Chapter Text
June 7th, 1989
The year brings with it an unwavering feeling of cold.
He’s had time, so much of it, to dread the coming and passing of this single day cradled within this one year that when it comes and passes, Dream hardly breathes with how much he burns. With rage, with frustration, with a deeply held regret that he’d never known the likes of, not over a human, not over a spat of words shared across a table in a tavern. It’s pointless to deny, in the end, at the end of June 7th, 1989 when a clock somewhere upstairs in the Burgess estate strikes midnight, and so he doesn’t. He’s sorry and he aches with desire, the desire to sit across from his friend in a warm pub and be reminded about the beauty and sorrows of life.
He’s cold. He’s empty. And thinking of Hob only makes that feeling gnaw at him deeper and brighter, and so he tries to push the thoughts away, even as memories come to him unwanted as the years pass.
The sound of Hob’s voice, a stranger to him in 1389 within the Waking, boisterously determined to cheat death, promising, however wavering, to meet Dream in 100 years. The confused lilt to his brow before Dream turned to return to Death.
Hob in 1489, eyes alive over the magic of playing cards, handkerchiefs and chimneys.
The sound of Hob’s voice, laced with pain, “I’ve hated every second of the last eighty years, every bloody second…” A chasm had opened within Dream, and he had known then, 300 years ago, two centuries before walking away from Hob in 1889, that his interests had gone beyond curiosity. He’d wanted to take the man’s pain from him. The man they’d tried to drown as a witch, and who said to him still in the next breath… “I’ve got so much to live for.”
Dream refuses to allow his mind to drift past that point. Refuses to acknowledge that he considered Hob a friend long before he defended Dream against Lady Constantine’s lackeys, long before Hob himself would chance to speak the word between them. No; Dream simply commands his mind to loop, again and again and again,
“I’ve got so much to live for.”
Dream will live regardless, though in moments of solitude and near madness, he wonders what for. Dream passes some days by imagining what it will be like to return to the Dreaming. Others, he thinks of Death, Lucienne, the relief he will feel when he knows the world will dream and sleep again, unimpeded and as intended. Dream passes other agonizing days wondering if part of what he has to live for is the moment when he will cross over the threshold of the Tavern of the White Horse once more, and whether there will be a crooked smile and sparkling, whiskey eyes waiting to greet him.
☽☾
June 7th, 2021
It’s the right day, but the year is all wrong, and Dream suspects that there’s something else not quite right even before he finds himself standing in front of the shuttered remains of the White Horse Tavern. Still, he’s chilled in a way he’s not accustomed to feeling, reminiscent of the hopeless, free-falling frost that climbed up his spine and inside his gut the day he was meant to meet Hob when he was imprisoned. And that’s what it is, he realizes, this cold feeling. Hopelessness. The thought of never seeing Hob again is ludicrous and is one that is hardly realistic; he’s always had the ability to seek him out within or between other realms should he have wanted to, and he could do so now in the worst-case scenario. It’s that, the worst-case consideration, which makes Dream’s stomach sink.
Should Dream seek him out, would Hob welcome him as a friend, or turn his shoulder as he would on an intruder?
It’s what he would deserve, Dream muses as he’s preparing to turn heel from the tavern’s closed gates, even though as he’s resigning himself to shame he’s also gearing up to make this his next mission, his next purpose: to find Hob Gadling.
As it would turn out, this mission would be far less strenuous than the matter of collecting his stolen totems. A splash of red catches his eye as he steps back. “The New Inn,” Dream whispers to himself, tracking the arrows down the fence. His feet begin to move before his mind is made up. A possibility is enough, it’s all he needs.
The New Inn certainly looks its name, though there is history there. Dream feels it and knows it, has some familiarity with the landscape through others’ dreams and prior visits to the waking world. But the paint is bright and the signage on the outside is hardly weather-worn, and Dream imagines that this version of their old meeting place is practically neonatal, within the last fifty years at most. He makes his way down a small, well-walked stone path through the yard to the front door and he’s cautious, avoiding eye contact, though the few guests meandering around outside don’t seem as put off by him as some others have been throughout the day. Funny, that, he thinks as he steps inside. Death had always slyly suggested that whatever he put into the human realm would be returned to him, and it was no secret she thought him standoffish.
