Archive of Our Own ^beta

The Endless are the wildly disparate children of two beings worshipped as gods in several cultures: a being composed of vast sky and stars, giving an entire solar system their night skies, and a being who exists out of time with the ability to manipulate it at will. Their children are powerful, but not on the level of their parents. The level of power they do wield makes it all the odder that any of them would choose service with Starfleet rather than enjoying the prestige of their home worlds. 

The one who has joined the Stardust as its science officer is Dream of the Endless, aka Morpheus. Hob slogs through his memory and thinks it sounds vaguely old-Earth Roman or Greek. He looks at Captain Bucher, eyebrow raised. 

His Vulcan Captain looks levelly back, unfazed and unreadable. "Yes, Mr. Gadling?" 

"Why is he here? Surely he's got better things to do than faff about on some starship…"

"I believe the official line is 'the Endless are meant to serve the galaxy.'" 

"That's… wow."

"I found the Federation's goals worthy in my ongoing efforts to fulfill that creed," says a deep voice behind him, and Hob's ears flame red before he turns around.

Morpheus, tall and beautiful and seeming to float just above the ground – gazes back, eyebrow raised – and smirks. His feathery black hair drifts despite there being no wind, and his eyes are shifting blue and black and stars. 

Hob is fucked. 

But they don't get past "friends" by the time the Stardust is under fire.

****

Red alert, red alert… all stations… 

"Evasive pattern one-nine-eight-nine!" 

The Stardust rocks violently from another hit to their shields. The Romulans are not fucking around, and the Stardust hasn't gotten a significant hit on any of the warbirds. 

"Damage report!" Captain Bucher calls, gripping the captain's chair.

Hob nearly tumbles over the console as the ship shudders once more. "Shields at 30%!" he shouts, also listening to the tumult of voices from engineering. 

"Helm is slow to respond!" Johanna reports. 

"Sickbay reporting casualties, damage reported to decks two and three!" Matthew calls. 

"Bridge to Engineering, how fast can we get out of here?" 

"We've sustained damage to the warp nacelles, and will require twenty minutes to get back online," a harried voice returns. 

"Helm, continue evasive maneuvers. Mr. Gadling, get down to engineering to help." 

"Captain, I have managed to tap into their subspace communications, and it appears they intend to board, not destroy," Dream says. 

Another blow rocks the Stardust. The lights on the bridge vanish, plummeting them into inky darkness. When the low light of the generators restores some light, Dream is gone.

****

Hob has fought down to the level where the Romulans had imprisoned Dream, correctly assessing him as a powerful threat.

"They," Dream wheezes, eyes black pools, "drained much of my power. They are coming back, you must go." His already pale face has gone grey, lined with sweat, and his pupils are dilated in pain. His breaths are shallow pants. 

Hob's covered in sweat and blood where projectiles have grazed him, scorch marks where phaser fire caught his uniform.  "Not without you," Hob insists. "Just hold on –" 

Dream's gaze fixes on something over Hob's shoulder and widens in alarm. Dream tries to force himself upright, and starry black blood starts running out his nose as he makes it to one knee. His gaze fixes onto the oncoming threat, clearly trying to use what remains of his powers.

"You're going to wind up killing yourself," Hob snarls, and scoops Dream over his shoulder in a fireman's carry – and runs. 

An explosion rocks the corridor, and Hob stumbles, ears ringing. A second explosion sends the hallway tilting at a sharp angle, and Hob can't keep his balance; he falls, skidding to the ground. Dream tumbles out of his grip, hitting the ground with a grunt. The ceiling ahead of them collapses, the deck above ripped apart by one of their intruders. The path is completely blocked, as Hob staggers to his knees. 

Hob raises his phaser, so low on power it might as well fire little tiny rays of sunshine, sparkles, and kittens. A hand finds his amid the chaos, and Dream smiles, incongruously, for the situation. He knows what Dream's about to do and has enough time to say "Don't you dare," when members of the Romulan invasion force round the corner. The weapon blast catches him in the shoulder. 

Dream tugs Hob sideways at the last second – but it knocks them both over, and Hob groans in pain. Then the ship rocks again and Hob's head strikes part of the collapsed deck, and his friend doesn't get up again. He's alive, because Dream can feel him enter the realm of the unconscious, not the dead. And there's no other way to stop the Romulans than to use his power, weak as it is, as little of it as he has left. 

