acentennialdream

[acentennialdream]

Gardening

Sometimes you just gotta talk it out.

guys, GUYS.... Unity's hat has little holes in the brim so her ears can poke through :3 this is important information you need to know

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[acentennialdream]

unstoppable force, meet immovable object

Bonus: adding this alt dialogue gem because I liked it a lot. Even though I didn't have the strength to weave it in, it's canon in my head.

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[acentennialdream]

for @magnusbae

--

“Hob Gadling,” Dream says, and there’s a laugh deep in it, hidden in his eyes. “Am I to understand you’ve been engaging in petty theft?”

“I used to rob people on the road, and this surprises you?” says Hob, leaning against his kitchen counter. Then holds up a hand before Dream can respond. “Now, to be clear, my highwayman days are behind me. I’ve evolved. I’ve no interest in hurting people over riches. Also, would be bloody difficult to commit highway robbery nowadays.”

“I see you’ve thought it through,” says Dream from where he’s still lingering in the kitchen doorway. He clearly finds all of this highly amusing.

“I have, and rest assured, this theft was by no means petty. I’m pretty sure this is considered grand larceny.”

“Ah. I see it is no fun for you if decades of prison time are not on the line,” says Dream.

Hob winks at him. “Would you really let me go to prison for decades?”

Dream raises a haughty eyebrow. “I am your get-out-of-jail-free card?”

“Not getting caught is my get-out-of-jail-free card. You think I don’t know what I’m doing? You think I would do this for a lark without a plan?”

“Speaking frankly?” says Dream. “Yes.”

Hob laughs. “Alright, caught. But in my defense! It was for an important reason.”

Dream finally steps properly into the kitchen. “And what reason is that? I know you have no need for riches.”

“Wasn’t about need. Was only about charm. And getting in your good graces. And being the most irresistible and rakish boyfriend I can. Don’t think I didn’t see the way you looked at me at that first, portentous meeting.”

He lets Dream step in, closer and closer, like a predator with its prey. Doesn’t move. “You wish to give me the scrappy bandit I apparently so desired back then?”

“No apparently about it,” says Hob, and oh, it’s fun to be bold with Dream, now that he feels reasonably sure of not scaring him off. “But it’s okay, because I was even more weak for the prissy lord that you were. You know how much you could have gotten me to do if only you’d asked?”

Dream is standing right before him now, crowding him against the counter. His eyes gleam in the dark. “Does that include grand larceny?”

Hob laughs and lays his hands on his sides, feeling the taught realness of him, so much more dangerous than he’d thought of the lord he’d met in that tavern, and so much more glorious for it. “And more.”

He fishes the ruby from his pocket, letting it dangle on its long chain and catch the kitchen lights. He dips his head low as he holds it out to Dream. “A token of my affection. For my lord.”

Dream lets the gem fall into his palm, examining the fine cut of it. It doesn’t have the darkness, the strange angles of his now-broken dreamstone, but it’s still a gorgeous gem. Deep wine red, bottomless depths within the facets. Like Dream himself.

“A token?” He echoes, lips tugging up in a smile. “A courtly gift for one you have no need to court?”

“A small gift for one I am endlessly devoted to,” Hob says, and Dream’s eyes meet his again. There’s a smile in them, now, a real one. The gem is worth a bloody fortune, but Dream cares not for the monetary value of things. This is about the symbol, the game, the effort of it, and it seems it’s landed.

He does like pretty things, too. Hob knows it well.

“Put it on me, then,” Dream says.

He ducks his head for Hob to clasp the chain around the back of his neck. Hob kisses his forehead when he’s done.

The ruby sits against his breastbone, shining against the bare skin at the center of the deep vee in his shirt.

Hob squints. He could have sworn Dream was wearing something with more coverage when he arrived. “Did you… change your shirt?”

Dream smirks. “Perhaps. Such art requires its proper canvas.”

“Cheeky. You’re right, though.” Hob admires it on him, and sighs. So worth it.

Dream kisses his cheek, like they really are courting and he’s shyly accepting the gift. Hob takes hold of his face and pulls him into a proper one, one that’ll leave his lips as red as the gem. God, he better be able to convince Dream into wearing that and nothing else in bed. That sounds like a good way to die, if he ever were to choose one.

“How’d you find out about this, anyway?” he asks, letting his hands wander to Dream’s hair to keep him close.

“Matthew. He admitted that he helped you.” He doesn’t sound too upset about it, fortunately, for Matthew’s sake.

Hob sighs. “I tried to keep his involvement quiet. Blabbermouth.”

“He had fun, apparently,” says Dream wryly.

“Hope you won’t punish him too much.”

Dream smirks. “Just a little.”

“Going to punish me, then?” Hob says. It's meant to be challenging but he can’t keep the grin off his face.

