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blueberrymffn · 3 months

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A fic for @the-centennial-husbands-bigbang I had the pleasure of working with @temporary-lover for the art on this fic! Pairing: Dream/Hob

Rating: E Word Count: 48k Tags: Friends to Lovers, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Soul Marks, Slow Burn, Eventual Smut, Eventual Happy Ending, Hob Gadling POV, Soul Mates.

Read On Ao3 or Dreamwidth Summary:

When Hob Gadling made a drunken deal with a mysterious man in a pub, he didn’t expect anything to come of it. Waking up the following morning with a golden mark on his wrist was a shock, though less than finding out that he couldn’t die. Who had he made a deal with, and what did he want? His Stranger was far from forthcoming, so he’d have to figure it out himself. That his mark was not just a passkey to an underworld of supernatural beings but the sign that he wasn’t meant to spend eternity alone was enough to send him down paths he never knew existed and ask more questions than were answered. Who, or more importantly what was his Stranger, and did the mysterious man know who Hob was destined for?

(An AU where only immortals have soulmarks that mark their species/type as well as their partner, and Hob has something no one has seen before) Chapter 1 below

When Hob Gadling had woken up, hungover and sore, sleeping in the straw of the White Horse’s stable he had thought nothing of it, save that he’d drunk through all his coin again, or his friends had. The memories of the night were slow enough to return, but the central focus of them had been the mysterious lord who had taken his boasting and jest with great seriousness. The man hadn’t batted an eye when he’d promised to meet him 1489, as if it were entirely normal. A fool, clearly, as most of the gentry were, or having him on. It didn’t matter, in any case. They’d both be in the ground by then, try as he might to avoid it.

It wasn’t until hours later, having bartered a ride on the back of an ox cart headed toward his family’s stead, that he noticed the mark on his wrist - and only then because it glinted in the sun. He squinted against the brightness, turning his arm so the mark was in shadow. The thin skin over the veins of his left wrist now bore a strange, twisted mark that he couldn’t identify. He thought perhaps it was a letter, one he didn’t recognise - not like any brand for thieving or darker deeds, and in the wrong place besides. Plus it didn’t hurt; it looked painted on, like gold accents in church art. Scratching at it had no effect whatsoever, though he tried more than once during the hours in the cart.

Not until the glint of it in the flam of a candle caught his eye again at home that evening did he put this strange design and the strange lord together as a possibility. Had he sworn some service to the man that he was too drunk to remember, was this a mark of a bondsman, somehow wrought in gold? Had the man somehow been serious about meeting again?

Had he even been a man at all, and did he now bear the devil’s mark?

Sleep came uneasily that night and for many more after. Hob took to tying a strip of fabric around his wrist to hide the mark but in the course of heavy labour it dislodged often enough. He needn’t have worried; long hours spent in the sun tanned his skin and bronzed the strange little sigil until its glittering dimmed and none would look askance at it, if ever they noticed it was even there.

In time he forgot about it entirely, until one sleepless night somewhere in France in the stinking war camp of an idiot king, he realised with a start that he’d been to and from this war for far too long. The way the mind wandered when sleep threatened illuminated many things, and he thought about the young man who’d been rationing out bread. Familiar, he was, so Hob had asked his name and the lad gave it and his town. At the time it had meant nothing, his mind had accepted that knowledge without incident until now when he realised that the John Hooper who’d come all the way from Ipswich to sell his sword had looked like that… decades ago.

Somehow the understanding that the strange lord had not spoken in jest did not feel like a sudden recognition, rather something to which Hob’s innermost self simply reacted with ‘well, that does explain a few things’.

That devil’s mark protected him through to the end of the Hundred Years’ War.

