#anyway this is why i think dreamling works

[darjeelinh]

Dreamling x EEAAO

In the context of EEAAO historic win today, I want to dump my brain about this dreamling fic I am writing that unexpectedly resembles a lot of the themes in this beautiful movie.

(Sandman comics spoilers from here, and TW for suicide mention, sr)

(And EEAAO spoilers, I guess)

TL;DR: Bringing Dream back from his own catastrophe would be almost impossible. Hob's love alone cannot save him, but it can give him enough strength to want to save himself.

(tag: Established Dreamling Relationship, Canon Divergence)

So we all know by the time The Kindly Ones came around, Dream is fully in his self-destructive, suicidal mode. And maybe I am projecting but in a time like that, it is nearly impossible for anyone, especially himself, to pull out of his own catastrophe, his spiralling. Doesn't mean that he doesn't love Hob, you must understand this.

Hob would not be able to hurt/comfort Dream back from his self-destruction even if he wanted to. Even if we as readers and fic writers were desperately hoping that he could. But one thing we can know damn sure is that he will try. That man has the stubbornness that could last longer than this earth, I believe so.

So he will try. But he will fuck up trying, because he is not Dream's personal therapist (nor should he be), and I kinda believe Hob to not be the most wise and empathetic and sensitive of man. We all saw him fucking up constantly throughout the ages, him being obnoxiously wrong. He would panic in the face of his lover's self-destruction, and he would hold on to him tight, desperately begging for Dream to be better, but that can be suffocating.

Depression and suicidal ideation cannot be cured just through loving someone harder, true. But damn can love make a difference. It is a lifeline amidst a shipwreck in the storm, but only if the person wanted to hold on to it. And in The Kindly Ones, Dream had believed that there is no lifeline. That there is no other choice. But what if he had been reminded?

Think of Evelyn, ready to destroy her own life, only to be reminded of her kind and relentless loving husband.

Think of Joy, determined to walk into the black hole, only to turn around and realize she was being held back by her mother, her father, her grandfather, and everyone else.

Think of Joy, spending her life seeking understanding and love, only to run away, cannot bear it when it is offered to her.

Think of Evelyn, refusing to let her daughter go. Her words were clumsy, maybe she was not the most sensitive about it, and maybe she didn't really know what to do. Besides holding on.

You cannot forcibly love someone back to being whole again. But you can say: I will not give you up, I will always choose you, I will always be here, even though it is hard, even though it is impossible. And offer the rope again: maybe this time they will hold on to it.

Hob has no idea what to do, and he would be very afraid. He had tried everything to save Dream, and he had failed. After all, he is only human, dealing with hubris of cosmic entities, unfathomable forces beyond his comprehension. And for once, Hob learned what it really meant to be hopeless, and helpless. He might have been able to pull himself out of the wretched 17th century, but that was because he had wanted to. And so Hob had to reckon with the fact that he cannot save someone who does not want to be saved.

So maybe Dream would still try to push Hob away one last time. He is too far gone, beyond saving. Giving up would be easier than to endure. Easier than to accept that he is loved, or believe that he deserves a chance at redemption.

So, empty handed, Hob can only do what he does best. He would not budge, despite all of Dream's exasperated attempts to fight him off. He would hold Dream in his arms, gently this time, and say: I know. I know you think so. I have no idea how to save you, and I don't think I can. But I will be by your side anyway. I can love you, for it is the only thing I can do. This is my choice as much as it was your choice to destroy yourself. I won't give up even if you do.

Finally, something clicked. It would be like waking up from a nightmare (which is kinda ironic for Dream, isn't it). He would finally look around him and see all who have tried to hold him back from the metaphorical (and literal) cliff. It's Matthew, refusing to leave his side. It's Lucienne, his faithful advisor who had not lost faith in him, who had always had his well-being in her mind. It's Merv, ready to go to war for him. It's Nuala, using her only boon to try and save him. It's Delirium, desperate to pull him away from his own spiraling. The list goes on.

And maybe, maybe, it is simple like that. Let yourself be loved. To be loved, is to be changed. And to change, Dream found out, is to learn how to live and earn his redemption. Not by walking into the abyss. (Thanks @ennas-aesthetic for this point ❤️)

And only then, could he find away to stop the destruction of the Fates. It would be an uphill battle, and he might lose still, and there is no guarantee that he will not spiral into depression in the future. He would never have all the right answers. But now he knows he has his lifelines. And fuck it, he wants to try.

All we have is others. All we have is love. It is the corniest of story, perhaps, but it is never less true. And maybe it is just enough.

(There will be much more to this fic but here is the philosophy, I guess, behind the fic I want to write. Will update this post once the fic is out.)

[joinmeinjoy]

TW!!: slightly disturbing image in one of the frames - its just Dream being a big ol ball of spook though!!

inspired by the sandman server - ENDLESS PHOTOGRAPH WEIRD and Hob is taking it as a personal challenge

[fucktheroyals]

If Dream (of the Endless) was human, what would his job be?

[altair214]

Idk how many posts I've made talking about why Dreamling is such a great ship, but here's yet another one.

Neither Dream nor Hob are particularly good people. They've both done terrible things, but are trying to do better. Neither is particularly afraid to call out the other, but neither judge the other about it. There can be a mutual understanding of "we've both done terrible things but we don't hold them against each other and are still friends."

Like, as much as I love Dream, he is a total mess and needs someone who is just as bad as he is, but in a completely different way. Like Hob is competent and loves life, he's good with people and he is the perfect person to help Dream develop a will to live. But he's also done terrible things and has a tendency to be very inconsiderate of other people and often doesn't think things through. Dream knows Hob's whole history, the good and the bad, and he can be Hob's moral compass when Hob's isn't working, and he balances out Hob's lack of thinking very well. They are like on the same level of messiness, but in ways that balance each other out instead of just compounding in ways that would end in disaster.

They're perfect for each other and make each other better. Like they can be the messy people they are without judgement around each other because they have a sort of mutual understanding that neither has much room to judge the other given each of their misdeeds.

Anyway, this is one of the reasons I've become so attached to this ship. They just balance each other out so well, it's not one fixing the other, it's them being able to help each other be better without condemning each other for the many terrible things they've done. They're just perfect for each other

[cuubism]

PLEAAE write dreamling pregnancy crackfic you MUST and PLEASE include Sad Crying I Forgor cat dream

Behold, lovely anons, some nonsense.

---

“Um, Dream,” says Hob, staring at the tiny plastic stick sitting on his bathroom countertop, “what is that.”

Dream comes to stand behind him, peering over his shoulder. “It is a pregnancy test.”

“Yeah, why?” Hob picks it up, squinting down at it. “And why is it negative?”

He realizes a second later that the first question out of his mouth should, in fact, have been why the fuck do you have a pregnancy test? Unless it’s not Dream’s and someone just broke into his flat and left it there, which might actually be less weird.

“Presumably because I am not human,” says Dream.

Hob puts the test down. Turns around, takes Dream by the shoulders, and steers him out of the bathroom. Once they’re back in the living room, he means to say a number of things, but all that comes out of his mouth is, “What.”

“The test does not work because I am not human,” Dream repeats. He’s definitely being deliberately obtuse now, if he wasn’t before.

A million questions swirl in Hob’s mind, and a rising swell of panic. He mentally shakes himself. Forces himself to get it together. He’s not a seventeen-year-old kid who got a girl pregnant. He can handle his shit.

He holds Dream still by the arms. Tilts his head until Dream meets his eyes. “Dream, do you have something that you want to tell me? In words, maybe?”

Unless he doesn’t know. But he’s like, a concept, how could he not know?

Wait, is this why Hob was having random dreams about babies last week? He is going to kill this man.

Well, he’s going to give him a hug first. Then he’s going to kill him.

Dream looks into his eyes. Oh God, he’s serious now. So this wasn’t all just for kicks, not that Dream really does things for kicks, anyway. “Hob, I am—”

Hob hauls him into an embrace before he can finish the sentence. Perhaps he should let Dream say it. But he can’t not hug him.

Dream relaxes into his hold. Hob hadn’t realized how tense he was until he did. Oh, poor thing. Just because they’re not young people floundering about on the precipice of adulthood doesn’t mean it’s not stressful. Especially that in between moment, when he knows, and Hob doesn’t.

“I have known for a few weeks now,” Dream says, face pressed to Hob’s shoulder. “Are you upset?”

“No, of course not.” Upset? He’s having their child and Hob’s upset? He supposes they didn’t exactly plan it, but, when has he ever planned anything when it comes to Dream?

He pulls back at last, kisses Dream’s temple, and steers him over to sit down on the couch. He sits beside him, their knees touching. Takes Dream’s hand and squeezes it. “If you already knew, then why did you bother to use the test?”

“I was curious if it would work,” says Dream.

Somehow, Hob doesn’t think that’s the whole truth. “Please tell me you weren’t just going to leave it somewhere and let me guess?”

“I would have crafted some more dreams as well,” Dream says. Blasted idiot. Why is Hob in love with him? Oh yeah, because he’s even more of an idiot.

“Wasn’t picking up on it,” Hob says. “I didn’t think this was possible, to be honest. We’ve just been recklessly having unprotected sex for how long? And you never thought to mention this was a possibility?”

“I forgot,” Dream says morosely, the most pitiable frown on his face. “It is not as straightforward as it is for humans. But yes, it is possible. Evidently. I suppose I have been caught up in the… joy of our moments together. I have not had a lover in a long time.”

“Oh, love.” Hob holds him close, rubbing a hand up and down his back. “It’s alright. It’s my fault, really. I should have asked. Wrap it before you tap it, Hob.”

Dream wrinkles his nose at the phrasing. Hob kisses him on the tip of his nose.

“Maybe I was thinking about it a little bit,” Hob admits. The thought has definitely… crossed his mind, before. And it’s easy to get drawn in, when Dream is in his bed, when he looks so gorgeous, when Hob makes love to him and fills him and—

Oh, this is his fault. This is absolutely his fault. He’d thought it was a safe fantasy to indulge in, impossible in reality. Meanwhile he was fucking one of the few beings made of both fantasy and reality at once. Hob’s really the king idiot.

“A little bit?” echoes Dream, raising an eyebrow.

Hob cringes. “A lot a bit?”

Unexpectedly, Dream smiles. “You are happy, then.”

Hob goes still, staring at him. “Did I not say?”

“You expressed that you were not upset,” says Dream. “Which is not the same thing as being happy.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry.” Hob holds him closer, kisses his cheek, his brow, the corner of his lips. “I love you so much. I’m so happy.”

“Truly?”

Hob kisses him on the lips this time, long and deep. Takes Dream’s face in his hands and caresses his cheeks. “Truly. Obviously.”

Dream hums, sounding pleased.

“Are you happy?” Hob asks. Though he suspects Dream would have been rather obvious in his displeasure if he wasn’t, he usually is.

“I believe so,” says Dream carefully. “I… would like to be. Only, I have failed before, when I had a child.” Hob pulls far enough away to look at him. Dream’s expression has twisted now. “I do not wish to repeat that.”

“You won’t.” Dream looks unconvinced, so Hob repeats it. “You won’t. You’ve learned from that. So have I.” Hob certainly made many of his own mistakes with Robyn. But he still wants to try again.

“There are many terrible endings to this story,” Dream says. Of course, Hob’s just looking at the beginning of the thing, and Dream’s looking at the whole arc, especially the end.

“And good ones,” Hob says. “I promise. I’ll do everything I can to make it good.”

“I do believe that,” says Dream, finally offering him a small smile. “You have been able to make many things good for me when I thought it impossible.”

That might just be the greatest success of Hob’s life. To make Dream see that things can be good.

“It will be good,” he vows. “You’ll see, darling.” And Dream smiles again.

Hob lays his hand over Dream’s lower belly. He doesn’t know if this pregnancy even has a physical component at all—Dream himself barely has a physical component sometimes—but it’s instinct to hold him there.

Hob can already feel himself wanting to coddle him. He’s going to have to stop himself from doing that, he highly doubts Dream will appreciate it. He has to remind himself that what happened with Eleanor won’t happen again this time, that modern medicine is so much better, and that Dream isn’t even human in the first place. For all he knows, the baby will just be born out of the clouds.

“Hob,” says Dream. “You are drifting.”

Hob shakes himself. “Sorry, love.”

“What were you thinking of?” Dream presses, brow pinching. “I felt the nature of the daydreams turn… darker.”

Hob grimaces. “It’s really nothing. Just me in my head, you know.”

Dream keeps looking at him expectantly.

Hob sighs. “It’s just, it didn’t go so well last time, with Eleanor, you know? And I know this is different, you’re different, so just be patient with me if start being a mother hen, yeah?”

“Hob…” Dream takes his hand, interlacing their fingers. “I’m sorry, I had not considered. Do you not want…?”

“No! I do want this. I just worry, is all.” He kisses Dream’s cheek. “It’s because I love you. Couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to you.”

“I must do what I can to make it good, then,” Dream says, and Hob smiles at the turnabout of his words. “You need not worry. There is no danger to me. And the baby is not human, besides.”

"It's not?" Hob supposes it's not that much of a surprise. "What is it, then?"

“I am not quite sure. I expect it will become evident soon.” He rests his hand over Hob’s, which is still on his stomach, and he looks fond now. “Perhaps once I can see its dreams.”

“You can see its dreams?”

Dream casts him an amused look. “I am made up of those dreams. And all others. Why should our baby be different?”

Our baby. It’s so affecting to hear him say it like that.

“Our baby,” Hob repeats, just for the sound of it.

“Yes,” says Dream. He sounds properly happy now, which is so lovely to hear. “Ours.”

“Well, now I’m glad we forgot to talk about magical birth control,” Hob says. “Irresponsible sex for the win! Now I get to meet our magical baby.”

“I have never known you to be a man particularly driven by responsible decision-making,” Dream says solemnly.

Hob gapes at him. “Hey!” It’s true, though. It’s all true. “I’ll be the most responsible parent you ever saw. I’ll only let them have the iPad for twenty-three hours a day instead of twenty-four.”

“I can create fantastic spectacles to which the likes of ‘Cocomelon’ cannot hope to compare,” Dream says indignantly, as if this was really an open question in Hob’s mind.

“You can be in charge of screen time, then,” Hob tells him, and Dream’s scowl shifts into a smile.

“When do I need to be ready for this?” Hob asks. “Is it like a nine months thing, or…?”

“Unclear,” says Dream. Fantastic. Typical. For all Hob knows, Dream will show up with a whole baby in his arms tomorrow. Either that or it’ll be a hundred years from now. “I suspect there will be an element of surprise.”

Of course. Dream’s sense of time passing is pretty bad at the best of times, why would the baby be any different?

“I’ll have to get to the shops, then, seeing as I don’t currently own an iPad,” Hob says.

Dream hands him one that definitely was not in existence a moment ago.

“Did you get that—”

“From a dream, yes.”

Hob stares at it in wonder for a moment, wondering if it even has normal apps, or strange ones only dreamt of, then sets it on the coffee table. “Well, Christmas shopping with you will be a cinch.”

Dream is quiet for a moment. “I would not wish to burden you with these things,” he finally says. “To upend your life when you are already well-occupied.”

“Nope, none of that.” Hob takes Dream’s hands and pulls them close. “First of all, I’m very old and can afford to buy a lot of iPads, so don’t worry about it. But more than that, I love you.” He taps Dream’s belly, though he still doesn’t know exactly how or where this not-human baby is meant to grow. “And you. So don’t think like that. I know I can’t expect a nine-to-five, normal daily schedule from you. I’ve never expected that from you.” As of now, Dream just visits whenever he can, often at odd hours. Hob doesn’t expect he’ll be able to change that much, even now. He is still Dream above all else.

