Chapter Text
Dream lay for a little while in the warm quiet of Hob's bed, enjoying the feeling of being right where he belonged.
There were things to do, of course. Hob's home was not stocked for the care and feeding of Finn, a topic on which Dream was happily supplied with a great deal of practical information. He was certain that he could find what he needed in the dreams of others tonight, so that it would all be in readiness when Finn and Hob woke in the morning, but...
It did not take long before he felt Finn starting to dream.
Dream had promised that Finn could sleep safely tonight; he would not leave his newfound son unattended now. Dream let his awareness of the Waking world fade as he slipped into Finn's dream, but he kept his grip on Hob's hand, his body still located in Hob's bed.
This did not work quite as he meant it to; Dream found himself back in Finn's barren little bedroom in his mother's flat, but with Hob's dreaming self at his side, still hand in hand with him. Hob was not a naturally lucid dreamer; he had the soft edges and slightly unfocused gaze of a very ordinary human experiencing a dream that he would only half-remember.
Dream could have changed that, but he thought it better to let nature take its course as much as possible, when he had already interfered to the extent of Finn and Hob sharing this dream with himself present to look after them. He drew Hob with him, to the place where the dream wanted Dream to be. He took that space for himself and dismissed the simulacrum of him Finn's dream had shaped. Hob knelt readily at his side.
Finn lay before them on the bare mattress that had been his bed when he first lay down tonight, and presumably for years before. He held his blanket to his face, and those cruel iron wires were back in place at his wrists and ankles and middle; Dream could feel the malevolent presence of the one around his throat by its weight in the dream, even if it was not actually visible yet.
Dream meant to wait patiently for Finn to wake or make some first move—it was Finn's dream after all, and being too hasty was the one mistake he could see he'd made in the waking version of this moment—but he had not reckoned on Hob. As soon as he knelt at Dream's side Hob was reaching out a hand, saying, "Oh, no, sweetheart! What's all this?"
Finn lowered the blanket from his face and looked up at them, blinking at the addition of Hob but not seeming at all alarmed. Dream felt it when Finn focused on him, on Dadda, here, the light and gravity of the dream shifting around him.
He still kept his grip on Hob, but manifested an extra hand so that he could, at the same time, reach out one hand to brush gently over Finn's cheek, and use another to begin freeing him from the wires. "Dadda is here, my darling boy. You are safe now. You will always be safe now."
That was the key; a dim awareness of what had come before and what would follow after suffused the dream, but all Finn's hope and fear narrowed in on those elements, which in this retelling of the night was conveniently collapsed into a single moment. His father had come, had identified himself, had set Finn free from the cold bonds of iron. The dream did not require the misstep which had left its permanent mark on Dream's arm, though Dream was rather pleased to have it.
This was Finn's dream, and so time stretched and looped on itself, as Finn's dreaming self lingered in the moment of his father coming to him, of knowing who this was and that he was safe. Of being freed by gentle hands, again and again and again, until Finn could begin to believe that it was true.
Finn's focus on Dream relaxed as his need to relive that moment was satisfied, and this evidently released Hob from his relegation to a silent witness to events. Finn lay again, just peeking over the blanket for the first time, the wires of iron in their places again, and Hob had just finished speaking. "Oh, no, sweetheart!"
And then a fragment of Hob's own dreaming—an old, old nightmare that had lost none of its power over him—inserted itself into the shared dream. Not mere wires around Finn's baby-soft neck and belly, wrists and ankles; instead the little child was weighted down with manacles of iron, and Hob's kindly dismay was now true horror.
"No, no, no," Hob gasped, reaching out frantically. But with Dream there, and with Finn's ready faith in them, Hob's hands were enough to break the iron bonds just as easily as Dream had broken the wires. A vast relief swept through Hob as he freed Finn, and all the time he was saying, nearly sobbing, "I won't let them, I won't let anyone take you, sweetheart, not ever—"
This moment, too, lingered and stretched and repeated, something that both Finn and Hob seemed to need in nearly equal measures. Finn was freed, and was an object of such intense and overt sympathy and worry and care that for this moment it overshadowed Dream's own matter-of-fact rescue.
Hob was able to set something right, to set someone free—to save someone in the place of all those he never saw, and never saved. His son Robyn had died in a tavern brawl while Hob himself was miles away, and the greatest sins Hob had ever committed against his fellow men had all been put into practice far from the shores of England. And in truth, Finn's abuse and his rescue from it had likewise been accomplished while Hob slept, entirely unaware and miles away.
