dira | The Sandman CHBB Fic: To Be Brand New, Chapters 17-20

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
Chapters 5-8 on Dreamwidth
Chapters 9-12 on Dreamwidth
Chapters 13-16 on Dreamwidth

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

Check out all the gorgeous art by fishfingersandscarves on Tumblr!

Chapter 17

There was some face-washing and nose-blowing and breakfast-eating before Hob got Dream into actual non-pajama clothes. Dream was already drooping so much by then that Hob limited their outing to the green just across from the Inn, which had some very nice lawn and trees for running around.

Dream looked up at him when they got there and said wearily, "Do we have to run?"

"Not a bit," Hob assured him, giving his little hand a squeeze. "We can stroll, or sit, or lie down in the sun."

Dream looked up dubiously at the brightest spot in the overcast sky and said slowly, "My sister told me once that it was good to walk barefoot. But..."

But practically the first thing Hob had told him, when he got here, was that he couldn't go out without shoes, and Dream had taken it to heart.

"Ah, well," Hob said, sitting down right there on the grass to take off his own shoes. "That's my no-longer-a-medieval-peasant hangup more than anything, though you do want to watch where you put your feet in London. The grass here is probably all right, but you never know when you might step in something you'd really rather clean off your shoe than your own foot."

Dream gave the grass around them a very dubious look, but when Hob was finished getting his own shoes off Dream sat down and offered his sandaled feet, and Hob took those off, too. He tucked one of Dream's sandals into each of his own shoes, to carry them all together, and offered his other hand to Dream, who took it and held on tight.

Hob watched where they were walking, carefully leading Dream onto the thickest, plushest grass; Dream kept his own head down, too, watching where he planted every step. When they had crossed the whole length of the green, the sun was shining a little more visibly through the clouds, and Hob tugged him toward a nice sunny-ish patch. "Here, love, let's sit a moment on the ground, that's even better than walking on it. Don't have to worry about what you'll step in that way."

Dream turned around in actual circles, scrutinizing the spot Hob had chosen—holding Hob's hand all the while, like Hob was twirling him in a dance—and then nodded gravely and sat. Hob sat beside him, dropping their shoes on the other side, and wriggled his toes into the grass.

Dream stared intently at his own feet while flexing them against the grass, like he was making sure he did it right, and Hob just smiled and closed his eyes, turning his face up toward the sun.

After a while, Hob heard Dream move, and cracked one eye open to see that Dream was walking in a circle around where Hob sat, lifting each foot high and setting it down with intense precision. He stepped right over Hob's ankles on one pass, then swung wide around his feet on the next.

Hob closed his eyes and let him get on with it; anything that kept him present in his body and in the world was probably all to the good right now. He just sat and enjoyed the sunshine, such as it was, up until Dream plunked himself down into Hob's lap, firmly enough to make Hob's breath go out.

Dream made a small dissatisfied noise, grinding his shoulder and cheek into Hob's chest, and Hob smiled down at him and said, "Sorry, is your seat not quite to your liking?"

Dream tilted his head back, frowning, and pointedly pressed a kiss to the center of Hob's chest while still frowning, then went back to trying to physically burrow through him.

"Ah, right, you love and cherish your seat, it's just not quite in the right spot," Hob said, and though he managed to say the words lightly it still did something to his heart when Dream nodded grumpily into his chest, accepting Hob's summation.

"Are you more in the mood to recline, then?" Hob asked, when he had his voice under control. He suited action to words, flopping back onto the grass.

Dream let out an audible sigh of contentment and starfished out all his limbs, so his fingers and toes were touching grass while he was otherwise draped entirely over Hob. When Hob tentatively laid a hand on his back, Dream made an approving sound and gave a little wiggle, snuggling into him more decisively, and Hob couldn't help smiling.

Hob studied the sky for a bit, but the clouds seemed to be thinning. They would only need to move a little to be in shade if the sun got properly hot, but for now they should be able to stay right here until Dream wanted to move.

Hob let his eyes close, basked in the city sounds and the warm weight resting on his chest, and waited for the next thing.

Dream's black sketchbook was still set out on the coffee table, along with two sets of pastels, both with the red colors restocked from whatever supply Hob had squirreled away. Dream felt the tug of it—not quite like a black hole, but definitely like the rug was tilting him gently in that direction. It was easier to kneel by the coffee table than it would have been to go anywhere else, and this time when he looked at the black sheet before him he saw a blank page instead of a cosmic emptiness.

His sister had requested a picture. He had meant to make one for her; Lucienne had mentioned it to him before Despair visited.

Dream sighed. He was going to have to have a word with his younger sister about all of that. He did think she had meant well, but...

Hob wandered in while Dream was still thinking, now wearing a shirt whose shoulders were not grass-stained and with a laptop tucked under his arm. He crouched down beside Dream and said, "Planning your masterpiece?"

"Considering the odds that Despair did what she did, in the manner that she did, specifically to antagonize you," Dream said, though in point of fact Hob's appearance had quite broken his concentration on that topic.

"I did joke about poisoning her tea," Hob admitted. "So maybe that's on me."

Dream shook his head and wagged an admonitory finger, which made Hob grin.

"Shall I go say her name to the mirror until she turns up in it so I can apologize?" Hob offered, still grinning. It would not, Dream gathered, be a particularly heartfelt apology—but nor was it clear that Hob's teasing was the greater fault of the two.

Dream shook his head. "Probably it is best that you speak to each other as little as possible. You are..."

"Natural enemies, your oldest sister called us."

Dream nodded, his gaze sliding away from Hob to the black paper at the mention of Death. "You are always following your star; she is always trying to extinguish it."

In his peripheral vision, he saw Hob's shoulders square up, his chin lifting, and Dream smiled as he stole a sideways look at his dearest friend—even now, even speaking solely in metaphors, he could not help but bristle against Despair's efforts. Hob relaxed when he met Dream's gaze, and he smiled again. "Right you are, I'll just let her alone. So long as she lets you alone."

"Mm," Dream said, turning his gaze firmly down on the sketchbook. He could see a long future of mediating these joking-but-also-deadly-serious spats between his sister and his...

Dream blinked, catching hold of that thought and examining it more closely, a little afraid it would evaporate when he did.

He could see it, though. He could see Hob being a part of his life—every hour, Hob had promised him, just this morning—for a very long time to come, though he could not imagine what that life would look like. As surely as any of his siblings would continue to be his siblings, something in him believed that Hob would continue to be his... Hob.

The fear was there, too. Knowing that he now envisioned that future meant that it could all go wrong. He could lose Hob; surely it was most likely that he would.

He could feel that hope burgeoning though, the hope that was more than hope. Faith. Certainty. He knew, logically, that it would be shattered sooner or later, but right now... Hob was his, and he could not persuade himself to focus on the inevitable end when it was not yet happening.

Even as he thought it, Hob stood up and walked away from him—but only to the other side of the coffee table, to settle on the couch with his laptop.

Dream smiled down at the invitingly empty page. He would do his work, and Hob would do whatever Hob was doing, and yet they were together. There would be lunch, later; his body would not let him remain immersed for too long.

He had better get started, then. Dream reached for the red and scrawled a confident curve against the darkness.

At some point Hob glanced over and Dream's drawing was a recognizable apple with one bite taken from it, rather larger than life-size. Hob smiled at the drawing and its meaning, and went back to working out next-life logistics and responding to emails from suddenly-former colleagues.

The next time he looked up, his whole body jolted at the thing on the page which was half still a pastel drawing and half a startlingly photorealistic gigantic apple.

Dream must have noticed his reaction, because he looked up with a smug little smile and then went back to blending with his left hand, dabbing in tiny white highlights with his right. Hob watched, mesmerized, as more and more of the apple turned real under Dream's hands. After several minutes, Hob realized that Dream had taken both hands away from the picture and that was a good time to interrupt him. "Hey, sweetheart, how about a break for lunch?"

"Hmm." Dream set down the white pastel and flexed his tiny hand, which trembled a little as he did. "Yes. Perhaps this is a good time."

"Perhaps," Hob agreed, getting up, and then he leaned across the table to snatch Dream up and flip him upside down, swinging him up so his bare feet brushed the ceiling. Dream let out a startled little shriek, not quite a laugh but not unhappy either, and Hob slung Dream over his shoulders sideways, like one of those pictures of Jesus carrying a lamb, and bore him off to the kitchen for cheese on toast.

Dream did actually eat without needing to be prompted much, but with nothing like his usual voracious appetite. He took delicate little bites of his toast and his apple slices, and seemed almost relieved when he cleared his plate, slumping against the table.

"Do you want to help me tidy up, love?" Hob was more than half hoping he would admit to feeling poorly and bow out, but Dream nodded determinedly and cleared his plate, and sat by the sink to dry while Hob washed. Hob went as slow as he could himself, because he didn't want it to be too painfully obvious to Dream how slowly they were moving, but it took very nearly longer for him to dry their plates and cups and a couple of knives than it had taken them both to eat lunch.

Dream slumped where he sat when Hob took the last knife from him and put it away, and when Hob reached for him, he leaned heavily into Hob. With his cheek on Hob's shoulder, barely above a whisper, he said, "Hob?"

"Yeah, love," Hob said softly, getting both arms securely around him, itching to get the ribbon back in place, holding them both together.

"Could I lie on the floor and listen to music?"

Hob closed his eyes for a moment, all at once aching and thrilled—because Dream had managed to ask for exactly what he wanted, to give Hob a sense of how he was feeling even if he couldn't say it clearer than that.

"Of course," Hob said. "You want me to lie down with you?"

Dream nodded, then said, still very soft, "Maybe... just for a song. Or two. And then if you would... stay close by? That would... you don't have to."

"I will," Hob promised. He carried Dream to the living room and lay down on the rug, scrolling through his collection of albums by The Mountain Goats, since he suspected that Dream had a pretty specific set of expectations for the music in question by now. "Do you want one of the albums we listened to already?"

Dream shrugged, then squirmed a bit, then hummed a bit of "Wild Sage."

Hob gave him a one-armed squeeze and started Get Lonely playing again.

After the first couple of songs, he felt Dream give a little jolt during the silence between tracks, and then he squirmed away, and Hob let him go. Dream landed himself facedown on the rug, his face turned away from Hob, and Hob leaned over and murmured, "I'll be right back," in his ear as the music started.

He collected the red ribbon—he would never doubt it again, after it had led him to Dream in that dark night in the Dreaming—and his laptop. The song was only half over when he settled beside Dream on the rug again.

He tied the ribbon around Dream's wrist, and tucked a fold of it against Dream's palm, and then got himself firmly attached as well before he opened his laptop and settled back in to get a bit of work done while Dream lay quietly on the floor beside him.

Every so often, when he was thinking about what to type, he would settle his hand on the top of Dream's head and let it rest there a while.

The next morning, Dream looked at his nearly-completed picture of the apple, which was perhaps four-fifths splendid and one-fifth not at all splendid yet. He felt the task before him like—like Fezzik sitting on him.

He must have sighed out loud, because Hob made a sympathetic face and said, "Not ready to tackle that yet? Want to help me do book review?"

"What's book review?" Dream asked, rather than admit that he couldn't face such a simple task as working on a drawing, though he had slept soundly all night with Hob beside him, and woke to a fortifying breakfast with his dearest friend.

"Oh, well, every so often I go through all my books and decide which ones to keep, and which ones to let someone else have the pleasure of keeping," Hob said. Dream thought there was something under the lightness of his voice, some sadness—but letting go of books would probably always remind Hob of the books he had lost with no choice in the matter.

He ought to have a friend with him, then, for such a task. "I can help," Dream said, though his small form betrayed him and his voice wavered into something like a question as he said the simple words.

"So you can," Hob agreed, and led Dream into the study, which was even more crowded with bookcases than the front room. "Let's start in here." Hob began by taking, not books, but an assortment of small knickknacks off the shelf, handing some to Dream to be carried over to the desk. Dream found that he was holding a stone frog and a painted porcelain cat, of two entirely different aesthetic styles. He was still staring at them, deciding which he liked best or whether their greatest appeal was in their absurd contrast, when Hob's hands gently closed around each of his. "Thanks, love, let's put those on the desk so I can dust them before I put them back."

Dream let Hob take them and found his own palms were indeed besmirched with dust, but it wiped off easily enough onto his overalls as he watched Hob set the two figures next to each other, a little apart from the several others he must have placed while Dream was distracted. "Are you going to keep them?"

