#hob: if you spoil me on this book that i JUST got on preorder i'm gonna riot

[wordsinhaled]

something something established relationship shenanigans ~*~ there was more i wanted to add to this, but i had to wallop a pretty impressive bout of imposter syndrome into submission to post this, so i'm just gonna let it float off down the river the way it is <3

-

Hob wakes up with his mind already on Dream.

He pictures Dream getting his morning coffee—holding the steaming cup, lid off, the “M” in “Morfius” scribbled on the side peeking out from beneath his grip. They do tend to misspell it, Hob's noticed, in some occasionally tragic ways.

Dream would scoff and say, “This is precisely why I tell them my name is Murphy..." Hob would get his pen out of his shirt pocket and correct Dream's name for him. The ink would feather on the styrofoam, of course, and he'd probably need to tune the nib later, but it'd be worth it for the lift in Dream's forlorn expression, for the tiny satisfied smile it earned.

Hob’s thoughts drift to Dream during his lectures, too.

He remembers how they’d sat up in Hob’s bed together one evening earlier in the week while Hob skimmed through the assigned reading and marked pages in the book with sticky note flags to correspond to his discussion questions. How Dream had said to him, eventually, “You should not do your work in bed, Hob. Beds are to be used for sleep.”

How Dream’s hand had wandered up Hob’s thigh under the covers and curled around his hip, and he'd rubbed small circles there with his thumb, until Hob had looked over at him, and put down his book at last, and said, amused, “Your mind seems a bit far from sleep, love."

He'd found Dream’s eyes sparkling at him, mischievous and starry-dark, before Dream leaned over and took his reading glasses from his face, and said, “Beds can be for other things as well, of course.”

(In the end, Hob was in fact no longer doing that sort of work in bed, so he guesses Dream won that one.)

There’s a knock on Hob’s office door around noon.

Hob is expecting a student, or a colleague, but instead it’s Dream—his Dream, but not quite the same as ever: longer- and wilder-haired, leather-jacketed, taller than usual, an assortment of earrings and studs glinting in his ears.

Hob lights up.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Your thoughts have circled me rather insistently today,” Dream says, “and there was not much to do in the Dreaming. I thought I might visit.”

Hob knows there is always something for Dream to do in the Dreaming—knows Dream is, effectively, taking an actual break if he is here now. It makes his heart feel full to know his lover is choosing to share this scant, stolen time with him—and even more so to know Dream has, for once, done something for himself, however small.

He walks around his desk, kisses Dream hello. Dream tastes, impossibly, like the cinnamon latte Hob had imagined he'd have ordered that morning. He has to kiss him again to make sure; and once more after that, slow and indulgent; until he remembers he has actual work to do, and then he pulls back and touches his fingertips to Dream's choker. “This is new, darling. What’s this look, then?”

“I am... experimenting,” Dream says, the tiniest bit smug. Hob gives him the kind of thorough once-over that he hopes communicates his appreciation raucously enough.

“I’ve been attacking my emails,” he says, going regretfully back to his chair, “they’re never-ending, I swear. And I’ve got a Zoom with Liam about his writing project at two. But I hope you’ll stay anyway? Sit anywhere you like.”

“Of course,” Dream says. “I would not dream of keeping you from your tasks, Hob.” 

Hob just raises his eyebrows at him, pointed, until Dream laughs—a sound that used to be so rare, one Hob is still getting used to being able to evoke. It's an odd little noise, different every time; today it’s pitched low, somewhere between a cat’s purr and a human chuckle, and the vibration of it strokes a gentle but insistent warmth down Hob’s spine.

He expects he’ll accomplish remarkably little, if things go on this way.

Sit anywhere you like proves to be a difficult invitation. Hob’s office is largely taken up by his desk and his bookshelves on the best of days; his bicycle and umbrella vie for one corner. Most of the remaining space is currently occupied by a massive box, which contains Hob’s most recent order of secondhand books. Seating for visitors is almost an afterthought at the minute.

Yet Dream accepts Hob's challenge with aplomb, settles on the unopened box as though it is as good as any throne to him, and Hob returns to clearing out his messages.

He can feel Dream watching him, but whenever he glances up over the top of his computer, Dream has his nose buried in some tome or other plucked from Hob’s shelf. The afternoon passes like this—all through Hob’s Zoom call, during which Hob listens more distractedly than he'd like to Liam's latest additions to his thesis draft, and sweats lightly under the heat of Dream's gaze.

The moment his meeting is done, Hob snaps his laptop shut, the resounding click making Dream look up from the copy of Women's Libraries in Late Medieval Bourbonnais, Burgundy, and France he'd been perusing.

"Want to get out of here?" Hob asks.