#Dreamling

[seadeepspaceontheside]

Its bad when Bruce is less of a party pooper than you. And I do believe that Dream fell in love with Hob in 1689 but not pursue it. You can dispute it but I will not be listening.

[cuubism]

Covetous

E | Dreamling | 6.6k

fishbowl rescue, hurt/comfort, sex as a reward, dub-con, the intricate rituals that let you have touch and intimacy without admitting you need it

“Dream,” he says carefully, sitting down on the coffee table across from him. It’s new to him still, this name. Pulled from his stranger’s hoarse throat on their way out of the manor. Dream. His poor friend. Dream looks up at him. His expression is guarded. Wounded. “I owe you,” he says, in his low, sibilant voice, “a boon.” As a reward for his rescue, Dream offers Hob what he's always wanted most. Dream himself.

--

Hob’s beloved stranger is free. Miraculously imprisoned, and then freed by Hob’s hand. And never has freedom looked so fucking awful on a person.

He’s sitting on Hob’s couch like a crumpled bird, wrapped loosely in one of Hob’s shirts. It’s so oversized on him, even more than it normally would be on his narrow frame. His knees are knobby, his cheekbones sharp, hands pressed together in his lap in a mimicry of the way the manacles had bound his wrists. Bruised wrists, bruised throat, shadows under his eyes. God. Hob should have chained up Alex Burgess and thrown him in the glass cage for a change.

“Dream,” he says carefully, sitting down on the coffee table across from him. It’s new to him still, this name. Pulled from his stranger’s hoarse throat on their way out of the manor. Dream. His poor friend.

Dream looks up at him. His expression is guarded. Wounded. “I owe you,” he says, in his low, sibilant voice, “a boon.”

“For what?” Hob says. Dream continues looking at him meaningfully. “For rescuing you? No, you don’t.” He really thinks Hob’s that much of a profiteer?

“We are not even friends,” Dream says lowly, and ouch, that one hurts. “And you have risked the secret of your immortality to aid me.”

Hob refrains from saying that he considers Dream his friend, even if the bastard doesn’t return it.

“I will not leave that debt hanging,” Dream says, voice gaining strength. “Long have I been bound for use of my power and I will not have the same from you, Hob Gadling. Demand something of me, that this debt may be cleared and we be free of each other.”

“Okay, okay.” Hob raises a hand to placate him. He really wants rid of Hob that badly? That’s some gratitude. Insisting on transactional payment, when Hob rescued him because he cared about him? Assuming Hob must want some grand favor from him, when all Hob’s ever wanted is a second of his time and attention?

He lets out a long breath to calm himself. He’s so… frustrated. And angry, though it’s really more anger on Dream��s behalf, now without outlet as his captors are all dead.

“All I’ve ever wanted from you is you,” he says.

“Indeed?” says Dream with a bitter little laugh. Hob has never known him to have a particularly charitable view of things, but his imprisonment seems to have twisted that even further, carved him into a shell that only knows what it is to be hurt. “Not even your immortality?”

“You offered that,” Hob says. “And I would have gone after it whether you were there or not.”

Dream lets out another awful, dry laugh. Hob’s always wanted to hear him laugh, to know if he ever did, but not like this. “Seized it,” he agrees. “Demanded it. What was never for men to have.”

“That’s never stopped me,” Hob says. Dream is not the cause of him wanting to live, even if it was that chance encounter with him that enabled it, in the end.

“No,” Dream agrees. He meets Hob’s eyes again, challenging. Echoes Hob’s words: “All you wanted was me.”

“All I wanted was you,” Hob says. Some of the truest words he knows.

“Why?” says Dream, brow pinching. Genuinely asking. “I have given you little enough.”

Exactly, Hob thinks. Because I get minutes of you every century. Because being with you for those minutes is like touching another plane of existence entirely. Because you’re the most gorgeous and interesting thing I’ve ever seen and your attention, your interest, your approval is like a drug to me.

Instead, he says, “You know me. Greedy to the core. Given enough time, there’s very little in this life that I can’t manage to get. Except for you. Your time. You’re always at a remove. So high above.”

Dream nods as if this makes sense to him. A more acceptable explanation than that Hob might simply want to be with him. And it’s not untrue. But it’s certainly not the whole truth.

“It is agreed, then,” Dream says.

Hob frowns. “Sorry. What is?”

“All you have wanted was me,” Dream says, as if Hob should obviously know where he’s going with this. “Let the boon be sealed.”

“I don’t understand—”

Dream glares at him. He has always been quick to anger, but now it leaps off his tongue, smolders and burns for the slightest opportunity to rage. Well. That makes two of them. “Do not toy with me. I am not oblivious. I have seen the way you look upon me—”

Hob chokes.

“—so do not play at ignorance. If I am what you want in reward, then let it be done.”

Hob feels himself pale. Is he actually suggesting…?

“Dream—” He starts to reject him out of hand. To suggest some other favor if Dream is so hell-bent on it. Information, maybe, about Dream’s life, all the things Hob’s always been obsessively curious about. But.

Dream is not wrong. When Hob had said, all I ever wanted was you, he had meant it more broadly, but Dream’s interpretation of the statement is not incorrect. Hob does want him. In his bed. In his life. Has since he first saw him. Definitely has since Dream had looked at him from under his lashes like that in 1789, given him that damned smirk. He’d thought, in that moment, that Dream might want him too—it was one of the things that had given him the boldness to claim friendship a century later.

Hob wants him, wants to touch him, and have him, and see what he looks like when he’s losing himself to pleasure. Wants it feverishly. Painfully. And the way Dream is looking at him— there’s want there. In those shadowed eyes. In that body, bent and forced into an unnatural shape. He’s not looking at Hob with revulsion at the prospect. He did come up with it himself. And. Hob’s not sure he’s a good enough person to turn down his one chance at that offer. He’s not sure he’s a good person at all.

“Fine,” he says, and Dream looks briefly surprised, and then resigned, accepting. Like he had, fleetingly, thought better of Hob, but was not wholly surprised to be proven wrong. That hurts, too. But if Dream won’t even let them be friends, with the understanding and care contained therein, well, so be it. If Dream’s angry enough to do this to himself, then maybe Hob is, too.

He expects Dream to tell him how exactly this is supposed to work—presumably he has specific rules defining it as a debt and marking it paid—but for a long moment he just keeps sitting there in the aftermath of Hob’s agreement. Crumpled. Hands twisted together, bruises on his fingers. So Hob takes his hands, pulls them out of their violent twist. Dream lets him, going limp. That resignation. That, Hob doesn’t like.

He leans down and kisses Dream’s knuckles, then turns his hands over and kisses his palms. If he’s going to live out the long-held fantasy of having sex with his old stranger, then he’s going to do it the way he imagined. Not whatever way Dream expects of him.

When he looks up again, the cold touch of Dream’s hands lingering on his face, he’s just quick enough to catch Dream looking at him not with resignation, but with longing. It flees his face as soon as their gazes meet, but the afterimage lingers behind Hob’s eyes. Slides under his ribcage like a knife.

“Come on, darling,” he says, the endearment slipping out like that very knife pulled from a wound. He stands, pulling Dream to his feet with him. Now is probably not the best time to do this, but he suspects Dream will insist on it, wanting to be free of Hob—of their debt—as soon as possible so he can carry on his business unimpeded.

Hob leads Dream to the bedroom well aware of the blade he’s hanging over his own neck: if he does this, Dream won’t come back. He’ll clear their debt and that will be it, he’ll return to his mystical world and cut contact, end their prior agreement, knowing well exactly what he can expect from Hob, and that Hob really hasn’t changed at all.

Unless. Unless Hob can give him a reason to come back.

Dream is silent as he follows. He stops in the middle of the bedroom, feet bare on the carpet, Hob’s shirt hanging loose on him, face set in a harsh frown that trembles and wavers when Hob turns to him and, instead of pushing off his shirt and dragging him forward, takes his face between his hands.

Hob’s never had Dream this close. He can make out each strand of Dream’s hair, and the precise shade of his eyes, sea-storm blue. There’s defiance, there. Fire. Challenging Hob to take what he feels he’s owed. If he dares.

Challenge. Not resentment. Not revulsion.

So Hob kisses him.

He’s not a saint.

He’s not a saint, he’s exactly what Dream thinks him to be, greedy, and hungry, and unchanging. And he has wanted Dream for a very long time.

It’s easy to kiss him, the way it’s easy to slide a razor across one’s skin, the blade so sharp it barely stings. It’s easy to take his mouth, press inside, bite at his lower lip, hook his fingers around the sharp hinge of Dream’s jaw. Catch him. Gather him. Press warmth into his skeletal frame. It’s easy. It feels natural.

It feels natural like hunger. Natural, like seeing Dream standing over him in the inn that very first time, and the bright exploding sense that all before this had been obscured by smoke, and now for the first time he was seeing.

Dream makes a sound low in his throat, a moan quickly bitten off into a growl. Hob half-expects him to be passive, to decide he just wants to get it over with, but he’s not. He kisses back. Angrily, as if to punish Hob for his audacity, bites at Hob’s lip, grips his hips hard, the sharp points of his fingers digging in. It’s the intensity Hob always expected of him, when he fantasized about his stranger wanting him; it’s the low curl of his voice around Hob in the inn — you… dare? — grown claws.

Hob dares. Hob’s always dared. He dares to push the shirt, his shirt, off Dream’s shoulders, and he dares to pull his own shirt off over his head. He dares to walk Dream back towards the bed, and guide him up onto it, and to kick off his shoes and to follow him. He dares to study Dream’s bare form, laid out before him, but that is not a sharp dare, that is… a caress. A dream, in which he might hold his stranger close and trail fingers along every inch of his skin and his stranger none the wiser but feeling it, maybe, as a far off breath over the back of his neck. Stolen, that dream, but given back kinder.

Hob studies the gorgeous, bruised, sharp lines of him, the smudge of his hair, the shadows of his eyes, elegant fingers and sprawling legs and precise, round nipples, the stillness of him in repose, mouth slightly open, watching. Dream is more charcoal sketch than man, a memory of a lover drawn in the late hour, strong, pressed lines, and careful shading. If this all goes terribly wrong, if he can’t convince Dream how he really feels, that’s how Hob will remember him. As a shadow, a daydream, a vision filtered through the prism of the past.

He leans down from his place between Dream’s legs to kiss his sternum, then his belly which shivers at the touch, then low on his pelvis. Dream doesn’t move. When Hob looks up at him, he’s watching intently, eyes gone dark. With a measured touch he lays his fingers along Hob’s temples, dragging them to the corners of Hob’s eyes, nails sharp like claws, a sheathed threat. God, the audacity of Burgess to think he could keep this thing chained. Hob closes his eyes and, shivering with dangerous pleasure, lets Dream run his fingers over them, then retreat.

Dream’s sharp nails frame his cheeks. His voice rumbles above Hob, the turning of clouds, his tone fond, almost, but dangerous too. “My rescuer…”

Yes, Hob thinks, always.

“You have saved me,” says Dream. “You have returned me to my realm. And to myself.” The words have a sense of finality. “Now. Seize your prize.”

Seize, no, Hob thinks, but prize, yes. Dream is a prize, every second with him is. One Hob’s done little enough to earn, but takes eagerly either way.

“Take your reward of my body,” Dream continues, thumbs stroking Hob’s cheeks. “But know this.”

Hob opens his eyes and looks up at him. Dream’s voice is portentous. His eyes are swirling pits, dark, shadowed, and alluring.

“Know this,” he repeats, holding Hob’s gaze, “one cannot have a dream and remain unchanged. And to be so close to the Endless…” he runs his thumb over Hob’s lower lip. “Even more so.”

“Good,” Hob says. He doesn’t have to think about it; what more could he want than to be changed by Dream? He already has been.

Dream’s eyes flash with surprise, but slide quickly into satisfaction. It’s sick, almost, that look, like he would see Hob made twisted and wrong for what he wants, for what he’s taking. Fine. Good. Maybe Hob deserves it. The thought doesn’t make him want to stop. Dream can pierce him with his claws and undo him and Hob will only keep looking for him in every shadow.

He feels blissfully on edge from the danger. He ducks his head, Dream’s hands slipping off him, and goes low on Dream’s body, pressing his lips to the base of his cock, where he’s half-hard. Interested.

In Hob’s earliest fantasies of getting his mouth on his stranger it had not been like this. Dream had been powerful and strange and Hob had wanted to worship him, and to have Dream’s touch in his hair speak approval. But this Dream has no haughty approval left to offer him, only ashes and rage. And all Hob wants now is to taste him. Touch him, as Dream said, and be changed.  

He kisses his way up Dream’s cock, swipes over the head with his tongue, wraps his fingers around Dream’s bony hips. Then takes the head of his cock fully in his mouth, pulling a shallow gasp from Dream. His thighs tremble, his hips twitch up into Hob’s mouth. His stranger, always so controlled, must be terribly sensitive after having no pleasure at all for so many years. The thought causes an undeniable thrill.

He relishes in the weight of Dream on his tongue. In the shivering sighs of Dream above him, even more. His hands come to Hob’s hair, and his grip is not hesitant, it’s sharp. But he doesn’t try to move Hob. Only connects them through that point of pain.

He tastes metallic—not only his prick, or the drop of pre Hob pulls from him, but his skin too, when Hob pulls off and kisses his inner thigh, and the crook of his hip. There’s a tang to his skin that sticks to Hob’s tongue. He thinks it’s a relic of the magic that captured him, or the magic that had gotten him out. He wishes he knew the true taste of Dream’s skin.

Hob raises himself up on his arms, goes back up Dream’s body to capture his mouth. Dream tips his head back, baring his throat. Gentle now, instead of fighting. Hob bites under his jaw, wringing a cry from Dream’s lips. He adds his own bruise to the ring of them already painting Dream’s neck, then kisses over it, and the others besides, kisses pressing just hard enough to edge into pain.

