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scifrey · 2 years

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Cling Fast: Chapter Eleven

By Losyark

The Sandman (Netflix with some sprinkling of comics canon, and Gaiman Cinematic-Literary Universe canon) Dreamling (Hob Gadling x Dream of the Endless | Morpheus) Complete PG-13 (for now) Unbeta’d

Somehow, the summer and Hob's brush with the glitz and glam (more like the sleep deprivation and hurry-up-and-wait) of The Biz comes to an end. The first week of classes start up, and as he promised Morpheus, Hob eschews sleep in order to review the texts, and write the syllabuses and prepare the lectures that he didn't have time to over the summer. Morpheus only throws sand in his face and drags him down into the Dreaming twice, when Hob hadn't caught so much as a cat-nap on his junky office sofa in over forty-eight hours.

It's a strange thing, Hob muses, as he entertains his colleagues with stories of his time on set, to have done something so intense and life-altering, and have no one really know it even exists yet. The footage is in editing, and Hob is no longer needed. He is, in essence, utterly dropped and forgotten by the production.

Harriet understands what he means, and joins Hob at The New Inn every few evenings. She talks him through what she calls "show-drop," or the intense lonely misery that comes after living so closely and bonding with fellow artists so deeply, only for everyone to suddenly and completely part ways. He regales her with tales of the places he's been and the ordinary, everyday people he's met. He promises to read over her newest publication for inaccuracies, and she in turn gives a guest lecture at his uni on archeology and historical recreation for screen media.

He reunites with both of his co-presenters only twice in the month of September: once, to record ADR (basically re-recording dialogue that was muffled or of poor quality, trying to match his voice to the synch of his own mouth), and another time to get dressed up in their costumes for the last time and spend an afternoon shooting promotional posters and images.

He wears the black-and-scarlet velvet ensemble into the Dreaming that night.

Morpheus is playing host to a contingent of new gods seeking to curry favour with Dream of the Endless. Hob misses a good proper balls, and Morpheus is impressed that he still remembers all the steps to the cotillion. The gods all have names like Media, and Mr. World, and have been thought into being by humans. They fawn and flatter over Dream's human (but not mortal) consort, insincere and desperate for a solid place in the world's pantheon. Hob wakes up feeling like he's covered with greasy fingerprints and takes the hottest shower he can stand for at least an hour.

Hob hosts the wrap party at The New Inn, closing the pub for a private party. Patrick and the new kid pull out all the stops, proud of their little local celebrity, and pull out all the stops in the kitchen. Though he wasn't able to track down the fey food artist, Hob connected his team with the food artists, and everyone enjoys venison pasties, and hyppocras, buttered beer and snow, fruit and meat pies, and lots of marzipan shaped like Gadlen House.

Morpheus acquiesces to Hob's wheedling, and attends the party as Hob's partner. He's prickly, and taciturn, but everyone is in high enough spirits that they don't mind Hob's introverted goth boyfriend. And nobody seems to remember that he looks just like one of the stunt team.

Harinder surprises them all by arriving with a USB stick loaded with the first episode and a pocket projector. Between them, Hob and Patrick get the karaoke speakers and a ratty old projector screen cobbled together. Patrick makes sure everyone has all the beer, wine, coffee, soda, and various other cock-or-mocktails topped up, they dim the lights, and let it rip.

The crowd cheers and jeers, hollers and laughs, and as the credits on the first episode roll, everyone stands up and claps for at least five minutes straight.

"What did you think?" Hob asks Morpheus, leaning close to whisper in his lover's ear under all the clapping and celebration.

"It is wonderful. Engaging and cinematic in a way that the previous incarnations of this program have not been. And you make a very appealing and handsome leading man," Morpheus adds, flicking a look at Hob from under black lacework eyelashes that promises wonderful things once he's asleep.

Hob snorts. "I'm hardly the lead, Duckie. There were two other people on the screen too, you know."

