Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The man had been sitting on the same park bench in the quad, at the same time as Hob passed by, every day for a week. He had noticed him the first day; his starkly pale white skin had stood out as memorable but he hadn’t really looked further. Hob had learned some time ago to just not look on campus, because with how people looked and dressed these days someone could be a nineteen year old student or a thirty year old professor and there was a marked difference in the appropriateness of ogling. By the third day he had slowed his step slightly as he passed, just to ascertain that yes, it very much was the same pale stranger sitting there stoically in a coat with the collar turned up to his chin.

This wouldn’t have been that odd if the stranger had ever had a cup of coffee, a book, a laptop, a sandwich, literally anything on hand, but he never did. He just sat there, sometimes straight as a rail and unmoving and other times bent over with his elbows on his knees, staring down at the ground dejectedly. It also wouldn’t have been odd had Hob not passed him just past sunrise on his way to his office before class, again at lunch on the way to the campus coffee shop, and a final time late in the afternoon while headed home. Still, it was a university campus; stranger things had happened. It was just odd, and only memorable because the man sat so still and wore only black.

It could have gone on forever without any intrusion from Hob, but Fridays were his late day - he had an evening class with a long break before it that he used for an overdue lunch and a bit of reading or personal work to relax. While the weather held, he aimed to do so outside. Today especially, as there were gaggles of prospective students for next term wandering about on several tour groups and the coffee house was full of them, their parents, and too many voices.

Outside was full of them too. The nearest, and frankly the only option besides the ground that he could get to before his coffee and panini got cold, was the bench occupied solely by the campus’s only goth who at this point could audition to be a statue. Hob approached and stood there for a moment, ignored or unseen; he wasn't certain. The man was hunched over himself like a gargoyle and looking at the ground today. Well, no sense in bothering him then.

Hob sat down on the end of the bench, as far away as possible not to be rude, and set his sandwich beside him. The man looked not so much up, he didn’t move his head enough for that, but glanced a bit to his left as if to see who dared disturb him. Hob caught the briefest glimpse of red-rimmed, watery eyes and was both immediately glad he hadn’t bothered him by asking if he could sit, and also felt like he should say something. If the guy had really been sitting here crying for a week that wasn’t precisely normal.

Maybe after he was done eating, if the man hadn’t gotten up and left yet. The panini was no good cold. He wasn’t more than a few bites into the first half of it when he heard a faint sniff like someone doing their best not to make noise while crying. Hob put down his sandwich; he couldn’t very well have a nice lunch and just ignore the grown man crying a few feet away from him. 

“You alright, mate?” Hob asked, glancing over at the stranger. Silence met for long enough that he thought he would just be ignored.

“I should think that answer is obvious,” the man said, unfurling from his hunched position to sit very straight again. He steadied his breathing with a few calm, focused breaths and his composure returned. The redness around his eyes that stood out against his pallor was the only remaining sign of his upset. That and possibly the messy hair that looked like he hadn’t combed it in days.

“Well, yeah, but ‘what’s wrong’ is a little forward,” Hob replied, undeterred, “I saw you sitting here… all week, really. I walk by to get to my office.”

“Ah,” the man said simply.

Clearly, he didn’t want to talk about it. Hob had planned to try to angle him towards student mental health services but figured that would go over like a lead balloon, and he had a feeling the man wasn’t a student. If for no other reason that even a grad student would have had some class to go to by now.

“Sorry… I didn’t mean to bother you,” Hob said softly as he rewrapped his sandwich and stood to leave.

“Wait!” the man said sharply, “Have you seen a raven? Not the normal sort; an african raven with a white breast.”

Hob blinked at him rather stupidly at how out random that question had been. “Uh… no?” he replied hesitantly, “Did you lose one?”

The man nodded weakly, biting his lip to try and retain his composure. Oh god, this was definitely above his pay grade.

“Well… shit. I take it you’ve already looked inside everywhere.”

The man nodded again. “And alerted campus security and staff,” he said softly, his voice wavering, “She can’t fly far, her wing was broken, years ago. I thought if… if I stayed where she could find me, maybe… She will not survive winter on her own.”

Hob sat back down, all thoughts of peaceful lunch forgotten. He wasn’t one to abandon someone having a breakdown, even if they’d only just met. That this man had come back every day, alone, kind of said he didn’t have much of a support system to help him search.

“Have you contacted wildlife orgs in the area?” Hob asked gently, “Do you have photos for fliers?”

“I have been walking the grounds…. And waiting,” the man replied, his expression tight as by sheer force of will he kept his tears on the inside. “I don’t have a mobile.”

“Right… okay,” Hob said, taking out his and googling for animal rescues, or anything relevant in the area. He began calling them one by one to leave the same message with either voicemail or anyone who answered; looking for a female raven with white feathers, damaged wing, very tame. He gave his own name and number after hesitating on the first call upon realising he still didn’t know the man’s name. A good forty minutes in, he had moved on from animal rescues, to the zoological society, and now going down the list of parks authorities for any nearby green spaces. Someone had to have seen the damned bird, somewhere.

“That was very kind of you, Robert,” the man said once he looked to be done, unable to think of anyone else relevant to leave a message for.

“Least I could do, mate. And please, call me Rob, or Hob,” he replied, and at the man’s raised eyebrow, he explained, “I teach mediaeval history, rhyming scheme nicknames came up once, years ago in undergrad, and I’m afraid it’s stuck.”

The man gave a slight nod. “Morpheus,” he offered eventually, “I have no such excuse.”

“So, how do I get in touch if someone calls back?” Hob asked, “Got a home phone, at least?”

Morpheus reached inside the breast pocket of his peacoat and withdrew a crisp white business card, which he handed to Hob in an effortlessly graceful gesture. Hob took it, turning it over in his hands. Morpheus’s surname was equally latin and archaic and there was no title or business listed - just a phone number and email. He had his own domain name, aeternus.net , so he must also have a website. Something to look up later.

“The number is my agent. I do not take personal calls, but she will know how to reach me,” Morpheus explained quietly, “I am sorry to trouble you.”

“No trouble, really,” Hob said, with only a passing thought to his now sad and soggy panini, “I don’t have another class til half three, I’ve got time. I don’t want to pry, but, what happened?”

Morpheus just shook his head slightly. “Jessamy is lovely, so people are drawn to her. There was another of these tours, a lot of people who do not like to be told no. They tried to pet her and she took flight… She so rarely does; it pains her, so…. So she must have been terrified. I worry she is atop a building and cannot get down.”

“Have you gone up and checked?”

“I do not have access, I was merely a guest lecturer,” Morpheus replied dejectedly, “Usually she can glide; down is easier than lifting into the air…” He trailed off and after a moment Hob noticed he was breathing more quickly, a little frantic, like he was on the verge of tears again, or worse. 

“I need her.”

The words were whispered so quietly that Hob barely heard them over the muted background noise of a busy quad. His first thought had been the bird was an example for a lecture, ornithology was a thing people were into after all, but anyone who kept birds for demonstration purposes would likely know who to contact and have already done the legwork Hob had just done. Morpheus had not, though it seemed not from anything like indifference - he looked like he was on the verge of a panic attack. Was this some sort of service animal, a… therapy bird? He’d read that ravens were smart, so maybe. It was the only thing that made sense.

Service animal also meant that Morpheus really did need it around, hopefully not along the lines of predicting seizures or something, or this could get messy. Given the man’s flustered appearance and seeming unwillingness to do anything but wait… Anxiety bird, emotional support bird, was that even a thing? Not that it mattered; Hob was a sucker for people in need even if they were otherwise perfectly well.

“We’ll find her,” he said firmly, before his brain caught up with the words coming out of his mouth, “Do you want to walk the grounds? There’s a few weird alcove green spaces around here that you wouldn’t stumble upon if you don’t know where they are. We could check those?”

Morpheus hesitated, looking at Hob with a sort of plaintive hope in his eyes, then shook his head. “I should… stay here.”

“Look, mate. Not trying to be mean, but if she could come back she probably would have by now. So she’s either stuck somewhere, or someone picked her up and they just need to call me back,” Hob replied. Or, she was hit by a car, or taken by someone who wouldn’t turn in a tame bird, or a cat got her, or a million other things that absolutely weren’t helpful and weren’t worth burdening the man’s mind with.

After a few moments of quiet contemplation, Morpheus stood and looked down at him expectantly. He said nothing, but the look on his face spoke clearly enough that it was obvious the reticence stemmed from inability, not unwillingness. A silent companion, then. Hob was good at filling the silence on his own.

He led a glowering Morpheus around campus, talking the whole while about the history of the buildings and all they had seen over the centuries - wars, monarchies rising and falling, famous guests, famous graduates… Morpheus said nothing, but he could tell the man was listening - he looked intent, and less teary-eyed than he had been. Hob led them through back ways and narrow paths between the old buildings to courtyards and study nooks off the beaten path. It had been a good guess as to where a frightened animal would run or fly to, but luck was not with them.

As the afternoon grew later, Morpheus’s expression soured again and he looked, to Hob’s untrained eye, like he was about to have a breakdown. Now it was only 20 minutes to class, and at this time of year they’d lose the light before he finished lecturing.

“I have a class,” he said eventually, “So there’s one more place I think we should check, but it's also on the way to the main department building.”

Morpheus just silently nodded and kept pace with him, eyes scanning up toward the trees and the tops of buildings looking for a flash of black and white.

“I don't know what your plans are but you’re welcome to use my office, if you weren’t leaving just yet,” Hob offered, “Or if you’re here again tomorrow and need to warm up, it's getting cold in the mornings.”

Morpheus paused and looked at him curiously, as if he couldn’t quite fathom the offer. “You are remarkably kind,” he said, failing to keep the surprise out of his voice, “A rare thing.”

“Eh… I don’t know about all that; you just looked like you were having a shit time,” Hob replied sheepishly, “I don’t like seeing people hurt.”

“Also rare,” Morpheus replied, his piercing gaze seeming to look through him as much as at him. It was a little unnerving, if he were honest with himself. More than a little. He just shrugged and gestured for Morpheus to follow him to his office. He unlocked the door and flipped on the light, although it wasn’t quite yet necessary as he had finally rated an office with a window this term. 

Despite having gotten a better office; it was still cramped with bookshelves, even more loose books, and trinkets that looked like they’d be better served in a museum. It was a bit of a mess, really, but Hob would argue it was organised chaos. His desk was still relatively clear, and the surprisingly comfortable chair across from it equally so.

“Make yourself comfortable, stay as long as you need,” Hob said, ushering Morpheus in, “I’m off to teach, uh…. Five minutes ago, fuck. I’ll let you know if anyone calls back!”

He pulled the door to, but not shut, and headed off at an almost-run, taking the stairs two at a time back to the ground floor to get to his lecture hall. At least he wasn’t known to be late, so just this once would be fine.

Chapter Text

Morpheus remained in the office, sitting quietly and deep in thought, for a good half an hour before he moved. ‘Make yourself comfortable’ extended to the kettle, surely. It was still mostly full of water, so he turned it on and made a cup of tea for himself, drinking it black, and feeling warmed from within for more reasons than simply the tea. He needed this time to think, to plan, and doing so on campus rather than at home helped assuage some guilt - he did not deserve to be at home, comfortable, and warm if Jessamy was still lost somewhere.

Eventually though, he did have to leave. Being here when the professor returned from his class, while probably fine, would mean he had to speak to someone today. Again. He was quite done with that, as a concept.

He sat down behind Hob’s desk and rummaged in the drawers for something to write on. He found a small spiral bound notebook that looked like it served mostly as a grocery list and internet password repository, and tore a page from it. The note he left wasn’t terribly long but it was heartfelt. Morpheus was very good with words, he was in the business of stories after all, but didn’t feel the need to be particularly effusive here - the rising tide of emotion was still too near, and the last thing he wanted to do was start crying again.

After leaving the note in the middle of the desk where it couldn’t be missed, he turned out the light and shut the door tightly. Pausing for a moment, he wondered if he should stay simply because it had been locked when they had arrived, and some of the artefacts the professor had looked expensive. No, surely he’d have said something if that were the case - he was free to leave.

He left campus on foot, walking for a quarter of an hour or so until he found a cab to drive him the rest of the way home. Without a phone his rideshare options were limited, and there was no way in hell he was going underground to take the tube - no matter how fast it would get him home. A car was inefficient, especially on a friday evening around rush hour, but he had nowhere else to be, nothing else to do. He watched out the windows, looking up, as they lingered in the area of the campus for a while, just in case… just in case. It was getting dark now, and he wouldn’t see anything.

The cab driver tried to make conversation, likely hoping for a decent tip, which Morpheus was more likely to grant if the man shut up. A few noncommittal noises and not a word of response got his feelings across clearly enough for his desired result. The man turned on the radio, but at least the pulsing pop music was quiet; he could still hear himself think.

When they finally arrived, Morpheus paid in cash and rounded up the fare to the nearest hundred - for being quiet, and because he knew he lived in the arse-end of nowhere and there wasn’t another fare for miles. His home was a loft in an old industrial building. The building across the street had been renovated into little flats years ago and was fully rented. His own was meant to be retail space on the far end, and upstairs was one tall, open space with vaulted ceilings and many-paned windows taking up most of one wall that had originally been sheet metal.

It was cold, dark, and draughty… but then, he hadn’t really been home in days and certainly hadn’t turned the heat on. Even with the modernly added amenities it was difficult and expensive to heat, but he did it anyway - he had no desire to be cold, ever again. He turned on the central furnace thermostat and then went about the space turning on the additional baseboard heating he’d had installed the previous winter. It wasn’t cold enough yet to need it all, but it was best to chase the chill away quickly. By the time he finished a hot shower, it would be enough to maintain warmth without everything turned on.

The space was eerily quiet when he was alone. The sound of water had assuaged it for a few minutes, but now his footsteps echoed against the high ceiling and stone walls. Lifeless, that was the word for it. While it was not as if Jessamy were a particularly loud or talkative companion, she did make the odd cawing squawk or two as she went about her play and exploration. Mostly the silence was filled by his words to her; she listened without judging, whether he wanted to divulge his inner feelings, or just tell her repeatedly what a pretty lady she was. At a time like this, when his hands were shaking with stress, she would be on his shoulder, clicking at him and preening his hair as if she could somehow fix its disarray.

He needed her. None of this would work without her. Not his writing, he hadn’t written a word in the time she’d been gone. Not living here; this loft space was for her, as much as it was his own malfunction that led to the feelings of claustrophobia in his old flat. Jessamy loved it when he carried her up to the loft and then ran back down to catch her as she glided across the open room, stretching the limits of her damaged wing. Now he didn’t even want to go upstairs, although he knew his back would thank him for sleeping in a bed instead of a sofa, but… all her toys were up there, and the cat bed she slept in like a nest on his nightstand was empty. No, down here would be fine for tonight.

He took his laptop from the desk where it had been charging, and made himself comfortable on one branch of the massive leather sectional sofa that had seemed like a good idea when he was trying to fill the space with furniture. More often than not it just reminded him that no one ever came here, not even his siblings.

The only emails worth answering were those from Lucienne; she’d long since learned that the best way to get a response was to put it all in bullet points - whatever ‘it’ was. Speaking opportunities, book signings, meetings with people who wanted rights to his work for some form of adaptation, and even the personal things were on the list; like his being vastly overdue for a follow-up appointment with his therapist. Without which she would not refill his medication.

That more than anything else got him to reply; just make the appointment and tell him when, he would be there. The rest? Unimportant today. Unimportant until he found Jessamy; after which anyone or any business that was still interested in his presence could ask again. There were enough events on the books already that he would have to suffer through without being able to cancel. He also added on a request to be sure she answered his phone, as he was expecting a call. Hoping for a call would be more accurate, but that would give her too much of an in to inquire about him personally. Well-meaning as she was, he was hanging on by a thread. One pitying question or apologetic glance when next they met would be the end of his day.

It was still cold by the time he was done, or perhaps he just felt so because of his still-damp hair. Morpheus pulled the duvet, that he had hauled from upstairs a few days ago, down from the back of the sofa. It was over-large even for his bed, but on the narrow sofa it was like drowning in a fluffy cloud. A heavy, fluffy cloud. He wrapped himself in it a few times over and curled up on his side. The night was still young but he was exhausted and, frankly, there was nothing else at all he wished to do.

Chapter Text

Hob started off his evening class with the short version of what he’d been up to with Morpheus. The more people who could look out for the missing bird, the better, and it only cost him a minute or two more of his already late class time. When he got back to his office after, he was oddly disappointed to find that the man had gone… but what had he expected, really? That he’d just sit there quietly, waiting for him, so they could continue their search? No, of course not, although sitting on the same park bench for a week was enough to give him that impression.

There was a note, however, left in the middle of his desk:

Robert-

I cannot thank you enough for your indelible kindness, you are a beacon of hope in a very dark city, and a dark day for me personally. Not many would have taken the severity of my concerns with such gravitas - I understand that for those who have not met her, or perhaps anyone other than me, it is hard to comprehend that I care for Jessamy more than I ever have for any human, and she for me, in her own way. Your candour in all that you said, about my situation and as we searched, was a breath of fresh air and lifted my spirits - if only for a moment. I hope that the work you did on my behalf bears fruit; if so, call the number on my card day or night.

It was signed with just an ‘M’ that had a remarkable amount of flourish for having been written with just a ballpoint pen. The note itself was… a lot. Apparently the man was a bit more eloquent by pen than in speech; shy or just on the verge of a breakdown was up for debate at this point. It had a certain poetic quality to it, which drove his curiosity. Although, not enough to do any research into him now, of course. All Hob wanted to do now was get home, open the bottle of wine that was waiting for him, and finally relax. It had been a hectic day, bird-hunting aside, and he never did get to eat that sandwich. For some reason he couldn’t quite pinpoint, he folded the note in half and tucked it in his pocket, rather than disposing of it. 

The next morning saw Hob giving the same ‘lost bird’ notice to his classes as he had given the night before and, even though he hadn’t actually confirmed it with Morpheus, he did mention it was a service animal. If he was wrong, he could beg for forgiveness later, but he was reasonably certain he wasn’t and maybe it would get his students to look up from their phones for once on their way between classes.

On his first break between morning classes, a short one only forty-five minutes, Hob decided to do a quick google search on his mysterious bird-keeper. The personal domain on the business card was indeed a website; for a very popular fantasy author that Hob had never heard of before. The name of his main series sounded familiar, he had a half-remembered idea that he’d read something about a show adaptation on the way, when looking up the adaptation of The Wheel Of Time . Hopefully they didn’t do Morpheus quite so dirty as they had Robert Jordan, seeing as he was still around to witness it.

Fantasy author definitely fit the schtick though; the whole goth look, walking around London with a bloody raven on his shoulder - presumably on his shoulder. There were links to social media and Hob had an immediate pang of annoyance that Morpheus had told him he didn’t have a phone, but one look at an instagram that fairly screamed ‘I have a social media intern’ did away with that notion. The strangest thing, by far, was that according to wikipedia, he was more accurately styled Lord Morpheus Aeternus, which frankly explained the absolutely unhinged name that was not just a pseudonym. He was from… somewhere in Liechtenstein that Hob had never heard of, but had grown up in English boarding schools, along with his siblings, due to familial issues - something about being related to the no-longer-technically-royal Greek royal family.

He stopped reading not much further; it felt like an intrusion. Given that the man didn’t use social media, didn’t even have a mobile, or a home phone reeked of wanting anonymity - his family name and history meant he would never get it, and an unfortunate amount of his early life was public knowledge. It was rude to peek, he’d let that lie. For now. Until curiosity got the better of him.

Hob was just walking out of his last class of the day when an unknown number popped up on his phone. Normally that went straight to voicemail, but for once in his life it might not be a spam call.

“Rob Gadling speaking,” he answered, trying not to get his hopes up too much.

“This is Ciara from the London Wildlife Protection, returning your call about a lost bird?” the woman on the other end of the call said, inflecting it upwards like it was a question.

“Yes! Yes, she’s an african raven. Have you found her?”

“Well, they’re not entirely uncommon in zoos or with exotic pet owners, so tentatively yes, but we need you to come in and identify her. She doesn’t have an identification band, so I’m assuming you’re a private owner?” she asked, sounding a bit disappointed in him but in such a way that Hob actually did feel a little bad, and possibly defensive.

“Oh, uh, I was helping my friend call all the possible agencies that might have ended up with her… No offence, but I wouldn’t be able to tell her from a pigeon. What’s your address?” he replied, “I will uh, get in touch with him so he can come by and identify her.”

The woman spelled out her address for him, almost too quickly to catch, and he fumbled his phone trying to set it to speaker while he typed the address into his notes. Armed with the address, their hours, and the information that the bird was doing okay, just dehydrated and extremely combative, he thanked the rescuer and hung up. That was remarkably good news.

He had put the number from Morpheus’s business card into his phone under Morpheus - PA . Hopefully they’d answer. The wildlife rescue wouldn’t hold onto Jessamy forever, and it had already been a few days. The longer they waited, the more complex this situation was going to get. Hob’s first call went straight to voicemail; either the phone was off or they were on a call. He decided to wait a half hour or so, then try again. This time a smooth, cultured voice picked up.

“You have reached Lucienne, how may I help you?”

“Hi… This is Robert Gadling, Morpheus gave me this number to get in touch with him,” he said awkwardly, something about the tone of her voice made him feel very judged. For what, he didn’t know, but judged all the same. 

“Yes, what is this concerning?”

Yep, definitely judged. “Ah, it's about Jessamy,” he said hesitantly, and almost as soon as the words escaped him he heard a soft gasp from the other end of the call.

“One moment, please don’t hang up.”

She must have muted the phone, as it was absolutely dead silent for about a minute before there was suddenly much more background noise than before - it sounded like he’d been put on speaker.

“Hob! What have you heard about Jessamy?” This time it wasn’t Lucienne’s voice, but Morpheus, who sounded a little hoarse and worse for wear having waited the whole weekend without any word. Even so, his voice was deep and sonorous and somehow even more lovely over the phone. Enough of that then, not the time for it.

“Well, not sure… It’s probably her. London Wildlife Protection has a bird matching her description; they asked me to come in and ID her, but uh… I can’t, obviously, so they need you to come in,” he explained, “And if you have any sort of… conservators licensing, vet records, anything like that to prove ownership, I guess. I’ve got the address too, but it's the main facility, you can find it online.”

“Thank you,” Morpheus said softly, “Will you come with me? No, never mind, you are undoubtedly busy.”

Hob laughed softly. “Yeah, teacher on a monday night, so many plans,” he said dryly, but he was honestly a little intrigued by the request. The note had been a little… emotional. The whole situation was. Did he want some sort of moral support in case it wasn’t Jessamy? Surely Lucienne would be more equipped than him.

“I should like you to meet her, then,” Morpheus replied, “...if you wish.”

“Sure, yeah. You headed there now?”

“Yes. I am on my way to the car,” Morpheus said smoothly, all previous hints of emotion or uncertainty removed from his tone, “Where are you? We will acquire you en route.”

What an odd turn of phrase; acquire you . “I’m on campus still, I’ll meet you by the main gate, it's easier to drive up there.”

“It will be some time, I am not nearby,” Morpheus replied, “Thank you, again. I will have Lucienne text you when we are close.”

The call ended without another word; apparently those fancy schools did little for his manners, all things considered, but Hob was willing to give him quite a bit of leeway given the whole… situation. Whatever it was.

He left his office, headed to the cafe and picked up a plain coffee to see him through the rest of the evening. There was an online quiz for one of his zoom classes that he hadn’t seen to grading yet, at the very least he could get those grades up while he waited so no one emailed him about it. The timing was perfect, because he had just finished when his phone buzzed with a simple message of ETA 10 mins . How… exacting. He tossed the nearly empty coffee into the bin by the door and headed out into the cold evening air to walk up to the street, belatedly realising he should have asked what kind of car they’d be driving.

Their actual arrival was a little more than ten minutes, and despite the lightness of tonight’s miserable drizzle, Hob was feeling a bit uncomfortably damp by the time a shiny black sedan pulled up beside him. The front passenger window rolled down to reveal the unflappably calm face of a very lovely black lady who was giving him a less than lovely onceover.

“Robert Gadling?”

“That’s me,” he said, and she just nodded to him and rolled up her window. 

Taking that as permission, or a request, or… whatever, he opened the back door and slid inside. It was so dark in the black leather interior with dark tinted windows, that he almost didn’t notice Morpheus sitting on the other side until he moved and turned his pale white face in Hob’s direction.

“I appreciate your coming,” he said quietly, “It means a lot.”

Hob wanted to question that; how much could it really mean that some random he’d met on campus three days ago tagged along. Surely he had better friends. Except, given the carefully structured inability to contact him… maybe not, actually. Hangers-on then, maybe. Fans, definitely - hordes of them if the internet was to be believed.

“I’m happy to, my only plans for tonight were a book and a bottle of wine. Raven rescue will liven things up a bit,” Hob replied, grinning at him.

Morpheus met his enthusiasm with the barest hint of a smile, and then looked away, down at his lap. He held a black file folder with Jessamy written across it in white ink, or paint rather to show up so well, and Hob recognized the flourishes from Morpheus’ signature. The file held an awful lot of papers; the vet records and sundry, Hob assumed, which didn’t say much for the poor bird’s condition. Hopefully the rescue was all it was cracked up to be.

Chapter Text

hey made it to the rescue centre with only a few minutes to spare before they were meant to close. Of course, it was a 24-hour operation so closed to the public didn’t necessarily mean closed to them. If anything, they’d be thrilled to get one more animal out of their care and back where it belonged. Hob hoped they wouldn’t be keeping anyone from getting home on time; hopefully it was just a shift change.

Morpheus looked a little lost, gaze perusing the well worn lobby as if such a place were an entirely new experience. Maybe it was, being a lord and all. Who knows. It wasn’t as if Morpheus was particularly forthcoming - although that might not have been precisely fair to say, given the circumstances. The man had been having a mental breakdown for at least week, and Hob suspected quite a bit longer.

He decided to take charge after Morpheus looked unlikely to do so; introducing himself to the exhausted looking receptionist who was, in fact, Ciara who he’d spoken to on the phone. When he gestured to Morpheus as the actual owner of the bird, she nodded sagely and said, “Ah, that makes sense.”

Ciara paged someone on an intercom and told them to take a seat. Morpheus already had, leaning back against the wall and with long legs sprawled out comfortably. If he hadn’t known otherwise; Hob would have thought the man was relaxed enough to nod off waiting. He had an air of practiced indifference to his surroundings.

The conservationist who had been paged emerged from the back at nearly the same moment Lucienne came in the front door; she had taken a call and been assured by Morpheus that he was quite alright, thank you.

He would have to be, as the woman, who turned out to be the vet tech assigned to Jessamy, said they couldn’t all come back. There were a variety of injured or ill animals and they didn’t need the stress and excitement of a handful of new people. Morpheus hesitated for just a second and then, with a terse nod, followed her back. Lucienne and Hob were left standing in the lobby, eyeing each other awkwardly. She spoke first.

“While I appreciate your assistance getting us to this point, I would thank you not to trouble Morpheus any further,” she said, her tone not at all unkind even if her words bordered on accusation.

“Uh… He invited me,” Hob pointed out, “He really didn’t have to, I was just passing on info.”

“Yes, he did not have to, yet he did. I am concerned that he’s looking to you with more expectations than you understand or are willing to uphold if you knew them,” Lucienne said shrewdly, “It’s a bit healthier when he puts the weight of those needs on Jessamy, who can fulfill them by existing, than a person who will let him down.”

Hob had previously had no intention of being part of Morpheus’s support system, or whatever Lucienne was implying, but now that she was so adamant that he not get involved he felt a stubborn urge to show she was wrong. Childish, he knew, and yet… If Morpheus were that quick to latch onto someone, anyone, as a substitute then maybe he needed a friend.

“I don’t let my friends down,” Hob replied stubbornly, “I mean… I barely know him so I guess we’re not friends exactly, yet, but he’s been…” He hesitated. Morpheus had mostly been having a breakdown in the hours he had spent with him on Friday; but when he did speak, pushing aside his all-consuming sorrow for a moment, he was clever, well-spoken, and had a quip to match any of Hob’s. If he were honest with himself, he’d like to do that again - the walk around campus, that is, without the panicked bird-hunt aspect of it.

“He’s been desperate,” Lucienne finished for him, “Morpheus is a grown man and so are you, so I’m not about to tell you what you can and can’t do - but I am his agent, assistant, and friend. As all three of those, I don’t want to see him hurt.”

“Well, see him make a friend, then,” Hob said, a little more sharply than was likely warranted, but he was annoyed at this line of conversation. She wasn’t accusing him of ill intentions or anything like that, but he could feel the disapproval. He did imagine that, being famous in his own right, Morpheus acquired a good many hangers on; more so from those who found out he was nobility.

Lucienne smiled ever so slightly despite the harshness of his words. A test then, maybe?

Morpheus hadn’t given a single thought to leaving Lucienne and Hob alone when he was called back; in all honesty he rather forgot about the two of them entirely. The back of the rescue was rows of cages, both smaller ones to prevent injured birds from trying to take flight and larger floor to ceiling aviary type enclosures for those longer-staying residents and those prepping for release back into the wild.

He heard Jessamy before he saw her, and it was definitely her. She had a higher pitched, hoarser caw than any raven he had seen locally, and he would know it anywhere. Clearly she heard, or sensed, his presence first as she started making an absolute racket; squawking hoarsely and garbling the few words she knew how to repeat into gibberish in her excitement. When he came around the corner into view she flew clumsily from her perch to the wire front of the cage, clinging awkwardly to the vertical grate with her talons and beating her wings loudly against it as if she could somehow break her way out to meet him. It made a godawful clattering noise.

Morpheus held out his hand to the cage and she quieted, still struggling to hold onto the door of the cage. He felt his heartrate rising, pulse pounding in his own ears as he watched her until he could hear nothing else.

“Open the door, please. She’ll hurt herself,” he said quietly, his own voice lost behind the roaring in his ears. This wasn’t the same, she was here for her protection, she hadn’t been taken… she didn’t understand. He tried to reassure himself; but it wasn’t about her, not anymore, her captivity and panic had awoken in him memories best left slumbering.

“We can’t just let her out, she’s been pecking volunteers left and right trying to get out of here,” the conservationist, he hadn’t gotten her name, replied.

“I assure you, she will stop as soon as she is free,” Morpheus said tightly, “I… just let her out, please.”

She gave him an oddly appraising look and set aside the heavy cardboard box with holes in it meant for transporting the raven - after grabbing her with falconry gloves, which she also set aside. Jessamy released her taloned grip on the cage door and fell to the floor, folding her wings against her body, as the woman unlocked the door.

Morpheus knelt gracefully and offered his hand to the raven, who happily hopped towards him and half-flew, half-walked her way up his arm to settle on his shoulder. There she cawed much more happily and began preening his hair, as if trying to put his rather ragged appearance to rights. Morpheus reached up with his opposite hand and carefully stroked her soft feathers; feeling the tension slowly drain away. He hadn’t so much as taken a deep breath in days.

The conservationist was looking at him with surprise. The bird had been aggressively shy of humans and resisted all efforts to vet check her since she came in; she wouldn’t have imagined the raven could actually be a trained pet. Apparently she was just a one-man sort of bird.

Morpheus offered Jessamy his hand, and she hopped onto it without hesitation to leave his shoulder. He lowered his hand until she rested against his chest, sheltered by his other arm in about as close as one could come to an embrace with a raven.

“That about clears up the ownership question, I think,” the conservationist said with a twinkle of amusement in her eyes, “I just need you to sign a few papers and get a scan of your ID, and you can head off. I do suggest you use the carrier box though, just in case. We wouldn’t want her to escape again.”

“She did not escape, she was driven off by loud children,” Morpheus replied defensively, offended at the idea that Jessamy might have left him willingly.