"I most certainly am," Hob promised. "Now, the books. Mainly I think I'm going to need you to just remind me that your library, or whatever library I donate it to, will still have a book if I let it go, so I don't need to hold on to everything forever personally. Can you do that?"

"It is certainly true," Dream said, coming over to crouch beside the stack as Hob took all the books from the shelf he'd cleared of other objects and piled them all on the floor, making a tower nearly as tall as Dream.

He thought of the picture he had drawn for Lucienne, and felt his mouth curve up into a stiff, awkward smile as he looked up at Hob, raising his arms in imitation of his own representation in the drawing.

For a moment Hob just smiled back at him, fond but not understanding, and Dream felt his heart sink, his smile falter.

It meant nothing, really, for Hob not to recognize the unspoken reference; Dream ought to say something, to make himself properly understood, or else accept that his dearest friend could not read his mind.

Then Hob's smile widened, and he said, "You need a hat, though! And a cloak!"

Dream grinned, startled into it, and when Hob said "I've got just the—" and made to step past Dream, brushing up against the books and toppling the pile, Dream put his hands up to catch them, already knowing they would fall, and laughed for the first time in what felt like a very long time.

Hob grabbed—at him, at the books—and managed to catch neither, but a hard corner shoved right into Dream's belly, knocking the laughter and breath right out of him. Dream couldn't make a sound then, even while Hob scooped him up and patted his back, saying, "Breathe, darling, breathe, breathe, just a little sip first—"

Dream discovered that he had forgotten for a moment how to breathe when he remembered. He felt a great blossoming relief as he inhaled—he could breathe, he was alive—which was almost instantly crowded out by the pain in his belly, the pain of Hob hurting him, however accidentally. He kept inhaling, deeper and deeper, until he couldn't anymore, until the pain overwhelmed him, and then he screamed.

Hob's arms tightened around him, and he felt kisses pressed to his ears, to the top of his head, and faintly he could hear Hob saying things. He couldn't hear them; he could only hear the pain in his belly and his own screams, and the ringing in his ears in between them.

Hob didn't let go. Hob didn't stop making soothing sounds; he swayed, still holding tight to Dream, and on a breath in Dream found he didn't want to scream anymore, and he let out a soft hurting sound instead. There were tears on his face, and his whole body was trembling, tensed around the ache in his belly.

"I've got you, I've got you," Hob was murmuring. "So sorry, love, never meant to hurt you. Especially when we were having a laugh, I can't believe I spoiled that—what a prick, right? What a shit—"

Dream managed to drive his knee into some soft bit of Hob that made him stop talking with a startled little noise. Dream sniffled and managed to say, "Do not speak ill of my dearest friend, Hob."

Hob squeezed him tighter and then took a few slow deep breaths—Dream had not struck him hard enough to make him forget how, evidently. He nestled into Hob's body, feeling the warmth of him, the steadiness of his breathing. His belly didn't really hurt at all, once he relaxed a little; it had only been the shock of it.

"Well," Hob said. "Hard not to think ill of someone who knocked a whole stack of books into my best friend, I suppose."

"Think what you like," Dream said, as sternly as he could manage while snuggling himself into Hob for all he was worth. "But you shall not say such wretched things."

Hob huffed an almost-laugh and said, "As you wish."

Dream pressed his face into Hob's shoulder, hiding his smile. He had been laughing. And Hob had understood him. And if the moment had promptly shattered due to the Waking world's tedious rules about gravity and inertia and so forth—still. Now there was this moment, which was also very good.

"Oh, hey," Hob said, in a tone of new interest, kneeling down. "That's where I left it—do you know this one, Dream? Piranesi?"

Dream picked his head up to look—the name was familiar, but the slim hardcover book in Hob's hand, its dust jacket showing signs of some abuse though it seemed to be a quite modern edition, did not connect with that faint recognition. "I believe I missed it."

"I—" Hob frowned, hesitating. "I don't know if you'll enjoy it, actually, now I stop and think. It's... well, it's about someone who is a prisoner, but he doesn't know that he is one, so for most of the book he's very content in what he thinks of as his home."

Dream thought of an offer his mother had made once, to make a tiny universe, just big enough for him—him and one other person to hug him and stay with him and make him not so scared. "Is he all alone?"

"Not quite," Hob said slowly, with reluctance Dream could feel all through his body as he sagged back to sit on his heels. "He... he has someone who visits him, every so often. On a schedule, actually. I really shouldn't have—"

"It is not a book about you and me," Dream said firmly. "And I am not a prisoner. I am a guest in your home."

"More than a guest," Hob said, as he apparently had nothing to quibble with in the rest of Dream's statement. "I don't want you to feel like a guest."

"Then I will point out that I am content in my friend's home, and I do not think I am wrong to feel so," Dream said. "And the book does sound interesting. Would you read a little of it?"

"Just, tell me to stop if you don't like it, right?" Hob said. "It made me think of you when I first read it, but it's all right if you don't like it."

"What a strange first line for a book," Dream said, squirming around to settle himself properly in Hob's lap as Hob settled himself more comfortably on the ground, amid the scattered books, before several bookcases they had not yet even begun to survey.

"Ha ha," Hob muttered, but Dream could hear the real smile in his voice, could see it in the crows' feet that bloomed around his eyes as he fumbled to find the proper first page of the book. He cleared his throat, and his mouth moved as if he wanted to say something else—more explanation or hedging, Dream suspected—but then he shook his head slightly and began to read. "When the Moon rose in the Third Northern Hall I went to the Ninth Vestibule to witness the joining of three Tides. This is something that happens only once every eight years."

Hob glanced down at him, as if to check whether he had been excessively discomposed by the idea of a moon rising and tides flowing within a hall.

Dream had lived for the whole span of the universe in the Palace of the Dreaming where such things were perfectly possible, if not quite common, as Dream did prefer an orderly distinction between inside and outside to be observed throughout the palace. He looked up at Hob with patient expectation, waiting for the next line of the book.

Hob smiled and pressed a quick kiss to his forehead, then went on reading.

After a time, though he remained fascinated by the story, Dream found himself squirming ceaselessly, and Hob stopped at the end of a chapter and said, "Why don't we go walk a bit?"

"Only a bit," Dream said, already jumping to his feet. "I want to know what happens next!"

"We can bring the book with us," Hob promised. "Find some nice spot and sit and read some more, how's that?"

"That will do," Dream agreed, until he looked up at the window and saw the rain.

He was still bouncing in place; he still wanted to walk somewhere. "I brought a raincoat," he recalled. "It's in my suitcase!"

He ran off to find it, with Hob trailing after him.

They did go for a walk, Dream in a tiny black raincoat with star-shaped buttons, and Hob carrying Piranesi in the same messenger bag he'd carried into the void to find Dream—and, more to the point, carrying an umbrella big enough for Dream to fit under while walking at Hob's side.

Hob had no doubt that by the time Dream had walked off his fidgets he would be carrying Dream as well as the umbrella, but he could manage that. He could manage anything, when Dream was interested in a story, in a walk, in stomping through puddles, in being alive.

They spent a couple of hours in a corner at a coffee shop, Dream on his lap and Hob reading softly, right into his ear. He went through two cups of tea while Dream nibbled through a couple of biscuits, and that was enough to keep him lubricated for reading aloud the whole time.

He didn't think he was an especially good reader—his lectures were always best when he barely had to refer to his notes. He heard himself stumbling over words, having to go back and repeat things, and he couldn't do voices or anything, though really there was only the Other and in Hob's head...

Well, in Hob's head, the first time he read this, he had sounded not a little like his Stranger; Hob had been prone to cast himself in the role of Piranesi, with a wide beautiful world to explore and a mysterious well-dressed Other monitoring his progress. Now, reading it to Dream and given all that he knew of what had happened to Dream in the past century or so, he found himself putting Dream in the hero's place; he gave the Other something like Destiny's measured cadences, when he remembered to.

Dream didn't complain about his reading, or about him eventually getting a bit hoarse and needing to take a voice break to walk back to the flat. He washed and dried Dream's feet first—he had insisted on wearing his sandals, as wet feet were apparently preferable to wet socks; Hob really ought to get him some wellies—and then took a moment to dispose of all that tea. When he got out of the bathroom Dream was lying across the foot of the bed, his cheek pillowed on Piranesi, looking exhausted and just barely awake.

Hob left him to it and went to gather up the fallen books, sorting them—fairly painlessly, because he really did have a system—into keep and let go. In pretty short order he had enough in each category to fill a box; he could run down and see what produce boxes were handy around the kitchen, but he checked first on Dream, and found him still not quite asleep. He was closer to awake now, and when Hob leaned over him Dream raised his arms to be picked up.

Hob squeezed him tight. "Lunch?"

Dream nodded against his shoulder, but then twisted away from him; when Hob realized what he was doing he bent to make it easier, and Dream snatched up the book and held it against his chest.

"Lunch and then more story," Hob agreed, and carried him to the kitchen.

Dream wept, sprawled across Hob's lap, throughout the story's dramatic conclusion—the horrifying revelations and brutal disaster, the doomed efforts to save what could never be saved, the quiet decrescendo to the inevitable, impossible choice and the vast and irretrievable loss.

And then Hob... kept reading.

Dream sat up, bewildered, as he listened. It wasn't the way he had thought the story would or could end, but nor did it strike a false note. This was no pat fix for a tragedy—no King Lear with Cordelia happily married and sitting on a throne—but simply... a way for things to be all right. Bearable. Not perfect, but better than before. Not all was lost, nor stayed lost for all time; so much beauty and kindness yet remained.

Dream realized that Hob's voice had fallen silent, and that he was staring at the back of the sofa as the story fell into place in his head. He looked up at Hob.

There were tears lingering on Hob's cheeks, but he was smiling. "You like it? I really like it. The way it ends. Figuring things out, and going forward. Finding the good again."

Dream nodded, fresh tears leaking from his eyes. He nodded harder, unable to speak, and not wanting Hob to think his tears meant he was unhappy—but Hob had cried too, and was smiling.

"Yeah," Hob murmured, tugging Dream into his arms again. "Yeah. Just like that."

Dream snuggled into him, enjoying the embrace, but when he had wiped his face dry on Hob's shirtfront no fresh tears followed. The thought of the ending of the story, and what it might mean, was too much to think more about right now. Furthermore, lunch had been a very long time ago.

"Hob," Dream said, turning his face so he could speak freely. "I'm hungry."

Hob laughed. "Me too. And I think we're running low on just about everything now, so what do you say we go downstairs and let Marc do the cooking?"

Dream nodded. "We could get... nachos."

Hob laughed louder at that, but he didn't argue or demand explanations about why Dream suddenly felt brave enough to deviate from their established routine. He just made sure Dream put his shoes on before they went downstairs.

When they came back up after eating dinner in the bustling kitchen, Dream headed for the coffee table as soon as his shoes were off. There really wasn't much work left to do on Death's picture; he could have done it this afternoon, while he listened to Hob read, but he had been absorbed in listening. Now he felt that unspent energy in his hands, eager to pick up the pastels again.

Hob paused to ruffle his hair and then took the boxes he had brought up from the kitchen into the study. He would be putting books in them, Dream was vaguely aware, but he was already absorbed in his work, perfecting the shine on the last curve of the apple, blending and highlighting just so to make it look real.

It seemed as if he had only just begun to work on it when he realized he was finished. He stood for a moment smiling down at his work, flexing his hands against the front of his overalls to clean them and to remind himself not to touch where there was no further need. One more smudge here or there would only detract. It was just right now.

Dream picked his head up and looked around; Hob was nowhere in sight, and no ribbon bound them together, but Dream could hear quiet thumps coming from the study, where Hob had taken the boxes. Dream ran in that direction, calling out as he did, "Are you sorting books? Do you need help?"

He stopped short in the doorway, at the sight of one entire bookcase emptied, like a mouth with all its teeth fallen out.

Hob knelt in front of it, putting books into a box; two other boxes were stacked up beside him. One box had DONATION written on it; Dream could see no corresponding label on the other.

Hob looked up from the books and smiled. "Hey, love. All done with your drawing? Need the spray done?"

Dream nodded, focusing on Hob standing up and coming over to him rather than the empty bookshelves and the boxes. He held up his hands, and Hob swooped Dream up into his arms as soon as he reached the doorway, giving him a squeeze as he carried him away.

