Chapter Text
...he can't be dead.
~*~
Of all the many mourners at the funeral, Hob Gadling seemed to be the only one to take notice of him, the older looking man drifting in and out of the shadows, disappearing between moments, never in the same space as one of The Endless.
It was at the end of the night as he exited the Castle of the Dreaming, after he had his chat with Death, and a brief look at the new Dream that was not his, that Hob saw the same mysterious figure again in the distance, leaning on the long bridge. The old man was gazing up at the dark skies, looking right past Morpheus’ star, as if searching for something else.
As Hob approached and leaned against the railing, the being glanced his way briefly, frowning and shaking his head before turning his attention back to the Night sky.
“He was her favorite, you know,” the old man said, almost wistfully.
Hob regarded him curiously, saying nothing.
“Let us skip this conversation so you waste less of me,” the old man said, looking at Hob with overt disdain. “I am Time, and I know what you seek and what you will ask of me.”
Time? Like the literal concept of Time? “And what is that?”
“To send you back,” Time said with disinterest. “To change the past.”
“You can do that?” Hob’s eyes widened. Dream. He could save his Dream. “Then, do it! Send me back!”
“And now I tell you that you fail to change anything, but you don’t listen. No one ever does.”
“I bet I succeed,” Hob said, suddenly filled once again with hope. “Morpheus bet against me once, and I won.”
“He was a fool, and so are you,” Time said with a wave of his hand. “Go be fools together.”
And in a blink of an eye, Hob was somewhere else.
~*~
One moment Hob was on a dark bridge in the Dreaming, the next he was on a completely different one made of white stone, the sun shining bright, blue skies above, barely a cloud in the sky. There was the sound of a river rushing below. People were all around him, going about their day speaking to each other about—what language is that, Greek?
Hob was suddenly very happy that he didn’t simply forge his hard earned history degree and put actual work into it. That, and he had managed to pick up quite a few languages over the last 600 years. He had to admit though, his Greek was a little rusty.
That was the least of his concerns though as he continued to take in the decently sized city, the architecture, and the dress of the citizens.
He was in ancient fucking Greece. Time, what a bastard. Couldn’t he have sent him back a few months? A year? Of course not.
But that’s—that’s fine. No reason to panic. He could work with this. After all, he’s immortal. This just gave him more time to figure out how to prevent Morpheus’ fate. Why did Time send him way back here, though?
A couple of young women walked past giggling at him. He tried to say something to them in Greek but then they just giggled harder and insulted his foreign clothing. Which—fair. He was definitely out of his element.
As he went deeper into the city it seemed in the middle of preparations for a huge party. And luckily for him, there were ample street vendors trading in fine clothing. He asked one of them what was going on, and from what the man said, the townsfolk were celebrating and feasting that night because the gods are good—or something. Bless him, his Greek was actually atrocious.
But then Hob heard whispers of the name of one of the many gods being celebrated. Morpheus. And from that he learned that the city had an actual temple to the god of dreams, and that was where the height of festivities would be taking place.
Determined to see his friend again, Hob traded all of the clothes on his back for the finest robes fit for a god, which was just as well because otherwise they probably wouldn’t have let him in that night.
“And what be you,” a lone satyr asked of anyone trying to enter the front of the temple, “god or worshiper? Or perhaps both?”
“God,” Hob blurted out, trying to recall everything he knew of the Greek Pantheon. There were several thousand lesser river gods. He could just make one up. It’s not like there were going to check, right? “The river god, uh, Hibiskos.” He took Audrey to a botanical garden right before she died. He had been thinking about flowers a lot lately. Lots of flowers at funerals.
The satyr eyed the so-called Hibiskos skeptically, prompting Hob to spin tales of his lovely river banks covered in flowers. After several minutes, the satyr bid him to go ahead and enter, perhaps because he was holding up the queue or just so that he would shut up.
“You speak strangely,” a beautiful woman, probably a goddess told him as Hob attempted to mingle amongst the gods and worshipers. It was apparently someone’s birthday, he managed to gather, who knows which one. The temple was filled with a huge crowd, which meant finding Morpheus, if he was even in attendance, could be a challenge.
Hibiskos the river god was handed several ridiculously potent beverages over the course of a few hours and that was when he started to lose track of time and all his senses. At that point the party quickly devolved into what Hob could only describe as a full blown orgy—not that the exact term existed in these times to describe, well, this.
This was unrestrained and ecstatic revelry, a celebration of the divine becoming one with the divine—sexually.
