rey-jake-therapist · 1 year ago
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Hob Gadling's wives and girlfriends, the forgotten women of The Sandman
DISCLAIMER: the following posts contains major spoilers for Season of Mists, World's Ends, The Kindly Ones and The Wake.
A couple of weeks I told @writing-for-life my next meta would be about the women who shared Hob's life. There's not much to work on in the comics for most of them, but the fact remains that they exist and that Hob probably loved them all. And his second wife in particular, Margaret/Peggy aka Jim, had a story dedicated to her journey, in World's Ends.
Hob's canon romances always interested me because these women were all mortals, while he was not. We know he had at least one kid who died, and he saw almost all his lovers/wives die while knowing he would never follow them in the grave unless he wanted it. We didn't see it happen with Gwen, but it will, eventually.
It makes me wonder: how does he do it? How does he manage to be completely invested in a relationship knowing that the people he loves will all grow old and die, while he will stay the same and live forever? I would have loved it if the comics had him discussing that, and I still hope in the show he will. We never saw what his last conversation with Hob was, after all... I like to think that Dream stayed a bit longer than usual with Hob, and that they opened up about their respective lives and experiences with love. Audrey is still alive and probably in Hob's life at this point, it would be nice if she showed up, met Dreams and asked him embarrassing questions... but I digress haha
Before I continue I'd like to confess that not being a shipper, I don't read Dreamling fics - I rarely read fics revolving a ship in general... I prefer Morpheus x oc or non romantic fics -, so any comment I can make about the fandom is based on what I see on social media, and not on fanfic contents. I'm sure that Hob's wives and girlfriends are often evoked and maybe sometimes, even more developed there than they are in canon.
Hob's first wife: Eleanor
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Eleanor's just a portrait, we don't know much about her except that Hob probably cared about her since in the show he still calls her "my Eleanor" long after she died.
She exists only to show that Hob's situation stabilized after he started making money. Also, their son's death and hers may have been the first time that it hit Hob in the head that while he could live forever, he couldn't prevent his loved ones from dying. The loss of his family affected him very much and yet, he still wanted to live. I'll probably write a meta later about how his situation purposely mirrors Morpheus', about how they both lost everything they loved at some point but reacted in a completely different manner.
Hob's second wife: Peggy/Jim
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We meet Margaret/Peggy/Jim in World's End. She pretends to be a man hence why she calls herself Jim, as she did during all the trip during which she met Hob Gadling. It's quite obvious that she did it for safety issues, as she would have probably not been allowed to travel on a boat let alone work on one if she had revealed as girl without a chaperon, and she clearly enjoyed the freedom and advantages she got as passing for a man. It's good to emphasize how brave she was to do that, as if her secret had gone out it could have put her in great danger.
Hob was the only one who saw through her, but he protected her secret. He also confirmed her doubts that he was much older than he seemed, a secret she protected as well. It seems she never believed he was immortal though - see the part about Audrey - .They bonded over having secrets they could possibly not reveal to anyone else, so it's a really sweet love story.
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Later, in The Kindly Ones, we learn that Peggy died in his arms, during the Blitz. If they had kids, he doesn't say, but it's obvious he loved her very much and was deeply affected by her death, as he says on Audrey's grave, in The Kindly Ones, that Audrey's the first woman he was with since Peggy died.
Now I know that certain fans want Peggy to be trans or non-binary because she disguises as a man and asks to be called Jim. It's generally not as much because they care about her character or representation,than because it would make Hob canonically queer. Now I have no problem with anyone's headcanons: there are no right or wrong headcanon, no stupid or offensive ones - as long as they're not hateful, homophobic, racist, transphobic etc. - and whatever makes people feel represented and happy is fine by me. That said, I personally believe it's a bit simplistic to reduce a woman's refusal to follow societal norms to her being a man or non-binary, but again, whatever floats your boat guys.
I personally think that Peggy/Jim was written as a strong young woman who wanted to travel and see the world, knew she couldn't do that if she was seen as a woman, so she disguised as a man, took a man's name and enjoyed the role because let's be honest: the life for white men during this period was wayyyyyy funnier and easier than for women. What do you mean, it still is? I don't understand, are you saying institutional patriarchy is still very much a thing? *pretends to be shocked*.
