#because I get migraines Hob must also suffer - sorry but I don't make the rules

[hardly-an-escape]

Headache

Square: D1 - Fragile Rating: T Word Count: 1540 Ship(s): Dream of the Endless | Morpheus/Hob Gadling Warnings: No archive warnings apply Additional Tags: Dreamling Bingo fill, fragile, domaystic2023, bath, sick fic, migraines, unfortunately I must inflict my own suffering on fictional characters, Dream of the Endless is a good friend, it’s totally normal to draw a bath for your friend and ogle him a little while he strips in front of you, and sit chatting while he’s fully naked in the bath, right? right??, pre-slash Summary: Hob has a migraine. Dream has a revelation. Read on AO3 | fill for @dreamlingbingo | fill for @domaystic day 10: bath

“Mate, I spent the first thirty years of my life either living in a one room hut or on the road with a band of soldiers. There’s a very short list of things I haven’t done in front of someone else, and bathing isn’t on it.”

Dream enters the New Inn early one evening only to find that Hob is not waiting for him at their usual table.

He is, momentarily, at something of a loss, until the woman working behind the bar (her name is Judy, she dreams of deep forests and warm bread) flags him down.

“You’re looking for Rob, right? He called and said you’d be stopping by,” she says. “He’s under the weather. Said to let you know he’ll see you next week and he’ll pick up the tab to make up for it.”

(This is meaningless. Hob picks up the tab every time they meet. Least I can do for the immortality and all, he often says.)

“Under the weather?”

“Yeah, he didn’t say what. Hope he feels better soon,” she says kindly, and moves down the bar to see to another patron.

Dream continues to be at something of a loss for another several moments, during which he considers his options.

Hob is under the weather. Therefore, Hob is not here. He wishes to see Hob, and this wish is strong; stronger today, as it more and more often is, than propriety might normally allow. Therefore, he must go where Hob is.

If he were under the weather, Hob would care for him. Therefore, he must care for Hob.

All the current dilemmas of the world now resolved, Dream slips through the door marked ‘staff only beyond this point’ and makes his way up the side stairs to Hob’s flat.

At the landing outside Hob’s door, he pauses. The possibility exists, he realizes, that Hob will not wish for company while he is under the weather. But the risk is worth taking. He knocks.

“Who is it?” Hob’s voice comes weakly through the door. “‘S open, come in.”

The living room is dark and still, and Hob is lying on the couch with one arm thrown over his face. He lifts it enough to peer under his own elbow, and Dream does not think he mistakes the way his eyes, though tired, light up when he sees him standing in the doorway.

“Oh, Dream, I’m sorry. Didn’t Judy tell you I’d called down?”

“Yes. But I thought perhaps. I could offer my assistance.”

“You’re sweet.” This is the first time in Dream’s memory that this epithet has been applied to him. “Nothing to do but wait it out, I’m afraid.”

“What ails you?”

“Just a migraine. Get them every once in a while.” Hob replaces his arm over his eyes. “I took some pills a little while ago, they’ll kick in soon. Not fit for company till then, I’m afraid.”

Dream steps into the room and closes the door softly behind him, coming over to kneel beside the couch.

“I am frequently considered unfit for company,” he says. “And you provide company regardless. Allow me to care for you, my friend. Is there nothing that would help you?”

Hob peeks out again from under his arm and smiles wanly.

“Well. It’s a bit silly –”

“– I am sure it is not,” Dream interjects.

“– it is, rather. But I would kill for a cool bath. I just can’t find the energy to get up and fill the tub.”

Dream stands smoothly.

“I will draw you a bath.”

It is, he thinks, indicative of Hob’s fragile state that he settles into the couch cushions with nary a word of protest.

The bathroom is comfortable and well-appointed, with a tub deep and long enough for a fully grown man to submerge himself completely. Dream has often heard Hob cheerfully refer to himself as a hedonist. This room is proof of that: the bathroom of a man unwilling to shortchange himself even on life’s simplest pleasures.

He stops up the drain and turns on the taps. Hob has requested a cool bath, so he ensures the water is several degrees below average human body temperature. He pulls down the blinds against the harsh light of the late afternoon and surveys a shelf of soaps and oils.

