Abril: Heyyy! So, here's the last chapter. Is it any good? I'm honestly not sure. Does it hold up to the other two chapters? I'm even LESS sure of that. Despite all that, I hope you enjoy it :D
The hour is late. Hob finds himself enjoying a glass of wine as he revises one of his students' essays when there's a knock at the door.
"Hm?" Hob looks up, puzzled.
He thinks it's probably one of the workers from the pub, maybe there's something wrong and they need his help. Otherwise, it's too late for anyone else to be looking for him.
He stands and goes to attend the door, when he opens it all his breath leaves him.
"My friend!" He exclaims, barely believing his eyes. It's been almost two weeks since they last saw each other. Hob feared… "I am so glad to see you. Would you-" he stops. His stranger's dark eyes bare into him.
The silence grows between them.
"May I come in?" His friend finally asks. Hob notices his demeanor seems somewhat subdued from the last time they met. Not as tall and straight and proud as he usually is.
"Yes. I mean, yes! Please! Do come in," a small part of his brain wants to add a 'lord' at the end there, but he tells his peasant brain to shut the bloody hell up. There doesn't need to be any more distance between them than there already is.
Hob wrecks his brain to offer something to the other, anything,but once again it's like his stranger can take a look into his brain and tell. His friend raises a graceful hand to still him from action.
"I have thought about what you said," Dream goes straight to the point without any ado at all. "And while… there are some who I would perhaps trust this task upon, they would not be able to perform it because of their nature."
Hob exhales. He… His stranger had considered his words. He'd considered them and returned. He is here willingly and openly.
"Their nature?" Hob asks, puzzled as he gets a hold of his disbelief.
"Let's just say they are not like you." Something glints in his friend's eye but it is gone in a moment.
Hob wants to ask more. What this supposed nature is and who these mysterious beings that his friends trusts, that he's never mentioned before, are. 'Not like he mentions much of anything most of the time,' Hob thinks somewhat ruefully.
"You reconsidered then?" he asks, hesitant to be too hopeful.
"I have," his friend nods. From within his coat he takes out the Ruby. "You are… fascinating Hob Gadling," his dark stranger says.
Hob is unsure if this is a compliment or mockery of some sort, but notes that there is no sneer or contempt upon the pale brow. There is instead, guarded honestly.
"I do not think many would be such as yourself. Not many would have waited for me despite my temperament. Despite missing our meeting. I think most… would have given up on my character and my person. But- you did not," he says with soft simplicity.
The immortal man does not know what to say, this is more honesty than he could've ever dreamed from his stranger. But before he can try and conjure whatever manner of words he may, surprising him again, his friend continues.
"I am… desperate, as you have so eloquently put it. But no amount of desperation would ever make me trust someone with this. You tough… you, Hob Gadling, are worthy of trust and it would be foolish to let my pride keep me from seeing that."
Dream extends his arm and, as simple as that, offers Hob his most precious possession.
Hob doesn't take it. He's a little shell shocked, but mostly, he doesn't dare to take hold of the Ruby again.
His stranger takes a step forward to offer it again more closely. "I… do trust you."
Hob can see the struggle again. How hard showing himself vulnerable and asking for help is to his friend. How declaring trust might be seen as a weakness. And still, despite this, his stranger is explicitly telling him all of these things.
His stranger trusts him. His friend.
The immortal man takes the Ruby, it is again, at once lighter than it seems but heavier too. Perhaps in some metaphysical way he doesn't understand.
He takes in a deep shuddering breath.
"Okay. Okay." Hob inhales and exhales again, trying to soothe his nerves. "How- how do I do this?"
"Well, how did you do it before," the being's words do not sound like a question at all. More like a teacher who already has the answer but wants the student to reach the conclusion on their own. Hob would know, he's applied that strategy many times before.
Hob walks closer to his working lamp to look at the jewel more carefully. If he concentrates enough he can see that the light as it shines against the Ruby is slightly different from how it used to be. Fractured red lines splinter from it and dot his desk and the floor when he turns it this way and that. The jewel is still as beautiful as the first time he saw it.
"I, well… I don't know. I suppose I was thinking of you," he answers, trying to recall. He looks up at his stranger.
Dream hums in agreement.
Hob looks down again at the Ruby, handling it with so much more care than before, now knowing what he does. He feels like no one should be allowed to handle something so intimate. It should be proclaimed heresy. But he is being trusted with this, he should appreciate that for what it is. He wonders distractedly, if his soul had a shape, what would it be like?
"You said it was meant to shape reality. That it was answering to my thoughts and- and desires?" Hob asks, wanting to be absolutely sure.
"I did," Dream looks outside the dark windows, seemingly not concerned enough about the situation at hand.
The immortal man's hands are begging to sweat. He can't put into words how nervous he is about what he's about to do. Even though in theory he's already done it once. But… but nothing like this.
"So… I'm going to imagine your soul back into you?" Hob asks, stalling for time.