You can find many stories like Peggy/Jim's in modern literature, and of course, in real life!
As for Hob, he knew Peggy was a woman quite early, and when he talks about her on Audrey's grave he says "Peg' ", not "Jim", which tells me he kept seeing her as a woman. But again, that's my headcanon and I won't argue about that, I just feel like Peggy/Jim deserves better than being discussed solely regarding Hob's sexuality. Her story is one of my favorite in the comics :)
Talking about the particular subject of Hob's sexuality is immortal and even though the comics doesn't mention any male boyfriend, he seems open minded and hedonistic enough to have at least tried... I always headcanoned Hob Gadling as pansexual, because it doesn't make sense to me that a man who lived for hundred of years would be straight, simply.
I really hope that the show will give us Peggy/Jim's story on screen, she highly deserves it. I love this character, I just wish it would be clearer in the comics that she's the future Mrs Gadling... I learned through social media that the Peg' he mentioned on Audrey's grave was the Peggy he met in World's Ends. It's very confusing, the way it's written.
Hob Gadling's girlfriends
We of course don't know every girlfriend that Hob had, in the comics we're just introduced to two: Audrey, and Gwen. We learn a couple of other names in The Kindly Ones though: Lisabet and Anne.
Audrey
Audrey's another woman who's never part of the conversations, yet the panel dedicated to Hob's reaction to her death is the first panel that made Hob sympathetic to me. But whenever this panel is discussed, everything that's related to Audrey is ignored so the focus is entirely on Hob's concern for Morpheus. Before I read the comics, I had no idea that Hob had just buried his lover, and begged Morpheus to resurrect her because the pain of losing her was too hard to handle.
A bit like for Margaret/Peggy/Jim, it's not clear at all that in Season of Mists, the woman we see with Hob in bed is Audrey, the woman whose grave he visits in The Kindly Ones.
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It's really in The Kindly Ones that we can see how much he cared for Audrey, as he cared for all the lovers he had before but died. The reaction he has, he admits it himself, responds to a question we probably all asked: does he ever get used to it? Become insensitive, with time?
The answer's no:
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I always wondered why Morpheus visited him at this moment: was it because he felt his pain and wanted to be here for him? Or was it because he wanted to say one last goodbye and it happened to coincide with the moment Hob was drowning in his grief? Was it because he himself needed a friend, more than ever?
Anyway he certainly didn't expect Hob's request. For the first time that we know of, Hob asked Dream to use his supernatural powers. Hob, the immortal who saw all the people he knew die, not only wasn't used to it but asked Dream basically the same thing as Orpheus asked him: help him to get his lover back. It must have been very painful for Dream, but poor Hob couldn't know that. I doubt he even knew that Dream had once been married and had a son.
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So yeah, afterwards he runs after Morpheus and tries to make him confide in him, he even feels his friend's death is imminent and he shows a deep concern, but that's not all that this panel is about. I think it's about saying that no matter how old you are, how many lives you lived, how many people you loved and loved you.... The death of a loved one is always painful.
2. Gwen
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Gwen is Hob's last girlfriend that we know of. She's also, in his own admission, the first Black woman he dates. Considering that Hob used to be an enthusiastic slave trader who needed an ethereal entity to tell him that slavery was wrong to think that he should find another way to become rich, I find this information.... interesting. After 600 years, it was about time... did he refuse to date Black women because of guilt for what he did? Or because he remained racist for a long time and didn't think Black women were worth his attention?
I feel very protective of Gwen, first because I dislike how she was written as a moral caution for Hob, as she absolves him for his sins but without knowing the extent of his sins - she has no idea he's immortal and was a slave trader - . When she appears in the show - and I really hope she will! - , I hope she'll be written in a way that she doesn't exist solely for Hob to express his guilt while being too coward to tell her the truth about what he did.
