#this is about dream in the fishbowl

[wolfeyedwitch]

Current fanfic pet peeve: people who don't understand how breathing works.

[lacecap]

i saw you once in a dream

[thesilverstreets]

Slightly annoyed by a stupid detail in Dreamling fic:

Sometimes people write fishbowl!dream as being unable to speak because the air ran out... But that's impossible! While, yes, the oxygen could technically run out, the air would stay, unless they pulled the glass orb vaccuum (which would bring whole other problems). And as far as I'm aware, one does not need oxygen specifically to speak. People can speak when inhaling Helium, they just sound different because the density of the gas is different. So yes, Dream could very much speak. He chose not to. And could potentially not be heard through the thick glass. BUT HE COULD SPEAK!

[prolibytherium]

I only attract people who are extremely needy and high maintenance in ways I am not capable of dealing with or supporting OR people who I actively vibe with and could theoretically maintain a decent relationship but are ex/current christians in a perpetual state of crisis over their homo ways

[roadtripwitch]

I usually see people identify the reason Dream ditched Hob in 1889 as Hob calling him friend, but I don't think it's that, because Hob calls him "my friend" before that, at least in 1589, when Dream enters the tavern, and Dream says nothing about it. I think Dream bailed because Hob called him lonely.

I'm new around here, this may be common knowledge or disproved, and the show too mentions friendship more often, so I'm unsure.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

i'm up to two and a half dreamscapes (of the five i need for nano), and it occurs to me that my own dream notes are not, in fact, the Best Fit for this project, which i discovered by reading through them and cackling last night.

so. back to the whiteboard, huh

[bloodurged]

I like the idea of morpheus, as the prince of stories and au of tistic, thinking of his voice as text with different characteristics. so the voice, the voice and THE VOICE are to him what they are to us.

[joinmeinjoy]

Tag 9 people you want to get to know better

Tagged by @minisgatewaytoinsanity !!

Three ships: Currently obsessed with Dreamling (Hob x Morpheus // The Sandman), but Merthur (Merlin x Arthur // BBC's Merlin) and Geraskier (Geralt x Jaskier //The Witcher Series) will forever hold special places in my heart

First ever ship: It might be Destiel?? it's either that or Merthur, I honestly don't remember

Last song: Black Lipstick by Powerman 5000...recently it's been giving me 80's Dreamling vibes, but like. If they went to an 80's themed night club and acted-out how the 1989 meeting would have gone, should they have met up...god I have a whole idea around this now

Last movie: Kingsman The Golden Circle. I fucking love the kingsman movies, specifically the first two...idk about the prequel, but the first two are definitely up there with my favourite movies of all time. It takes a special kind of self restraint not to watch those two movies back to back to back for 10 hours straight

Currently reading: Giving Sanctuary by @avelera (Forever eating bricks over this fic - in the best way), but Shelter by @softest-punk, Fey Divorce Court Isn't a Thing by @moorishflower, and literally countless other fantastic fics are in my marked for later, ready to be read when my brain wants to cooperate. There are so many damn good fics out there, the talent is insane

Currently watching: Nothing much tbh...another Sandman rewatch is in order I think, as well as Good Omens, but besides that it's mostly been movies with the occasional episode of something in between to spice things up. Labyrinth, X-men first class & days of future past, Derry Girls, Sense8, etc

Currently consuming: Gozleme. So much chicken gozleme it's not even funny

Currently craving: A good night's sleep and a little bit of hope, but I'll settle for some warm food...or a strawberry thickshake

Taggggsss:

@avelera @cuubism @wizardofgoodfortune @wordsinhaled @dsudis @softest-punk

No pressure, just some fun !! :)

[thebibliosphere]

There are a lot of things I'm sad about in my life. You don't get to go through the kind of medical trauma I've been through and come out unscathed on the other side.

But one thing I'm really bitter about is that I can't remember my wedding anymore. The pernicious anemia took it from me and wiped my brain clean. Except it's not clean, not really. I remember it in patches. Like red wine stains on a white rug that have never quite lifted out no matter how hard you try.

I look at the pictures on my bookcase, and they feel like remembering a story someone else has told me. There's a young woman in a white dress wearing my face, and she looks happy. I'm happy for her. But you can see the strain around her eyes, too. The pain she's hiding because no one with authority believes her when she says her body doesn't feel right. That something is Wrong.

