#'No.' is all he says to Hob. Literally. But Hob is not put off. A pretty thing like that? Besides he knows /real/ stuck up people. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

landwriter · 1 year

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Desperate Measures | Dream/Hob | 1.2K | G v silly and fluffy, literally 90% air, dream attempts a romantic gesture, hob is a sap and forgetful, human au, part text fic

for @domaystic drabbles, Day 6: Under the Same Umbrella

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Dream woke up to 26 texts from Hob. He put on his glasses and began his morning read. It’d replaced Times for him. The editorial quality, he thought, was far superior.

Hob (7:19 am) heading out, gave you a wee forehead kiss and you didn’t even stir. sleeping bloody beauty. love you disgustingly much x

Hob (7:26 am) couldn’t find my umbrella anywhere can you take a look if it’s not too much of a bother? feel like i’ve gone mad

Hob (7:30 am) christ it’s bucketing down!! standing under the eaves just to tell you how much it’s bucketing down

plants will be happy at least so will my goth boyfriend ;) hope your writing goes well today love. extra atmosphere!!

Hob (8:42 am) nevermind don’t look for it remembered that i left it in my office told johanna she can use it since i’m at the archives all day anyway glad i’m not the only one who’d forget their own head if it wasn’t screwed on :) :) :)

Hob (10:11 am) you should’ve seen the look lisa gave me when i showed up had to dry myself off in the men’s w half a forest of paper towels there goes my carbon offset from walking i said christ you’re probably still in bed asleep warm dry!! lucky bastard

wish i could come back already and drip puddles all over you

Hob (10:37 am) if this keeps up i’m going to look like mr darcy in the rain on your doorstep tonight don’t worry i promise not to propose marriage while insulting you xx although i do love you most ardently

...elizabeth

Dream smiled, read them all again, contemplated, and then sent his reply.

Dream (11:01 am) Sir, I appreciate the struggle you have been through

Hob replied moments later.

?? you sound like a customer service agent wait you’re quoting the film you can’t reject me if i’ve not proposed to you!! yet!!!

Dream snorted. 'and I am very sorry I have caused you pain' went the line. They’d watched it last weekend. Hob had cried, and Dream had privately decided that if Hob proposed, he’d say yes. Even if it was poorly done. It wouldn’t be, though. Not if Hob was doing it. He sent a second text.

...and I am very sorry you were drenched by rain.

Then he got out of bed and shuffled into the kitchen. His phone buzzed anew as he made tea and toast. He smiled at the sound. On their first date, Hob had warned Dream that he had a bad habit of annoying boyfriends over text. Dream, on his first date in six years, had wondered what it might be like to be so effusively charming that you could have enough boyfriends to form habits around them at all. He hadn’t known what to say, and Hob had ducked his head, grimacing a little, and said, “Just tell me to piss off, please, if I do? I know I can be a bit much.”

Dream believed it, because the man was telling him about his habits with boyfriends after one date. Not that he minded. And three months in, Dream had yet to tell him to piss off.

Turns out, a bit much was exactly what he’d wanted. Needed, in truth. Someone to tether him to the real world. His phone had become a modern-day lodestone in his pocket, a comforting pull of Hob-ness that would always point him back to life whenever he’d emerge, blinking and disoriented, out of the mire of his work. Work that he loved - creating worlds out of nothing, writing stories that would change people - but, coming on the age of thirty with nothing to show for it but recurring wrist strain and an upmarket flat that never had any guests, work that had also made him spend so much time apart from the rest of humanity that he was sometimes unsure how to rejoin it.

The tipping point had been when his eldest sister had found out that he hadn’t spoken to anyone else in between two of their regular dinners. Which were monthly. It had been mortifying. She’d smiled sadly, which was excruciating enough, and then gotten the gleam of a plan in her eyes, which had been far worse. “I’m setting you up,” she’d said. “I know just the guy. We go way back. I think you’ll like him.”

He had. Now, when his phone buzzed, he found himself frowning if it wasn’t Hob. (An exceedingly rare occasion.) But this time it was, of course. Four short messages sent one after the other:

hahahaha ok fine that was v good enjoy your day x

Five hours later, not even the curtain of rain awaiting him outside could douse the anticipation in his belly. An idea, he knew, was a powerful thing. Dream didn’t have an umbrella - Hob always shared with him, and would’ve apologetically nicked his if he had - so he would make the first leg of the journey as Hob did. He intended to go and get something nice, but once in the cold downpour, his resolve failed him almost at once, and he ducked into the first shop that had umbrellas in the window.

“Hiya,” said the girl at the counter without looking up from her phone.

Dream ignored her, blinking the rain out of his eyes, belatedly registering all the merchandise had a unifying theme and that he’d made a terrible mistake, borne of sheer desperation.

“Would you happen to have any other umbrellas? In black?” he asked. Hidden behind the counter, perhaps. If only you knew to ask.

The girl looked at him with an air of disbelieving reproval only accessible to teenagers and the very elderly. “You could try Boots, you know. It’s just down the street.”

Dream looked out the window. Rain torrented down. Commuters hurried past with their sensibly coloured umbrellas. From places exactly like Boots.

“Or we’ve got rain ponchos,” she added. It sounded like a threat.

“Nevermind,” said Dream quickly. “I’ll take it.”

“Enjoy your visit in London, sir,” she called out as he left.

He stepped outside and flicked open the umbrella with slightly more force than necessary.

Dream waited a few paces outside the archives, wanting to surprise Hob properly. Two separate pairs of tourists had thought he was their London Ghost Tours guide, and he was beginning to regret not holding out for longer, drenching be damned. Then Hob emerged, striding out and immediately stopping to pull out his phone. He was smiling at it. Dream smiled too, in anticipation.

A moment later his own phone buzzed loudly in his coat pocket, and Hob looked up in surprise.

“Oh my god,” he said. Then he said it again.

“I heard you needed an umbrella,” said Dream. He’d had the line already, since he got the idea. It had been very dashing and romantic in his head. It was somewhat undermined by the dreadful costuming choice that had been forced upon him.

Hob looked between Dream and the umbrella, bafflement melting into a happy laugh. He ducked underneath, pecking Dream on the lips. “I’m not sure I needed one quite this badly. Did you rob some poor tourist?”

“Unhappily, I paid for this.”

“Oh no,” said Hob, pulling away and pretending to inspect him for injury. “My poor darling. Your dignity.”

Dream sniffed. “I will recover.”

“Here,” said Hob. “I’ll carry it for you. You’ll only be guilty by association, then.”

They began walking, a bobbing Union Jack in a sea of blacks and greys. After the chief sin of ugliness, it was also a little small for two grown men, but Dream found he didn’t resent that at all, as Hob tucked him tightly into his side to keep them both dry. People gave them a wide berth. Tourists could never be trusted with umbrellas.

“You’ve rescued me, you know,” said Hob, nuzzling into his cheek.

“It wouldn’t do to have you dripping puddles all over the floors,” said Dream.

“Even if I looked terribly handsome, all wet and ardent?”

Dream bit his lip and smiled a little. “Perhaps you can be wet and ardent in the shower. Instead.”

Hob laughed again. It was Dream’s favourite sound. “Much warmer than the rain anyway. Deal.” Rain drummed down on their private nylon ceiling. “I was thinking chicken tikka masala for dinner?”

And so they made their way home, and although the rain never let up, Dream was so content and warm that he might’ve sworn they were walking in the sun.

#dreamling #domaystic2023 #this is DISTRESSINGLY sweet you've been warned #the sandman #three days in a row!#new record for actually doing a monthly prompt thing #continuing to just write about today's weather and call it a fic #my writing #the sandman fanfic

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fictionplumis · 2 years

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Dreamling: Arranged Marriage AU

This idea won't leave me alone until I write it. A Dreamling arranged marriage AU where Night decides her children could stand to be a little closer to mortals lest they end up like their father and completely separated from them, so she decides one of them needs to take on a mortal consort--who would then become immortal, no she does not think this would eventually compromise the integrity of her idea. Ideally, all of them would have a mortal consort, but even she recognizes the problem with that. Destiny doesn't meddle in mortal affairs at all, Death is far too busy, Destruction has been pulling back from his duties and neglecting his realm (he's still there, for now, but they all know he's not really doing anything anymore, they just don't know how to bring it up to him), Desire is far too immature, making a mortal spend eternity with Despair would be cruel, and Delirium would drive her spouse insane.

So it's decided that Dream (this is about Sandman, not the YouTuber, if this post breaks containment PLEASE understand this is about the Sandman NOT the YouTuber) is the only suitable candidate, and the others will just have to experience mortals through their sibling-in-law. Night declares it, says she doesn't care how it's done as long as it's done, the end.

(I'm sorry all you people that want Night and Time to be good supportive parents, but I read Overture, they fucking suck. Night will not show up to the wedding because she's already written off her children as selfish and ungrateful anyway, this is in part a way to punish them and to punish Dream, and Time finds this ridiculous but knows it will happen, has already happened, is happening, and he doesn't really care.)

Dream hates this. If he had his choice he would pluck the first mortal up, marry them, and promptly forget about them and go back to ruling his realm. That's why his siblings decide that he cannot, under any circumstances, be in charge of this.

Instead they decide on a friendly competition. They will each (all except for Destiny, who already knows the various different outcomes and has decided to observe but not participate) pick a candidate for Dream. The Endless don't really abide by silly things like linear time and whatnot, so it could literally be any mortal they nominate. They will each then devise a trial to test what they each believe to be an important quality necessary to marry Dream of the Endless and become Prince Consort of the Dreaming. All candidates will be put through the tests until there's one remaining.

(I'm sorry, Calliope will not be in this because I can't think of a realistic way she would be eliminated and she's technically not mortal anyway.)

Death finds her candidate in a dingy tavern on Earth, circa 1389, when she overhears a drunken snippet of conversation. A man boldly claiming she's stupid and he's going to live forever. It's a jest, she knows. He doesn't actually believe he'll live forever, but there is the desire to within him and in thirty seconds he's proven himself a natural storyteller. It's a whim that she approaches him with an amused, "Did I hear that right, you intend to live forever?"

The table goes silent. Hob's companions are smirking between him and the woman suggestively and Hob waves them off with a laugh. "Aye, that's right."

"I believe you and I need to talk, then. Somewhere more private."

There's some immature tutting from his mates, and Hob looks surprised and thrilled all at once, because she's very beautiful though why she's interested in him when her outfit implies she's chaste-- But hell if he's going to pass up the opportunity, so he goes with her, tries to make a move on her the second they're around the corner and she laughs in his face, easily bats him away, and goes, "You're cute, but not my type, Robert Gadling. No, I'm here to offer you a chance at immortality."

He grows wary at first. Asks if she's the devil, but she just stares at him patiently until he realizes who she is and stumbles back in fear and surprise, only to be laughed at again. Kinder, this time.

"I'm not here to take you, though..." She eyes the tankard in his hand with raised brows. "It is a shame you didn't lay off the ale sooner." He quickly sets the tankard down and steps away from it.

The deal is this. He'll be part of a competition, though he won't know it or remember this conversation. Should he win, he'll be immortal. If he loses, he'll be returned to his life right before she approached him, to live out what few hours he has left, never remembering any of this. She leaves out how he'll become immortal, leaves out that he'll end up marrying her sullen little brother and becoming Prince Consort to his realm, but what are the changes he'll win anyway?

Dream is surprised to find that each of his siblings picks someone that does, on some level, appeal to him. He's a romantic at heart, it's hard not to fall a little bit in love with each other of them as he watches how this plays out.

