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cuubism · 3 months ago

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Made in an Instant (5/5)

Dream's eldritch pregnancy, conclusion

Hob has never been so angry in his eternal fucking life. He’s going to find whoever decided to kidnap his pregnant husband and brutally murder them. Back in his day, people lost hands for stealing. Maybe he’ll bring back drawing-and-quartering. Now that was a good punishment.

With Matthew and Lucienne’s help from the Dreaming, he’s managed to track the kidnappers down to an abandoned prison just outside London. It’s really too on the nose. Dream will be peeved about the lack of creativity. Hob gets teary at the thought. Fuck he’s worried about him.

He doesn’t encounter anyone as he breaks into the place, which is worrisome. Shouldn’t there be someone? Guards? Kidnappers? He’s got his ancient broadsword strapped to his back—it felt more poetic than a gun—and he’s itching to just swing it through someone. Getting hacked in half will teach them to mess with Dream.

He passes dozens of empty, decrepit cells, walking faster as he still doesn’t find anyone— then stops. Turns to the cell at his right. That’s Dream’s magic. He feels it. And as he steps closer, he finds runes traced along the floor, along the walls and bars, a cage of magical lettering.

The only problem: the cell door is already open. And Dream is nowhere to be seen.

Shit. Is Hob too late? Did they take Dream somewhere else? Did they hurt him again? He spins in place, already starting to panic, he’s going to have to—

“Hob.”

Hob whirls around. Dream is standing at the other end of the hall. His coat is rumpled, but he looks generally unharmed. Most importantly, he’s not in a prison cell.

Hob rushes over to him, embraces him. Dream hums with pleasure at the touch. “Thank God. Oh, love, thank goodness you’re okay.” He holds Dream at arm’s length, looking him over. “Are you okay? What happened? Did they let you go?”

“I freed myself,” says Dream. He holds out his wrists, which have what look like burn marks on them from some sort of manacles. “I am. Mostly. Unharmed.”

Hob takes his hands, looks over his wrists carefully. “If they bound your powers like that, then how did you get out?”

“My powers were bound.” Dream smiles craftily. “But hers were not. I wished for us to get out. And she unlocked the cell.” He really seems quite proud of it. “We worked together.” Then he grimaces, pressing a hand to his lower belly. “Unfortunately, she has now taken this wish on as her own, and, I believe, decided she wants to get out. Now.”

“Now?” Hob flits around him, trying not to panic. Again. “Isn’t it too soon?”

“Wishes are often made in an instant,” says Dream.

Hob takes him by the arm and starts bundling him towards the exit. “Alright, let’s go home, then. Christ. Did you kill the kidnappers?”

“I do not kill humans,” says Dream.

“Did you eternally punish the kidnappers?”

“Yes.” He seems frighteningly unperturbed considering he’s just been kidnapped and is now apparently going into magical labor. Maybe he’s just compartmentalizing. Dealing with it all by not thinking about it. Hob will just have to do all the freaking out for the both of them.

He gets Dream into the car. Buckles him in. Starts driving at a speed that would definitely get him a ticket if he wasn’t married to someone who could just make police officers become suddenly and mysteriously distracted.

“How are you feeling?” he asks as he drives.

Dream considers. “Hmm. Restless. I’m curious what will happen.”

“You don’t know what will happen!?”

“This is untrodden ground, Hob,” says Dream. He does not sound as concerned about it as Hob thinks he should be. But then, the pregnancy itself has never seemed to concern him as much as it has Hob. It’s the grander scale of the thing that weighs on Dream’s mind. “No Endless has carried a child before.”

That’s just absolutely fantastic.

“We will find out,” says Dream, settling deeper into his seat.

Yeah, we sure fucking will, Hob thinks.

Matthew catches up with them partway through the drive home. Dream must have sent him a message in whatever dream-way he has, though Hob doubts he intended for Matthew to actually come find them. Hob feels briefly bad about not trying to contact Matthew himself, to let him know Dream was okay, but he was a bit distracted by the whole magical labor situation.

“Who the fuck kidnaps a pregnant lady?” Matthew exclaims as he soars in through the open car window, landing awkwardly on the dashboard. Dream slants a look at him, and Matthew amends, “Uh, I mean, a pregnant dude.”

Hob’s pretty sure that wasn’t the part of the statement Dream objected to and that calling Ye Olde Lord of Dreams dude might actually be worse.

“Does that make it worse or better?” Matthew wonders.

