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cuubism · 11 months

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a very silly story for you. johanna, dreamling's weird baby, and an accidental kidnapping (and subsequent rescue)

Johanna’s seen a lot of weird shit in her time. It comes with the territory. Magical shit also tends to be horrible shit which also tends to be weird shit. But even she is finding herself flummoxed by this one.

She’d broken into this flat prepared to perform an exorcism. Amateur occultist, planning to summon a demon? That’s what she’d heard, and yeah, that wasn’t going to go well. And it hadn’t—the guy was on fire when she arrived, so on fire that there was no way she could put it out or help him, though she had throne a blanket over him in a meager attempt. It was too late, though. He was charcoal in seconds.

That, while horrible, wasn’t even the weird part. The weird part was that there wasn’t even a demon, but there was a baby.

Sitting in the middle of the room, in a bird cage.

Johanna stares at it now, barely noticing the acrid smoke she’s still breathing in. Why the actual fuck is there a baby in a birdcage?

It doesn’t seem to be hurt at all. It’s just sitting there on a blanket at the bottom of the cage, clutching a little cat stuffed toy in its chubby fingers. But it’s in a birdcage. A bird cage.

Johanna goes to open the cage, of course she does—

And the moment she touches the latch she jumps back, shaking out her hand from the spark. Holy hell, that thing is warded to high heaven. That cage could probably keep a demon contained. Why is a baby warded like that? It’s just a human—

It.

It looks like a human baby.

Johanna circles the cage, more wary now. She should know better, should know that an occultist like that wouldn’t be carrying around a regular baby in a cage. Even if you’re a real sicko, you don’t need a cage to keep hold of a baby. It can’t even walk.

So it’s not a regular baby. Sure looks like one, though. Makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up, that does.

As Johanna looks more closely at the wards, the baby watches her with wide eyes, sucking on its thumb. It’s actually pretty cute. It’s even wearing a star-print onesie. The wards are hardcore, though. Nothing’s getting in, and certainly nothing is getting out.

“Either you’re some fucked up thing disguised as a baby,” she muses out loud, “or you’re an actual little baby fucked up thing, which means your fucked up nightmare mummy is going to come looking for you.”

The baby blurbles in agreement.

Either way, she can’t exactly take it to the authorities. Which means she’s going to have to take the baby home, at least for now.

“Fuck me,” Johanna says, and picks up the cage.

The baby is silent on the drive home—buckled awkwardly into the back seat of the car—and remains so as Johanna puts the cage down on the floor of her living room. It watches her with big eyes, sucking its thumb. It doesn’t seem particularly afraid, though Johanna can’t imagine being in a cage is very pleasant, even for a baby that probably doesn’t understand what’s going on anyway.

Or who knows, maybe it does. Jo doesn’t really know much about babies’ development trajectories.

“Right,” she says, looking at it with hands on her hips. “I’m not really looking to become a mum, so we’ll have to get you out of there and back where you belong. Fuck if I know where that is.”

The baby makes a gurgling sound that could be agreement or just gassiness.

Johanna gets out some chalk and starts to draw a containment array around the cage. “Sorry about this, little chap,” she says, “but I still don’t know what you are. Better safe than sorry, eh?”

The baby is silent, watching her.

Johanna finishes the containment circle, binding it off with a final rune. It’s not so mean of a ward as the cage had. Just enough to keep the baby from exploding with power once she does break the cage open. If that’s something it can even do.

She studies the ward. “Think I can pick this lock,” she says to herself. “Take me a sec, though. Don’t suppose you want a beer while you wait?” This to the baby. “I haven’t got any formula. Or are you old enough for baby food?”

The baby just sucks on its thumb. It really does seem quite sweet. Shame about secretly being a monstrosity in a cage, and all.

Johanna works on the ward, occasionally chatting out loud to the baby. It doesn’t reply, obviously, but it listens. Johanna is feeling more invested in getting it back to its parents the longer she sits with it. Even if it is some gross creature, it doesn’t deserve to be in a birdcage. It’s just a baby.

“Good trick we met each other, my friend,” she says as she finally unravels the last bit of the warding. “Doubt that guy had good plans for his captured baby.”

She clicks open the ward.

As soon as she does, the formerly placid baby starts screaming. And Johanna realizes that part of the ward’s function had been to stop it from crying for help.