He came back to his senses sprawled out on piece of furniture approximate to a fainting couch, an absolutely beautiful woman riding him enthusiastically. And Hob was loving every minute of it, hands guiding the movement of her hips, even though he only vaguely recalled how he got into this position in the first place.
She wasn’t looking at him though, he noticed. Hob turned his head and his breath caught in his throat.
It was Dream—here Morpheus, a picture of divine beauty being worshiped as a god of dreams by two man-shaped gods at his sides doing their best to make a Morpheus sandwich.
Dream’s face was enraptured in pure ecstasy as his eyes locked with—oh fuck, Hob thought, suddenly realizing why the woman clenching around his cock looked so familiar.
He was fucking Dream’s ex-wife—or was it current wife? Bollocks. He remembered seeing her at the funeral.
Hob closed his eyes groaning hard then chanced a glance back at Morpheus to see the Dream Lord’s eyes boring into him, not with anger or jealously but hunger, and how, while getting railed from behind, another worshiper on his knees in front of him.
That look was all Hob needed to be sent over the edge. He gasped, coming hard.
Calliope finally looked at Hob then, giving him a soft smile as if to say, good job you, whoever you are.
I guess those two have that sort of relationship, huh. This was really not what Hob had in mind when he begged to be sent back in time. Really, he didn’t.
His wandering thoughts faded as he passed out.
~*~
After the party, which was apparently to celebrate Dionysus—suddenly it all made sense, well, some of it—Hob was desperately trying to re-hydrate on a basket of grapes. He sat on a large stone admiring the architecture, starting to try and make a mental list of what he should actually be doing in the past instead of having wild sex.
He needed a plan. And to hydrate—but mostly a plan.
Lost in a daydream, Hob’s face lit up as Morpheus approached him.
“Morpheus!”
“You know me?”
“Well,” Hob said, tugging nervously at his ear. “I hear many of your worshipers down by my river, speaking of the god of dreams.”
Morpheus nodded slowly, and Hob got lost in his eyes.
“I’m Hibiskos, by the way.”
“Well met,” Morpheus said, nodding. “My wife found you pleasing, river god Hibiskos.”
“Oh?”
“On her behalf, I wish to invite you to our chambers at the temple. So that I might discover the shape of that pleasure myself.”
Hob nearly inhaled a grape.
“A gift. As is her right,” Morpheus continued. “On this day some years ago we were wed.”
“I would be honoured,” Hob choked out. God’s wounds. What am I doing?
~*~
Hob had dreamed of this. Well, most of this.
In the corner of the room reclined Calliope, one breast exposed from her flowing dress, easy sighs of pleasure escaping her lips as she intently watched the scene before her.
On the bed, Hob was being roughly taken by Morpheus, a Morpheus who wasn’t yet his friend, who didn’t yet know him, yet still gazed upon him with hunger.
Hibiskos could only hold on to the cosmic force of the universe while he was brought to heights of pleasure he had never before known. Tears threatened at the edges of his eyes. God he was so beautiful. He had to fix this. His friend can’t die. He can’t. How was he going to fix this?
His release ripping through him startled him from his spiraling thoughts. Hob gasped for breath as Morpheus slowed. Hob felt like he was floating, Limbs like jelly as Morpheus slid out of him, leaving him feeling so empty.
The Dream Lord gracefully moved from the bed to Calliope’s side, kissing her deep and passionately.
“Was it to your liking my wife?”
It was then that Hob realized that at no point did Morpheus kiss him like that—not that he really expected it. Sure, Morpheus was a generous lover, and devoured his neck, nipping and kissing and oh, Hob was already hard again. Fuck.
Just, he’d never had Dream’s lips on his. A simple thing that he’d dreamed of really, since he first laid eyes on that lovely stranger in 1389.
Hob’s brain took a post-orgasmic vacation for a while as Dream and Calliope whispered between kisses.
Minutes later Morpheus was at the bedside again, bidding him for another round. Hob smiled widely at his friend, his friend who was very much alive in this moment, his friend who looked back at him without centuries of recognition.
“Of course,” said Hibiskos, the river god.
~*~
This time, the two on the bed faced in the direction of Calliope so that she might look her husband in the eyes as he sank down on Hob.
It took everything in Hob’s power to not come instantly.
He gripped Dream’s thighs and tried to think of anything else. The Black Death. Oh god, Morpheus slid all the way back up and slammed back down. The Spanish Inquisition. He’s going so tortuously slow now. That time I was drowned as a witch. Calliope was touching herself, Morpheus watching her, looking divine, his fluid movements rocking against Hob as if capturing her daydream of the two of them together.