Hob stopped and carefully picked up the drawing, and carried it and Dream into the kitchen, where he laid the picture on the bench and sat Dream beside it. He fetched the fixative from on top of the refrigerator and sprayed the picture, then offered it to Dream to blow on.

When Dream looked up from doing so, his sister stood in the kitchen doorway, watching them with a soft warm smile that showed all her teeth were right where they should be.

Dream grinned at her, and Hob turned in her direction and let out a startled noise. "Someone ought to put a bell on you, madam."

"Are you proposing to try?" She was still smiling, and though she now crossed her arms before her and made a half-forbidding expression, the smile didn't waver, nor did Hob show any sign of being displeased to see her.

"I am not," he said. "Here," he added, and offered the picture back to Dream. "You want to do the honors, love?"

Dream nodded, and Hob lifted him down to the floor so that he could run to the doorway. By the time he reached his sister she was kneeling, so that he did not have to look up far to see the wondering expression that came over her face.

She looked at Dream, and then looked up at Hob. "You did give it to him, then."

"Course I did," Hob agreed, crouching down on Dream's other side and touching his finger to the blackness just beyond the bitten part of the apple. It would stay lovely and white and edible forever, made of pastels and secured with fixative. "And he said it was very nice to eat, and nice of you to give it to him, so that's a result."

"You don't need the reminder," Dream allowed, holding the picture closer to her. "But you remind me. That there are nice things, even in the middle of so much emptiness."

Death's smile turned a little sad, and he could almost see it in her dark eyes, her slightly parted lips. He could almost hear her wanting to tell him that the universe was not empty, that it was full of dreamers as well as the not-yet-dead. She wanted him to believe in big things, wonderful things, and things so immensely wonderful that they could carry them both through all their duties for all the days until it would all finally end.

She looked down at the picture again, and said softly, "I'm glad I can remind you, little brother. Next time maybe I'll bring you something nicer still."

Next time, because this time was, inevitably, almost over. He thought of asking her to discuss Mary Poppins, to stay and watch The Princess Bride with him and Hob, but he knew what the answer would be. His sister's presence was always fleeting: a nice thing in a sea of absence, liable to go a bit off if he lingered too long over it.

"I shall look forward to it," Dream said, instead of asking for what he could not have, and he leaned in to hug his sister as she held the picture safely out of the way.

"So—shall—I," she said, alternating the words with kisses pressed to his forehead, as though she had heard what he did not say. As though she saw the hurt of the unspoken and unspeakable words, and wanted to kiss it better—and yet could not stay and listen for the words themselves, and so prevent the hurt altogether.

"Goodbye, then, my sister," Dream said, taking a step back and finding Hob right there behind him, warm and steady and waiting for him. "I hope you will enjoy the picture."

"Now and always," she said with a smile that retreated from him as she spoke, for she was standing up and turning away, and then she was gone.

Dream turned, and sagged into Hob's waiting arms. "Don't be angry with her," he murmured.

Hob squeezed him tight, and did not say anything to agree or disagree, and did not let go.

Chapter 18

Dream was tired after his older sister left, but it wasn't like the complete collapse after Despair left; for one thing, Dream hadn't gotten that happy yet, so the fall wasn't so far.

But he also came back to the study and sat with Hob while he sorted books, and asked questions about the ones Hob lingered over, and listened with what seemed to be actual interest to Hob's replies.

Hob stopped to stare for a while at a little chapbook—barely more than a zine, but they had done a nice job with it. Hob wasn't at all sure any other copies survived. It was poetry, written by a gay man about his lost lover, published in 1985 shortly before the poet himself died as well. He didn't know how long he'd been staring when Dream came over and put his little hands over Hob's where he cradled the book.

"My library will have it," Dream promised him, solemn and sure despite his tiny child's voice. "And the library you give it to will take very good care of it."

"Yeah," Hob said, clearing his throat, trying not to think of how many times he'd read and reread these little poems in the second half of 1989, and for years after. They weren't technically brilliant, but they were honest, and real, and they had something in them that Hob had needed. Words for the loss that he couldn't speak of, couldn't acknowledge to anyone else, the loss both abrupt and long-anticipated.

He didn't need this book anymore, but someone else would. Hob set it gently in a donation box, and then turned and wrapped his arms around Dream. "How about we get ribboned up and go to bed, darling. That sound all right to you?"

Dream nodded against his shoulder, and wrapped his arms firmly around Hob's neck. "My Hob," he murmured.

"My—" Hob would have choked on saying love right now, though the word was so heavy on his tongue he couldn't summon another that would mean something less. He swallowed and finished, "Dream."

The days which followed passed much the same as that one, though he and Hob managed to remain almost miraculously unvisited by any of Dream's siblings for more than forty-eight hours in a row.

Dream worked on new pictures in fits and starts—he had an idea of a picture for Delirium, but found when he sat down to it that what he really wanted to do was to draw a picture for Destruction. Delirium had wanted to find him, and Dream knew that if the circumstances had been any different, he would have gone with her. He did not know how they could possibly find the Prodigal if he did not wish to be found, but Dream missed his brother too.

Hob found him weeping over a blank page, a stick of blue in his hand, and sat down beside him, curling an arm around Dream's shoulders. "Shall I put some music on?"

Dream nodded, and the familiar strains began to play. When the album started over again, Dream leaned over the page and began laying down the first swirls of color.

He might not be able to give the picture to his brother, but that didn't mean he couldn't make the thing anyway. The teardrops that fell onto it, he decided, were an artistic feature.

When his hands got tired, Hob asked him if he'd like to watch a movie, or listen to another book. Dream asked for a book immediately; he knew that Hob was technically not an especially gifted performer, but the fact that he was reading to Dream, making the story happen for him and experiencing it with him, made it far superior to simply watching some recordings.

When he sat in Hob's lap as Hob read to him, he could feel the story in Hob's body—not just the breath he used to speak it, but the way he would preemptively tense up and hold Dream tighter whenever anything distressing was about to happen, or the way he would shift a bit, trying to watch Dream's face and the page at once, when something funny or exciting occurred.

This was the way stories were meant to be shared, Dream thought, as Hob embarked on the profanity-laced story of a stranded astronaut. This was how children often did first experience stories—but Dream, though he knew the stories and the dreams that grew from them, had never been held on anyone's lap and read to until now.

He liked it. He had had no notion of how much he could like it, but he did.

At night, they visited the Dreaming. The very first night after they finished Piranesi, Dream took Hob wandering through the halls of the Palace, finding all the windows and discovering what strange sights each one looked out upon. Matthew found them halfway through the night and trailed after them; Hob always put out his arm for Matthew to perch on when they came to an interesting sight, and Dream found that this was an unexpected pleasure, knowing that his friend and his raven got along so well together.

On the nights that followed, they stayed in the library, finding a different cozy nook each night. Some nights Hob would read to him, and some nights they would sit and page through different books, content to be quiet together.

One evening after supper, Dream was in the bath—he had felt rather inspired that day, and as a result had smeared pastel colors in a surprising number of locations on his body. Hob was washing his hair, his hands as big and warm and gentle as always, and then he said, "Oh, hey. I suppose it's been five days, hasn't it? This is starting to come away."

He tugged at something behind Dream's ear, and Dream made a face at the sensation of something peeling away from his skin. It was the bandage Hob had put there, he realized, covering the wound Despair had made, letting all his sadness out.

He did not feel as though his sadness had all gone back to where it had been before, though he supposed this had been a good day, as his days with Hob went. He had only cried twice, and once it had been because they were all out of green grapes, which he considered a very reasonable thing to cry over.

But he had been excited when Hob offered him a mysterious package that arrived in the post, and more excited when it proved to contain bright red wellington boots that would keep his feet dry the next time they went for a walk in the rain. He had tried them on and smiled, and Hob had walked up and down the stairs with him three times while he made certain that they fit well. He had been smiling nearly all the time then, even though he had felt tired when they reached the top of the stairs for the last time. He had liked the feeling of Hob's hand holding his. He had been... content. At least until he wished for grapes.

"Is it all better?" Dream wasn't sure what answer he expected, or wished for, but he felt he did have to ask.

Hob made a dubious noise. "It's healed over, but you can still see the mark. You're on the mend, at least."

And then Hob ducked his head down and pressed a kiss to that spot, behind Dream's ear. The skin was tender for having been covered for so long, and Dream shivered a little at the touch.

"Oh," Hob said. "Ticklish?"

And then he ducked his head further and—did—something—that made his lips buzz against the skin of Dream's shoulder, making a shocking damp noise. Dream couldn't help laughing even as he jerked away from the contact, only to lean toward Hob again immediately, holding out his arm in offering. Hob was smiling, laughing a little himself before he did it again and again and again, making Dream laugh and flail until he splashed Hob so comprehensively that he stopped, sputtering and reaching for a towel to wipe his face.

"Well, that's what I get," Hob said, smiling as he went back to working the shampoo through Dream's hair. "Glad you're feeling a bit better, anyway, love."

"I am," Dream said, and it was even true.

An hour after breakfast on the day after Dream's bandage came off, he was sitting and drawing. Hob suspected that he was getting to the point where he might realize he was tired, or else Hob might need to artfully distract him before he got frustrated with himself. Hob was debating which it was going to be today when there was a knock on the door—not exactly loud, but somehow resonant.

Dream's head jerked up at once, looking toward the sound, so Hob didn't think he had imagined that it wasn't an ordinary knock. He headed for the door, keeping himself between it and Dream; Hob looked back just before flipping the lock, and saw Dream standing in the kitchen, frowning a bit with his head tilted to one side, like he could still hear that knock echoing.

Hob positioned himself so that he could slam the door shut again if he needed to, his whole body braced between the opening and Dream.

He felt a bit silly when he peeked through the crack and saw it was just a kid standing there—old enough that it wasn't shocking to see them on their own, but too young to be very obviously a boy or girl. Then they looked up and he saw their uncanny golden eyes, and a much-too-knowing smile stretching pink lips unadorned with any makeup, and he knew he wasn't being silly at all. His gaze dropped to the heart pendant they wore, already knowing he would see it.

Hob didn't take his eyes off them, but called back over his shoulder to Dream, "It's your sibling. Desire."

Desire grinned, showing beautiful white teeth—adult teeth, looking quite improbably uncrowded in a tween's mouth. "I couldn't let my twin have all the fun."

Dream heaved a sigh audible from where Hob was standing, and said, "You may as well let them in. Or make them go and fetch—"

"Ooh, this lovely bag of produce?" Desire said cheerfully, and Hob was certain that they hadn't had a reusable shopping bag full of fruit a moment before, but they certainly did now. "Grapes and raspberries and—"

Hob had relaxed a little from his brace against the door; he nearly slammed it shut when Dream crashed into the backs of his thighs. "What kind of grapes!"

"Green," Desire said cheerfully, without so much as glancing down at the bag. "Seedless—hmm, some special kind? Candyfloss, it says on the label. Only available seasonally, even in this day and age. They must be very sweet..."

Dream thrust a hand out past Hob, into the narrow gap of the door.

Desire, still looking Hob straight in the eyes, arched an eyebrow.

"If you can swear that you'll do him no harm, however small," Hob said sternly, "then you may come in."

"Oh, I have no interest in derailing whatever this is," Desire said, gesturing up and down to indicate both Hob and Dream's still-reaching hand. "I've been waiting eons for my brother to admit to wanting anything at all."

Dream's hand opened and closed in mute demand.

Hob stood firm, and pointed a finger downward at the cosmic personification of all Desire, who wouldn't come up to his shoulder if he let them get close enough to tell. "Yeah, but you're not about anybody getting what they want, are you? Are you going to show up with nice things and then spoil it all so he can go on wanting?"

Desire laughed, again sounding far too knowing for a child who looked no more than twelve, but they also knelt down and pulled a bag of green grapes—labeled, just as they'd said, Candyfloss—out of the bag. "Here. A gesture of good faith. Go on and eat some, Dreamy—be sure they don't turn to nothing in your mouth."

They got the bag open and brought it to Dream's hand, and Hob reached in and nicked one for himself, just to be sure, while Dream managed to haul out an entire stem full. Hob popped a grape in his mouth and couldn't resist looking down to see Dream cramming three into his mouth at once, his cheeks rounding out as his eyes went wide. He looked up at Hob, and he felt his own face making much the same expression.

The grape really did taste almost unnervingly like candy floss, while also tasting like a grape. Dream had scarcely swallowed before he was ripping more grapes from the stem and cramming them into his mouth, in absolute sugar-fiend mode.