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I was going to say something very personal about me, but I'm not sure the comparison I want to make would work, so I prefer keeping it for me, finally. If anyone's interested in knowing me better they can join me in private though :)
The second reason why I'm very protective of her is that as Audrey, on social media she's generally treated as non existent by the fandom - who focuses entirely on Hob's grief regarding Morpheus' death - . I recently saw a wish regarding Gwen that made my blood boil and almost made me hit the 'deactivate' button, but I'm not here to start a war, let alone to point fingers. I just really wish some people paid more attention to what they wrote, because some stuff I've read these last days came off as very insensitive.
And I'll conclude with one last panel featuring the gorgeous Gwen:
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Also tagging @violetoftheendless and @tickldpnk8 , in case you're interested in discussing this subject :)
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hardly-an-escape · 7 months ago
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I'm thinking about a version of the story where Hob doesn't fall in love-at-first-sight with Dream. I'm thinking about a version of the story where love doesn't even really germinate until after Dream's return – and grows slowly even then.
I'm thinking about how distant Dream must have seemed for so long. how mysterious, how unknowable. about how so often, love can only take root when familiarity and friendship have already been established, when you do know a person.
and I'm thinking about how strange it must have been, in a way, for Hob to actually get to know his Stranger – to put a name to the face, to see him more than once a century, to have a more equitable exchange of their selves than had ever existed between them before. how uncertain he must have felt, at first, wondering if it's okay to seek out that friendship, that closeness, trying to figure out what's changed. about the joy he'd feel when he realizes it's not just allowed, but welcomed.
I'm thinking about a version of the story where Hob and Dream fall in love in much the same way that any two old friends might fall in love: slowly, affectionately, and based on a true and deep regard for one another. a genuine enjoyment of each other's company, rather than the excitement of mystery or the power of lust.
where they only gradually look across the table and imagine something more.
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webonchin · 2 years ago
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What did my poor man Gilbert (Fiddler's Green) did to deserve those two idiots boning all over him on the fanfics? 😭
(clean image of them below)
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virgo-dream · 5 months ago
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too bad your ex don't do it for ya / walked in and dream came trued it for ya / soft skin and I perfumed it for ya / I know I Mountain Dew it for ya / that morning coffee, brewed it for ya / one touch and I brand newed it for ya — Espresso, Sabrina Carpenter
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carebeardean · 2 years ago
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dreamling from dreams pov is like I am older than the stars and I will leave my shoes at the door because you do, even though I don’t know why. I’d forgotten what the world looked like before I saw it through your eyes. you give me hope. has it always been this easy? to fall, not as a comet does, but as gently as the sea goes to the shore? I am monstrous, and yet, still you bring me home. I have known love as war, as pain, but never rest. peace.
& hobs pov is like. once I loved you as the sailor loves his north star, so bright, far above him. now I think I love you better for the way you speak to children, how you hold each dreamers hopes so gently in your hands, despite, despite, despite. I would have waited forever and it would’ve been worth it. you tell me you’re a king. you whisper the secrets of the universe in my ear. still, I’m greedy. I want to know how you take your tea, what you eat in the mornings, what you look like when you’re happy down to your bones. you say you know the end of every story before we tell them, every word we’ll say before we speak and yet you come down from your kingdom to hear me tell my stories, again and again.
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ediyo-15 · 1 year ago
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got an au i kinda wanna write. probably won’t. bone apple teeth
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cuubism · 2 years ago
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A heist for a crown for a king? 🤔👑
yes. dream deserves a crown. dream insists he doesn't need a crown, everybody knows he is king. also he has his helm. hob says how many times i gotta tell you it's not about NEEDING it. it's about how fucking sexy you'll look. that's the priority. also you deserve it. dream is still flummoxed.
may i propose a DREAM heist for a DREAM crown.
--
Hob was... definitely going to get in trouble for this.
"We're definitely going to get in trouble for this," said Matthew, perched on his shoulder. He tittered nervously. And Matthew was one of the most ride-or-die people-- birds?-- Hob had ever met, so this was not a good sign. "Like. Getting my wings cut off trouble."