But this was a dream, and in the dream Hob was someone Finn could accept care and concern from; in the dream Finn was someone Hob could save.
And then they were evidently both satisfied with that moment of liberation, for the stuttering and repeating of it came to an end, and Hob could scoop Finn up into his arms and hug the child to his chest.
"You shan't drown, not ever," Hob whispered. "You're safe now, my love, I will keep you safe. No one will take you from me."
Finn seemed well content to be tucked against Hob's chest—indeed Dream felt a flicker of jealousy, for he had not yet been so close to Hob as Finn's dreaming self was now—but he peeked over Hob's shoulder in Dream's direction and reached out a hand. "Dadda?"
Hob turned a little toward Dream, having seemed largely unaware of him to that point. Now he made a motion as if to pass Finn to Dream, but Finn was still holding on to Hob with the hand not extended, and seemed very happy where he was.
"I am here," Dream affirmed, and wrapped his arms around both of them instead, letting Finn get a good handful of his t-shirt so he could hold on to both of them at once. "You are safe, Finn. You are both safe. I am here. Nothing will harm you."
"Dadda and Baba and Finn," Finn mumbled from where he was firmly held between them. "Safe safe safe."
Hob shifted his grip, putting one arm around Dream as he had in the Waking world, and Dream resolutely did not shiver at that touch, did not allow the dream to linger and loop there as it had lingered on the moments Finn and Hob needed to be sure of.
Instead, he let the dream fade into peaceful nothingness. Finn and Hob had both done all the heavy work they should do in one night of dreaming, and he set the course of their dreams for the remainder of this night: nothing but harmless nonsense, the mind's ordinary pattern-making and housekeeping.
Dream withdrew from them then, and allowed himself another moment savoring the material closeness of their bodies tucked into Hob's bed, before he remembered that he had other tasks to complete before Hob and Finn woke.
Hob woke up to find his bed warmer and more crowded than it had been in a long time. For a moment he just saw the head lying on the other pillow, messy black hair and half-open eyes fringed in long black lashes, his friend's—Dream's—pale skin nearly as colorless as the old linen his cheek rested on.
Then something moved in Hob's peripheral vision, and he turned his head to look—up—at Finn, who was sitting up in the bed between Hob and Dream, still wrapped in the silky black fabric that had been a sling last night. His golden hair was sticking up in odd tufts, and his violet eyes were beautiful and solemn as he watched Hob.
Hob smiled, remembering that Finn was his, his and Dream's, theirs to love and care for. Dadda and Baba, he had named them. Not quite human, Finn would grow up slowly and needed parents who would be around for him forever. They would be a family now; this was the first morning of the rest of their life together, and Hob somehow already felt as if they belonged here, as if he had always loved Finn just as he had always longed to truly know his stranger.
"Good morning, love," Hob said, fighting not to yawn and spoil it.
Finn stared back at him for another moment, then said in a very small voice, "Baba?"
"Yes," Hob agreed.
Before he could say anything else, Finn leaned toward him and said, "Toilet?"
"Yes," Hob agreed, sitting up sharply and reaching for Finn, who came into Hob's arms as if he belonged there, as if he had done this a hundred times before. Holding him felt familiar, even as Hob was tugging free the trailing cloth of the sling, but there was no time to think about how fatherhood had never quite left him. As soon as he had Finn disentangled he was up and hustling toward the bathroom.
Finn did know what to do when he got there, and was only a little shy about indicating what he needed help with. Hob was long past having any squeamishness about cleaning up after other people's bodily functions, and instead found himself smiling at the thought of finally being able to join in the fond parental griping some of his colleagues shared.
Of course, to do that he was going to have to go to work. He did rather need to do that today, although—he glanced at the clock as he helped Finn wash his hands while also thoroughly washing his own—not in a tearing hurry. Finn was an early riser, evidently. Better than an alarm clock.
When they stepped out of the bathroom, Dream was waiting at the bedroom door—back in skinny jeans with his black tee, and he had added a long black cardigan that looked wondrously soft. Finn immediately leaned toward him, reaching out for him, and Hob couldn't blame him a bit for that reaction; he'd have done the same if he hadn't had his hands full of toddler.
