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Aziraphale sat and drank his tea, though he noticed that after an initial sip, and a nod of approval, Dream of the Endless did not drink his. He chattered to fill the silence, attempting to inform the King of Dreams (should he need to be informed,) about what all had gone on during his absence. It had been widely known, of course, and no one had been allowed to do anything about it. Aziraphale felt ... not guilty , per se. He had been following the rules explicitly and if he had interfered or spent any miracles on interference, well. It would not have gone well for him. And Lord Morpheus certainly knew it. Neither of them mentioned his imprisonment, not directly. And Aziraphale went out of his way to avoid mentioning it indirectly as well. It was not that the Endless wasn’t perfectly pleasant company , of course; though he had gathered over the last few centuries that others might not think so, but the angel had always found him approachable.
Well. More approachable than any of the rest of his family.
As approachable as a being with so much more power and status than oneself could possibly be, anyway. They could always talk about books, after all. It was only that Aziraphale did not understand precisely why he had been invited to serve tea to the Lord of Dreams.
“And of course, there was the whole failed-Apocalypse situation. It worked out for the best, I personally think, but it did mean a rather, ah,” he coughed politely, “strained relationship with the Powers that Be.”
“I had heard,” said Dream, “that you had severed ties with Heaven, and that your associate Crowley had severed his ties with Hell.”
“Ah, yes,” Aziraphale said quietly, looking intently into his teacup. “Unfortunate, I suppose. But it does grant us rather more freedom than we had before.”
“And now that the two of you are free to pursue your association,” Dream said. “What do you do with yourselves?”
Aziraphale blushed.
“Well. We do much as we have done for a long time, I suppose, except that I've stopped sending reports Upstairs, and Crowley doesn’t send reports Downstairs.” He smiled slightly. “Not even blatantly false ones.”
“But it was implied that your relationship has changed. Personally.”
“Is it really that widely known?” Aziraphale said, worried.
“Not widely known, no. Rather narrowly, in fact. But I do have access to information that other entities would not.”
“Oh, of course you do, my lord. I didn’t mean to imply. Well. I suppose we do the same things together as always. We just don’t worry about getting in trouble for it,” he laughed nervously. “We go out to brunch or dinner. We sit in the park and feed the ducks. He comes over here just to spend time together and talk. And we, ah. Well. We like to hold hands.”
“Holding hands.” It was not quite a question.
“Yes. Since we’re now allowed to be. Well. Friends. It’s rather nice.”
Aziraphale dared a glance up into the Dreamlord’s face and realized with a start that Morpheus was looking out the window, extremely intent. As if he had been asking for advice . But that made no sense. Advice from a Principality? Granted that Dream of the Endless had something of a reputation for relationships that ended… disastrously.
“Is there, ah,” he started, and then paused to clear his throat. “Is there someone you’ve been, er, wanting to spend more time with. As friends.”
Morpheus froze, face suddenly as still as if it had been carved from marble.
“Perhaps.”
He was not known for his hesitancy in jumping into love affairs either. This must be something else. He dared to probe for more information.
“Someone that you’ve known for a long time? Like Crowley and myself."
“Not so long as what you have spent with Crowley. But. Several hundred years. We have been meeting more frequently. In the last few months. But we do not hold hands.”
Long before the imprisonment, then. Fascinating.
“Oh. Well. It seems like you might be able to move on to holding hands as well, then. If that’s the sort of thing that you both," he floundered. "Beings such as yourself, er. The sort of friends that you both want to be.”
Aziraphale had no idea if any of the Endless had friends. It was frankly rather daunting to contemplate.
*****
Crowley was having a nice dream. He was watching Ligur being dissolved into nothing by his bucket of holy water. That was almost soothing to watch over and over again. Suddenly, the scene slowed, and then froze.
“Crowley.”
Crowley spun around so fast that his sunglasses slid down his nose. There in his flat (alright, the dream version of his flat) stood Dream of the Endless.
“Lord Morpheus! Erm. Hello.”
Morpheus looked around.
“Lucienne tells us you were a regular visitor to the Dreaming during our absence.”
“Oh. Yeah. Love a good nap. Very refreshing. One of the nicest parts of hanging about on the mortal plane.”
