griombrioch - Tumblr blog

[griombrioch]

I've recently got into the Sandman fandom and I'm loving your 'Sap of the Family Tree' series on A03. Some of the comments on the latest story hint at Rose possibly becoming Destruction. Are you planning to write this idea? (Would you be offended if I were to use the same idea in my own writing?)

Hey thanks! I'm so glad you're enjoying it! Rose transitioning into Destruction's role is an idea that I am planning on developing down the line, so I'm glad that it seems to be translating well for people. I'm just so into the idea of it! That said, I would absolutely not mind at all if you wanted to write about this yourself! In any case, I am currently drowning in graduate school applications, so my own motivation for pleasure writing is sort of tapped at the moment. Have fun and tag me in it!

[griombrioch]

a time of need

Hob’s having what he’d thought would be an easy Sunday, puttering around the house catching up on chores and rest, when the worst headache he’s ever had splits down the middle of his skull.

It’s worse, even, than the time he’d taken an actual cleaver to the forehead, and woken up two days later still unable to see out of one eye. Hob’s hands shake and he barely manages to make it to the couch before he collapses. He shuts his eyes in agony and—

--then he’s in the Dreaming. So fast, between one blink and the next. And he knows, instinctively, that he was called here, by Dream or by the Dreaming itself. But he’s never been called like that, with a call full of such pain.

He staggers to his feet in the throne room. The sky high overhead, usually a placid field of stars, is swirling with red star matter, like the Dreaming has fallen into the heart of a nebula. It casts a crimson sheen over everything.

Lucienne is hurrying towards him, steps clicking sharply on the marble floor. “Hob? You should not be here. Lord Morpheus has closed off the heart of the Dreaming.”

“Trust me, it wasn’t intentional.” Hob takes in the deep creases in her expression as she reaches him. “What’s going on?”

“We are under attack.” She squeezes his arm, imploring. “You must go.”

“Under attack? What, Hell?” Hob remembers Dream mentioning it had happened before.

Lucienne shakes her head. “No. I do not know the details.”

A cavernous boom! echoes through the hall, shaking the walls. Lightning streaks across the sky, jagged scars that leave harsh afterimages in Hob’s vision. He pales at the sound. “Is he taking them on – whoever they are – by himself?”

“The dreams and nightmares are helping as best suits this kind of fight. But you must go.”

Hob shakes his head. “No, he called me for a reason. Where is he?”

“Hob—”

“Lucienne. Please.”

She relents, still troubled. “He is outside the palace gates, I know not precisely where. You will be drawn to the nexus of his power, I am sure.”

That’s good enough for Hob. He runs down the palace steps and across the bridge to the gates, reaching them much faster than he thinks should probably be reasonable, but then again he is in the Dreaming. The gates open to let him out, and then clank shut behind him.

The feeling of power is much stronger out here, as if the palace and its grounds had been held in a protective bubble. Lucienne was right about Dream’s power drawing him in; Hob finds him easily, standing at the bank of a river that seems to now be flowing with lava instead of water, and he’s just— just surrounded by… creatures.

Hob can’t define them any better than creatures, they are amorphous and shifting, claws and teeth and legs and wings emerging then disappearing again. He wonders why they haven’t gone to flank the palace, attack from all sides, before realizing that just as Dream’s power has drawn Hob in, it is also drawing the creatures to him. Making him the only target.

He isn’t carrying a weapon or even wearing armor or anything, and Hob’s heart pounds as he runs to him, and—

A creature leaps for Dream’s throat. Dream reaches into the air – into a dream? – his arm disappearing, yanks, and pulls a ribbon of flames straight through the creature’s body, throwing it out across the landscape. Grass scorches, and the other beasts in the fire’s path screech.

Another is leaping at his back, hundreds of teeth appearing from the shrouded mass of it in midair. Hob’s about to shout a warning, but no need. Dream turns, flings open his coat. The creature barrels in and falls into the swirling galaxies in the lining, its shriek cutting off sharply.

More run for him. Dream disappears into a dream, then reappears seconds later, a good twenty meters from where he’d been.

On the edge of a cliff.

A cliff which the beasts that charge for him hurtle off of, a cliff which was definitely not there before, because Dream brought it with him from the dream, mother of God, how is Hob even supposed to help here at all?

Well, fuck it. He’s got to try, doesn’t he?

As soon as he thinks it, there’s a sword in his hand. Dream doesn’t make note of his presence, but he must know Hob’s there, mustn’t he? Dream called him there, though God knows why.

Regardless, the creatures are so focused on Dream that Hob is able to take out two of them with his blade before they even notice he’s there.

They don’t… die, in the way he’d expect. They sort of scream and explode into dust, drifting off in the wind. He hopes they aren’t just going to reform or something.

“You are creatures of warmth,” Hob hears Dream say, across the field, to the rest of the creatures. It seems like there are more, not less, like they’re multiplying. God. “Please enjoy my warmest hospitality.”

A vicious blizzard descends on them. 

Snow whips in wild gusts across the landscape, ice biting Hob’s cheeks. He can’t see Dream very well anymore. He hears a splash and a creature howling, and imagines Dream must have pulled a frozen lake from a dream about ice skating, or perhaps from a nightmare about drowning. 

He makes his way towards Dream, determined to stay by him so he has someone at his back, even if that someone is Hob, whose powers here are meager in comparison to Dream’s.

He finds creatures in the snow and slaughters them, all of his sword work from decades past coming back to him. They come at him with fangs and claws and tails bristling with spines, but Hob isn’t afraid. His desperation to keep Dream safe is far more powerful than that.

Irrational, to want to keep Dream safe in the Dreaming. But he feels it all the same.

“This is my realm,” he hears Dream growl from somewhere in the storm, voice reverberating despite the howling wind. “It bends to my wishes. But you? Let us see how you like the dark.”

And he turns off the sun.

The Dreaming is plunged into absolute, pure darkness the likes of which Hob has never seen. There’s no moon, no stars. Hob blinks and throws his hands out, trying to balance.

And then realizes…

He can see.

Somehow. Not with his eyes, quite. But with some kind of direction at the back of his head, like the Dreaming itself is guiding him. Neat, that. Also quite likely to drive him mad if it lasts for any amount of time.

He follows the direction of Dream’s voice and finally gets close enough to see him again. There are still so many damn creatures, where are they even coming from? They are blundering now, in the dark, but must have other senses for they’re still managing to, eventually, turn for Dream. Hob watches him turn the ground beneath a group of them into quicksand. They scream and flail as they sink.

“Do you not tire?” Dream asks, idly. “Do you not relent? That is disappointing, for I tire. Of gravity, in particular.”

The realm turns upside down.

Hob’s feet stay planted on the grass as his brain spins wildly to reorient itself, but the creatures aren’t so lucky. They go tumbling down – or up? – into the air, screaming. Hob wonders if Dream’s just accidentally done the same to the entire realm, but no— looking behind him, he can see the core of the Dreaming, the palace, all the residences, still oriented the same way. Opposite to them. What in--?

Maintaining two sets of opposing gravities at once seems to be costing Dream. His chest heaves. He flips them back over again, pushing his sweaty hair back from his face. The sun pops back up into the sky, too, which is… Hob decides to interrogate it later and just be grateful for the light.

“Dream!” Hob calls, as soon as his dizziness subsides.

Dream spins to him, seeming startled. “Hob?” 

So then he didn’t realize Hob was there, at least not consciously. By the time Hob reaches his side, the sword has dissolved from his grasp. “Fuck. That was… insane. Are you okay?”