"Good morning, my darling son," Dream murmured, and Hob's whole brain shivered at the sound of his deep, slightly eerie voice gone all soft with affection. Then Dream looked at him over Finn's head, while pressing a perfectly fatherly kiss to Finn's hair, and Hob got a very different sort of shiver. "Good morning, my beloved."
"Tis, isn't it?" Hob said brightly. "I'm just going to—" He gestured vaguely behind him, and Dream nodded gravely, as if that were a perfectly normal reaction.
Hob ducked into the bathroom and shut the door behind him, and then just stared at the closed door for a moment.
My beloved, Dream had said. It wasn't like Hob hadn't known what he'd signed up for—that kiss last night had made things pretty clear—but there had been a promise in Dream's voice, in his eyes, and Hob just needed a minute to try to add that into his worldview. He needed to go to work, and he was parenting an immortal toddler, and his stranger, his friend, Dream, loved him and wanted him every bit as much as Hob had ever... dreamed.
Hob laughed at himself, shaking his head, and got on with attending to his own first-thing-in-the-morning needs.
When he emerged from the bathroom again, he found Dream standing at the foot of the bed while Finn stood on the mattress. Dream was helping Finn into a pair of bright green trousers that did not particularly seem like a match for the purple tee Finn was already wearing.
Dream pulled a perfectly sedate little pale blue cardigan out of the suitcase that was open beside Finn on the bed. "And what color should this be?"
Finn looked at Dream, looked around the room, and caught sight of Hob in the doorway. "Baba?"
Hob came in and stood beside Dream. "Here I am, love. I think you should pick whatever color you like."
Finn looked around again, and Hob followed his gaze, trying to see with fresh eyes the walls covered in photos and prints and maps, plus a couple of bookshelves stuffed to overflowing and cluttered with everything from a three-hundred-year-old miniature portrait to Kinder egg toys. Hob could see how it might be a bit overwhelming, to a toddler looking for inspiration.
Hob wondered whether he should say as much to Dream, who was watching Finn with a perfectly patient expression and what Hob suspected was a genuine willingness to wait here literally forever if that was how long it took for Finn to answer the question. Looking around again, Hob realized the green of Finn's trousers was exactly the same green as one of the books on his nightstand; the purple of the t-shirt had come from the dress Peggy was wearing in the colorized photo on the wall.
Hob looked back to Finn just as Finn whispered, "All colors."
Dream smiled, and leaned down closer to Finn. "All colors?"
It wasn't far off from the tone Dream had had when he asked Hob, Did I hear you say you have no intention of ever dying? And for the first time Hob wondered if that had been what it was all about—if Dream had thought Hob was a child, asking for something he couldn't possibly really want.
Finn glanced over at Hob as if for guidance, and Hob only knew one way to answer a challenge like Dream's. He grinned and nodded. "Definitely, all the colors."
"All colors!" Finn crowed, sure of himself with Hob's support.
"Very well," Dream said, and shook out the little jumper. It changed as he did, to a zigzag pattern where each line changed colors every half inch or so, contrasting against every other zigzag color-changing line. It was a bit dizzying to look at.
Hob loved it, instantly and completely. Finn bounced up and down in his enthusiasm, and it took a moment before Dream could actually help him into it. Finn held his arms out, admiring himself, and then looked up at Hob again, preening a bit.
"It's beautiful, love," Hob agreed. "I only wish I had one of my own."
Dream made a small, pointed noise.
Hob looked over. "What—oh, would you?"
Dream's eyebrows ticked up, a silent How can you doubt it?
Hob darted over to the wardrobe and found his favorite old comfortable cardigan that he rarely wore. The golden brown of it didn't quite go with anything else he regularly wore and did, he would have to admit, look a bit like some variety of excrement under the unflattering lights of a lecture hall. He offered it to Dream, who looked over at Finn.
"Will you help me?" Dream asked, guiding Finn's hand to the cardigan. "Can you think of how all the colors in your jumper could also be all the colors in Baba's jumper? Can you feel how you can change it?"
Hob pressed a hand to his chest and did his best not to make a sound as he realized that this was Dream starting to teach Finn how to use magic. Proper cool interesting magic, instead of that apparently innate tendency toward mind control and such. What a thing to see happening in his bedroom at seven in the morning on a Wednesday!
Hob felt a sudden modern urge to take photos, to capture this the way everyone nowadays wanted to capture everything. Hob had long felt himself rather smugly immune to the impulse, but apparently it was just that he hadn't had a child and a partner who he loved beyond reason and wanted to be able to keep that way forever.
