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“Do you even get gray hairs ?”
As soon as Hob blurted out his question, he regretted it. It was only a passing thought, a idiotic remark he knew already the answer.
Sitting across the table, Morpheus raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “Gray hairs ?” He repeated, slightly inclining his head sideway, an amused smile parting his lips.
“Ah fuck, no- wait-“ Hob was stumbling over his words like some sort of pubescent awkward boy in front of a pretty girl and he hated it, hated giving off this image to Morpheus of all people but especially hated thinking of his friend as the pretty girl he was failing to impress. “No.” He put his both hands on the table, anchoring himself down and closed his eyes just a second to not look at Morpheus’s amused face, “I know you don’t get gray hair. We’ve known each other for now six-hundred and forty years, and never you physically changed. Apart from era-appropriate haircuts which is fine, but off-topic.”
The man in front of him was clearly having too much fun watching Hob floundering in his explanations and staggering sentences.
“It’s just,” Hob sighted in exasperation, feeling his entire face turning red under the shame, “It’s just it’s weird.”
“Weird ?”
Oh god, Hob wanted to smack his smile off ! To hell if it happened every two hundred years, he wasn’t taking mocking smile as a victory.
“Shut up, you-“
“Shut up, now ?” Morpheus was clearly amused, his timid smile had shifted into a beaming open-mouth one, his head thrown back. His hands were on his hips, his elbows’ out, entirely open and welcoming the situation.
Had it not been because of such a fucking dumb and stupid and idiotic question, Hob would’ve been proud of making him express such delight and friendliness.
“We don’t grow old and gray.” His voice had stopped stammering, “And I’m happy about it, of course. Death and old age are not for me, you know that. Still, it sometimes feels uncanny to not even age.”
Morpheus’ smile slowly faded to grow back his usual expression, “Would you rather age ?”
“Fuck no !” His eyes went wide at the thought of an seven-hundred body. “I’m just telling, sometime I don’t feel human anymore.”
His friend stayed silent, surely weighting his words with care. “Death is a key element of an human life, what live has to die.” He paused again, Hob dreadfully thought he had ruined it for the century. “You indeed transcended your condition. I’m not sure we quite could say you’re human, still your upbringing, mentality and body cannot allow you another name.”
Only the faint noises of far-away tables and patrons of the New Inn were heard between the two friend, Hob couldn’t even discern breathing noises from him.
“Are you saying I’m too dumb to not be an human ?” He tried to joke, feeling the atmosphere had shifted toward a much more serious one he had intended to.
It did ripped a faint smile out of Morpheus, “Sometime I wonder if your survival is due to skill or pure dumb luck. I have seen immortals last less than you.”
Hob laughed, “It’s pure dumb luck my friend, pure dumb luck ! I have no idea how I managed the last seventy years if we’re honest.”
“Was it any hardship ?”
“Oh god-“ he rubbed his face with both hands, “You have no ideas. In the forties to fifties I was getting hit by cars like I was a blind street cat ! Back then, unless the coachman gave amphet’ to his horses or you were a day-dreaming idiot you heard it coming !” He waved his hands around, a rowdy and crazed habit he took from an extensive séjour across Italia years ago, “You had a load of horse-shit to cross to even get to the road. Now, the cars are way too fast and the drivers terrible. Especially in the fifties and sixties.” he paused, thinking, “Though, in the eighties they were all on drugs so I’m not sure who are the worst in the end. Now the cars are eletric, hear 'silent', which made it quite harder to get used to it for me.”
“You got hit by cars a lot ?” Hob didn’t heard the slight tone of worry in his voice, both not used to hearing it and too accustomed to being himself hurt to think a being such as him could care.
“Ah, I think I can tell apart cars just by being hit by them. A Mercedes-Benz 220SE hurts like hell, I can tell you.”
Morpheus was visibly taken aback by how lightly he was talking of it, Hob understood. It made him realize he acted as if it was nothing more but the usual. Surely being immortal didn’t damaged his nerves ?