Dream doesn’t deny it, either. He looks down at their joined hands. “Would that it were otherwise.”

Hob rubs his thumb back and forth over his knuckles. “It’s okay. I needed some new excitement in my life anyway. Besides—” he gestures to the dream-iPad—DreamPad? Dream will hate that name, so Hob will definitely have to use it—“even if we can’t always have you, we’ll have your stories, hm?”

Dream smiles, then, a fragile smile. “I suppose that’s true.”

“Course it is.” Hob kisses his cheek. “We’ll figure it out, love. Don’t worry.”

“That is one skill you certainly do possess,” says Dream—in contrast, Hob supposes, to his lack of rational decision-making. “‘Figuring it out.’”

“My PhD is in Winging It,” Hob agrees. “Speaking of, though, we are going to have to have an actual talk about how not to have another ‘surprise’.”

“Yes,” Dream agrees ruefully. He seems quite embarrassed about it, actually, and Hob can’t help but hug him again, squeezing him tight, kissing his cheek and temple. Despite the shock and confusion, Hob really is happy, powerfully so. A baby, his and Dream’s baby. He can’t even imagine the possibility of it.

Dream squirms under the attention, but hums, seeming pleased deep down.

“A little baby Dream,” Hob sighs. “They will be a terror.”

Dream raises an eyebrow. “And you think your influence has no effect on that?”

“I was a delightful child,” Hob protests.

“Do not tempt me to draw proof to the contrary from your dream records,” Dream warns.

“You’ll be a terror,” Hob says. “‘No, Da, I definitely didn’t cheat on that exam,’ ‘Mm, that’s not what your dream at 2:34 am indicates.’”

“Precisely,” says Dream. He sounds quite proud of himself, really. Little nightmare.

Hob kisses him again, on the lips this time. Yes, they will definitely be absolute terrors, the both of them.

But it would be boring otherwise.

[seiya-starsniper]

I mean, I can't NOT prompt 3."Can you just look at me? Please?" with Dreamling. Because I'm predictable like that.

🤘five-and-dimes

Hey @five-and-dimes, remember when you sent me this BACK IN MARCH? 😅 I finally got around to it, for Sandmannivery and also for Dreamling Bingo!

This was originally supposed to be a shortfic and then it ballooned to 4k, whoopsies! But I don't think you'll mind all that much ahahahaha.

@mr-sadman prompt: Amnesia @dreamlingbingo prompt: Square C1 - Rescue

Tags: Memory Loss, Dream of the Endless Saves Hob Gadling, Time Loop, Angst with a Happy Ending

Read the whole fic below or on AO3: a half-remembered dream

— — — — — — — — — —

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the air was warm and inviting. It was the type of day best spent laying out on the grass in a bed of flowers, with no thought or care to any sort of responsibilities for that day. It was a weekend after all.

Wasn’t it? 

Now that he thinks about it—what day is it anyways? Wasn’t there something he needed to do? Why did it feel like there was something he was forgetting?

— — — — —

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the air was warm and inviting. It was the type of day best spent laying out on the grass in a bed of flowers…

…Where were all the flowers?

When the man sits up all he sees is an endless sea of grass. Where was he? What time was it? How long had he been here? Why was he—who was he?

Why can’t he remember?

What was going on?

How—

— — — — —

It was a beautiful day. The sun—

— — — — —

It was a beautiful day. Again. The sun was shining. Again. The birds were singing. Always the same song, the same length, the same tune. The same, the same, the same. The sun was shining, but now it felt cold and hollow, not warm and inviting. There was something very wrong about where he was, and now that he was paying attention, he fits the pieces together to form a very simple conclusion.

Hob Gadling was dreaming. 

He’d been dreaming for the entire time he’d been here. And he still had no idea where here was. Sometimes he’s laying in a field of flowers. Other times there’s nothing else but grass and rolling hills for miles. Sometimes he hears the babbling of a brook nearby. Sometimes he remembers the vague outline of a cottage that reminds him of his childhood home. The one from 1359.

Hob doesn’t know how long he’s been here. Every time he gets somewhat close to maybe remembering something, his mind just—floats away. He wouldn’t quite call it blacking out, his vision doesn’t go suddenly dark and he doesn’t lose consciousness then suddenly wake up. Could a person even wake up from a dream into another dream? Hob has no idea.

Sometimes though, if he concentrates enough, Hob can feel a deep ache in his muscles and bones. He knows it’s his real body that feels the pain because in this dream world, Hob can run and skip and jump for miles and miles and miles. Wherever his body, his real body was, Hob knows that it hadn’t moved or been moved in a very long time. 

Too long, his mind supplies. 

Wake up, he tells himself. He’d always been able to get himself to wake up if he knew he was dreaming. But it doesn’t seem to be working this time. Hasn’t worked on any of his other previous attempts really, but Hob still feels like he has to at least try to do it again.

Wake! Up! he tells himself over and over to no avail. Wake up, wake up, wake up! 

Nothing. 

Hob growls in frustration and desperately looks around the dreamscape, hoping for some sort of sign, some sort of clue for how to get out of here. Was he in a coma? Was that why he couldn’t wake up? Was his body safe? Was he—?

Hob startles suddenly as his eyes catch sight of a shadow. The movement is so swift, so sudden, that Hob’s not entirely sure he didn’t just blink and imagine it all. He whips his head around desperately, concentrating all his focus to the spot where he thinks the shadow may have gone.

And then he sees it. A small wisp in the dark. Hob runs, desperate to catch up to it. He wants to see what it is, who it is, because he’s almost certain the shadow is a person, and maybe they know a way out of this place, a trick to wake Hob up, something, anything to help. 

But then, just as suddenly as it appeared, the shadow vanishes into the air, as if it had never been there at all.

But Hob knows that he’s seen it. He knows it’s there.

He knows he’s not alone here. Not anymore. 

— — — — —

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the air was warm and inviting.

“Why can’t I wake up?” Hob asks the shadow, ignoring everything else around him. The shadow stands out in the bright landscape of the dream, though Hob is certain it did not mean for Hob to perceive its presence at all.

The shadow does not answer him. It never does. Hob sees the shadow all the time now, out of the corner of his eye, always just beyond reach. He doesn’t know what the shadow is, but he is certain that he knows the shadow itself. He’s forgotten the hows and the whys and the whens, but he knows the shadow is a friend. That it won’t hurt him.

The problem is, the shadow won’t help him either. 

“Can you just look at me please?” Hob begs. If he were stuck here, if even they were both stuck here, wherever this weird limbo between dreaming and waking was, wouldn’t it be better if they worked together? Anything was better than this crushing loneliness Hob was feeling right now. He would do anything to have a conversation with someone right now. He doesn’t know when the last time was that he’d heard the voice of a friend. 

“Answer me!” Hob demands, his anger rising now as the shadow continues to ignore him. “Why can’t I wake up from this dream?!”

Silence. Then—

“It is not safe,” the shadow says, and then, once again, it is gone.

— — — — —

It was a beautiful day. No. It was an awful day, and Hob screams to the sky and demands the stranger—his Stranger—because something about that rings true in his mind—stop hiding from Hob and face him like a man. That too, rings true in his mind, that the Stranger at the very least, wore the shape of a human man whenever Hob saw him.

As always though, Hob’s questions are met with nothing but indifferent silence.

Hob will not give up. He knows now that something is very wrong, something that is keeping Hob from waking up, from living, and he is determined to find out exactly what.

Ever since Hob encountered the Stranger, his mind has stopped floating away, but now Hob is all too aware that he’s repeating the same day, in this same goddamned endless landscape, over and over again. And he doesn’t know why.

The Stranger knows why. He doesn’t always show up when the day resets, but when he does, he doesn’t speak, nor does he meet Hob’s eye, no matter how much he begs and pleads. If Hob tries to run to him, the Stranger somehow ends up further away, without having taken a single step. It’s infuriating. 

Today, Hob can’t see him anywhere, but somehow, he knows the Stranger is here. And still, he ignores Hob’s requests to talk. Hob tries insults next, hurling whatever cruel and uncaring words come to the forefront of his mind. No response. He tries threats. Nothing. He goes back to begging, crying even, for any sort of acknowledgement from this cruel and uncaring god. 

No response.

So Hob screams.

He screams and screams and screams and—

— — — — —

It was raining. 

Finally, something was different. Hob had grown sick of nothing but sunny days and perfect weather. It was all so fake. The sunny weather was fake, the beautiful landscapes were fake, the trees, the flowers, the singing birds, all of it was fake and Hob hated it here.

Thunder booms in the distance suddenly, followed by the unmistakable crack of lightning, as if the weather had worsened to reflect Hob’s feelings on the matter. Maybe Hob was affecting this tiny little dream world he found himself suddenly trapped in. Maybe he had more power here than he originally thought. 

Not that it really mattered anyways. Hob was still trapped, and his only hope for escape refused to talk to him. For all Hob knew, the Stranger he’s been trying so hard to communicate with is the reason he’s trapped here. Maybe he’s keeping Hob here because Hob did something to offend him. 

Even as the thought crosses his mind, he knows immediately that it’s not true. The Stranger, whoever he was, was Hob’s friend, and Hob knew, deep in his bones, his weary, achy, exhausted bones, that the Stranger wouldn’t keep him here against his will. There was something else going on, and for whatever reason, Hob wasn’t allowed to know. 

“Please tell me what’s wrong,” Hob says to the falling drops outside his cottage window. “You said it wasn’t safe, but what if I’m not safe out there? Where is my body? Why am I asleep? What happened to me?”

Lightning crackles and sparks in the distant horizon in response, but Hob receives no other indicator that the Stranger, the shadow, had been listening to his pleas at all. 

— — — — —

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and Hob thinks he has never heard anything more perfect and wonderful in his entire life.

Because today, Hob finally remembers. 

He remembers the meeting with his Stranger in 1389. Then 1489. And 1589. And on and on they went, secret meetings in the same tavern once every hundred years. A friendship borne on shaky beginnings, but still steadfast and true. He remembers the name of his friend. His patron. His—

“Dream!” Hob calls out to the sky. It vibrates and shakes and Hob can feel the atmosphere of the dreamscape tremble at the utterance of its maker’s name. Hob learned that Dream’s name is a closely guarded secret, that it is sacred, because to hold Dream’s name in one’s mind is to hold power over the Endless himself. 

Even knowing this, Hob still calls for him. Even knowing the pull of Hob’s will, Dream still does not come.

Which means that something incredibly bad has happened. Dream would not lock Hob away like this without cause.  

“Why am I here, Dream?!” Hob yells. “What’s going on?!”

— — — — —

It was…a day. 

Hob does not know how long he’s been here, trapped, scared, alone. The dreamscape has grown dull with each passing, unchanging day, and Hob’s will to continue on with this charade of a life grows thinner and thinner as well.

He does not want to die. Hob will never ask for Death’s hand, of that much he’s certain. He will stay here for as long as it takes, confident that one day, he will once again taste what it feels like to be awake. To be alive.

But Hob is also tired, and, perhaps more importantly, he is bored. As peaceful as his little cottage is, as safe as it appears, there is nothing left for Hob to do but wait. And he does not know what he is waiting for, other than for Dream to finally speak to him and tell him that everything’s all right again.

So Hob decides to sleep.

He realized, some time back, that though his physical body is asleep, his dreaming body is wide awake. But this manifestation too, needs rest, and cannot sustain itself forever, even in the realm of dreams. His dreaming mind, too, needs rest from time to time, which Hob belatedly realizes is the reason why sometimes he has a dreamless sleep.

Dream, Hob is certain, will wake both his subconscious and conscious minds, when everything is safe in the Waking World again. 

The cottage in this landscape of Hob’s mind contains a bed big enough for Hob to sprawl in. Hob wouldn’t have had this bed back in the 1300s, it’s more reflective of the one he shared with Eleanor in the 1500s, back when he was a lord and could afford all the finest silks and sheets. It’s far too large of a bed to sleep in alone, and Hob almost wishes he could craft himself a companion of some sort to cuddle up to, to at least pretend he’s not stuck in his own mind alone. And well, it was probably for the better anyways. Hob is pretty sure that even if he could make himself a companion, it wouldn’t be Eleanor he would create in his mind’s eye to cuddle up to. And well, that would be rather embarrassing to explain. 

So Hob settles in his large bed, alone, and lets himself drift off, hoping that he won’t wake too soon.

— — — — —

It was a beautiful…night?

Hob spins and spins and spins, and still, he cannot fathom how it is he’s surrounded on all sides by nothing but darkness stars. He thinks he should be falling, for there is nothing but infinity below his feet when he looks down.  And yet, the ground beneath his feet is solid as anything Hob has ever stood on, even if staring at it too long makes his eyes a little dizzy.

Everything Hob has come to know about his dream world is gone. The cottage is gone, the bed he’d been sleeping in for eons and eons and eons is gone, the grass, the flowers, the rolling hills, all of it is gone, gone, gone. Like it had never existed in the first place. 

Hob tries running in one direction, then another. Yet for all his efforts, he never seems to truly move anywhere. He wonders what it all means. 

Then, Hob sees him. A shadow in the dark. A wisp of power. A spark of hope and light and friend.

Dream of the Endless rushes towards Hob in the blink of an eye and collapses in a broken heap at his feet. Hob startles and then falls to his knees, clutching his oldest friend in his arms. Has Dream always been so small? So frail? 

“My friend, what’s happened?” Hob asks, trying to not jostle the other too much. Dream doesn’t respond, only groans when Hob tries to take a closer look at him. “Dream, please, are you all right?” Hob pleads, hoping and praying to whatever entity out there that the Endless was all right. That this wasn’t the end of the line for the two of them.

Even if it was though, Hob is certain he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. 

“Hob,” Dream gasps after a moment, his head suddenly shooting up as he meets Hob’s eyes. Hob realizes with horror that his friend’s face is covered entirely in blood, and his eyes are sunken, endless pits of black. Dream looks like someone had beaten him for hours, then thrown him out to fend for himself. Hob feels helpless, not knowing what he can possibly do to help. 

“My friend,” Hob wails, tears filling his eyes, and gripping Dream tightly. “What happened to you?”

“It’s over,” Dream wheezes, then coughs out a darkened ball of sludge. “You’re free.”

“What? Dream!” Hob yells, and then—

— — — — —

Hob gasps and coughs loudly as air, real air, fills his lungs. To finally breathe with his waking body is both the most glorious and agonizing thing. He feels as though he had been dead and brought back to life, only this time around, he’d spent a particularly long time being dead. Everything hurt, his head, his eyes, his bones.  

“Oh fucking hell,” someone curses from next to him. Hob’s head snaps harshly to his left, trying to locate the source of the voice. 

It is a mistake to move so suddenly.

Hot, fiery pain shoots up Hob’s spine and all the way up to the tip of his ears and he groans. The voice curses again, calling Hob a bloody idiot and it’s only when Hob sees a flash of a bright white trench coat that he finally recognizes who it is that’s at his bedside.  

“Constantine?” Hob tries to say, but his voice cracks on the syllables. He coughs again. He’s thirsty. Parched even. His tongue feels like lead, and every time he tries to say something else, the words come out as a cough and a wheeze instead. 