The woman pursed her lips but didn’t try to argue with him any further. The bird was non-native, couldn’t be released, and required specialised care so they were frankly quite happy to be rid of her. Dehydration from having to fend for herself for days was the only recent medical issue, she was clearly well cared for - if how loving she was being with her owner was any indication.

Once they were back to the front office, Ciara the receptionist hustled over with a clipboard and pen to ask for signatures and an ID to get all the paperwork in order. Morpheus shrank back from her, turning immediately to Lucienne, who gave him a disappointed look. She took the papers and began filling them out nonetheless, explaining that she was Morpheus’s appointed power of attorney - and she also had his ID on her.

Social interaction smoothly avoided, Morpheus wandered over to stand in front of Hob who had been watching this all with curious eyes. Lucienne had said something to him, he could feel it, but he couldn’t pinpoint whether it had been a warning (to Hob, about him) or a threat (about him, to Hob). With her it could really go either way; and he did believe she sometimes erred on the distinction between what was protection and what was sheltering. The former he very much understood he needed, if he were to live an in any way normal life without encountering setbacks on daily basis, the latter… He struggled enough with personal interactions without those few he did enjoy being severed.

He only realised he was standing there unmoving when Jessamy made a soft squawk and start climbing up his arm to preen his hair again, to get his attention. He shushed her offered his free hand for her to hop on; which she immediately did.

“She does not like strangers,” Morpheus said softly, reaching out his bird-laden hand toward Hob, “Yet she seems calm in your presence.”

Hob tentatively reached out his hand to Jessamy and, before he could pet he, she hopped the rest of the distance with a stabilising flutter of her wings to perch on his outstretched hand. The momentary panic on the other man’s face was enough to startle a quiet laugh out of Morpheus, both to his own and Lucienne’s surprise.

“If you tell her ‘home’, she will return to me,” he offered, “but she can fly well enough to cross short distances and would not still be on your hand if she did not think you were of admirable character.”

“You know, I think thats the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” Hob replied teasingly, rather enraptured by Jessamy now that the initial shock wore off. She was bobbing her head to look at him, and then ducking down to pluck at the shiny silver zipper toggle of his bomber jacket - with increasing frustration at not being able to steal it.

“It is a high compliment indeed,” Morpheus replied, then made a clicking noise that garnered Jessamy’s undivided attention. He withdrew from his pocket the pull-tab from a can of soda, and offered it to the raven as a substitute for the zipper. She took it gleefully and flew back to sit on Morpheus’s shoulder, where she played with the tab for a moment before tapping it against his cheek. He rolled his eyes and offered her his hand for her to drop it into, then returned it to his pocket to be bait again at a different time.

“She can’t count high enough to keep track of her hoard, so she thinks I add it to her pile and it is a new tab every time,” he explained, catching Hob’s bemused look, “She will do anything for them.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Hob said with a chuckle.

Lucienne strode up between them, giving Hob a rather disparaging look before showing Morpheus the discharge papers she had signed on his behalf, before they were tucked away in Jessamy’s medical file.

“It’s getting late, sir, we should get you home,” she said, trying to gently usher him to the door. The front office staff had already stayed late for their pickup and were starting to glower at them.

“I am not a child, Lucienne,” he replied quietly, a warning note to his voice, and he saw from the corner of his eye when Hob’s expression went from bemused at Jessamy’s antics to curious at their whispered conversation. The last thing he wanted was for the one person who had treated him normally to catch on and start handling him with white gloves like a fragile museum piece.

“The car is already waiting,” was all she said in reply, knowing full well by now not to rise to his bait especially when he was already emotional.

Hob watched her go, then looked up at him. “I can make my own way, it's no problem.”

“No!” Morpheus said quickly, “It would be rude of me to drag you all this way and not take you home afterwards. Please, it is the least I can do. In truth I should be rewarding you for your assistance; though I do not handle such things, I’ll have Lucienne reach out to you about that on the morrow.”

The look Hob gave him at that was almost offended, and he wondered where he had misstepped, but before he could wrap his mind around an apology for whatever imagined slight, he spoke: “Look, Morpheus, I didn’t help you for a reward, or because you’re famous or whatever, you looked like you were having a tough day, so I reached out. That’s it,” he said, “Donate to the wildlife program if it makes you feel better, they need it more than I do.”

“You deserve it, and so much more than I could ever give,” Morpheus said earnestly, and then as an afterthought that showed he so rarely had to ask for anything, added; “...Please?”

“Fine,” Hob conceded, after a brief consideration as they headed for the door, “Then my price is a cup of coffee, at the location and time of your choosing. Deal?”

Morpheus paused in his step as his mind processed the implications of that request, and he decided that… well, it couldn’t hurt to try again, after all these years.

Chapter Text

In all sincerity, Hob hadn’t really expected to see Morpheus again. ‘A time and location of his choosing’ all but ensured that; the man didn’t do phone calls, and he was pretty sure even the personal email on the back of his business card was read by Lucienne or some lesser underling. Besides all that, he had learned in his brief googling that besides the show deal, Morpheus had another book, the start of a new series, launching soon. He was probably behind on work, given that he’d spent at least a week doing positively nothing and waiting for Jessamy. Truth be told; Hob had given some thought to the idea of just showing up at Morpheus’s flat with a takeaway to check up on him - but had set that idea aside after considering he only knew the location due to the driver having dropped him off last, so it had felt a bit creepy.

So he was understandably surprised to arrive at his office after his friday morning class, to see Morpheus leaning casually against the wall beside his door, as though he’d been there a while. Eyes closed, arms folded across his chest, with the ever-present raven on his shoulder - he looked like a very out of place model for a swanky brand he’d never heard of.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Hob said as he got closer, not wanting to startle him if he was as oblivious to his surroundings as he looked.

“Forgive my intrusion,” Morpheus said, opening his eyes and standing up straighter, “I knew you had a few hours, and figured this was the easiest way to get in touch.”

It was absolutely not the easiest way; Hob could think of at least a half dozen means of communication easier than Morpheus getting his driver to take him halfway across the city on the hopes that Hob didn’t have pre-existing lunch plans. He kept that on the inside.

“I’m surprised you don’t have carrier pigeons,” Hob said dryly as he unlocked the office door, and gestured for Morpheus to precede him.

“I am a one-bird sort of man, it seems,” he replied amusedly, “Do you have a moment for that coffee now, or should I return another time?”

“Yeah, of course. Let me just put my stuff away real quick,” Hob said, digging through the contents of his messenger bag to take out what he didn’t need for tonight’s class, and ensuring he had his notes sorted. He set his laptop on to charge and took just his wallet from the bag, leaving the rest. “So, where to?”

“I don’t wish to pull you away from your duties, the campus shop is fine. They make a rather admirable flat white, actually,” Morpheus replied, then nodded to Jessamy, “And they do not hassle me about her.”

“Ah… Did you go here then? Between studying and now teaching I’ve been here over a decade, and I swear I’d have noticed you in a crowd,” Hob said, leading the way. There was a shortcut through the neighbouring sciences building.

“No, I did not. I know it because I give a guest lecture a couple of times per semester, since I funded their endowment for the arts.”

“Oh… well, I feel like I should have known that, faculty and all,” Hob said sheepishly, if he had read about it in any of the emails surely he’d have at least noted the strange name of the benefactor.

“I keep a very low profile,” Morpheus said, and Jessamy let out a little squawk as if in agreement.

Hob had been surprised to see that she was out and about, loose on his shoulder, after what had happened last time they were on campus, but figured it wouldn’t do any good to mention it. Morpheus seemed to be in much higher spirits.

“That you certainly do, mate. I realised, belatedly, I’d been seeing news online about your books becoming a tv show for probably the last year and not seen your name attached to it once,” Hob replied with a little laugh, “Admirable, honestly.”

“Oh, have you read them?” Morpheus asked curiously, footsteps faltering for a moment so he had to do a quick double step to catch back up.

“No, sorry, not for any reason… just hadn’t come up, been meaning to order them now, though,” Hob said apologetically, “Figured it’d be a bit rude not to.”

“I would not blame you, they’re not for everyone,” Morpheus replied, “Despite appearances they are also not my greatest work; I write many things under many names, the Aeternium series started before I had the wherewithal to realise I should detach my name from my work.”

“Do you not want the credit, or is it just the fame that bothers you?” Hob asked curiously, stepping ahead of Morpheus to hold the door open. His shortcut brought them out just around the corner from the coffee shop’s entrance.

“I draw enough attention to myself without it.” There was a sharpness to his words that made Hob reconsider that line of questioning, for now.

It was after the morning coffee rush before the earlier lectures and a bit early still for lunch, so there were only a handful of other patrons inside - most were quietly working on laptops or tablets, a few with actual textbooks out to mull over. Morpheus smiled slightly at the barista who was looking at him with wide eyes, and that was enough to make her blush and stammer as she took their orders.

“Charmer,” Hob said dryly once she’d turned away to make their drinks.

Morpheus just rolled his eyes and brushed past him to go sit at a table after being handed his croissant; which was more for Jessamy than himself. He chose a table in the front corner of the shop, tucked against two windowed walls that felt less compacted than the rest of the low-ceilinged shop. Jessamy hopped down from his shoulder to the table and let out a hoarse caw, which he quickly shushed - not as if she would listen.

It was very rare that anyone commented on her negatively, or questioned the legitimacy of her presence - for which he had a well-rehearsed response. Still, he did his best to be as unobtrusive as he could, despite how odd and frankly singular his appearance was.

Hob slid into the booth across from him, set down Morpheus’s drink, the admirable flat white with oat milk, and grinned more at Jessamy than him. She had forgotten the pastry in its little paper bag for a moment and hopped across the table to look up at him with her head tilted to the side quizzically, and Hob could imagine she was judging him. Luckily, he had planned for that… weeks ago, in fact, when in his desperation for caffeine between classes he’d gotten a soda from a vending machine. Something stopped him from tossing the empty can into the bin without first wiggling off the tab and tucking it away. He’d had three of them in the pocket of his bomber jacket for the last week now, on the off chance Morpheus had taken him seriously about that coffee.

He took out one of the tabs and held it out to her. She quickly hopped over and after bobbing her head and looking at him warily for a moment, snatched it out of his hand and hurried back to Morpheus who had watched this all with a look of abject delight. Jessamy tapped the tab against the back of his hand, so he let go of his coffee for a moment to take her new treasure and put it away for now in his own pocket.

“That was very kind of you,” Morpheus said quietly, before lapsing back into silence and looking down at his drink.

Hob watched him; taking in his stiff posture and clenched jaw. Had he been this on edge on their walk over? If so, he hadn’t noticed it.

“You alright?” he asked, his voice low. The last thing he wanted to do was embarrass the man, but making him uncomfortable was a close second. “I guess I should have asked before giving her anything, if that’s like… a training thing.”

Morpheus looked back up at him. “No, no you are welcome to give her anything shiny that you don’t need back,” he replied quickly, “I was just thinking that it has been a very long time since I did this.”

“What… a coffee date?” Hob asked, a little confused by the sudden shift.

“Yes.”

“Well, it can just be a coffee, we can cut the ‘date’ part off if you want,” Hob offered. That was all he had asked for originally, though the date part had very much been meant were it taken as such. He hadn’t even been certain that Morpheus swung that way; it had been an educated guess.

“No,” Morpheus said quickly, “That was very much the part that interested me.”

Jessamy interrupted by pecking at Morpheus’s hand until he scolded her. She was a bit too well-mannered to rip the paper wrapping off of the croissant herself, and also smart enough to realise that it was intended for her. He unfolded the end of the bag and set the pastry on top of it for her to peck at at her leisure. She very rarely got human food treats, and it was the best way to ensure she stayed quiet and out of trouble so that the humans could have a real conversation.

Hob watched the delighted bird tear into the croissant with gusto. He wouldn’t have previously said, if asked, that he had any particular liking for birds but she was certainly winning him over. Jessamy stopped her pastry murder to raise one clawed foot and nibble at the black plastic band on her leg. That was new.

“It’s a GPS tracker, she does not approve,” Morpheus said, noting Hob’s curious expression, “I take it off when we are home, it’s only for busy places.”

Hob thought to ask what good that was without a phone to ping it, but thought better of it. Instead he settled on what he thought was safer ground. “So, if you don’t mind me asking; how long?” he said, returning to their previous subject, “Honestly it's been probably close to two years since I had a proper date, work has been a lot and I don’t think I need to tell you the stress of writing on a deadline, although research is a bit different than prose I guess.”

Morpheus gave him a strange, searching sort of look before he answered. “Close to a decade,” he said eventually.

“Right… well, the good news is you hardly look old enough for that,” Hob replied awkwardly, “But I’m glad you’re here.”

Morpheus just nodded and looked down at his coffee cup. “Before you are too glad of me; you should know that I ran a very thorough background check on you beforehand…. Which is why I did not reach out any sooner,” he murmured; despite his quiet tone there was no apology in his words, merely a statement of fact, “I did not, however, review the information; Lucienne did. So I did what I could not to invade your privacy.”

“And?” Hob asked curiously, willing to at least see where this was going before it put him off entirely, “I do know you’re uhm, lord of… something, from your website bio. So I guess that isn’t that weird.”

“Perhaps not,” Morpheus replied, “And there was nothing of note; Lucienne would have told me if so.”

“I’m not sure unnoteworthy has ever been a compliment before, but I’ll take it. I did get arrested once, for protesting,” Hob offered, “Nothing came of it though.”

“As I said, I did not review the information. Noteworthy in this case means dangerous, and you are not,” Morpheus replied, then after a pause added; “And that is a compliment.”

“Okay. Were you expecting me to be mad?”

“That would make it easier to walk away, so yes,” Morpheus said quietly, “I’m quite a terrible hand at this.”

“Well, you’ve been out of the game a while,” Hob replied kindly, “It’s not as if I can hold it against you.”

Morpheus sipped his coffee and watched him with an unerring, unfathomable gaze. Jessamy must have sensed something, because she stopped her massacre of the croissant to flutter back up to his shoulder and rub her face against his jaw. He reached up automatically to ruffle her feathers lightly.

“You really have no idea, do you?” he asked eventually, sounding a little bit baffled.

“Uhm… more context required,” Hob replied confusedly.

Morpheus sighed heavily and held out his hand. “Give me your mobile.” When Hob didn’t make a move to do so, his expression grew darker, “It is easier for you to read than for me to explain.”

Hob unlocked his phone and slid it across the table. Morpheus caught it right before it was about to fall off the edge. For someone who had no phone of his own and seemed to eschew technology as a whole; he was remarkably adept at using one. After a moment to find what it was he was looking for, he handed it back far more carefully than Hob had. The browser was open to a BBC news article from nearly seven years ago.

He scrolled through, mostly just skimming the words, until he stopped at a photo taken outside of a courthouse. He recognized Lucienne immediately, but it took a moment longer to realise the emaciated person beside her was Morpheus. He scrolled back up to the top.

The article was light on substance, a follow up to many other stories, likely why Morpheus had chosen this to show him. It was about the final sentencing of a man called Alexander Burgess, charged with a litany of offences, many of which were simply regarding his complicity in the crimes of one Roderick Burgess, deceased. He stopped reading and locked his phone.

“I… don’t really think that’s my business, is it?” he said tentatively, trying to get Morpheus to look up at him.

“It’s the world’s business, apparently,” Morpheus said flippantly, then added in a more sombre tone; “And yet no, it is not… but it is relevant, if you wish to spend any time at all, with me. It informs all that I am.”

“Well… thank you for your trust, but I’d rather you tell me what you think I need to know,” Hob said, after a moment’s consideration. He put his phone away in his jacket pocket, that was quite enough of that.

“I thought you already knew,” Morpheus replied, “You looked me up, obviously, and even the best SEO that money can buy cannot erase a high profile abduction.”

“I uhh, went to the domain off your email address, and then wikied the nobility structure of Liechtenstein because the most recent knowledge I have of your country is circa 1480. Frankly I didn’t realise it still existed,” Hob said sheepishly, trying to steer the conversation to safer topics.

“I have not been home since I was twelve, it may as well not,” Morpheus replied with a shrug, “I am… not inclined to return.”

“Seems like you’re doing well enough for yourself here,” Hob said, smiling at him, “I guess I get why you want… this, all out in the open. But I didn’t really need to know the details; you have a service animal and no visible disability, I narrowed my guess to PTSD after talking to you for like, five minutes.”

“I would like to think I am not so obviously distressed,” Morpheus said with a sigh, “Although, you did not meet me at my best.”

“The week-long breakdown on a park bench was a clue,” Hob replied gently, “No offence meant.”

“I suppose I should just be thankful that you met me under such circumstances and still requested this.”

“Don’t thank me yet, you hardly know me. Maybe we can go somewhere nicer, next time?” Hob asked hopefully, “or… not too much nicer; I own a pub actually. We’d let Jessamy in.”

“Perhaps,” Morpheus replied with a soft smile, “I do not tend to go out; this even is a bit of a stretch.”

Hob nodded thoughtfully. That made sense, he supposed, in a mentally unhealthy sort of way at least. It did track with Morpheus being decently comfortable in the broad hallways of the lecture hall, and outdoors, then much less so in the purposely cosy corners of the coffee shop. No tight spaces, then.

“Well, we’ll figure something out. I’m a great cook, honestly, you can come over and I’ll make you something better than the pub,” he offered, not entirely sure why he had the urge to be so accommodating. Everything about this screamed red flag; not in a dangerous way, more like a…. Not ready to be dating again, sort of way. He had asked for this, however, and while Robert Gadling might have been many things; he was absolutely not a quitter.

Morpheus sighed and then gave a sheepish laugh that made Jessamy squawk and hop off his shoulder and down his arm, as if she weren’t used to that noise.

“I, uh…. Do not go to people’s houses, either,” Morpheus replied, looking down at the table, “That is… how I was taken.”

“Fuck. I’m sorry,” Hob said quickly. Maybe he should have read the rest of that article, or googled him more thoroughly as Morpheus had assumed he would. Now he’d really put his foot in it.

“Do not be. My difficulties are not your burden to bear,” he said, an apologetic note to his voice, “I do not cook, but I do know the kitchen is well-appointed if you would care to come to mine.”

“Yeah, that works. Pick a day, let me know,” Hob replied, more relieved than he would willingly admit.

“I have a signing and talk next week at London Review Bookshop, if you would like to catch a ride home with me,” Morpheus offered, after a moment’s thought, “Email me what you need for supper; I’ll have it delivered.”

“Do you actually check your emails?”

“No, so I suggest you do not make it personal,” Morpheus warned. He leaned back in his seat and smiled more warmly than he had since they’d sat down, relaxed a little now either since things were out in the open or it was clear they were wrapping up their tentative little first date and he was almost free.

Hob watched him, sipping at his coffee for a reason not to reply for a moment. Now that he had the point of comparison, from the article, he was reevaluating his opinion of Morpheus’s appearance a little. He was better looking, recovered, but his cheeks were still a bit more sunken than was probably healthy and the pallor hadn’t changed. Maybe that was natural, then. He was beautiful regardless, in a cold, chiselled marble sort of way.

“Can I give Jessamy another soda tab, or will that spoil her?” he asked eventually, heart leaping at the spark of joy that brought to the other man’s eyes.

“No, go right ahead,” Morpheus said, that bright, shy smile back on his face. That was the moment Hob realised he would do almost anything to keep that expression there. He was definitely in trouble.

Chapter Text

It was a rare thing indeed for Morpheus to be in good spirits; by his designation or any others, yet he was. For several days now; he was. His therapist had been the first to notice, not on their daily telemed call, but when he had actually been forced to come into her office as she had begun to insist upon weekly. He groused about it but he did understand her reasoning; it was quite often the only time he left the flat each week - even though he had a driver on call nearly all the time. She had commented on his demeanour, gently, and asked him if he had anything he’d like to talk about. Not yet. The last thing Morpheus wanted to do was to put into words a thing so new he wasn’t sure it existed. There was plenty of time yet for Hob to realise that he was too fragile, too damaged, too much to deal with long term. He would understand. Frankly, he was too much for himself to deal with long term; that’s where the cocktail of meds came in.

Thinking about their supper plans was a distraction on which he hadn’t planned. There was nothing pressing to work on, but he had found years ago that it was best if he was always creating, always writing, always imagining new stories. It kept his mind out of the dark places it travelled to when all was quiet and peaceful around him. His mind was always loud in a quiet room, now. It had once been a necessity; to take his mind to some faraway better place of warmth and beauty and love, now it was more… a hobby, or skill, perhaps. His therapist would call it an unhealthy coping mechanism; but it wasn’t as if she could urge him away from a career with which he had found such success. Now he found himself brought out of the flow of fantasy, staring into space across his open-plan flat to the kitchen and imagining Hob there, working, prattling on about the things that interested him - as he had done when they were searching for Jessamy.

Morpheus had never invited someone to this place before. The loft was his fortress of solitude; made for one man and him alone. Even at the start, when he had been well enough to move here, to make his requests known, hardly anyone had set foot here. Lucienne, of course, and his therapist Dr. Kleinhan. At the start there had been various nurses and doctors to oversee his physical recovery but they had fallen by the wayside years ago and his home had changed much since then. 

He offered his home in a moment of almost frantic need to see Hob again, when things hadn’t gone entirely pear-shaped after giving him the information on his past. Afterwards, he thought perhaps he should have picked something else… a walk in the park, maybe. The more he thought about it, however, the more he liked the idea of someone else here, in his space, using his things and giving life to the quiet sterility of it all. Yes, this would be a good thing.

In all his musings, he hadn’t realised until the morning of his signing that he may have given Hob the location, but not the day nor the address. He’d gone across to the next building over, the one split into a number of flats, to borrow the phone from their concierge. Technically, it was his concierge too - he simply owned the entire building and had no need of anyone to buzz up guests for him.

Lucienne had laughed at him, in her gentle way, when she finally deciphered what it was he was panicking about, and realised he wasn’t having a breakdown, or a ‘setback’ as she was wont to call it, about having to go out in public that afternoon. She had already intercepted the email from Hob - Robert, she called him, not knowing of that little anecdote - ordered their groceries, and sent him the time and address of Morpheus’s event. That was why he paid her a goodly portion of his income; she really did think of everything. He thanked her profusely, and his hands were still shaking when he handed the phone back to the baffled concierge. They only saw Morpheus over here when it was something like a blown fuse, or the water heater not working, and he was generally emotionless. He left knowing they’d probably be talking about him after, but for once he didn’t really care.

Luckily he had several hours before he had to leave, long enough to calm down, soothe his frazzled nerves, and prepare. Mostly, he spent it organising things a little. There was nowhere to really put things when you lived in an open space, there was little delineation between kitchen, dining, living and work space, and anything else he needed. Mostly there were books everywhere, and looseleaf paper with rapid sketches of new creatures and buildings and ideas that he had yet to sort through and discard, or pin up on the mood board over his writing desk to inspire him at a later date. Those were just stacked in a neat pile on the coffee table, instead of strewn about it, the sofa, and the floor. He watered the plants, turned their shade side towards the sun, and made sure there were no dishes in the sink - there were not; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, in all honesty. Lucienne took care of that, like she took care of everything else.

She arrived on time; which for her was precisely half an hour before the time that she needed to have Morpheus in the car and on his way. In the last six months or so, she’d needed that time to pour some coffee into him and sometimes physically drag him out of bed and throw him in the shower if he was being particularly recalcitrant. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to work, it was that anyone out there was an unknown quantity. Things had gotten better, or at least people had learned the best way to never have access to the author of their favourite things again was to try to ask him questions about his abduction, himself, or anything really, besides his books. Still, fans tried it on occasion. He had gone online once, a couple of years back, to read reviews of the latest instalment of his series and found copious fan discussion about what plot points and characters were insertions of anything from the Burgess affair. He had not looked again since.

Today, he had surprised Lucienne by being almost excited to go. Excited to leave the flat, for the first time in the nearly seven years of living there. He was showered and dressed and sitting on the couch, Jessamy on his shoulder, doodling on the top sheet of a sheaf of paper set atop one of the fancy special editions of his first book. He met her questioning gaze with a challenging look, and she just smiled infuriatingly at him.

“Someone’s in a good mood,” she said, perching on the arm of the sofa a few feet away, craning her neck to see what he was drawing.

“I am having a good day,” Morpheus replied quietly, setting aside his sketching for now and reaching up to pet Jessamy, “I even cleaned.” As soon as he said it, he hated himself for the note of pride in his voice, like he was seeking her approval for a task so mundane no one should be praised for it. What had he become that he was proud of himself for his barest existence.

“I noticed,” she said, smiling down at him with genuine appreciation. She was never patronising, even at her worst. “I hope it works out.”

“Unlikely,” Morpheus said with a sigh, “But it will be nice to pretend, for a while.”

“Hey, no, none of that,” Lucienne said sharply, “You have a lot to give, and I won’t stand for that self-deprecation right now. You need to go give a confident little lecture, and smile, and be nice , most of all to yourself, but also your readers.”

“I know, Luci, I do,” he replied, chastened for the moment, “I told him… well, showed him a little. He still asked for this.”

“Good. He seems a decent fellow, so don’t try to sabotage it, right? If you chase him off I'm going to have to hide another body,” she said dryly, which was enough to make him give a little huff of breath that was almost a laugh. Almost.

“I thought you did not like him?” Morpheus replied, then offered Jessamy his hand. She didn’t like it when he stood up too abruptly with her on his shoulder, so he always let her rest on his hand or wrist to keep her steady as he stood so she didn’t flap her wings to stay in place. They’d already played fetch for over an hour today; him throwing peanuts up in the air to force her to lift off and catch them. She’d stretched her aching wing enough to be tired, well-behaved, and unlikely to fly off even if startled. It had been trouble enough to get the bookshop to allow her; their service animal accommodation was strictly dogs, it seemed. Lucienne was more than willing to have that argument for him, as always.

She gave Morpheus a pointed look. “I didn’t say I didn’t like him, just that I thought he was a bit too interested in you from the get go, and I don’t trust anyone that nice,” she replied, “The background check cleared that up quite thoroughly. I don’t think there’s a charity in town the man hasn’t volunteered for at one time or another.”

He held up his bird-free hand to shush her. “I don’t want to know, he will tell me about it as it becomes relevant,” he replied quickly, “I don’t want to make it weird. Or… any weirder than it has to be, given the circumstances.”

“You’re pretty weird, sir, so good luck with that,” she said, and despite her words he knew she meant it lovingly. She always did.

“Attacked, in my own home,” he said with an exaggerated sigh, as he raised his hand and let Jessamy hop back onto his shoulder. “I am ready, shall we?”

The sooner he got there and began the dastardly business of self-promotion, the sooner he could leave and return home, with Hob in tow presuming he did show up. There was no reason to think he wouldn’t come, he had followed through about that grocery order after all, but there’d be no telling until he showed.

Morpheus used the forty minutes in the car to relax and set his mind right; slumped in his seat with his eyes closed and arms folded across his chest. He did his best work like this, in his imagination; thinking through all the twists and turns of a story until it was as clear in his mind’s eye as if it were coming to life before him. Only then did he go to the computer and type it all out or, most often, lie in bed and dictate it to his tablet to go back and properly punctuate and separate his sentences later. Stories were meant to be heard, after all; lived and breathed and experienced. The concept of quietly reading to oneself was a thing relatively modern.

A gentle touch on his shoulder brought him back to reality. Lucienne was looking at him with concern in her eyes; he gave her a reassuring smile and shook his head. He had explained it to her more than once, but that had simply resulted in her telling Dr Heron about it and a whole new round of questioning and discussions of healthier coping mechanisms. Captivity had taken away a great many things from him that would never be regained; unlocking his mind from this miserable, corporeal world was not one that he counted among them, even if he understood the concerns of those who deemed it otherwise.

The London Review Bookshop was a venue he’d been to many times; both as a customer on his very rare solo outings when Dr Heron had urged him to get out more, even for a few minutes, and also as a guest. They hosted frequent author talks, or writing workshops, along with signings and he had a great deal to say on the concepts of writing, or what it took to be a storyteller.

Today’s talk was meant to be brief, which suited him just fine, even if it meant more time signing and having to personally interact. The chairs set up in the event space were already filled, with  a fair few people standing on the sides of the room and against the refreshment station in the back, having arrived early and finding seats already taken. That was encouraging. He dreaded the day he would have to seriously consider going further afield than the breadth of London to events in places he had not overly saturated with his presence. He didn’t see Hob anywhere.

He stood waiting behind a floor to ceiling shelf of books while Lucienne talked to the event organiser about the minutiae of the night’s plans. Morpheus knew full well that his aloof and decidedly antisocial behaviour could come across as snobby in times like this, but he could either give his talk and chat to fans, or he could do the planning and small talk beforehand. One or the other, not both.

He intently watched the hands of his analog watch as they creeped around to hit half three, and only once they had did he steel himself for the public eye. This was an old game; he hadn’t always been famous, but he had always been noble, and for the most part that was nearly the same thing. All eyes on him, everywhere. Nowadays; his manner of dress and Jessamy certainly drew more attention than he wanted, but he wasn’t about to minimise himself for anyone else’s convenience.

The afternoon’s lecture was a scaled-down, bare bones version of a talk about the construction of stories that he had given a handful of times with slight variation at universities over the past year or two, and in its original version at a TED Talk. That had spread around the internet enough, or so he’d been told, that he had changed it up a little and now talked about historical aspects of storytelling as well and how modern media was formatted for consumption rather than staying power. He liked to let his stories breathe. 

Jessamy was content to sit on the podium, sleepy and probably a bit sore from all the flying he’d coaxed her to do earlier in the day. Morpheus had found it was easier for him to keep his focus on the present if he moved while speaking; pacing slowly at the head of the room and punctuating the more intense points with fluid gestures. He only occasionally looked at the crowd properly, if he was looking out at any given room he generally focused on the middle distance, or the exit signs, or anything other than faces watching him eagerly. Or worse, not watching him and looking bored. When he did look at them, near the end of his speech, he saw Hob in the back of the room, leaning casually against a bookshelf with his arms crossed and an intent look on his face. Morpheus was so focused in that instant that he faltered, stammering for a moment before he picked up the thread of his words to finish. No one but Lucienne seemed to notice.

The easy part was over. It wasn’t that Morpheus minded signing things; the repetitive small talk got to him a bit, but mostly it was the tableau of names and faces and voices. His mind had accustomed itself to silence and even now, years in recovery, he had not reacclimated entirely. The self-inflicted isolation certainly didn’t help matters, he knew that very well, but it was a comfort he was not yet willing to give up. With introduction, and a short break between speaking and signing, an hour and a quarter of the allotted three hours had been spent. He was nearly halfway through.

He didn’t even try to count the number of books Lucienne handed him to personalise; it was basically auto-pilot at this point and he could carry on a polite chat while doing so without any misspellings. He also made a point of never looking up at the line; it was too overwhelming - Lucienne had learned by now that it was best, if possible, to have people line up out of sight, or in his peripheral vision. So he hadn’t even noticed that they were done, or who was in front of him, until he opened the front cover of a very nice collector’s edition of the first book of the Aeternium series to see that the scrap of paper slipped inside said ‘Robert.’

“I don’t suppose I can take you to dinner after?” Hob said teasingly, too quiet to be overheard, when Morpheus looked up to greet him. He could feel his cheeks go red immediately.

“It’s my car, so it’s the other way about, I think,” he said, tilting the book up out of Hob’s view as he wrote on the dedication page so Hob would have to read it later, when he wasn’t around to be any more embarrassed. “I would have just given you a copy, if you wished to read them.”

“You could’ve, but where’s the fun in that? You should support artists you like; big or small,” Hob replied with a grin, “Maybe you can give me the next one.”

“I think I would gift you a different book, from a different name,” Morpheus replied thoughtfully, “So long as you can keep a secret.”