Dream pushes him against the counter, hands pressed tight to his hips. “Hmm.” His voice rumbles through Hob’s body. His eyes are alight with fondness and danger both, and a shiver runs up Hob’s spine. “Just a little.”

[acentennialdream]

Oh I'd love to know more about Too Many Beds 🛏️🛏️👀

And a new snippet for you as well! :D

—

Hob laughs, trailing his hand back up to Calliope’s back, pulling her down.

“I know you’re good for me,” he says, easing his fingers free and flexing them against her like he has hundreds of times. “Let’s give him a show, hmm?”

He kisses the cry out of her mouth and slips inside her, sighing at the familiar soft warmth. He knows every bump and texture, every sensitive spot, and just how to make the most of them. Calliope bites down on his lip as he circles her clit with the tip of his thumb, two fingers buried to the hilt, obscene slick sounds filling the room as he works them in. His hearing’s so much clearer with the blindfold on—so much clearer that he can hear Dream swallow from the other bed.

“Feel so good,” Hob murmurs, moving his hand to Calliope’s hip to feel it rolling against him, demanding more. Wanting him. This isn’t a bad game at all, if the point is to convince him he is wanted here.

He’ll have to have little crises of faith more often, if this is how they get solved.

Calliope’s teeth scrape his shoulder as she takes full advantage of his fingers, setting her own pace, taking what she wants. She squeezes him tight at the bottom of every stroke, tiny sounds of effort spilling over his skin. Determined to get an orgasm out of him.

“That’s it,” Hob coaxes. How much time have they had? He has no idea. Have they ever managed this in five minutes before? Calliope has said just five minutes, but it’s always ended in Hob being fifteen minutes late with half his shirt still untucked. Not that he minds. “That’s it, love. Plenty more where this is coming from. No need to hold out.”

Calliope grunts, hips speeding up again, tight little circles, artless timing, mindlessly grinding against him. He loves it when she gets like this, when any attempt at technique gives way to raw want, when she knows she can let go, that she doesn’t have to make an effort to be sexy, that her pleasure is all Hob wants. That she can be messy and demanding and even selfish and he really, really doesn’t mind.

Dream had loved seeing that, the first time it’d happened. He’d asked Hob how to get her to do it for him.

He’s good for them. They’re good for each other. He knows this, in his heart, whatever any given hotel receptionist might think.

[acentennialdream]

developing your ocs is 50% waiting for bursts of divine inspiration like an oracle sleeping next the vapours seeping from fissures in the temple floor and 50% stalking them in your mind relentlessly like a persistence predator until they tire out enough for you to get close and scamper away with the bloody scraps of "eye colour: brown" and "dislikes: people who think they're funny" clutched in your mouth like a hunting trophy

[acentennialdream]

Bright 🌟

Dream/Lucienne | General | Gift-giving, Christmas fluff, little touch of Dreaming magic | Also on Ao3

—

“It’s beautiful,” Lucienne’s soft, familiar voice interrupts Dream’s meditation, fixed on the bright North Star which has appeared in the Dreaming’s sky for the season.

“Do you think so?” he asks, turning to look at his librarian—loyalest subject, wisest advisor, friend.

“Of course,” Lucienne says. “I always look forward to it appearing at Christmas.”

Dream hums. This is new information.

“You were not a Christian in life, I think,” Dream says. He is nearly, but not quite, sure of this. It is not impossible, but nor does it seem likely.

“No, my lord,” Lucienne says. “But we did still have a night sky. All those centuries ago.”

Dream’s lips twitch. He has learned to smile, of late.

He has taken to smiling at Lucienne, quite frequently, of late. He has taken to watching his feelings shift and change with regard to Lucienne. She has been at his right hand for so long, the brightest point in the Dreaming for so long, and yet it is only now he begins to feel differently about her.

It is a novelty to fall in love slowly, for once. The soft downward path of a shed feather, floating to a gentle stop. So fragile a feeling that he is yet uncertain he ought to disturb it, lest it shatter under his touch as so much else has.

All the same. It is not unpleasant to simply feel.

“Of course,” he says distractedly, having turned away from the sky to watch Lucienne’s face, to enjoy her enjoyment. He reaches into his robe and extracts his sand, blowing a handful of it on the sky to render it shimmering with a million points of light. One, he thinks privately, for every moment in which Lucienne might have abandoned him, and did not.

She laughs, delighted. Something in Dream’s chest sprouts wings, beating hard, aiming to take flight.

“They’re beautiful, too,” she says. “Show off.”

There was a time when Dream would not have taken kindly to being teased this way. Now it feels like a precious gift.

He reaches out once more, towards the sky, and plucks the North Star from it, curling it into his palm. When he uncurls his hand, it is hung on a fine chain with a delicate clasp. He holds it out towards Lucienne.

“A gift.”

Lucienne looks up at him, lips parted in surprise.

