Archive of Our Own ^beta

After more than six hundred years on Earth, one might have thought, what’s another six hundred more? It certainly would have been his first thought had he had asked her his question before he’d fallen asleep. Before he’d gone and closed his eyes. Before he’d come to know that He was gone.

Well and truly gone this time round. 

Not just on one of his jaunty adventures, or avoiding him after a right old tongue lashing over minor details like ‘friendship’. Or having spent someone’s entire lifetime locked in a glass—

He simply was just dead.

Something which seemed so human in actuality. Whilst he had always known that his Stranger had never been anything of the sort. 

An Endless, that was what everyone was calling him. Had been calling him, he meant, back in that great big hall, in that overly grand castle that would surely have appeared in the wet dreams of Morticia Aadams a time or two. 

But how could you be endless and then just fucking— end?

Made utterly no sense. None at all.

And yet.

“Suppose I do… chuck it all in. What happens then?”

She’d stared back at him, wearing a smile that was just her all over. He never would have guessed it, her being Death, but it was a nice thought. A kind one. Knowing that someone who loves humanity, cares greatly for them, despite all of their evil and their greed, would be there at the very end.

She was his sister, his Stranger’s, and he’d always been able to see that in a way, even with their vast differences. But now more so than ever. 

She just kept smiling at him. As though she already knew.

Maybe she did.

“You’ll find out. If you’re ready.”

If.

That was very human too, wasn’t it? 

If!

What if he’d never stepped foot in that old Inn?

What if he had packed it all in the century that he’d lost everything?

What if he had never shown up in ‘89– any of them?

What if…

“Will I ever find him? After, I mean.”

Her head tilted ever so, in that raven-like manner that he’d always opted for. And it was so unlike her that he could only huff out a faint laugh, her smile broadened for that of a mere second.

“Spoliers, Hob.”

He felt his own mouth twitch at her words, for the first time really since he’d been told that this was a funeral he was attending, and one in his dreams at that.

“Spose it would be.”

He took a large lungful of breath then, unsure if it was because he was still asleep or something other when it didn’t quite feel the same as it should. Then he turned to face her, hand falling away from the bridge’s long stone wall.

“Go on then,” He murmured to her, wearing a small smile of his own now, “I’d quite like to see the next great adventure.”

She’d blinked in reply, almost in surprise, but then her fingertips touched his and–

–

“Fucking hell. Shut the bleeding thing off, would you!”

It was blaring. A-fuckin’-gain.

Every morning it was the very same thing, almost as though the whole world was out to get him. Even on his day off. 

Especially on his day off.

The car kept beeping, as per usual, for another three minutes, forty seconds before it finally hiccupped and shut off. Only then did the typical mutterings of Mr Fisher from next door start right up.

“Poxy things. I swear, Sheila, if these strays keep setting off that alarm, I’ll string ‘em up! I tell ya, there’s no joke to be had ’ere. I don’t care if they get rid of the mice! No, it’s not the bloody point–”

The man probably kept at it until his mouth was filled with his wife’s usual morning fry-up. Maybe even that didn’t stop him. But who was Hob to care, right? It was only sleep he was being forcefully pulled from. 

Sleep…

Shit!

He shot up, tangled in a heap of heavy sheets and the blanket he’d long since thrown out. Decades back, actually. Had it been decades? Jesus. Where’d it even come from? Better yet! Where the hell was he?

Last thing he remembered was…

The bridge–

Then Death–

They had been talking, hadn't they?

After the funeral. About the funeral…

God, the funeral!

Was, oh–

He had packed it all in, hadn’t he?

Had finally given in. Given up.

He really had.

He’d finally done it–

He had, hadn’t he?

She’d been surprised by it, he could vividly remember the shock in her expression, the trepidation in her eyes, before she’d melted just a tad and reached out a hand.

And he’d taken it! That had been the crazy part!

He had. He knew he had. He’d taken her hand and it–

It had felt like–

But, where was he?

His brain was buzzing, buggered to bleemin’ hell and back, in all truth. Nothing made any sense, none at all. And not just because of the time, nor the early morning wake up call.

He had died.