He closed the book and passed it back to Hob with a small smile. “Lucienne will take care of matters here, if you are ready to go. My driver will have returned by now,” he said, then made a clicking noise at Jessamy who dutifully hopped off the nearby chair she was on to flutter back to his shoulder. Hob fell into step beside him and provided a good buffer between him and a couple of people who tried to talk to him on the way out.

Normally he would wait indoors after dark until he saw his car pull around but with Hob at his side he both didn’t want to explain why, and felt far less nervous stepping out to wait. Luckily, his driver had been waiting down the block and arrived in seconds. By the time he had slid all the way across the back seat to make room for Hob, Jessamy had already abandoned his shoulder and was extremely curious about their new travel companion.

“I am betrayed,” Morpheus muttered, sinking into the plush seats and leaning his head back. This was better; dark, quiet, peaceful.

“I’m just new and exciting,” Hob said apologetically, reaching out his hand to Jessamy who hopped on and clawed her way up his jacket sleeve to sit on his shoulder and caw triumphantly.

“Better company as well, no doubt,” he replied, then after a pause added, “Thank you, for coming tonight.”

Hob gave him a strange look that he couldn’t decipher in the dark of the car’s interior. “Of course,” he said, “Wouldn’t miss it. Your talk was great; you’ll need to tell me next time you have a guest lecture anywhere, I’d love to hear it.”

“I fear I have exhausted my ability to deal with humanity for some time,” Morpheus replied, “My publisher would like me to do more, so perhaps I will have to.”

“Well.. your books are selling, right? So I don’t think you should have to,” Hob said reassuringly, “I know they’re marketing things for you but still; it's impressive to do so well without a social media presence these days.”

“With the Amazon deal, I could likely quit public appearances entirely - even with the penalty for refusing to attend the media tour,” he said thoughtfully, “But… my therapist would not approve. I do these little events… poetry readings, and the like, mostly for her. That the exclusivity adds to my mystique is merely a bonus.”

Hob was watching him curiously, and Jessamy’s beady black eyes were on him as well when he glanced in their direction. He raised an eyebrow, a gesture only visible in the dim light of the car due to how pale he was. “...What?” he asked, confused, he hadn’t said anything particularly unhinged, that he was aware of at least.

“Nothing! I was just thinking, uhm, we can do this another night if you need time to decompress,” Hob offered, “I don’t want to intrude.”

“No,” Morpheus said simply, then turned his head to look out the window. Sometimes it was easier to speak without seeing someone’s face. “I have been anticipating this evening all week, I can hardly back out now. Besides which; I am interested to see how well you can cook.” 

Hob made an amused noise and Jessamy squawked at him, before deciding that was quite enough new person, and hopping back to perch on Morpheus’s thigh instead. He scratched the back of her head gently.

“Pretty damn well, if I do say so myself, but I’m altering a recipe tonight so it’ll be a bit of an adventure,” Hob replied with a laugh, “I had an idea immediately, but then I realised you’d gotten oat milk in your coffee and I had no way to contact you and ask if that was a hipster choice, or if you’re vegan or something. So I erred on the side of caution since anyone can eat vegan and ordered cheese just in case… what?”

Morpheus just laughed silently and shook his head. “Lucienne would have stopped you if there was anything in the grocery order I could not eat,” he replied, “Yet you assume somewhat correctly.

“You’re somewhat vegan?”

Here again came one of the many pitfalls of simple conversation; not even the most innocuous of subjects was truly safe and left him the options of brush it off with something aloof or cryptic, lie and say yes, or tell the truth about his strange habits and ruin the pleasant moment they were having. He hesitated long enough, apparently, for Hob to get the message.

“...We’ll go with that,” he said, offering Morpheus a smile that looked almost apologetic. A hitherto unknown fourth option, then. That was new.

“We’ve arrived,” was all Morpheus said in reply, as the car began to slow at the corner of his building.

Chapter Text

Hob followed Morpheus through a rather complicated entry that required not just a key fob for the outer door to a darkened entryway but a numeric code and a facial ID as well for the inner doorway into his actual home… which was the entire building, it seemed. Morpheus flipped several light switches that brought on soft overhead lighting that was just enough to see by then, after apparently considering it for a moment, turned it up a notch or two to something safer to cook by without slicing off any fingers. Jessamy cawed sharply and left his shoulder, flying just high enough to be able to glide across the room and land on a bookshelf that had been left mostly empty, presumably for her.

“Shoes off, please,” Morpheus said, before Hob had a chance to move, “I am going to change, I’ll be down shortly.”

The great open room was split up only by a slightly sunken area for what passed for a livingroom; sofa and end tables and a tv mounted on one wall, and a couple of short steps up to kitchen and dining. There were no lines of demarcation at all besides the staircase that Morpheus had gone up, which doubled back on itself before leading to a loft that was about a third of the room itself and high enough up to be entirely out of sight.

It wasn’t anything like he’d imagined Morpheus to live in but, if asked, he couldn’t have explained what he expected. Dracula’s lair, maybe? Or at least the sort of modern penthouse that posh rich sorts were into. This was decidedly old industrial; shiny new wood floors notwithstanding. The walls were brick, the floor to ceiling windows on one side were the many-paned style of old factories although he’d bet they were new as well. The metal and brick and cavernous nature of the flat seemed at odds with how unobtrusive Morpheus was himself.

He wandered up the two steps to the dining area, past a long wood and metal table that looked like it had a former life as… something that had originally belonged in this building, whatever its original purpose had been. The kitchen was as well-appointed as promised, and equally as accurately unused. There was a fine layer of dust on all the hanging copper pots and accoutrements.

“Is everything to your liking?” Morpheus said from behind him. Hob jumped, fumbling the wooden cutting board he had been stretching on tiptoes to take down from a hook on the wall where it was hanging. At least his antics seemed to amuse his host.

“Yes, yeah it's good,” Hob said, grinning at him and setting the board aside, “Somehow I didn’t expect you to have an entire building.”

Morpheus came up to the kitchen and hopped up to sit on the edge of the kitchen island, dangling his bare feet. He’d changed into joggers and a t-shirt, and ditched the jacket for a long black cardigan that looked like it had more holes than knit at this point in its life. The overall effect was very much a work-from-home version of how he had been dressed earlier, and the other times Hob had seen him. Consistent, at least, and he looked much smaller now, without the shape and padding of his coat.

“It was meant to be a few flats, I did not desire neighbours. Those across the street are sufficient, we have the same concierge,” Morpheus replied, pulling the sleeves of his cardigan over his hands, “Everything you ordered is in the refrigerator, the rest… I don’t know what you need, so tell me and I will point you.”

“This isn’t what I pictured for you, honestly,” Hob said, as he went to gather his ingredients and see what he could find for cooking utensils without having to ask, “I don’t know why; you seemed more like the cosy studio type.”

“It is more cosy than you give it credit for; the floors are heated,” Morpheus said, “the higher the walls, the more room for books and art.”

“Fair. I wasn’t being negative, just nosy,” Hob replied with a grin, “I’m sure the sunset is amazing with these windows.”

“It is and from the loft you can see forever, light pollution is as it does in all of London but you can still see the stars decently well without getting out of bed.”

“That sounds great, it suits you, just not what I expected,” Hob reiterated, a little afraid he’d managed to hurt Morpheus’s feelings somehow. That, or unwittingly strayed into dangerous territory again, judging solely by his tone.

“I am never what people expect, so why should my home be,” Morpheus said, “Can I assist, or at least make you tea?”

“I won’t say no to tea, but you don’t have to host me, just sit,” Hob replied, glancing over his shoulder at him, “You’ve had a long day.”

He started rice with vegetable stock on to boil, and set about washing and prepping the vegetables. There was no real reason why he’d settled on this particular recipe besides not having made it for a while and missing it; but it was at least quick, and a simple one to multitask. No assistance needed.

“Have I?” Morpheus said after long enough a pause that Hob had to rewind their conversation in his head to what he had said to prompt it. Apparently he’d struck a nerve.

“Yeah? I mean, you talked to a lot of people.”

“I gave one forty minute talk and signed a few books. You had any number of lectures today and likely spoke with twice as many students as I did fans, and yet here you are - doing all the work,” Morpheus replied with a sigh.

“Comparing yourself to a career teacher is probably not the right move on that front,” Hob said, turning around to face him once he was done cutting.

“Extrovert, introvert.” He pointed from himself to Morpheus. “Don’t need to get down on yourself.”

“I wasn’t always.”

Hob tilted his head back slightly to meet Morpheus’s eyes, since he was still perched on the island counter like a skinny gargoyle. There was a strange expression on his face that he didn’t quite know how to read.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he offered. It looked like Morpheus was actually considering that for a moment, before he shook his head slightly.

“That’s fine. New subject then; I hope you’re hungry, because you’re going to have leftovers for a week, I’m making a sort of tagine dish.”

“I am, yes,” Morpheus replied quietly, “But I do hope you will not be offended if I don’t eat much, heavy meals do not sit well with me. I’ll have more later.”

“It’s your house and your dinner, mate. Live your dreams,” Hob said, pointing at him with the spatula he’d been poking vegetables with on the stove to make sure they hadn’t stuck to the pan. “Does that have to do with your whole mysteriously vegan thing?”

“I am not vegan, it’s just easier to explain.”

“That’s a brand new sentence right there,” Hob replied, then sighed, “Look… Can I just say something and you try not to get mad at me about it?”

That had Morpheus’s interest immediately; he leaned forward slightly and his woe-is-me expression was at least somewhat more alert. Whether he was actually interested or he was hoping for an out to get rid of Hob or chase him off was… questionable. It was so painfully obvious he wanted someone to talk to, but either didn’t want to burden anyone, was embarrassed, or just didn’t think anyone would care. All three options were a bit shit, really. Realising belatedly that he hadn’t answered, and with Hob still looking at him expectantly, Morpheus nodded his assent.

“I think you really want to talk to me but you don’t know how to start; or you just want me to know things by osmosis and then fill in the details. The end result is you’re really cryptic and I have no idea what's going on,” Hob said frankly, trying to keep his tone light, “I’m not going to google it all behind your back unless you explicitly ask me to; that doesn’t feel right and I doubt it’ll be accurate anyway… Anything you say stays between us, unless you’re a danger to yourself, then I might tag Lucienne in.”

“I’m not. A danger to myself, that is. I would not have inflicted myself on a date if I thought that was still an issue,” Morpheus retorted, with enough vitriol that had Hob holding up his hands in a placating gesture. That he said still an issue did tell him it had been, which was rather important to know.

“Hey, I asked for this, you’re not inflicting yourself on anyone,” Hob admonished, “Just either you let out what you really want to say so you can stop looking so conflicted about it, or I’m just going to fill the silence with nonsense. Dealer’s choice.”

Morpheus just stared at him for a long moment, and Hob could almost see the process of thinking and found it more amusing than he probably should have, given the circumstances. The man was bloody traumatised and here he was looking at the mannerisms that resulted from that, and thinking it was cute.

“I starved for three years so I can no longer eat rich food, or heavy food, or anything in a large quantity. It has been nearly seven years and no longer improving. I eat just often enough not to make it worse,” Morpheus said eventually, his voice flat and clinical without any emotion to show how he felt on the matter. It almost sounded meant as a challenge, or a test of Hob’s response.

“And how often is that?” Hob replied, eyeing him worriedly.

“I’m not dead, am I? The point is, if I order something vegan it is usually a guarantee of my ability to eat it,” Morpheus countered, “You wanted to know, now you know.”

“No, I didn’t. I wanted you to get out whatever was on your mind,” Hob said pointedly, “So that you can let yourself have fun. There’s glimpses of it occasionally, the real you - the funny, talented, beautiful you that imagines stories to inspire people and saves a bird with a broken wing.”

“If you intend to wait for that man, you’ll be here a while,” Morpheus said with a bitter little laugh, “And you will have to get in line behind me.”

“Well… I never knew the original you, so I’m not expecting that. When you forget yourself for a minute there’s a look in your eyes that’s….” he trailed off, not sure how to phrase it without sounding either insane or way too invested for a second casual date. “So full of life,” he continued eventually, “Finding joy and wonder in the little things, like Jessamy wanting my attention, and I decided almost immediately I want to put that look back.”

Morpheus just nodded in silence as if mulling that information over. Eventually he gave a conciliatory smile and looked up to meet Hob’s eyes, with less challenge in his gaze than before. Not none, but less.

“I truly do want this, yet I have no idea how anymore. The thought that anyone who isn’t a fan or after my money wishes to spend time with me these days is simply… baffling. I know all that I am, and it is not inviting,” Morpheus replied with a sigh.

“Well, that’s what you think,” Hob said with a teasing grin, “Your overall everything says ‘fuck off’, you eyes say ‘please talk to me, my bird only knows like three words’.”

That was enough to startle a laugh out of his rather recalcitrant host and even though he stifled it quickly, Morpheus’s continued smile was enough to make it clear he’d struck a nerve. Hob wasn’t going anywhere, as stupid as that might be. He had a lot of friends, mostly of the go round the pub and drink themselves silly sort, and he had just been thinking he needed to find more ‘go to an art gallery’ sort of friends that weren’t faculty - then he’d stumbled upon Morpheus who was the quintessential quiet evening in type. Meant to be, clearly. Or, Hob was just projecting.

The silence that followed was a bit more companionable; Hob finishing the sauce that the vegetables were stewing in and checking that the rice was nearly done, and Morpheus watching him from his counter perch with just the barest hint of a smile that wouldn’t go away. It almost hurt to disturb him with a question.

“Plates are where?” Hob asked eventually, not wanting to open every cupboard looking for them although he considered that Morpheus would probably find that entertaining.

His host hopped down from the counter. “Left of the sink,” he said, going the opposite direction and grabbing forks from a drawer and a couple of rolled napkins from a cubby that also held kitchen towels. He brought those to the table while Hob was dishing up food, and then came to stand over his shoulder curiously - Morpheus had been watching Hob more so than the actual food, and only now was interested in what they were eating.

Hob handed him a plate with what he considered to be rather measly portion, but he was trying to be considerate of what Morpheus had told him. Clearly he’d done something right, because that slight smile returned before he headed to the table. It was only once they were seated that Morpheus spoke, not having started eating yet.

“I am a terrible host, should we open some wine?” he asked, “I have a few good bottles floating about.”

“It can wait til after and open something sweeter,” Hob suggested with a shrug, having already dug into his food with the gusto of having skipped lunch to meet with a couple of students he was advising. He wasn’t about to stop when the food was hot to go on a hunt for wine.

Morpheus picked at his food and ate slowly, but he did eat and seemed to enjoy it even if he did not manage to finish everything on his plate. He came close to it, at least. Hob found it exceedingly difficult not to chuckle at the look of consternation on his face as he ate. It looked as if he were trying to decide whether or not he was enjoying himself, and taking the entire meal to come to that conclusion.

“Opinion?” Hob asked, once Morpheus had put down his fork and seemed to be finished, “I won’t be mad if you hated it.”

“Do you really think, after what I told you, that I eat anything I don’t like even to assuage the feelings of others?” came Morpheus’s wry reply.

“Oh…kay, if novel writing ever fails you, you could pick up a career as a food critic,” Hob said with a laugh, “But I’m going to take that as a compliment and you can’t convince me otherwise.”

He got up and took his plate, then his date’s, and headed back to the kitchen to clean up. Morpheus followed after him silently, but didn’t resume his perch on the counter and just lingered at a distance, watching.

“You do not have to do that, I can clean up later,” Morpheus offered, eventually pushing off of the metal rail that sort of separated the raised kitchen and dining area from the rest of space, to go and fetch a bottle of wine. There was a wine fridge beneath the kitchen island, but somehow Hob couldn’t picture Morpheus ever just opening one for fun on his own.

Despite Morpheus’s protestations, Hob did keep cleaning up - mostly just finding some containers to hold the leftovers in small portions so he could just shove them in the freezer. Would Morpheus actually eat the rest? Doubtful. But, it was there and it heated up well. The cooking dishes he just shoved in the sink and rinsed; that could wait for later, and he assumed Morpheus had a cleaning service in any case.

Morpheus had been digging through kitchen drawers, bottle of riesling in hand, trying to find a corkscrew. So yeah, definitely no drinking on his own then.

“Need help?” Hob asked, grabbing the bottle of wine that Morpheus had been holding loosely enough by the neck that he was afraid it would fall and shatter.

“I don’t know where Lucienne put the opener,” he said sheepishly, “This is why I like screw tops; save the cork trees and what’s left of my sanity.”

Hob laughed and set the bottle on the counter. Taking a slim, serrated knife from the knife block he carefully wiggled it into the cork and slowly pulled and turned so it caught to pull the cork up just enough to grab it with his hand and worry it the rest of the way out.

“I would have thought you’re posh enough to know how to open a bottle, instead of making Lucienne do it,” Hob teased, “I feel like they have a class on that for the fancy boys at Eton.”

“I went to Harrow, actually,” Morpheus replied, setting two glasses down in front of Hob, “and I am the sort of posh that never had to open my own bottle.”

“Oh, my mistake,” Hob said dryly, filling the glasses and then handing one over; “Your wine, my lord.”

Morpheus took a sip and smirked at him. There was that look; like he’d forgotten himself for a minute and allowed himself to have fun.

Chapter Text

Morpheus watched Hob move around his kitchen like he lived there, once he figured out where most things were, and he found it so charmingly domestic that he almost felt normal again. This was what normal people did; had their boyfriend over for supper, or had them live in and cook on occasion. It was easy to forget, for a moment at least, that this entire friendship - or something more - was teetering on a knife’s edge of knowledge. Hob had taken what he had thrown at him so far, but there was so much more. How much was too much, and was it worth holding off for a few more hours or days of this, or should he be more forthcoming and kill it now so the loss hurts less.

So lost was he in his thoughts that he only belatedly realised Hob was done cleaning up and had said something to him. “...What?” he asked, blinking at him. Nice. Very smooth, very mature, functional human.

“Go sit down, I’m nearly done, I’ll bring the wine,” Hob said, shooing him out of his own kitchen. Even so, Morpheus went. He was feeling a little light headed, likely from eating so much, and didn’t want to ruin the evening by sending Hob home so he could go lie down. The sofa was a decent substitute.

Jessamy was roosting in a nook between a throw pillow and one arm of the large sectional. He really had tired her out today; but he’d given her time off after her ordeal and they really needed to get back to her scheduled exercises. She would never fly like she had before the injury, but she was improving, if only slowly. He left her alone and sat in the middle of the sofa, legs folded beneath him, and sipped his wine to calm his nerves.

When Hob eventually came over he sat just about out of arm’s reach, which seemed natural enough but Morpheus quickly assumed it was a calculated choice to try to make him feel comfortable. Close enough for easy conversation, far enough to ensure there couldn’t be any awkward feelings of expectation. He both appreciated him for his thoughtfulness and hated Hob handling him like he was glass - even if he knew rationally that was precisely what he needed.

“Do you want to put on a movie?” he asked eventually, slumping down more into the plush softness of the sofa. He really was exhausted; albeit more physically than emotionally, for once. While he didn’t want Hob to leave yet, he had no idea what to say, or do. What did men in their thirties do on a date? His knowledge of social norms was a good decade out of date; and dating in his early twenties had been…. Well, dating was a generous word for it.

“Yeah, whatever you want to watch is fine,” Hob said, reaching for the wine bottle to top off his glass. Good, it would likely go sour before Morpheus finished it without help.

He hauled himself to his feet and went to fetch the remote, which really should have been on the coffee table, but that was covered in books and pencils and paper that were now precariously close to the open bottle of wine. Hob didn’t seem the clumsy type, at least, so they could stay where they were.

“You figure it out,” Morpheus said, holding the remote out to Hob before sitting back down beside him, quite a bit closer than he had been, “I have all the streaming services.” He pulled the ends of his cardigan sleeves down over his icy cold hands; the chilled wine was not helping. A small, distant part of his mind provided him the mental image of Hob putting his arm around him to warm him up but that was daft - they barely knew each other. Daft, and getting very much ahead of himself.

“That more than anything else shows you’re rich,” Hob said dryly, as he began flipping through the options, “I assume that cardigan is some ungodly expensive label that puts holes in things for fun and profit.”

“Topshop actually, I have just had it since I was twenty,” Morpheus replied with amusement that even he could hear in his tone, “It used to be warmer.”

“If you don’t mind… how old are you now?”

“That is easily googleable information,” Morpheus replied, raising his eyebrows at him, “Thirty-three, almost thirty-four. Why?”

“Cause you have one of those faces. If you told me literally anything between twenty and forty I’d probably believe you. Is Bake-Off fine? I’m a few episodes behind,” Hob replied, gesturing to the tv with the remote in hand.

“Only if you bake me something next time,” Morpheus said before he caught himself and realised what his words encompassed. He froze in hesitation. An invitation, or a request really, for more of this. Well, he hadn’t run the man off yet.

Hob was watching him with an unreadable expression, but he had clearly caught Morpheus’s moment of inner turmoil before he smoothed his exterior back down into something blank and unyielding.

“Seems fair,” was all he said, before hitting play and setting the remote on the coffee table. Hob picked up the wine and reached over to top off Morpheus’s glass. 

He hadn’t even realised how much of it he’d drunk; perhaps that's why he spoke so freely. Time to slow down then or else he’d make himself sick as it metabolised. He already felt a bit overly full from supper. Hob seemed happy enough to sit beside him with his wine, occasionally commenting on the show to which Morpheus mostly made quiet noises of assent. It wasn’t that he was disinterested, merely introspective. Maybe this was what adults did on a new date after all, but it still felt strange and tentative and like he was waiting for something - yet he did not know what.

“I don’t feel it,” he murmured eventually, more an extension of his thoughts than something he meant to express to Hob, but he heard it nonetheless.

“What?” Hob asked confusedly, “...the wine?”

“Oh no, that I am feeling,” Morpheus replied, “My age. This may sound odd but I have not thought about it before… The amount of years passed, yes, but not in the context of what that means to myself as I am now.”

Hob nodded thoughtfully at that. “Well… If my maths check out then three of those years didn’t count, so thirty at worst,” he said, clearly in an attempt to lighten the mood.

It did the opposite. Morpheus was barely even tipsy, and neither was he a maudlin drunk, but it was enough to make him a little more emotional than he would like to be. Or, maybe this was why all of his meds said not to drink while taking.

“They absolutely did count and they have taken the rest of my years along with them,”  Morpheus replied heavily, “They do not tell you in crime documentaries that there is no happily ever after; you don’t return to your old life because the world has moved on without you and left you as a creature displaced in space and time…”

He caught the look Hob was giving him now; caught somewhere between pity, which he hated, and concern which simply made him feel inadequate. “Perhaps you should leave,” Morpheus offered, trying to force his expression into a smile.

It didn’t fool Hob, clearly. His gaze was searching Morpheus’s face as if trying to suss out the truth of his feelings. An impossible task, of course, as Morpheus himself had no idea what he was feeling besides the fact that he was. Normally at this point he would go write, or draw, and channel that into a fantasy world where he actually wanted to wake up in the morning.

“Is that what you want?” Hob asked gently.

Morpheus shook his head and looked away, closing his eyes for a moment and taking a deep breath to centre himself. Sometimes his therapist actually did have good suggestions.

“I am sorry; we were having a nice evening,” he said eventually, with an awkward sort of laugh that sounded far too close to crying for his taste.

“Do you… do you think it would help to just tell me the story, in your own words, so we stop having these pitfalls when I ask you an innocuous question?” Hob asked, “I asked you to have dinner with me after I found out the gist of what happened to you, alright? If you tell me the rest and we’re not friends after, it's because you made that choice, not me.”

“Fine,” Morpheus said eventually, and flopped back to lie down on the sofa in a manner that even he realised was probably a bit over-dramatic but he couldn’t talk this through looking at Hob’s overly compassionate face, “Pause that will you, I don’t need Paul Hollywood punctuating my tale of woe.”

To his credit, Hob did not laugh as he did as he was asked. The silence stretched between them, and Morpheus sighed. “There are many places I could begin this story; all of them are both correct and incorrect in their own way,” he said eventually, “It started when I came out, I guess… I was married then, actually. It was not so much arranged as suggested so as to consolidate wealth between our families; I was fine with it because I knew her, and I thought we could make it work. We did, for a bit, but I was nineteen and I didn’t know who I was. I said I had something to tell her, she said the same; I told her I was gay and she told me she was pregnant.”

He sat up a bit to take a sip of his wine, more for his suddenly very dry mouth than actually wanting any more of it. He very carefully did not look at Hob.

“All she wanted was a baby, so she was fine with me doing whatever I wanted, whoever I wanted, but neither of our families would take well to it. Thus why I was skulking around without security or having told anyone where I was. She wasn’t surprised when I didn’t come home on an evening, so no one reported me missing for two days,” he continued quietly, “My parents refused to publicise the case or make a plea to my… my captors, because they did not want the world to know I had been snatched outside a gay club.”

Morpheus sneaked a glance at Hob who, as expected, was watching him intently. He dearly wanted to rouse Jessamy from her peaceful roosting; but he cared more for her comfort than his and it would be cruel to bother her.

“I was going home with a guy I vaguely knew from school, we… we walked out of the club, that’s my last memory before I… Awoke, naked, chained in his father’s basement and stayed there for the next three years,” he said, then sighed looking up at the metal beams of the ceiling high above, “Are you certain you want to hear about this?”

“I mean, no, I’m not certain, but I’m listening,” Hob replied quietly, “It's clearly been bottled up in you, so… get it out, or don’t.”

Morpheus sat up slowly, turning to plant his feet solidly on the floor and lean over with his forearms on his knees - still not looking at Hob. He did need to get it out, even though the thought made him want to vomit. Or maybe that was the wine, or the meds, or both. Even Lucienne had learned everything she needed to know from his medical records, the police reports, and a trickle of truth over the years. Much the same went for his therapist; she was always very focused on living in the now, addressing his day to day struggles, now that he was living independently. There probably wasn’t enough money in the world to pay someone to sit and listen to the whole tale, so had never told it.

“If I am honest, I remember very little. The only window was out of my sight, the lights shone on me day and night,” he said, shaking his head slightly, “I fought Roderick, kicked him in the fucking teeth so he starved the fight out of me… I don’t know what happened then; either he was old and couldn’t get it up or I wasn’t pretty enough anymore, so I was saved from that indignity, as far as I know. He died, two years in, and Alex just never came back downstairs, that I saw…”

The wine glass was empty, he realised that belatedly as he’d gone to raise it to his lips. He made a frustrated noise and Hob took it from him gently, filled it only a third of the way, and handed it back. Morpheus nodded his thanks without looking up. He took a sip and held it for a while, looking at his distorted reflection in the glass, before he could continue.

“I was gone for most of it, I… It was easier not to be there, mentally. Damp stone to lie on, the lights shining in my face constantly… So I left, I imagined a world where this never happened, where nothing like this happened and, if it did, they got their comeuppance straight away at the hands of the hero. It was so vivid I could forget the hunger, the cold, the pain,” Morpheus said softly, pausing for a while to collect his thoughts and drain his glass again. This time, Hob didn’t refill it and a small part of him was thankful for that. He’d have drunk it regardless of his desire not to be sick in the morning.

“That dreamscape was the basis for the Aeternium series, later, but then it was my only lifeline, the only reason why I didn’t just lie down and die,” he murmured, then grew quiet for a while, “Do you remember, about seven years ago, that big storm we had? There were trees down all over the countryside. I could hear it howling outside, loud enough to keep me awake and aware for the duration. It knocked the power out… that was the first time I’d seen darkness in years and it gave me new life.”

Morpheus hadn’t realised he was breathing heavily until Hob’s hand on his shoulder brought him back down to earth; he looked up to meet the other man’s concerned gaze, and shook his head. No, he was fine, and nearly finished. Well, not nearly, what came after was in some ways even worse than captivity, but a story for another time, perhaps.

“Something shattered the window in the gale and brought freezing, fresh air and rain to what had been stale and… sickly. I don’t know what possessed me, I… I had to get out. A last act of desperation, I think. I learned later how close I was to dying and I guess some primal part of me wasn’t willing to go,” he said, the barest trace of a smile on his lips. If nothing else, that realisation gave him joy - that he had been strong enough, in the end.

“I smashed my hand against the floor until the bones shattered and I could slip off the shackle, climbed through the broken window and left… I remember the window, but after that nothing until weeks later,” Morpheus continued, then paused, “But, I am told I walked several miles through the rain to collapse on the nearest neighbour’s doorstep. That must have been a fright; I do know I was covered in blood from the glass… I only saw photos of what I looked like much later, as part of the inquest…”

He trailed off and lapsed into silence. There was more, so much more. He could have spoken for hours on what it was like to lie on the floor in that dank basement and sob until the muscles of his chest hurt from heaving, what it was like in winter to shiver so hard for so long he cracked a tooth clenching his jaw and had to deal with that new pain. Instead it came out as a bare few sentences, broken and hesitant, unable to fully encompass the nightmare that had held him in its clutches until his mind had no choice but to craft something gentler to replace it.

“You saved yourself.”

“Hmm?” Morpheus replied, looking up at Hob finally and both surprised and relieved to find that the expression on his face wasn’t horror or disgust. He looked… proud, almost, as if Morpheus had impressed him somehow.

“After all that, you saved yourself,” Hob repeated.

“At the cost of my dominant hand,” Morpheus said, holding up his left hand and flexing his fingers. It looked normal enough, but his range of motion and fine motor skills would never be the same. “And my sanity, and the rest of my life. I spent a very long time wishing I had died in that basement; sometimes I still do.”

“You’re doing amazing, even by normal standards,” Hob said, with a tone that seemed like he really believed his own words, “Your writing, your art… I hope you throw yourself into it because you found something to live for.”

“No. I live for Jessamy, my writing is… A symptom of my broken mind. I am no genius, Hob,” Morpheus replied, “I simply disassociate from reality in a more productive way than most and discovered how to make money from it.”

Hob sighed, probably at the futility of arguing with Morpheus on anything. If nothing else he was steadfast in the belief of his own inferiority, and no one was going to take that from him.

“Thank you, Morpheus,” Hob said quietly, once he was certain that nothing else was going to be forthcoming without prompting.

“For what?” Morpheus asked, genuinely confused. All he’d done was ruin what could have been a good evening by talking about things that made his skin crawl.

Hob scooted closer to him on the sofa, Morpheus’s fidgeting and repositioning throughout the story had broadened the distance between them. He slipped his arm around Morpheus’s shoulders, gently, waiting for either his refusal or acceptance to pull him a little closer. Morpheus took a deep, hitching breath and closed his eyes.

“For trusting me,” Hob clarified, squeezing Morpheus ever so slightly in a one-armed hug.

“I shouldn’t have burdened you with that, it’s a lot, and it's only half the story,” Morpheus murmured, “No one tells you what comes after the end of story. There’s no happily ever after; just surgery, therapy… fear of bright lights, fear of crowds, fear of loud noises… scars, pitying looks and all the dental work you can imagine three years of not brushing your teeth results in. I couldn’t live alone here without nurses checking on me three times a day until just a couple years ago.”

“But you’re here now, independently,” Hob replied, ducking his head down slightly to try to meet Morpheus’s eyes. 

“Oh yes, great achievement; thirty-three year old lives alone in flat with no friends and no prospects - someone call the press,” Morpheus said with a bitter laugh.

“Hey! You have Lucienne, and now you have me. That’s two friends,” Hob pointed out, “And no, you haven’t managed to scare me off. You might not think so; but you’re pretty cool. I’d say badass, but somehow I don’t think that’s an epithet you’d appreciate.”

“You would be correct, it is not,” Morpheus said, but he did begin to relax minutely under Hob’s casual embrace. No one had touched him like this in years. His sister had, back when she still lived in England and tried to bring him back out of his shell. Lucienne had tried once when he was having a panic attack only for it to make him worse and inconsolable until she’d had to call an ambulance. She never tried again, and lord knew he wasn’t about to submit to the indignity of asking for a hug. He was more than happy to curl in against Hob’s side and simply stay there until the man saw fit to evict him from the warmth, or leave. The hour was growing late, now.

