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scifrey · 1 year

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A Hospital Bracelet: Comfort

Status: Ongoing Ficlet collection; unbeta’d

Series: the Hob Adherent series

Fandom: The Sandman (TV 2022) Includes some comics canon, and some cameos from the wider Gaiman-verse (including the Good Omens and Lucifer television shows), but it’s not necessary to know to enjoy the story.

Rating: Mature. There are discussions of medical torture and wounds in this chapter. Please curate your experience accordingly.

Warnings: Discussions of violence. Some whump and hurt/comfort.

Relationships: Morpheus | Dream of the Endless/Hob Gadling, Eleanor | Hob Gadling’s Wife/Hob Gadling (past)

Characters: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Hob Gadling, Delirium of the Endless, Death of the Endless, Dream of the Endless | Daniel Hall, Destruction of the Endless, Desire of the Endless, Despair of the Endless, Destiny of the Endless, Matthew the Raven

Directly follows the previous part, A HOSPITAL BRACELET: HURT

READ ON AO3 OR READ BELOW:

A Hospital Bracelet: Comfort

Inspired by a prompt from @hummingbird231 on Tumblr.

“Let me in!” Matthew shouts. “I’mma peck his eyes out myself, the stupid, noble fuckface.”

The noise is enough to rouse Hob. He who opens an eye to take in the vision of Matthew buffeting at the small window in the hall-side door with gimlet-eyed fury. He is resplendent in his little neon-blue coat that declares him a Service Animal Do Not Pet.

The door pushes open, and a startled-looking nurse immediately flattens himself against it. “I’ve never heard a crow speak in full sentences–”

“Raven!” Matthew and Morpheus correct together.

Morph flows into the room with all his magnificent, royal fury, dragging his sleek wheeled suitcase behind him and practically flinging it into the corner. He must have come straight from the airport.

“Get out,” Morph snarls at the nurse, and before Hob can even work up the spit to scold him for his manners, the fellow is off like a shot.

Morph locks the door behind him. Matthew lands on the bed rail behind Hob’s head and actually does peck him. But it’s just once, on his bare cheek, and gently.

“Ow,” Hob moans softly.

“You deserve worse,” Matthew complains, fluffing up in agitation.

“You are foolish,” Morph adds, as he drags a chair right up against the side of the hospital bed. He sounds so wrecked that anyone would think that Morpheus was the one who was in a car crash. “Jumping in filthy, frigid water, Robert! With a hole in your head!”

“I had to try to save her,” is all Hob says.

“Foolish,” Morph repeats. He takes Hob’s nearest hand between his own and presses his forehead against it, bowing into the bed. It causes the thin, plasticky hospital bracelet to rub against Hob’s road-rash, but he doesn’t say anything about it, too happy to have the warmth of his husband against his skin. “I know you cannot die, erasti, but I will kill you myself if you do this to me again.”

“Hey,” Hob croaks. “Not my fault.”

“He sounds worse than me, boss, get him some water,” Matthew says, hopping over to the bedside table where someone has left a pitcher, a cup, and a paper straw.

Morph pours, and Hob takes the opportunity to look around the room. Besides registering that he was now in a hospital, he hasn’t had much time awake in here to take in his situation. He’s been drifting in and out of consciousness since the ambulance, swapping so frequently between this bed and a soft bit of meadow Fiddler’s Green that they’ve sort of blended together in his scrambled brains.

God’s bones, he hopes he doesn’t have permanent brain damage. Or memory loss.

Matthew extends a wing and holds the straw still as Morph uses one of his hands to hold the cup, and another to help prop Hob upright enough to drink without spilling all over himself. He knows enough to go slow, to take it in little sips, and is grateful for Morph’s patience as he wets his throat.

"I won't be able to stay awake for too long, duckie," Hob says when Morph sets the cup aside. Hob fiddles with the morphine pump button on the side of the gurney but doesn't press it yet. "But I'm glad you're here."

"Hob," Morph says, miserable. He lifts Hob's bandaged hand and presses a long, slow kiss around the bruised flesh of the IV port.

"I am fine," Hob reassures him. He wants to brush his hand through Morph's hair, more wild than usual, undoubtedly from his fretting. He wants to smooth it down, and then smooth down Matthew's ruffled feathers. He wants to put them all back to rights, so this can be behind them.

But it hurts too much to move, so he lets his head flop back, carefully resting on his intact right side, and takes in the hospital room. This is the longest stretch he's been awake so far, and he's been here… hours? Days? Hob's not actually sure.

There was surgery at some point, he remembers that. Daniel had come to keep him company on the Green while he’d been under anesthesia.

It’s probably only been about twenty four hours, considering the fact that Morph would have had to make his way back from the convention in Glasgow, then hired a cab to bring him to Hob in… whatever hospital they're in. An eye-flick at the window on the far wall offers Hob a view of pastureland and a small garden, dotted with other patients, close to the building. So definitely not in London. They must be close to where the crash happened.

Good. Small hospitals in out-of-the-way places are easier to vanish from, and the doctors are less likely to want to perform expensive and unnecessary tests. They’re easier to bribe off with cash, too.

While he and Morph aren't wealthy, they live comfortably enough that their health insurance is sizeable, if only for exact situations like these where a private room and a dedicated nursing team would make it easier to explain away their strange physical conditions. Like surviving a bullet grazing past one's head and taking out a chunk of skull the size of a golf ball, and not dying from it.

"Beg to differ. You got a hole in your head, Hobsie," Matthew argues, hopping down to roost on Hob's belly, pretty much the only part of him that doesn't hurt right now. "And a wrenched shoulder, a broken ankle, and your hands look like you went ten rounds with a hellcat."

"And all of that will heal," Hob assures the bird. Then he squeezes his husband's hand in his. "Though if your mom wants to speed things up for me this time, duck, I wouldn't say no."

He tries to wink at Morph while he says it, but it comes out as a wince instead, which seems to upset Morph even more.

