Work Text:
They’re about a month into this new, shivering, precious thing they’ve cultivated before it happens. Hob’s seen warning signs, of course he has. You don’t get to know Morpheus of the Endless without getting those harbingers about his moods and the level to which he can stew when left to his own devices. Hob likes to think it took so long this time around because he’s been keeping Dream to other devices, instead.
Mostly orgasms. He’s found Dream responds particularly well to orgasms. Hob has dragged him out of the beginning swirls of a desperate whirlpool with careful application of pleasure and praise. He was right when he thought that Dream’s smiles and laughter would be addictive, and the power he feels when he can redirect his truly ancient boyfriend is something to be treasured.
So when it happens, Hob is both prepared and wholly unprepared for it.
Maybe it’s because Dream had been gone for two days. In the four weeks since they made love for the first time (and Hob still blushes to call it that, but Dream has no such compunction), he’s seen Dream in either the Dreaming or the waking world every single day. Hob hasn’t been addicted to a substance in many a year, but he recognizes the serotonin rush for what it is all the same. But it still doesn’t ring any alarms or hoist any red flags when that changes by a scant day.
Hob worries, but that’s just because Hob is going to worry about Dream until they both cease to exist; now that he holds some piece of Morpheus’s heart, he is dead-set on being an attentive steward of such a gift. It’s a passing worry, more than anything. But when Dream shows up at the pub – body language as closed off as Hob’s ever seen it – that worry spikes into a frenzy.
“Shae,” he calls immediately, eyes never leaving Dream’s. “I’m leaving for the night.”
“As if I couldn’t guess,” his long-suffering bartender shoots back. “Get out of here then, old man.”
It succeeds in twitching Hob’s lips into a half-smile, even in such a dire circumstance. He’ll never stop being amused at how right Shae is when they call him ancient, and how very little they know of its veracity. But the slight smile vanishes when he sees the way Dream’s hands are clenched into fists at his sides, his body thrumming with tension and what Hob recognizes as sadness.
He reaches a hand out, ready to draw Dream to him and fold him into an embrace, but Dream takes a step back and shakes his head resolutely. “Not here,” he says, voice rough and husky as if he’s spent time screaming or crying.
“Duck–” Hob wants to protest but Dream is stubborn at the best of times and Hob knows that he won’t win this fight. “Alright then, just let me get my coat and we’ll go.” Dream doesn’t wait for Hob to get his things together, just turns on his heel and strides from the pub. Hob sighs, but he knows that Dream can just appear in his house if he so desires, so he doesn’t worry.
The walk back to his house goes by in the space of moment, the sensation akin to when Hob has driven or walked somewhere inebriated and upon his arrival has no recollection of the journey. The door when he tests it is unlocked, and he slips inside with a great deal of hurry. “Dream?” He calls as he shucks his coat and hangs it on a hook in the entryway. “Where are you?”
He looks up and there Dream stands, so close that they could measure the distance between them in millimeters. Hob doesn’t gasp, but it’s a near thing. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the way Dream can just teleport himself from place to place when he so chooses. “Need to put a bell on you,” Hob grumbles, not for the first time.
“Hob–” Dream’s cheeks have turned a dusty pink but he doesn’t seem embarrassed. “I need–”
“What do you need?” Hob gives in to his earlier urge and busses Dream’s cheek with his lips before pulling him into a tight hug. “Hm?” he breathes Dream in, feeling something deep in his bones settle even while the air around them is tight with Dream’s despondency. “What’s happened, love?”
“After,” Dream whispers. “I need you to touch me now, need you to bring me back.”
“From where?” Hob pulls back to stare into those eyes that have become his home. “Where have you gone, duck?” Dream’s eyes fill with tears, and Hob knows all at once the place that Dream needs to be wrenched from. He cups Dream’s head in his hands, rubbing thumbs along those cheekbones that look sharp enough to slice. “You’re safe, love, I’m here.”
“Hob–” Dream’s eyes close and his whole body shudders.