"You have created something to be proud of," Morpheus pushes. He slides his hand into the pack pocket of Hob's jeans, not to fondle or squeeze, but to simply hold him close. Hob feels admired and cherished. "Humanity needs its fantasies, to make its reality a better place to live, and you have created a very admirable fantasy indeed."

"You don't have to butter me up by quoting Sir Terry at me," Hob protests with a laugh.

Morpheus only quirks a smirk at him.

Then Glenn and his wife crash into them with tipsy glee, Glenn shouting "Did you see that? Did you see that! That's a bloody BAFTA in the bag, that is you mad, wonderful, beautiful Doc Bob, you!"

Harriet, with her wife and son, aren't far behind. Then there are toasts, and drunken heartfelt speeches, and someone figures out how to get a whole mess of electro-tudor remix music pouding on the speakers, the tables are pushed aside, and people are reeling and ducking around one another with unashamed joy.

And Morpheus lets himself slip into the background, contentedly supportive and admiring.

Sweaty and exhausted in the best way, Hob pulls Shami outside sometime around midnight to gift them a small posey of bellflowers and agrimony, as well as a beautiful antique cloak pin. It's a unisex piece, carefully etched with beautiful Tudor knotwork, and set with chips of a dark tourmaline gem that would set off Shami's eyes nicely.

Hob had rescued it from under the floorboards of the Gadlen House nursery. Hob had been poor and penniless enough in his life that even when he was wealthy, he had the foresight to secret away little stashes of treasure, just in case. Fletcher hadn't stolen every treasure, and Hob did find some time alone to wander and snoop during the shoot after all. He'd managed to smuggle his sword out too, by pretending it was just a prop.

Hob didn't tell Shami that the brooch once belonged to first Eleanor's brother, then Eleanor. He doesn't tell Shami that he had hidden away the favorite of her pieces after her death with the intention of one day gifting them to Robyn's bride. Hob doesn't tell Shami that Robyn had never married, but Hob likes to think that Eleanor wouldn't mind him sharing her treasures with the incredible person who had brought her back to him in so many vital, wondrous ways.

All he says is "Thank you. You have no idea what it means to me to know that I have her diary and his sketchbook, safe and preserved, forever."

When they come back inside, Morpheus is waiting in the shadow of the door to snatch Hob to his side, and ensure that nobody gets the wrong idea about the soon-to-be famous television presenter and the digital archivist slinking in from the autumn chill together.

Hob takes great delight in goading Morpheus to live out the fantasies of celebrity popping up in the dreams of so many young people these days by making Morpheus promise to walk the red carpet on his arm.

Though, Hob realizes as soon as Morpheus appears in Hob's bedroom that night, he's made a grave miscalculation. Hob's mouth immediately goes desert-dry.

Morpheus wears boots with higher-than-usual heels so he has at least two inches on Hob, the vain peacock, and his hair crests even higher. He's wearing a beautiful black-on-black damask suit with a waist-length blazer-fronted cape, trimmed with red velvet lapels. His boutonniere easily the size of his whole hand made up of (Hob's app tells him) angrec, cape jasmine, and both blue and pink convolvulus. He's wearing a single silver-and-ruby drop earring. And the eyeliner. By god, Hob can't die but he damn near expires on the spot when he realizes that Morpheus is wearing such perfect, knife-blade sharp winged black eyeliner that it would make a Vogue cover makeup artist weep with envy.

He puts Hob's own tired brown suit to shame. Morpheus seems to agree, because with a twist of his wrist, Hob is suddenly wearing a sharp, slim-cut hunter-green three piece (Morpheus' favorite color on him, clearly), with black shirt and a matching honest-to-god cravat. Instead of a boutonniere, Morpheus has decorated Hob's neckcloth with a small, rectangular ruby on a golden stickpin sculpted to resemble ivy.

"This isn't the Oscars," Hob says, but it's not a protest.

The night is warm enough and Hob's shoes are comfortable enough that the two hour walk to Hither Green and Gadlen House is a pleasure, and it means that Matthew gets to join them all the way to the front gate.