"I should never have gone," Morph says, his voice little more than a broken rumble. The way Matthew scoffs makes it clear that this is already well-trod path between them.

"You couldn't have known, boss," Matthew reassures Morph, but it falls on deaf ears.

"I ought to have," Morph growls. "I was King of all Dreams, I should have—I shouldn't have been surprised—I—"

"Hey, hey," Hob says gently. He uses his grip on his husband’s hand to slowly pull his hand up so Hob can kiss his knuckles. "Shhh. You're not Dream of the Endless anymore. There's no way you could have seen her fantasies."

"Maybe I was hasty in abdicating," Morph says in a miserable, red-eyed rush. He fits his free hand against the side of Hob’s face without the crisscrossing bandages, soothing the little spot where Matthew had poked Hob with his beak. "If I had remained in my role for a few more years, I could—"

"No," Hob says firmly. "No, we're not playing what ifs. And you're not going to beat yourself up for not seeing something coming every time something happens to us. This is what human life is, duckie. It's just rolling with the punches as they come, getting back up, dusting yourself off, and moving forward."

Morph runs his thumb back and forth over Hob’s temple, the place where Hob’s started to bleach and colour his hair into a charming grey stripe.

“This is Desire’s doing,” Morph grumps.

“I doubt that,” Hob soothes him. “Desire doesn’t give a shit about your old rivalry any more. Stop looking for people to blame. Jill’s already dead, poor thing. There’s no one else.”

“Poor thing,” Matthew snorts.

“Well, I feel sorry for her,” Hob says. “Imagine, going through what she did, losing her mum, and then figuring out that some other bastard gets eternal life and you don’t, she didn’t, and it’s not fair—that’s enough to drive anyone mad. Believe me. I should know.”

“Yes, speaking of knowing, how did she?” Morph snarls.

Hob tells him.

It just makes Morph angrier. “Lucifer, that flamboyant, self absorbed–”

“Cut it out,” Hob barks, trotting out his Professor Gadlen voice.

Matthew startles enough to puff up, and Morph jerks back, stung. His face falls from surprise to hurt. Morph draws his hands away and curls into a ball on the hospital chair, and Hob wishes he could chase after him. But even raising his IV’d hand to follow tugs and burns painfully, and Hob hisses and drops it to the bed instead.

Matthew looks like he’s about to say something, but Hob shoots him a warning glare, and the raven snaps his beak shut.

“Morph, babe,” Hob says gently. “I’m not mad at you. I just need you to stop thinking that this is anyone’s fault but hers. I know you feel lost and aimless because there is no one to punish, and no one to blame, and no one to yell at—it’s hard to have all that anger in you and nowhere for it to go. I get it. But you gotta let it go.”

He holds up his hand and Morpheus pounces on it, clinging like Hob is floating in the sea and he is the only life raft.

“Erasti,” Morph breathes, and his lower lashes sparkle with unshed tears. Where once they glowed sliver, mercurial as stardust, they’re now just regular old saltwater… but no less beautiful. “I was… I was so frightened.”

“Me too,” Hob assures him. “But nothing was going to keep me there. Nothing will ever keep me from you.”

“I couldn’t… the… glass… I couldn’t stop thinking about…” His sentence devolves into panicky little breaths, and, by god, does Hob wish he was the kind of immortal creature that heals quickly, so he could be over all of this nonsense and out of the hospital already. That he was able to fold Morph in his embrace and kiss away every one of his terrible fears and memories.

For half a moment, he enjoys the extremely bitter irony of not being a vampire.

“Here, come up here,” Hob says, wiggling as much as his bound shoulder and casted foot will allow. He makes a small gutter of space between his side and the rail of the bed.

Matthew rides him out, waiting until Morph has folded his skinny arse on the mattress, and then picks his way over Hob’s chest to hunker down on the pillow, right behind Morph’s upturned shoulder. He lays his head over Morph’s pulse and watches Hob with worried black eyes. Morpheus presses himself so close to Hob it’s like he’s trying to crawl through his skin.

“I can’t do this without you,” Morph warbles.

“And you never will. No one is ever going to take me away from you.”

“Dee said that when you didn’t show up for class, he went to check on you. He said it looked like someone dragged you out of the flat, and Destiny gave us the CCTV footage and you were so limp, and so alone, all I could think about was… the… the basement…”

The glass prison, Hob realizes. Being trapped while a demented human demanded boons and power that are not within you to give.

“That’s fair, duck, I would think of that first, too.”

“And then I… I didn’t know… I’m powerless now, Hob. I can’t–”

“Shhh, shhh, you’re not powerless. You’re here. Right here. Right now. Right where I need you to be.”

“I had to rely on my family to find you. To save you.”

“And they did. That’s what family is for.”

“I felt so helpless.”

Hob decides it’s worth the pain and effort to stop up Morph’s mouth with his own. The kiss starts desperate, dislodging Matthew, who flaps back to Hob’s belly, but Hob is able to slow it down into something sweet and reassuring.

“You’re not useless, you’re not powerless, and you’re not helpless,” Hob reminds his husband, in between lingering pecks. “Even if you did not have your siblings to turn to, I don’t doubt for a second that you would have found me. Not one second, do you hear me, beloved?”

“You suffered,” Morph whispers, so soft it’s nearly lost under the beep and whirr of the machines around Hob. “And I was not there to make it stop.”

“I’m not suffering now,” Hob says gently and kisses him one last time. “I am safe, thanks to you.”

Morpheus mumbles something, but it’s buried between Hob’s neck and pillow, and he doesn’t catch it.

“I’m going to reup my meds. All this moving around has me in agonies.”

Morph sits up. “Erasti, you should not have let me–”

“Nah,” Hob says, reaching over Morph to press the button to release a dose of his husband’s namesake drug into his IV. “I’m much happier with you here. Stay ‘till I fall asleep?” Hob asks, pleased when Morph both against the mattress to keep him company.