Luckily in the times that followed, the fashions of the day hid the golden mark from the world. It was for his eyes only; a gift from the stranger he had now seen thrice and of whom he knew little more than at the start. Hob had stopped thinking of it as a mark of Satan, as the devil itself seemed a strange concept when you were immortal. What threat was damnation when you’d never pass under the earth? Fae then, perhaps, or some god or power he did not yet understand. It mattered not, and was a constant reminder in the mornings when he dressed of how immensely lucky he was.

Until he was not.

London never seemed so positively dreary and constantly sopping wet when Hob had seen it all from the inside of a carriage. He had looked down these narrow, dark alleys with disdain from his high horse and gave no thought to those that scrabbled for their very existence amongst society's dregs. Would that he had known of their plight, done something for them, when he was a man of means. It was difficult to see how he ever could be again, having pawned the last of his precious belongings, stolen from the Gadlen estate, nearly a year ago. The warm cloak he had bought with that money had been stolen from him by two young, strong lads not a fortnight past. Tonight it would have been a blessing.

Hob was soaked to the bone, curled up with his knees to his chest against a brick wall that seemed warmer than others that he’d made his bed against these last few years. A kitchen was on its other side, or a good hot fireplace. Oh what he would give for mere moments beside a crackling fire - but he had nothing left to give. No one on this street had, they only clustered here because the overhanging roofs above the alley offered some small semblance of shelter from the downpours of this most rainy summer.

Sharp, angry voice hollered from where the alley met a larger way, echoing on the stone and brick but not going far through the dampness of the air. Drunkards, seeking a short way home. Brave ones, to walk where angels feared to tread. He heard laughter, closer, and then the panicked begging of a man he knew by voice more than sight; old Nathaniel was mad as a hatter and twice as daft. His unintelligible protests ended in a strangled cry, followed by silence broken only by the pattering rain. Then footsteps, coming closer.

There was hardly any light in the alley, most of the moon’s glow dampened and bare candles near windows did not much at all. Even so the darkness became darker still as two men emerged from the gloom, looming over him. Fighter though he had long been, Hob hadn’t eaten in four days, drunk clean water in half again as many, and even the idea of trying to fight off robbers or murderers or drunkards looking for sport filled him with a bone-deep weariness and a deeper apathy.

One of the men forcibly hauled him up by front of his ratty, soaking wet shirt and hissed something to his compatriot in a language Hob didn’t understand. The other man laughed and Hob belayed whatever action the start of his movement implied by raising his hands to cover his face. He’d been beaten before for what he now was, he could take it again, but he had half a mind to keep his face intact.

The second man gasped and said something to his fellow in a hushed tone. He grabbed Hob’s forearm with a grip like iron that made him gasp and held him up, high enough to strain his shoulder. They conferred together for a moment and then simply released him, dropping him back to the ground and hurrying on their way.

Hob collapsed back against the wall, panting in relief, and felt over his arm for signs of a break. There were none, his bones seemed sturdy enough, but the flesh was tender and already bruising though he couldn’t see it in the dark. He could see the sigil on his wrist, however, visible to the naked eye despite the gloom even though it bore nothing so sinister as a light of its own. Had they seen it? More intriguingly, had they known it?”

Questions kept him up until morning came and with it a stop to the rain. Hob gathered himself up to head off and seek food, or work, or anything really besides sitting alone with his sorrows. A new place to sleep was paramount, as this one was no longer safe. Mad Nathaniel’s old, skinny body was discarded on the cobbles near the mouth of the alley, his face unnaturally pale with more than death although signs of blood or injury had long since washed away in the night. There was nothing he could do for the man except ponder the nature of mortality, and the value of his gift.

Hob spent weeks trying to find work to no avail, too weak for manual labour and none believing him when he spoke desperately of education or skills. The night of his meeting with the stranger approached steadily and in this year of 1689 the White Horse was no tawdry establishment; it boasted fine foods and foreign wines for finer, foreign guests. It was no tavern where a homeless lout could buy a penny ale. His only hope was to catch his stranger outside and, failing that, sneak in through the kitchens.