“There is no cage, duck. He’s dead and gone.”
“Such cruelty in the hearts of men,” Dream’s voice is still cotton-soft, and Hob kisses it from his lips. Dream pulls back after a long moment or two to say “please, Hob.”
It’s later, when Hob has Dream spread out underneath him like a feast, their bodies rocking together slow and sure and Dream’s beautiful pale body flushed with rapture, that Dream says “I didn’t feel anything down there.” He gasps as Hob grinds his cock into Dream’s prostate. “Just despair, and pain, and hunger.” Hob kisses the joins of Dream’s body: the crest of his shoulder; the dip of his clavicle; the underside of his jaw. “You make me feel so full, Hob.”
“Never want you to go hungry again, duck,” Hob shudders at both the thought of Dream alone under the world and the reality of Dream’s body holding him tight. “Want to keep you for as long as I can.”
Dream sobs at the words, his cock spilling and his body spasming in bliss. Hob fucks him through it before giving in to his own orgasm and following Dream over. He heaves mighty breaths for a few moments before moving to pull out, but Dream holds him fast with a soft “please don’t go” and Hob lets himself be dragged into Dream’s embrace.
They stay joined long enough that eventually it morphs into a second round, which Dream puts Hob on his back for. Dream pins him in place with strong hands on his chest while he uses Hob’s cock to fuck himself. He’s lost in it, and Hob can’t close his eyes for even an instant against such beauty. Dream’s mouth open and wet, his hair sticking to his forehead in a sheen of sweat, his face lax with pleasure. Hob wishes he’d learned to paint at some point in his long life, so he could capture this moment and look upon it every day.
Later, after Dream has finally relinquished his hold on Hob enough that Hob can get up to wipe them both down, Dream fits himself into Hob’s space and hides his face in Hob’s neck. “I was married once,” he says, and it’s quiet and reverent, a confession.
Hob is careful to not let this revelation stop his hand’s slow journey through Dream’s damp hair. “Oh?” His mind is a whir, but he breathes calm and steady.
“Her name is Calliope, and we had a son together.”
Hob’s hand stills.
“Orpheus,” he whispers back, hating the way it makes Dream’s whole body tense like a plucked string. “So the myths are true.”
“Mostly,” Dream’s voice is wry, but he’s frozen in Hob’s embrace. “I saw his mother for the first time in a millenia, went to her when she called for assistance.” Hob stays quiet, knowing that Dream will get to the heart of his tale in due time. “She was surprised.”
Dream is silent long enough for Hob to tenuously ask “About what?”
Dream huffs a bare laugh that has no mirth in it whatsoever. “That I would come to her aid.” His grip on Hob’s ribs tightens. “I was cruel to her, unfeeling. She blamed me for our son’s death.”
“Was there something you could have done?” Hob speaks from his own pain, his guilt at what happened to his son. He doesn’t think before he says it, and Dream jerks out of his embrace.
“How dare you?” Dream spits, that fire back in his eyes, but it’s rage that’s brought it and Hob can’t stand the sight. He tries to placate, to show Dream that he understands this particular trauma.
“I still feel guilty for Robert, Dream, I should have saved him, should have been there. Don’t you feel the same?” He reaches for Dream, but for the first time since they began this journey of intimacy and trust, Dream flinches away from Hob’s touch. It’s a punch to Hob’s solar plexus, and all the air whooshes from his chest.
“It is not your place to say such things,” Dream snarls. “Not your place to question my past, to imply–”
“Not my place?” Hob feels rage start to curdle in his veins. “Is that why you never told me of him? Of her?” He bares his teeth. “Left me to read the myths for the smallest morsels of your life.”
“I have told you more–”
“And I suppose I should be silent and grateful, hm?”
“It would take a millennia to tell you all that I’ve experienced, all of my existence–”
“And you know we have that time.” He shakes with the implications of what he’s hearing. “But still you keep yourself from me, hm? What else are you hiding, eh? Dream lord?” The insecurity and fear of it barbs Hob’s tongue. His heart constricts in his chest and he grits his teeth against the strain of it.