“The one and only Hobsie,” Johanna replies, still seeming to understand Hob’s intelligible noises anyways. “I’m sure you’re wondering what the flying fuck has happened then,” she adds, gesturing between the two of them. “Let’s get you some water first though, you look and sound like shit.”

— — — — —

Hours later, Hob’s mind is spinning as Johanna explains to him what’s happened to Hob over the past eight months. Eight. Months.

Apparently, someone had figured out that Hob was immortal, and, unsurprisingly, had tried to see if they could steal his immortality for themselves. There was a battle, a negotiation with a demon that Johanna was all too happy to smite, a failed spell, a cult, and—a coma.

A coma induced by Dream. To save Hob’s mind. The demon that the cult had summoned had wriggled its way into Hob’s head, eager for a vessel that would not die so easily. One that could easily wreak infinite destruction and chaos upon the mortal realm. 

Dream would not let that happen. He’d followed the path of the demon into Hob’s mind, had fought tirelessly with it, while keeping Hob’s own consciousness locked away in a small pocket of the Dreaming, where not even Lucifer themself could reach. He’d left the guard of Hob's physical body to Johanna, who then stuck Hob in one of her safehouses just outside London, checking on him every other day to see if his condition had changed. She had been just about to leave for the evening when Hob awoke and, in her words, “scared her fucking soul into next Thursday, you git.”

Johanna, unfortunately, has no idea what’s happened to Dream, but she’s not nearly as terrified as Hob feels she should be when he describes to her the last he’d seen of the Endless before he’d woken up.

“That bastard’s too stupid to let a demon off him like that,” Johanna says, shrugging. “I’ll see if I can get a hold of him, but you need to fucking rest, or he’ll kill me himself.”

Hob thinks he should be afraid to go back to sleep, after being asleep for so long already. But shortly after Johanna leaves, Hob finds himself growing sleepy once more, and for the first time, he falls into an entirely peaceful, dreamless slumber. 

— — — — —

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the air was warm and inviting.

Hob takes a deep breath, and smells fresh air for the first time in eight months.

He is awake. He is alive.

It had taken him almost an entire week to recover his strength after he’d woken up. An entire week of trying to make sense of his life, how he’d lost eight months of it, the cult of wannabe wizards who had tried to take his immortality from him, the lies Johanna had spun on his behalf so no one would look too closely into why Hob was suddenly missing. It had been overwhelming those first few days, but Hob’s always been quick to adapt to things, so today he is taking the time to relax and enjoy his hard won freedom. 

Hob feels his presence before he sees him. He’s gotten good, over the centuries, at being able to sense when Dream was nearby. There was always just the subtlest change in the air, a sudden smell of morning rain where previously there had been none.

Dream sits next down to Hob on the bench, a loaf of bread in hand, which he starts to break apart to feed the pigeons that have gathered at their feet. He looks much improved from when Hob had last seen him. Still fragile, but whole and unhurt. 

“I’ve been waiting for you to show up,” Hob says, turning to face Dream and smiling to show that he’s not angry.

“I am aware,” Dream replies, his own lips quirking up just so. “I apologize for the delay. I had some additional matters to deal with.”

“Banishing demons and the like?” Hob asks with a small chuckle. Dream huffs. 

“How are you, my friend?” Dream asks instead of answering Hob’s question. Hob stretches and then cracks his neck in response.

“Still a bit stiff, honestly, but doing loads better,” Hob answers. “Thanks for…everything. Even if I wasn’t always the most grateful at times,” he adds a bit sheepishly. He still remembers how angry and frustrated he’d felt. How lonely he’d felt. 

Hob knows, logically, that he’d mostly reacted out of fear and ignorance, much of which was brought on by his amnesia in the Dreaming. But he still feels guilty about all the unkind things he’d thought about Dream, when Dream had been out on the front lines desperately trying to save his life. Things he knows that Dream was able to perceive while Hob was locked away in the Dreaming. He wonders if that’s why Dream hadn’t come to see him right away. If his friend was angry at him, though he didn’t look like it at present. 

Hob is shaken out of his morose thoughts by a solid hand on his shoulder. Dream’s hand. God, he really must look like a wreck if Dream is this concerned. 

“I am sorry,” Dream says solemnly, “that I took so long to rescue you. You suffered unnecessarily because of my shortcomings.”

“Dream,” Hob says, swallowing a lump in his throat, and trying to ignore the heat creeping up his face at where his friend is touching him. “You saved me. That’s not nothing.” 

He’s touched at how much Dream cares, but it really wasn’t the Endless’s fault that Hob found himself in danger. If anything, it was Hob’s fault entirely for not being careful enough, despite centuries of living, and learning that hard way that he needed to be careful.

“But it was my fault you were compromised in the first place,” Dream says, then suddenly goes silent, his face pinched.

Hob furrows his brow, confused. “How’s that?” he asks. “It wasn’t your fault that someone figured out I was immortal.” Dream sighs, then shakes his head.

“Those that captured you were not well versed in the ways of the occult,” Dream answers.“They mistakenly summoned a demon far more powerful than they intended, and it was only because the demon knew of your association with me that they were spared their lives, and allowed to strike a bargain.”

“So the demon only helped because he knew you and I were friends?” Hob asks. “That’s hardly your fault still.”

“That is—not all of it,” Dream says, looking wretched and like he’s marching to his own execution.

“Then what else?” Hob asks, placing his hand over Dream’s own. It’s surprisingly warm beneath his touch, but Hob may just be projecting. Dream tries to remove his hand from Hob’s shoulder, and Hob lets him, but doesn’t release his own grip on the Endless’s hand, letting their hands slide down to the bench between them instead. 

“It’s okay, Dream,” Hob says, squeezing his friend’s hand in reassurance. “You can tell me.”

Dream stares at the point where their hands meet, face still pinched with discomfort. Hob lets the silence between them drag out, not wanting to rush his friend. Whatever it was Dream wanted to tell him, it clearly was something that weighed heavily on his mind, and Hob didn’t want to put his friend under any more duress than they both had been through recently. 

“The demon knew,” Dream finally says, so quietly that Hob can barely hear him, “that I felt more for you than just friendship.”

Oh.

Oh.

“Dream—” Hob starts to say, his heart suddenly lurching,  but Dream holds up his free hand to silence him.

“That is not the only confession I wish to make,” Dream admits, before he takes a deep breath Hob knows damn well he does not need.

“Okay…” Hob replies, bracing himself, but still feeling hopeful, despite Dream’s somber tone.

“After our reunion at The New Inn,” Dream says, his face now tinted the slightest shade of pink. “You dreamed of me.”

Ah. 

“I…see,” Hob says, processing all this new information while trying to calm the rapid thump-thump-thump of his heart. “So you’ve known for a while then,” he continues, his question confirmed when Dream nods his head silently at him, still looking somber. 

“Why then—” Hob coughs and then clears his throat. “Why all the secrecy then?” 

Dream’s brow seems to be in a permanent state of pinched, and Hob wants to smooth it out with his thumb, but he holds himself back as the Endless considers his words. 

“My love has been a burden to mortals before,” Dream replies, looking stricken as some painful memory seems to overcome him. “It is, in fact, forbidden for the Endless to consort with mortals, barring certain circumstances,” he continues. “I withheld my knowledge of your feelings, as well as my own, for your own safety. For all the good that it did in the end.”

“Hey,” Hob says, squeezing down on Dream’s hand as understanding dawns on him. “I’m still here thanks to you. And still plan to be for the long haul. Too much to live for, remember?”

“I still put you in danger,” Dream starts to argue, but Hob shushes him gently.

“That sort of danger comes with what I signed up for,” Hob reassures him. “And I’d go through it again, just so you know,” he adds sincerely. “Too much to live for still includes you.”

Dream's eyes widen, shock and hope and awe clearly painted across his features. “You would still—?”

“I would,” Hob replies immediately, leaning in just close enough for them to almost kiss. “You're worth the risk, any day, any century, Dream.”

“You are a fool,” Dream replies, but there’s no reproach in his tone. Only a heat that makes desire curl in Hob’s belly.

“Maybe,” Hob grins, staring pointedly down at Dream’s mouth. “Can I kiss you?”

“You can do more than just that,” Dream purrs, and then suddenly the two of them are enveloped in a whirl of sand that instantly moves them from the park bench to Hob’s bedroom. Hob laughs as he finds himself pinned beneath the King of Dreams.

“C’mere you,” Hob says, tugging his oldest friend down into a kiss. 

It was a perfect day.

[wyvernquill]

Another Dreamling Anastasia AU Snippet

So, this AU somehow gained some new traction over the past few days, and I remembered I still had this in my drafts! It's a direct continuation from the last post - the first time their paths cross, though I think I'll save their actual first conversation (already written!) for the next part. Mostly a lot of background and exposition, but I hope it'll be enjoyable nonetheless! Thanks everyone for your enthusiasm for this AU!!!

(Masterpost here!)

(Tag list, let me know if you want to be added or taken off: @10moonymhrivertam @martybaker @globglobglobglobob @anonymoustitans @sunshines-fabulous-legs @dreamsofapiratelife @malice-royaume @kcsandmanfan @acedragontype @okilokiwithpurpose @tharkuun @silver-dream89 @i-write-stories-not-sins-bitch)

(I don't know why it just won't let me do the proper tag sometimes... I hope the people Tumblr refuses to let me tag will see the post anyway, I'm very sorry...)

---

There is a fight just about to break loose at the White Horse Inn.

It will happen because of a man; a pale, stick-thin skinny thing of a man, barely more than an ashen, grimy face under a mop of coal hair balanced on top of a ragged black coat, loitering close to the fireplace and trying not to be too obvious about soaking up its warmth. At his feet, half hidden beneath the torn hem-line of his coat, there is a bird, some sort of corvid, following the other guests - and their purses in particular - with its beady little eyes.

The bird’s master is watching, too, watching the inn’s staff collect coins and shove them into their pockets, watching the plates and bowls of food being carried about, hungry, starving-

And then he’s noticed watching, a barmaid muttering a word or two to the innkeep over by the beer caskets - and the moment the man’s eyes find the stranger, they narrow.

And in turn, the moment the stranger notices the hostile eyes on him, he seems to brace himself, something feral in the way his lips draw back from his teeth as the innkeep makes a beeline for him through the crowded pub.

Words are exchanged.

Words are exchanged, loudly.

An arm is grabbed - and the bird jumps up with an angry caw, beating its wings at the innkeep’s face, and the scullery boy runs over to help, as does the burliest of the barmaids.

(There’s that fight now.)

The stranger shouts and scratches and twists as he is dragged through the common room, towards the door, growling profanities in a hoarse, dark voice, while his bird squawks, wrapped in the scullery boy’s apron.

It’s a right mess, but perhaps not an unusual one - the White Horse makes quick work of unruly drunkards (and those who are here to pilfer money rather than spend it), and even as some guests are following the fight in fascination and with half a mind to join in just for the pleasure of throwing a punch, most of their clientele barely spares them a look. Soon, the stranger will be cast out into the cold and the night again, far away from the warmth of a fireplace, or the smell of food, or opportunities for thievery. Nothing special. Soon, it will be just a quiet evening, like any other…

If it weren’t for the fact that, over in the far corner, a familiar man, and a familiar something-altogether-else still managing a rather sound impression of one, have been nursing their drinks for a good hour already, trying to drown their failures in ale.

(The humans have robbed Destiny of his powers, torn his realm from him, burned his book - but destiny still shapes the lives of mortals and immortals alike; and it is that power, which makes Robert Gadling look up from the sad remains of his beer, and, for just a fraction of a second, lock eyes with the vagabond currently in the process of being removed from the premises.

That is enough.

With just one look, the wheels of fate are already set in motion, and our story can begin in earnest.)

"Hey, Gil." Hob nudges Gilbert's arm, not taking his eyes off the struggling, furious stranger. "Over there. Look."

"Hm?" Gilbert blinks owlishly, following Hob's nod to the commotion behind him. "Oh, yes, yes. Ghastly, isn't it? Disgraceful, that some hoodlums cannot conduct themselves in public houses with the appropriate decorum - in my days, I tell you, when the Endless were still-"

"No, look!" Hob cuts him off. "The hoodlum. Look at him, really look."

"Hrmmm," Gilbert makes a sound of polite displeasure, and fiddles with his circular little glasses, peering through them and across the room, where the haggard stranger is spitting abuse at the innkeep even as he is in the process of being shoved out of the door.

And then, "oh, good lord!" Gilbert gasps, and drops his glasses.

"You see it too, then?"

"I… yes. Gracious, yes. Like a ghostly apparition." Gilbert gropes for his glasses with one hand, eyes never leaving the stranger. "The physical resemblance - most uncanny. A good deal more malnourished and, ah… rather grimy, it seems… and yet, overall…"

"A dead ringer for Dream of the Endless, isn't he?" Hob finishes, nodding. “Better than any of the men that auditioned for us, certainly.”

“Heaven help,” Gilbert’s voice is weak with emotion, “even knowing it isn’t him, I feel like… ah, Robert, if he were only given a bath, some better garb… it would be as if His Lordship walked again!”

“Would be?” Hob’s grin is bright and hungry, like a hunting dog smelling his prey, as he pushes himself up from his seat. “Will be!”

“-and if I see either you or yer blasted bird thievin’ in here again," the innkeep snarls, tossing first the haggard stranger, and then a squawking bundle of black feathers, out into the snow. “I’m callin’ the coppers! Y’hear?”

The word the stranger spits back, gathering all his limbs and his dark coat around himself as he staggers to his feet and off into the night, is so filthy even Hob would blush upon saying it. A bit rough around the edges, this man, not exactly the model of a fairytale king - but such things can be taught, can’t they. Hob’s seen a production of Shaw’s Pygmalion, years ago, and if Higgins can make a fine lady out of a flower girl, then Hob and Gil can make a Dream Lord out of some vagabond.

“Begging your pardon, good man.” Hob leans against the doorframe, watching the stranger’s dark shape angrily stomp off through the snow, bird hopping along at his side. “Howsabout this, a shilling for anything you can tell me about the man you just tossed out of your establishment.”

“Whot, Murphy!?” The innkeep blinks. 

Holds out his hand.

Hob dutifully deposits one of his last few shillings in it.

“Thank you kindly, sir, much obliged.” A tip of the hat, and the coin disappearing in the innkeep’s pocket. “Murphy’s one of the local beggars. A filthy thief, too, and no mistake. He’s trained that raven of his into it - heard the city even pays him some little pittance to control the birds in the area! They wouldn’t do it if they knew what he was doing with ‘em. I don’t like seein’ him around the Horse, not with the trouble he’s causing. Stealing leftover scraps from tables I can forgive, might even give him a full meal now and then in the name of charity - but if he goes for the pockets of my regulars, the regulars don’t come back, understand? Can’t have that.”

“Course not.” Hob agrees readily. “Bad for business, a pickpocket.”

“Just so, sir. He’s been in the London area for… oh, eight, nine, maybe ten years? Hasn’t got a trade, not very willing to do an honest day’s work in any case, can’t hold down a job for the life of him as a result. Still thinks himself better than the rest o’ us, anyway. I’d leave him alone, if I were you - he’s vicious as all Hell, bit the kitchen boy once and the lad needed to get his arm stitched up afterwards. And that raven - the thing’s a demon, swear to God. A familiar, like witches have. If we were livin’ in a less civilised age, they’d’ve strung old Murphy up for witchcraft and devilry years ago!”