“It is a peculiar thing than to talk of an heavy subject like that one in such a undimmed light.” Finally said Morpheus after yet another long pause.
“Well, I’m trying to focus on the good part of things. I got hit-and-run’ed quite a lot indeed but I always got back on my two feet. Healthcare really evolved as well, we’re aware of so much more about the human’s bodies than I ever thought possible.” Hob couldn’t say he grew accustomed to the pain, that it is false, you never do but he couldn’t act like six or seven car accidents in an seven-hundred lifespan traumatized him either. Much worse used to happen to people barely a century ago. “You know, it’s in a hospital I realized for the first time I don’t grow old.”
Morpheus looked at him with intense curiosity. Hob always felt special under his gaze, felt his body warming up but when he gave him such looks he could see the universe and it’s stars in it… His breaths were often cut short.
Oh to have a deity’s undivided attention, to have them listening to your every words like you weren’t more than a brief flash in the grand scheme of things.
Hob added, his hands clammy ; “In nineteen-three I got drunk and fell into the Tame. Dumb, I know but it was a big faculty party and we all let loose.” He thought of his friends laughing loudly, of the secrets shared under the soggy, warm yet fuzzy influence of alcohol. He loved these moments. Ever since the thirteen hundreds, he craved for the mundane life, the beautiful details that make it worth it. “They thought I was gonna die, which I surely would have just by having some of that water near my mouth eh, so was sent to an hospital. They’re so modern now, you know.”
Morpheus nodded, he had already felt enough dreams and nightmares in these modern hospices to know what they look like.
“They asked my age which I didn’t know. Like, I don’t even know which year I was born ! I don’t even celebrate my birthday at the same date every years, my friends think it’s an eccentricity of mine. That I keep my age secret or something… It’s not like my mother would have had a certificate even if she knew how to read.” He paused a short second, remembering her smell, her dubious cooking to today’s standard he still somehow craved in the deep of the night, “I told them my mother never kept the paper and that she died too early to tell me which city I was even born in. Which is kind of true, in a way.” He made a face, shrugging. “They surely had pity for me, I know, doctors and nurses even in the nineties were busy as hell but they spared some time and made one or two exams to tell me my age.”
Listening him talk always appeased the King of Dreams. He had simple words, basic storytelling and an irregular speed of speech still it felt all so balanced and enlightening. The mundane, the human experience… Having an age, having a birthday and caring for it. His own creation was nothing to be celebrated, he always thought.
“They can tell your age by your bones and teeth ! Ah, sounds like witchcraft I tell you.” He had a frank laugh, then kept going when he had no reactions from his partner ; “The alcohol was starting to sweat off and I started to slightly panic, like, what if my bones says I’m seven-hundreds !?” He punctuated his point by slamming his fist onto the table, making the endless slightly flinch in surprise. “I was in a paper robe, tubes in and out my veins and my ass out to the world to see and still I decided I had to run away… Fuck, I tripped over my IV not five meters away from my room and sprained my ankle. Tell you, I felt like an idiot when three good nurses ran to me and helped me back on my feet. The robe was all creased and crumpled, the two at the same time it’s paper, and you could see even more of my birthday suit under.” He cringed at the memories, flapping his hands as if to push away the images.
He didn’t saw the soft smile Morpheus had, sitting in his chair immobile but entirely focused on his every words and movements. Hob would have found it heart-warming, seeing his friend so relaxed and genuinely interested.
“What a night. Well, I was forcefully bring back to my bed. They didn’t understood my worry, surely not thinking it had any link to my age. Like, who panic at the thought of a number ?”
Morpheus couldn’t but think of the immeasurable numbers of nightmares about old age. That was only a remark an immortal could make.
“Well, with my ankle i couldn’t move anymore so I had to accept my mournful destiny… Alas, a nurse came back telling me I was thirty-one.”