The tavern is busy but not claustrophobically so, and Dream takes in some details as he scans the place when he steps inside. He’s inundated with sounds, smells, people, tastes on his tongue from the air and it’s all so new, all so different, so changed, and he’d missed so much, more than he would have had he not been imprisoned even with how little he’d enjoyed leaving the Dreaming when he was free, and perhaps it was a mistake, coming here, too much, perhaps he should—
Dream's eyes find him in a matter of seconds, his gaze honing in on him as though Hob is a homing beacon and Dream a lost pigeon. In an instant, his doubts fade into nothing and the rest of the tavern melts away. The only sound comes from his boots, carrying him the few steps to Hob’s table, littered with papers, pens and a beer, and how strange is time with the way it has changed this tableau over the centuries.
Dream is taking in Hob’s appearance in sections, even as they exchange pleasantries and he takes a seat at the table—
“You’re late.”
“It seems I owe you an apology. I’ve always heard it impolite to keep one’s friends waiting.”
—because he can’t seem to look at him all at once. The fashion changes over the last 132 years have been drastic, and there’s something about the jeans and the white shirt that makes this oldest and newest version of Hob look softer than he ever has, or perhaps it’s the easy way he leans toward Dream with a smile, as though Dream hadn’t dismissed him and their 500 years of history with cruelty the last time they’d seen one another. He does eventually stop piecing together Hob’s outfit like a puzzle when Hob responds, latching onto eyes that are just as bright as they day they’d met.
“An apology? Well, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see the day. Wasn’t sure if I’d ever see you again, truth be told. Glad you’re here.”
Dream admires his willingness to simply say what he means, as though it’s an easy thing to do. “Does that mean my apology is accepted?”
Hob’s smile grows as he leans back, but he looks contemplative beneath his evident joy. “Now that depends. You see, while I do like the sound of you admitting we’re friends, I made a promise to myself back in 1989 that if we ever did meet again, I wouldn’t be easily bought off with some words and that small thing there that you call a smile. Now, don’t go looking like I just kicked your pup, I want to forgive you, I do. But I also really want some other things, too.”
“What is it that you want from me, Hob Gadling?”
Hob holds out his hands, palms face up, and shrugs. “I just want to know a few things, my friend. That’s all.”
Dream doesn’t move, doesn’t budge or even twitch.
Hob rolls his eyes. “I don’t think it’s too much to ask to have a bloody question or two answered! You stood me up, right, and I stayed at the old tavern from morning until night, not only on the 7th but on the 8th and 9th too, just in case, and you know what? I wasn’t even angry with you.”
Dream starts at this, his mouth going slack. “You weren’t?”
“Nope,” Hob says. He takes a drink of his beer. “I was worried.”
It hits Dream like a whip, stings fresh atop of Death’s professed worry. It nearly escapes him, how he hadn’t meant to make Hob worry, hadn’t meant to make any of them worry, or any of them leave, but Hob hadn’t left, had he? He’d stayed.
“Thank you for waiting,” Dream says instead, acutely aware of how his voice shakes.
Hob considers him, scrutinizing the details of him. “Your hair is ridiculous this time around. Stole a page out of Robert Smith’s book, did you?”
“I don’t know who that is.”
Hob snorts, a bit inelegant, and Dream thinks this century is good for him. He takes another drink, his beer bordering on empty. “Well, that’s one piece of the puzzle then, isn’t it? Whatever you are, you must live under a rock or in the sky on your down time, or at least you weren’t around for the entirety of the later 1900’s to not know the Cure. I guess I should feel good about that, knowing it wasn’t just me you were avoiding.” Hob picks up his glass and slides out from around the table. “Drink with me?”
Dream can think of nothing else he would rather do, though he knows he has much to take care of. He nods, once, and tries not to lean into the warmth of Hob’s hand when he squeezes Dream’s shoulder before disappearing to the bar.
By the time Hob gets back a few minutes later, another crisp, light looking ale in hand for himself and something darker and frothier for Dream sat on the table, Dream is nearly bursting at the seams to address something Hob’s said, something that hasn’t sat right.
“I wasn’t avoiding you,” Dream says as Hob settles in across from him. Hob stills for only a moment before nodding and removing his jacket. Dream is intrigued to see the edges of a tattoo peeking out from beneath Hob’s shirt sleeve. He focuses. Continues. “I was…I couldn’t be here. There. I couldn’t.”
“Were you ill?” Hob asks, concerned, interested, as though he never considered Dream could fall ill.
“No.”
“Stuck in your own world, then, wherever it is you harken from?”
Dream’s lips twitch at that, he can’t help it. “No.”
Hob points at him, accusatory but delighted all the same. “There’s no denial there though, is there? I’ll get you figured out yet, you know. Though it would be a whole lot easier if you would just, oh, I don’t know, do me the favor of just telling me your name, given we’re friends and all.”
Dream’s skin prickles, and he takes the easy way out. Well, the easier way. “I was imprisoned.”
