may think," Destiny said. "His path has altered drastically today, as I said."

"Right, okay, but..." Death jostled Dream until he picked his head up. She tilted her upper body in a way that made space between them, and looked very steadily and seriously into his eyes and gently tugged his thumb out of his mouth. "Dream, sweetie, how long is this going to last?"

Dream couldn't summon the words Death obviously wanted from him, even with his mouth freed. He shrugged, hitching his shoulders up and then back down. She wasn't quite asking him to fix it, but... he didn't know when he would be ready to do so. He had no kind of plan, he just wanted... this.

"Because you're adorable," Death went on gently, "but I've got to work, and you—I think you made yourself like this because you need something pretty specific, and it's something I'm not going to be any good at for more than about five minutes at a time."

She was leaving him, just like everyone did. Just like always. He didn't know how long five minutes was here, but he knew that it wasn't enough time. He knew that it meant she was leaving soon. His eyes instantly flooded with tears which spilled down over his cheeks, and he stuffed his fingers into his mouth again so he wouldn't make a sound.

"Oh, Dream," Death said, fond and scolding at once, her smile turning wry but still so gentle. "This is what I mean, little brother, I'm no good for this. You need a human. You made yourself little and mostly human, so I'm pretty sure what you need is a human to look after you until this runs its course."

She glanced over at Destiny and added, "Hot or cold?"

"Precisely the correct temperature," Destiny returned, and Dream let out a half-choked sob and hid his face against Death's shoulder again. She let him, let him lean into her again, but she didn't wrap him up in her arms and keep him close like she had at first.

She was going to leave him. She was going to find someone to leave him with and then she would go away and he wouldn't see her anymore for ages, just like always. She wouldn't hug him or pick him up, wouldn't call him sweetie, wouldn't be warm and laugh when he poked at her hair.

She was asking Destiny something, but Dream could hear nothing above his own miserable crying.

And then, quite suddenly, everything changed. He was startled into silence and picked his head up to look around.

They were in the Waking world, in London, and a part of it that Dream recognized instantly. They were just outside the New Inn—the last place he had seen Hob Gadling in the flesh, after spending most of the day with his sister. She had encouraged him to drop in on his friend.

"He's the only human I can think of who you might be okay with like this," Death said. "I think he'd do his best for you. Don't you think?"

Dream had only spoken with Hob once since that visit—just before he had gone to Hell in search of Nada. They had met in Hob's dream, and Hob had wished him well. Since then Dream had been busy, and Hob had slipped from his mind as he usually did, in their century-long intervals.

But Death was right. There wasn't another human Dream could imagine entrusting himself to in this state, and he could not fathom Hob being cold or unkind or impatient, however much Dream might deserve it.

He nodded, swiping at his wet cheeks. Death wiped them clean with her thumb and said, "Well, let's go get you settled, then."

Because she was going to leave him, even if she was leaving him with his friend. Dream rubbed at one eye with his fist and did not cry.

---

Hob was running out of time.

It wasn't an urgent thing, not quite yet, not more pressing from one day to the next, but sooner or later his time in this life, this identity, would be up. He had lingered here for a long time, waiting for his stranger—his friend. And then his friend had turned up in the flesh—and again, more than a year later, in a dream—and Hob had still hung on.

These things came in threes, and he felt certain he was going to see his friend one more time. He didn't want to budge until he did. He didn't want to be hard for his friend to find; he had a feeling it would be important, that third meeting.

Still, when the time came he was going to have to go quickly. He could make jokes about moisturizing and hair dye, but he'd been here going on thirty-five years, and he couldn't make this life last much longer. He checked through his lists of things to do when the time came, considered what to pack up and ship off to secure storage where he'd be able to retrieve it in his next life. There were a lot of moving parts, a lot of tedious logistics to consider, but he was in the summer holidays now, so it was as good a time as any.

He was grateful to be interrupted, though, when someone knocked at the door of his flat. Probably one of the New Inn's staff, maybe asking him to come cover a shift at the bar or attend to some minor disaster. That would be good for distracting him from planning and paperwork for the rest of the day, likely.

Hob opened the door, and all thoughts fled.

The woman who stood there—he knew her. He had met her before; she was important to him. He couldn't put a name to the wryly smiling face, but he knew her, and she had a presence he couldn't ignore, a presence that told him she was much more than she appeared.

He barely tore his gaze from her to look at the child she held on her hip, but once he did Hob was even more utterly riveted.

It was his friend. He knew that instantly, as soon as he met those wide blue eyes he'd known for more than six hundred years. He had the same messy black hair, the same pale skin—the same hollow cheeks, which looked much different on a child's face.

He was a child of maybe three years old, underfed and wearing clothes—still, even now, all in stark black and white—a little too big for him. He was barefoot.

He was so small. He didn't feel nearly as otherworldly as he should—as the woman did. Whatever had befallen Hob's friend, it had changed him enormously, cruelly, and yet his friend was smiling up at him, smiling wider than he ever had. Hob couldn't help smiling back.

"Hello," the woman said, only barely managing to tear Hob's attention away from his friend. "We've not exactly met, but you are my brother's dearest friend, and he needs looking after for a while."

"Yes," Hob said, because there was no question that he was going to do whatever his friend needed, and whatever this woman asked of him. Still, he couldn't quite resist asking, "I'm sorry, you—I know that I know who you are, but I don't..."

"Death," she said with a warm, friendly smile. "Of the Endless."

Hob blinked a few times. He had a vision of her in a wimple, holding a mug, and he knew that she had been in the White Horse that night in 1389. That had to mean that whatever his friend had to do with it, it was his friend's sister who had made him what he'd been ever since.

"Well," he said, riding out that seismic shift in his whole understanding of his immortality and the universe in general. "Nice to properly meet you."

He tore his gaze from her and looked down at his friend, holding his arms out. A little to his surprise his friend reached right back and came to him as easily as any small child of his acquaintance ever had.

Hob was scarcely aware, just then, of the act of drawing his friend not only into his arms but across his threshold: into his home, and his keeping.

He was much more occupied with studying his friend's pale face, those hollow cheeks, the faint weary shadows under blue eyes that looked much too big for that tiny face. "Well, my dear little friend," Hob said, because the reference was irresistible, "what shall I call you?"

His friend... laughed. His expression was one of merriment, even if the sound that came out of his mouth was like a very small, very distressed bullfrog.

Clearly, whatever else had been taken from him, his knowledge of Prince Caspian was perfectly intact, for his friend said, "I'm not a dwarf! I'm Dream, of—"

His friend looked to where his sister—had stood. Where she stood no longer, and there was no laughter left in the tiny voice as he finished, his little hands clenching hard in Hob's shirt as he spoke. "The Endless."

His voice was deeper than Hob would expect from such a small child, but for all that it was still a child's voice. He sounded bereft as only a child could, left behind by his sister without a word of farewell.

Hob would never before have dared, but his friend was so very small, holding on to Hob's shirt so very hard, and his trailing words sounded so desperately, horribly unsurprised. He wrapped his friend—Dream of the Endless, younger brother of Death—in a fierce hug, pressing his cheek to the tousle of messy black hair as he murmured, "You're all right. I've got you. You're safe here."

It struck Hob suddenly, and he stepped back from the door, shutting it properly and then wrapping both arms firmly around his friend—Dream—as he looked rapidly around the flat. "Or at least—I'm going to do all I can to keep you safe. Dream, do you know—clearly something's... happened," Dream tensed in his arms, abruptly rigid instead of baby-soft, which didn't reassure Hob any. He cleared his throat and asked plainly, "Are you... in danger?"

Whoever or whatever had done this to his friend was surely infinitely beyond Hob's ability to fight or even understand, but there were things he could do to make Dream safer, if that was necessary.

"It was..." Dream stayed tucked tightly against Hob, and Hob still held him close. "It was not meant to hurt me. Perhaps it was... something I needed."

Hob relaxed his grip just a little, rearranging his barely-formed thoughts. He recalled the conversation he'd hoped they could have back in 1889, the way he'd been fumbling toward the idea that maybe his stranger—his friend—Dream—had needs that weren't met. Needs Hob could understand. Needs Hob had dreamed, even then, of being able to fill.

It wasn't hard to imagine what it was that Dream could get in this shape that he wouldn't otherwise—what it was that he needed so badly that this had... happened, in a carefully passive-voice sort of way. What it was his sister had brought him to Hob for, saying he needed looking after, rather than doing whatever Death Herself might do for a little brother who had been cursed into helplessness. Hob noticed that Dream had carefully not said that anyone had done this to him, and also that Dream still had not let go of his shirt, let alone making any motion toward freeing himself from Hob's grip.

Hob rubbed his tiny back with one hand, and felt Dream relax against him again, felt the motion of his breathing, the body-warmth of a child tucked against him. "Well, in that case, my friend—welcome to my home, stay as long as you like. Would you care for a snack? Something to drink?"

Dream took a long breath, and made a thoughtful little hum which was, in his child's voice, perishingly adorable. "I suppose not wine."

"Bit early in the day, and in your apparent life stage, yeah," Hob agreed. "Could just about manage a glass of milk and cheese on toast, if you like. Anything more complicated, we'll need to venture down to the big kitchen and ask Marc for help."

"A glass of milk and cheese on toast sounds... suitable," Dream decided, after another moment of frowning reflection, and Hob managed to nod back seriously instead of cooing at him.

This was still his friend, after all. And his friend was bloody half-starved, by the looks of him. Anything Hob could get him to eat was all to the good, even if suitable was a pretty faint endorsement.

"Coming up, then," Hob said, and headed for the kitchen, still carrying his oldest friend in his arms.

---

Dream didn't mean to make a sound. He wasn't even sure where the sound had come from; it was just hanging in the air, a high hurt whine.

Hob's expression was almost stricken enough that it might have come from him, but he hugged Dream again and ceased his attempt to set him down on the kitchen floor, which suggested that it had been Dream himself.

He was clinging to Hob in a way that also supported the idea.

"Gonna need at least one hand free to fix you something to eat, sweetheart," Hob said, words Dream could barely comprehend in the rush of relief and comfort that came from being wrapped tightly in Hob Gadling's arms. He was, in strictly physical form, even bigger and warmer than Death, and the perfectly calibrated pressure of his embrace satisfied a need Dream could not name.

Hob's hugs were, possibly, a fundamental force of the universe. Dream had had two now and felt more firmly knit into himself than ever before in his existence. If Hob had ever hugged him before...

But of course Hob had never hugged him before. Dream, as he had been before, had not invited hugging and certainly would not have stood for it had Hob ever dared to try.

Hob's grip on him loosened enough for Hob to look into his eyes again, and his expression was less distressed now—was calm and soft in a way that made Dream feel sure that everything was going to be all right.

"How about this," Hob said. "Do you think you can keep holding on just as tight as you have been?"

Dream nodded firmly. He would find it much more difficult to let go.

"All right," Hob said, and carried him over to the kitchen bench, propping Dream on it. "You don't have to let go all the way, but I'm going to turn around so I can carry you on my back, all right?"

It took some maneuvering, and Dream did have to let go just long enough to shift his grip, but in a moment he was clinging to Hob's back, legs wrapped around Hob's waist, and could watch over Hob's shoulder as Hob gathered the necessary items to prepare cheese on toast.

Dream found it much more interesting to watch than he would have expected before. It helped that Hob narrated each step, in between chatting about other times he'd cooked something similar in other circumstances. Dream stopped taking in the words while watching the bread toast, but Hob chatted on anyway, unconcerned by Dream's silence.

By the time Hob had the cheese on toast out from under the grill and on a plate, slicing it into strips he called soldiers, Dream could actually feel his mouth watering. He could not recall another time he'd wanted food in the Waking world the way he did now; he felt ravenous in a way that was so much more physical and absorbing even than when he had made his escape from Fawney Rig. There simply was not enough of him now to think of anything but the thing he wanted most.

"All right, all right," Hob said, holding the plate out of Dream's reach and taking it over to the table. He set it down, and while Dream was strategizing how to get himself within reach of it, Hob's hands landed on his sides, flipping him up off of Hob's back upside down.

Before he could think to be indignant, Dream was laughing; Hob hesitated with Dream held up over his head, meeting his eyes upside down. For a moment Hob looked worried, like he should not have done that—as if he had meant to respect Dream's dignity, as if Dream had any left after clinging to Hob like an infant chimpanzee to its mother for the past while. Dream couldn't stop laughing in any case, at the sensation of being held upside down, at the look on Hob's face, also upside down, at this whole absurd circumstance.

Hob finally smiled, laughing a little himself, and finished the motion, flipping Dream down onto his feet, right side up again and standing next to the chair most convenient to the plate of cheese on toast.

Dream scrambled up into the chair, scarcely noticing that Hob had stepped away from him until Hob returned, setting down a cup of milk as promised. Dream looked to him cautiously, and Hob said, "Might be a bit hot, maybe test it with your finger before you take a bite."

Dream accepted this recommendation, probing at the toasted cheese, which was still softly melty but only pleasantly warm to the touch. Then he picked up a piece and took a cautious bite.

It did burn the roof of his mouth a little, but it tasted—what had Hob said, all those years ago? Fucking brilliant.

Dream heard himself make more noises he hadn't intended—appreciative ones this time—and then he had no attention to spare for anything but eating, except when he paused to gulp milk.

He only looked around when the plate was empty, considering whether it would be satisfying or not to eat the last crumbs lingering on the plate.

Hob was standing at the kitchen bench, putting the finishing touches on something on another plate. He looked up a second after Dream looked to him, and smiled. "That went down all right, didn't it? Here, if you've got room left, you can try this next—toast with jam. Strawberry, it's nice and sweet, I think you'll like it."

Dream did like it. He didn't know if he liked it less than cheese on toast or if it was only that the strange sensation of a full belly was creeping up on him as he ate; he ground to a halt with half a slice of toast left on the plate.

He sipped his milk, considering what to do about it—Hob had given it to him, and he liked it. He wanted Hob to know that he had liked it, and that he was grateful. But he suspected that the pleasant fullness of his stomach would soon become something unpleasant. But it would also be unpleasant to disappoint Hob, or to reject what Hob had given him.

He had come to no firm conclusion when Hob said, "Had enough, then? Mind if I finish this off?"

Dream licked milk off his upper lip. "You are welcome to it," he said carefully.

Hob smiled so warmly that Dream was sure he'd done exactly the right thing, and ate the remainder of the toast in two bites. Dream sat back in his own chair to watch Hob eating; that felt almost familiar, except for the part where he could scarcely see over the table once he sat back, and also the part where he felt so warm and comfortable, like he never had before in the Waking world.

His eyes drifted shut, and then snapped open, a jolt of fear bringing him fully awake.

He did not want to return to his realm. Not yet. He had only just gotten to Hob, and he wanted to stay.

"Sleepy?" Hob asked, then tilted his head. "How's that work for you, Master of Dreams?"

"I do not sleep," Dream said firmly, though he had a feeling that that was not true for him in this form. He was fairly certain that this form would anchor him here in the Waking even if he visited his own realm in sleep, but...

He did not want to leave Hob yet.

"No?" Hob said. "Well, fair enough. Mind helping me with the washing up, then, my friend?"

"Of course," Dream said, getting quickly to his feet and feeling only a little weighed down by his full belly. He carried his plate over to the sink as Hob indicated, then hastened back to the table to collect his glass.

"Good work," Hob said, lifting him up to sit by the sink, and Dream felt warmth run through him, a silly curl of pride. He had helped; he had done good work. He knew it was ridiculous, knew that his true work—currently being neglected—was far more important and far more difficult, and yet...

Good work, Hob had said, and he'd smiled and picked Dream up. He'd kept Dream near.

He handed Dream a towel before Dream could make sense of what he felt, and Dream shoved his thoughts away in favor of meticulously drying each dish and glass and utensil after Hob had washed it.

When he looked up to offer Hob the knife he'd used to spread the jam, he realized that that had been the last. Hob was just standing beside the sink watching him, waiting for him to finish. But he didn't look impatient, and didn't tell Dream he needn't have spent so long carefully polishing the knife so that it was perfectly dry and shiny.

Hob just smiled and said, "You do have an eye for detail, don't you? Very nice."

He took the knife and towel both from Dream, putting each away before he picked Dream up again, settling him against his chest just as he'd first held him.

"Well," Hob said. "Now's the best time to go out and enjoy a fine sunny day like this, but I see you haven't got any shoes, my friend."

Dream tensed, instantly feeling caught out. He wasn't wearing shoes; he usually didn't, when he was in his quarters in his own realm, and so he hadn't thought about it. And now he couldn't make any—couldn't make anything. He had come to Hob with nothing, would be a burden on him—

"Hey, now," Hob said, chucking him gently under the chin until Dream looked up to meet his eyes. "It's no trouble," Hob said. "We can get you some at the shop, and then go for a nice ramble round the green, or we can stay in and order shoes off the internet, but then we can't go out today, and who knows when we'll get another day this fine."

Dream stared up at Hob, feeling paralyzed now by the choice, instead of by shame.

"Do you think you can handle people in shops telling you how adorable you are? I won't set you down for a minute, but you're little and they might try and touch you and talk nonsense at you. We can skip all that, but then you won't be able to try on the shoes till they get here, and you might not like the way they feel."

Dream bit his lip. "You... you would not let anyone..."

Hob tucked Dream closer against him with one arm and raised the other as if he held a shield with it, as if he would shelter Dream against a rain of arrows or hail of blows. "No one gets at my friend if they're not welcome, you have my word."

Dream nestled in, resting his head against Hob's shoulder. "I shall not mind if they say silly things, then."

Hob gave him yet another warmly engulfing hug, and Dream closed his eyes and thought of another thing Hob had said to him once, long long ago: This is what I always dreamed Heaven would be like.

---

Chapter 2

The shop was, thankfully, not as much of an ordeal as Hob had feared. The shoe store was narrow and leather-smelling, crowded with towers of shoeboxes, cramming in as much as they could in the shop's small footprint. The children's shoes were all the way at the back, and he and Dream had that section to themselves. The shop attendant let Hob handle measuring Dream's feet, supplied socks, and didn't object to Dream trying them on in a way that forced Hob to pay any mind.

"I'll take those too," Hob assured her, patting the pile of rejected socks, and when Dream deemed a pair acceptable, he put every pair on the rack in their basket.

After that, she was helpful but not too friendly, which was perfect. Dream decided on a pair of sandals (black with red accents) and a pair of trainers (red with black accents), and then managed to decide on wearing the sandals out of the store rather than the trainers. Dream even walked back up to the front of the store to pay, merely holding on to Hob's hand instead of giving any sign he wanted to be carried.

He walked experimentally back and forth behind Hob while Hob waited through the ringing up; Hob didn't want to stare, but couldn't stop stealing glances at the way Dream experimented with different strides and steps, prancing and then marching and then skipping.

The shop attendant cleared her throat, and Hob jerked his attention back to her, offering his card. It was on the tip of his tongue to offer some excuse for his distraction, and then he spotted the look on her face, the warm recognition.

She didn't say it; she didn't have to. She thought they were father and son, that it was perfectly ordinary and a fine thing for Hob to be fondly amused by Dream's antics.

Hob mustered up a return smile and forced himself to pay attention through the rest of the transaction, shoving down both thoughts of Robyn and worries about whether he was treating Dream too much like a genuine child, too little like his friend. Either Dream was in a state to care about his dignity, in which case Hob would certainly hear about any missteps just as he had in 1889... or Dream didn't care, and in that case he needed all the affection and indulgence Hob could show him.

He didn't know exactly what governed the shape Dream had taken when he changed into this small form, but the ethereal slenderness of his adult appearance was so obviously some variety of starvation when transposed to a child. Dream had certainly eaten like he'd scarcely seen food before—and even that was nothing to the absolutely gutted sound he'd made the first time Hob went to set him down, as if he needed to be held like other people needed to keep their blood inside their bodies.

Hob couldn't begin to guess whether this reflected anything about how his friend had come to be. Had he ever been a child before? Was Dream of the Endless something someone grew up to be?

But he'd said it was something I needed and Hob was beginning to get the idea that need wasn't even a tiny bit of an exaggeration here. So yeah, he thought he could do his part all right, as long as he didn't overthink it.

He was, inevitably, overthinking it.

He didn't notice the door of the shop opening, but Dream was suddenly plastered against Hob's leg, and that was the end of the time Hob could spend worrying about anything at all other than picking Dream up and giving him a firm hug. He nearly walked out of the shop without any of their purchases other than the sandals Dream was already wearing; it was Dream who tugged at his shirt and said, "Hob, Hob," until Hob remembered that anything other than Dream existed.

He scooped up the carrier bags and headed out of the shop with Dream safe in his arms.

---

They were halfway back to the New Inn when Dream began to feel a strange, restless sensation in his arms and legs. He tried to flex them without giving Hob the impression that he wanted to be set down, because he was still greatly enjoying being held so close, but they hadn't gone much farther when Hob stopped and shifted his hold on Dream so he could meet his eyes.

"Got the fidgets, my friend? The green's just up ahead, you can stretch your legs there."

Dream went absolutely still, and after another moment Hob started walking again, aiming them toward the nearest corner of the green. When they arrived, Hob knelt down on the grass, so that when Dream's feet touched the ground Hob was still at eye level with him, and Dream was still in his arms.

"Here you go," Hob said, making no move to push him away. "Want to try out those new kicks where you've got a bit more space to move?"

"New..." Dream repeated dubiously, looking down at his sandaled feet, "kicks."

"Mm, yes, I'm sure that's what the kids are saying these days," Hob said cheerfully. "Though you'll have to be careful how you kick anything in those."

Dream swung one leg experimentally, and the sensation of it was good, nearly as good as being hugged by Hob and far more urgent. He tried the other leg, then shifted away from Hob enough to try jumping up and down a few times, flinging his arms out as he did.

It felt good, felt right, but not enough, and he wasn't sure what to do next. He dwindled down to bouncing on his heels, looking around for inspiration. He could walk around the green—ramble, Hob had said before—but that didn't seem like enough, and yet he didn't know what would be enough. He couldn't just... jump up and down over and over again, while Hob knelt there watching him.

Could he?

Dream was still debating with himself when he noticed Hob setting down the bags of his new shoes and socks.

Hob was smiling, and he reached out—Dream hadn't really moved far from him at all—and tapped his fingers against the center of Dream's chest. "Tag. You're it."

Dream frowned at him. "We're not..."

Hob got to his feet and started backing away. "I mean, if you don't want to win, that's fine, you can just stand there and not even try. You can forfeit if you like."

"I did not say that," Dream snapped, and began stalking after Hob. It quickly became obvious that Hob's longer legs gave him an unfair advantage—Dream had to run. But as soon as he started running, Hob started backing away faster, so Dream had to stretch his small legs and race as hard as he could after him.

They were most of the way across the green before Hob, still hurrying backward, tripped and went down flat.

Dream discovered a new speed his legs could manage, dashing to Hob's side to be sure he was all right.

He was, of course; a second after Dream reached him he realized that nothing so simple as falling down would do Hob Gadling any harm. Still, it was a relief to see his smile, his brown eyes bright, his whooping breath making his chest rise and fall.

"Well," he said after a few gasps, "you going to tag me, then? You caught me."

Dream stuffed both hands into his pockets. "It's hardly a victory when you just tripped over your own feet."

Hob sat up. "There was a tussock, actually, I'm sure I tripped over that. And if you don't want to count it I don't suppose you have to—"

With no warning at all, Hob lunged at him, grabbing Dream around the middle and throwing him over his shoulder.