The competition is this:

Each candidate will live what they perceive to be four lifetimes in a dream. For the most part, they're just going to be jumping from important decision to important decision, with the blanks filled in for them through false memories to make it feel like it's been four lifetimes and not a few days at most. At the end of each lifetime, they'll be asked if they wish to continue living. That is Death's trial, because anyone marrying an Endless must be resilient enough to keep going.

The first lifetime is Despair's test, in which the candidates discover that they won't age, they won't die, that their life may very well be unending. They lose their families, their friends, and realize that they always will. They don't know if there's any way to opt out or not, so for all they know, one day in the very distance future, they will be the only one left. Despair wants to make sure the idea of Endlessness is not a curse for Dream's spouse to bear, though she herself would thrive off that, personally.

Ironically, it's Despair's candidate, the queen of the first human civilization, that falls to this test. Nada lives the first lifetime without ever knowing true, passionate love. She's pushed into marrying someone who is a good ruler for her people, and when they pass, she marries someone else who is also a good ruler for her people, and she sees that there are those besides herself who have the judgement necessary to rule. She's proud of the city she's created, she's proud of her people, and the idea of eventually watching them die and come to an end as all things do, it kills her inside. It doesn't matter that it might be millennia from now. When a gentle voice asks one day if she wishes to continue living, she contemplates it, contemplates her current husband, closes her eyes, and says, "No. I think it's time for a new queen to rule my people."

Hob, on the other hand, has spent his lifetime fighting, mostly, a bit of highway robbery when he couldn't find a war. Lots of brothels. He's eaten stuff he shouldn't have, gotten himself mortally injured more than a few times, bounced back from it, and now he's into this printing thing. No guilds to restrict it yet, it pays well, and he's been teaching himself how to read. He's sitting in an inn, drinking ale next to the hearth, no smoke in his eyes, and thinking about swindling the table next to him in a round of cards to pay for some more ale. When the same voices asks him if wishes to keep living, his eyes get bright and he answers, "Oh yes." The thought of what his immortality might mean never really crossed his mind. He lost people, sure, but he would have lost them anyway, and there's always more people to meet. This is amazing.

The second lifetime is Desire's test. Desire, who actually cares on some level, in their own way, and knows that if their big brother marries an idiot, they'll have to put up with them, so they have to make sure Dream marries someone halfway decent. Someone who might keep him busy. Someone who desires things strongly, but is not so ruled by them that they'll give up their duty to chase distractions, nor will they give up if Dream doesn't desire them the way they wish--which is very likely. In Desire's test, each candidate is given people to love, fully and completely, with all their heart, and are forced to watch that thing die violently and terribly only to be asked right afterwards if they still wish to live.

Delirium's candidate is Killala of the Glow, who finds out that the beautiful green star of her solar system, which is the cause of her power, is a conscious, living thing. And he loves her. He is everything she ever wanted. With him, her powers grow. She learns to use them better, to get stronger with them, to understand them and herself. It shouldn't have happened so soon, they should have had millennia together, but something happens and he has just enough time to warn her, to explain that he's dying and that she needs to be strong and use her powers to shield her world from him or his death will raze it all to the ground. She doesn't understand how this could happen, she can't concentrate through her grief, her planet is destroyed and as she's floating amongst the burning cold heat of her lover collapsing in on himself, she's asked if she still wishes to live and she says no.

Hob meets Eleanor, who is charming and funny and matches him wit for wit. She doesn't ask about his past or how he acquired his money. He's never been in love before. He thought he would continue finding his companionship in brothels and had felt perfectly content with that, but now there's her, and he wants so very badly to marry her, to be her escape away from her traditionalist of a father who stifles her wit into silence. So he does. And he has a son, a beautiful baby boy that he promises the world to. Then there's the promise of another child, and he's thrilled.

He's there in the room, holding Eleanor's hand, terrified when she goes into labor months earlier than planned. She's in so much pain. The baby isn't crying. The midwife is trying desperately to stop the bleeding. The blood is still warm on Hob's skin and clothing as he holds Eleanor's lifeless body and sobs. His son needs a mother. Needs a father but he knows, in that moment, that he will be a useless one to the boy like this. Robyn has his temper, he'll die too young and Hob will have failed him.

When he's asked if he wishes to keep living, he thinks of how the blood is still warm on his skin, and how ashen Eleanor looks in his arms, and he brushes her hair back from her face and says, brokenly, "Someone has to remember her. She wouldn't... She wouldn't want me to give up, now would she?"

Delirium knows better than any endless how pain and suffering can break a mind. Dream is the Lord of Nightmares as much as he is the Lord of Dreams. Or maybe she was just feeling particularly sadistic because she doesn't understand why she can't get married, she would love to get married, she could turn her spouse into bubbles and they would look so pretty floating around her realm, or maybe even glitter, or frogs! But no, she's not getting married, Dream is, and Dream is mean sometimes, so maybe she just decides to be mean to whoever he gets to married. It's hard to tell if even she knows her own motivation.

But the candidates suffer for her trial, pushed to their breaking points and then past them.

Destruction's candidate has never really known suffering before these trials. Or living, really. See, Destruction hadn't actually gone out to try to find someone for Dream, he had been busy trying to learn how to carve a piece of marble into a shape without reducing it to rubble. Once everyone else had found their candidate, he went to Desire and was like, "Hey, so..."

Desire sighed, and rolled their eyes, and was like, "Fine, I'll help you. I'll construct a woman to be your candidate. If I don't win, maybe you will."

Thus Alianora was created. She's strong, smart, and while she can handle loss, she was created to be a lover. To be loved. To be a partner. Under Delirium's trial, she is alone, she suffers alone, no one pays her any mind or they hurt her worse, and she withers. She grows morose, she grows desperate, she grows hysterical in her isolation. She loses her mind. She never does answer the question of whether or not she wishes to keep living. It's questionable if she can answer the question, if she even fully understands it. Unfortunately, there is no coming back from such a thing, even if they fix her mind and these trials became like just a dream to her. There's no place for her to go now that she's lost this trial, no home for her to go back to. She's the only true causality of this game and Dream, aching for her and bitter over Desire's causal indifference, makes a Dreamscape for Alianora to live in where she'll never be alone. It's the least he can do.

Hob goes a touch insane himself, but the cracks in his mind are strategic. Like crumple zones in a car, it's to survive what comes next. He's drowned as a witch. Over and over, rocks tied to his ankles, tossed into the water, and every time he surfaces they catch him and do it all over again. Again and again. Dirty pond water filling his lungs, his chest fit to burst, throat and nose raw from inhaling liquid, skin clammy and near rotten. He lets himself break so that when the moment for real escape presents itself, he's not so gone that he misses the opportunity or that he stupidly cocks it all up.

He does escape, but he's lost everything in a world where value is determined by wealth. He sleeps on the street, mutters to himself, has arguments with made up people in an attempt to kept his mind sharp and to distract himself from the decades where he starves and starves but never dies, his stomach endlessly digesting itself and he throws up what little bit of scraps he can get his hands on, which just makes it worse.

When he's asked if he still wishes to live, he tosses his head back and laughs, startling a couple people walking past him on the street, who walk a bit quicker, and he asks, "Are you crazy?" Dream is leaned in where they watch these dreams projected above the family meeting table, and if one paid attention they might see that his eyes were rimmed red, thinking that Delirium's trial would claim another. At least he could be fixed, and would soon after go to the Sunless Lands to live in peace. He deserved that. They all did.

"Death is a mug's game! I have so much left to live for!"

And now there are two left to face down Destruction's trial.

Destruction may not have put effort into finding a suitable candidate, but he did devise a good trial. While his brother did need someone strong and resilient, they had to be what Dream lacked as well. They needed to be flexible. They needed to learn and grow from their mistakes. They needed to have compassion. All of these things to teach Dream the same, to encourage these things during the moments that Dream lacks them. His trial isn't about pushing the candidates into choosing Death, there's a very clear answer to his and if the candidate does not find it, they fail, whether they want to continue living or not.

Desire's candidate has yet to break. She has no intention of dying. She's more than willing to let go of what she desires if it means furthering her ambitions. Suffering doesn't break her, it only pisses her off. Dream isn't sure what to think of this woman. He doesn't really like her on a personal level, she would be nothing but trouble actually, but there is a certain appeal to her. He would never have to worry about hurting her unintentionally, at least. But she's greedy and she doesn't care who she hurts to get her way. And when Destruction's test rewrites her memories to have it where her immortality is granted to her through the blood of other witches, of her sisters, killed by her and sacrificed to the Hecate, the Three-in-One, the One Who is Three, and that more will die by her hands to keep living, she feels a twinge of grief and guilt.

So Thessaly simply decides to not think about it. She misses them, but it's just proof that she was stronger than them. Smarter than them. That she deserved to be here instead of dying out with them. And if she's able to continue making these sacrifices, if no one is able to stop her, then clearly it's just more proof she deserves this.

She fails, and no amount of Desire calling bullshit on Destruction's verdict changes his mind.

Hob, meanwhile, has rebuilt his life. His fortune. He's living well again, he's at no risk of starving, no need to fight in anymore wars because he has pockets of money all across the world he can run off to at the first sign of trouble. He has connections and a successful business.

He's talking with someone about said business only to have them eye him judgmentally. He's told, "It is a poor thing to enslave another."

He's a bit rankled at being called out on it. He shrugs, says that's just how it's done, because it is. It is. And at first it looks like he's going to fail too and this whole venture will have to be start all over, new candidates found, but as they watch him, the words aren't easily pushed from his mind. He dwells on them. He starts going through charters and logs. He gets restless sitting at home, surrounded by his newly regained wealth. He starts contacting his ships, digging into their practices that's never really taken the time to learn the specifics of before. A captain offers to let Hob sail a round with him so he could show off how safe the investment is, fearing that perhaps Hob is only questioning because he's afraid of potential repercussions.

He's shown how people are collected. Chained together. The conditions they're kept in on ship, the treatment the sailors give them. The captain explains that if they're pursued, it's easy enough to dump the cargo into the ocean, the chains ensure they all sink, no one is the wiser.

They don't leave port until everyone is loaded off the ship, and Hob demands they go straight back to England. He contacts every ship in his business and puts a stop to it. Cuts every shipping tie he has and when captains tell him he'll never make another quid, he tells him them he doesn't care, it's not worth it. The guilt still eats at him. It's not enough to make him forget the imagined faces of all the lives he's destroyed, drowning the same way he had, again and again, or resigned to a fate worse than death in most cases. He drinks himself into a stupor most nights.

He's drunk when he's asked if he still wishes to live. It's not the kind, understanding woman's voice that usually asks. It's a man's, soft and deep, curious, and Hob swirls his glass of brandy, contemplating whether he deserves to or not when he was responsible for the death of so many innocents. They weren't killed in a fight, they didn't have anything worth taking from them, it was just cruelty against helpless people. He swings back the rest of his drink and mutters, bitterly, "History has a way of erasing these things, doesn't it? It forgets what it doesn't want to remember. Someone needs to remember. Someone needs to remind people of this. It won't ever be enough to make up for what I've allowed, but this is something I must live with. To die now and let the world forget would make me a coward shirking responsibility for myself."

Just like that, he's sober again and standing in a room that's a mix of the time periods he lived through in his dream. It's warm, inviting. There's a four poster bed, a large hearth with piles of comfortable pillows in front of it. An oak wardrobe simply carved but beautiful. Rugs over stone floors. There's a large balcony that lets in plenty of natural light, and it overlooks fantastical mountains in the distance, and a harbor filled with ships of every kind, and sea serpents lazily winding their way through them. Hob had never given much thought to what his perfect room would look like, but he knows he's standing in it.