And it works; Hob pales, his fingers tightening around his glass, and a new barrage of questions spill forward. Dream answers some of them and others he lets hang while he nurses the porter in front of him. It’s dark and tastes of coffee and burnt chocolate and Dream quite likes it, likes that Hob chose it for him. It distracts him, this appreciation and warmth in his throat and chest, too much, and he lets too much slip.
“105 years,” he says, inflectionless, because it’s just a fact, an annotation in a book in the library now, an easy enough answer to give.
Hob’s eyes grow wide and he leans forward, some of his hair coming loose from behind his ear and falling over his face. “105 years imprisoned in some asshole’s mansion?” he breathes, and it’s the quietest Dream has ever heard him in over 600 years. There’s fire in his eyes and Dream is thrilled at the absence of pity.
But then, then there’s the same lilt to his brow, the same screw of confusion that Dream remembers from 1389 that means Hob is trying to put something together, and when it smooths Dream recognizes his mistake, the mistake of his loose tongue. The fire blazes brighter as Hob chokes out “There were rumors…mutterings, about the basement…Roder—”
“It’s over,” Dream says, with finality. “I wish to speak of it no more.”
Hob seals his lips and blinks. Dream freezes as his friend reaches across the table, not a terribly far reach with how small the space is between them, and lays a hand on Dream’s jacket-clad forearm.
“I accept your apology,” Hob says. “You dodgy prat.”
It startles a small laugh from Dream, a rush of relief, a dizzying sense of contentment.
☽☾
It’s dark when they leave the tavern, and Dream feels awake in a way he hasn’t felt in over a century.
It had been more of the same as usual for the two of them, after the beginning of their reunion, mostly Hob sharing what he had been getting up to over the last century plus. His travels, all of them alone with a few friends along the way, but none of them lasting long, Hob’s choice. He was happier that way, it seemed, having learned that loss was the hard bit for him out of everything else.
He’d dabbled in multiple trades before falling into school a few times, earning this degree and that, giving into his zest for life through learning and eventually becoming a teacher himself, a professor of a few different subjects including literature and history.
“I prefer the literature courses,” he was explaining to Dream on their way out of the tavern and into the front lawn, “because as you can only imagine, most of what’s in the history books is dead wrong and it’s a bit of a battle to not take the reigns into my own hands, so to say.”
Dream smiles and nods, picturing Hob standing in front of droves of impressionable minds and speaking passionately, too passionately about chunks of time that he should have little to no investment in. “One can imagine,” he says dryly. “You and self-restraint have never been easily mixed.”
Hob laughs and they’re at the end of the walkway. Hob turns to Dream and runs a hand over his face; he looks tired and has to teach in the morning, he’d mentioned, but Dream senses his hesitancy to leave, shares it.
“Well then,” Hob says, “what’s the plan from here? Do we have a date in sixty-eight years' time, do we reset the clock? Or,” he stops, runs a hand through his hair, and squares his shoulders, meeting Dream’s expectant gaze directly, “will you insult me and leave me a brokenhearted man again should I make the suggestion that, as friends, we cut through the nonsense and perhaps do this again whenever we desire to do so?”
Dream doesn’t know what to say. He knows what he wants to say, what his mind and his gut and his instinct scream at him, but he also recognizes the slippery slither of oily distrust beneath his skin and it makes him sick, disgusts him, he disgusts himself. He must stand at a loss for a beat too long because after a moment Hob smiles at him and steps closer rather than further away, and is kind rather than cruel.
“I’ll tell you what, my nameless friend,” Hob says, soft and quiet, and he reaches into his pocket to pull out his wallet. “While I’m not crazy about the thought of waiting another hundred years, or even sixty-eight, as you are the most reliable companion I have in my life and I so look forward to our drinks together, you’ll find me here on the 7th. And I mean that of every month, of every year. It’s become a little habit of mine, and I’m here even more if I’m honest, because the place has grown on me. And,” he continues, pulling a small white card out of his wallet, “if you would like to see me sooner, it’d be a good thing.” He tucks the card into Dream’s jacket pocket before stepping back, out of Dream’s orbit. He nods to him and shoots him a small little wave. “Until next time.”
Dream watches him turn and start to walk away, adjusting his leather bag as he does so. Dream’s throat is tight.
“Hob,” he calls. Hob turns around, face blank. “Thank you for the drink, my friend. I rather enjoyed it.”
Hob’s smile is small but it is true, and when he disappears out of sight of the streetlights Dream removes the card from his pocket.
“Professor Robert Gadling,” Dream reads aloud. He traces the university address and Hob’s office number, telephone number, and e-mail address with his thumb, the raised print glossy in the moonlight.