#hob gadling sandman

[ihatecoconut]

Canpes

Also on AO3!

kind of based on @softest-punk hobsbandverse

The only information Hob gets from Destiny is that whoever is accompanying him to the event will be waiting in the passenger seat of his car. There’s a certain petulant tone to Destiny’s voice that suggests it is not going to be him.

Delirium is waiting when he climbs in the driver’s side, dressed appropriately in a pretty pink dress and with the colours in her hair faded to a more respectable level – i.e., they won’t burn out anyone’s retinas. She beams when she sees him.

“Hi Hob!”

He laughs, “Hey Del, you were destined to accompany me?”

She leans in, close, like she’s imparting a secret. “There was a fight.” She tells him. “’twas funny, everyone was stood in their galleries and yelling at the other sigils.”

That does sound funny, actually, Hob can imagine them all getting increasingly irate at each other over something as simple as who gets to come with him to an admittedly boring faculty party.

She giggles suddenly and leans in even closer, pressing their noses together. “Even Death and Destiny.”

“And you?”

She scrunches her nose up. “I would have if I had had an opp… opp…”

“Opportunity?”

“Yes! Opportunity. Destiny kept speaking when I wanted to.”

Hob laughs again. “Didn’t he already know it was going to be you?”

“He wanted to change it.” She settles back in her seat and lets him start the car. “He only said it was me when he lost.”

It warms something in him to know that they were all so determined to be with him, even to the point of trying to change the Book.

“Good to know.”

 They pull into the carpark and Hob is not surprised to see that there is already a reasonable number of cars present. The event did technically start almost half an hour ago.

“Alright.” He turns the engine off and turns to face Delirium. “You ready to schmooze?”

Her face screws up. “Schmooze.”

“Yeah. Don’t repeat that in front of anyone, yeah?”

She nods, incredibly serious, and Hob just has enough time to think that he might want to rephrase that to explain that while it was a joke, he also doesn’t want her referring to it as schmoozing in front of anyone, when her face breaks out in a brilliant and mischievous smile.

He grins back, holds up a fist. “Let’s do this?”

Del hits it with her own. “Do this.”

The Dean sweeps over as soon as the two of them enter, taking in Delirium – undeniably a child – with not a small amount of trepidation.

“Rob!” She says, somehow managing to incorporate both an exclamation mark and an ellipsis into her voice. “Who is this?”

He wraps an arm around Delirium’s shoulders. “Uh, this is Del, my partners’ sibling.”

“They’re busy.” Del offers, polite and reasonable. Hob wonders who gave her instructions on how to act.

The Dean’s face clears slightly, not completely, because Hob loves to keep people guessing on how many partners he actually has, and this does not at all clear anything up for her. ‘They’ could be one, or two, or in this case actually seven, but she doesn’t know that. “Oh, well it was so nice of you to join us instead.”

Del nods, seriously. “We could not let him face you alone.”

Hob manages to restrain the shocked laugh down to a snort. That is almost certainly something he said to Dream, about not wanting to face the faculty alone when everyone else would be with their partners. “She means because no one else will be.”

“Oh!” The Dean laughs as well. “I’ll introduce you to my husband at some point,” she waves a hand vaguely across the room, “unfortunately he has been drawn into a different conversation.”

“Ah, well, there’s no rush, right? We’ve got all evening.”

Del nods again, serious. “And if that falls through there is always the rest of your lives.”

The Dean cups a hand over her mouth, apparently already getting used to Del’s particular chain of thought. “Very true. It was nice to meet you.”

“You also.”

She wanders off again, probably to greet someone else, leaving the two of them hovering by the doorway and looking out across the room. Hob wonders if Delirium is going to whisper the weird hallucinations and beliefs of the people present, the same way Dream tells him their night time fantasies and Desire lets him know their waking ones.

Instead, she tugs on his arm excitedly. “Look, Hob, canapes!”

He lets her pull him over to the ‘buffet’ an admittedly poor selection of tiny foods, and watches her try one of each, accepting every time she pushes one, she particularly likes on him. It’s a new way to experience these sorts of events and he thinks that maybe that’s the point, maybe that’s why the Book decided she would be the one to accompany him.

Del bops him on the nose, pulling him out of his musings. “Thinking?”

“Yup. ‘bout you.”

She beams at him and holds up a tiny eclair. He opens his mouth and lets her stick it in, chewing obediently when she pulls her fingers back and stares expectantly.

“’s good.”

“Death says ones from France are better.”

“We’ll have to go to France sometime then.” Hob replies without really thinking about it.