“Lavender or mint?” He pokes his head out to see that Hob has maneuvered himself into a sitting position on the couch. “I believe both are helpful for headaches. Do you have a preference?”

“I think… lavender,” answers Hob, eyes still closed. “Mint sounds too sharp.”

“Can’t tell you how much this means, mate,” he says, leveraging himself off the couch and groping his way toward the bathroom door. “Fuck, my head. Do you get migraines?”

“No. Not personally. But I am familiar with them, through the dreams of others. What are they like for you?”

“Well if you’re ever looking for human experiences, I emphatically do not recommend them.” He sways and leans against the bathroom doorjamb. “Feels like I have my own personal jackhammer in my temple. My shoulders and back seize up as well. Sometimes I puke, that’s always lovely. But the light sensitivity is the worst. I can function with the pain, but when I can’t even leave the flat because the fucking sun is too bright? Forget about it.”

“What causes them?” Dream asks, pouring a liberal capful of lavender scented oil in the water.

“Never been able to figure it out.” Hob shrugs and sits down on the closed toilet to remove his socks. “Isn’t that dumb?”

He begins to unbutton his shirt, and Dream turns the taps off.

“I will leave you in peace now,” he says. “Enjoy your bath. I hope your headache passes swiftly.”

He moves toward the door. There is a beat as Hob shrugs out of his shirt and begins to pull his undershirt over his head, and then –

“You can stay,” he says, voice muffled by the cloth. “You won’t bother me.”

His face, when it emerges from the t-shirt, is a scant shade pinker than it was.

“Your voice is… I think it’s kind of helping? Like it’s resonating at the right frequency?” Hob grimaces. “That sounds mad. My brain isn’t working.”

“You do not require…” Dream hesitates. “Privacy?”

This is something he knows many humans feel strongly about, and therefore part of the reason he does not intrude personally on any dreams – including Hob’s – without good reason.

“Mate, I spent the first thirty years of my life either living in a one room hut or on the road with a band of soldiers. There’s a very short list of things I haven’t done in front of someone else, and bathing isn’t on it.”

Hob has to stand and bend over in order to remove his trousers and underwear, and he winces as the blood flows to his head when he does so. Despite his words, he turns his back to Dream as he stoops, and Dream catches but a brief glimpse of thickly furred thigh and a pleasing curve of backside before averting his gaze. In deference to propriety.

Propriety. With which he is certainly preoccupied. And not with the pleasing curve of Hob’s backside.

Hob slides into the scented water and makes a deeply contented noise as he leans back, tipping his head back so as much of the back of his neck as possible is underwater while his ears remain above the surface. His eyes are closed. The line of his throat and the bump of his Adam’s apple rise from the water, little islands of life, looking oddly fragile.

Dream sits down, straight-backed, on the closed toilet that Hob has recently vacated, and devotes a fraction of the collective unconscious to some rapid calculations.

He wished to see Hob, and he finds himself here. He wished to care for Hob, offered to care for him, and was invited – here. Hob has expressed pleasure at his presence, has called him sweet, has asked for his voice, and now lies naked mere feet away from where Dream is seated. He has looked upon Hob’s body and found it pleasing; and the pink lingering in Hob’s cheeks despite the cool water would seem to suggest that the pleasure Dream took in that moment of looking is met with equal pleasure in being seen.

Could it be that he wants Hob? Could it be that Hob wants him?

It seems more and more likely by the second, as Hob relaxes fully into the water and the tension he carries begins to visibly drain from his neck and temples. As Dream’s gaze slips again down the line of Hob’s throat. And the sweep of his hair off his forehead. And the muscle in his forearm where it rests on the edge of the tub.

Dream is not perturbed that this revelation, the knowledge of these feelings, is only now working its way to the surface of his mind like a bubble struggling toward the surface of the water. It is not the first time he has pushed his own emotions so far down into the belly of his subconscious that it takes the equivalent of an earthquake to throw them back up into the light.

Hob swallows, and his throat is a tectonic plate.

“Would you mind?” he asks. “Just staying and… talking? Just for a little while. I wasn’t kidding when I said your voice was helping.”

“Of course,” Dream answers softly. “Of course I will.”

[Read on AO3]

green = complete, orange = WIP