They won't believe her for another decade. They won't believe her until it's almost too late, and it's that lateness that will rob her of her memories and turn them into a wavering rainbow suspended in the fine haze of watery sunlight that occasionally surfaces through the blanks.

There's one memory that's real, though. Solid. It's not my vows. It's not my father walking me down the aisle. (Though those are there, just hazy and dream-like). It's our first dance.

It's the lights dimming around the room as the staff cleared the floor, causing the fishbowls full of white roses and LED lights on the tables to wobble like pools of moonlight against dark paneled walls.

It's the band inviting us out onto the floor and us giggling because we know what's coming next, and no one else does. It's the twang of a banjo reverberating around the room through the speakers, followed by the dulcet tones of Kermit the Frog wondering why there are so many songs about rainbows.

It's us waltzing around the enclosed circle of light, singing to each other out of tune and grinning like idiots as everyone around us starts to laugh.

It's everyone joining in on the song because it's the Muppets, and everyone knows the words. It's 100+ people singing the Rainbow Connection, some laughing, some a bit tearful, because it's bringing back memories. Because it's making a new one.

It's looking up at my new husband through the brain fog and all the pain in my body and thinking, "I want to remember this moment forever."

I don't know what entity was out there listening to me at that moment and chose to grant that wish. I don't know why this is the one memory that stuck while everything else in my brain got decimated into scattered, fragmented snapshots. But I'm so, so thankful it is.

[lazuryte]

when your syntax swerves wildly out of control because the little blorbos in your brain cannot decide who gets the words steering wheel

[achillesuwu]

Hear me out : post-return Arthur (with or without Gwen and the knights but let’s go with them),

Someone tell Arthur that he has to find Emrys, the most powerful warlock to ever walk the earth and ‘kill’ him to bring magic back into the land

Arthur thinks merlin died one or two hundred of years ago (*insert scene where Arthur began to cry in the middle of a library where there is a statue of Merlin with 1871 written on it*) because he isn’t the current Greatest Sorcerer TM and idk Gwen doesn’t know Emrys=Merlin but she does know that Merlin was truly the greatest of their time. So for them there is like 0 doubt that he is dead dead

*place some plot point here and there and Merlin being fucking badass with his dragons (a gigantic blue one without a part of his face and scar on his wings because of the purge, and a smaller (still gigantic for humans)read one when he show up*

Anyways, Merlin would of course never allow to put Arthur in the position of  ‘killing’ him and even let him watch him died so one early morning he leaves to scatter his magic into the land (aka technically ‘dying’ since he is magic and so is his body)

*dramatic scene of Arthur running in the wood only to see merlin fades into hundred of golden light*

*and here you can put Arthur being as dramatic as you want since he has literally no kingdom, so responsibility, no quest 💅*

Dark Arthur who is going to create a new purge in the hope of bringing back merlin ? Dark Arthur who try to use the whole a life for a life thing ?

Desperate Arthur who try to find a way to bring back Merlin but since Merlin is technically not dead (since well, he is magic and he always had been and always will be. ‘Merlin’ was ‘just’ an human form of Magic) he can’t do it in the usual way ? An answer could simply be to throw Merlin’s memory into the land and hope it will stick and if it does you can put a dramatic reunion

(Merlin’s immortal children/descendants/friends who prepared (with Merlin) the whole « let’s kept his memories secure somewhere »Plan and now have to watch Arthur French kissing Merlin and acting like he did all the work here : 🧍🧍🧍🧍🧍🧍🧍)

Etc

PS : *the whole ‘killing’/unaliving/dying was more of a

Gods : hey dude, I understand human life is cool but could you resolve some bug here and there ? YOU ARE MAGIC HIMSELF AND YOU ARE LITERALLY THE FORCE BEHIND THE UNIVERSE SO PLEASE STOP MOPING FOR A MINUTE AND DO YOUR THING

Triple Goddess: *hem*

Godness number 436 267 728 877 634 : HEY LOOK EVERYONE, THE LADIES THAT CONVINCED MAGIC TO BE HUMAN AND PUT US IN THIS SITUATION WANT TO SPEAK ��

Triple Goddess:  Maybe we should bring his bf back so he would do something about it ?

Death : I can do that

Merlin : *stop moping*

Everyone : Myselfdam finally !!! He is going to work !!!!!