"It wasn’t me, you know," a voice drawls from the window-side of Hob's bed, the next time he regains consciousness.

"Hmm?" Hob asks, working to get his eyes gummy open.

The little birdie weight on Hob’s stomach is gone, as is the press of Morph next to him.

He reaches out, wincing, but finds Despair in the hospital chair next to him, and not Morph.

"They've gone to fetch tea," Despair says, with thin grey glee. "Hospital tea is the worst kind of tea."

Hob rolls his head the other way—or, at least as far as the wad of bandaging on the ventilated side of his head allows—and Desire winks from the narrow sofa under the window. They're lounging like it's a luxurious settee from a golden age starlet's dressing room, instead of the sagging, pokey thing it is.

"I didn't know that the woman had such designs. I would not have…" Desire makes a disgusted sound. "I’ve laid my quarrel with your husband to rest. It’s no fun, now that he’s a boring old human.”

“I’m making an effort not to be offended,” Hob sing-songs, then coughs against his dry mouth. Despair helps him get some pillows behind his back to sit up, and to take a few sips of water.

Desire only rolls their golden eyes. “I did not set the woman on you to punish him."

"I know," Hob says.

Desire pouts petulantly. "He doesn't trust me."

"He doesn't trust anyone," Hob offers gently. "Don't take it personally."

"He must trust you," Despair says. Hob knows that she’s saying it to hook anxiety and resentment into him, and that she can’t help it. It’s just who she is. He doesn’t let the barbs break skin.

"He loves me, which is not the same,” Hob corrects kindly. “There are still things he doesn't trust me with. I think maybe the only person he really trusts is Daniel. Maybe Matthew."

"But you are his spouse," Desire says, the confusion drawing them out of their sulk. "Surely he trusts you."

"To an extent," Hob says affably. He wishes he could shrug but he knows that it will just hurt, so he doesn't. "I'm not offended by it. He's been hurt a lot in his life—hey, look at me, Desire, don't pout, I'm not calling you out here—he's been hurt because he loved too much, too fast, and too completely. And he’s had the trust that this kind of love engenders broken a lot. Then to top it off, he naively believed that humanity was the sum of all its best parts–and it is, it can be–but he’s been disabused of that by some very awful humans doing very awful things to him. And to one another. And now that he's just human, he lives in dread of the day that I’ll succumb to the same thing every other lover he’s had has succumbed to–that I’ll find the size and intensity of his love too much of a burden. And that eventually I’ll resent him, or get bored of him, and send him off."

Desire bursts into howling, hysterical laughter. "You? You? Fall out of love with our darling Moron Morph? Ha! Better to think you could piss on the sun to put it out!"

"Colourful," Hob chuckles. "But accurate. He needs to settle into that realization himself. I can't do it for him. And," Hob adds, as Desire’s expression turns mischievous and thoughtful. “Don’t you go meddling either. Let him sink into it naturally.”

“My darling little brother,” Desire drawls. “I am Desire of the Endless. There is literally no force in existence more natural than I.”

Hob just levels them a flat, unimpressed look.

“Oh fine,” Desire says, throwing up their hands. They flip around on the sofa, irritable, laying on it head down with their long, long legs propped against the wall under the window, crossed at the ankle. “Spoilsport.”

“Thank you.” Hob turns his attention to the other twin. “And how are you, darling Despair?”

“Wonderful,” she effuses with a sated sigh. “I love hospitals.”

Hob grins at her. Some people might be put off by another’s joy in people’s misery, but that’s literally who Despair is. The sun rises in the east, water is wet, and Despair of the Endless revels in suffering. He’s just happy she’s happy.

“Your lovely hair,” Despair moans theatrically, brushing her hand through the ends of it visible on the side of his head. “You must be sad.”

“Of course. But it’ll grow back,” Hob assures her. He tries to reach up to tug on his ear, the little tick that has given away his embarrassment since he was a wee boy, and his mam caught him in a lie, but the motion pulls on the bandages on his shoulder, and he drops his hand to the bed instead.

“Of course it will,” Desire adds, grinning with their tongue between their teeth. “Handsome Hobsie.”

The urge to tug his ear grows stronger. "Where's Delirium?"

"She had her turn to sit with you while you slept through the drug-haze," Despair says.

"She's out pestering the nurses right now," Desire adds, gesturing at the door as if whatever Del was up to was simply childish nonsense, not worth remarking on. "Confusing them into allowing you a discharge tomorrow. After that, the files will simply vanish."

"The head nurse will berate herself for weeks," Despair adds with relish.

"That's… really thoughtful," Hob offers with a blink. "Thanks, guys."

"It's almost as if we love you, little brother," Desire drawls, stretching and rising to their feet, amused by the way Hob's gaze latches onto the bulge in their anatomically-impossibly-tight trousers, which of course they had done on purpose to fluster him.

"Destruction will pick you up tomorrow afternoon," Despair says, rising as well and setting the chair in just the right place to trip anyone coming into the room. "Oh! Morph should learn to drive."

"Oh, no, he absolutely should not," Hob rejoinders. "Not if he doesn't want to end up in one of these beds himself."

"But he'd be so bad at it," Despair points out, full of hope.

Morph returns with two cups of truly wretched tea, and informs Hob that Del’s pulled some unseen strings to get him released into Morph’s care. Apparently she’s convinced the hospital that Hob is being moved to a posh, ultra-private clinic under specialist supervision.

“So private it only has one bed!” Matthew jokes, and Hob tries not to wince at the volume of his caws. It’s not the raven’s fault that Hob is having problems regulating his sensory input due to a traumatic brain injury.

As Hob and Morph grimace their way through the appalling tea, Matthew pulls the chart off the foot of the bed and painstakingly flips through it, reading the most interesting bits aloud.