Hob peered out the door again, where Desire was standing up again, holding the bag—the rest of the grapes were visible right on top—and looking confident and amused and still very much like a child, incapable of anything worse than mischief.

"Are you going to actually swear?" Hob asked.

"I swear," Desire said promptly, "by the First Circle, to do my brother no harm this day, directly or indirectly, for his own good or my amusement or any other purpose."

Hob squinted at them for a moment—that sounded like they hadn't left themselves any loopholes, but also like there could be space in it for a loophole and he just hadn't thought of it.

Dream, unhelpfully, was still audibly scoffing down grapes, clearly no more concerned about this sibling visiting than any of the others.

"If you do something to him, something you feel is harmless but, say, educational," Hob said, "will you tell me what it was before you leave?"

"Ooh, yes, if you like," Desire said cheerfully. "Really, though, I have no plans to do anything, except possibly feed him an inadvisable amount of whatever he wants to eat."

Hob sighed. "Been doing some of that myself. All right, then, come on in."

Hob picked up Dream, who was still clutching his half-denuded stem of grapes and eating them as fast as he could rip them free and shove them into his mouth. He headed for the sofa with him, and glanced back to see Desire neatly closing the door and flipping the lock shut behind them, exactly like a responsible child letting themself in after school.

Dream went still when Hob hesitated over where to sit, and Hob looked down to see him—cheeks still distended with grapes, the last of them still clutched in his hand—frowning at the picture he'd been working on. He slowly dragged his gaze up to Hob, and then over to the door to see his sibling coming in.

Dream chewed and swallowed hurriedly, opened his mouth with his brows drawn together, but evidently still didn't know quite what to say. This was the first look he had gotten at the way his sibling looked, which obviously wasn't quite their usual appearance.

It was rather interesting, Hob thought—they hadn't made themself the equal of Dream's current form, but... they had come halfway. They were definitely a child, but still bigger and older and wiser than Dream appeared. It was more than any of the others had done to move toward Dream's present state, and Hob had no idea what it meant.

From the look on his face and the ongoing silence—Desire simply stood just inside the door, looking back at Dream with a mischievous smile—Dream didn't know either.

Desire reached up and wound a finger into their short shock of blond hair. "Could I have a... mm... mocha latte? Do you have that?"

Hob sighed and looked down at Dream again, who looked up at him hopefully. "Yes, and your hot chocolate," he agreed. He had left Dream alone with Despair long enough to make tea, after all, and Desire had promised not to hurt him.

He set Dream down, and headed to the kitchen without letting himself look back, no matter how badly he wanted to.

Dream stood by the coffee table, eyeing his sibling and also resisting the overpowering temptation to eat the rest of the grapes—they were really very good and he had been wanting some even before Desire turned up. Desire came a few steps closer but didn't sit down or speak, obviously waiting for something.

The grumbling sounds of Hob's coffee machine started up, and Desire's smile immediately widened. They hurried over to the other door out of the flat, the one that went down to the Inn's kitchen, unlocked it, and beckoned to Dream with a look of wholly playful naughtiness.

Dream remembered, so forcefully it shook his small body, how it had been when Desire was his favorite sibling, when they played games and had secrets together. Without a single coherent thought, he ran to them, reaching up a hand to hold theirs. They took it, holding tight, and led him through the door and down the stairs to the kitchen.

It was dim and quiet; the Inn was not open for business yet, and it was too early for anyone to even have come in to begin preparations yet. Dream froze on the bottom step, and Desire, who had already taken a step away from the stairs, turned back.

They were still holding his hand, and they did not let go, nor did they force him to follow, though they surely could have. "What is it, Dreamy?"

Dream stuck out one bare foot. "Can't go barefoot in the kitchen. It's a health and safety violation."

Desire cocked their head, considering. Dream could run back up the stairs and get his sandals, but they were by the kitchen door, not this one, and then Hob would see him.

He could commit one very small health and safety violation; Marc was not here and would not know, nor was he likely to be very wroth with a child as young as Dream appeared to be.

Dream bit his lip, looking back over his shoulder, out at the kitchen, considering.

Desire huffed and came closer, kneeling down on the step. "I'm big enough for this, at least. Come on, little big brother. Let me help."

"Oh," Dream said, and wrapped his arms cautiously around Desire's neck, pressing himself against their side so they could get their arms around him.

They stood up and wobbled a little under his unwieldy weight, and snickered at the awkwardness of it all. Dream giggled, hiding his face against their shoulder, which somehow made them stagger again, and they squeezed him tighter and hissed, "Hold still!"

Dream tried, but their unsteady motion made him shift in response, which made them laugh out loud, which made Dream laugh too. Still, when they ran into something it was only the swinging door out into the main room of the Inn, and it gave way easily, making no impact on their unsteady progress.

Desire never fell, nor did their grip on him falter; Dream was holding on tight himself and not properly looking around, but he felt it when they entered a dim, narrow space, and looked up to find that they were behind the bar. The floor here was tiled, and Desire crouched down to set him on his feet again, so that they were both hidden from anyone beyond.

They were both utterly silent for a moment.

Nothing happened.

"Why are we hiding?" Dream whispered.

Desire looked mysterious and said nothing.

"Desire," Dream whispered, "why did we just do that?"

Desire went on looking mysterious for another moment, and then their smile stretched wide, and their shoulders began to shake with silent laughter.

Dream felt himself grinning just as wide. Desire wasn't laughing at him, just as they hadn't done anything to him. They had done it together, running off and hiding—just because it was funny to be hiding, to be where they oughtn't be, where no one knew they were. He started laughing, as much with joy as because it was funny, slumping into Desire with the force of it.

This time Desire did fall, collapsing from their crouch to lie on the tiled floor, and Dream fell with them. The little startling impact of it didn't hurt, really, but there was a moment when—when it could have felt like it hurt, when it could have felt like being hurt, or being let down. But Desire was still laughing, curling an arm around him, and Dream snuggled into them and laughed harder.

Hob did Dream's hot chocolate first, so it would be cool enough for him to drink it sooner; Desire could burn their mouth or not as they chose.

When the grumbling and hissing stopped, something made Hob hesitate with Dream's mug in hand. He set it down gently on the kitchen bench, registering the really complete silence of the rest of the flat. He didn't call out, but walked in quick strides into the living room, where Dream and Desire were missing and the door to the inside staircase was standing ajar.

He walked over to the door and listened, and then he heard, down at the bottom of the stairs, the unmistakable sound of Dream laughing.

Hob leaned his forehead against the doorframe and kept still, letting the distant sound of Dream being happy soak in. He was all right; he was happy.

Hob ached a little to be near him, to be the cause or at least the witness of his happiness, but... he thought of that great black bruise on Dream's heart, and the way it had scarcely budged at all over the days he'd been with Hob. Dream needed more love than one human could give him, needed to mend breaches Hob knew nothing about.

He pushed the door open a bit wider, and then took a seat on the sofa and experienced the very strange sensation of being alone in his flat for the first time in nearly two weeks.

Eventually Dream stopped laughing and sat up, looking down at Desire as they went on laying on the floor. He had never seen them look so young, and it had been a very long time since he had seen them look so purely and simply happy. Despair had looked nearly as happy when he gave her a picture that showed how he understood her function.

Desire was just looking at him.

They pushed up on their elbows as he thought it, looking him up and down more obviously, still seeming wholly pleased with all they saw.

"You are doing just magnificently," Desire said. "Wanting things, and getting them, and realizing what else you can want, and wanting that too. I cannot think when I have been so proud of you, my brother. I had nearly given up."

"I think I..." It was hard to think about, hard and cold and drenched with rain and much bigger than his current self. He curled down as he struggled to remember, wrapping his arms around his knees and wishing for Hob and hot chocolate. But his sibling was here, and they sat up and slung an arm around him, and smiled gently at him when he looked up.

"I think I had," Dream admitted, dropping his gaze and nestling into Desire's side, which was not as soft and comfortable as Hob's but nearly as warm. "Given up. I think... I thought I had. But then I... there is a child, and I saw him in the Dreaming, and I saw the way everyone loves him, and cares for him, and I saw how that shapes him, and I..."

"Wanted," Desire said, and it was not a question.

Dream looked up at them, startled by the implication, and even more startled to realize he had not suspected it at any moment before now. Had not thought of it at all. "You...?"

"I felt it," Desire said, giving him a little squeeze. "What could I do but feel it, when you called so strongly on all that I am? You were an ocean battering at a dam. You wanted it more than you had let yourself want anything in such a very long time. And perhaps I just..." They raised one hand, and made the tiniest motion with one finger, as if laying just the tip of a finger on imaginary scales. "Encouraged you, just the tiniest bit, to really feel how badly you wanted it. No more than that, brother, I promise you. You didn't need much help."

Dream looked up at his sibling's face, and knew that they spoke the truth. He remembered the teetering moment when he had felt that rushing torrent of wanting and still could have turned back, could have pushed it all down and gone on the same as ever. He had always been so certain that he could not change, could not deviate from his path.

Until he did, just because he wanted to badly enough—because he had been aware of how badly he wanted it.

Dream stood up and wrapped his arms around Desire's shoulders, thinking of what it might have been like to stay where he was, cold and alone, his misery flooding the Dreaming, his hopelessness creeping ever further toward the inevitable end.

"You changed everything," he whispered. "My sibling, you have saved me."

"Just you remember that," Desire said, hugging him back. "The next time you get cross."

"I swear it," Dream murmured. "I swear I shall."

Desire made a long thoughtful noise, and a part of Dream was suspicious about how soon they might intend to put that promise to the test, but the greater part of him was feeling utterly weightless with relief. His sibling cared for him, had helped him to do this unspeakably important thing he was doing, had reached out to him before any other.

They had helped him to change, when he had believed he never could, and had still left him free to shape that change for himself, to find the good and bad and strange in it.

"You know, Dream," Desire said. "We're in a bar."

Dream did draw back then, giving his sibling a dubious look. "Yes. You brought us here."

Desire smirked and stood up: they were tall enough to study the bottles on the shelves at the back of the bar. "I mean, we should sample something, while we're here."

Dream searched for a fault to find with this logic, and could not. Marc had always served them anything they asked for in the kitchen, including an ale for Hob. Surely he and his sibling would not be begrudged a little of this or that from behind the bar.

He thought of the grapes, and said, "Is there a Riesling? I think I would like something sweet."

Desire looked down at him for a moment and said, "Are you sure you wouldn't rather—"

Dream huffed and looked for something to climb on. He could read labels perfectly well, if he could see them, and if Desire was somehow going to decide to play the elder sibling now...

"All right, all right, here, let's see—ice wine! That's got to be the very sweetest, right?"

Dream nodded, mollified. Desire picked up the bottle and set it on the bar, then climbed up onto the bar to reach the glasses above it. Dream mutely held his arms up to be lifted after them, and had to wait until they had chosen glasses and set them down before they spotted him.

They huffed, but climbed back down and boosted him up to perch on the wooden bar, then hoisted themself back up. "You could say when you want something, you know. I mean, I know nonverbal signs are a big improvement, I'm proud of you, but it's more efficient sometimes to just say."

"Hob," Dream said, and then stopped short, knowing that he didn't want to finish that statement though he didn't quite know why, or what would be better.

"Oh, yes, none of us can compete with Hob," Desire said, but they did not sound very sincerely annoyed by it. Dream blushed anyway, without really knowing why.

Desire saw, and smiled wider, showing teeth. "Oh, Hob," they repeated, and finally opened the bottle and poured the pale gold wine into two lovely stemmed glasses. "Come, brother, you can't be so passionately devoted to a human without coming in for a little commentary."

Dream felt as if that were inarguably true and as if he wanted to argue anyway, but... he was missing something from this conversation, and didn't quite know what. He picked up his glass, wrapping both hands around the bowl of it—though it was a small glass, suitable for a dessert wine—and took a long drink from it to cover his confusion.

For the barest instant, the honeyed taste he expected flowed across his tongue, but it was almost immediately drowned out by a foul, rotten flavor that filled his mouth and made him gag, spewing the horrible stuff out all over the bar—and Desire.

His sibling was frozen for a moment, their own untouched wine glass still in their hand, as the liquid dripped from their hair and face.

Dream opened his mouth to apologize. He had ruined everything, they had been getting along and he had ruined it, he could feel tears threatening and knew that crying would only annoy Desire more, but he couldn't find the words to make it right.

Then, incredibly, they smiled, and then began to laugh.

