#patchworkgargoyle

"Oh, I promised that you would regret the day that you tricked me and stole your helm back, Dreamlord." Lucifer's voice remains smooth as satin, deadly as poison. "You thought yourself so clever, in summoning hope to beat me? So, how powerful is it really, do you think? Do you actually trust in it yourself, or was that all a clever lie?"

A chill goes down Dream's back, which has nothing to do with the bone-deep cold of hell. (The humans always think it's hot, but they know nothing.) He stands as straight as he can, staring Her in the eye, unflinching. "If it is a contest you intend, name your terms."

"Not a contest in the traditional sense, no." Lucifer paces toward him, Her elegant robe whispering secrets to the black-polished floorstones. "I'll indeed let the human go, and you with him. On only one condition."

"And?"

"You must face the same trial that your son did. Orpheus." Her voice drips with barely concealed relish. "You must walk out of hell, Hob Gadling behind you, without ever looking back to make sure that he is still following. If you can manage it, he will be free to return to the waking world, untroubled by me. But if you look back -- well, doubtless you recall what happened with Eurydice. Truly, you should."

Dream opens his mouth, stands like that for a long moment, then shuts it. He feels as if he's been hit by lightning, as if he can't catch his breath, as if he can hardly stand upright or remember his own name. It is, of course, diabolically perfect on any number of levels, a piece of exquisite artistry worthy of Lucifer's craft, but he has never been so terrified of anything, ever. "I don't -- "

"Yes or no, Dreamlord?" Lucifer's voice has turned even more silken, dripping with self-satisfaction. She could not be enjoying this more if She tried, and indeed, it is fitting. Force him to hope, to trust, to put his money where his mouth is, and prove that last time he beat Her fair and square, or replay the oldest and most irrevocable tragedy that he has ever known, that lost his son and his wife and everything else, because -- it's a sad song, but we sing it anyway -- everyone knows how it went. Giving in to a single moment of weakness, Orpheus looked back to make sure Eurydice was still following him out of the Underworld, and then in that instant, forever, she was gone.

"Hey," Hob says, from the cage. "Oy, Dream. Listen to me. We can do it, all right? We can."

Dream still can't muster up a response, even as the seconds continue to drain by. The longer Hob spends down here, the harder it will be for him to leave; even an immortal human cannot resist Hell's baneful power forever. So Dream lifts his head and stares Lucifer down. "Very well, Morningstar," he breathes in a voice absolutely dripping with snow and steel. "Since it pleases you to set those terms, we accept."

"Very good, Dreamlord." Lucifer beckons with the same languid carelessness, and Mazikeen moves to unlock Hob's cage. He falls out hard, and Dream makes a reflexive move to go to him, but Lucifer shakes Her shining blonde head. "Ah-ah-ah. No bending the rules before we have even begun to play. You cannot touch him, you cannot speak to him, you cannot look from the moment your climb begins, from the instant you cross the threshold of my citadel. Is that clear?"

I will kill you, Dream thinks. I will rend even your angelic bones into dust, burn you as you did at the Fall, throw you to your own demons and bid them feast. What he says is, "Yes."

"I'm all right," Hob says bracingly. For a man born a medieval peasant who has now been plunged bodily into Hell, thus to serve as a pawn in the long-running feud between his immortal lover and the literal bloody Devil, he seems to be handling it rather well. That, of course, is just Hob for you. How perverse that Hob's own fate should hang on whether Dream can feel even a modicum of the hope that Hob himself feels all the time, in the worst of circumstances, the darkest of hours. I must do this, Dream thinks, close to panic. I must not fail.

"Well?" Lucifer asks. "Are you ready?"

"Yes." Hob straightens up, wipes the blood off his chin, and gives Dream a long, desperately intense look -- trust me, trust me. "We are."

"Very good." She waves a hand, and the portcullis opens. "Your test begins now, Dreamlord. It ends when you both reach the waking world, or you fail, and Hob returns here, as my prisoner, forever."

"Understood." Dream's voice is ice, but his insides are water. He paces smoothly across the floor and under the gate, and back into the teeth of the scouring, screaming wind. It takes every inch of his self-control and then some not to turn his head, to see if Hob is following him down the narrow, cracked steps, or if he has been blown off to the eager demonic hordes far, far below. One step after another, through the split, sliding rocks, steep and sharp-edged and dangerous. There are a thousand and one perils for a human here, even a deathless one. The demons' roars sound like the susurration of waves on a distant shore, and geysers of smoke and steam jet up through the broken ground. That isn't even to mention the looming prospect of the catacombs, and what Dream already knows will be waiting for Hob in there. At the least, Eleanor and Robyn, the wife and son he lost just as Morpheus lost Calliope and Orpheus. Perhaps more. Hob has had a long life, and a great deal of heartbreak. It might just be Hell's phantasms, poisoned illusions, but those can be very convincing.