Dream let out an involuntary yelp as Hob jumped to his feet, taking Dream suddenly much further off the ground. It turned to a shriek as Hob started running back the way they'd come, and had broken down to laughter by the time Hob dropped him on his feet again, right beside the carrier bags.

Hob was already backing away before Dream was sure which way was up. Dream dashed after him without hesitation this time—and this time he was the one tripping over his own feet. Hob hesitated, but Dream scrambled back up and lunged after him, trying to take advantage, and this time he did manage to crash into Hob's thigh before Hob got away.

"Tag!" Dream shouted, and peeled himself off to run in another direction.

After several strides he glanced back, and found Hob only a little behind him, jogging along with one hand outstretched—just where Dream had known he would be.

---

About the sixth time Dream took a tumble, he didn't pop right back to his feet. Hob was chasing him at that point, so he strode over to him slowly, watching for signs of the sudden transition from hilarity to tears that struck young kids sometimes. Dream had probably tired himself out enough for it now.

When Hob crouched down beside him, though, Dream was just lying there peering at his hand, which he'd scraped in his fall. There was a patch of pink skin, not even blood beading up, but Dream studied it like he'd never seen anything like it before.

Maybe he hadn't. The King of Dreams might not have ever skinned his knees or elbows or palms, any more than he'd ever run wild over a patch of green.

"Want me to kiss that better for you, then?" Hob asked, when Dream didn't show any sign of doing anything but lying there. Better a sudden storm of tears or another proud little scoff of disdain at the offer than Dream just lost in whatever thoughts he was having about his little injury.

Dream sat up, and solemnly offered his hand to Hob. "Yes, please."

Hob tried not to look too taken aback. He cupped his hand around Dream's tiny one, warm and fragile and alive, and kissed the patch of scraped skin as tenderly as he knew how.

When he looked down at Dream's hand again, it was whole, and Dream was smiling slyly, like he'd pulled off a prank, tricking Hob into giving him a kiss.

"Ah, see, it worked," Hob said, smiling back at him. "Best medicine there is, a nice kiss to make it better."

Hob expected a tiny little voice to argue with him about the logic of that, but Dream just said, "Are we done playing tag now?"

"Yeah, I think that's about enough for one day," Hob said, and he was still speaking when Dream stood up only to wrap his arms around Hob's neck, already leaning against Hob's shoulder, ready to be carried away.

Hob pressed a kiss to his hollow little cheek before he thought better of it, and picked him up to go gather their things. Dream went limp against him, as if he had fallen asleep, or was just too tired to hold any part of himself up, and Hob let himself consider how long this might last. Would Dream vanish as soon as he fell asleep, or as soon as Hob did?

Or at the other extreme... Would Hob's next identity need to have another identity attached to it? Would he watch over his friend for years, watch him grow up into a new version of the man he'd known?

Gladly, he would, if it meant he could keep his friend safe, and know he was well—love him, and know he was loved. Gladly, if only for the joy of watching someone grow who he knew would never be lost to him as Robyn had been lost, as all others he had ever loved had been lost.

It wasn't any of the ways he'd ever dared to imagine getting to keep his friend around, but life was mostly like that. And in Hob's experience, the unexpected joys were the best of all.

Speaking of unexpected, Hob realized about ten feet away from the front door of the New Inn that he was about to walk in with a child no one had ever seen before in his arms. He only needed a half-second to make up his mind about that; Hob turned on his heel and headed around to the inn's back entrance.

It was a fine day, and getting to be time for the dinner rush, so Hob wasn't surprised to find that the kitchen door was propped open. He slipped inside and paused there, letting his eyes adjust and getting a feel for who was here and how much of a gauntlet he would have to run with Dream.

There seemed to be a pretty usual level of bustle—someone over at the sinks, a waiter loading up a tray, Holly plating and Tim tending the grill. And Marc, the New Inn's head chef if they were going to use a title that grand, was just coming out of the walk-in fridge and had stopped in his tracks, looking at Hob.

Dream squirmed just then, and Hob looked down. "What do you think of cadging some supper, sweetheart?"

Dream gave a pensive little hum, barely audible above the kitchen noise, and said a little plaintively, "Cheese on toast?"

Hob considered how to ask whether balanced nutrition—or eating enough non-cheese-based meals not to get horribly constipated—were things they needed to be considering, and whether Dream's answer would be more than an educated guess. He hadn't yet come to a conclusion when Dream's grip on him tightened, and Hob realized that Marc had come over.

"We can do the finest cheese on toast you've ever had," Marc promised. "And for sir?"

Hob rolled his eyes a bit; Marc looked back steadily. He knew there was a reason Hob had come round the back—and his instant understanding was most of the reason Hob had come into the kitchen instead of going for the staircase that would have taken them directly up to the flat.

That and he wanted to eat something more substantial than he would either be able to get Dream to eat, or want to prepare with Dream physically attached to him—which brought him back around to Marc's stated question. "Nachos?"

Marc looked amused, and glanced down at Dream. "Jalapenos?"

And, all right, maybe there had also been an element of what might Dream be tempted to taste in Hob's choice. Cheese on chips was probably close enough to cheese on toast to lure him into trying something slightly different; anything really spicy was likely to put him off.

Hob smiled ruefully at Marc. "Nah, not today."

Marc nodded, giving Hob's shoulder a firm squeeze. "Have a seat in the corner, then, I'll get you some drinks."

"He'll take a red," Hob threw after Marc as he walked away, and Marc didn't even dignify that with a look back.

Hob turned the opposite direction, carrying Dream back to the scarred old table—a relic of the White Horse, in fact, deemed too decrepit for front-of-house—where staff usually sat for meal breaks. All of them were busy with the beginning of the evening rush now, so he and Dream had the table to themselves, tucked away in their corner.

It felt strangely familiar, and Hob was about to make a crack about it until he sat down and settled Dream on his lap, and realized that Dream had a particularly troubled frown on his tiny face.

He looked up to meet Hob's eyes with a wary look that, particularly in combination with the table, gave Hob an uncomfortably vivid flash of 1689.

"Hob," Dream said, quietly but with palpable dread, "people are going to ask you questions about me, aren't they."

With a positively heroic effort, Hob managed to keep the serious, concerned look on his face instead of bursting out laughing at the way that Dream obviously regarded people asking questions as no less an ordeal than what Hob had lived through for most of the 17th century.

It shouldn't be surprising, given the last six hundred years; it actually explained quite a lot.

"I won't tell anyone anything true, obviously," Hob said quietly. "If there's anything you want me to say or not say—if I don't say anything people are going to sort of assume I'm your dad, which—"

Dream's expression twisted into a more emphatic miniature version of the look he'd gotten on his face when Hob coaxed him into trying a sip of drinking chocolate back in 1789. "You are not my father," Dream hissed. "You are nothing like him. He's awful. My sister promised I don't ever have to go back there, I won't—"

Hob pulled Dream into a tight hug half a second before he realized that Marc had walked up during that tiny tirade—and Dream, angled as he was on Hob's lap, had almost certainly seen him coming.

From the look on Marc's face, that was going to take care of answering any questions. Still, just to finish the thing off, Hob murmured, "His sister's an old friend of mine—much older sister, obviously. Things at home are... complicated, and she wanted him safe."

Marc nodded grimly, setting down a pint for Hob and a glass of chocolate milk with a curly straw for Dream. "I'll spread the word."

Hob waited until he was a decent distance away to whisper, "Well done," in Dream's ear, giving him another little squeeze before loosening his grip.

No need to mention right now that this meant Hob definitely needed to fake his death when this was all over. If Dream's adult self turned up at the New Inn anytime soon, there was a serious chance one of Hob's very loyal employees would take a run at him on suspicion of him being his own fictitious horrible father.

"He is awful," Dream grumbled as he shifted to sit farther forward on Hob's lap and investigated the glasses. He might have been talking to himself; he didn't really seem to expect Hob to respond to the words. "And I won't go back again."

Hob set a hand on Dream's back, rubbing for a few seconds before he could manage to say firmly, "Nor should you."

Dream looked over his shoulder at that, staring solemnly at Hob for a moment before he looked to survey their beverages again.

"You can try a sip of the ale if you like," Hob offered, summoning up a smile and a more cheerful tone. "Just a sip, mind."

This time Dream looked back at him with a decidedly repulsed expression. "No, thank you. But what is this milk? Why is it brown?"

Hob just barely managed to bite his tongue before teasing Dream about not knowing something, when he had seemed to know everything about everyone he met, back in 1889. There were obvious reasons that might not be the case anymore, and Hob wouldn't help by drawing attention to it.

"It's chocolate," Hob said, leaning forward to reach his own glass. "Much nicer than what we had that time when we were interrupted."

"Self-defense was the best use for that," Dream muttered, looking warily at his own drink, but he bent the straw to his lips and essayed a dubious sip.

He blinked several times, a comically shocked expression on his face; Hob drowned the coo in his throat in a long drink of beer, and by the time he came up for air Dream was gulping as best he could through the straw, his hollow little cheeks all but disappearing as he sucked.

Hob rubbed his back again and murmured, "Don't drink it all in one go, love, you won't have anything to drink with your toast."

Dream stopped to breathe and turned an absolutely world-class bereft and pleading look on Hob. "Wouldn't he let me have more if I drank it all? Wouldn't you?"

The crack about murdering your parents and then pleading clemency as an orphan would be a tad insensitive right now, Hob figured, so he just admired Dream's puppy dog eyes for as long as he could bear before he said, "Well, obviously we would, yes. But you won't enjoy your toast as much if you've already filled your belly with chocolate milk before it gets here."

Dream's innocent look was instantly replaced with a withering glare. "You could have said that to begin with. You need not lie to me, Hob."

"My apologies," Hob agreed solemnly, once again not letting himself react to the adorableness of that imperious tone in that tiny child's voice. He would probably build up a tolerance to it eventually, if this went on long enough.

Surely he would.

Hob didn't have time to worry too much about how many years he could expect to spend just giving Dream everything he wanted if this kept up, because Irene, the New Inn's manager, came walking briskly over with a very businesslike expression that meant Marc had already told her what was going on with Dream.

That, or she was about to let him know about some sort of catastrophe with the Inn, in which case Hob was going to fake his death tonight. Dream was as much as he could handle this week.

Luckily, Irene said, "I'll be getting everyone front of house in order. They all know better than to ever give anyone's whereabouts, but they've seen you take a... relaxed view to your own privacy."

Hob had, it was true, more than once announced loudly in the crowded bar that he lived just upstairs.

"Obviously the situation is now different and they will know to be particularly cautious with anyone asking about your young friend. They will know to alert someone else who can discreetly contact you with a photo or description of the person asking."

Hob nodded slowly. It was... very obviously not the first time Irene had contemplated how to protect someone from the possibility of an abuser or stalker coming looking for them, and Hob was glad that she was in charge, even if there was no need in this case.

"Ahh," Hob said, glancing at Dream, who was taking very tiny sips of chocolate milk and then savoring each one in his mouth like he was a wine snob with a glass of his favorite vintage. "That sounds good. It's... possible his older sister might stop by—not much obvious family resemblance, but... you wouldn't mind seeing her, would you, sweetheart?"

Dream licked his lip, giving himself the tiniest milk mustache, and said thoughtfully, "No. But I don't think she will. I have three sisters, though."

Hob looked up at Irene just in time to see her get a lid on the face she wanted to make at that matter-of-fact statement. "Right. We won't go straight for the cricket bat behind the bar, then, if it might be one of your sisters coming to visit."

Dream looked up at Irene, and Hob leaned to one side to get a proper look at Dream's face; his expression was very serious for a moment, his eyes looking so old it was impossible not to see the ancient being peering out of this child's body.

Irene took a half-step back, and Hob put a hand on Dream's tiny shoulder and squeezed firmly.

Dream dropped his gaze and blew bubbles in his milk.

Hob said briskly, "Cricket bat is definitely the last resort. We don't want anybody getting into any trouble over this—worst comes to worst, I've got friends who can get things sorted for him. Nobody needs to be a hero."

Irene smiled, still looking a little unnerved, and said, "Right you are, boss."

Dream's shoulder twitched under Hob's hand at that. Dream stopped blowing bubbles and took another tiny sip of his milk as Irene walked briskly out of the kitchen.

"I know you don't want anyone coming to your defense," Hob murmured, leaning in close behind him. "But it's all hypothetical. Right?"

Dream was silent, savoring his chocolate milk, for a few seconds too long before he said, "Of course."

---

Chapter 3

 

Dream meant to eat sparingly of his dinner, to avoid the sleepiness that had followed filling his stomach the first time, but his small self proved to have exceedingly limited self-control.

Marc's cheese on toast was excellent, as was to be expected of a professional working in a successful establishment such as the New Inn, though Dream refused to consider it categorically better than the version Hob had produced earlier in the day. Dream was apparently hungry again, however, because he ate all of it before he remembered that he did not wish to render himself helpless against falling asleep.

By the time he had finished, it seemed useless to resist sampling some of Hob's nachos, with their variety of toppings. The combinations of texture and flavor were numerous and so interesting that Dream entirely failed to stop eating before his belly began to ache with fullness.

The world was going smeary around him, and he could feel his realm tugging at him when the closing of a door made Dream aware that they were back in Hob's flat. Dream sat up, rubbing the sleep fiercely from his eyes.

"I don't want to sleep yet," he insisted. It only occurred to him when the words were hanging in the air that this was a protest with no useful target. Hob had not coaxed him to eat for the purpose of making him drowsy, and Dream had left behind the part of himself that had the power to force or withhold slumber.

"Well, I won't insist, but I think the writing is on the wall, my friend," Hob said. "And I meant to ask before—are you feeling any... other bodily needs?"

Dream squinted at Hob until he realized what he was being delicate about. "If I had the toileting requirements of a human child my size, I believe we both would have found out by now."

He did, even as he spoke, wriggle in Hob's grip, reaching for the fullest possible awareness of this small body's sensations. No urgency presented itself to his awareness.

"That was my feeling too," Hob agreed affably, sitting down on the chair nearest the door and reaching for the fastenings of Dream's sandals. Dream watched his nimble fingers and thought that he ought to insist on doing it himself, but the words did not leap to his tongue, and Hob would be finished before Dream could muster them. "But I figured it couldn't hurt to ask. And if anything should... occur unexpectedly, we can manage that."

Dream giggled at that, mostly to fend off the horrific notion of being caught unawares by such an unpleasant necessity. He was quite sure, the more he thought of it, that his firm feelings about such matters would have shaped the functioning of this body when he created it for himself.

But then, he had not told Hob that he was the one who had made himself this way. Hob would naturally expect that whoever had forced this transformation upon him would not have done so with the utmost concern for his comfort. "I shall... keep you apprised of any developments."

"See that you do," Hob said fondly, pressing a kiss to Dream's hair as he tossed Dream's sandals over to land on a mat near the door. Hob's own shoes were already there, and Dream stared for perhaps too long at the image they made, his shoes resting comfortably if untidily against Hob's.

They looked just as if they belonged there. As if he belonged here, in Hob's home and his arms.

And all he had had to do was... all of this, to get here.

Dream shook his head, pushing the thought away, and Hob said, "If you don't want to sleep yet, we should keep you busy. I can put on some music and we can have a little dance party, or turn on the telly and find something exciting, or—"

"I have a book," Dream said before he'd realized he meant to say it. "It has my sisters in it. All my siblings. Then you'll know, if..."

None of them was at all likely to come looking for him. But it was better to think of that, for now, than to think of who, or what, might. That was a matter to be dealt with when he was back in the Dreaming.

And he was not ready to return to his realm just yet. Once he was there, he knew he would feel the pull to end this self-indulgence, no matter how much he wished to prolong it. He was not at all sure which part of himself would win out, and for now... he had Hob, and a full belly, and a book.

"Oh," Hob said. "That would be lovely! And I'd be very interested to know more about your family, even if they don't turn up to visit."

Sharing the book with Hob would allow Dream to answer some of Hob's longstanding questions while barely having to summon the words at all—even if it was bound to incite far more questions than it laid to rest. Still, he owed Hob that, at least, for so readily taking him in and caring so kindly for him.

Dream withdrew the book from the front chest pocket of his overalls, making Hob startle a little. "That pocket bigger on the inside?"

"No," Dream said. "The book is just... portable."

Now that he had drawn it out where it could be seen and touched, the book was a child's board book with pressed-cardboard pages, each about the size of the palm of Hob's hand. In his own present state, Dream had to hold on to it with both hands, and even so he was glad for Hob's hand coming around under the book to support it.

Dream flipped straight to his eldest siblings' pages, not lingering on the cover or the first spread.

"My eldest brother is Destiny," Hob read aloud from the first page. There was a rendering of his brother there—a figure robed and hooded in gray, holding his book.

Dream touched the book, and felt the spark of connection in it; this was no mere image, but his brother's sigil in truth, and if Dream needed to, he could call upon him through it.

He could not imagine what need he might have to call upon Destiny again. He would only get the same response he had gotten the last time. Still, it was good to know his brother was there. The book still functioned here in the Waking world.

"My eldest sister is Death," Hob went on, having turned his attention to the image of Death on the facing page. "Huh, you know, it's only an illustration but I can tell it's her. I suppose I really might recognize your other sisters after this. Or your brother."

"He is not difficult to identify," Dream said. "The robe and book are permanent fixtures."

"Huh," Hob said. "Destiny—actual Destiny. Suppose that makes you the world champion in coping with a know-it-all big brother, doesn't it?"

Dream snorted. "My younger siblings might beg to differ, as they have to deal with Destiny and myself both."

"Ah, so you're not only bossy with mere mortals, are you?" Hob asked, his voice still warm and fond, his arms still holding Dream close.

Dream said only, "Death is also. Always right. In her areas of expertise. But she is better at being kind. Everyone loves her, when they finally meet her."

"Suppose that makes sense," Hob agreed, and gave Dream a little squeeze. "You're more of an acquired taste, are you? Sophisticated palates only?"

Dream ducked his head and said, "Do you consider yourself sophisticated, then, Hob Gadling?"

Hob laughed and pressed a kiss to Dream's hair. "In this area I think I might be considered a connoisseur, aye? I like you enough for everyone."

Dream didn't know what to say to that at all; he swallowed hard and turned to the next page of the book.

On the left-hand side was his own sigil, his helm rendered as an image. The lenses were shiny-black, and if he leaned away from Hob at an uncomfortably precarious angle, he could just see his temporarily human eyes reflected in them.

"This is me," Hob read, slowly, as if the words were difficult to decipher or pronounce, resting heavy on his tongue. "Dream of the Endless, King of Dreams and Nightmares, Lord of the Dreaming, Prince of Stories, Oneiros, Morpheus, Kai'ckul Anthropomorphic Personification of... you went a bit easy on me just telling me to call you Dream, didn't you?"

The words Hob read were crowded all around the edges of his sigil, holding its edges in place. Dream couldn't look away from his own eyes, reflected back in the darkness of his helm. It made him feel even smaller than he knew he was, small in a different way. He had to keep very still to keep both of his eyes aligned with the reflections. There was only one correct way to sit to get it right.

There was so little of who he was that could ever be seen.

Hob jostled him and the book both, tugging him back against the soft warmth of Hob's chest, and Dream did not look so closely at his page of the book again. It was his sigil; he knew it like he knew his own face. There was no need to look closer.

The next page of his book was an absence.

"My younger brother," Hob said, and Dream could hear the frown in his voice as he read the words that were negative space, there in the not-there-ness. "Is missing."

"We call him the Prodigal," Dream said as he turned the page, ready to move beyond all that. "He left us hundreds of years ago."

The next two pages interlocked with each other, each design sprawling into the other. Desire lounged at ease, golden eyes bright, crystalline red heart at the center of their chest. Dream's fingers itched to touch it, and he curled his small, soft hand into a fist to resist the urge.

Despair crouched on the opposite side, but her rats and her unkempt hair both crossed over the border of the page. Her ring glinted on her finger, and Dream drew his hand back from the book altogether at just the thought of its sharpness.

"The twins," Hob read. "My younger sibling is Desire. My younger sister is Despair. Something tells me you and your sibling get on like a house on fire, don't you?"

"Screams, flames, people running for safety," Dream muttered, knowing just what Hob meant. "We are... very different, and also too much alike. Our realms adjoin in a way that has never been easy for either of us."

That was not true. It had been easy, once, when the world was young—when Delight was the darling of the Endless, and their little queen. Before so much had changed, and so much had gone wrong.

Hob made an understanding noise, and touched a gentle finger to one of Despair's rats. Dream remembered him, looking much too gnawed-upon in 1689, and quickly turned the final page.

Delirium wavered across two pages, in her cloud of multicolored fish and strangely colored incoherent shapes which pulsed with power—one of those, or all of them, were her sigil. Just barely visible under the bright chaotic tumble of color was a shadow of the girl she had once been.

"My youngest sister is..." Hob trailed off, and Dream wriggled to see his face and found him squinting at the page. "I can almost read what it says underneath, but... not quite."

"Her name changed when she changed," Dream said. "It was long ago. This is who she is now."

"Ah," Hob said, and refocused his attention, his gaze tracking the winding path of the words, the way the letters straggled and changed size and color. "My youngest sister is Delirium. D'you know, I think I've met her a few times."

"I would not be surprised," Dream agreed, patting Hob's wrist. "Delirium spends most of her time wandering in this world."

It was a shame that Hob would never meet her as Delight—or perhaps it was a good thing. Hob loved life too much to want to be lost in Delirium's realm for long as she was these days. When she had been Delight, Hob would have belonged to her instantly and wholly; she would have been the truest expression of why he wanted to live and what he had been dedicated to for all these years.

Hob would never have looked at Dream with wonder and fascination again, if he had ever met Delight. He would not have bothered to meet Dream again, would not have called him friend, if he could have known her. She would have been his friend at once, the very first time she saw him.

Dream reached out and firmly closed the book, pulling it from Hob's supporting hand and setting it firmly on the side table. "Now you will know my siblings, if any of them should come here."

"Thank you for that," Hob said. "And just so we're clear—it's all right for them to come here? That's not a break glass and run emergency?"

Dream sighed, exhausted already by the sheer thought of any of his siblings—Desire—turning up to poke at him. "The Endless are forbidden from shedding family blood, and from killing ordinary beings who do not pose a threat to their realms. Their presence may have... strange effects on those nearby, but they will not pose a serious danger to me or you, or to your people."

"Hm," Hob said. "More of a terribly sorry, we were just leaving, can't be late, emergency, then?"

Dream smiled a little, imagining Hob donning the mask of the past century's English fashion for imperturbable politeness while protecting Dream from any importunity with the same ferocity he'd turned on Lady Johanna's henchmen. Still, he should not mislead Hob. "They will not come, but if any of them do it will be best not to try to turn them aside. It will not be a mere social call. Destiny and Death both know where and what I am and will not trouble themselves further; the others would find it fairly difficult to find me as I am now. If they put forth such effort, they would not do it lightly."

There was a little pause, and Dream leaned against Hob and listened to the silence of not being able to tell what Hob was imagining as he took in Dream's words. It was... restful, knowing he need not refrain from looking, or decide what to do about what he saw if he did.

He was really very tired.

His eyes flew open when Hob said, "Well, suppose that's a worry for another day, then. For now, we've got your sandals off and I can see how grubby your feet are—why don't we go get you cleaned up?"