The dream he lived through feels like a dream, it's hazy and indistinct, disconnected from the emotions that he once felt were so real and consumed by. But he's not the same man he was when it started. He's retained the lessons learned about living, about compassion, he's more mature, he still remembers how to read. It's all still there, but the loss and grief and guilt are distant now, more like a story he read than a life he lived.

And Death is there with him, dressed in black jeans and a tank top, smiling proudly at him. He suddenly remembers the competition and has a brief moment of panic, blurts out, "Oh god, I lost and drunk myself to death and this is heaven--"

"No, you won, Hob!"

"What?"

"You won!" And then she has to explain that while yes, he technically will be immortal, it's only because he now has to marry her little brother. They move out to the balcony and she explains that they're in the Dreaming and what that means while Hob looks around in awe. "He's not bad, my brother," she assures. "He's a bit distant, mostly. A stickler for his rules. He's prideful and can have quite temper if you insult that. It's wise to remember that he rules dreams and nightmares here. But at worst, he'll probably go back to his work and forget you exist, and you'll have the whole of his realm to explore. Unfortunately, you can't back out now."

"Oh, I wouldn't if I could," Hob assures quickly, waving the concern off. "Marrying a nightmare sure beats rotting to maggots in the ground. I'll take it. What's expected of me?"

She tells him that he probably won't have any actual duties, and Prince Consort will more than likely just be a title. Theoretically, Hob could hold sway over the Dreaming nearly as much as Dream did, but that required getting close to Dream. "Consummating your marriage," she tactfully puts it. "Each time you got closer to my brother, each time he lets you closer and as his trust and care grows, you would find the Dreaming responding easier and easier to you. The Dreaming is an extension of him, after all. And it's better that way, because you're immortal but still human, and suddenly having awareness of this would be way too much to pile on your mind all at once. But I doubt you'll have to worry about it. My brother seems curious about you but he's stubborn and easily distracted."

The wedding happens that night.

Hob hasn't met his betrothed yet.

Death dresses him in a stunning white suit with gold accents. His cravat is the finest woven white silk, embroidered in gold. He has a halo of gold light. There's a bloody cape. It drapes like heavy velvet but it's light and sheer and glitters like stars. He's a nervous wreck and she laughs gently and assures him that he'll know what to do when the time comes.

Everything that dreams attends the wedding. It shouldn't have been possible to fit so many people in a room, but they're there. It should have taken years for Hob to walk down the aisle to the staircase to the raised dais and the throne, but it was a short walk and the whole time Hob can do nothing but stare at the man standing in front of the throne who has his chin raised, his dark eyes a host of starlight. He does seem vaguely curious. And haughty. And prideful. And beautiful. He's dressed in a similar suit of black, his sheer cape swirling with galaxies and nebula, and there's a sword of obsidian glass in his hands, the point resting gently against the stone floor.

Hob knows intuitively to kneel the second he ascends the last stair, but he can't quite manage to duck his head like he knows is proper because he can't look away from this creature. Thankfully it produces something startlingly close to amusement in his betrothed.

"Robert Gadling," he murmurs, his voice soft but carrying, the same one that had last asked him if he wished to live. He holds out his hand, a ruby ring already on his finger. "Swear your fealty to me." And then lower, softer, just between the two of them, "Do not be nervous, the words will come."

And they do. A bit breathless, but they come after Hob reaches for the hand and presses his lips to the ring, his eyes still on the entity soon to be his husband in what has to be the weird marriage ritual of all time. "I swear my undying fealty to you, Morpheus, Lord of the Dreaming, Ruler of the Nightmare Realms, Prince of Stories and Shaper of Form. I swear to reside at your side, to give my loyalty to you and this Realm first and foremost, and to never raise a hand or support any threat to the denizens here. I am yours, Dream of the Endless." The words tighten through his chest like a binding and good lord, there's the smallest little smile on the Lord's face and he doesn't have a halo but the way the light from the stained glass windows behind him shines, it looks like he does and it's beautiful.

Dream takes back his hand. He raises his sword and taps both of Hob's shoulders. At the second one, Hob feels the weight of a ring on his own finger. "Arise, Prince Consort of the Dreaming."

Most people leave after that, they wake up and go about their lives, knowing something changed but not sure what. Some stay, and there's some mingling, and a reception dinner, and Hob barely gets a second to say two words to his husband. He's introduced to family, to Titania and motherfucking Lucifer. A librarian gives him her congratulations, a scarecrow with a pumpkin heads does so with a bit more reluctance and wariness, a raven with a white breast chats with him. She explains that she retired not too long ago, and nods towards a larger raven currently trying to figure out how to get his head into a champagne glass, explaining that he's her replacement. Despite how stupid he looks, she assures Hob that he's a good raven.

There's a murder at one point. A man is stabbed through the eye with a serving fork. Some blond man in sunglasses looks intrigued by the turn of events, but he's the only one that bothers to react. The murderer tells him not to fucking try it, and then drags the body off. His husband merely tells him that it's normal and fine and that's pretty much the most he says aside from introducing Hob to people and staring at him from the corner of his black eyes. It's a whirlwind night and Hob ends it champagne drunk and passed out alone in his bed in his private quarters, not realizing until morning that he doesn't even know how to find his way around, let alone where the fuck his husband's room is.

But when he stares at the ruby on his ring in the morning, he knows that he won't stop trying to woo his husband until they are properly, happily married, because one glimpse and Hob Gadling or whatever his surname was now, was most definitely head over heels in love. And thus begins the long and arduous process of courting his husband, the most stubborn man in existence, who is terrified of falling of in love and potentially being too much and would just rather keep his distance thank you very much. He makes it hard for Hob, until Hob remembers Death explaining that the Dreaming was an extension of him. If getting closer to Dream makes him closer to the Dreaming, maybe getting closer to the Dreaming will make him closer to Dream? It's worth a shot.

At the very least, Dream definitely takes note of the way everyone in his realm seems to be so smitten with his Prince Consort all of the sudden.

And that's it, that's all I have. I'm yeeting this out there to get it out of my head and now that you have it, you're free to do whatever you want with it. Change it up, write it, draw it, whatever, I don't care, you can have it now, just tell me if you do something with it because I wanna see okay thanks byee.

#dreamling #dream of the endless #hob gadling #hobmurphy #the sandman

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gabessquishytum · 3 months

Note

Hob works in an assisted living facility for mainly the elderly, one of his newest patients is a man named Tim Ender. According to his file he has seven children, but Hob only ever sees one.

That or all seven of his children look exactly alike.

Hob is Tim’s assigned nurse, so they bump into each other a lot. The son says his name is Murphy and Tim grumbles, “that’s not the name I gave you,” to put it quite frankly Hob understands why almost none of his kids visit, Tim’s an asshole.

Murphy is…ethereal. God he’s beautiful. He’s a twinky little man with jet black hair and piercing blue eyes, Hob has thoughts he’d never thought he’d have in a nursing home. He wants to get closer to Murphy but he feels it maybe inappropriate. But Murphy comes over so often somehow they do get to know each other. One day Tim goes down for a nap leaving Murphy and Hob alone.

“I know there’s more of you. Why are you the only one who visits?” Should Hob have opened with this question? Probably not. But oh well

Murphy sighs deeply, “because I’m the only one who can,” he goes into explaining what has happened to each of his siblings, how they are all unable to leave whatever location they are at and how two of them can’t even be contacted and how Tim’s wife even refuses to visit him. “I have to be here, I have to make sure he’s alright, I owe him that much,”

“Well taking care of him is literally my job but I understand the hesitation in trusting the care of a parent to a complete stranger,”

“You’re not a complete stranger Hob, I consider you a friend. And I was going to lessen my visits because I **do** trust you to care for him but I keep finding a reason to come back” Hob swears he felt Dream’s hand brush his.

and unfortunately for the elderly third wheel Hob falls head over heels.

Tim has a knack for timing which is obviously why he starts this conversation when Hob is giving him a bath.

“When I die, I want you to take care of my son.”

Hob nearly drops his soap.

“What?!”

“You’re gay for him,” Tim answers.

Hob tries very hard not to laugh at that.

“N-no sir I’m not gay for your son,”

“In love? Whatever! Look you talk about my son more than I do and it’s driving me nuts! Ask him out you nut case!”

“Sir that’s completely unprofessional-“

“I give you my blessing, I don’t care! Just shut up about him.”

Tim sighs and is quiet for a bit.

“Mor-uh Murphy has been unhappy for a long time… and all I want is for my son to be happy especially now that he’s the only one that visits me, and Robert, you make him happy. So finish scrubbing my balls and the next time he comes round ask him out for coffee or something.”

Hob has a while to think after that, should he ask Murphy out? Is it weird he’s seen his father’s penis before his? Should he wait until Tim dies? No that’s in bad taste… is he really going to ask someone out in a retirement home?

He hears the automatic doors in the lobby open, and sees that tuff of jet black hair.

It’s now or never Hobsie- ugh stop thinking about Tim’s penis! Ugh now or never Hob

Now or never

-🦎

This certainly made me chuckle! I have to say that I LOVE when people do human au things and make "Time" into "Tim", its so funny to me for some reason.

Anyway. Hob is super nervous, palms sweating, voice breaking as he finally asks Murphy to join him for coffee. He makes it clear that it would be really nice if it was a date, but just as friends would be fine too. Murphy answers by breaking into a smile and taking Hob’s hand as they both walk down the corridor to Tim's room. There's no one around to see them and fortunately Murphy doesn't seem to mind Hob’s sweaty hands too much.

Tim is as grumpy as ever, but for the first time before he leaves Murphy hugs his father goodbye. He obviously knows that Tim gave his blessing for Hob to ask him out, and as awkward as it is, he expresses his gratitude while Tim grumbles and waves him off. Hob doesn't get a hug - he gets a brief kiss on the cheek, and a promise that Murphy will call him. And that's even better.

And the good news is that when he finally sees his new beloved boyfriend naked, Hob is so awestruck and caught up in the moment, he doesn't even THINK about comparing Tim's dick to Murphy's. Although in the shower afterwards when Hob is lovingly cleaning both of them up, Murphy does say something like "damn I can see why my father doesn't complain about you, you DO know what you are doing." And from thenceforth all conversation about Tim is BANNED from the bedroom and bathroom. Just, eww.

Looks like daddy kink is probably off the table too but hey. Hob doesn't mind. Murphy is practically perfect, in every way.

#🦎 anon #the sandman #dreamling #nsft

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darthstitch · 2 years

Text

Matthew has Feelings about his Boss.

Not like THAT, you goddamn pervs. He has Feelings for his Boss the same way that chick in that Brooklyn 99 meme had about that puppy. Like, "I've only had Dream of the Endless as my Boss for about two minutes but if any of you motherfuckers hurt him, I have a very particular set of skills that will make me a nightmare for people like you."

Yeah, he's mashing up his references, but Matthew doesn't care. His Nibbly Darkness, the Lord of Dreams and Nightmares has had a shit time this past century, no thanks to his bastard bitch of a sibling and seriously, Matthew thinks it's seventeen thousand kinds of fucked up that their idea of teaching their brother a "lesson" involves imprisonment, innocents caught in the crossfire and potential murder.

So yeah, Matthew is perfectly willing to throw down for his Boss if he has to.