“Mama!” the baby wails, tears pooling in its eyes, little fists scrunched tight around its plushy’s legs. “MammaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!”

Its voice warbles outside the normal sound range and straight into her brain, ringing like a bell. She covers her ears, but it doesn’t help. Great, now the thing’s mother is going to show up and eat her. This is what she gets for trying not to be a total asshole for once. Should’ve opened the cage in the street and fled.

“Shhhhhh,” she tries to soothe the baby, “it’s okay—” But it’s too late. And Johanna isn’t a very soothing person anyway. It probably wouldn’t have worked, even if the room hadn’t been plunged into sudden darkness.

Johanna stumbles back, though she can see nothing. Thunder and static ripple through the air, cold wind tangles her hair. Jo claps her hands over her ears as the air pressure increases and increases and—

The baby squeals, and it sounds happy now, rather than afraid. “Mama!!”

A voice scraped from the utter depths of mental torment booms through her flat.

C O N S T A N T I N E

Ah, fuck.

“Morpheus,” she tries, because she does recognize that voice, unfortunately, “listen—”

A wall of sand knocks her backwards.

As it does, some light returns to the flat, and she can see Morpheus, looking markedly less pathetic than when she’d last encountered him, standing in the center of the living room, looking down at the baby. His eyes flash with otherworldly light. His sand rushes around him, scrapes through the binding circle she’d drawn like it’s nothing but chalk, dissolves the birdcage to nothing, plays with the baby’s curls and pools in the crevices of its onesie. Meanwhile, it flattens Johanna against the wall, wraps in winding strands of wind around her chest and squeezes.

The baby reaches for Morpheus, who kneels and picks it up. He says something to the baby, the words low and solemn but inaudible over the rushing sand, then holds it close to his chest.

Then his gaze turns to Johanna.He looks murderous. Johanna had thought he’d been pissed off about his sand. She hadn’t seen even a tenth of it.

“I guess you’re mama?” she says, past the sand squeezing around her chest. This really is just the kind of stupid thing that would happen to her.

Morpheus’s eyes are like black holes in his pale face. “Constantine,” he growls, with much of the same danger as before, though at lower volume. “I thought we had parted on neutral terms. More fool I. What grudge do you still hold against me?” The sand squeezes her tighter. “Speak quickly, for your time is limited.”

“There’s no grudge, I have nothing to—”

“Ransom, then?” says Morpheus, seeming, if possible, more angry. “You would compel favors from me by threatening a child?” He clutches the baby to his chest. It’s started chewing on the lapel of his coat. The whole picture would be kind of hilariously adorable if she weren’t on the verge of being torn apart by nightmares.

“I’m not responsible for this!” Johanna insists. “Consult your stalker encyclopedia of all minds if you have to. You really think I’m going around kidnapping infants?”

“I think,” says Morpheus, each syllable a new threat, “that you must explain why you had my daughter in a cage. NOW. And count yourself fortunate I have granted you the mercy of an explanation.”

“I literally just found her!” Johanna says. Doesn’t she deserve even a little bit of good faith? She did help with the sand and all. Morpheus’s eyes narrow as if he does not believe her. “Look. Caught wind of this amateur guy messing around with occult stuff. Thought he’d summoned a demon so I went to exorcise it. Found this baby instead.”

“And what of this man?” says Morpheus in a tone that suggests exactly what will soon become of him.

“He was practically dead by the time I got there. Burned alive.” She shudders. She still hasn’t figured out exactly what was going on there, if he’d meant to summon Morpheus’s baby in the first place—ill-advised choice, that—or if it was a spell gone wrong. “‘Fraid you’re too late to torment him.”

“Hmm,” rumbles Morpheus, with evident displeasure, but the sand finally releases Johanna and she sways, standing on her own feet again. Morpheus doesn’t apologize for throwing her against the wall. “You will show me where you found her.”

“Sure, mate,” Johanna says, sucking in a wheezing breath. “Might want to get your baby home first, though.”

Morpheus doesn’t get a chance to respond. Behind Johanna, the front door bursts open— bursts off its fucking hinges, goddammit, now she’ll have to get that fixed— and a man runs through. A very ordinary man, except that he’s carrying a sword. An actual, medieval-looking sword. And in a way that suggests he knows how to use it, too.

