{ first night } {Charlie & Hypnos}
Hypnos liked to pretend that he'd seen everything that there was to see in the world. Certainly he'd seen a lot of it: every country or place on Earth that had humans had been visited by Sleep. He'd roamed the continents alongside his brother in the olden days, when the humans were still learning how big a place the world was. They'd been guests at the courts of countless kings and they'd been criminals, pursued by a police force that had no chance of catching them. They'd been figments of imagination in the heads of small children and they'd been voices of madness in the fevered brains of addicts.
He slipped in through their dreams and danced in their heads, watching images of their lives flicker behind their eyelids. Sleep knew every nightmare that had ever been made and every dream that ever would be- though his son created and delivered them, Hypnos ruled them.
Having tricked himself into believing the waking world had no new experiences for him, the god had begun escaping into the dreams of mortals. It was a game he'd played since long ago; in dreams, oceans could float and something could be nothing, far better a playground than the world of consciousness. If Thanatos could have joined him in dreams, Hypnos didn't think he'd ever go back to being awake. It was much better to dream-hop and mess with the humans he found. They always assumed they were safe in their heads.
But when he alighted in this new dream, he found that there was nothing to see. The utter nothingness of the space surprised him and he wondered if he'd somehow jumped into the dream of a dead person. It was the only explanation he could think of, until he reached out a hand and felt around.
Something rough and knobby touched his fingers and Sleep jumped a little, not expecting to feel anything where there appeared to be nothing. Experimentally, he reached out and spread his palm against the surface, letting the grooves dig into his skin. It felt like bark. Moving closer, he reached out with his other hand and felt the curve of the thing beneath his fingers. It was a tree trunk!
With that realization came another one; he could feel more than just the tree trunk beneath his hands. A breeze swiped at his face and ran its fingers through his hair, sending the leaves of the there-but-not-there trees rustling. The sound was clear as day, and with it came other sensations: grass and dirt beneath his feet, warmth from sunshine on his skin. The smell of recent rain sprang to the god's nostrils and he inhaled deeply, a smile spreading across his face.
He was in a forest. A forest that was there in every way except sight.
The human was blind!
Though a little disappointed that he wasn't inside the mind of a dead person- how cool would that be?!- Hypnos continued to wander the world. He'd never spent much time in the dream of a mortal who was blind and he let himself move aimlessly, arms outstretched to keep from colliding into a tree. The dreamer would present themselves eventually; dreams weren't as big as humans seemed to think they were.
Sleep couldn't tell time without any references, but it didn't feel like it was long before there was another presence in the dream. He loved it when he was right. A small boy stepped carefully among the trees, pajamas trailing in the dirt. At first Hypnos thought it was his son Morpheus, as the other god always took the form of a child, (A blind one at that, coincidences!), but the face was wrong and he didn't walk the same way.
Changing direction, he went to say hello to the kid, making sure to make plenty of noise along the way so he wouldn't startle him. Hypnos loved children and he didn't want this one to be afraid of him just yet.
"Hello?" The god called out, stopping a little ways away from the child. It was curious that the boy was visible to the god, but he suspected that Morpheus had a hand in that- Maybe making it easier on his father. He'd have to thank him.