“Their fates were sealed the moment they threatened my child,” Dream intones, ominous as a storm front. “Now their minds belong to the Dreaming, where they will be fed upon by nightmares bearing the faces of their most deeply held fears. For eternity.”

“Definitely don’t kidnap pregnant ladies,” Matthew mutters. He ruffles his feathers in a shiver. “You good now, boss?”

Dream just inclines his head.

“You good, Hobster?”

“Well, my husband is going into some kind of unprecedented magical labor,” Hob says, voice tight. “And I didn’t even get to chop anyone’s head off, so I’m a bit worked up.”

Matthew squawks in alarm. “Labor?!”

“Do not be dramatic,” says Dream.

“Sure, sure,” says Hob. “It’s a regular Tuesday.”

“I am fine,” Dream says, more firmly—this time to Matthew. “Please inform Lucienne all is well. I will send for you at a later time.”

“You freaking sure?”

This time Dream gives him a stern look, and Matthew ducks his head. “Right, right. Well, see you later, then, I guess? Um. Good luck?”

He cringes to himself, but then wheels away out the window again. Dream rubs his forehead tiredly.

“Don’t want the whole peanut gallery in the delivery room?” Hob asks, and Dream cracks a small smile.

“Would you truly have killed them?”

“I was kind of looking forward to it actually. Bit peeved you dealt with them first.”

Dream chuckles, tension easing. Hob’s still going way above the speed limit, and should really keep his attention on the road, but still he holds out his hand on the center console. And Dream takes it.

At home, Dream continues to be restless. Hob bandages his wrists, not that he thinks it will really do much. Dream changes into some of Hob’s comfortable loungewear. And then just starts pacing. Walking restless circles between the kitchen and living room, back and forth, back and forth. Hob’s never seen him like this. Normally Dream is very still, in control. He doesn’t fidget.

“Shouldn’t you lie down or something?” Hob asks. The way Dream is treating this is really not helping him fret any less.

Dream keeps pacing around the kitchen. “Hmm. No. I am going for a walk,” he says, and heads for the front hall.

“A walk?” Hob follows him at a rush, nearly tripping over his own feet. “Dream—”

Dream is already putting on his shoes. “Wear a coat at least,” Hob says, draping one of his own over Dream’s shoulders.

Dream gives him an arch look. “Are you not coming along?”

“Of course I’m coming!” With a frustrated sigh, Hob puts his own shoes on too.

He follows Dream out to the street, empty at this hour of the night, and across to the park, where Dream trudges off into one of the woodland trails like he’s on a mission. Hob follows, scrambling to catch up.

The forest path is absolutely dark at this hour, lit only by scant patches of moonlight. But Dream has always seemed comfortable in the nighttime, so he doesn’t seem perturbed. Meanwhile, the empty surroundings are not settling Hob’s anxiety.

“Dream, are you sure we should be wandering about in the park?” he asks.

Dream raises an eyebrow at him. “It is not as though we will need to go to a hospital.”

“It’s just— it’s the middle of the night.” And you were just kidnapped, he thinks but doesn’t add. Hob doesn’t know what delivering an Endless baby is supposed to be like, but he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to do it in the fucking woods. “We can go to the Dreaming if you like?”

Dream shakes his head. “She wishes to be born in the Waking. I believe so she can properly meet you.”

“…Oh.” Hob’s heart squeezes. And he resigns himself to doing whatever Wish wants, even if it means delivering in Richmond Park. She’s going to be a spoiled terror, he already knows it. Much like Dream, if he’s being honest.

“Fine,” he says, and takes Dream’s arm. Pulls him close. “Why are we in the park, then?”

“Wish is restless,” Dream says. “And. I am restless. I can feel all her budding dreams, her feelings, they are wrapped up in me far more tightly than any other dreamer’s and the process of disentangling them is agitating us both. And out here it is…” He looks up at the empty sky. “Quiet.”

Again, Hob is painfully reminded that Dream verbalizes so little of what he actually feels. And he’s reminded, too, just how strange, how beyond comprehension, this pregnancy really is. Human pregnancies are already strange and miraculous, but this is… soul-bending. He can’t imagine how it must feel, for Dream to be so close to their daughter for so long and then have to figure out how to let her go.

“Okay,” he says, wrapping an arm around Dream’s waist and letting him lean on him. “Take your time, then. Both of you.”

“I was not ready,” Dream admits, “for this to happen now. I thought there would be more time.”