The hopeful way she looks up at him in response almost breaks his heart. “Really?”

“Of course.”

He thinks she might be about to say something else, but his office neighbour appears beside them before she can.

“Rob! And who might this be?”

Del wipes her hand on her dress before offering it to Ally and Hob winces internally. Money he might have, but the dress she (or someone else) has conjured up looks incredibly expensive.

“I am Del.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Del, I’m Ally.” Ally shoots him an amused look out the corner of her eye.

“Yes,” Del says very seriously, “of medieval literature.”

The amused look becomes impressed, “Yup, you heard about me?”

Hob is very certain that he doesn’t talk about work when he hangs out with Del, which means that she must have gained this information from one of her siblings, and she’d confirmed earlier that they had literally argued over who got to accompany him, but this means that they talk about him when he’s not there. It settles something in his chest that worries sometimes they are all just humouring him.

“Lots.” Del agrees. “Hob is very fond of you.”

She softens visibly, “Well, I’m quite fond of him also.”

At the other end of the table, a waiter lays down a tray of new things and, rather than responding, Del lights up excitedly and scurries off to try one, leaving Hob to face Ally.

“Thought you were bringing one of the undefined number of partners. That’s a child.”

“I know.” Hob replies, because he does. And, sure, Del might technically be eons older than him, but she has the mind of a child – Destiny had described her as ‘not quite broken, almost shattered’ once. “She’s their sibling.”

“Which one’s?”

“Uh, all of them?”

Ally visibly processes this information. “I’m sorry.” She says in a voice that is anything but. “The undefined number of mysterious partners are… all siblings?”

“I think they have a shared calendar.”

She looks like she wants to say more in response to that, but Del reappears with two of the new canapes and holds one out to each of them. Whatever bone Ally has to pick with this weird arrangement of his apparently has nothing to do with Del because her face softens immediately, and she takes the offered food. Hob does as well.

“There are people over there who want to talk to you,” Del adds, helpfully, “I heard them talking.”

Hob follows her gaze to some more members of the faculty. “Alright, might wanna grab some more snacks, I don’t know how long this is gonna take.”

She nods and bounces off down the table, grabbing a paper plate because they might be in a fancy establishment, but G-d forbid anyone has to do any washing up.

Ally presses a hand to his arm, concern gently written in her eyes. “Rob, I’m not gonna tell you what to do with your life, but… are you sure about this?”

He looks down to where Delirium is weighing up how many of something to put on the plate and can almost imagine Dream peering over her shoulder, nose scrunched up in distaste, Death at his side laughing, the twins whispering about the people present, Destiny watching over them and Destruction watching Hob himself. He blinks and the images vanish.

“Yeah, yeah I’m sure about this.”

[strandhai]

🌌🌌🌌

𝑩𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒎𝒊𝒅𝒏𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒆, 𝒃𝒂𝒃𝒚

𝑰𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎, 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒅𝒂𝒓𝒌 𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒏𝒆𝒙𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒎𝒆

𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒘𝒆 𝒕𝒐𝒖𝒄𝒉, 𝑰 𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒂𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒕

𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒕𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆 𝒔𝒐 𝒔𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒔𝒖𝒄𝒉 𝒂 𝒃𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕

𝑺𝒖𝒄𝒉 𝒂 𝒃𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕

𝑨𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒐𝒏 𝒂𝒔𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒘𝒆'𝒓𝒆 𝒍𝒚𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒍𝒐𝒘

𝑾𝒆'𝒓𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒕 𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒂𝒛𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒅

𝑵𝒐 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒏𝒐 𝒉𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒐𝒘

𝑰𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒖𝒓𝒈𝒂𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒂𝒓𝒎𝒔 𝒏𝒐

🌌🌌🌌

(Creeper-Midnight)

I have been a very happy Hob at Animuc. So many amazing Dreams around me.

And just look at the pictures we made ❤️ Thank you so much.

Dream: @m-der-teufel

Hob: me

Pic by: @sennars_art (https://instagram.com/sennars_art?igshid=MTIyMzRjYmRlZg==)

[tea-darling1]

what would hob think of horrible histories??

[maarigolds]

Neil Gaiman's favorite trope

[seadeepspaceontheside]

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Get duned.

[pointyshoesmf]

Hob talks a lot about nothing in particular; Dream wants

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

[lokis-bitter-ghost]

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

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

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

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

[voukkake]

He's just a little inmortal dude living his best life

[bookholichany]

How Neil Gaiman killed me...