He looks almost as murderous as Morpheus, except that no one can quite match Morpheus’s shadows-and-cataclysm level of murder. Evidently, Johanna found the most radioactive baby in all the occult world. But at least it has people that care about it. That’s nice, she supposes.

As soon as he sees Morpheus with the baby across the room, he relaxes, sheathing the sword in a scabbard strapped to his back. “Ah, love. You found her.”

“Dadaaaaaa!!!!” yells the baby with its piercing voice, reaching for him. And the man smiles, striding past Johanna and taking the baby from Morpheus, leaning in to kiss Morpheus on the cheek as he does.

“Hob,” says Morpheus, with a little smile that finally breaks his stormy countenance. “Yes. She called for me when she was able.”

“Good lass,” says Hob, kissing the baby on the forehead, then looks warily at Johanna.

“Ms. Constantine is not responsible,” says Morpheus, and ‘Hob’—his partner? Coparent? Johanna’s not sure she even wants to know—relaxes further.

“Great. Glad we’ve established that. How the hell did you find my flat.” This she demands of Hob.

Hob reaches into the back of the baby’s onesie and plucks a small disc off the collar; he shows it to her with a little wave, then slips it in his pocket.

“Is that an AirTag?”

“We aren’t all plugged into the whole collective unconscious.” He taps the baby on the nose fondly, and she giggles, grabbing at his finger. “And you’re Dada’s little flight risk, aren’t you?”

Johanna sighs, finally flopping down on the couch now that it seems she’s unlikely to get swept away to nightmare-land. She definitely needs a beer after this. “You have a baby?” she says to Morpheus.

“Evidently,” he says flatly. So much for getting answers on that.

“Have we gone after the person who was responsible?” asks Hob. Johanna thinks he means it to come out mildly but it doesn’t, really.

“Already got set on fire, mate,” Jo tells him. “Found him like that.”

“Set on fire?” says Hob with a frown. “Was the rest of the room on fire?”

As a matter of fact, it wasn’t. Which is strange.

Silently, she shakes her head, and Hob turns back to the baby. Now he’s grinning. “Did the bad man wish for power?” he says, in a baby-talk voice, bouncing the baby in his arms. “Did he? And did my little Sparkle take that literally and turn him into a lightbulb?” As a conspiratorial aside to Johanna, he says, “She loves electricity.”

“Sparkle?” she says. “She’s a baby, not a My Little Pony.”

“That is a nickname,” says Morpheus, with a sideways glance at Hob that suggests he finds it questionable at best. “She is Wish.” He says this in the same way he might say I am Dream, rather than my name is Dream.

A moment later, Johanna learns where the nickname came from, as Wish giggles and taps at Hob’s face, sparks dancing around her fingertips. Sparkle. Jesus.

“She does not yet have a firm grasp on her abilities,” says Morpheus.

Wish. Half-Endless baby. Kidnapper set on fire. Jo thinks she gets it now. She shivers.

“You have sworn to show me where you found her,” Morpheus reminds her. Sworn. Does he have to be so dramatic?

Jo sighs, but heaves herself up from the couch. “Yep. Alright. So long as you promise to keep better track of that monkey’s paw baby of yours.”

Morpheus bristles, but Hob just chuckles. “This is the easy part. Wait ’til she gets better at flying.”

He doesn’t appear to be joking. “Don’t envy you,” Johanna says. Then grudgingly admits, “She is cute, though.”

Hob beams.

Morpheus is still fixated on her. Johanna can read the demand without him having to voice it. “What, you’re gonna bring the baby along on the revenge mission?” she asks.

They both just look at her. Neither moves to take Wish home.

“Figures,” Johanna says, with a sigh. This is what she gets for not choosing a more normal profession. She opens the front door and gestures them on. “Fine, then. Let’s go.”

#a silly nano project #my writing #the sandman #johanna constantine #dreamling #dream of the endless #hob gadling

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hardly-an-escape · 8 months

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Stormy Weather, or: Outside, the Wind (Inside, the Light) | Dream/Hob | 1600 words | Rated T

tags: I recently spent an evening without power therefore I must put the blorbos in a Situation, love confessions, first kiss, getting together, power outages, Hob Gadling throughout history, gratuitious use of mildly accurate Middle English

The wind tears around London like a living thing, a wild animal, a predator, intent on the hunt. It chases birds into their nests and people into their homes, moans around corners and rattles shutters, sending piles of leaves whirling into miniature hurricanes and whipping branches into a frenzy, sharpening its claws on roof tiles and telephone poles.

