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cuubism · 21 days

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Dream's eldritch pregnancy part 4/5

Hob has picked up some books about taking care of babies, because he’s pretty sure whatever knowledge he’s retained from the 1580s is going to be a bit out of date in today’s world. He’s partway through one when there’s a tap on the window, and a moment later, Matthew squeezes through where it’s already open a crack.

Hopping onto the coffee table he says, with no preamble, “Hey, you got any sleeping pills?”

“Why, you need some?” Hob asks, closing the book.

“You need some,” Matthew corrects. “Luce sent me to get you. Says the boss isn’t feeling well.”

Hob lurches upright. “What? What do you mean, not feeling well?”

“That’s all she said.” Matthew flutters his wings anxiously. “Should probably just come along.”

“Matthew!”

But Matthew doesn’t give any more context to settle Hob’s rapidly spiking anxiety. He hops back onto the windowsill. “Sleeping pills!” he insists, and flutters back up to the Dreaming.

Like hell is Hob going to be able to sleep with that kind of omen. ‘Not feeling well?’ Is he sick? Is something wrong?

Hob’s mind goes unbidden to Eleanor, and he nearly drops the bottle of sleeping pills all over the floor in his rush to get them out. Fuck. Fuck.

Please be alright, he thinks, as he downs three pills and crawls into bed to let them, hopefully, take effect. Please.

He wakes in a dark dream space—not the palace. Not Dream’s bedroom, where he feared he’d find him ill or feverish or unconscious in bed, or worse.

It’s… not really much of a place at all, really. Sort of liminal, and dusk-colored, an unfinished dream. Dream is sitting on the floor, his long cloak wrapped around him like a blanket, watching something sort of like a screen, sort of like a window—an opening in the dream space through which golden light is visible, though it doesn’t quite spill through.

Hob stumbles over and falls to his knees beside him, takes Dream by the arm, needing to lay hands on him. “Christ, Dream, I thought you were ill. I thought something terrible happened.”

“No.” Dream’s voice is quiet. He doesn’t look over at Hob, just keeps watching the light. “Matthew and Lucienne are dramatic. I am merely contemplating.”

He doesn’t look like he’s merely ‘contemplating’. He looks sad. It’s in the lines at the corners of his eyes, the downturn of his mouth. And even as Hob watches, he wraps his arms tighter around his knees and rests his chin on them.

“What are you contemplating?” Hob asks softly.

“A dream,” Dream says. He’s still studying the golden window, but as Hob directs his own attention to it he can suddenly see that it’s not just light, it’s… a scene. Or rather, as Dream said, a dream. Whose dream, Hob’s not sure, but he gets the sense it’s not one Dream created, or at least, Dream may once have created the seed of it, but this is a dream as experienced by a dreamer.

“I do not observe dreams often,” Dream says. “I came to this one because I felt something awry.”

“What was wrong with it?”

“Nothing. The dream is perfect. What was wrong was…” he dips his face further down into his knees, looking small, “in me.”

Hob wraps an arm around him and pulls him against his side. Dream stays crunched up in his ball, shrouded in his cloak.

“I meant to leave,” he says. “Instead I find myself watching.”

At last Hob turns properly to the dream itself.

The way Dream’s watching in this non-space really does make it feel like peering in through a window. Within the frame is what looks like a fairly normal home, if idealized in the way of a dream—a homey kitchen with warm light and charming clutter, an adjoining sitting room with comfy armchairs arranged in a half circle around a fireplace. Very storybook, Hob thinks, but a real scene too, one you might walk in on in any happy family’s home.

As he watches, a figure comes round the corner into the kitchen—the dreamer, Hob supposes. She’s carrying a baby wrapped in a sling against her chest, and cradles it close as she goes about making up a bottle. The movements are practiced, familiar, and though the dream doesn’t have much sound the way they’re watching it, Hob thinks she might be humming to herself, or singing quietly.