“Sir—”

“I am entitled to offer you a gift, am I not?” Dream asks, arching a brow. “You are of course entitled to refuse. If you do not want it.”

“No, I… it’s beautiful,” Lucienne says, her dry librarian’s fingers brushing against his own as she accepts the star. “Thank you, sir.”

“Allow me?” Dream asks, nodding to the chain.

Lucienne holds it out once more, and Dream takes it, wingbeats pounding against imaginary ribs as he drapes it around her neck and closes the clasp. It falls neatly in the hollow of her throat, framed by her collar. As though it was always meant to be there.

“Beautiful,” Dream pronounces, glancing up from the star to Lucienne’s eyes. “As you say.”

[acentennialdream]

☀️

[acentennialdream]

For the @dreamlingbingo adoptable prompt: sleeping in, and the @monsterfucktoberbingo square: vampire

—

Hob knocks once, twice, and then smiles at the muffled sound of protest coming from inside.

“Dream, it’s after midnight,” he says, lifting up the lid of the coffin. Dream hisses at him, but it’s a lazy hiss. He barely bothers to flash his fangs.

“Don’t give me that,” Hob says. “You’re sleeping the night away.”

Dream mumbles something indistinct and turns onto his other side, away from Hob, hauling the enormous batwing shawl Hob personally knit for him to sleep in over his head.

Since meeting Dream at a Halloween party nearly a year ago, Hob’s since met other vampires and discovered that most of them are perfectly normal people. He would fall for a weird one.

Probably, in fairness, because he is weird.

“Pardon?”

“Cold,” Dream pronounces more clearly. He shivers. Hob’s fairly sure that’s for effect. He’s also reasonably sure that temperature is a non-issue for vampires, and while the weather outside is more than a little nippy, the flat is perfectly comfortable. He’s wearing a t-shirt.

“Is it?” he asks, lips twitching. He knows what Dream wants, but a little teasing won’t hurt him.

“Yes,” Dream says, uncovering his face just enough to look Hob in the eyes. He wouldn’t hypnotise him, Hob’s fairly sure, but it does help his resolve that he can’t.

Hob is, it turns out, absolutely non-magical. Not a drop of magic anywhere in him. So none of it—the glamour, the hypnosis, the psychic paralysis—works on him. He can still picture the way Dream wrinkled his nose at first when he had to resort to tying Hob up with actual rope.

“I see,” Hob says, nodding. “That must be awful. Poor you.”

“You are warm,” Dream says, as though Hob’s hogging all of the world’s supply of heat and not just naturally warm-blooded and possessed of a metabolism that goes slightly faster than the average glacier.

“I’m quite comfortable, actually.”

“Hob,” Dream says. It’s probably meant to sound authoritative, commanding, something along those lines. The actual result is that of a toddler not getting his way.

Hob loves Dream so, so much. Which is just as well for him, really.

“All right, all right,” he says, climbing into the coffin. Dream wraps his arms and legs around him so faster than Hob can follow with his eyes, squeezing him like a huge, multi-limbed boa constrictor. He laughs.

“All right,” he repeats, pressing a kiss to Dream’s hair and reaching up for the coffin lid. “S’pose a lie-in won’t kill you.”

Dream hums, already on his way back to sleep. The lid closes with the softest sound, sealing them both away in the dark.

There are air holes, for this sort of situation. Hob had put them in personally.

“On account of you already being dead,” he says.

“I can and will bite you,” Dream mumbles against Hob’s neck.

“Later,” Hob promises. “Go back to sleep.”

[acentennialdream]

Something “Borrowed”

Hob x Endless (yes all of them) | Teen and up | Complete | Hobsbandverse, clothes sharing (theft), domestic fluff, mostly tea and smooches tbh | Ao3 link

For the @polyshipweek day 1 prompt, "Is that my hoodie?"

Hob discovers that his wardrobe seems to be considered communal property.

—

When he shuffles into the kitchen to find Desire in the process of making what he knows will be the perfect cup of tea, Hob stops and stares at them wearing the shirt he’d had on yesterday and absolutely nothing else.

“Looks good on you,” he says, as Desire hands him the tea.

“Glad you think so,” Desire says, pressing a kiss to Hob's cheek. “I’m keeping it.”

Hob does not think to object.

This turns out to be a dangerous precedent to set.

—

It takes him a minute to realise that the tie-dyed cropped t-shirt Delirium's wearing today is actually one of Hob’s old band t-shirts. It’s obviously too late to object, and in any case, he was only wearing it to sleep in, and it looks good on her. It also makes him feel good—to provide, to see her happy, to see someone he loves and cares for in his clothes, a sign that she’s his, and he’s hers. It’s nice.

“Love what you've done with that,” he says, pressing a kiss to her head on the way past the sofa, where Despair is painting her toenails with minute concentration. “Cuppa for both of you?”

