#Dream trying desperately to find this funny because Hob does

[moorishflower]

I'm watching Cunk on Earth and the image I got in my brain was one of retired Dream, new and fragile and trying to get his bearings, and Hob tells him "Let's put on something funny? I've been meaning to watch this one." And he puts on Cunk on Earth, and Hob finds it hilarious (especially when she gets to the medieval bits), right up until Dream, who has been -- unbeknownst to Hob -- getting himself well and truly lathered over the past 40-60 minutes, bursts into tears.

"Fuck," Hob says, and scrambles to get into a better position, the awkwardness of sitting beside someone on a sofa not the ideal way to comfort someone who is, by all indications, in the process of having some sort of horrific existential crisis. "Oh, fuck, Dream, sorry, sorry, I don't even know what I'm sorry for, please stop crying, why are we crying?"

(Hob has tried to cultivate a sense of empathy since the 1700s, and sometimes, like now, he thinks he might have overdone it a bit.)

And Dream, sniffling, red-eyed and tear tracks down his cheeks and snot glistening around his nostrils in a way that wouldn't be charming on any other human except for him, says, "All of the things she is saying are wrong."

[gabessquishytum]

Alright, I’ve got an idea for you:

Childhood/high school friends Dreamling. They’re best friends/crushes and decide to be each other’s first sexual partner as well. Except you know, they’re inexperienced teenagers. It sucks. So now it’s awkward and they kinda drift apart after high school, as people do.

Fast forward a decade or two and they run into each other and rekindle their friendship. And their mutual crushes that never really went away. Seems like it would be a decent time to try again, right?

Except Dream never made the connection between their mutual inexperience and how bad the sex was. So he’s running under the impression that Hob just isn’t great in bed. Which is a shame because he’s really grown into himself and Dream would love to climb him like a tree. But he really, REALLY doesn’t want a repeat experience and/or have to tell Hob he sucks. Who needs communication, right?

Hob meanwhile is very well aware that he’s a much better partner these days. Except he’s somehow gotten the impression that Dream isn’t interested in sex. Might be asexual? So now he’s worried Dream might’ve forced himself into doing something he’s not comfortable with back in high school. And he’s DEFINITELY not going to pressure Dream into anything.

So now they’re just sort of orbiting each other, not really sure if they’re dating or just best friends or what because neither of them will actually talk to the other.

I think it comes to a head when Dream somehow indicates he actually does like sex/experience attraction. And Hob’s just like, oh. So it’s not everyone it’s just me 🥺

Obviously this ends with Hob getting to show off just how much he’s improved 😉

YELLING. This is so funny. I love it.

Dream sleeping with Hob once when they're both like, 17, and deciding there and then that Hob is a Terrible Fuck is very funny, and very Dream. And he doesn't really have any sex after that, so he doesn't have anything to compare it against. He just knows that it was awkward and a bit terrible.

Meanwhile Hob has been out there fucking his heart out and improving his technique. When they reconnect he's desperate to show Dream how different he is (and how he can actually put a condom on without coming too soon, whoop!). He figures that maybe Dream will come to him when he's ready, and they keep dating happily.

But Dream never initiates anything. He talks about the kind of porn he likes, and Hob knows that he wanks sometimes. He even mentions people that he finds fuckable. Hob is half convinced that Dream might be ace, and half convinced that Dream just... doesn't want to have sex with him.

Hob’s not the kind of person to let that fester in his heart, though. He explains that he won't be mad if Dream doesn't want to have sex, it's totally cool etcetera. He just feels like maybe Dream specifically isn't into him? And that's not... ideal.

Dream in turn explains that he's just not keen to repeat their first sexual encounter - the embarrassment might kill him this time. He doesn't get why Hob starts laughing and doesn't seem able to stop.

Hob eventually wheezes that he's not 17 anymore. He's not gonna do anything that Dream doesn't like, but he'd be honoured to show that he's picked up a few skills in the last decade or so.

Poor Dream actually ends up even more embarrassed than ever because Hob is, in fact, Very Good at sex. They could have been doing it this whole time! Hob is still laughing as he goes down on Dream for the first time, but the vibrations of his mouth do feel very good against Dream’s hole so... that's ok. Better than ok, even <3

[whumpdoyoumean]

Whumptober #31

xxx a light at the end of the tunnel

Hope is a funny thing. 

Having lived for well over half a millennium, Hob Gadling has lost hope more times than he cares to admit. But he’s also seen that hope rewarded, often in the most unexpected of ways, sometimes decades or even centuries after it had been seemingly lost. 