Hob hums thoughtfully. “Do you know if he has fallen in with that crowd? Not idle hearsay, mind, but facts. There’s still some men in London who practise the Old Arts, does he meet with them?”

(Hob has heard that the old Magus of Wych Cross died perhaps a year or two after his greatest accomplishment; for all his powers that tore Endless spectres from their lofty thrones, in the end he couldn’t defend himself against his own son finally snapping, smothering him in his sleep, and running off with the gardener. Good riddance to the old goat, in Hob’s opinion - but he had a good handful of supporters in every major city, and they can’t all have died with him.)

The innkeep takes his time answering, staring out into the softly-falling snow.

“...not that I know of, sir.” He finally says, cautiously. “He doesn’t meet with anyone, really, ‘xcept the birds. Solitary type, is our Murphy, with no family, and no-one to miss him if he freezes himself to death some night. But.”

A pause.

“There’s something wrong about that man, if you ask me. He has a look in his eyes… whatever it is, it’s not natural. Might be magic. Might be madness. I really couldn’t say.”

“I see.” Gears are turning in Hob’s head, puzzle pieces slotting into place, plans unfolding.

A man sleeping rough, with nobody to miss him or know much of him, fierce and angry and constantly on the brink of starvation, looking just like Dream. A diamond in the rough, and quite possibly desperate enough to actually agree to their mad plan just for a few weeks of guaranteed food and a roof over his head.

Dear God. He’s perfect.

“One more question, about Murphy.” Hob beams, half-giddy. “Where do you think I could find him, say… tomorrow?”

The innkeep’s eyebrows rise up into his hair.

“Can’t see why you’d ever want to,” he mutters into his beard. “But very well. On your head be it.”

He names a nearby small park, where Murphy often goes to feed his birds, and is rewarded for it with another tuppence; and then Hob saunters back to his and Gil’s table, already feeling like he can almost taste the promise of eternal life on the tip of his tongue.

(“We cannot know for certain that he will agree, Robert. He sounds like a most prideful young man - he is much like His Lordship in that regard as well, I suppose.”

“Oh, he’ll agree. I’ve been where he is, Gil, and there were times I would’ve sold my own mother to the devil for a warm meal and a bed to sleep in. Not that the devil would’ve taken the old bat even if I’d paid him, of course, but it’s the principle of the thing.”

“That hardly makes it much better. We’d be taking advantage of the poor man’s unfortunate situation!”

“Everyone’s situation is unfortunate these days. And we’d be improving his, on the whole, along with ours.”

“Let it be noted, dear fellow, that I am voicing my ethical and moral quandaries.”

“I really don’t think our plan to scam the Endless is very ethical in the first place, Gil.”

“...now that I cannot possibly argue with.”

“There we are then.”

“However! You will have to be the one to suggest it. I will help you instruct him and present him to the Endless if you do convince him - but for now, I wash my hands of the matter.”

“Fair enough.”)

[landwriter]

Sandman prompt: Dreamling roadtrip

"Remind me why I am allowing this," says Dream.

Hob casts a sidelong glance at him. Dream, in his car. Dream, stuck in the crawl of London traffic with him. Imagine that.

He reels off Dream's succession of unfortunate choices with poorly smothered glee. "Because your sister said you should spend more time among us humans, which you mentioned in passing to Matthew yesterday, who suggested a road trip, then had to explain to you that a road trip meant 'Just driving somewhere for a while', and you apparently you said-," Hob pauses to pitch his voice as low and poncy as possible, "'Ah, a pilgrimage, then. A journey for self-knowledge.' And Matthew said 'That's right, boss' and you said you would, in fact, be curious about such an experience."

"False pretenses," says Dream, darkly, under his breath.

"Indeed," says Hob, who thinks he loves false pretenses now. Matthew had shown up at his flat laughing so hard he couldn't even speak. When he finally recounted the conversation (after Hob had gotten very concerned and asked if Matthew needed a human counselor or an animal vet, and Matthew had shaken his head and wheezed 'No, a driver', before falling into fits of laughter again), Hob had immediately agreed.

"And then I canceled my plans for the weekend because I'm the only human you know who has a car, it turns out," (A reliable and bright red Vauxhall Corsa, thank you for asking.) "And because I'm a very good friend," he adds. He still relishes the new-word feel of it. It had only been four months since Dream had shown up at The New Inn. Hob was skiving off marking midterm papers for this, actually.

"Yes," says Dream. Hob realizes he'd skive off the whole term for this.

How could he turn down the prospect? His friend, literally strapped into the Corsa for at least the next several hours. Assuming Dream didn't leap out and flee on foot down the M1 - which seemed so thoroughly undignified for a being of Dream's station that Hob felt utterly assured of his company. It had all rather gone to his head.

"This will be fun," he promises. "Feel the grass under your feet, and that."

Dream looks out the window bitterly as a lorry overtakes them. Hob has never been the fastest of drivers. Never really took to it, to be honest. Bit of the medieval peasant in him, he thinks, can't quite make himself go over fifty miles per hour. But he's very safe. Hardly any accidents. Mostly minor rear-end damage.

"I see no grass," says Dream.

"Surely the Lord of Stories is familiar with figurative speech," says Hob, and glows under the heat of Dream's glare in reply.

"Anyways," he continues, "We're getting to that bit. Literally. In, uh, six hours or so? It's a great spot. But in the mean time, this is part of it too." Hob takes a hand off the wheel to gesture with a flourish at the sea of sensible hatchbacks and work vans around them, swimming like fish in the asphalt rivers of London's outer burbs. "Humanity," he pronounces, and the car drifts a little into the next lane. Humanity honks rudely at him and then accelerates safely out of Hob's radius.

Dream's sulking seems to have pushed him fully into the realm of catatonia, because Hob's passengers are usually more animated when he does exciting little things like that. Hob looks over in concern and this time the car barely follows with him.

"Bit rusty," he offers.

Dream deigns to snort softly at that. "My sister is far worse," he says.

Hob raises his eyebrows. It was hard to imagine Death bad at anything, frankly. Dream must see his look because he clarifies.

"Another sister. Delirium. An official of the carriageway stopped us. He would not have us continue our passage. So she gave him delusion of bugs crawling across his skin. Forever."

"Well, that's one way to get out of a ticket," says Hob, and makes a mental note to ask Death for a complete list of siblings and how to avoid angering them.

"He was being rude," adds Dream. He suddenly sounds very much like an older brother.

"Oh, fair play, then," says Hob affably. He'd had little sisters once. He understood.

They drive in silence for a few minutes. Hob thinks about putting on a playlist, and has just decided that nineties Britpop is perfect for this occasion when they pass a junction sign and he exclaims in recognition.

"The M25! Funny story, I know just the loveliest antiquarian book dealer who says his partner - uh, I'm assuming there, but if you heard the way he talks about him - anyways, his partner designed it. Some kind of high-flying civil engineer, I reckon."

"Really," says Dream. "A...high-flying...civil engineer." He sounds fascinated.

Hob hadn't expected Dream to be interested in road design.

"Something like that, definitely," he says, looking over to see Dream, staring at him, rapt. He looks back and brakes just in time to avoid hitting the car in front of him as it turns off onto the motorway in question. "Sorry. Saw him once in passing, actually. Dresses like you. Very fancy and dark."

"Perhaps you should keep your focus on the road, Hob," says Dream, but he sounds like he's smiling.

"Oh, we're not for a while yet," says Hob. Half truth, half optimism.

"Where are we going?" asks Dream. Hob beams. He's just won a bet with Matthew.

"It's a surprise" he says. "Now, have you heard of this band called Oasis?"

[valiantstarlights]

[Dreamling Week Day 7: AUs or Crossovers] Of Surviving

This is a Dreamling Hunger Games AU oneshot. I finished writing it on May 27, but then I saw @mr-sadman 's prompt list for dreamling week 2023 and thought, 'Oooh 🖤 This is going to be perfect for Day 7!'

And here we are 2 weeks later. I hope you guys like it! 😊

CW: I mean...it's The Hunger Games. That's a warning all by itself.

"And why should we bet that you would win?" The host asks, fake teeth gleaming under the harsh stage lights. The same question, the same maddening smile directed at all the tributes.

"Because," Dream says, feeling bile rise up his throat, "I am better than the two who came before me."

The crowd gasps, but he could see a couple of audience members, the rough-looking shark-like types, nodding in consideration.

He hopes his siblings aren't watching.

--

"And why should we bet that you would win?"

"You shouldn't," the smiling boy from District 9 says. "But do it anyway for spite. Who knows, in the unlikely event that I win, you'll have me to thank for getting you at least a dozen new mansions."

The crowd laughs. Dream watches from backstage and immediately dismisses the boy as someone who would die an hour into the games.

--

The next time Dream sees the boy from District 9 is when he was aiming a javelin right at Dream. The first words the boy ever says to him is, "Duck!"

Dream ducks, and watches as the boy's javelin strikes true, right in the chest of District 2's career tribute.

--

"I thank you for saving my life, but I hope you are not expecting me to save you back."

The boy looks at him like he's a weird seven-legged fish. "Sure. You're welcome, District 4."

They part ways.

--

"Thought you said you wouldn't be saving my life," the boy from District 9 says, hand still holding Dream's as the two of them run away from the trap Dream has sprung, which caught a couple of other tributes who had been chasing him. Them both.

It was a coincidence that they were even in the same place at the same time.

Dream should really shake the boy's hand off.

"I am saving mine in the process of saving yours," he says. "Having an ally means surviving longer."

"An ally, huh? Well in that case, the name's Hob. Well, Robert Gadling, actually. I'm from District 9."

'I know,' Dream doesn't say. 'I thought you would be one of the first ones to die.'

--

"My name is Dream."

Dream wouldn't have volunteered this information, or really, anything about himself, but Hob has earned his trust by being an incredibly resourceful partner. He hasn't killed anyone else aside from that one career tribute, but he makes up for his lack of kill count by helping Dream (who grew up near the sea) survive in the arena the gamemakers have fashioned for them, which was part dense forest and part prairie.

"It suits you," Hob says, eyes on Dream's when he says it, his smile soft.

Dream looks away.

--

The faces of the day's dead have just finished being shown in the sky. Five more dead tributes. He imagines how their family back home would react to the news of their death. Would they be angry? Would they be disappointed?

Would they be relieved that there will be less mouths to feed from now on?

Dream wants to scream. He wants to think about anything else, so he turns to Hob, sitting beside him, face still turned upwards, contemplative. Dream wonders if they're thinking the same thing.

"Tell me about your family," Dream says.

Hob shrugs. "Not much to tell, really. We're poor like the rest, work hard like the rest, and try our best to live a life like the rest."

Dream sees his hands balled up into fists by his sides, knuckles white.

--

"What did Johanna mean, when she said you'll share the same fate as your siblings if you cross her path?"

It was early the next day. Hob is talking about a conversation between Dream and Johanna that took place in the morning of the previous day.

"I had six siblings," Dream says. They were gathering firewood now, for another trap that Dream is planning to spring. "Two of them were both reaped last year."

Hob stops in his tracks. "Oh," he says, sadness coloring his tone and setting Dream's teeth on edge. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," Dream says simply. He clutches his bundle tighter in his arms so Hob wouldn't see how his hands have began to shake. "You did not pick their names at random."

--

"Their names were Destruction and Delirium," Dream tells him later that night in their little camp, hidden deep within the forest. "Sometimes I wish I had volunteered in my brother's place and managed to save my sister."

"Oh, love."

--

"Why did you call me 'love' yesterday?" Dream does not look at Hob when he asks this.

"Why do you think?"

He wonders if Hob is looking at him when he answered.

--

"You should eat more."

Dream ignores him and curls up more in his tattered sleeping bag. The trap succeeded, but the gamemakers fucked around with the weather and Dream had been soaked to the bone. And now it seems that he has caught a fever.

"Please," Hob begs, warm hand on Dream's freezing arm. He has cooked a meager amount of watery vegetable soup from the plants they had foraged. "For me."

"You will be better off without me," Dream says, because it's true. "There are only a few tributes left."

Hob sighs. "Look, if you don't eat by yourself, then I'm going to feed you like a baby bird, and then we'll both feel awkward."

Dream imagines Hob sipping the soup and keeping it in his mouth, then pressing his lips against Dream's and feeding him in this manner, just to make sure that Dream has something warm and healing in his stomach. He reddens even more despite his raging fever.

He still has some good sense remaining, however, so he sits up and shakily accepts the small bowl from Hob's hands, unable to look directly at him.

--

Dream tilts his face away. "We shouldn't."

"Why not?" Hob has not moved, body still close and face a breath away from Dream's. "What are you so afraid of?"

Dream pushes him away with both hands, but he does so gently and with a lingering touch to Hob's clothed chest that his hands were immediately engulfed by Hob's larger ones.

Dream is becoming a hedonist under the boy's influence. It is apparent when their fingers tangled together almost automatically.

"Because if we share a kiss," Dream says, "then we would cease to be vigilant for a few precious seconds, and that could mean the difference between life and death."

Hob says nothing for a moment, before he inhales deeply and nods. "You're right."

"I almost always am."

Hob rolls his eyes at him. "I mean that you're right in that we should always be vigilant. Not that when I kiss you, I would only want it to last for a few seconds."

'When,' Hob says. Not 'if.'

Dream tries not to obsess about his wording.

He fails.

--

"I apologize. You should not have seen that."

"What, you killing Johanna by drowning her in quicksand?"

"I did not mean to! It was just the easiest way to do it." Dream looks down at Hob coldly, willing his anger to overtake the fear that this would be the thing that would make Hob betray him.

--

"You're afraid of me now."

Hob shakes his head. He still has not looked at Dream in the eye again, but his tone is as kind as always. Dream wants to hold his hand and ask for reassurance that Hob does not hate him. He doesn't, because he has always been a coward.

"I'm afraid of dying," Hob says. "Totally not the same thing."

--

"Dream?"

Dream is pretending to be asleep. He has to. He dares not show Hob his tear-streaked cheeks.

Hob sighs.

--

"Okay, here's the plan." Hob's eyes are looking furtively behind them, body tense. They are almost at the end. There are only a couple more tributes left other than the two of them. "You run right, I run left, then we lead whoever is following us to your traps."

Dream looks at Hob's handsome, dirt-streaked face and wants more than anything to survive with him. But there can only be one victor, and he has already failed two of the people he loves.

He leans forward and kisses Hob for the first and probably the last time. Then, he stands up and runs as fast as his feet can carry him towards the traps, ignoring Hob's panicked shout behind him.

--

"I don't want to survive if you don't survive with me," Hob tells the stars when Dream is pretending to be asleep. "I can't. I wouldn't be able to."

--

"Who says you're dying?" Dream replies just after dawn, when Hob is sound asleep beside him, snoring softly. "You are not allowed to die under my watch, Hob Gadling."

--

"No! Dream!"

"I'm...I'm sorry," Dream says, voice soft and weak. There was way too much red surrounding him. Hob is losing his mind. "I love you. I'm sorry."

"You cheated." Hob's hands are shaking as he takes his jacket off and bunches it up, pressing it hard against the wound on the other boy's stomach. "You're supposed to be the one that survives!"

"I don't want to go back," Dream tells him, eyes turning glassy with unshed tears. "Not without you."

"Shit, you're losing too much blood."

"I would have liked to show you the place where I like to read in secret..."

"Gods, shut up, shut up, shut up--" Hob looks around frantically, trying to find something, anything, that could save Dream.