He really hoped Dream couldn’t hear his own jumbled thoughts, fighting against the maddening pressure and warmth, trying to hold out longer. All my worst decisions, all the times I’ve fucked up beyond redemption. Morpheus bowed his head, he was getting close now.
Hob groaned, unable to hold back any longer, thrusting up into the Endless, catching him off guard eliciting a gasp of pleasure. 1889 you stormed off, 1989 you didn’t show up, and I thought it was all my fault. Hob got a hand around Dream, pumping him in time with their combined efforts. The funeral— Dream’s funeral.
Unable to resist the sight any longer, Calliope rose, leaning over the bed, sliding her hand around her husband’s neck, tilting him into a kiss. Moments later Hob cried out as he came, Morpheus gasping into his wife’s mouth with his own release.
Then, as they were coming down from it all, Hob was taken by surprise when the Muse bent down and gave him a brief kiss on the lips as well.
“Thank you, Hibiskos,” she said.
“Whatever for?” Hob asked blearily, unable to cobble together a single thought into his head.
“The gift of your presence on this day.” She smiled.
~*~
When Hob woke from a dreamless sleep, still in the same bed, the Dream King and the Muse were standing towards the entryway once again fully dressed.
“I must return to my realm, my wife,” Morpheus said, gently resting his forehead against hers.
“Be well, my husband,” she replied, as he disappeared in a swirl of sand.
Hob sat up in the bed trying to untangle himself from the sheets, and Calliope turned to look at him.
“I should, uh, return to my river,” he said, shuffling out of the bed to gather his clothing.
“Be well, Hibiskos, and many blessings to your river. I do hope you might consider joining us again on this day next year.”
“Oh,” Hob said, in the middle of trying to remember how he got his robe on in the first place. “Sure.”
And then she was gone—to wherever Muses go when they aren’t at the yearly fuckfest apparently.
~*~
Hob Gadling walked back to the bridge where he first appeared after getting tossed back in time, stepping over various townsfolk along the way who were just now stirring awake from the previous night's festivities. He then followed the river that flowed under that bridge until he found a quiet green area that was the perfect spot to collapse in the grass and have a mental breakdown.
He really was in ancient Greece, to his estimates, at least three thousand years— give or take a few centuries— from present day.
His oldest friend was very much dead in said present day.
The only way he knew to get back home was to live out that amount of time.
Of course he wanted to travel back to save his friend. But this far back, could he damage time irreparably? He already fucked Dream and Dream’s wife. He’d already fucked up so many times in his life.
What if he stepped on a butterfly, as the stories say, and suddenly he was never born. And then suddenly he realizes that once the 1300s roll around again, there will be two of him existing in this world. What if Dream never walks into the White Horse, what then? Or perhaps worse, he does, and recognizes him as Hibiskos, throwing their first meeting into chaos! Hob grasped at his chest as it tightened, and he tried to get his breathing under control.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Morpheus is alive here. Now.
Take what you can get. Take all that life offers. Be his friend in whatever form that takes, even as Hibiskos, the river god.
Hob sighed heavily.
While Time may not be on his side, the long passage of it was. He had three thousand years to figure out how to save Dream of the Endless from his fate.
And being only human, it was probably going to take him exactly that long.
~*~
It was strange, Hob thought. In this time of immortals and gods, he could actually live as himself, or, well, openly as an immortal—the persona of Hibiskos, the river god.
He decided to throw himself fully into the idea.
Hibiskos walked further down the river and found a clearing to build himself a small dwelling. Fish were bountiful, and he could walk into the city to trade. A few townsfolk even took notice of him and brought him meager offerings as if he was any other river god in Greece.
Hob still never dreamed though, when he slept. It almost reminded him of the time of the sleeping sickness, except different. I wonder if it’s because I am out of my time, that I haven’t been born yet.
He did try to keep mostly to himself, not wanting to change parts of history he didn’t mean to change and all.
But not having to pretend he was someone new and having to change his appearance every other decade was nice.
It was a quiet life.
Well, except for the feast of the gods every year at the city’s temple of Morpheus.
And Hob, of course he attended, that next year and every year after for several decades.
Most of those years, Hibiskos the river god was beckoned to join Morpheus and Calliope in their chambers til morning, though there were a small handful of times they chose an attendee from Faerie instead.
It was the fiftieth such event that things got complicated over wine, before the more clothes optional activities began.
“My husband, I find myself wanting for a child,” Calliope said, pouring more wine in Morpheus’ glass.