“I know, darling. Me too.” Hob kisses Dream’s temple, rests their heads together as they walk. “You’ll still have her though, yeah? Even after she’s born. She’s not going anywhere. It will just be a change.”

Hopefully Dream will stick to his agreement to take some maternity leave after the birth. He is really going to need it.

“And you will get to meet her,” Dream says. “I look forward to that.”

Hob does, too. God. So soon.

For a while they are quiet, just listening to the low breeze, the night birds, and the waving branches, taking in the moonlight and the isolating darkness of the park at night. It’s peaceful. A bit eerie, too. But this atmosphere is Dream’s element. He is a creature stepped right out of it. And it seems to calm him.

Finally, Hob asks, “Does it hurt?” Surely if it did he wouldn’t be strolling around out here, but then, Dream is very catlike in that he does not like to let on when he is hurting. Hob knows it well.

“No, except in the way exhaustion might be said to ‘hurt,’” Dream says. “But it’s no matter. You needn’t worry about me.”

“Dream,” Hob says quietly, “I thought we’d gotten past the point where you realize that I’m always going to worry about you.”

Dream stops walking, pulling Hob to a stop beside him. He turns to Hob, brow furrowed, and Hob takes him by the arms. “You deserve someone to worry about you,” he says. “Someone to care whether you’re feeling well. I want to do that. I want to fuss over you.”

Dream keeps staring at him, expression pinched, but then softens and says, lowly, “I like when you do.”

He’s said so before, but it can be hard, sometimes, to get things internalized with Dream. To get him to feel he can have it. Count on it.

“It’s settled, then,” Hob says, and Dream huffs. “I’ll take care of you.”

“As you wish,” says Dream, but leans in close to Hob as they start to walk along again.

Hob wonders what it all feels like. He had never watched Eleanor go into labor, it wasn’t really the done thing at the time, but he grasps the idea of what it’s meant to look like. But Dream doesn’t show much on the outside, other than his evident restlessness. Everything about his pregnancy, if something so nontraditional can be called that, is so cerebral, it leaves Hob apprehensive for how the ‘birth’ is meant to go.

It’s all a lot. It’s a lot.

“Hey,” Hob says abruptly. “I’m proud of you.”

“For… being… pregnant?”

“Yeah, for being pregnant— but more for trying again. I— even so many years later, I think about Robyn, and the things I didn’t do or should have done, and it’s daunting to put myself in that position again. Even if I want it. So, I’m glad that you’re willing to try again, because I know it’s the same for you—maybe even more so.”

“We promised to make it good,” Dream says quietly. Something Hob said to him once, when Dream had first dramatically announced that he was inexplicably expecting a child.

“And we will,” Hob promises. The more he thinks about it the more freaked out he gets, honestly, but he’s going to be self-assured for Dream. At least externally. “We will, darling.”

“You never had other children,” Dream says, more confirmation of a fact than a question.

Hob grimaces. “Couldn’t bear to. I think, if I didn’t have you, I wouldn’t want to now, either. I can’t have another family pass me by while I go on. Hurts too much.” He owes Death free drinks at the Inn till the end of the world, this time around.

“Yes,” Dream agrees, solemnly. “Better, this time. I hope.”

It will be. Hob’s determined.

He kisses Dream’s cheek, keeps him close in the circle of his arms. And they walk on into the night.

It’s some time later when Dream stops, seemingly at random, and says, “Okay. We can go home now.”

Hob says, incredulously, “Dream, we’re on the complete other side of the park.”

“Easily remedied,” says Dream, pulling out his sand. Before Hob can say, wait maybe you shouldn’t do that right now, the world is spinning violently around them, and their bedroom rushes up to meet them.

Dream lands primly on the bed. Hob hits the floor, only just managing to get a hand up in time to not break his nose. He rolls over onto his back, looking up at Dream. “Not to be like that, but I think pregnancy is making you crazy.”

“I have been balancing her powers with mine for months now, splitting my focus to prevent it from creating chaos in the Dreaming.” Now he sounds truly weary. “As she has grown it has become more challenging and occupied more of my attention. Her power is impulsive. Whimsical. It is like trying to contain sparks.” He smiles tiredly. “I suppose it has made me scattered, yes.”

Hob finally pushes himself up from the floor, goes to perch beside Dream. He kisses Dream’s temple. “I like your crazy.” He lays his hand on Dream’s stomach. “And hers. Even if it means I have to buy extra fire extinguishers for the sparks.”