He is handed a knife by a bloodied, trembling hand, so pale it was almost white. "Here," Dream says. He points to an area under his own jaw. "Put the knife... Slash deep here. A little diagonally. Most effective..." His eyes were already blinking slower, movements growing sluggish.

"No," Hob says fiercely. The knife's handle is digging into his palm from how tight he's gripping it. "No, I'm not killing you. Fuck you for even--"

"Love you..." Dream's lips mouth at him, his striking blue eyes still looking at Hob's, as if he wants Hob's face to be the last thing he sees.

"No," Hob spits in denial. "Fuck this--"

Hob has always been a quick learner. His mother had always told him so. When his older brother was reaped six years ago and died within the hour of the games starting, Hob marched out of their house and immediately learned how to handle all the farming equipment from the older men, so his family could continue to eat.

He now places the knife Dream gave him against his own neck--

--

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

--

Dream gasps awake and clutches at the shape beside him desperately. Hob startles awake at the frantic touch, then pulls Dream towards him, holding him tight and steady, a fortress against a howling storm.

He murmurs soft words next to Dream's ear, one hand rubbing his back gently, while the other partially covers the large jagged scar on Dream's side. Dream presses his face closer to Hob's neck, his nose right where Hob's own scar is. It's small and looks insignificant compared to the one on Dream's body, but it proved more effective in getting the gamemakers to panic. They needed to have a victor, after all.

That year, they had two.

That had been ten years ago.

"We made it, my love," Hob says against his hair. It smells like the very sea that is only a short walk away from their home. Hob can hear the waves lapping peacefully at the shore. "We made it. It's all over now. We made it."

[queerofthedagger]

Hullo~ with much joy I saw that you're doing December fic gifts 😍 (first of all, very kind and generous, and a lovely idea!)

I would love to request a dreamling fic if i may!

Several prompts seem similarly appealing and are essentially just different flavours of the same thing?

So my favourite is of course from the fluff list: #37 "Because i love you goddamnit!". But Fluff only becomes sweeter with a bit of angst, so essentially mixed with the same prompt (#32 from the Angst list)? Maybe a bit of #32 from the drabble list: "I think I'm in love with you, and I'm terrified"?

Does that make sense? I hope you find a way to have fun with it anyway ♡

If you do decide to write this, could it be gifted to me (AHopefulSun) on A03 please? 🥺👉👈

Anyway, once again thank you very much and happy holiday time ♡

Thank you so much for the prompt!! I changed the dialogue a bit to make it work, and I'm afraid it ended quite heavily on the fluffier side of things, but there is a hint of angst? 😄<3

(The languages Hob uses are Basque, Croatian, Hebrew, Catalan, and Gaelic; it'll make sense in a hot second, I promise 😄)

Speaking in Tongues

“Are you sure that you’re not cold?” Hob asks, five minutes into their walk back to the New Inn.

The street they are walking down is quiet, snow blanketing this corner of London in glittering jewels of white, and something treacherous flutters in Dream’s stomach at the open concern.

“I believe to have told you before that I do not experience temperatures as you do.”

Hob stops him with a light touch to his wrist; Dream feels it all the way down his spine.

“And I believe I’ve told you before that it doesn’t mean you can’t be uncomfortable,” Hob says, exasperated affection pressed into the corners of his mouth. He turns Dream with another touch and begins to unwind the scarf from around his neck.

“What—” Dream starts, but the words get stuck in his throat when Hob looks at him, smiling and bright-eyed, cheeks flushed from mulled wine and the cold.

Hob had insisted to take him to the Christmas market in Camden, much as he is now insisting to wrap his scarf around Dream’s neck, calloused fingers brushing the skin of his throat. Which is to say, he hadn’t let Dream protest, no matter that Dream did not want to do so, neither then nor now.  

“I know, I know, self-knitted isn’t really your style, and dark blue isn’t part of your usual colour scheme,” Hob says, and his hands rest on Dream’s chest even as his expression seems to grow bashful. “But at least I have a proper winter jacket, and if you really don’t want to wear it, not even until we’re back at the Inn, you obviously don’t—”

Dream catches Hob’s wrist just as he is about to pull away, heat flaring in his chest that is both terrifying and thawing something ancient he thought long dead. “No, I would—I would like to keep it. For now.”

For as long as you’ll let me have it, he does not say.

Hob tilts his head. “You do not look certain of that.”

“I am. I merely… You are much more likely to get cold than I am; why would you give me this?”

It is a loaded question, is about more than a scarf and Hob’s gentle tenacity.

Silence stretches for longer than it should. Hob is looking past Dream until his shoulders straighten with a shuddering breath.

When he speaks, his voice is too steady to sound light-hearted. “Because I love you, and I want you to have it. To know it.”

He states it like a fact, something axiomatic and indelible; night follows day and humans dream. The sun keeps rising, and Hob Gadling loves Dream of the Endless.

Dream swallows, helpless, even as Hob’s eyes stay fixed on him.

“Does this not scare you?” he asks, voice hoarse as the words trip off his tongue.

“Of course, it does; it’s terrifying. That does not change the truth of it, though, does it?”

Dream searches Hob’s face; he is not sure for what. He searches for his own courage and finds it in the warmth of a scarf wrapped around him with care. Finds it in the memory of outrageously sweet coffee orders and cups of mulled wine, in stories told over centuries, and in an Inn built for him. In Hob waiting, always waiting for Dream to catch up.

He admits, “It is terrifying to me, too,” and watches as Hob’s expression morphs through shock and disbelief, finally settling on caution. “You did not expect reciprocation.”

Hob huffs a laugh that borders on hysterical. “I—no, I did not. The last time I dared to call you my friend, you stormed out on me.”

“I apologised; I—”

“No, I know, I’m not…” Hob sighs, and beneath the lingering caution, a hint of a smile starts to form.

A part of Dream itches to vanish into the safety of his own realm, to wrap layers of iron-clad protection back around himself and hide the soft, tender, human pieces once more.

Stepping closer, Hob slips his hands inside Dream’s coat. His palms are warm on Dream’s waist, and it calms his racing, non-existent heart.

“If I kiss you, would it scare you off for good?” Hob asks. His smile is solid now, warm as if sun-soaked in a way only he ever is.

Dream finds that his terror is melting beneath Hob’s touch like snow in a child’s hand. Distantly, he thinks that should scare him. He also finds that he is quite exactly where he wants to be.

“You may; under one condition.”

Hob laughs, his eyes glistening with it. “Of course. Anything.”

Swaying forward, Dream leans into him and closes his eyes. “Tell me again.”

Hob’s fingers dig into Dream’s skin. When he speaks, his breath fans across Dream’s mouth.

“I love you,” Hob says, voice low with the weight of it. “I love you so much that it burns, and I will tell you as many times as you want. I will tell you in languages that I have never used to tell—”

Dream kisses him, falling into it, inevitable; Hob tastes like winter nights and spices, cinnamon and anise and orange. His mouth opens beneath Dream’s as if he has been waiting for this through all his lifetimes.

“Maite Zaitut.”

Pushing closer, Dream cards his fingers into Hob’s hair. “Again.”

“Volim te.”

He bites Hob’s bottom lip and swallows the sound it elicits, tucking it away beneath his ribs for safekeeping. “Again. Please.”

“Ani ohevet otcha. T’estimo. Tá grá agam ort.”

Any more of this, and Dream fears he might choke on his affection. “You know a great many languages to say this in.”

Hob smiles. “Come home with me, and I might tell you why.”

“Incorrigible.”

“You love me, really,” Hob shoots back; beneath the affected cockiness, he looks as if he might need to hear it a few more times, too.

Dream brushes his mouth over Hob’s temple and says, “Indeed I do. Dearest.”

✨December Gift Ficlets ✨

[mentallyinvernation]

Dreamling Bingo WIP - Library

This one is a snippet but it’s going to eventually turn into something like ‘5 Times Someone Finds Out Hob Gadling Is Engaged, and the 1 Time Hob Gadling Finds Out He’s Engaged’. 

The fill will be used for my @dreamlingbingo square - C1 Library

｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. 

“So, run by me again why Hob is allowed to distract you from running a kingdom, but when I say let’s go on a boy's night out, suddenly it’s a problem?” Matthew complains, really just for the sake of complaining because he’s bored.

“That would be because you are my raven and Hob is my fiance.” Dream murmurs distractedly, still pouring over the book he’s been engrossed in ever since he got back from the shores of creation and sequestered himself away in the library.

“Yeah, but I’m your best -” Matthew’s entire world comes to a screeching halt, the last part of that sentence hitting him with all the force of a brick wall. “Come again?”

Corinthian - who up until this point has been loitering nearby like a child put in time out - immediately perks up at the direction the conversation seems to be heading in.

Dream glances up, a tiny furrow creasing between his brows. “You are my raven.”

“Yes, I know that part! I meant the fiance part! What - you mean you’re - you’re getting married?”

“That is what fiance would imply, yes.”

There’s a stunned beat where Matthew just gawks at him, desperately trying to shape his mind around this information because it’s certainly news to him - probably to the entire realm.

And then he explodes.

“Since when? Oh, my god, there’s going to be a wedding. I love weddings. Why didn’t you say anything sooner? More importantly, why didn’t Hob say anything? I swear, I’m going to kill him. That fucker didn’t even have the decency to ask for your hand.”

A tiny smile tugs at Dream’s lips. “And my hand is yours to give away, is it?”

“Obviously. I’m your best friend. That’s what I was trying to say before, and why we should definitely have a boy's night out in the near future but we’ll stick a pin in that for now because what the shit, boss? You got hitched? You’re like tying the mother-fucking knot? Dude! I’m going to be a best man. Oh my god. Bachelor party in the Dreaming. Give me free rein for one night - just one - and this place will be party central.”

“Abso-fucking-lutely not.” Corinthian cuts in smoothly. “I already called dibs on best man.”

“What? No. Fuck off. You can’t just dibs best man. That’s not how it works.”

“Pretty sure it is.” Corinthian shrugs, scratching his neck. “There’s always best raven, though, right?”

“I’m sorry but weren’t you re-made like literally an hour ago? You’re a baby. You’re literally the baby. You can’t be the best man if you’re already the baby.”

“Says who, exactly?” Corinthian challenges, looking very much like he might stab whoever says so, which, you know, considering he wanted Dream dead not too long ago, this is a very new and strange change of pace for them, but Matthew’s not going to question it, because that’s above his pay grade. And his pay grade is nothing. “I’m still me. I was just gone for a while. Think of it like waking up from a nap.”

“Yeah, and you know who takes naps? Babies take naps. Toddlers.” Matthew snaps back, knowing full well he used to nap on the job all the time back when he was human, but that’s not important or useful for his argument. He ruffles his feathers and faces Dream again, who honestly looks a little discombobulated by their argument, and somewhat surprised to have two people fighting for the honour of being his best man - which is endearing and sad at the same time. “Anyway. I’m best man. End of. Moving on to what matters -”

“You’re not.” Corinthian mutters in the background.

And you know what, Matthew’s going to be the bigger person here because he is the best man, that’s basically already established without saying, Dream doesn’t even need to ask, and as the best man, he’s going to focus on what’s important.

“So? When did Hob ask? I want details.” Matthew says.

Dream arches a brow at him, tilting his head faintly. “Why do you presume it was Hob who asked?”

“Because - “ Matthew cuts himself off, beak opening and closing a few times. “Because it’s…Hob?” He finishes a little lamely. “Hasn’t he been planning to go down on one knee for you since the stone age or something? Wait - you’re saying that you proposed?”

“Is that so difficult to believe?” Dream replies, voice clipped as he juts his chin in that snooty little way of his. Matthew can see the underlying anxiety creeping into the stiffness of his shoulders, though.

“No,” He quite wisely says, “No, it’s just… I mean fuck, good on you, boss. You got your caveman. It’s just… I expected - hm. How to put this. Well, usually, you’re a little more…dramatic? When you do things. It becomes an event, you know?”

Dream frowns. “I do not know.”

Which is honestly impressive given that Hob gave Dream a flower once and the castle was overgrown with it for days.

The first time they fucked there was fireworks.

The Dreaming didn’t give off nearly enough theatrics recently to suggest there was a proposal. 

“I bet Hob cried. Did he cry? He definitely cried.” Matthew snickers. “Wait, so, why didn’t you tell me you were going to propose?”

Dream blinks, which is a little comical and definitely a human mannerism he’s unconsciously picked up from Hob. “Was I supposed to inform you?”

“Yes!” Matthew exclaims, throwing his wings out wide. “Well, no. Not if you didn’t want to. That’s fine, obviously. But you told Corinthian before me? Corinthian?”

“Watch it, bird brain.”

“Watch your face.”

Corinthian rolls his - well he rolls his head to mimic the motion of rolling his eyes. “Stop getting your feathers in a twist. It’s not personal. I only just got re-made, if you recall. We had a bonding session on the beach. Real tear-jerker moment, you know? He didn’t even mean to tell me. It just slipped out with all the other gross feeling stuff we were talking about.”

“Why don’t we do gross feeling stuff?” Matthew whines at Dream.

“I will endeavour to make room for it in my schedule.” Dream responds flatly. “If you must know, I did not intentionally keep this from you. It happened only last night and I had no such plans of proposing until I was doing so.”

“Oh, nice. Spontaneity is a good look on you boss. You should try it more often.” Matthew chirps, giving Dream’s arm a little headbutt and earning another of his tiny smiles. “Congrats, by the way.”

“Thank you.” Dream says, and he sounds so fucking proud that Matthew’s chest wants to burst with warmth.

So, for all of two seconds, everything is perfect, and there’s going to be a wedding, and Dream is clearly over the fucking moon about the whole thing because this is genuinely the happiest Matthew has seen him.

And then Matthew remembers this is Dream.

“Wait,” Matthew starts, and instantly the Corinthian fixes him with a sharp grin that only widens as the cogs start to turn in his mind. “Wait, wait. You did ask him, right? Like you properly asked him?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Yeah. Good. Um. But what did you like - what did you say to him? What words exactly?” He presses as carefully as possible, suspicion a wire coiling up his spine that only tightens the more Corinthian looks at him like he’s waiting for the pin to drop.

Dream doesn’t huff because he’s a king and a personification but it’s damn well close. “Must I apprise you of every detail, Matthew? It is quite simple. I said: would you marry me? And Hob said: yes. He woke before we could make any further plans.”

Would not will. 

Oh, sweet Jesus.

There’s a lot to unpack in that. Matthew doesn’t want to unpack that. For one fleeting moment, he has so much sympathy for Jessamy, his darling predecessor, who somehow put up with the drama that is Hob Gadling and Dream of the Endless for nearly six hundred years. Matthew has been dealing with them for a couple of months and he’s already exhausted.

Corinthian looks fucking elated.

“So, um,” he clears his throat. “You asked him in the Dreaming, huh?”

Dream nods, looking pleased, as though they’re now all on the same page. He shuts his book and rises. “If your curiosity is satisfied, perhaps you could now escort Corinthian back to the nightmare realms.”

“I don’t need a babysitter.” The Corinthian gripes.

“Babies don’t get to decide that.” Matthew retorts automatically, and then, “Wait why do I have to be the babysitter?”

Dream gives him a withering look. “I have a matter to attend to elsewhere. Queen Titania has been demanding an audience with me for some time. In the spirit of maintaining relations between realms, I must…indulge her.”

And with that, Dream sweeps out the room, robe flaring behind him as he leaves Matthew and Corinthian. Only once Dream is gone does Matthew sigh.