“Oh,” Morpheus replied, sipping at the drink, eyes swirling darkly with untold galaxies. “Yes. Of course, I will give you this.”
Hob, eavesdropping in the background, nearly swallowed his wine down his windpipe.
Orpheus hadn’t been born yet. His mind raced.
Honestly, he had been doing a very poor job of planning out how to save Dream. Hob’s only a man, immortal or no. He had been distracted by the yearly mind-blowing sex.
The act of granting Orpheus’ death was the catalyst to Dream’s demise. Orpheus can’t die if he’s never born. Should he prevent Orpheus’ birth? How would he feel if Robyn was never born? Oh fuck. Robyn, Eleanor.
Hob shook those thoughts from his head, then had an even worse one—what if someone else fathered Orpheus? Can’t spill family blood if it turns out the family isn’t really blood.
And then he glanced up to see both the Dream Lord and the Muse staring at him, probably for Hob being strange.
“Are you well, Hibiskos?” Calliope asked.
“Sorry, sorry, my mind’s on uh… my river, it hasn’t been flowing well this year.”
“Oh no,” Calliope replied, touching Hob’s arm in a comforting manner.
No matter Orpheus’ father, the boy would meet a terrible fate, suffer, and die. That should be what he aims to change.
Hob rose suddenly from his seat, making hurried excuses. “My river is calling, I fear I must skip the festivities this year!”
Morpheus watched the strange god make a hasty exit.
“Perhaps,” he said turning to Calliope. “It is just as well. We shall spend this night just us two. Creating new life.”
~*~
The next major event that Hob was aware of, assuming that time flowed on as it should around Orpheus, was the boy’s wedding where the tale goes that his beloved, Eurydice was bitten by a viper and died. If only Eurydice had lived.
Hob needed an invite to that wedding.
The river god made a cautious appearance at the next year's festival, and was relieved to see Morpheus and Calliope with a tiny babe, joyous parents at their act of creation. Hob had never seen such a look on Dream’s face.
“Hibiskos, my friend,” Morpheus called out. “This is my son.” My friend. My friend. My friend.
“Well, met,” Hob said gently to the little one wiggling in his mother’s arms.
“His name is Orpheus,” Calliope added.
“He looks just like you, you know,” Hibiskos said to Dream.
“Does he?” Morpheus asked.
Calliope nudged her husband and smiled. “Very much.”
As the more raucous parts of the gathering were set to begin, Calliope handed her child over to her sister Muses.
“We will watch him with our lives, sister. And read him a thousand stories of a thousand things.”
“Sounds lovely,” Hob commented, and Calliope tugged at his arm.
“I should tell you more stories, Hibiskos,” she said. “Will you tell me of your river?”
“Of course.”
~*~
Hob caught glimpses of Orpheus growing up.
It was only in brief moments at the beginning of the yearly celebration at the temple. The boy was always being handed off to Calliope’s sisters for babysitting.
Except for the year he wasn’t.
Orpheus was going on his tenth year, and he was asked to sing to the guests at the temple. All who heard his voice, if not already seated, fell to their knees in awe, overwhelmed by the sound.
Hob, now over seven hundred years old, had never heard the like. Tears streamed down his face and he couldn’t properly articulate why. Music did that to people sometimes, but never like this.
Orpheus literally had a voice of the gods. The sound of the divine injected into his very soul.
Hob was even more determined to do everything in his power to change this boy’s fate. He was going to save Morpheus and his son.
~*~
He did it, well part of it.
Hibiskos managed to score an invitation to the wedding at the very least.
Hob attended the ceremony in the back, with the other lesser gods that were invited.
He recognized Dream’s siblings in the front, the ones he saw at the funeral. Fuck the funeral. Except one of them, the man with the sword. The brother that ran off. Destruction.
Didn’t he have something to do with Dream’s death? If Dream never had to locate his brother, he never would have had to offer a boon to Orpheus. Should I say something to him? Try to convince him not to go?
Destruction might just kill Hob though. If I can’t dream here, death might also stick.
Hibiskos made sure to say the customary congratulations to Orpheus and his Eurydice, to the hosts, the proud parents, and then Hob sneaked off to the background of the reception to watch the newlyweds for the moment they picked a direction to wander off.
As soon as Hob spotted the happy couple moving away from the group he ran as fast as he could to get ahead of them, scouring the grounds near the cliffs for any snakes.
He stomped through the grass and waved his hands around, barely managing to muffle his cry as a viper struck out and dug its fangs deep into his ankle. Hob instinctively grabbed it by the neck, in the process losing his balance and tumbling down the hill, doing his best against his sudden dizziness to crawl off into a corner he hoped was out of sight. He managed to pull the viper from his foot and got bit several more times in the arm for his trouble.