And then Finn let out a little excited shriek, and Dream's guiding hand twitched, and just like that, Hob's cardigan was a bigger version of Finn's, with the same absolutely dazzling variety of colors. Finn and Dream both looked up at the same moment with nearly identical hopeful expressions on their faces, waiting for his reaction.
Hob couldn't smile any wider. "That's amazing! Look what you did, I love it! Thank you!" He ducked in to kiss Finn's cheek. "Thank you, Finn!"
Then he straightened up, meaning to bestow a similarly quick and chaste kiss upon Dream, but Dream's mouth caught his, bending Hob back just slightly with the eager intensity of it.
Oh, yeah. Dream wanted him badly.
Hob broke away and finished with a bright and breathless, "Thank you, Dream!"
Dream blinked down at him, shook himself, and visibly remembered that there was a child present who needed good role models. "You are welcome, Hob."
They both looked down at Finn, who was still just looking pleased with himself and petting Hob's cardigan. He glanced at Dream and then echoed, "Welcome, Baba!"
Hob managed to regain possession of his cardigan long enough to slip it on over his pajamas—he was not actually sure that its new coloration would be kinder to inflict on his students and colleagues than the old, but he would certainly wear it every chance he got where Finn could see.
Finn launched himself at Hob as soon as he had the cardigan on, and Hob managed to catch him without injury to either of them, once again noticing how natural and right it felt to have Finn in his arms.
"Finn all colors!" Finn announced. "Baba all colors! Dadda—"
Finn stopped short, biting his lip as he looked up at Dream.
Hob gave Finn a reassuring squeeze. "Dadda likes to wear few colors."
Finn looked down at his own motley colors. "Colors, Dadda?"
"Dadda likes to see Finn wear as many colors as he likes," Dream put in, in that smooth low tone that left no room for doubt or argument. "And Dadda likes to see Baba wear as many colors as he likes. But Dadda likes to wear few colors himself."
Dream picked up the bottom edge of the soft black cardigan he wore. "Will you help me add just a little bit of red?"
"Red," Finn agreed enthusiastically, grabbing the inky black cardigan with both hands.
"A little red," Dream said gently, but Hob felt the way Finn tensed again at the correction, and slowly opened one hand and tucked it behind his back.
Hob rubbed his back, hoping to reassure him without distracting him from getting to do more magic with Dream.
Finn and Dream both frowned down at the edge of the cardigan held between them.
"Red," Finn mumbled, "Red? Red. Red."
The color spread slowly this time, in a band of zigzag lines that echoed Hob and Finn's jumpers, but only an inch wide, and made up of dozens of shades of red, from warm ones that were nearly orange to deep dark near-purples that were barely brighter than black.
The effect was gorgeous and wild in its variations but still rather elegant, and Hob looked up to meet Dream's eye with a grin.
"That is lovely," Hob said, and Dream actually looked like he was trying not to preen too obviously. Hob had a feeling he would be seeing Dream wear a lot of little touches of red for the foreseeable future, not just that great ruby—though he wasn't wearing the ruby now, and hadn't been last night, either. One more question for the endless pile of them Hob would have ready to go when it seemed like the time and place to ask.
Dream focused on Finn again and said, "Yes, I like this very much. Thank you for your assistance, Finn."
Finn beamed. "Welcome, Dadda!"
"And now," Hob said, smiling right back at his—their!—his!—son. "What do you think about having some breakfast?"
Finn's smile shrank, and he looked anxiously from Dream to Hob and back again. He was barely whispering when he said, "Pease? Baba? Dadda, pease?"
Hob glanced at Dream, and saw his expression go so perfectly neutral that he knew Dream was thinking what he was thinking, and trying very hard not to think it where Finn could see. It would only upset him more.
"Of course, darling!" Hob said, a bit too heartily, but Finn was still watching him with wide, wary eyes. "Breakfast you shall have, for certain. Today and every single day. Dream, love, does Finn have any particular... dietary requirements? Allergies?"
"Nothing cooked in iron," Dream said. "Nor served or eaten on it. I have here—" He reached into the suitcase and pulled out a brightly colored plastic plate and bowl, with a rounded plastic fork and spoon resting inside. Shifting them to his other hand, he reached in again and drew out a rolled up placemat of soft silicone, and a two-handled plastic cup. "A few useful items which I thought you might not have on hand."