“Three-dee printed disk of human bone fitted into your skull, isn’t it a wonder what they can do with technology nowadays, with a skin graft to cover the wound…”

“Where did you learn to read the chart?” Hob asks.

“I was a cop, wasn’t I?” Matthew says with his version of a shrug. “Got lots of practice hanging around in hospital rooms with vi–witnesses and the like.”

Hob tries not to be offended that Matthew thinks he’ll be triggered by the word ‘victim’.

“Oh!” Matthew snorts, “They took the skin from your ass! You’re a real and genuine asshat now!”

Hob groans and shifts on the bed. “No wonder I can’t get comfortable.”

“Are you in a great deal of pain, erasti?”

“Only from this tea,” Hob jokes, handing it back to Morph.

Morph looks like he wants to protest, but instead just takes the tea and sets it aside.

“Sorry,” Hob fumbles, unsure how to parse Morph’s quiet thoughtfulness. “I… I didn’t mean to insult–”

“No, no,” Morph murmurs. “It is just…”

Matthew mantles and, after a moment, finishes Morph’s thought with: “We’re just worried about you, Hobsie. You seem a bit–”

“Am I slurring?” Hob interrupts, fear surging up his spin. “Do I sound funny? Is my brain scrambled, I mean, I sound fine to me, but am I–”

“You are perfectly intelligible, erasti,” Morph reassures him. “Only, you are being… unexpectedly genial.”

“What?”

“Your good mood is freaking us out,” Matthew clarifies.

Hob takes a moment to parse what they mean. “Wait, you’re worried because I’m not acting traumatized enough?” Morph takes his IV’d hands between both of his, looking theatrically sympathetic and worried. “Oh, come on! I’m fine.”

“There’s a hole in your head,” Matthew says gently.

“And they filled it with science fiction medical shit,” Hob grouses. “I can’t die.”

Morph looks hesitant to speak his mind, which, perhaps, a first for him. At least for as long as Hob has known him. Which is damn near seven hundred years, now. But he clearly has something he wants to say. It’s written all over his face like a ticking time bomb.

“Go on,” Hob says. “Spit it out, already.”

Morph blinks hard. Gently, he begins with: “You once told me that your greatest nightmare was to be captured and experimented upon. Despair told me what was done, and–”

“Stop.” Bile, hot and sour, rushes up Hob’s throat. He swallows hard against it, refusing, refusing to let that woman hurt him any more. He squeezes Morph’s hand hard enough to probably hurt.

Morph stops.

“No,” Hob says firmly, screwing his eyes shut, forcing his breathing to remain steady, to not speed up, to not betray his…no. No. “No. We’re not… no.”

“Okay,” Matthew says, wobbling over the blanket to press his head comfortingly against Hob’s heart. “It’s okay.”

“I’m fine,” Hob says, pushing him off gently. “I just don’t see what good dwelling on it will do. It’s over. I’m fine.”

Morph and Matthew exchange a look that makes it clear that they don’t believe him. It settles like a nettling irritant under his skin.

“You know, I fucking hate it when you guys conspire,” Hob snaps. “Makes me feel like a third wheel in my own fucking marriage, sometimes.”

Morph doesn’t outwardly react to Hob’s words, but the shine in his glacier-blue eyes gets brighter, his entire vibe closing off.

“Yeah, I guess that’s my cue to fuck off,” Matthew says, voice pinched.

“Wait, Matthew, I didn’t mean–” Hob starts, but doesn’t finish, as Matthew’s already leapt into the air and, in the span of two wingbeats, vanished into the Dreaming. Hob turns to look at Morph. He wishes he could cross his arms across this chest. “What?”

“Excellently done, erasti,” Morph says, and sarcasm oozes like sludge from every syllable.

“Well, I do feel that way, sometimes,” Hob snaps.

“Then why have you not said so before now?” Morph challenges. “Why bring it up only to weaponize it right when we’re all feeling at our most vulnerable? Do you seek to hurt us the way you have been hurt? Or in recompense for my failure to protect–”

“No,” Hob interrupts hastily, shame flooding his body and dousing the prickly standoffishness. “I’m sorry. I am. That wasn’t fair. My brain-to-mouth filter must have been in the glob of grey-matter that fell onto the van floor. I’m sorry.”

Morph sniffs, clearly not ready to forgive Hob yet, and that’s fair. That’s fair. He’s going to have to grovel to Matthew, too. “Was your emotional intelligence in that glob as well?”

“Ouch,” Hob laughs, but it’s thin and strained. “Okay, I deserved that.”

“Hob, we were scared for you. We are still frightened of what complications may arise from what occurred. Will you not concede that our fears are well founded, at least?”

Hob chews on that for a moment, and while he thinks that it’s all ridiculous, that it’s nothing, he won’t deny Morph the right to feel what he feels.

“No, yeah, of course,” Hob says softly. “I’ll… I’ll do better.”

“You do not need to do better at trying to lie to yourself and us about your mental state,” Morph warns him. “You need to allow yourself to process what happened and experience it.”

Hob makes a sour face at that. “Right now?”

“No, of course not in this immediate moment…” Morph heaves a sigh.

“Okay. Later,” Hob says, meaning not ever.

Morph eyes him like he knows, but lets it drop. After a few long moments of awkward, frustrated silence, Morph says, “What else was in that glob of grey matter, do you suppose?”

He’s trying for a joke, and Hob’s replying laughter is too forced, but neither of them remark on it.

“I dunno. Why don’t you quiz me?”

“In what year did we first meet?”

“2019,” Hob says promptly, just for the way Morph’s face transforms with shock and dismay, only to curl into sly amusement.

“Ah, you jest.”

“Of course I jest. 1389, June 7th. Best day of my life.” He uses their entwined fingers to pull Morph’s hand to his mouth for a quick kiss. “Give me a hard one.”

“Hƿæt ƿæs þīn earste inƿætling þū me?”

“I č ierēamde þīn ēagan for dæᵹ,” Hob replies.