—

Death’s wearing one of his jumpers the next time he sees her. It’s a cold night, so he doesn’t begrudge her the warmth, and the emerald green looks good on her, and she’s pulling off the boyfriend jumper look like a fashion model.

He quite likes the thought of being her jumper-owning boyfriend. 

He greets her with a kiss, and slips a hand under the the jumper to stroke the impossibly soft skin of her lower back, and fully succeeds in convincing her to let him take it—and quite a bit more—off.

It’s still gone in the morning, though.

—

Despair nicks a pair of grey joggers off him. The ones with a hole in the knee from an embarrassing incident with an ill-behaved terrier. He should’ve known he’d lose them, really. She loves grey.

“Do you know I love you?” he asks, bending down to kiss her hello while she once again focuses minutely on toenail-painting duties, this time for Dream.

—

Dream pilfers his pyjamas. With such speed and enthusiasm that Hob suspects the sex was only to facilitate the petty theft.

“They smell of you,” Dream says, holding the collar up to his nose and nuzzling into it. He’s sitting cross-legged on the bed like it’s his throne, drowning in plaid flannel, with a tiny smile playing about his lips. What’s Hob meant to say to that?

Nothing, is what. Which is what he does.

Dream vanishes with the pyjamas before sunrise.

—

Destruction’s choice of garment is another of Hob’s sleep shirts—plain and threadbare, unlike the one Delirium made off with. It’s much too small for him, stretched tight across his broad shoulders when Hob wanders into the kitchen to the glorious smell of a proper fry-up. For both of these reasons, Hob’s too attracted to him in the moment to say anything.

Several more shirts go missing, but Hob probably gets more enjoyment out of them on Destruction anyway.

—

It takes Hob longer than he’d care to admit to figure out exactly what strikes him as weird about the tableau in the living room. 

Well, weirder than usual, anyway. Four Endless in the one room would probably seem apocalyptic in any other context, but Death’s chatting amicably with her older brother on the sofa, the two of them sipping tea from their own mugs. That doesn’t happen every day, but it’s warm and domestic and makes Hob feel all fuzzy inside. He’s so glad he's managed to make a space where all of them can just be.

Destruction and Delirium are engaged in some sort of craft project on the floor. Destruction has thankfully put down newspapers for the purpose, but then Hob doesn’t mind a little cleaning and honestly, Delirium can usually be persuaded to clean up after herself.

He inspects the project for several long seconds, decides he has no idea what it is, and makes encouraging noises anyway before kissing each of them on the head and turning back to the sofa.

It’s then that he realises what he was seeing before. Death’s still wearing the emerald green jumper—Hob gave it up as lost months ago—but Destiny...

“Is that my hoodie?” Hob asks.

He's going to need to go shopping.

[acentennialdream]

TJ Dragonblade's Dreamling Bingo 2024 Masterpost

Extremely pleased to have reached a blackout on my first time participating in a bingo, even if two of them are snippets rather than full fics. Did not get the movement I was hoping for on old WIPs but I got new things and recent wips finished and I got started on a fic I've been wanting to write for awhile. So I am satisfied overall.

A1 Trapped in the Frequency: Until We Meet Again (rated G) A2 Creature: Veela swapped for Identity Reveal: Past the Wit of Man (or, Bottom's Dream) (rated M) A3 Crossover swapped for Monster Fucking: Adoration (rated E) B1 Hurt/Comfort + Forehead Kisses: Til Death Do Us Part (rated T) B2 Free Space: Loyalty Rewards Program (rated E) B3 Roleplay: Hot For Teacher (snippet) (rated E) C1 Sugar Baby: With Every Nerve Alive (rated E) C2 Almost Caught + Injury Recovery: Good Luck Charm (rated G) C3 Creature: Selkie: (untitled snippets) (rated G)

Links go to Tumblr posts; posts contain AO3 links, tags, wordcounts, summaries, etc (snippets may lack some of this info)

Many many thanks to the @dreamlingbingo mods for organizing this event and making it run so smoothly!

[acentennialdream]

It Started With a Whisper Dream of the Endless/Hob Gadling || 48k || T || 6/6 COMPLETE

Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Getting Together, Mother Night’s A+ Parenting, Father Time’s A+ Parenting, Entirely Too Much Chemistry, Both of the Interpersonal and Scientific Sort

Hob, a werewolf from a grotty little estate on the wrong side of London, still can’t quite believe he’s starting his first term at St. Ignatius University. His goals don’t extend very far beyond playing some quality football on the scrim league, and becoming the world’s first (and best) lycan astrophycisist. Then… he meets Dream

Second term, their chemistry lecture is still a daily occurance, but instead of beginning the day, now Dream must first sit through an hour of mathematics, and then an hour of E&E, and then he at last arrives at chemistry. His focus in lectures has suffered because of this, at times, though he is uncertain how much can be blamed on the schedule change and how much must be attributed to the fact that Hob is now his boyfriend. 