"Ah, perfect!" Hob said, though that wasn't even remotely what he had meant. He led off toward the kitchen, and said lightly as they went, "I don't suppose there's an Eatwell Guide from the Elven NHS, anyhow."
Dream said nothing in such an audible way that Hob looked back at him, to find him frowning in thought. Then he had to look where he was going, to avoid smacking Finn into the doorjamb as they went into the kitchen, and Hob stopped short.
He had not owned a breadbox when he went to bed last night, but there certainly was one on the kitchen bench now, to say nothing of the lovely wooden bowl on his kitchen table, piled with bananas and peaches and mandarins.
"Fresh fruit is very important," Dream said, as Hob looked around, steeling himself to discover what might be in the fridge. "Meat is to be offered very sparingly if at all, vegetables only slightly more so. Milk and dairy products are second to fresh fruit, and bread and grains are generally welcome, though white bread is preferred to wholemeal. Sweets are important as well, particularly honey or nectars. I... made certain that you would have a sufficiency on hand. Since we arrived rather unexpectedly."
"Rather," Hob agreed with a crooked smile at Dream, and then he looked at Finn, who was staring at the fruit bowl with wide eyes and fingers crammed into his mouth. "Your Dadda knows what he's about, doesn't he, sweetheart?"
That got Finn looking at Dream, who held out his arms. Finn looked back to Hob, and Hob said, "Yes, why don't you go with Dadda while I sort out what you're going to eat for breakfast."
He kissed Finn's forehead and then passed him off, taking the collection of dishes and utensils from Dream in exchange. He set the placemat down on the table in front of the spot where he usually sat, the bowl and plate and fork and spoon all on top of it, and took the cup with him as he went to investigate the fridge.
There were a few punnets of berries stacked up right at the front of the top shelf. He picked up the raspberries, which were on top, and looked like they were so perfectly ripe that they would go off by the end of the day. He turned back, holding them out toward Dream and Finn. "What do you think, darling, would you like these?"
Finn cautiously extended his hands, and Hob kept his smile steady as he gave them over. "Yes, there you go, those are for you." He turned back to locate the milk that had to be hiding somewhere behind the produce, and then heard—several noises that he couldn't identify, but the one that made him turn sharply back around was the small wounded sound from Dream.
Hob was just in time to see Finn raise his face from where he had, quite obviously, smashed it directly into the basket of raspberries. He was red from chin to eyebrows, both cheeks bulging with whatever he'd managed to gobble up in that first moment. His eyes were open wide enough to show the white all around the violet; his eyelashes were spiky with liquid, stained red as the rest of him. He was very obviously now terrified that he had not been given permission to eat after all.
"Go on then," Dream said softly, "chew and swallow your food. We shall work on deportment another day, when you are not quite so hungry."
Hob felt an awful shock of something between horror and shame; if he'd had any idea Finn was that hungry...
Meeting Dream's eyes, he saw the same miserable awareness in them.
"Yes, love," Hob said softly. "Eat up. We never want you to be suffering from hunger. If you just tell us that you're hungry, the way you told me you needed the toilet, we'll get you food as quickly as we can. I'll just pour you some milk to wash that down, and perhaps Dadda can clean your face for you."
Finn chewed—still watching both of them with those wide eyes, obviously waiting for them to change their minds. Finally he swallowed and said quietly, "Hungry, Baba. Hungry, Dadda."
"Then let us sit at the table so you can break your fast properly," Dream said, and brushed his thumb over Finn's cheek in a way that made the whole rather gory-looking mess vanish.
Hob hurriedly turned away, so that Finn would not be kept waiting for the promised milk, either. He set the cup down on the corner of Finn's placemat while Finn was cramming a handful of raspberries into his mouth, eyes still fixed anxiously on Dream.
Hob left them to it and went to investigate the breadbox—no matter what Dream said, he couldn't see considering a child well-fed without offering him some bread. He found a batch of soft white rolls and tore off three. There was a row of crocks and jars on top of the breadbox, and Hob selected the rich yellow butter and lovely golden honey, carrying them back to the table with the rolls.
As he sat down, Finn was drinking from his cup, and he turned from Dream to watch Hob intently from over the rim. Hob smiled at him as reassuringly as he could, and said, "That's good, sweetheart. That's perfect. Dream, would you like... coffee, or tea or anything?"