Dream looks at him, brow furrowed. The rushing winter winds die down as their eyes meet, leaving drifts of snow behind. “Why are you here? You should not be here, it is not safe. I have closed off the heart of the Dreaming. How?”

“You… called me?” Hob says. “I think.” 

Dream’s frown deepens. “I do not… recall. Regardless, you must go. The Dreaming is not safe at present.”

“Why? Isn’t the fight over?”

“No.” Dream looks out at the horizon. A wave of sickly, mixed colors is growing there, like oil spreading across the sky. “The real fight has yet to begin.”

“What? What about all those creatures?”

“Those were scouts. Hunting dogs.” Dream huffs. “Their masters thought perhaps they would get lucky and catch me unawares, not have to dirty their hands. Foolish. They will pay for it.”

Hob looks around, horrified, as that oil keeps spreading upward from the horizon. With it, a wave of what Hob can only describe as grayscale follows across the landscape. Color leaches out of everything and disappears. Dream watches this, expression tight but measured, following the arc of the spread.

“Aren’t you going to do something?” Hob asks.

“Let them expend their energy. Color is immaterial, I will restore it later.” 

“Lure them into complacency?” Hob guesses, faint.

Dream nods. He looks even more dramatic with no warmth to his skin, all stark black and white lines. 

“What are they? The invaders?” Hob asks.

Dream hums. “The closest waking world corollary would be… bacteria. It is a sickness, of sorts. They would infect and devour us.”

Hob means to say something intelligent but what comes out of his mouth is, “Bacteria have hunting dogs?”

“Well, they hardly have teeth of their own,” says Dream. 

Hob shakes his head, as if that could possibly help to clear it. “And you’re going to fight these things on your own?”

“My dreams and nightmares are already helping me by letting me pull from them, so that I do not have to create everything from scratch,” says Dream. He watches as the oil spill completes its transit of the sky. The only color now is the swirling above them. “This is not a fight of physical prowess. You must leave.”

“I can’t die, Dream.”

“I would not see your mind shredded on my behalf.”

“Is that going to happen if the Dreaming doesn’t fall?” 

Dream frowns. “Not… likely. And the Dreaming will not fall. I will not let it.”

“Then it’s settled,” Hob says.

Dream sighs. “You are monumentally stubborn.”

“That’s what got me this far in the first place. Can’t stop now.” 

That pulls a tiny smile from Dream. “No. I suppose not.”

A shudder runs through the landscape, vibrating under Hob’s feet. Then another, like the ground itself is shivering. Hob shifts to maintain his balance, as he might once have on the deck of a ship. Dream doesn’t move at all, like the shivers travel right through him.

The air goes hot, then cold, then blazingly hot again, struggling with itself. The snow around them starts to steam. Dream’s jaw clenches, and the temperature drops violently once again, below freezing. Hob’s breath fogs in the air.

Dream is glaring at the horizon. “Stay present,” he tells Hob, in the tone one might use to call, On your guard!

Never bring a sword to a battle of minds, Hob thinks deliriously. His blade hasn’t rematerialized, and it would be useless anyway. Hob himself feels useless, but like hell will he leave Dream’s side.

“How did they even get in?” he asks.

“The boundaries of the Dreaming are porous to permit the passage of dreamers,” says Dream. “Unsavory things sometimes slip in as well.”

“Often?”

Dream’s eyes glint. “Only when enough time has passed that the folly in doing so has been forgotten.”

It’s in moments like this that Hob really thinks about how old Dream is. It’s easier to conceptualize his age in this way, funnily enough. An ancient lord once again protecting his kingdom from invaders is something Hob’s mind can grasp, even if the timescale in this case is absurdly long.

“Going to teach them a lesson, then?”

Dream smiles, slow and predatory; Hob sees in it the nightmare of every prey animal that has ever dashed through a dark forest, fleeing the gleaming of teeth. “Oh, yes.”

He closes his eyes. His fingers flutter at his side, like he’s plucking the strings of an invisible harp. Snow lifts in swirls around them, though there’s no longer any wind. Another shiver runs through the ground.

“What are you going to do?” Hob asks, at a whisper. He doesn’t know why he whispers; it just seems right in the face of the approaching power storm.

“There are known ways to destroy a waking world bacterium,” Dream says. His eyes are still shut, brow furrowed in concentration. “Burn it out, freeze it out. Take away its sustenance. Make the environment unsustainable for it. But bacteria that feasts on dream matter cannot be destroyed by something as simple as temperature; the temperature is, after all, a part of the Dreaming itself. It can gorge itself on the heat and cold as easily as on anything else.” 

“So what will you do, then?” Hob asks.

Dream’s lips quirk up in a smug smile. “I am the Dreaming,” he says, not actually answering the question. “They cannot have me. If they insist on having me, then I will simply not exist at all.”

Before Hob can so much as say wait!, Dream's power screams into being around them more tangibly than Hob’s ever felt it, the air charging up with electricity, the fabric of the realm warbling around them. His ears pop with the pressure change, a whine pitching higher and higher in the atmosphere and making him wince, and Dream’s form fuzzes in and out like TV static.

Dream’s hands rise at his sides like he’s finding his balance in the shifting world around them, or perhaps conducting the dreams in an invisible orchestra. He hums, pleased with whatever he can feel rumbling through his power. Then he presses his hands outward.

Hob… doesn’t know exactly what happens, then. 

It’s like everything blinks out, then back on again, like turning on and off a light switch. It’s so quick his body doesn’t even react until several seconds later, when a tremor of unease shivers up his spine. For it wasn’t like before, when Dream had blacked out the sun – Hob would swear that in that millisecond of darkness he felt nothing, not the ground under his feet, or the air he was breathing, or his own clothes against his skin. He’s not even sure he existed in that moment.

Everything around him is exactly the same, except that those threads of oily color circling the sky have disappeared. Just like that, gone, the bacteria dead, or at least banished, and Hob has no idea what Dream even did.

Everything in the Dreaming looks the exact same--

--except Dream.

Dream looks like he tumbled down a cliff then ran ten kilometers through bramble bushes. His hair is falling in clumps over his forehead, his long coat torn, his forehead prickling with sweat. His nose is bleeding, the red of it shockingly bright as color leeches back into the gray landscape, though he pays it no mind as it trickles over his lips. His hands are shaking where he holds them out, fingers now closed into fists.

“Any of you who have survived,” he snarls, glaring up at the sky, presumably speaking to the remaining bacteria, “carry a message home to your people. Enter my realm again, touch a single one of its inhabitants, and I will personally unmake your entire species. Do not test me.”

Is unmaking a species even in Dream’s power? Hob wouldn’t have thought so, but he wouldn’t care to test that theory right now, were he the species in question.

Dream wavers, then, and Hob just barely manages to lurch forward fast enough to catch him as he falls. He goes to his knees in the snow, and Dream collapses against him, shaking horribly. He coughs, a horrible, wet sound, and blood spatters Hob’s shirt.

Hob’s heart jumps into his throat. “ Dream —” He tries to get him down onto his side, but Dream clenches his hands weakly in Hob’s shirt.

“I will be—” he starts, and is cut off by more coughing, blood dripping from his lips. “Fine, in—” Another spasm of coughing. A tremor shakes violently through him.

“Shhh.” Hob holds him close. “I got you.”

Dream heaves for breath. He feels feverishly hot, now, sweating and shivering. “What the hell did you even do? ” Hob asks, running a hand over his back, a bit frantically.

“I unmade the Dreaming,” Dream says, each word a wheeze, “ripped it back into-- into its original grains of sand. Thus. Expelling the bacteria. Into the void that surrounds us, where it-- cannot survive. And then I put- put the Dreaming back, exactly as it was. It must--” he wipes blood from his mouth with a shaking hand, only succeeding in smearing it all over his cheek-- “must be done in an instant. To avoid causing harm.”