As his vision swam and his heart rate tripled, about to beat out of his chest, with what little strength he had left, he crushed the snake’s throat in his hands.
He did it.
He saved Eurydice.
And he was dying.
He fully collapsed the rest of the way, no longer able to feel his limbs. An awful metallic taste in his mouth.
Even if he didn’t come back from this, if this one thing made a difference, maybe Morpheus would live. And the Hob that hasn’t been born yet would get to live that future, right? It would certainly solve the problem of there eventually being two of them—
~*~
“Hello, Hob.” The voice was kind and familiar.
His eyes flew open to find Death crouching next to him, looking much as she did at the funeral and in clothing rather out of place for ancient Greece. Hob tried to respond, but instead he just ended up hissing in pain as he tried to move.
“What are you doing here, Hob Gadling?” she asked.
“You know me, even back here? You didn’t know me earlier today.”
Death sighed, clasping her hands together. “It’s like this, yeah? My realm doesn’t operate on linear time.”
“So?”
“So, the me talking to you now is the same me that asked you if you still want to live, back in the Dreaming, but the me at Orpheus’ wedding hasn’t met you yet. But I am also me, always, throughout time. All better?”
“No, I have a splitting headache,” Hob said groaning.
“You still haven’t answered my question. Why are you here?”
“Isn’t it obvious? To save Morpheus! By saving Eurydice in order to save Orpheus.”
“Hob, Eurydice died hours ago.”
“What? How? I—I killed the viper—”
“Slipped on a loose rock, and tumbled down the ledge. And now, that’s how it’s always been.”
Wide-eyed, Hob could do little but stare into the dirt.
There was a long pause as the shock settled into horror in his gut. “Is that how it’s always going to be then? I try to change the past, and I end up changing nothing?”
“The book of Destiny is still being written—”
“Bollocks!” Hob cried out, making a fist in the dirt, digging into the cool earth. Wait, Orpheus. Hob’s head snapped up. “Maybe there’s still time, has Orpheus—”
Death smiled sadly. “He’s already in my realm, preparing to enter the Underworld.”
“Fuck!” Hob cried. “Why can’t you do something?”
She sighed. “Just because I exist outside of linear time, doesn’t mean I know the future. I may experience things out of order sometimes, but I don’t know how someone’s going to die until it happens. I didn’t know what would happen to Orpheus until it did.”
“Morpheus is going to die. I’ve failed,” Hob wailed. “I failed him.”
“No, Hob Gadling, you haven’t. Who else would face down three thousand years for his friend?”
Hob sniffled in response.
“There is still time,” Death said. “You will have more chances, Hob Gadling.”
And then she was gone.
~*~
In the wake of what befell Orpheus and his bride, Calliope left with her sister Muses to go be in mourning in some far away lands, while Morpheus returned to a stormy and rain-soaked Dreaming.
Years passed.
The townsfolk let the temple of Morpheus fall to ruin. And Hob’s river dried up.
He missed his friend.
One day, Hob found himself sitting in the ruins of the temple, just thinking. It was the eve of the day that in years past was full of joy and merriment, but now consisted of scattered rocks and a hole in the ceiling.
“Hibiskos?” Hob startled from his thoughts, looking up to find a small gathering from Faerie who had apparently not gotten the memo that these parties had stopped—they only showed up every several years after all, and not consistently at that. “Where is everyone?”
“Gone,” Hob replied. “A great tragedy. You could say, the age of gods is on the decline here. Morpheus went home. Sorry, did no one tell you?”
“No! Well, this is no fun. We were promised a banquet!”
“Cluracan, right?”
“Ah, you remembered! I’m always amazed anyone remembered anything at these parties, with the amount of enchanted wine we were drinking.”
“Enchanted? That explains… nothing really.”
“Well, Hibiskos—”
“It’s just Hob now. The river dried up.”
“Oh no,” Cluracan said, “anyway, Hob, we’ll just take the party back to Faerie, and you were always a bit of good fun. Want to come?”
“What?”
“Back to Faerie.”
“I’m not Fair Folk.”
“You weren’t a river god either, but that never stopped you.”
Hob gaped at him for a moment before recovering. “Fair point.”
“How about it?”
“Can I come back?”
“Any time you like!”
Hob took one last hard look around at the rubble that made up nearly a century of his life in ancient Greece. I’ve never been to Faerie. And its a really long wait to the 1300s.
“Lead on then, Cluracan!”