“Do you want to watch the show, get your mind on something else?” Hob asked, reaching for the remote which did manage to dislodge Morpheus slightly from the comfortable spot under his arm.

“I don’t mind it, I… I think I’m done talking, in any case,” Morpheus replied.

The television screen brightened and the merry chatter of the contestants returned, sounding terribly loud in the empty room until Hob turned it down a bit to a more comfortable level. This was… remarkably nice. Normal, even, if you forgot their previous conversation. He could get used to this.

The next conscious thought Morpheus had was sheer confusion. Jessamy was hopping around his shoulder, squawking and preening at his hair. He gently batted her away and sat up, rubbing his eyes blearily. It was morning, filtered light streaming in the high windows told him that before the clock on the far wall. He was still on the sofa, although now wrapped in a blanket with a throw pillow where his head had been.

His first thought was panic, not knowing how he had gotten there, and his second was Hob. Of course he was gone, he wouldn’t have expected him to stay and nor, frankly, would he have wanted that. Being asleep and vulnerable with anyone else around was not something he felt ready for. Not yet, maybe someday. Hopefully soon.

There was a piece of paper folded in half and propped against the empty wine bottle. A smiley face was drawn on the side facing the sofa. Cute, it looked like Hob had read the room and tried to stave off the anxiety attack he was still trying to deep breath his way down from. Morpheus leaned forward and grabbed the paper to read the short note inside.

Sorry to leave without saying goodbye! 

You looked peaceful and I figured you needed the rest. 

Bread week was a disappointment anyway, you didn’t miss much. 

You know when I’m free on fridays and where to meet me ;)

He folded the paper back in half, then once more, and tucked it in the pocket of his cardigan to look at later. That last line was definitely an invitation. Tomorrow was friday. He had a day to figure out whether or not to proceed. How far did Hob’s indomitable patience stretch? Morpheus could imagine why the man would prefer to spend time with him, of all people, when he clearly had nothing holding him back from going out, dating, and finding someone with far less baggage. Someonewho would be able to go to that pub he owned and appreciate it for what it was. Maybe that was where Hob had learned to cook so well? No, that was ridiculous. He couldn’t possibly have time both to teach and actively be involved.

Morpheus sighed and, at Jessamy’s continued urging, got up to feed her and start his day. He did have one deadline looming a few months out; it wouldn’t hurt to get started.

Chapter Text

As much as he was hoping that Morpheus would show up on friday; quite frankly Hob was not expecting it. A part of him thought that it was possible that since he had gotten the catharsis that he so desperately had needed he wouldn’t return - whether due to embarrassment or something else was up for debate. So he was pleasantly surprised to find Morpheus and Jessamy waiting outside when he arrived back at his office, late, with lunch and coffee in hand. He’d had a passive thought at the shop that he should grab another coffee, just in case, but had dismissed it, like an idiot.

“Hey!” he said brightly, to garner the other man’s attention as he had an open book balanced in one hand and was rather intently flipping pages as if looking for something in particular.

Morpheus looked up and smiled shyly at him. “I hope I am not intruding; I know we are approaching exams.”

Hob waved away his concerns and unlocked the office door; Morpheus dutifully followed him inside, but didn’t sit. He was just standing rather nervously by the desk when Hob turned around from setting down all his things.

“If my students aren’t ready for exams at this point that’s on them,” Hob said with a grin, “I’m glad you came; I didn’t want to have to email and go through a middleman.”

Morpheus gave an amused huff at that. “I needed to see you,” he replied, then hesitated, “I said… a lot of things that I know are disconcerting and you took it with grace; I owe you my thanks.”

“You owe me absolutely nothing,” Hob said pointedly, and Jessamy let out a squawk that he was definitely going to take as her agreement. “You needed someone to listen; that’s what friends do, and more so that is the bare minimum for dating someone.”

“So you still wish to?” Morpheus replied, sounding a little confused at the notion but, even so, his posture did relax.

“Date you? Yeah, of course, unless you would rather just be friends,” Hob replied, but Morpheus cut him off before he could say anything else.

“No!” he answered quickly, then more sheepishly he added, “I am quite content as is.”

Hob couldn’t hide his smile and he hoped the other man wouldn’t take it as laughing at him. The desperation for human contact was probably more sad than it was endearing, but he definitely found it to be the latter - at least when it was directed at him.

“Good. You sell yourself short, mate, really,” Hob said after a moment, “You've got far more to offer than you give yourself credit for.”

“I don’t know about that… but I will endeavour to see your side of the argument,” Morpheus said softly, “I uhm… I came because I had meant to send you home with a different book. The Aeternium series is very much edited down from what I imagined it to be, even if I am proud of it. If you wish to understand me through my work, I have a better volume.”

He had been clutching the book close the entire time they spoke, but now stepped forward and offered it to Hob who was now happy he hadn’t unwrapped his lunch yet. This was clearly of some importance and it wouldn’t do to get greasy fingerprints all over it. Hob took the book from him; it was a slim volume, bound in deep blue leather and embossed in gold. There was no author listed, no publisher’s mark, only a smattering of gold stars like constellations and a title in cursive that looked very much like the note that Morpheus had left him when they first met.

“ Dreams of an Endless Night, ” Hob said aloud, flipping open the front cover but Morpheus stayed his hand.

“It’s rather personal so I would prefer you read it without my presence,” he said, with a sad sort of smile, “Poetry was the first thing I started writing again, after, as I found it required less presence of mind and more raw feeling with no narrative to pull through it. Lucienne eventually compiled them in order and had it vanity printed for me. There are only three copies so I’m afraid I will need it back when you are finished, but I hope you find it enlightening.”

Hob did as he was bade, closed the book, and slipped it into his messenger bag for later. He was planning a quiet friday evening in this week in any case; his friends were all going out tomorrow for the big football match and forgoing friday drinks at the pub. All the same to him; he’d rather sit home and read. Morpheus looked a little adrift, as he had clearly rehearsed what he had wished to say and didn’t think past it to any further responses. Nor, most likely, did he even know what reaction to expect.

“Thank you. I’m sure I’ll enjoy it, if it gives me a bit of a clue what’s going on in that head of yours,” Hob replied teasingly, “Mister dark and mysterious.”

“I believe the phrase is usually tall , dark, and mysterious.”

“Inches added by hair and boots don’t count, so you get two of the three,” Hob said with a shrug, “I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them.”

“That makes you sound far less fun as a lecturer than I had imagined, disappointing,” Morpheus replied, looking down his nose at Hob as he was still standing, “I should get going; sadly you were a stop on my way to an appointment that still looms.”

“That bad, huh?” Hob asked, noting his rather glum expression.

“My therapist is trying to make me leave my home more often by forcing an in-person meeting every week. I believe it is sufficient that she forces me to use my laptop for something other than writing.”

Well, that was mildly enlightening. So he wasn’t entirely tech-averse then; given that he had a computer and the smart tv in his flat, just extremely reticent to communication then. He’d use zoom but not answer an email. Maybe he’d convince him of its value eventually, if only for use in planning to see each other without having to go through a middleman or just guess and show up in person. Not that Hob would ever complain about Morpheus dropping by to see him; that he chose to do so when he would clearly rather not leave his flat at all meant… something. He wasn’t entirely sure what, but it was certainly a positive.

“I’m sure she has her reasons,” Hob said, getting up from behind his desk, “I’ll walk you to your car, then.”

“Don’t forego your lunch for my sake,” Morpheus replied, waving away his offer, “I just wished to deliver the book.”

“Nonsense, it's a cold sandwich, it’ll keep,” Hob said as he followed him out. He wasn’t particularly hungry anyway, and a bit of a chat with his… friend? Boyfriend? Was quite preferential, whatever they were to each other after two dates with intent to continue. They hadn’t talked about it and Hob was not going to bring it up when Morpheus clearly had somewhere to be, but he had a feeling that putting labels on things was not exactly his forté. 

Jessamy squawked and flexed her wings once they were outside, pleased to be out in fresh air with blue skies overhead - even if the weather was beginning to turn toward winter. Morpheus brought a hand up to still her. Even if she was unlikely to try to fly off without being frightened, best to keep a little more grounded in the moment. She responded by preening his hair, and Morpheus rolled his eyes. Maybe that was why his hair was the way it was; more likely he just didn’t bother with his appearance, but it was a funnier mental image that way.

“So while I’ve got you here, do you want to plan something for next week?” Hob asked as they walked through the campus commons, “I’m more than happy to come over and cook again if you don’t want to go out; but maybe we can find something like a gallery or exhibit that you’d be interested in.”

Morpheus sighed wistfully. “That sounds lovely, I will trust your judgement on the location,” he replied, “With the caveat that I have a difficult week; so I will both not be available until friday, and may not wish to stay out long by the time the day comes.”

“Can I ask what constitutes a difficult week?” Hob asked curiously. Given Morpheus’s reclusive nature there were any number of things that could fit the bill - he vividly remembered how exhausted Morpheus had looked in the car after his signing and how tired he had truly been to fall asleep on him.

“Meetings with my publisher and the production studio. Normally Lucienne handles most things for me, I have given her legal power to do so, but when it comes to my work and how it progresses - due dates and plans for future publication - only I know best where I am and how to proceed,” Morpheus explained, “She can assist, but I have to make the decisions.”

“I can see how that would be difficult, yeah,” Hob replied. He took a chance and slipped his hand into Morpheus’s while they walked, as the other man hadn’t jammed his hands deep in his pockets this time. Besides a surprised look and the slightest bit of redness high on his cheeks, which could well have been the cold, there was no other response. That was a win, in his book.

“Not so much as it once was, but yes,” Morpheus conceded quietly after a moment, as if he’d had to think on it, “Thus I try to do it rarely.”

They had reached the service loop at the edge of campus for pick up and drop off, and Hob recognized Morpheus’s car waiting. Of course they would have to wait; they had no means of being called back when their boss was done. He offhandedly wondered how much Morpheus paid staff to deal with his eccentricities, but that was not a question he’d be asking any time soon.

“We didn’t settle on a time. How about this; if you’re up to it come friday, have Lucienne call me in the morning and I’ll let you know when I’ll be by,” Hob said, regretfully letting go of Morpheus’s hand.

The other man smiled at him slightly. “That sounds agreeable. If I am not, then any time the next week. I have no plans, shall be home, and… I would appreciate your company,” he admitted, the hesitation showing the difficulty he had in offering up any of his own feelings.

“Then it’s a date,” Hob said with a grin wide enough to make up for Morpheus’s dour expression, “Wait, before you go…”

He fished in his pocket and, coming up with nothing, held up a finger to ask Morpheus to keep waiting while he checked his other pockets. Eventually his search was rewarded; he held up a five pence piece that had been punched through the middle to leave it just a ring of metal. Jessamy had already caught sight of his offering and was leaning forward off her master’s shoulder as Hob held it up for her to take.

That was enough to brighten Morpheus’s mood a little, and he even laughed when Jessamy hopped and fluttered the distance between them to land on Hob’s shoulder instead, having snagged the coin from him in passing.

“Wherever did you find that?” Morpheus asked amusedly, “She’ll be spoiled for tabs now.”

“Change at the pub, so I snagged it for her,” Hob replied, “I’m afraid it's a one-off and she’ll have to make due after.”

“Charmer,” Morpheus said, reaching out his hand for Jessamy who just tapped it with her new prize for him to keep safe for her rather than hop on. He took the proffered coin and slipped it in his pocket, then offered his hand again. She cawed and moved from foot to foot as if considering her options for a moment, before flying back to a more familiar shoulder. 

He offered Hob a shy smile before heading to his car. Hob watched him go, more than a little charmed by Jessamy’s antics. She had turned around on Morpheus’s shoulder to face him as the man left and made a few chattering squawks in his direction. He didn’t know a lot about birds but he was going to take that as a thank you.

Chapter Text

Morpheus was of no mind to go out on a weekend; there were far too many people and too much noise for his liking, no matter the venue. His therapist had done her best to hide her disappointment, or disapproval, of the fact that he hadn’t done as she requested despite repeated urging. Whyever would he want to go places and do mundane things when he had Lucienne for that? He didn’t see why she considered things like shopping to be some sort of game-changer in his ability to function in society.

He had already been out in the morning to travel halfway across the city to see a specialist he’d had to pay an exorbitant fee to make a weekend appointment with - doctor’s offices were far too crowded for his taste on a weekday. It had been heavily implied yet not outright said that his quota of normal activities should be separate from mandatory excursions out into the city, but how would she know? Morpheus certainly wasn’t going to tell, and Jessamy had not yet proven to be a snitch.

She also hadn’t been entirely clear on what constituted an acceptable expenditure of his social battery. Did a walk in the park count? It felt like cheating, as it certainly removed the possibility of social interaction, but it was something. He sent his driver off to do what he wished with his weekend; he’d be able to catch a cab near enough and pray that the driver didn’t choose to be chatty, or start any shit about Jessamy. She was a good sport though and more than once he had just tucked her in his coat for a nap and gone home that way with no issue.

Morpheus wandered the park for a bit but quickly grew bored with it. Everything was a bit grey and drab with the start of winter, and the wind was cutting as the weather was starting to turn. This was what he got for trying to improve. He was on the edge of the park so he left and ducked down a side street, hoping to find a quiet shop or a coffeehouse he could step into to warm up before heading home. No such luck, the businesses on the street were of a less casual variety; a solicitor’s office, bistro that looked bustling despite the post-lunch hour, hair salon, specialty shops in which he didn’t fit… The other side of the street was just a bit of greensward so there wasn’t even respite from the cold.

A pub at the end seemed the best bet and, if nothing else, they’d likely let him use their phone to call a cab if he bought a drink. The inside was blessedly quiet; the lunch rush, if there was one, long since over and only a handful of patrons were scattered about the place. The bartender was down at the far end away from the door with his nose in a book. Morpheus hadn’t been in a pub like this since his former life when he’d go out with uni friends. It was a bit nostalgic if he were honest with himself though he had never been here before it felt like returning to somewhere he hadn’t been in a very long time.

“Morpheus?”

The sound of his name brought him back to the present and he blinked confusedly at the bartender who was now standing in front of him and was…

“Hob?” he said, sounding every bit as confused as he was.

“I know the apron is a brilliant disguise but I thought you were more clever than that,” he teased, leaning on the bar and looking Morpheus up and down. He looked almost as confused as Morpheus felt. “What are you doing here? Not that you aren’t welcome just… doesn’t seem like your scene.”

“Why are you… Nevermind,” Morpheus said, his brain catching up with him now as he remembered that Hob had mentioned he owned a pub. This pub, apparently. Professor by day, bartender by weekend. “I was taking a walk and underestimated the cold.”

“Well you clearly didn’t walk here, so my question stands,” Hob replied, gesturing for him to sit, “Can I get you something to warm up; coffee, tea, hot toddy?”

Morpheus sat down across from him on one of the barstools and gave in to the urge to wrap his arms around himself for warmth. “Just tea, thank you,” he replied, and watched Hob immediately run off to the kitchen to fetch it.

A few minutes later, with his cold hands wrapped around a steaming cup of tea, he felt a lot better already even without ingesting any of it and more in a mood to answer Hob’s question.

“I had an appointment this morning and my doctor sent me over to the hospital for a blood draw, so I was near the park and… thought I’d get some fresh air. It went poorly. I… don’t like being cold,” he added the last part much more quietly after a hesitation, “I was trying to kill two birds with one stone and do as my therapist had asked while I was already out.”

“That’s a rude turn of phrase to use in front of our guest,” Hob said, nodding to Jessamy who was, of course, oblivious, “Are you alright?”

Morpheus just looked at him, not immediately comprehending the question. “Oh. Yes, nothing more amiss than usual. My metabolism is… I think the technical term would be fucked ,” he replied with a self-deprecating little chuckle, before finally sipping his tea once it had done him the service of warming up his cold-stiff hands, “So they like to keep tabs on things, and also thus my being freezing cold when the day is hardly that.”

“Eh, the wind was a bit biting when I went outside earlier too, it’s not just you,” was Hob’s consoling reply, “And you’re skinny enough for it to go right through you.”

“That’s not how wind works but I appreciate the sentiment.”

Hob rolled his eyes at him and Morpheus found himself smiling despite his lingering discomfort. The pub was nice; warm, bright and inviting. No doubt he would find it less so with more patrons, but for now… he could find himself enjoying it here.

“I’ve been reading your poetry,” Hob said, leaning on the bar across from him, “It’s… enchanting, I think that’s the only word that can encompass my thoughts so far. You paint such a vivid picture of feelings even though the subject is obscured, it’s… it’s extremely good.”

Morpheus smiled and looked down at his hands. That was a better response than he’d expected. “Thank you,” he murmured, “It encompasses myself better than I could ever present to you in person.”

“Hey,” Hob said warningly, “You’re more than enough as you are, and as you seem. No complaints.” He reached across the bar and rested his hand on top of Morpheus’s free one.

“Then I’m sorry to break it to you but you may be the insane one here,” Morpheus replied wryly.

Before Hob had the chance to reply, the bell over the door chimed and a large group of people entered. Morpheus eyed them warily, but they passed by the bar and went to sit at a booth in a further back area - mostly out of sight and their loud voices were a bit muffled by distance and the acoustics of the building.

“Waitress is on break, I’ll be right back, hold that thought,” Hob said, squeezing Morpheus’s hand before he went off to serve the group, leaving him alone with his tea - and Jessamy, who had hopped down to perch on the edge of the bar top.

He didn’t feel any remorse for himself being a recluse, but he did on occasions like this feel bad that Jessamy didn’t get a change of scenery very often. Besides her happy noises and hopping, it was hard to tell what she wanted outside of food and praise. Was she happy staying at home with him all the time? He didn’t know, but she was staring around and tilting her head like she was trying to make sense of her surroundings.

Hob emerged from the kitchen door and reclaimed his spot at the bar across from Morpheus. “Sorry about that; little understaffed today.”

“At least it’s not busy.”

“Yet. It will be, give it a few until the match is over and we’ll have hooligans regardless of who won,” Hob said with a sigh, “You’re just here between lunch and supper, and idiots drinking.”

“A little disparaging for a barkeep, isn’t it?” Morpheus asked dryly, “Can I trouble you for more tea? I can almost feel my toes again.”

Hob huffed a laugh and headed back to the kitchen with his teacup. He returned with not just one brewing cup of tea but a little porcelain pot so he could refill it as needed.

“I don’t know about you but when I make myself a cuppa it's not in one of these dinky little restaurant mugs,” he said, smiling at Morpheus, and then added, “I’m glad you’re here.”

Morpheus didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing and just sipped his tea until Jessamy started pulling at his sleeve making a clicking noise that sounded surprisingly frustrated. He shushed and stroked her feathers but she kept making noise. Morpheus sighed heavily and gave Hob an apologetic look.

“I haven’t seen her do that before,” he said, watching Jessamy curiously. Normally she was quite well behaved.

“She is trained to alert to a variety of things in different ways,” Morpheus replied, reaching in his pocket for the ever-present soda tab to reward her for doing her job, “She doesn’t always know when to stop.”

“What is she alerting to?”

“Hmm… Low heart rate, probably,” Morpheus said thoughtfully, then upon seeing Hob’s worried expression he added, “What?”

“Are you alright?” Hob asked, concern evident in his voice as much as on his face, “Do you want to call your car?”

“I will be fine, and no. I sent him home, I’ll get a cab when I need to go,” Morpheus replied but he could tell immediately that Hob wasn’t entirely satisfied by that answer.

“Are you certain you’re alright, you look a little pale,” Hob said quietly, as if someone they could be overheard to his detriment in the nearly empty pub, “Can I get you something to eat?”

“Pub fare is a bit beyond me, I fear. I will be fine, Hob, I’m just a bit lightheaded. As I said, metabolism is a bit fucked, the cold does me in,” he replied, staring down at his tea so he didn’t have to meet Hob’s eyes. 

This was why he didn’t take the initiative, or go out and do anything, because whenever he did he managed to ruin it whether of his own accord or not. Today it was due to not dressing for the weather, having worn a t-shirt knowing he’d have a blood draw, choosing a jacket for fashion over warmth, and not having planned on being outside. Jessamy cawed, he shushed her, and handed her the soda tab to play with. She was only doing her job, and doing it admirably at that.

“Well, I can’t pack you into a cab like this. I don’t usually work saturdays, I’m just filling in for the opener who called off; so my shift’s over in about an hour and twenty and I’ll ride with you,” Hob said in a tone that brooked no argument on the matter.

“I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You didn’t ask, I offered,” Hob said, then was cut off by the repeated chiming of the bell over the door as a group of young men poured in, shouting and laughing. He gave Morpheus an apologetic look and hurried off to see what they needed. A couple more people filtered in, in ones and twos, before Hob returned and the air in the pub had definitely turned. This was at least the start of what Hob had predicted regarding the ill manners of sports intruding on the peace and quiet. 

“Right, sorry. Anyway, hour and ten,” Hob continued, grinning at him before noticing Morpheus’s pained expression, “Are you good?”

“I… don’t like crowds, or loud noises,” he said softly, “I should be going, what do I owe you for the tea?”

Hob gave him what could only be described as an exasperated look. “Nothing, it’s on the house, and I really don’t like the idea of packing you into a cab right now,” he said with concern, “You’re pale as a sheet and your hands are shaking.”

“And I do not like the idea of having a panic attack in your lovely inn and embarrassing myself, so I will go,” Morpheus said pointedly, “May I borrow your phone?”

Hob sighed heavily, and Morpheus immediately felt a pang of guilt for upsetting the man. He was only trying to help, after all, but any help felt like a personal attack if it were insisted on. Yet another thing his therapist wished him to work on, to little effect.

“I have a better idea. I live upstairs; now I know you have a… thing about going to people’s homes, understandably, but I can give you the key and you can lock yourself in, if you’d like,” Hob offered, “Go lie down and once I’m free, I’ll ride home with you.”

Morpheus just stared at him for a long moment, considering his options. Really, only one was viable. There was hedging his bets on the ever-rising noise and bustle of humanity triggering a panic attack, potentially passing out in a cab, or… go sit in Hob’s flat for an hour and avoid the indignity of either. He nodded slightly.

“Good,” Hob said, fishing his keys from his pocket and setting them down on the bar top, “Go down toward the restrooms, there’s a staff only door and a staircase beyond it on your left. I’d apologise for the mess but it’s who I am as a person.” That managed to get a huff of a laugh out of Morpheus which was most likely his intended effect.

“I do appreciate it,” Morpheus said as he snatched the keychain and got up from his stool, blinking repeatedly as his vision swam for a moment. If Hob noticed, he pretended not to, or at least said nothing about it.

“Make yourself at home, be comfortable,” Hob said, making a shooing motion at him.

Morpheus followed his directions to the upper floor. There was a hallway that ran the length of the building on one side against the front windows with another stairwell at the far end for an outside entrance. Clearly at some point in the past this had been an inn truly, and not just a pub. The first door was open and showed just a large storage room beyond with additional chairs and crockery neatly arranged. The second had a rather superfluous welcome mat that just seemed like something Hob would do. The key fit, but the door was already unlocked. Apparently he trusted no one to come up there uninvited.

The flat was small and should have felt cramped, but it had clearly been redone more recently than downstairs and now the ceilings were high except where the eaves angled inwards at the edge. He took his shoes off and, after a moment’s consideration, just hung the keychain on the hook by the door. Hob trusted him enough to use his space and lock him out, it wasn’t as if anything were going to happen to him here and, if it were, a locked interior door was certainly not going to stop it. Perhaps that was just the dizziness speaking. 

He headed straight to the sofa and sat, leaning forward with his head down. Jessamy squawked at the sudden drop and fluttered off his shoulder to the coffee table, which was covered in books and papers and several empty mugs in a way that was quite familiar to the erratic way in which he worked at home. Maybe they were more alike than he’d given Hob credit for.

The flat was warm, likely a benefit of being above the kitchen, and for that he was extremely grateful. He considered rooting about to make another cup of tea but raising his head quickly disabused him of that notion immediately. No, the best thing for it was to just sit quietly for a while rather than give in to the urge to snoop. He could snoop from the couch well enough. He took off his jacket and set it on the coffee table carefully so as not to disturb anything and pulled the folded blanket off the back of the sofa to wrap around himself instead. That was more like it.

Hob had said to make himself at home, so he did; lying down on the sofa wrapped in the thick quilt and feeling very sorry for himself as he looked about at all of the curios and knickknacks that littered every surface not currently occupied by books. He wasn’t sure what he had expected but it did somehow fulfil his every unformed expectation of what a history professor’s flat should look like - that was the last coherent thought he had before drifting off to sleep.

Chapter Text

The closing shift staff showed up right on time, much to Hob’s relief. The evening bartender was definitely dating the opening bartender, even if they had no idea he knew about it already, and he’d been crossing his fingers that she hadn’t passed on whatever chest cold she had to him. The duty of an owner in this sort of business was to fill in as needed and normally he had no trouble doing so, but today was a little different. His last hour working as the bar had gotten busier had been difficult; apparently he struggled to remember drink orders when there was a sad lonely boyfriend feeling poorly up in his flat. Regardless of whether Morpheus took it seriously or not, Hob did, and that he had taken Hob up on the offer of a place to rest showed that he definitely had been feeling off-kilter.

It felt a little funny knocking on his own door and, receiving no immediate response, he tried the doorknob and much to his surprise he found it unlocked. He leaned his head in the door and upon not immediately seeing Morpheus, he stepped inside quietly and closed, but didn’t lock the door behind him. Morpheus seemed to find comfort in his multi-step security at home but Hob had a feeling that the opposite would be true anywhere else. He almost tripped over the other man’s boots, left right in the entryway, so he set them aside out of the way beside his own shoes.

He found Morpheus curled up in a ball on his sofa, wild dark hair sticking up out of one end of the blanket was the only visible clue there was a human form under it. Jessamy was nowhere to be seen; up to some mischief, probably, but there wasn’t really any harm she could do in the enclosed space - and no doubt she was trained well enough not to be destructive.

Hob stood in the entrance to the living room and watched him sleep for a minute. Should he just let him rest? Wake him? Go about his business and hope the noise woke him instead? There was no clear protocol for that and any of the three seemed like they could either be the right option, or the one that startled him enough to be problematic. Eventually he settled on the third option, if only because if he woke him being in another room he figured it was better than Morpheus waking with someone looming over him. So he quickly went to shower, change and put on tea.

It was fumbling the kettle into the stainless steel sink with a clang that was finally enough to wake Morpheus. Hob heard a sharp intake of breath from behind him and turned to see the man sitting up and looking around blearily like he couldn’t quite place his surroundings. The blanket  had fallen from his shoulders and the pale skin of his surprisingly muscular arms distracted him for a moment from doing anything particularly helpful or reassuring. Luckily Morpheus’s gaze locked on to him and that seemed to clear his sleep-fogged mind quickly enough - he relaxed and leaned against the back of the couch, legs still folded under him.

“Sorry,” Hob said sheepishly, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“No, no I am glad you did,” Morpheus replied hoarsely, “I was having the strangest dream; not altogether unpleasant but I am better off awake. You are done for the day?”

Hob nodded, distracted again by watching Morpheus yawn and stretch - his curled up sleeping position couldn’t have been particularly comfortable. He’d only ever seen the other man wearing a coat, or his holey cardigan, and seeing him instead in a tight t-shirt was a nearly religious experience.

“What?” Morpheus said, catching him staring. Hob turned back to filling the kettle immediately.

“Nothing, I uh… I guess I didn’t expect you to be that fit,” Hob replied wryly, glancing over his shoulder at him, “I don’t mean to stare.”

“Mmm, looking is free,” Morpheus replied, punctuated by another yawn, “It isn’t that hard when you don’t go anywhere, or do anything, and have to expend your energy somehow. Or do you mean because of the food thing?”

“I didn’t mean it any sort of way, besides appreciative,” Hob assured him, although he actually was wondering because of the food thing as Morpheus put it; but that was easy enough to wave away with the assumption he cared just enough about existing to drink his calories. He looked like one of those insufferable green-smoothie types, in any case.

“Then it’s appreciated,” Morpheus said, leaning his head back against the sofa cushions and watching Hob putter around the kitchen through hooded eyes, “I don’t know when the last time that happened was.”

“What, someone thinking you’re hot?” Hob asked, coming over to plop tiredly down on the armchair diagonal from him. Slow day or not, he was tired after a long week. “Hate to break it to you; but that’s probably everyone who’s ever seen you.”

Morpheus made a disbelieving huff at that and shook his head slightly. “Not recently. I know the difference between seeing appreciation in one’s gaze and pity; more often I see the latter,” he replied, “Or they’re simply pointing or staring because of Jessamy.”

“Where is she, by the way?” Hob asked, deciding not to argue the point with any further right now. He didn’t need to convince Morpheus of anyone’s interest but his own.

“I don’t know… she’s weird, so, somewhere you wouldn’t expect,” Morpheus said with a shrug, “She did her job and she doesn’t like the cold either, so I’m not going to recall her or wake her until I must. She earned some respite.”

“It’s cool you actually trained her; I kind of assumed she was just for emotional support,” Hob said, getting up again with a groan as the kettle started to whistle, “Do you want some?”

Morpheus shook his head and then, upon realising Hob likely hadn’t seen him, spoke. “No, I am fine without, thank you. Jessamy was being trained for a falconer’s exhibition when she was hurt,” he explained, “So she already knew some tricks as a juvenile and was quite in tune with what her trainer needed - it was simple enough to redirect her cues. I did also hire a service animal trainer, although her experience was more with dogs, obviously.”

“What happened to her?” Hob asked as he returned, tea in one hand and biscuit in the other, “And how did you end up with her, if she wasn’t already trained. If you don’t mind my asking, that is.”

“Oh therein lies a tale,” Morpheus said with a wry smile, “Her injury is simple; a stray cat while she was training outdoors. As for how I came by her… well, I have several siblings ranging in temperament from delightful to depressing and one of my least favourite was apparently fucking someone who knew the falconer and thought it would be hilarious to gift me a broken, flightless bird. It looks passable now, but I had quite a few surgeries on my hand and arm. I guess I was… a little overzealous in breaking it; and that was long before I trained myself to be mostly ambidextrous, so I was quite helpless.”

“Christ… and no one stopped him from doing it, just thought this was a good idea?” Hob asked incredulously.

“No one stopped them ,” Morpheus replied, “My older sister told them off, but everyone was just used to the drama, I think. They used my escape and recovery as a cover to soft-launch their coming out, and by the time I was consistently out of hospital everyone had kind of overlooked it. Not a bad strategy, really.”

“Still a fucked up thing to do,” Hob replied darkly. It was unlikely he would ever meet any of Morpheus’s siblings but he was already of a mind to trip them, if he did. Maybe a bit more to the one who tried to use another living creature just to upset their brother.

“Yes, it was, but ultimately a good thing,” Morpheus said softly, “I loved her immediately; paid for all the best care and she can very nearly fly now, just not enough to be free. We have something of a sort in common.”

Hob pretended not to hear that last bit; that was another whole conversation for a different day. It was bad enough that an innocuous question always seemed to dredge up something darker without any intent to harm. He had figured Jessamy came from a breeder and had her job because she wasn’t fit for an exhibit, for reasons he hadn’t previously thought about any further. There were more questions swimming about his head about exactly how all of this went down, but figured it wasn’t prudent to ask them.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to keep bringing up painful memories,” Hob said, “Maybe I should let you ask the questions.”

“No, you cannot be expected to know all the pitfalls. If I didn’t wish to answer, I would tell you so,” Morpheus replied, “You will not offend me by asking… which leads me to my question; how did you come by a pub?”