"If you want to look at it that way," his friend glances at him, away from his window musings.
"It… took me about a week last time I did this, will it be the same?" Hob wonders if he's already starting the work on the Ruby, he's been thinking about it nonstop since his stranger gave it to him, isn't that what happened last time?
"Yes, but this time is different," Dream says in his deep, velvet voice. "I am here now, and I will help you focus on the task. Your thoughts will be strengthened by my will and my presence."
Hob is again mystified by the implications of his stranger and has to remind himself not to keep being so surprised. His dark friend gave him immortality after all, what other wonders could he possibly do?
"Okay," Hob exhales, "okay, let's do this." But a hand on his forearm interrupts him before he can start. "What is it?" He looks up at his stranger, his blue eyes seem… uncertain.
"I think perhaps it would work better if you could accurately project who you are thinking about towards the Ruby."
Hob swallows hard. He never imagined- He never dared ask- Especially not after 1889. Asking for his stranger's name, never before offered, seemed like something forbidden. So the offering of it now? It seems holy. Sacred.
"Yes?" He prompts his friend.
"I have many names, those which name what I am, my self. But some names have come to me as sweeter things."
"I'll call you whatever you like," Hob grins cheekily.
His stranger hums again.
"Everyone may call upon me by my truest name and that is which I feel the closest to my chest. But a friend…" Hob holds his breath. "A friend might call me Morpheus."
"Morpheus," Hob smiles, feeling a thousand things he can't put into words right now. Instead, he pushes these feelings and thoughts into the Ruby, and he hopes and dreams, and desires.
'This, this is my friend,' Hob thinks. 'It belongs within him. It is the purest form of himself.' Hob focuses on the red facets and how that reminds him of the flames he sometimes thinks he sees at the edge of his friend's coat. He thinks of the Ruby's light and doesn't think about how the Ruby seems different. 'That does not belong, it does not exist here,' he wills it into being as he holds his friend's soul gently.
Hob thinks 'soul,' again and again and again. The soul of his friend, Morpheus, like the god of old.
Hob starts and he doesn't stop. If he's good at something, it's definitely at being a stubborn bastard. And he can be a stubborn bastard for his friend for as long as it takes.
Patron.
Stranger.
Friend.
Otherworldly being.
Black hair as a raven's wing.
Blue eyes like crystal.
But also, a galaxy within.
Pale white skin like snow.
Hob struggles to suppress a smile and not think about fairy tales.
Tall and thin.
Ruby red and fractal light.
Soul. Soul. Soul.
A scarlet and passionate soul for a cold semblance.
Over and over again. He lets go as his concentration carries him away and begins caressing the stone in his hands. Gently though, he doesn't forget he needs to be careful.
Hob pours all of himself into the action and his thoughts are filled with a beautiful red light and an equally beautiful face. A face of a person he does not know well but wishes so hard he did.
Patron. Stranger. Friend.
His friend's soul is in his hands and it does not belong there, it belongs inside of his friend as one, as it originally was.
Hob does not notice the moment his sight fills with a red haze. But it must've been there for a long time for he does not find it strange.
His hands hold a scarlet, passionate soul and there are thin fingers grasping at his wrists. That is new as well. He feels a gentle tug and he can do nothing but comply. One of his hands finds a chest covered by a black shit and his mind thinks 'in the way' and then the shirt is not there at all. He does not find it strange in the red haze.
There is a white chest underneath and naturally, a soul should be positioned inside a chest, so he presses the Ruby against the pale skin and pushes. Someone gasps somewhere, he's not sure who. Are they in pain?
These are the deepest and richest parts of his friend, what he treasures the most. What makes him, him. His soul. It is a pure thing and it's a jewel and it shouldn't be, it must be one with the owner.
Hob pushes again and someone grunts and his concentration breaks somewhat. Is someone hurt? He should… he should help. But the red haze pulls him back and the Ruby is in his hands. It is a soul. It is pure of any imperfections or strange things that don't belong.
It is his patron's. His stranger's. His friend's.
Morpheus.
When Hob opens his eyes again the last dregs of the red haze are fluttering away from his sight. He feels like falling to the ground.
"What happened?" He slurs and realizes his legs have not betrayed him yet, but only because Morpheus holds him up by the biceps. He changes his question when he looks at the window and the light is completely different. "How- How long has it been?"
"Some hours," his friend answers quietly.
And indeed, the light, dark blue of predawn paints the sky, and somewhere far below there's a yellow line from the wakening sun.
Hob turns to his friend and Morpheus' chest is right in front of his face. And there, right where his pronounced collarbone is, lies a subtle, small red stone. His mind gets pulled away from that though, because there is something else capturing his vision and when Hob looks up he does not know if he's dreaming.
Before him, his friend flurries in and out of vision. Like an overlaid image, Morpheus is white as a sheet. His black coat flutters in an inexistent wind as it expands and contracts its length. And his eyes, which have always been startlingly blue, are pools of bitch back thought something, something inside of them shines. Huge and grand and so very alive.