Dream smiles, tilting his head against Hob’s.

“Now you just stay there,” Hob tells him, helping Dream get out of his coat, pulling his shoes off, and nudging until he gets settled in the center of the bed, “and let me get you whatever you need.”

“Only you,” says Dream.

Hob fetches him some water anyway.

When he gets back, he slides into bed beside Dream. “It is not long now,” Dream tells him, solemnly.

Heart lurching, Hob braces a hand on Dream’s shoulder, and… waits.

He doesn’t know what he’s waiting for.

“What are we waiting for, exactly?”

“Patience,” says Dream.

Does he have to be like that?

Well, at least he’s not writhing in pain. Hob will take the confusion of… whatever this is… over having to watch him in pain.

Dream holds out his hand. Hob takes it, twining their fingers, heart pounding with anxiety. He recognizes the moment when Dream lets most of his focus slip into the Dreaming, into himself, that endless ocean of him. His eyes fall shut, his rigid spine relaxes ever so slightly, his jaw loses its tension, and he becomes distant. Hob keeps squeezing his hand, grounding him.

Dream lets out a huge breath, squeezing tight on Hob’s hand, and reality sort of… slips.

It breaks down the middle and skids sideways, and for a moment everything is all mashed together, like a door that’s never meant to be unlocked is being jammed open so something can get through, and Hob can’t tell where his hand ends and Dream’s begins, if he’s still awake or what year it is or if they’ve been flung into the Dreaming sea, there’s a deafening whine in his ears rising in pitch, his skin prickles all over with static. And then Dream reaches into himself, into the everything-that-is-him, and where his hands go his form goes sort of inside out like he’s actually reaching out of himself instead of in. It’s incredibly nauseating to watch but Hob can’t look away, never mind that he’s not sure which direction is even up anymore.

When Dream withdraws his hands, he’s holding a baby.

For a long moment, Hob can only stare at the two of them, speechless, his tiny daughter and his insane husband who’s pulled an infant out of fucking— out of where? Hob still hasn’t gotten an answer on whether he has a uterus!

The lack of physical progression is breaking Hob’s brain, it feels like Dream’s pulled Wish right out of the fucking ether, and Hob really might pass out but he can’t pass out because Dream’s the one who’s manifested-or-whatever a whole baby so if anyone gets to pass out it’s him.

“Dream…” he whispers, incredulous.

Dream smiles tiredly. He looks absolutely exhausted now, like it’s all crashed down on him all at once. He looks down at the baby, meeting her eyes as something passes between them, then leans down to kiss her forehead. Then he shows her to Hob, holding her carefully. “Your daughter, Hob Gadling.”

Wish looks up at him with wide eyes. She isn’t crying, which normally would alarm him, but nothing about this is normal, and she didn’t come out of a womb—apparently—so she isn’t covered in blood or amniotic fluid or anything, she’s just there. She actually exists. It wasn’t all some insane fever dream.

And she looks so much like Dream, with her tuft of fluffy black baby hair and bright blue eyes. Hob touches her cheek lightly in wonder, and gets a little static shock for his trouble. When he yanks his hand back, Dream chuckles, and Hob swears Wish is laughing at him, too. He just knows it. Co-conspirators, they are. “Sparks, you said.”

“Yes. One of her many abilities.” He gestures for Hob to take the baby. “She will not shock you again.”

“Eh, I’ve dealt with worse than a little electrocution.” Hob carefully takes Wish and cradles her in his arms. “Alright, Sparkle, let’s not burn down the flat just yet, yeah?”

He barely gets the sentence out before Dream bursts into tears.

Hob only manages not to jump in shock through years of ancient holding-babies instincts. As it is, panic spikes, because Dream doesn’t cry. Not really. He often looks like he’s going to cry, but rarely lets the tears fall.

Now he’s sobbing. Hysterically sobbing, chest shaking, clutching at Hob’s shirt. Hob would be worried about his ability to breathe if Dream actually needed to breathe in the first place.

“Okay, alright, sweetheart, it’s alright.” Hob maneuvers Wish into one arm so he can cradle Dream with the other. Dream presses his face into Hob’s shoulder and wails. “Shhh, honey, oh, love, it’s okay.”

Endorphins crash? Hob thinks desperately, because he’s never seen Dream sob like that. Or at all. But he imagines it must be jarring to gradually grow a whole being inside you and then be abruptly thrown off the cliff of separation.