Dream thinks it will probably tax his body beyond repair. He doesn't know, because he's never met another exactly like him: he doesn't know what he can and cannot recover from. He breathes in, reducing the throbbing pain in his skull and the blood coming out of his nose the best he can. Then Dream, on one knee, closes his eyes, and claws everything from his imaginings, the gauzy haze of sleep and nightmares. 

The dust on the floor of the ship isn't sand, but it rises to meet him, like to like, meeting the starmatter in his blood because all dust is stardust, and he thrusts his hand forward. 

His head goes supernova with burning pain and light.

The creations surge forward with the dust. Dream collapses limply to the floor, blood running out of his nose so fast it saturates his shirt in seconds. Distantly, he hears screaming; distantly, the sounds of phaser and weapons fire stop. Dream stretches out his hand, feels it make contact with other warm skin. 

The supernova in his head collapses, leaving in its wake nothing at all.

– -

Distant voices drift around Hob, then they coalesce into shouts quite near him. "Hob! Dream!" 

Hob opens his eyes, and winces at the light. He sits up, dislodging something cold and clammy.

It's Dream's limp hand. 

His friend is slumped facedown on the ground, still motionless, a black and starry stain having spread around his face and chest. Some of it's run out his ears. 

Dream's hand is devoid of warmth. 

"Dream," he says, strangled. "Dream." He moves his fingers to where the pulse point is for Dream's species, and finds it present, but weak and erratic. 

"Shit," Matthew curses. "I need a stretcher down here now!" 

When they roll Dream over, lifting him onto the stretcher, the blood from his nose and mouth and ears has saturated down the front of his Starfleet uniform and tracked into his hair. Hob lets his hand go, and it flops limply to his other side. 

"Hob, come on, you've got wounds too," Matthew says. Hob couldn't care less about his own injuries right now, but he follows.

"I'm sorry, Hob," Rachel says, tears in her eyes. "I'm doing everything I can. But Morpheus, he's – he's dying, and I don't know how to help him. There's so little information on his species. He lost a lot of blood, and whatever exertion of his powers was too much for his system; his neural synapses are collapsing." The chief medical officer closes her eyes briefly. 

"Does he know," Matthew says, staring down at Dream. "Does he know, you think, that he saved all of us?" 

The Stardust flies on through space. This cannot be the end. Hob will not let it. He lifts Dream's taloned hand and cradles it to his own chest. He gazes down. 

Dream's inhuman pallor is more stark than ever, starry eyes closed. His wild hair – which usually floats like they are in zero-g or struck by static electricity and gleams in shades of darkest purple and blue and black – is flat and lank against the pillow. Feathers the same shades as his hair sprout around his pointed ears. He's an oneiromancer and reality bender, but sometimes reality has a limit to being bent. Running on fumes, he'd bent it past his reserves. To save Hob. To save all of them. 

"I'm going to keep him on supportive care the best I can, and we're trying to get in touch with his sister… We're diverting to the nearest Starbase for repairs and a medical ship will transport Dream and the other more seriously wounded to the nearest Starfleet hospital. I'm worried he's not going to make it that long…" Rachel's voice echoes around him, and Hob sighs. 

Against all odds, Dream stays stable long enough to to transfer him to the medical ship, though he doesn't wake up, deeply comatose. 

****

They admit Dream to one of the top neurology-centered hospitals in the Federation. Hob takes a shore leave to go with them. Teleute, the human facet of an Endless known as "Death," a powerful psychopomp and Dream's next-of-kin, comes to meet them. He holds Dream's hand as much as he can through it all. It's all he feels he can do. He talks to Dream, too, tells him stories. Tells him the ship survived. 

He and Teleute talk, and she tells him stories of a younger Dream. One who smiled more. 

"He's smiled with me, sometimes," Hob says hesitantly. 

Tears spring to her eyes. "I'm glad someone made him happy." 

Ensign Jessamy Corvi, an Aurelian – an orithnoid species – visits constantly. She became a Starfleet officer because of Dream, she explains. He rescued her from a malfunctioning ship, running out of air and its damaged warp core a ticking bomb. They stayed in touch, and he treated her like a little sister. 