He had not expected his stranger to stand up for him, to command that he be unhanded and allowed to stay. The coldness in the mysterious man’s eyes seemed to have settled into something less distant even as he listened to Hob’s tale of woe with similar detachment as always. Nonetheless, every time a barmaid passed by he raised his hand and politely asked for more food for his guest.

Their meeting was over as swiftly as ever and with it the warmth and safety of a roof over Hob’s head for the first time in near thirty years. He stood as his stranger did and made to follow, to slink back out into the darkness. The stranger stopped him, grabbing his wrist and pushing him back into his seat with a strength Hob had not expected from the lithe, little man.

“You will stay, and recover. None will assail you,” he said curtly, “Dream well tonight, Hob Gadling.”

Then he was gone, and Hob sat in abject confusion. His wrist ached like he’d been stung by a bee and he wondered perhaps if some strange magic had passed between them, from his stranger to that strange mark. It occupied his thoughts until the barmaid returned with a pasty and another mug of ale. She seemed to look right through him although her words were polite and serviceable enough. So he stayed, until the crowd thinned and the innkeepers began cleaning up around him. The same woman who still seemed to look over his shoulder at nothing bid him follow and, to his astonishment, showed him to room above without question of payment. Hob was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, no matter how mysterious, and he learned again two of life’s simplest pleasures; a hot bath and a good night’s rest.

He resolved to ask his stranger by what means he had arranged such courtesies when next they met. As years passed he became ever more thankful for them. Something so simple as clothes washed and a good shave had opened the opportunity again for hiring, allowed him the ability to rise back up from the mud and put all that he had learned before to work rebuilding his life and better planning for the future.

It also granted him the gift of boldness for their next meeting. Hob was centuries old, he should by now be so inured to life that the ghostly memory of the stranger’s touch on his wrist did not drive him to madness in the dark and quiet moments before sleep. Yet it did. Nearly every night, it did, and when he was alone and not dressed to the standard of the day he would roll up his sleeve and stare at the golden sigil on his wrist. The nature of it still eluded him, save that it was something of a protection, or luck - maybe it was the source of his immortality itself. Yet another question to ask of his mysterious stranger.

As all good plans of men, his machinations had swiftly gone awry. Hob left the White Horse with all due haste after the confrontation with Lady Johanna’s men, quick on the heels of his stranger who had said neither yes nor no to finding a new venue. Their banter had never had chance to give way to his tales of the century, or anything deeper. So many questions still unanswered in a meeting cut short to minutes rather than hours. That could not be all he had for a century, it couldn’t. Yet when he exited the tavern mere seconds after his stranger, the man in black was nowhere to be found.

He cursed a string of oaths so foul and befuddled by lifetimes of vocabulary as to make a sailor blush in any century.

But he was not one to be deterred by hardship, not by a long shot, and the stranger’s words as always weighed heavily on his mind. All of them had, both of a personal nature and not. Liquidating his assets in the shipping business was one matter and more than a handful of his peers thought he’d gone mad - perhaps he had, but not for the reasons they presumed. If his stranger would deign to give him advice, he would by all means take it. If his stranger would bid him take caution, he most certainly would do just that.

Having Lady Constantine investigated was a simple matter when one had the means. Both would-be detectives and scoundrels were easily hired in scads about London these days and he had the money to invest in both quantity and quality. Hers was a storied family it seemed, if troubled, and Lady Johanna was the most vicious of the lot in generations, if rumours held a grain of truth.

Hob had long since sought to ignore the supernatural, a fool’s errand for an immortal, perhaps - but barest hint of witchcraft about him had him tied to a millstone and breathing pond water for days. That amorphous time until he became used to the suffering, the fading into nothingness and rising to awareness over and over, enough to shred the rope upon the stone between deaths was as real to him now as it had been over a century ago - enough so he had never taken to sea on any of his own ships, nor crossed the channel recently, and the very memory brought a cold chill with it. Such things were enough to dull a man’s interest in what lay beyond the mortal realm.