“Here, love. Breathe. Come on, now.” He takes Dream’s hand and guides him over so that Wish can grasp onto his finger with her little baby hand. “Do you want her back?”

Dream shakes his head, but stops hyperventilating, pushing himself further into Hob’s side. “No. You should hold her. It is just that. I cannot feel her as I once did.” He takes a shuddering breath, but steels himself. Hob wishes he wouldn’t. If there’s any time Dream shouldn’t have to shore up his emotions, it’s now. “I knew this would happen. But I have grown selfishly accustomed to her presence close to mine.”

“It’s not selfish,” Hob tells him, heart breaking. “It’s not. It’s okay. You love her. And she needed you. She still does.”

Dream lets out the heaviest of breaths, and slumps against him, utterly spent. He slips one bandaged arm behind Hob’s back, the other still stretched towards their daughter. God. Their daughter. Who Dream pulled out of what feels like thin air. It only gets stranger and more amazing the longer he thinks about it.

He looks down at her, cradled so tiny in the crook of his arm. Was Robyn that small? He can’t fully remember. But Robyn screamed and cried so much his presence filled up the room either way. Wish is quiet, just looking up at him with her wrinkly newborn face. She’s like a wisp of thought, a silent scattering of light, like Dream on some days when he fades into the shadows, just a bit. Dream had described her internal world as whimsical and vibrant and so this transition into waking must be quite overwhelming indeed. Just like it so often is for Dream.

“She’s beautiful, Dream,” he says quietly, getting choked up. Dream hums in agreement. “She’s perfect. The both of you are.” He kisses the top of Dream’s head. “I’m proud of you.”

Dream grumbles, but Hob knows how he needs to hear that sometimes.

“You should rest,” Hob continues. “You’ve been through a lot.” More than a lot. Hob still hasn’t fully gotten the panic of Dream’s disappearance out of his system. And he would not be surprised if it was affecting Dream more than he let on, too.

“I do not…” Dream starts, but trails off.

“You’ve kept an eye on her for months, darling. I’ve got her now.” He bids Dream to lay his head down on his chest, pets his hair, and Dream makes a low, pleased groan. “We’ll be okay, love. Promise.” And maybe by the time Dream wakes up again Hob will have been able to wrap his head around the existence of Wish. Probably not, but he can hope.

Dream sighs again, tiredly, but subsides, and soon enough seems to slip into proper sleep, Wish’s tiny hand still latched on to one finger.

Dream wrapped under one arm, Wish cradled in the other, Hob lets out a long breath and privately takes a moment to be relieved that everything went okay. No matter how many times Dream had tried to assure him, he had never been fully able to shake the fear that lingered from Eleanor’s death. But thankfully, weirdness of it all aside, everything seems to have worked out.

Hob looks down at Wish, who’s still just gazing up at him peacefully. Pretty soon he’s going to have to get up to get her sorted with diapers and a swaddle and whatever else a sort-of-human baby needs. She’ll need to eat as well, and he’s not sure how Dream wants to handle that. But he doesn’t want to disturb Dream’s peace so for now he just stays, holding her against his chest.

“Think it’s just us for a while, love,” he tells her. “It’s alright. It’s all been a lot for you, I bet. But you saved your da, d’you know that?” It’s pretty remarkable, when he thinks about it, that her powers had manifested enough that Dream was able to use them to escape. “You’re going to be a right terror, I can just tell already. Wishing all sorts of mischievous things. Going to have to get some proper child locks or you’ll wish yourself right out onto the street, won’t you?”

She makes a soft cry, and Hob knows it’s normal for her to cry, good even, but still it hurts his heart. Fuck, he really is going to have to move either her or Dream in order to arrange some milk. But if he takes Wish with him to the kitchen to prepare some formula, Dream will be distressed if he wakes alone. If he leaves her in a bassinet, he’s going to be stressed to leave her unattended. Maybe he’s not as prepared for this as he thought. Maybe there is no true being prepared. Especially when it had all been so different, the last time he’d had a child.

“Yo!”

Hob almost jumps again as Matthew appears and flutters down to land on the foot of the bed. If he’s not careful he’s going to have a heart attack. “Jesus Christ. Some warning?”

Matthew cringes. “Sorry. I just came to make sure he’s okay. The Dreaming went sort of inside out and it freaked everybody out.”

Hob strokes a hand through Dream’s hair. He doesn’t stir. “I think he’ll be out for a while. Did the Dreaming sort itself out?”