"I can," Dream mumbled, looking at his feet, which were indeed stained with dirt and grass. He had not noticed, with the fine armor of his new sandals in place, but now he could not simply will the mess away. Perhaps he ought to have been more careful, or worn the trainers and socks.

"Ah, it's no trouble," Hob said, closing his arms around Dream as he stood. Dream nestled into him and let Hob carry him through the flat. He opened his eyes when Hob crouched down, letting Dream rest on his thighs while he reached for something—a towel, Dream found, from a basket of them under the sink. Hob shook out the towel and draped it over the lid of the closed toilet, and then boosted Dream up to sit on it.

Hob reached over and turned on the sink taps, saying, "That will take a minute to get warm. Here, we'll just get these out of the way—" and Dream watched Hob reach for the cuffs of his overalls and begin folding them back. Dream realized what was about to happen and thought he should say something, do something, but he was so tired, and Hob was taking care of him.

He just watched.

Hob's hands stilled as the first dark sign was revealed on Dream's bared skin. "What—Dream, is that—"

"Just a bruise," Dream said, recognizing it as he saw it. He had not intended to build such things into this body, but... he had been hurting. Perhaps it was inevitable that this form had borne the expression of that pain. "I have hardly noticed it."

He considered, now, that the flares of pain he felt with each step were not entirely usual, as part of having a human body. Though he was not at all sure he would have been less willing to be carried hither and yon in Hob's arms if that slight deterrent to walking upon his own small feet had not been present.

Hob was taking great care in turning back Dream's trouser leg by another fold, revealing more of the black bruise, just barely purple around the edges, which seemed to have flowed down his shin. Hob pushed the trouser leg up to his knee, revealing the livid point of impact at the top of his shin, the way that blood had flowed and pooled under the skin all the way down.

"Dream," Hob said, his voice very careful and controlled, his hands shaking a bit. "Is this—is this the only bruise you've got on you?"

Dream bit his lip and shook his head. "You need not—"

"You—Dream," Hob said, and sat back on his heels as he covered his face with both hands, his head bowed. Dream watched the sharp motion of Hob's breath, like a silent sob. "You should not—Mother of God, you're so small, how—"

Dream leaned forward and found he could just reach to stroke at the tense curve of Hob's shoulder. "It is from before. It is a... reflection, or an echo, of pain which was not physical. No harm has come to me since I have been this small."

"No?" Hob said, dropping his hands and looking Dream in the eyes with an expression of hurt that was near to anger. "You've only been dumped off on some bloke you've met all of eight times in your life. That didn't hurt?"

"I was brought safely to my dearest friend among humans," Dream corrected firmly. "Among... anyone, really, outside my realm. You are special to me, Hob, and I would not have come to you if I had not trusted you."

He did not know what he would have done, precisely, in that event. The Dreaming would be experiencing floods, perhaps. He might have thrown a tantrum suitable to his size, and stirred up hurricanes and earthquakes.

He would have... gone on, as he had always done.

Hob laid his hand over Dream's where it still rested on his upper arm, and then said, "I—Christ, I don't even know if I can hug you without hurting you, Dream. I don't want to hurt you. You know that, don't you?"

Dream looked down at the bruise, the place—one of the places—where he had taken the impact of falling to his knees for Thessaly, in spirit. He had not begged when she had ended things, but he had known his own willingness to beg, had felt something in him break in that moment. Humiliation and helplessness had struck him brutally enough to leave these marks.

They were not the worst of what he had suffered. They were not worse, he found, than this moment now, knowing that Hob felt helpless.

Dream slid forward, easing down onto his feet with the towel puddled under them, softening the surge of pain. Hob's hands were spread wide, not touching; Hob just watched while Dream took a tiny step in to press himself against Hob's chest, wrapping his arms around Hob's neck.

"You have not hurt me, Hob," Dream said against his shoulder. "You would not. I know you."

Hob's arms closed gingerly around him, not squeezing him tight as Hob had done before, but still holding him close. "Sorry," Hob murmured. "Sorry, you—I shouldn't be the one getting upset, I just—I thought we were making that up, saying you needed to be hidden away here to keep you safe, but we weren't, were we? You were hurting, and you need this."

Dream nodded against Hob's shoulder. He supposed it was a very human foible to react more strongly to this visible materialization than to the fact that Dream had told Hob he needed to be as he was.

"All right," Hob said, his tone getting firmer as he loosened his grip on Dream, gently guiding him to stand back enough for Hob to meet his eyes again. "All right. We're going to get your feet washed off, because that's what we came in here for. And then—I could put some ointment on your bruise, if that's all right? Help it heal, smells nice. What do you think?"

It was harder to read any human without access to their dreams, but it was still fairly clear to Dream that Hob was trying to calm himself by being helpful. If Dream said that Hob need not take such care of him, of an injury that wasn't even a real physical injury, Hob would only be left without any way to console himself.

And it was not as if Dream did not want Hob to care for him, bruises and all. "If you think that will be helpful. There is... my other knee, too."

Hob nodded, showing no outward sign of greater distress. "Right, okay. Is that... all of it?"

Dream shook his head.

"Okay," Hob repeated. "Well, one or two things at a time. Three at most. Only one bit we need the tap for, so let's get your feet done."

Suiting action to words, Hob boosted Dream back up to sit on the toilet again, the towel still more or less under him. He turned up the other leg of Dream's overalls just enough to expose his foot and ankle, then sidestepped on his knees to get a cloth and wet it at the sink. The water was steaming now, but Hob took his time lathering it with soap and then wringing out most of the water.

By the time he touched the cloth to Dream's foot, it was no more than pleasantly warm. Dream watched quietly as Hob washed each of his feet in turn, every touch gentle but efficient. He thought of the meanings of foot-washing, and wondered what sorts of memories and associations were rising through Hob's mind now, thoroughly invisible to his small self.

Hob moved away from him and came back with the cloth damp but free of soap, to wipe all traces from Dream's feet. He dried them with the end of the towel Dream was sitting on, then moved away to rinse the cloth, standing up when he was done to shut off the taps.

The silence seemed very loud, without the rushing of water. Hob opened the medicine cabinet and retrieved a small jar, then, after a hesitation, a couple of other items. He tucked them all into a pocket before he turned back to Dream. "Do you..."

Dream mutely held up his arms, and Hob smiled tiredly and leaned in to scoop him up, handling him so gingerly that Dream knew he would have to show Hob all of himself just to set his mind at ease.

Hob carried Dream into his bedroom, and set Dream down at the foot of the bed, immediately turning away to rummage through some drawers.

"Haven't got a lot to lend you, but I'm guessing you might want to change to something a little softer to sleep in." Hob stood with a bundle of soft black fabric in hand, shaking it out to reveal a t-shirt that looked rather too small for Hob to wear, though it would be more than ample for Dream in his current state.

The white script on the front, faded with washing, was an elongated cursive. The Mountain Goats, it said, and below that, done bleeding.

A hopeful sentiment, if possibly premature.

Dream bent his head and poked at the fastening of his overalls. His small fingers struggled with the clasp—and then Hob's hands were there, hovering around his, a silent offer.

"Please," Dream said, reaching up to put his hands on Hob's and draw them closer.

Hob undid the fastenings so quickly and easily Dream almost couldn't see how he did it, and then Dream wriggled to get the top half of the overalls to fall down around his hips. He tugged at the hem of his shirt in a further silent request for help. Dream had a foreboding feeling that even if he could pull it off for himself, it would hurt in a way that would be obvious to Hob—not that anything would be hidden from Hob once it was gone.

Dream closed his eyes as soon as Hob gingerly tugged the shirt up enough to cover his face. He kept his eyes closed through the silence that followed, though he had to clasp his hands together against the urge to fidget or cover himself.

There was a very small sound, and then a warm hand on his cheek. "Dream, sweetheart."

Dream opened his eyes.

Hob was crouching before him—looking up at him slightly, due to the height of the bed Dream was perched on. There was a faint wetness smeared under Hob's eye, but he was smiling now, even if his expression looked somewhat pained.

"Thank you," he said softly. "For showing me. Do you mind if I touch just—close to it, for a moment? Just to be sure you're not hurt beyond what I can see?"

Dream actually looked down at himself then, and grimaced at the sight of another black bruise, this one covering most of the center of his chest. Covering his heart, showing all the pain of love rejected—love longed for and not received.

"I know no one actually punched you in the chest," Hob said apologetically. "But I'm not going to rest easy until I know your little ribs are all intact. If—if you don't mind."

Dream raised his arms, mutely making space for Hob to touch, though he felt a twinge of pain in his shoulders as he did, and sighed a little when he caught sight of yet more bruising there.

"One thing at a time," Hob said, bringing his hands up to wrap around Dream's ribcage, very nearly spanning the whole of it. Hob's hands were distractingly warm against Dream's bare skin, close as a hug but with no pressure applied. "Deep breath for me, my friend?"

Dream inhaled cautiously, waiting for pain—waiting for the grip around him to tighten cruelly and allow him no more air.

Neither happened. The dull ache in his chest sharpened a little with the movement, but there was no stab of something broken inside him. Hob's hands moved lightly over his skin, feeling gingerly at the lines of his bones but not seeking to contain him.

"All right," Hob said, "that's—fuck me, you're bleeding."

Dream's eyes flashed open and Hob's grip on him did tighten then, just for an instant that matched Dream's panicked useless motion toward nothing in particular.

"It's not much, it's all right," Hob said hastily. "Just—the tops of your shoulders there, a couple of spots are raw. Looks like you've been hauling bricks, love."

Dream shrugged at the thought, craning his head this way and that to see the dark bruises that painted his shoulders; he could just barely see the flecks of brighter red that had caught Hob's attention. "My function is to serve all that dreams. My kingship over the Dreaming is an office of creation and control, not a sinecure."

"And it's been weighing heavy, I take it," Hob said. It was not a question, and Dream did not need to answer. "All right. Antiseptic on those, arnica for the rest. Won't take but a minute. Let me know if I press too hard, right?"

Dream nodded, already confident that Hob would not. Dream's eyes drifted shut as Hob got to work, first daubing the antiseptic onto the sharpest points of pain on his shoulders and the back of his neck, and then the herbal-smelling arnica was laid in long, gentle strokes over the bruises. The light, purposeful touch was almost hypnotic, and Dream was barely keeping his eyes open by the time Hob coaxed him to raise his arms for the t-shirt meant to serve him as nightclothes.

Hob murmured something soft and reassuring, guiding him to lie down, and Dream nodded and mumbled back, kicking his overalls off so that Hob could treat the bruises on his legs. There was another series of gentle touches and medicinal smells, and then Hob scooped him up only to set him down a moment later on something even softer.

Dream jerked upright, realizing that he had been lying against a pillow, about to be tucked into Hob's bed.

"Still not ready to sleep?" Hob asked, almost hiding an amused look.

"No," Dream said, grabbing at Hob's hand. "Not yet, I can't. Not—I can't go alone. I don't know if I can find my way back."

Hob frowned and sat down on the edge of the bed, returning the grip of Dream's hand. "All right. Do you want me to lie down with you? Hold on?"

Dream bit his lip, considering. "I don't think it will help if you're not asleep too. You won't come with me into the Dreaming if you're awake, and—" Dream looked to the window. A shade was drawn over it, but it was still obvious that it was far from dark. A child's bedtime, but not Hob's, he was fairly certain. "I don't think I can stay awake as long as you."

Hob shook his head. "And I daren't take anything to make myself fall asleep when I've got you to look after. Is there any way to... anchor you here?"

Dream thought for a horrible moment of a golden circle of runes, and found himself crawling into Hob's lap without consciously deciding to do so. Hob hugged him—not so gingerly as the last time, now that he knew where not to press. "You can't," Dream said. "You wouldn't... lock me up. You wouldn't."

"Lock...?" Hob sounded honestly horrified, and his arms loosened in a way that was the opposite of what Dream intended. "Never, my friend, you must know that. I would never force you to stay—though I'd recommend not going too far alone, while you're like this."

"No," Dream said, more confidently. "I know. I know you wouldn't."

Hob couldn't, and Dream probably shouldn't have found an utter lack of magical ability so reassuring at this moment—but Hob didn't need to know those things, and the fact that Hob had never felt any reason to seek such knowledge was one of the things Dream rather liked about Hob.

"I don't suppose I could give you a pocket full of pebbles to mark your path," Hob said. "Not that kind of place, is it?"

"No," Dream said, but he knew where Hob was drawing the idea from, and tried to think of other suitable stories. "What about—a thread? A string? It could be tied around my wrist, so even if I let go..."

"Hmm," Hob said, and then he stood up with Dream still held in his arms and went over to a chest of drawers and rummaged through two different drawers that seemed to hold all sorts of odds and ends. Finally he came up with—not thread or string, but a reel of red ribbon, half an inch wide and satin-shiny.

"Here we are," Hob said. "That's wide enough we won't have to worry about you cutting off circulation." He returned to the bed and sat again, wrapping the ribbon a few times around Dream's small wrist before he tied a careful knot. "And the other end... should it be tied to something here, or to me?"

"To you," Dream said at once, and Hob simply nodded and began unspooling the ribbon. There seemed to be enough length that Hob would be able to move around the flat unhindered while still being tethered to Dream. He tied the other end of the ribbon around his own arm, up near his elbow—to keep it out of the way of whatever he needed to use his hands for, presumably.

"All right," Hob said. "Now you'll be able to find your way back to me, won't you? And I'll be able to find you when I go to sleep, hey?"

He could hear that Hob didn't entirely believe that last, but Dream nodded firmly. "You shall. You shall be able to find me. And I will not lose you."

"All right, then," Hob said, moving Dream back down to the bed where the covers were turned back. "Let's get you tucked in. You need anything else? Drink of water?"

Dream could feel sleep dragging at him, his realm calling to him in a strange attenuated way. He had an important task to complete there; it was just as well that it would be some time before Hob would follow him. "Just... don't close the door?"

"Right you are, love," Hob said, tugging the covers over Dream and pressing a kiss to his forehead. "Sleep tight, and I'll see you soon. Give a tug if you need me, I won't be far."

Hob reeled out the ribbon as he went, and Dream watched the red length of it catching the light. Hob turned the bedroom light off and left the door open enough for Dream to see the brighter line beyond, and a bit of the trail of red leading away.

He heard some music begin to play beyond the door, soft and low, and let it follow him down as he closed his eyes, this time with intent. Recite the songs that kept me whole, on the day I hand over command control...

Dream wrapped both hands around the ribbon and held on, just in case, and then he was rising up weightless from his sleeping self, slipping out of Hob's bed and into the shadow under it. There was a passageway there, and in another moment he was in the Dreaming, the sound of Hob's music and the warmth of his flat fading behind him.

The ribbon stayed solid in his hands, so that was all right. He would return.

---

Chapter 4

 

Hob payed out the ribbon in a neat line until he got to his study, where he dropped the lot on the floor in favor of turning on some music. He went over to the fold-out sofa, picked up a throw pillow, and smashed it over his face so he could scream a bit without being audible over the music.

He stopped after the first scream and listened, watching the length of ribbon leading out the door. There was no sound from elsewhere in the flat, no movement of the ribbon, and Hob couldn't imagine that Dream wouldn't give some sign—come to him or call for him or give a tug—if he'd heard Hob scream like that.

There was nothing, and that had to mean Dream was safe on his way to Dreamland and couldn't be touched by Hob having a carefully modulated breakdown in the next room.

He put the pillow to his face again and screamed some more, letting himself feel all the horror and rage he'd been holding down. Those raw places on tiny shoulders, skin broken open under a cruel burden. Those vicious bruises covering far too much of that little body. Those tiny ribs, whole enough but far too close to the surface. Those little feet with their hardened heels and faintly scarred toes. No shoes, and he'd looked ashamed when Hob pointed it out.

All of it screamed of a child uncared for. Unprotected. Unfed.

Unloved.

Hob knew that inside the tiny body, this was still his old friend, ancient and powerful—but he had always known that there was something in his friend that could be hurt. Hob had seen those blue eyes swim with tears more than once. Now the hurts were made plain, carved into his skin where Hob could see them, not hidden behind black clothes and a standoffish manner fit for a god. Now his friend had come to Hob, given himself into Hob's care, and all that pain was Hob's to try to care for, to protect—but first, Hob's to feel.

He'd stopped screaming and started crying at some point, which was at least a bit quieter. He could let himself breathe while he sobbed into the pillow, inhaling cool air and crying out the pain. Dream's pain, not his, but small as he was, Dream was as stoic as ever, so perhaps Hob had to feel it like this for it to get out at all.

When he was only sniffling and leaking tears, Hob got up and went to the kitchen. He splashed a bit of water on his face, found a suitable whiskey and poured himself a double. No more. After a healthy swallow of that he could face slipping to the bedroom door and peeking in.

Dream was sleeping, curled on his side with both hands wrapped around the ribbon. His little face was serene, and Hob could see the slow motions of his breathing.

"Safe travels, my friend," he murmured, for it seemed a more apt wish than sweet dreams. He left the door open the same few inches and returned to the study.

He unlocked a drawer and drew out a notebook with half its pages covered in the same untidy hand though the words meandered through half a dozen languages. He selected a pen and began his account of this day, laying it down where he would be able to close the cover on it and set it aside.

When he'd done that, he might even be able to sleep.

---

Dream came through into the Dreaming in another shadowy gap, under another bed. Most of the space here was taken up by a mass of darkness lined with stars—his mantle, the greater part of his power and himself, which he had shed and hidden here.

He only needed a little of it now, just for a moment, so that he could attend to the problem he'd identified. He didn't have to take back the fullness of himself.

He took a moment to think it through, to be sure he only needed to do this one thing now.

It wasn't Hob who had made him think of it, but Hob's people, the staff of the New Inn, when they saw him in this small and vulnerable form. They—mere mortals, breakable as Hob was not—intended to protect him. They would try to conceal him, to stymie anyone who came searching for him, thinking that they only had to fear the dangers that humans could pose.

They did not know what manner of being might come looking for Dream of the Endless, if they discovered that he was residing in the Waking world in this fragile form. Dream could not let Hob or any of Hob's people be harmed in his defense, if there was any way to prevent it.

There might be unanticipated dangers; Dream would have to be prepared to take back the whole of himself if any danger threatened. He did not know how much damage could be done in the Waking before he would be unable to repair it, and he did not wish to find out with Hob looking on—or Hob hanging in the balance.

He thought it through carefully. His siblings were not a threat, or not one he could do anything about. His nightmares were presently under control, and the Dreaming itself was in good order—if, after the last few days, fairly waterlogged.

Dream was on good terms with the great powers—he had done good turns by both the Creator and Lucifer in recent years, and the current lords of Hell had no quarrel with him. He had an enemy or two contained within the Dreaming, but the power of his realm would hold in his absence, with so much of his own power still resting within its bounds.

The fae as a whole were not displeased with him; any individuals who might cause mischief could be guarded against with the old precautions—iron over the doors and such. He would speak to Hob about it.

But there was one being Dream could think of—one god loose in the world who could and would harm mortals without a care. Dream had done Loki a kindness in setting him free, but Loki was the sort who would look on a favor owed as a debt, and then as a grudge. If Loki should somehow learn of Dream's sojourn in the form of a child, he would not hesitate to do him harm, and he would not care who else he hurt.

Dream had known his nature when he let Loki go, but Loki had been no imminent threat to him or his, then. He would not attack Dream at his full power, nor seek to intrude on the Dreaming. It was the Waking world where he would roam, and Dream had not considered himself to have any vulnerabilities there.

Now he did, and now he must guard himself.

He could not think of another similar threat to concern himself with, so for now he had only one task. That made it relatively simple.

Dream wound a hand into his mantle, flipping just a corner of it over himself so that he could wield a fraction of his power.

"Matthew."

He heard a fluttering of wings, a clicking of talons, and then Matthew came into sight, walking across the floor. He stopped just outside the shadows under the bed, peering in but seeming to see nothing that revealed the truth.

"Boss? You... okay? We were all getting excited when the rain stopped, but... looks like you're hiding under the bed. Didn't even know you had a bed, but maybe it's just for hiding under?"

"As you see, Matthew," Dream said. The deep resonance of his own true voice felt strange, when he was still clinging to his smaller, simpler form. He had never been a child to play dress-up—there had never been any point in imagining what he might grow up to be, for he had always been exactly as he was. Still, he thought that it must feel a little like this, if he had ever been a child destined to grow up into the Dream King.

He wondered if Daniel—

No. He did not wonder. He had no time to wonder about that. He had a task.

"I have some matters to see to elsewhere. It will take some time. Now I need you to carry a message, as swiftly as possible."

Matthew fluttered enthusiastically. "You got it, boss, can do!"

"You must seek out Odin, or his ravens if they are easier for you to find. You met them when they visited the Dreaming, did you not?"

"Ah, we didn't exactly bond," Matthew said. "But yeah, I know 'em. They'll probably know me, right?"

"They will recognize an emissary of the Dreaming," Dream said firmly. "Whichever you find you will inform them: Loki is at large in the world, and must be apprehended."

"Loki," Matthew repeated. "Loki, who... came to the Dreaming that time with Odin. He... escaped? And you knew?"

"I permitted it," Dream said crisply. "If Odin wishes to question me, he may seek me, but the essential fact is that Loki is free and must be found."

"Okay, uh..." Matthew's hop and flex of wings seemed anxious this time. "Yeah, that's. I can see how that's... shit, boss, that's really bad, isn't it? He's like... really dangerous."

"He is," Dream agreed. "So you must not delay in carrying this message for me."

"But you, uh—not to question you, boss, but... you can't..."

"Not at this time. As I said, there are other matters I must attend to. Elsewhere."

"Elsewhere, like, out there? Where Loki is?"

"The sooner you fly to Odin," Dream reiterated patiently, "the sooner he will not, in fact, be there."

"Yeah, I'm on it, no problem, but—are you sure you shouldn't take somebody with you? Just to... know? Things happen, boss."

"I am aware, Matthew," Dream said sternly.

Matthew still hesitated, fidgeting, and Dream wondered what Hob would say if he were present for this conversation—once he had stopped exclaiming over the wonder of a talking raven.

Hob would reassure someone who was worried—who was not entirely wrong to be worried. Dream did not think he could hug Matthew, for a variety of reasons, but he could try to find another way.

"Once you have carried your message, you may come and find me to let me know," Dream said.

Matthew looked brighter at that, then said, "Uh... find you where exactly, boss?"

Dream could tell him where, except that Hob might well take him on some sort of outing, and Dream did not wish Matthew to become more anxious over being unable to locate him. Any attempt to follow his sense of Dream of the Endless would only lead Matthew back to the space under this bed, since most of himself would remain in this spot. Dream had no token of his waking self to offer to Matthew—he could not spare the ribbon, certainly.

He racked his brain for another way to draw Matthew to himself. Dream's raven would be able to find Dream on any plane, and be able to find his way back to the Dreaming from anywhere, but what would lead him surely and swiftly to Dream in his present state? He needed another tether, a lodestone, something that Matthew would recognize instinctively—

"Ah," Dream said. "Matthew, would you give me one of your feathers? I will keep it with me, and you will be able to sense that part of yourself wherever I carry it, and so find me."

"Yeah?" Matthew said, preening at himself immediately despite the hint of skepticism in his voice. "Huh. I guess I haven't ever shed many feathers, have I? Wouldn't really have noticed it."

"It will work in part because I will it to work," Dream admitted.