Emphasis on the died part, please! He had actually gone and died. And Dream had di– Christ, his funeral. He’d seen Johanna there too, met Lucienne, as well as the bastard's entire bleeding family! 

Death had always been nice enough, Delirium and her dog he could vaguely recall, the rest of them? 

Hob shook his head, he couldn’t.. God, he couldn’t focus on that. Any of it, right then. Death had, well, she’d taken him. 

Reaped? Was that what they called it? Was that the correct term?

Either way, he was utterly no good at this. No good at all.

He squinted his eyes tightly shut for a moment too long at the very thought, enough to see lights dance behind his lids and a faint buzz start up in his ears before he then opened them again and tried to re-right the world around him. 

Was this what was meant for them then? The Afterlife; living through moments and memories from the life you’d lived?

If it was then he wanted a word with whoever was in charge because this… Him having to suffer through the six am car alarm and his shitty neighbours on Dresden street, then it just wouldn't do. He’d sailed the continents alone for Heaven's sake! Met Ghandi and Colonel Sanders alike! Served Royals and stowed away on naval ships. Had even been buried alive in an Everest avalanche! And yet, this! This! Was what they had chosen to show?

Hob couldn’t help the way he dragged a slow hand down over his face before rubbing at his eyes, eventually moving to dig his fingertips into the bridge of his nose hard enough that he forced himself to stop when the pressure grew too much.

So he could still feel pain then.

Though that made little to no sense.

If he could feel pain, could remember dying, and could also alter the course of this exact day he’d already lived by simply not groaning unhappily and trudging straight into the shower instead of just sitting here… Then what did it all mean?

He supposed his question was answered in a way, by a loud fuck-off chime which felt as though it didn’t just ring through the walls of his tiny, cluttered flat but the entirety of the universe instead. 

Staring blankly out ahead at nothing at all, he just let the chimes ring out and then panicked in their devastating silence.

Something had happened. 

Something big.

Something which had most definitely gone wrong.

And just when he figured that he’d found the courage to breathe again, or you know, blink perhaps, the radio on his bedside table flickered to life all on its own.

“Alright, ladies and gents! Happy Friday morning! And what a Friday it is, Friday the thirteenth of May! Let's hope all you unlucky lot out there stay away from any ladders and black cats today, ey?”

And with it he dropped back onto his too-springy mattress and attempted to suffocate himself with his pillow.

“Fuck sake.”

…

Alright, so maybe it wasn’t The Afterlife. Maybe! This wasn’t what was waiting for everybody after death, or on the other side. 

He’d come that far in his explanations anyway, after, you know, breaking down a bit, scouring over the calendar hung up on his fridge, before he’d pummelled it down to the newsagents around the corner for the morning paper. 

13th May, 1983. He’d read.

Bloke behind the till had gone and had a right go when he had just proceeded to stand there, staring at it and blocking the shop’s entrance. His accented voice having been the only thing Hob had heard aside from the near constant ringing in his ears and the struggle he’d had to catch his breath.

He’d started the walk back to his flat with his hands buried deep in the linings of his jacket pockets whilst being all too wary to step on a pavement crack, let alone see somebody he might recognise in fear of fucking with the timelines.

Because, surely, that was what this had to be. Right?

Some sort of interdimensional time and space fuck-up that had occured upon him dying in the dreamscape? Would someone have his head for naming it that? Would–

Shit!

Gods, he’d been so wrapped up in it all, in all the nows and the whens, the fucking forsaken thens! That he’d– well, he hadn’t even spared a thought about what it could all mean.

1983.

Which meant that he had six years until ‘89, until his Stranger came back around again. But he wouldn’t, would he? Last time around.. The first time around, even!

No, which meant that he was still stuck somewhere, tied up in some bastard's basement. 

Or had it been an attic? A library of sorts? He hadn’t been given too many details, not from the man himself, but stories had been spun and more than enough whispers had been heard the day (night?) of the funeral.

Hob would just have to make do, he supposed.

Maybe, he couldn’t help but wonder as he legged it back the way he’d came, maybe this was why he was here. To change what had happened. To alter fate.

To save his Stranger properly this time.

Because fuck anyone who thought he wouldn’t at least try.