Dream began to laugh too, but nearly choked on the lingering awful flavor of the wine. He spat again, away from Desire this time, trying to clear it from his mouth and hoping his sibling would laugh more.

They did, but they also said, "Here, baby brother, here, I think you've given yourself a more unrefined palate than you're used to in this form. A cocktail is probably in order."

They offered him a glass—something they must have drawn from their power to create, for he hadn't seen them pull anything from the bar. The contents of the glass were deep red at the bottom, fading to pink at the top, where fizzy bubbles were escaping and a single bright red maraschino cherry floated alongside the white-and-red striped straw.

Dream took the glass, and Desire waved a hand at themself, doing away with the mess as well as both wine glasses; they now held an identical glass to Dream's, and sipped from it with every sign of enjoyment.

Dream took a cautious sip of his own, and found that though the fizz tickled his nose from the inside, the drink was pleasantly sweet, with a little sharp pomegranate flavor cutting through. It was just right to scour the awful taste of that wine—surely the bottle had gone off?—from his mouth.

"Thank you, my sibling. That is very nice."

Desire grinned. "Just what you wanted?"

Dream smiled back and then ducked his head, kicking his bare feet as they dangled off his perch on the bar. "Just what I wanted." He glanced up at the rows of bottles and said, "Do you think a different wine..."

Desire laughed so hard they landed sprawled out on the bar, and they utterly refused to fetch down another bottle and try again, but Dream didn't really mind. He liked the drink Desire had made for him.

When Desire finally stopped laughing, they started telling him a story about a mortal child, around the same age Desire looked now, who had been just as determined as Dream to partake of some forbidden wine. It was just the same story that had played out billions of times before with billions of children, but Desire made it new and wonderful and wickedly funny, painting the child's desires and dreams in vivid detail—and the way reality diverged from them just as sharply.

Halfway through the story Dream had to set down his lovely fizzy red drink so he wouldn't spill it everywhere; he was laughing too hard to be sure of his grip. Shortly after that, he nearly fell right off the bar, but Desire caught him safely, and kept a hand on his shoulder to steady him while they finished telling the story.

When they finished, Dream found himself talking eagerly, easily, telling Desire about the things he had wanted and gotten in his sojourn here in the Waking world.

He only noticed how much he was talking about Hob when he saw Desire smirking down at him, but the smirk was fond, and they didn't actually laugh, or even interrupt him to make more pointed remarks. The longer they let him talk, the more he relaxed, and the easier it was to keep talking.

Dream was starting to be aware of being hungry—he had eaten the cherry from his drink, and was thinking of inviting Desire to come back upstairs for lunch—when Desire's hand tightened on his shoulder. Dream stopped short, and then he heard it too.

Someone was moving about in the kitchen. The Inn would be opening soon, and their hiding place would no longer be hidden at all.

Dream's eyes went wide, looking up at his sibling. He had been certain they hadn't done anything wrong—not really wrong—but he was not so sure when he thought of Marc or Irene walking in and finding them sprawling on top of the bar.

"Shall I get us out of here?" Desire asked, their voice and smile nothing but warm.

Dream remembered that they liked him to say things, so he said, "Yes, please," as he held up his hands.

They smiled wide, showing their teeth, and took his hands in a firm grip, giving him a sharp little tug that tumbled them both into nowhere.

Chapter 19

Hob got off the couch when he heard the sounds of the kitchen opening up downstairs, figuring he might need to run a bit of interference for Dream and Desire. He hadn't heard any sounds that seemed like them making a mess—just the occasional faint burst of Dream's laughter, once in a while the rise of enthusiastic young voices—but better safe than sorry if Desire got offended by Marc or a hapless dishwasher.

There was no sign of anything out of the ordinary in the kitchen, though. Hob went through into the taproom, just in time to see Colin, who must have the early bartending shift, frowning at a bottle of ice wine before tucking it back onto the shelf behind the bar. Everything else was silent and still.

Fuck.

Hob ran back up to the flat, racking his brain for what to do next.

Dream cried out in instinctive dismay at finding himself in the void between worlds, but at the same instant he realized his hands were still held tightly in his sibling's grip. He could not see them, but he could feel them. He was not alone.

"Shh, Dreamy," Desire said. "You're safe with me, and in just a moment we'll step out the other side, back in Hob's flat, right where you want to be."

That was all right, then. Dream gripped tightly to Desire's hands and said, "Why did we stop, then?"

"Just a word in your ear," Desire said. "Here where you don't quite have ears as such—where you are not quite so firmly planted in that adorable little child's body you made for yourself, because I think it is making you forget, a little, that there are other kinds of desire that you left out of yourself when you made yourself so small. You're doing a wonderful job wanting and having, my dear darling brother, but there is still more to want and more to have, if you would let yourself be just a little bigger than this."

Here, in the Between, he understood readily what Desire meant: he had placed himself in a body too young for sexual urges, for the vast and complicated romantic feelings he had been consumed by more than once before.

He had, perhaps, done it on purpose, as much as he had done any of this on purpose. He had been mourning the demise of his relationship with Thessaly, after all, and that had been a part of what he envied in Daniel Hall's existence. Love that could be simple; desires that could be straightforward and harmless.

He understood, too, why Desire had been smirking at him that way while he talked about Hob, and why they had not articulated their amusement to his small self in the material world. They had been kind enough not to draw attention to what Dream had made himself able to forget.

"You think Hob would..."

"Oh," Desire said firmly, pressing so close that even in this in-between space where their bodies did not quite exist, he could feel the warmth of their breath on his ear. "My sweet brother, I know."

They would know, if anyone would; desires were their domain.

Dream shuddered, feeling himself shift between forms, feeling this small part of himself come near to dissolving altogether in this confused moment of wanting and not-wanting. "Desire, please—"

And then Dream blinked, because he could blink, and looked up to see that he was held, not in Desire's hands, but in Hob's familiar arms.

Hob was standing at the top of the kitchen stair, the open door to his flat before him, looking down at Dream with as much bewilderment as Dream felt.

"Well," Hob said, "that's one way to sort out not being able to find you. But where's—"

"Right here!" Desire called, and Hob looked immediately more exasperated than confused, and carried Dream into the flat and thence into the kitchen, where Desire was perched on the bench beside the coffee machine, holding a pod and pouting theatrically. "You promised me a mocha latte, and you never made it."

Hob shifted his grip on Dream and strode over to pluck the pod from Desire's fingers, putting it briskly into the machine and snapping it shut. "I seem to recall you promised a thing or two yourself, Desire of the Endless."

"So I did!" Desire agreed. "I did let Dream try ice wine, which I can't think did him any harm, given he spat it out all over me—"

"Sibling," Dream hissed, and Hob and Desire turned oddly identical fond looks in his direction.

"You did say you would remember, the next time you were cross," Desire said, wagging a finger at him. "And," they refocused on Hob, "then I gave him a Shirley Temple instead. And then we popped into the Between just for a moment between downstairs and up here, so that I could point out to him that as lovely a time as he's been having in his current form—"

"Desire," Dream snapped, but of course they did not heed him.

"There are probably other things he could have even more fun with if he decided to be full-sized. I did tell him I thought you would be amenable," they added, smiling extra wide. "Can't help being aware, you know how it is."

"I don't, actually," Hob said, but he sounded a little choked, and his cheeks had gone very red.

Dream put a hand to one, frowning. He knew what Desire was talking about—they had just told him. Sex, and love-love, and all of that. He had managed to forget for an entire fortnight how important such things could be; now he remembered, but in the same way that he remembered that the drink Desire had given him was called a Shirley Temple. It was simply a fact, and one that didn't feel very important when he was cuddled in Hob's arms where he belonged.

Hob was staring up at the ceiling, though, and his cheeks were very red.

Hob looked down at him, and then he said, in careful tones, "Dream, sweetheart, do you mind just staying here with your sibling a bit?"

Dream narrowed his eyes. "Do you need to go in the other room and scream?"

Hob nodded.

Dream suspected that this was a reasonable reaction, even if he mostly felt bereft in advance at the thought of Hob's absence—but then Hob would return, which would almost be worth it. He nodded back at Hob.

Hob kissed his forehead and then sat him on the kitchen bench, picking up a mug and popping it into the microwave before Dream could even realize what it was.

"This is for him," Hob said, looking only at the microwave. "Shouldn't be too hot to drink once it's done, so you get it down for him, yeah?"

"Yeah," Desire said, almost gently, before Hob turned on his heel and strode out. They drummed their fingernails in the quiet that followed, a sharp staccato that broke through the gurgling of the coffee machine and the hum of the microwave.

Dream sprawled out on his belly on the kitchen bench, and reached for Desire's hand, and the lovely smooth red of their lacquered nails.

"Do you like them?" Desire said, sounding amused again.

Dream nodded without looking up, tilting Desire's hand back and forth to study the shine of the perfect red.

"Do you want me to do yours?" Desire asked.

Dream looked up at his sibling with wide, hopeful eyes.

Hob made it to the study, found the pillow, and then his knees went wobbly and he was sitting on the floor staring at it, thinking of Dream pressing it to his face, laughing, pressing his little hands to Hob's mouth and giggling his bizarre rusty laugh.

He had looked faintly annoyed at his sibling's revelation, but he hadn't... he hadn't reacted to it, not like Hob had. Dream had heard the same thing Hob heard, but... he had heard it like a little kid, no matter how much of Hob's friend was in there. It didn't mean anything to him right now, that was obvious.

That wasn't new, really. Hob had had a suspicion for hundreds of years that his stranger didn't really take that kind of interest in humans—or at least, not in Hob. There had been that moment in 1789, that lingering look, but his stranger had shut that down in the next second. Hob had figured the look meant something else, something uncanny and unknowable, and his silly crush was not much different from imagining himself fucking any other impossible idol.

Desire hadn't, technically, told Hob that Dream was interested, or could be when he was built to be interested in anyone at all. But they'd bothered to tell Dream that Hob was interested, which strongly suggested that that was relevant information.

Desire couldn't help being aware, after all. Apparently.

Hob pressed the pillow to his forehead and let out the noise lurking behind his gritted teeth, which was a sort of growling groan that choked off toward the end, the tension unspent.

Dream might—they could—he—if—

Hob had wanted for so long while believing it was all impossible, and now—

Now it was still impossible, clearly, because Dream had chosen to spend some time being more or less a child.

And now it was more possible than it might ever have been, because Dream had chosen to trust Hob with himself in this form, because they exchanged words of love and reassurance daily, had promised each other forever in one way and another. With all of that, Hob couldn't begin to imagine that Dream would get his adult libido back and want anything trivial.

Would he? Or would it all be different when he was big again? Would he want Hob to be his... his dad friend while Dream looked for love elsewhere?

Hob managed to laugh at himself, then, sort of—more laughing than crying, in that muffled howl, though undeniably some of each.

He didn't know anything, really, that he hadn't known before. His friend both was a child and wasn't a child; his friend would return to his old form at some point, and things between them would be inevitably changed, and there was no knowing exactly how. And in the meantime, they had this time together, which was precious and necessary, and he would shower upon Dream all the love that was suited to this child's form.

Whatever came next, he would find out when it came. He was lucky to have Dream here with him, lucky to be a part of Dream taking this time to learn to be loved. He couldn't ask for more than that.

Well, he could, because he had always been greedy, always wanted more and more and more of any good thing, but he did know that there were limits. He didn't want anything that Dream didn't want, or wasn't ready for, or wasn't in the mood for right now. He couldn't look at Dream, small as he was, and want more from him, things that would confuse or distress him to be asked for.

If it was possible, later—if Desire thought that that kind of love was part of what Dream needed to be whole—well, his sibling had told Dream what they needed to tell him. Hob only knew about it because he'd tried to be clever at the door, trying to protect them both against a being he should know better than to try to extract promises from. This awkward awareness was his just reward for that.

He pressed the pillow to his face and tried a few more screams, just to be sure he'd gotten them out. By the last he just felt tired, and that was as good a place to land as any; he set the pillow down and went back out to see what Dream and Desire had gotten up to in the meantime.

They were still in the kitchen, both still sitting on the bench, Desire sipping from their mocha, Dream from his hot chocolate—and now Dream's fingernails were painted, a shiny and perfect black to match his sibling's red. Hob smiled, and it was easy to smile at Dream when Dream was here in front of him, with his nails freshly done up and his eyes all wide and hopeful.

"Looks gorgeous, love," Hob said, coming over to get a better look.

