#Hob goes berserk on the ruins of Fawney Rig

[pellaaearien]

My love should wear a warning sign

Fawney Rig's been sold. Hob Gadling has some unfinished business.

“Fawney Rig’s been sold.”

Hob chokes on his hot chocolate, coughing through the scalding liquid before looking up at Johanna with streaming eyes. “What?” he demands, voice reedy.

Constantine’s eyes are dark and steady as she watches him. “Sounds like the money’s run out,” she says, not even trying to pretend that she’d come by the information incidentally. She’d been looking into this. Hob can see it in the sharp, bitter curve of her smile, the quiet relish with which she offers it. “The old man’s been moved to hospice for treatment. Sleep disorder.”

Hob knows the vindictive grin spreading across his face is the mirror of Johanna’s. Oh, Dream. You wondrous thing. He has absolutely no desire to get involved in Dream’s personal revenge, but this is something he has to do.

“Oh yeah?” he says casually, like the news is of passing interest. It’s… a little bit scary, actually, how little the knowledge that the house is empty now actually matters to him.

He’d have burned it to the ground regardless and knows he wouldn’t have lost a wink of sleep over it, even without Dream’s influence.

Johanna hands him a glass vial. Hob can’t tell what’s in it. It looks clear but he can feel the weight of it in his palm. The bottled potential. Hob eyes it, and then her.

“What’s this?” he asks.

“Free of charge,” Johanna says breezily, then turns and leaves.

(Read on Ao3)