Dream moves under him, legs wrapping around Hob’s hips. Hob gets one hand between them and finally unzips his trousers, takes himself out, grinds his cock against Dream’s. Rough fabric drags over Dream’s skin. Hob finds he likes the thought of it showing on Dream’s thighs later, the raw friction of them. He doesn’t like to see Dream battered, bruised, but with his bruises—well. That’s a different matter.

Dream catches his jaw and turns Hob back to his mouth, pulls him into a biting kiss, his tongue sweeping over Hob’s teeth. Then he meets Hob’s gaze, a hint of that dark imperiousness that Hob knows so well back in his eyes.

“If you intend to claim me for yourself,” he says, voice frayed at the edges and dripping shadow, “then do so fully. I will have all of your passion for me. Or nothing.”

Hob swallows hard, throat sticking. “That is quite a lot of passion, my friend.”

If anything, that only makes Dream seem more satisfied. “So it seems.”

Does he know what he could get Hob to do for him, in another situation? Here, now, Dream is for him—or so he’s set the bargain. But there is little Dream could not twist Hob’s passion for him into, if he only asked. It’s a dangerous thing to feel, and yet Hob is not afraid of it. There are worse things to lose oneself over than obsession with a strange, dear friend.

“I’ll have you, then,” he says. “If you insist. For now. But, you should know: if you find yourself trapped like that again, you can call on me. All of that passion also means that I will come for you.”

Dream’s eyes flash. “I will not be trapped like that again.”

Hob takes his wrists and presses them down into the bed, mimicking the circles of bruises bestowed by the manacles. “You were trapped once.”

Tendons flex under Hob’s hands. “Now you will bind me yourself?”

You bound me first, Hob thinks. As fast as a dog on a chain, as firm as a dog coming back and back again to the house where it was once left. Waiting. It’s a miracle he doesn’t want to force Dream to stay, just to stop waiting. It’s a miracle, given everything, that he finds the thought more sickening than anything else.

“We went over that, didn’t we?” He kisses each of Dream’s wrists, over his pulse, then releases him.

For a long moment, Dream leaves his hands where Hob pressed them, studying him. “I suppose so,” he says, considering.

That pain returns, what had first pierced him through when Dream proposed this ‘trade.’ You don’t think better of me? Perhaps Hob doesn’t deserve being thought better of. You don’t trust my friendship? It hurts more than anything, to think Dream believes Hob could do that to him. For not believing it to come as a surprise.

It hurts so much he nearly abandons this whole exercise, this pretense that— that he could actually want to take something from Dream, could want some reward from him, no matter how tempting it is when dangled before his face. The thing is that Dream is the great love of Hob’s life, and he isn’t Dream’s and he’s had to try to come to terms with that, and Dream’s body under his is making it harder, not easier.

“Hob.” Cold fingers find his jaw, and Hob realizes he’s closed his eyes, head hanging low. Dream tips his face back up, runs his thumb over the corner of Hob’s mouth, and Hob opens for him. There’s a new look in Dream’s eyes now, but he can’t quite read it. “Seal the bargain.”

The intensity of him bolsters Hob’s confidence, sets the want stirring in him again. He knows Dream doesn’t mean a kiss, but Hob kisses him anyway, sealing them together. Dream burns under him. His fingers frame Hob’s face, fire in each point where their skin touches. Dream wanted Hob’s passion. Well, he can have all of it.

He digs in the bedside drawer for lube, Dream tracking him with his gaze. He looks curious as Hob pours some out on his fingers, hitches Dream’s leg up further and reaches between them, pressing a finger to his entrance. Dream opens easily to him, gasping as Hob’s finger slips in.

“You needn’t— go to this trouble,” he breathes, unsteady. “Surely you need no reminder that my form is not human.”

“I’m not interested in your pain,” Hob says. Clearly, in this form, Dream can be hurt, the proof is all over his skin. Hob’s fantasies about him are myriad and sometimes dark but none have ever involved Dream hurt so Hob can take his pleasure. “I think you’ve had quite enough of it already, don’t you?”

Dream’s eyes flash in offense, and he opens his mouth to speak. Hob just holds his gaze, daring him to say that he wants to be hurt. But he doesn’t. His mouth closes again. The look on his face slips to something softer and hesitant, another crack opening in his assumptions about what this is. It’s almost trust.

Hob thinks that Dream would claw the expression away if he could see his own face. Better, then, that only Hob can see it, so he can hold it close, treasure it for longer. This is what Hob really wants, his real prize. Dream’s trust.

Even when you give me license to do something horrible to you, he thinks, I won’t.

Hob is a selfish man, but his most coveted treasure, often lost, always lusted after, is Dream’s regard. He doubts he’ll ever truly have it, but each flicker of new belief Dream shows him is a precious gemstone and he clings to them.

“Very well, then,” Dream finally concedes.

His body shivers, then sinks into the mattress as Hob starts moving again, working in and out of him. Dream is so serious and stoic that Hob had thought it would be difficult to get him to relax at all, but Dream just gives to him. Hob pushes a second finger in, and Dream groans, arching his back, gripping Hob’s shoulder with bruising fingertips. God he is beautiful like that, leaning into pleasure.

Hob meets his eyes, then, as he works him open, and catches, briefly, that look again. And that look—oh—it’s wanting. He wants.

It’s revelatory and exhilarating to see. Hob would do horrible things for that look. Anything to make him feel good.

He works Dream open like that, breathing in his quiet moans and the flex of his body under his hands. The way he tenses and relaxes in lengthening waves, played like a song at Hob’s fingertips. Then he settles between Dream’s thighs, Dream’s legs bent up around his hips. Such a vulnerable position he’s let Hob bend him into after so long curled in that sphere. It makes his breath catch; he has to treasure it.

As he lines himself up, he seals their lips together again, wrapping himself over Dream and pressing him under his weight, kissing him deeply. Dream gasps against his mouth as Hob pushes in. Hob breaches him so easily. Dream just opens to him.

Hob moans, overcome by the heat of his body. His grip tightens in Dream’s hair and Dream tilts his head back, exposing his neck for Hob to kiss. Hob kisses under his jaw, tastes his hammering pulse, drags teeth over the vulnerable skin of his throat, wrapped in bruises. Gives an experimental thrust of his hips and relishes in the way it punches Dream’s breath from his lungs. It’s delicious the way he responds, the way he feels, how sensitive he is, the sense Hob gets that if he could just play him right he could bring him out of his cage and make him feel, could be the first in a very long while to have and hold this creature and bring him pleasure—a gift, a privilege.

So this, then, is getting everything he’s ever wanted, and nothing at all. Dream delivered to his hands but as a sick prize, a one off trade for friendship. It makes the rising pleasure congeal in his throat, but Hob can only do what he always does. Make the most of it. Prove himself. If he can.

He sets himself to that task.

He covers Dream with his weight. Sets up a steady rhythm that has gasps and moans pushed from Dream’s throat. Dream’s body is tight and hot around him but better is each sound Hob can wring from him, those pleasured cries that curl through Hob’s belly like magic spells. He must be doing something right, to get those sounds, Dream must want it, must enjoy it. Dream thinks he himself is the reward, but no, it’s his pleasure—if Hob could bottle it he thinks it would make for greater power than whatever Burgess was trying to force from him. If Hob could keep it, he would be the richest man in the entire world.