It’s hope that keeps him from turning tail and running when he arrives at Fawney Rig, home of Alex Burgess. It’s a grand old estate, the type that requires a good deal of staff to keep up. Staff who are currently lying dead in the foyer, on the steps, in the upstairs hallway. Four of them that he can count, and he’s barely got one foot in the door.

Six hundred years, and the brutality of which man is capable still manages to surprise him. He does his best to avoid such barbarism, when he can. It does nothing for his mental well-being and, having not gotten used to it despite his overabundance of experience (maybe because of it). It eats away at him.

And yet here, in the middle of such darkness…still there exists that bright sliver of hope. That maybe something he thought he’d lost for good isn’t lost after all.

This is what he clings to as he enters the mansion. His footsteps echo on the tile, and it occurs to him just how quiet it is. No sounds of weeping or begging, no quiet pleas for help. His heart sinks, and he knows in his gut that there are no survivors. Whoever is responsible for this carnage will have seen to that.

Hob’s step quickens. He’d managed to find the public records on the house--architectural drawings, blueprints and floor plans, surveys. A long night’s study had led him to the conclusion that the paperwork was carefully curated, and that the strange American was right: Something is afoot at the Burgess estate.

A shudder runs through Hob as he thinks back on the man who’d come into the inn a few nights before, asking odd questions of the people there. It had seemed at first that he was just another tourist, curious about the old homes that are older, almost, than his country. But as the questions had grown more pointed, the man more insistent, it became clear that he was looking for something. There was a lot of talk of dreams. It was his mention of the Devil and the Wandering Jew that finally prompted Hob to speak. 

“A fascinating little story isn’t it?”

He’ll never forget the flash of malice that had crossed the man’s face. It had only been there for a second before it was replaced by a forced smile that was no less discomfiting. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and laced with venom.

“Who says it’s just a story?”

There are more bodies as Hob continues through the halls. The American had seemed quietly unbalanced, like there was something desperate and dangerous and wild just below the surface, but this…

Could one man really have done all of this? 

It’s with that thought that he begins to run. 

He’s surprised at how quickly he finds the hidden basement door--due, largely, to the fact that it sits wide open. The air coming from the doorway is cold and musty-smelling and sends a shiver down his spine. His fingers land on the handle of the small knife at his hip, and then he’s moving down the stone steps, as quietly as he can. He can hear snippets of sound as he gets closer. The only thing he really makes out is Morpheus.

He doesn’t know why but the name, though he doesn’t recognize it, sends a warm jolt of familiarity through his heart. He’s so busy trying to piece together what the feeling might mean that he forgets his attempt at stealth as he steps through the open iron gates and down the two small steps into a dark, candlelit chamber. He certainly doesn’t notice the man lying in wait for him, until he feels a gun pressed to the back of his head. 

“Turn around,” the American says, and Hob does so, though not before he catches a glimpse of a naked figure on a bed of broken glass, pale and bloodied and striking the same golden chord that the name Morpheus had. “Professor? I have to admit, this is unexpected.”

He launches into some long-winded monologue, but Hob doesn’t hear a word of it. Because he was right. He knows who it is lying there, unmoving, on the ground beneath the round metal frame. And he knows who it is that made him bleed. 

He doesn’t enjoy killing people. He’s done it, of course. Not just out of necessity, either. He’s killed for reasons far more selfish and debauched than that. Never has he taken pleasure in the act. 

This, though. This is maybe as close as he gets.

He moves with lightning speed, with reflexes refined by centuries of honing. It’s not a fight. The American doesn’t even have time for his finger to twitch before the blade is buried in his carotid. He stares at Hob with wide-eyed shock. Hob stares back for one hate-filled moment before he pulls the knife out, turning on his heel as red arcs out and the American falls to the ground.

The hatred is forgotten immediately as Hob runs to the naked man’s side, replaced by something gentler and more precarious. 

“It’s you.”

Even beaten and bloodied, he knows this face. Of course he knows this face, how could he not? He quickly takes off his coat, draping it over the huddled and trembling and bleeding figure whose eyes remain shut.

“Alright, old friend,” Hob says softly. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m going to move you now.” 

He moves as quickly as he dares, mindful of the larger pieces of glass in the slight man’s body as he carefully lifts the man into his arms. He’s surprised at how easy it is, barely taking more effort than lifting a child, and the man stirs slightly, a groan slipping from lips that are pale white beneath the blood.

“Easy, now,” Hob murmurs. His eyes land on a sigil on the ground, and disgust rises in him as he scuffs the markings with one foot before continuing. 

The man groans again and he starts to squirm in Hob’s arms. He’s skin and bones, and has just had the shit beat out of him, and it would be easy to subdue him if Hob weren’t so worried about doing further harm. 