“Hob has no idea he’s engaged, does he?”

“Not a clue.” Corinthian confirms.

“And Dream doesn’t realise?”

“Not at all.”

“Does Lucienne know?”

“Nope.”

Matthew groans because now he’s going to have to go and track down Lucienne in this maze of a library that stretches on to fucking eternity, just to tell her that there’s a high chance there’s going to be a royal wedding in the nearby future, but one of the people getting married doesn’t know. And he has to tell Lucienne because Lucienne is the only one brave enough to tell Dream that he’s potentially not quite as engaged as he thought.

“Fuck my life.”

[orionsangel86]

Subtext Glorious Subtext! A Dreamling on Netflix analysis in The Sandman - Part 5

1789

How romantic it is to be defended by ones love!

My favourite century! This is where the show starts deviating more heavily from the comic and upping the heat on the subtext (probably why it remains a popular century in fandom especially for gifsets).

Firstly, the show makes some good choices by changing certain elements in order to increase character likeability, which I think were necessary tbh. In the show, Hob mentions getting into a “new trade” regarding shipping and slavery. He describes the process to Dream and is immediately scorned for it via the “poor thing” line. In the show, it is implied that Hob’s involvement in the Slave Trade is something new for him. Dream is immediately dismissive and judgemental of this (as we would expect any decent person to be). Hob initially defends himself “It’s just how its done.”  but agrees to consider Dream’s advice.

This is not how either the comic or the Audible audiobook go and honestly, I was surprised.

In both comic and audiobook, Hob brags about the slave trade. He talks gleefully about actually having a hand in starting it 200 years back. He’s proud of this. He’s completely repugnant in both comic and audiobook and it makes you want to punch him hard. Dream only makes the following comment: “You take pride in treating your fellow humans as less than animals?” but he is otherwise not dismissive or disgusted by these things. He is not judgemental, just curious and surprised. When Hob dismisses this question as it being “business”, Dream drops the topic. It isn’t until the very end of the scene after Johanna’s interuption that Dream tells Hob its “a poor thing...” and that is where both comic and audiobook leave it without giving Hob’s reaction to this line.

You can see why the show made the wise decision to change these things. I think it is another example of where the show is taking the story and characters in a softer, kinder, and more likeable direction. We have to remember that the show versions of Dream and Hob are NOT their comic counterparts. Both comic characters are unlikeable at times and Hob in particular is just generally a pretty shitty person. It is difficult to marry the two versions of Hob sometimes because Ferdie gives SUCH a likeable, warm, engaging performance. Yes, Show!Hob is still a slaver for a short while, and yes, that is absolutely not forgiveable and fandom would be wise to ensure that this is never downplayed or ignored, but I think it is worth mentioning that the show has made the decision to lessen his involvement in the slave trade compared to his comic counterpart. But we shall see where they decide to go with this particularly nasty part of show!Hob's history in future episodes.

I think the show in many ways is taking a more classical view of the Sandman characters - here are your good guys and here are your bad guys, here are the people we want you to love and root for, and here are the ones you should love to hate. The comic tends to keep the majority of characters in the middle ground of morally grey. They have a rather cynical viewpoint imo that works for a gritty graphic novel about a depressed eldritch entity. But that viewpoint wouldn't work so well in a high budget fantasy drama series with a desire to draw in as big an audience as possible.

Anyway, back to 1789. Aside from Tom and Ferdie acting like they want to climb each other all the way through this scene (the sexual tension is through the roof throughout), all of fandoms favourite elements here are new.

Whilst Hob does ask for Dream’s name again here in the comics, there is no response or reaction from Dream given before Lady Johanna interrupts them. In the show, it is clear that Dream is about to give an answer - Hob almost gets his name. This is - tropey. The interruption may be comic canon but the almost response to the answer you’ve been craving for 400 years isn’t. A brilliant little addition. The audience is on the edge of their seats wishing Dream would just tell Hob who he is dammit! It adds to the expectation that eventually Hob will get his name. Dream's identity reveal at this point is basically a Chekov's gun. Hob will get it, even if we don't see it happen.

Then we get the fight. There is no rambling from Hob about some Jack Constantine he knew, instead he is calmly making flirtatious jokes at Dream right in front of Lady Johanna’s salad. “I look terrible, you look worse.” The terrible drawing from 1689 is new for the show, as in the comic it is simply a description of the 1689 meeting that Johanna found. Making it a portrait instead gives the characters something to react to, and I do love how bad the caricatures are in the drawing. Though sorry Hob, but anyone can see that Dream absolutely does not look worse than you, and your teasing flirtations are kinda obvious.

The two characters share catty side eye glances in silent communication as Lady Johanna talks which indicates how close and comfortable with each other they have become by this century.

When Hob jumps up to attack the thugs, he goes for the one with the knife at Dream’s throat first. Hob gets to be an action movie star for a short moment whilst Dream looks up at him in subtle delight. It’s glorious.

AND THEN Dream ONLY makes a move once he sees Lady Johanna has her blade at Hob’s throat.

In the comic, the minute the thugs get their blades out and Lady Johanna threatens them, Dream is like nope! Magic sand! Poof!

But the show, oh the glorious, brilliant, creators on the show, decided this was going to be a “partners defending each others lives” scene. They want to protect and defend each other! They care about each other.

And then we get this:

GIF by ghorestes

Dream. Darling. Sweetheart. He may not have needed to, but you enjoyed it nevertheless.

“Clearly. Still, I didn’t want to be drinking here alone in 100 years time.”

GIF by mrskillingjoke

(Thank you to all gifmakers by the way I am kissing you on the mouth for the gifts you give us)

LOOK AT HIM. We all obsess over these little moments I know, but this is CLEAR flirtation.

If there is a better example of *eye fucking* anywhere outside of a season 4 Destiel scene I have yet to come across it.

It doesn’t even stop there. Because right after the best example of *eye fucking* I have seen since season 4 Destiel is an honest to god proposition.

Hob: "So do you want to find another pub tonight?"

Dream: "She may have told others about our meeting. It wont be safe for you."

Hob: "Im perfectly safe. I can't die remember?"

Dream: "Aye, but you can be hurt or captured. We must be careful"

Hob: “Always.”

NONE OF THIS IS IN THE COMIC.

So what new info has the show given us with this scene?

On a surface level, Hob wants more time with Dream. He wants to find another pub to continue their date.

On a subtextual level, Hob is full of adrenaline from the fight and the mystery man he’s been obsessing over for 400 years is looking at him like he wants to jump his bones. He wants to find another place so they can continue their date, and possibly fuck until the adrenaline has worn off.

On a surface level, Dream cares about Hob’s safety. He doesn’t want them being seen together together outside of the tavern to draw attention to anymore of Lady Johanna’s goons.

On a subtextual level. This is 1789 Hob and they hang men for doing what you very clearly want to do, and it’s not safe with the additional attention Lady Johanna and her goons have put onto you. If I go with you now, they could follow and find us in more compromising positions. Don’t risk it.

In the comic at this point, I would argue that Hob is still nothing more than a curiosity to Dream. He does not show him any real affection or care, and certainly doesn’t comment on his safety at any point. Whilst comic!Hob at this point is clearly itching for more info on Dream, he doesn’t ever push for it, and he is never as focused on Dream as he is talking about other people he’s met and interacted with. They are barely friends.

But by 1789 in the show, we have genuine care for each other, camaraderie, a growing friendship, and arguably sexual attraction.

The other point to note is something I only realised after answering this ask the other day. Comic!Dream has never had anyone else truly care about him enough to rescue him or come to his defence since Alianora (and he basically married her). When Hob defends Dream in the show, its so impactful to Dream because this is a version of Hob who truly cares about him enough to endanger himself (a trait comic!Hob never shows). No wonder Dream looked so pleased and acted so coy about it. He really was ready to pounce!

Basically 1789 is the turning point century. The point at which the show starts to lean heavily into homoerotic tropes and increases the tension. In this century we get:

An almost name reveal followed by an unwanted interuption

Amused side eye glances at each other sharing unspoken communication

Flirtatious jabbing over a bad drawing

Defending each other from harm

Putting themselves at risk in defence of the other

A thinly veiled proposition

Genuine concern and care from a character that never appeared to care previously

Ridiculously over the top eye fucking

All of which adds up to further the audiences investment in the continued development of this relationship whether romantically or platonically and which therefore makes the break up in 1889 even more impactful.

The analysis continues for 1889 in part 6!

[unpredictable-probabilities]

Through the Storm

Summary:

Hob follows Dream after he walks out of their 1889 meeting, stubbornly braving the worsening storm along the dark roads.

Meanwhile, Dream is still bristling from the turn of their conversation, and puts as much distance as he can between him and Hob. However, a sudden shift in the collective unconscious catches his attention, and he realises something is amiss.

Word Count: 4,147

Rating: Explicit

Notes (more at the end):

For Dreamling Week Day 4: Storm

Warning:

Hob's death is shown, but it's not graphic. His dead body is also described, but not too detailed and it's not gory because I'm squeamish. Blood is briefly mentioned.

Take care in reading!

[Read on AO3]

---

"You knew Lady Johanna. You know Lushing Lou." Hob pointed at his friend with his tobacco. "You know everyone, don't you?"

It was something that had surprised Hob at their last meeting, how his friend seemed to know Lady Johanna enough to show her visions which would incapacitate her. Just two centuries before that, his friend didn’t know who Shaxberd was. It would seem that he had been more inclined to know about people since then, whether they were of the upper crust like Lady Johanna or someone more among the commoners like Lou.

His friend gave a knowing smile that didn't really clarify anything. "I saw her again, you know."

Hob stared at him for a moment, debating whether to press the question further. He gave a relenting smile and tapped his tobacco twice. "Who? Lady Johanna?"

"She undertook a task for me, and succeeded admirably, I might add." His friend sounded impressed, raising his eyebrows.

That gave Hob pause. Lady Johanna met his friend twice in a century, after she had tried to maim and kidnap them both. Not only that, but she had worked for him. Did that mean they saw each other more than twice, then? Who in God’s creation was this woman that his oldest friend—whom he barely saw pay the slightest bit of attention to other people—had seen fit to meet with her so often?

"That might be the only thing I've learned after 500 years.” Hob tried for a smile to seem playful about it, but then he just averted his eyes. He almost asked if Lady Johanna had been made immortal now as well, but by this point he knew that asking such direct questions would not yield any answers. Perhaps he would just wait if she would turn out to be the next Shakespeare, or whatever boon it was that his friend gave her.

He turned to look at Lou, sitting at the bar with the drink she just bought. “People are almost always better than you think they are." Almost always, anyway. Being alive for much longer than others meant that he also had much more time to make mistakes. He chuckled to himself and glanced down before facing his friend again. "Not me, though. Still the same as ever,” he winked.

"I think perhaps you've changed,” his friend said easily.

He spoke as if he truly believed it, looking at Hob with a similar gaze as he did at their last meeting. That look had lit a fire inside Hob a century ago, giving him the courage to ask to prolong their meeting at another pub. His friend had declined, but Hob never forgot that look.

And now there was even more to it, a high regard that Hob had never thought he would receive from him. He had prided himself in learning to read the most subtle of expressions from his friend, but right now, not only did his friend hold a new level of respect for him, he was letting Hob see it.

Hob felt himself take a shuddering breath, and he had to avert his eyes for a moment before speaking again. “Well, I may have learnt a bit from my mistakes, but um… doesn't seem to stop me from making them," he quipped.

His friend chuckled, holding his gaze.

Hob froze for a moment at the sound, at the sight of his friend smiling and nearly laughing.

"... I think it's you that's changed."

The mirth in his friend's eyes dissipated, and he sat up straighter. “How so?”

Hob slowly leaned forward, choosing his words carefully. "I think I know why we still meet here, century after century."

His friend tilted his chin up proudly, his eyes becoming guarded, but there was a glimpse of fear in it too. Hob wanted him to know that there was nothing to be afraid of, and he could only do that if he were close enough to say it.

"It's not because you want to see whether or not I'm ready to seek death, I don't think I'll ever seek death, by now you know that about me. So…” Hob paused for a moment, watching his friend. “I think you're here for something else,” he took a chance.

“And what might that be?” His friend’s whisper of a voice cracked with emotion, his posture tense as if he might flee at any moment or strike Hob down with his otherworldly magic.

But Hob wanted to show him that he wasn't afraid, that he would never believe that he would be harmed by this creature.

Hob's gaze softened. "Friendship. I think you're lonely."

He watched as his friend took a shallow breath.

"... You dare."

Hob glanced down and hastily tried to find the right words. "No, look, I'm not saying—"

"You…" his friend—if he could still call him that—cut him off.

Hob looked at him, afraid he had screwed everything up.

"... dare suggest one such as I might need your companionship." His friend’s voice was dangerously quiet now, eyes misting over.

Hob smiled hesitantly. "Yes. Yes I do." Would it be so terrible if they needed each other?

His friend—companion—slowly stood up. Hob followed him with his gaze, forehead creased in concern.

"Then I shall take my leave of you and prove you wrong.” There was an undertone of anger in his calm voice, and his eyes were shining with unspilled tears.

Hob stood up, frowning in worry as his mind raced trying to come up with a way to mend things.

For several heartbeats they just stood there, silently holding each other’s gaze.

A mixture of feelings was welling up inside Hob’s chest. It was tangling his mess of thoughts, but it was clear to him at this moment that he didn’t want his friend to feel alone.

He stepped forward—

His friend immediately turned away and made quick strides to the exit.

Hob nearly stumbled; the defeated feeling in him burning away from the anger that rapidly surfaced at the sight of his friend going out the door.

He followed him out onto the empty road, stopping to glare at the receding figure. "I'll tell you what, I'll be here in a hundred years' time. And if you're here then too, it'll be because we're friends," his voice broke. "No other reason. Right?" he yelled.

Hob took deep breaths, watching his friend of 500 years continue to disappear into the night without so much as a glance back. “Fuck,” he cursed quietly.

Thunder boomed overhead, and sheets of rain pelted Hob as the storm got stronger.

He muttered a few more curses before heading to the general direction of where his friend—yes his friend—had walked off to.

He had seen him disappear in a swirl of sand twice before, back in 1489 and 1689 when he curiously tried to follow after their meeting. If that fae-like creature really wanted to be out of reach, Hob would not have seen him walk all the way down that road. Now it was only a matter of catching up to him before he decided to magically disappear after all.

Hob had not expected that they might have to have an emotional conversation in the rain like in some bloody romantic play, but it was far from the most insane thing he had ever done.

“Hey!” he called out over the sound of the rain and the wind making his jacket flap wildly around him. “You know, if you had told me your name, maybe I can address you properly, Your Lordship!”

There was no answer, only winds so harsh that the rain seemed to be moving horizontally, a thousand tiny needles running at Hob. No sensible person would be out on a night like this, but Hob never claimed to be sensible. For all he knew, his friend had long since disappeared already, and here he was like a proper fool walking blindly in the middle of a storm. If he were to die out here trying to mend things between them, then so be it. He had died for lesser things.

A light shone in the distance, perhaps a lamp by a house or another tavern. In the pouring rain it was hard to be sure. Hob squinted at it.

It was unlikely that his friend went somewhere with more people, but perhaps Hob could take shelter for a while and get his bearings before thinking of what to do next. The light got closer, and above the rain and wind there was the faint sound of wheels. And hooves. Not a tavern, then. A carriage.