It is an oft-distracting thought. 

Hob is… his. And, even more pleasingly, he is Hob’s. 

In the months following his quiet disownment, Dream has had to adjust to a truly staggering number of changes. Most have been good (he can go places, like pubs and zoos and concerts), some have been not-so-good (he has discovered that pubs and zoos and concerts can be extremely overwhelming and occasionally incite panic attacks), but probably his most favorite change of them all is this: 

He walks into chemistry class, all on his own, and he does not have to sit in the back row. 

Read on AO3

[acentennialdream]

My king.

[acentennialdream]

"I AM SO VERY TIRED..."

Drawing headshots of Dream is better than therapy

[acentennialdream]

🌈 something fluffy for the ask game 😊

Hello darling and thank you for the ask!

A little bit of fluff from the next chapter of Lover:

Dream watches Hob as he steps out of the shower, and he can’t help but let his gaze wander down the planes of Hob’s body, his toes curling in delight at the fact that he is allowed. Even more so, that he wants this, to stare at an alpha, his alpha, a shiver of it deep in his bones that he can’t stare at too close, not yet.

Hob catches his eyes as he pulls the towel over his face, and he grins. He stands up straighter as he continues to wipe himself down, and Dream’s cheeks flush, the same color that blooms over Hob’s heated skin.

Hob runs his hands through his hair, and then wraps the towel around his waist. It does nothing to hide the weight of his half hard cock, and Dream blinks his gaze away from the way Hob’s hair still sticks to the strong lines of his thighs, the the curve of his lower belly.

“I’ll be honest with you,” Hob says, pulling Dream’s attention away to his face, to the bright grin that is bright like sunshine. “I don’t think I’ll ever be tired of you looking at me like that.” He steps close, and Dream leans back on the bathroom counter, back pressing to the mirror behind him, legs parting almost unconsciously.

Hob’s hands press to his knees, no force in the touch. Just warmth and weight. Dream breathes in the smell of Hob’s wet skin, the heat of it settling in the space between them.

“How do I look at you?” he asks, and Hob just hums, head tilting. The strands of his hair fall against his cheeks, dark and wet like the most delicious chocolate, and Dream’s right hand moves before he can think of it, pushing a few of them behind Hob’s left ear. His hand lingers, and Hob turns his head, his mouth a caress over his palm. His lips are flushed and wet and hot, and Dream likes it.

“Like you really, really like me.”

Dream’s lips twitch, and he bites the inside of his cheeks and he hums, even as Hob grins up at him with eyes bright with pure delight.

“And here I thought I was hiding it well.”

Hob laughs and he nuzzles Dream’s palm like a pleased cat in the sunshine. “Your secret is safe with me,” he says with a wink, and Dream can’t help it, his fingers digging into the edge of Hob’s skull, cool hair tangling between them as he pulls Hob into a kiss.

Hob goes meltingly easy, and Dream’s body thrums with the soft realization.

[acentennialdream]

no fucking way.

[acentennialdream]

[1] Dream: *is eldritch* Hob: Hi, sweetheart.

[2] Dream: *growls* Hob: What’s that, dove? Not sure I understand…

[3] Dream (wetly): Cuddles…

[acentennialdream]

thoughts had while traveling turned into a ficlet

[E]

-

After university, Hob had always kind of assumed they'd end up in the same place. He doesn’t know why he was so foolish as to think that. But he was always foolish about Dream.

Hob had stuck around in London. He liked traveling, liked seeing new places, but London was home. And it was nice to feel like he had roots somewhere. Like he was maybe sort of building a life.

Dream, meanwhile, had essentially vanished.

He’d picked up some kind of remote editing job that he could do anywhere on top of his writing, and took full advantage of it to bounce all over the globe. Hob didn’t even know all of the places he’d lived, Dream moved so often.

He’d been in Los Angeles for a while and apparently hated it. He’d been in Singapore for about six months at some point. Then he’d been in Istanbul— or was Istanbul before? At one point he’d been in a rural village in Slovenia.

(Hob got emails about these things.)

Then at one point, he’d been in Paris, which at least seemed to suit him a tiny bit better. Still hadn’t last long, though.

Now, Hob’s not sure where he is. He tries not to take it personally. Tries not to take it like he wasn’t enough for Dream to want to stay. Dream just had some things to figure out, he thinks. That’s all.

One day, seemingly at random, he gets a FaceTime call.

“Hob.”

Hob squints at the screen. It’s very bright. He can barely make Dream out. “Where are you?”

“Rhodes,” Dream says.

He pans the phone around to show Hob what must be just about the most gorgeous beach he’s ever seen. It’s a little cove with fishing boats bobbing, water still and sun-drenched.