“I didn’t think it was something you could understand,” Dream shoots back, and it’s enough to make that stubborn beast that slumbers in Hob’s chest sit up and snarl.
“Right.” And he knows he’s being cruel, but can’t stop himself from spitting: “Because what would an old fool like me know of the loss of a child? How could I possibly relate?” He marvels that mere minutes ago he was vowing to bring whatever joy he can to his lover, but this wound is too old, too deep, and must be answered for.
“Hob–”
“If all you want from me is to share your bed, milord, you need only have asked.” He flexes his hands because the pain from his heart has moved down his arms and settled in the nerves there. He feels tears well and turns away. Moves to sit on the edge of his bed, sheets still rumpled from their fucking. “But I must ask you not to insult me by implying that I have not experienced my fair share of heartache and despair in my many centuries on this cruel planet.” A tear falls down his cheek and it’s as if his strings are cut with it. He sags, suddenly exhausted. “And this is what you do to your lovers, duck? You banish them once they cease to amuse you?”
He wishes he could bite it back, wishes he could take this greatest of his fears and tuck it back close to his heart. For he knows, after all the love come and gone, all the deaths and the funerals and the pain; to lose Dream would be his undoing. Would finally turn this awe-inspiring world into a sterile promontory.
Fucking Shaxbeard.
“Hob–” and he sounds so broken, but Hob can’t stop the swirling miasma of his thoughts. Can’t stop for even a moment to think why his accusation has struck Dream so definitively. Hob wants to be alone, wants to nurse his pain and his fear and the memories that Dream has dragged from the depths where they belong with a bottle of whiskey and some very old music.
“I am trying–” Dream sounds like he’s begging, but that can’t be right. Must be Hob’s even older brain creating smoke and mirrors and pretty things. No matter what Dream might say when his cock is down Hob’s throat and his hands are tight in Hob’s hair, Hob will never be more than something for Dream to use when he has need. A happy clodpate with nothing but joy in his heart and a positive outlook on life to remind Dream that existence is worth something after all. Those things might be true, most of the time. But right now, Hob feels old and run down; feels every single one of his six hundred and fifty-nine years.
“I am sorry, my lord Morpheus,” his hands creak with the force with which he clasps them together. Trying to force the pain back, down, away. “I am poor company tonight. Perhaps you can return tomorrow, and I will try to be more amusing.” He sees his Robert’s face, feels his death echo through his soul, so intense even after all these years. It still makes him want to howl like an eviscerated animal, and the pain he feels from being put in his place by Morpheus just wrenches his guts further from the open cavern of his body.
For a moment, there’s nothing but silence. Nothing but Hob’s heavy breaths to fill it. Hob sees the spiral swirling out before him, knows that with very little effort he will be caught in its whirlpool. The irony that the long-awaited descent into the hell of history is happening to Hob when he’s been bracing to hold Dream through it instead is not lost on him. But not even that is enough to pull any amusement from his defeated body. He waits for Dream to leave, to hurl more insults at Hob’s head. Waits for Dream to walk out of his life, as Hob has been expecting him to during these months of joy.
Instead, Dream holds his ground. And speaks.
“I am–” Dream clucks in his throat, but the familiar sound is muddied. He clears his throat, then, and it’s a wet, sad attempt. “If you wish me to leave, I will.” And if Hob were a stronger man, he would nod, would send him on his way. But those words are waterlogged with tears and it just makes the sadness seep deeper into Hob’s bones.
“I never wish that, milord,” he murmurs. “I want you here with me, always. Even if it is not my place to want such things.” Hob remembers Dream telling him from the first that they would end in disaster, but he thought he’d have more time. He’d let himself believe that Dream really cared for him, that he provided more than a distraction and somewhere safe and hidden that Dream could steal away to. “It’s not easy to be reminded, that’s all.”
“Reminded of what?” Dream’s voice is feather-soft and when he reaches for Hob’s hand, Hob gives in.