Except his Boss still has nightmares about poor Jessamy and it's manifesting itself in being oddly protective over Matthew in the absolute worst way. Like, he's the Raven for Dream of the Endless now - he's got a job to do and maybe sometimes that has an element of risk to it but those are the breaks right? Dream can't keep Matthew from attending to his duties and he's gonna do them, come hell or high water.

And the perks are like, super amazing, because flying, woo to the hoo! There's some magic stuff and some secret raven tricks that Lucienne has been teaching him, because she used to be Dream's Raven too.

He's also got nesting privileges now, because it's nice to get some shut-eye in the Boss' coat. It's hilarious because Dream will be all exasperated and say, "Matthew" in this long-suffering tone, but he accompanies that with gentle pets along Matthew's feathers and there's a tiny sweet smile playing about his lips. Dream reserves those smiles just for a very select few - which currently includes the boyfriend that Matthew thoroughly approves of - and Matthew's proud to be one of them.

Matthew remembers the first time he got a proper hug from the Boss, which had scared off several years of his life. And that was mostly because he felt real tears soak through his feathers and it was kind of awkward to manage a "there, there" with a wing but Matthew made it work somehow.

He was a little proud that he did manage to coax his sad wet cat of a Boss out of whatever melancholic funk that Dream found himself in but yeah, that made Matthew nervous, because he knows all the signs of depression when he sees them and this is not a task one single Raven can undertake alone.

Well, Lucienne actually said that first, when she first recruited Matthew. He's taken them to heart.

Mervyn was another one they'd nabbed along, because while Mervyn might have a mouth on him and tact wasn't exactly a word in his dictionary, but Mervyn was good people in the end. The next was Abel, with Goldie peeping along. Then, thank the Creator, they'd finally managed to grab Hob Gadling who was a goddamn gift to them all, even if they had to put up with the occasional flower showers or the inadvertent appearance of blooms in every nook and cranny of the Castle.

There was this one time, where they were all in the Dreaming's version of the New Inn, where Lucienne had finally gotten drunk enough to reveal one very important secret about the Boss.

There was a lot of swearing, and Matthew had to appreciate Hob Gadling for the colorful Middle English swearwords, which kinda had a weird harmony with Mervyn's cussing. But basically, it all amounted to a collective NOPE from everyone in this conspiracy. This wasn't going to happen. Not to their Morpheus. Not on their watch.

Dreams don't fucking die, Matthew had once said to his Boss, down deep in the bowels of literal Hell, with the Morningstar Herself about to move in for the kill. He's gonna make good and goddamn sure that Dream of the Endless will stay alive. He'll always have his Raven to guard his back for him.

-end-

#matthew the raven #dream of the endless #dreamling #lucienne #hob gadling #dream and his ravens #matthew has all the fight me vibes #matthew is ride or die for da Boss okay #this is a matthew appreciation blog

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qqueenofhades · 9 months

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May I ask for new year’s eve Dreamling watching the ball drop because Hob celebrates every year, Morpheus isn’t the sort of person who cares at all, but Hob forces him to celebrate and wear the dumb paper glasses and stuff anyway

"Hob," Dream says, not for the first time, in a deeply pained tone. "I simply do not see why this rigmarole is necessary."

"It's necessary because I say it's necessary, you joyless git." Hob dulls the sting by leaning over to plant a kiss on Dream's cheek, adjust the 2024 cardboard glitter crown from Tesco that is perched atop the dread dark head of the immortal King of Dreams and Nightmares, and throw an arm over his shoulders -- all of which Dream suffers with the tense, bristled wariness of a cat suddenly subjected to excessive snuggling. "Plus, there's going to be a general election this year -- fucking finally -- and the Tories are going to get thrown out on their kleptocratic arses. Good as any reason to celebrate, if you ask me."

Morpheus mutters something under his breath that Hob can't understand but doesn't sound particularly complimentary, but for once in his eternal-ageless-stubborn-bastard life, decides not to press the point. He's already been horribly traumatized by enduring the New Year's Eve party and being forced to socialize with Hob's friends from around London and the South East and colleagues from Goldsmiths and all the other strays he's picked up over the years (indeed, very much like Dream himself). All right, socialize might be a stretch. More like lurking ominously with a single glass of prosecco and giving the other guests a fright when they come round the corner too fast, but at least he hasn't run screaming into the night or huffily evaporated into the Dreaming never to return, so Hob is going to optimistically count that as a success. Besides, it is tacitly agreed between the two of them that Hob's love language is cheerily bullying Morpheus into taking part in normal human courtship activities and Morpheus's concession is to act like this is the worst thing to ever happen to him in literally eighty billion years, but still grudgingly put up with it. Baby steps, Hob thinks, taking a swig of his own bubbly and looking back at the television. Baby steps.

It's already the New Year in Oz and the rest of Down Under, and five hours off yet in New York, where they're still greasing up the ball drop in Times Square, but it's just about time in London, the fireworks over the Thames are all set to go, and Hob and the ten other people in his flat (hardly an excessive number, not that you'd know it from Morpheus's face) lean forward in eagerness. The bloke on the BBC leads a countdown, it rolls over to 00:00:01 GMT, 1 January 2024, and everyone lets out a boozy cheer, raising glasses to salute each other and making more please-God-help-us jokes about the Tories. Hob, meanwhile, turns to Morpheus, who gazes expectantly back at him with those luminous, star-flecked eyes, and leans in to kiss him -- quickly, chastely, nothing to make the silly goose come over in his melodramatic conniptions all over again. "Happy new year, darling."

Dream huffs, but he does look slightly pleased. (It's a subtle art, reading his expressions, and to the untutored looks no different from "mildly constipated," but Hob still knows his Stranger well.) "Happy new year, Hob Gadling," he allows, after a long moment. "I still do not understand why you feel it necessary to celebrate all this. Have you not seen so many that it is no longer special?"

"See, that's exactly why." Hob should get up and refill the pigs-in-blankets tray, as there is evidently nothing that British academics love more and it has been descended on like starving vultures, but he doesn't feel like it, not yet. He grins at Morpheus instead, lowering his voice, not that there's much risk of anyone overhearing. "A bloke born all the way back in God's Year 1356, and I'm still here, ringing in the fucking year 2024? That's a bloody miracle, you ask me. And with you, no less? What else would I want in the whole world?"

Dream's expression melts a little, despite himself. A faint pink flush climbs into his elegant ice-sculpted cheeks, and he huffs. "You are quite the flatterer, Robert Gadling."

"Eh." Hob takes a more comfortable position, settles deeper into the couch cushions, and feels, with great vindication, Dream's head tip and lean and rest on his shoulder, snuggling closer entirely of his own volition. "You love it."

#anonymous #ask #dreamling #dreamling ff #dreamhob #winter prompts

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kydrogendragon · 4 months

Text

Exhibitionism

Exhibitionism for Day Two of Dreamling Week

Relationship: Dream/Hob Rating: Explicit Words: 1000 Warnings: None Ao3 Link

Life, as Hob has learned, can be insane at times. Anything can happen. It’s fantastic, in that regard. You could buy a lotto and become a millionaire overnight. You could run your drunken mouth at a bar and win yourself immortality. Or, for better or for worse, you could win over the affections of the Lord of Dreams who has the convenient ability to twist human perception so he can finger you in the middle of the goddamn tube on your way to work.

Yes, technically, this is his fault. He’d (once again) ran his drunken mouth off about a month ago while they’d been lounging about, enjoying a bottle of mead he’d picked up for the two of them. Dream, he’d learned quite quickly, was a horny bastard and wasn’t afraid of showing it. Christ, Hob was even struggling to keep up at times. But he was far from complaining. Especially after getting over the initial hesitation that Dream might question some of his fantasies(a foolish fear to have with, quite literally, the King of fantasies). So, he’d mentioned, too many glasses in, that it’d be hot to be Dream’s personal toy for a day . . . or week . . . or longer. And even as drunk as he’d been, the sight of Dream’s face at that idea was one he’d never forget. Hell, he’d masturbate to that thought if he’d ever had the time to masturbate. (Like he said, Dream’s a horny bastard).

So that lead to today, when Dream showed up as Hob was just stepping out of the shower and pinned him down onto the bathroom counter. He whispered into his ear that Hob was going to be his for the day. And like hell was Hob about to say no to that.

Dream fingered him open enough to slide a plug into him. It was the pretty one with the ruby gem at the base he knew Dream loved. Then, he was told that Dream would come back when he was in need of Hob’s body and vanished into a swirl of sand.

Honestly, Hob thought it was going to take longer for Dream to show back up, but clearly he was as eager for this as Hob was. He’d just found a standing spot in the tube when Dream appeared behind him.

“No one will see this,” he whispered into his ear as a hand slid inside his trousers. “But it will be up to you to keep your breathing steady and your mouth silent.”

Which brings them to the present where Hob is clutching the blue metal handhold with an iron grip as he puts to use six-hundred odd years of willpower to the test. Dream sanded away the plug (though he’s certain it’ll come back soon) and has taken little time with stretching him even wider with oil-slick fingers. As far as anyone can (hopefully) tell, Hob’s just a casual citizen, standing in the tube, maybe looking a spot unwell. In reality, Dream vanished his trousers away the moment they were becoming a nuisance. The edge of his white button-up keeps brushing against his cockhead and he really, really hopes he doesn’t end up coming all over it before work.

“Oh?” Dream purrs, withdrawing the four fingers he’d had inside of Hob. Clearly, he’d been picturing that a little too loudly because before he knows it, a cock ring appears around the base of him. It’s black and more importantly, tight around his length. For better or worse, Hob knows he’s not going to be coming anytime soon.

“Be silent now, my love,” Dream says. Hob feels something press against him and in the next second, Dream is sliding past the now loosened ring of muscle with a groan. Hob’s stomach tenses, his grip somehow tightens even more, and he’s pretty sure his tongue is bleeding with how hard he’s biting down on it.

Dream pushes right to the hilt in one motion and sighs as Hob’s arse rests right against his pelvis. Mercifully, Dream stays there a moment, letting Hob take a moment to ease his rapidly increasing breathing. He doesn’t wait long, however, and soon Dream’s hands are on Hob’s waist as he pulls almost all the way out and slams back in. Air is punched out of Hob’s lungs. A few eyes turn to him, but soon look away as Dream starts a brutal pace.

They’ve been rough before. Fucked each other without care of the other’s pleasure, so this isn’t new, but God’s wounds, he’s never had to keep silent at the same time! Hob reaches up and grabs the railing with his other hand just to help keep himself upright against Dream’s movements. The worst of it is that Dream angles his hips in such a way that he brushes against his prostate with every thrust.

He needed thicker pants. Why does it have to be summer? Why couldn’t it have been winter when they tried this? Fucking hell, there goes any plans at standing for his lectures unless he wants everyone to see the hard-on he’s going to be inevitably rocking all day.

They’re just a stop away from Hob’s station when Dream’s hips stutter. The grip on his hips tightens as he comes with a groan inside of him. Warmth floods Hob and he lets out a labored breath. Dream stays there for a moment, nuzzling into the side of Hob’s neck, when he pulls out. A plug, larger than the last, slides into place. When Dream steps back, Hob’s miraculously clothed once more.

The automated voice chimes, alerting the passengers that they’ve arrived and when Hob turns, Dream’s gone. He takes a breath and steps onto the platform. He’s fucked. He’s truly, properly fucked. Hob makes his way up the stairs and does his best not to wince with each step as the tip of the larger plug brushes lightly over his prostate.

This is going to be a long day. A very, very long day indeed.

#dreamling week #dreamling week 2024 #dreamling #hob gadling #dream of the endless #the sandman #ky writes #nsft

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hardly-an-escape · 1 year

Text

it's warm, the skin I'm living in

Square: D5 - Enthusiastic Consentacles Rating: E Word Count: 2432 Ship(s): Dream of the Endless | Morpheus/Hob Gadling Warnings: No archive warnings apply Additional Tags: established relationship, shapeshifting, Dream of the Endless can have a vulva when he wants, oral sex, tentacle sex, body worship, anal fingering, lots of emotional conversations, Hob Gadling is a good boyfriend, they really are just disgustingly in love with each other Summary: Hob realizes Dream is being a little… extra creative when it comes to their love life. When he asks his boyfriend what’s going on, some of Dream’s deep-seated fears are revealed. One part fun shapeshifting sex, one part Dream being incredibly insecure, one part immortals being disgustingly in love with each other. Read on AO3 | fill for @dreamlingbingo

“I want to touch every part of you at once,” Dream whispered one night, their legs entwined as Hob dozed off, humming approvingly. The next morning, while Dream was scientifically taking him apart at the seams, Hob gradually realized that there were eight hands roaming his body.

The revelation that Dream can assume almost literally any form, shaping and changing his own body and image at whim, had been… surprising.

But not unwelcome.

“So… when you say anything…” Hob trailed off.

“I do mean anything.”

It started small. Dream made himself a few inches taller than Hob, or a few inches shorter. His hair changed length (Hob spent a pleasant afternoon in the Dreaming reliving their meeting in 1789 and putting Dream’s hair ribbon to very good use). His cock, too, grew in length and girth at… opportune moments.

Sometimes, Hob looked at Dream and his lover’s eyes were glittering with stars.

Things escalated.

One anchored in his hair, tilting his chin back to make room for Dream’s lips at his throat. One pinning his hands above his head. One tracing the line of his clavicle and one pushing cool fingers into the heat of his mouth. Two pressing his hips mercilessly into the mattress as he writhed under the ministrations of one hand on his cock and the last cupping his balls.

There may have even been more than eight hands, at the end there. Hob thought at least three fingers had been in his arse and he could swear none of the other hands had moved… though he may have lost track. That had been a nice morning.

Once they spent a long and memorable holiday weekend in Paris, with Dream in the form of a woman the whole time. God, he’d looked so beautiful: all sweeping elegance and curves, soft and smooth under Hob’s hands and on his arm. Heads had literally turned as they strolled down the Champs-Élysées, dallying in front of shop windows. They’d wined and dined and fulfilled every romantic cliché that the City of Lights had to offer.

Dream had tasted beautiful, too. Hob had laid him out like a feast on their hotel bed and spent selfish hours with his face buried in the sweet cleft between his legs, delving and licking and sucking to his heart’s content, emerging only to roam and sample the rest of Dream’s gentle and yielding body, so unlike his normal form.

Even the noises he made were different, softer and sweeter. Typically a quiet lover, it was as if the change of his shape necessitated a change of response, too. The moans and mewls and sighs and cries – Hob drank them up as eagerly as he did the wetness of Dream’s cunt.

It wasn’t until they were home that Hob got the sense that something was… off. They’d showered off the grime of travel and were curled up in their own bed together, suitcases kicked into a corner to be dealt with in the morning, and Hob sighed contentedly and cuddled Dream just a little bit closer.

“That was incredibly lovely,” he said, “but you know, I think the loveliest part of going away somewhere is coming home after.”

“Do you really think so?” Dream asked. He sounded skeptical.

“Of course,” Hob said. “Don’t you?”

“I assume that humans are constantly seeking novelty, rather than defaulting to the familiar.”

“Well, but I’m asking you.”

Dream didn’t answer, and Hob had turned the remark over in his head for a long while before finally falling asleep.

After that brief conversation, Hob had paid closer attention to Dream’s appearance, especially when they made love. After a few weeks’ worth of observation, he was surprised to discover that it was, in fact, incredibly rare that his lover’s body took the same form in any two given encounters; that Dream, somewhat disturbingly, seemed to be actually going out of his way to provide Hob with something new every time they came together.

The penny truly dropped one lazy Sunday morning, when Hob had coaxed Dream into the shower despite assurances that the Endless did not become dirty, and therefore did not require bathing, unless they specifically desired to.

(“That’s not the point of this kind of shower.”

“Then what is?”

“Well, I need someone to wash my back, you know.”

“You successfully clean yourself alone nearly every weekday morning.”

“That’s not the point either, darling.”)

Eventually, though, he had Dream where he wanted him: under the shower, with miles of soft, pale skin glowing slightly pink from the hot water while Hob kissed his neck and luxuriously worked a palmful of richly-scented body wash into the muscles of his back and down toward his buttocks.

Until he felt the unmistakable sensation of a tentacle creeping up his inner thigh.

“Ah ah, love,” he said, gently swatting it away. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Oh no? I believe I begin to understand the point of this kind of shower,” Dream murmured. Hob felt a second tentacle coiling around one knee while a third seemed to be heading for the cleft of his arse.

“This was supposed to be just a normal sexy shower,” he said helplessly, turning toward Dream and pulling him into a kiss.

Not even ten minutes later he was on his knees in the bathtub, heedless of the cooling spray of water behind him, as Dream’s inhumanly flexible appendages curled around his cock and plunged inside him, driving him to the brink of orgasm and beyond as he sobbed with pleasure.

Later, after they’d actually cleaned up and dried off and Hob had resisted the urge to crawl back into bed and fall into a fucked-out doze, they’d settled on the couch with tea and toast and Hob had tried to figure out how to ask his lover if what he thought was going on was actually going on.

“Dream, love. I have a question for you,” he finally said tentatively. “There’s no wrong answer, but I want you to have a think and really consider before you say anything.”

“Of course,” Dream said, gazing at Hob over the edge of his mug.

“Do you… do you really think that you have to keep things new all the time? In bed, I mean,” Hob said. “Do you think that I’m going to get bored, or something? Because I’ve noticed that you seem to, er, up the ante? Quite frequently? And I guess I’m just wondering… well, why. And whether I’ve done or said something that made you think you… needed to do that?”

“Have I displeased you?” Dream asked with a trace of a frown.

“Not even remotely,” Hob hastened to reassure him. “Dearest, I don’t think it’s even possible for you to displease me, I am so utterly bonkers head-over-heels for you. It’s just –” He hesitated, searching for the right words. “This spring, when we got back from Paris. You made that comment about humans ‘constantly seeking novelty.’ And this morning, you know, I really was just thinking about a quick soapy handjob in the shower, but you seemed dead set on… escalating?”

“Surely, it is in my own best interest to stoke the ardor of my lover. As thoroughly as possible,” Dream said stiffly.

“That’s not in question,” Hob said gently. “I suppose you could say I’m wondering about the, the method. Of the stoking. And the variety. And the reasoning behind it. Am I making sense at all?”

“You are being perfectly clear.” Dream placed his mug on the coffee table and stood. “I have been. Overly exuberant. In my attentions toward you. I will attempt to curtail my intensity in the future. Thank you for telling me.”

Hob sighed. Dream was carefully not quite looking him in the eye.

“I think you know that’s not really what I’m saying, love,” he said. “But if you’re not feeling up to talking about it now, that’s okay. I can wait until you’re ready.”

Dream nodded, still stiff. When he kissed Hob goodbye, it felt slightly too formal. Almost perfunctory.

His lover disappeared in the usual swirl of sand, and Hob sighed again and sipped his tea. He no longer worried overmuch when Dream got in a mood and needed space; it almost always meant that he thought he’d done something wrong and was feeling self-conscious about it. They would talk it out, when he was ready.

Sure enough, a few days later Hob went to bed and opened his eyes to find himself in Dream’s chamber, high up in his castle in the Dreaming.

Its sovereign was standing on the balcony overlooking a beautifully overgrown courtyard garden, wearing a long diaphanous robe that billowed around him, though there was no breeze. The air was heavy and humid; it wasn’t raining, but there was a feeling in the air as though it might start at any moment.

“Hello, love,” Hob said.

“Good evening, beloved.”

Hob stepped out on the balcony and pressed himself against Dream’s back, wrapping his arms around the narrow waist and nuzzling into the dent between his shoulder blades.

“Feeling ready to chat?” he murmured.

“Yes. But first. I would like to tell you that I am sorry. I was short-tempered, earlier. And I wilfully misunderstood what you were trying to ask me. I am sorry,” Dream repeated, and Hob tightened his hug.

Dream always sounded different in the Dreaming, but his deep voice – somehow richer and more resonant – was fond and contrite.

“Already forgiven. Nothing to forgive, really. I understood.” Hob kissed Dream’s shoulder through the sheer fabric of his robes. “Do you think you can talk, now? About what I was asking about?”

“Yes. Come, sit with me.”

Dream led Hob to the bed, where they sat cross-legged, facing one another.

“You were right that I… have felt the need to keep things new. To keep your interest and your heart,” Dream began. “I wanted you to be excited about me. And to remain so. I have told you but little of my past loves, I know. They are few, but one theme has loomed large in my mind: that their downfall, when it came, was of my own making. That my reticence – or my selfishness – led to the loss of that which I held dear. I fear, more than anything, Hob, that I could yet lose you, too. I have already come dangerously close.”

“If it reassures you at all,” Hob said softly, “I literally can’t think of anything you could do that would drive you away. Not now, not that I know what it’s like to be with you. To be yours.”

“It comforts me to hear you say it,” Dream said.

“So, the shapeshifting… all the incredibly creative sex… it was because you were worried I might get bored of you and leave?”

There was a beat before Dream answered.

“Yes,” he finally said reluctantly.

“Okay. That’s a lot. But first of all,” Hob said, “it’s… actually very sweet of you, in a weird way. I’m glad you want me to stick around.” He leaned in and kissed Dream, just a soft, quick press of their lips. “Second of all, I do understand why you’d worry about humans needing novelty all the time, but honestly, I promise that’s not the case with me. I’d been very happy with regular-degular human sex for centuries before I got my hands on you, and –”

“I would prefer not to think about the lovers you had before,” Dream said archly.

“Down, boy,” Hob grinned. “The point is, as much as I appreciate the creativity – and I do, baby, trust me – I don’t need it. And sometimes it really is nice to just have a soapy handjob in the shower.”

Dream snorted. It was the dearest, loveliest sound Hob had ever heard.

“I love you,” he said, leaning in to kiss Dream properly, nipping at his bottom lip. “You’re it for me. And I will happily spend the next several centuries working to convince you of that fact.”

“You are about to awaken,” Dream rumbled. “But I will join you soon in the Waking. So that you may begin your work properly.”

When Hob opened his eyes again, he was in his own bed, and Dream was kneeling on the quilt beside him. He was, Hob was thrilled to see, still clad in the clinging robes he was accustomed to wear in the Dreaming, but which did not usually accompany him into the waking world.

“Good morning, love,” he said muzzily, rolling over and reaching for Dream, trailing his fingers down from hip to knee. “God, but you’re a gorgeous sight to wake up to.”

“I hope you intend to do more than look,” Dream said with a smile.

Hob slipped his fingers under the edge of the robe and pushed it up the length of a long, lean thigh. “Oh, darling. You know I do.”

It was utter delight to lay Dream back against the pillows. To pull his sheer robes aside and kiss the miles of soft skin underneath. To stroke and caress until his rosebud of a mouth was open and panting in pleasure, and his sex was hard and wanting against his leg.