Dream turns the camera back around. He looks like he’s been crying, eyes red-rimmed, eyeliner smudging. He’s sitting on the sand, phone propped on his knees.

“What’s wrong?” Hob asks, alarmed.

“Is it better,” Dream wonders, “to be full of despair on a beautiful beach, or does it not matter?”

“What d’you mean?”

Dream wipes at his eyes. “I. I thought if I just went. Somewhere. That it would get better. Death even said. Try changing your environment. I did. I did.”

“You did, you went to a lot of places, didn’t you?”

Dream nods, and sniffles. “Why didn’t it fix anything?”

“Oh, darling.” So that’s what it is. He’s just running away from himself.

“What is wrong with me,” Dream continues, “that. I am sat watching the sunset in one of the most beautiful corners of the world. And I feel nothing.”

“It’s not the corner of the world that's the issue,” Hob says, and Dream sighs, sniffling again.

“I want to go home,” he says, despondent.

“Come home, then.”

“Is that still with you? After all I’ve put you through?”

“Yeah, Dream.” To my peril. But Hob will never be able to turn Dream away. “It is.”

Dream nods. “Okay.” Then he stands. “I suppose I may as well go for a swim, while I am still here.”

“Not going to drown yourself, are you?”

Dream huffs. “No.”

He risks the fate of his phone taking Hob with him, though. Holds it above the surface as he treads water, hair increasingly fluffy and clumped together from salt.

“It really is gorgeous,” Hob tells him. The water is so, so blue and the sky so wide. “You’re making me jealous.”

Dream smiles faintly. “You would enjoy it better than I.”

“Maybe. I’m enjoying watching you though.”

“Oh?” Dream raises an eyebrow. Only his throat is visible above the water, but it’s enough. Hob can imagine the rest. His attraction to Dream’s never wavered. “Tell me more.”

“Come home and find out instead, idiot.”

Dream smiles. “Hmm.”

“Oh yeah, hmm.”

Dream’s smile widens. God, he’s so gorgeous. “You’re making me want to leave now.”

“Do it then.”

“Okay.” He starts swimming back to shore, and Hob laughs.

“I missed you, you maniac.”

“I missed you,” Dream echoes.

“S’gonna be okay, yeah?” Hob tells him. “So Rhodes didn’t fix anything. It’s alright.”

“It’s alright,” Dream echoes, eyes looking misty again.

“Just come home.” Hob can’t promise to fix anything. But he can promise Dream a home.

“Yes,” Dream agrees, sea water flowing around his throat, sunset in his hair. “Yes.”

-

Hob half-expects Dream actually won’t. That the flash of melancholic clarity will give way to his usual method of running, that Hob will get an email that he’s now in Samarkand or somewhere and isn’t actually coming “home.” Maybe London isn’t really home for him. He hasn’t been there in years anyway. Maybe.

But one day Dream wanders into the pub they used to get Friday drinks in, the pub Hob’s taken up bartending in, partly for the extra cash, partly to feel closer to Dream.

Hob drops a glass when he sees him, Dream flinching at the crash where he stands in the doorway. Hob ducks behind the bar to clean it up, heart pounding. God, he’s actually here. After three years.

When he stands again, Dream is standing right before the bar, looking uncertain. He’s terribly underdressed for the weather, hair damn from the rain, black t-shirt sticking to his shoulders.

“Um,” Hob says, wringing a bar towel in his hands. “Get you your usual?”

Not that Dream’s usual is necessarily the same, after all this time—

Dream leans across the bar and hugs him.

“My usual,” he says, voice so close to Hob’s ear now that he shivers. Dream’s damp hair tickles his cheek. Hob ought to get a towel and dry him off.

He hugs Dream back, leaning awkwardly over the bar. “Missed you.”

Dream hums, finally releasing him. He takes a seat on a bar stool, a faint smile on his face now. On instinct Hob takes off his sweatshirt—New Inn branded—and gives it to him.

Dream takes it, gaze lingering on Hob’s face as he pulls it on. He immediately looks less frigid, though.

“Is it still the driest red on the menu that you want?” he asks, and Dream laughs.

“Yes.”

Hob pours him one, sliding it across the bar. Their fingers brush. It feels, almost, like no time has passed at all. Nothing changed.

“So,” Hob says, grateful there are no other customers awaiting his attention. “Rhodes?”

“The last of many,” Dream says wearily.

“Looked beautiful?”

“Yes,” Dream agrees, and sips his wine.

“So.” It’s hard to ask what he really wants to ask. Are you actually back? Are you actually here for me? “Are you. You have somewhere to stay?”

“I am not wandering the streets,” Dream says with a half smile. “I have a hotel room. For now.”

“Still itinerant,” Hob says, before he can think better of it, and Dream’s smile turns sad.