Dream smiled up at him and turned his hand so Hob could see his thumbnail, which was adorned with a red tongue of flame, matching today's overalls, which Hob suspected were Dream's favorites even though he never actually stated a preference for one garment over another.

"Perfect," Hob agreed, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "Very you, my joy."

Dream leaned forward and nodded into Hob's chest, and Hob gathered him up and hugged him close, mug and all.

"Well!" Desire said brightly. "I believe my work here is done. Do explore the rest of the groceries, Dream, we never got as far as the apricots and peaches. You'll love those."

Dream picked his head up enough to say, "Thank you, my sibling."

Hob made himself look over again, to see the cheerfully naughty kid hop down from his kitchen bench, blow him a child's play-flirtatious kiss, and saunter to the door, letting themself out without a backward glance.

After a moment, Hob managed to go over and turn the lock behind them, the click of it loud in the flat, which felt calmer and quieter—but otherwise not really noticeably different—for their absence. It could have been much worse, Hob realized. They could have done what Delirium or Despair did, could have made Dream—or Hob himself—want more than what they had now. They could have made this a real mess, an utter nightmare, and they hadn't.

Hob looked down at Dream. "That went well, didn't it?"

Dream ducked his head and squirmed so that he could sip more hot chocolate, though Hob could see the mug was nearly empty, mostly a prop now. Hob carried him to the kitchen table and sat down, settling Dream on his lap so he could see him a little more easily.

Dream set the mug on the table and then spread his hands on the edge, admiring his shiny black nails and the little symmetrical flames on his thumbs. "I don't..."

Hob curled both arms around Dream's middle, holding him securely, and didn't push for more.

"I don't feel it," he said finally. "What they said. I know, but... It is a story. Not me, not as I am now. Apparently I cannot even drink wine like this. It tasted awful."

Hob pressed a kiss to Dream's hair and nodded. "Makes sense. You made yourself this way for a reason—you needed a break from your work, and a break from other things, too. Matthew mentioned you were... pretty broken up, before all this."

Dream tilted his head, and Hob straightened up enough to see the pensive little look on his face. "Yes. Thessaly—the Thessalian. A human—immortal, like you, though—not the way that you are, because of my sister's gift freely given. Thessaly is a witch—a seeker after power. She has found a great deal of it, over three thousand years, but she is not satisfied."

Hob nodded slowly. He didn't think he'd ever met this Thessaly—not to know, if he had—but he understood the general type.

"You would never have been like that, I do not think," Dream went on, frowning now at his thumbnails.

"No," Hob agreed. "I always wanted to live, but I wasn't looking for anyone to tell me how to make it happen. I just believed I could, and got bloody lucky. If I hadn't," Hob shrugged. "Don't suppose I would have known the difference, when it came to it. One less silly braggart in the world, and me off to another adventure, finding out what comes next."

Dream nodded. "You wanted—want—to live because you take joy in your life as it is; if you had to give that up in order to live, it would seem pointless to you. Thessaly... has not the knack for joy, I think. I admired her—she stood up to me—and I wished to be in love, and she wished to be loved, but ultimately... she had her own interests to pursue, and we did not know how to..." Dream waved his hands. "To stay. To last."

Hob gave him a squeeze. "That's hard," Hob agreed, rather than pointing out that Dream hadn't said anything that indicated that this power-seeking witch had liked him at all, as a person, or that he'd liked her for anything other than being difficult. He'd known for well over six hundred years now how not to criticize a friend's romantic choices, no matter how transparently disastrous they seemed to be from the outside.

"My former wife," Dream said, and Hob's whole body locked up for a moment.

Dream stayed silent until Hob had taken a couple of careful breaths and unclenched a bit. "Didn't work out either?" Hob asked.

"No," Dream said. "In the end I suppose it was the same. She was powerful—a muse—Calliope, she is the muse of stories, you see, so we were well matched. And she always had her own work, her own domain. We were together for... some decades. We did take joy in each other, in shared creation, in... other things. But we could not last. We never lived together. I think we were both always trying to... put off the time when we would be finished with each other. And then she didn't want to put it off anymore."

"I'm sorry about that," Hob said, because that did sound like a pretty good relationship, and a run of a few decades would probably have been enough to see them through their whole lives, if they had been human. Immortality made till death do us part a much higher bar.

Dream looked up at Hob. "I... do not want to be finished with you. I do not want you to be finished with me. Not ever."

"Well, you've only known me six hundred years," Hob said, blinking back the stinging in his eyes, the clench in his heart. We could, he might, maybe... "Give it another thousand or two, you might want a bit of space—or I might! Two thousand years, I'll probably be able to catch a spaceship and go see some new sights, hey?"

"But anywhere you went, you could still come to the Dreaming when you sleep," Dream offered. "You could tell me about it."

"I could," Hob agreed. "And I'd have to get a spaceship cabin where I could keep your picture on the wall. I did make a promise."

Dream smiled up at him, showing all his little white baby teeth, and then looked around the kitchen and said, "Is it time for lunch now? Can we watch The Princess Bride after?"

There was cleanup to do in between lunch and The Princess Bride—they had dug the peaches out of Desire's shopping bag, and by the time they'd finished lunch Dream was sticky up to the elbows and across half his face.

Hob sat him by the kitchen sink to wash him up, and he realized as he did that Dream's cheeks had rounded out noticeably since he'd arrived. Hob hadn't noticed it happening, but the curves of them were properly convex now; he even had a soft little pudgy bit under his chin, which also needed washing.

Hob gave him a towel to dry his hands and face, which Dream did with the same meticulous care as he dried dishes and utensils; when he was finished Hob ran a hand over his hair—unruly as ever but clean and shiny. "You're starting to look as if you've got someone looking after you."

Dream looked up at him thoughtfully for a moment, patting his face with a corner of the towel as if he was trying to feel what change Hob had noticed. "I'm glad," Dream said finally. "That it shows."

Hob pressed a kiss to his forehead and then started on the dishes.

They sat side-by-side on the couch to watch the movie, Dream cuddling into his side with Hob's arm draped over him. He rested heavily against him, but his eyes stayed fixed on the screen from start to finish—the first time, Hob realized, that he had really seen the movie all the way through when he could make sense of it.

And it was obvious that he was focused very intently on making sense of it: a story about stories, a story about true love. It was no surprise that he had wanted to see it again, in light of whatever his sibling had told him.

Sure enough, when the movie ended, Dream was still frowning intently. He looked up at Hob and said, "It wasn't just Westley and Buttercup."

"No," Hob agreed.

"Who loved each other," Dream elaborated, still frowning. "Inigo loved his father. The grandfather loved his grandson, and the grandson loved his grandfather. Count Rugen..." Dream's nose wrinkled, and Hob smiled.

Dream focused on him again. "Which do you like best? Which one would you want?"

"Oh, well," Hob said, torn between knowing with perfect certainty his answer to that question, and needing to say what Dream needed to hear. "I think... for humans, at least, it's never good for us to have only one kind of love, or one person to love. We need to be loved like the grandson is loved when we're small, so we can learn to love people like his grandfather loves him. And we need friends—"

"Like Inigo needed Fezzik," Dream put in. "And Westley needed both of them."

Hob smiled. "Just so. And for me, I need that Westley-and-Buttercup kind of love, too, but, I mean—" Hob waved a hand. "We hardly get to see it in the movie, really. They have all these big feelings about each other, but they don't really get to know each other, or find out what all those big feelings amount to, when they're trying to go on with their lives together. They will, I'm sure, but... no, if I had to choose one kind of love from the movie to have for mine?"

Dream straightened up a little, watching intently, and Hob was aware that his answer mattered, not just because he might be able to tell Dream something about how the world and love worked, but because it mattered to Dream how Hob wanted to be loved.

"Miracle Max and Valerie," Hob said firmly. "Any day of the week."

Dream's lips parted, his frown deepening; he looked back to the now-blank screen of the TV like it might tell him something.

"Shallow little creature," Hob said, ruffling Dream's hair. "You didn't even look at them, did you? They're old, they're ugly—but they got that way together, staying together. They helped with each other's work, but even when Max couldn't do miracles anymore, she stayed with him. When the chance came along, she got him to try again, even though he was scared, and she helped him to do it, and she stood beside him through all of it. And the heroes go off to storm the castle, and Max and Valerie are there in their home, together, watching them go."

"They... shouted at each other," Dream said slowly. "But... even when she called him a liar, she..."

"She was helping him," Hob agreed. "She was making him face what he didn't want to face. She didn't just throw up her hands and walk away; she made him listen. She stayed. All that time he was too scared to try, she had stayed with him."

Dream looked up at Hob again, and Hob did his best to smile, and knew it wasn't much of one. "That's what I can't have," Hob said. "Can't grow old with anyone—can't grow old at all, but I can't stay with them while they grow old, either. Can't stay in one place, with one person, more than twenty years or so. But if I could, if there was someone..." He shrugged. "That's what I'd choose. No question."

"Hm," Dream said, and then slid off the couch and went to the coffee table to pull out his pastels and sketchbook.

Hob sat for a while, just watching him, just basking in the fact of Dream, present with him and safe and visibly thinking very hard, but happy enough for all that. Then he got up to make tea and hot chocolate before he got back to work on the books in the study.

When he entered the Dreaming that night, Dream found himself in his private quarters in the palace for the first time since the first night he had spent with Hob. He was not under the bed this time, but perched on the edge of it. He had the red ribbon tying him to Hob, promising that Hob would join him before too long, but for now he was alone.

He was still in his small form, wearing black pajamas spangled with white stars. He had had the whole day, more or less, to consider what Desire had told him, and what Hob had said, and what it could mean.

Just a little bigger than this, Desire had said. They had not meant incrementally so—as big as they were in the Waking when they visited him, for instance. They had meant that he would need to be adult in form—but though it would resemble the form he normally wore, such a form could still be smaller in the essentials. He could still leave most of Dream of the Endless there under the bed.

That, too, could be a part of this sojourn, this quest, this way of learning what he was missing.

But it would change things. To Hob's eyes he would be much as he had ever been; Hob would be bound to treat him differently. Some of those differences might be, as it were, desirable, but...

Dream had spent a good part of the afternoon tucked under Hob's arm, and much of the evening resting against his chest as Hob read to him—the stranded astronaut's travails continuing—and... he liked that. He still felt hungry for more of that, greedy for it. He was not done being small.

But he was curious about being big, and... this was what the Dreaming was for, was it not? For possibilities, for exploration, for the space to make choices that need not last beyond waking.

It had never been that for him, but it could be, this once. He could grant himself such a space.

Dream hopped down off the bed and reached into the mass of darkness under it, sifting his fingers through it, tugging at the parts of himself he needed for this, leaving behind what would only weigh him down.

He straightened up, and up, into a shape—a height—that felt unaccustomed after his sojourn as his smallest self. He stretched each long, slender limb, noting that the ribbon was still in place, having smoothly adjusted to his thicker wrist. His pajamas had also adjusted, changing into a plain black t-shirt and black joggers.

Dream wrinkled his nose, looking down at his attire, and considered his options. He had more elaborate raiment, of course, but that was... bigger than this, suited to his greatest self—to the king in his kingdom, a being vaster and more ancient than any god.

As this fraction of himself, Dream was certain that joggers and t-shirt were correct, as his bare feet were correct, but... boring, as the clothes he normally wore in the Waking world were boring. Elegant and fashionable, of course, but... boring. Dream traced a fingertip in a swirling pattern down the front of his shirt, leaving an asymmetrical scattering of white stars down the front of his shirt. He shook each foot in turn, and small stars winked into view at each ankle.

He spread his hands, marveling at their reach, and noted that Desire's manicure had stayed in place, his nails glossy and black with red flames flickering on his thumbs. He breathed over his fingernails, adding the iridescent sheen of a raven's wing to the nails that did not show a flame.

There. That was better.

The dancing flames on his thumbs echoed the red of the ribbon around his wrist; Dream curled a hand around the ribbon and followed it out to his balcony.

He stopped short when he reached the railing, the view entirely failing to register as memory flooded in. He had not forgotten, not really, but the force and weight of the memory now was such that he could not overlook it. He had indeed brought back more of himself than just his height and reach.

He had stood here in the rain two weeks ago, mourning the end of his love affair with Thessaly. He had felt utterly desolate in the wake of her rejection, unspeakably alone, wholly bereft. Rain had poured down all over the Dreaming, giving form to his misery.