“Yeah, it settled down.” Matthew hops closer, peering down at Dream and Wish, tilting his head. “Damn. He really did it. I mean, I knew a few people who had babies, when I was alive— but jeez, I’m not really sure I believed it.”

“Tell me about it.” Matthew keeps peering at Wish, so Hob adds, “You can say hi to her. I promise she’s real.”

“‘Real’ doesn’t really mean much when it comes to dreams, dude,” Matthew says. But he leans down by Wish. She studies him, eyes wide and blue. “Holy shit she looks just like him.”

“I know, right?” Hob’s not sure if it’ll stick. It’s easy to say the baby looks like Dream now based on her blue eyes and tuft of black hair, but babies’ features can change a lot as they grow.

“Wow. This is… a lot.”

“How do you think I feel?”

“I can’t imagine,” says Matthew. “I’m glad everything worked out, though.” He hops down to the bed and plucks at Dream’s hair affectionately with his beak. Dream still doesn’t stir.

“He’ll probably come to check in on the Dreaming in short order, knowing him,” Hob says. He’s not exactly happy at the thought of it. They might have been able to avoid Dream getting pulled temporarily back into work if he hadn’t gotten kidnapped by a group of incompetent occultists, but Hob knows he’s going to want to at least set foot in the palace briefly after all that. “Do me a favor and kick him out as fast as you can?”

“Kick him out. Yeah, that’ll end well for me,” Matthew says, then shrugs in a flutter of wings. “I’ll do my best. And I should probably go let Luce know everything went fine. Is, uh, there anything I can do to help before I go?”

Hob’s about to say no, then reconsiders. “D’you think you can make baby formula without hands?”

While Matthew is in the kitchen attempting to do that according to Hob’s instructions, Wish finally decides that she’s proper hungry, actually, and lets out a loud shriek that nearly pierces Hob’s eardrums.

Dream sits bolt upright like he’s been struck by lightning and spins towards him.

“You’re alright, love,” Hob says, even as Wish shrieks again and he grimaces at the volume. God, she’s like a fire alarm. Add soundproofing to the list of modifications Hob’s going to have to make to their flat. He hands Wish back to Dream as Dream reaches for her. “She’s just hungry. I deputized Matthew to make some formula.”

“There is no need,” Dream says, and holds the baby close.

“Matthew, nix the formula!” Hob calls out to the kitchen. “Dream’s going to handle it.”

Matthew calls back, “I don’t want to think that about my boss!”

“You’re the one who’s sexualizing a perfectly natural process!”

Matthew squawks in outrage, and Hob laughs as he hears the fluttering of wings that heralds him fleeing back to the Dreaming.

“I think you delight in tormenting him,” Dream says.

“He started it.”

Dream doesn’t berate him for it. He only smiles down at their daughter, running a light fingertip through her fluffy hair. And Hob remembers a conversation they’d once had, about what it would be like when Wish was born.

“Were you excited to be born, Hob?” Dream had asked.

“How the fuck should I know?” Hob had said. “I was three seconds old.”

“Hm,” Dream had mused. “I was never truly ‘born’ in this sense, but I believe if I were I would have been very displeased about it.”

It had made Hob laugh in the moment, and then made him feel sad when he thought on it later.

It was said that raising a child let you relive your own childhood. Hob had found it to be true with Robyn, despite how Robyn had grown up in an era so different from his own, so much more comfortable, never going hungry, or wanting for the things that Hob had wanted for as a boy. When he’d seen Robyn play, seen him learn, he’d remembered things he’d forgotten, moments of life lost to time. Wish’s childhood will be different in ways he can’t even imagine. Supernatural baby, supernatural parent, modern world of modern dangers and wonders. But still so much of it comes back to the simple things, growing and learning and playing.

He doesn’t think Dream really had a childhood. Never had the chance to grow and learn and play. He doesn’t know all the detail of how it was with Orpheus, but he knows Dream looks back on that time primarily with guilt. And it can’t have been easy to try to raise a child when you were never one yourself.

Hob had promised Dream that he would make it better this time. That he would make it good. He wants to show Dream what childhood can be like. What a happy family can be like. Had Dream and Calliope had that, if only for a time? He hopes so. He really hopes so.

Either way, Hob is determined to show him. And when he looks at Dream smiling down at their daughter… he thinks he might even succeed.

#time for eldritch maternity leave 😂#i'm not sure i'm 110% satisfied with the ending but i just need to be free #wish #dreamling #my writing

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