It’s a sweet, simple little scene, and definitely relevant to their current lives, but Hob doesn’t get why it’s caught Dream’s attention so thoroughly. He hopes it’s not actually some kind of nightmare Dream’s using to enmesh himself in fears and worries about their baby’s future. It doesn’t feel like a nightmare. It feels like a happy dream, only Dream’s evidently seeing something else in it, based on how he’s reacting.

Having made up a bottle, the dreamer takes her baby into the sitting room, settling herself in one of the armchairs and sitting the baby up in the crook of her arm to take the bottle. The baby latches on eagerly, hands grasping at the bottle as he suckles, and the mother keeps singing quietly to him.

Hob still doesn’t get what he’s supposed to be looking at. It’s a very sweet dream, makes him feel sort of wistful, looking forward to those same peaceful moments when their baby arrives, those ordinary moments of daily life when—

Oh.

It’s not Dream’s daily life. It will never be Dream’s daily life, because Dream isn’t a human mother, because Dream doesn’t get to choose to prioritize his baby or his own wants, because he’s responsible for an entire kingdom and the whole dreaming world besides. If Dream were human Hob could give him that, could use all the money he’s hoarded over the years to let Dream take eighteen whole years of maternity leave if he wanted to, to spend time with the baby and do nothing else. But all the money in the world can’t change how it is to be Endless.

“I should not watch for so long,” Dream whispers. “My presence might turn the course of the dream.”

Hob could hardly give a fuck about the dream, honestly. If Dream stops watching it should be because it’s hurting him.

“I’m so sorry, love,” Hob says, pulling Dream in closer to kiss his temple. “I didn’t realize how upset you were about this.”

“I am not upset,” Dream says. “I am just thinking.”

“Sure.”

“It is the way things are. I have greater responsibilities. I should not covet what is not mine to have. It only makes things more difficult.”

“Dream—”

Dream moves away far enough to pull his robe aside. Underneath, he’s wearing only silk lounge pants, his chest bare. His belly bears a definitive roundness to it that was not there the last time Hob saw him, which was not long ago at all.

Hob touches the bump, mesmerized. “Dream…”

“I do not want this,” Dream says, voice ragged. “I do not want to be made to think about it. I made it go away but this dream has brought it back.”

When he touches the roundness of his belly, though, it’s not with revulsion, but with reverence. Hob’s heart breaks for him. Dream works so hard, and sacrifices so much, and now he’s here watching this idyllic dream moment between a mother and her baby, a moment he feels he can’t have.

“Come here, darling.” Hob pulls Dream into his arms, lets him twist his limbs around him and tuck his face into his shoulder. “Come here, sweetheart. It’s alright. You don’t have to make anything go away.”

“There is no point to it,” Dream says, voice muffled in Hob’s shirt. “It only serves as a reminder that— that I will no longer be able to have her with me. That I will have to let her go.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Hob says, though it’s somewhat of an empty promise. Dream’s life is shaped by things he has to do, he only manages to live in the little spaces left in between. “Tell me what you actually want.”

“Hob—”

“Do you remember what I said?” Hob asks. “When you thought I was upset about having her?”

“…Do not go unhappy without saying,” Dream echoes.

“Exactly. So tell me what you want. Not what you think you should have.”

“I want,” Dream says, low, “time. And. To be a better parent than I have been. To stay with her while she needs me. And.” He tucks his face in tighter against Hob’s shoulder, fingers twisting intricate patterns in Hob’s shirt. His voice goes softer. “You said that you wanted to take care of me.”

“I do,” Hob says instantly. “I would give you everything.” His heart aches to hear Dream’s voice so quiet and sad, and as Dream curls tighter against him, he decides, no, fuck this. Dream’s said what he wants, and Hob’s not going to let him go unhappy. The least Hob can do for him, when Dream does so much for everyone else, is make his dream real.

“Making a decision,” he says, with finality.

“What decision?”

“Maternity leave. We’re going home. You’re going with me. And I’m going to spoil and coddle you for the last however many months of this pregnancy. And after, too. I know you can’t stay forever, but you’re going to stay for a while, okay?”