Tears came to his eyes now at the memory of how he had felt then, unable to even imagine being comforted, unable to fathom that he could ever recover from the blow.

He had not wept then. The skies of the Dreaming had wept for him, but his most complete self was far too controlled to weep.

And yet, what was it that he had mourned? Thessaly had not been kind to him, had called him by no names of love that were not at least half ironic. She had liked words that made a pet of him, that showed he was under her sway. He had not been her joy, had not been dear to her, though she had reveled in his power and his attention. He had showed off his realm to her, but she had shown him almost nothing of her own life in turn, had never shared with him the things that she liked best in the hopes that he would like them too.

She had certainly never been his friend.

He did not think, on reflection, that she had even liked him.

And still, he had mourned. He had grieved the loss of a chance, a possibility. A hope. A love he had never had from Thessaly, and probably could never have had.

It was nothing like the way he would mourn if Hob—

He could not even think of it; tears blurred his eyes and clouds gathered overhead at just the passing glimmer of the thought.

Dream tightened his grip on the red ribbon and jumped over the balcony's railing where it trailed down, following it into the garden below. The red ribbon led him through one path after another, and he was reeling it in, hand over hand, walking in longer and longer strides and then running in leaping bounds, giddy with eagerness to see Hob again with these new eyes.

He came around a corner and found Hob standing in a bower of roses. He was facing away from Dream—just by the tilt of his head and the set of his shoulders, Dream could see that he was fascinated by the profusion of flowers and tangle of vines around him—and Dream felt his heart leap in his chest and knew that Desire had been right.

He had not known what he was missing. He had not known he could love Hob like this, too.

He tugged at the ribbon that joined his wrist to Hob's, and rushed forward as Hob began to turn toward him.

Chapter 20

Hob opened his eyes in a dream—in the Dreaming—and he could feel that particular clarity that meant Dream was somewhere near. He knew he would remember this dream as clearly as he did any waking moment. He was face to face with an absolute wall of roses—all of them red, ranging from so dark a burgundy it was nearly black to vivid pure ruby reds and every shade in between. Some were just barely opened, many of them were fully blown, but Hob couldn't spot a single one still closed in the bud.

The smell of them was all he could breathe, and the blooms grew out of an impassable tangle of vines with no visible thorns.

Dream had been asleep for an hour or so now; Hob had a feeling he could see what his friend had decided to try, but he stood and studied the roses—the red, red roses—and told himself firmly not to make assumptions.

That lasted until he felt a sharp tug on the ribbon around his wrist. He followed the pull instantly, turning to see Dream running to him, beaming so widely that Hob could take in nothing but that absolutely luminous smile, and returned it with all his heart.

Dream stopped short, close enough to touch but not reaching out. His smile persisted as he looked Hob up and down, so frankly and unselfconsciously that he might have been no older than his small self appeared to be.

He looked, at the outside, maybe twenty years older—a man grown, but still a world away from the ancient bearing of Hob's familiar stranger. His cheeks and chin retained a bit of his newly-well-fed softness, and his porcelain skin was that of a youth who could not yet grow a proper beard.

But it was his eyes and his smile, bright and easy and eager, that truly made him look young—that and the way Hob found himself looking ever so slightly down to meet Dream's eyes. His stranger had always been just his own height, or a bit taller.

"Hob," Dream said, and he sounded like himself, except that Hob had never heard his stranger sound so cheerfully enthusiastic. "Hob, I want you."

"You have me, love," Hob said, because he couldn't say anything else—and then he couldn't say anything at all, because Dream was plastered against him, kissing him with puppyish fervor and about as much expertise.

Hob wrapped his arms around Dream's slim form—solid and strong, absolutely a man's body, but the way Dream leaned into him without reservation, barely leaving his feet on the ground, still set off every protective instinct Hob had. He kissed back, of course; Dream was irresistible and Hob wasn't even tempted to try.

Not, at least, until Dream slipped his fingers into the waistband of the joggers Hob had fallen asleep in. The feeling of Dream's fingers on hidden skin was, on the one hand, shockingly and wonderfully erotic, and on the other hand, made it obvious that they were Going Places.

Hob needed to ask one or two questions before they got there.

"Wait," Hob gasped against Dream's lips, and Dream jerked back immediately, looking so calmly curious about what they were waiting for that Hob had to kiss him just a little more. He pressed soft, lingering kisses to Dream's mouth that hopefully made his love and his attraction clear. Each one left Dream leaning in after it so that Hob just had to give him another.

Hob felt the roses at his back and realized he'd all but collapsed against them, Dream still pushing in against him every time he drew back. Hob closed his eyes and laughed, and forced himself to get a firm grip on Dream's shoulders, shifting him back a pace.

When he opened his eyes Dream was smiling, but now he did look uncertain.

"You have me," Hob repeated. "I'm yours, darling, in any way you want. I just—I just need to know what it is you want, and... what this is."

Dream blinked those wide blue eyes at him, his smile slowly returning, his lips now kiss-reddened and wet. "I want you, Hob. I want you to be my lover, and I want to love you that way—like Westley and Buttercup. Like Miracle Max and Valerie, I hope, when we've been at it a hundred years or so. And also I would very much like for us to fuck."

Hob choked a bit at that last, earning a coquette's smile from Dream, who was obviously pleased with that reaction.

Still, there was a bright openness even in that playfully coy reaction that made it clear that Dream wasn't really doing this on purpose. He hadn't very specifically chosen to look this young and unspoiled for the joy of shocking Hob; he had started from the version of himself he had been with Hob for weeks now, and added just enough to be ready to kiss Hob in a bed of roses, and this smiling, confident youth was the result.

"I'd like all of that too," Hob finally managed to say. "I just need to know... Dream, I went to bed a little while ago in the Waking, and my body is still there, right?"

Watching Dream visibly shift gears from "cheerfully horny" to "focused on his work" was almost painfully endearing, when Hob was already so desperately in love. "Yes. Bringing you here physically would be a much more involved undertaking, and... not good for you, if you were to spend much time here. You could, sometime, if you would like, but—"

Hob nodded quickly. "But right now, I'm back in my bed in London. But the thing is..." Hob raised his left hand and tugged at the ribbon—just a foot or two long, here—that connected them. "When I went to bed, the physical version of this was tying me to the physical version of you, who was still quite small."

Something closed off in Dream's eyes; he eased back from Hob, just an inch or two.

"And that's fine," Hob said firmly. "I don't mind one bit if you're big here and small there, or vice versa, or whatever you need to be. I just need to know that what we do here stays here and doesn't affect me there, if you're not the same in both places."

Dream's head tilted and eyes narrowed, thinking it through. "My small self is not a child, Hob. I will remember this, whatever shape I wear tomorrow."

Hob nodded. "I know that. I don't pretend to entirely understand it, but I know. But I also know that when you're smaller you don't understand or want what we're hopefully about to spend the rest of the night doing—"

That brought an eager glint back into Dream's eyes, and a little smirk to his lips that Hob wanted to kiss away immediately. He forced himself to focus.

"You can just put it down to a silly human thing if you like," Hob went on. "But please, Dream, my dearest darling love, can you make sure that I absolutely cannot come in my pants while I'm sleeping next to the version of you that looks three years old?"

Dream's smirk turned fond, willing to indulge Hob's limited human understanding. "If you require it, of course."

Dream's expression turned abstracted; he raised a hand and seemed to twiddle at nothing, as though he was looking for a switch to flip or setting to adjust. Finally his gaze settled on Hob again, his expression gone sheepish, and he said, "I think I left that part under the bed. Come with me, I'll fix it."

He took Hob's hand and tugged, turning to run back the way he had come, and Hob followed without question, even as he was wondering what exactly I left that part under the bed was supposed to mean.

Dream was enough of himself to make the distance from the rose bower to his private rooms a matter of just a few strides; he only let go of Hob's hand when he dropped to his knees beside the bed, reaching into the mass of darkness there to find what he needed. He made the necessary adjustment to the connection between Hob's Waking and Dreaming selves, and even remembered to make the change temporary—after this night's dreaming, Hob's body and his dreams would connect in the usual way.

When he had done that, he turned back to Hob, only to find that Hob had knelt down beside him, and was peering into the darkness under the bed.

Dream felt suddenly, breathtakingly exposed.

Of course Hob knew, by now, that Dream had done this on purpose, leaving so much of himself behind to be something smaller, but... now Hob could see it. Seeing was always different from knowing for humans like him. And if what Hob really liked, or respected, or was interested in, was that greater part of himself, the part that was far older and more powerful...

Hob looked over at him, seeming to ask some silent question. Dream had no idea what it was or how to respond to it, and after a moment Hob gave a little nod and lowered himself even closer to the floor. He reached one hand right into the darkness as he said, "Ah, there you are—there the rest of you is, I mean, my friend. I hope that this part of you is having a restful break as well."

Dream stared, stunned and baffled and helplessly in love, as Hob petted the mass of inchoate darkness that represented the greatest and most ancient parts of Dream of the Endless. Dream could feel it, distantly, for those parts of himself he had set aside were still, after all, him. He could feel that that part of himself, vast as it was, was even more baffled than the rest of him to receive Hob's concern and affection.

But every part of him was hungry for it.

As Dream watched, the darkness took shape under Hob's gentling hand, becoming the mantle that it had first been when Dream changed and set it aside, and then a long black coat with a starry lining. When Hob huffed a soft laugh and gave another lingering stroke to the nearest sleeve, the coat folded itself up with the distinct air of a cat curling up for a nap in a sunbeam, well pleased with itself and the world.

Dream felt that too, far off as it was: a restless, hungry part of himself was soothed as it had not been for a very long time.

"Good," Hob murmured to it. "I'm glad. You deserve a break too, you know."

One sleeve-end emerged from the neat fold to flip dismissively, and Hob laughed properly then, drawing back to sit on his heels and look over at Dream with an expression of such warmth—for him, just him, small and simple as he was!—that Dream could scarcely breathe.

"Well," Hob said. "That's us told. Now, should we pick up where we left off outside? Or would you like to—"

Dream could not find the words, but he could fling himself bodily at Hob, knocking him to the floor with another frantic kiss. There was a rug under them now, though Dream was sure he had knelt down on bare marble. The rug was deep black and plush and prevented Hob from banging his head when Dream tackled him, so that was just as well.

Kissing Hob was amazing, and as necessary as breathing, and only made him want more. Dream writhed on top of Hob, rubbing as much of himself against Hob as he could, until it occurred to him that it would feel better without his clothes in the way; he made his pajamas vanish, then whined in frustration when he realized that Hob was still wearing his. It would be rude to take them from him, but Dream could not summon the words to ask, could not think.

Then Hob's hands—big and warm and callused and strong, for all that they were gentle with him—closed firmly on Dream's hips, holding him still. Dream picked his head up to see Hob smiling up at him, his mouth all wet with kissing, his eyes so warm that Dream wanted to bask in them like sunshine.

"You really have no idea what you're doing, do you," Hob said, fondly, like that was a good thing.

"I want you," Dream insisted. He was sure about that.

"Oh, yes, I've gotten that impression," Hob said, and pushed his hips up under Dream, so that Dream was extra aware of the hardness of Hob's erection behind that silly layer of clothing. Dream knew that Hob could feel how hard he was too, right alongside him but not quite touching, not yet. "But you... darling, did you leave all the other times you've done this under the bed, too?"

Dream squirmed and frowned. "There are no other times. I've never done this with you before."

Hob raised his eyebrows, and Dream dropped his gaze to Hob's chest. The collar of his tee was stretched a bit; a little of his dark chest hair was visible above it, and Dream wanted to see the rest more than he had ever wanted anything. He had a dim, distant memory of Hob wearing only a towel, but he had not understood then. He would appreciate it now, if only Hob would stop staring at him with that patient expression like he could sit here all day.

"Never with a man before," Dream admitted.

Hob sat up, keeping that firm grip on Dream's hips, so that abruptly Dream was sitting in his lap rather than sprawled over him on the floor. Facing him, straddling him, naked and aroused, it felt nothing like being small and sitting in Hob's lap, and yet...

It didn't feel entirely unlike that, either.

Hob took one hand off his hip and caught Dream's chin, holding him still for Hob to kiss him, soft and sweet and shallow.

"Darling," Hob said, pressing their foreheads together, speaking into the tiny, humid space between their mouths. "I know you've had sex before. But you left that out, didn't you?"