Destiny : hum, well actually—

Merlin : *start pining*

Everyone : NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

And there you have it, the perfect au 💅 (please, somebody write it 🥹)

What is currently killing me about merthur is the whole Merlin fell first but Arthur fell harder. Because if this is true (which I fully believe it is) and Merlin was so so broken over Arthur's death. And waited dutifully and solemnly for 1500+ years. Then just imagine, imagine (!) what Arthur would have done if Merlin died. Broken wouldn't begin to describe it. He would have raged and torn the world apart to bring him back. If Merlin turned dark in s5 trying to prevent the end, then imagine how dark Arthur would become if he lost Merlin. Nothing, I mean nothing would have stopped him from bringing Merlin back.

[pathologicalreid]

fluff masterlist

main masterlist

note: italicized titles denote requests

spencer reid x fem!reader

clue: in which penelope hosts a new year's eve party. with a murder mystery theme.

doctor and doctor: in which you add a degree to your repertoire

newly creds: in which the BAU team wants to see your newly issued credentials

nicknames: in which you meet the team for the first time, and receive your first nickname

attention: in which you attempt to get your boyfriends attention

fluorescent: in which spencer rambles about rocks and you get distracted

drop: in which reid seems to be there every time you drop something

occupational hazard: in which you and spencer have a discussion about the dangers of his job.

in sickness and in health: minutes before your wedding is supposed to start, spencer gets cold feet, and you have to find out why.

cryptic: you and spencer get a surprise beyond your wildest dreams

breakfast in bed: your boyfriend surprises you with breakfast in bed to celebrate spring break

in plain sight: your quick thinking (in an attempt to protect him) leads to a very thankful spencer

puzzling: trying to tell spencer you're pregnant, but he's too concerned with your well-being to fill out your custom crossword puzzle

red flags: spencer protects you from a drunkard

(lack of) convenience: the power of suggestion leads you to take a pregnancy test while you're on a case - and it's positive

three's a family: you and spencer are surprised to find out that you're pregnant, while you're already in labor (yes, this is a second cryptic pregnancy fic)

pure and applied chemistry: your boyfriend picks you up as a surprise at your chemistry lab (biochemist!reader)

separation anxiety: spencer's first case back from paternity leave involves children, so a concerned party reaches out to you

orange juice: you and spencer have an announcement to make, but you're not sure how to go about it

a special occasion: moving your daughter into a toddler bed brings about some interesting conversation

kindergarten crush: when one of your students goes missing, the BAU sends the A-team to question you

goads and goats: telling your dad (who's also your boss) you're pregnant ends in him giving spencer a hard time

a league of your own: when your boyfriend seemingly evolves, you resign yourself to the feeling of being left behind

fishbowl: you offer to bring spencer lunch when he forgets his at home, leading you to become an object of curiosity at the BAU.

dewey decimal system: in which spencer does the most spencer activity first thing in the morning - reorganizing your bookshelves

amorphous: your first ultrasound goes exactly how you'd expected it to, but not exactly how you'd wanted it to

sweet talker: in which french!reader gets caught using a special nickname for a particular genius

litmus test: in which Spencer needs your expertise to help solve a murder, but crime fighting is most decidedly not for you

blue ribbon: in which you and Spencer dedicate yourselves to helping your daughter with the best baking soda volcano the science fair has ever seen

first snow: in which you and Spencer experience the first snow in your new apartment together

spencer reid x gn!reader:

heatmiser: spencer takes care of you when he comes home to find you sick

running on empty: spencer makes a bet to go without coffee and ends up foregoing all caffeine

spencer reid x platonic!fem!BAU!reader

neophyte (2): in which dr. reid gives advice to help you cope with the requirements of your new job

[writing-for-life]

I feel we’re not talking enough about this panel…

Because yes, we always rant on about how much the fishbowl changed Dream, or that it was the onset of his change. And that’s also true. But…

The ruby was wrenched from his very being when he was young (he was still all white at that point, from what he wore to his hair. Just like Daniel). He took it from his chest. It was part of his essence (I’m sure we could find different words, like what we commonly call soul or heart in the literary/poetic sense, but of course it’s also about what he is, and about his function. Dreams and hopes. It was “powered by his spirit”). Most of the relevant info is linked here:

And then he gradually turns black, from hair to clothing (there’s still white in both in The Heart of a Star—by the end of it, it’s gone). And we wonder why he was often (not always) so cold and detached.

Then that essence gets released again, becomes a part of him again.