"Menteur. Je suis revenu en arrière et j'ai regardé tes rêves à propos de moi après que nous soyons devenus amants."

"D'accord, j'ai rêvé de tes yeux et de te pencher au-dessus de la table, juste là, au milieu de the White Horse."

“Kinē sōhaṇē śabada. Tusīṁ mērē nāla kivēṁ rōmānsa karadē hō, isa la'ī.”

“Tusīṁ saca magi'ā, rōmānsa nahīṁ,” Hob says with a cheeky wink, feeling much more himself now that they were back to flirting.

“That’s not truth either!” Morph blurts out. “Þú virðir mig. Þú óttaðist mig.”

“Ég hef aldrei óttast þig.”

“I glóssa sou eínai asiménia ópos pánta. Den nomízo óti écheis chásei kamía glóssa.”

“Ti anakoúfisi,” Hob says, with a sigh, and indeed it is a relief. Whatever it was what made Hob Hob, that formed his personality, and his memories, and his core identity, seem to be intact.

Hob’s not entirely certain he trusts Destiny of the Endless to drive any more than Morpheus, considering he’s never seen the entity’s eyes through the curtain of his hipster-emo hair. But it’s Destiny who greets them from the driver’s seat of Dee’s junky little Jeep hatchback. As Dee lifts Hob from the wheelchair into the back seat, Hob supposes it makes sense for the big strong burly Endless to be the one to manhandle him around while his motor function is still shot. Still, he thinks he might prefer the one who’s lived among humans to be the one navigating.

“We will arrive at the New Inn safely,” Destiny sniffs as Morph scoots in the other rear door, and gets Hob buckled in.

Hob is reminded sharply that his in-laws can read his surface thoughts, so long as they pertain to their sphere of influence. A spike of annoyance flashes through him, but Hob shoves it down. It doesn’t matter.

“Fair enough, fair enough,” Hob laughs lightly, instead, trying to keep the mood light.

He’s already exhausted from their little escape. Okay, so said ‘escape’ is agonizingly slow, in broad daylight, and under the approval and supervision of a bunch of people who won’t remember it afterwards, but perhaps they were a bit hasty in getting him out of there so fast. He really does wish he’d been able to bring some of that lovely IV-strength morphine with him.

Destruction climbs into the front. “All set?”

“Yeah,” Hob says. “Good as it’s gonna get, at least. You know, it’s sweet of all of you to check in on me, but I’ll be fine.”

Matthew lands on Morph’s lap, and they exchange a skeptical glance as Morph shuts his door, and Destiny pulls away from the hospital carriageway.

“What?” Hob chuckles, leaning as far back in the seat as it allows to cradle his poor head, broken ankle propped on the wheel well. “Really, I’m fine!”

“Boss,” Dee says, turning awkwardly around in the passenger seat. “Not to make, you know, light of it, but you were drugged, abducted, imprisoned, medically violated, shot, and then in a horrific car wreck. You’re allowed to be not fine. Anybody would be not-fine.”

“I was not-fine after only two of those things happened to me,” Morph says softly.

“That was a whole century, though,” Hob says. “I was only gone a day. Twenty-four hours at most.”

“A short duration of torture lasts does not make it any less torturous.”

“Torture!” Hob echoes, with a forced guffaw. “Come on, guys.”

Morpheus lays a gentle hand on Hob’s thigh, and somehow the usually comforting gesture feels condescending this time. “Erasti, waking nightmares have been spawned by less. There is no shame in–”

“Stop pestering me,” Hob snaps, shoving Morph’s hand off, his good mood starting to strain.

“Hobsie, come on,” Matthew says, scrambling up Morph’s arm to perch on his shoulder and preen Hob’s visible hair under the bandages. “I thought you didn’t buy into the toxic masculinity bullshi–”

“I said I’m fine!” Hob snarls. “So leave it.”

Matthew jerks back with a startled squawk, landing on his back in Morph’s hastily cupped hands. No one else says anything, but the silence that descends on the car is thick with I told you so. Four pairs of eyes drill into Hob accusingly, worriedly; even Destiny's, while he still somehow manages to keep them on the road. Or so Hob assumes, cause he can’t see them.

“Ow,” Hob says, his head throbbing so hard that he sees dark spots in his vision.

Morph sets Matthew to rights. The raven faces away from Hob on Morph’s lap, Morph helping him groom his feathers smooth with stiff, pale fingers. Hob immediately feels like an arse.

But everyone is finally quiet, so he closes his eyes and rests the intact part of his skull on the cool window and closes his eyes, and tries to banish the vision of the needle coming toward him, over, and over, and over again.

Death and Delirium are waiting for them at the flat, and Hob tries not to be irritated by it.

He’s not a fucking child, he doesn’t need babysitting.

Hob is handed off like a grouchy baton, Destruction setting him gently on the sofa, Death covering him with the hand-knit blanket from the back of it. Delirium twines the stem of a flower—drooping, partially managed echinacea, which otherwise would be a sweet wish to get well soon—through the bandages around his head. Destiny reviews the uses of the medication the nurses had discharged Hob with in the kitchen, with Matthew and Morph.

“Brought you a present,” Death says. She holds up a stunningly beautiful art-nouveau style stoppered pitcher in emerald-green glass. It’s filled with what appears to be an ever-swirling golden storm of Dream Sand. "And it's not addictive, like opiates or morphine."

"Well, not that much more," Despair says, from where she's appeared on the armchair next to the sofa.

"Tsk, this is so tacky," Desire says, grabbing his wrist without even asking Hob, and cutting away the hospital bracelet with one blood-red, razor-sharp nail. It drops to the floor with an anti-climactic flutter. "There."

Hob recoils from their touch, overwhelmed and feeling very much that he wants to be left alone. And also, very much, that he is desirous of a shower. He feels objectively disgusting under all the sweat and grime and reek of the hospital.