A silence fell, more so because Hob had stopped talking and Morpheus wasn’t sure what to pick out of it. Finally, Hob broke it again.
“Thirty-one ! I’m so young.”
“Yes.” Agreed Morpheus, uncertain of what was even considered young for an human. Children are young. Young adult too, but that was in the title… “Thirty-one. You thought you were older ?”
“Well, it definitely felt older back in thirteen eighty-two, that i can say.”
“And so ? How that made you realize anything ?”
Hob furrowed his brows then his face lighted up, “Ah. Yes.” He finger-gunned his friend, realizing he had a point somewhere before starting this story. “I’m exactly six-hundred and seventy-one, Morpheus. I won’t have no gray hair, I’ll never have back pains or get a bad sight, my hands won’t ever be shaky. My body is thirty-one. That’s the moment I realized I was weird.” He paused at Morpheus’ interrogative face, “It sounds weird I know. I lived through thick and thin since we first met, I already knew it was surreal. I already knew but knowing and knowing aren’t the same thing.”
“Yes they are.” Replied Morpheus.
“You’re not human, not even a deity even if I call it that. You know everything,”
“Not everything.”
“You know almost everything,” Corrected Hob, rolling his eyes, “And you don't care for your age. It's nothing to you. To an human, though... I think it hits me, the realization. I’m thirty-one, Morpheus. I’ll always be thirty-one, until the game’s not funny anymore.”
“I thought you would have realized it.”
“I think humans are not made to realize such things. We were not made with the intend of endless creatures making us immortal just for the sake of it.”
Hob was fidgeting his fingers, feeling his throat dry. He needed a beer but couldn’t dare break the silence between them.
“Is it so disturbing to you ?”
This time he heard the slight tone of worry in his voice, “Not anymore. But back then, yes. It was like a kid having his first pet’s death, the realization of death. For me, it was that I was ageless. Immortality was surviving swords in the stomach and gunshots to the heart, not being thirty-one for eternity. I never had a number to put on it, never had to ask myself how old exactly I would be. I knew time flew by, six-hundred and forty years, but my age was never in the equation. I wasn’t in the equation.” He paused, letting himself think of his next words instead of blurting out the first three sentences he could come up with. “Before I knew my age, immortality was something I was the witness of. A bystander of some sort. Now, immortality is something happening to me. Affecting my body.”
“I see.” He replied, still Hob could understand on his face he didn’t. He could never explain to an endless creation, someone who had no beginning nor ending what it felt to him. He could live with that, they didn’t had to understand each other entirely to appreciate each other.
“That’s why the question.” He waved his hand around his hair, “About the hairs. It kind of make no senses, even for me I suppose. It’s really a question of feeling.”
“I you want I can have gray hairs.”
Hob was so dumbstruck he let out a loud snort, then quickly realized he was deadly serious. “What ? For real ?”
“Yes.”
“How though ?”
“I can alter my physical form. It’s only an anthropomorphic and physical representation of what I am.”
Hob put aside the ‘what I am’ for another day, he was exceedingly interested in seeing his friend change form. “You would ?”
“I don’t do it usually. It changes by itself according to who’s watching me. The First People had an entirely different version or myself as you can have.”
“Ah. Oh well.”
“I can still changes it if I please.” Morpheus added, seeing Hob’s dissatisfied. “Gray hairs.”
“But not like an great-grand-dad ! I’m not talking silver-fox, more of salt and pepper gray hair.”
The endless had to concentrate intensely to not storm off, “Not Silver fox but salt and paper gray hair ?” He repeated through gritted teeth, already thinking it was a bad decision to have revealed Hob he could modify his physical form to his liking.
“Hum. Just the-“ He showed his temps in quick circular movements, “the hairs here.” The thought of this already very beautiful man with gray temps warmed his body in a way he wasn’t quite sure to understand, or even wanted to understand.
“I regret this.” He said sighting but it only amused Hob.
“You talked about it on your own, old man. Go at it.”