"Ah, yeah, I guess I should have figured that," Matthew said, head now tucked under one wing. "Can't just give you a little fluff that might blow away, but the big ones are kinda important, so—ah!"

Matthew straightened with a feather held in his beak. It was perhaps two inches long, with a bit of pale fluff at the base and then the black vanes touched with violet iridescence. Dream scooted closer and held his hand at the very edge of the shadow, where Matthew could reach it to give him the feather.

"Uhhh," Matthew laid the feather in his palm, which was not as wide as the feather's little length. "Boss?"

Dream closed his hand on the feather and shifted himself safely into the shadows where he could tuck it into the ribbon wrapped around his wrist. "Did you have a question, Matthew?"

"You, uh," Matthew said, and shifted his weight from foot to foot for a moment, clearly considering what to say. "You... need me to take a message, and when I'm done I'll come find you and make sure everything's okay. And carry any other messages you need carried."

"Correct," Dream said. Matthew's tone made it very clear that he had noticed the change in Dream's appearance, but if he was not going to ask questions... he would find out soon enough.

Dream thought he would rather handle that when Hob was with him. Hob had not asked questions, or treated Dream as if his smallness made him ridiculous. If Matthew asked difficult questions or made humorous remarks, Hob would know how to answer him. Dream would need to say very little.

"Right you are, boss," Matthew said, backing away. "Be there before you know it. Lickety split." Matthew hesitated for another beat, but Dream had no more to say, and Matthew bobbed his head one more time and then turned and leapt into the air, disappearing out of the Dreaming even before he reached the window.

Dream closed his eyes and kept his arm wound into his mantle, using the fullness of his power for just one more moment, making what he had not thought of before. He got a firm grip on the handle with one hand, and then tugged on the ribbon with the other, and willed himself to follow it to Hob.

---

Hob's attempt to record the events of the day trailed off into barely-legible musing about fun carefree child-appropriate activities Hob might introduce Dream to if he stayed around long enough. He hadn't gotten far before his hand was cramping too badly to go on—he'd written several frantic pages already—and he tidied away pen and notebook into the locked drawer.

He checked on Dream first—still sleeping, still clinging to the ribbon—and then wandered around the rest of the flat. Even knowing how much of their time they'd spent out and about, it felt strange that Hob had had a child in his home for much of the day and there was no trace left behind but a pair of sandals by the door and a tiny book left face down on the end table, plus a couple of carrier bags from the shoe store dropped on the coffee table.

Hob sat down again where he'd first sat with Dream and picked up the book again. He half expected it to be blank, or wholly unreadable, now that it was out of Dream's hands, but it continued to be a thing that had a definite material existence despite its profound uncanniness.

Hob stared for a few minutes at the front of the book, which was mostly taken up by an image of a huge rounded ruby gem like the one Dream used to wear to their meetings. There had been no sign of it when Dream had come to him at the New Inn, nor today, and Hob somehow knew that the image on the book was only an image. A representation of something that did not exist in the way that the other things in this book definitely did have a very real existence.

In the red depths of the gem, words swam—My Gallery or possibly My Family. Hob kept thinking that he could find the angle where it definitely said one thing or the other, and eventually gave up when he realized that he already had a headache and this was making it worse.

He opened the book to the beginning, which Dream had skipped over when showing the book to him.

Hob was immediately aware that he should not have done that.

One page was the night sky—not an image of the night sky, not a magically significant representation of the night sky. He was looking at the actual night sky, though he did not recognize any of the stars he could see. Something—a wisp of cloud or perhaps a nebula—spelled out words: My mother is Night.

He could see her there, sort of, the shape of a woman in the infinite depth, but once again he could never quite look right at her and see what he was seeing. There was only an impression, infinitely far away. The longer he looked the more he became aware of one particular darkness in the midst of her, and when he finally focused on it, he couldn't look away. He could feel the pull of it, dragging him into a blackness from which he would never escape.

Some loud sound from outside jerked Hob's attention away from the book, and he was stunned and incredibly relieved to find that he was still in his flat, the last of the summer light still lingering in the sky outside. He laid one hand over the dark page of the book and used the other to turn on a lamp before he risked looking at the other page.

This one was, in a way, the opposite of the dark page. It was light, bright, full of movement—or, not movement, but simply constantly showing a different view, which his poor brain interpreted as movement. Nothing moved or grew exactly, but it was different in every second, every time he tried to look at a different part of the image to try to make sense of it.

There was no making sense of it. There was a man—an elderly man—an infant—a youth—a being, ever-changing, impossible to get a grip on in any sense. In the constant changing of the shapes Hob somehow read words: My father is Time.

Hob heard the particular sound of Ian-the-closing-bartender's van starting up out behind the Inn, which meant that it was past closing time, cleanup was done, and the last of the staff, including Ian, was heading out for the night. He reflexively slammed shut the book in his hands, and only then managed to look around.

His whole body felt stiff, as if he'd been holding the exact same position for hours. It was full dark outside—as dark as London ever got, anyway. Hob rubbed his burning eyes and wondered if he had even managed to blink while he was lost in staring at Time's page of the book.

"This explains so much," he murmured, trying to imagine Dream ever having been parented by two such merciless—beings? Concepts? Anthropomorphic personifications?—as those representations of Night and Time in his book suggested. No fucking wonder he needed to take a second try at childhood.

Hob set the book back down exactly where Dream had left it. He checked the locks on the doors, checked the windows were shut, swinging his arms and legs as he went to shake some life back into them after that unnatural stillness. He brushed his teeth and made a mental note to locate a toothbrush for Dream in the morning. He had some spares, but he didn't think he'd ever had the forethought to buy a toddler-sized toothbrush to keep on hand—nor a change of clothes, nor anything else Dream might need in the days to come.

They could figure that out tomorrow, Hob decided. He tidied away their haul from the shoe store, made sure all the lights were out—took one last long look at Dream's book to be sure it was closed and face down—and then, finally, Hob let the ribbon lead him back to the bedroom.

He checked on Dream, first, not just peeking from the door but going to crouch beside the bed. He looked to be sleeping peacefully, breathing evenly. Hob reached under the covers just enough to be sure he wasn't lying in any kind of puddle, but no warning smell wafted out, so he wasn't surprised to find only dry sheets and a warm child.

When Dream was tucked back in again Hob stripped down to boxers and t-shirt and climbed in on the other side of the bed. He tossed the mass of ribbon off the foot of the bed, thinking vague tired thoughts about strangulation hazards—but surely Dream wasn't as vulnerable to that as an ordinary child, and if Hob got tangled up sooner or later he would manage to untangle himself.

Hob's eyes closed and he lay for a while just feeling the particular sensation of lying in a bed with someone he loved, feeling the warmth of another body nearby and hearing Dream breathing. He hadn't dated much since Dream had found him at the New Inn a few years ago. He knew exactly why, and he knew it was hopeless—Dream showing up like this, sharing his bed like this, probably only meant it was more hopeless than Hob had ever imagined.

Still. Dream had come back for that third visit, and it looked to be a long one. And even if this wasn't any of the ways Hob had ever imagined sharing a bed with his oldest friend, it was good to be near him. Good to be trusted with his sleep, with his care.

Hob's hand drifted out as he shifted, getting comfortable, until his fingertips just rested against one pointy little shoulder blade. Then he could feel Dream's breathing as well as hear it.

Just on the edge of sleep he remembered Dream saying solemnly, You shall be able to find me, and Hob dove into his dreams without hesitation.

---

Hob was standing on a beach of black sand. He thought the water must be behind him—he could hear it—but he didn't look around. He only had eyes for Dream, who was sitting primly on the sand, his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms wrapped around his bare bruised legs.

The red ribbon shrank between them as Hob approached, until Hob knelt down in front of Dream and the ribbon was just a foot or two, swooping gracefully between them.

"Hullo, my friend," Hob said, and then he realized that he couldn't quite tell if Dream was his usual size or the little version Hob had fallen asleep beside. He was both at once, or there was a trick of perspective—he was small and close enough to touch, or big and farther away in some dimension Hob couldn't cross.

"Hello, Hob," Dream said, and his voice was a child's voice, a little weirdly deep in the way that some kids' voices were, but only that.

Hob closed his eyes and shook his head, focusing, and when he opened them again Dream was definitely the small version. Hob sat back on his heels and opened his arms, and Dream clambered into his lap immediately. But he curled down and didn't look at Hob's face as he said, "I think I... I could be different. Here, at least. I can be the way you see me."

"Do you need a break from being small?" Hob asked, though he thought the answer was obvious from the way Dream pressed into him, the way Dream couldn't look him in the eye while offering to be something else. Dream was taking a break from being big, and he wasn't done with that yet.

Dream shook his head. "But I could. If you—"

"Don't worry about me, my friend," Hob said, hugging him tight. "If you need to... stretch a bit, or be something else for a while, that's up to you. But I don't mind you being small when we're awake, and I don't mind it here either. I'm honored, in fact, that you let me see you this way."

Dream slumped into him, making Hob aware of how carefully rigid his posture had been.

Hob rubbed Dream's back and finally looked around a bit. The black sand beach stretched away to either side; mountains bounded this space. Hob peeked over his shoulder and saw the sea stretching to the horizon, nearly as dark as the sand. The sky overhead was bright white overcast, the daylight coming from everywhere and nowhere.

Nothing moved but the waves.

"So," Hob said, loosening his grip enough to jostle Dream a little in his lap. "What shall we do tonight? Do you have things you have to do here, or are we just enjoying a night at the seaside?"

"I already did what I needed to," Dream said, and gestured at a diminutive suitcase Hob hadn't noticed before—an old-fashioned black leather case with metal caps on the corners in the shapes of stars. Hob did not coo at the adorability of it, but it was perhaps a good thing that Dream was still hiding his face. "I... I could show you other places, where... my subjects are."

Hob heard, loud and clear, that this would mean Dream's subjects seeing their king in a less-than-dignified state. He was still just wearing that oversized t-shirt Hob had dug up for him, his bruises still livid down his shins—and he still looked right about three years old.

"Actually," Hob said, "I was thinking if I could dream anything, I'd like to dream of the sea."

Dream sat back at that, looking up to meet Hob's gaze—to gauge whether he was being let off the hook, Hob thought. Hob wasn't lying, though, even if he had only been thinking he'd like to have that dream for the past twenty seconds or so.

"I made my living as a sailor from time to time," Hob explained. "And I more or less learned to swim, but I've never been able to like being submerged in water—having my face under, especially." Hob grimaced and shook his head, finding that his memories of being drowned crowded back into his mind more readily here than they did when he was awake.

Dream's expression turned gently concerned, and he reached up and brushed his fingers over Hob's temple; Hob could almost feel the way he nudged those memories out of the way.

"So I'd like to dream of just... walking underwater," Hob explained, when he could speak again without fighting the choking feeling of water filling his throat. "See the fish and seaweed and things, feel the water around me, and not get scared. I think if you were with me it would only be a nice dream, wouldn't it?"

Dream's expression turned pensive. "I could control it better—offer more verisimilitude—if I were... entirely myself. But I think we could manage something adequate, if you don't mind..."

This was, Hob thought, possibly the equivalent of persuading Dream to do a crayon drawing or finger paints, and he thought Dream rather needed something like that.

"I'd like to try it with you, just as you are," Hob said. "Maybe we can try it again sometime when you're feeling more yourself, but there's nothing wrong with starting small."

"I suppose if you have never experienced it in life, you will hardly know the difference," Dream said, a little sly amusement creeping onto his face.

"Oh, yes, I tell you the thing I'd like best to dream about and now you start taking the piss," Hob returned, grinning all the while. "I see how it is."

"You haven't seen anything yet," Dream pointed out. He jumped up from Hob's lap and was reaching up to hold Hob's hand before Hob had even made it up to his feet.

Hob felt a moment of trepidation as they walked into the water, right about the time it was up to his waist, but that was also when he noticed that Dream was walking blithely through the water, also exactly waist deep despite being three feet shorter than Hob.

Hob grinned, then, sure that this was going to be a wonderful dream, and plunged forward to get stuck into it.

---

Continue on to Chapters 5-8 on Dreamwidth!

The Sandman CHBB Fic: To Be Brand New, Chapters 5-8

Title: To Be Brand New

Chapters: 25
Estimated final word count: 140,000ish
Rating: Explicit

Relationships: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus/Hob Gadling, Dream & his siblings, Hob & the Endless, Dream & Orpheus, Dream & Daniel

Characters: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Hob Gadling, Daniel Hall, Destiny of the Endless, Death of the Endless, Matthew the Raven, Odin (The Sandman), Delirium of the Endless, Lucienne, Despair of the Endless, Desire of the Endless, Orpheus (The Sandman), Destruction of the Endless, Lyta Hall

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Additional Tags: Sandman: Brief Lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Everyone Lives, Age Regression/De-Aging, Slow Burn, Like the Slowest Burn, Like One of Them Is a Pre-Sexual Child for the First 100,000 Words of the Fic, What If The Red String Of Fate Was Also A Toddler Leash, Touch-Starved Dream of the Endless, Protective Hob Gadling, Cuddling & Snuggling, Caretaking, Bathing, Bed Sharing, Crying, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Injuries, Illness, Depression, Suicidal Ideation, Explicit Sexual Content, Masturbation, Not Exactly Loss of Virginity But Not Not That?, Happy Ending

Chapters 1-4 on Dreamwidth

This fic is also posting (though more slowly) on AO3!

Chapter 5

Dream opened his eyes and found himself back in Hob's bed—still in the small body that had forced him to sleep the night before. The red ribbon was still bound around his wrist, and still had Matthew's feather tucked into it. He had turned in his sleep, now facing the middle of the bed rather than the edge, so he could see at once that the other side of the bed had been slept in but was now vacant.

Dream sat up and found that his suitcase had been set on the foot of the bed, and the red ribbon draped over it, leading out the door. Dream crawled out from under the covers toward his suitcase. He was still struggling with the latches when a knock made him look up; Hob was leaning in the doorframe, having tapped a knuckle against it to alert Dream to his presence.

The ribbon was still tied around his arm above the elbow, still binding them together.

He was wearing soft pants and a t-shirt, barefoot, his face darkly stubbled and his hair disheveled. He was smiling at Dream with unmistakable fondness. "Morning, love. You want a hand with that, or shall I bugger off and let you sort it out for yourself?"

Dream sat back, unable to summon the words to ask for help more explicitly; Hob nodded as if that had been a properly-worded request and came right over. His big hands effortlessly spanned the latches of the case and had it open in a moment. He smiled as he looked inside, and then he picked up the case and turned it around, so Dream could easily reach all the contents.

"Fashion sense hasn't budged, has it, my friend?"

Dream surveyed his options with satisfaction. There were a few variations on his black overalls, and an assortment of black, gray, and black-and-white shirts to pair with them, plus a black raincoat (lined with a print of silver stars) in case of inclement weather, and several pairs of pajamas in an assortment of styles. There were even pants to wear underneath the rest, since his borrowed nightshirt had made him aware of that particular lack.

He had not packed any socks, however, nor shoes. Those Hob had supplied were more than sufficient to his needs.

Tucked into a side pocket, there were a small brush and comb, and a nail brush and toothbrush of precisely calculated firmness for his present body's tolerance. Withdrawing these, Dream said, "I would like to wash before I dress for the day."

Hob smiled. "Of course. Want a hand? I'd like to see how your bruises are doing, too."

Dream nodded and raised his hands, and Hob's smile only widened as he hurried around to the side of the bed to scoop Dream up.

---

"Oh, before we get tangled up," Hob said, stopping short of lifting Dream out of bed. "Don't need this while we're both awake, do we?"

"Oh," Dream said, and then he pulled a black feather from the ribbon wrapped around his wrist. "This is important. I mustn't lose it."

Hob watched him look around and then lay it carefully on top of a shirt in his little suitcase, flipping a fold of fabric over it so it wouldn't blow away should a stray draft find it. When he'd done that, he presented his wrist to Hob, and Hob untied the ribbon from his wrist and then from his own arm, heaping the whole pile of red ribbon onto the bed to be dealt with later.

"Right, then, time for a wash." Dream reclined against Hob's chest as Hob carried him to the bathroom, seeming perfectly at his ease. Hob was starkly aware that they'd now spent more time together in the last twenty-four hours than in the six hundred thirty-some years before, whether he counted time in that dream of wandering under the sea or just the hours they'd slept side by side in Hob's bed.

Dream had his toothbrush firmly in hand, so Hob took him to the sink first, and with only a bit of undignified juggling got him set up with toothpaste and running water. Dream was very solemn and methodical about brushing his teeth, and very nearly managed to spit without dribbling on himself or Hob. Much.

Hob set Dream on his feet in the bathtub, and Dream promptly stripped off the t-shirt he'd slept in while Hob got the water on and soaped up a cloth. Dream was peering intently at his own knees when Hob turned back to him; he knelt beside the tub to join him in his inspection.

"That's looking a little better," Hob said, pointing to the tops of the bruises, at the bases of Dream's knees. "I mean, it looks uglier, but it's going green at the edges, and not as dark in the center, that means it's starting to heal."

"That is the way of some things, is it not?" Dream asked solemnly. "Worse before they are better."

"Darkest before dawn, and all that," Hob agreed, and then set to work, gently washing Dream clean. The bruise on his chest still looked just as dark as before, and Hob didn't remark on it. It looked to be a deep and bad one, and would take its time healing.

The raw places on his shoulders had scabbed over, at least, so Hob was very careful not to press against those spots as he washed and then rinsed Dream clean.

"Do you want to do your face yourself?" Hob asked, but Dream just shut his eyes and raised his chin, so Hob did that as well, then washed the nape of his neck and behind his ears. Dream's hair was softer than it looked when he was adult-sized, still a bit baby-silky despite the way it stood out in ungovernable tufts. Hob judged that it didn't urgently need washing, and sluiced a last round of warm water over Dream, making sure he was thoroughly rinsed clean.

Dream spread his arms when Hob returned with a towel, standing like a little prince and allowing himself to be dried off. Hob presented the bruise ointment with a questioning look, and at Dream's nod of approval, he re-anointed all the bruises, telling himself this would help.

"And would your majesty like a ride back to your clothes?"

"Yes, please," Dream said cheerfully, and Hob wrapped Dream up in the towel and slung him over a shoulder, raising a peal of laughter as he hauled Dream back to the bedroom.

Today Dream's shirt was black and patterned with white stars, and his new black overalls had a design of red flames around the hems that would exactly match his new red trainers. Dream took the black feather from where he'd left it atop the shirt and held it while Hob helped him get his clothes on, then tucked it carefully into his front chest pocket.

"Right, let me guess," Hob said, when Dream was all dressed. "Cheese on toast for breakfast? Perhaps with a side of bacon?"

Dream made a dubious face at the idea of bacon, though when Hob actually dished it up in front of him all doubt fled and Dream put it away like he'd just put in a sixteen-hour shift at the docks. Hob had guessed right for how much he could eat at a sitting this time, so there wasn't much for him to finish off at the end, and Dream was just as enthusiastic as he'd been the day before about helping with cleanup.

"So," Hob said. "I was thinking we should do a bit of a grocery shop, lay in a good supply of bread and cheese and see if there's anything else you might like to try while you're staying. And then when we're done with that we can see if we feel like just hanging about the flat or going out and about some more."

Dream nodded seriously, still focused on the last of the dish-drying. "I did not think to bring money with me, but—"

"Don't think of it, my friend," Hob said firmly. "Immortality's good for accumulating cash, and I'm only glad to be able to host you. It's what I was trying to say, you know, back when I told you about having the queen to stay—I really wanted to tell you that I had the means to host someone in grand style, if you ever cared to spend a night under my roof. And even if you don't care about having state apartments wallpapered in gold leaf, I'm glad to have you and be able to get whatever you need while you're here."

Dream's little forehead wrinkled, but when he handed the last plate over to Hob, his expression cleared and he nodded. "Then I thank you. And look forward to grocery shopping with you."

Hob smiled. "I'm just going to have a shower first. Ten minutes, if you need me give a shout."

Dream was back to looking dubious, but Hob pressed a kiss to the top of his head and headed to the bedroom to grab some clothes, and then to the bathroom. Dream trailed after him, and was standing by the bedroom door when Hob glanced back from the bathroom.

"Ten minutes," Hob repeated, and then closed the door behind him.

---

Dream was tempted to sit down right there and wait for Hob to return to him, but as soon as he was aware of that thought, he took himself away to the living room.

Ten minutes was not a long time, and Hob had not really gone anywhere; he was just out of sight for the moment. Dream had gone into the Dreaming without him, albeit with a physical tether to bring him back. Hob was in no danger of getting lost in the shower and being unable to find his way back out, so it was perfectly reasonable to have no such tether now.

Dream did not need Hob for anything at present; it was absurd to feel as if he'd been abandoned.

Dream collected his gallery book and tucked it into his overall pocket beside Matthew's feather. These were his connections to his siblings, and to Matthew, and through him to the Dreaming. He was not alone; he had no reason to feel that way.

He crept back to the little hallway that led to the washroom. He could hear the shower running now. He couldn't bother Hob; he had to manage on his own for ten minutes. He was ancient. Ten minutes was the blink of an eye.

Dream deliberately opened his eyes wide and then blinked them shut.

When he opened them again, the shower was still running, and Hob was still shut away from him behind that door.

Dream forced himself to turn away. He was being ridiculous. He should make some sensible use of his time. Hob was not ignoring him for ten minutes for no reason; he was preparing himself to go out in public. Dream should use the time to do the same. He was clothed, but of course Hob had made it clear yesterday that he also needed suitable footwear.

His sandals were still by the door, neatly aligned beside Hob's shoes. But he had wanted to wear the red trainers he'd picked out, and he didn't see them anywhere. Dream searched all around the living room and then the kitchen, and discovered a narrow closet housing a washer and dryer—and, up on top of the higher machine where Dream couldn't reach, his new shoes and the pile of lovely soft socks in different colors.

Dream tried to climb up onto the lower machine so he could reach, but there was nowhere to get a good grip, and his best efforts had him thumping painfully down to the ground. The flash of pain turned so swiftly to anger that Dream scarcely noticed the transformation.

How dare Hob buy these things for him and then put them where he couldn't reach them? How dare Hob act as if he would take care of everything and then leave Dream alone? Dream scrambled back to his feet and ran back into the living room, pacing here and there as the anger burned hotter and brighter in his belly. He needed some way to make Hob pay for what he'd done, to show him just how little Dream cared for Hob being so careless of him.

Anger churned in his stomach like something eager to escape. It didn't feel like a scream; it felt like—

Dream doubled over and vomited directly onto the rug.

He stumbled to his knees, coughing out the last of it. It burned his throat and mouth and nose, and...

It didn't feel like anger at all, now that it was out of him. It was disgusting and awful and he'd made a mess of Hob's rug, when Hob had just left him alone for—was it ten minutes? Surely it had been hours—surely Hob ought to have come back by now.

But why should he come back for one such as Dream, who had left him for so long without a word, without explanation? Who had only returned to him to make demands of him, a useless little creature who—who—

Who had vomited all over Hob's rug, making a horrible foul mess.

Dream got to his feet and dashed into the kitchen, snatching up the dishcloth Hob had used to wash the breakfast dishes. It was still damp, still smelled of soap; it would do for the rug, wouldn't it?

Dream knelt down beside the horrible wet patch—the sharp reek of it made his eyes water—and started trying to wipe it up. There was no way he could hide what he'd done from Hob, but at least he could do something, he could show that he was trying. Then Hob might not lose all patience with him and cast him out. The water was still running; he still had time to make it a little less bad.