“Well, now you found one of my pitfalls,” Hob said after a moment’s thought, composing his answer. The last thing he wanted to do was put any of his trauma on Morpheus’s already burdened mind. Brevity was the greater part of valour here.

“It belonged to my late wife’s uncle. I was a mess after she and my son passed; threw myself into my doctoral work to the detriment of everything else. I don’t really have any family, it was just us. She had been close to her uncle and he saw what her loss did to me, and… pulled me out of the muck, as it were. When he died he left everything to me; more money than I really knew what to do with, and this pub.”

“So… I moved out of the house with too many ghosts and into this flat,” Hob said with a wistful sigh, “and I’ve been all the better for it. There were only good memories here; family suppers and learning to heal, so I can think about things in a way I couldn’t elsewhere.”

Morpheus had sat up straighter rather than lounging half-asleep as he had been, and was watching him with bright, shining eyes. Silence fell once Hob finished his story, a companionable silence between two people who had lost a very great deal.

“That explains a lot,” Morpheus eventually murmured, breaking the quiet, “Thank you.”

Silence filled the room again. Morpheus shifted and wrapped his arms around himself, not just from the cold as the blanket still lay across his lap and would do a far better job of warming him. He looked like he was going to speak a couple of times before thinking better of it, so Hob stayed silent rather than drive that uncompleted thought further away.

“I lost my son too,” he whispered, staring steadfastly at the floor, “I know it isn’t the same, you know a little about how my life was before, but I loved him. He was two when I was taken and died when I was still in hospital. Calliope did not think it would be good for him to see me as I was, and then he… he was gone.”

Hob got up immediately and came to sit down beside Morpheus who looked like he desperately needed a hug, but also a bit prickly so he wasn’t entirely certain. After brief thought on the matter, he decided to go for it and pulled the smaller man into a gentle hug.

“I didn’t mean to bring up old ghosts,” he said softly.

“Nor did I,” Morpheus murmured, “And yet here we are. I am glad you found happiness. If you hadn't told me I would never have guessed you had such sorrow in your own past.”

“Time heals all wounds,” Hob replied, holding him a little tighter, “They’re the first thing you think about in the morning and the last at night until you wake up one day and they’re not; they’re the second. Then the third, and fourth, until one day you wake up and just go about your life and don’t think about them at all until an outside force brings them to mind - that’s the point where their memory becomes a blessing, not a curse.”

Morpheus apparently didn't have anything to say to that and just leaned against his shoulder for a while. It was more and more obvious from anything like this, to simply touching his hand across the bar, that the poor man was many years overdue for someone to give him any kind of physical affection. He had firmly succeeded in locking himself away, quite possibly to his own detriment in some ways - not that Hob was about to tell him that any time soon. A small, self doubting part of him wondered how much Morpheus’s interest in him was about this, about being touch-starved, rather than about him specifically. The larger, rational part of his mind tamped that line of thought down pretty quickly.

“I should be going, I’ve taken up enough of your time,” Morpheus said eventually, lifting his head from Hob’s shoulder but making no other move to extricate himself from the warmth of either the blanket or the other man’s arms.

“Nonsense, I had no other plans tonight besides reading and quite frankly I would rather speak to the author,” Hob replied teasingly, more than happy to change the subject back to something a little more light-hearted, “Unless you need to get home for Jessamy or meds or something.”

“I will not implode if I take pills a few hours late, there’s nothing that wrong with me,” Morpheus grumbled, “Jessamy will need to eat soon; but corvids will gladly eat rubbish if you let them. I am sure you have something here or downstairs that fits into her diet well enough not to disrupt her.”

“And what about you?” Hob asked, releasing his hold on Morpheus as he seemed to be in better spirits. Morpheus immediately pulled the blanket up to his neck to compensate for the lost warmth.

“Me?” Morpheus replied, as if he hadn’t understood the question.

“You nearly fainted at my bar, that tells me you haven’t eaten. I could make you something, if you like, or we could order in,” Hob said, his expression brighter, “Or, I did look around online at some popular vegan spots that seemed like they might suit you, and I called around to three to see how they felt about non-traditional service animals. I found one I thought was right up your alley who would be fine with…. What?”  Morpheus was looking at him with a rather bewildered expression.

Rather than explaining himself, Morpheus slipped one hand out of the blanket, placing it on Hob’s shoulder as leverage so he could lean up and press his lips to Hob’s in a quick kiss. He looked rather proud of himself, all things considered, when he pulled away but there was a question in his eyes. Hob grinned at him to assuage whatever worry he held about his actions. It was unexpected, yes, but certainly not unwanted. Nor was it unwarranted, after pouring their hearts out to each other lately - Morpheus far more than himself, but it was not the time to unload his own trauma.

“You’re too kind,” Morpheus said softly, “If you would like to go out, then I would like that as well. I think it could be good for me.” 

“Yeah, I think so too,” Hob said, squeezing his shoulders in a one-armed hug again briefly, “Lets get Jessamy something to eat, then we can go. It’s only gotten colder out, do you want a jumper or something?”

“I doubt anything you own fits me well enough to be seen in public, nor would it match,” Morpheus replied dryly.

“Hey, I do in fact own some black clothes. Don’t act like you’re the height of fashion after wearing sweats and a holey cardigan to our first real date.”

“Which was in my home where I prefer to be comfortable,” Morpheus said primly, “I could make this quite awkward by explaining why my clothing preferences are as they are but I do feel we’ve had enough pitfalls for one evening.”

Hob rolled his eyes at him as he got up to go find something for him to wear. He also found Jessamy, who was in a laundry basket atop his short dresser and squawked at his approach. That she had made it all the way in here and up showed she had probably been exploring the flat the whole time Morpheus had been sleeping. He found a plain black sweatshirt in the back of a drawer, which he remembered was a bit snug on him after going through the wash, and figured it would do. Then he offered Jessamy his hand for a ride back to the living room. Two birds with one stone, as it were.

Upon seeing Morpheus sitting up and awake, she flew from Hob to his shoulder once they were only a few feet apart and immediately started preening his hair. Morpheus just huffed and let her, after trying to shoo her once to no avail. Hob wondered if that was just something she did as a bird to someone she felt was a friend or if that too was some sort of trained or learned behaviour to distract her owner. Another thing to ask at a different time.

Morpheus thanked him for the shirt and Jessamy was finally forced to move by him putting it on whether she was there or not. That got a caw and a flurry of feathers as she hopped away, aided by angry flaps at the indignity of being evicted from her preferred shoulder. The sweatshirt fit well enough, although had the unfortunate side effect of no longer being able to ogle Morpheus’s arms - a tragedy for the ages.

“I’ll call us an Uber,” Hob offered, “That way we don't have to be out in the cold for long.”

“I was out without adequate warmth for over an hour and minus some blood, that’s different than waiting for a car,” Morpheus pointed out, “I am not as fragile as you might think, and I don’t want you to believe otherwise… Fragile in that way, at least.”

“Maybe not, but it’s miserable out and maybe I don’t like it either,” Hob said, “Besides; just because someone wants to dote on you doesn’t mean they think you’re weak. It's quite possible I just like you.”

“I find it equally possible you make poor decisions,” Morpheus replied, “And I believe that is the answer.”

“Yeah well, call me an idiot then,” Hob said, sitting down beside him again, “We have five minutes on the uber. You sure you’re feeling up to going out?”

“No, I’m not sure,” Morpheus said with a sigh, “But if I have to leave and embarrass myself, I would rather do it alone with you because I think I can trust you never to bring up again, nor tell Lucienne.”

“My lips are sealed,” Hob replied quickly, “So outside of work, this is your first time going out like this?”

“For pleasure or food, yes. I go to a fair few doctors, though less of late,” Morpheus replied, “It’s different when it's a lecture, or signing; those have clearcut expectations and normally I have Lucienne with me to handle things.”

“Well, you don’t have to talk to anyone if you don’t want to, and if anyone tries to talk to you I can run interference,” Hob reassured him, “I want you to have fun, it doesn’t need to be exposure therapy.”

“No, but it can serve well enough as the latter,” Morpheus replied, “I miss this; having friends, going out, having people who… look at me like you do.”

Hob was, again, reasonably certain quite a few people looked at him like that but thought better of saying so; if he didn’t notice, maybe some part of him was purposely blocking that out when it came to fans or colleagues. 

“I’m looking respectfully ,” he said instead, then picked his phone up off the arm of the chair as it buzzed, “Uber’s here.”

Morpheus finally abandoned the warmth of the blanket and stood up, stretching. His curled up position clearly hadn’t been the most comfortable. He retrieved his light jacket off the coffee table, zipping it all the way up against the cold they were about to venture into. Hob grabbed his own coat from the entry, and returned with a scarf in hand. It wasn’t black, just plaid in shades of grey with white, but hopefully that was close enough. He looped it around Morpheus’s neck but left it for him to draw tight. The other man gave an amused huff at his actions.

“I would prefer that you looked a bit less respectfully, I think,” Morpheus murmured, leaning into him at that moment of closeness.

Hob gave him a searching look and, realising that he was being deadly serious, grinned. Any further action one that front was forestalled by his phone buzzing again. He sighed. “That will have to wait for later,” Hob said regretfully, “Let’s go see if you can have fun.”

Chapter Text

Morpheus had tucked Jessamy close against his chest, unzipping his jacket a bit so she could look out and wouldn’t panic and scratch him. It was easier than explaining, or arguing, the concept of service animals with a random Uber driver. Normally it wasn’t much of an issue; she wasn’t a dog or anything that could be particularly destructive. With his free hand, he reached for Hob. It felt a bit silly and juvenile, sitting in the backseat of a car holding hands like teenagers, but now that an avenue for this closeness had opened to him he was loath to ignore it. Hob didn’t seem to mind, at least, just grinned at him before looking to his phone when it was clear Morpheus wasn’t about to start a conversation in a car with a driver other than his own.

Their destination was in a trendy neighbourhood with a handful of restaurants whose names Morpheus realised he somehow knew. Had he walked this neighbourhood? Perhaps Lucienne had told him about them; she had a busy social life that did not include him but did know that he liked to live a little vicariously through her, at times. If nothing else, it helped him write the sort of interactions he no longer had.

Hob took charge and spoke to the host in a voice quiet enough not to be overheard, even by him, over the hubbub of the restaurant. A vague gesture in his direction was enough to get the gist of it; a quiet corner, Jessamy, and so on and so forth. He was charming to watch; another new realisation. To see someone so exuberant about the little things, or nothing at all, was a bafflement in and of itself but, after what he had learned this evening, it was stunning. To compare their experiences was night and day but there was a thread of correlation there, and nothing good ever came of pitting trauma against trauma. Even so, he could not help now but see that love of life and wonder how .

At Hob’s beckoning gesture he approached, and they were led through the busy restaurant to the furthest section from the door where only the table at its start held patrons. They were seated in a far back corner where the hum of many noises was a bit faded and it would take effort to see who sat there. Even so, Hob took the seat facing out to the restaurant so Morpheus could put his back to any onlookers. Jessamy squawked at the motion of him sitting again and Hob chuckled.

“They know she’s here, you can let her out,” he said, and Morpheus did so much to her pleasure. She hopped from his lap to the seat beside him and fluffed up her feathers in indignation. 

“We’ll have to get her something, she’s hungry,” Morpheus said, smiling fondly down at her.

“Well… It’s a vegan restaurant so by my estimate it's all bird food,” Hob replied dryly, picking up one of the menus left for them, “But I think you’ll like it, look.” He pushed the other menu across the table and Morpheus examined it ruefully.

“It’s all tasting plates,” Hob continued brightly, “So get something for Jessamy, and then as much or as little as you like and if you don’t like, then I’ll eat it. It’s all for the table, yeah?”

Morpheus nodded rather absently as he browsed the menu, his mind more on the meaning of Hob’s words than the actual content. He hadn’t just briefly search the concept and chosen something; he had put actual, serious thought into providing an experience that would be as comfortable as possible given what little he knew about Morpheus’s eating habits. That was far more care than anyone, save perhaps Lucienne and then not even always, had shown him in a very long time - possibly ever, given his track record of dating prior.

“I hope there is something you can like as well,” he said, glancing up at Hob, “but I do appreciate… everything.”

“I cook all sorts of food, frankly, I’ll eat anything as long as it's not moving so, we’re good,” Hob replied with a grin, “Even if I am more of a fish and chips man myself.”

Morpheus turned his attention back to the menu, but he was smiling as well. “How plebeian.” 

“Not all of us were born with a silver spoon, your majesty,” Hob retorted, and when was the last time anyone had teased him? Lucienne was wry at times, but hardly ever at his expense.

“I do not bear that title, lost it in the divorce. I believe you’re looking for my lord or sir ,” Morpheus replied primly, turning the menu over.

“Alright then, my lord,” Hob said, rolling his eyes, “but I am not calling you sir in a bloody restaurant.”

“And in private?”

Hob did not get a chance to respond to that as their waiter had arrived just in time to save him from Morpheus’s idea of flirting. He hadn’t really considered what he wanted, or if he liked anything enough by the written description to want it. At his stammered hesitation at being addressed, Hob cut in quickly and ordered a half dozen tasting plates and a bottle of red to share. Once the young man had left with their order, Hob gave him a truly unnecessary apologetic look.

“I’m sorry, you looked a little lost,” he said quietly, as if Morpheus would be offended at that concept being overheard. He knew exactly what he was, and where his flaws lay.

“I was,” he said simply, looking away, unsure of what else to say. He’d now been thrown off his groove and was unable to grasp at the threads of their previous teasing conversation.

“Right, so, maybe you know the difference. How do they make wine vegan?” Hob asked, reaching for a quick subject change, “Isn’t it by its definition.”

“Don’t you own a pub?” Morpheus replied dryly, “In all technicality I think it is a bit of a misnomer; regardless of whether you swap from traditional fining techniques to vegan compounds, unless you manually inspect every grape there is no guarantee.”

“I think most people, vegan included, don’t like to think too deeply on the idea of stubborn bird shit or the acceptable parts per million ratio of bug bits to berries,” Hob replied, which gave Morpheus the inkling that he had known the answer to his own question after all though Morpheus, in all likelihood, knew more about it than he did. Did he know that Morpheus’s family owned a winery? No, probably not, unless he had changed his mind about googling.

Regardless, it was a subject he could speak about at length without particularly deep thought, and one that Hob was happy enough to indulge in, it seemed. So they talked and argued, and ate, with Morpheus picking at things until he found something he liked. Those he didn’t were either passed to Hob who very much would eat anything, or slipped to Jessamy to console her over her missed supper as she was very much a creature of routine. Eventually Hob ordered a second bottle of wine after some discussion on the list and Morpheus found himself growing relaxed, if not a bit tipsy. Standing up was going to be an adventure, especially considering the situation that had precluded this whole little sojourn. He settled for a glass and a half and let Hob finish the majority of it. If owning a pub was good for one thing, it was clearly alcohol tolerance.

When the waiter brought their cheque some time later, Morpheus plucked it pointedly out of Hob’s hands despite his protestations.

“Nonsense. Absolutely not,” Morpheus replied, waving away his arguments and handing a card to the waiter without looking away from Hob, “After all you’ve done for me today, it is the least I can offer in return.”

“You paid for our last date, since you ordered the groceries,” Hob pointed out, “So it was clearly my turn.”

“Tragic. It appears you will have to take me out again until you are swifter than I at snagging the cheque,” Morpheus said, with a grin that felt a little too wide. He was more than a little tipsy. A lot tipsy, or perhaps just plain drunk.

“Just let me pull my weight here, if you would,” Hob said with a laugh, “Or else I’ll have no choice but to start getting you gifts.”

“Robert Gadling, I have more money than god and far less sense, I will be paying for our dates,” he replied with a smirk, “It is on you to get us home, however. Therein lies your contribution.”

At that sudden reminder, Hob pulled out his phone to request an Uber. Since they were in a bit more trendy of an area than the New Inn, the response was almost immediate and they headed outside as soon as Morpheus got his card back. The night had grown even colder, and Hob stood close to him, blocking the wind. It was a good thing for more reasons than one, as Morpheus had felt quite decent getting up and leaving the restaurant but now that he had stopped moving his head spun and he was reasonably certain he would fall down if asked to do anything more complex than stumble into a car.

Hob gave him a worried look as he joined him in the back of the Uber and Morpheus shook his head, trying not to laugh at his obvious concern. Jessamy made a croaking noise at the motion of his silent laughter and he shushed her, glancing up to the front seat where the driver didn’t seem to have noticed.

“I am fine, Hob. I just do not… imbibe like that, anymore,” he said sheepishly. That and he’d given a goodly portion of blood to a variety of tests this morning, and been feeling a bit poorly. Shockingly though he felt fine, besides a bit lightheaded and breathless. Mostly he felt alive in a way he had not in quite some time - unduly bolstered with confidence brought about by doing the simplest of normal things, and that just barely. Somehow he managed to feel both good about himself and that he was pathetic for feeling so at the same time.

“I should have considered that before the second bottle, sorry,” Hob said and this time it was he who reached for Morpheus’s hand.

“It’s not like you forced it on me,” he replied, leaning his head back against the seat and slouching more comfortably, “I am a little dizzy, but fine.”

That seemed to be enough to assuage Hob’s guilt, or worry, or whatever it was and they rode comfortably in silence - Hob looking out the window at the city as it passed and Morpheus mostly with his eyes shut and mind very far away. He hadn’t thought to consider their destination; somehow he had expected to drop Hob off at his inn and then continue on further to his own home. So as the car listed to the edge of the road and slowed, he was a little confused to open his eyes and see his own darkened entryway. It made sense, of course; Hob was unduly concerned about his wellbeing - in both the immediate and general sense. It was endearing, if perhaps also a bit patronising although he was certain it was not meant as such.

As the car came to a stop he sighed softly, then gave Hob a searching look. “Would you like to come in?” he asked hopefully. He had a feeling Hob was the type to have something to say about his drunken state over the possibility of anything happening between them, but it was worth a try.

“Sure,” Hob said eventually, his rather lacklustre response improved greatly by his charming grin, “for a little while at least.”

Morpheus exited the car and, followed by Hob, proceeded through his rather overzealous security measures. Key fob and fingerprint for door number one, face ID for door number two, and then they were turning the corner from entryway to the main loft space to find that the lights were already on and they were not alone.

Chapter Text

Lucienne was perched on the arm of the sofa, brow furrowed and glaring at her phone, but looked up immediately upon their entry. The look of relief on her face was nearly palpable.

“Sir! Where were you?” she said, dropping her phone on the sofa and standing up immediately. At the sound of her voice Jessamy squawked and flew over, landing on the back of the sofa and bobbing her head at Lucienne who was her second favourite person, although that might change with Hob now in the running.

“You can’t just disappear, I was about an hour off calling the police!” she continued, crossing her arms, “You had an appointment almost twelve hours ago! What was I supposed to think about this, Morpheus.”

He clenched his jaw and glared at her defiantly. “You have no say over where I go and what I do with my time, Lucienne,” he said in a low, warning voice that seemed to throw her off her rant for a moment. She recovered quickly.

“Except that I very much do, if you’re a danger to yourself.”

“I was having supper, with Robert,” Morpheus replied, gesturing him forward although Hob quite frankly wanted nothing to do with this conversation. He gave her a little awkward wave, deeply regretting having agreed to come inside.

Lucienne nodded to him, and he smiled tightly and watched the dawning realisation on her face that she had pretty much just cockblocked her boss - which likely had a lot to do with the immediately snappish response from Morpheus in place of a meek apology.

“I am allowed to live my life.”

“Yes, yes you are but you need to tell me! I have no way of contacting you, just scrolling twitter and hoping someone spotted Jessamy, what am I supposed to think when you go see Dr Heron and then don’t come home ,” Lucienne said sharply.

When Morpheus replied to her in a deep, angry voice that Hob had not imagined he could summon, he had abandoned English for a language he correctly assumed Hob wouldn’t understand. It sounded like German but a little… off, although maybe that was just Morpheus’s indignation coming through. Lucienne shot back at him in the same language, only slightly more composed, probably because she had a job to protect.

Jessamy squawked and leapt from the couch in a flurry of feathers, startled by the argument, to come land on Hob’s arm, having not gotten quite enough height to land on his shoulder. He raised his arm to aid her clawing her way up, where she started preening his hair like she had done for Morpheus when he was upset. He wasn't upset, that was, just feeling quite awkward and desperately wishing to be somewhere other than spectating a row between his boyfriend and his boyfriend’s… assistant? Guardian? That was a point they should probably clarify, eventually. He couldn’t just walk out and leave; it wasn’t as if he could just text Morpheus an apology later - they’d both be left hanging. Plus he had a startled Jessamy on his hands now.

“I told you it wasn’t going to fucking happen again!” Morpheus growled at her, which dragged Hob’s awareness painfully back to the present with words he could understand but would rather not listen to. His mental concept of Morpheus had not included this puffed up, dangerously angry version as a possibility.

“I’ve heard that before,” Lucienne scoffed, shaking her head. She held up a hand to him, and took a deep breath. When she spoke again she still sounded heated but more upset than angry. “You sent Reggie off, how were you planning to get home? I gave you five hours before I started calling hospitals and wondering if you were just so gone in your head you lost track of time, or if we’d be dredging your body out of the fucking Thames.”

That seemed to cow Morpheus for a moment, his expression twisted into something painful. “Maybe I’ll try that so we can get back on the bestsellers list,” he said scathingly, then sighed as if realising what a horrible thing that was to say, “I’m fine. I was fine. Go home Luci, please, just go.”

“I don’t think you should be alone, like this,” she said awkwardly, looking him up and down. Morpheus was fairly shaking whether with rage or stress or simply still feeling poorly was yet to be seen.

“I’m not alone. I wasn’t, this whole time,” he replied with a little laugh that sounded almost manic and certainly didn’t help his case, “I can handle myself, and my life. Your care is appreciated, your meddling is not. Go.”

Lucienne took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment, composing herself. Hob had the feeling this was not the first time they’d had this sort of argument. She nodded slightly, grabbed her phone and suit coat off the sofa. “We’ll talk about this in the morning… afternoon,” she amended, noting Hob still standing there with a rather upset Jessamy on his shoulder, “I was scared for you, Morpheus.”

“I know,” was all he said in reply, brushing past her to go sit on the sofa, “Tomorrow, I promise.”

Lucienne hesitated in leaving, and Hob was pretty sure of her wordless plea to him as she passed and put a hand on his shoulder. He’d stay, albeit for a different reason than before. Jessamy flew off his shoulder and glided as best as possible to the sofa, landing on the floor and hopping the rest of the way until Morpheus scooped her up and held her close.

Hob came over and sat beside Morpheus, unsure if touching him was a wise choice at the moment - so he didn’t. He just sat and observed. Morpheus looked a lot like he had when Hob had first approached him on campus; red eyed and on the verge of tears - a stark contrast to the smiling, flirting man he’d gone to dinner with.

“Are you alright?” Hob asked gently. 

Morpheus laughed hoarsely. “Do I look alright?”

“No, but I don’t know if you want to talk about it, or want a hug, or just want me to leave,” Hob replied, “Or… Your hands are shaking; is there something you take when you’re this stressed out?”

“Not with the amount of alcohol I’ve drunk,” Morpheus said quietly, “I would prefer if you don’t go, yet… Please.”

“As long as you like, love,” Hob replied, the endearment slipping out before he could stop himself. Ideally Morpheus was too upset to either notice, or linger on it if he had. He reached over and carefully started rubbing soothing circles over Morpheus’s hunched back. Between him and Jessamy’s quiet croaking, they’d set him to rights eventually.

They sat that way in silence, broken only by Jessamy’s annoyed noises whenever Morpheus stopped petting her, for the better part of half an hour before Hob finally spoke.

“How about you tell me where Jessamy’s food is so I can handle that, and you go change or wash up or whatever you normally do when you get home and want to be comfortable,” he said softly, “And then we can talk.”

“I don’t want to talk,” Morpheus replied, still steadfastly staring at the floor.

“Alright then we can sit here in silence, brooding. The food?” Hob said, squeezing Morpheus’s shoulder in recompense for no longer rubbing his back now that he was getting up.

“There are boiled eggs in the refrigerator door, food pellets in the green jar on the counter. One egg, a small handful of food, she’ll be good through morning,” he said, coaxing Jessamy onto his hand and then holding her out to Hob. She happily fluttered between them and climbed up to Hob’s shoulder. That at least managed to pull a wan smile out of Morpheus as he got up and trudged away to do… whatever it was he was going to do that wasn’t sitting on the sofa feeling sorry for himself. A few minutes later he heard the distant sound of a shower turning on. That was probably good; Morpheus had still felt a bit chilled.

Putting Jessamy’s food on a plate felt weird, but the counter alone felt messy, so he eventually settled on one of the wood cutting boards and that seemed to satisfy her well enough - even if he felt a little odd about feeding hard boiled eggs to a bird. Maybe it wasn’t quite cannibalism if they were from a chicken.

With Jessamy seen to, he returned to the sofa and checked his phone to see a text from an unknown number - swiftly revealed to be Lucienne’s personal phone, rather than the number she used for Morpheus. He sent her a quick reply assuring her that Morpheus was fine, which he didn’t know the truth of but he had every intent of making it so before he left, and he would look after him. He received a curt thank you in reply after watching the bouncing dots of someone typing for an inordinate period of time. Whatever she had been considering saying, she had clearly thought better of. He sighed and turned his ringer off, then set the phone on the coffee table. Thankfully with tomorrow being Sunday he had nowhere to be, and nothing to do except some marking that could certainly wait.

Morpheus emerged from a back room that Hob hadn’t previously known existed a few minutes later with damp, messy hair and dressed in black pyjama bottoms and a vest top that showed he was more fit than Hob had even assumed. Still deathly skinny, though. That needed sorting. He flopped gracelessly on one side of the L-shaped sofa, and turned his head to the side to watch Hob.

“I don’t need you to stay,” he said apologetically, “This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind and you should not have witnessed that.”

“Well… What you had in mind wasn’t happening either,” was Hob’s wry reply, “You’re still drunk, on top of whatever you’re on that has you a bit out of it from drinking.”

“Antidepressants,” Morpheus retorted sharply, “And antipsychotics because it was the only thing that helped the paranoia, and valium, because why not, at that point. Plus a handful of other things for my body. Are you happy now?”

Hob sighed and, after hesitating for a moment, he got up to sit directly beside Morpheus. “I wasn’t asking for a list and I’m not judging. I just want to understand,” Hob said, “Throwing it at me like a weapon is only going to hurt your own feelings, so don’t.”

Morpheus said nothing for a long moment, then sat up and pulled his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. “My sister is on her way home from Uganda, Lucienne called her first and she’s already on a flight,” Morpheus said eventually, “She’s with Doctors Without Borders… She will be stressed the entire way for nothing, then be cross with me for worrying Lucienne.”

“You didn’t know that would happen, it’ll be alright,” Hob replied quietly, slipping an arm around Morpheus’s skinny shoulders. He was surprised at how quickly the other man melted into him; another reminder how very desperately he needed someone, anyone, to do more than hold him at arm's length.

“No, I knew how she would react if I were missing; I did not know Reggie, my driver, would tattle on me like I’m a child,” Morpheus muttered, a hint of that anger showing again for a moment before sadness overwhelmed it again, “She should not have even known until I told her about going out and, and doing things, like a normal person. She should have been proud of me… I thought she trusted me more than this.”

Hob didn’t know quite what to say to that. From what little of the argument was in English, he got the impression there was a reason for that lack of trust - even if it was far enough away in Morpheus’s eyes to be no longer relevant, not so for Lucienne.

“Has she not talked to you about going out? You said your therapist suggested it,” Hob asked after the pause grew long enough he didn’t think Morpheus would fill the silence without prompting.

“Yes, however, I do not go out like I did today; for hours on end. I go down the street to get coffee, around the corner for fresh flowers for something to draw that isn’t from my mind, and that’s it, mostly, besides work,” Morpheus replied.

“So what she said, about… calling the hospitals and that,” Hob said, not bringing himself to repeat the rest of the exclamation, “There’s precedent?” It was a touchy subject at the best of times but Lucienne had him worried, now. In their relatively brief acquaintance, or relationship, Morpheus had said a few things that had put him on edge. It was understandable of course; Hob couldn’t begin to imagine how he himself would have fared had he went through what Morpheus had. After the loss of his wife and son, he’d had enough intrusive thoughts of joining them to not judge.

“Yes,” Morpheus said, sitting up a bit straighter and looking around for Jessamy, but she was still in the kitchen tearing apart her supper and would be of no help right now.

“Recently?” Hob prompted, trying to catch his eye but Morpheus just stared back down at his slightly shaking hands.

Hob pulled him tighter against his chest, exchanging the one-armed embrace for a full hug. Morpheus was hesitant to express anything he wanted but he was pretty clear on his dislikes or what was too much; if this wasn't what he wanted, Hob would find out quickly enough to let him go. He didn’t complain. It was a rather awkward position so Hob ended up leaning back against the ample amount of throw pillows, half lying on the couch one foot still on the floor, and dragging a rather limp boyfriend with him.  Morpheus seemed more than happy to lie on him; cheek resting on Hob’s chest and one hand clenching a handful of his jumper like his life depended on it.

“About a year ago, perhaps a little more,” Morpheus replied eventually, voice a little muffled against Hob’s chest, “Not for several years, before that.”

“That’s probably why she panicked tonight, if the last attempt seemingly came from nowhere,” Hob said, and began rubbing his back again.

“I did not attempt suicide; I did it properly, I can do maths better than to fail at it,” Morpheus retorted sharply, prickly again at the subject he didn’t wish to discuss but knew better than to obfuscate, “I only did not succeed because my sister knew where in Hyde Park I liked to go watch the ducks, before… everything. She told Lucienne, who called 999 and hurried there herself.”

“Fuck…” Hob whispered, reacting before he could stop himself. Morpheus tensed against him, and Hob held him a little tighter for a moment, “I know you don’t want to hear it, but I get where Lucienne is coming from, then. You saw your doctor, told your driver you won’t be needing a ride, and left him for a walk in the park. If I were him and had that context, I’d have called her too.”

“It has been over a year, I’m better now,” Morpheus said fiercely, but his voice broke on the words, “I’ve come to terms with things since then.”

Hob didn’t say anything for a long while, just held him close and rubbed his back, then let his hand stray up to start carding through his still-damp hair instead, which Morpheus seemed to like better, judging by the little noise he made at it. 

“You don’t need to answer if it’s too much,” Hob said quietly, “But you said you were fine for years prior; what happened to change that?”

“Nothing,” Morpheus murmured, “Literally nothing. At first I wished to die because I couldn’t imagine healing, but I did - I grew stronger in leaps and bounds, I went from wanting to scratch my skin off at the feeling of clothes to dressing how I had before, stopped having panic attacks on elevators. I wanted to live; but then it slowed, then stopped, and I realised that this was me, now. The old me no longer existed, I could never go back and I would never grow to be that man again. I hate what I have become; what joy is there in this?”

“The joy is in the value of who you are now,” Hob replied after he let that all sink in for a while, “You were always going to be different in your early thirties than your early twenties; you were taken before your brain was even done developing. How much you changed is obviously much more drastic than most, and not all of it good, but you were always going to change. I hate the road you travelled to get here, but I like who you’ve become, very much.”

“That makes one of us,” Morpheus muttered.

“ My truest question in darkest depths; whether the shadows are part of me, or if I am the light which casts them,” Hob replied quietly.

“Do not quote my own poetry to me, Robert,” Morpheus said with a disgruntled huff, “That was for your personal introspection.”

“Maybe, but I think you’re the light. The more you know, the more you heal, the more you can see what lies in those shadows - you’ve learned the tools to understand your trauma better, so it hurts more, with context,” Hob explained, “But that’s a step towards healing in itself, even if it’s slow and incremental.”

“It’s nonexistent.”