And then suddenly it was as if Morpheus always had gray temps. He always looked ancient, not in a way an eighteen hundred furniture would, in a way than a cosmic being older than all universes that suffered through every eternity of times and life would. Still, even though he had a defined jaw, high cheekbones and dark eyebrows, he now looked mature and all-knowing. He was a beautiful man.
Hob was sure he was blushing but acted through it.
“Are you satisfied now, Hob Gadling ?”
How could he be so oblivious to the effect it had on him ?
“Yeah. You don’t look like an pretty emo twink anymore. More like a DILF."
Morpheus decided it was best to not know what that meant, surely nothing good knowing the man. It was interesting though, the attention Hob was now giving him. If before he always seemed interested, he was now entirely subjugated. Was it due to his outer-worldly nature or perhaps something else ? He had no will to seek answers and surely end up disappointed.
“I know gray hairs were symbols of respect in past days. Is it still the matter ?” He asked, already half knowing the answer.
“Well.” He desperately needed a fresh beer to calm down. Or to pass the blush as a drunk flush. “Older are more associated with decrepit teachings and over the hill politics and social conventions, I think the youth of this generation is much creative in finding ways to bother the elders than any other, still I think they’re right. ‘am not there to endure the same decade over and over ah.”
Yeah, trying to think about challenging social norms ! That’s not sexy.
“Well. I hope I won’t be called decrepit if the youth sees me.”
“Oh fuck no, ah.” He breathed out, half chuckling half losing his composure. “The youth would find you truly attractive.” Morpheus seemed to apprehend the thought. “But don’t worry. The youth won’t be drooling at your sight either !”
Hob actually had no idea about his friend’s romantic life. It seemed strange to think off, especially now as he felt so offbeat about him. Did he ever fall in love ? Could he or were the Endless above such pitiful parades ? The mere idea Morpheus had never felt love brimmed him of a deep melancholic feeling. Love, as naive as it was, love really made the world turns right. He wanted his friend, his only true friend, to be able to know the feeling.
Was it weird ? Perhaps , one could argue.
“I’d rather withdraw from any emotional surge, if possible.”
Hob let out yet another amused ugly snort, “What a sentence.” He teased, “Don’t worry, apart for some weirdoes you should stay clear.”
“Weirdoes ?”
By weirdoes he meant him and his rising emotions but he wasn’t gonna say that.
“An expression. A friendly banter about how only weirdoes can find you attractive.” He plainly explained. Best to kill any awkward phrasing and thoughts immediately. “Friends do that.”
"I see." He said as only answer, letting a comfortable silence fall back on their table. Hob looked at him, his stranger, his friend. Morpheus.
At first he said he was named Dream. A very fitting name, too fitting. Still, he loved how Morpheus sounded, how it gaves him a more tangible sense, that this really existed. To call him Dream, a dream... It burned his tongue, burned his guts as if he was to receive the back end of the stick.
It would hurt more than any swords in the stomach, gunshots in the heart or than any if these fucking Mercedes-Benz 220SE.
He needed Morpheus, not a dream.
"Friends also share about their lives, you know." Hob slowly let out after the nice waitress gave him a pint. Morpheus had only waved his hand to refuse one for himself. Come to think of it, he never ate nor shared a drink. Yet another question for yet another time. "I shared a lot about my life."
"Surely they do." Morpheus stayed silent again, leaving Hob confused as to wether it was another of these grandiloquent and theatrical pause of him or if that was all.
"Do you have family ?" Hob finally let himself ask after what seemed a decade long wait.
Morpheus stayed still, almost conceit in his way to look at him. "Yes. I have six siblings." He paused, shortly to Hob's sake. "Destiny, Death, Desire, Despair and Delirium."
Hob almost had to count on his finger, "Six you said ?"
"My brother left a long time ago. We do not talk of him anymore."