“What?” Hob breathes, a vast understatement for the horror and awe that he feels. “Dream, what?”

“Breaking my ruby gave-- gave me back power I hadn’t-- hadn’t seen in eons.” He coughs once, hard, spitting up more blood onto Hob’s shirt. “Nevertheless, I may be… down here for a while.” 

Hob smoothes a hand over his shivering chest. “It doesn’t seem like it’s avoided causing harm.”

“Causing no- no damage is impossible, but I managed to contain it within-” he wheezes-- “within my- aspect- and not the rest of the Dreaming.” 

“I didn’t even know you could bleed,” Hob says faintly. It’s more disconcerting than feeling the world unravel around him to see Dream shaking and coughing up blood. He’s heard that Dream was weakened when he first escaped his long imprisonment, before he’d recovered his tools, but this is on another level. 

“Usually, I cannot,” says Dream, which doesn’t help at all.

“Alright, let’s get you down, then.” Hob maneuvers Dream to lie on his side on the ground. Dream rests his head in Hob’s lap, eyelids fluttering. Around them, the world seems to waver, and then stabilizes again. 

Dream feels it, too, and says, “Worry not. The realm is stable. It is merely. Reacting to me.”

“My concern’s really you right now, love,” Hob says, running a hand through Dream’s hair. “Though it’s good the place isn’t going to collapse.”

Dream hums at his touch, closing his eyes. His breathing’s evened out, but it doesn’t seem like he’ll be getting back up under his own muster anytime soon.

It’s not long before footsteps crunch in the snow behind them, wingbeats by their side. “My lord!”

“Lucienne.” Dream’s voice is a low rumble against Hob’s thigh. “Matthew.”

“Boss!” Matthew lands on the ground beside them, Lucienne reaching them a few moments after. Matthew’s gaze catches on the blood on Hob’s shirt and he says, “You hurt, Hob?”

Hob shakes his head and nods toward Dream. Matthew squawks in alarm, feathers puffing up, and flies up to land on Dream’s shoulder, nudging at his hair with his beak.

“I am fine, Matthew,” Dream says without opening his eyes. It’s somewhat unconvincing considering how hoarse his voice comes out, and the fact that one of his ears is now bleeding.

Hob is… fairly convinced that he will be fine, once he’s rested. Fairly. 

“Just put himself through the ringer, that’s all,” he says, wiping the blood that’s trailing from Dream’s ear away with his sleeve. “We’ll go home, get some food in you, have a nice bath, and get some rest, hm?”

Dream hums in agreement. “Lucienne, how fare the dreams?”

“Everyone is frightened, but safe,” she reports, then adds, sounding fond, “They were a bit confused by the sun going out.”

“Yeah, that was an interesting party trick,” Hob agrees, and Dream chuckles.

It’s still bloody cold out here, post-blizzard. Hob doesn’t trust Dream’s usual I don’t feel temperatures excuse when he’s so drained of power, so ripped apart. 

He gathers Dream up in his arms again, wrapping his coat tighter around him. “Let’s get you in from the cold.” 

“So… we’re just not gonna talk about that moment when we all went to the shadow realm, then,” Matthew caws as Hob gets to his feet, lifting Dream up with him. “Do I want to know what that was?”

“Probably not,” Hob tells him, as Dream says, “Hob Gadling, I am capable of walking.”

“Uh-huh,” Hob says with no confidence. “Sure, love. Just indulge me. Consider it some kind of foreplay for later, if it makes you feel better.”

Matthew mutters, “Ick,” but Dream smiles and relents.

“Much later,” Hob warns him. “Mister Coughing-Up-Blood.” 

Dream rolls his eyes, but allows Hob to carry him.

Fortunately, it’s not far – the Dreaming transports them quickly back to the palace, though with less certainty in the movement than usual. “Lucienne,” Dream says as Hob divests him of his long coat and lays him in his bed. He looks like he’s about to try to pop back up, and Hob presses a hand to his shoulder, subtly keeping him down. “Please instruct everyone to let me know immediately if they find anything awry. The realm is cleansed, but I do not like to take chances.”

She inclines her head in understanding, casting a small smile in Hob’s direction, too, for good measure. Presumably for his efforts in keeping Dream lying down.

Matthew lands on Dream’s knee. “Seriously, boss, you good? I don’t know what was going on exactly, but whatever it was felt… not great.”

“I am ‘good,’” Dream confirms. “Some amount of damage is usually sustained in fighting off an illness, is it not?”

“If that’s how you want to put it,” Matthew says.

“I’ll look after him,” Hob reassures them both.

They take their leave then, Matthew giving Hob a little salute with his wing, and then Hob and Dream are alone. Hob slips Dream’s boots off, laying a blanket over him, then sits beside him on the bed, resting a hand on his chest. “Are you feeling any better?” he asks. “You have to let me know if it gets worse, I’m dead serious, Dream.” 

“I’m not certain what weight that carries when you cannot die,” Dream says.

Hob raises an eyebrow. “Try it and find out. Now, still.” 

He finds a damp cloth – thanks, Dreaming – and starts wiping the blood from Dream’s lips, and his hands. 

“I see now why the Dreaming called you here,” Dream muses. “No one else would dare speak to me in this manner.”

“The Dreaming called me?”

“I did not. Not intentionally. I would not have brought you into such a battle.”

“Well, I wasn’t much help anyway,” Hob observes. He tips Dream’s head up and gets him to drink some water, likewise manifested by the Dreaming. “You did all the work with your world-bending powers.”

“Perhaps you are a reward,” Dream suggests as Hob lets him lie back down. He finds Hob’s hand and kisses his fingertips. 

“Oh, yeah? A prize for your heroism?”

Dream tugs on his arm. Hob slips off his own shoes and discards his blood-splattered shirt, and obediently lies down beside him, gathering him in his arms. Dream cuddles up to him, giving a pleased hum, resting his head on Hob’s shoulder. “A comfort.”

Hob runs a hand through his hair and kisses his forehead. He still can't help but worry a bit, after everything he saw Dream do, but it's good to see him feeling more comfortable. “Sweet thing. You were very brave. Clever, too.” 

“You do not have to praise me for performing my function,” Dream grumbles.

“Yeah, but you love it.”

Dream mutters again under his breath, but doesn’t move away. Hob squeezes him tighter, and he softens again. 

“Get some rest, now,” Hob tells him.

“You will stay?”

“Course. Think I’ll abandon my king in his time of need?”

Dream hums, evidently pleased.

“But am I going to wake up with a terrible hangover after this?” Hob asks. “Whatever the Dreaming did to summon me felt like getting hit over the head with a pickaxe.”

“Maybe,” Dream says, sounding only the slightest bit chagrined about it. “It had to pull you through the barrier I had constructed.”

He tucks his nose against Hob’s throat, snuggling closer, and Hob just sighs, defeated. “Worth it, to be here for you,” he admits, and feels Dream smile.

[griombrioch]

so I'm about to potentially invite.... a lot of people to come shit on me but it's been bothering me for like, weeks.

If you're gonna make art/fanfics of canonically disabled characters and *not* include their canon mobility aids where they would reasonably have them, it comes off so deeply fucking ablest. Disabilities do not need to be erased.