The wind is still blowing too hard for Dream to hear any sound of footsteps behind him, and he knows that it will not abate for this very reason. He keeps walking, head held high, even as his nerves are shredded. I must do this, he repeats to himself. I must avenge Orpheus, even as much as I must save Hob. I must. I must.

Dream enters the catacombs, and walks past the cells with the flickering shadows, the whispers, the wails, the weeping. His head aches with the effort to hold it still, to not even turn it the merest suggestion of an inch. Dust and bones and other dark things crunch beneath his feet. Far off, water drips like the tears of a heartbroken lover, and the chill is deep and savage. Fuck, this is impossible for a human to make it through without losing their mind. If he just --

No. No moments of weaknesses, no faltering or failures. Step by step by step by step. If you want to walk out of hell, you're going to have to prove it, before gods and men. His heart is thundering in his ears, his breathing echoes wildly. Step by step by step. It is very, very dark.

On the far side of the catacombs, Dream crosses the plains scattered with wind-bleached bones, his coat whipping against his legs. The slope starts upward, and Dream hunkers down and climbs steadily. Dust stings viciously in his eyes, and for a terrible moment, trying to shield his face, he almost looks back. He can hear a distant, disembodied screaming that probably isn't Hob, but sounds just close enough that he can't discount the possibility entirely. Oh gods. Oh gods, this is torture. Torture beyond torture, worse than anything he ever thought. Orpheus, forgive me. Forgive me.

At last, at the top of the slope, Dream knows that they're close now, they're almost out, he can sense the veil between worlds, and the compulsion to look back is almost overwhelming. It buckles his bones, it rattles his teeth, it twists his chest, it tears at him like skeletal fingers, trying to drag him back down with the dead. Hope, he chants to himself. There is hope in hell, you know there is. It is the very thing that even the Devil Herself cannot overcome. Hope. Hope. Hope.

Up ahead, the veil shimmers. Dream staggers, hands on his knees, desperately careful to not look back even as he does. His mouth tastes like chaff and ash. He is so -- very -- close.

The screaming is louder. It sounds terribly like Hob. Lucifer must have tricked him -- must have sent Squatterbloat or the other legions after them both -- doubt comes in, darkness falls --

Dream of the Endless straightens up and runs for it.

He runs with everything he is, everything he has, arms over his head, eyes closed, so he cannot be tempted even for a moment, but still does not even make the motion. He has no hope, not really. He does not know how. But he has Hob, and Hob is hope, and he asked Dream not to fail him, and Dream cannot, he cannot, he cannot. He feels something shimmer, then part and tear, and all at once --

Warm, humid air hits him, and a scatter of rain, and then the sound of traffic rumbling down the road nearby, and Dream sprawls headlong on very hard concrete. Even for an Endless, it hurts to fall on it, and it hurts even more when something heavy lands directly on top of him. They roll over and over, sending nearby rubbish bins flying. The bins are helpfully emblazoned with LONDON BOROUGH OF CAMDEN -- it's here, they're back, they're in the waking world, and they --

Fuck, is it Hob or is it something much worse? What came out of Hell with him, what is here, what has been unleashed -- if Lucifer broke Her bargain, or tricked Dream more than even he knew-- what if it was just a demon that looked like Hob, and Hob himself is long, long gone --

"Dream," a rough voice is gasping, and dirty hands are clutching at his face, and Dream stares up to see Hob Gadling, in the flesh, grabbing at him desperately. "Dream. Fuck. Fuck."

Dream sits upright, as Hob pulls him, and they clutch hold of each other right there in the alley, shivering and shaking and sobbing so hard that they barely make a sound. Hob's arms wrap around Dream almost twice, and Dream fists handfuls of Hob's filthy shirt, and they kiss once and then again, again, not caring who might see them or about anything else at all. It tastes like salt and smoke and sulfur. "Is it -- " Dream can barely get the words out. "Is it you?"

For in our great sorrow, we learn what joy means

He needs to get out of here. The music is too loud, the lights too bright, too many people crowd too close and he can't breathe.

Steve used to love going out, dancing the night away in some club, always drunk or high or both, fucking someone in the back room or taking them home just to never call them again. Reveling in the attention, the thrill, the constant onslaught of sensation, basking in the admiration, the jealousy, the lust. He would just get lost in the feeling, becoming the perfect canvas for people to project onto as they pleased.