"Aww, come on, Hobsie," Matthew wheedles from Hob's shoulder, preening his hair out of its carefully pomaded fall. "The boss showed me the opening shot. It wouldn't be half as good if I wasn't in it."

"True," Hob allows, as they wait from the back of the line for their turn to present their ID badges and gain entry to the park.

Security is tight at Gadlen House tonight, and every who's-who of the entertainment world has been invited. Most of them aren't sure what they're there for—it's just the dinky little premiere of a dinky little docuseries after all—but the muckity mucks at the BBC had insisted, and, Hob's sure, they're all going to be really glad they were part of the first wave of outlets who get to break the big news about the quarto.

The plan tonight is to screen the first episode followed up with a bit of a talk from Harinder and a thirty minute Q&A with Hob, Harriet and Glenn, and then a presentation from Shami about the future of digital archeology and historical document interactivity, and then, when everyone was thoroughly bored to tears—ten minutes of uncut footage of Hob and Glenn goofing around and cataloging the contents of the Gadlen Fell Crate Papers, until Glenn goes parchment white and starts screaming like a little girl.

At which point, the experts at the V&A would be stepping in to present the actual quarto to the press, Hob is sure social media is going to lose its goddamn mind, and Hob plans to take full and unashamed advantage of his lover's eldritch nature to sneak away before anyone tries to buttonhole him.

Matthew tugs on Hob's hair threateningly.

"Yeah, okay," Hob relents. "But stand on the very edge of my shoulder, like that, yeah. Glenn taught me this for photos—always make sure there's empty air around your body so you don't look squashed against another person. And you can't come into the house, this is just for the outdoor carpet, okay?"

"Okay!" Matthew croaks. "I'm gonna be a star, baby!"

Matthew holds his head high, puffs and smooths the lay of his feathers and, if a raven can suck it in, then he's definitely sucking it in.

"You spoil him," Morpheus says indulgently.

Hob takes his hand and entwines their fingers. "I spoil you both, and I don't see you complaining. Now, shhh, Matthew."

The bored guard at the door doesn't even glance up at them as he takes and checks Hob's work badge.

"Gadlen, plus one?"

"Yes," Hob says.

"Have fun, guv." He waves them through and is on to the next person who has just arrived behind them.

Past the gates, Hob is met with event PAs and coordinators who eye up Matthew, but don't say anything. They're probably used to way weirder things when it comes to celebrities, and Hob is hardly that.

They're asked to hold a moment, as the small group before them—Harinder and the direction team, it looks like—clears the first bank of photographers and reporters. Hob takes a moment to marvel at the way that Gadlen House has once again been transformed.

The drive has been overlaid with low metal risers, smothered in a literal red carpet. On one side, the press is contained by long strands of red velvet ropes which protect the grass. On the other, an eight-foot wall of temporary flats has been erected, uplit to ensure the repeating pattern of BBC Historics and National Trust logos are visible in each photo anyone takes.

Up by the house, the front courtyard has been transformed into a little cocktail bar, elegant stand lights showing off the fountains to best advantage, and penguin-suited waiters in absurd tudor-era bonnets with ridiculous ostrich feathers circulating with trays of champagne.

Hob's been told that the grand entry hall has been filled with tiered seating and a large cinematic screen, and a podium from which the evening's host will crack tired jokes and try to keep folks entertained between setups.

It's all a bit much for a silly little historical docudrama, but Hob knows what the prize at the bottom of the crackerjack box is. He knows it will be worth all of the hullabaloo.

"Alright," the P.A. at the top of the carpet says, after conferring with someone on a headset. "When I say go, walk out to the middle of that first group. My colleague there—see, he's waving—he'll let you know when you're good. Pose for the cameras, and speak to the reporter on the carpet. She'll ask you two or three questions, might have you give a spin. Then my colleague will pass you on to the next one down the line. Feel free to decline to answer any questions you don't want to, and don't let the bird shit on anything."

"Excuse you—" Matthew squawks.

"Go!"

Morpheus takes Hob by the hand and swivels forward like he's planning to seduce the whole crowd.