Now it seemed the realm of witches and witch-hunters had come for him.

That was how he had found himself in the plainest clothes he owned in a disreputable area where he was still well-dressed enough to catch the eyes of those he’d rather not. Being shanked in a dark alley was not in his plans for the day but seeming more and more likely by the moment.

His surveillance upon Lady Johanna and her cohorts had lead him to several strange places and stranger people; a madwoman who crowed about gods and demons but nonetheless knew more than she let on, a vicar who swore upon all that was holy that angels existed and he had witnessed the glory of god - of little use, in the end. Lastly, a man who sold goods he claimed were not of this world and asked for ephemeral things in exchange; concepts and thoughts and hopes for the future. Hob gave him nothing but his time for asking questions, as time was something of which he had no shortage.

In the end it had been Lady Johanna himself who had led him where he needed to go; a storefront that looked surprisingly well-kept for the area but equally well shuttered. His spy had assured him here was no password or secret sign. The Lady Johanna had merely knocked and been let in with hushed words and secretive looks, and all other comers had been passing strange as the urchin had put it. Hob had passed it a few times since, he was nothing if not patience, and never seen anyone about the place - it looked like no one had done business here for years, but then so did the entire street. If rumours were true, this was the centre of all occult practice in London. Hob would have thought they could do much better.

The third time was the charm and he had finally worked up his nerve to knock upon the heavy oaken door. It seemed to dampen the noise enough he hardly thought he’d been heard and was about to try again when the metallic dragging noise of a deadbolt sounded from anon and the door creeped open a hand’s span, held to the jam by a heavy bronze chain to keep it from opening wider. Whoever stood beyond, a proprietor perhaps, remained to the side of the door out of view and it took every fibre of Hob’s being not to lean in and try to catch a glimpse of them.

“Your hand, sir,” A woman’s voice said sharply from within.

He hesitated only a moment, before reaching his right hand in to the open space as if to shake hands with the woman. That earned him an exasperated noise in response.

“Your other hand, numbskull,” she snapped.

Hob, chastened and feeling entirely out of his element, offered the other hand instead. It was grabbed from within the shadows and his sleeve pulled up to bare the wrist. The mark on his skin had faded with the genteel and indoor nature of his work these days and stood golden and glimmering against paler flesh than usual.

The woman made a soft hum as if she were considering what she saw. “Well that is a strange one indeed,” she said and, with no further warning, dashed a tiny silver blade across his wrist.

It wasn’t deep enough to hurt and hardly drew blood, no deeper than a papercut, but he yanked his hand back in shock.

“Bloody hell, are you out of your mind?” he exclaimed, yanking the cuff of his sleeve down.

“Can’t be too careful these days. Come through, then,” she replied, nearly closing the door so she could unhook the chain to let him in.

The door was bolted and barred behind him which was none too comforting. Inside the shop belied its exterior entirely. It was not well-lit but was well-appointed with cases of curios and weapons that would not be out of place at the British Museum among the pharaonic masks. Part drawing room, part exhibit hall the place was immaculate and high-ceilinged - the floor above having been gutted for height and left with only a narrow balcony encircling the edges of the room. He was the only one there.

A sharp throat clearing noise brought his attention back to his erstwhile host. She was younger than he had expected; plump and dour and none too impressed with his existence. Her clothing was far more rich than the neighbourhood outside would imply, but he figured now little here was as it seemed.

“What are ya, then?” she asked, the lilt of her accent catching him off guard now; it had shifted to something older that he hadn’t heard in a good minute. Or century, perhaps.

“Uh… Name’s Robert,” he answered - stupidly, he realised, even as he said it and she gave him a nonplussed look.

“Nay. I mean, what are you,” she replied, “Your blood’s wrong, but the mark’s real.”

“I beg your pardon?” Now he was really feeling out of his depth.