“Yes.”

“Learn anything?”

“I learned that moving about doesn’t fix anything when the problem is inside of you,” Dream says. Hob winces at the phrasing of it. There’s no problem with you, he wants to say. But he understands what Dream’s getting at. “I do not know what does fix it,” Dream continues.

Hob doesn’t either. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be in Dream’s head. “Try staying here, then,” Hob says. “What’ve you got to lose?”

Dream studies him. “Indeed.”

It really does feel like nothing and everything has changed between them. But maybe not everything. And maybe it’s okay.

He rests his hand against Dream’s on the bar. “Finish your wine,” he says. “And come home with me.”

Dream takes a final sip of his wine, eyes locked on Hob’s over the rim of his glass, and licks the red droplets from his lower lip as he takes Hob’s hand.

-

Hob has him bent over on the bed, bobbing his head on Hob’s cock, before they’ve had the chance to pass more than a few additional words. Dream seems not to need words, anyway. His expression is finally slack and peaceful, neck craning, eyelids fluttering, as he takes Hob’s cock down, down, down, Hob’s grip tight in his hair. He hasn’t lost any of his skill in these intervening years, apparently. Or his enjoyment of it.

“Yeah, that’s it, darling,” Hob praises, thrusting up into his mouth. “Good. You’re so perfect at this.”

Dream whines, the vibration traveling through Hob’s body, reaching awkwardly around himself to press needy fingers to his own hole.

“I’ll do right by you, darling, don’t worry, come here.” Hob pulls Dream off and hefts him up, sitting back so he can settle Dream in his lap. “Don’t worry, love.”

Dream looks down at him with wide, dark eyes, breathing hard, mouth open and wet. He swallows, says, voice thready, “I need you in me.”

Hob’s heart thumps, hard. It hurts. “I know.”

Dream pushes his cheek into Hob’s temple, lips smearing saliva over his skin, clutching so tight at Hob’s shoulders it hurts. “Hob.”

“Shhh.” Hob holds him close as he works him open, Dream crying out and clutching at him with each touch. God, Hob remembers what he was like. He really hasn’t changed at all.

When he finally sinks Dream down onto his cock, Dream lets out a long moan, then goes slack again as he shivers. Hob tries to breathe evenly and stay still, letting him adjust, no matter how good it feels to be buried in him again.

“It has been too long,” Dream says, when his breathing’s evened out.

“Didn’t have tons of adventures on all of your travels?”

Dream shakes his head. “Not the same.”

It’s not the same. No one Hob’s hooked up with in the intervening years has been the same, either. No one else makes this feeling rear up in him, like he would do anything for the man in his arms, like he would dash himself to pieces just to have him. It might not be a good feeling but Hob wants it nonetheless.

He doesn’t say all that. He says, “It’s not, no one takes me like you do, I’ve missed how gorgeous you are bouncing on my cock, missed how perfect it feels to fill you.”

“Yes,” Dream says. “It’s so good. I missed that. Please, Hob.”

Hob hefts him in his lap, bouncing Dream on his cock. Dream cries out, holding to him tight. “Yes—!”

Fuck, he feels good. He’s so pliant and wanting, need burning in his fingertips and his wet panting breaths by Hob’s ears. Hob would give him anything in the world.

“Came back just for this, didn’t you?” he says. “Didn’t you?”

“Yes, yes— I missed— oh, Hob!” This as Hob nails his prostate, Dream wailing and clutching at him. Yes. Hob remembers exactly how it feels to make him feel like that. God, it’s everything to make him feel like that.

“More,” Dream begs. “More, harder.”

Hob will give him more. More and more until he’s full up on it, until it’s enough for him to feel satisfied, enough for him to cease his wanderings and stay.

He fucks Dream harder until Dream’s reduced to incoherent wailing, throwing himself into Hob’s touch like to feel nothing and everything is a relief. And Hob feels everything, too: the tight heat of Dream’s body, the dig of his fingertips, his wet panting breaths—and more than anything, the overwhelming want. He wants Dream. He has always wanted Dream.

Dream comes first, pushed over the edge with Hob’s hands on his waist and his cock rubbing over Hob’s belly. He cries out, and then wraps his arms around Hob’s shoulders, holding tight as Hob chases his own completion in his body.

Hob closes his eyes as he comes, just floating in the feeling of having Dream around him. He’s missed that so much. He’s missed Dream so much, in these years he’s been left behind.

He doesn’t realize how emotional he’s gotten about it until he feels Dream’s fingertips tracing over his cheeks, wiping away tears.

“Sorry,” Hob says, voice choked, holding Dream close even as he gently slips from his body.

Dream strokes his hair. “Perhaps I ought to go,” he says quietly, but makes no move to get up. “I fear I am being unfair to you.”