“You will make me?” Dream murmurs, but with no ire. Rather, he sounds like he wants Hob to. “Hob, I cannot—”

“You can. It’s not for forever. The Dreaming will manage, I promise. You have to be okay for the Dreaming to be okay, remember?”

“Can I?” Dream says, more to himself than to Hob. Behind him, the dream starts to fade, the dreamer still rocking her baby as she slowly wakes.

“You can,” Hob insists. “Come on, darling. Let’s go home.”

He starts to try to wake himself up. It’s tough thanks to the sleeping pills, but eventually Hob feels himself start to slip from the Dreaming, Dream still wrapped in his arms—and Dream lets him, ceding into the Waking as Hob does, docile and sad. Christ. Hob’s got a lot of work to do.

Blinking awake in bed has him feeling like he’s been hit by a train, but he tries to shake it off. He’s got more important things to think about.

Dream’s appeared beside him, curled in Hob’s arms, head on Hob’s shoulder. Hob gives him a squeeze, kisses his cheek. Then urges him up. “Come on, love. Up. I’ll make you something to eat.”

Normally he’d let Dream rest, but Hob thinks it might be better to get him moving a bit, have some tea, pull him out of what he’s mired himself in. Limit the wallowing.

Dream allows him to draw him up, sit him on the edge of the bed, seems to gradually come awake as Hob wraps him in a cardigan. “Did you mean it? That I should stay for longer?”

“Of course I did.” He runs his palms over Dream’s shoulders, more to soothe himself than anything. Reassure himself that Dream is in fact, mostly, okay. “You should stay for as long as you want to, and I’ll take care of you. Actually, you should stay for longer than you want to, because I know you’re going to convince yourself you want to go back immediately.”

“I do not know how to just…” he gazes off over Hob’s shoulder, out into the living room. “Stay. And do this.”

“Then we’ll figure it out. For both of you.” Hob lays his hand over the roundness of Dream’s belly. He’s actually kept that. Manifested it in the Waking, too. Hob had thought he would just force it away again as soon as he was able. “Come on. Up you get.”

He brings Dream out to the living room, gets him sat on the couch with a blanket over his lap, makes him a cup of tea and some oatmeal—it seems a bit late for him to suddenly start getting morning sickness but Hob still sticks to bland foods for now—then sits beside him again, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

Dream eats his food mechanically and then slowly sips his tea, holding the warm mug tight between his fingers. Gradually the tension in his shoulders seems to drop by increments. Hob rubs the back of his neck, and between his shoulder blades where he’s frozen up, and Dream lets out a long, shivering sigh, nearly dropping his mug as his muscles all spasm and then relax.

“You don’t have to go through it like this, love,” Hob says quietly, as Dream lets out a low, pained sound. “Pregnancy’s hard on anybody I’d bet, but we don’t have to make it harder.”

“Always you seek to make things easier for me, forgetting the reality of my nature,” Dream murmurs.

“Haven’t you realized by now that you’ve married a fool who thinks rules like that are bullshit?”

Dream cracks a small smile. “So I have.”

“Wasn’t expecting to get such easy agreement that I’m a fool, but—”

Dream turns and kisses him, leaning into Hob’s side and Hob’s hand on the back of his neck. Hob draws him close, sinking into his kiss. When they part, Dream rests their faces together.

“I want you to have what you want, you know,” Hob tells him gently. “Damn the rules. Damn your function. You’re worth more than that.” He lays his hand lightly over Dream’s belly, and Dream makes a soft sound, closing his eyes. “Both of you are.”

Dream sets his mug aside to grip Hob’s arms instead, leaning into his embrace. Hob kisses his forehead.

“I’ll take care of you both,” he promises.

“I believe you will,” says Dream.

“Good. Now. You’re not going to think about work. You’re going to sit there on the couch with my laptop and browse catalogues and let me know what baby clothes you want to spend all of my money on, what supplies you need to decorate the nursery like a gothic castle, and so on, and I’ll make you another cup of tea.”

He kisses the back of Dream’s hand, then does, in fact, get him situated on the couch with a pile of blankets, a laptop and a credit card—a dangerous proposition for Hob’s bank account, considering Dream’s general lack of awareness of the value of money, but Dream deserves to be spoiled for once and so Hob’s going to spoil him.