“Okay--alright! Let me at least get you away from all the glass and the damned binding circle.” 

He walks hurriedly, moving to a subchamber that’s free of glass and blood, and eases the man onto the floor, covering him carefully with his coat. The man’s not fully conscious, eyes moving beneath slightly parted lids. Hob doesn’t want to leave him here alone for even a second, but the stone floors of the basement are frigid, and he can practically see the heat being leached from the man’s body. 

“I’ll be back,” he says, brushing his fingers against the man’s icy knuckles. “I won’t be a minute. Don’t move.”

He runs up the stairs and then up another flight, barely noticing the bodies now as he ducks into the first room he sees. He’s got more pressing things on his mind. He loads his arms with blankets, a pillow, and a flannel nightshirt, and makes the journey back to that awful basement, twice nearly tripping in his haste. He grabs a bottle of water as he passes the desk where the guards lay dead, then hurries into the subchamber. The relief he feels when he sees that the man hasn’t vanished is quickly undercut by the fact he’s gone completely still. 

“No.” He dumps everything from the bedroom onto the floor and kneels next to the man, his immortal heart beating so frantically it feels as if it might give out. His fingers shake lightly as he takes the man’s wrist in his hand. He’s spent a hundred and twenty-seven years waiting for this reunion. This can’t be the way it ends. 

He almost cries when he finds the pulse, surprisingly strong given the state of the man.

“You scared me,” he says. He wipes the blood from his knife and cuts one of the blankets, ripping it the rest of the way with his hands and repeating the process until he’s got a small pile of cloth strips. He talks quietly the whole time. He’s not sure if the man can hear him, but he’d much rather speak and have his words fall on empty ears, than not speak and have the man be offered no comfort. 

There are things Hob wants to tell him, of course. Things he’d planned on telling him when they were last supposed to meet, things he’s thought about telling him since. He doesn’t say them, though. He’ll save those for when the two of them can have a proper conversation. 

For now, he talks about the weather, describing the color of the sky and the leaves, the feel of the breeze and the lovely scent that it carries, the birdsong. He talks as he winds a long strip of cloth around the large piece of glass in the man’s thigh, careful not to jostle it but also making the make-shift bandage tight enough to slow the bleeding, and to keep the glass in place until he’s in a better position to deal with it. By the time he finishes and moves to the man’s arm to repeat the process, he’s run out of ways to talk about the weather, so he talks about his recent holiday to the Isle of Wight. He doesn’t notice the silent tears that slip down the stranger’s face.

Once he’s satisfied with his work, he drapes a blanket (one that he hasn’t torn up to use as bandages) over the man and turns his attention to his face. He can’t help but grimace as he does. An ugly bruise is already forming over the man’s left eye and there’s a nasty gash over his cheekbone, and a small knot is forming above his right temple. His lip is split, too, and his nose looks like it might be broken. Perhaps most alarming is the man’s lower jaw, which juts sharply to the right. Definitely dislocated.  

A fresh dose of hatred courses through his veins. 

He won’t be losing much sleep over the American, he decides. 

He pours water over one of the strips of fabric and starts the work of cleaning the blood away. Only when he starts to gingerly dab at the cut on his head does the stranger flinch and begin to stir. 

“Sorry!” Hob says, pausing as the man turns away from his touch. “Are you with me?”

The man’s eyes fly open and for a fraction of a second, Hob could swear that he sees the stars reflected in them. And then he’s staring into those familiar pools of blue, wide and panicked at first, but quickly softening with recognition. His lips begin to move, and Hob speaks quickly before the man has a chance to. 

“Careful. Don’t--don’t try to speak. Your jaw’s been dislocated. I think I can move it back into place--I’ve learned a great many things in my lifetimes--but it’s going to be unpleasant. Painful…” His mind goes back to what he’d heard when he first came down the steps. “I heard the man say Morpheus. Is that your name?”

The man stares at him for a moment before bobbing his head up and down.

Morpheus.

“Alright, Morpheus. Do you trust me?”

Morpheus nods once, without hesitation. There’s not a hint of trepidation in his eyes. 

“Good. I’ll be as quick and as gentle as I can.”

It’s an uncomfortable procedure. Hob is impressed by how quiet and still Morpheus is as he puts his thumbs against his lower molars, wrapping his fingers under the man’s chin.

“I need you to relax for me, now, while I move it back into place. Ready? Relax relax relax…” He applies pressure, pushing the man’s jaw down and then back until he feels it click back into place. The man lets out a sharp gasp, and then sighs, his shoulders sagging a little as he leans his head back against the wall. 

“Thank you,” he breathes. His whole body is trembling, even under the blanket. “Thank you. Thank you, Hob.”