“Untrue. Be kind to yourself,” Hob said softly, “Every moment we have spent together has been a foray into things you haven’t tried in years, since you were a different man. He’s still there, you just need to let him out and be who he is now, not who he was.”

Morpheus had no response to that, and nothing Hob had to say on the matter would help. He had more questions and more suppositions and he saw Lucienne's point of view far better than he would like to. Thinking that Morpheus had run off for the same reasons again; spurred quite possibly from trying to step out into the world, into dating, and by his mind failing at it was no stretch of the imagination at all. The man clearly did not see his achievements in the same light as Hob did.

“Will you stay?” Morpheus asked eventually, raising his head a little to look at Hob.

“Yeah… I don’t think you should be alone right now,” Hob replied and, at Morpheus’s stormy look added, “Not like that! You’re upset and you need a friend, not your grumpy self-deprecation.”

“Just a friend?”

“I don’t think I’d like to taint the declaration of anything more with this miserable conversation,” was Hob’s frank reply as he smiled down at him, “And I think you know better than to need to ask that question.”

“I’m afraid my devious plans were well and truly spoiled,” Morpheus grumbled, laying his head back on Hob’s chest and finally releasing his death-grip on Hob’s shirt to wrap that arm snugly around him instead. This was clearly a good enough consolation prize for the moment.

“Indeed, but I’m still here, aren’t I?” Hob asked, holding him a little closer, “There were some things I needed to know if we’re going to keep doing this, and it's better that it’s out in the open so I know what to look for. I also learned something I did not expect.”

“Oh, and what might that be?” Morpheus murmured.

“Your voice is even deeper in German,” Hob replied with a laugh, “I like it.”

“Hm, then you should try me in French,” Morpheus said, amusement replacing his earlier combativeness now. Hopefully all his indignation and self-loathing was out, for the moment. They could still salvage the evening, such as it was.

This time when Morpheus awoke having slept on his sofa and sat up bleary-eyed and hungover, Hob was still there - in the kitchen having a lively if one-way conversation with Jessamy. Hob had awoken long before Morpheus and significantly less hungover, carefully extricated himself from the sleeping crutches of his boyfriend, and instantly regretted actually falling asleep for the night in such an uncomfortable position. Morpheus managed to soundly sleep right through a pillow being substituted for Hob, and being wrapped in a blanket.

He’d liberated some tea after only searching three cabinets, but thankfully the kettle had been readily apparent. Jessamy was now sitting on the counter occasionally crowing at him with a hoarse little squawk despite his unsuccessful attempts at shushing her. He stopped trying now that Morpheus was awake, for a given value of the word, at least. It was hard to tell if he was disoriented or if that was just how he looked when he got up. Hob got one answer out of it, at least; that very much was how Morpheus’s hair looked with no effort.

“I don’t know what she wants, there’s still food on the counter,” Hob said sheepishly as Morpheus sleepily made his way over to the raised dining area and trudged to the table where he sat down heavily and slumped in his chair. Definitely not a morning person.

“That is no reason not to want more, for her,” Morpheus replied, his voice hoarse from sleep, and Jessamy made the same noise again as if punctuating his words. “Corvids have a specific call for every member of their family unit and other creatures, generally human, that are allied to them. I think that’s yours; I’ve only heard it recently.”

“Wow… that sounds more serious than ‘boyfriend’,” Hob said with a little laugh, “I guess I passed the test.” He got up to fetch a second cup of tea and squeezed Morpheus’s shoulder in passing, heartened a little by the immediate grin he got in return. The darker conversations of the previous night had not done too much damage then, it seemed.

“Do you want some?” Hob asked, already reaching for a second mug as he looked over his shoulder - then nearly dropped it upon finding Morpheus had sneaked up on him. The other man laughed and took it from him, setting it carefully down on the counter. There was a curious look in his eyes that Hob had not seen before.

“Yes, I do,” he said, his smirk the only warning before he pulled Hob in for a desperate kiss. The only fair answer to that was to kiss him back.

Chapter Text

Even though Hob had no expectation of seeing Morpheus again until Friday, or even hearing from him given his disdain for being perceived via any means but visual, he began his week with a spring in his step and a mood good enough that his colleagues commented on it. More than once. That and reading week was approaching, which Hob intended to use not for research as he normally did, but for getting to know his boyfriend better. In more ways than one. Morpheus was reluctant to ask for anything, affection or intimacy not least on that list, but he was pushing in his own way. Hob still took a little issue with the concept of sleeping with someone who he had both known for a matter of weeks, and with whom most conversations had been about the unyielding trauma shaping every part of his life. Mostly the latter, with a sprinkling of the former.

He did shoot a text off to Lucienne on Monday morning between classes, just to let her know without getting too deep into it that he understood her side of what had gone down on the weekend. She was doing her best and regardless of their argument, it was clear she and Morpheus cared deeply about each other as friends first before their business relationship. The last thing he wanted to do was alienate her, by any means. She was quick to reply, and let him know a vague run down of Morpheus’s schedule for the week which was more packed than the man had put into words. That was followed up with a So, you see he may need your support this week, if you have the time. Of course he had the time, it was hunting down Morpheus’s whereabouts that was the issue.

So given all that had transpired, and what he learned from Lucienne, it was a surprise to find Morpheus, and Jessamy, waiting in the hall outside his office on Wednesday afternoon. He was just holding the door for a student who had come by for guidance on her midterm studies, and there he was; waiting like he was another student who needed help. Morpheus definitely looked like he needed a pep talk for more than the young woman had - his eyes were red and he had his arms wrapped around himself tightly. It was unclear how long he’d been waiting, Hob had been wrapped up in the finer points of the lecture that hadn’t been in the textbook and they’d chatted for a good forty-five minutes before she had to head off to class.

“I need to ask a favour of you,” Morpheus said without preamble.

“Yeah… anything,” Hob said, guiding him by the arm into his office when Morpheus didn’t show any propensity for movement. 

Even there he just stood a few steps from the doorway looking lost and more than a little distant. Hob did the only thing he could think of, which was to pull him into a tight embrace which Morpheus did not return as he still had his own arms wrapped around himself, now beneath Hob’s grasp. Jessamy took the opportunity to transfer shoulders and bobbed her head in Hob’s peripheral vision before letting out a joyous squawk, the same call they had noted over the weekend. Morpheus gave a harsh, breathy laugh and Hob let him go reluctantly.

“What can I do to help?” he asked, skipping right past the standard ‘are you alright’, as every time he asked that he got a snippy little response. Point taken; Morpheus was never alright.

“I want you to come to a gala with me. This weekend,” Morpheus said quickly, “It’s… It’s a big event. I can’t bring Jessamy, Lucienne can’t accompany me and I have no choice but to attend.”

“Of course,” Hob replied with a smile. He offered Jessamy his hand, which she hopped on to, and transferred her back to Morpheus’s shoulder - the other man needed her presence far more than he did right now.

“I have no right to ask it of you, I know it’s a lot,” Morpheus said, as if he had practised this little speech already and Hob’s immediate answer hadn’t quite sunk in yet, “It won’t be fun, and I’m sorry I can’t… be normal.”

“I said I’d go,” Hob said softly, sitting on the edge of his desk and watching Morpheus with concern. He had only ever seen him this obviously distressed at the loss of Jessamy. Even regaling Hob with the stories of his abduction and trauma had led to a soft, quiet sort of distance rather than this edge of panic. “Sit down, breathe, and then explain what this is about. Office hours are over, I have…. About forty minutes until my next class, we have time.”

Morpheus nodded and did as he was bade, collapsing into the chair opposite the desk and looking down at the floor for a few minutes in silence as he had been in the hallway. His eyes looked very far away, almost enough to cause concern. He’d told Hob a little about his rather singular coping mechanism, so he thought he knew what was going on, but didn’t know whether it was best to break him out of the dissociation or wait for him to come back on his own.

Eventually he did leave his spot at the desk to come over and crouch down in front of Morpheus. Hob rested his hands on the other man’s knees and tried to catch his eye. Eventually he was successful, and smiled up at him.

“You good?”

“Yes, I will be fine,” Morpheus replied, sitting up a little straighter and taking a deep, centering breath. Hob went back to sitting on the edge of the desk.

“I still am invited to any number of society events as they know I will simply send a cheque for their cause of choice and not trouble them with my presence,” Morpheus began, his voice much calmer now and falling into the familiar cadence in which he told all of his stories, “This in particular is my father’s cause célèbre, and a good one; resources for displaced children so that they may catch up to their peers to attend university. This institution works with them, in fact… Normally he attends and it is the one time per year that I am… graced with his presence in this country.”

Morpheus sighed and looked away, out the window at the grey autumn sky. “He cannot go and he demanded, through his solicitor, that I attend in his stead as he has chosen to make it his tax write-off of choice,” Morpheus said rather scathingly, “I don’t… I don’t really need my trust fund, or land, or anything else I get from the family these days to support my meagre existence, but I worry if I took the alternative to be cut off then I would find I did again need extensive private medical care, or any number of things for which a large sum on hand is required.”

“Wait, wait… he threatened to fucking disown you over not going to a party?” Hob asked incredulously, cutting him off. He doubted he’d ever have the chance to meet Morpheus’s father, but he sounded like a complete prick.

“Yes,” Morpheus said simply, as if this were a normal thing for him, “I have access to a smaller fund through my mother’s family, but full access to my funds and control of the properties bequeathed to me as his heir do not fall entirely into my hands, rather than that of he and his trustee, until I turn thirty-five. It’s quite complicated, so he has another year and a half to divest me of my interest in the family’s holdings if I don’t, and I quote; ‘get my shit together’.”

“That’s cruel, and he’s knobhead,” Hob retorted; Morpheus was going to get his true feelings on the matter whether he wanted them or not.

That startled an amused huff out of Morpheus. “Oh, of that I am well aware,” he replied, “He has been very lenient in this, he has given me time aplenty and it is on me that I have failed him at every turn. I am happy enough that he has seemed to come to terms with my sexuality and accept that after his titles pass to me, they’ll pass to the as-yet-hypothetical children of one of my younger siblings.”

“Forgive me if this sounds daft, I don’t know how your system works, I hardly get the British peerage either,” Hob began, “But couldn’t he just make one of them his heir without disinheriting you from… all the assets?”

“He could, but he will not,” Morpheus said with a sigh, “This is not the manner I came to discuss, and I have had tedious words on it for the past six hours with his solicitor so I would frankly rather not.”

“Right, sorry.”

“Don’t be, I know it sounds daft to anyone who didn’t grow up as I did,” Morpheus said, waving away his apology with a rather imperious gesture that more than reinforced his words, much to Hob’s stifled amusement, “I always donate to this event as well and, with our funds combined we intend to fund their endowment for the year - so father was supposed to give a speech, and he is indisposed.”

“Fuck, that’s even worse,” Hob replied, then paused and added, “If you don’t mind, can I ask how much that is?”

Morpheus raised an eyebrow at him. “Fifteen-point-five million pounds.”

Hob’s wide-eyed face was clearly exactly what he had been expecting, and he gave a wry grin at his shock. 

“It is for a good cause,” Morpheus continued, “The point being; I cannot do this alone. Lucienne is… Everyone knows she’s my babysitter; to bring her would not be the face that I should show. You’re a professor at a well-respected university that gives consideration to the students the fund benefits; bringing you makes sense.”

“I already said I’d go,” Hob said reassuringly, “The context matters in that I’m concerned for you - but you do realise you’ve basically just asked me on a date, why would I say no to that?”

Morpheus looked away from him again and picked at some fuzz on the cuff of his coat as if it offended him for not being as black as the rest of his outfit. Hob just waited, watching him. He was starting to figure out when Morpheus’s silence was gathering thoughts, or quieting his mind, to speak and when it was lapsing into true silence.

“Because everyone will know,” he replied eventually, his voice soft, “I don’t go to these because everyone knows what happened to me. The paparazzi are vicious in ways you cannot imagine and high society is full of sharks that smell the slightest hint of blood in the water. They know everything that happened to me… They saw me at my worst, and before. I know, and you know now, that my infidelity was not truly that, but they don’t care about the truth even though Calliope has said as much. I am high profile for being a gay disaster who hooked up with enough men that eventually one of them kidnapped me. No amount of money will buy me a new reputation to that crowd of gossipers.”

“I don’t give a shit about your reputation,” Hob said, his anger at the mere idea that anyone could look down on Morpheus bled through into his tone, “Or mine, for being associated with you. I get that that your level of social hell is still backwards about things, but normal people don’t care if you’re gay, and they certainly don’t blame your getting kidnapped on it.”

Morpheus let out a sound that was something between a laugh and a sob and shook his head. “I know that, but I cannot be around crowds at the best of times. You saw me at the pub,” he said, making a rather scrunched face with his lips pressed together as if he were doing his best not to cry, “It isn’t about losing the money, it’s… about failing, at everything. I have to go, I have to make it through, and if you come with me then you’re going to pay a price for it.”

That was enough for Hob to see and sit idly by. He came over again and knelt on one knee by the side of the chair. It was an extremely awkward position but he wasn’t about to make the other man get up for a hug. Morpheus fell against him easily, resting his head on Hob’s shoulder since he was slightly shorter like this.

“Can you explain that for me, love?” Hob said softly, “The price, I mean.”

“You’re going to end up all over society pages as my boyfriend. It’s a big enough thing that I am out at an event before adding a partner to the mix. The media has no shame; they’ll find you on campus, at the pub, everywhere you go and your pictures will be everywhere linked to me because I’m harder to track down and you’re easy prey,” Morpheus replied, his voice muffled against Hob’s shoulder, “I should not ask you to do this… not yet, at least. I feel like I’ve known you forever but… I understand that I form attachments in ways that I should not.”

At the very least, some of the concepts of therapy had sunk into him over the years. Hob held him tighter and a now-frantic Jessamy hopped onto his shoulder again since Morpheus was leaning forward, much to her annoyance.

“Look, I said I don’t care about my reputation and I don’t. Dating you isn’t something that could harm my standing with the university and at most, the Inn will get more business,” Hob said reassuringly, “I can put up with some bullshit if it makes you happy in the end. It hasn’t been that long, but I hope you do realise that I am not with you out of some twisted sense of obligation. You are a sweet, intelligent, and remarkably empathetic man with an amazing gift for telling stories. Not to mention you’re devilishly handsome.”

That won him a choked little laugh again, and Hob smiled even though the other man couldn’t see it. “You made your baggage clear from the start, you showed me who you are,” Hob continued, “I made the conscious choice to go forward instead of stepping back to be merely friends. It would have been a disservice to make the choice I had if I wasn’t prepared for some things to be difficult. I’ve been at rock bottom, grabbed a shovel and started digging; at this point in my life I’m just looking for baggage that goes with mine.”

Morpheus apparently had nothing to say to that, he just finally relaxed a little bit and returned Hob’s hug, albeit a little awkwardly given their relative positions. Hob heard a quiet sniffle and didn’t try to let him go; tearing up seemed to upset Morpheus more than any verbal exploration of his feelings and he thought that he would rather Hob didn’t see his face until he was more composed. So he just held him for a while until his awkward kneeling position became too uncomfortable to maintain and he shifted with a sharp intake of breath. 

Morpheus immediately let him go and drew back. “I’m sorry, that doesn’t look comfortable,” he said, ducking his head slightly and confirming Hob’s suspicions. He was beautiful when he smiled, and still beautiful through his tears, but Morpheus had a strong preference for only being seen in serene composure.

“It’s really not,” Hob said wryly as he stood up and arched his back in a stretch.

“So, this gala… when and where and what do I need to do,” he continued, resuming his casual position leaning against his desk.

“Do you own a tux?” Morpheus asked curiously.

Hob gestured vaguely at himself; currently wearing old jeans that had seen better days and a band tee under his well-worn bomber jacket. “Do I look like a man who would?” he replied.

That brought a look of amused acceptance to Morpheus’s face, which was an improvement on tears and self-focused disgust. “What are you roughly… thirty-eight chest?” he asked, looking Hob up and down in a very calculated way.

“Uh… last time I bought a blazer, yes,” Hob replied.

“Wonderful. Come over early Saturday afternoon and I will have my tailor meet us with your tux; he will do all necessary adjustments while we wait,” Morpheus said, starting to sound a little excited now despite his apprehension, “And you may also meet my sister, if she is still in town.”

Hob had very nearly forgotten about that part of the whole situation. “Oh yeah, how did that turn out? I hope she wasn’t too angry with you,” Hob asked curiously.

“She was relieved it was a misunderstanding and she called me a brainless git,” Morpheus answered primly, “Which is about as good an outcome as may be expected.”

“I’m not entirely convinced she’s wrong,” Hob said teasingly, grinning at Morpheus and doing his best to continue to lighten the mood. No doubt he fully realised what Hob was getting at; despite all appearances he was not a brainless git, but was happy enough to go along with it for the moment. 

“Neither am I,” Morpheus said, before hauling himself to his feet. He wiped at the stray tears drying on his cheek with the back of his hand and sighed. “I think I am headed home to rest now… Thank you for listening.”

Hob took the opportunity now that Morpheus was standing to hug him properly again, which the other man was more than happy to accept. He didn’t linger, not wanting to delay Morpheus any further - that he admitted he needed rest most likely meant he was not emotionally stable enough to keep chatting for much longer. Best to avoid him feeling embarrassed, if at all possible.

“Every story you tell me is one less thing you need to carry alone. Eventually you’ll stand up and realise you’re not bowed under the weight of it anymore, and see how much you have to live for,” Hob replied, then leaned in to steal a quick kiss, “Don’t keep your driver waiting. I gotta go try to instil a love of history in some freshers who’d rather be anywhere else.”

He watched Morpheus leave, with Jessamy relaxed on his shoulder again and smiled. Hob was reasonably certain he was in love with him despite… everything. It was heavy, and sometimes exhausting, but it still felt worth it. Maybe he was going mad, but if that was the case he was completely alright with that. Although, he did make a mental note to call up the office of the therapist he hadn’t spoken to in a couple of years. He’d been a great help in Hob’s worst times; and he felt like a bit of a hypocrite preaching to Morpheus when he’d rather stopped working on himself. It was time to remedy that so he didn’t stumble away from being the port in a storm that Morpheus needed.

Chapter Text

Hob didn’t hear from Morpheus again for the rest of the week, but he did hear from Lucienne. Nothing particularly interesting, and nothing dire, which was a relief because he felt a pang of anxiety every time he was teaching and saw her name pop up on his phone’s lock screen as he passed the podium. Thankfully it had consistently been something like ‘ Sorry to bother you, but what’s your shoe size?’ followed the next day by ‘The tailor needs to know your inseam’ and a good half a dozen other clothing related questions. He did feel a little bit guilty about Morpheus spending god knows how much on an outfit for the gala for him, but it wasn’t about his own appearance really; it was about Morpheus making a good impression. In a way, it was like his re-debut to society. Of course, the part of him that didn’t feel guilty rationalised that if Morpheus could manage to pay a goodly portion of an eighteen million pound endowment out of pocket then the suit was not even pocket change. Here he was feeling that he was wealthy after inheriting the pub and all of Eleanor’s Uncle Harry’s wealth, but that felt laughable in comparison.

Morpheus had bowed out of their vague Friday plans, as they would be seeing each other from Saturday brunch onwards, and he wished to spend time with his sister. An extremely valid pursuit, of course, if a little awkward when relayed through Lucienne. Hob spent his Friday instead working from home on his current research paper, which was in the final stages of editing after review, although he still felt it was a bit crap. Then, he always felt that about his own work, which brought his mind back around to wondering how Morpheus felt about his work. Did he have the same sort of imposter syndrome about prose? Or was that perhaps different, as there was no one who could definitively tell him that the product of his imagination was incorrect, or his suppositions unfounded? That brought him around, again, to wishing he had an easier means of contacting the man.

For casual dating, a plan to meet up on a certain day and hang out was fine, for what it was. Now though they were definitely hurtling towards something more serious; especially as after tomorrow the whole world was going to know about him. Or at least the ones who cared about celebrity gossip. In Hob’s opinion, that was well past the point where he needed a means to reach out to him that would actually reach him. Morpheus had admitted to sometimes checking his email, but the possibility that he might do so after his zoom sessions with his therapist if he were feeling particularly social at that specific moment was… tenuous at best.

That was how Hob found himself at the wireless store picking out a phone for his technophobe boyfriend and adding it as another line to his mobile plan. Easy enough. The hard part was the several hours he spent watching YouTube videos trying to figure out how to customise the damn thing. Hob himself liked to keep up with the trends, and the newest, shiniest phone was something he splurged on every year or so. He liked to use them as intended; stripping away all the functionality, options, and app icons for someone who had a very defined aesthetic taste and a disgust for technology was something else entirely. 

Eventually he did figure it out and was quite pleased with the results. He’d put a simplistic set of white icons on a dark galaxy photo for a background and removed, or hidden out of easy reach of someone who rarely used a phone at all, everything but the text message, call, and camera buttons. All that the contacts held was his number, Lucienne’s, and Morpheus’s business phone as a second way to reach Lucienne. He didn’t know if there was anyone else, maybe the mysterious sister, but they could address that later. The singular thing he added to it was Spotify, linked to his own account, in case Morpheus wanted something to break up the silence of his cavernous flat. He was either going to love it for the effort or hate it for the concept.

Late Saturday morning, Hob stuffed the phone and its charger at the bottom of his messenger bag to await the right moment to offer it - the last thing he wanted to do was offend Morpheus, or seem overbearing, like he was forcing on him the one thing that he studiously avoided. The moment would come up eventually; if not today, then it could wait.

He took the tube as near as possible and walked the rest of the way to Morpheus’s flat. This was the first time he’d seen it during full daylight, and it was a nicer neighbourhood than he’d given it credit for. Unsurprising, really, but the old industrial buildings had a rustic, rundown air that was a benefit to their aesthetic in the daytime but felt a little sketchy after dark. Now it was full of joggers and dog walkers and people traversing in and out of any number of gentrified little shops. The building across the street was the twin of the one Morpheus had to himself: The original development plan, concierge and all. Given what he now knew of the Aeternus family wealth, he did wonder how much it cost to purchase this much prime real estate in this area of London purely for personal use.

Hob had also never had to get into Dream’s flat, if it could even be called that, without the man himself. He didn’t see a buzzer anywhere, which honestly was on brand; Morpheus probably didn’t want anyone able to bother him without permission. Eventually the first door unlocked for him with a chime, and he stepped into the entryway. He’d never seen a monitor anywhere in the flat, but clearly Dream had cameras pointed at the door. Good ones, apparently, as he hadn’t seen any. A moment later he heard footsteps, and the man in question opened the interior door. His face lit up with delight upon seeing Hob even though he well knew who it had been outside. He barely let him in the door before hugging him tightly. Hob was, of course, happy to return the gesture.

Eventually, when he pulled back, he held Morpheus at arm’s length, hands on his shoulders. He was still wearing his usual sweats and t-shirt given the early hour. They had nowhere to be for quite some time yet, but his usually messy hair was cleanly smoothed back with some sort of pomade. The usual dark bags under his eyes were gone, and so was the ever-present five o’clock shadow that normally defined his jaw. He looked younger and less haggard, as if he’d gotten a good night’s sleep for the first time in ages.

“Is that… Are you wearing makeup?” Hob asked curiously, once it pinged in his mind that no, Morpheus hadn’t had a remarkable transformation over the busiest, worst week of the year. That, and he was clearly wearing much neater eyeliner than usual.

“Yes, I figured it best to look like I hadn’t been dragged in from the bin, by as many means as possible. That and I had the barber come by, for the hair and a shave. If you ever fancy feeling inept, try shaving with your non-dominant hand,” Morpheus said with amusement. Alright, making light of his injuries in a way that wasn’t intrinsically self-deprecating was a good sign.

“I keep forgetting about that, honestly. And you look great, by the way,” Hob said, leaning back in to steal a kiss, which Morpheus melted into more readily than he had expected.

“Oi, none of that hanky-panky! My poor virgin eyes,” came a voice from the kitchen. Hob jumped back. Morpheus groaned in annoyance.

“You have seen far worse,” Morpheus grumbled, “This is Deedee. Dee, my boyfriend, who you are doing a good job of scaring off.”

The woman sauntered over and offered him her hand, which he took. She grinned at him, and she had a smile nearly more lovely than Morpheus, although that was where all comparison ended.

“How did you get such a normal name and he got saddled with Morpheus? ” Hob asked amusedly.

“Well… firstly, I’m adopted. Me and our older brothers,” she said dryly.

“Oh god, Dee, who told you that?” Morpheus exclaimed dramatically, before dropping unceremoniously onto the sofa. Hob set down his bag on the end table, and leaned against the back of the couch.

She rolled her eyes and ignored her brother. “...Secondly,” she continued pointedly, trying not to laugh. “My name is Morta, which sounds lovely until you google it and find out that it’s even worse than his. The feminised Latin of the earlier Greek Thanatos . Dad’s got a theme going.”

“I can’t say anything. I don’t know what name Morpheus gave you, but all it took was one class where we discussed mediaeval rhyming nicknames, and I went from Robert to Hob and I’m afraid it's permanent,” he said with a laugh. “But I don’t get Deedee out of Morta by any means.”

Now that they were more properly introduced, she headed back up to the kitchen to tend whatever she was making on the stove and just raised her voice to accommodate. “It’s ‘cause my brother’s an idiot, and once I went to med school, he thought it was hilarious to call me Doctor Death,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at them.

“Like… the serial killer?”

“Not intentionally!” Morpheus said, twisting around on the sofa so he could see the two of them. “I didn’t know there was a serial killer.”

“Ignorance is no excuse,” Dee said, pointing a spatula in his general direction, “So: Doctor D, down to just Dee, and now it’s my old standby. It’s a little cheerier when I’m working with those who are really doing poorly and might know a language where mort is a root word. Imagine how you’d feel if you trudged for days on end to get medical care and your doctor introduces herself as Death? I feel like they’d have to boot me on principle.”

“Do I even want to ask what the other siblings got saddled with?” Hob asked, and the answer was a near-unison no from the both of them. “Right then. You need any help there, Dee?”

“No, I’m making eggs for Jessamy so she stops pulling my hair,” she replied, “Have you eaten? I mixed a pitcher of mimosas too; they’re in the fridge.”

“I did this morning, thanks,” Hob said, then turned his attention back to Morpheus, “Have you eaten?”

“Dee’s been making sure of that,” Morpheus replied quietly, giving him a soft smile. “You don’t have to worry about me, I mean… besides the reasons I need you with me tonight. I’m delaying a couple of pills so I can drink safely, I’ve memorised my speech, and everything will be fine. Now we are merely waiting on our suits.”

Hob leaned over the back of the sofa and kissed him gently. “Everything’s going to be just fine,” he promised with a grin, before heading up to the kitchen for that offer of mimosas. There was no reason not to relax and pre-game it a bit; by his estimation they had a good five hours at minimum before they needed to leave. Lucienne had just been unsure of the timeframe of their roving tailor - and wasn’t that a strange concept in itself. Right up there with the barber that apparently did house calls too.

He took the pitcher from the refrigerator and grabbed two juice glasses after browsing a couple of cupboards unsuccessfully for the more proper champagne flutes.

“You’re good for him,” Dee said softly so as not to be overhead as he cut behind her. “We were always close. He’s told me everything - about how kind you’ve been. You’re a cut above the rest, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know about that. I just get where he’s coming from, on a lot of things,” Hob said as he filled the glasses and then leaned on the counter nearby. “But I do appreciate your approval, truly.”

He was about to say more when Morpheus turned around to look over the back of the sofa again. “No need to whisper about me; I’m right here,” he said wryly. “Say it to my face or not at all.”

Dee laughed and shooed Hob, so he went - taking their drinks back and joining Morpheus on the sofa. The other man gave him a nod of thanks and took a sip of his mimosa before scooting closer and pulling his legs up on the cushion and leaning into Hob’s side. He was more than happy to put a comforting arm around him and just relax. That was all he normally did on Saturdays until the evening, if he had plans even for then: Relax and read. He could do that more than well enough with a partner at his side.

Dee took the plate of scrambled eggs up the ringing metal stairs to the loft, and Jessamy’s delighted squawk echoed with how close she was to the roof. She could be loud on her own, but the acoustics were really doing her a favour. When Dee returned to the main floor, she had her jacket and purse in hand.

“I’d muss your hair, but it’s actually not a disaster for once; be a right shame,” she said, grinning down at her little brother. “I’m out. You boys have fun, behave, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Show Dad where he can shove it.”

Morpheus laughed brightly at that and nodded. She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, to which he pulled a scrunched face of embarrassment, before heading out - the automated locks clicking shut audibly behind her. Then they were alone save for Jessamy, but she was otherwise occupied it seemed.

“I like her,” Hob said eventually. “She’s not at all what I expected.”

“You expected a white woman, for one,” Morpheus replied.

“Uhm… yeah, I did, but that wasn’t what I meant. I don’t know, I guess I expected more the stuffy, old money type and figured you were the outlier,” Hob admitted. “For all that your dad sounds like an arse, I guess he raised good kids.”

“Our nanny raised good kids,” Morpheus retorted. “And sometimes mum, but not often. For all that they were desperate for children, they did not do much once we were here. They adopted Dee and her older brothers from Mali when they thought they couldn’t have their own, then they had me. Then the in vitro twins, then another accidental baby. I do think it’s a bit suspect that Sortis got shafted from his inheritance as soon as I was born, but I think he’s better off.”

“Bloody hell, I didn’t realise there were seven of you,” Hob said with a laugh. “That must have been a madhouse when you were all little.”

“Why do you think they shipped us off to board in the UK?” Morpheus replied. “I’ve been here so long with so few visits back home I sound native.”

“Fair. I can’t imagine it though. I… I loved my son, every moment I spent with him, even the difficult ones. I couldn’t imagine having that joy and not wanting it,” Hob said thoughtfully. “Not to be a downer, he’s been on my mind lately.”

“Don’t apologise for talking about the things that matter to you,” Morpheus reprimanded him. “After all of my drama, I can manage to hear about your son without making it all about me again.”

Hob didn’t know quite how to respond to that. The offer was well-meant, that he knew, but Morpheus had a way of twisting things to stab at himself when it wasn’t necessary. Sometimes it was hard to tell if he was joking or not, and Hob felt like asking would kick off a conversation that they didn’t need today - this afternoon was for relaxing and trying to soothe him down to a level that he could make it through the gala without issue.

“I’ll bear that in mind. I do want to tell you about him, some day,” Hob eventually replied. “But I don’t think that’s for today. I want you in good spirits before we go; I know it’s going to be tough.”

“It should not be, and I would rather not think about it for now. I have my speech ready, that’s all that matters. That, and I get to take you,” he said, raising his head up from Hob’s shoulder and smiling up at him ever so slightly. “I have never taken a date to any event like this; my wife, of course, to a few, but no one I was truly dating. Any time I went for dinner or drinks, anything, with another man was either hidden entirely or under the guise of friendship. This is a step long overdue; not merely in my recovery but as who I am.”

“I’m honoured it’s me,” Hob said, hoping that how deeply he meant those words came through. Morpheus had a way of foisting the deepest, most heartfelt confessions on him apropos of nothing and leaving him lost for words. Maybe that was just a downside of dating a poet; everything that came out of his mouth in moments of seriousness had a sense of heavy profundity. 

Only a few minutes later there was a sharp ringing like a high pitched bell, and Morpheus sighed deeply before hauling himself to his feet. “Likely the tailor,” he explained, heading to the door and checking the little touchscreen beside it that showed the outside. He buzzed open the outer door then let the man in. 

He was a short, portly fellow with close-cropped grey hair and immaculately tailored grey trousers and waistcoat. Following him came a much younger man who shared similar features, hoisting several garment bags over his shoulder and a bag fit to bursting with god knew what under his other arm. The bag he dropped heavily to the floor and the garment bags he draped over the nearest arm of the sofa in the centre of the room. 