Dream squirmed a bit, and said nothing. He supposed that technically Hob was correct, but he didn't want to think about any of those others now. That was why he had left it under the bed; he only wanted this to be about now, about him and Hob. About something entirely new.

"Do you think," Hob murmured, "that what you'd really like is to be looked after properly by someone who loves you?"

Dream shuddered, wrapping his legs firmly around Hob's hips, squeezing his eyes shut though he was too close for Hob to see him properly. Hob kept that grip on his chin and on his hip, holding him firmly in place, and kissed him again, even softer.

"I've got you, my joy," Hob murmured. "I know what you need."

Hob stood up under him, and Dream clung tighter, but Hob bore him just to the bed, which they were, after all, right beside. Hob laid him down on the cool sheets, coming with him because Dream was still clinging tight, and Hob's weight over him felt like a key in a lock, the answer to a riddle, something he had needed without knowing it. Dream let go, let himself sink into the bed.

Let himself be looked after.

Hob knelt up and stripped his shirt off, and Dream could look and look now, at the thick hair that covered his chest, leaving only his nipples exposed. Then Hob tugged down his joggers as well, and Dream could only stare at Hob's cock, which to Dream's eyes seemed to be exactly the ideal size and shape, standing up proud and eager against Hob's belly—for him, because Hob wanted him, because Dream had already pleased him just with kisses and touches and wanting, without being particularly skilled, without calculating for the best effect. Hob just wanted him.

And then Hob lowered himself over Dream again and kissed him and kissed him, straying from his mouth to lavish kisses down his throat and over his chest, touches of lips and tongue and occasionally teeth that left him feeling—not worshipped, nothing so distant. The rest of Hob's body rubbed against Dream's, his weight still present, the roughness of his hair exquisite against Dream's smooth skin.

Dream was being cherished, in every inch of his skin, every least part of his being, and that warmth twisted into heat and pleasure as it sank into him, singing along every nerve. Hob was making love to him in the most literal sense, and Dream knew, even with all the relevant memories tucked away under the bed, that no one had ever made love to him like this before. He would never have allowed it; it was simply not his role.

It was not the proper role for Dream of the Endless, King of Dreams and Lord of the Dreaming, at least as he had understood himself before. For Dream as he was now, just big enough to be naked in Hob's bed with Hob naked and wanting him, nothing could be more right.

"I think," Dream said, as Hob was kissing gently around the edges of the bruise that still marred the center of his chest, the thickness of his body parting Dream's thighs, "this was definitely something I needed to learn."

Hob laughed, looking up at him, but the gust of his breath brushed over his nipple, and everything but that pleasure went out of Dream's mind. Hob resumed his progress down Dream's body, kissing and petting him everywhere, teasing and tasting. Every touch was what Dream wanted, needed, and every touch made him greedy for more.

He was gasping out Hob's name on every breath, though he knew that he did not need to ask any more than he needed to breathe—Hob would give him all he wanted, all he did not know to want, and more. Hob would give him every good thing. Dream had only to feel it.

Hob's mouth closed on his prick, and Dream arched nearly off the bed at the heat, the pleasure, the feeling of being taken inside Hob's mouth, his body, the living heat of him. It was pleasure that was more than pleasure—it was a consummation, a completion in itself, and Dream learned all at once what it was to be given all he wanted and to be the very thing his beloved desired and was devouring. It was too much for him to contain, too much to give name or shape to what he felt; the taste of Candyfloss grapes burst across his tongue as climax swept through him, all the sea pouring through one breached dam.

Dream blinked and Hob was lying over him, smiling down at him with such abundant and obvious love that Dream could have gazed up at him forever, could have orbited him like a sun. He could feel life flourishing in himself under Hob's gaze like a new-made planet around the star that gave it its center, its warmth, its purpose for existing.

Hob was still smiling—laughing—kissing his nose and cheeks and mouth—oh, he had been talking just then. He had said all of that for Hob to hear.

"I think I did not make myself quite big enough," Dream murmured against Hob's lips. "I think I am overflowing."

"That you surely are," Hob said back, kissing him with lips and tongue that tasted sweet as Candyfloss grapes. "And you taste amazing, love. Do you want to stop?"

Dream discovered that he could tell where his hands were when they caught hold of Hob; the rest of his body followed from there. "More?"

"More," Hob agreed, and began all over again to drive Dream out of his mind.

Hob woke up feeling great, his whole body warm and loose and thoroughly relaxed, entirely satisfied, utterly certain that he was waking up beside someone he loved and trusted down to his bones.

Then he felt the tiniest tug at the ribbon on his wrist, and remembered exactly who that was. Hob opened his eyes to see Dream—the familiar small one he'd woken up beside for weeks now—sitting up in bed, watching him intently and fidgeting with the piled-up length of ribbon.

"Hey, love," Hob said, reaching out to lay a hand over Dream's restless one. "How did you sleep?"

"Very well," Dream said, still with that tiny frown, though his restless hand stilled under Hob's touch. "I am hungry. I am..." He did not exactly trail off, because his intent stare into Hob's eyes seemed to be the unspoken, perhaps unspeakable, end of the sentence.

"It's all right if last night bothers you," Hob said gently. "It's all right to feel strange or confused about it. I'm sorry if—"

Dream shook his head sharply. "I don't—I don't remember anything in great detail except how much you love me, and how much I love you, and how happy we were together. And the taste of those grapes."

Hob pressed his free hand to his face, laughing helplessly at that. He didn't know quite why Dream's bigger self had tasted of those grapes, but he surely had, and their mouths had been full of that flavor, one way or another, for much of the night.

When he lowered his hand to look again, Dream was still looking anxious. Hob sat up and pulled Dream into his lap for a firm hug.

"You really," Dream said into his t-shirt. "You really don't want—you don't mind..."

"I love you," Hob said firmly. "Big or small or strange shadow thing or whatever other shape you take, whatever we do together. I love you, and I want you here, and that's all there is to it. If you want to be small for another fortnight before you consider being big again, you should. If I need to go take my grownup feelings into the shower for a bit, I will, and that's not your problem."

Dream looked up at him. "Do you need to?"

Hob huffed. He wasn't physically sore—as Dream had promised, nothing physical had carried over from his dreams to his waking self—but he felt thoroughly loved up, and like he might be a little sick if he came anywhere near a green grape for the rest of the day. "Not just now, love. You took good care of me."

Dream reached up and patted Hob's cheek, then prodded gently at the underside of his chin, which had the same hint of softness it always had unless he was properly starving. "Someone should look after you," Dream told him. "I could..."

"You will when I need it, I'm sure," Hob said, catching Dream's hand to give it a kiss. "But I'm right enough for now, so how about I make us some breakfast? I think we still have those apricots your sibling brought."

"Do I like apricots?" Dream asked, relaxing against Hob's chest. The question seemed more philosophical than like he expected Hob to know.

"One way to find out," Hob said, and flipped back the covers.

Dream did like apricots, which were golden and sweet in a pleasantly different way from the grapes. And he liked cheese on toast, and he liked milk, and he liked Hob sitting at the table with him, discussing what they might do today. They had more of the astronaut book, and of course Dream would always have more pictures to draw. They could listen to music, watch movies, go for a walk—there were no end of places to walk to.

Halfway through cleaning the dishes, Dream abruptly realized what he wanted. "Hob," he said, keeping his gaze on the plate he was carefully drying, "I want to do something new. Something different."

"Oh!" Hob said, smiling as he rinsed a knife. "A challenge, is it? Let's see..." Hob stared at the window for a moment. It looked fine and sunny outside, and Dream was considering whether walking somewhere different would feel new enough when Hob said, "We could..."

Dream straightened up alertly, immediately eager for whatever unknown possibility Hob was considering.

"It could be dangerous," Hob said seriously. "If I tell you we have to go, we have to go immediately, and I will throw you over my shoulder and run if I think it's necessary."

Dream wriggled with excitement at the possibility—especially given that he was entirely certain that Hob would keep him safe, no matter what danger threatened.

"And you'll have to wear your new wellies," Hob added, and Dream thrust the dry plate at him and jumped down from the bench to go and find him, Hob's laughter following him through the flat.

Barely an hour later, after Hob had checked several things on his phone and set several timers and alarms on it, they descended some narrow stone stairs to reach the muddy edge of the River Thames, exposed by low tide.

"I have a feeling you're going to be better than a metal detector for mudlarking," Hob said with a smile down at him. "Centuries of stuff gets washed up by this river, you never know what you might find."

Dream bounced a bit on his feet, looking this way and that along the rocky little margin between a stone wall and the water, which, even on a sunny late-summer day, radiated cold. Then he turned his back to the morning sun, watching where he placed each step as his shadow fell before him. Hob followed closely—he had made their ribbon into a tether between them, doubled and tied around Hob's waist and threaded through the straps of Dream's overalls.

"Won't keep you from getting washed away," Hob had said sternly, tying it, "but it will give me a chance at catching you if you slip into the water."

Dream gave the water a wary look and then returned his attention to the possibilities of the mud and rocks underfoot. Some instinct made him stop and peer into the space between two rocks; Hob crouched beside him and helped him tug one up, and Dream crowed at the sight of a glint in the widened crack between them. He scrabbled at it, and pulled free a—bracelet? Earring? Some sort of metal hoop with many shining beads dangling from it.

"Oh, that's a right one!" Hob said, and offered a plastic bag for Dream to drop his find into. Dream reached down into the crevice and turned up a small bead that might have once been attached to the hoop, but nothing else.

Beside him, Hob hummed and reached over to a spot nearby, brushed the surface of the mud, and plucked out a small round object—a coin. "Sixpence," Hob said absently, and dropped it into the bag with Dream's things. "Let's see what else we can find."

Dream jumped up and went on, eagerly studying every rock, every stretch of mud. He found several glass beads of different colors, a strange greenish glass bottle with the word POISON worked into the glass, and an intricately carved pipe. Hob found five more coins and a small rock with a natural hole through the middle, which Dream thought was the best thing either of them had found—though Hob was very entertained by the POISON bottle—until Dream dove after a glimmer right at the water's edge and turned up a perfect little turtle, which, when rinsed in the river, proved to be made of amber, its shell inlaid with thin layers of gold.

Dream studied it from every angle. The brown of the amber, from some views, looked just like the brown of Hob's eyes, and Dream had no idea who had carved it, who had decorated it, who had lost it. This was an object which surely had gathered the echoes of many dreams, but here and now it was a blank slate, as if the river had washed all its history from it. As if it could be simple, as if it had begun its existence here by the edge of the river with Dream and Hob.

Dream looked up to ask Hob what he thought of it, and saw that Hob was standing in water that came up entirely over his feet, lapping at the ankles of his wellies while Hob rinsed something in the water that chimed metallically in his hand.

"Hob?"

He turned at once and came to Dream with a smile. "That's lovely, isn't it?"

Dream nodded and held it up. "Do you think it could go on your shelf? With the frog, and the cat?"

A soft expression crossed Hob's face, only to be interrupted by a blaring alarm from his phone.

"Ah, fuck, tide," Hob said, straightening up sharply and shoving whatever was in his hand into a pocket. "Hold on tight, lovie," he said, and then scooped Dream up into his arms. One of Dream's boots nearly came off, having sunk into the mud while he was holding still; he yelped in dismay and angled his foot to hold onto it, and it came away with a great mucky splash.

Hob did not quite throw Dream over his shoulder, but he was running by the time they reached the nearest stair, a different one than they had come down by. This one was iron, and clanged horribly as Hob pounded up it, but it bore them to the safety of the street. Dream still had the turtle clutched in both hands, just as he was held tight in Hob's.

"Yeah," Hob said, after they had stood in silence for a moment, watching the tide climb the stairs after them, step by splashing step. "Yeah, I think it would look great on that shelf, love. You sure you don't want to keep it just for you, take it home with you?"

Dream shook his head, briefly picturing and then shying away from the image of the beautiful turtle he had drawn from the river, a tiny golden speck in the bare whiteness of his private rooms. "It should be with you. And I..."

"You'll see it all the time, because you'll be with me too," Hob said, not quite a question, but a thing said while he was looking away, concentrating on navigating them back to the street.

He made to set Dream down, once they reached the pavement, but Dream shook his head and leaned harder into Hob's chest. "I'll see it all the time," Dream repeated, nearly able to believe it. "Because I'll be with you too."

Hob kissed the top of his head and said, "Course you will, my joy," and then, "Fuck, which way did we walk? Are we in bloody Greenwich?"