“That’s it, darling,” he praises as Dream meets each of his movements, fingers gripping tight at Hob’s back. And instead of growling at him for calling The Lord of Dreams darling, Dream just shivers. “There you go, love. Is that good for you?”

“Hob,” Dream says, a ragged breath. Hob kisses him, catches that sound, and all that Dream shows him, that Dream gives him, pours all of it back into how he fucks him, steady, powerful rolls of his hips saying, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here. Familiar, if now sweeter, to stepping into a vaulted basement, finding a well-known stranger through a haze of violence, chained hands and twisted limbs, and sure, strong touches, I’m here, I’m here, can you hear me? I was dreaming about you.

All that and Dream thought he wanted a reward.

All that and Dream made the reward his own starving body.

Hob pulls him close, wraps his arms around his back, presses his nose into Dream’s throat and breathes in. That way they’re pressed all together, skin-to-skin, he can feel each rise of Dream’s chest and the shivers still running through him and Dream’s fingers finding his hair and digging in. He was down there for decades, Hob thinks. Decades.

“Do not stop,” Dream orders. Hob hasn’t stopped moving, though he has slowed, now that they’re pressed so tightly together. But he follows Dream’s word. Doesn’t stop. Keeps rocking into him. Dream’s cock rubs against his belly, pressed between them. Meanwhile Hob kisses up Dream’s throat, over the bruises there, and under the sharp line of his jaw.

Decades.

Hob can’t fix it, but he can fill Dream up with everything he feels. Can rock them together, so close they could be one, can wrap his arms around Dream’s back and feel Dream’s thighs tightening around his hips and Dream’s breath over his ear. He can want, so hungrily, and taste Dream’s skin and hear the slick sounds of their bodies connecting and, in the corner of his hearing, his own imaginings of this moment almost loud enough to actually hear—

No. No those aren’t his dreams. Dream is panting and with each breath Hob feels skin— heat— care— want— these scattered flashes of feelings, and when he kisses Dream again, catching his mouth, Dream tastes like ash, and static, and his eyelids have fluttered shut.

Hob’s breath catches wet in his lungs. He hooks an arm under Dream’s thigh, hitches his leg up and presses in deeper, wringing a cry from Dream’s mouth. With the sight of Dream bent open before him, taking him like he was meant for it, heat rushes through Hob, his thighs and chest and belly burning with it. He bears Dream down hard into the bed, instinct taking over as his hips stutter quick and he comes.

Dream moans, low and ragged as Hob spills in him. Hob struggles to breathe through the tight heat of Dream clenching around him, overwhelming now, Dream’s limbs wrapped around him and heartbeat shaking under Hob’s chest. He almost pulls Dream close like any other lover, driven by the sleepy satiation and the pleasure of touching him. But Dream isn’t like any other lover.

And his erection is still pressed to Hob’s belly, and Hob won’t leave him wanting, whether that was considered part of the bargain or not. He carefully pulls out, and moves back down Dream’s body to take him in his mouth.

Dream goes tense, startled, and comes in his mouth with a gasp. Hob swallows him down eagerly, every drop, then looks up in time to catch Dream with his head thrown back on the pillow, neck craned, eyes closed, mouth open, thrown into in a shock of pleasure. Then he sags back to the bed, tension fleeing him again.

Hob’s very glad he didn’t miss that moment.

The urgency of arousal gone, Hob presses his face deep between Dream’s thighs, inhaling. Just feeling him.

Tentative fingers find his hair.

“What are you doing?” Dream asks, voice low and hoarse.

He seems… surprised, Hob thinks. By the indulgence. What, did he think Hob would get to have him and then cast him aside? Callously decide he’s had enough, declare their exchange completed, instead of devouring everything he might be allowed?

“Feeling you,” Hob says. He strokes a light hand up and down over his hip. Gentle, now, not charged with desire. He’s been wondering, since rescuing him, when the last time was that Dream was touched. Long before that, even: did that strange creature in the inn that first night they’d met have anyone who dared to lay hands on him?

He looks up again to find Dream studying him from under his lashes. “Truly,” he says, and if there’s a bit of a shake in his voice Hob won’t mention it, “you remain quite daring in seizing what you want, Hob Gadling.”

“Try not to do so much seizing, nowadays,” Hob says.

“A better man,” Dream says. The tone is somewhere between mocking and considering, like he can’t quite decide if he wants to be sarcastic about it or not. “Yet, you agreed to the exchange.”

Hob kisses low on Dream’s pelvis, then his belly, which shivers at the touch of his lips. “Are you surprised? I’ve always been a selfish man. And you offered me the grandest treasure I can imagine.”

“I am your grandest treasure?” Dream says, voice faint. “I was Roderick Burgess’s great treasure,” he says, but without the bite in it that there would have been before. He tentatively touches Hob’s temple, then cheek, light fingertips like he could impart some much-needed wisdom into Hob’s brain through the touch. “Would you, too, keep me for your own pleasure, Hob?”

“I’d keep you for your pleasure,” Hob says without fully thinking it through, and Dream’s eyes flash—almost offense, as before, but more so heat. His fingertips scratch at Hob’s skin, sharp as claws. “No, Dream, part of what makes you so beautiful is that you can’t be kept.”

Hob’s stranger is no ordinary lover to be plied with sweets into staying, no ordinary pet to be collared in jewels. Hob well knows what it is to think of him, to want him, to wait for him, to wish, more than anything, for his brief arrival, the sighting of a rare bird, the passing of a once-a-century comet.

“It is the chase, then, that’s compelled you all this time,” says Dream, like he has all of it figured out now. And like he’s maybe a bit disappointed by what he’s figured.

“It’s the wishing,” Hob says. I always knew I couldn’t keep you, he thinks, pained, but that didn’t stop me from wanting you. Dreaming about you.

Dream’s expression softens, ever so slightly. “What does it mean for you, then, that you’ve had me? Fulfilled this dream? Will you grow bored, and move to other pursuits?”

Hob can’t help it, he laughs. “Does the sun get bored of chasing the moon across the sky? You’ve only made me hungrier. Now that I know what it’s like, how will I ever be sated?”

Now that I know what it is to touch you in pleasure, he thinks, how will I tear my mind away from having you as my lover? How will I ever stop thinking about having you, about being with you? It’s a devil’s bargain he’s struck, in more ways than one, and his throat clogs with anticipatory grief. He no longer worries Dream will disappear on him forever, for he seems to have enjoyed himself, but when he leaves for a time to wherever it is he goes in the eons they’re apart he will leave behind a gaping tear in Hob’s heart that may one day scar over but will never fully close.

Dream’s fingers frame his jaw, surprisingly gentle. He tips Hob’s head up to face him. “Hob,” he says. That low voice is a caress. His expression is… almost fond. Hesitantly so. “Truly you are so intrigued by me?”

“Intrigued? More like in love with you,” Hob says, then immediately wants to cut out his own tongue.

Dream blinks once, twice. Says, “…Oh.” And Hob thinks, for the first time, he’s not only surprised him, but truly made him speechless.