"He's not going to cut your fucking wings off, Jesus Christ," said Hob. He crept through the dreamspace, keeping to the shadows so as to try to avoid alerting the dream itself to their presence. "Drawing and quartering is a lot more entertaining."
"HOB. What the fuck." Matthew's claws dug into his skin like he really did mean to separate Hob's arm from his shoulder.
Hob shrugged. "Didn't live through 'ye olde medieval times,' as you put it, for nothing."
"I didn't call it that."
"Yeah, you did. That's what I get for agreeing to watch A Knight's Tale, I suppose."
Matthew squawked. "It's a good movie!"
"It was a good movie right up until it managed to convince you that "We Will Rock You" was actually sung at jousts," said Hob.
"In my defense--" started Matthew, then clacked his beak shut. "Nah, actually, I don't have a defense for that. I must have been totally sloshed."
Hob snorted. "Oh, you were."
"Well, who decided it was a good idea to feed Bailey's to a raven?"
"There was no point at which I thought it was a good decision," said Hob. He couldn't help his grin. "I just don't mind making a bad one."
"And here I thought we were friends."
Hob slipped through a doorway, ducking around the next corner. The dream castle was significantly more winding than a real one. It was slow going.
He started humming to himself, an incongruously jaunty old execution ballad. "His quarters stand not all together, But ye mai hap to ring them thether..."
"I'm begging you to stop," said Matthew. "Has anyone ever told you that you have a serious problem?"
Hob laughed. "Many times."
A small group of people -- figments of the dreamscape -- strode around the corner. Hob ducked into a tiny alcove, one which hadn't been there before he'd thought of needing it. He was gradually getting better at manipulating the Dreaming.
And his heart was hammering. Dream theft or not, it was thrilling.
"Never thought I'd be part of fucking Inception," grumbled Matthew, peering to see if it was all clear.
Hob crept back out into the hall and up a spiral staircase. "This is way more fun than Inception."
"And way more dangerous."
"You loved the last outing!"
"Yeah, that one didn't involve sneaking around in my boss's subconscious."
Hob rolled his eyes. "It's not Dream's subconscious." Finally at the center of the absolute maze that was the castle, he spied his prize, and slipped right through the bulletproof glass to get at it. On a stand at the center of the room sat the most gorgeous tiara, a winding thing of diamond leaves and ruby berries. He grinned. "It's the Princess's."
He swiped the thing from its stand, leaving a weight in its place for the pressured alarm he was sure still existed even in a dream.
"Dream is the Dreaming, dude. We're gonna get caught."
"Well, that's why you're here, isn't it? It's normal for you to be in dreams, it's not for me. You're my cover. You'll make it way less likely for Dream to--"
And they were yanked from the dream.
"Drawn and quartered!" Matthew squeaked, and then they were standing in the throne room.
Dream was, of course, standing a few steps up on the grand staircase, glaring at them. Glaring at Hob, really. Matthew squawked again in fright, puffing up his feathers. Hob just grinned back at Dream.
"When I gave you free run of the Dreaming," Dream started, some of the menace Hob had heard him use with rogue nightmares on display, "this was not what I meant."
Hob wasn't afraid of Dream, though. Never had been. "Don't take it out on Matthew," he said. "Wasn't his idea."
Dream's stormy gaze flickered over to Matthew. "Matthew, you are dismissed. I will deal with you later."
Matthew didn't need to be told twice. He winged away out of the throne room, calling back, "Good luck with getting drawn and quartered, Hob!"
Dream raised an eyebrow. He still looked dreadfully unamused. "Drawn and quartered?"
"We've watched too many medieval movies," Hob explained.
"Ah." His gaze found the tiara clasped in Hob's hand. "What, exactly, is that?"
He obviously knew. It was made of dream stuff, after all. Still, Hob knelt and held it out to him. "For my liege."
Dream strode down the few steps separating them, fluid as water streaming over a fall, his long cloak trailing behind him. Majestic creature. Majestic king. Did he really expect Hob to be at all normal about it?
Dream plucked the tiara from Hob's hands. He tilted it back and forth. The light through the stained glass illuminated it in every color imaginable and cast refracted rainbows on his face. "You stole it from a dream."