It's been his brand for so long that he's still having a hard time adjusting to being someone else. He still doesn't know who that someone is.

He's just as lonely as before, but now, sober and alone, he's aware of it in a way he wasn't before. If you'd asked him back then if he was lonely, he'd have laughed in your face, cold and mocking, before grabbing the next best hot piece of ass to saunter off with in tow. Numbing himself with booze, drugs, and sex worked surprisingly well. Which is why part of him wishes he could go back to the way things were. Usually all it takes is the memory of Tommy's bloodied, ruined face to remind him why he doesn't. Steve may have survived the car crash that took Tommy's life, but his old self died with Tommy that night.

He still has the ugly scars on his face, on his whole body, to remind him of that.

A new song begins to play on the jukebox, installed this year in lieu of a live DJ due to budget cuts. The financial crisis had reached even Harrington and Hagan, the largest law firm in Chicago, and the annual holiday party had to be scaled back to a bare-bones affair. Not that Steve cares. What he cared about was that the song playing now was the same one Tommy had grinded against him that night seven months ago, his lips against Steve's ear, shouting over the music that they should get out of here and take his new car for a spin. The way Tommy pressed against him, his lips wet against Steve's skin, Steve knew he wasn't just going to take the car for a spin.

The coke and booze in his veins had told him that this was a great idea.

And it was. At least until it wasn't.

One minute Steve is standing at the edge of the dance floor, the next he is kneeling on the floor of the company bathroom puking his guts out, not knowing how he got there or who is holding his hair back with hands that are blessedly cool against his overheated skin.

His body still tenses at the touch, memories flood in of kneeling on dirty floors in dark rooms, strangers touching him, petting, pinching, groping his body. Hands in his hair, almost gentle before suddenly gripping it tightly, pulling and pushing his head until his mouth was where they wanted it. He still remembers the rush he got when they crowded around him, the thrill of their hunger, the way they used him to get off. It made him feel powerful. Seen and wanted.

Only after the spit and cum had cooled on his body did the emptiness creep back in, leaving an ache deeper than the soreness in his limbs, his jaw, his ass. Soaring high and crashing hard, that's how it went back then. The memory was bittersweet at best.

"That's it, Harrington, let it all out."

Steve is ripped from the past and thrown back into the present by a voice that sounds at least vaguely familiar to him, and his muscles relax with it. He's heard this voice before, but in a different context, and distantly remembers it as deeper. Throatier, but warm, not the mocking, belittling tone he associates with strangers' hands. As much as part of him thrived on it then, this is now and he doesn't want that anymore.

"What -" Steve groans and stops, because talking hurts. Everything hurts. He tries to turn his head to look at the owner of that familiar voice, but as soon as he does, the world tilts and his stomach heaves again. Another wave of bile hits the porcelain before he begins to dry heave, nothing left to give inside him.

The hands on his body never leave him, one still holding back his hair, the other soothingly stroking his back. It's so nice that Steve doesn't know what to do. His body wants to lean into the comfort offered, starved of any kind of touch for so long, while his brain screams for him to push it away. He doesn't need pity. Steve resolves to get away from them as soon as he doesn't feel like dying.

When he stops heaving, he puts his arm across the seat and rests his forehead on it to catch his breath. The hand on his back is still rubbing the tense muscles in his upper back, so he shrugs it off as soon as he's sure he won't have to puke again, and they leave easily, but the person next to him stays, hovering at his side as if ready to jump in if needed. Steve doesn't know what to make of it.

"Who are you?" he asks, not even bothering to lift his head. He just wants to be alone, crawl out of here unseen and lick his wounds.

A chuckle that sounds as amused as he feels. "You don't remember, do you?"

"Remember?" That sound, he's heard it before. That same chuckle, but the sound of it warm. Charmed. Charmed by Steve, he's almost sure. Had he -

"Never mind. C'mon, we'll get you cleaned up and I'll drive you home. Anyone I can call to keep an eye on you? You don't look so hot man, don't think you should be alone right now."

There's no one, hasn't been for a long time. The stranger doesn't need to know that.

"Just leave me alone, okay? I can take care of myself."

His words are met with silence and he feels movement next to him, hears footsteps retreating. Just as Steve thinks the guy is gone, he hears the sound of water running. And the next thing he knows, a wet towel is being pressed to his face, wiping away sweat and other things he doesn't want to think about. It feels heavenly.