Does he truly not know it already? Perhaps Hob has not said it in so many words, but he has never exactly been reserved, never subtle about his emotions the way Dream is, has never bothered to try. He’d thought Dream could read it plainly on his face all these years, and had only taken offense once Hob voiced it, once he implied that there might be reciprocity, for it couldn’t be offensive to be worshiped, could it? But to imply that his vaunted stranger might care for him in return, that was a presumption that could not go unpunished, or so Hob had thought.

“You freed me,” Dream says, working through it as he speaks.

“And I told you I didn’t want a reward, but you insisted.”

“All you wanted was me,” says Dream.

“Your attention,” Hob says. Cards on the table now. “Your interest. Your time.” Your care.

“Oh,” Dream says again. Hob’s really managed to strike him dumb. Is he so used to people only wanting things from him that he can’t possibly fathom it?

“I wasn’t trying to insult you when I called you my friend, all those years ago,” he says quietly.

“No,” Dream agrees, contemplative. “I suppose not.”

His questing fingers trace Hob’s throat. Hob swallows hard.

“Guess you’ll vanish back to your duties now,” he says. Too bitter. “Boon granted and all.”

Instead of vanishing, Dream says, “You… love me.”

“Don’t need to keep saying it if you’re just going to tear it up,” Hob says. “Yes, I saved you because I love you. I killed people for you because I love you, don’t you know I don’t just go around killing for anyone in this day and age? God forbid it was necessary I’d do it again and that time there wouldn’t be any boon.”

Hob’s not sure he strictly had to kill all of them. Could probably have chased some of the guards away in the end. He wasn’t exactly thinking compassionately once he caught sight of Dream in that sphere.

“Did you kill them to gain my favor?” Dream asks.

“No.” He meets Dream’s eyes. “For the pleasure of it. And I would again— not for your favor, but for the way you’d look at me.”

For the way Dream had looked at him, when Hob had dropped the last guard’s limp body to the ground and had pressed a bloodstained hand to the glass cage. The wonder there, when Dream—still his stranger, Hob hadn’t yet gotten his name—had raised his own shaking, bruised, chained hands to touch back.

Hob had been surrounded by carnage and he’d still felt like he’d done something right. For the arbiter of what felt right was no god he’d ever been taught to worship, but the dark figure who’d granted him immortality. The dark stranger he loved, who could have laid a hand on his forehead and bid him do anything and Hob would have done it, and felt it righteous.

Dream lays a hand on Hob’s forehead. His fingers are cold. Hob takes that hand and brings it to his mouth, kissing his knuckles, warming the skin with his breath.

“I believe,” Dream says lowly, “I may still owe you.”

Hob sighs. “Dream, we went over this, you never—”

Dream covers Hob’s mouth with his thumb, stilling his words.

“Such great services rendered,” Dream continues, solemn gaze fixed on Hob’s, “and at such risk to yourself, surely deserve more reward. Your loyalty, your…” his eyes track over Hob’s body, where Hob’s still half-draped over him, appreciative, “consideration, surely beg a higher price.”

Hob is caught on his expression. Pinned in place, as he so easily is by Dream. “What did you have in mind?”

“When I have retrieved my tools. And restored my realm.” His tongue darts out, briefly, to wet his lips. “Perhaps I might return.”

“Perhaps you might,” Hob says. He’s slow but he’s gradually learning to catch on to how Dream communicates. That’s if he can wrap his mind around the impossibility of what he might be saying. “Perhaps you might… grant me more of your time. As recompense.”

“Yes. And perhaps you might. Consider. What you want of me while I am here.”

“I’m sure there’s plenty I’ll want with you,” Hob says, throat tight. He finally pushes himself up from where he’s still draped over Dream, and instead lies on his side next to him, so they’re at eye level. He pushes an unruly strand of Dream’s hair behind his ear. An act that still feels somewhat daring, but less so with each passing moment. Dream studies him, eyes wide and dark. Oh, Dream, Hob thinks.

“Maybe I’ll take some of that payment now,” he says.

“Will you?”

“Too greedy not to take everything on offer.” He uses the hand still dug into Dream’s hair to draw him in close, press their bodies together, wrap his arms around Dream’s back, palms flat over the sharp edges of his shoulder blades. Dream’s heart beats quick under his fragile ribcage, uneven breaths ghost over Hob’s shoulder, and tentatively, Dream’s bony arms come up to grasp onto him. He presses his face into Hob’s throat. His hair tickles Hob’s cheek. And Hob thinks, with a deep, throbbing pain, no, actually, there are greater rewards than his pleasure.

He holds Dream for some moments, until Dream’s skin, perpetually on the edge of cold, has warmed at all the points where they’re touching. Hob draws a blanket from the base of the bed over them. Dream shivers, the shake of cold leaving the body, then settles back against him.

“I hope this shows some measure of thanks,” Dream says quietly, face still buried in Hob’s skin, “for your service.”

Hob breathes out hard, chest heavy, but steadies his voice before responding. “How about I let you know when we’re even?”

Dream lets out a long sigh. “Very well. I will trust you to carry the scale.”

Dream’s trust alone is worth more than gold, in Hob’s estimation. But he thinks Dream might not point out if Hob measures it in pyrite. He thinks, as he runs his hand up and down over Dream’s sore, bony back, as Dream sighs again, melting into him, that neither of them might mind if that scale stays tipped for a very long time, indeed.

Perhaps, Hob hopes, until there’s no more need for it at all.

[just-j-really]

Additional Dreamling hanahaki AU idea, which I am fond of enough to make its own post:

Hob fell hard for Dream in 1489, and unfortunately immediately got hanahaki about it. Fortunately, it's a weirdly manageable level of hanahaki. Like, the immortality bit definitely helps, but it progresses much slower than your average case of hanahaki, and it seems to reset, or at least get markedly better, every time he sees Dream.

He still never gets a chance to tell Dream about it. In 1589 he's got a five-step 'Impress him. Have a conversation with him that isn't about immortality. Flirt a little. Use whatever information I get to figure out if I can seduce him. Go from there.' plan that just immediately goes to shit. It's the least of his worries in 1689, in 1789 he doesn't have the chance, and in 1889 he attempts to reach out again (less a calculated 'sweep him off his feet' this time and more a 'hey, we're friends, do you ever see the possibility of us being something more?') and of course Dream balks at the friends part and that goes to hell.

An then 1989 rolls around, Dream doesn't show up, and the once-a-century reset button Hob had been depending on just. Doesn't happen.

He's in bad shape when Dream finally shows up thirty-odd years later.

Eventually Dream gets the whole story out of him (it takes a bit- Hob is afraid of scaring him off again, and once Dream tells Hob why he missed their meeting, Hob's got the additional worry of 'how to explain without making him feel even worse about being imprisoned for over a century').

And once Dream does get the explanation, he immediately connects the dots incorrectly: hanahaki is born of unrequited love, and Hob always seems to recover from his case whenever he sees Dream. This of course means that being subjected to the full force of Dream's unloveable terrible self is causing Hob's feelings for Dream to wane. So he decides to meet up with Hob more often (but not too often, he wants Hob to still want to be his friend, even if those romantic feelings fade).