“You’re welcome, Morpheus.”

The ghost of a smile crosses the man’s lips--lips which, Hob notes gladly, have begun to gain a bit of color back--and he reaches his uninjured arm out from under the blanket, resting his hand on Hob’s shoulder. 

“You may call me Dream. That is what my friends call me.”

Hob can’t help the laugh that bubbles up in his chest and escapes out his mouth at the word friends, and the chill of this place seems to fade a bit. 

“We should get you out of this place, Dream,” he says after a long moment. He picks up the nightshirt and sets to work ripping off the right sleeve, pausing when he sees Dream’s stare which he interprets as being inquisitive, despite it looking very much like his usual staring. “The glass in your arm,” he explains. 

Dream winces a little, as if he hadn’t noticed it until just now. The small surge of energy he’d had is clearly beginning to fade.

“Here, put this on. It isn’t quite to your taste, but it will cover you well enough until we can find something more suited to you.” 

Dream scowls slightly at the red and black plaid, but takes it anyway, pushing the blanket down and pulling the nightshirt over his head.

“Can you stand?” Hob asks.

“Yes.” 

He doesn’t look as sure as he sounds, though, and doesn’t turn down Hob’s proffered hand. The nightshirt falls down around him as he rises to his feet, and it’s clear that it was intended for a larger man. It makes for quite a sight: Dream, practically drowning in the bright fabric, save for his one care arm. Would’ve been quite funny, if not for the cuts and bruises, and the hiss he lets out as he tries to put weight on his injured leg. 

“Easy, there. Are you alright? Can you walk?”

“I can walk.” There’s not so much confidence now, and Hob loops an arm around his bony waist. 

“I’ve got you.”

It’s slow-going, and Hob finds himself cursing the spiral staircase more than once as they make their way up. Dream is gasping by the time they get to the ground floor, and shaking, a dazed, exhausted look on his face. He doesn’t react to the bloody scene in the foyer, and Hob’s not entirely convinced that the poor man even sees it. They make it the last few steps out the front door and onto the porch before it occurs to Hob that Dream is barefoot. He looks at the gravel drive and then at Dream’s bloodied feet and shakes his head. 

“That’s it, I’m carrying you the rest of the way.”

Dream barely protests as Hob lifts him off of his feet, and it’s clear he’s given in when he loops his good arm around Hob’s neck and leans into him. 

He’s unconscious again by the time they reach the car, and Hob has to wrangle him into the passenger side, careful not to jostle the glass. He’s just done the seatbelt when he looks up at that godforsaken house, and the hatred and rage for the people who imprisoned Dream come roaring up, all at once. 

“Just one more thing I’ve got to do,” he says. 

He’s never been more grateful for the extra petrol he keeps in the car just in case. The place is full of unattended candles and dry old books, anyway. 

An accident was bound to happen.

xxx 

The first thoughts that enter Dream’s mind upon regaining consciousness are soft and warm--both of which are things that he hasn’t been in a very, very long time. The next word is safe. And the word after that, a name: 

Hob.

He opens his eyes to find himself in a bed that’s infinitely softer than any he’s been in in this realm. A quick examination reveals that the glass is gone from his arm, replaced with clean bandages, and when he brushes his fingers against his leg, the same is true there. There’s a bandage on his cheek, as well. Strangely, he can hardly feel his injuries. Instead, his whole body feels tingly, almost warm. And his head feels…sodd. Like it’s been filled with helium and would take flight if not for his neck keeping it attached to his body.

“Hob?” he asks. He’s about to repeat the name when a door opens to his left and Hob appears, his hair and body dripping, gripping a towel that’s wrapped around his waist.

“Are you alright?” he asks, eyes wide. 

Dream nods, and the world starts to spin. He squeezes his eyes shut to try and stop the movement. “I feel strange.”

“Ah, yes. That would be the medication. I had to give you something before I removed the glass. The piece in your leg was dangerously close to your femoral artery. Even the slightest movement could’ve caused you to bleed out.”

Dream forces his eyes open and stares at Hob, who’s opened his closet and is pulling out a bathrobe. 

“You needn’t have worried,” he says, the words feeling strange on his tongue. His lids start to droop and he forces them open. “I can’t die, remember?”

He has just enough awareness to see a flicker of something in Hob’s expression. Something like guilt. 

“Aye,” Hob says quietly. “But you can be hurt or captured.” He shakes his head, almost as if, Dream thinks, to shake the sadness from his face. And then he smiles, a warm expression crossing his handsome features. “Please, Dream. Don’t stay awake on my account; we’ll have plenty of time to talk later. You can rest now.”

And for the first time in a century, Dream does.

xxx end