***

Dream was soaked to the skin as he walked briskly down the dark roads. He had neglected to take his coat and hat back at The White Horse, and his present clothes offered very little protection against the rain. None of that mattered, however, as he would be returning to his realm soon.

He could sense Hob Gadling’s thoughts, daydreams of finding him and forcing him into a confrontation. Foolish. No one forces the King of Dreams and Nightmares into anything. The human would soon learn that. He even had the audacity to follow even when Dream had already—

Dream stopped walking and furrowed his eyebrows. He could no longer sense Hob Gadling’s thoughts.

Perhaps Hob had returned to The White Horse. Dream closed his eyes and extended his reach, paying conscious attention to the thoughts of humans in the vicinity.

A sense of fear. Panic. Followed by the rumbling of carriage wheels and the splash of hooves on puddles.

“...wasn’t my fault. Damned idiot was in the middle of the road. And this storm makes driving near impossible. No one will know. No one will know…”

Dream opened his eyes, feeling his lips curl as rage rose within him.

The carriage was approaching him now, the driver’s frantic daydreams of escaping bitter on his tongue.

Dream turned and stepped in the horse’s path. He reached out to the animal’s consciousness and gave it the sweetest of dreams, urging it to move to the side of the road and fall asleep.

The driver cried out in surprise as the carriage swerved, and Dream reached out and ripped the door off its hinges, grabbing the man by the shirt and hauling him out of the vehicle.

“Where is he?” Dream growled, his teeth sharpening and his fingers turning into claws as he held the man inches off the ground.

“W-W-W-What?” The man trembled in fear and his eyes appeared to bulge out of his head. “Who are you?”

Dream had neither the time nor patience for this. He reached into the driver’s mind, barely holding his Nightmare form at bay.

Through the blinding sheets of rain, a man appeared on the road. The driver swerved in a panic, the horse’s hooves barely managing to stay upright on the slippery pavement. The side of the carriage slammed against the man with a sickening thump. The driver looked over his shoulder to see the man’s broken form on the side of the road, unmoving. He urged his horse to move faster.

An inhuman snarl rose out of Dream, and he flung the man away lest he rip him to pieces.

Dream used his sand to reach the place from the driver’s memory, not wanting to waste another moment.

He arrived at the side of the road and immediately cast his gaze down the length of it. A bolt of lightning flashed overhead, and for a moment the street was bright as day, illuminating the broken figure lying a few feet away from Dream.

Hob Gadling lay motionless, his neck bent at an angle that was unnatural for humans. A pool of blood was growing beneath his head, slowly getting washed away by the rain. His eyes were open, staring unblinking at the sky as rain fell on them. Lifeless.

“Hob!” Dream rushed to his side, kneeling to inspect if there was anything to be done.

A coldness gripped him that had nothing to do with the storm. Something squeezed in his chest and he could not seem to draw breath, vaguely aware that he should not even need to.

Tears welled up in his eyes as he reminded himself over and over again that Hob would return. He must. He had died many times before, Dream knew this. And yet, he could not stop the fear building up within him.

He had not asked Hob Gadling tonight if he still wished to live, and his frantic mind tried to recall if that was a requirement for his sister’s gift to remain in effect. But he had not asked that question last century, and yet Hob still lived. So he must continue to do so. He must. He must.

Dream carefully cradled Hob’s body against his, as if he could protect Hob from being taken by his sister if he held him in his arms. The tears were running freely down his face now, spilling from his eyes as quickly as the rain washed them away.

He clenched his jaw and willed himself to calm down. He was better than this.

He looked down at the situation once more and noticed that there was no longer any blood; the rain had washed it all away and no more was coming from Hob’s body. The bleeding had stopped.

Dream put his fingers on Hob’s neck, holding his breath in anticipation.

There.

A pulse.

Weak, but very much there. Followed by another. And another.

Hob’s eyes had rolled back in his head, and Dream closed his eyelids to protect them from the rain. The bones in his neck had not completely healed yet, but his mind had returned enough that Dream was able to reach into his subconscious and pluck out the location of where his current home was.

Dream did not let go of Hob even as he summoned his sand to transport them away from the storm.

***

It did not take long to get Hob changed into a dry set of clothes more comfortable for rest, and he looked almost entirely healed by the time Dream lay him on his bed under layers of warm blankets.

Dream could have left as soon as he had taken Hob to his home, but Hob had only died because he had followed him, and it was Dream’s responsibility to ensure that the human was in safe conditions before he left. That was all.

He stood beside the bed and looked down at Hob’s form, particularly the rise and fall of his chest indicating that he was breathing again. Hob’s face looked peaceful like this. Unlike how it was when Dream left him at The White Horse.

A twinge of guilt ached in Dream’s chest, but it only grew into a conflicted feeling that made him restless. A friendship with a human was a dangerous thing, and it might be kinder to sever his connection with Hob rather than give him false hope about what could never be.

He stared at Hob’s face, committing each detail to memory for it might be the last time he would lay eyes on it. Hob would not want to see him again, not after what had befallen him because of his search for Dream.

Hob’s eyes fluttered open.

Dream flinched and immediately turned his back, not wanting anger to be the last thing he sees in those eyes before they part. “I was just leaving.”

He took a step forward—

“Wait!” Hob’s voice stopped him. “What… What happened? I was…”

Dream stood still, keeping his back turned. He should be leaving now. Returning to his realm. But the image was still fresh in his mind, of Hob lying lifeless under the rain mere minutes after he left.

“You brought me back home.”

There was surprise and wonder in Hob’s voice, and Dream could tell that a question was coming next, one that he might not be capable of answering. He took another step to leave—

“Wait, hold on!”

Dream saw Hob’s thoughts as vividly as if they were his own, and he turned around just in time to catch Hob before he fell to the floor.

“You are not well,” he said firmly, holding Hob around the waist while Hob had his hands on his shoulders. “Your limbs have not fully recovered, and you must not go walking around in your state.” He guided Hob back to sit on the bed, his eyes scanning his body once more for any remaining injuries and fortunately finding none.

“Okay, okay. But at least let me apologise.” Hob’s grip was strong on his wrist, and his eyes never left Dream’s.

Dream furrowed his eyebrows, unsure if he had understood correctly. “Apologise?”

Hob nodded, still keeping his hold on Dream. “I never meant to offend you. I only said we were friends because, well, aren’t we?” He shook his head and laughed nervously, “God, I’m doing this all wrong. Let me try again, yeah? I was dead a few minutes ago,” he glanced up at Dream with a smile.

“Indeed, so you must rest—”

“No, listen,” Hob's grip momentarily tightened, and his voice was laced with urgency. He took a deep breath, and when he spoke again, it was with a calm certainty. “I said you were lonely, because I wanted to say that I understand. I'm lonely, too. But our meetings… They give me something to look forward to, you know? No matter how many of my loved ones die around me, I can always rely on seeing you again. And you… You brought my body back here, now. Even after you said you would take your leave of me. Surely that counts for something, right?” Hob's hesitant smile was sincere, and his gaze held no resentment.

“I have been cruel to you.” Dream felt something twist inside him at the admission. “How could you still want my companionship? Did you not speak with anger when I walked out of the tavern?”

Hob's eyes were gentle when he spoke. “You fed me in 1689, dined with me when no one would even look at me. You defended me from Lady Johanna when you could have escaped while I had her attention. And now you came back for me, knowing that I would still live even if you had left my body outside.”

I needed to see it for myself, Dream thought with a certainty that surprised him. I had to see you alive again.

“You were cruel for a moment there, aye. But I only spoke angrily because I was frustrated that you weren't allowing yourself the same feeling of companionship that I get in our meetings.” Hob’s thumb was stroking soothingly over Dream's wrist. “You deserve friendship. Not just from me, but I happily give it to you.”

“I…” Dream began to speak, but Hob’s thumb over his sleeve was making him wish that it was on his skin instead. “I am not good with companions. It is more natural for me to be alone.”

“Not here.” Hob’s grip tightened around his wrist, and Dream realised that Hob was holding him not out of fear that he would leave again, but because he wanted Dream to be reassured of his presence. “You will never know a lonely day again. Never here. Not while I draw breath.”

Dream stared at Hob for a long moment, and Hob returned his gaze without wavering. Breathing felt difficult once more, but somehow it wasn't the unpleasantness of what he had felt earlier.

“Morpheus,” he heard himself say, his voice barely above a whisper.

“What?”

“Morpheus,” he said more clearly. “That is my name.”

Hob's mouth parted and his eyes shone like the brightest stars. “Morpheus…” he tested the name. His tongue swept along his bottom lip as if he felt nervous to speak it aloud, and Dream's eyes tracked the movement.

Dream slowly sat down next to Hob, never breaking their gaze. “What I said before was true. I do not need your companionship.”

Hob’s face fell in surprise and confusion.

Dream gently removed his wrist from Hob’s grip, and reached up to cup Hob’s face in his hand. “But I want it. I want you. Hob Gadling.” He lightly ran his thumb over Hob's bottom lip, following the path that Hob's tongue had traced.

Hob’s pupils grew wide, and in an instant his lips were upon Dream's, soft and firm and urgent.

Dream held Hob’s face in his hands, Hob clutched at his coat. Their kiss was a dam breaking, bursting forth beyond their control and sweet with desperation. Dream bit Hob’s bottom lip, slipping his tongue in when Hob gasped against his mouth.

They pushed and pulled like tides compelled by the moon, the slide of their tongues stoking the heat growing around them.

A rumble rose from Dream’s chest, and in an instant he had pushed Hob down onto the mattress, feeling Hob's growing hardness against his own.

“Fuck,” Hob broke the kiss to gasp, throwing his head back, his fingernails digging deep into Dream’s shoulders.

“Is that what you wish, Hob Gadling?” Dream smirked, only just managing to keep his voice from wavering.

Hob looked up at him and grinned. “I already got my wish.”

“Make another.” Dream punctuated the phrase with a hard grind of his hips.

“Ah–!” Hob squeezed his eyes shut, his mouth parted and his chest heaving. “Christ…” he whispered, visibly willing himself to remain composed.

“Look at me.” Dream lightly traced a fingernail from the soft flesh behind Hob's ear down along his jawline, earning him a shiver that he must remember to draw from Hob again later.

Hob opened his eyes, and Dream nearly lost himself in the intensity of the daydreams he saw within them.

He clenched his teeth and his hips moved of their own accord to buck against Hob, drawing a groan from both of them.

“In my realm, we shall accomplish all of those and more.” This time he could not stop the tremble in his words, and he crashed his mouth on Hob’s, grinding down relentlessly and drinking in every gasp and moan that slipped from Hob’s lips.

Hob’s hands found their way to Dream's arse, pulling him down while thrusting his own hips upwards, sobs of pleasure and frustration emanating from his throat.

Dream was not doing much better; his nerves were alight and his patience was wearing thin. With a wave of his hand, he vanished all their clothing into the Dreaming.

A surprised moan escaped Hob; he was a steady presence beneath Dream, undulating and soft and warm and so very much alive.

In the far distance of Dream’s mind, he began to reconsider his earlier statement of not needing Hob Gadling’s companionship. But for now there were more urgent matters to attend to. Dream wants, and he saw that same fervour in Hob’s eyes, in Hob’s blunt nails raking across his back.

Dream wrapped a hand around their cocks, and the whine that came out of Hob sent sparks down his spine. Dream was unable to stop his own gasps and moans, and he found that he did not mind.

Hob gripped the back of his neck and pulled him down into a searing kiss. Their tongues stroked each other in time with Dream's hand around them, and it wasn't long before Hob tensed and his thighs began to tremble.

“Morpheus,” he panted, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cold brought on by the storm. “Please…”

Dream brushed his lips against Hob's ear. “Hob Gadling.” He bit down on Hob's earlobe.

“Morpheus!” Hob arched his back. “Fuck–!”

Dream tightened his grip and twisted, and Hob reached his peak with a wail that was accompanied by a flash of lightning through the window.

Hob shook against him, and the feeling of his warm spend on their cocks pushed Dream over the edge, and he finished with a deep groan muffled in the crook of Hob's neck.

They held each other for a long moment, catching their breaths through the aftershocks. The storm still raged outside, but Dream hardly noticed it as he lay his hand on Hob's chest, feeling the steadfast rhythm of a heartbeat against his palm.

Then Hob’s hand was carding through his hair. “You're beautiful… Always wanted to say…” Hob's voice sounded heavy with sleep.

Dream got up just enough to smile down at Hob. “Perhaps meeting more than once in a century would be preferable.”

Hob's eyes were already closed, but he smiled. “Thought you'd never ask…” His hand slowed down and stilled on Dream's back, strong and warm and reassuring.

Dream pressed his forehead against Hob’s, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. Then he closed his eyes and prepared to meet Hob in his realm.

---

Notes:

Hob's line “You will never know a lonely day again. Never here. Not while I draw breath.” is from a D&D campaign of Dimension 20, "A Court of Fey and Flowers". I haven't seen the entire campaign, but I really loved that line.

It's said by a goblin named Captain KP Hob. Which. I love that.

Here's a Tumblr post with a transcription of that entire monologue.

And here's the excerpt that I incorporated in this fic (spoilers for the campaign):

"There is one injury of yours that must be amended. You said that you felt alone. Never here. Not while I draw breath. I renounce the Goblin Court in its entirety and foreswear all oaths of loyalty to king and kin. If you are orphaned, then so am I, and you will never know a lonely day again, as long as I draw breath."

---

(Dreamling Week Masterpost)

(Masterlist)

[avelera]

Ok just because I'd never write it because Human/No Powers Modern AU is not my thing, but I find the thought exercise interesting, here's a bit more about how Giving Sanctuary would work if it was a modern, no powers dreamling AU (copied from a Discord I'm on):

The THING IS, I am somewhat charmed by the idea of Modern AU Giving Sanctuary ONLY because re-translating the historical dynamics to be clearer to a modern viewer of like... what EXACTLY Dream disdained about Hob, would be such a treat??

Like in a historical setting, you can tell Hob's being a bit gauche in 1589 but that's kind of it for visual cues? But just.... imagine Dream in his black turtleneck and designer coat, hosting an event at his art gallery, and then this fucking Chad that his sister made him set up with a job interview ages ago, that he expected to fail out because he's a jock and an idiot, shows up in a fucking golf polo and a fancy but extremely visible Rolex he won't stop showing off to Dream and like... just the worst kind of new money sleaze oozing out of every pore and he won't stop snacking on the hors d'oeuvres and trying to offer some to Dream while talking with his mouth full because he thinks they're buddies, somehow and he keeps talking about the latest deal he closed to bring in millions to his company yeah they're gonna put him on Fortune magazine, not the front cover, but there is a page about him!

And this guy Hob, he keeps trying to shove pictures of his supermodel wife and sticky infant son at Dream at this arts event and finally Dream will literally do anything to get away from this guy and talk to the art school student who is actually talking about looking for his big break (And little does he know, Hob actually was trying to thank Dream for putting him in a place to be this successful because Hob came from poverty and there was no way he'd ever have reached this point without that lucky break of meeting Dream and yeah, he lacks manners but he's stupidly proud of what he accomplished and has no idea what he did wrong, he was trying to compliment Dream on the hors d'oeuvres??)

And if you make this purely human AU (not a genre I like to write but I find the thought exercise of updating a story interesting) 1689 would be caused by like.... Hob in a car accident with his pregnant wife and his kid Robyn, Hob's the only survivor. He gets addicted to pain meds during the recovery, is found at fault for the accident so no insurance money/the legal bills eat up everything else, he's fired, addicted, was already living lavishly and depending on the next big deal to pay for it all so goes bankrupt quickly, falls and falls and falls.