"Well, I'm not washing your back, Hobsie," Desire purrs. "Though if you got permission from Mister Morose, I think I could be persuaded to give you a sponge bath." With a seductive gesture, they're suddenly dressed in an extremely frilly, extremely skimpy candystriper costume.

"Bath?" Death pipes up from behind the sofa, where she was in discussion about security of the flat with Destruction. "Absolutely not. You’ll get your cast wet, and water in your cuts, and soap in your brain, and that can’t be good, even if it won’t kill you.”

“They put a skin graft over the hole,” Hob grumps. “Nothing can get in my brain.”

“They took it from his ass!” Matthew chirrups from the kitchen. “So Hobsie’s a real asshat now.”

“Yes, thank you,” Hob growls. “Ha ha ha. That gets much funnier the more you tell it.”

Matthew mantles and harrumphs, puffing up like a particularly irritated soot sprite. “Hey, I’m just trying to lighten the mood around here.”

“There’s no mood,” Hob says. The bandages itch. The adhesive is pulling uncomfortably on his hair, and he just feels so gross. He wants to brush his teeth, but he doubts any of the Endless will even let him piss in peace.

Despair smiles. “There’s definitely a mood.”

“AGGresSioN aNd uNUsUAl CoMbATiveNESS is A sIgN oF TrAuMaTIc bRaIn InJuRY. HaVe yOUr puPiLs ReTuRnEd to THE sAmE SiZe, oR—” Delirium floats far too close to Hob, peering into his face, the tip of her nose touching his.

"Okay, that's enough! Everyone out, out!" Hob snarls. Silence falls like an atom bomb. The assemblage of his in-laws all turn to blink at him with expressions ranging from amused to offended. "Please, I am exhausted. I appreciate your concern but please go. Please."

"Of course," Death says, graciously, as if it were her idea and not because Hob just bit off the collective heads off of six of the most powerful entities in existence. "We must let Dream have his time with our littlest brother, as he is still too young to step into the Waking."

"No," Hob moans. "No, I beg you. I don't want to be coddled in the Dreaming either, I just—" But then he's talking to an empty room.

Well, not quite empty.

Morph and Matthew are still in the kitchen. Morph has a pill bottle in each hand, and a raven on his shoulder, and a look of intense scrutiny on his face as he pointedly does not divert his attention from the medication.

Matthew shoots a few looks between Hob and Morph, and then spreads his wings.

"Yeah, good luck with that, bossman," Matthew says, and launches himself off of Morph and through the open window, into the sky.

"Fuck," Hob says with feeling, punching the sofa cushion beside his thigh. And then, once more, "Fuck!"

Which of course makes his head start to ache and his vision dance, and his stomach roil.

He wants to scream, and puke, and pass out, all at once. Instead he does his best to throw off the blanket, and shove himself furiously to his feet.

"Do not stand," Morph says, setting down the bottles and crossing the flat in floor-eating strides. He scoops up the discarded bracelet and shoves it in his pocket, then puts his hands carefully on Hob's arms. He tries to guide Hob back down onto the sofa.

"I'm not fucking made of glass!"

"I never said that you were."

"Stop treating me like it!"

Sneering bitchily, Morph obligingly releases Hob's arms. But Hob's honestly still struggling with his balance, and he wobbles, then steps down hard on his airboot. He yelps as his broken ankle screams its protest.

Morph simply crosses his arms and glares at Hob, unimpressed.

Hob grits his teeth, firms his chin, and gives him back a glare of his own, determined not to budge. He takes deep breaths through his nose to push through the pain.

A small part of himself is calling Hob a stubborn fool, and reminding him that he’s only hurting himself by pushing away everyone, by trying to power through instead of taking the rest that he needs, but laying down hurts in a way that Hob can’t describe.

It’s not physical, it’s… it’s in his head, in a part of his brain that the bullet didn’t scramble, and he’s so stupidly tempted to poke through the wound on his scalp, get his finger in there, hook into the place where the fear is writhing and yank it out, make it quiet, make it stop–

Laying down is too much like surrendering.

It’s like willingly putting himself on that table again and just letting—no.

Hob’s stomach interrupts their silent standoff with a frankly mortifying gurgle.

“You must sit. And then I will bring you something to eat, and your medications. They must be taken on a full stomach.”

Hob only lifts his chin and grits his jaw harder.

“You are being a brat.”

That gets a rise out of Hob. “Don’t bring your cute little BDSM terms into this, this isn’t the bedroom, I’m not… I’m not being sassy so I can get spanked,” Hob says, so offended that Morph would take something that is supposed to be fun, and intimate, and weaponize it against him like that, when he’s already feeling so–so…

Go on, he thinks viciously at himself. Put a name to what you’re feeling. Be a grownup about it.

No.

No, because if he names it, if he acknowledges it, then he has to feel it, and if he has to feel it then he has to admit to it, to deal with it, and he’s not ready to… not ready to…

“Erasti, sit.”

“No.”

“Hob Gadling!” Morph snarls, drawing himself up, clearly at the end of his patience. His voice booms deep and resonant: “Cease your whinging and do as I command!”

Hob plops down on the sofa, glaring mutinously all the while. Not because Morph commanded him to do so. Because he chose to do so. Because his ankle was really, really starting to hurt.

Yes.

That’s it.

“Now, please,” Morph begs, deflating a little but still ramrod-straight with his agitation. “Please, my beloved, just allow me to help you.”

“I don’t need help, I just need… I just need to get back to normal,” Hob says helplessly, and he hates how small and desperate it comes out. “I just want everything to go back to the way it was, before she… before…”

He squinches his eyes shut and shakes his head hard to dispel the sense memory of cheap scratchy cuffs at his wrists, and a hard table against his back, the prick of a needle in the bend of his elbow, the revoltingly violating touch against the intimate curve of his neck—

Which of course makes his head throb again, his stomach heave, his world slide. The discomfort in his gut increases, both starving after days of little sustenance and no solid food, and so nauseous that he’s afraid that even the smell of food may make him heave.