Except in Hob Gadling’s flat.

The New Inn, and the cozy home above it, is in one of those old buildings that’s actually been loved and maintained – thanks in no small part to Hob’s own care and attention. The walls are thick and strong, the roof is solid. The shutters may rattle, but the windows are double-pane; the curtains and carpets are warm and soft, and no drafts encroach on the sanctity of his living room, where Hob and Lord Morpheus, King of Dreams, are having a movie night.

It’s part of Hob’s concerted effort to introduce the Prince of Stories to the stories he’d missed during his imprisonment. Tonight it’s Blade Runner – the final cut, of course – which isn’t necessarily one of Hob’s personal favorites, but seemed to fit the stormy, rainy vibes of the weather. They’re installed on the couch, with hot chocolate and wine and snacks, which Dream has deigned to pick at. Harrison Ford is eating noodles and wandering through wet, moodily-lit streets. The wind is howling outside, but they’re safe and warm and surrounded by soft things and life is about as good, Hob thinks, as it ever gets these days.

And then his lights flicker. Once, twice; there is the impression of a sort of electrical last gasp, and the room is plunged into darkness.

The wind whips and the shutters rattle. A volley of rain spits itself against the windows.

“Bugger,” says Hob.

Dream says nothing, merely brings his wineglass – which had already been cradled in one elegant hand – to his lips.

“Hang on,” says Hob. “I’ve got some candles around here somewhere.”

He gropes his way to the kitchen. In one drawer he unearths some beeswax tapers and several tea lights, which he arranges on a plate. He rummages in one of the deeper cabinets and makes a triumphant noise as he discovers his prize behind disused mugs and a fondue set from the 1980s: a pair of old-fashioned brass candlesticks equipped with round reflectors, highly polished to catch the light and bounce it back out into the darkness.

“You are remarkably well-prepared for an event such as this,” says Dream, as Hob lights his various prizes and returns to the living room with his hands full of flickering flames.

“Well, you know,” Hob demurs. “When it comes down to it, I’ve lived a lot more of my life without electricity than with it.” He arranges the tea lights on the coffee table and sets the brass candlesticks on a nearby bookshelf. “You never really get out of the habit of preparing for the worst. Although I will say, these beeswax ones beat the hell out of the old tallow jobbies we had when I was young. Got ‘em from a local bloke who keeps bees not half a mile away, isn’t that cool? A beekeeper in the middle of London. There, now,” he says, and having arranged the lights to his satisfaction he plops himself back down on the sofa.

Outside, the wind wails. The lack of lamps on the empty street below and the gentle candlelight within make the night seem even darker, and turn Hob’s living room into something even softer and cozier than it already is.

Dream’s face, in the flickering candles, seems even more otherworldly than usual; and Hob, for his part, truly looks as though he belongs in another century. The very shape of his face has changed, somehow, into something older; taking on a new appearance in the candlelight the way a man’s tongue might curl differently around the syllables of another language.

“I miss it, sometimes,” he says lowly. “This kind of world. Before the wires and the phones and the cars. It was… quieter.”

“You speak often of your delight in change and progress. Do you truly long for your past lives?” asks Dream.

“Yes and no,” answers Hob. “Some things are better now, no question. Antibiotics, wouldn’t want to live without those again. Vaccines and X-rays and chemotherapy and antidepressants – almost all the medical stuff. Mass transportation. Cars and planes have never been safer. Honestly, I’ve never understood the people who moan about the olden days and oh, life was simpler back then. Don’t they know how many people died? How many kids? Because they caught a cold or fell out of a tree or had a case of the runs that lasted a little too long?”

He leans forward to adjust one of the candles, which is dripping unevenly, and when he sags back into the couch there is just the hint of a frown between his strong brows.

“And yet…” he says, staring into the flames, voice quiet. “Nights like this. I do sometimes think…”

Hob trails off for a long moment.