Anyway, Hob and Dream have this standing agreement to meet up once a year or every five years, at the same dive bar where Death introduced them in like college or something, and Hob gets there and y'know, updated 1689 meeting, he's a mess, he's homeless, he can't seem to get out of his own way, but the subject of his son's death comes up (again, for a GS update) and somehow Dream mentions he got married when he was like 18 or 20 to another artist, they had a son, no one in their families supported them because they said they were too young, their son died and his wife left him and his life fell apart and he's buried himself in work since but never really healed and no one ever really seemed to understand what he went through because most of his peers had never even had a serious relationship by the time he was divorced and had lost a child at like 22, like people freaking complimented him on being a single man again if they didn't know about the death.

And for the first time ever he tells this to Hob and instead of saying "Why did you get married so young??" Hob just... asks him if he's ok. Over a decade later. The first person to actually understand that Dream never really recovered.

[cuubism]

Joy

Dreamling | T rating | Retired Dream | on emotional repression

I was thinking about a post, which I cannot find alas, about retired Morpheus struggling to deal with the fact that his actions and emotions don't have universe-wide consequences anymore. Like, he's allowed to just feel things now? And as someone who's also been extremely checked out of their own emotions at various points I can tell you the transition is… not easy. Anyways.

--

Morpheus is out when Hob gets home, or so he assumes. When he steps into the hall, the flat has the utterly still quality of total vacancy, no noise or distant movement. For all that Morpheus is a relatively quiet person, generally speaking, Hob has still become attuned to what his presence feels like, or the lack thereof.

Or so he thought.

For when he reaches the kitchen, Morpheus is there, sitting at the kitchen table, completely still. Hob almost doesn't see him, that's how still he is. Back straight, hands folded on the table, looking down at them as if he's meditating, or working out some complicated problem in his head.

Hob quietly sets down his bag and sits across from him. “Hey... love? You okay?”

He almost whispers it so as not to break the silence. Normally Hob would leave him to his devices if he was in the middle of something, but despite the fact that Morpheus is not given to unnecessary movement, the complete stillness sends something uncomfortable creeping up Hob’s spine. Morpheus hadn't even seemed to hear him come in.

With glacial slowness, Morpheus nods.

“It’s just…” Hob continues, biting his lip. “You’re not moving. At all. I almost didn’t think you were breathing.”

“That is the idea,” Morpheus agrees, still looking at his hands.

"Not breathing?"

"Not moving."

"Can I ask why?"

"I am. Preoccupied. With." His fingers flex against each other on the table as if forcing stillness. "Movement within."

Hob doesn't know what that means. "Can you elaborate?"

"I must make it still," Morpheus says. "I have before. I will."

Which clears up nothing. And Hob is getting the increasing sense that something is wrong but he's floundering as to what.

"Will you come sit on the couch with me?" he finally asks. "You look like you're about to snap in half."

"If it will please you," Morpheus says. Like his own pleasure-or-not in this matter is something he'd prefer not to touch.

"It will," Hob says. Morpheus follows him to the couch, moving like– like he did before. That ethereal creature that considered every step like he was crossing a thinly frozen lake.

So that's what it is.

Morpheus sits down beside him, drawing his knees up to his chest in a movement that, Hob is almost relieved to observe, is very much not like before.

Hob drapes the blanket from the back of the couch over his shoulders. Morpheus flinches, but doesn't push it off. "What's going on, hon?"

"It is..." Morpheus admits, slowly, "loud."

Hob frowns. "In your head? I thought you said it's been quieter since–"

"No." Morpheus presses a hand to his sternum. "Here."

Hob touches his chest, carefully, hand resting beside Morpheus's. All he can hear, or rather feel, is Morpheus's heartbeat, still a new and learning thing. "Your heart?"

"Everything. It... resounds. And drives off reason."

"Okay." Hob rubs his hand up and down over his chest, as if that might soothe him. Hob is aware enough of the feeling of overwhelm, and of Morpheus's particular brand of it, now that he has so little to distract him. "Just give it time and it'll pass, love."

Morpheus shakes his head. "That is not–" his lips press into a distressed line. "Duration is. Not the issue. It is. What will be left. After. Detritus."

Hob's own heart clenches. "Your feelings aren't a storm, love."

"Are they not?"

"You aren't going to make storms in the Dreaming, now," Hob says, though he knows Morpheus knows this.

"I speak not of weather, Hob Gadling," Morpheus growls. "I can– raze minds, I can spin balanced consciousness into euphoria, I can twist it all on its head with no effort and I will–" his fingertips dig into his chest, and Hob thinks that if he were still capable of manifesting claws he'd be drawing blood even through his shirt– "I will make it stop. It will be quiet again, I swear it."

"Only thing you're spinning is yourself," Hob says, gently.

And the thing is, he knows Morpheus knows this. Knowledge isn't the issue. It's sort of like how he never quite believes that Hob will never want to die, no matter how many times Hob tells him. I know that, Hob Gadling, he will say, but Hob can never quite get him to feel it.

"I know that, Hob Gadling," he says, again, now. That same tone. How dare you not believe it. How dare.

"Give me your hand," Hob says.

"Hob–"

Hob takes his hand and pulls it to himself, pressing Morpheus's palm flat to his own chest. Morpheus makes as if to pull away, then surrenders.

"Look," Hob says. "It's not hurting me, is it?"

"No," Morpheus admits, reluctantly, still with that tension through his shoulders.

"What about the room? Is everything shaking into pieces? Is it all going haywire? People rioting in the streets?"

Morpheus shakes his head no.

"See?" Hob says, squeezing his hand. "It's alright."

"I want it quiet," Morpheus says. He no longer sounds frustrated. More defeated. "It should not be... here." He touches his breastbone. "Here." His throat. "Here." His head.

"Where's it supposed to be, then?"

"Gone."

Hob sighs. This will not be an easy fix, not at all. He leans in, awkward though the angle is, and kisses Morpheus's chest, his neck, his temple, then stays, leaning against his shoulder. "I'm sorry, love. I know it's not easy. I happen to like you not gone, though, for what it's worth."

"Me?"

"Uh-huh. You. That's you in there, you know, not some brain-eating amoeba."

He gets a tiny huff of an almost-laugh from Morpheus. "Is it?"

"Yup. The part you weren't allowed to see because everything else was so loud." He rubs Morpheus's chest again, where he keeps saying it's hurting.

Morpheus's mouth opens as if to protest, and Hob adds–

"I'm not going to criticize you for it, okay? I promise I'm not."

Hob gets it. Well. He can't get it, actually, he's never been in charge of the entire dreaming world, but he tries.

"I thought you were supposed to go out today?" he says. "Weren't you getting tea with Rose? What happened with that? You were looking forward to it, I thought."

"I was, yes." He says it as if this is bad somehow. "Looking forward to it, that is. Her company is... enjoyable.”

“Okay? That's good, right?"

But Morpheus shakes his head. "It is too much."

"Too much?" Hob asks. "Were you nervous about it?"

Again, Morpheus shakes his head. “Joyful.”

Hob's heart is actually going to break. He knows this is part of why Morpheus left in the first place. And yet it's still tormenting him, which feels criminally unfair. And the worst part is there's no one to really blame, he knows why Morpheus did it, he can't and won't fault him for it when he was put in such a position.

He asks quietly, “So that joy didn't feel good to you?”

Morpheus shakes his head, biting down hard on his lip, and then, to Hob's horror, bursts into tears.

For all that Morpheus is prone to drama and moping, Hob has never actually seen him cry. He hadn't cried when he’d told Hob of his imprisonment, offering only a hint of scorched anger to indicate how he felt about it, the words, I had not realized what it was to be isolated and embodied until then. It was agonizing, said with the even cadence of the moon in orbit instead of the rawness they deserved. Nor had he cried when he'd shown up on Hob's doorstep and, when greeted with a concerned Hey, Dream, are you okay? – because he certainly didn't look it, drenched to the bone and his cloak absent its swirling inner cosmos – answered merely, You should call me Morpheus, I am no longer Dream of the Endless. The closest Hob had ever seen was the glimmer in his eyes when he'd thought Hob no longer wished to live, all the way back in the 1600s, and even then, his tears had not fallen.

“Oh, darling.” Hob pulls him into his arms, rubbing his back. “It’s alright.”

“It does not feel,” Morpheus continues, voice remarkably steady given the tears streaming down his cheeks, “good. It feels loud. And I am not in control, I am subject to these whims and I am no subject, Hob.”

"Those feelings are part of you. Not subjecting.”

“I don’t want it,” Morpheus insists, with the bitter frustration of a former king, used to shaping the world around him as he wishes. “If they are free I do not know what might come out.”

What comes out are parts of you, Hob thinks, but doesn’t express it again. The raw parts that you think are so awful. “Well, if there’s any feeling to try it with, wouldn’t it be joy? Happiness?”

Morpheus huffs. "Do you think that sorrow and rage are the only feelings with the capacity to destroy? Joy can become hysteria, joy can ruin, I have seen it, I have done it, when I was much, much younger and did not understand my abilities. Strong feelings have power, the very Dreaming is crafted of them. It could not exist out of apathy.”

“Neither could you,” Hob points out, and Morpheus just huffs again, shaking his head.

“I thought that if I relinquished my responsibilities, I would no longer have to worry so about everything outside of myself,” Morpheus says. “And how it entangles with me. Only now. It is still there, but I can do nothing to stop it.”

“But listen, darling.” Hob squeezes his hand. “You’re allowed to be tangled up with everything, now. You’re supposed to be.” He twists their fingers together. “I want you tangled up.”

“I will— without access to my realm I will step wrong, and—”

“And you can fix it,” Hob says. “Promise. No rebuilding a whole universe required.”

Morpheus sniffles, and Hob wipes the tears from his cheeks. “You always kept yourself above it all, didn’t you?”

“It is my responsibility to keep the collective unconscious in balance,” Morpheus says. He hasn’t quite stopped talking about his responsibilities in the present tense — Hob thinks it will be a while before he fully internalizes the lack of that weight. “Not to sway it to my feelings. Historically, when I have involved myself, it has… not gone well.”

“It doesn’t always as a human, either,” Hob says, and Morpheus’s frown deepens. “I mean, we’re all just bumping up against each other, you know? But you’re allowed to have space there, even if it doesn’t always go right.”

“If you mean this to be very comforting, I will have to disappoint you,” says Morpheus, but there’s more humor in it now, and he’s stopped crying. He pushes his head into Hob’s shoulder, and Hob wraps his arms around him tighter, holds him close.

“I wish it could all be immediately easy for you,” Hob says. “I’d do anything to make it so.”

“I did not expect this to be easy,” Morpheus says, voice rumbling into Hob’s chest. “But the challenges have repeatedly come from unforeseen directions.”

Hob kisses the side of his head. “I’m glad you’ve stuck with me anyway.”

“You have been very patient with my… meandering attempts at basic humanity.”

“Always will. I love you.”

It’s another thing he’s struggled to get Morpheus to truly accept, that Hob’s care for him was never contingent on any of his abilities or powers. That Hob won’t be scared away no matter his mistakes, because Hob has faced a lot of terrifying things in his life and the worst is the prospect of losing Morpheus entirely.

This time, Morpheus doesn’t reject it. He just hums and lets Hob pet his hair, lets Hob keep him and quiet him towards ease, which Hob intends to do until Morpheus can find it himself, and then after, too.

And several weeks later, when Morpheus comes home from the park with a colored pencil drawing Jed made for him, smiling and holding it to his chest with real joy in his eyes, Hob shines with pride, and the part of his heart that might have broken just a bit listening to Morpheus cry that day heals over again.

[the-everqueen]

002 - Cocoluce

003 - Gault

002 send me a ship - CocoLuce when or if i started shipping it: last year, initially as a knee-jerk reaction to the way fandom kept characterizing Lucienne as either asexual or a frigid lesbian out of lazy misogynoir. (like, i think there COULD be a thoughtful take on Lucienne as ace--just like i think there's a reading where she's nonbinary or agender--but the fanon never provided any context for this headcanon, and it seemed to emerge as an excuse for why Lucienne and Dream couldn't be a major ship [or indeed, to have ever had any intimacy beyond "boss and employee"], or as a reason why Lucienne would only ever appear as a cheerleader for dreamling in fics.) it felt like another instance of (white) fandom's general attitude that Black female characters are somehow inherently undesirable (and not engaged as active, desiring subjects).

but that scene where the Corinthian reappears in the Dreaming and Lucienne is there waiting? Boyd and Viv play that as LOADED with interpersonal tension. like, his mouth is RIGHT THERE, practically brushing the shell of her ear, and she doesn't flinch or react beyond that long, simmering stare. the slow lowering of her eyelashes, the flick of her gaze up? and he turns his back to her! she watches him as he leaves! it's SUCH a vibe of fraught exes, and/or rivals for Dream's attention/affection. it's palpable chemistry.

and that's another thing i find isn't afforded to Black or Brown actresses: everyone talks about how much chemistry Tom Sturridge has with his costars, and no one talks about how his costars are ALSO responding to that in their acting choices (or...they do, when it's Ferdinand Kingsley or Holbrook, aka white dudes). (addendum: there's SOME mention of Melissanthi Mahut, because she's Dream's ex-wife, but uh. no mention of Deborah Oyelade? the lover Dream condemned to Hell? hm, i wonder why...) no one gives these women their due for the work they've put into the craft! instead it's either hypersexualization ("step on me, mommy") or dismissal.

anyways. once i get an idea it then becomes "okay so how does this work." what about the characters and their dynamic would make this happen/prevent this from happening? where are the points of friction?

my thoughts: so it's god's two favorites. it's the dark mirror of humanity and the archivist of all their dreams. the masterpiece and the librarian. OBVIOUSLY they've interacted. presumably Lucienne was already around when the first Corinthian was created. what does THAT look like? god's first and most precious raven, the only one who STAYED. god's finest work, most complex creation, the one who always hungered to leave. did the Corinthian comb through the library, when the dreams weren't enough to sate his taste for humanity? also what is the line between curiosity and hunger?

what makes me happy about them: two not-human (but human appearing) beings who've been around for centuries if not millennia, who absolutely know what makes the other tick and how to cut to the core. who have a certain level of affection for humanity. who are closer to Dream than most others, and afforded privileges due to that closeness. like, i'm not sure they ever loved each other, but they love Dream, and haven't you tried to get at the person you really wanted by getting close to someone they cared about? them finding use in each other - and isn't that a cruel sort of twist, being reduced to a function in one of the most intimate relations you could have?

what makes me sad about them: i mean. it's clearly tragic. it could never be inherently happy, so long as it hinges on the absence of Dream.

...gonna skip the two fanfic questions bc i just haven't seen enough fic with them. but! i do adore quiet in the library by ao3 user starkraving.

my kinks: the eternal cry with all bhol characters: put a leash on that man!

who i'd be comfortable with them ending up with, if not each other: i feel like my platform is "end racism in fandom spaces" and "polyamory." anyways CLEARLY they both actually love Dream.

my happily ever after for them: i do think there's a universe where lucienne/dream/corinthian as a poly V and occasional triad could be Good. maybe it's lucienne/danny/coco2. all that newness and grief. hey, isn't it a thing that people get horny at funerals? deleted Wake scene.

(from this ask list, in case anyone else wants to play)