Morpheus and the tailor were already chattering away in yet another language Hob didn’t know, but he could tell from his boyfriend’s tone when he said something self-deprecating that got a laugh from the old man. It always amused him the few times he’d seen it when Morpheus turned on the charm at someone other than himself. It was a bit brighter and somehow fiercer than how he was with Hob, more on the offensive than simply opening himself up to be charming. If it was entirely an act, it was a bloody good one.

“Robert, this is Leo,” he said, gesturing to Hob to come join him, “And his son Alphie. I asked him to commit a mortal sin and tailor something off the rack for you; normally he does purely bespoke when it comes to suiting”

“Well, I deeply appreciate your fall from heaven,” Hob said, taking the man’s proffered hand with a grin. “It was rather short notice.”

The man waved away his thanks with a grumpy gesture and said something to his boy in Italian, and Alphie started pulling garments out of bags and handing them off to Hob. 

“You try the trousers and shirt, with shoes, then we fit coat,” Leo said in his thick accent, looking Hob up and down appraisingly. “I think I make a good guess.”

A minute later Hob had emerged from the bathroom in the tuxedo shirt and trousers, then nodded his thanks to Morpheus upon being handed a pair of shoes that, judging by the label, cost close to his yearly salary. This was going to take some getting used to. The brand tag in the clothes wasn’t even one that he recognised, so he didn’t even want to think how out of his price range that was.

Leo made a considering noise and circled Hob, then gestured for Alphie to assist. He was old, and not getting down on the floor to mark hems these days; that’s what the youngster was for. Alphie crouched with a piece of white wax chalk in hand and started marking the clothes as directed: A little pinch here, a bit out there, shorten the shirt sleeves just a centimetre, hem the trousers up just a smidge.

Leo said something Hob didn’t understand, and Morpheus handed Hob the jacket once his blank look got the concept across. He made a mental note to ask later how many languages Morpheus spoke; Hob's count was up to four.

“What do you think, the notch lapel or peak?” Leo asked, absolutely not directed at Hob. He had one jacket on already, and the tailor was holding up another. Morpheus gave them both a considering look as if this were a truly serious matter.

“Peak, I think… and shorten the trousers to remove the break; he has the legs for it,” Morpheus said after a moment’s thought which, again, Hob didn’t get the gist of minus something about him having nice legs. Weird compliment, but he’d take it.

Alphie helped him shrug out of the first jacket so he could try the second, which looked and felt identical to him in all honesty. Then the marking and pinning and adjusting began anew but with more thoughtful noises from Leo this time. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

“Do you think the vest, or no?” Leo asked, and Morpheus quickly shook his head.

“No, not with the hidden placket. I like it plain,” he replied. “It’s modern that way. I think that will do.” Leo nodded satisfaction, made a shooing gesture at Hob, and muttered something in Italian.

“Go take it off, and watch the pins,” Morpheus said. Whether it was a translation or his approximation was unclear. Hob had the distinct feeling that if some fashion-ignorant person like himself was stabbed by a pin, Leo would lose no sleep over it. 

Leo and Alphie took the marked clothes, left the rest, and headed out of the building. Hob raised an eyebrow at Morpheus, who had resumed his comfortably regal position on the sofa: Arms across the back rest, legs crossed, and clearly having a good time. That he could look the part of a lord overseeing his realm while wearing sweats was impressive; maybe it was in the blood.

“They have something of a mobile shop in a van,” Morpheus explained. “Give them thirty minutes or so, and you’ll have a quick final fitting. I absolutely guessed at sleeve length and shoulder span, and it seems I was spot on.”

“That’s just ‘cause you stare.”

“Can you blame me?” he replied, grinning at him. “I believe you know exactly how sexy I find you.”

Hob looked down at his casual, well-worn clothes pointedly and then back to Morpheus. “Right, mister high fashion is into this,” he said dryly.

“I am into what’s under it; there’s no accounting for your taste in clothing,” Morpheus said tritely. “I chose you a classic look; you should be thanking me for not inflicting my taste upon you.”

“That is quite possibly the most upper class prat sort of thing you’ve ever said to me. I love it,” Hob said, then paused, considering. They had a moment, Morpheus was in a playful mood, there was no time like the present. 

“I brought you something,” he said, and chuckled at Morpheus’s immediate and unguarded interest. “...You might not like it, so it comes with the caveat that if it’s too much, you can tell me to go fuck myself, and I won’t be offended.”

Morpheus huffed amusedly at that. “Colour me intrigued.”

Hob went to his bag and dug around for the phone he had tossed in before everything else: The poetry book he had to return, the book he was still reading, phone charger, and a change of clothes - if he showed up at the inn the next morning in the same clothes he’d left in, he would never hear the end of it. He hid the phone behind his back, which only interested Morpheus further. He raised an eyebrow at him.

“Let me explain before you say anything, alright?” he asked, and Morpheus shrugged noncommittally.

Hob sat down beside him on the couch and flicked away the phone’s lock screen. “I took off everything on it,” he said. “I don’t really know the background of why you don’t have one, but… There’s no social media, I hid all the unremovable apps with uhm… parental controls. So all it does is text, and call, and no one has the number except for me, until you give it out. I think it would be good if you had it on you when you go out, for emergencies. That way if something like last week happens again, I can just come get you.”

Morpheus took the phone gingerly from him and looked it over. Hob had gotten the slimmest, smallest, most unobtrusive smart phone he could find, in black, of course. He said nothing, and Hob began to worry.

“If this is pushing a boundary, I’ll take it back,” he offered quietly. “I just thought… We’re trying to make a real go of this; I can’t count on maybe seeing you Friday afternoon to sort out everything in our lives.”

“I understand,” Morpheus eventually replied. “There’s no grand reason… I have no desire to be contacted by the outside world, by anyone, really. No doubt there is something to it about dating apps and my life before and being someone I no longer am. That isn’t a reason to ignore you in my life after.”

“So you’ll use it?”

“Yes, but I would prefer that you call me, or video, so I know for certain it’s you. I could probably tell if you type how you speak but… Therein lies yet another pitfall that I do not wish to explain,” Morpheus said.

“That’s fine,” Hob said quickly. “Whatever preferences or boundaries you need to set are fine with me, although… texting is good if you need to be catty in public.”

That won him a precious smirk that Hob leaned in to kiss off of his lips. Morpheus was more than happy to comply, melting into him with a sigh and twining the fingers of his free hand into Hob’s long hair. He had been considering cutting it off again, but suddenly that seemed like a truly poor idea. How had he even considered it? 

Morpheus grinned against his lips when they parted for air and was crawling his way into Hob’s lap when the door camera chimed again. The noise of frustration that Morpheus let out was positively inhuman.

Hob couldn’t help but laugh.

Chapter Text

The second fitting was a complete success. Hob had never had anything that fit him so well in his life and, quite frankly, he could get used to it. Although, it wasn’t like he could use the excuse of a rich boyfriend to up his dressing game considering said boyfriend was still lounging on the couch in pyjamas watching him. To his surprise, Leo and Alphie took their leave as soon as he was finished.

“What about yours?” he asked, when Morpheus had returned from walking the men to the door, chatting again in Italian with that smarmy, manufactured charm. He couldn’t pinpoint why he found that particular behaviour attractive.

“Mine is finished. I had a fitting two days ago, and he only took it back with him to put in the lining; it was custom,” Morpheus explained, picking up the as yet ignored garment back from the back of the sofa, “A bit more fashion-forward than you, but our ties match.”

“I can’t believe I’m wearing a bow tie,” Hob replied wryly.

“Everyone else will be wearing them, and yours is a diamond style, which suits your face better,” he said, and squeezed Hob’s shoulder reassuringly in passing. “Don’t worry, I won’t even make you tie it yourself.”

Morpheus disappeared into the bathroom with his garment bag, and Hob, not wanting to wrinkle his outfit by sitting before he had to, slipped the jacket back on instead of leaving it lying on the coffee table. Then he propped himself against the back of the sofa to scroll absentmindedly through his social media. Not much was happening: A few friends were at a football match he’d been belatedly invited to and had to decline for the gala - a far better choice. Someone’s kid’s birthday. A few selfies. The usual. He wondered then what Morpheus felt about being posted; he’d like a photo of the two of them more to commemorate their evening, or their relationship, than any kind of social media clout. It wasn’t as if he had more than a few hundred followers anyway - his Instagram was more pictures of cool old books he found in dusty shops, and posting to get more of his work friends to come round for pub quiz on Wednesdays. There were a few pictures of himself, but no boyfriends. 

“You sure do clean up well,” came Morpheus’s appreciative voice from behind him, and Hob tucked his phone into the inner breast pocket of his coat as he turned.

“Speak for yourself, bloody hell,” Hob said, unabashedly gawping at him for a moment before he figured that was rude, even if it seemed to amuse the other man well enough. “How come you get a tailcoat?” 

“Because I’m skinny,” Morpheus replied. “I will forgo the extended style explanation.” 

It wasn’t just the tux with tails, however. Morpheus had a slate grey shirt rather than white, and while their ties did match, it was only in the deep, stormy blue-grey of the fabric. Morpheus had an open-necked shirt and ascot rather than the more ubiquitous bow tie. His pointed shoes even had a slight heel that was not particularly noticeable unless Hob compared them to his own. It was a remarkably singular look. Morpheus was always going to stand out in a crowd; even amongst his peers he had a regal bearing and did even the most exasperated or nervous of gestures with a level of grace that few could approach. 

The outfit, however, made him even more unique. Hob didn’t know a lot about high society events, but he did know that, unless that was the point of the event, then uniformity was more what was expected. A little troublemaking seemed on-brand, given Morpheus’s stated views of these people and how they saw him. If they were going to look down on him for who he was, or his sexuality, then he might as well lean into it and be a little fabulous.

“You’re staring,” Morpheus said, stopping before Hob and looking down his nose at him. Thanks to the shoes he was now just ever so slightly taller, which seemed to please him to no end.

“You did tell me looking is free,” Hob replied with a grin. “So I’m going to enjoy it.”

“I also asked you to stop being such a gentleman.”

“Yes, well, now you’ve gone and dressed me up as one,” Hob teased. “Brought it upon yourself.”

Morpheus slipped his hands inside Hob’s still unbuttoned jacket and slid them down to rest on his hips. “So I did,” he murmured, hooking his thumbs into the waistband of Hob’s trousers. “I can remedy that.”

“What, and wrinkle this charming ensemble you bought me? You people really do throw money away,” Hob replied amusedly, and he could feel a puff of hot breath against his cheek from Morpheus’s almost-laugh.

“That shouldn't be an issue,” Morpheus murmured into his ear, before pressing a quick kiss to the juncture of his jaw and throat. Then he dropped to his knees as gracefully as he did everything else.

“Morpheus, we need to go ,” Hob said regretfully, gently grabbing the other man’s wrists, but he didn’t pull Morpheus’s hands away. “Later, I promise; I am staying over.”

“Yes, and I want you to fuck me later,” he replied, tilting his head back to meet Hob’s gaze, and wasn’t that an enchanting sight. “And I’d prefer not to have to wait, so it’s best I do this now.”

If Hob had any more rational words or will to fend off Morpheus’s attentions, the casual way he threw that statement out would have more than done away with them. He let go of the kneeling man’s wrists and leaned back a little, which Morpheus then took as the permission it was. He ran his slim, long-fingered hands up and down his inner thighs teasingly and Hob groaned, much to Morpheus’s amusement. He’d expected him to get right to it after how brazenly he’d begun.

“I will not be the reason you get disinherited and lose your bloody titles,” Hob said a bit more aggressively than was warranted when Morpheus pressed the heel of his hand against his still-clothed cock.

“Yes, thank you, I know what disinherited means,” Morpheus said, pausing pointedly as he had just been undoing the waistband of Hob’s trousers. He drew his left hand away and shook back his cuff to consult his watch with a rather imperious look. “We have plenty of time; I only need a few minutes.”

“Overconfident, much?”

Morpheus returned to the task of freeing Hob’s cock from the confines of his tightly tailored trousers and only once it was in hand did he reply. “Not in the least, which is why I want to enjoy myself now,” he murmured, before ducking his head to take only the tip in his mouth as he stroked slowly.

Hob gasped and twitched his hips, Morpheus’s free hand pushed him back against the sofa with surprising strength to prevent him from moving. With no further preamble, Morpheus swallowed him down with a softly plaintive whine that reverberated in his throat to make Hob groan.

Morpheus’s estimation was close enough to reality, or perhaps he had taken it as a challenge to perform. He only drew off for a couple of panting breaths once, and gave an enthusiastic little whine every time Hob instinctively thrust into the warmth of his mouth. Eventually he took that as permission, and Morpheus held his hips to help guide him how he preferred. 

When he had finished, Morpheus stayed on his knees, forehead resting against Hob’s thigh as he slowly began to catch his breath. When he eventually sat back on his heels and looked up, his cheeks were rosy and flushed; his once-perfect hair returned to its usual mess from being grabbed at. He grinned mischievously up at Hob and licked his lips.

“You know…” Hob began breathlessly, once he’d recovered for a moment and began setting his clothes to rights, “ 'I need to blow you for my mental health’ is certainly a new one.”

Morpheus gave a hoarse chuckle and hauled himself to his feet. He leaned in to kiss Hob deeply before replying. “Yet accurate; I feel much better now and have just enough time to look respectable,” he said, sauntering off towards the bathroom. “We have about five minutes.”

When Morpheus returned, his hair was neatly combed again, and the eyeliner that had smudged a little from watering eyes was fastidiously replaced. He looked smoothly unruffled as if nothing had happened; the only tell being the spot of colour still high on his cheeks, and perhaps lips a bit more pink than normal.

The door camera chimed precisely on time. Morpheus slipped his key fob and the new cell phone into a pocket before quickly jogging up the stairs to make sure Jessamy didn’t need anything. She’d been well fed and needed no babysitter, but he worried nonetheless. Hob took his arm on the way to the car, and Morpheus leaned into him.

“It should be the other way about, shouldn’t it?” Hob asked, “You being the lord and all.”

“I don’t think proper courtly protocol has really been updated for the concept,” Morpheus replied as they slid into the back of his car. Reggie, the driver, nodded to him in the rearview mirror and Morpheus raised one hand in a little wave. Then they were off.

Chapter Text

Morpheus zoned out entirely for the majority of their long ride across the city to the museum that the gala was being held in this year. It wasn’t that he didn’t wish to speak to Hob, it was that he needed to prepare himself mentally. Physically he looked and felt the part of a rich benefactor but his mind had been churning out scenarios of failure to him at an alarming rate and here in the car he could do nothing to get away from them other than to simply leave in the tried and true way that had saved him countless times before.

Eventually, Hob must have noticed something was a little amiss about his expression. He put a gentle hand on Morpheus’s thigh to get his attention. The look of concern etched on his face made Morpheus sigh; of course he’d gone and worried him now. They should likely have a talk about this more in depth than he had briefly explained it once, weeks ago now.

“I am fine,” Morpheus said softly, “More than fine; merely preparing my thoughts and senses for what is to come and many possible ends.”

“Normal people call that anxiety,” Hob replied, but his tone was not unkind, “Can I help?”

Morpheus gave him a slight smile that would hardly be seen in the car’s dark interior. “Your presence is its own balm,” he murmured, “But I do have one request of you.”

“Anything.”

Morpheus reached into the inner breast pocket of his jacket and withdrew a tiny, vintage pillbox in scuffed but highly polished silver. He handed it to Hob, who made an amused noise and muttered something about everything having to match his aesthetic. He wasn’t wrong.

“If something should go poorly and sets me off; I need to chew one and swallow a second,” Morpheus explained, “I have too much in my meagre pockets already and I would prefer that you have control of that.”

Hob knew better than to question his motives on it, though Morpheus could see the question in his eyes. It wasn’t that he was a danger to himself by any means, he was just more likely to overestimate his need and then be unable to take more if it were truly a dire situation.

“What is it?” Hob asked, tucking the pillbox safely into a pocket.

“Diazepam,” Morpheus replied with a sigh, “It’ll stop the anxiety attacks quickly enough if needed.”

“Are you planning to drink?”

“...Not enough to be a fool,” Morpheus said after a moment’s consideration. That statement won him a chuckle from Hob who was understandably in quite good spirits.

He ideally did not want to take his meds at all but, if he did, then certainly after his well-rehearsed speech. Before that, however, he would need something to calm his nerves. This place would be hell on his senses for a vast array of reasons; bright lights were a reminder, the press of people made him fear, again, being grabbed in a crowd. 

Jessamy was his lifeline because she needed him as much as the reverse. He was more than able to put aside triggers and panic, albeit temporarily and often with ill effect later, to see to her needs. Now he was bereft. Hob was a fine substitute, and surpassing in many ways of course, but he would be far more confident in the evening’s events if he had been able to bring both. There was no reason to disallow a service animal, but then there was no way to definitively prove that is what she was - Morpheus had a distinct feeling his father’s hand had been involved with this particular rule. He despised all outward signs of his son’s weakness and she was by far the biggest one.

The car slowed and pulled behind a line of other sleek black vehicles and limousines to await their turn to unload. Hob leaned over to see out of Morpheus’s window and made a ‘hmm’ noise at the hubbub. It was one of the larger society affairs outside the holiday season and there were of course paparazzi and onlookers galore.

“You didn’t tell me there would be a red carpet,” Hob said.

“I did not think it relevant. It is the fashion event of the season; I suppose it makes a good backdrop for the press. We will not be stopping for any photos,” Morpheus replied, “Reggie will come around and let us out. Keep your head down until we’re inside.”

Hob nodded his understanding. “They’re all on the right, the cameras, step to the side when you get out so I can get between you and them and ruin the shot,” he said, pressing a soft kiss to Morpheus’s cheek before leaning back to his own seat. Morpheus smiled to himself at that; both the kiss and Hob’s plan.

He was a guest of honour, representing the head of the board of trustees, his face would be all over the coverage of the event regardless - but if they could avoid even just a little extra press, he would be grateful. The few times he had shown up in public since his escape had always made the front of tabloids, and sometimes even warranted mention in Entertainment Weekly. They always seemed to speculate on his weight, of all things, as if hadn’t been more than a bit twiggy beforehand.

The car rolled to a stop and Reggie got out to come around and open the door for him. Morpheus sighed heavily at the noise he could already hear from within the vehicle. Once more unto the breach , he thought to himself. Hob reached over and squeezed his hand, though he let go immediately as soon as the door began to open.

Morpheus gracefully slipped out of the car and stood, turning his face away from the flash of cameras until Hob had followed him and blocked the way. It wasn’t even the concept of photos entirely that bothered him; just their commentary and in the moment, the flashing lights. They hurried past the press and up the stairs into the museum. There was staff checking invites inside the foyer but Morpheus walked right past, leading Hob, without any comment. 

Blessedly the museum, at least here, was not overly bright and the murmur of voices was…. Acceptable, by Morpheus’s standards. The faint melodies of a string quartet playing deeper into the grand hall where most people were milling about reached them. 

“When do your duties start?” Hob asked softly as they walked through the marble foyer towards the bulk of the party. 

“When we sit for the meal. I chose to arrive fashionably late; we’re forty minutes into an hour and a half of cocktails,” he replied, “They will usher us in and they will announce the year’s donations, then a short bit from an institution who benefits from the funds, and finally I am representing the head of the board and make the offer of matching all funds up the amount of the full endowment. People cheer, they finish eating, and then I blessedly go home.”

“I’m sure you have that timed down to the minute,” Hob murmured, and Morpheus huffed indignantly. That only seemed to encourage Hob’s amusement but he had to admit to being charmed, nonetheless.

They had barely made it through to where most of the guests were mingling before someone called out ‘Lord Aeternus’ from behind them. Morpheus sighed deeply and schooled his features into something much more polite before turning around. Rushing up to meet them was a middle-aged woman with a severe haircut wearing a shimmering black gown. She gave him a deep nod that was very nearly a bow.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, and there was obvious relief in her voice, “I was starting to be worried you weren’t coming.”

“Of course not, I committed in my father’s stead,” Morpheus said in a smooth, regal tone that he had rarely bothered with around Hob, “I simply see no need to mingle to the fullest extent, I am certain you understand why.” His words were polite but with a little bite to them, a challenge, as if to say; comment further, if you dare. She did not.

“Yes, yes of course,” she said, then smiled at Hob and held out her hand, “Catherine Hodgson, vice-chair and organiser.”

“Robert Gadling,” he replied, taking it, “Pleasure. I’ve heard a lot about the work you do, I’m impressed - and I wonder how many students I’ve had the pleasure of graduating who benefited from your program.”

“Oh, an intellectual,” she said brightly, offering him a well-practised, winning smile, “Your efforts are well-appreciated with this crowd.”

“Only those who aren’t here merely to be seen,” Morpheus said darkly and that seemed to remind her that she had a far more recalcitrant guest to handle. Hob had just been a pleasant interlude.

“I do hope that’s not in your speech,” she said dryly.

“I may behave myself when I wish,” he said with a soft laugh that would sound real enough for her ears, but Hob gave him a look . There was no hiding anything from that man.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to borrow you for a moment and go over the order of toasts and things, and when I need you where,” she said almost apologetically, then smiled at Hob, “I’ll return him in a few moments.”

Thankfully the director of operations didn’t share the same opinions as his father about his proclivities, despite their solid working relationship. Or, perhaps she was as good an actor as he was.

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hob found himself left alone and quite out of his element, not to mention worried for Morpheus. He told himself such worries were unfounded; if anything going off alone with a woman he clearly knew for a few minutes was more within his comfort zone then the party as a whole, and yet his worries were entirely founded at the same time. He would simply have to trust that Morpheus could handle whatever was thrown at him. At least now he could text an SOS if he desperately needed an extraction mission. As such, Hob decided to enjoy himself.

Morpheus may consider it a chore, but for his part Hob was delighted to be here. This was the sort of thing he saw on television but had never attended, for obvious reasons. He was the son of a farmer and the first in his family to go further than their first university degree - not exactly the type that rubbed shoulders with celebrities and nobility. At least, thanks entirely to Morpheus, he at least looked like he belonged in this crowd. There wasn’t a person in attendance whose outfit wasn’t likely the same price as a new car.

He headed into the grand hall where the string quartet was playing and gladly took a flute of champagne from a passing waiter. This was an ideal place to people-watch and see exactly what kind of celebrities were in attendance. He stood off to the side of the room, getting the lay of the land as it were, and also remaining conveniently close to one of several hors d'oeuvres tables. Hearing his own name called by a voice that wasn’t Morpheus came as a complete shock; he nearly dropped his glass in surprise.

“Robert! I saw you from behind and I thought it was you, what a pleasant surprise!” Diane, the dean of the university, said closing the distance between the table of delights and him. She was a rather portly older woman and he could always trust her to have solid opinions on food and drink; she even frequented the New Inn for lunch on occasion. 

“I didn’t know anyone else was going to be here,” she continued, “I thought I was the sole arbiter of education tonight.”

Hob grinned at her enthusiasm. A lifetime of changes ago for them both, she had been his thesis supervisor - and his port in the storm when he’d lost Eleanor and Robin partway through his research.

“I’m afraid you still are; unfortunately I’m not a donor or any such thing, its a bit too rich for my blood in here,” he said, lowering his voice conspiratorially which got a snicker from Diane, who swatted his arm at the comment, “I am just here as a plus one.”

That earned her full, mildly tipsy attention. “Oh? Do tell,” she said in a tone that said she wanted the gossip, but he knew her intentions were pure. It likely would spread to his department, however, but then… Well, it was going to spread to the world via Morpheus’s fame soon enough. 

He took a deep breath and downed what little was left of his flute of champagne. “Uhm… Morpheus Aeternus, he’s off with the organiser at the moment,” Hob said eventually.

Diane raised her eyebrows in surprise at that. “Well… That’s new,” she said, sounding a little confused, all things considered.

It was not as if Hob wasn’t out as bisexual, but it rarely came up with any colleagues. It rarely came up at all, really. Besides a few casual relationships that hadn’t lasted more than a few dates before he decided he wasn’t ready yet, and some hookups that he certainly wasn’t going to ever discuss at work, he’d mostly just been married to his work for the better part of a decade. He had never even brought anyone to the department Christmas party.

“Not really. Well, he in particular is,” Hob replied sheepishly, “I kind of thought you knew.”

Diane shrugged at that. “It’s not as if I care… in the nicest way possible,” she added, after realising how that had come out, “It’s nice to see you’re putting yourself out there again. You work harder than most of your department combined; you deserve to have a little fun.”

“Thanks,” he said, a little surprised at her candour. Former mentor or not, they didn’t have much time to catch up as of late and it warmed his heart a little to realise she still cared as much as she had in the past. “Have you met Morpheus? He gave a guest lecture about two months ago. I don’t know if you were involved in setting up the lecture series this term.”

“I was! I didn’t see his unfortunately,” she replied, “But I heard it was quite good; the English department is trying to get him back for spring term, I think.”

“I’ll drop a hint,” Hob said with a wink, “But no promises… Speak of the devil. I’ll catch you later, yeah?” He had spotted Morpheus stalking through the loosely gathered crowd in his general direction and decided to intercept him before he ended up in a well-meaning but likely overwhelming chat with Diane.

Hob was easy to spot in the crowd, even though he blended in well enough with the foundation’s patrons. Maybe it was the hair, or maybe Morpheus was just so far gone on the man that he’d be able to pick him out in an instant anywhere. Hob met him in the centre of the hall and linked arms with him, much to Morpheus’s delight. The man was ridiculously in tune to his moods despite their relatively short acquaintance and he could use a little grounding right now.

“That much fun, eh?” Hob asked teasingly and Morpheus replied with a noncommittal grunt.

Catherine herself wasn’t a bad person, or even particularly stressful, but her ongoing delight with his father as a whole concept did not endear her to him despite her kindness. She had prattled on a bit about him, and the last board meetings, and how thankful he had been that Morpheus was available to attend in his stead and was willing to give a speech. He decided it was in everyone’s best interest not to mention that he had been bullied and threatened into it on pain of losing his inheritance. It was better if Catherine went on blissfully unaware that the chairman of her board was a callous twit, if not genuinely an arsehole of the highest calibre.

“It was fine,” he said eventually, leaning in towards Hob, “And quieter in the back halls… She is not bad; perhaps because she does get her hands on the day to day of the work, she used to be an educator of some kind. When you work with refugees and underprivileged teens I think you must develop a bit of a sense for how to treat those who have issues.”

“So she’s more understanding than the git who put you in this position?” Hob said, the genuine annoyance at Morpheus’s father back in his voice.

“Indeed,” was all Morpheus said in response, “Could you fetch me some champagne?”

They were tucked against the wall at the edge of the room and he had no desire to either go to the carefully tired table of champagne flutes that was fit to be a centrepiece for one of the food displays, nor to hunt down one of the roving waitstaff. Dodging patrons without backup was not something he wished to attempt. There were too many faces he recognised. Hob nodded quickly and released his arm, headed off on his mission.

At least now, Morpheus was armed with more knowledge than his existing plan. She’d shown him where to wait out of sight, the podium and dais he’d be speaking from, and given him a little slip of paper with the names and order of everyone who had anything to say before his bit. He hadn’t given her quite enough credit, in all honesty. There had been no other option but to do this and succeed, and he felt more confident now. The speech was not the issue - he gave longer and more challenging lectures at a frequency he considered to be often. With those however, they were on a subject of his choice and at a place of his choosing. As Dr. Heron was so fond of telling him; agency was everything.

Hob returned with the requested champagne and Morpheus was glad for something to hang onto, something to do with his hands. He had a habit of nervously petting Jessamy, or simply reaching up to ensure she was still there even if he could feel her on his shoulder. His right hand kept straying towards his left shoulder in a mild panic before his conscious mind caught up with the subconscious to realise she was not there. Not tonight. He had Hob instead, who had just caught him making that motion for the dozenth time since they’d gotten into the car.

“Can I…”

Morpheus immediately cut him off. “No, there’s nothing you can do, I need to stop,” he said, more sharply than was probably warranted. To his credit, Hob just nodded and casually leaned against the wall beside him, sipping his own champagne. It was almost infuriating how calm and collected he was, but then… he was devastatingly normal. 

They stayed where they were as time ticked on, Hob pointing out things he found amusing about various partygoers and Morpheus informing him on names, titles, wealth and any number of gossip stories on those who passed them by. They seemed to go mostly unnoticed, tucked in the shadow of a pillar and only a few paces from the wall, the only people who came to this area were checking their phones, for the most part. Morpheus had not even realised how well Hob had steered him out of sight and their conversation to safer waters until staff started gently herding the partygoers into the ballroom where supper was to be held. It was time for him to go earn the right to keep his fortune, among other things. This had started as a challenge from his father and it had turned into a vicious determination to prove something to himself.

Hob grabbed his arm as he was about to head away and at his questioning look just smiled and leaned in to kiss him softly. “Good luck, not that you need it,” he said with a grin, letting go of Morpheus’s hand to follow the crowd in and find their table. He watched Hob go and the other man must have assumed he would, because he glanced over his shoulder from the doorway at the far end and gave him a jaunty little wave. Now there was nothing for it, but to get it done.

He took the hallway that Catherine had shown him to loop around to the waiting area where a few other people were chatting casually, awaiting their cue. They all stopped talking when he entered and he froze, looking among them for a moment, and then just sighed and passed them by to wait on his own. There was a cutting remark on the tip of his tongue but he knew that to follow it up, should they reply, all he was equipped with were tears. He had no mental fortitude for banter with those who would wield his past as a weapon.

From where he stood he could see only a sliver of the room beyond and even within that dozens of the hundreds of faces looked up at the podium as the organiser welcomed them to this year’s event with unnecessarily flowery words. This was the sort of crowd to be impressed by flattery, however, so perhaps she was on the mark. Catherine’s bit was short, and the handful of others who had some toast or certificate to award were no lengthier. They all passed by him, one by one; most without acknowledgement but a few looked him up and down as they passed.

This was not at all like giving a lecture; for those at least everyone wished to hear him speak and he could do so from the heart. Morpheus did not smile as he came on stage, introduced by the vice-chair by name and title and as their most generous of benefactors here to represent his father, who was dearly missed this year. The polite applause for all its gentleness was deafening when he was its unwilling focus.

Instead of standing at the podium he took the microphone in hand and walked as he spoke; it was how he always gave his lectures - he needed something to focus on outside of himself that still allowed enough awareness to keep the words flowing. He paced slowly and deliberately; heel-toe, heel-toe, listening to the click of his boots on the floor and not the distant murmur of those still talking despite his speech. Were they talking about him? No doubt. It didn’t matter, let them talk. His words hit all the right points, the well-practised inflection of emotion quite indistinguishable from the real thing, he was sure. He always made sure to pace casually and irregularly; six paces, then eleven, then pause for moment and resume; even, odd, pause.

He had nearly finished his remarks when he paused at stage left and looked out at the crowd to locate Hob; they were to be seated at one of the front tables and he was easy enough to find. There were two women who were avidly watching the podium, an empty chair -his own- and Hob who caught his eye and gave him an encouraging smile. He smiled back before his mind caught up with his eyes and he realised who else was sitting at their table.

The man’s chair back faced the stage and he hadn’t been turned quite enough to be seen, but then he turned. Maybe he had seen Hob’s expression. That was a face burned into his nightmares. He froze, his words stammering to a halt and only Hob’s expression turning to one of concern made him remember what he was meant to be doing. He forced a smile back onto his face.

“...So that is why I would like to announce that I will personally be matching all of your generous donations, up to the full amount of the endowment,” he said, picking up the cadence of his words again although his voice was shaky, “Nothing means more to me than the education of our youth and bringing new readers to my work and that of many others who have aided our cause in the past. Thank you.”