His hand skidded off the cloth and right into the yellow puddle soaking into the rug just as he heard the water shut off.

Dream just stared at his hand, at the vileness on it. He'd tried to make it better and now he'd made it worse. Unbearably worse.

Everything seemed very, very silent, time itself seeming to stand still, and then he heard Hob call out, "Dream? How's it going?"

Dream's lips parted, and this time what poured out of him in a messy involuntary rush was a scream.

---

Hob was congratulating himself on fitting thirty seconds of staring into the mirror in wordless horror, a shave, and a hygienically complete shower into eight and a half minutes when he turned the water off and heard an ominous amount of absolutely nothing.

It shouldn't have been any different from the way his flat normally sounded on any weekday morning, when there was no one else around even downstairs at the Inn. But Dream was here, and quiet as he was, something about this silence felt too silent.

"Dream?" Hob called, grabbing a towel and hastily swabbing himself dry. "How's it going?"

There was the tiniest pause—some instinct had Hob lunging toward the bathroom door already—and then an ear-splitting howl. Hob shot out into the living room and stopped short at the sight of Dream—all in one piece, no blood evident anywhere—sitting on the rug with one hand held as far from his body as it could get, screaming fit to bring the house down.

Given he was all in one piece and feeling strong enough to make that much noise—and had his eyes screwed shut, not looking for Hob to save him—Hob took the few seconds to get the towel wrapped properly around himself before he knelt on the rug beside Dream. "Hey, sweetheart, what's—"

Dream flailed and scrambled away from him when Hob touched the wrist of the arm he was holding out straight, which brought Hob up short. It caused a stutter in the shrieking, and then at least Dream looked at him through tear-filled eyes, and wailed, "Don't! You'll get dirty too! It's my fault!"

Hob noticed, then, the rather nasty-smelling puddle on the rug, half-covered by a dishcloth. Dream had been sick, by the smell of it—though the fact that it looked to be a puddle of nothing but bile, not twenty minutes after he'd eaten all that breakfast, surely indicated that his digestion was continuing to work on its own mysterious terms.

"Oh, my friend, that's not your—"

"I was! Angry!" Dream sobbed, and then collapsed flat on the carpet and let out another teakettle shriek. Hob could see there was something yellow and wet on his hand, and winced.

"It's all right to be angry," Hob said, not at all sure Dream could hear him over his own screams—or was in any frame of mind to take in words, really. "Now, I'm going to get up and walk just over to the kitchen, so if you open your eyes you'll still see me, and now that I think of it, I'm just going to keep talking the whole time—"

Hob got up and walked backward to the kitchen, where he spotted the open door on the laundry nook, and Dream's bright red shoes tucked on top of the machine along with his socks. "Oh, was that—did you want your shoes, sweeting? I'm sorry, I shouldn't have put them where you couldn't reach, and I forgot to put your socks in the wash before you wore them," Hob grabbed the kitchen roll and headed back to Dream. "But I expect they'll be right enough without, once we get you sorted. Here, Dream, you can use this to wipe off your hand."

Hob ripped off a few sheets and scooted them in Dream's direction without trying to touch him again. "It's honestly not a problem, love. The rug is from Ikea, you don't want to know how many things I've washed out of it over the years. And it could be the finest thing I'd ever owned, and I still wouldn't want you to be upset over it."

Dream grabbed the sheet of kitchen roll with his sticky hand while Hob was talking, and the screaming tailed off for a few seconds, but as soon as Hob fell silent Dream let out another howl.

"Of course," Hob said softly, "sometimes you just get upset, don't you? And you might not even know why, once you're well into it, you just know that everything's awful and there's nothing to do but scream about it."

Hob tore a few more sheets from the roll and started blotting up the puddle of sick. Dream kept screaming, sometimes seeming about to trail off, sometimes keeping it going for longer than seemed physically plausible. Hob kept talking to him, no matter how loudly he was screaming or how he seemed to be winding down, staying where Dream could see him and repeating the same calm reassurances.

"And whenever you're ready, I'll help you get all cleaned up," Hob added after a while. "Anything you got on your hand will wash right off like it was never there, and if you want to change clothes or have a bath we can do that too. Not now, but when you're ready, we can take care of all of this and it will be just fine."

Dream kept right on screaming, and Hob kept up the low calm talking, wondering vaguely if he ought to time this, like someone having a fit. Of course, he didn't have the least idea how long was normal for a child who was actually an immortal eternal being to be able to keep up a tantrum.

What eventually happened, which Hob should probably have seen coming, was a firm knock on the flat door.

Dream scrambled away to get the coffee table fully between him and the door, and screamed even louder, possibly in horror at the prospect of having someone else see him right now. Hob got up off the floor, checked his towel was still properly in place, and went to answer the door, opening it just wide enough to speak through and keeping his body in position to block the view of whoever was on the other side.

It was Marc, which was no surprise, looking half amused and half concerned. "Everything all right then, boss?"

"Well, not bad," Hob said, rubbing his chin only to feel a sharp sting and pull his hand away bloody. He must have cut himself, shaving in such a hurry, and not even noticed till now. He wiped his hand on the towel, but judging by Marc's dubious look that didn't help matters much. "But I put my young friend's shoes on top of the dryer where he couldn't reach them while I was in the shower, so as you can imagine he has some things to work through."

Marc nodded, not particularly appearing to disbelieve him but also not accepting that Hob had things well in hand, which was fair given that the screaming had not abated at all and was in fact getting a bit more wild and ragged. Marc just stood there looking at him for a moment.

When Hob got it he sighed and nodded and then looked over his shoulder and called out, "Dream, darling, could you please tell Marc that you're upset but not because I've done you any harm that he needs to rescue you from before he gets on with his day?"

The screaming cut off into spluttery coughing, and then there was a pounding of little feet and a surprisingly strong shove on Hob's hip that actually did knock him off balance enough for Dream to worm around him. He shoved the door open a bit wider and planted himself in front of Hob—between Hob and Marc, as if to protect him.

There was a ringing, stunning silence for just a second as Dream stared up ferociously at Marc, his little face red and streaked with tears and snot and... spit, probably, on his pointy little chin. Then, at absolutely top volume that echoed horribly in the stairwell and had a painful-sounding rusty edge, Dream screamed, "He! Is! My! Friend! He! Would! Never! Hurt! Me!"

He took an ominously deep breath, during which Marc was already starting to back away, hands raised placatingly, and then Dream finished with an absolutely teeth-rattling crescendo: "Go! Away! Leave! Us! Alone!"

Dream whirled and buried his face in Hob's towel-covered hip, now sobbing rather than screaming.

Marc grimaced and mouthed—or possibly said, but Hob couldn't hear him over the ringing in his ears and Dream's only-slightly-muffled wailing—"Good luck, mate."

Hob gave him a wry smile and then bent over Dream to try to get a grip on him and pick him up. Dream didn't resist, letting Hob pick him up and hug him properly; his legs went around Hob's middle and arms wrapped around Hob's neck in an almost strangling grip.

Dream also pressed his tear-soaked snotty face directly into the bare skin of Hob's neck, which was an experience Hob hadn't had in a while. It brought an unexpected surge of horribly nostalgic fondness with it. He kicked the door shut and twisted the lock before carrying Dream back to the bedroom, where he could sit on the bed and bounce gently while mumbling soothing nothings and rubbing Dream's back.

It was such a relief to be able to hold him, to feel as if he was doing anything at all to be a comfort. It didn't seem to help for a long time, but gradually he felt Dream going heavier and more limp in his arms, until the crying tailed off to sniffling and then to grumbly little sleeping breaths.

Hob leaned back onto the bed until he could free a hand without any risk of Dream falling off his lap, and groped around behind him until he found the red ribbon. He didn't know if it was necessary, or if it would accomplish anything when Dream had already fallen asleep and Hob wasn't planning to join him anytime soon. Even if it did nothing else, it would let Dream know as soon as he woke up that Hob wanted to make sure Dream could find him right away, and that was worth doing.

He got the ribbon tied around Dream's wrist first, and tucked a fold of the ribbon into his little hands, and then tied his own end in place with Dream still cradled in his lap.

When that was done, he felt able to lay Dream down on the bed and clear off a space for him to be tucked in properly, packing everything back into Dream's suitcase and setting it aside. Hob went to the bathroom for a cloth to clean up Dream's face, and was faintly surprised by his own blood-smeared towel-wearing reflection.

He still made sure to get Dream cleaned up and tucked back into bed before he bothered getting his own clothes on, and by then his chin had stopped bleeding again so that part was easy enough to tidy up as well. After that he wandered into the kitchen to brace his hands on the bench and seriously consider the pros and cons of a cuppa versus lying facedown on the floor for a while.

He'd just remembered that he should clean up the puddle of sick on the rug before doing either of those things when a sharp rapping on the window distracted him from everything else. Hob jumped a little at the sight of the fuck-off huge bird there—he hadn't seen a raven that close since he had to convince a few that he wasn't carrion in the aftermath of a battle that ought to have done him in.

Hob stared at the bird, and it stared back at him for a moment, then spread its wings wide and deliberately pecked at the glass again.

That... wasn't just a raven, and Hob had the King of Dreams in vulnerable little child form asleep in his flat. Hob backed away from the window, watching the bird every step of the way. When it was out of sight he turned and hurried, checking that Dream was still in bed and then tugging the covers right up to his ears.

There was a louder, fiercer rat-a-tat on the bedroom window.

Dream didn't stir. Yet.

"Fuck," Hob muttered, and backpedaled out of the room, shutting the door behind him. As he hurried back to the kitchen he saw the raven fly back to that window—so it was just one, maybe, and not a bloody flock come to swarm into his flat. The raven pecked once at the kitchen window, and then waited again.

It wasn't trying to break in, so far.

Hob went to the window and opened it just a crack. "Do you come in peace?"

"Sure, yeah, scout's honor," the raven replied, sounding thoroughly American and also... like a raven that could talk.

Hob stared at it for a moment while the raven stared back.

"Why are you here?" Hob tried.

"Boss sent me to carry a message for him, told me to check in with him when he was done. He's got one of my feathers with him, so I know he's here somewhere, and from the way you're acting, you've got somebody here who's got you on edge about magical birds, right?"

Hob stared at the bird, thinking of the little black feather Dream had taken such care with—last night in the Dreaming, and this morning when he woke up. It tracked. No enemy of Dream's would know about that feather, would they? And Dream had kept it with him, like he wanted to be found. He'd said it was important.

Still, Dream had been shy of his subjects last night in the Dreaming, and Hob wasn't at all sure what he would want at this particular time.

"Did he tell you what he's doing in this world?" Hob asked.

"He said he had some stuff to take care of," the raven said. "But he was hiding under the bed while he said it and I noticed when he took my feather from me that his hand looked... smaller than usual. And also had a ribbon just like that wrapped around his wrist."

Hob nodded. That probably hadn't been an accident, Dream letting the raven see. "Yeah, he's... smaller than usual, is a good way to put it. And he's having a lie down right now, but you can come and wait for him inside, right? "

The raven nodded agreement, and Hob took a last few seconds to hope he wasn't fucking this up somehow and then opened the window, letting the raven hop in.

The bird just perched on the sink, which was a bit anticlimactic after all that. He looked up at Hob, who looked down at him until he realized they were both waiting for something to happen.

Hob took a step back. "I'm Hob Gadling, by the way. Or that's what your boss calls me, anyway—says something else on the papers. Get you a cup of tea?"

"I'm Matthew," the raven said. "This raven gig seems like a first-names-only kind of deal. Still too American for tea, though. Also, not to criticize your housekeeping or anything, but what is that smell?"

"Oh, right," Hob said, and ducked under the sink to hunt up the good carpet cleaner. "That would be your boss's doing. Sometimes it's rough being... smaller than usual. Body he's stuck in found an exciting way to express itself when he got properly unhappy."

Hob straightened up again with the cleaner and a few truly decrepit old rags, and did his best not to stagger when Matthew jumped onto his shoulder. He had a surprisingly delicate grip, not so much as puncturing Hob's t-shirt.

"Uh, sorry," Matthew said. "Kind of... habit."

"No harm done," Hob said, and headed to the source of the unfortunate smell. He had to stop for a moment at the sight of the dishcloth lying there. It had already been there when he came out; he hadn't had time or space to think anything of it until right now, but...

Hob swallowed hard, blinking firmly.

"You, uh... you okay? Is the smell worse for you?"

Hob shook his head. "No, it's just... he tried to clean it up so I wouldn't see. He couldn't, because he's... small, but he tried."

"Oh," Matthew said. "Oh, that's... okay, yeah. Got it."

They both remained still for another minute, not looking directly at each other, neither one making a sound.

---

Chapter 6

Dream opened his eyes and found himself in Hob's bed, and he had to cast his mind back to where he had been before.

He had not visited the Dreaming, in the sense that he had gone there overnight. He had been floating in one of the nowhere places, rocked in the sea of dreams without dreaming himself. This sleep had been more of an emergency shutdown by his overwhelmed body and mind, needing absolute quiet to recover.

And now he was recovered; he felt calm again, without any unmanageably vast emotion pounding at him from the inside demanding to be set free. He was still small, and...

He was clutching the red ribbon, which was bound around his wrist below the pushed-up sleeve of his shirt. Hob must have tied it there after Dream cried himself to sleep in Hob's lap.

Dream supposed that he should have been embarrassed at the undignified display he'd made of himself, but he found himself feeling strangely satisfied by it. Hob had held him and comforted him—but only when Dream invited it. Hob had waited by his side while he was locked in a pattern of irrational behavior.

Marc had indeed gone away when Dream demanded it, small though he was, little reason though Marc had to listen to the ravings of what must have seemed to him an overwrought toddler.

Dream sat up, and saw the trail of the red ribbon leading out of the bedroom door, which was closed. Dream frowned at this, but it seemed quite clear to him that Hob must have had a reason. Dream began tugging the ribbon toward him, curious to see whether he could actually summon Hob to him that way.

He had barely gotten far enough to budge the end of the ribbon disappearing through the door when he heard Hob call from somewhere else, "Dream?" Followed by the sound of Hob's footsteps approaching. "Oh, bugger, I shut the door—I'm sorry, love," the door opened to reveal Hob, fully clothed now and with the smear of blood cleaned away from his chin, leaving only a small dark line.

Dream raised his hands in a mute request to be picked up, and Hob stepped inside and shut the door again before coming to his side.

Hob picked him up and sat down on the edge of the bed, settling Dream on his lap and hugging him. Dream sighed and let himself relax against the warmth of Hob's chest, in the safety of his arms.

Still, eventually he did have to take notice of the fact that the door was shut—that Hob had made a point of shutting it again when he came in. "Hob?"

Hob cleared his throat and leaned back a bit, keeping his arms around Dream but finding an angle to meet his eyes. "Yeah, sweeting, I—you have a visitor waiting for you. Matthew," Hob added, before Dream could entertain too many alarming visions of who might have found him already.

"Ah," Dream said, and touched the pocket of his overalls where Matthew's feather was still tucked safely inside. "Yes. I sent him to carry a message for me, and... he seemed worried. I thought it would be..." What you would do, "Kindest. To tell him where to find me afterward."

Hob hugged him again, and kissed the top of his head. Dream tried not to feel too absurdly vindicated at this wordless approval of his choice.

"If you want to just speak to him through the door, I'll go back out and tell him to come close enough to hear," Hob said. "But we talked a little, and I don't think he'll say anything... untoward, if you let him see you."

"From Matthew, that might be worse," Dream muttered, but of course he could not order Matthew to be at ease with him, and the longer he was hidden away the less Matthew would be at ease.

There had been a time when he would not have cared. When he would have thought that no servant of his should be at ease in his presence. But... Hob would certainly not like to hear him say that. And Dream did not want to be the way he had been before.

He took a long, deep breath and heaved a sigh, then held out his wrist with the ribbon on it. Without a word, Hob untied it, and then untied his own and heaped the tangled pile of ribbon on the bed.

Dream eyed the distance to the floor from his comfortable perch on Hob's lap. "Should I walk, do you suppose?"

"Well," Hob said, standing up with Dream still in his arms. "If you're going to do the thing, we might as well commit to the bit, right?"

"Mm." Dream settled his head against Hob's shoulder.

"Just so," Hob agreed, rubbing his back, and then he had to use that hand to open the door.

Dream picked his head up as soon as they were out of the bedroom, too curious to resist the urge to peer around—and so he saw the moment when Matthew caught sight of him. The raven leapt up into the air from the back of Hob's sofa, flapping wildly for a moment before he settled back down in the same spot. His head turned frantically this way and that, as though seeking an angle of view which would resolve Dream into a shape he recognized.

Hob sat down in the armchair, and Dream shifted to perch on Hob's knee. He found his fingers pressing to his lips as they had when he faced his elder siblings. He sucked them into his mouth without a thought, letting his mouth work on them while he stared at his raven and his raven stared back.

Just when Dream was starting to think that he was being cowardly, that he really must speak first, must say something, Hob said, "So, Matthew, you said Dream sent you to carry a message? That went all right, then?"

Matthew jerked and flared his wings wide as if startled all over again, but he settled this time without taking to the air, and shuffled a little as he said, "Oh, uh, yeah, I was able to find the guy pretty quickly. I mean, it was... far, but... also not far? And I didn't get lost too badly or anything. Raven to raven and all that. And I definitely gave him the message."

"If he was wroth with you..." Dream said, and Matthew gave him another long look, then shook himself all over.

"No, he, uh... He was pretty understanding, actually, about the whole just-the-messenger thing. And I told him the thing you said about how if he had questions for you he should come by and ask you, because I really didn't know anything about it. So he... might do that. But he was pretty focused on, you know, doing the thing you told him about first."

Dream glanced up at Hob, who was smiling down at him fondly, as though Matthew's discretion were some game they were playing. "I can leave the room," Hob said, "if you'd like to speak freely."

Dream frowned, looking up at Hob more intently. There was something in him that wanted to be angry at Hob for taking this lightly, being so cheerful and easy about it—and yet Hob's words were an offer to respect his privacy in dealing with matters Hob knew nothing of.

Hob was... not demanding to know, not sulking over being excluded. His smile faded, and he said, "You know what, I just remembered I need to do something in the other room. I'll let you two talk. Matthew, give a shout if you need me for anything, right?"

"Sure," Matthew said, and Hob stood up, gave Dream a brief squeeze, and set him right back down on the chair where Hob had been sitting, then walked out of the room.

Dream watched him go, still not having said a word, then finally turned back to Matthew. "I apologize," he said, "for appearing before you in this... manner."

"Hey, no skin off my beak," Matthew said. "I guess when your job is kind of built into who you are like yours is, you gotta go a long way to have a relaxing break from it, huh? Plenty of people think, man, I wish I could be a kid again, not have to worry about my job and my bills and all that. Makes sense to do it if you can actually do it—and Hob seems like a pretty good friend, huh? He's looking after you okay?"

Dream raised a hand to his throat, remembering the way he had screamed at the last person who had asked him that question, the sheer force of his cries scouring his throat raw. It felt better now, and... it made sense for Matthew to ask.

"He is extremely kind," Dream said. "So long as the matter you handled is taken care of, I do not anticipate any other dangers here, so..." It struck Dream forcefully then how readily Matthew seemed to accept the idea that he had done this to himself on purpose, in order to... take a holiday? Relax? But Matthew had seen him in the presence of the rest of himself and had to know how readily Dream could have resumed it.

Matthew... thought he ought to have a relaxing break.

"I will be able to... continue my stay here," Dream said, unable to apply any more evocative language to what he was doing. "Please inform Lucienne of the situation, and return to me if there is any matter in the Dreaming she wishes me to attend to. I have full faith in her stewardship while I am away."

"Sure thing," Matthew said, bobbing a nod, "and I'll just... come by every so often, check in? Just in case you think of anything else or you need anything. I mean, unless you're planning on being back real soon?"

Dream heard a sound—the toilet flushing, and then the sink taps running—and glanced over his shoulder, but of course Hob was still out of sight. "I... have no firm date planned to end my sojourn here. If it will be a reassurance to you and to Lucienne, of course you may return as necessary to check in."

Matthew nodded, and Dream was struck with an awful thought. "When you return, inquire of Lucienne whether there were any... disturbances in the Dreaming, this morning. A little before you arrived here. If there were, you must report it to me at once, so that I may prevent it from occurring again."

"Ah," Matthew said. "Is that... does that happen? If you're here..."

"If I knew," Dream said as patiently as he could manage, "I would not have instructed you to find out."

"Right, right," Matthew said. "Okay! So I'll go find out what's what, and I'll report back if there's anything to worry about. No problem."

There was an ostentatious rattling of the bathroom door opening, and, reminded of what Hob would think of him, and the easy kindness with which Hob treated his staff, Dream swallowed his annoyance and eagerness for Matthew to be gone and said, "Thank you, Matthew. You have done well."

"Oh," Matthew said, seeming a little taken aback by Dream's effusiveness. "Yeah? I mean, of course. No big deal. See you soon, boss!"

Dream heard Hob walking toward them from the bathroom and turned in that direction just as Matthew flung himself into the air. The raven flew for a few brisk wingbeats straight at the spot where Hob would step into view—and ducked into the Dreaming just at the instant when Hob appeared, as Hob let out a yelp and threw up his arms to shield his face.

Dream could not help bursting out laughing, though he tried for a moment to stifle it. Hob's reaction had been perfectly justified—any human would do as much when a raven flew straight at their eyes at close range—but Hob's face!

And then Hob started laughing, so Dream let himself laugh properly out loud. He flung himself out of the chair and ran over to Hob—and his approach, of course, was only greeted with more laughter and smiles, and Hob catching Dream up in his arms to shake him just roughly enough to be funny, not painful or frightening.

"The bloody cheek!" Hob gasped. "Here I was, being polite, and you—you!"

"It was Matthew!" Dream protested. "I didn't tell him to at all!"

"Of course, of course you didn't, you would never," Hob agreed, his laughter dying down. "Now, I think before we got interrupted we were just about to go do some shopping."

Dream pressed his face into Hob's shoulder for a moment, considering the way Hob was rewriting the story of their day into something simpler and more pleasant. Humans did it all the time; Dream was just so rarely embedded in the process quite the way he was now.

He decided he rather liked it, in this particular case.

"I need my shoes and socks," Dream said. "You left them on top of the dryer!"

"Right! Right, so I did," Hob said, and shifted his hold on Dream to carry him over there. "Silly of me, don't know what I was thinking. Here you are—" Hob handed Dream the shoes, then also got all the socks down, piling them so that they were crammed between his body and Dream's until Dream started laughing again.

"Right!" Hob said cheerfully. "Let's get your shoes on and go shopping!"

---

"So," Hob said, carrying Dream away from the Inn and considering their possible destinations. "I had a thought, somewhere we might want to go before we do the grocery shopping, but it would mean taking the tube for a bit or else a pretty long walk. Are you up for a bit of adventure?"

"What sort of place is it?" Dream asked, and then shook his head. "If you think it's a good idea—"

"No, no, no point going if you're not going to like it, and if you need some time to think it over we can go another day. But I thought—you're used to being busy, aren't you? I think that's part of what went wrong this morning, I left you with nothing to do and you had to find a way to fill the time. If you're going to be staying a while, you're going to need something to be busy with sometimes, and you mentioned that you're used to creating, right? You... make dreams, don't you?"