He wants tea.

He wants a bath.

He wants to cry.

“And you will, erasti, I promise. Things will return to normal. But you must allow yourself the time to heal. Body and mind.”

Hob scowls, even as he drags the knit blanket over his lap. He’s aware that it looks like he’s trying to hide himself in it. Or armor himself. He just needs something to do with his hands, he feels so useless. “There’s nothing wrong with my mind.”

“I never said there was anything wrong–” Morph starts and then stops. He heaves out a bone-deep, growling sigh of frustration and scrubs his long fingers through his already-wild hair. “You were not this difficult when you cracked your rib.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t strapped down to a fucking lab table then, was I?” Hob sneers, and then actually claps a palm over his own traitorous mouth.

Morph, in response, looks utterly stricken.

“Oh, no, no, duckie,” Hob says, voice and hands suddenly trembling as he drops them away from his face. “I didn’t… please don’t worry… I…” He blinks hard, refusing, refusing to give in to the—to the…

His stomach gurgles again.

It spurs Morph into action, sending him back to the kitchen, where he takes a moment at the counter to not-so-subtly wipe the tears from his eyes. Then he’s pulling a baking sheet from the oven, plating up something that fills the flat with the divine scents of buttery pastry, savory spices, and rich gravy.

The nausea Hob feared doesn’t rear its head. Instead, his stomach just growls louder.

Morph putters a bit more, setting things out on the tea tray, opening and closing the fridge door, but Hob is too busy flexing his hands on his knees and counting out some calming deep breaths.

Face dry and once more rearranged into something less wrought, Morph returns to the sofa with a glass of water, a bottle of pills, a meal-replacement shake, and a plate with two little wonky, misshapen pasties. He sets the tray on the coffee table within reach of where Hob’s slumped in the corner of the sofa, and takes the chair beside it.

“Did you make these?” Hob asks softly.

“Destruction did this morning, and if you say one word about how terribly formed they are, I do believe it will send him into paroxysms of melancholy.”

“I’m not going to get food poisoning, am I?”

“No,” Moph says. “Only the outsides are queer.”

Hob doesn’t move.

“They are venison.” Morph says it in such an achingly tender, hopeful voice that Hob’s eyes burn.

Something huge and hot and harrowing surges to life in his chest, stoppering up his breath. Hob leans back into the corner of the sofa and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. “This is too much,” Hob gasps.

“This is how I show you how much I love you.”

“Duck?”

“Because this is how you show me,” Morph says, in a soft tone that nonetheless conveys his belief that he’s married an idiot.

“How…?”

"Do you think I am unaware that your love language is acts of service?" Morph asks, sitting forward to lay a calming, claiming hand over the crown of Hob’s bandaged head, just shy of the wound over his ear. "Especially when it comes to the provision of victuals?"

Hob feels his face flush. He didn't realize his little kink had been that obvious. Or that he'd been quite so transparent. "Awww, you know my love language, babe?” Hob teases, without looking up, trying to get his footing in this conversation back. “That's embarrassing for you."

“Stop deflecting,” Morph says. "Do you not think that I am also aware that you despise being babied, and greatly dislike the thought that you cannot provide for yourself? Or for me?"

“I… it’s not about being babied, it’s–”

“You have been alone for centuries, my dearest heart,” Morph says, sliding closer and pressing the side of his face to Hob’s, cheek to cheek, clearly not minding how greasy his hair is or how his breath must reek. “You have been forced to shift for yourself this whole time, and so you see accepting help as a weakness. But it is not a weakness, my beloved. It takes great strength to allow others, others who love you, to see you vulnerable and in need, and to allow them to meet those needs. As much as I cannot do this without you, you no longer need to do this without me.”

"I hate this," Hob grumbles mutinously. "I hate this. I hate this!"

And then, without warning, he's sobbing.

Great, horrible, face-twisting, throat-shredding, revoltingly snotty sobs heave their way out of the deepest, filthiest part of his guts.

“Go on, sweetheart,” Morpheus soothes him gently, sliding out of his chair to kneel at Hob’s side, to wrap his arms around Hob’s chest, press his ear to Hob’s heart, and hold on. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“I was so scared!” Hob gulps and splutters, gids his fingers into Morph’s shoulders and holds on, holds on. Doesn’t ever think he’ll be able to let go. “I was so afraid that she’d do something and it would be permanent, and I’d never get to tell you… never get to see you…”

“I’m here. I’m safe. We’re both safe,” Morph murmurs into his chest, deep voice buzzing against Hob’s rib cage, here and alive, alive, alive.

"She wanted me to marry her. She shot me in the head and then expected me to drink your blood and marry her and I was scared, I was so scared she would hurt you, that you would—I can survive anything, I've been through everything but I couldn't bare to see you hurt again, locked up again, I couldn't—I c-couldn't—"

Hob curls over Morph’s crouched body as much as his aching shoulder allows, pressing his husband into his stomach, wishing he could merge their skins, their flesh, wishing he could tuck Morpheus up behind his own bones where no hurt could ever find him ever again.

"I cannot die either, Hob."

“I know that, I know that, in my head I know that. But my heart… in my heart, I just, I j-just—”

Morpheus just squeezes him tighter.

This wrenches a new wave of horrified, whining sobs from Hob. “It’s my worst fear. The worst–the table, the needle, I screamed, I screamed and nobody came, nobody—I was alone, and I–I–I, I… I…”

Morpheus rises on his knees, slides his hands to Hob’s face, cups his cheeks and presses a revenant, worshipful kiss into the deep furrow between Hob’s eyes.

“I will never let that happen to you again,” Morph vows, lips pressed against Hob’s forehead.

“You can’t... you can’t promise that. You can’t be sure—”

Morpheus sits back. “Please look at me, Robert.”