The last of the red haze dissipates from his eyes, as does the overlaid image of his friend. He is just a man again. Quiet and stern and as "normal" as he's ever been.
Hob blinks away some of his daze and his head flops back down until he's looking at the Ruby again. It is not multifaceted but smooth and oval-shaped. And it is, quite literally, melded into Morpheus's skin.
"Did I do that?" Hob asks, horrified.
"You did," says a quietly amused voice.
"Shit, sorry," the immortal man wobbles in place, but Morpehus' hands are steady in their hold.
"Whatever for? You did exactly as I asked," his friend says unconcerned.
"You wanted me to fuse your Ruby onto your skin?" Comes the incredulous inquiry.
"Well, I had not predicted that, but the goal remains the same and you performed admirably. I thank you Hob Gadling. I…" Morpheus takes a small moment, bracing himself. "You continue to prove yourself an extraordinary friend."
"Well, now you're just trying to make me blush," Hob grins and slowly gets a hold of his sealegs. Nodding at his friend that he's okay to stand on his own now, even if it's not completely true.
"Is there any way I might repay you?"
"I said-"
"I know what you said, still, I am grateful."
There is a small, gracious smile on Morpehus' lips and it gives Hob pause. He keeps getting surprised time and time again at his friend's new behavior. Perhaps it had always been there and Hob just hadn't allowed to see it. The corner of his lips lifts.
"I want for nothing, and your name is gift enough, believe me," he answers honestly. He looks at Morpheus' waiting eyes and takes a small breath. "But… If you ever wanted to drop by once or twice between centuries I wouldn't mind at all."
Dream smirks lightly but does not answer, making Hob shuffles in his place.
"How do you feel?" he asks.
"Better than I have in a long, long time," Morpheus answers, closing his eyes and taking in a deep breath. He takes in himself and the world around him, everything feels different now.
Hob wonders at that as he observes his friend. How does a creature such as Morpheus perceive the world? and if,– now that the Ruby is, more or less, back where it should be, – it is any different from how it was before? He should ask someday.
"I'm glad," Hob nods.
"You must be tired, Hob Gadling," Morpheus says, his voice almost echoing around the immortal. Thought… that can't be right. Or maybe it can. As if his words have reminded Hob's body of the fact, a great exhaustion presses against him. It has been a long day, a long week. He closes his eyes for a moment, feeling the weight of the night's events, and leans slightly against his desk with a sigh.
"You should rest," Morpheus tells him, wrapping a hand securely around his bicep, moving Hob as if he were a pliant doll.
"But, I still have so many questions," Hob mutters, his thoughts swimming. "Is the Ruby alright now? You know… untainted?"
"It is," his friend says, his smooth voice running all over Hob like a gentle breeze. "You did very well Hob Gadling."
"That's good, that… good." Hob is not sure of when they got to his bedroom or when he changed into his nightclothes.
"You need not worry about it anymore," his friend says as he sits him down on his bed.
"But… I do worry. About you I mean," Hob mumbles as Morpheus pulls the covers over him.
"I know." Hob hears as he closes his eyes. "Sleep now… my friend."
Dream of the Endless is more than just a vessel. More than crude matter or the anthropomorphic personification of the concept of dreams.
Dream of the Endless is dreams.
He is every child's wild fantasy. Every lover's romantic illusion. Every man and woman's vision of the future. Every image that plagues those at death's door, recalling what was, wakeful dreaming of things that were never quite as they remember them, but better, more beautiful. He is the hope of the hopeless, their dreams of better, of more. Hope.
Dream of the Endless has… forgotten himself. He's not felt the endless dream that is and will be forever more in… such a long time.
He lets go of the flimsy illusion of his bodily form and lets himself be melted into every morsel of dirt of the Dreaming. Every blade of grass. Every dream and nightmare. Every crescent moon in the sky and every brick making up small and grand structures. And he is. He allows himself to be.
He is whole.
He is with everyone who is alive, all at once, with each one, with everyone.
And Dream of the Endless is himself, and he is content.
Somewhere, on a small blue planet called Earth, which a kind sun nourishes, in a small city called London. There sleeps an ordinary man who's not very ordinary at all; his name is Hob Gadling, and Dream of the Endless knows his name, just like he knows the names of everyone who lives or ever lived. But this name he knows differently than those of the others. This little life, and the man that bears the name, is his friend.
Grand and vast as he is, Dream of the Endless takes a moment to contemplate this immortal man. A simple creature, yet endlessly fascinating to Dream. The Endless reaches towards this one person– with, were he human, some might consider his arm and hand–, and touches upon his sleeping mind.
Dream of the Endless grants Hob Gadling pleasant dreams with a smile. And then he fades away into the collective unconsciousness again. Content, happy, for the first time in a long time.
Abril: Tadaaaa. Another sandman wip completed, YES. Hope you enjoyed.