Hob let it all in, if Morpheus was 'god' of dreams then it was safe to assume what their roles were. It was almost scary, to imagine six, or five, other being like him. Did a family like that one ressemble an human one ? Does each has a different personality or are they all like his friend ? That would reasons enough of the current state of the world, ah ! Too many goths up there.
"Th-"
"You met Death once."
The poor man choked up at the words, "Death ? What now ?"
"In that tavern, the first time we ever met. It was Death that started it all after hearing your provocation."
"I said... Did i said death was stupid to Death own face ? Uh." Hob scratched his hairs, leaning back into his seat. "Well, that's a way." They stayed silent again, Hob half lost in thoughts of what a family of Endless could look like and if they were two pales black haired bastards that day and what did the other one looked like ? "Did he had a scythe or something ?"
"She did not."
"Ah, a she. I often envisioned Death as a tall skeleton with a black robe on, and of course the huge scythe. What does you sister look like ?"
Morpheus couldn't say he was appreciating that many questions about his family, something he was trying to forget by coming here to this human but at the same time, it was somehow pleasurable to be listened. He was no king to Hob, only a friend. He was not used to it, he said to himself, but that's normal to answer such questions. "She's very beautiful, much more lively than I am. She likes to eat and tastes your drinks... She really does care for humankind."
Hob could see Morpheus' visage had lighten up, it made him smile. Morpheus was so beautiful when smiling. "She sounds lovely."
"She is." Still a faint smile on his lips, he added ; "Have you more questions ?"
Of course Hob had more questions, so may more questions ! He wanted to ask them all, for this moment to never end. He grew sick of seeing his friend only every century. It was tiring, it pained him.
He did not dare admit why it pained him.
"Perhaps." He teased, leaning back in toward the other man. He took a mouthful of his beer, drowning down dumb questions to give time to his mind. he won't make the same mistake twice in a day. "Have you... Oh, tell me what does the dream lord dreams of ?"
Simple, couldn't miss the mark there.
"I do not dream, Hob."
Ah fuck, what a fucking idiot he was.
"The lord of dream do not dream ?" He repeated, left to wonder what it meant.
"Of course not, I am Dream. I am the dreams and nightmares. I can't even fell asleep." He said as if it was painfully obvious. Hob was truly human, he thought, from his mistakes and actions to his optimism and naivty. What do you dream of ? That was such... A sentimental thing to ask.
"What about a dream then ?" Hob cut short the discussion, he couldn't handle any serious and intense conversation when Morpheus looked like that. "Something that get you going ?" He had almost said desire but with the recent information it was the name of one of his siblings, he decided otherwise. He had only talked about Death, better not to make any faux-pas until he knew more.
Morpheus looked amused, "Get me going ? Nothing, I just have to."
"That's impossible. Everybody need to have something ! You know that, it's you."
"Perhaps." He paused. It started to get Hob on edge, unable to discern if it was a full stop or indeed just a pause. "Humanity."
"Humanity ?"
"Yes."
Another pause.
At this hour almost everybody had left the New Inn, meaning they will have to as well, oh too soon to Hob's taste and this idiot was taking hours long breaths between each words ? That was a waste of time, an entire waste ! They had to be talking as much as possible, to hear his voice and see the universe behind his eyes. Hob needed more of it, more of him. Why wasn't he doing the same ?
Hob was tired.
"And this friendship." He added, unsure. "Humans indulges themselves. They destroy but they create. They dreams together, play music, dance and sing." He paused, swallowing back a dark thought, "I once was like them, passioned. To be with you, here... It reminds me of it."
Hob was exhausted.
"This friendship is very precious to me as well."
The under-statement of the century. Hob was sour, tired and sour. He wanted to hold his hand, hug him tight and never let go. He felt rising tears, his cheeks hurting from trying to maintain a neutral face.
"You're important to me, Hob Gadling. A true friend."
They love. To be a witness of humanity's passion is what got him going. Morpheus could never admit it, even to himself, but he admired them. They want love, they dream of it, they find it.