“Hob – I want –” he gasped.

“I know what you want.” Hob mouthed up his ribs and along the sharp line of his collarbone. “You’ll get it, love. You’ll get everything you want. But first I want you to listen.”

And he proceeded to tell Dream exactly how much he loved his body, this body; how he’d wanted Dream since he first beheld him, and how his wanting had only grown deeper and wider with every moment, every touch, and every kiss. He told Dream how good his body felt under him, over him, in him; how good he made Hob feel every time they came together. Hob proclaimed the perfection of Dream’s eyes, his lips, his long clever fingers; admired the softness of his throat and the strength of his limbs. He lavished praise and kisses on every inch of his body, until Dream was trembling beneath him and tears stood in his eyes and turned them to ice-blue crystals.

Only then did he take his prick in hand; only then did he kiss along its length to where it already wept copiously at the tip. Only then did he slick his fingers and sink them into the perfect, welcoming heat of Dream’s body.

Dream arched his back and cried out as he came, and it was the most beautiful thing Hob had ever seen.

It always was.

Read on AO3 >>>

tagging @five-and-dimes, who kindly expressed interest in this ficlet many months ago when I posted a snippet. I finally finished it and thought you might like to know :)

green = complete, orange = WIP

#someday I am going to stop posting barely edited shit at 2:00 AM (she lied unconvincingly)#dreamling bingo #dreamling #the sandman #dream of the endless #hob gadling #my writing

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lesbiandatekaname · 2 years

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Finding out that Rue broke off the engagement of Apollo and Grabalba has OBVIOUSLY got us all going insane but I am thinking so hard about one, teeny tiny moment. When Rue says something along the lines of "Was Apollo in love? Was Grabalba?"

Because what I think of is the very first episode, in the first scene where we see Hob at the goblin Rumpus. Where Grabalba sits next to the fire, despondently burning the petals of golden peonies. A symbol of Apollo.

Whether or not Grabalba "loved" Apollo, this was clearly something that crushed her. To her, she had been dismissed and scorned as a disgusting creature of the Goblin Court.

And Rue seemingly... dismisses that? Yes, they did not see the scene at the Rumpus, they couldn't have known the actual turmoil Grabalba was facing over this. But they clearly didn't ask her either. They just assumed on her behalf that she would either be glad to be freed of a political marriage or that their own philosophy of what constitutes true love supercedes anything that she might be upset over.

And it also kind of dismisses Hob a little bit too! That marriage was made because of his efforts in war, and the Masquerade ep (among many other things) shows that he is deeply affected by his time in the military. Rue says "take care of yourself" though many of his sacrifices were made null and void because of their actions. And it was okay because it was for love.

I think this WHOLE situation has so many facets to look at in terms of class. Rue has never felt at home in the Court of Wonder, was literally taken in as a dancing bear and only seemed to experience any form of acceptance when the Chorus wanted to silence them, put them behind a mask. But they also have so much more political sway than almost any other PC at the table until the final act. Andhera has only recently stepped out from behind his pillar and into his role as Unseelie prince, Binx was hiding in the identity of the little sister of a much more important figure, and even the Lords of the Wings were having to bear the brunt of Grandfather and Rue's conflicting demands.

Rue's ideals are righteous and true, they are objectively correct. But they so desperately want to live in a world where love trumps political machinations that they have put themself into a fantasy where their actions only hurt the system and not the individuals of it.

#acofaf #g-d i love them so much #gnaws on this like a bone #a court of fey and flowers #deloso de la rue #kp hobb #viscountess grabalba

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avelera · 1 year

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I still laugh rereading comments for Giving Sanctuary that are agonizing over the slow burn. And I completely get it, the actual amount of time passing in the story is secondary to the amount of time the reader spends in the story. It doesn’t matter that something only takes an hour in universe if it’s a 100,000 words to cover it.

… at the same time though, like, if I had put the date at the top of each chapter I wonder if it would be clearer to people how much of a relationship speedrun Dream and Hob are in that fic?

The continuous time from when Dream invites Hob to when they confess to one another is ONE WEEK. One week! It gets stretched out artificially to 5 weeks because of Destiny, but even that is only for one half of the pair, it’s still only 1 week for Dream. They are completely unhinged for each other lol.

And this part may sound a bit overly defensive but I think the amount of time from when they both knew their own feelings, both had pretty good evidence that the other might be interested too, AND they weren’t actively dealing with either 1) literally getting Hob settled after literal decades of traumatizing years on the streets or 2) actively dealing with mourning their sons either through dream flashback or the trip to Naxos (including its immediate grief hangover for Dream, because being like “Yeah I know you just ripped open the wound of your sons death to allow it to finally heal YESTERDAY but like… do you like me? As more than a friend??” Is just objectively imo the teeniest bit insensitive and something Hob is painfully aware of having just gone through it himself? Dream doesn’t pop the question after Hob’s ordeal either) … is quite literally ONE DAY.

Like literally, Hob goes home with Dream June 7th, they do the Robyn thing June 8, June 9 Dream says he wants to go to Naxos, June 10 they actually go, June 11 Jessamy appears and it’s a recovery day, June 12 Hob considers telling him but wants to wait until Dream isn’t pissed off about Destiny’s pestering and his own libido comes back which throws him for a loop and makes him anxious about dealing with the physical side of things in the midst of all the emotional stuff and that night going into June 13, Dream offers Hob the boon, more or less hoping that Hob will use it for something romantic between them or, failing that, just something that makes him happy. Dream is not clueless as of June 13, he’s 90% sure Hob is into him, they’ve had a couple days since Naxos so it’s not actively inappropriate to have the discussion, Dream is scrupulously careful of the power imbalance and wants Hob to make the first move before he makes his own feelings known in a way that could feel like pressure or Hob is beholden to him, since Hob openly voices a sense of inferiority and owing fealty.

Meanwhile Hob has screwed his courage to the sticking place, he’s ready to take the advice of Calliope, he’s got the boon and plans to use it as an escape hatch if it all goes poorly (basically as Dream intended btw! Dream sensed that something about the power imbalance was holding Hob back and he didn’t know HOW Hob would use the boon but wanted to give him an “one time use of Endless-level power” in the hopes that it might put Hob at ease and maybe even nudge him towards revealing his heart’s desire and maybe that would include Dream).

Literally that NIGHT, Hob was resolved to pose the question in the morning after a day of agonizing. Dream sensed the next morning was going to be significant and was flirting like crazy to give the “all systems go” signal to Hob that whatever he said would be welcome but Dream was PRETTY SURE he knew and wholly welcomed the advances.

Indeed, that was a huge part of why when Hob had the sex dream (courtesy of the proximity and everything that happened that day with the flirting plus his body coming back online after some time to recover its strength) Dream enthusiastically joined in. In his mind, Hob had pretty heavily implied that the next day he was going to ask to court Dream (or equivalent) so his reaching out in his dreams sexually was pretty much the same thing and Dream took it, perhaps incorrectly, as the signal he needed of Hob’s interest so he could finally pounce with his own enthusiastic consent. Dream is not a being of words, ironically. He thought Hob’s actions were pretty clear and he made very clear that he was excited and willing with this turn of events, basically “Yes! Finally!”

(Btw plenty of people picked up on this lol I’m not saying this went over people’s heads.)

The break down of communication was that Hob had his very careful, courtly, CHASTE proposal he wanted to tentatively put forth the other day, absolutely terrified he’d misread the situation or that Calliope had deliberately set him up to fail out of spite, or any other number of ways it could go wrong like—even if things had gone as planned he was going to be TERRIFIED to ask if maybe he was reading the signals right and Dream really had been flirting for the past 5-6 DAYS and if so that Hob was interested in earning Dream’s love in any way he’d be allowed. He was going to be CAREFUL and POETIC and RESPECTFUL and very ready to backpedal and use the boon if necessary to ask Dream not to be mad at him for presuming to know his mind.

So to wake up having had a vivid sex dream and be confronted with evidence that he lost control of himself in the night and basically assaulted or at least dirtied his friend in the most embarrassing way possible, all the physical stuff he would have been petrified to presume before he got the chance to be all courtly and poetic about his feelings, sent him into an absolute tailspin of fear that he’d fucked it up before he had the chance to get it right or slowly introduce the idea of adding a more romantic side to their relationship.

(Gosh now I want to write an AU of an AU where things did go as Hob planned lol)

So Hob has his freak out. Without Destiny’s shenanigans and without Dream also freaking out and potentially mind wiping Hob by accident in an effort to grant him what he apparently wanted which was to forget it ever happened… Dream and Hob probably would have reconvened the next day once they both calmed down and had a chance to think about what happened and realize there might have been misunderstandings (most likely because of Jessamy bonking Dream over the head and telling him to go make sure Hob knew it was actually him in the dream.

Even WITH the dinner though, door to door, that would mean on June 14th, 1 week after the White Horse meeting, they’re officially Together as a couple.

In that light I will say, I personally don’t think Hob was wrong on June 12 to decide to wait until morning after Dream was flirting with him all that day. He wanted to be awake and clear headed with a whole day ahead of them to discuss or patch things up if it went poorly. He was mostly sure he was reading the signals right but the catastrophe and loss in that 1% chance he was wrong was just too terrible to risk late at night after a confusing day. And Dream read that signal loud and clear that Hob was nervous and wanted to clear a space for them to discuss this and was wholly enthusiastic about reconvening once Hob had rested and gathered himself. But Dream was only holding himself back until he got a clear signal of interest from Hob first which he took the sex dream to be because dreams are obviously real to him and there was love permeating the whole thing (hence why Dream was so confused and upset about Hob’s freak out, neglecting to realize Hob’s point of view here of being in a tenuous situation, because Dream was so infatuated himself that it didn’t occur to him that Hob still found him hard to read and feared the consequences of being wrong).

Anyway! I still regret nothing about that sequence lol I love rereading the readers’ tears but I still wanted to defend my timeline and say these guys are totally unhinged and it’s not actually a slow burn at all by any normal human standard it’s like one night where they maybe could have said something sooner and it wouldn’t have been wildly inappropriate.

#dreamling #1689 fic #giving sanctuary #giving sanctuary bts

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gabessquishytum · 9 months

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Alright alright. Heres another. How about: single dads au. Dream has just divorced Calliope. Her job means that she's traveling all over the world right now and as much as she wants to be in Orpheus's life, that's very irregular. Dream works from home. He's an artist who does work for himself but also on commission. He hasn't painted for fun since the fighting started with Calliope 6 months before the big break up. He's still taking work painting book covers and such. But it's not fun anymore. It all feels... flat.

Orpheus is in grade school and his thing is music. He has perfect pitch. Dream tries to relate but even music feels flat since his muse left of course.

He goes in for a parent teacher conference. Orpheus begged him to come because he needs to talk to his music teacher and be proud of Orpheus's perfect grade in the class. So Dream comes. There's one other kid there waiting his turn for the music teacher but he looks miserable, and his parent is nowhere to be found. There's someone in the room already so Dream and Orpheus sit down with this kid and wait. Orpheus runs off to the bathroom so Dream strikes up a conversation with the kid, whose name is Robyn and he's just awful at music he says. Dream, who is much better with kids than with anyone else really, tells him a secret - he's not very good at music either. Robyn is mystified how the parent of the best kid in class could suck at music. Dream learns that Robyn's dad is late getting here because he had work. And he won't be upset that Robyn is doing poorly but Robyn thinks he should be, he's upset enough about his grade for the both of them. Just as they're getting friendly, Orpheus cames back with another man, who he has obviously won over and is talking with animatedly.