[euzede]

pov: you're Hob Gadling undergrad professor of Medieval History at uni and you thought you could sleep in late

(+ bonus obligatory kiss)

[thebitchesterbrothers]

The Endless siblings and Dream being the stylish bitch he is:

Meanwhile his consort:

[ihatecoconut]

wip excerpt 2

another part from something i posted a few days ago. still unfinished, but i quite like this section

-

“What is that human game?” Dream asks in the same breath as he materialises behind Hob. “Truth or dare?”

Hob blinks at the coffee he had spilled – thankfully on the desk and not the papers. “Are you… are you asking me truth or dare?”

The dark shape of humanity’s collective unconscious looms over him. “Yes.”

“Fine, uhhh, truth.”

The coffee cup is removed from his hand. “How many hours have you slept this week?”

“What?” he turns away from the latest essay, which was admittedly starting blur into a load of squiggles, rather than words.

Dream stares down at him, unmoving. The coffee cup has vanished.

“Uh,” he offers weakly, “dare?”

“Go to sleep.” There is a pile of sand in one of his palms, being held above Hob’s head.

“Is that a threat?”

“Yes.”

Hob’s laptop snaps itself shut with a noise surprisingly loud in the silence of the flat.

“Ok, ok.” He stands up, groaning slightly as he does, and skirts around Dream and the sand, hands held up in mock surrender.

Dream follows him silently, an undeniable presence at his back, pushing him to keep moving every time he stops, seeing things in the flat that require his attention. He is allowed to pause in Grace’s doorway, peer in and see her, curled up and asleep.

“She has kept a reasonable sleep schedule.” Dream informs him. “As I requested.”

Hob laughs quietly, a little hysterical from the exhaustion. “Ok, I get the message.”

“I am glad to hear it.”

It should be awkward, really, to have Dream hovering as he strips out of his jeans and jumper, replacing them with soft flannel trousers and an old t-shirt, but it isn’t. It feels almost natural to have him stand by the bed pointedly, the cover flipped back while Hob was turned away. It feels normal that Dream should sit down on the bed next to where he lies down, coat and boots vanished away to wherever his things are kept.

“Gonna sand me?” he asks through a yawn.

Dream smiles, a tiny thing, “No. I think you will sleep well enough alone.”

Hob reaches out to squeeze his hand. “G’night, Dream.”

“Goodnight, Hob.”

 /

He dreams of Eleanor. She’s on her deathbed and still smiling.

“I love you, my Robert.”

There are – were – tears in his eyes and the memory is slightly hazy through their shine. “I love you too. More than anything.”

She raises a hand to his face, he has to catch it and direct it there because she is weak, weaker than he has ever seen her. Even in childbirth, she had gripped his hand firmly, been more present than he thinks she has ever been.

“You are…” she pauses to cough, and Hob squeezes her hand to his face a little harder, “my love, you are different, from other men, no?”

He laughs, wet through the tears. “I think I always have been, no?”

Eleanor shifts, closer to him, and turns her beautiful face up to him. “Not like that. We have been married so many years and yet you look the same as the day we met.”

Hob tenses. He had known she must have suspected something, but it is the first time she has said anything aloud.

“My love.” She calls him back and he follows, helpless to do anything else.

“I d—”

“I know. You have always been special, touched by… something, help me sit up.”

He does, sitting fully on the bed so she can lean against his chest, so he can cradle her there for what could very well be the last time.

“Once, I wondered if you could be a demon,” she says, and laughs, one that turns into a cough, “but, no. No demon is clumsy like you, no demon would walk into a doorframe because I asked you to come to bed, and no demon would hold our Robyn like you do.”

He laugh-sobs, buries a face in her shoulder and feels a weak hand come up to sit in his hair. “Eleanor.”

“You are the most human man I have ever met and that, more than anything, is why I love you.”

“I love you too,” he whispers back, unable to say anything else.

She brushes a kiss against the shell of his ear. “I know. And I know that you will miss me, when I am gone.”

“Don’t,” he says, breaking into her sentence, “don’t talk like that.”

“Maybe not now,” she reassures him, “maybe not this illness, but one day, I will leave you behind, yes?”

He sighs. “I do try not to think about it.”

“I know.”

They sit in silence, together, and he focuses on the rattling rise and fall of her chest, the proof that she is still there, still with him.

“I want you to be happy.” She says eventually, breaking the silence. “I want you to love again.”

“No, Eleanor…”

She shifts, weak and unable to fight his hold, but he understands what she wants and moves them both so she can look in his face. “Robert, my Robert. I will not tell you not to mourn me because I know that will be pointless,” she smiles, “I could no more ask the sun not to rise than to ask you not to feel.”

He bites back another sob.

“But, when you have mourned, when you are ready, I want you to move on and love again. Will you promise me that?”