But it’s not just about power. It’s about gaining back his proverbial essence, his heart and soul and spirit, all that he is. Even if it hurts because there’s nothing now that keeps the pain and the constant teetering on the edge at bay that comes with feeling so deeply, and feeling everyone else so deeply (severing yourself from your essence, from your feelings, from all the dreams and hopes you have, also for yourself—isn’t that, at least to a degree, what humans do when they dissociate?).

But it also plays a part in him realising his wrongs and starting to set them right.

For billions of years, since he wrenched the ruby from his very being, he was basically incomplete because he denied himself what made him complete. He turned it into a tool, for whatever reason he believed made sense at the time. And then it all comes flooding back, and it’s just so much. Tools are indeed the subtlest of traps…

Yeah, thinking about that makes me a bit unwell…

[cuubism]

Covetous

E | Dreamling | 6.6k

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

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

--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It is agreed, then,” Dream says.

Hob frowns. “Sorry. What is?”

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

“I don’t understand—”

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

Hob chokes.

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

Hob feels himself pale. Is he actually suggesting…?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Challenge. Not resentment. Not revulsion.

So Hob kisses him.

He’s not a saint.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, Hob thinks, always.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Very well, then,” Dream finally concedes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He sets himself to that task.

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

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

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

All that and Dream thought he wanted a reward.

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

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

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

Decades.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tentative fingers find his hair.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“All you wanted was me,” says Dream.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Will you?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[leth-writes]

Fishbowl

yandere Chrollo x reader

Summary: There's something wrong with your boyfriend. If only you'd figured it out before it was too late.

Warnings: brief discussions of death and serious injuries, nothing is done to the reader!

There’s something wrong with your boyfriend. You’d never really noticed, beyond the slight, subtle signs, but now, sitting in a dingy warehouse with a raving man waving a gun in your face, you don’t really have much else to do except think. And what you think, is that there’s something wrong with Chrollo.

Chrollo’s kind of a weird guy, as much as you love him. He’s pale and quiet, though he often wears that small smirk, especially when he’s correcting some asshole about the pronunciation of some long-dead composer. His skin is so white it’s almost translucent, and he seems to glow in the moonlight, skin taking on an otherworldly quality you hadn’t ever seen outside of the movies. You’d asked multiple times, only half-joking, if he was part-fae. He always said no, though he did laugh and squish your cheeks, calling you adorable.

His eyes were remarkably shallow, though you often attributed that to some unknown trauma he refused to really address. They were a deep, rich black, and when you stared into them it felt like they’d swallow you whole, but there was a noticeable barrier that blocked you from understanding how he was really feeling, what he was really thinking. 

His face, free of wrinkles or blemishes, often stayed in a flat, resting expression. He didn’t often show extreme emotion, seemed to avoid it, and stared at you like you were a particularly interesting insect whenever you expressed a strong feeling. It sometimes felt like he didn’t… get your emotions, like he only played along to make you happy, rather than understanding how you felt. It sometimes led to problems, like the time you’d been crying because you got fired (you got accused of sending harsh messages to your coworkers, though your phone showed no such logs), and he’d just chuckled and patted your head like you were a dog.

His hair often framed his face perfectly, slick and choppy like he’d just come from the barber, perfectly accentuated by the grey cloth headband he never took off. You’d asked why he wore it so low, once, only for him to say he had a particularly bad scar. He never offered to show you, and you never asked again. You knew not to press when he’d ended the conversation. It wasn’t like he’d tell you anyways.

He always wore dark pants, usually slacks, contrasting with his wardrobe of soft cashmere sweaters and white dress shirts. He dressed like an office worker, so you assumed he was some higher up at a big company in YorkNew, but Chrollo never answered when you asked. He only replied “It’s not important,” and laughed at the confused expression you’d make.

He loved watching you, like he’d never seen another person before. Sometimes he’d just spend hours watching you read or work, face never falling from a gentle smile as he leant on one hand and crossed his wrinkle-free slack-clad legs, staring at you like you were a new species. He loved watching the muscles move under your skin, tracing them as you lay next to him in bed. Sometimes you’d even wake up to him staring at you in the dark, sitting in a chair he’d surreptitiously brought into the bedroom. He’d always said he was making sure you had good dreams.