"Ordinarily," Dream said, looking down at himself with a painfully shy expression. "But as I am now I cannot..."

"No, no, course not," Hob said. "And that'd be work, and we're not putting you to work in this state. But even after I stopped working as a sailor I liked to be out on the water sometimes, and even after I stopped needing to keep in practice as an archer it was fun to draw a bow now and then on a sunny day. So I thought you might still like to make things, even if they won't be anything like what you do normally. I thought we could get you some art supplies, or at least have a good wander round the store where they sell them, so you could think about whether you'd like to do something like that."

Dream squinted directly at him with an expression that left Hob with the distinct impression that it had never crossed his friend's mind before to do much of anything just for fun, without being an absolute master of his craft.

"If you're not ready to try that, we can just go get groceries," Hob went on, aiming for just the right pointed nonchalance. They could just go get groceries, of course, but...

"No, I want to go to the art store," Dream said decidedly. "It would be good to see what materials might be available."

"Good, good," Hob said, changing direction sharply to aim them at the nearest tube stop. "No need to buy anything if none of it suits you, of course, but I'll feel better when I need to do a bit of my own work if you've got something to keep busy with."

Dream's posture tightened a notch, and Hob could feel him winding up to a you need not.

"Might get some stuff on my own account, too," Hob said cheerfully. "It's been ages since I checked whether I've developed any talent for painting, might be time to try again."

Dream shifted against him, and Hob tilted his head to peek down at his little face. He could see Dream holding back a remark, and he grinned and jostled his friend in his arms as if he might shake it loose. "Go on, say it, say what you're thinking."

"There is always," Dream said, with great dignity that was devastating in combination with his three-year-old voice, the words with that particular quality of someone struggling to make a tiny mouth articulate them, "abstract expressionism."

Hob laughed so hard he had to stop walking, doubling over—flipping Dream somewhat upside down in the process—and then Dream was laughing too, and Hob gave in to the irresistible urge to pepper his cheeks with noisy smacking kisses.

Before Dream's giggles had quite tailed off—before he might start trying to squirm away in earnest—Hob reined himself in. He straightened up and settled his face into a solidly neutral expression, walking again toward the Tube stop as if he'd never paused.

Dream went on giggling a little more at that, but then he slumped comfortably against Hob's chest. Hob brought his other arm up around Dream to hug him closer, then said, "Now, this bit's going to get a little noisy and crowded," and dropped that arm from around him for just long enough to get out his wallet and tap it on the turnstile.

Dream's hands wound into his shirt, and Dream turned his body more tightly in against Hob's, but he picked his head up to look around as they went down the long escalators. They were well after the morning rush, so it wasn't crowded by the standards of the Tube, but there were definitely more people in closer proximity than they'd yet attempted to deal with.

On the other hand, this was the Tube, so no one paid them any attention or tried to speak to them. Dream unbent a little further by the time they reached the station platform, keeping his grip on Hob but actually twisting this way and that to look around at the people and the space.

Hob was so pleased by this evidence of curiosity and hopefully enjoyment that he only just realized the downside when he saw the lights of the approaching train.

"Head down, love," Hob said a little sharply, raising his hand to the back of Dream's head to press him down.

Dream obeyed instantly, his grip on Hob tightening, and that made it easy for Hob to be sure that one of Dream's ears was pressed against his body and he could cover the other with his hand before the train arrived with a piercing squeal of brakes. He felt the jolt in Dream's body at the sound—some of it still made it through, but hopefully it was muffled enough not to be awful for him.

Hob had misjudged his spot on the platform a little, but not badly; he only had to walk over a few steps to get to an opening door. A few people stepped off, and Hob stepped in and surveyed the car, considering the best spot to stand, and then a young guy scrambled out of his seat with a, "Here, mate."

Hob blinked at the kid and then at the seat and then realized once again that he was being seen as man with his hands full with his child and that was exactly the sort of person Hob himself would always give up a seat for.

"Cheers," Hob managed to say, a beat too late, folding himself into the seat and settling Dream onto his lap as the doors closed.

Hob waited until the train was in motion to ease his hand away from covering Dream's ear, though it was another minute before Dream relaxed enough to start looking around again. He kept his fists clenched tight in Hob's shirt and ducked back down against him at each stop, and Hob mostly managed to cover Dream's free ear when the brakes squealed. There were only a few stops before Hob was getting to his feet, murmuring, "Almost there now, love," into Dream's ear.

Dream breathed easier when they were above ground in the open air again, and so did Hob. It was only half a block from the Tube to the art supply store Hob had in mind. Hob smiled when it came in sight, and pulled open the door with a flourish, breathing deep of the smell of paper and paint and a hundred other things he didn't couldn't tease apart or name, all the racks and shelves filled with things for making other things.

It was fairly quiet inside; there were people in the shop, but all of them were intent on what they were looking for, except the clerk behind a counter near the front, who was intent on a sketchbook. Hob took a step farther inside, to be out of the way of the door, and then looked down at Dream, who had his fingers crammed into his mouth, the same shy gesture from when he'd faced Matthew for the first time. His eyes were wide, his gaze darting all over the place, and he was pressing bodily against Hob, as if all the things to look at were as loud as a braking train.

Dream abruptly hid his face against Hob's shoulder, and while he closed his arms firmly around Dream, Hob had had enough practice by now to look away for the cause.

Sure enough, the clerk had come out from behind the counter. They wore a nametag which proclaimed them to be Evelyn and a button that said They/Them, and they were watching Dream with the sort of fond interest that told Hob he'd have been left to fend for himself if he hadn't had a child in his arms.

"Can I help you find anything?" Evelyn asked.

"Oh, well," Hob said, looking around and then down at Dream. "I wouldn't know where to start. He's the artist, really, I'm just here to take him places and work the chip-and-pin machine."

"Oh," Evelyn said, and then crouched a bit lower and said, in exactly the same amiable customer service tone, not at all the sort of croon people were prone to use with little children, "excuse me, young sir, can I help you find anything?"

Dream's head turned. He was still pressed just as tight to Hob, but he was looking.

"Do you know what kind of art you'd like to do?" Evelyn went on. "Were you thinking of sculpting—" Evelyn's hands made an expressive gesture of molding something, "Or more drawing or coloring?" They switched to mime holding a pencil and scribbling on a page.

Dream didn't answer right away, but Evelyn stayed right where they were, holding his gaze and waiting for an answer.

"Colors," Dream said after a moment.

Evelyn nodded. "Excellent choice, we have so many colors. Let's look over this way."

Hob followed them over to an entire wall of things used for coloring. Evelyn stopped on the dividing line between a rack of colored pencils and one of pastels, and said, "Now, do you think—"

Dream shot out a pointing finger toward the pastels, and Evelyn smiled. "Great! Would you like to try some? We have testers so you can try the different brands—"

Dream wiggled and Hob let him go so he could march over to the rack himself. Evelyn crouched beside him, at his eye level, and Hob's entire job was to reach down colors from the higher racks while Evelyn and Dream hung out at toddler-height, having what seemed to be a very engrossing discussion of slightly different colors and textures.

Evelyn was holding the pad of scratch paper while Dream scribbled on it here and there with different colors, and different versions of nearly the same color. Dream was nodding along while Evelyn explained something, and when the page was nearly full he set down the last pastel he'd used and started rubbing his fingers through the blobs of color, blending and smearing the colors he'd laid down here and there across the little square of paper, until...

Hob blinked at the eerie landscape, the blur of blue and purple that was suddenly a sky filled with ominous clouds over a desert vista of red-orange-yellow land. Hob thought he had to be just projecting something into blurs of color, but Evelyn looked up sharply with a distinctly are you seeing this? sort of expression, and Hob nodded.

"Well, that sheet's done for," Evelyn said, when Dream drew his color-smeared hand back from it, apparently satisfied with his little masterwork. "I'll just—"

With wonderful care, they detached the sheet from the pad without smudging Dream's colors, and offered it to Hob, who held out a flat hand for it. Dream just watched, head slightly tilted, eyes a little unfocused, as if he'd gone somewhere in his head and wasn't really back yet.

"So," Evelyn said, "you did that with the pastels from two different lines, so if you want to get those effects at home you would need—"

Dream drifted back into something like focus, nodding along as Evelyn proffered a few different pastel sets, then seeming to catch himself. He looked up at Hob with obvious uncertainty.

"Let's get that one and that one for now," Hob said. "Just so we're not carrying eight boxes on the tube. I suppose the shop has a website where we can order the rest?"

"Definitely, Evelyn said. "Delivery is quick, too. And you'll want fixative—" Evelyn pulled a bottle off another rack and demonstrated, spraying it over Dream's artwork to make it less vulnerable to smudging, then adding the bottle to the stack of pastels. "Do you have paper at home?"

"Ah," Hob said. "Probably not the right sort. Why don't we get a book or two? There are probably different kinds, right?"

"There are... a few kinds," Evelyn agreed, not quite laughing out loud at the easy mark with the credit card. They led off toward the paper, and Dream gave his color-smeared hand a thoughtful look and then wiped it off on the front of his overalls, which somehow picked up only the faintest iridescent smear of color though his hand was wiped perfectly clean.

Then Dream looked up at Hob, raising his hand hesitantly, and Hob smiled and took it with his free one, still carefully holding Dream's artwork on his other hand as they wove through the narrow aisles of the art store. Hob tried to mostly watch where they were going, but he couldn't help watching the wide-eyed way Dream was looking around at everything they passed, too fascinated to notice the people they maneuvered around.

Soon they fetched up at the racks of sketchbooks and canvases, and Dream's eyes went immediately to a pad of black paper. Evelyn crouched down beside him as he went to it, explaining that it would be all right for pastels and then showing him half a dozen other options, letting him stroke the pages to get a feel for their textures.

Dream cast a few longing looks at the enormous sketchbooks—there were some just about as tall as he was in this form—but made a very restrained selection of three pads that were no bigger than A4, two white and one black. Hob made a mental note to get some of the big ones when he ordered more pastels; Dream would probably fill these little ones before the week was out.

As they headed to the front of the store to ring everything up, Dream walked at Evelyn's side, asking them questions about using pastels on materials other than paper, which Evelyn fielded knowledgeably and matter-of-factly, as if they were chatting to any art student. Hob just smiled, bringing up the rear with Dream's impromptu masterpiece still balanced carefully on his hand.

Evelyn took it from him when everything else was piled on the counter. They wrapped the piece gently in tissue paper, tucked it inside one of the sketchbooks, and used masking tape to tape it shut to secure the picture inside.

Hob looked down at Dream and found him standing on tiptoe, both hands clutching the edge of the counter as he peered up over it.

He just stared down at him, smiling helplessly, until Evelyn cleared their throat and said, "You said you were here to work the chip and pin machine?"

Dream looked up at him then, still holding himself up to the edge of the counter, and Hob hurried to get his wallet out and get on with paying for whatever they'd bought. "Have you got..."

Evelyn held up a neatly written list of items he should buy. The shop's website was printed at the top of the note paper.

"Right," Hob said, taking the list and tucking it into his wallet along with his card once he'd completed the transaction. "Thanks so much, you've been wonderful."

"Yes, thank you," Dream piped up solemnly. "May your dreams be sweet and strange."

"You're very welcome," Evelyn replied, equally seriously. "May your dreams be colorful and adventurous."

Hob was left seriously wondering if this was a thing people went around saying to each other, or if Evelyn was just very good at going with the bit. He couldn't ask either Dream or Evelyn, but that was all right; all new slang, and all new friendships, started this way for him. He would simply have to wait and see where it went. For now he gathered up their bag of purchases, took Dream's hand, and headed out of the store.

As they headed back the way they had come, Dream's hand tightened on Hob's and he said a little plaintively, "Are we going on the Tube again?"

There was an obvious right answer to that question, and Hob gave it without hesitation. "No, no need. We'll nip across to the Sainsbury's and then we can walk home, it's not really that far."

Hob mentally pared down his shopping list for the expectation of needing to carry everything home in one hand along with Dream's art supplies, because he was bound to be carrying Dream in the other arm before they were halfway back, but that was all right. He could order groceries delivered or borrow from the inn's kitchen if they needed anything else very urgently.

Dream was content to walk at his side, and when they had to run to beat a traffic light, Dream was laughing his rusty hinge laugh by the time they reached the far side. Hob couldn't help grinning down at him, feeling an absurd pride in doing this right, finding ways for Dream to act like a kid and experience something of human life.

In the Sainsbury's, Hob picked Dream up so that he could see properly while they picked out apples and grapes and raspberries. Hob still marveled at being able to have just about any kind of fruit he could think of anytime he wanted it; Dream just wanted to minutely examine everything for blemishes. They found satisfactory specimens of everything, and then went on to selecting a few different kinds of cheese so they could branch out into a wider variety of cheese toasties.

Dream was leaning heavily into Hob's shoulder by the time they'd collected three kinds of cheese, and Hob settled into a comfortable hold on him, smiling fondly at the thought of him needing a little nap after this much excitement. The store wasn't laid out quite the way Hob expected, and he had to wander through a few aisles before he located bread, milk, bacon, and, finally, some chocolate. He hesitated a moment, musing over which chocolate Dream might like best, and was about to ask and see whether he'd fallen asleep when someone leaned past Hob with a muttered semi-apology.

They brushed against Dream as they reached, and Dream went immediately rigid, fists clenching in Hob's shirt—and Hob realized that it wasn't just that Dream was tired. He was trying to hide from everything around him—not just noise, like the Tube, but all the strangers crowding too close and probably the fluorescent lights, and who knew what else.

Hob had that experience now and then, if he really looked at everything in a big grocery store, and was aware of how much was available, how much he could choose from, how many different things he could try. It was paralyzing and on a bad day it could be weirdly terrifying, making him feel exactly like that Medieval peasant who the kids on social media thought would be killed by pop music and TikTok dances.

Dropping the basket, Hob wrapped both arms around Dream and took a step away from the woman who'd collided with him. He spoke softly into Dream's ear. "Darling? Do we need to go home immediately, right now?"

Dream's legs wrapped around his waist, clinging even tighter, but Dream said, "I want my raspberries. They're perfect."

Hob glanced back at the dropped basket, hoping he hadn't bruised anything. "All right. We just need to pay, and then we'll be outside and we can walk home. Fresh air, no one crowding you. Right?"

Dream nodded into Hob's shoulder and didn't relax his grip by one whit.

"Right." Hob picked up the basket, selected some chocolate more or less at random, and strode briskly toward the checkout stands. It was a bit of a challenge juggling Dream and the art store bag while checking out, and Hob was beginning to suspect that he would have Regrets by the time he'd lugged Dream and their shopping back home, but he managed and would continue to manage. He could handle this.

Hob was frowning at the misty appearance of the street as he made for the doors, and they slid back automatically just in time for him to watch the skies open up and a deluge hit the street outside. Alone, he would have just walked out into it anyhow—it was a warm day, and it would save rinsing the raspberries—but Dream and Dream's art supplies and that lovely delicate little picture wouldn't fare so well.

Dream sat bolt upright while Hob was still hesitating, and flung his arms around Hob's neck, painfully tight. "We can't! We can't go in the rain! My books!"

"I know, darling," Hob managed, and he gave Dream as much of a reassuring hug as he could without dropping anything this time. There was an overhang outside the doors, and Hob stepped out under it to look for—ah, yes. "There. Quick dash and we'll get a cab, right?"

Hob crouched down to rearrange the bags, and Dream willingly allowed him to tuck the art supplies between their bodies for best safety from the rain. His fingernails were digging into the nape of Hob's neck when he settled himself again, and he was definitely shaking now—the further change of plans had done nothing to settle him from his state of near-breakdown.

Nothing for it but to try to get him home before it turned to another actual tantrum, or as soon after as possible. Hob walked out to the very edge of the overhang and waved to the nearest cabbie until he got a gesture of response. He still had to dash to the other side of the street, but he managed to slide inside before Dream was out in the rain for more than a few seconds.

Hob called out his address as he was getting the door shut and settling their bags around him. "No music, no chat, tip you double if we get there before this one starts screaming or throws up."

The cabbie twisted to look back at Hob and Dream and then nodded quickly. He tapped something on his phone, and the music gave way to some sort of white-noise-and-birds-chirping track. Hob breathed a sigh of relief and sat back to hold on to Dream and hope for the best.

The downpour eased during the ten minutes of the cab ride, and when they got out in front of the New Inn it was down to just a heavy mist. There was a bloke sitting at one of the outside tables, wearing a wide-brimmed hat that shadowed his face as he sipped from a bright pink cocktail with a curly straw. Hob hadn't even known they had anything like that on the menu. He'd have to ask about it.

Sometime. Not now, because right now he was legging it for the outside staircase up to his flat.

---

Chapter 7

The sound of the flat door closing behind them made Dream feel like it was safe to actually breathe for the first time in what felt like hours. The breath came back out in a sort of high-pitched whine as Hob carried him through the flat, but at least not a scream.

Hob stopped walking and wrapped both arms, now unencumbered by groceries, firmly around him. "I know, my friend, I know, you've been terribly brave. What's worst right now?"

The sketchbooks and pastels in their plastic bag were still tucked between him and Hob. Dream pushed at them, panting for breath and still making helpless noises on the exhales. Hob took the art supplies away and—Dream watched them to be sure—set them down gently on the coffee table, then wrapped both arms around Dream again. "Better?"

"Wet," Dream managed to say on the next breath. It should not have been such a pressing concern—he was not very wet, and if he could just concentrate he was sure he could fix it for himself—but the clammy persistence of the situation was maddening, the way his formerly-comfortable clothes clung damply to his skin.

"Ugh, yes," Hob agreed, bearing him now swiftly toward the bathroom. "Let's get that sorted."

Hob peeled him out of his damp clothing in efficient but not ungentle motions and rubbed him all over with a towel, pausing as he got down to Dream's feet, which were in truth perfectly dry. "Oh, darling. Would you look at that."

Dream looked, and realized that the bruises had faded almost entirely from his shins. There were faint greenish shadows just below his knees, but no other marks remained. He put a hand to his chest at the same time Hob's head jerked up to look, but that dark bruise over his heart most assuredly remained—as did those over his shoulders.

Hob touched the tops of his shoulders with careful fingers and said, "Well, not bleeding, at least. We're doing something right."

"Of course you are," Dream said fiercely. "No one could be a kinder or better host, Hob."

Hob looked faintly incredulous at that, and Dream huffed and tipped forward into a hug, wrapping his arms around Hob's neck and squeezing as hard as he could without actually throttling his friend. After a moment Hob's arm came around him, patting his back gently. "Just thought you were having a pretty rubbish day, that's all."

"That is not your fault," Dream insisted. "Most of my days are rubbish days. I just don't usually—"

Hob's arms were suddenly very tight around him, and Dream realized what he'd said and hid his face against Hob's shoulder.

"But now I have my friend with me," Dream whispered. "So now if I have a rubbish day..."

Someone notices, beyond wishing that the rain would stop. Someone cares, just because I'm upset or not coping well with spending twenty minutes in a grocery store. Someone does all he can to help, far more than I could ever deserve.

"Bit less rubbish?" Hob murmured, when Dream could not muster words he could bear to speak.

Dream nodded emphatically against his shoulder.

"Good," Hob said firmly. "All right. Let's get you into clean clothes, and then we can put the groceries away and break out your pastels and sketchbooks."

Dream wasn't at all sure he wanted to attempt to draw anything on purpose yet, or even to look again at the little thing he'd managed at the art store. He would see all its flaws if he looked at it again, would see all the limitations of this form reflected in what little he'd created.

He did want to put some clothes on, however, so he did not object to being carried into the bedroom, and made his selections from the clothing in his suitcase and let Hob help him into fresh things.

When Dream was properly dressed again, Hob frowned a little and reached into his pocket, drawing out his phone.

His face did something very strange, and Dream felt a chill come over him. He knew, even before Hob said, "Someone's shown up and started asking questions about a strange little dark-haired boy. Is this..."

Hob turned the screen of the phone toward him.

Dream didn't know what exactly the image there looked like to Hob's eyes. Dream could sort of see that surface appearance if he squinted—a man smiling a little too wide, fashionably dressed but just a little too sharp.

Mostly what he saw was the truth: Loki was here. Loki had found him, and was downstairs right now, speaking to Hob's people about him. Dream had meant to prevent this, to prevent anyone being in the kind of danger that none of them realized they were in right now.

"Hob," he said, and then broke off at the sound of a sort of roar from downstairs, accented by a few sounds of breaking glass and then utter, horrifying silence.

"Stay here," Hob said sharply, and took off at a run.

"Hob!" Dream snapped, to no effect. He jumped down off the bed—noticed, with a little start, that it didn't hurt a bit to land on his feet—and then ran after Hob. He'd left the door open behind him, the one that led to the inside stairs down to the kitchen. Dream hurried down them, listening for screams, wails, anything. He could hear people talking, voices rising, but they sounded... excited?

Dream hesitated at the foot of the stairs, peering out into the kitchen. Several people were clustered near the doors to the front area, but they seemed curious, not frightened, speaking quietly to each other. The louder, excited voices were coming from beyond the doors. There was no sign of people left blank and confused. Whatever had happened, it seemed to be over, and perhaps Loki had not had time to do the worst sorts of damage to any of Hob's people, or any of the innocent bystanders.

But then what had stopped him? If he had come looking for Dream, thinking to find him off-guard and helpless...

Dream had gotten word to Odin. If one of Odin's ravens had tracked Matthew back to him, then Odin would have known where Dream was. Or he might have had other means of searching for Loki, once he knew to look.

Perhaps Dream had done enough, soon enough. Perhaps he had not entirely failed Hob or Hob's people.

Dream hesitated, still perched on the lowest step, wondering whether he ought to go back upstairs and pretend that he had obeyed Hob's peremptory command.

He shook off that thought as soon as it formed. Hob might have wanted to keep him from danger—which would have been foolish and impossible, had there been any actual danger of the sort Loki would bring to bear—but beyond that moment's impulse he couldn't have any expectation of Dream obeying him.

Could he? Should he? Did Dream owe him that, if he was going to reap the benefits of being small? Dream bit his lip, and shrugged his shoulders under the weight that wasn't on them but ought to be.

The motion of someone approaching him caught Dream's attention, and he realized that it was Marc. The group by the doors were now quietly back at their normal tasks, and Marc—who Dream had screamed at this morning, just hours ago—was coming over to him.

He crouched a bit, looking Dream in the eye, and said, "Can't have anyone walking about the kitchen barefoot, young sir, that's a health and safety violation."

Dream looked down at his bare feet, and up at Marc, and tucked his fingers into his mouth. He ought to apologize, probably, for having screamed at Marc before. But Marc clearly didn't want Dream in his kitchen, and there was no way the child he appeared to be could argue with that.

"Looking for Hob?" Marc asked.

Dream nodded.

Marc offered his hands. "Can't have you walking barefoot in the kitchen, like I said. But if you'll let me give you a ride, I can take you out to him. There was a bit of excitement, but it's all sorted now. You're safe."

That would certainly be preferable to any other option—being back with Hob, and able to hear and observe the discussion of what had happened. It would mean people looking at him and perhaps saying foolish things, but Hob would not let them be obnoxious. In fact, with Dream there, Hob would be more likely to cut things short and return to the flat.

Dream took his fingers from his mouth and surreptitiously wiped the dampness on his overalls before raising both hands in request to be picked up. He even remembered to say, "Thank you," as Marc lifted him.