The polite applause that followed his remarks was a deafening roar as he handed the microphone back to the vice-chair and hurried offstage. Her following words were lost to the ringing in his ears as he pushed past those who were waiting in the hall and hurried away; not running, that would draw too much attention, more staggering in a daze he could not get away from. He was going to vomit. Where was the restroom? There had been one on the way he was sure; but now every door looked the same and there were no signs anywhere. He was going to faint.

Morpheus could hear a distant noise over the roar of his own pulse in his ears and tucked his head down against his knees as if that would somehow blot it out along with the too-bright lights. He only very belatedly realised it was a voice; a calm, authoritative voice that was talking to him. Lucienne? He raised his head slightly, blinking rapidly against the light and squinting up at the speaker. Not Lucienne; older than Lucienne, and someone he didn’t know.

His heavy limbs felt useless, like they belonged to someone else and wouldn’t obey his commands. He was trying and failing to claw the ascot, which now felt cloyingly tight, off of his neck but his left hand disobeyed him even at the best of times. The woman above him was blocking out the light now, crouching in front of him, and she grabbed his hand. Morpheus yanked it away from her with a cry and cradled it to his chest waiting for pain that didn’t come. Confusion of a different sort muddled his thoughts and he almost heard her words.

“What?”

“You’re going to hurt yourself, sweetie,” the woman said, repeated actually, it sounded like what he had heard before but now formed into words. “You’re bleeding, here.”

She opened her handbag and handed him a tissue which he took automatically but didn’t know what he was supposed to do with it. The tears on his cheeks needed wiping away before they dried, maybe that was it. She gestured to her own throat and he finally made the connection, then let out a hiss of breath when he touched it to the gouges he had unwittingly created. That was grounding, at least.

“I’m Diane, I know who you’re with, I’m going to call him, alright?”

Morpheus just stared at her, which she seemed to take as consent, as she pulled out a mobile phone anyway and held it to her ear. He took the tissue away from his throat and felt bile rise up in his throat again at the sight of angry red splotches against the white paper. It fell out of his trembling hand and he didn’t try to pick it up again, just leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes - the only thought in his mind was focused on pushing down the nausea. He had to be able to stand, he had to be able to leave .

He buried his face in arms wrapped around his knees again and the blessed darkness surrounded him like an embrace. There was only the sound of his own breathing then, the distant muffled voices were very far away. Far enough that they didn’t matter, they meant nothing. He only needed to breathe, then stand, then run. It was only the slow repetition of the same sound over and over that finally broke through the mantra he repeated in his mind; his own name, spoken soft and earnest.

“Morpheus, you need to talk to me, love,” Hob said gently, and how long had he been sitting beside him? Surely he hadn’t been there long, he would have heard him before now. “Do you know where you are?”

Morpheus nodded slightly, without raising his head, and Hob made a noise that sounded… relieved, maybe. Or annoyed, perhaps, at him ruining their perfectly good evening.

“Do you know who I am?”

“I’m not an idiot,” Morpheus muttered, muffled by his arms.

“No you’re not, which is why I’m concerned. I’m going to touch you; you’re breathing too hard and you need to lie down,” Hob said and, at not receiving any response whether positive or negative, waited a moment. Then with an arm around Morpheus’s shoulders he slowly pulled him down the wall he’d been leaning on to lie with his head on Hob’s lap instead.

A few minutes passed in silence as Hob simply waited and Morpheus’s breathing eventually slowed to something nearly normal. Slowly his vision cleared although it was still too bright.

“Take this?” Something was pressed into his hand. A pill. He stared at it a while before realising that it required action and popping it in his mouth. He had no water to wash it down with and tried to chew the chalky substance in the back of his mouth to avoid as much of the taste as possible. The shudder it drew was involuntary and Hob squeezed his shoulder gently in encouragement.

“I ruined it,” Morpheus whispered hoarsely a few minutes later, once Hob’s quiet stream of consciousness about any and everything he could think of had slowed. He hadn’t internalised a word of it but that probably hadn’t been the point.

Hob stopped rubbing Morpheus’s arm as he had been the whole time he spoke. “No, you didn’t ruin anything,” he said sternly, “Your speech was fine, no one knows about this… Diane saw you cause she’d already spoken and was in the back halls. You did great, you didn’t embarrass yourself, everything will be okay.”

Morpheus was quiet then for a long time and eventually pushed away from Hob’s lap to sit up, staring about as if seeing where he was for the first time. He’d left the waiting room and been turned about, having gone the other way down the long hallway. Instead of heading back towards the main hall he’d headed deeper into the museum which wasn’t open to the guests - he could still see the door where he’d come from. He hadn’t gotten far at all.

“I’m sorry,” he groaned, leaning back against the wall and finally unfolding legs from his tightly curled position.

“Don’t be. I knew when I said I’d come that something like this could happen,” Hob said, shrugging, “It’s not a dealbreaker.”

“Who is Diane?”

Hob huffed in amusement. “The dean of my university; the one who gave a statement right before you and handed you the microphone,” he said dryly, “...Also my mentor, and good friend.”

“Ah… I was not paying attention to any part but mine,” Morpheus weakly replied.

“Fair enough, honestly,” Hob said, trying to be reassuring, “Your speech really was nice, no notes.”

“I can’t go back in there.”

“Well we should wait a bit until your meds really kick in anyway, before you try to do anything,” Hob said, “Whether that’s go finish the evening or leave.”

“I can’t… The man at the table, did he say anything to you?” Morpheus asked breathlessly and Hob must have noticed his new loss of composure because he put an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close.

“No, I don’t think so… Might have said his name was Paul, why?”

“I can’t sit at a table with him, not in a million years,” Morpheus whispered, “He’s… he’s married to Alex Burgess.”

The involuntary tightening of Hob’s arm around him was swiftly followed by a heartfelt ‘what the fuck’ . Morpheus was too concerned with matters of his own emotions to comprehend or consider the ramifications of what could make someone so calm and even-keeled as Hob shake with rage.

“They sat him next to you? I’m going to find out who did this… Christ,” Hob muttered, then paused as if his mind had caught up with his emotions, “How is he not in prison? Much less at a fucking gala.”

“He pled ignorance to whole ordeal and acted his part very well… Alex had told him staff quarters were in the basement and they say he never looked,” Morpheus murmured, his voice taking on that faraway storytelling cadence it did whenever he deigned to speak of his past, “Even if you can believe he never heard me scream… How did I know his face, if not his name, when I saw him in court.”

“I am so, so sorry, love,” Hob said, leaning down and pressing a kiss to Morpheus’s temple, “If I had my way, he’d be below the jail.”

“Plausible deniability, and a very good lawyer, will get you everywhere,” he said softly, “He retains the half of the estate that was not given to me as restitution… I have no use for blood money, that is why…. This, among other things. I invest, it grows, I give.”

“That… that puts a whole new depressing light on your penchant for charity,” Hob replied with a sigh, “Fuck… I wonder why he’s here, not to mention who sat him by you.”

“Do not attribute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity,” Morpheus murmured, “I think… I would like to go home now.”

“Of course,” Hob said, pulling out his phone. Lucienne had ensured that he had all of Morpheus’s emergency contacts; which meant basically her, Morta, and Reggie the driver. He watched Hob send off a text and then leaned his head back on the other man’s shoulder. Really he should be embarrassed, sitting on the floor of a hallway in fancy clothes with a tear-stained face, but Hob somehow made him feel as if this were normal. Acceptable, even, or not his fault.

“Ten minutes,” Hob said, resting his cheek on the top of Morpheus’s head, “Then fourty home at this time of night, then you can rest. Less than an hour between you and Jessamy.”

Morpheus smiled at that, although Hob couldn’t see it. “I don't think even she could have helped me with this,” he said sheepishly, then added, “Are you still staying?”

“As if I could leave you alone like this. Of course, as long as you need,” Hob replied, “Is the medication helping?”

“Yes,” he said simply, not wanting to think too deeply on that right now. He had gone some time without needing it and had entertained a vague hope that this sort of incident was falling into the past, but the night had proved him wrong. However, if this hadn’t scared Hob off then nothing could. That, at least, was a sort of relief.

Eventually Hob extricated himself from Morpheus and then stood, offering his hand to help him up. He took it, not trusting himself to stand on his own right now. Walking once he got there, perhaps, but the room tilted and dark spots danced on the edges of his vision nonetheless. Hob put an arm around his waist for support but he found that he liked it for reasons beyond that, and returned the gesture. He had already disappeared from the gala, cried in the hallway, and was about to leave early having said farewell to no one…. A little public affection of a sort he had never been afforded could hardly go amiss now.

They very nearly made it out. The entrance hall was mostly empty, a couple of people on their phones having left the hubbub to take a call. Morpheus could hear their footsteps echoing over top of any other minimal noise and that itself was a relief after the murmur of too many voices for several hours. They were halfway down a flight of marble stairs leading down to the street when a voice calling his name made him pause, and his gasp made Hob look over his shoulder.

“Morpheus! I need to talk to you!” Paul called, hurrying after them but not quite willing to break into a full sprint. “I need you to retract your statement for the hearing; you know it was Roderick, Alex never wanted to hurt anyone. You have to know that! He’s not fit for prison, Alex, he’s…”

Morpheus made a soft, startled noise of indecision. Everything within him said to run, flee, don’t look back and just go . Hob was still holding him, the arm around his waist now feeling more restricting than comforting. He looked up at Hob with a wordless plea and the other man simply let him go only for Morpheus to find himself frozen in place.

Hob stalked back the way they’d come to intercept Paul at the top of the stairs, “How dare you speak to him!” 

The man tried to sidestep him and was forcefully stopped by Hob’s hand on his chest, pushing until he tentatively took a step back so as not to fall - then another, and another and then he was off his balance enough to be slammed back into one of the pillars that held up the front facade of the building hard enough to knock the wind out of him. Morpheus was viciously pleased by that but it looked like Hob had barely registered the other man’s distress.

“If you come near him again, I will make you regret it for the rest of your life,” Hob said in a low, threatening voice that Morpheus had never expected to hear from him. It chilled him in a way that words could not describe, it was like looking at a different man.

Paul tried to speak for a moment and then gasped, “He’s been dodging my solicitor’s calls… I can have you charged for assault.”

“You do that. I’m more than happy to go make Alex’s life hell then, instead,” Hob replied, letting the man go as he did not want to get into a full-fledged fist fight at a charity gala. Morpheus needed to get home more than he needed a knight in shining armour right now.

Paul backed away a couple steps as if he were expecting a blow, then hurried off in the direction he’d come from. Hob quickly returned to Morpheus’s side and grabbed his shoulders, his eyes searching him for signs of new upset, but Morpheus just shook his head. He was fine, perhaps more than fine, but didn’t know how to express that here. So instead he just said, “The car’s waiting.”

Satisfied that he wasn’t about to deal with another anxiety attack, Hob slipped his arm back around Morpheus’s waist and escorted him to their ride home. Morpheus looked up at him with an expression of unbridled adoration that he did not even attempt to hide.

Chapter Text

As soon as they were in the car and away from prying eyes, Morpheus pulled his long legs up onto the seat and curled up with his head in Hob’s lap without saying a word. Whether that was because he needed the silence to settle his own mind or because they were not technically alone with the driver in the front seat, he wasn’t sure. Hob was more than happy to just pet his hair and look out the window at the passing city lights to calm his own nerves. It had been a long time since he’d had to deal with anyone more belligerent than a slightly drunk bar patron who needed to be cut off. He hadn’t been in a fight in a long time, long enough that Lucienne’s no-doubt thorough background check hadn’t brought anything up - or maybe it had and she had decided he was in the right, or reformed. It didn’t really matter. He had never really wanted to hurt anyone before, though he’d always been willing to stand up for those weaker than himself, the desire to actually hurt someone was a new and not entirely welcome feeling.

That he was willing to do so for Morpheus, however, did make a certain sense. He was pretty certain he would do anything for him; a realisation that he was also not sure how to react to. That was something else to bring up whenever his therapist’s office finally did get him in to see someone again. There was love and then there was obsession and while he felt the former was at least in equal measure to the latter, it was something to bear in mind.

He was still considering his feelings for Morpheus when the car slowed and Hob realised he recognised the landscape of Morpheus’s neighbourhood outside. He hadn’t come to any sort of conclusion beyond the face that he really, truly, was deeply in love with the man whom he was pretty sure was now asleep on his lap. More than that, he was certain his feelings were returned.

“We’re here, you good?” he asked, squeezing Morpheus’s shoulder and getting an annoyed grumble in response. Awake, at least, if not good.

Morpheus sat up and rubbed his eyes, smearing the eyeliner that had stayed remarkably intact through tears, all things considered. Somehow it being smudgy made him look more himself, despite his fancy outfit.

“I’m alright now,” Morpheus said, glancing pointedly at the front seat and Hob nodded his understanding. Reggie was blissfully unaware of the drama, and it was best he stayed that way until they discussed it with Lucienne, or Morta if she did drop by tomorrow as intended.

Morpheus let them into the building without a word and flipped only one of the lightswitches which gave just enough illumination to see by but left most of the large open space in shadows. Enough for Morpheus to see by, at least. Hob was certain he’d trip over everything but he didn’t want to turn any other lights on in case that was an issue. One of the few things Morpheus had said before he had calmed down was ‘it’s too bright’ over and over.

He was startled out of his thoughts by Morpheus grabbing him by the lapels and kissing him with the hunger of a man starved. His back hit the brick wall with a thump and Morpheus followed, pressing his lean body against Hob and only breaking the kiss to pant for some much-needed air before kissing a path across his jaw and down his throat. It took a moment for Hob’s rational mind to catch up with his instincts, then he grabbed Morpheus by the shoulders and slowly tried to extricate himself despite the other man’s muffled protests. Such efforts proved fruitless.

“Morpheus, no,” Hob said sternly, and that did get his attention.

Morpheus released him immediately and pulled back, a worried and slightly stunned look on his pretty face. A flash of panic flitted over his features and Hob immediately felt guilty, although he didn’t think he should. Earlier, before the gala, Morpheus’s insistence had been playful and endearing, and most of all; confident. This felt desperate.

“We need to talk first,” Hob said, releasing Morpheus’s shoulders to settle his hands on the other man’s narrow waist instead, “And I need to make sure you’re settled and everything’s…. Fine.”

“I said I’m fine,” Morpheus replied defiantly, glaring at him, “Don’t treat me like I can’t know what I want.”

“I’m not trying to, I just… Fuck, I don’t want to hurt you, alright? You’re still shivering, you were the entire ride home,” Hob said, relenting a little and pulling Morpheus back against him in a much more platonic embrace, one hand reaching up to tangle in his hair and tuck the other man’s head under his chin - a more difficult prospect than usual given the shoes he was wearing. “I need to make sure, for my sake, that you’re in a state to be sure of what you want. Consent goes both ways here, love.”

That seemed to get through to him well enough and Morpheus nodded against his chest and was still, after slipping his arms back around Hob beneath his suit jacket.

“I planned to stay the night regardless, and I want you as much as you want me,” Hob said eventually, pulling back a little so he could look down at Morpheus who was slumped against him, more than happy to take what affection he could get for now, “So go see to Jessamy, take those meds you told me you skipped for the gala, drink some water, and I’m going to be the responsible one and text Lucienne so she doesn’t learn about what happened from the gossip column. Then we can enjoy ourselves and you might look a bit less like you’re going to fall down if I let go.”

Morpheus glared at him, but then nodded and stepped away, straightening up to his full height and rolling his shoulders after being hunched over. Not just now, but in the car and in the hallway at the gala where he had been a ball of tense muscle desperately tensing up for a blow that wouldn’t come. He walked toward the centre of the room and held up a hand, making the clicking noise Hob had heard before as a trigger for some of Jessamy’s tricks. In the dim light of the room he hardly saw her swoop down from the loft until she was close, a flicker of white in the gloom as she glided down to land on Morpheus’s outstretched hand. Immediately, he began speaking to her softly in a language Hob couldn’t quite hear well enough to identify.

Hob took his time, messaging Lucienne with the preface that everything was fine, they were home, please don’t worry; followed by what had happened. Her immediate response was, let me know if you need a lawyer, then her thanks and a promise that she would play intermediary and not require Morpheus’s response on anything work-related for the next few days. Job done, he went to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water but was then stumped by trying to figure out what it was Morpheus had been supposed to take, or should take now.

Morpheus reached around from behind him and plucked the glass of water out of his hand, then shooed Hob out of the way to select what he needed from the orderly row of pill bottles. Jessamy was happily perched on his shoulder, but fluffed up her feathers and croaked happily at Hob.

“You may wish to get her something to eat, that’s what she wants,” Morpheus said, “Unless you want her bothering us.”

Didn’t that provide a few amusing mental images; but no, he didn’t want anything else to ruin their moment, even with good intentions. Hob went about setting out her food, and Jessamy hopped down to the countertop in a flutter of wings and strutted over to start sorting through her pellets as if they weren’t all exactly the same.

Hob moved back to Morpheus and wrapped his arms around him from behind, before pressing a gentle kiss to the back of his neck.

“Do I seem sane enough for you now?” Morpheus asked dryly.

Hob sighed, “That was uncalled for.”

“Maybe,” Morpheus admitted, leaning back against him, “But… I do not like being told that I can’t make my own decisions; I’d rather make them, then regret them, than not be allowed the choice.”

“I will keep that in mind,” Hob replied, holding him a little tighter, “But when it comes to things that involve me, like sex, I get to stop you from making choices you regret in the morning because I would rather you be mad at me for a bit than push you past what you’re ready for.”

“Then ask me, don’t assume,” Morpheus said, twisting around in their embrace to look down at him imperiously, still enjoying the height advantage his shoes gave him, “I have a great deal of trauma, most of which you are now privy to, but sexual trauma is not among them. In that I’ve only ever enjoyed myself; there are no pitfalls here that I know of and should you find one, it’s new to me as well. I’m not fragile, not in this.”

“Point taken,” Hob replied, hoping that hadn’t sounded flippant, “I ask because I care, you know that.”

“I do, you make it quite obvious to my eternal bafflement,” Morpheus said, “And yet you still come to my every aid.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Hob asked, tilting his head up for a slow kiss, “You make it very gratifying.”

Morpheus sighed against his lips and closed his eyes, smiling slightly. “You almost punched him, I saw you winding up.”

The sudden change of subject threw Hob for a loop and he gave Morpheus a look that clearly amused him in its confusion. The other man leaned in and kissed him again, soft and lingering.

“Paul, you were going to hit him,” Morpheus said, deft fingers untying Hob’s bow tie and tossing it aside, “I wish you had, a little. I don’t know what it says about me that I have never been so turned on in all my life.”

Hob gave a surprised laugh at that and grinned. “I will certainly keep that in mind next time anyone heckles you,” he said, then sobered a little, “In all seriousness, if it is in my power I will never let anyone hurt you ever again, no matter how small the harm.”

“Mmm, new record,” Morpheus said thoughtfully, slipping a hand inside Hob’s now half-unbuttoned shirt, “Still unsure what it says about me.”

“I don’t know, but I’m sure there’s a better place to undress me than your kitchen,” Hob replied, “Maybe at a later date, but after today I think you’ve earned a little comfort.”

Morpheus gave him an appraising look which he was almost certain would be accompanied by a rejoinder of a far more sexual nature than his suggestion. Surprisingly, he just nodded and grabbed Hob by the hand to lead him up the metal, switchback stairs that headed up the loft.

Even up closer to the ceiling the room was still airy, beyond the fact that it was basically a balcony looking over the rest of the flat. It was full of plants, which was a surprise, and books, which was not. They were in shelves and stacks, in a sort of organised chaos that made Hob feel much less self-conscious about his own flat. Despite the mess it was homey and appealing in a way that the downstairs felt solely due to Morpheus’s presence, being rather cavernous and industrial otherwise, which no doubt was the point. The loft bedroom was somewhere he could more easily picture Morpheus; curled up in that great big bed with a cup of tea and a book, hiding from the world.

Even more inviting was the man now perched on the edge of the bed removing his shoes. Hob shed the rather constricting jacket and laid it over the back of a chair before following him over and sitting down beside him. Morpheus immediately responded by crawling into his lap to straddle him, regaining his height advantage simply in a different way. He grinned down at Hob mischievously.

“We’re both wearing too many clothes,” he said, returning to the task of unbuttoning Hob’s shirt with a grumble of annoyance. It took Hob a moment to realise he was struggling with the buttons with his left hand before he reached in to assist him deftly. He quickly shrugged out of the shirt and tossed it away somewhere out of sight, only to look up and see unbridled lust written across Morpheus’s pretty face. He was expressive when he wanted to be, or when he forgot himself, and this was definitely the latter. It was a novel experience to be the object of such focused desire. Hob knew he was conventionally attractive, to a point, but the way Morpheus looked at him was fairly worshipful and he didn’t dare interrupt as the other man ran his hands down his arms and then up his sides lovingly.

He leaned back on the bed and pulled Morpheus with him, before rolling them over to end up on top. It seemed like Morpheus was more than willing to take the lead here, as he had done earlier, but he had asked to be listened to, and he had stated quite clearly what he wanted. Hob crouched over him and kissed up the line of his jaw to the tender skin beneath the juncture of jaw and throat, then nipped gently to elicit a sweet little noise that was enough to turn him nearly feral with want.

“You’re still overdressed,” he whispered in Morpheus’s ear, feeling the shiver that sent through the man’s entire body. He could feel Morpheus’s sharp nails digging into his back to keep him close, a heavy weight on top of him.

“Who’s fault is that?” Morpheus retorted, bucking his hips to rub himself needily against Hob for any manner of relief. “Let me up.”

Hob did as he was asked, rolling off him for a moment so Morpheus could stand up again and start fastidiously removing his clothing. First the ascot and cufflinks, which he set on the bedside table, then the tailcoat which he laid across Hob’s on the nearby chair. Each movement was slow and intentional, and he smirked upon looking up and seeing Hob watching his every action. He did have some sense of urgency, his own need fighting against the urge to tease with every bit of pale skin revealed. The rest of the clothes were not set aside with such grace as his jacket, merely left where they fell as he returned to the bed, gloriously naked, to give himself back to Hob’s eager ministrations.

He had divested himself of the rest of his clothing without taking his eyes off of Morpheus and the first slide of skin and skin when he pulled the slim man into his lap was delicious. Hob ran his hands over every inch of Morpheus’s strangely cool skin; if he was still chilled from earlier, he would warm him up soon enough. Despite being more fit than he had expected, and wasn’t that delightful surprise, he had the fleeting thought best left unspoken that Morpheus was far too thin. His fingertips traced over the prominent ridges of ribs and spine despite the hard muscle that clung to his form. It was an enchanting dichotomy, and any thoughts of remedying it could wait until morning.

In the dimness of the room his pale skin shone silvery in what light filtered in the windows, looking almost otherworldly compared to Hob’s own. He couldn’t find a single freckle or blemish, only the slightly pale pink lines of old scars scattered over his shoulders and chest. When he traced one of them with his fingers, Morpheus grabbed his hand before he could follow up the gesture with lips and tongue.

“Don’t,” he said softly, “There is more to me than that.”

“Whatever you need,” Hob said, apology in his tone if not his words.

Morpheus responded by placing Hob’s on his cock instead and giving him a challenging look. “I need you to fuck me, not worship me,” he said pointedly, then added as an afterthought, “Not tonight.”

Hob chuckled at that and pulled him in for a kiss with a more forceful hand at the nape of his neck, and was rewarded by his partner groaning into his mouth as he stroked him. Not tonight, then.

Eventually he coaxed Morpheus out of his lap and away from the edge of the bed so they had more space to lie together face to face and explore each other’s bodies with a greater sense of urgency. Morpheus was quick to wrap one leg around his and grind against him when Hob’s hands had dared stray off his cock for too long. He trailed his hand down the ridges of his partner’s spine and over the swell of his ass to grab tightly and pull him forcefully closer.

Hob took a breath as if to speak and Morpheus answered him before he could get any words out. “Top drawer,” he murmured, rolling over out of the way as Hob leaned over him to fetch supplies. He had a passing, vaguely coherent thought wondering how far into their acquaintance Morpheus had bought a box of condoms. Not something to ask right now, however, as his beautiful, flushed boyfriend was watching him with intent eyes and unbridled need on his face.

“How do you want me?” Hob asked, running his hands down Morpheus’s flanks and pointedly ignoring his aching cock for the moment.

“Like this,” he replied softly, letting his legs fall open to accommodate Hob settling himself between them.

He kissed his way up Morpheus’s thin body, nipping at the places that made him twitch and pausing to lavish his attention on his nipples to distract from the momentary discomfort of preparing him. Without asking any further questions, he knew that it had been a very long time, and the last thing he wanted to do was cause him any pain. Morpheus tangled his fingers in Hob’s long hair and rather forcefully pulled him up for a kiss, to which he gladly obliged, then replaced the distraction of his tongue with his free hand on the other man's cock instead.

Soon enough he had Morpheus moaning wantonly into his mouth and pushing back against his hand. Hob released him just long enough to roll on the condom and give himself a couple of strokes with a lubed hand, which felt far better than it had any right to after ignoring his own need for so long once he had gotten Morpheus on his back. He knelt between the other man’s legs, guiding him with one hand to raise his hips so Hob could push into him. The plaintive whimper that met his actions was almost enough to melt his resolve to take this slow; he gave a short involuntary thrust before he caught himself and was rewarded with a gasp.

“I told you I am not fragile,” Morpheus panted, then belatedly added, “...please.”

That was the breaking point of his resolve, and he gave his lover precisely what he wanted. Morpheus gleefully pushed back against him, clawing his nails down Hob’s shoulders and back until he could feel the stinging trails of his touch with every flex of muscle. Morpheus clung to him tightly long after they had both climaxed, his face pressed tightly against Hob’s neck. It was only once Hob was relatively certain he felt tears that he carefully pulled out and rolled them over so that Morpheus’s scant weight was on top of him rather than the other way around.

Hob stroked his back softly for a long moment before he spoke. “Are you alright, love?”

Mutely, Morpheus nodded against his chest and wrapped his arms around Hob. It was another minute or so until he spoke. “Merely overwhelmed… I’m sorry if I worried you.”

“I only wanted to make sure I didn’t hurt you,” Hob said sheepishly, “I may have gotten a little carried away, you’re… very convincing.”

Morpheus shook slightly with silent laughter at that. “I know what I want, and how to get it,” he replied wryly, raising his head to meet Hob’s eyes. He had been crying, it looked like, but not upset - just overcome. He didn’t say anything else for a moment, just watched him with an unreadable, soft expression.

“You’re beautiful, you know,” he said, eventually, resting his head back on Hob’s chest.

That brought Hob’s train of thought up short and the hand stroking Morpheus’s back gently stopped for a moment, before he remembered himself enough to continue. He’d been called a lot of things before, by lovers, in bed and out; handsome often enough, sexy sometimes. Beautiful was a new one.

“I could make a quip about your sanity, but that may be a bit too soon,” Hob said teasingly, deflecting.

“Take the compliment, idiot,” Morpheus muttered, “I said I know what I want, and it’s you. That I think you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen may be influenced by what you’ve done for me, but…”

He twisted a little so he could prop himself up with an elbow on the mattress and look down at Hob without completely compromising in no longer lying on top of him. Morpheus reached out with his left hand and traced his fingertips over Hob’s cheekbone and jaw with a look of such abject adoration on his face that it made him almost uncomfortable. Hob looked away and Morpheus grabbed his chin to forcefully turn his face back before kissing him soundly.

Looking quite pleased with himself, he finally rolled off of Hob to lie beside him on his side, smirking. Hob couldn’t help but smile back at him, his joy was infectious. He’d seen Morpheus smile a lot, lately, but this was different - relaxed and languid in a way that was a new delight. This was a moment he was happy to draw out for as long as possible, just lying side by side basking in the closeness they shared in spirit, not just in body.

“I’m glad I talked to you, that day on the bench. It feels like it was meant to be,” Hob said eventually, after they had lain there in silence for a while and Morpheus had slowly snuggled back against his chest.

“Then stay,” Morpheus replied quietly, “Not just the night; stay with me as long as you will have me.”

Suddenly Hob was more alert again, shifting slightly to look down at the expression of plaintive hope on Morpheus’s lovely face. There was fear there as well; of rejection, betrayal, of losing the one person he had opened his heart to after so long.

“As long as you want, love,” Hob replied earnestly, “Anything you want.”

That pleased look was back in an instant and Morpheus leaned up to kiss him sweetly, but his hand trailed down Hob’s chest and stomach to rest teasingly for a moment at the base of his cock before he began coaxing him into hardness again.

“Then I want you to have me again,” he said with a grin.

Hob groaned and closed his eyes for a moment to gather his thoughts. “Not wise,” he said wryly, “It’s been a long time for you and I was not gentle; how attached are you to the concept of walking in the morning?”

Morpheus made a considering expression. “Point taken,” he said after a moment, shifting and turning so he could grind back against Hob’s swiftly hardening cock, “Between my thighs then, at least until you’re nearly finished.”

That was a difficult request to say no to, especially when asked in that oddly commanding tone of voice, and easy enough to comply. “Or, you can be on top,” he said, wrapping one arm around Morpheus’s narrow chest to pull him close. His free hand found its way down between his lover’s legs.

“If that is a request and not merely a concession, then yes, but not tonight,” Morpheus murmured after a moment, “I want you in me, I just need to… feel.”

Hob just kissed the back of his neck repeatedly and held him close, listening to his soft, panting breaths and enjoying the slick slide between his legs. There was nothing frantic or needy about their love making this time; just soft sighs and gentle touches that Morpheus had shrugged off earlier but now was more than willing to submit to. Eventually, Hob could feel himself getting close and paused.

“Can you reach another condom, love,” he murmured, nuzzling against Morpheus’s and grinning at the shiver that earned him.

“You don’t have to,” Morpheus said, after a moment’s pause, and he twisted slightly to look over his shoulder, “I’ve been celibate for… a long time, and I know you’re the sort who’d tell me if there were anything I should know, so…”

“If you’re sure,” Hob said, running a hand down Morpheus thigh and lifting it over his own for a better angle.

“Don’t question me.”

Hob did his best not to laugh but he didn’t question Morpheus again, simply held him close and made love to him as gently as he wished.

Hours later, long after they had finally dragged themselves downstairs to the shower to clean up, Morpheus was still awake in Hob’s embrace, staring up at the ceiling - his mind moving a mile a minute. He didn’t want to sleep and miss a moment of this, no matter how exhausted he was. There was a part of him that didn’t believe that someone so good and kind and blessedly normal could truly want him anymore, and yet all the evidence was lain out before him. He wasn’t stupid enough to ignore it, nor to discount Hob’s own words, but that didn’t make it any easier to conflate the ideas of himself, with all his scars, and this man who he was certain would do anything for him. He sighed and sat up, trying not to make any sudden moves to wake his partner.

“Morpheus, for the love of all that is holy, if you don’t stop squirming I will drug you to sleep,” Hob said tiredly, looking up at him with the wakefulness of someone who had certainly not just been sleeping.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Clearly,” Hob replied, “And yet. Are you alright, can I get you anything?”

Morpheus shook his head and looked up, out the window toward the night sky. The light pollution of the city did blot out a lot of the stars, but the moon was nearly full and that was a beautiful sight in and of itself - one he had missed for three very long years.

“When you call me ‘love’, is that just a pet name, or… do you mean it?” he asked eventually, his whisper still carrying his words well in the silence of the room.

Hob said up beside him and slipped his arms around Morpheus’s waist. “I mean it as much or as little as you wish me to,” he said after a moment’s hesitation on how exactly to reply. It hadn’t been very long that they had known each other, but he was certain of his own feelings. The last thing he wanted to do was push them on Morpheus before he was ready. “I love you, in whatever way you will let me.”

Morpheus let out a long sigh, and rested his arm over Hob’s where it wrapped around his middle. “Good,” he said simply, “because I think I love you too.” Sleep came easily after that.