Dream's lips parted—Hob could see the polite but inevitable no, thank you, I do not need such things forming on his tongue—and then he glanced down toward Finn.
Finn was no longer drinking from his cup, but was still holding it near his mouth, and was watching Dream intently.
"Thank you," Dream said. "I would like a cup of milk, please, and perhaps some bread?"
"Yes, of course," Hob said immediately, catching the notion that Dream wanted to model proper accepting-offered-food behavior for Finn, and sternly shushing the part of him that was all but dancing a jig at finally getting Dream to accept anything from him.
He went to get a glass for Dream, and his eye fell on the two-handled coffee mug he'd been given for his "fortieth" birthday amid jokes about how old age would be catching up with him any time now. He used it often because it actually was nice on the days when several centuries' worth of healed breaks in his hands all decided to ache at once—and it was also essentially the same shape as Finn's cup, and even a not-dissimilar pleasant medium blue.
He took it and filled it with milk for Dream, who received it from him with a thoughtful look that Hob could not begin to interpret. His brain tried to hare off to the question of whether Dream could read his mind—Hob had seen him read other people's, hadn't he, back when?
Not the time, though. Hob sat down, tore off a bread roll, and tried to quiet the bit of his brain yelling Are you reading my mind right now? in Dream's direction. "Would you like butter on your bread?" Hob asked, in a reasonably normal tone, using his actual voice and not just trying to beam the question into Dream's brain. "Or honey?"
"A little of each, please," Dream said, and this time his mouth was twitching toward a smile—like he could see the chaos of Hob's brain right now? Or like Hob was, possibly, broadcasting some of his chaotically tumbling thoughts on his face, which was perhaps more likely.
He stole a glance at Finn, who had gone back to cramming raspberries into his mouth, a little less frantically now, and was watching Hob—well, watching the bread in his hands—with interest. Hob focused on spreading a very reasonable little pat of butter on the inside of the roll, followed by a few sedate drops of honey. "That look about right, love?"
"Just so," Dream agreed, and accepted the roll from Hob's hand with a downright elegant gesture; Hob watched him actually take a bite, licking his lips after with a quick flick of pink tongue, and was almost as awed by the absence of honey smeared on his chin or fingers as anything else he'd seen Dream do.
"Baba?"
Hob's attention jerked away from Dream's perfectly clean lips back to Finn, who was looking up at him hopefully. Hob grinned. "Yes, darling?"
Finn looked down and bit his lip. "Bread, Baba? Pease?"
"Yes, of course!" Hob said at once, tearing the next roll open. "Would you like butter? Honey?"
Finn nodded enthusiastically.
Hob leaned closer and said conspiratorially, "Would you like lots of butter and honey?"
Finn's eyes went comically wide, and he looked over at Dream, who was just taking another perfectly dainty bite of his fairly restrained bread and honey. He arched a single eyebrow at Finn, tipping his head toward Hob.
"Baba," Finn said, turning his attention back to Hob. "Lots? Pease lots?"
"Lots it is," Hob agreed, smearing a properly generous amount of butter over one side of the roll, then drizzling out an equal coating of honey on the other side, finally mashing it together and offering it to Finn, who immediately crammed a good quarter of it into his mouth. Honey squished out around the corners of his mouth, and Hob actually saw his pupils dilate like a cat who'd just spotted a mouse.
Dream was definitely right about how much Finn needed sweets in his diet; possibly he had understated the case.
"Hob," Dream said, and Hob dragged his attention from Finn's wide eyes, blissed out on bread and honey, back to Dream.
Dream was smiling softly. "I think I can supervise Finn's breakfast now. Should you not look to your own?"
"Oh," Hob said, glancing blankly around the kitchen, for a moment unable to even think of what he ought to eat. "I usually wind up running late, scoffing something on the way..." He looked over at Dream and was rewarded with a deeply unimpressed look; Finn was still communing with the bread and honey, too deeply engrossed to be paying any attention to Hob or Dream. That was probably a good sign, wasn't it?
"Hob," Dream said, now smiling slightly, though his tone remained implacable. "You should fix yourself a proper breakfast, as you have already seen to ours, and then you will probably need to get ready for work."
"Right," Hob agreed, standing up and forcing his brain to shift gears, to pretend for a moment that this was a normal day or something like it. "Yes. Right. Coffee, I think."