“Of Robert,” he digs the fingers of his free hand into the flesh of his thigh. “Of how ridiculous it is of me to think that after everything you’ve seen, everyone you’ve been, that I can ever amount to anything real in your estimation.” Tears roll down his cheeks and he doesn’t brush them away. Allows them to track their paths as they may.
Dream grips his hand tight enough to bruise. “I love you, Hob Gadling. You are more real to me than the sun in the sky, and provide twice its warmth.” When Hob just scoffs and looks off to the side, Dream says: “they didn’t want me. My mercurial moods and the nature of my existence tend to provide an insurmountable obstacle.” Dream rubs his thumb over Hob’s knuckles and it gives Hob the strength to look upon his face.
“Then why are they angry—?”
Dream scoffs, heat reddening his cheeks. “I’ll admit I’ve not… reacted well to rejection in the past.” He gets shifty in a way that will never cease to make Hob smile. An endless being getting all twitchy with embarrassment: truly amusing.
“Tell me, duck.” Hob rubs his thumb over the crest of Dream’s cheekbone and is gratified when Dream leans into the touch. He feels himself unravel further, letting go of the doubt and anxiety this night has brought. He may be a fool of an old man, but he usually is better about looking gift horses in the mouth.
Even if this horse has a particularly pretty one.
“I don’t want to,” Dream says, eyes stubbornly closed. “You’ll hate me.”
Hob snorts. “I doubt it very strongly, milord.” He brings their lips together, teases the seam of Dream’s mouth with his tongue. “I know you’ve done awful things, I’ve read the myths, remember?” He gives in and kisses Dream slow and deep, loving the way it makes his skin tingle. He pulls back to say “and I’ve done awful things in my time, things that would have continued were it not for your influence.” And to lick his way to Dream’s pulse point, which he teases with his teeth. “Now tell me so I can have you again.”
“Coercion,” Dream accuses, but he tilts his head to give Hob better access. “But can you ‘have me again’ as you say, first?” He pulls back so their eyes can meet. Dream’s are wet and pleading. “Just in case I’m right.”
“Do you one better, milord,” Hob bites into Dream’s lips. “Been wanting to get you inside me for weeks.”
Dream goes so still Hob has to check to make sure he hasn’t left this flesh body and whooshed himself back to the Dreaming. He smiles when he realizes his dramatic duck’s breath has been stolen away with the implication of what’s to come. Hob takes the time he’s presented with wisely – he reaches for the lube and presses two fingers inside himself.
“You’ve done this before,” Dream’s voice is gravel-shot and Hob’s cock perks up a bit, making the blunt pressure of his fingers easier to bear.
“I have, milord,” he looks up and the hunger in Dream’s eyes heats his blood. “Quite enjoy it, in fact.” He gets to his knees to make things easier and Dream’s hand comes up to brace him by the hip.
“I’ll admit that I don’t like the thought of anyone else inside you.”
Hob snorts. “I’m nearly seven centuries old, silly duck. And some of us are not so discerning in our sexual experiences.” He twists his fingers and moans.
“Can I?” Morpheus asks, and Hob can’t be blamed for the horrifying whining noise that bursts from his lips. Supposes it’s fine considering he seems to have diverted Dream’s jealousy.
“I’d like that very much,” he manages, pulling his fingers free and slicking Dream’s fingers in turn. They’re so very long and Hob
starves
to feel them inside. “Three, I think.”
“You’re sure?” But he’s stroking at Hob’s entrance with the middle three fingers of that hand, steady and maddening.
“Very, love,” as soon as he’s breached, Hob breathes out and bears down, taking them in to the knuckle. It burns, but it’s a cleansing burn, and Hob thrills at it. They create a rhythm and Hob smirks. “You’ve been paying attention, eh?”
Dream seeks until there’s pure pleasure lighting up Hob’s spine. He gasps, his head falling back and his eyes closing with the image of a smug Morpheus of the Endless locked behind his eyelids. “I admit I have pictured us thus: our positions reversed.”