He probably is.

"Doc Bob!" someone in the crowd shouts, and another says "Sir Gadlen!"

"You're off by three," Hob calls back, and the scrum chuckles, charmed.

The new PA introduces the reporter, and Hob vaguely recognizes her from one of the late night chat shows.

"Mr. Gadlen, and Mr…"

"Oneiros," Morpheus offers up.

"Right-o, sir," the PA says. "If you'll both just stand here…"

They do and Hob is not even remotely surprised that Morpheus knows how to work a camera. He must be tapping into the dreams of every model on the U.K. right now. He tugs Hob into a few poses subtly, and Hob feels like a complete tit but trusts his lover to do right by him.

The reporter asks about Hob's experience on set ("Uh, yeah, cool, really cool," Hob answers to his mortification); what he's wearing ("McQueen," Morpheus intones); and if the bird is real or a fashion accessory.

"Real!" Matthew protests.

"Real," Hob echoes, resisting the urge to reach up and pluck out one of Matthew's tailfeathers. "And an excellent mimic when he wants to be. He insisted on coming along."

"How adorable! Is he friendly? Can I pet your crow?"

"Raven," Hob corrects. "And technically, it's his bird," Hob says, jerking his thumb at Morpheus. "But Matthew likes me better."

"Matthew would appreciate your attention, yes," Morpheus allows magnanimously. "Pet his breast, or gently along his beak."

And that is how Morpheus becomes boyfriend of the year for figuring out how to keep all the attention off of Hob and his terrible interview answers, and Matthew becomes the unequivocal favorite of the evening.

They event organizers even open a window in one of the turrets of the great hall so he could sit on the sill and watch.

A few hours later, Morpheus and Hob sneak away just as he planned, ducking under the red velvet ropes and putting his lock-breaking skills to the test to break into his old bedroom. Morpheus takes care of the security system and cameras without needing to be asked.

"Do you think they forgot that they left the good mattress on the… ha ha!" Hob chortles gleefully. "Look, they did!"

"You know, you never properly slept in this bed, Hob," Morpheus ventures, with exactly zero innocence or nonchalance.

"No, I did not," Hob replies with a cheeky wink. "Help me christen it?"

"Gladly."

The revelation of the missing Shakespeare play is enough to shoot the fame of the series, and its presenters, into the stratosphere. Because Cardenio was found in Hob's Gadlen Fell Crate, it technically belongs to him. So every A-list Shakespearen actor, dramatist, and acting troupe in the country is banging down his door for a look at it. Hob very quickly, very wisely, and very generously donates the damn thing away to the National Trust. Let them manage its preservation and loaning rights, and make top dollar on the licensing fees besides. They deserve the boost in funding and fame.

Still, every reporter, Elizabethan scholar, and entertainment news anchor wants a piece of Bob Gadlen the Sixth. Hob does all he can to reorient the spotlight onto Harriet, and Glenn, and Shami. By the end of October it's gotten so bad that Hob has resumed teaching all of his classes online so he can avoid the paps on campus. Patrick has to hire a bouncer for The New Inn, and Lucienne steps briefly into the Waking world to act as Hob's legal protector and manager.

As a creature who has read literally every book there is to read on law, Lucienne is ruthlessly efficient. By the end of the month, Hob has gone back to being a nobody professor and a person of non-interest to the media. Occasionally someone recognizes him on the street and asks for a selfie, or comes up to him in a cafe when he's on a date with Morpheus.

And memorably, a few days before All Hallows Eve, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts makes the mistake of inviting Hob to give a guest lecture. They're clearly thinking (as far as Hob can tell) that because the quarto was found among Hob's things, Hob must be some sort of expert must be some sort of Shakespeare expert. And he is. But not in the way they expected.

And that's how a cadre of venerable professors, a few A-listers who think they can get away with the ballcap-and-glasses disguise, and two cohorts worth of young hopeful actors are treated to a pacing, ranting diatribe against the boyfriend-stealing wannabe, an exaltation of Kit Marlowe, and an incredibly powerful moment-by-moment narration of what going to see a play at The Curtain (a far superior theater to The Globe in Hob's estimation) smelled like, sounded like, looked like, and felt like.