Cue a horrific misunderstanding. The facts of the situation are that A: Dream is slowly falling in love with Hob. He'd been nursing a tiny little potential crush for centuries, hence their meetings giving Hob that little reprieve, but he only starts actually falling for him when they start spending time together. This means that B: Hob is recovering. It also means that C: Hob's feelings are getting exponentially, monumentally worse by virtue of having his crush nearby so often, and occasionally looking at Hob as though he could possibly feel the same way.

Dream, only aware of points A and B, has confirmed his suspicion that he's horrible and unlovable and his presence has caused Hob to stop loving him. (And like. Yes. The other conclusion, that Hob's recovering because his feelings are requited, is, in fact, right there. Dream is far too primed to believe himself unlovable to make that leap.) He's also having a Real Bad Time emotionally because he's DEVASTATED that Hob doesn't love him anymore and also just. So, so glad to see Hob healthy. The Dreaming is experiencing freak thunderstorms midway through, and occasionally at the same time as, perfect sunny days.

Hob, only aware of points B and C, is confused. He's still in love, so that can't be what's caused his recovery, and Dream hasn't mentioned returning Hob's feelings, so clearly that can't be it either. Dream's some sort of eldritch god-being, it makes as much sense as anything that he can somehow suppress hanahaki. And Hob can live with that, he's perfectly happy with Dream as his friend. (Honestly he's probably three quarters of the way to figuring it out, if nothing else Dream keeps bringing him gifts and it's beginning to make him suspicious, but he just... doesn't think Dream would withhold that information when he knows Hob's unrequited love was factually killing him.)

Thus follows months of mutual pining. They're essentially living together, at least from Hob's perspective- Dream meets him after work, unless he has some other plans, and sticks around until he falls asleep. He's not there when Hob wakes up, but it's overall absurdly similar to living with a partner who works early mornings. Hob is also Having Some Feelings about this.

Thing is, though, they're getting closer (despite the fact that Hob is clearly falling out of love with Dream), and Dream ends up eventually explaining who/what he is.

And then-

"Oh," Hob says. "Is that how you're doing this?"

"Doing what?" Dream asks, nonplussed. They're in the Waking world, at a table in the back corner of the New Inn. Dream isn't doing much besides keeping a curious eye on one of the bartenders' daydreams of social media stardom, and even then, he's not sure how Hob would know that.

"No," Hob says, his voice low. "How you cured me. I've been dreaming of a cure for centuries, did you make that come true, somehow?"

A rush of hurt and anger nearly overpowers Dream, but Hob's looking at him with such genuine, earnest curiosity, a touch of admiration, and he realizes the truth. Hob wouldn't be the first person to fall out of love with Dream and fail to realize it, continuing to go through the motions until every trace of affection for Dream was destroyed.

He isn't sure if it's for his own sake or for Hob's that he says, "Have you considered that there may be an ordinary cause for your recovery?" and waits for the sword to fall.

"Oh," Hob whispers. Dream watches as the realization dawns on his face, only- he doesn't look disgusted, or angry, or disappointed. There's relief there, yes, which Dream had expected. He hadn't excepted joy, but there it is, the same all-encompassing happiness he sees every time he asks Hob what he thinks of his immortality.

Dream should not resent this. Loving him has only caused Hob pain, he should not resent that it is a joy for him to be freed. Still, it takes all his strength to keep the storm that is currently drenching the Dreaming from manifesting in his physical form.

He must not succeed, because Hob's expression is slowly shuttered by worry. "You're sure?" he asks, quietly.

Even when Dream had found him all those months ago, flowers clogging his lungs, unable to seek help for fear of what his fellow humans might do to him, he had not looked this fragile.

"I am Dream," he admits, staring at Hob's hand where it rests next to his on the table. As though it could make this any easier if he refuses to look at Hob's face. "It is not within my power to cure you in the Waking."

Silence. Far too much silence; if there is one thing Hob should not be, it is silent.

Hob's hand reaches out to cover Dream's, gentle as snow covering a corpse.

"Oh, love," he says, his voice just as gentle, "You did."

In a sense, yes, he had, by proving to Hob that he was not a creature to be loved. But if that were true, then why-

"I should have said something," Hob says. "Weeks ago, I should have-" He cuts himself off and squeezes Dream's hand, sending a shock of hope through Dream; he's discovered that the person he'd thought to be dead in the snow is still breathing. And Hob's hand is warm, a hearthfire when he'd lingered so long in the cold.

"Dream," Hob says, as solemn as Dream has ever heard him, "I have never stopped loving you."

He says it with the same certainty he'd told Dream, centuries ago, that he had too much to live for, and once again Dream can only stare at him in awe. There are very few things that a creature such as Dream might consider a miracle, but Hob, he thinks, is one of them. Perhaps one day he will find the words to tell him so.

For now, he threads his fingers with Hob's.

(and then they very slowly and cautiously start up a romantic relationship, Dream very worried that Hob will stop loving him and Hob very worried that Dream will get scared and leave, each of them trying to gently reassure the other that no I love you I'll stay as long as you want me. and eventually they both realize that they're on the same page there, and 'as long as you want me' is 'forever')

[gabessquishytum]

"omg I love autistic men who are obsessed with their wives" ssshhhh you couldn't even handle Hob Gadling in 1589

[teejaystumbles]

for the @sandman-connect4 prompt - Kidnap

For the prompts I chose I am following an old story concept of mine. Here's the description I shared ages ago:

Go Forth - This is just a collection of ideas I am assembling at the moment. It may never be a written fic, I want to draw a lot for this, so maybe it’ll only ever be a handful of illustrations, but in my mind they are connected by the following idea: Dream is stuck in the depths of the Dreaming, either self-inflicted or through some event I haven’t decided on, and Hob tries to find and help him. He has to traverse the Dreaming or rather, the dreamscapes Dream is hiding in, which turn out to be fairytales, mostly. Cast in a role, he has to figure out how to carry on through the story, find Dream and hope to wake him. It doesn’t work well the first times and Hob is lost in the narrative that Dream unconsciously controls. With time he begins to realize what Dream is actually looking or hoping for in these stories… [x]

This submission is actually smack in the middle of these stories, it's not the first one Hob has had to play through (but I don't have time to finish all the others before filling these prompts). This time he is the chosen hero of Hyrule and has to set out on his trusty loftwing raven Matthew to search and rescue the princess...😉Can you name the other cast members, fellow LoZ fans?

[amadgirlintheuniverse]

Okay, now I have to watch Arcane

I cannot resist this character coding, you got me there Arcane

[samsalami66]

Tough decision, but "I will hang on (until I can't anymore)" with Dreamling? (Soccer au maybe? 🥺)

🤘five-and-dimes

Shooting for the Sky

Hey my lovely @five-and-dimes! Thank you for the prompt, I had a great time writing this! I hope you don't mind some humour sprinkled in between the usual angst and fluff, the idea suddenly grew wings and took flight and I had zero control over it.