"Have you ever considered that maybe you don't have to? Wild thought, I know, but bear with me: Maybe you could just accept a little help, doesn't have to mean anything. Just a thought." Steve wants to roll his eyes at the smartass taking care of him as if they knew each other, but he thinks that might upset his stomach again, so he just says nothing.

"Okay, let's try something. I have a very comfy couch and it's yours tonight. What do you say?"

When Steve doesn't answer, too stunned by this stranger offering him his couch so Steve won't be alone, the guy clearly takes that as a yes. He puts his arm around Steve's waist, his shoulder under Steve's arm, and helps him to his feet. The world tilts again, but he catches it, makes it stop spinning by taking deep, measured breaths. Something’s tickling his cheek and he can smell some sort of woody aftershave, the scent subtle but warm. Steve’s stomach clenches again but settles again almost immediately.

He's suddenly very tired. Fighting off the man's attempts to help him feels like too much work right now, so he lets himself be led out of the bathroom, leaning against a slender frame that still feels strong, sturdy. He wants to turn around, look at the guy's face, but all the strength has left his body. It's not that he trusts this stranger, who sounds and smells like Steve should know him, but there's just not enough fight left in him to care much about what happens next.

They don't run into anyone else as they walk through the dark office building and toward the underground parking garage. The other man's breathing has begun to sound labored when they finally reach a beat-up van, for even with the current weight loss from not eating or sleeping much, Steve is no lightweight. Still, the man hoists him into the passenger seat with comparable ease, and Steve's last thought, as his head slumps against the window of the passenger seat and his seatbelt clicks into place next to him, is that if this is how he dies, murdered by some random guy from his office party, then that's okay.

As he drifts off to the rumble of a motor that has clearly seen better days, he thinks he hears that eerily familiar voice humming along to a song on the radio. It's oddly comforting, and he's out like a light before they even leave the parking lot.

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He's warm.

That's the first thing Steve notices as he slowly comes to, almost like swimming through molasses. It's not how he usually wakes up these days. Since the accident, Steve can't remember sleeping more than three hours at a time, always waking up with a start, drenched in sweat, panting, shaking. Even though he can't remember them, he knows he has nightmares.

This time, however, his body is heavy and comfortable, his heartbeat slow and steady. He can see the bright light of a new day through his closed eyelids, and it takes him a moment to realize what it means. He slept through the night. Inexplicably, this makes his nose itch and his eyes burn.

Taking a few soothing breaths, he slowly opens his eyes and lets the world come into focus. Sunlight comes from a large window slightly to his right. He has no recollection of ever having been here before, but no fear accompanies this thought. There's just this heavy feeling, like there's lead in his veins instead of blood, as his eyes wander over the unfamiliar walls and furniture. It looks cluttered, lived in, and real in a way that his sterile designer loft decidedly does not.

A rustling sound draws his eyes to the floor in front of the sofa, where a mop of dark brown curly hair, frazzled and wild, is peeking over the edge of the cushions, the angle blocking Steve's view.

Steve moves silently, careful not to wake whoever is sitting there as he tries to get a better look. With his elbow under him, he slowly pushes himself up, just enough to look down at the sleeping face.

It's breathtaking, a study in juxtaposition. Prominent nose, bridge straight, tip wide and round. Long, dark lashes kiss high cheekbones. Plush pink lips add unexpected softness to a face that could easily be all edges and sharp lines. Something stirs in the back of his mind as the warm golden glow of the early day paints shadows across the hills and valleys of those lovely features.

Another room, another morning, the same beautiful face bathed in soft light. The same fascination, a fluttering feeling in his stomach that he can't, won't, examine.

A memory resurfaces, once buried deep, rising like the sun.

"I dunno, you're the boss's son, I don't want any trouble."

"You saying I'm not worth a little trouble, Munson?"

"I'm saying a quick fuck is not worth risking my job for, Harrington."

"Awww, who says it has to be quick? Gonna take my sweet time with you."

Those lips against his. On his neck, his thigh, his cock.

His own lips moaning a name. Eddie.

Him waking up to the sight of this man in his bed, sheets tangled between his legs, body covered in bruises, bite marks, red streaks left by fingernails.

"You should leave."

"But -"

"You don't want anyone to tell my father, do you?"

Well, fuck.

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Eddie wanted to help people.

That was what always drove him to keep trying, even when everything seemed to be working against him. Working his ass off, fighting the way his brain was wired to actually sit down and learn, get the grades he needed to become a lawyer. Someone who could work the system to fuck it right back. His Uncle Wayne always teased him that his bleeding heart was the only thing stronger than his stubborn ass.