“I’m the one that told you to come back. Wanted you to.” Even if it just breaks his heart all over again, when Dream decides he still isn’t happy, and can’t stay.

“Even so.”

Still he doesn’t move to get up. Hob runs his hands up and down his back, just feeling him.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Dream continues some time later, still stroking Hob’s hair. Hob’s long since buried his face in Dream’s shoulder. “How you. Can feel content.”

Hob barks a laugh. “You think I’m content?”

“Are you not?”

“I don’t know, Dream.” Content to be here, in London, maybe, to not need to uproot himself, chasing some nebulous sense of better, but content? While knowing Dream was out there somewhere?

“My mistake,” Dream says. He rests his cheek on top of Hob’s head. “Perhaps there is no contentment, then.”

That makes Hob laugh for real. He finally lifts his head, looking Dream in the eye. “You’re the most dramatic bitch I’ve ever met. ‘There’s no such thing as contentment'? Dream.”

Dream smiles, then leans in to kiss him. Hob sighs into the brush of his lips. There is such thing as contentment, he thinks.

“What if I don’t leave this time,” Dream says, when their lips part.

“You mean it?”

Dream nods, forehead leaning against Hob’s. “I am. Tired. And this. Is the first moment I have not felt fatigued in longer than I can remember.”

“I’ll have to tire you out better, then.”

“Hob.”

“I’m kidding you, love.” Really, all of Hob is leaping in cautious joy. Could Dream truly mean it? “I want you to stay. Let’s get cleaned up, yeah?”

Dream nods, and lets Hob help him up. They make their joint way to the bathroom, where Hob pulls Dream into the shower with him, and they hold each other close under the warm spray, and Dream washes Hob’s hair with careful focus, mindful of tugging it. Afterwards Hob gives Dream some pajamas to borrow, for all of Dream’s things are still in his hotel room. Dream cuddles up to him in bed, hesitant at first, until Hob opens his arms and assures him of his welcome.

The feeling of Dream laying his head down on Hob’s chest is heavenly. It’s dangerous. But it’s so good.

"I'm sorry," Dream murmurs, into the dark.

“For what? Leaving? You don’t have to be. It’s your life.”

“I don’t know quite what for,” says Dream. “I feel I am wavering about and dragging you along with me.”

“Maybe I want to be dragged along.”

Dream lifts his head to give him a look. “Precisely,” he says, and Hob feels skewered. Seen in his pathetic wanting. Like if he had more self-respect, he’d hold his inconsistent friend at a distance, not invite Dream right back in to break his heart again.

Dream’s decision to leave the first time wasn’t even about Hob. They weren’t really together, more on again, off again, falling into each other and then away. “Friends with benefits.” Only Hob had always cared more about the ‘friends’ than the ‘benefits.’ Maybe if he had made it clearer, Dream would have stayed.

Maybe he needs to stop making it his fault, when it wasn’t about him.

Only. The fact that it wasn’t about him also means that it was.

“Why didn’t you stay?” he asks, grip tightening around Dream’s shoulders.

“I wasn’t happy,” Dream says. The words feel like a shove to the chest. “I didn’t. I did not know how to fix it. I tried to leave. Then I tried to leave again. Only. You can’t leave yourself.”

“What makes it different this time?”

If London— if Hob— didn’t make him happy before—

“Maybe nothing,” Dream admits, quietly, still lying on Hob’s chest. “Maybe it was a futile chase from the start. And I should give up trying.”

“Dream—"

Dream plows on, as if he needs to get it all out. “I called you because. I was staring out at the ocean. I felt nothing. But I thought, ‘Hob would like it.’ And when I showed you, that did make me happy. For a moment. And when I told you how I felt… that made me happy, too.”

Hob wants to say something, but his throat is too tight. God, Dream always finds new ways to break his heart.

“I think that maybe contentment is not… for me,” Dream adds, fingertips stroking lightly up and down Hob’s side. “But the closest I've felt, in fleeting moments, is when I am with you.”

“Dream…” this time it comes out as barely a breath. “My love.”

“Still?”

“Yeah. Always.” Maybe Hob doesn’t have very good self-preservation. But it’s Dream. It’s always been Dream.

“For me as well,” Dream says, and Hob lets out a long, heavy breath.

“Now you’ve got to show me Rhodes in person,” he teases, to break some of the heaviness in the air.

Dream’s smile curves against his skin. “You will like it.”

“I’m sure.”

“I think I will like it more with you there,” Dream adds.

“Yeah?” Hob says.

“Mmhm.”

“I think you just want to ogle me on a beach.”

“If I’m to be in a beautiful place, I ought to have a beautiful man as well,” Dream says. The feeling of his rare smile still pressed to Hob's chest is devastating.

“Completes the picture?” Hob asks, chest tight.

“Yes.” Dream wraps his arms around him and cuddles in close. “I believe it does.”