"Not helping your mission to stay under the radar," Harriet texts him, with a link to a video, two days later.

Hob, Morpheus and Matthew are upstairs in Hob's flat, working their way through a bowl of discount Tescos candy—Morpheus' sweet tooth strikes again—and carving neeps into lanterns whose light Stingy Jack can roam the world by. Stingy Jack-o-the-Lantern is real, it turns out, and as close to a friend as anyone can be to Morpheus. The guy deserves some turnips with faces in them just for that alone, Hob figures.

Apparently one of the RADA students had recorded the whole thing and has created a supercut of Hob's most creative, Elizabethan, and devastating insults to the bard. Matthew asks him to replay it for him on the phone four times before Morpheus gets in a snit and goes on his own rant about how important Midsummer was to his political alliances with the Fair Folk.

Talk then turns to Shaxbeard's lost son Hamnet, and as fathers of dead sons, they agree wordlessly to change the topic.

Fall shades elegantly into Winter.

Hob finishes his term and is buried in snowdrifts of essays and exams to mark. He meets up regularly with Harriet, politely declines with all the force in his Immortal body when the BBC asks him back for a second series, and teaches Matthew the rules of Football. ("The good one, birdbrain, not that handegg you used to watch when you had thumbs.")

And then, one quiet evening when it's just Patrick, New Kid, and the two of them in the pub, Morpheus reaches across the table, takes Hob's hand, and asks "Are you happy?"

Hob, who had been thinking about whether or not he wanted to subject himself to the humiliation of adding Elizabethan Manor to next semester's syllabus as non-compulsory but recommended viewing, blinks a few times as his brain catches up to Morpehus' question.

"Yes," Hob says slowly, sitting forward and giving Morpheus his full attention. This feels like a far more serious question than it sounds. "Why do you ask? Are you?"

"Very happy," Morpheus says, but then sighs like that's the greatest misfortune an anthropomorphic personification can endure.

"Okay. But forgive me duck… you don't sound like it."

"I am very happy, and that is the problem," Morpheus confesses, slumping in his chair.

This worries Hob even more, because he's never seen Morpheus slump in his chair before. He lounges, he reclines, he luxuriates, he sprawls, he reposes. He does not slump.

Hob squeezes his hand reassuringly. "I'm listening."

Between them, where Patrick can see, Morpheus wills a Meadow Saffron into existence. Hob is pleased with himself that he recognizes it on sight, after so many hours spent studying his floriography texts.

"Dearheart, no," Hob says, plucking the flower out of Morpheus' fingers and laying it on the seat beside him. "That's not true at all. Your best days are yet to come. You have me now."

"I do have you," Morpheus agrees. "But… I fear that you do not have me. Not the way I would like it."

"You're right here, duckie."

"But I should like to be here more. I want to sleep beside you, Hob. Properly sleep, not simply watch you drop off and then step into my realm and resume my function while you rest. I want to rest with you. I want to wake with you. I want—to be greater than my function and at the same time, less. I want wholly outside of it. I want to be… where you are. Where I am happiest."

"Wait, let me get my head around this. Is my boyfriend Dream of the Endless or Morpheus, the God of Sleep? Am I sleeping with whole diamond, or just one facet? Is that what worries you? Because I don't care…"

The pained look on Morpheus' face makes it clear that Hob is way off the mark, and he trails off, waiting. Rare for him, Morpheus hesitates before he answers. He opens his petal-pink mouth, draws a breath, licks his lips, closes them again, then does it all again. Hob waits him out, massaging the tense tendons of Morpheus' palm with his thumbs.

Finally, Morpheus says: "How would you feel if I was neither?"

Hob blinks, digests what Morpheus has said, decides it doesn't make any sense any which way he turns it over in his mind, and says: "Come again?"