“You could have asked, darling, I wasn’t trying to deprive you.” Dream’s fucking him steadily now, and the burn has almost completely faded.
“I swear to you, Hob Gadling, I have not felt deprived for a single moment of our congress.”
And apparently that does it for Hob, because he’s pulling Dream’s hand free and crouching above Dream’s cock instead. Before he can form a complete thought, he has the head pushed past his rim and is groaning long and loud at the intrusion.
“You are a marvel,” Dream breathes, holding himself very still once again and steadying Hob’s hips with his hands (no less strong for all that one of those hands slips a few times before finding purchase). Hob is grateful to be steadied as he takes a cock for the first time in a few decades.
He curses himself for letting precious weeks go by before knowing Dream in this new way.
“You’re perfect,” he breathes as he bottoms out, his eyes opening blearily so he can focus on the awestruck gaze of his lover. Hob grins, lifts up a bit before settling back down and just rocking his hips back and forth. He knows with the surety of his centuries that he’ll be craving the feeling of Dream deep inside him for the rest of his pathetic life. “I’ve done this many times in the last five hundred years, every time wishing it was you below me, your eyes on me.” He shudders through a particularly lovely pass of Dream’s cock through his insides. “I always want your eyes on me.”
“A good thing,” Dream croaks out, getting his feet planted so he can start to control their movement. Hob falls forward and catches his fall with his hands on the bedspread, his face hovering just above Dream’s.
“Why–why’s that?” He cries out, cock rubbing messy and desperate on Dream’s abs. He sinks even lower to get more friction, capturing Dream’s lips in the process.
“I would look upon you for the rest of eternity if I could,” Dream brings a hand to Hob’s cock, circling it tightly and letting his thrusts do the work of jacking Hob off. Hob’s forehead comes to rest on Dream’s shoulder, his mouth open and drooling as he approaches his third orgasm of the day. “Want to hide you away from the rest of the world so mine are the only eyes that can see your face.”
“Po–sess–ss–ive bast–ah! Ah!”
“Yes that’s it, let me see,” Dream brings his unoccupied hand to Hob’s throat and forces his head up until all Hob can see is the galaxy of stars floating in his lover’s eyes. Dream flexes his hand, just barely cutting off Hob’s air supply and Hob’s eyes roll back as he dirties them both with his spend.
He can vaguely hear Dream’s praise, the way his voice goes breathy and high as he undoubtedly comes himself. Hob gets an aftershock at the thought that he’s full of Dream’s seed, feels his face flush even further at the embarrassed delight it inspires.
Dream releases his neck and Hob collapses in a shuddering heap, careful to keep Dream as deeply inside of him as he can. “Tell me,” he slurs, and then “don’t move.”
“As you wish, my love.” Dream tightens his hold and Hob nuzzles into the devastating curve of his jaw where it meets his perfect neck.
He tells Hob then: the story of how he lost his son. How he’d abandoned Orpheus at the boy’s most vulnerable hour and the subsequent carnage that ensued. How he hadn’t seen his son in almost a millenia and what a horribly miserable creature that made him. The surprise in Calliope’s voice when he’d come to her rescue and how could he be angry with the humans who had tortured him for centuries when he’d done the same and worse to beings he’d professed to love.
He tells Hob of what he’d undertook to get back his helm, sand, and the ruby that was destroyed in the process. How he’d seen the lives of mortals become twisted and ruined with the instruments of his office.
“Until very recently,” he continues, stroking gently through Hob’s hair, “I had never known regret. Didn’t think it was something I should be forced to endure. You were… right. Before.”
Hob chuckles, bites gently at Dream’s jaw. “I think you may have to put that in writing, duck. I know of at least two of your siblings that would never believe you said such a thing and I’d like to see the looks on their faces when presented with concrete evidence.”
“Reprobate,” Dream pinches his side, but his voice is laced with fondness. “I will do no such thing.”