Marc smiled at that, but said only, in a tone of equal gravity, "You are welcome, young sir." He held Dream against his side, and his hold was firm and secure, but Dream still held himself rigid, not relaxing into his body as he would with Hob. This was only a means to an end, a way to get to Hob. Marc was not his friend, even if he was kind and courteous.

As soon as they passed through the door, Hob looked toward them. Seeing Dream, he rushed over, his expression turning freshly worried from whatever he'd been frowning about before. He nearly snatched Dream away from Marc, and Dream was very glad to be back where he belonged, snuggling against Hob. He curled one arm firmly around Hob's neck as Hob murmured, "I haven't a clue what happened but it seems to be over, do you—"

"Could you..." Dream murmured. "I believe I know, mostly. Could you get someone to talk about it?"

"Ah," Hob said, and then gave him a hug and said a little louder, turning back to the person he'd been speaking to, "There, sweetheart, you're all right. He's all gone. Isn't he?"

"Oh yes," Irene said with a satisfaction Dream could hear quite clearly, even as he barely looked at her, preferring to stay tucked against Hob. "Em and Colin were doing a great job stalling him while I let Hob know that something was up, and then that man who'd been sitting outside—"

"Drinking a watermelon mojito in the rain," Colin, the bartender, filled in, "or pretending to, at least."

"Burst in and said he was from Interpol," Irene finished. "Took that sleaze into custody and marched him right out the front door."

"Sounded like some glasses got broken?" Hob said, sounding genuinely curious but not pointing out the roaring noise, which these humans' perceptions had already rewritten into a lawful arrest by some comprehensible authority and a perfectly logical exit through an existing door in material space. "Was there a bit of a scuffle?"

"Well, it was certainly startling," Irene said vaguely, an odd departure from her usual firm practicality. "No surprise if a few things got dropped."

Dream looked around and spotted the pile of glass Colin had already tidied away. There was a cut on his hand and another on his cheek; Dream blew in that direction, focusing what little of his power he had access to, to encourage those little hurts to mend as easily as the narrative had.

"Right, glad to hear that's all taken care of," Hob said, rubbing Dream's back with a firmness that Dream took as a cue to cuddle down against him again. "Let me know if anything else comes up, or if either of them turns up again. I'd better get this one home—we just got in from running errands, I think I left the groceries on the kitchen floor."

"The Gruyere," Dream said against his shoulder, not having to try very hard for a plaintive pitch—it was surely time to eat again by now.

"The Gruyere indeed," Hob said brightly. "Excuse us, won't you, I've got some gourmet cheese on toast to make."

Irene and Colin laughed cheerfully and returned to what they were doing, and Hob carried Dream back through the kitchen and up to the flat. He shut and locked the door firmly behind them and carried Dream into the kitchen where, Dream noted, the groceries had in fact been left on the table, not the floor.

Hob set Dream down on the bench, braced a hand on either side of him, and met his gaze with wide, wide eyes as he said, "Dream, love, I don't want to pry, but what the fuck?"

---

Dream looked back at him with wide eyes, biting his lip.

Hob kept his shoulders square and gritted his teeth against the impulse to take it back, apologize, frantically try to make it better. Whatever had just happened—and Hob didn't think Interpol had anything to do with it—had been enough to alarm Dream when he got a look at Hob's phone. It had to have put everyone in the New Inn in danger, and Hob had a right to ask, now that it was over, what the hell it was.

Hob kept repeating that to himself for nearly a minute while Dream sat there looking uncomfortable, but it was Dream who cracked first.

"You... may not like to know," Dream said, wrapping his arms around his middle.

Hob set one hand gently on Dream's shoulder, carefully avoiding where he knew those nasty bruises were. "I've come to know a lot of things that rattled me, in six hundred years. And in the past couple of days. This—is it over now? Are we safe now?"

Dream nodded, but mumbled down at his own knees, "It was my fault."

"Ahh, my friend," Hob said, and gave in so far as to pick him up again and hug him. "I'm not angry, given it all seems to have turned out all right. But I think this is a thing I do actually need to know, because it seems like you weren't at all sure it was going to go that way. Especially if there's anything else like whatever that was that might crop up while you're staying with me."

There was a long pause and then Dream said, "I do not think so," in such a small voice that Hob could not even begin to think he ought to be reassured.

"Come on, love," Hob coaxed. "I'm not angry, and I won't be, and I'm not going to tell you to go away. But now it's all over, can't you tell me what happened?"

"It is a long story," Dream said with a sigh, slumping against his shoulder. "We should put the groceries away."

"All right," Hob said, glancing around. "Just tell me who it was who came looking for you, and then we'll put the groceries away before you explain why."

Dream curled in against him, rubbing his face into Hob's shoulder for a moment before he said, "Loki. The trickster."

Hob stared at the wall and thought deeply about backing down on what he'd just said about wanting to know. "Loki, the Norse god. That Loki."

Dream nodded into his shoulder, still crumpled against him.

Hob's gaze drifted to the groceries and he went on staring for another minute before he remembered that he had, actually, made Dream a promise just now. He took a deep breath and gave Dream one more little squeeze. "Right, then. Time to put the groceries away, isn't it? And we should make sure your art supplies are okay, too. Do you want to go and get them?"

Dream sat back then and squinted at him, and Hob mustered up a smile.

"I didn't promise not to be gobsmacked," Hob said. "But I said I wouldn't be angry and I'm not angry, right? Go and get your things and I'll see if the raspberries survived all right."

Dream gave a definite little nod and Hob kissed his forehead and then set him on his feet. Dream hurried off to find the bag on the coffee table, giving Hob a moment to hurriedly examine the groceries—thankfully everything did seem to be unharmed, so he didn't have to secretly replace anything to avert another meltdown. He was still putting things away when Dream returned, arms wrapped around just the sketchbook with the tape holding it shut.

"Don't want to try the pastels just yet?" Hob asked, reaching down for the sketchbook.

Dream shook his head and gave it to him, and Hob set it gently aside on the kitchen bench while he finished putting the groceries away. "Hungry, then?" Hob asked. "Want to try a new kind of cheese on toast?"

Dream was standing behind the chair where he usually sat, his arms wrapped around his middle. "I have to tell you. What happened."

Hob wanted to insist that he didn't really, but that actually was the deal they'd made, even if he was now pretty sure he didn't want to know very much more about what a Norse trickster god had been doing in his inn today. It would be worse, he suspected, to now brush it off and say it didn't matter.

"All right then, we'll do that first," Hob agreed. "I suspect I'm going to want to be sitting down for this, so—"

Before Hob could pick him up, Dream turned around and walked back into the lounge, and Hob winced and followed him. The bag from the art store was still on the coffee table, tipped over with the boxes of pastels and the other two sketchbooks spilling out. Dream stood beside it, looking from the armchair to the couch, clearly trying to decide where to sit.

Hob's hands closed into fists against the impulse to scoop him up, and he stepped hurriedly around the coffee table to sit on the sofa without plowing right through Dream. He took the middle spot, and patted the cushion beside him. "Here, no need to be way over on the other chair. Come on up and tell me, let's get it over with."

Dream gave the armchair a long look—long enough for Hob to resolve that if Dream sat there to spite himself, Hob was going to go perch on the end of the coffee table to be close to him. Then Dream's little shoulders slumped, and he came over and climbed up onto the sofa beside Hob.

Again, Hob restrained the urge to reach out and pull him up, and it didn't really take him long to manage it. When Dream had settled himself, sitting very properly on the sofa with his feet dangling and his hands folded on his knees, Hob finally let himself just rest a hand on Dream's back.

"It began," Dream said, staring down at his hands. "Not long after... do you remember, I came to see you in a dream?"

"Do I remember waking up from that dream with the bottle of wine we'd been sharing on my bedside table?" Hob returned. "Yes, I remember. You—you said you were going somewhere, and I made a toast, and..."

Hob had never quite thought about these things in this way. The dream had mostly slipped from his mind even as the wine had confirmed its reality, because the world had gone mad, right after. When it had stopped going mad everyone had seemed to forget that it had in shockingly short order. Hob had never stopped to think about the one leading to the other for anyone but him.

"That was when the dead came back," Hob said slowly. "Right after you visited me in that dream."

Dream looked up sharply at him. "Your dead?"

Hob shook his head slowly. "I mean—people I knew, yeah. But not... not the ones I wanted to see. Not Eleanor, or Robyn. Nor Peggy. I never told you about Peg, but..." He shook his head. "After the first day or so I took refuge in a church. Lot of people did. They couldn't come onto sacred ground, it seemed. No one talks about it anymore."

"People need to forget," Dream said. "And it is no coincidence that those you loved best were not among those who returned. It was not all the dead. It was those who had been in Hell, and Hell is populated by those souls who believe they deserve to be there. I..."

Dream looked away and said quietly but firmly, "I do not think anyone who had spent their life being loved by you could ever believe themselves deserving of such a fate."

Hob squinted. There was something there, something more than just Dream feeling guilty about Loki. "Was... was there someone you loved who did believe that?"

Dream gave a sharp little nod. "Nada. The first human I ever loved. The last mortal, for it was forbidden for my kind to be loved by mortals after what befell her. What I did to her. She spent ten thousand years in hell after she killed herself to be rid of me."

There was a lot to unpack there, and Hob had the feeling that there was a trap in it, or at least bait. He did not particularly want to let the words what did you do out of his mouth right now.

"I'm sorry," he said instead.

That got Dream looking at him—baffled, at least, rather than angry, twisting out of his perfect posture to face Hob fully. "For what? For my loss?"

"Yeah," Hob said, rubbing a little up and down Dream's back. "And for hers. Sounds like a pretty sad situation all around, really."

Dream stared up at him for a moment and then looked down, but he didn't turn away again. "It was... I was... I should have done better. I should have set her free sooner. I saw her in Hell shortly after I..." Dream trailed off and slowly looked up at Hob without raising his head.

Hob looked down at him and could almost feel whatever Dream wasn't saying, some pit yawning at their feet.

Another trap.

"We'll put a pin in that," Hob decided. "You saw her in Hell sometime before, and you didn't free her. Could you have freed her then?"

"I..." Dream's forehead wrinkled and his hands tangled together. "She asked if I loved her, and if I forgave her. And I told her the truth: I did still love her. I had not forgiven her. I still—it still hurt, that she would rather die than be with me." Dream's head jerked up and he added hastily, "She loved me! It is not that I forced her, I had no wish for that. She loved me, she wanted me. I knew she did, she said she did, but she... she would not be mine. She would rather be dead than mine. How could I forgive that?"

Those last words in that plaintive child's voice were nothing but sincere: Dream genuinely didn't know the answer to that question, could not imagine an answer to that question.

Hob ran a hand over Dream's hair, considering it. Hob had loved plenty of people, and there were people who'd been dead six hundred years who he still loved.

And he knew there were people in Hell who he still wouldn't forgive. He'd seen some of them, in those days before he'd found sanctuary in that church. Wicked, cruel bastards, people who had hurt him, people who had betrayed him, who had discovered his secret and used it against him—people who had never and would never, not for ten thousand years in Hell, repent of the ways they'd hurt him and other people.

"When she refused to be with you," Hob said slowly. "When you knew she loved you, but she wouldn't stay... that meant you still had to be alone. You had a chance to be loved and you still had to be without it. That... that was the worst anyone could hurt you, wasn't it?"

Dream didn't answer and didn't look up, curling in on himself more tightly.

"I'm going to pick you up unless you tell me not to right now," Hob said, and only waited a beat before he pulled Dream into his lap and hugged him.

After a moment of that, Hob felt steady enough to go on talking. "I think that if, when I was starving, I met someone who told me they wanted to make food for me, who could make food for me, and then, when that food was in front of me, they told me that they would keep it for themselves, or give it to someone else, or spoil it and throw it on a midden-heap..." Dream hadn't made a sound, scarcely seemed to be breathing, and Hob squeezed him tighter, and whispered, "I don't think I'd know how to forgive that. Even if it had been ten thousand years, I don't know if I could truly forgive that."

Dream jerked in his hold, chest expanding sharply like he'd taken a silent, convulsive breath.

"And I guess what I mean is, it's not up to me and I've got no right to say it," Hob said softly, still holding Dream tight, "but I forgive you. Whatever you did wrong... I understand it as much as I need to. I still love you, and forgive you, and want you here with me, and wouldn't wish you anywhere else."

Dream wriggled strongly enough that Hob loosened his grip, and then turned to press his face against Hob's throat, wrapping his arms fiercely around Hob's neck. Hob could feel the wetness of tears on his skin, and he sank back into the couch and rubbed Dream's back, nuzzling into his hair and making soothing sounds.

Remembering that morning, Hob avoided saying shh or anything else that Dream might take as a demand to calm down before he was ready. The crisis was over, and while it was solidly lunchtime now and Dream would probably be steadier for some food in his stomach, it would only be asking for another complete meltdown to try to make him eat before he'd told Hob all he needed to tell.

Eventually Dream squirmed and snuffled and twisted in Hob's arms, trying to discreetly wipe his face on his shirtsleeve.

"Oh, here, we can do better than that," Hob said, and reached over to a box to get a tissue—even more wonderful than the handkerchiefs he'd been so excited to tell Dream about, once upon a time. They went through a handful of the tissues, because Dream kept trying to clean his own face and running into the limitations of small and shaky hands. Hob tried to let him, and only cracked at the end, when Dream's face was clean but his nose was still obviously stuffed up, holding a tissue in place for him. "Blow through your nose, love."

Dream's little pinked-up eyes narrowed, but he blew his nose at impressive length and produced a seemingly impossible volume of snot accompanied by a truly horrendous noise.

Dream's whole face screwed up at the sight of it as Hob took the tissue away, and Hob grinned. "Better out than in, love."

He deposited that tissue with the rest of the crumpled damp pile for disposal when he could reach the bin. "Now, you were saying."

Dream scrubbed his hands over his face and nestled in against Hob with a sigh. "After that time when I saw her—a year or so after—Destiny called a family meeting. We had all scarcely arrived before Desire was taunting me, asking whether I had consigned any more lovers to Hell since last they had seen me. I walked out, and Death came after me and told me they agreed with the substance of what Desire said, if not the manner. That it was cruel and wrong for me to have left Nada in such straits for so long."

"Hold on," Hob burst out. "Had—in ten thousand years, had none of your siblings ever pointed that out to you? Had no one?"

Dream blinked up at him in what looked like genuine befuddlement that was as good as an answer.

"Don't—Dream, you're the one who put me right when I was making the most awful choices of my life. Don't tell me you don't see why it matters that they let you go ten thousand years without ever talking to you about it."

"I would not have listened," Dream said. "I... recently I have learned better about listening. Before I would only have quarreled with anyone who tried to tell me what I did not want to hear." Dream looked up at him. "As I did with you, when you told me I was lonely."

"Well, so," Hob said. "Just means you ought to have been getting more practice quarreling with people, I think. How else could you ever regret it? How else could you realize you were wrong? Take it from someone who's spent his life going around saying daft things like I've decided not to die."

"You did not listen to anyone's rebukes on that topic, as I recall," Dream said with a frown.

"Well, no," Hob allowed. "Turned out to be right that time. But I've said lots of equally stupid things, and worse, and think how wretched I'd be if I'd been allowed to go around thinking I was right every time."

Dream did not seem to find this reassuring, and Hob supposed he should drop it; there was nothing to do about it now, after all.

"Anyway, so you found out you'd been wrong," Hob redirected. "And you decided to go to Hell and put things right?"

Dream nodded and relaxed against Hob again. "That was when I visited you, and... a few others. I put my affairs in order. I did not know if I would be able to return; I had angered Lucifer, or so I thought, on my previous trip to Hell."

Hob didn't think he'd done anything, but he noticed that Dream had stopped talking, and then Dream was frowning at him, nose to nose. Slowly Hob realized that Dream was kneeling on his thighs to get enough height to do it, because Hob was staring fixedly at the far wall.

Hob shook his head. "Sorry. You said. You said Lucifer? Like... Lucifer?"

"We have been discussing Hell, Robert Gadling. As a very real place I have visited. You have indicated that you recall meeting its denizens when they were turned loose upon this world."

"Yeah, I know," Hob said weakly. "But... Lucifer?"

"Perhaps I should warn you that the Creator also figures into this story, a bit later on," Dream said.

Hob closed his eyes and bit his lip against the urge to babble half-remembered prayers while he reminded himself that if he never died, he never had to worry about either salvation or damnation. Therefore, as he'd cheerfully concluded back in the summer of 1489, thirty seconds before he'd stopped thinking about it forever, it really did not matter whether God or the Devil actually existed.

Except that they were people his friend knew, so it did matter a bit. As it turned out.

Little arms went around his neck and Dream nuzzled against his throat, his small weight resting firmly on Hob's chest. "I don't have to explain that part now, if it's going to upset you."

"I..." Hob tried to summon the will to say, convincingly, I can handle it, tell me everything, and just found that he couldn't form the words. "Yeah, maybe... lightly edit that bit, if you would, love. Just... for now."

Dream gave a gusty sigh and squeezed him tighter. "Of course. You are human. You are not meant to take in too much reality at once—I should know that better than anyone."

Hob let out a noise that was very nearly a laugh, still feeling a bit dazed. "Too right. Leave me a few illusions, if you would. Tread softly on my dreams and all that."

"I shall," Dream said solemnly, still using all the force of his tiny body to hug Hob. "I am sorry, Hob. To have upset you. And I am sorry to have been the cause of the incident today, and sorry to have put you and your people in danger of something worse."

Hob swallowed hard and blinked away a stinging in his eyes.

He hadn't ever meant to make a big thing of it, but he'd noted quietly to himself how, when Dream had come back to him in 2021, he'd said I owe you an apology but never... actually apologized. And now here he was doing it over practically nothing, and trying to be comforting, too.

Hob curled his own arms around Dream. "Well, we've gone a bit out of order, there, but as I said before—I forgive you. Now, before we get distracted again. You went to Hell for the second time a few years ago, after you'd stopped off to see me and left the most eye-wateringly expensive bottle of wine I've ever seen for me."

"I took it from the dream of a vintner's daughter," Dream said. "It was literally beyond price; the point was to enjoy it, so I hope that you did."

"I did," Hob assured him. He'd known well enough the peril of saving something fine for a special occasion—especially of attempting to save a bottle that old when it had already been opened once. And anyway, when he returned home at the end of that week after days spent cowering in a church with a significant portion of the entire population of his neighborhood, he'd badly wanted a drink.

He had maybe not savored it as much as it deserved, but he had certainly enjoyed it.

"I went to Hell," Dream said. "And I found that it was already empty; everyone had been driven out. The... being in charge had decided they no longer wished to be."

"To be... in charge?" Hob said. "Lucifer decided to retire?"

"Don't think too hard about it," Dream admonished, giving Hob a little pat on the cheek. "But yes. And they locked up the gates, and handed me the key, to do with as I would—so they were still angry with me, and had their revenge, because it became widely known among various gods and powers that I had the key and it was mine to bestow, or so they all thought. Various delegations arrived in the Dreaming to make their arguments about why they should be the ones to be given the key."

"Oh," Hob said, and he was back to suppressing laughter, thinking of his standoffish old friend having to deal with all sorts of delegations wanting to talk to him, bargain with him, flatter him into doing what they wanted. Revenge indeed, and it was funny as long as Hob did as Dream said and didn't think too hard about it.

"That is where Loki comes in," Dream added. "Even now I cannot begin to guess why, but Odin chose to include Loki as a part of his delegation, and brought him to the Dreaming. After everything was settled—"

"Wait, wait, you can't just not tell me who's in charge of Hell now," Hob put in. "I can't promise I won't swoon a bit if you say it's, I dunno, Thatcher or someone, but—"

"No, no, the Creator stepped in and designated two angels for the purpose," Dream said off-handedly. "So it all went back to the way it had begun, since it was by His command that Lucifer had ruled there for so long."

"Ah," Hob said, but he managed to shake off that feeling of coming loose from reality pretty quickly this time. "Right, okay, so after that ending which disappointed everyone, I'm sure—"

"Yes," Dream said, with a hint of remembered exasperation in his voice. "They all took their leave. Odin said his farewells, taking Loki with him. It was only later that I discovered that Loki had disguised himself and remained in my realm, having sent another of my guests with Odin in his guise, to be bound beneath the earth in Loki's place. I could not allow that innocent god to be tormented in Loki's stead, but Loki begged not to be sent back to his place of torment, and I... did not condemn him. I replaced the innocent with a dream of Loki, and let the real Loki go free."

Hob squinted down at Dream, struggling to make sense of that sequence of events and what he knew of the stories of Loki, trying to leave the superhero movies to one side as he was fairly certain those were about someone else. "Did... did Loki not..."

"Loki deserved to be there," Dream said tonelessly. "As much as anyone deserves such a thing. He is a betrayer, liar, manipulator, murderer. He committed endless outrages against his own kin and everyone else whose path he crossed. He would not stop; he could not. He is the scorpion in the story of the scorpion and the frog."

That story, Hob knew better than the whole range of Norse mythology. A scorpion begged a frog to swim it across a river, promising faithfully not to sting the frog; halfway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, condemning them both to drown and explaining himself simply by saying, I couldn't resist. It's my nature..

He thought of the look on Dream's face when Hob showed him the picture on his phone. Dream had not been annoyed or angry or even entirely surprised. Dream had looked as if he'd just been stung by a scorpion, halfway across a river.

"If you knew that," Hob said, feeling like there had to be an obvious answer here but not knowing what it was, "why did you help him? Why did you set him free?"

Dream was silent for a long time. Hob listened to the bustling sounds of the inn's lunch rush down below, everything just fine, smoothing over something none of them had understood.

Finally Dream's shoulders rose and fell in a stiff little shrug. "He is a god, which is to say that he is a story, or the sum of many stories, all of them the same. He cannot be anything but what he is. The story always ends the same. He must do what he must; he must be what he is. And I..."

Prince of Stories, that was one of Dream's titles in his little book. Hob remembered the way all those names crowded in around that horrible mask that only just barely reflected a glimpse of Dream's eyes. The way everything Dream was, every definition of him, just hemmed him in on every side.

Dream knew what it was to be what you had to be, and do what you must. His shoulders had split open and bled from the weight of being what he was.

Loki had begged Dream not to condemn him to playing out that same story again, unchanged and unchangeable, and Dream...

"You," Hob started.

Dream shook his head sharply, abruptly pushing himself down from Hob's lap.

"I should go," Dream said sharply. "I should return to the Dreaming. I have work to do there." He seemed to waver before Hob's eyes like heat haze, like a mirage, small and tall at once like he'd been on the beach in that dream last night. Hob remembered the way Dream had clung to him when he first arrived, the way Dream had said it was something I needed.

"Dream," Hob said, and was interrupted by a booming knock on the door.

Dream froze and looked up, all at once thoroughly small again, and Hob stood up and put himself in between Dream and whatever was coming next.

---

Chapter 8

Dream blinked up at Hob, towering over him and standing squarely between him and the door—and then looked at himself, definitively small again.

It probably was the correct way to face this, really. And he certainly could not depart back to the Dreaming until he had seen it through.

He reached up and tugged on Hob's shirt. "It's all right."

Hob gave him an incredulous look, darting a glance at the door, just in time for that impossibly loud knock to sound again.

"For a given value of all right," Dream admitted, raising his hands up.

Hob lifted Dream into his arms and, with no further protest or even another request for explanation, carried Dream on his hip as he went to answer the door.