Morpheus is regretting every single decision he has ever made in his tragically short life that led him up to this moment. If only he wasn't at fault for a hundred percent of them, from starting to kick a ball around with Olethros at age ten, to signing his first professional contract and later joining the Fiddlers. 

This blasted team of absolute nutters. 

Team building, Hob has said with a smile and a glint in his eyes that Morpheus hasn't quite been able to place. Now he knows it to be unbridled insanity mixed with a healthy dose of sadism, joy granted by witnessing his best friend's early demise due to the heart attack he would surely suffer in the next few moments. 

Morpheus has heard about team building exercises where a team went to play minigolf or drove around with go-carts or some other safe and ordinary and fun experience. But of course his band of suicidal idiots would go skydiving for such an event. And of course they have all done this before, since they have zero sense for self-preservation and do not care about their personal well-being at all. 

Those words out of his mouth have only caused the other men to burst into laughter when he said them. 

So now he is here. ‘Here’ being an aeroplane about a kilometre above sweet British grounds, strapped like a toddler to Hob Gadling's chest. Apparently you do not jump on your own the first time you skydive, which has never been a thing Morpheus gave much thought to, since he never expected to find himself in this situation. 

But he has done a lot of things he didn't expect himself to do since he has met Hob. Wonderful, amazing Hob, who is currently resting his chin on Morpheus’ shoulder so he can look out the window while Morpheus himself is trying his hardest not to hyperventilate. 

The team would never let him forget it if he had a panic attack over skydiving. Their serious support ends with the after-effects of abuse, everything else will become part of the Terrific Team Tales (what an awful name), which they recap at least once a year on pub night, specifically to torture the other members with embarrassing stories of the past. 

It is a horrifying tradition. Truly grotesque. 

Morpheus will not give them more material by panicking. 

So, instead, he concentrates on Hob. 

Hob, who stands pressed to his back, head to calf, lending to him the warmth Morpheus so rarely feels on his own. Hob, who's scent envelops Morpheus like a hug of comfort and safety, calming him like few other things could these days. And Hob, who's midsection is pressed directly to Morpheus’ backside. Will be pressed to his backside for the whole dive. Together, in the air, putting his life in Hob Gadling's hands. 

Oh dear.

Perhaps the panic attack is the better option after all. These thoughts will only lead him to a single outcome, and he's absolutely not going to face this conversation after falling a whole kilometre out of an aeroplane. Absolutely not. 

Just as Morpheus is about to force his thoughts back onto the ridiculous ideas of his teammates, the voice of the pilot sounds over their headsets.

“We reached the final height for the jump! The door will be opened as soon as we hit the agreed upon coordinates. Have a good way down, gentlemen!” 

Cheers ring out around Morpheus, and ten men, Hob included, jump up and down with barely concealed excitement. Hob's jumping jostles him where he stands, and Morpheus barely catches himself before he would have crashed backwards into Hob. 

“Someone's excited,” he comments with a wry smile, which only turns softer when he looks over his shoulder to see Hob's bright eyes, shining with joy.

“I get to share one of my favourite activities with my favourite person, of course I'm excited!” 

Morpheus softens even further at that answer, Hob’s affection as always so easy to grasp. 

“Ugh, find a private channel to flirt on with your man, Hobert!” Sounds Corin's voice over their headset, and Morpheus can't help but chuckle at how he and Hob stick their tongues out at each other. 

“Ten bucks that I’ll land first!” calls Abel into the round, which Cain immediately meets with “Twenty bucks that you’re full of shit!”

“Fifty that you’ll both be last,” Mervyn murmurs, and the rest of the team laughs at their bickering, as they always do. 

Cain and Abel, the other brothers in the team, have a sort of love-hate relationship going on. Half of the time Morpheus is a bit worried they might kill each other with their antics, but in the end they would never seriously hurt each other. Though if it does happen one day, Morpheus believes the murdered brother would come back to life just so that they might continue their bickering. Mervyn likes to pretend that he doesn't find it hilarious. 

Behind Cain and Abel the door of the aircraft suddenly opens, the wind suddenly overpowering every thought Morpheus might have had. He couldn't look outside, as there were about nine burly football players between Hob and him and the door. But even just the coldness of the air against his face, unnatural in comparison to the cold he has felt so far down on safe ground, wipes his mind clean of coherent thought. 

“Ready?” Hob says, so close to his ear that Morpheus feels his breath on his cheek, clearly to avoid speaking over the open channel. It makes him shiver, but the cold covers the real reason just fine. 

“Absolutely not,” he replies as loud as he dares, while making grabby hands towards Hob's arm to hold onto. The other man complies immediately, and Morpheus digs his fingers deep into Hob's biceps. “But I'll be fine as long as you're there.” 

“If you change your mind, say the word, yeah? We don't have to jump.” 

“Kollité, I would do a lot of things to see you happy. Including jumping out of a plane with only a piece of cloth strapped to my back, like some crazy person.” 

Hob looks increasingly fond the longer Morpheus talks, and eventually he smacks a loud kiss to his cheek, and then another to his forehead and his nose and wherever he can reach from behind Morpheus’ back. It's silly and adorable and so Morpheus laughs, free from the fear of judgement he once had. 

“I like my men a little crazy.” Hob murmurs into his ear then, and Morpheus thinks he might choke on the thin and cold air. 

“Let's go boys!” Corin then calls over their headsets, which suddenly brings movement into the aeroplane. One after another, the Fiddlers jump out of the open door, some head-first, others (Ken) do a flip into nothingness. And all too soon, Hob and Morpheus are the only ones left on the plane. 

“Run. Makes it easier to jump,” Hob calls over the noise. 

Screw it, what is there to lose (except his life, the part of his brain that is not yet totally beyond salvation provides) anyway?

Together, he and Hob run the ten steps towards the door of the aircraft and jump. 

Morpheus regrets it almost immediately. 

Upon falling, his stomach swoops and turns in the most uncomfortable manner possible and when he looks down he sees certain death rushing at him. His heart pounds in his ears and he's pretty sure he doesn't breathe for at least a full minute with how light headed he feels as he finally sucks in his first breath. 

But then broad arms snake around his chest, impossibly warm hands are splayed across his ribs, and Morpheus feels himself melt against Hob. He trusts this man, quite literally with his life, proven as of this moment. After all, Hob is the one that has the parachute strapped to his back and he is also the one who knows how to work it. Morpheus thinks (hopes) that in an emergency he would remember the instructions Hob gave him a few hours ago and pull the right flap, but he prays it won't come to that.

He would much rather enjoy Hob's warmth against his back, the arms that hold him and not open his eyes again until they're on the ground once more. 

“Just hold onto me, love.” Hob whispers into his ear and Morpheus can’t help but snort. 

“Oh I’ll hang on, alright? Don’t think I will let you go though, once we’re on the ground.”

A chuckle, right beside his ear, and Morpheus simply closes his eyes and concentrates on Hob’s warmth, the wind on his face and the adrenaline rushing through his body. After that first moment of falling, the tingling in his stomach almost turns into a pleasant sensation and he feels like every breath fills his lungs up way past the limit. He could run a marathon right now without breaking a sweat, the amount of energy coursing through his veins is just perfect. 