Hob flashed him a crooked grin. "Guilty."
Dream tipped his head up with one fingertip under his chin, until Hob's neck was craned back and he was meeting his gaze. "That," he drawled, his eyes flashing dark, "is very disrespectful."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yes." Dream didn't release Hob's chin; if anything, he leaned closer so Hob had to look up even further. "Did you think you would not be caught? Creeping around in my halls?"
"We'll, I'm very good," Hob said. This was hardly the first thing he'd stolen for Dream, though it was the first one he'd attempted in the Dreaming.
"Or perhaps," continued Dream, and the darkness in his eyes looked hungry, now, though no less dangerous. "Perhaps, you wanted to be caught."
Hob winked at him, cheeks heating. "Well. I may be good, but I could hardly expect you not to feel it when it's your skirts I was rustling under."
"Is that what you were doing?" Dream swept his thumb along Hob's lip, dipping into his mouth. "Fiending for punishment?"
"Just trying to please my lord. Are you pleased, my love?"
"That is not quite the word I would use, dearest one." A sharp smile was creeping its way onto his lips, eyes burning with a dark warmth, like smoldering coals.
He placed the tiara on Hob's head.
Shadows dripped from it, falling over Hob's shoulders and back. Dream's hands lingered at Hob's temples, stroking his hair back behind his ears.
"Devoted one." His voice rumbled pleasantly through Hob's body, and Hob shivered. "Mischievous one. What am I to do with you?"
"Only whatever you want," said Hob, leaning into his touch. "As usual."
"Hmm. I think..."
Shadows fell around the throne room, dropped from the ceiling like banners and speckled like blackened stars. Hob knew those shadows, knew the way they were meant to intimidate though they did nothing but make him want more, make him hungrier, make him want to hold Dream close in every meaning of the word.
And he knew that bright darkness in his lover's eyes, too. The sky during an eclipse.
Dream drew him back to his feet. Hob stumbled in so they were a breath apart.
"Whatever prize you were seeking when you embarked on this foolhardy task?" Dream hummed, just before pulling Hob in to meet his lips. "I think you should claim it."
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hanakisa · 2 years ago
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I need someone to write a Dreamling fic where Dream figures out he's in love with Hob and decides to seduce him. But his attempts just aren't working, so he grudgingly asks Desire for help. Desire is just excited to play Wingman and get a front row seat to the shenanigans, so they agree to help.
Meanwhile, Hob doesn't think Dream could ever feel that way and is desperately trying to not "misinterpret" Dream flirting with him. He doesn't want to push his friend away afterall!
Desire gets more and more frustrated that their advice ISNT WORKING??? Like they throw ALL the tropes at Hob. Only one bed? Misseltoe? Fake Dating? S*x pollen? There have been so many failed plans that they finally just show up at Hobs apartment and demand to know why Hob doesn't want their brother.
He takes one deep look at Hob and "Oh......I forgot about Mutal Pining.....". Hob is confused and Desire just storms away muttering about Idiots to Lovers.
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euzede · 3 months ago
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what if Hob's surname for Jed was Jelly. and his surname for Rose was Bud (Rosebud)
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landwriter · 2 years ago
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13!
Shut Up by Stormzy.
Hob is a literature professor. Dream is an underground electronic music artist who goes by Morpheus. They never would've met. Never would've even known about each other.
Except. Hob is bit addicted to Twitter. Except. Hob has a bit shit taste in music. Except. A student cancels her presentation because she got last-minute tickets to a Morpheus show and Hob looks him up and gets irrationally mad at a stupid skinny little goth that doesn't even play any real instruments or sing and whose photo of a sneaker drop, whatever that is, got a thousand retweets within hours.
This is the story of how Hob sends a petty tweet and then sort-of-accidentally starts iconic Twitter beef with Dream.
Death, acclaimed hip-hop artist and meddling older sister, is delighted by a random man in a sweater-vest rudely insulting her brilliant baby brother, and insists on catching up with Dream so they can collab on a diss track, because it'll be very interesting. Hob finds out about it at a lecture and plays it in front of his whole class. It's clever and funny and absurdly referential. He falls a little bit in love with the wrong person, because he thinks the lyrics are Death's.