"I'm proud then," Hob said painfully. He smiled at Morpheus, "To be considered a true friend. The youth might even says BFF !"
Morpheus had a soft laugh, "BFF ? Why so many acronyms ? Aren't words pretty enough to be fully used ?"
"You're a poet, you wouldn't understand I fear."
They stayed both silent, the glooming presence of the last waitress, eager to close but too polite to ask them to leave, was being harder and harder to ignore. Hob wanted to scream, jump acrossthe table and ask him to stay, to come back tomorrow. Not in a hundred years.
He had always been waiting for him. Every century, his legs shaking, his minds racing trying to find all the new discoveries he lived through ! After he learnt how to write, he started to make lists. The two first century he was convinced he had to justify his existence to him, prove he was worthy of it. Then, even after Morpheus had seen him at his worst, he realized he only needed to be himself. That's when his heart went offbeat everytime he thought of him.
Morpheus did not care for his statue, his money and lands, he only wanted to meet him and never before did Hob ever felt such warmth inside his heart.
When he did not show up in eighty-two, he could only think of the next meeting. Surely he will come in two thousand eighty-two ! He had made a mistake, saying they were friends, but never will he do it again. He was going back onto his lists, back onto proving his worth.
Yet never did his heart stopped beating offbeat.
He was done, up and down, for the stranger.
Though, today, he was tired. For the first time in six hundred years, he was tired of thinking about the next... Meeting, reunion, date or whatever it was.
Hob wanted to know him, truly.
"It is late for you." Finally said Morpheus, something in his tone Hob could not describe.
"I don't really want you to leave." Muttered Hob under his breath, his face so hot he knew he was blushing like a damn fool. "I'm happy when you are here."
The waitress finally came up to them, in small steps to let them hear her, "Excuse me sires, I really need to close."
"Then I shall leave." Concluded Morpheus, standing up. He was surpassing the poor girl by at least two heads, she stepped back, trying to get a look of his face. "Hob, I'm myself happy when you are here. Thank you."
Hob stood up as well, quickly sweeping his belongings into his bag without care. "Wait, we can keep talking outside."
He longly contemplated the proposal, Hob was sure to end up with an anxiety issue by the end of the night if he kept doing this. "I would appreciate it but I cannot, I have urgent matters elsewhere."
The girl was trying to keep herself busy, cleaning up the tables around, even though she already did at least twice. She felt she had to not intervene, she liked Hob. He was a regular from longer than she, and previous waiters, could remember and he was never creepy to her. It broke her heart.
"Oh. Then." Hob was close to tears, he knew it was going to happen. He hated it, hated this dumb things they do, hated his fucking heart and minds and Dream. Fuck. "Let's meet again in a century."
He had a timid laugh, almost a short chuckle, and Dream nodded before leaving. He didn't turned back, it wasn't his type though. Hob knew this man had never turned back for anyone ever.
When the door closed behind him, he felt his tears run on his cheeks, his lips and cheeks hurting. What an idiot he was, to expect anything more out of this. He swiped his tears when his vision became too blurry and slowly started to leave as well. It was over midnight, they had talked for a good solid six hours, still it felt like nothing.
"Hob," said the girl, Tina, a lovely young lady working here while studying modern literature at the King's College. He liked her, she sometime offered him a beer or two, he left big tips and often they argued semantics. "He's kind of dumb, isn't ?"
He grinned, half-amused half-sad, "The densest man I've ever met."
"Well, if it is any comfort, my girlfriend was just like him before I told her." She had an hopeful smile, "And maybe he's waiting outside ! We can never know with these idiots but it's worth it in the end."
They both smiled at each other, a comfortable silence of compassion and understanding. The thought of Dream waiting outside scared him more tan anything, that was his deepest desire but he knew he couldn't live with a creature such as him, it would drove him mad. Maybe that's why Dream acted this way. He finally shared farewells to Tina and then left, ready to take on what was outisde.