[griombrioch]

let’s settle this shit but do NOT reblog if you’re gonna be modest about it like a little BITCH. anyway privilege check tell me which ones apply to you: hot, funny, can dance, can do math, can spell, can drive, can cook

[griombrioch]

if you still have room for dec gift ficlets, angst prompt 48 makes me 🥺🥺 for dream/hob!! <3

Heya, thanks for the prompt! I hope you'll like it <3

[small heads-up for mentioned drug use]

crashing, wide-awake

There isn’t one huge thing that does it. As Hob stares at his empty kitchen, at the spot Dream just occupied moments ago, he thinks it would be easier if there was.

Nothing pertaining to Dream is particularly easy, of course, even less so when frustration still boils beneath Hob’s skin. Sometimes he thinks that dating some kind of cosmic entity should have come with a warning; other times, times like now, he thinks how there had been warnings, various, in all colours and volumes, and he had simply ignored them.

They are still glaring at him, right now mostly in the form of his empty kitchen that, just moments ago, Dream had still occupied.

There isn’t one huge thing that caused Hob’s irritation to build and simmer and catch. If he took a proper breath and looked at it objectively, he could admit, too, how he perhaps isn’t being entirely fair.

It isn’t one big thing, but a conglomerate of missed meetings and days, sometimes weeks without a word. Of meddling, of secrets kept and questions evaded. It is a lack of balance and willingness to listen, to listen just once. Hob loves him. Hob loves him so much that it burns, but it has been three years of this, after six hundred-and-a-few of build-up, and there is only so far that love can get you.

He had tried to bring it up, of course, more than once. He can see that Dream is trying, some days. But he is also capricious and obstinate and full of pride, and at some point between March and October, they had started to argue more than they spun tales.  

Not that Hob is any better; he knows as much, always a little too greedy, too fixated, unwilling or unable or both to find a compromise.

It’s why it blew up too, tonight, he knows it beneath the frustration he still clings to. Has to, really; if he lets go, well-worn fear may rear its head, an image of Dream leaving and not coming back for an eternity burning behind his eyelids.

He grabs a bottle of whiskey and downs a glass, then another.

He goes to sleep, telling himself that it’ll be fine. A few days, a bit of distance, and they’ll sort it out.

---

The first night, he does not dream.

The second, Dream finds him, frustrated slope curving his mouth, eyes both hurt and hard. Hob leaves before they can fight again.

The rest of the week, he dreams; not notably at first, although in hindsight, it is. Memories of the last three years, of Dream in his kitchen barefoot and smiling. Of himself in the Dreaming, sprawled across Fiddler’s Green while Dream read to him, something ancient and holy and tangerine-sweet.

In between, the dreams are dreams and not memories, but they are also warnings. An empty flat. A deserted table in the Inn. The feeling of waiting, waiting, waiting.

For one week, Hob wakes with the urge to claw his heart out of his chest, see how Dream likes it.

When he goes to sleep the second Friday after their fight—ugly and snarling, the two of them; always too good at both devotion and destruction—he sets an alarm. He slips into his dreams like a thief, and once he is there, he seizes and twists the gossamer threads that make the Dreaming, the way he knows but never uses.

Never before tonight. Tonight, he does, until the scenery of Hob’s living room and Dream’s head in his lap shudders and crumbles, leaving only the throne room behind.

He meets Dream’s eyes and doesn’t know what is burning a hole into his stomach—hurt or fury or both.

“Stay the fuck out of my head,” he says, flat and tired.

His alarm rings, perfectly timed.

---

It’s a long weekend; Hob makes use of it by not sleeping.

Unfortunately, sleep deprivation still affects the immortal body. Fortunately, so does cocaine. It’s been a while, and Hob knows that he is being just as dogged and erratic as he likes to accuse Dream of being, but—

But. It is more about proving a point than anything else.

A point that is, admittedly, difficult to remember on hour fifty-two, line only-god-still-knows, and a heartbeat more volatile than his and Dream’s tempers combined.

In that twice-removed way of being high out of his mind, he knows that the crash will be brutal. That he’ll be lucky to avoid Delirium, fond as he is of her. That he’ll wish for Dream something fierce.

It takes another six hours until he gets there, sprawled across his sofa and mind a merry-go-round that won’t shut the fuck up. He can’t move a muscle and knows that sleep will be an elusive beast for a few more hours regardless.

He sighs; he should be wiser than this by now.

“Hob.”

Despite himself, despite everything, Hob’s first reaction is relief.

He squints at Dream as he kneels beside the sofa.

“You have been absent from my realm for three days.”

“I’m still mad at you.”

Dream’s lips thin, there and gone. “I know. I do not wish for you to harm yourself—more than you already have.”

Dream never lies; it is something Hob understood long before most other things.

He is so goddamn tired.

“If you fuck with my head again—”

“You will sleep without dreaming,” Dream says, the command of his voice a juxtaposition to the uncertainty with which he brushes his fingers against Hob’s temple, into his hair. “I will be here when you wake, so we may talk. If… If you will have me.”

The last shreds of his resistance crumble. He turns his face into Dream’s hand, lips finding a pointless pulse, eyes closing.

“Always,” he vows, first true thing he’s said in a week. Adding, silent, We’ll be alright.

As he drifts off, he can feel Dream’s lips against his forehead; it is enough to make him believe it, too.

[griombrioch]

 ﹟random get-to-know-me ask game  !! 

orchid ⇢ what’s a song you consider to be perfect?

cactus ⇢ something you’re currently learning (about)?

bamboo ⇢ do you change into a different outfit when you get home?

abelia ⇢ do you have a particular piece of jewelry you always wear or can’t part with?

daffodil ⇢ do you have siblings? if yes, in what ways do you think you’re similar to or different from them?

mahonia ⇢ what place, thing, activity inspires you most and how do you express yourself when it does?

chia ⇢ what’s an inside joke you have with someone else?

sage ⇢ what ‘medium’ of art (poetry, music, fiction, paintings, statues etc.) is the most touching to you? why do you think that is?

edelweiss ⇢ how’d you think of your url/username? what’s it associated with to you?

camellia ⇢ what were you like when you were younger? do you think you’ve changed a lot?

jasmine ⇢ do you have a movie or book you loved but will never watch/read again?

ivy ⇢ what are your ‘tells’ for your emotions and moods? how can someone tell you’re happy, annoyed, upset or tired?

chamomile ⇢ what kind of things do you like receiving as gifts?

aloe vera ⇢ what’s something (mundane) you really want to experience in life?

palm tree ⇢ do you have a fictional villain you shouldn’t like but love regardless?

nutmeg ⇢ how’s your room/home decorated? do you have a specific theme or style going on?

papyrus ⇢ if you put your ‘on repeat’ playlist on shuffle, what’s the first song that comes up? what do you like about it / associate it with?

taro ⇢ if someone called you right now to catch up, what’re the things you’d tell them about?

[griombrioch]

hey if it's not too much to ask, I know I wrote you an essay about Hob with chronic pain a bit ago... but I just got denied disability benefits after over a year and a half of waiting and getting Malpractice'd on for their investigation of my claim. at a time when my symptoms are really high due to the cold and the time of year and just. Life. so idk if you're up for it but it'd be nice to read (more) about Hob getting comfort for his own disabilities. no pressure or obligation, I just read the stuff you already wrote again because I'm sad and I was like "I love him..... :")" and I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask. I hope things are going better for you right now! happy early new year! maybe 2023 will be better

I'm so sorry to hear this and I hope another door will open for you. I am absolutely up for providing some comfort <3

---

Dream finds him on the landing, halfway up to his flat, and Hob can't help the little rush of shame that heats his otherwise bloodless face as Dream stands there, with his perfect body made of intentions that never fails him, head tilted, brows drawn.

"I'll be up in a minute," he promises. "Just need to catch my breath."

Without a word, Dream settles down next to him. They're blocking the entire stairwell now, which is probably a fire hazard, but it's only the two of them it'll matter to.

Dream's warm. He doesn't bother to be warm unless it's for Hob's benefit. Silly, to feel ashamed in front of him. It's not as though Dream doesn't have plenty of his own war wounds to work around.

Hob laughs, mostly at himself, and can't quite help it turning into a sob he has to bite down on his fist, still curled over the top of his cane, to stop.

"You are having a difficult day," Dream says.

From anyone else it would be a flat statement of obvious fact, but from him it's genuine concern.

"Bit," Hob agrees. "Do you know, someone stopped me in the street today to tell me I was too young for this," he says, lifting the cane. "How bloody old do they want me?"

"You do not quite look your age," Dream says.

"I feel every bloody minute of it right now," Hob says.

"I was not aware of an age limit on injury."

Hob huffs, and decides he feels just sorry enough for himself to let himself rest his head against Dream's shoulder. "No, I wish someone'd told me if there was. Would've told the bastard who did it I was simply too young to be kneecapped."

"I could seek out your assailant, in whatever afterlife he has found himself," Dream says.

Hob blinks.

Then blinks again for good measure.

"You know. I've had to draw a lot of blood for the sake of survival over the past six centuries. But you are outright bloodthirsty."

Dream grunts.

"That's not a criticism, I love it," Hob says. "It's fine. Outlived the bastard. The best revenge is living well, they say."

"The best revenge is revenge," Dream says flatly. "An eye for an eye is one of humanity's earliest laws."

"That's. Biblical."

"It is pre-Biblical."

"Well, in any case, I don't think we need to go about kneecapping dead men. Who knows. He might have had a hard life."

Dream shuffles closer to him, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. "Your old age has made you soft, Robert Gadling."

"Yours too," Hob says. "Far cry from the time I thought you might smite me for the crime of being happy in your presence."

"I have come to enjoy your happiness."

"Bit of an acquired taste for you?"

"I would not now be without it," Dream says. "This stairwell is cold. Would it pain you greatly to be carried?"

"Physically or emotionally?"

"Physically," Dream says. "You are far too wise to feel shame at receiving help. You have lived your entire life in cooperation with others. No man is an island."

"Breaking out the Donne." Hob laughs wryly. "My mood's rubbing off on you."

"Hob."

Hob laughs again. "I think it'd hurt less to be carried than to climb the second flight," he says. "If you're determined."

Dream lifts him, effortlessly, without another word.

"On my difficult days," he says. "You do not hesitate to bear me, and that is a much greater burden than the mere physical weight of one human."

Hob lets his head fall against Dream's shoulder for the short trip up to his flat, and then to the sofa, where he finds himself deposited gently, a blanket thrown over his knees, a silent I love you.

Dream follows it up with a gentle kiss, and murmurs the words into Hob's ear, and then the even more magical phrase, "I shall make you a cup of tea."

His knee still hurts. Always will. Practically always has.

But it's funny how little the hurt seems to matter, in the grand scheme of things, when there's comfort to go along with it.

[griombrioch]

more excerpts from a WIP that I'm sick of looking at

for funsies

--

In all fairness, he doubts he’ll even remember this part come morning, as muddled as he is. He probably won’t remember the details of Dream tugging his jumper over his head. The King of Dreams, unbuttoning his jeans and unlacing his shoes. He’s already barely hanging on to consciousness by the time Dream coaxes him to lie down on the bed. 

“Stay,” he whispers - begs, really - into the pillowcase, so quiet that no human would possibly be able to catch it. But he knows Dream will hear him. Dream always hears him.

“I am not leaving, beloved.” 

The bed dips and then the whole length of Dream is pressed against his back. 

“Surprised you aren’t just…blowing sand in my face. Be a lot faster for you,” he hears himself mumble, already feeling the dregs of sleep heavy behind his eyelids. Pulling him down, down, down.

“Do you want me to blow sand in your face?” Hob can hear the smile in Dream's voice, the tilt of amusement in his timbre, and for a moment is steeped in gratefulness that it is him who gets to experience this part of Morpheus. He knows he is not the first, and he probably will not be the last, but he can enjoy the novelty of the moment while it’s in his grasp.

“I mean. No. Preferably. But you could.”

“I think perhaps we’ll try a more organic approach, no?” Hob feels a cool hand settle on his bare waist. It feels heavenly against his feverish skin, like putting out a wildfire. In the next moment, Dream’s other hand is massaging at the base of his skull, and Hob could cry with relief. Tense, tired muscles finally release and he sinks further into the mattress.

“Better?” 

“Mhm,” he hums. Then, a whispered “m’sorry” slips out against the sheets. Hob knows that he’s pulled him away from more important things, like the duties of a literal king. He is also still very aware that had he said something sooner, they would not be here.

“Enough,” Dream breathes against his neck, “I did not tell you my name for six hundred years, if you may recall. You are more than forgiven.” 

“Still-” 

“Sleep, Hob Gadling.” 

And Hob sleeps. 

[griombrioch]

[griombrioch]

i think if there is a visibly disabled character in a fictional piece of media it should pretty obviously follow that you shouldn't like openly mock them (even if it's "lighthearted" or "affectionate") for the traits that they possess that are associated with their disability (or disabilities) but unfortunately ableism is the norm and i'm gonna hit everyone who's called viktor arcane shit like "stickbug" (or calling him a fucking cr*pple if you're able-bodied) with my cane. like do you think disabled people who share physical traits with viktor don't exist or aren't gonna see the way you talk about his body, his face, or how he moves? fuck you.

[griombrioch]

Hi!!! Anon here who asked about your ao3 handle in regards to keeping up with your soft dom Hob!

I lost track of you for a bit on here (sad) but managed to track down your original soft dom Hob bit (yay!) and so now I’m caught back up on your writings!!! And I’m so happy about it!!

Okay thank you! Love ya!! Love your work!! Thank you for sharing it!!!

Omg thank you so much?? You're lovely <3

I actually have a little bit of touch-starved Dream that I wrote and couldn't find anywhere to fit it in, but I'll take the excuse to post it here for you, eh? I suppose this isn't explicitly soft dom hob, but I do imagine it in the same verse.

---

Were Hob a couple centuries younger and perhaps a bit less accustomed to having his privacy violated by the supernatural, he might have screamed at the sight of someone towering by his bed at three in the morning. Or reached for a weapon.

As it is though, Hob barely jerks as he wakes. 

“Dream?” he squints at the faint outline of his boyfriend against the dark of the bedroom. “... what’re you doing?”

A pause.

“I’m… tired.” 

He certainly looks it. For the physical embodiment of sleep, Dream looks utterly exhausted. More than usual. The space beneath his eyes is bruise-dark. Hob thinks his pupils look blown and dazed. He wonders what’s happened, why Dream hasn’t just come to him in his own realm and instead chose to wake him up in his flat. 

“I know,” he murmurs in lieu of asking. Hob’s spine cracks as he pushes the duvet back and sits up against the headboard. “Come here then, sweetheart.” 

Dream stares at him for a moment, borderline glaring, jaw set like he’s going to refuse - but Hob knows him well at this point. Dream wouldn’t have come if he did not want something. 

He’s proven correct when Dream finally, reluctantly approaches. His steps are quiet - he must have already removed his shoes, if he even came with them at all. His overcoat melts away as he plants a knee on the bed, like it had never been there at all. Hob reaches out to grasp his hip, and that’s apparently all the permission Dream needs before he’s climbing into his lap, folding spindly legs around Hob’s thighs, curling himself down, down, down until his forehead meets sturdy shoulder. 

Morpheus had once been so touch-starved that he’d shake when Hob so much as clasped his shoulder. It’s a ritual of theirs now, of sorts, to hold him in his lap and deliver bone-deep pressure. He has a lot of years to make up for, and Hob is grateful to be trusted with such a service. 

“There you go, love.” 

Dream whines.  

His back is tense and coiled, so Hob sets about fixing that. He kneads his fingers into the muscle at his waist first, coaxing the myofibers to slacken. He spends some time on his right shoulder, working out the knots under his scapula (idly, he wonders how the personification of dreams even acquires stress knots in the first place). Combs through his hair and tugs apart the tangles. 

“I..” Dream finally speaks, and Hob winces at how raw his voice sounds. Like he hasn’t used it in days. He tenses up like he’s trying to gear himself up to say something, but then deflates. “...I’m sorry I woke you.” 

Somehow asking for comfort makes his partner feel more vulnerable than some of their more questionable activities. Which. Still doesn’t make much sense to Hob, but he knows Dream well enough to know when to push and when to let him be.

“S’okay,” Hobs soothes with a hand on the back of his neck, teasing at the strands of hair there. “You’re allowed to just… have this, Dream. You know that? You don’t have to explain yourself. Not to me.”

Hob is stuck and the duvet is all twisted up into a useless lump and his achy knee is at an awkward angle, but that’s alright. Doesn’t even matter, not when Dream’s releasing a shuddering sigh and finally going boneless against his chest.

[griombrioch]

“I won’t fail you again”

[griombrioch]

Herald 💫

Sandman Advent Kisses Day 1: Rose + Gilbert

The smell of spices and the sounds of laughter leave Gilbert grinning ear to ear as he knocks on the apartment door, a familiar voice calling I’ll get it filling him with seasonal joy.

Rose stands with her mouth hanging open on the other side, wearing a very fetching red hat with a glittery pompom dangling from it, and Gilbert, if possible, smiles even more broadly at her. He waves at Jed over her shoulder as he comes, too, to see what all the fuss is about.

“I hope you’ll forgive me dropping by,” Gilbert says. “Lord Morpheus has bestowed upon me the honour of heralding his arrival, and the privilege of informing you that he will be slightly late, owing to…” Gilbert pauses to think of a way to phrase the truth so that it remains true, but minimally embarrassing to Lord Morpheus and, more importantly, Hob Gadling.

“Owing to the distance between his current location and this one,” he decides on. It is at least a variety of the truth. “He will be along shortly.”

“But you’re staying, right?” Rose asks.

“Oh, well, I was only sent to tell you—”

“You’re staying,” Rose interrupts, grabbing Gilbert’s hand and tugging him inside. “There’s plenty of space for one more. And Uncle Morpheus wouldn’t have sent you if he didn’t want you to see us, right?”

“Well…” Gilbert dithers, but by now he’s across the threshold, and there are more familiar faces to smile at, and it really does smell wonderful and Hank is already offering him a plastic cup of eggnog which it would be rude to refuse, after all…

“Why not?” he says, accepting the cup and beaming at his human friends, heart swelling in his chest. They are good people, these ones. It’s just as well, he thinks, that Lord Morpheus plans to spend some time with them. One favourite human is all very well and good, but he could always use a few more for balance. These ones are perfect.

“Good,” Rose says, darting in to brush a kiss over his cheek that makes Gilbert blush, and laugh, and feel very pleased indeed to be human for one more afternoon.

(Also on Ao3)

[griombrioch]

May we see Calliope in your style too?

Well, since you asked so nicely I suppose I can give it a go 😉

[griombrioch]

Safe in the Palm of Your Hands

Morpheus, King of Dreams and Nightmares, Dream of the Endless.

Lord Shaper.

For Dream, his body is not always a fixed thing. He would even go so far as to say that most of the time it is not a fixed thing. He is sand, so many countless pieces shifting under the lightest winds and the softest touches. His form changes based on how others see him, on how he sees himself, on how those two expectations interact, whether one is stronger than the other or if a reasonable middle can be found. 

Sometimes, though, he is sand in an hourglass (impenetrable glass, no wind, no air, no gentle touch to guide his form, motionless, frozen in his helplessness) and he doesn’t feel solid, he feels fragile. Breakable. Like the same soft touch and gentle wind will shatter him. In those moments, his expectations of himself will always outweigh anybody else’s.

And it is such today. His status as an Endless does not protect him from his own nightmares, not when they are his own memories, and on this day his body feels wrong. He does not feel like an Endless. He does not feel like a king, or a lord, or a person. Even months after escaping the Burgess Mansion, after regaining his power and repairing his realm, even now, he finds himself feeling… small. His form shudders and shivers and he feels weak, he feels like a vermin to be caught, a prey to be hunted and devoured, he feels dirty, unwanted, unloved, unsafe, small, small, small-

There is a mouse in Hob’s apartment. 

He almost didn’t see it, was only alerted to something being amiss by the soft, frightened squeak when he opened his front door. Turning his head, he caught just a glimpse of a small shadow darting behind the old armchair in the corner. Closing the door behind him, Hob hums in surprise. Living above a pub, he’s never dealt with mice or other creatures in his home, most being more attracted to the kitchen and trash cans on the first floor before stumbling into the catch-and-release traps set around the property. 

Sighing, he lets his bag fall from his shoulder onto the floor, resigned to his new task for the night. He can finish grading in the morning, once he’s dealt with his unexpected guest. Over the centuries he’s managed to overcome the instinctual disgust and fear at the sight of rodents, but that doesn’t mean he wants one running around his apartment. For a moment, he considers going back downstairs to get one of the traps from the kitchen, but he doesn’t want to give the small creature a chance to hide deeper in the apartment. Besides, he’s wily- he’s certain he can herd the mouse into a box and get it outside himself no problem. 

There is a box next to the coffee table in the center of the room, full of papers and documents he’s been procrastinating on organizing, and he casually dumps the contents onto the floor as he approaches the armchair. He keeps his footsteps soft and slow, hoping not to spook the mouse into bolting. So far though, Hob hasn’t seen it since it darted into the corner. Kneeling carefully, he positions the box on its side in front of him, reaching out to move the chair to one side in an attempt to give the mouse only one direction to run.

The mouse doesn’t run.

Hob can’t help but furrow his brows sadly once he’s able to see it, huddled as far in the corner as it can get. For a moment he feels his heart clench in a way he doesn’t fully understand, something more than just general compassion for a small creature, and then he gasps as he realizes what he is looking at.

Two bright points of light emit from the mouse’s eyes.

“...Dream?” The name is less than a whisper on Hob’s breath. 

He doesn’t receive an answer, but he doesn’t need one. 

Since the stranger's delayed return, he and Hob had seen each other several times, a surprising change in their relationship that Hob welcomed with open arms. After so many years, Hob was finally given answers to some of his countless questions, including a name, and a summary of what exactly his friend is. Dream had even been generous enough to visit Hob in his dreams once, and Hob still gets flutters in his stomach when he thinks of the bright stars of Dream's eyes.

The box is quickly tossed aside and he crouches down farther. Dream had explained to him during one of their recent meetings that he was able to shapeshift (his explanation was far more detailed and complicated than that, but shapeshifting was the closest Hob's human mind could get to understanding) and his heart cracks in his chest as he takes in the sight of his friend in a form he has never seen before; has never even imagined in relation to the Endless being.

Pitch black fur contrasts the bright white of his eyes, but the fur looks matted and thin, tiny ribs peeking under the skin, and he doesn’t know if mice can cry, but the fur looks wet and clumped around the eyes. A long thin tail is sickly pale, and Hob can see him trembling even through the rapid rise and fall of the tiny chest.

Dream is always so strong and untouchable in Hob’s mind, it’s jarring to see him so small and clearly frightened. He doesn’t know what happened- why Dream is in this form, why he’s here, but Hob doesn’t think there’s a force on Earth or off it that could stop him from reaching out to comfort.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he keeps his voice soft and gentle, afraid of frightening him further. Afraid of hurting the small, fragile ears. “Hey, I’m not gonna hurt you, you’re alright,” slowly, so slowly, Hob cups his hands and lowers them to the ground before his friend, “you’re safe here, can you come out? I just want to help.”

Still no response, unless you count Hob’s heart breaking more each moment he watches the mouse shake and shiver in the corner. Part of him wonders if he should leave Dream alone, but it feels too cruel, and Hob has always been one to trust his instincts when it comes to matters of the heart. And so, taking a deep, steadying breath, he cautiously moves to gently scoop the mouse into his palms. 

It hurts more than he expected to actually feel tiny trembling paws against his skin, but Dream doesn’t run. In fact, he turns jerkily and tucks his little face against Hob’s fingers, curling into a ball as if trying to hide. He lets out a soft shushing sound, bringing his hands to his chest, cradling the mouse against his chest and making a shelter with his hands. 

Dream isn't sure how he got here either.

He had been feeling off kilter for days now, the weight that lived in his chest feeling more unbearable than usual. More and more he found his surroundings reacting to him; walls closing in and curving, clothes growing thinner and thinner, air becoming frigid and still. His lungs felt tight, desperate for breath he didn't need, and then he caught his reflection and the glass shattered in response and he heard someone yell, maybe worried, maybe angry, angry, angry, and then he was gone.

When he lands, he knows he's in a new form, but he can't focus on it, too scared in a primal way he can't identify. All he wants is to hide, it's all his mind can hold on to, so when he hears a door open he runs. If he can just stay hidden, if he just avoids capture, maybe he'll be able to pull himself together. But when he is found, his terror and sorrow are so great he freezes. He thinks he recognizes the man in front of him, even if he looks different being so much larger than him, but it doesn't matter. It doesn’t ease his fear, his grief, his hopelessness. Dirty, unwanted, unloved, unsafe.

Dream feels small. Dream is small. So small and easy to hurt. He thinks maybe he always has been.

But…

But the hands don't crush him. He is lifted slowly and then he finds himself… held. Not held down, not trapped, not caged. Even as one hand folds above him, there is no tension, and Dream feels certain he could escape if he wished too.

He does not wish to.

Hob's hands are warm, so warm, and soft, and nothing like the cold hard glass of his memories. Dream finds himself curling up as he is cradled against his chest, soft fabric covering a strong chest that doesn't scare him as much as it did a minute ago. Cupped against him like this, he feels ensconced in a gentle cave, the shadows beneath his hands a welcome peace against the thought of a hundred years of harsh light keeping him on display. 

Slowly, his trembling body stills, curling up tighter and soaking in the warmth.

"There you are," Hob coos, sitting on the couch, ever careful of his precious cargo. It is a great honor, he thinks, to hold an Endless in the palm of your hands. To be tasked with protecting something so valuable. Cautiously, he lays down, smiling as he sees the mouse curl deeper into his sweater, resting right over his heart. Hob keeps one hand cradling him, and brings the other up to pillow his own head against the arm of the couch. "Sorry if I scared you earlier," he keeps his voice low, "wasn't expecting company. But I meant it when I said you're always welcome. I'm glad you came to me."

Hesitantly, he moves one thumb to carefully stroke the matted black fur of Dream's back. It almost looks like the mouse sighs, relaxing even further, and Hob grins.

Continuing his gentle petting, Hob does what he does best.

He talks.

He tells the little dream mouse about the annoying staff meeting he had, and his favorite and least favorite coworkers, and one of his friends who wanted Hob to start a karaoke night at the New Inn, and how he thinks in his next life he wants to buy a fixer-upper and do as much as he can with his own hands. He tells Dream the little mundane things that have made Hob think of him, and how he wants Dream to get a phone but he thinks his head would explode if Dream ever sent an emoji.

He talks, and the mouse relaxes more and more, no longer curled desperately tight, but burrowing comfortably into him, and Dream thinks that maybe being small isn't as scary anymore if it means he can feel Hob's heartbeat drum against his entire body.

Eventually, Hob's hand goes limp above him, draped over Dream's form like a weighted blanket, as Hob talks himself to sleep.

Dream is still small. Still fragile. But he is surrounded by Hob Gadling, by his warmth and his compassion and his love, and he realizes that all he wanted was to feel safe, and Hob managed to give him that and so much more.

When Hob awakes, it is to the sun shining through his living room window and Dream, his familiar, gangly, human-shaped Dream, laying across him with his head on his chest. Hob's hand is resting on his wild black hair, as gentle with him now as he was the night before.

"Hi," Hob's voice cracks lightly as he wakes, but his grin is wide and bright when Dream turns to look at him.

"Hello."

They'll talk about it, later, after Hob has stretched the kinks out of his neck and has used his puppy eyes to convince Dream to eat some breakfast. Later, Hob will hold his hand and let Dream tell him fragmented details of where he's been this past century, of what was done to him. He'll stroke Dream's back when he seems to shrink, stuttering and stumbling over words about how who he wants to be and who he's supposed to be and who he's been turned into all cut into who he is like broken glass. Dream will speak a lot about broken glass. Dream will speak a lot about being broken. Later, Hob will hold him and tell him that being hurt is not the same as being broken.

Later.

For now, Hob just smiles and gathers Dream in his arms, letting him rest his head back down to listen to his immortal heartbeat, happy for the heavy weight against his chest.

[griombrioch]

saw ur thing about chronic pain hob and i !!!! i have also been thinking about this as someone with these issues and i just!!! so, the human body is not meant to live anywhere near as long as hob has, right? i mean you can see issues with aging in particular in older people but his body isn't aging, it's just continuing the same and i feel like every injury he gets wouldn't quite heal properly because he's basically actively fighting the passage of time, so they stick around and after a while he realises that the pain is just a condition of his immortality, and honestly I could probably write something super heartbreaking about the realisation that this is it, this is what he has to live with, but i really want to see a positive spin and him finding joy in it but i just don't know if i could write that

(@pansy-moon sorry to tag just want to be sure you see this)

Okay so after a very Bad Pain Day yesterday I have been consumed by the thought of chronically ill Hob talking to (lbr) chronically ill Dream and maybe being a source of comfort, maybe having a useful perspective, maybe being able to articulate the ways in which yes, life is pain, but it isn't ONLY pain and the pain isn't the important thing.

---

Dream finds he is still growing used to the notion that a creature as vibrant and vital as Hob Gadling, as relentlessly optimistic, might spend some of his days huddled on the sofa under a blanket, in a great deal of pain.

He is still growing used to the idea that Hob is often in pain, has spent all of their meetings in more pain than most humans are accustomed to, has spent every day of his six hundred years the same way and has still, at every turn, chosen to live like this. Insisted upon it.

I would not have done this to you, had I known, Dream had told him, the first time he had revealed this fact about himself. Hob had smiled at him with a deeper sadness than Dream had thought him capable of, but the sadness had not been for his own sake.

You wouldn’t believe how much that hurts to hear you say, Hob had responded. I love you so much. Don’t forget, all right?

Dream still does not quite understand that conversation, but he revisits it whenever he drops in on Hob and finds him like this.

“Hello, gorgeous,” Hob says, regarding him sleepily. “Hold on, I’ll make us a cuppa.”

Dream has learned, on the sharp end of several pointed looks, not to argue with Hob about the necessity of making a cup of tea, especially when he is in the least suitable condition to do it. Instead of voicing the objection that he could just as easily do it, Dream settles at the kitchen bench and watches, noting the careful way Hob balances his weight.

“Sorry I wasn’t downstairs,” he says, filling the kettle. “Wasn’t sure I’d make it back up.”

A distressed sound escapes Dream without his entirely intending it.

Hob chuckles. “I’m fine,” he says. “I’ll live, anyway. Not planning to beg for death today.”

“The more I know of you,” Dream says. “The less I feel I understand.”

“I love you,” Hob says, in that same tone from their last conversation about this. Quietly devastated. “Do you understand that?”

Dream nods. Yes. Against all odds, Hob does love him. Truly. Loyally. With an unceasing brightness greater than all the stars in the sky.

“Good.” Hob nods, and goes about finishing their tea. “I’m going back to the sofa, if you’d care to join me.”

Dream follows, not allowed to carry his own tea, and watches Hob walk carefully, bend awkwardly, and sit heavily, a relieved sigh escaping him.

It is. Unpleasant. To see one so beloved in such pain.

Once Dream settles, Hob throws the blanket over both of their laps, collects his tea from the coffee table, and sinks back into the cushions with another sigh.

“I love being alive,” he says. Not an unusual sentiment for Hob, but the timing is striking. “Even right now, right this minute. Do you know why?”

“Are you about to tell me about the virtues of chimneys?” Dream asks.

Hob chuckles. “Listen, I stand by that,” he says. “And sort’ve. You know what I just got to do? I just got to make a cup of tea for someone I love,” he continues. “And in the window box the lavender is just starting to bud and it’ll smell amazing in the kitchen this time next week, and I’ll put a batch of no-knead bread dough in the fridge and pick some of the fresh rosemary and make the most wonderfully aromatic bread and share it out downstairs and maybe you’ll even deign to eat some of it, and that’ll brighten a lot of days.”

Dream frowns at him. He thinks he would like Hob’s bread, but still does not understand.

“And there’s a film I want to see coming out next week,” Hob says. “And I’ve got a good feeling about surprise new music from one of my favourite artists. And they’re testing out new cures for cancer and somewhere out there there’s a kid doing a school science project that’ll change the world. The weather’s warming up now and there’ll be ice cream in the sunshine and kids playing in the park soon enough. I might pester you for a midnight stroll along a beach somewhere, when the temperature really peaks.”

Hob sips his tea with a pleased sound. “And there’ll be more cups of tea, and maybe a biscuit or two. I’ll have a new crop of students when the school year starts again in October and they’re all so new to the world and I get to tell them about it. If I behave myself, you might let me kiss you later.”

“You may always kiss me,” Dream says, turning all Hob has said over in his mind.

Hob presses a kiss to his cheek, and rests his head against Dream’s shoulder.

“My point is, there’s always something new to see. If I hang in another couple of hundred years, I might even get to go to the moon. The moon, Dream! When I met you I didn’t even know what it really was. And I couldn’t have imagined half my favourite things now back then. We didn’t even have tea yet.”

Dream hums, letting his head rest on top of Hob’s.

“I do not experience pain as you do,” he says, pausing when Hob suddenly takes his hand.

He sets his tea down, and turns to look Dream in the eyes, serious as Dream’s ever seen him.

“The experience might be different,” Hob says. “But you know what it’s like to hurt,” adds, and then taps on the centre of Dream’s chest. “In here. They’d call it other things now, but it’s... I’m physically sick, yeah? My body hurts. But I’d call what you are heartsick. Your heart hurts.”

Dream swallows.

“And you’re not going to run away from me for saying this,” he adds. “Because you know it’s not an insult. You know it’s coming from someone who really, sincerely loves you, and is a bit scared you’ll forget some day. That there are things to live for. That even if it hurts, it’s worth it.”

“I,” Dream says. “Look forward to the first time a new dream fulfils its purpose. And...”

Hob nods, eager, squeezing Dream’s hand.

“The act of creation,” he says. “Of feeling I am serving my own purpose. And...”

Hob squeezes his hand again.

“You,” Dream admits, looking down at their joined hands. “Making me tea you know I do not require. I look forward to your kisses. To our lovemaking.”

Hob laughs. “Well, good,” he says. “Glad I’m a net positive.”

Dream kisses him then, and begins to think he could understand. One day.

“I will not forget,” he promises against Hob’s lips. “That you love me.”

“Good,” Hob repeats. “Good. That’s a start. See, the thing is, right, you don’t have to get better. Some people can’t. I can’t,” he says. “But it doesn’t matter. There are more important things in life.”

“I,” Dream says. “Would like to be invited. For fresh bread.”

“You’re always invited,” Hob says, curling up against him again. “And I’ll always remind you, okay? About the things worth sticking around for.”

Dream hums, and presses a kiss to Hob’s forehead, and imagines the smell of rosemary and lavender in his hair.

“I could introduce you,” he says after a comfortable silence, basking in Hob’s presence.

“To?” Hob asks, already half-asleep.

“To the moon. If you would like. I am certain she would be flattered by your interest.”

“You know the fucking moon?”

[griombrioch]

Per usual, I am having a certified Bad Time with the holiday season and instead of dissociating over it tonight, I chose to word-vomit some whumpy Hob takes, so.

I feel like the western holiday season would be hard for Hob? I think he's so far past any deep conflicts of religious beliefs, but that's not really what holidays are for anyway. Even as they've changed shape and tradition over the many lifetimes he's had, it's a time where the concept of family gets glorified and put on a pedestal. And for Hob Gadling, to live for so long and to live most of it alone, only to be reminded year after year that he is a man out of his time? He has no family left to celebrate life with.

Does he watch the people around him and think back to the rich years with Eleanor and his son? Does the regret of not having held them closer sink deeper during this time? Does the sting of his wife's absence last longer? Does he desperately wish for a child to spoil? He has so much love for humanity and nowhere to put it. It just sits and burns in his chest.

Alternatively, I think Hob's infectious love of life would probably push him into a slightly less mopey perspective on things. Perhaps he invites his grad students out for a gathering right before the winter break hits, because he's seen many a student leave campus after final exams looking far quieter than their peers.

One of his barkeeps at the New Inn who just moved from America and can't make the trip back home for Christmas? He invites her up for a nice meal and cocktails that she doesn't have to pour. Because Hob is a man who knows what it feels like to be alone - so painfully alone that you become sick of the voice in your own head. And he can't bear to wish that on anyone, even just for a night.

And, after Dream (Dream. Finally, he has a name) returns and confirms that, yes, they actually are friends, Hob still does not mention his secret hatred of the season. What is Christmas to an Endless? Nothing, that's what. Just a stupid human thing, and he would not dare whine about this to a being who just spent over a century trapped in a cage. And that is fine. Hob genuinely does not mind - his Stranger-not stranger comes around every few weeks now and he could not be happier with that, with having someone regular in his life to whom he doesn't have to pretend to be 36 year old Robbie Galden. Who knows the depths of who he is, what he has seen. Hob would not trade that for the world. He hopes that he never has to.

But if Dream shows up at his doorstep at six in the evening on December 24th and asks to have dinner, well, Hob certainly isn't going to turn him away. Perhaps his friend has seen it in his dreams, the crippling loneliness, the want. Perhaps Dream saw it on his face the last time he visited and Hob had winced at all the gaudy decorations on the London streets. He doesn't know and they don't talk about it, but it is the first holiday in a very, very long time that Hob feels the warmth of family.