He slides into Dream's DMs to tease him about his older sister to protecting him (and maybe ask for her number), and Dream cops to writing it. Hob reacts with so much earnest wonder that he has to swiftly follow it with calling Dream a pretentious cunt, just to balance things out. They continue talking, under the flimsy auspices of being mean to each other.
One day, Dream video calls him while stuck at an airport, wearing stupid glasses and a stupid hat like a some kind of celebrity traveling incognito - because he sort of is, Hob belatedly realizes - and that's when he sees Dream laugh for the first time. It's because of him. He realizes he wants to kiss the stupid skinny little goth. Wants Dream to be his stupid skinny little goth. Has no idea how to do that. He pines. Dream pines.
When there's a show playing near Hob, Dream sends him a VIP ticket, day-of, with no other message or context. Hob goes, of course, feeling tremendously uncool at the venue. But during the show he finally understands, in a way he didn't before, how Dream pulls whole worlds to life with his music, how he weaves something new and incredible from samples alone. How he tells stories without words.
After, awed, he goes backstage, and almost regrets it when he has to face half of Dream's entourage, whose ruthless teasing is absolutely secret screening to see if he's Good Enough For Our Morpheus, but he gives as good as he gets, and, unable to bear it any longer, Dream tells them all to fuck off. Then it's just them, and Dream makes some vulnerable little joke about whether Hob still thinks it's not real music, but Hob is just standing there, bluescreened before the sight of this man, who he wants to be his, who he's spent hours with online, who he's never even touched, so human and real suddenly. Dream is flushed and sweaty and a bit of his hair is plastered to his forehead. The energy of the crowd is still glowing underneath his skin. Hob is hapless. Hob can only think to ask to kiss him. So he asks, and that's how their first time ends up being in a shitty little greenroom in Manchester. And their second. The third, at least, is in Dream's hotel.
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moorishflower · 2 years ago
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pirate/siren dreamling 2: now w/more homoerotic cannibalism
we're playin fast n loose w/time in this one but idc because it's too much fun lol
@teejaystumbles more siren au for your perusal my dear!
All told, it takes Hob ten years to pull himself back together. Hardly a drop in the bucket of immortality, but each season that passes without him returning to the shores of Brighton makes him itch something fierce. But there's no rushing it: he's starting from scratch, after all, but worse still, he's starting with a reputation. News of his stranding has reached all the way to London by the time that he gets there himself, and he's forced to lay low for a time, to shave his beard and grow out his hair, to take a new name. Just different enough to not be marked upon a register: Robin Gadlyn.
So he bides his time. He shores up his savings. He becomes Robin Gadlyn, who has returned from Tangier with the intent of signing on again as a shiphand, the call of the sea still in his blood. It's not hard to find a ship that's looking for easy labor. What's harder is finding a small ship, with a cruel captain and a tired crew. Fortunately, cruelty is an export that is never in short supply, and at last, in his ninth year, Hob boards Le Petit Nief, captained by one Edmund Everille, a man in his late forties with thinning dark hair and a redness to his nose that speaks of drink and a twist to his mouth that suggests cruelty.
It only takes him four months at sea to bring the rest of the crew to his side, and he suffers the lash only three times throughout, which Hob considers to be fortunate. Less fortunate is Everille, who ends up pitched over the rails in the dead of night, his left eye a slashed ruin from where Hob had buried his dagger. No mercy, he thinks, for cruelty.
He's voted captain nearly-unanimously, and the two who vote nay, he speaks to individually. Addresses their concerns -- that he's young, inexperienced, thinks above his station -- and invites them to council him as they see fit. Hob's learned that most of the time, when people complain, all they really want is to be heard.
He wants his crew to be heard. He wants them to hear him in turn. He doesn't want a repeat of the last ship, when his ignorance resulted in him stranded, even if it did net him with his greatest calling, his reason for unending life.