You had never met his friends, you didn’t know their names, but he loved telling you about their shenanigans. He’d tell you about his boisterous friend getting drunk and starting fights, his friend with the short bob who was an incredible shot, even his friend obsessed with samurai memorabilia. Yet, he refused to let you actually meet them, or even call them. He knew everything about your friends, even more than you had ever told him. You weren’t sure how, because they couldn’t recall telling him anything. That was before they’d all left you, refusing to hang out if you were still dating Chrollo. They all said he was creepy, that he hated them, that he was dangerous. You’d just thought they disliked him for his upbringing, growing up poor. It was about the only thing he’d ever told you.

Now, you were wishing he’d told you more. You imagined going back to that younger, naive self and agreeing with your friends, breaking up with Chrollo and never looking back. Alas, it was too late. You were stuck, and there was nowhere for you to go. You were stuck in some gross, dark room, with the man who had thrown a bag over your head and shoved you into his trunk. Your ankles and wrists were raw from trying to escape the bonds, but they were tied remarkably tight to the thin metal chair you were placed upon. All you could hope is that your death would be quick, that they’d find your body before it decomposed too much to identify you. You could imagine the terrible reconstruction they’d put on the news, Chrollo being interviewed about how tragic it was you were missing while a new girlfriend hung on his arm.

The man who’d kidnapped you said he was trying to get revenge on Chrollo for taking someone from him, but you couldn’t help but think that he was overestimating how much Chrollo cared for you. Then, the lights went out. The man shouted, though it suddenly cut off, and a sickening crunch resonated and echoed around the warehouse. The lights flicked back on and there stood Chrollo over top of the man’s body, neck twisted and bones poking grotesquely through paling skin, white so bright it looked like fresh snow. Chrollo smiled, stepping toward you despite your flinch, and untied you. He smiled, eyes crazed in a way you’d never seen before, and kissed your head gently. “Let’s go home, sweetheart,” he said, smile growing softer and more gentle. His eyes returned to their normal, dead, state.

As you stared into the wide, unseeing eyes of the man who lay dead on the floor, you wondered who was worse off.

[avelera]

Ideas for different takes on Hob Gadling

I was just musing on Dreamling fic and came up with a list of some Hob-centric things I think would be super interesting to see more of in Dreamling fic. (These are NOT criticisms, these are things I've been ruminating about trying to include in my own works as well!)

Hob who still isn't good at predicting what Dream wants or Dream's moods. Canonically, Hob has gotten impressing Dream wrong almost every time (case in point, his 1589 wealth, 1789 "shipping" and 1889 "offering friendship"). Dream can be more tolerant now post-fishbowl and this concept could even be used for comedy but... yeah. Less "intuitive" "instantly knowledgable" Hob. Hob who still kinda sucks at guessing what Dream wants and gets it wrong at least half the time.

"Old Man Hob" - the guy is technically old enough to be a grandfather (if on average one becomes a grandfather at ~60 throughout time) 11 times over. Even if he doesn't *show* or *feel* his age or get nostalgic for the old days, I think he could be grouchier (see his comic canon self) or more conservative, or just have blindspots that being an old, if progressive (see: professor) white guy would have. Basically, if the IWTV fandom can write snarky Old Man Daniel, I'd be interested to see more of Hob acting maybe not "his" age but more than 30-ish.

Sailor/Maritime Hob - in comic canon at least, sailing and working on ships is the most common job we see Hob have. From the Tudor shipyards up through Hob's Leviathan, he spends a lot of time on boats. (Probably because Hob is at least a little bit the anthropomorphic personification of the English "Everyman" and they are rather famous for their navy, but I digress.) It's just a job I don't think I've seen any fic give him even though it's one of those ones most attested to in comic canon besides printing books.

Materialist Hob - I think there's a lot of evidence that in TV show canon, Hob stopped being as materialistic after Dream didn't show in 1989. Teaching is not a career you go into to get rich. There's also a lot of evidence for Hob that's made more money than he can spend through being immortal so he doesn't have to think about it at all anymore. But I would be curious to see more of Hob who thinks about money as much now as his earlier iterations did (1589, obviously, but 1689 mentions his loss of his gold almost as mournfully as the loss of his family, 1789 is another obvious one, and 1989 has major pro-Thatcher stock trader vibes). I dunno, even a Hob who is trying not to be as obsessive about money and materialism but still can't stop himself from tallying things up, comparing himself with others, checking out ways to get rich quick even if he does't use them, just... a guy who has been a merchant for longer than he was ever a soldier, to the tune of centuries, who is still always making these calculations even if he doesn't act on them (or is trying to impress Dream with more "erudite" pursuits these days). Hell, he could be economics professor for all we know, perish the thought.