Slowly he starts to understand why the other men were so excited for this team-building activity. 

Adrenaline-junkies, the lot of them. 

Morpheus opens his eyes next when they are suddenly jolted into a slower fall. As he looks upwards he sees the bright green parachute with the Fiddlers’ club crest in the middle that Hob has shown him during their preparation for the jump. Since this is a team building exercise, naturally all gear is sponsored by the club and usually Morpheus would find this incredibly tacky. But looking upon the crest of the Fiddlers only fills him with a sense of pride, to be using or wearing anything sponsored by this team is simply amazing. 

He’s proud of who he works for, who he’s representing, and the thought is so sudden Morpheus feels tears sting in his eyes. 

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Hob’s voice sounds next to his right ear and Morpheus has to blink a few times before he can see clearly what Hob is referring to. But once he does he lets out a small gasp of surprise. The sun is setting on the far horizon and a few clouds break her light just so that reds and purples and pinks colour the sky around them like the most stunning of watercolour paintings. 

“Oh,” he whispers as the tears suddenly spill over, his throat closed off with emotions he can't quite name. It really is beautiful. The sky, the view, the man behind him. His life, really. He's grateful for so many things in that moment, but he manages to voice one thing.

“Thank you, Hob. For taking me along. And being patient with me.” 

“Anytime, lovey. Anytime.”

[maarigolds]

Neil Gaiman's favorite trope

[achillesuwu]

So…

Does AO3 have a plan if queer content get ban in the usa ? Like… they allow everything that is allowed per USA’s law so if they don’t (and even if they do) I strongly advise that y’all download all the queer fic you can…

[gabessquishytum]

The ton of London is abuzz with the latest drama unfolding between Morpheus Endless and his father, Lord Time, over the question of the former’s marriage and just who is meant to meet him at the altar.

From almost the beginning of the Season, everyone had been treated to the sweet and clear courtship of Morpheus by Mr. Hob Gadling. It seemed to be love at first sight, and from a practical standpoint was considered to be a rather good match; Hob might have been new money, but what he lacked in connections he more than made up in wealth, looks, and honest charm. The Endless family are well-connected and well-respected, and while Morpheus could possibly have held out for a more equally-connected match, he was a third child (thus bringing little status to a marriage, when compared to his elder siblings), and furthermore had been considered rather unapproachable, aloof and cold, at least until Hob had managed to melt that icy exterior.

It had gotten to the point where anyone paying attention expected to hear of a proposal any day now, when chaos erupted: Lord Time, who had evidently not been paying any attention to his son or his courtship, heard the match being talked of as a settled thing, and quite firmly announced that he would not allow it. That he had in fact been arranging Morpheus’ betrothal to Mr Roderick Burgess!

Society is shocked by such a choice. The Burgess family was nearly as nouveau riche as Mr. Gadling, but with a much worse reputation (and possibly less rich). And to Roderick, to whom most of the poor reputation belongs, and who has a grown son of his own! By every measure Hob Gadling is clearly the better catch, besides which Morpheus Endless’ honor is quite firmly engaged at this point, and it would be scandalous to jilt Mr. Gadling after such a blatant courtship for such an inferior alternative.

Yet Lord Time refuses to budge on his decision, and no amount of attempted persuasion by his acquaintances, children, or even his wife (who normally presents a united front with her husband), will convince him that this course of action will damage his family’s reputation and his son’s happiness.

Morpheus doesn’t intend to take this lying down however. He plans to put himself in increasing compromising positions with his real fiancée (who is fully on board with the plan), until he is either officially engaged to Hob or considered so thoroughly ruined that the Endless family’s reputation can never recover.

And so the ton holds its breath at this game of chicken, waiting to see which happens first: the son bending to his father’s stubborn will and submitting to the sanctioned match, or the father breaking against the son’s determined willingness to drag the family name through the mud in order to marry his preferred suitor.

(Little does the ton know just how unlikely the former outcome is, as Morpheus loves Hob Gadling as strongly as he hates Roderick Burgess. Thus he is fully ready if necessary to bring himself and Hob off in the middle of a crowded ballroom, and make it very clear that this is not the first time they’ve engaged in pre-marital relations, if that’s what it takes)

Yes!!!!! I love these Bridgerton adjacent ideas for dreamling because those two are SO dramatic, you just know that they'd thrive in those conditions.

The nice thing about Hob being new money is that he doesn't really have much of a reputation to ruin, and no family to be disappointed in him. He cares very little about what anyone thinks of him; the only person he's interested in pleasing is Morpheus! And although he'd certainly prefer to save Dream’s reputation, for the sake of his beloved's place in society, Hob has no trouble at all in following Morpheus’s orders and misbehaving all over the place!

And it's certainly convenient, since they've been fucking ever since the Season began. Now Hob doesn't have to bother trying not to mark Morpheus’s neck above the line of his cravat. Hob has some well-placed conversations with some of the most notorious gossips in the ton, and soon enough everyone is craning their necks to see if the love bites are visible on Morpheus’s pretty white neck today...

Finally, Roderick Burgess seemingly can't take the idea of marrying a ruined slut like Morpheus any longer (despite the connections to the aristocracy, and all the benefits that would come with the marriage... Burgess can't cope with the fact that he would not be the first to break Morpheus in, so to speak). He breaks the deal with Lord Time, and what do you know, less than a week later, Morpheus and Hob are quietly married at an intimate little ceremony.

The ton decides to conveniently forget about the couple's scandalous behaviour - they're safely married now, so it's all quite alright. It was for the best that Morpheus married the man he clearly adored! And the honeymoon period seemingly hasn't ended either... at every ball of the next season, the newlyweds are bound to sneak off for old times sake, to some secret corner where they can renew their marital bliss. Not to mention what they get up to on the carriage ride home! It's quite clear to everyone (thanks to all the noises of satisfaction coming from behind the curtains) that Morpheus chose the right husband <3

[seadeepspaceontheside]

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Get duned.

[pointyshoesmf]

Hob talks a lot about nothing in particular; Dream wants

Finally finished this one, so have some 80s Dream(his ass is not listening)

[duchess-of-new-shire]

Love ships where its like some guy with autism and his special interest is his wife

[teejaystumbles]

for the @sandman-connect4 prompt - Predator

The next story drops Hob into an approximation of Red Riding Hood - he will be made to decide who to trust, who to save, the innocent (?) or the wild thing, the dream or the nightmare. Both are predators in their own right, and Hob knows he'll never be able to choose...

[Part of Go Forth, a story told losely with pictures and snippets - find more on it here and here]

[lokis-bitter-ghost]

ships in the neil gaiman universe are so funny to me because you have

two guys who are both dead, one who died in the edwardian era and then was sent to hell for 70 years and one who died in the late 80s who decided not to (potentially) go to heaven to stick with some guy he met a minute ago

a LITERAL angel and a LITERAL demon who have known each other since literally the beginning of THE UNIVERSE

and a guy who said "actually i think i dont wanna die. what if i just didnt" and then he actually never did because death thought it would be funny and death's brother, the god of dreams, who thought the other guy would get tired of being immortal and is sticking around to see if he does