Later, after Dream’s happily purchased God knows what baby things—Hob didn’t look at the total, the credit card statement will be a fun surprise for later—Dream lies down with his head in Hob’s lap as Hob reads him a story. His eyes fall shut as Hob plays with his hair. He looks at peace.

This, of course, is when Matthew taps on the window.

Hob sighs as Dream sits up, shaking himself back to wakefulness. He wants to curse the interruption. Though, to be fair, he probably should have found a way to let Matthew and Lucienne know that Dream was alright. Whoops. Oversight.

He opens the window to let Matthew in.

“Boss!” says Matthew, landing on the couch beside Dream. “We were worried you were— whoa, you’re like, really pregnant!”

Dream raises an imperious eyebrow. “That was already the case.”

“Yeah, but now you’re— nope. Nope. Not gonna say anything. Don’t comment on people’s bodies. Shoulda learned my lesson as a human.”

“A wise choice,” says Dream. “It seems you’ve learned many things, Matthew.”

“Ha, ha. Well, I’m glad you’re okay either way. Are you, like,” he flutters his feathers, hesitant, “taking a break?”

Dream sighs. “It seems so.”

“Hey, good! That’s good. Bout time, right?”

“We think he’s going to take maternity leave,” Hob says.

“So the baby’s… due… soon?” Matthew asks.

“Undetermined,” says Dream. He really is the primary cause of Hob’s stress.

“…Right. Well, um.” He lands on Dream’s knee, pushes his head against Dream’s arm in an affectionate gesture. “Enjoy, okay? The break I mean. Not the, like. Birth.”

Dream strokes two fingers lightly along the top of his head. “Thank you, Matthew. I shall.”

Matthew hops away again, shaking out his feathers. “And let me know when I get to meet the baby! I’ve never been an uncle but I’m sure I can manage it!”

And with a winged salute, he’s out the window again.

“An uncle,” Dream echoes, and Hob grins.

“What, you thought our baby would have a normal family?”

“I suppose I would rather Matthew than Desire,” Dream says, derision over the latter name. “Though I am wary of letting him babysit.”

“We’ll work all that out later,” Hob says. “Plenty of time, right?”

“Yes.” Dream frowns, then, looking off into the distance. “I… do not know, actually. It’s difficult for me to gauge the baby’s development, or exactly when we might expect her arrival. She is… fickle.”

“Even better that you’re taking a rest, hm?” Hob says. When Dream doesn’t reply, frown only deepening, he takes Dream’s face between his hands. “Hey, love. It’s alright, what you’re feeling. If you’re overwhelmed or— or scared.” Fuck, Hob is scared on Dream’s behalf.

“I am not scared,” Dream says, and for once Hob doesn’t think he’s trying to downplay his feelings. Well, he would know what’s going on in his sort-of-body better than Hob would. “I am just…” he looks off over Hob’s shoulder, considering. “Sad. That I will have to let her go, soon. And that I cannot be here for her as long as I would like to. I am… still dwelling on that dream.”

“Oh, love.” He pulls Dream close again. “You know I’ll make it as real for you as I can.”

Dream hums. “Might we go to bed?”

“‘Course.” Hob picks Dream up from the couch, which makes Dream squeak and cling to him. But in a moment he relaxes in Hob’s arms, laying his head against Hob’s shoulder. Hob feels a swell of affection for him. Okay, he can do this. He can coddle Dream.

He may not know exactly what he’s going to do when the baby arrives. But taking care of his husband is something he can do.

It feels easier after that. Dream is still tired, still sad at times, and Hob knows he’s thinking about after the birth, when he’ll eventually have to return to his responsibilities, have to let go of the dream Hob’s trying to construct around him. It’s hard for him to just be in a moment, he always has so many things on his mind. Sometimes Hob catches him looking at the baby monitor with an expression that almost makes Hob regret giving it to him in the first place.