"What if… I were not Dream of the Endless. Or Morpheus the God of Sleep. What if I was… just a man?"

Hob sits bolt upright. "What's wrong with your voice?"

"Nothing. I merely… perhaps it is foolish."

"No, go on," Hob reassures him, trying to adjust to the new, less bone-vibrating timbre of Morpheus' speech. It's fine. It still sounds like him. Just… different.

"A child comes," Morpheus murmurs eventually. "Conceived in the Dreaming, made of dreamstuff."

Hob blinks some more as his brain buffers. "Are you pregnant?"

Morpheus chuckles wryly. "No."

"Oh. okay." Hob licks his lips, digesting this. "Wait, am I pregnant?"

Morpheus laughs gently. "No, Hob. The child grows in the heart and fantasies of a woman who… well, the details are a story for another time, I think. But the babe will be a fine heir, I should think."

"An heir?" Hob blinks some more, and takes a few sips of his beer to cover as he tries to catch up. Morpheus sometimes drops strange scruffy things into his lap like a proud kitten, and even after all this time, after all he's done and seen, Hob still needs time to readjust his reality to encompass the offering. "An heir? God's wounds, are you dying?"

"No, Hob. The Endless do not die." Morpheus meets his eyes earnestly, then lifts their entwined hands to kiss each of Hob's knuckles. "But this facet has… reached its natural conclusion."

"So you are dying," Hob repeats, distress wringing through every fiber of his body.

"I assure you, no," Morpheus says. He rises from his seat, scoots around the table and pulls Hob against his chest to soothe Hob's building panic. "Do you not think that my sister shares the same love for me as she does for you? What she has bargained for you, she has agreed to provide for me as well."

"I'm not following," Hob admits, clutching at Morpheus' ribs.

"Gods come and go. The old fade and new ones are thought into being. You met some of them."

Hob swallows hard enough that he feels his throat burn. "Yes."

"Morpheus the God of Sleep is… fading. This world no longer needs a classical, old-fashioned, ancient god of dreams. Dreams are different now, and they need a new avatar to shepherd them. And so another God grows within the womb of human imagination. Do you understand?"

Hob looks up at Morpheus, and he knows he's trembling, knows he frightened, but Morpheus is wrapped around him, keeping him steady.

"I think so."

"When this child is born, the facet that you know as Morpheus will cease to be Endless, and simply become… human." A smile, beatific and contented spreads over Morpheus' face. "An Immortal human, yes, but human all the same. Think of it less as death and perhaps more as… retirement."

"You'll be like me," Hob gasps.

"Yes."

"You'll be with me," Hob adds, excitement replacing his fear. He straightens to meet Morpheus' pleading eyes.

"Yes. Unless you'd prefer—"

"Fuck that," Hob says, clinging to Morpheus. "You'll be moving in with me upstairs, that's what'll be happening."

"If that is what you wish."

"That is abosu-fucking-lutely what I wish," Hob confirms, then surges up to press his lips against Morpheus' in a claiming, hungry, possessive kiss.

"Then it is done," Morpheus says, when they part. Another bargain struck. Maybe the last.

Fuck me, Hob thinks, and wishes he could manifest an avalanche of roses, roses, roses.

Morpheus must see his fantasy, because rose petals begin to tumble from the empty air around them, drifting along the table and clinging to Morpheus' hair. Hob laughs, enchanted and elated.

Patrick's gonna take one look at the floor and kill him on the spot.

The thought makes Hob want to kiss Morpheus again, so he does.

"This is, forgive me, a dream come true," Hob laughs, when they eventually break off. He may also be crying, he's not sure. All he knows is that he needs to flag down New Kid and get them to pop some bubbly. "This is sorta everything. All my hopes and, well, now my Dream, too."

“Entirely. And if I am your Dream,” Morpheus asks reticently. “Will you, in return, be my Hope?”

"Absolutely," Hob says, and leans across the table to kiss Morpheus. "For as long as you want."

"For forever then," Morpheus agrees. "Or have you not heard? One cannot kill hope."

THE END

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