“There was a rhythm to life, back then,” he says finally. “You counted hours by the church bells and days by the tasks that needed done. And there was so much that needed to be done… cows milked and fields planted and clothes knitted or mended. And it was all so important, so… necessary. Regimented. But in the in between time – Christ! your time wast thine.” As he speaks, his voice has slipped into an older register: his Rs grown rounder, his vowels longer, curling from his mouth to mingle with the candlesmoke hovering over his coffee table. “I remember fair hours as a lad, even into my manhood, of which I spent lyende in th’ fields, watching ants in th’ grass. And later, too, we’d hie us to bed with the sonne, the fire banked in the hearth. An’ it happen that if we awakened before dawn, ’twas a simple thing to pass the time in simple ways, be it in prayer or in pleasure…”

The innuendo in his words is clear, but Hob is not looking at Dream; his eyes are unfocused as he stares into the middle distance, revisiting the past via candlelight. Until one of the wicks lets out a small pop, and flares, and he shakes himself, coming back to the present.

“God, sorry,” he says, voice back in the 21st century. “Woolgathering. I’ll go on for an age, me. More wine?”

But Dream’s eyes have also gone unfocused, his lips parted slightly, chest rising and falling with unnecessary breaths as he stares – no, gazes – at Hob. He, too, must shake himself into the present moment at Hob’s offer of more wine. He silently holds out his glass.

“May I ask you a personal question?” Dream says.

“Anything. You know that.”

Dream pauses. Sips. Outside, the sound of the wind has not abated; has grown, if anything, even more dramatic. There is the muffled sound of branches scraping against the side of the building.

“Why,” asks Dream finally, “do you pretend to yourself that you do not want me?”

Hob chokes. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Why do you pretend thus to me?” Dream pursues. “Who has known you longer than any being on this planet or any other; who can know your innermost dreams?”

“What do you mean, other planets?” Hob demands. And then: “Have you been peeking at my dreams?”

“I need not peek, as you put it, to see the truth of the matter. It is writ plain on your face and in your every word and deed. I merely wonder why this truth has hovered before us for over six hundred years and you have yet to press your suit. Do you doubt, after all this time, my affection for you? Do you find me – unworthy?”

Dream sounds, impossibly, almost uncertain. Even vulnerable. Hob sighs heavily and leans forward, elbows on his knees and face in his hands.

“I – God. Dream,” he stammers. “Yes, Christ, I am full of doubts. You stormed away from me when I implied you might be lonely, I… I have never, once, thought I had a suit to press at all. What on earth has brought this on? Now, of all times?”

“I do not know,” Dream murmurs. “Perhaps… this darkness is working on me, as well. Perhaps I am as susceptible to candlelight and nostalgia as the next anthropomorphic personification.”

He smiles, a little quirk of the mouth that contains worlds, and Hob leans over, listing helplessly into Dream’s space as the tapers flicker.

“Fuck,” he whispers, pressing their foreheads together, turning his head to butt his cheekbone against the sharp line of Dream’s nose. “Art thou rēal? Speak you treue?”

“Aye, my Hob,” answers Dream. “Min herte is treue and bilongeth to you.”

A sob catches in the back of Hob’s throat at the words. “Fuck,” he whispers again, “Dream, I’m yours. I am. I always have been. My Dream, min sweven, my leof. Alwei, allesweis…”

Their mouths find each other, then, finally, lip against lip and breath against breath. They kiss for a long, long moment, desperate and hungry and soft all at once, as outside the wind howls coldly around the corners of the New Inn, and inside the light cast by Hob’s candles bathes their whole little world in a cozy glow.

“Take me to bed,” murmurs Dream against Hob’s mouth. “Make me your lover. Show me how you pass the time by candlelight, and in darkness.”

“Oh, darling. Dearheart,” Hob answers. “Nothing in this world or any world past could make me happier.”

And he suits his actions to his words.

#my writing #the sandman #dreamling #dream of the endless #hob gadling #a needlessly complicated title for a truly simple little fic #I've already written this basic premise so many times AND I'LL DO IT AGAIN #the archaic English Hob uses in this fic is based on the most cursory googling #just tell yourself it's all over the place because historically English is.... all over the place #my unpopular opinion is that I think Blade Runner is overrated and yes I will project my opinions onto fictional characters #as usual this started in one place and went in another direction entirely #may post on AO3 tomorrow if the spirit so moves me

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