“There will never be another like you.”

She tilts forward, pressing her forehead against his cheek. “No, not like me, but different. Another love.”

Hob kisses her forehead, kisses her eyebrows, the top of her head, any part he can reach.

“How long will you live?”

“I don’t know, my love.”

“A long life then. Long enough to love many people.”

“You will always be my first love. My first true and real love.” He kisses the skin next to his lips again, drawn to her time and again like a moth to a flame.

“I know.” There is a smile in her voice. “And it makes the selfish part of me happy to know that no one else can have that from you, but I would not have you be alone, so promise me, you will let yourself love again.”

He swallows back against the wave of grief that threatens to overwhelm him. She is still there, in his arms. “I will try. I can promise you that much.”

“That is enough. Lie with me?”

He lies them both back down, draws the blankets up around them and looks into her tired face. Even now, she is beautiful, more lovely than any woman he has ever seen.

“Tell me about the man you met, in 1589.” She requests, sleepily.

Hob laughs, quiet, “I could not wish for a more attentive wife.”

She opens her eyes, to smile at him, “You spent hours preparing yourself for that meeting.”

“Well—”

“You did.”

He rolls his eyes, good naturedly and gives in. “I do not know his name, or what he is, but he is like me, long lived, and all he asks from me is that I meet him, once every a hundred years and share my lived experiences with him.”

“A fairy?”

“Perhaps. I have not yet been brave enough to ask.”

Eleanor laughs, “That surprises me.” Her words devolve into further coughing and Hob abandons his story is favour of supporting her through the attack. Soon, the doctors will return, and they will remove him from the room, scolding him for exposing himself to the disease, and replace him with one of the maids. Soon, he will be pulled away from her again.

“You will look after our Robyn?” she asks, almost desperate. “Watch him grow if I cannot, and make sure he marries for love, like we did and not money.”

“I promise.” Hob tells her, because this he can promise, this he will do regardless.

She smiles again, coughing quietly. In the background, a servant knocks thrice on the door, letting them know that the doctors have arrived.

“My love?”

“Yes?”

She raises both hands to his face. “If this man will make you happy…”

He gapes at her, shocked and then amused. “My wife…”

“I see through you so easily,” she whispers, and then a hand is on his arm and the maids are scurrying in with the requested water and herbs, and her attention is turned to the doctor and the midwife he has brought with him.

“I love you,” he whispers, backing slowly out of the room, “I’ll always love you.”

 /

He wakes with a start to a dawn-washed room and Dream still lounging beside him. It’s odd, in reality, that conversation had taken no more than an hour in total, and yet it must have been several while he had slept.

“She was a woman ahead of her time.” Dream says.

“She was.” He agrees, wistfully. “She died not long after that.”

Dream doesn’t say anything in response, but he does lay a hand over Hob’s.

It occurs to Hob almost suddenly that if Dream saw everything that had just happened, he had also seen Eleanor implying that Hob was sort of in love with him, which should maybe freak him out a little more, but Dream was still there, lying in his bed and holding his hand.

Maybe he doesn’t need to say anything.

[strandhai]

☆☆☆

𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒇𝒆𝒍𝒕 𝒂𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒎𝒆

𝑱𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒐𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝑰 𝒏𝒆𝒆𝒅

𝑬𝒏𝒕𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒅𝒂𝒚

𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒇𝒆𝒍𝒕 𝒂𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒎𝒆

𝑴𝒚 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆, 𝒊𝒕 𝒍𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒔𝒐 𝒅𝒆𝒆𝒑

𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒅𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒎 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒆

☆☆☆

I have so many feeling about that picture. Its so perfect for them both...

Dream of the Endless: @4humankind

Hob Gadling: me

Pic by : Lord Otterton (Instagram)

[lichanicksstuff]

Professor Gadling always knows which student wrote their paper and which one used chat GPT. Nobody knows how he does it. No paraphrasing program can dupe him. He can always tell. Every one of his colleagues is amazed by this skill, they always ask for his help judging if the essay was written by an AI or a person. And he does that with a wide smile on his face.

It's really easy. All it takes is to give his old friend a good cup of tea and a red pen to mark the ones that were not written by a human hand. "The imitations don't have souls," his friend says. And this is what he tells his students. They never understand and Hob finds it very funny.

[seadeepspaceontheside]

Dream is tired.

[alexxuun]

Redrawing their last meeting in the comic in my style. The way that Hob is the only other person (other than Death) who figure out something is wrong with dream is HNGHNG- and “I worry.”??? “You take care of yourself”??? Ok, Hob.

The original page: