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[martybaker]

I absolutely adored @cuubism’s wonderful physical therapy fic and needed to at least attempt to draw Dream handing Hob his poor hand.

I tried to look up hand surgery scars but there’s wasn’t a lot so I did my best 😅

Also to cuubism, I'm sorry for the second tagging of this 😅 I'm moving everything and literally just copying and pasting.

Original Post Date: March 4th 2024

Twitter/X•AO3•Pillowfort •Linktree•Bluesky•Ko-fi

[martybaker]

sandman

[martybaker]

Sandman fanart I’ll probably never finish </3

[martybaker]

The dream of the fisherman

Inside his net, the whole sea

[martybaker]

Reblog and put in the tags what your type is, without using physical descriptions.

[martybaker]

y’all I’m utterly stupid. They’re called Forgers because they are forgers! The family is a forgery, it’s fake! How did I not realise this sooner oh my god

[martybaker]

linesss auughhaughhauughhhh BROWNS SHDBVHBSHDVBHADV

[martybaker]

It connects, okay!

[martybaker]

I went down a different Gaiman rabbit hole and now I have a sketchbook page for Sandman, oops.

[martybaker]

going thru the drafts. this one was originally a fluffbruary prompt (whoops) but i chickened out

shower | blessed | layer

Dream is already in the kitchen when Hob gets home. Clattering through the door in a flurry of muffled curses and rustling fabric. He shucks off his coat and violently jabs it onto the coat hook, continuing to curse his way out of his shoes before standing upright again, flicking soaking wet hair back off his face. 

“Hello, stranger.” He says, aiming for casual but falling a little closer to perfunctory, unable to fully hide his frustration. 

“You’re –” Dream’s deep voice begins softly as Hob rushes to add, “I know – I’m late, I know.”

Dream, hands deep in his pockets, shoulders square, resting in one of Hob’s kitchen chairs, does not move to finish his sentence. 

“‘Light morning showers’, my eye,” Hob mutters murderously as he passes Dream and the kitchen table and continues to clatter on into the kitchen. “Fucking pissing down all afternoon! Shoes are soaked. Thought my jacket would be enough for light showers so I didn’t take a sodding umbrella, like a fucking bellend. The tube was disgusting – full of everyone trying to get out of the rain. So it was full of rainwater and the water-soaked public which, let me tell you, is a particular bouquet I don’t need to experience again in a hurry. Not at the end of a work day. I mean – you want some of this?” He pauses, wine bottle in one hand, glass in another, gesturing with the bottle towards Dream. Dream inclines his head. “I mean say what you will about the past,” Hob continues, placing the first glass down and grabbing out a second, “plenty of smells of all kinds. But at least we didn’t have fuckin’ Lynx Africa. A tube full of B.O., soaked woollen suits, stale air, muddy rainwater, all coated with the chemical tang of Lynx fucking Africa?” He gags and pours a generous, sloshing glass of red. “Adding insult to injury. Didn’t know how good we had it.” He spins the cap back onto the bottle with a metallic little hiss. “Anyway,” he places the second glass down in front of Dream. “How was your day?”  

At this Dream stands, eyes passing over Hob’s hair, falling to his shoulders, then down to his feet. “You are wet.”

“Yeah. Did you not hear the whole vitriolic spiel just now?” 

Dream looks at him like he’s stupid. “You are still in your wet clothes.” He clarifies, emphasising each word even more than usual, his eyes glinting with mockery.

Hob swallows his mouthful of wine. “Yeah, well.”

“Your socks, at least.” Dream suggests. And Hob makes a show of rolling his eyes, putting his wineglass down, and slouching back to the door.

He bends to pull off his sodden socks, and they hit the floor with a wet and heavy splat. “Meugh,” his lip curls. His eyes slide back to Dream and he resists rolling them. “Happy?” He crows, arms wide.

“Are you?”

He wiggles his damp toes against the floorboards, head tilting to the side. “Better. At least.” He concedes. 

“You ought to get out of your wet layers.” 

“When did you become mother hen?” But by now Hob is struggling to keep up the fever pitch of his frustration, a smile starting to tug at his words. 

“If you do not want my help…” Dream turns his back on him, picking up his wineglass.

“No! No. Of course I do.” He’s still playing along with the teasing, but it’s true. Always. And Dream knows it. He turns towards Hob again, a smug little smile hiding behind the rim of his glass. Hob holds his hands out to his sides, letting them fall back against his thighs. “Help me?” 

Dream scoffs, but the smirk is still in place as he sets his glass down and walks over to Hob in the entryway. “How you survived centuries between our meetings I will never know,” he tuts, plucking at Hob’s unbuttoned overshirt, slipping it down off his shoulders, then free from each wrist. 

“Made a deal with a lady.” Hob parries back, but it sounds distant even to him, far too hypnotised by watching Dream’s movements to commit to continuing their banter.

“Mm. Quite.” Dream draws the neck of Hob’s t-shirt between his thumb and forefinger and, assessing that it, too, is insufficiently dry, pulls it upwards. Hob is pliant, and increasingly calm in his grip. 

Hob is shirtless for barely a second before there is a soft warmth sliding up his arms. Something that looks a little like a smoking jacket but feels more like a soft fleecy dressing gown has been conjured within Dream’s palm and his being fitted neatly across his shoulders. It feels like sinking into a warm bath. The warmth between sleep and wakefulness. The heavy-muscled heat of laying close to a fire for long night hours. And Hob can’t help the full-body contented sigh that comes out of him. He feels his shoulders relax down an entire inch. His head almost falls forward, eyes closed, ready to drop right off to sleep. 

“Is that not better?”

“Mm,” Hob shuffles closer. “Better,” he agrees, curling his hands into the sweeping lapels of Dream’s coat and, allowing his eyes to finally close, drops his head against Dream’s shoulder. 

“We are only half done.” Dream says after several seconds of silence and stillness from Hob. 

Hob huffs against his neck. “You just wanna see me in my pants. Cheeky.” 

“You’re impossible.” Hob can hear the smile in Dream’s words. Smiles in return, hidden against his neck, as Dream’s hands snake around his back and hold him in a warm, impossibly fond embrace. And Hob melts against him a little further. 

“S’me. Impossible. Wearing a robe my love just conjured from the ether. Which is very normal.”

“I only wish for you to be comfortable.”

“I am, love,” he promises, voice soft, all fight and frustration drained from him. “So comfy. 'n I promise I’ll take off the trousers in a minute.” He sighs, deep and cleansing. “Can we just go to bed? I know it’s still early but fuck I’d love this day to be over.”

Dream’s hands press tighter against him, soothing up and down his back. “You will hear no complaints from me,” he murmurs against Hob’s temple, pressing a featherlight kiss into his hair.

[martybaker]

I don't think we talk about enough how much it says about Morpheus that the only person he ever called his friend, was someone who didn't even know who Morpheus was for the majority of their acquaintance

Dream needed someone who he could be just enough of himself with, without that person learning too much about him that it would cause problems. With Hob, Morpheus could escape from himself for a precious few hours every century. With Hob, he didn't have to have the baggage of how bad he is at relationships hanging over his head like he would when he interacts with anyone who knows him.

I think this might have had something to do with why Dream reacted so badly to Hob's accusation of loneliness and offer of companionship. Completely putting his pride and how he took being called lonely to mean that he was failing at his function aside, Dream reacted that way because if he were to be more than the acquaintance that Hob sees every century, then Hob would have to get to know Dream. And the moment Hob gets to know Dream, all the relief from having to be himself, would be gone, and things would get more complicated.

Idk what my point is with this beyond pointing out how much Dream wants to escape from himself and the relief he must have felt to talk to someone who doesn't know him and therefore will not automatically see all of his flaws and think poorly of him for it. But I think the relief Dream felt in his anonymity to Hob does not get talked about enough.

[martybaker]

How many times will Neil Gaiman create an immortal queer-platonic-partnership, bc idk how many more I can take

[martybaker]

People may not be ready for my gift, but they get it anyway. No matter what the circumstance. At the end, each of us stands alone. The Sunless Lands are far away and the journey is hard. Most of us will be glad for the company of a friend.

Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death of the Endless The Sandman | 1.06 "The Sound of Her Wings"

[ID in alt text]

[martybaker]

Thank you @amielot for tagging me in last line tag game like forever ago 🙈 I’ve been in real life hell with no time to spare for any creative endeavors, but today I took up the proverbial pen once again to prod at my unfinished modern au ice-skating fic (you can find part one here)

and I wanted to share this bit with y’all, because I think it’s pretty funny. Enjoy.

——

Hob laughs out loud. “Wow. Okay, I deserved that one. But how about this one: Say, Mr Endeles, what would a perfect date look like for you?”

Dream pretends to ponder this deeply.

“A nice spring day,” he starts, “not too cold or too hot, we have a picnic on a hill… with a beautiful view of the city of Verona below us.”

He smiles at the image, continuing, “I shiver in the light breeze, underdressed, and Pedro Pascal lends me his jacket-” Hob bursts out laughing at that- “he lends me his jacket, hand feeds me strawberries and italian cheese, we drink Chardonnay...”

Hob laughs so hard it makes him bend in half. “Pedro Pascal??? Pedro Pascal hand feeds you strawberries?!”

Dream gives him a cheeky grin. “Yes.”

“Okay, incredible. I’m skying in the Alps with Keanu Reeves if you even care,” Hob parries.

Dream smiles at him beatifically. “I don’t. Pedro’s taking me to Teatro alla Scala to see Carmen in the evening.”

By this point Hob is straight up wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. “Oh my god. Okay. You absolute madman, you win this round. I concede defeat.”

——

And I’m tagging @zigzag-wanderer @seiya-starsniper and @omgcinnamoncakes if you feel like sharing :)

[martybaker]

✨ One week ago. ✨

I can’t believe how lucky we were and how sweet Tom appeared to his fans. Thank you, Tom❣️ I treasure this experience forever in my heart.

[martybaker]

lol