“I believe you are the only demon who has ever visited my realm as a dreamer.” He paused. “Or angel for that matter.”
Busted.
“Yeah, erm. I’m not in trouble, then, am I?”
Morpheus shook his head. “You may have heard that my relationship with the ruler of Hell has become. More antagonistic.”
“Yeah, yeah. Heard something like that. Through the grapevine,” Crowley said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “My own relationship with Hell is also, ah. Not great anymore.”
“So I have been given to understand. You are welcome to continue to sojourn here, so long as you intend no harm to the dreamers or to the Dreaming itself.” He met Crowley’s eyes and even through the barrier of the sunglasses his gaze was weighty. “However, I approached you to speak regarding an unrelated manner.”
“Er. Which is?”
“As someone who is not human, but has spent a great deal of time living amongst humans,” Dream started, and then paused.
He continued to pause until Crowley ventured to prompt, “Yes, Lord Morpheus?”
“In the human world."
"Right."
"How does one go about asking a friend if they wish to. Hold hands?”
*****
Hob Gadling was having a fantastic year. It had started out so-so, but this summer his oldest friend had finally come back, and apologized and finally told Hob his name, and explained (confusingly) what exactly he was. It would be a difficult year to top, all things considered. Dream had, in fact, been making and keeping regular appointments with Hob, and just…spending time with him. It was marvelous.
This afternoon Dream showed up exactly at the agreed upon time, and Hob had made sure to get all of his grading done so that they had the entire afternoon and evening free. He had showed Dream a few movies, but just in his flat, and if he couldn’t get him to agree to go to the cinema with him soon he was going to see about borrowing a projector from one his colleagues and setting up a screen out back of the New Inn for a movie night.
“Hello, old stranger,” Hob said with a grin, stepping outside his door to meet the black-clad figure.
“Greetings, my friend,” came the reply, with the slight smile that usually accompanied his granting Hob, again, the coveted title of friend. Hob’s smile widened. That wasn’t going to get old any time this century.
“Did you have any plans for us for today?” he asked.
“Since the weather promises to remain fair until this evening, I had thought that we might walk through the park,” Dream said. “And perhaps feed the birds.” He pulled out a loaf of bread from a pocket of that impossible coat of his.
“I think bread’s supposed to be a bit not-good for birds. At least that’s what they say these days. Oh I have some sunflower seeds, let me grab those real quick.” Hob ran into his kitchen and placed the bag of seeds into his jacket pocket as quickly as he could before hurrying back outside and locking the door to his flat.
“Alright," Hob said cheerfully. "Let’s go feed the birds.”
They walked in silence for a bit; Hob was used to it by now, and knew it did not necessarily mean anything was wrong. But it seemed to him (and he was delighted to be able to notice such things now,) that Dream had something on his mind.
“Hob,” Dream said eventually. “We are good friends, are we not?”
“Absolutely,” Hob said. “You agreed we were and you’re not allowed to take it back now, sorry.”
Dream smiled at him, almost shyly.
“Do you think that we are the type of friends who could,” he paused long enough that Hob looked at him, enough to see the slight tension in his frame. “The type of friends who hold hands?”
Hob stopped walking, looking at Dream. He didn’t need to ask if he were joking, it was clear he was not.
“Absolutely,” he said without further hesitation. He held out his left hand palm up and watched with fascination as Dream carefully placed his own hand in it and squeezed ever so gently. He did not mention that, at his merest suggestion, he would also have agreed that they were the type of friends who painted each other’s fingernails, or who went on holiday together, or hunted vampires or, hell, robbed banks together. It had been centuries since he’d engaged in a good bit of honest theft, but you never really forgot the basics.
Still holding hands, they continued on to the park, Dream leading them to what was, apparently, his favorite bench. The birds must have seen him coming - they were already gathering around. Hob supposed that they’d probably have to stop holding hands in order to get the sunflower seeds out of his pocket, but that was alright. There was no reason that an immortal human and the anthropomorphic personification of dreams couldn’t hold hands anytime they wanted to.
Hob didn’t think anyone would bother them, but he suspected that if they ran into any small-minded Londoners who took issue with it, they would have some very unpleasant nightmares. He smiled at the thought. Yes, this year was going to be hard to top.