But he catches him at peace, too. Sitting by the window with a cup of tea and a book, hand resting lightly on his belly. Taking long naps in bed, catching up on the regular sleep he undoubtedly doesn’t get. It’s not common for Dream to be at peace, so Hob doesn’t take it for granted. But the time off seems to be doing him some good. Slowly the perennial tension in him seems to unwind.

Hob, meanwhile, just likes having him around. He’s not used to having Dream all to himself all the time, and gets a little happy surprise every time he comes home and Dream is there. It makes him think on the dream that Dream had been mulling over, the mother with her baby. That fantasy of a simpler life where they could just be together without all the complications.

Neither of them is really that person. But it’s nice to think of, and he catches moments of it, during those fragile days.

Usually, he wakes with Dream lying beside him in bed, its own rare privilege that he doesn’t take for granted. On this morning, too, he wakes to find Dream across from him, studying him, their legs just brushing.

Hob yawns, shaking off sleep. “Have you been awake for a while?”

“One could say that I never truly ‘sleep,’ and therefore I am never truly ‘awake,’” says Dream.

“Pedant.”

Dream’s lips twitch up. Smiles have come easier to him since stepping away from his work. “I have something to tell you.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

Dream’s smile deepens. “Her name.”

If Hob was still sleepy at all, that wakes him right up. “She’s got a name already?” He feels a little hurt that Dream’s just decided this on his own, before realizing—

“As I did, before I came into existence. It is of her function and powers. A recent development, however, for this to be clear to me.”

“What is she then, darling?” Hob asks, heart pounding unexpectedly.

Dream says it more as a breath than a word. “She is Wish.”

Wish. A smile breaks out over Hob’s face. “That’s not an Endless power, then?” he asks.

“It is not so fundamental a concept as ours. But it holds its own form of power.”

“And comes from dreams, too,” Hob says, nudging him, delighted at the thought of it, and Dream nods. Then a thought occurs. “Wait, is that why Desire kept going on about being ‘auntie’? They could tell?” Desires and wishes can be somewhat similar, Hob thinks.

Dream sighs tiredly. “Desire insists that she takes after them. They are unreasonably smug about it. However, I believe that it is because of you.”

“Me?”

Dream’s smile curves up again and Hob gets the distinct sense he’s about to be made fun of. “You were wishing rather too aggressively to get me pregnant, were you not? Be careful of your fantasies, Hob.”

“Dream.” It’s mortifying to think of it that way. Dream’s not wrong, though. Hob had been fantasizing about it when they had sex. He just hadn’t thought the fantasies would become real.

“Wished too hard and created a wish,” he says, and Dream snickers. “Never a dull moment with you.”

“It is not only because of your fantasies that she is Wish,” Dream continues, a few moments later, “but also, I believe, because of your curiosity. Your constant interest in what the future holds. This too, I believe, is related to wishing.”

“I guess it is,” Hob says, wondering at it. He’d kind of figured the baby would take more after Dream, being sort-of-Endless and all. But who knows. He likes the idea that she might take after both of them.

“Well, darling,” he says, kissing Dream on the cheek, “I’m looking forward to meeting Wish.”

“She looks forward to meeting you,” Dream says, as if he’s truly passing along the baby’s own feelings, and maybe he is. He takes Hob’s hand and lays it over his stomach, so Hob can feel the swirl of Wish’s power, grown stronger since the last time he felt it. It’s still such a wonder.

He cuddles Dream close. Dream sinks into his touch, pressing their skin together. He’s truly taken to Hob’s coddling, and Hob wonders if he’ll be able to keep it up after the baby’s born. He hopes so. Dream will need that caretaking just as much then as he does now, even if he may not admit it.

In a little while he’ll draw him a bath, maybe, and suggest something for them to do together later that day. But for now he just holds him, and for a moment, everything feels peaceful, and simple, and good.

And then, just a few weeks later, Dream disappears.

#dream: i'll just never talk about my feelings i'm sure itll be fine :)#sorry had to add a little drama little cliffhanger etc it adds spice to life #wish #my writing #dreamling #cw mpreg

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