Sometimes, when it storms, the scar at his thigh aches, fierce and vicious, and he remembers the brilliant swathe of colors that had painted that hidden grotto, and his heart swells with something huge, and terrible, and too difficult to name. He traces the scar with his fingertips, the neat imprints of teeth, and remembers how the creature had looked at him, there in the dark, its eyes like shining stars and its expression almost like awe. Awe! When he was the poor bastard caught by that siren call!
It doesn't matter. It's been ten years, and if the thing is still there, he intends to find it. A decade is long enough, perhaps, to smooth over any harsh feelings over not allowing himself to be eaten, and if the creature isn't there…well. Then he'll search. He's got all of eternity to do it.
When Le Petit Nief (newly christened the Lightfot after a hasty vote from the crew) docks at Brighton, ten years almost to the day since Hob was marooned, he feels an unaccountable sense of relief. Whatever happens, he still has his health, his life, and his liberty, and maybe he's a fool, to have spent the last ten years collecting trinkets and treasures to bring to some sharp-toothed sea god, but then, he's never pretended to not be a fool. Recklessness calls to him as sure as that siren's wail, and he gives the crew leave to visit the town under the condition that they cause no trouble lest trouble find them first.
And, under cover of the moon, the air humid and thick with summer's heat, he takes his little pouch of treasures, and his oilskin pouch of foodstuffs, and he takes a dinghy out to the chalk-white cliffs.
The sea is calm and beautiful, reflecting the moon like a fat pearl floating on the waves, darling Venus' delight. Hob takes an apple for himself from the rations that he's brought, and thoughtfully cuts it into quarters. And then, humming softly, he scores his palm with the tip of the blade, and lets it hang over the edge of the boat, dripping night-blackened blood into the depths.
Apples are sweet, this time of year. Firm beneath the teeth. There's different satisfaction to be had in fruit and meat, he muses. Meat fills the belly, but fruit heals the soul. One need only eat an orange after a long voyage at sea to feel the difference. He wonders if the creature has ever eaten fruit -- if it has spent its whole life in the depths, and never seen eggs, nor bread, nor honey. He wonders if, for it, the taste of his blood was as exotic as a fine wine, or if it was only a base satisfaction.
The water ripples beside the boat, and Hob peers over the side, clenching his fist to bring up more blood.
He gets no warning -- one second the boat is still and calm, and the next it thrashes sideways, rocked by the slam of many limbs, and Hob feels something strong and sleek as an eel wrap around his leg and yank. Panic is instinctive; he kicks, and feels another tether around his opposite foot, and, unmoored, he goes sliding over, the fingers of his cut hand grappling at the edge of the boat, but finding no purchase between the wash of the sea and the slickness of his own blood.
He's dragged down.
Down, and down, into darkness, the light of the moon disappearing above him, covered by the hull of the dinghy, until his eyes are forced to try to adjust to the endless pitch. They needn't adjust for long: some seconds later, and there's a wild flare of color, of light, springtime yellow and pink as rosy as dawn, all specked through with silver starlight. He sees the shape of the creature. He sees the strong limbs, supple, twined about his legs.
He sees its face: a man's face, sharp and canny, with high cheekbones and lips that look nearly black in the chaotic splash of color. When it -- when he -- smiles, it shows a hint of needle-like teeth, a perfect row of sharpness. Hob's lungs are burning, and every blessed instinct in him tells him to fight, to claw, to scramble back to the surface for a gasp of needed air.
Instead, he holds the quartered apple between them. The creature's limbs writhe busily over his legs, feeling out the shape of his calves and thighs beneath his breeches, and Hob holds its gaze while he opens his mouth and takes a bite of apple, bubbles ticking in slow files from his nostrils. He raises his brows. He sways closer, pulled as surely as the tide by the creature's tentacles, slowly inching their meandering way over his arse, the small of his back.
The creature blinks at him -- blinks! not quite like a fish at all, then -- and leans in to meet him, curious. He opens his mouth and lets the water wash into it, and Hob sees a curious mechanism of motion at his neck, which his air-deprived brain takes long seconds to recognize as gills.