Robyn lights up and runs over to his dad, hugging his leg. Hob has finally arrived. He grunts as Robyn runs into him and bends down to pick him up, even though the boy is like 8 or so. Hob settles Robyn against his substantial hip, the kid curling a little around Hob's belly. Robyn stage whispers to him that Orpheus is the best kid in music but apparently his dad can't hold a tune isn't that funny?

Dream and Hob look at each other as Hob chuckles, and Dream has two sudden realizations at once. 1) Dream hasn't felt this kind of attraction to a man, ever. He knew he could like men but it seemed just not as strong as attraction to women. But apparently that was because he'd never been attracted to a strong fat man before because holy shit would Dream like to be lifted like that against that belly. 2) Dream needs to get his hands on some clay right now and sculpt him. Suddenly it makes sense his art felt flat, it was literally 2 dimensional. And here is Hob taking up space fully in 3 dimensions and Dream needs to learn to sculpt right now to create his likeness.

🍰🐲

Dad Hob with an actual dad bod??? HELLO. This is a fat dad appreciation blog now.

Dream being good with kids is also such an underrated thing. He definitely puts Robyn at ease about the whole music grade situation (and he definitely thinks that no 8 year old should be worrying about grades, as he keeps telling Orpheus). When Hob sees Dream for the first time, he's immediately so enamoured with him, because anyone who Robyn takes a shine to must be an amazing person. It helps that Dream is drop-dead gorgeous.

Meanwhile Dream is wondering if it would be weird and insane to ask Hob to model for him right now. He's never even done a full sculpture before but he wants to get into his studio, have Hob pose, and just get to work. He's definitely staring at all the soft curves, the beautiful hint of double chin, the lovely slope of his belly. He just hopes that Hob won't get the wrong idea!!

They keep meeting in between appointments with the teachers, and all four of them head to the snack table that the PTA have organised. Robyn and Orpheus take their cupcakes and go play with some of classmates, and Dream is thrilled to be left alone with Hob!!!

"I'm an artist." Dream blurts out. "And i hope this isn't odd or intrusive, but. Looking at you has given me more inspiration than I have found in many months."

Hob blushes, which possibly makes him even more lovely. The colour in his cheeks floods all the way down to his neck, and probably goes even further down his chest.

"Creativity runs in your family, huh?" Hob tugs on his ear shyly. "Robyn loves his art. A whole lot more than music, bless him."

"You would both be welcome to come to my studio. Orpheus will be there, of course." Dream sweeps his gaze once more up and down over Hob’s figure. "I would not do anything to make you uncomfortable, I promise."

Hob leans in close. He smells so fucking good, like winter spices. Dream’s mind is flooded with images in which Hob lifts him clear off the floor and holds him against his own plush form. It's Dream’s turn to blush. Hob is so close, Dream could bury himself in that magnificent soft chest.

"I'm far from uncomfortable. Watching you go through a kind of sexual awakening has been a pleasure." He winks, and pulls away. The kids are coming back over. "I'll give you my number, and we'll arrange something. Okay?"

Of course the main theme of the evening involves both Hob and Dream being proud of their respective sons and showering them in praise. But it would be fair to say that both of them are very much looking forward to meeting again... perhaps in more intimate circumstances?

#🍰🐲 anon #the sandman #dreamling #nsft #fat hob

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windsweptinred · 2 years

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OK, so I'll openly admit to getting a little obsessed with this headcanon. But but but... My expanded theory on Hob as successor to Father Time and Dream as the next Night.

So the Why... Hob is Hope and Delight and Curiosity and all those things people have called him in abundance. But what this all accumulates to is he loves 'LIFETIME'. He appreciates the time he has. Every second of it! The good and the bad. The memories of the past, the everyday wonders of the present, the potential of the future. He doesn't waste a minute of it. He respects and revels in Time. It's his one true gift, Hob has Time and makes a masterpiece of it.

And the How... the Greeks, (who seem to be really up on their Endless know how in their own way) had three divine representations of time..

1.The first, Opportunity, luck and favorable moments.

2. The next level is Eternity, The Zodiac /The turning of time/months/seasons etc

3. Finally the Big Dog, Time itself.. Past, Present, Future

So we say that's the three stages a new Time will journey through.

Hob is literally 'birthed' as Time's successor through 'opportunity'. A case of gets cocky at the right place, right time and boom... In that instance, Death withholds her gift, and after some bargining with dear old dad. Father Time pours himself into Hob to stop the age and decay of his mortal body. Too much of himself. The process of one Time fading and one Time ascending begins!

Say from that point on the power of opportunity is Hobs, even though he doesn't know it. Things just work for him and those he cares about. Who's ever side he's fighting on in a battle 'will' win. The printing press for example, he joins it as a no hope career then it explodes! Hob just puts it down to good luck and a can do attitude.

By the End of the 1500s he's slowly evolving into the next stage, Eternity. Learning to respect the natural cycle of time, the change of the seasons, with life comes death...Yeah, this stage starts with a hard lesson.

So by this point, the power of life, memory and time are all slowly building up within Hob. Every turn of the wheel that passes for him, it grows. Now this could take centuries to come to fruition. But over the years, not that he'd notice, say, the seasons seem to be perfect wherever he goes. His memory, even as an immortal shouldn't be able to withtain everything he's been through. But he has perfect recall of everything from 1389 onwards. Maybe people around him get that little extra boost for experiencing life in the time they have. I also love the idea of the embodiements of the Zodiac being at his unknowing beck and call. He's sat talking to a crab and is like, "Let's have a good July this year. What do you think little crab?" And Cancer replies in crab... 'Ofcourse my liege!' and skuttles off to see to it immediately.

Final stage, Time itself. Learning to be and master Past, Present and Future... Where the fun really starts.

Hob waking up a different age every day of the week until he gets a handle on it.

Accidentally trapping himself in a time loop beacuse he was so focused on how a situation could have played out better.

Wishing he could have been there to help Dream and suddenly find himself standing outside of Fawney Rig in the 1920. And having seen enough movies to know he can't change anything. Even though he wants to more then anything.

Sneezing too hard and ending up in a different universe 100 years in the future. And having to call on a very white and definitely not 'his' Dream of the Endless to find his way back.

Hob may be starting to realise somethings a miss by now...

....................................................................

As for Dream becoming Night. Of all the Endless Siblings, Dream is the closest in function to Mother Night. While you can certainly dream during the day. Sleep and Night generally go hand in hand. He also seems to have taken for her the most in appearance if those starry eyes are anything to go by..

But well, the moment Hob decided, 'That's the anthropomorphic personification I'm going to marry!' his fate was sealed. Time HAS to have a Night. Mummy dearest is now slowly on the wane as her power slowly passes to her son.

I doubt Dream would notice any major changes for a while. He's got a lot on his plate to contend with after all. But maybe little things...

One morning he's snuggling with Hob and the dawn sunlight beams straight into his eyeballs. And Dream thinks, 'Go away...' And suddenly it's night again until his highness deems it time to get up.

The Stars in their masses start to visit the Dreaming to pay their respects to Dream. Which is all very nice, but he has absolutely no idea why its happening.

Dream is regarding himself in the mirror and notices his skin is starting to ever so slighlty sparkle. Thinks, 'I am getting old, I'm turning into my Mother.' Yup, quite literally duck. 😆

................................................

Then we come to the events of 'The Wake'. But a different kind of death awaits Dream, that of transformation. Daniel becomes Dream, Dream becomes Night. Hob ascends as the new Time... And Father Time and Mother Night's A* parenting comes back to bite them in some truly cosmic level karma.

#dreamling #dream of the endless #hob gadling #the sandman #father time #mother night #TimeHob #DreamNight #hob x dream #hob x morpheus #Thank you for getting to the end of that essay #I'm going to go lay down now 😆

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spandexinspace · 3 months

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OK I need to nitpick HoB a little more.

Has this actually been said in the comics before? I know I say it occasionally and might have had someone say it in a fic somewhere, but I can't recall it actually being used in the comics?

They literally aren't in this part of the issue and it feels like these should have been preceded by Superman having to throw one of them off or something.

What about his grandchild, Pulsar Stargrave and some random guy. Yeah I know he doesn't know but still. He knows Vril and Indigo, that's it, the others could be whatever.

Him using first names feels weird.

???

Vril should have been more unhinged and angrier. This goes back to Bedard too tbh modern Vril is too soft, 90s Vril would stab on sight. Let Superman talk him down/drag him away while he snarls like a rabid animal.

But also. I know Vril is the most published character of the Dox family after his dad and Querl, but the way the comic laser focuses on him as if he's the surrogat father of the entire family feels so weird to me. Lyrl barely listens to him and that's his actual son, why would any of the others? Why isn't Lysl more important if she's the actual oldest and the one who would be most familiar with Brainiac?

Also I'm not 100% sure about the logistics here but wasn't the thing they blew up attached to Colu rather than it being another shrunken world? So it should have been blown up alongside the rest of all that? Or at least all the people should have died. And I wouldn't put it beyond Vril to rebuild Colu out of that but I would put it beyond Williamson to write that.

#dc comics #tuesday spoilers #tuesday comics #house of brainiac

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mentallyinvernation · 1 year

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Dreamling Bingo WIP - Library

This one is a snippet but it’s going to eventually turn into something like ‘5 Times Someone Finds Out Hob Gadling Is Engaged, and the 1 Time Hob Gadling Finds Out He’s Engaged’.

The fill will be used for my @dreamlingbingo square - C1 Library

｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.

“So, run by me again why Hob is allowed to distract you from running a kingdom, but when I say let’s go on a boy's night out, suddenly it’s a problem?” Matthew complains, really just for the sake of complaining because he’s bored.

“That would be because you are my raven and Hob is my fiance.” Dream murmurs distractedly, still pouring over the book he’s been engrossed in ever since he got back from the shores of creation and sequestered himself away in the library.

“Yeah, but I’m your best -” Matthew’s entire world comes to a screeching halt, the last part of that sentence hitting him with all the force of a brick wall. “Come again?”

Corinthian - who up until this point has been loitering nearby like a child put in time out - immediately perks up at the direction the conversation seems to be heading in.

Dream glances up, a tiny furrow creasing between his brows. “You are my raven.”

“Yes, I know that part! I meant the fiance part! What - you mean you’re - you’re getting married?”

“That is what fiance would imply, yes.”

There’s a stunned beat where Matthew just gawks at him, desperately trying to shape his mind around this information because it’s certainly news to him - probably to the entire realm.

And then he explodes.

“Since when? Oh, my god, there’s going to be a wedding. I love weddings. Why didn’t you say anything sooner? More importantly, why didn’t Hob say anything? I swear, I’m going to kill him. That fucker didn’t even have the decency to ask for your hand.”

A tiny smile tugs at Dream’s lips. “And my hand is yours to give away, is it?”

“Obviously. I’m your best friend. That’s what I was trying to say before, and why we should definitely have a boy's night out in the near future but we’ll stick a pin in that for now because what the shit, boss? You got hitched? You’re like tying the mother-fucking knot? Dude! I’m going to be a best man. Oh my god. Bachelor party in the Dreaming. Give me free rein for one night - just one - and this place will be party central.”

“Abso-fucking-lutely not.” Corinthian cuts in smoothly. “I already called dibs on best man.”

“What? No. Fuck off. You can’t just dibs best man. That’s not how it works.”

“Pretty sure it is.” Corinthian shrugs, scratching his neck. “There’s always best raven, though, right?”