Hob sighs, put upon. “Very well then, milord. At least enlighten me as to what I was so right about.”
It takes long moments before Dream finds his voice. Hob waits him out, drawing constellations on Dream’s skin in the silence. “I could have done something for him. I could have helped reverse her death and yet I knew it would cost me something, so I let Orpheus suffer. Told myself that the consequences of falling for a mortal would be good for him to learn early. I never thought–”
He clears his throat as an obvious attempt to stave off tears and Hob makes a soothing sound and presses it to Dream’s throat.
“Plug,” he says, holding his hand out. “Bedside drawer.” He points impatiently until Dream gets the drawer open and hands him the black silicone. He eases off of Dream’s cock, careful to keep as much of his lover inside him as he can before pressing the plug to his entrance and relaxing around it. Dream moves to help, taking over from Hob to gently nudge the plug into place.
“I foresee this being a problem,” Dream husks, eyes glued to where Hob is plugged. Hob lays back for a moment, lifts a leg to give Dream the eyeful he’s clearly asking for. “I will struggle with how I wish for us to make love going forward.” He traces Hob’s rim, and Hob’s prick valiantly tries to get involved.
Hob pulls away and manhandles them so that Dream’s ear is pressed to Hob’s heart while Hob lies on his back and holds Dream safe.
“The past is in the past, my love,” he says it as much for himself as for Dream, needing the reminder. “You can only take the lesson and apply it to the present and the future. Perhaps–” he hesitates, remembering how just over an hour ago such a suggestion would have been received.
“Perhaps?” Morpheus tucks his foot-shaped icicles under Hob’s calf and Hob pulls an ancient wool blanket over them both.
“Perhaps you could visit him? I assume you know where he is.”
“I do.” Dream sounds reluctant but not angry. He sighs, and it’s a concession. “I believe you are right once again, Hob Gadling.”
“In writing,” Hob grumbles, which earns him a swift twist of his nipple. He yelps but succumbs to laughter when he hears Dream’s subdued chortle.
“I–” Dream hums, pensive. Hob once again waits for him to continue and hopes that he will be lucky enough to measure the time he’ll do just this for Dream in hours if not days in all the years to come. What a privilege it is to experience Dream’s vulnerable stumbling into being more compassionate and kind through silences filled with pondering and choosing his words more carefully than ever before.
“Thank you,” is what Dream settles on. “I am grateful for you, Hob.”
Hob chokes on his own gratitude, feels it well in his heart as tears well in his eyes. It’s his turn to wobble his way into exposing his soft underbelly. “I can never express–” he tries, swallows, tries again: “You must know–”
“I do,” Dream strains up to press a chaste kiss to Hob’s lips, and Hob’s blood pushes against the walls of his veins. He knows Dream will bruise where Hob’s fingertips dig fiercely into his nearly translucent skin.
“I’d like to meet him someday,” Hob whispers, knowing full well Dream could hear him at any decibel. He braces for impact, waits for Dream to tense and close down.
It doesn’t happen; instead Dream steals yet another kiss, says, “Perhaps Calliope as well.” Hob’s hands come up of their own volition to hold Dream’s face reverently between them so Hob can see all of its beauty. He drinks in the sight until he feels so full he might burst wide open.
“I love you so, Dream of the Endless.” he knows he’s grinning like a spoon’s been shoved into his mouth, is glad for it as it makes Dream’s own mouth split open in dearest happiness.
“And I you, Robert Gadling.” Hob releases his hold so they can cuddle together. He’s glad that they’ve survived the first of Dream’s black moods, hopes to all the heavens that they’ll survive many more.
“Stay with me while I sleep?” he asks, pressing a kiss to the wild mop of Dream’s blue-black hair.
“Always, Hob, I will always be with you as you dream.”
Hob snorts, but it’s a tender exasperation that fills him at Dream’s drama. “I know, duck. But physically this time?”
“As you wish.”
And though Hob knows that the thrum of Dream’s heartbeat is for Hob’s own benefit, he lets it lull him to rest.