Hob takes a moment to calm his stuttered breathing and pry his tear-sore eyes open. Morpheus’s expression is grave and gaunt.

“Be reassured that I know this is your greatest fear. You berated me for it so roundly in Gadlen House that it is seared into my heart, erasti. I shall not forget, even if we live for a hundred thousand years. Please also be assured that I am furious that this happened to you, and more furious still that I could not stop it.” Morph sweeps his thumbs across Hob’s cheeks, comforting and kind. “And so, I have spoken with Dream, and he has granted you a great boon.”

“A… a boon?” Hob echoes, reaching up to pull Morph’s hands into his own shaking ones, desperate for the long-familiar comfort of his fingers laced between Hob’s, needing the reassurance and the grounding like air.

“Originally I asked for a raven of your own to watch over you,” Morph says, with a disappointed twist in the corner of his fine pink lips. “But it seems that only Dream of the Endless—or his former incarnation—may be so blessed.”

Hob jolts with the memory of his childish, cringey accusation that Matthew and Morpheus’ relationship makes his marriage feel crowded and lesser. “I should apologize to Matthew.”

“Yes, you should,” Morph says, but doesn’t allow himself to be diverted. “Instead of a raven, Dream has gifted you this.”

He pulls back just enough to pull a golden ring from his back pocket. It looks so much like Hob’s wedding ring that he has to glance at his own hand to be sure, but no, the crazy bitch hadn’t stolen it off him while he was unconscious, thank god. This ring is slightly thinner, plain, but with a deep emerald chip embedded in the band in such a way that it would be impossible to prise out.

Slowly, with great veneration and ceremony, Morph slips it onto Hob’s finger, to settle snug against his wedding band as if made to go there. Which it actually, literally, was.

The stone flares bright, gold-green for one gloriously beautiful moment, then quiets down.

“Should you be in danger, the moment you fall asleep or lose consciousness, Dream will find you in your sleepscape. If necessary, he will alert the other Endless. Should the ring be removed by any but you or I, it will alert the Endless. If the ring is destroyed, or someone attempts to tamper with the Dream Stone, it will alert the Endless.” Morph bows his head and kisses the ring like a medieval troubadour making courtly love.

“Awww, babe,” Hob sniffles. The tight, searing bands of panic wrapped around his lungs ease away, and Hob feels like he can breathe again. “You microchipped me. That’s so romantic.”

Morph smirks at Hob’s trembling attempt at good humor, and holds up his own left hand. An identical ring of silver and green is snugged up against his own wedding band. “I microchipped us both.”

Hob snorts a laugh, but it comes out disgustingly wet and miserable. Very carefully, Morph joins him on the sofa. Morph tucks into the corner and pulls Hob back against his chest, sheltering him in the cradle of his pelvis, guiding Hob’s head down onto his own shoulder.

“I hurt,” Hob sniffles, in a tiny, broken voice.

“I know. Will you eat? Then you can take your medication.”

“Yeah,” Hob says.

“The pasties, or the shake?”

“I’ll try the pasties. If only so Dee doesn’t pitch himself out a window.”

Morph’s chuckle buzzles against Hob’s skin, comforting and alive.

He takes very great delight in feeding Hob careful, gentle bites of one pasty, alternating it with sips of water, until Hob feels full and warm, and cared for. Together they wrangle the morphine pill down his throat. And then, very, very carefully, Morph pours a trickle of Dream Sand out of the pitcher and into Hob’s eyes, all the while promising Hob that when he wakes, they will figure out the best way for Hob to bathe.

Hob’s eyelids grow heavy, and Morph tucks the heavy knit blanket over Hob, a pleasant, steadying, reassuring weight.

And in the Dreaming, Daniel greets them both with the waking nightmares that Hob’s ordeal has germinated at his side. They are small dark things, rambunctious and shy by turns, barely out of their infancy. Hob crouches on the pale marble floor of Daniel’s throne room, and lets them climb all over him, eager in their puppish devotion to their duty.

With Daniel’s gentle guidance, and Morpheus’ support, Hob spends the night diligently working through the trauma they leave clinging to his skin. He relives it over and over again, nightmare flowing into nightmare, until the dark, scrabbly little things begin to soften at the edges, becoming insubstantial and wisp-like.

Just before dawn, they fade away, returning to Dream Sand in order to be called back into existence and to another Dreamer, at another time.

When Hob opens his eyes, the morning light cuts across the room and into his eyes. Morph must have carried him to their bedroom sometime in the night, likely waking while Hob was distracted. Now he is sprawled against Hob’s side, feet carefully tucked away from the cast, head pillowed on Hob’s chest above his heart.

Hob kisses the pieces of Morph he can reach–mostly hair–and only then registers that there is more fluffy blackness there than usual. Matthew is asleep against Morph’s neck. Hob pets gently down Matthew’s back with one finger, and relaxes into the knowledge that he is home, and he is loved, and he is safe.

____

Morpheus and Hob's language-testing conversation:

Morpheus (Anglo-Saxon): "What was your first impression of me?”

Hob (Anglo-Saxon): “I thought of your eyes for days."

Morpheus (Contemporary French): "That’s not true. I went back and viewed your dreams of me after we became lovers."

Hob (Contemporary French): "'kay, so I dreamed of your eyes and bending you over the table, right there in the White Horse."

Morpheus (Contemporary Persian): "What pretty words. How you romance me so."

Hob (Contemporary Persian): "You asked for the truth, not romance."

Morpheus (Contemporary Icelandic): “You venerated me. You feared me.”

Hob (Contemporary Icelandic): “I have never feared you.”

Morpheus (Contemporary Greek): “Your tongue is as silver as always. I don't think you've lost any languages."

Hob (Contemporary Greek): "What a relief."

(If you speak any of these languages, PLEASE correct me. I am leaning heavily on GoogleTranslate. The French was graciously provided by UldAses.)

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