“I’m sorry but weren’t you re-made like literally an hour ago? You’re a baby. You’re literally the baby. You can’t be the best man if you’re already the baby.”

“Says who, exactly?” Corinthian challenges, looking very much like he might stab whoever says so, which, you know, considering he wanted Dream dead not too long ago, this is a very new and strange change of pace for them, but Matthew’s not going to question it, because that’s above his pay grade. And his pay grade is nothing. “I’m still me. I was just gone for a while. Think of it like waking up from a nap.”

“Yeah, and you know who takes naps? Babies take naps. Toddlers.” Matthew snaps back, knowing full well he used to nap on the job all the time back when he was human, but that’s not important or useful for his argument. He ruffles his feathers and faces Dream again, who honestly looks a little discombobulated by their argument, and somewhat surprised to have two people fighting for the honour of being his best man - which is endearing and sad at the same time. “Anyway. I’m best man. End of. Moving on to what matters -”

“You’re not.” Corinthian mutters in the background.

And you know what, Matthew’s going to be the bigger person here because he is the best man, that’s basically already established without saying, Dream doesn’t even need to ask, and as the best man, he’s going to focus on what’s important.

“So? When did Hob ask? I want details.” Matthew says.

Dream arches a brow at him, tilting his head faintly. “Why do you presume it was Hob who asked?”

“Because - “ Matthew cuts himself off, beak opening and closing a few times. “Because it’s…Hob?” He finishes a little lamely. “Hasn’t he been planning to go down on one knee for you since the stone age or something? Wait - you’re saying that you proposed?”

“Is that so difficult to believe?” Dream replies, voice clipped as he juts his chin in that snooty little way of his. Matthew can see the underlying anxiety creeping into the stiffness of his shoulders, though.

“No,” He quite wisely says, “No, it’s just… I mean fuck, good on you, boss. You got your caveman. It’s just… I expected - hm. How to put this. Well, usually, you’re a little more…dramatic? When you do things. It becomes an event, you know?”

Dream frowns. “I do not know.”

Which is honestly impressive given that Hob gave Dream a flower once and the castle was overgrown with it for days.

The first time they fucked there was fireworks.

The Dreaming didn’t give off nearly enough theatrics recently to suggest there was a proposal.

“I bet Hob cried. Did he cry? He definitely cried.” Matthew snickers. “Wait, so, why didn’t you tell me you were going to propose?”

Dream blinks, which is a little comical and definitely a human mannerism he’s unconsciously picked up from Hob. “Was I supposed to inform you?”

“Yes!” Matthew exclaims, throwing his wings out wide. “Well, no. Not if you didn’t want to. That’s fine, obviously. But you told Corinthian before me? Corinthian?”

“Watch it, bird brain.”

“Watch your face.”

Corinthian rolls his - well he rolls his head to mimic the motion of rolling his eyes. “Stop getting your feathers in a twist. It’s not personal. I only just got re-made, if you recall. We had a bonding session on the beach. Real tear-jerker moment, you know? He didn’t even mean to tell me. It just slipped out with all the other gross feeling stuff we were talking about.”

“Why don’t we do gross feeling stuff?” Matthew whines at Dream.

“I will endeavour to make room for it in my schedule.” Dream responds flatly. “If you must know, I did not intentionally keep this from you. It happened only last night and I had no such plans of proposing until I was doing so.”

“Oh, nice. Spontaneity is a good look on you boss. You should try it more often.” Matthew chirps, giving Dream’s arm a little headbutt and earning another of his tiny smiles. “Congrats, by the way.”

“Thank you.” Dream says, and he sounds so fucking proud that Matthew’s chest wants to burst with warmth.

So, for all of two seconds, everything is perfect, and there’s going to be a wedding, and Dream is clearly over the fucking moon about the whole thing because this is genuinely the happiest Matthew has seen him.

And then Matthew remembers this is Dream.

“Wait,” Matthew starts, and instantly the Corinthian fixes him with a sharp grin that only widens as the cogs start to turn in his mind. “Wait, wait. You did ask him, right? Like you properly asked him?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Yeah. Good. Um. But what did you like - what did you say to him? What words exactly?” He presses as carefully as possible, suspicion a wire coiling up his spine that only tightens the more Corinthian looks at him like he’s waiting for the pin to drop.

Dream doesn’t huff because he’s a king and a personification but it’s damn well close. “Must I apprise you of every detail, Matthew? It is quite simple. I said: would you marry me? And Hob said: yes. He woke before we could make any further plans.”

Would not will.

Oh, sweet Jesus.

There’s a lot to unpack in that. Matthew doesn’t want to unpack that. For one fleeting moment, he has so much sympathy for Jessamy, his darling predecessor, who somehow put up with the drama that is Hob Gadling and Dream of the Endless for nearly six hundred years. Matthew has been dealing with them for a couple of months and he’s already exhausted.

Corinthian looks fucking elated.

“So, um,” he clears his throat. “You asked him in the Dreaming, huh?”

Dream nods, looking pleased, as though they’re now all on the same page. He shuts his book and rises. “If your curiosity is satisfied, perhaps you could now escort Corinthian back to the nightmare realms.”

“I don’t need a babysitter.” The Corinthian gripes.

“Babies don’t get to decide that.” Matthew retorts automatically, and then, “Wait why do I have to be the babysitter?”

Dream gives him a withering look. “I have a matter to attend to elsewhere. Queen Titania has been demanding an audience with me for some time. In the spirit of maintaining relations between realms, I must…indulge her.”

And with that, Dream sweeps out the room, robe flaring behind him as he leaves Matthew and Corinthian. Only once Dream is gone does Matthew sigh.

“Hob has no idea he’s engaged, does he?”

“Not a clue.” Corinthian confirms.

“And Dream doesn’t realise?”

“Not at all.”

“Does Lucienne know?”

“Nope.”

Matthew groans because now he’s going to have to go and track down Lucienne in this maze of a library that stretches on to fucking eternity, just to tell her that there’s a high chance there’s going to be a royal wedding in the nearby future, but one of the people getting married doesn’t know. And he has to tell Lucienne because Lucienne is the only one brave enough to tell Dream that he’s potentially not quite as engaged as he thought.

“Fuck my life.”

#dreamling bingo #dreamling #they're so dumb your honour I love them #matthew the sandman #dream of the endless #hob gadling #Dream x Hob #astrophel_hireath wips #my writing #the corinthian #a wedding!#maybe #gotta get hob on board first because bestie was asleep when Dream proposed

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thesoccerenthusiast · 10 months

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All of the Things Wrong w/ The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (Movie)

OK, let me preface this by saying I adore Tom Blyth, Josh Andreas Rivera and Rachel Zegler. The acting in this movie was fantastic. But as someone who historically reads the book before seeing the movie and expects to see correlation... this movie left a lot out. I loved the movie for the content, the cinematography and the acting. But my word, they left out SO MUCH.

I probably missed some things, so please tell me if I did so — but only if you're nice because internet people can be mean!

Anyway, this is my angsty list as a book nerd.

That’s not how Reaper died. Reaper didn’t die of the snakes. It was him and Lucy Gray in the final two, not Lucy Gray and Coral. Reaper died because Lucy Gray basically ran circles around him and he was extremely fatigued.

They didn’t put in the parade for Arachane’s death. I think that was a super poignant scene in the book — the tributes chained to the float and the image of the Tribute from 10 and her body on the crane. I can understand *why* they didn’t show it, but I think it’s a big proponent to the movie.

The Jabberjay recording. The last time I checked, Sejanus didn’t hear the jabber jay recording, and neither did the crowd. It didn’t make sense to play that. It gave Lucy Gray the heads up that Coriolanus was bad — but she didn’t find that out until they headed out to the lake.

Clemensia’s snake PTSD. They didn’t show any of Clemensia after what happened with the snakes, and that made no sense. Reaper was still in the Games and there was a lot of key conversation around her snake attack and when she Coriolanus made up.

The Sejanus-Billy Taupe meeting. In the book, they meet behind the house at the Covey’s residence. In the movie, they meet in the Hob for the first time. It makes no sense. We completely missed out on going to the Covey residence.

They completely left out Pluribis. This movie should have been split in two for this reason alone. He was such a big help to the Snow family, and he literally got the guitar for Lucy Gray. In one scene, she goes, “A guitar may convince me,” and then just suddenly shows up at the interviews with a guitar. There’s no showing of how she got it. That goes to the next point…

Coriolanus wasn’t in the hospital during the interviews. In the interviews, it isn’t Lucky Flickerman — more on him in a moment — that conducts the interviews. It’s the mentors themselves. Coriolanus is with Lucy Gray during the interview in the book, but in the movie he’s in the hospital after the Arena attack, watching with Sejanus and Tigris.

Lucky Flickerman’s way-too-early introduction. They had Lucky introduced from the start, and he was the one who did the interview with Lucy Gray and Coriolanus in the zoo, when that’s not what happened in the book. Lepidus is the one who does the interviews, way before Lucky even gets introduced.

The District Two Assignment. In the movie, Coriolanus finds out he is being moved to District Two for officer training after he passed the officer test. However, the movie got it totally wrong on the timing. He doesn’t find out he’s going to Two until the day before he’s supposed to run away with Lucy Gray. In the movie, he finds out 10 days before he’s supposed to go. That’s a big difference for how the next 10 days play out. He’s already dead-set on going to Two so he can get back to the Capitol. Also, he finds out, in the movie, before the shooting at the Hob happens, which isn’t the case in the book.

The ‘Ma Plinth’ visit. OK, so they basically took the Grandmam and Tigris and made them no-shows in the movie. I’m fine with the first person, but Tigris had so many good lines that it’s a shame she was basically left out. But anyway, the Grandmam and Tigris are paid a visit by Ma Plinth, who tells them she can’t find Sejanus and he’s run off after the whole ‘you’re monsters, all of you’ tirade. When they find out, in the book, that Sejanus is in the Arena, she’s with the Snows and says, “That’s my boy.” They completely took that away and, in the movie, had Dr. Gaul tell Coriolanus that Sejanus was in the Arena and he needed to go get him. Ugh.

The ‘Dad Plinth’ visit. There is a big scene in the book where Coriolanus goes to the Plinth residence to check on Sejanus. He is sleeping, but his father Strabo wants to see him. It’s not the most key conversation in the book, so I don’t mind that they didn’t add it, but I love Ma Plinth and she was a big part in that scene, giving background about their life in Two.

The Plinth Prize. Speaking of the Plinths, they completely missed the mark with the Plinth Prize. In the movie, they have the Plinth Prize mentioned in the first five minutes. In the book, it’s not mentioned until way later. The Plinth Prize is a big motivating factor in the book for how Coriolanus wants to win and wants to help Lucy Gray — for his own benefit.

Leaving District 12 Quote. Even Rachel Zegler said this was her favorite line. It was one of mine too. I’m so sad they left it off. “Goodbye District 12…”

Corio and Sejanus’ bunkmates. Easily one of the best parts of the book. If they split the movie into two, they could have been added. They were the whole reason they got to the Hob in the first place. They knew the way around District 12.

Once again, let me just say I probably missed stuff and I really, really did enjoy the acting in this movie. I think the people who played the tributes deserve a lot more credit too. Just wonderful work.

Also, Rachel Zegler's voice is magical.

#tbosas #tbosas review #books #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #the ballad of songbirds and snakes movie #lucy gray baird #coriolanus snow #sejanus plinth #sejanus deserved better #suzanne collins #book to movie #rachel zegler #tom blyth #josh andres rivera #the hunger games

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