Of course it was Odin standing on the other side, rain dripping from his wide-brimmed hat, raven on his shoulder.

Dream stared at him; he could feel Odin's one eye staring back, though he couldn't quite see it under the shadows of his hat.

"Ah, yes, of course," Hob said, when neither of them had said a word for a moment, his voice coming out a little high but mostly steady. "Odin, is it? I don't think I can do you another watermelon mojito with what I've got on hand up here, but I can brew up some tea. Come in, so long as you come in peace."

Odin still said nothing and did not move for long enough that it seemed as if he was considering those terms carefully. Then he nodded. "I come in peace to your hearth, Robert Gadling. I offer no threat to the one who already has the protection of your house."

Hob nodded and took a step back from the door, and Odin finally stepped inside, his hat and coat and raven all dry as soon as he was out of the rain. He turned an expectant look in their direction—probably at Dream, really, who had continued to abdicate his responsibility to manage this conversation, resting against Hob's shoulder and watching this mere human stand his ground before a god while keeping a gentle, reassuring grip on Dream.

"Tea, then?" Hob said. "I could do a coffee if you don't mind pods."

Odin's head turned in the direction of the sleek black machine on the kitchen bench, the colorful boxes stacked beside it, and then he said ponderously, "Would your hospitality extend to a hot cocoa?"

"Ah, yeah, guess I've got some left," Hob agreed, carrying Dream over and rifling through the boxes until he found a mostly-empty one labeled as Odin had said. The beverage pictured looked much more like the chocolate milk Dream had enjoyed the day before than anything else, and Dream wound his hands into Hob's shirt to prevent himself from snatching at it to look more closely.

Hob took a pod from the box—there was exactly one left in the box after that, Dream noted—and put it into the machine, then turned away to find a mug.

Dream felt the moment when Hob froze in the face of deciding what mug to offer to a god standing in his kitchen and requesting a beverage, but before Dream could attempt to help, Hob rallied. He plucked a mug from the shelf, one of a set of white mugs with different blue prints; the one Hob selected had blue shapes that looked like six-petaled flowers or perhaps snowflakes.

He set it onto the machine just before its hissing noises erupted into a stream of brown liquid, and Dream leaned toward it, inhaling the sweet hot scent.

Hob patted his back and murmured, "I'll fix yours next, shall I?"

Somehow it was that moment that made Dream acutely, icily aware that he was indulging himself in being small and helpless, being carried about and tended to, under the eye of Lord Odin: Battle-God, Way-Finder, All-Father. Last they met, he had been a supplicant at Dream's throne, and now...

Dream did not hide his face against Hob's shoulder as Hob turned to offer the mug to Odin, but it was a near thing.

"Please, sit, make yourself comfortable," Hob said.

Odin nodded gravely and took a seat at the kitchen table, looking as perfectly deliberate and dignified in the kitchen of Hob's flat as he had in the palace of the Dreaming, sitting in the spot where Dream had wolfed down cheese on toast with all the restraint of an actual human child.

Hob, as he had promised, put the last hot cocoa pod in the machine and grabbed an entirely different mug, one of clear glass, to put under the spout. "I'm just going to fix another mug for my friend here. I understand we have you to thank for the quick resolution of that business downstairs? On behalf of all the humans in the potential blast radius, I thank you for that."

Odin took a tiny sip from his mug, nodded to himself, and drank more deeply. "Ah, Entusiasm. A fine choice. Well, you and your fellow humans are welcome, Robert Gadling. Preventing my blood-brother from harming the innocent is my duty, and I have done it. That he was free to threaten such harm is a matter I must discuss with the Dream-weaver."

Hob looked at him, and Dream didn't turn his head to meet that intent gaze. He didn't loosen his grip on Hob's shirt, and Hob's grip on Dream didn't loosen either. After another moment, Dream summoned words.

"I have already told Hob of it, Lord Odin," Dream said. "We can speak of it in his presence."

"It is you who has speaking to do, Dream-weaver," Odin said. "I have had half a story from your messenger: that Loki was free, and that you wished me to know it so that I might recapture him. And I can see a part of the story here: that you came to have reason to fear what Loki would do, and called upon me out of that fear."

Dream's fists clenched harder, but he could not deny it. "The people here see what I seem to be," Dream said quietly. "They would have tried to protect me from him. I could not allow them to be harmed because I sojourned among them."

"No," Odin agreed. "But it was not them Loki wanted to harm."

"No," Dream agreed.

He had always known. He had been bound by the rules of hospitality, the rules governing the Endless, by the nature of his duties. He could not harm Loki, who was his guest, and he could not allow Loki to harm another of his guests. If that meant that Loki was to be a blade at Dream's throat, a scorpion's stinger against his back—for the debt would gall him, and Loki was ever what Loki was—that had seemed... acceptable.

Even desirable, in a certain way. Something chaotic, something he would not be able to predict. Something different from the crushing inevitability of his own changeless existence. Something that could, at any moment, unravel everything.

Into the silence came the sound and scent of hot cocoa being dispensed. Dream turned away from Odin to watch it fill the glass mug Hob had chosen for him; Hob picked up the mug by the handle and carried it and Dream over to the table, taking the seat across from Odin and shifting Dream into his lap as though he had always belonged there.

Hob set the mug down where Dream could reach it, but kept a hand curled around it. Dream touched his fingers to the mug and jerked them away at the heat transmitted even through the glass. He tucked his hands into his lap to wait until the hot chocolate was less likely to injure him, no matter how good it smelled and how aware of his human-childish hunger he suddenly was.

He looked beyond the mug to where Odin sat waiting for Dream to offer some better explanation. As Dream watched, Odin raised the patterned mug to his lips and took another sip.

Hob's hand, the one not holding his hot cocoa in a mute reminder not to drink it yet, squeezed Dream's knee.

"I cannot offer a satisfactory explanation," Dream said quietly. "I do not suppose there is one. Loki begged on his knees for his freedom when I discovered him still in the Dreaming after you had departed with the innocent being Loki had ensorcelled to take his place. I was moved to grant his request."

"And then," Odin made a gesture toward Hob, and a sweeping gesture downward, indicating the people in the taproom below. "You were also moved to call upon me to revoke that request."

Dream nodded. He had said as much already. He genuinely did not know what part of this Odin thought he could explain any better, and he had no idea how to articulate any more of what he had been thinking when he let Loki go free. He had not thought very hard about it at the time, and had avoided thinking about it since.

Nor did he particularly want to think, even now, about what he had done to himself. What he had changed, when he knew himself to be a thing that did not, could not change.

Odin studied him in silence for so long that Hob took his hand off the mug and turned his palm up, a tiny gesture of offering.

Dream, who had nothing to say and no interest in breaking the silence merely to break it, wrapped both his small hands around the hot cocoa and took a careful sip. It was still quite hot, but it did not hurt him even as much as his first incautious bites of his cheese on toast had done.

It was fucking brilliant, and he could not help looking up wide-eyed at Hob as he swallowed the rich sweetness of it and felt it warming him all the way down to his center.

Hob smiled. "I'll order some more, shall I? I can see you're not going to be satisfied with only tasting hot cocoa once, even if we are in the middle of summer."

"Please," Dream said, and took another sip, startled to find that it tasted just as good and felt just as lovely as the first.

Movement in his peripheral vision drew Dream's attention to Odin again, and Dream found that he had tipped his head back, apparently already drinking down to the dregs of his own mug of hot cocoa. He set the empty mug down with a solid clunk, and cleared his throat in a pointed sort of harrumph.

"I can see that you are not ready to give answers," Odin said, "and I can see that that is an answer itself. It is a strange tree you have chosen to hang yourself on in search of what wisdom you are wanting, but it is clear you are deep in the travail of your seeking. No more could I have answered anyone's questions while I still hung upon Yggdrasil."

Dream wanted badly to insist that this was nothing as momentous, in his long existence, as Odin's self-sacrifice upon the world-tree which had made him so much of who and what he was. This was a whim, half-accident, and when it was over...

He could not imagine it being over, and he could not imagine what would happen when it was. He had nearly run from it before Odin arrived, and yet at the first challenge he had reverted to this small self, had flung himself into Hob's arms and Hob's protection. Dream was nowhere near being ready to depart from this state.

And he did not think he quite dared to contradict what Odin saw with the eye he still possessed. It had never been given to Dream to see the future; he struggled enough to make sense of the present.

"As you say," Dream finally managed, clinging to the perfect neutrality of simply acknowledging what Odin had said without quite agreeing to anything. "It has been only a day. I sent Matthew to you during the first night I spent here."

Odin's head tilted. "Early days indeed. I shall trouble you no further for now, Dream-weaver. No doubt the time will come when we may make better sense of things between us."

Dream nodded and stole another sip of his hot cocoa without taking his eyes off Odin.

Odin tilted his head just enough for Dream to glimpse his one eye closing in something that might have been meant as a wink, and then he stood, too quickly for Dream or Hob to react. He turned away from the table in a swirl of coat and raven feathers, took a definitive step toward nothing, and was gone.

Hob took a sharp breath in and then held very, very still for a long moment. Dream set his hot cocoa down and tried to twist to look up at him, when it had gone on long enough that it seemed concerning, but Hob firmed his grip on Dream and stood, setting Dream back down on the chair without meeting his eyes.

"Just a tick, love, need to go be a messy biological creature in the other room. I'll fix us some lunch when I'm done with that, right?"

Dream wrinkled his nose at the thought of what that would mean and nodded quick agreement, settling down to sip more of his hot cocoa while Hob strode away. He heard a door close, firmly but quietly; he had the distinct impression that Hob had taken care not to slam it.

That was strange.

Dream took a long sip of hot cocoa and then recognized another strangeness: the sound of the door had come from down the hall in the opposite direction from the bathroom. It had come from the direction of the room beyond Hob's bedroom, the only room in the flat Dream had not yet entered.

Hob would not be doing any of the obvious messy human things in that room.

Dream took another sip of his hot cocoa as he thought it through. Hob had asked for privacy. Hob had, if not quite lied to him, definitely misdirected. Perhaps Dream ought to let him be?

Dream would have told Hob to go away if he had been able to, this morning when he was so upset, and yet it had been so good to have Hob near him. He did not imagine that he could be as much of a comfort to Hob as Hob was to him, but he was uneasily aware that he was looking for a reason not to try.

He set down his mug and slid down to the floor, following the way Hob had gone.

Dream halted again when he was close enough to the closed door to hear little high-pitched sounds that sounded like no noise he had ever heard Hob make. It struck him that perhaps he ought to be his whole self for this; perhaps he needed to be more, to be of any use to Hob right now.

But his greater self was not better than his small self—not at things like this. If he were the whole of himself he would be stiff and awkward in the face of a human's distress, even when the human was his friend. Especially when the human was his friend.

If he took back all of himself, today might fade into insignificance, swamped by the billions of years of experiences of Dream of the Endless. He might not know how much it had mattered that Hob sat near him this morning, not touching after Dream drew back from being touched, but still near him, still speaking to him so that he would know he was not alone.

Hob was alone right now. Hob shouldn't have to be alone.

Dream moved forward again. He had to use both hands on the doorknob, but it turned for him, and he was admitted to a room that was crowded and cluttered with many things Dream could not spare any attention to look at.

Hob was sitting on the floor with something soft pressed to his face, making mostly-muffled noises of distress. He was shaking.

Dream hurried to him and didn't hesitate this time. He let his instincts guide him; he circled around behind Hob and leaned all his small weight against Hob's shaking back, throwing his arms over Hob's shoulders to hug him as best he could.

Hob froze. "Dream?"

"I'm here," Dream said, racking his brain for all the things Hob had said to him while he couldn't stop screaming. Hob hadn't coaxed him to stop or told him to calm down. "It's all right to be upset. You don't have to be alone. I'll stay—"

Hob twisted in Dream's grip, getting an arm around him and tugging Dream into his lap, which suited Dream just fine.

"Tell me if I squeeze too tight," Hob said, his voice shaking a little, and Dream wrapped his arms around Hob's chest and squeezed with as much strength as his present form could muster while Hob clung to him.

Hob's breathing started to get fast, as if he were frightened—as if he were only frightened now, when there were no more gods to face, no more danger to his people. Only the idea of it all, and Dream well knew the power an idea could have.

"You did very well," Dream murmured to him. "You were very brave and calm and sensible."

"I gave Odin his cocoa in a bloody Ikea mug because all I could think was he's Scandi, right? And he knew its bloody name."

Dream let up the squeezing to try rubbing a little circle on Hob's shoulder blade. "I believe that means you were correct. He seemed pleased, in any case."

Hob let out a wheezing sound that might have been a laugh, and then returned to breathing fast and silent, clinging to Dream. After a long moment he said, "That's—maybe that's worse, though. A god, knowing—"

Dream, hidden against Hob's chest, frowned. He was fairly certain he had explained his own nature to Hob... but then perhaps that was the problem. It often happened in dreams that a terror too great to face was channeled through another form.

Hob had meant to hide this from him.

"Hob," Dream said, trying to draw back enough to see his face.

"Not you," Hob said immediately, tightening his grip. "It's not—I know you're even more than that, but you're—you're my friend, Dream. And, if I'm honest, I don't know what a bloody Endless is so I can't even begin to get my head around it. But I know what the gods are. And I've had two of them under my roof today, and I just... just need to..."

Dream, held fast in Hob's grip, could just reach the pillow Hob had dropped when he reached for Dream instead. "Would you like to scream?"

"I would, thank you," Hob said, and when Dream held the pillow up Hob tipped his face down into it and howled, clinging tightly to Dream himself all the while.

That meant that Dream could feel the scream where it started in Hob's chest, could feel the way Hob's whole body trembled a little around his. The pillow muffled the scream to a level that was not painful in itself, and Dream knew that Hob was not wroth with him, but still the physical sensation of it shook something in the little body he now wore.

Dream's breathing went uneven, and he felt the prickle of tears gathering in his eyes, but he kept pushing the pillow as firmly as he could against Hob's face, hiding his own face against Hob's shoulder. Tears leaked from his eyes, and he made his own little keening sound, but it was lost under the screams.

Dream managed to cut himself off when Hob stopped to take a longer breath than before, but this time Hob's scream collapsed, after a few beats, into laughter. It was still a wild sound with as much distress in it as humor—but the humor was there now, too. It still shook through Dream's entire small body as Hob held him close, but now that meant that he found himself giggling helplessly along with Hob's unhinged whooping. When Hob tried to pull back from the pillow to let out the laughter Dream laughed harder, pushing it into his face as though he would smother his dearest friend.

Hob let out a little cry that was much more playful before devolving into laughter again, squirming ineffectually as he tried to escape the pillow without loosening his hold on Dream. Finally he got a grip on it—with his teeth, evidently—and before Dream could try to adjust his own hold the pillow slipped away from his hands. Hob spat out the pillow and resumed laughing. Dream was laughing too as he tried to cover Hob's mouth with his own small hands, while Hob promptly began pretending to bite at his fingers without ever actually closing his teeth where he might cause pain.

When Hob's laughter trailed off, he converted to smacking kisses against Dream's palms and fingers and wrists, until Dream managed to swallow his own shrieks of laughter and settled down to stillness in Hob's arms.

Hob pressed a last lingering kiss to Dream's forehead and then sat back, loosening his grip so that Dream could look him in the eyes.

"Right," Hob said, his voice serious but a bit of that laughter still brightening his eyes. "Thank you for that, my friend. I feel much better now. And I think we've both earned our lunch, haven't we? Are you ready for experimental gourmet cheese on toast?"

Dream nodded, trying to make his expression very solemn. "The Gruyere."

"The Gru-fucking-yere indeed," Hob agreed. He got the words out evenly but his mouth stretched into a grin by the end of them.

Dream grinned back, feeling like he had done something important and done it well.

---

Gruyere on toast went down well, and Double Gloucester on toast went down even better, which to Hob's mind confirmed that Dream currently had very human-like tastebuds. He then proceeded to polish off nearly the entire punnet of raspberries, which left Hob in continuing doubt as to whether he had anything like a human child's stomach capacity—but no matter, Hob was already adding things to the grocery cart on his phone, so they would have more raspberries (and more Double Gloucester, and hot cocoa pods, and another loaf of bread and pound of butter just to be on the safe side) delivered tomorrow.

Dream helped gamely with tidying up after lunch, drying each dish and utensil with care and a little frown of concentration that Hob manfully resisted cooing over. When that was done he was drooping a little, and Hob said, "Why don't we go sit on the couch and digest a bit? Do you like movies?"

Dream blinked at Hob from his perch on the kitchen bench and then raised his arms to be gathered up, still frowning a little as he said, "Yes, for they are stories, though I have rarely... watched any. As such. Could we..."

Dream trailed off, and Hob figured he could see where the hesitation was coming from. "Got a request, then? I've got a good collection, and I'm knowing in the ways of finding what I haven't got, so we can probably track down whatever it is."

He braced himself for something obscure—anticipated with delight that Dream might want some very early silent picture, because Hob had a silly nostalgic fondness for those and a collection of them to rival any film archive's, which reminded him that he probably ought to find some way to get a few more of the lost ones found this year.

"Mary Poppins?" Dream offered in a tiny voice. "My sister said I should watch it."

"A classic!" Hob said, setting aside both the disappointment at being asked for something easy and the temptation to say something about the value of recommendations from sisters who abandoned you with near-strangers. "Yeah, I'm sure I've got that one somewhere, let's see..."

Dream cuddled readily into Hob's side and watched with apparent interest as Hob found the right streaming service and paged through the offerings until he found the right film. Hob went slow and fumbled a bit to give Dream plenty of time to look. He might have a few of his own picks the next time Hob offered him his choice of movies, not just his sister's suggestion.

Still, within a very few minutes they were watching Mary Poppins on a screen wider than Dream currently was tall, and Hob let himself just enjoy the Technicolor and all for a few minutes. He meant to check out after that, to spare himself Dick Van Dyke's idea of Cockney—he had some art supplies to shop for on his phone while Dream was distracted—but he happened to glance down at Dream to see how it was hitting him, and that was it. Hob was caught.

Dream was fascinated, eyes wide and his mouth hanging slightly open as he stared at the spectacle of a proper old movie musical. He smiled and laughed here and there, shoved his fingers into his mouth when old man Banks seemed cross, but he was at all times absorbed in the movie—he never looked up at Hob to see how he should be reacting. He was too busy just... feeling it, and Hob couldn't look away from the sight of his friend so immersed in anything.

Even Dick Van Bloody Dyke couldn't ruin that.

Two hours flew right by, and then it was the end—Mary Poppins was going away again, and Hob felt his heart actually aching in his chest as he watched Dream's eyes well with tears. They spilled over, running down his hollow little cheeks in tracks lit by the reflection of the television screen, and Hob gave up and tugged Dream into his lap, wrapping both arms around him as he continued to stare at the screen. The tears poured down, but his breathing stayed steady, and he kept his eyes on the screen as if he were staring down the sun.

He watched exactly until the figure of Mary Poppins with her umbrella had vanished into the distance, and then he scrambled around to hide his face in Hob's chest and sobbed, "Can we watch it again? Can we start over?"

"Of course we can," Hob said, keeping one arm firmly around him and rubbing his back with the other, staring bemusedly at the credits beginning to roll and trying to figure out what was going on in his head—it could be a toddler thing or an Endless thing, and was probably an unholy combination of both. "Do you... want to take a moment, first?"

Dream shook his head firmly. "I want her to come back to them! She shouldn't go off and be all alone!"

Hob winced, thinking of his stranger, walking away alone at the end of each of their centennial meetings, back to his work as Dream of the Endless, which had left him with that bruise over his heart, those heavy marks on his shoulders from bearing what no one could help him with. All alone?

"That's all right, then, she'll come back," Hob promised, and returned them to the start of the movie.

Dream snuffled into Hob's chest for a few more seconds, but turned around as soon as Bert spoke, wrapping both his little arms around Hob's arm, as if Hob might possibly let go of him.

He was less perfectly enraptured this time, more obviously engaged in thinking about what he was watching; from the frequency of adorably tiny frowns, Hob thought Dream was well on his way to having Opinions or possibly an entire TED Talk about Mary Poppins. He felt almost giddy at the near-certainty that he would get to hear absolutely all of Dream's thoughts on it, just as soon as he was done formulating them, if not sooner.

Hob did manage to do all his shopping, this time, and Dream relaxed enough to half-doze through the animated part, which was, Hob felt, the exact way the movie ought to be seen, with the weirdest bits merging in and out of dreams. Which raised a lot of questions about how Dream had ever experienced movies before now, since he definitely liked them but had rarely watched any. As such.

Well, he was watching this one now, and in Hob's opinion doing an excellent job—he startled fully awake as they all popped back out onto the sidewalk and got right back to his frowning. This time he didn't cry at the end of the movie; he scowled as Mary Poppins vanished into the distance.

"The movie has her name," Dream said, "but it's not really about her. It's not her story. The Banks family learns things, but she doesn't. No one knows anything about her, what she really wants or cares about beyond going around giving children adventures, and she doesn't learn anything about herself. She doesn't—doesn't—"

"Change?" Hob offered.

Dream froze at that, and then wriggled free of Hob's grip. "She doesn't have to. She doesn't have to change. She's just right the way she is. The way she's meant to be. Her story—but it's not her story."

"Mm," Hob said, reminded why he hadn't gone for English as his subject. "I'm just going to—I'll be right back."

Dream nodded distractedly, and when Hob had made his trip to the bathroom and returned, he was still pacing in little circles, glaring at nothing, not looking at the pile of art supplies on the coffee table.

"They want to know her," Dream burst out, without looking in Hob's direction. "They want her to stay."

Hob went and sat down on the floor next to the pastels, reminding himself firmly that they were only talking about Mary Poppins, and said, "Yeah. That's true."

"But she can't stay," Dream insisted, pacing. "She is what she is. But—"

Hob kept his expression solemn and did not pull out his phone to take even the stealthiest of videos. Dream kept on arguing himself in literal circles for the next hour, but halfway through dinner he started, if Hob wasn't mistaken, writing his own Mary Poppins fanfic in the form of a rant delivered mostly to the table about things that would be better. He still wouldn't look directly at Hob.

Hob just kept up the encouraging noises through the meal, and doing the dishes, and putting in some laundry. Dream acceded to a bath, and halfway through Hob washing his hair he went silent. Hob tilted his head to see if Dream had, just that abruptly, fallen asleep, but Dream just looked back at him.

"Am I talking too much?" he asked, having spent the best part of three hours with barely a pause for breath, going on and on about the movie he'd just made Hob watch twice through.

"You are talking exactly the right amount," Hob assured him. "I'd tell you if you weren't."

Dream did not look entirely convinced, but he leaned into Hob's hands cradling his head.

He didn't speak again until Hob was gingerly drying him off, dabbing more salve onto his bruises.

"I just wish she didn't have to be alone," Dream said quietly.

"Well," Hob said, not meeting Dream's eyes and keeping his tone matter-of-fact, not the least bit ironic or pointed. "She's very clever. I bet she knows a way to find someone to spend time with, if she doesn't want to be alone. I bet she could even find a friend, if she put her mind to it."

Dream looked up, looked him straight in the eyes, and Hob's heart clenched at the expression there, something like wonder and something like hope. "Like I did."

"Like you did," Hob agreed, barely tempted to shed any tears of his own as he gathered Dream up to get him into his pajamas and tuck him into bed.

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