“What turned you, and sent you here,” she said slowly, like he was a bit daft and he was starting to think he might be, “Cause it’s not a vampire, or a wolf, and your sigil doesn’t have traits of anything I bloody know.”

“No one sent me, I uhm… I found you through a mutual acquaintance, as it were,” he replied, trying to regain some of his composure and deciding not to name drop the Lady Johanna in case the two were friends, or something worse.

“Ah, so… You’re new, and you have no bloody idea. Wonderful,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest, “I’m Marie LaFontaine, and I’m not fucking French.”

“I didn’t think you were,” Hob said, eyeing her curiously. It had taken a moment but he had placed the accent and it shouldn’t have surprised him as much as it did, given the strange words that had so recently come out of her mouth. “York, mid-1500s?”

Marie’s obvious appraisal of him grew in consideration at that. “So you’re older than you look, then,” she replied, nodding her head.

“Much.”

“And you’ve just now decided to drop by?” she asked, “Must be nice.”

“It has been, sometimes, yes. Sometimes, not so much,” Hob replied with a smirk, starting to enjoy this little back and forth now that he was reasonably certain he was not going to be shanked in an alley or anything else even cruder. By this point in his life he was at the very least a good judge of people.

“Why seek us out now, if it’s going so well sometimes,” she said dryly.

“Because I was… accosted, as it were, by some sort of witch-hunter,” Hob replied, feeling it was best to leave his stranger out of it, “So I have been looking for answers, of a sort. Or at least information on such things. I have no desire to be caught in a jar and studied like a bug.”

“Man after my own heart,” she said, leaning back against a long counter that looked equal parts apothecary and bar top, “Constantine?”

“You know her?”

“Yes, she hardly knows me,” Marie replied, “And I like to keep it that way; Constantines have been a thorn in our side for centuries, for some more than others.”

“Right. You keep saying ‘our’ and I fear I really don’t know who you are,” Hob admitted, “Pretend like I am new, and just sent to you, like you thought; and explain to me as such. You… you knew what my mark was.”

“Well, I don’t know what your mark is,” Marie corrected him, “Bit singular, that. Usually they’ve got a signature to them that’ll at least tell me what you’re meant for, you know, angelic, demonic, fae, vampire, they’ve all got their little quirks.”

“I apologise, meant for?” Hob asked, blinking rather stupidly at her while simultaneously annoyed by her nonchalance.

Clearly she had the answers to questions he had pondered for millennia and they were so simple to her that she had no idea how to break the concept down for the uninitiated. The result was like pulling teeth.

“It’s your soulmark, idiot. You weren’t born immortal, were you?” she asked, and it sounded more like an accusation.

“No.”

“Then that cropped up one day, and you just never questioned what it was for?”

“Of course I questioned it, but I can ask myself in the mirror all I want and it won’t give me the bloody answers!” Hob snapped, exasperated by the back and forth.

“Whoever turned you is a right prick.”

“Yes, well… He’s a bit of an odd duck,” Hob said, rubbing sheepishly at the back of his neck. Somehow her calm answer made him feel even more of a mess, but he wasn’t about to apologise for snapping at her. “Are you going to tell me what it’s for?”

“Well, practically speaking; gets you in where mortals fear to tread. They can’t be proper faked, you see,” she said, “Show it to another of our kind and the old laws say to help you, or at the very least they can’t hurt you.”

Hob thought then back over a century to a night spent shivering in the rain, and those men he’d thought drunken youths. They had backed off, upon seeing his arm. The beggar man, whose name he misremembered now, had not been so lucky. Had they been immortals too? Hunting for something perhaps, if what Marie hinted at was true and there really were vampires or demons or god knew what skulking about London after dark.

“So others, like us… they’d show mercy on seeing it?” he asked curiously, “Stop what they were doing.”