Together, they watch over Dream, and wait. There is little else they can do, but stay close; Teleute thinks it's possible that dreaming near him will help, that telling him stories could help with the neural synapses. She doesn't know for sure, and it's maddening. He keeps Dream's talons trimmed like Dream liked, once per week – they keep growing, which has to be a good sign. Right?

Despite that, it takes two nervewracking months for Dream's neural synapses to show any signs of regrowth, for his body to respond to any outside stimuli at all. Before that, there was talk of pulling him out of the stasis and life support by some of the medical staff in the Federation hospital. It's met with overwhelming opposition; they had had to fight for more time. Starfleet doesn't want to lose one of its best officers. Teleute doesn't want to lose a brother. Jessamy doesn't want to lose a friend. Hob doesn't want to lose his friend and love.

Hob falls asleep one night four months into Dream's coma, holding Dream's hand, book sliding off his lap, and he dreams. Not of Dream; but of an empty space, vast and dark, but he still feels warm within it... and then it changes, to a rolling meadow next to a brook that Hob vaguely remembers from childhood. His dreams aren't usually this vivid. 

He lies down in the meadow, feeling oddly cradled. He thinks of Dream, wishing he could have brought Dream here, before the space dissolves and he's aboard the Stardust, listening to Captain Lucienne Bucher tell him of their new science officer: Morpheus, an Endless being. Why would an Endless want to serve aboard a starship, he asks – and then wakes up. 

Groggily, he blinks, spotting the book on the floor, and his hand is still in Dream's. The other hasn't stirred, the machines keeping him alive clicking and whirring. When he looks at his hand in Dream's, he wonders if Dream's taloned fingers have curved slightly more around his, or if it's just wishful thinking.

Jessamy is the next to report an oddly detailed dream. Then Teleute. They all start having clearer and clearer dreams, and it's obvious that it's Dream, slowly starting to recover his powers and neural synapses. They tell him more stories, read to him, and sleep in his presence more than ever before.

– -

"Come on, love, it's time to wake up, please," Hob insists, in the meadow.

Dream presses his forehead into Hob's, and blinks. "You are going to be there?"

"Always," Hob breathes. "I'm not going to lie, your physical body still has a lot of recovery to do. But I'll be there." 

Dream closes his eyes, breathing in Hob's scent, and nods. "Together," he murmurs. 

When he opens his eyes, it hurts. The lights are painful, burning suns into his eyes, and he shuts them  whimpers – or tries to, because the next thing he notices are all the tubes keeping him breathing and hydrated and alive. They block his throat, and he tries to thrash his hands, but his muscles are weak and aching. Then he realizes a warm hand is in his, a soothing voice is talking, washing over him, and he cracks his eyes open just a sliver to see Hob. 

All the fight goes out of him at once, his body too fatigued to keep trying and Hob's presence a balm. 

"Hullo, dove," Hob whispers. His voice is wet, sniffly. 

Don't cry, Dream wants to say. Don't cry. You brought me back. 

Months, Hob had said. He thinks Hob had said. It's difficult to remember. He squeezes at Hob's hand with what little strength he can muster. Someone has been trimming his talons, he notices.

"You saved everyone still alive on the Stardust," Hob tells him. He thinks Hob already told him this, once, in a dream, but he's weak enough, his powers still fluctuating and strengthening, that he can't quite place the memories. "But it almost killed you, Dream. You were in a coma for six months. You only started showing signs of renewed neural activity four months ago. We only started connecting with you in dreams for the past month."

It's too much, too fast, for his still addled and exhausted brain to comprehend. 

"The doctors are going to check on you now," Hob says. He squeezes Dream's hand. "You're doing great."

He falls asleep mid-examination again, and this time it is Teleute who appears in his dream. She throws her arms around him – gently – in a hug. "Don't ever do that again, you big dummy," she sniffles. 

"I had to," Dream says.

Her lip wobbles, and she presses her head into his shoulder. "I know," she says, muffled. "I know."

- -

(He is recovering, slowly. 

Hob washes Dream's hair, massaging his fingers into Dream's scalp to remove where some of the gel and leads had stuck to his skin –

–  and Dream purrs, leaning into it.)