She raised an eyebrow at him and he did not grant the unspoken request for details. It was long enough ago that he had none, in any case. Immortality had not granted him the ability to see in the dark; he wouldn’t have been able to describe the men even the morning after.

“They certainly should,” Marie answered, “Especially if they don’t recognise the mark; if you were bound to some house they had quarrel with, perhaps not.”

“Bound?” he asked, automatically looking down at his wrist, “I’m not bound to anything, that I know of that is.” His stranger had always made it very clear that it was Hob’s choice to live, and nothing more.

“More’s the pity, I hope you find them,” Marie replied, pushing off from the counter to head around behind it. She drew out a rolled up piece of what looked like parchment, tied with twine, from beneath it and rolled it out on the counter. “Come on then, I don’t bite.”

Hob approached and looked down at the scroll. Whatever it was he had expected, it wasn’t a map of London - and seemingly an updated one at that.

“Take a proper gander, memorise the red marks. Those are all places your mark gains you admittance, and aid if you seek it, with the promise that you’d do the same,” she said, glancing up at his face, “Maybe you’ll find your match there if you look around a bit.”

“My match?” he asked, focused intently on the map. He was a fair hand at memorising things, but it was a lot.

“Aye, do you really think you’ll face the slings and arrows of this world alone for eternity?” Marie asked incredulously, “None could. Someone out there has a mark like yours, or at least something like it. You’ll know it when you see it, or when they touch you.”

“Right…” Hob said slowly, nodding as if what she had said wasn’t completely insane, “And they’re meant to be what, exactly?”

Marie now clearly thought he was an idiot, and likely unworthy of his immortality, if the look she were giving him was any indication. She gave a longsuffering sigh and began rolling the map back up despite him having hardly gotten a look at it, but he knew a few of the red marks and committed them to memory - the one by King’s Cross was, he was reasonably certain, a rather exclusive gentleman’s club that never solicited new members. Apparently this was why; it was full of… of what? Immortals? He couldn’t imagine that everyone was like him, human and a bit blessed with longevity, because now every rumour and old wive’s tale of vampires, werewolves, and the bloody fae were crowding in his mind.

“Your soulmate, of a sort,” she said eventually once she realised he wasn’t just having her on and was legitimately out of his depth, “Usually romantic, sometimes not - more’s the pity for them folks, then.”

“Ah… Would’ve liked to know that a few centuries back,” he replied, those rumours and tales pushed out of his mind immediately by the thought of Eleanor, and their son.

“Yes, well, like I said; whoever as turned you is a right prick.”

“Or maybe, maybe he’s simply not around much?” Hob offered, unsure if he was on to something there or if he was going to sound like a numpty again, “I only see him every hundred years and he wants to know about… society, I suppose. Is there somewhere else he could be?”

“Aye, could be a fae save that your mark isn’t any of the high courts. A demon, but your mark isn’t that either,” Marie replied with a shrug, “There’s probably other things, but I’m no scholar. Look, we got a vested interest in protectin’ our own. Politics are a bit shite and all, but you made it this long you’ve got some sense. Muck about a bit, you might find someone as knows more than me. Doubt it, though.”

“A glowing recommendation of your own superiority,” Hob said dryly, some measure of wits returning to him at last as things began to slot into place in his worldview.

“Indeed. You know where to find me.” Hob knew a dismissal when he heard one, but hadn’t been given one that felt so final since Queen Elizabeth last sent him from court. With a jaunty wave, he slipped out of the building and couldn’t help but look over his shoulder as he took a circuitous route through the disreputable part of town. The world had grown quite a lot larger all of the sudden and with so many unknowns swirling about it, his security in his own safety was a bit shaken. His stranger, his maker, he corrected himself with the now more appropriate term had been very clear ‘you can be hurt, or captured’. It had seemed long odds when he was one man dithering about and becoming his own son but with a whole secret society, or underbelly of London, full of those like himself, perhaps exponentially older than himself, he had bigger things than the Constantines to worry about.