Slowly, the creature scents him, sticks out a tongue as pink as a tea rose and touches it to the corner of Hob's waiting mouth, and then, in curiosity, to the bite of apple he holds in his lips. The teeth are so sharp, so sharklike, and so near to his face that Hob's heart kicks in fretful earnesty. He begs it to be gentle, and he begs his prick to stay quiet, and his vision fuzzes gently at the edges as the creature takes the apple from his mouth into his own. His dark brows raise, and Hob, his lungs screaming, and with nothing to occupy his mouth any longer, breathes in at last.
He wakes to a familiar sight: the grey-white walls of a chalk grotto, the light of the moon streaming through an opening in the stone, water pouring in all the waves of the unrelenting sea from his lungs. He rolls onto his side and heaves, coughing and spitting until his throat is sore and his chest hurts. Something taps between his shoulders, and then roughly slaps, sending another gout of water rushing from him, another fit of coughing. It doesn't feel like a hand, but it takes Hob minutes to overcome the gagging, and minutes longer still to reach coherence again.
The dinghy. The grotto. His gifts. He rolls onto his back, and finds that the cave he lies in isn't so dim as he originally thought.
The source of light becomes immediately clear, a pale-silver glow that leans over him, and gradually resolves, again, into the creature, the man, with his skin shining like glowbugs along the river in faint moonlit hue, with his eyes deep and dark as ink, and Hob sees, now, that his mouth isn't black, but red. Garnets blush his lips, and behind them the unsheathed daggers of his teeth, white as bone.
"You're beautiful," he says, and his voice is shaky, and hoarse, but Christ, he feels alive. "You know, I've been waiting ten years to find you again. Sorry for the wait."
The creature tilts his head, and Hob tries to gesture vaguely towards the pouches at his belt.
"I've brought. Ah . Gifts? I don't know what you are, some, some sea-god or siren, or…I don't know. But I hope you like them. I hope --" His hope isn't given the chance to explain itself, because the creature sways in closer, rubbing its mouth busily against the curve of Hob's neck. Without a beard it feels strangely intimate. Then again, he thinks it would feel the same whether he were bearded or not. The creature is slick and smooth all over, its mouth a warm snuffling press that drags over the thud of his jugular and then rests there.
"Or we could do that," he says softly, and tilts his head, and bares his throat. "Not like I haven't got blood to spare. Can tell the men a shark got me."
And, "No," the creature says, and Hob nearly sits bolt upright, and is held in place only by the heavy weight that slithers across his groin, the many limbs pinning him to the ground. Christ, but the thing is strong.
"You can talk," he says, joy in every word, and a ripple passes through the light, a wave of yellow ochre.
"Yes. Some. Mine."
The sharp teeth dig into his neck, not a proper bite, but a scoring of flesh. They drag, opening veins, but not the vein, and the hot flood of pain wakes every limb, jerks him to cognition faster than any wine or spirit. His hands scrabble for purchase on the ground, and then he feels them being taken up, slick tendrils exploring busily between his fingers.
"All right," he says. "Yes. Yours. No shark's."
He's rewarded with a soft rumble, a purr like a cat and a neat little clicking sound that he identifies, after a moment, as the creature's teeth champing together. He feels hands -- hands! human-shaped and gently grasping -- push back into his hair, scratching with nails as sharp as talons.
"Good," the creature says, and the bite, when it comes at last, rests not over his jugular, but at the crook of neck and shoulder, where the muscle is thick and corded from hauling rope, where the sharp teeth sink and spike with pain and bleed him slowly, but do not kill. The creature nurses like a babe from the wellspring that flows from him, and each suck is a bright star of sensation tied from shoulder to heart to prick. Hob strains against the limbs that hold him, not away, but closer.
Queer things, he thinks wildly, it does queer things to the soul. His soul was damned already, he thinks, from years of mercenary work and casual banditry. Let his soul become odd, if it means he can have this.
Blood pours hot and steady for long minutes, and the only sounds in the grotto are the creature's suckling, the wet smear of his mouth on Hob's skin, and Hob's own desperate panting. The weight on him is familiar, a lover's press, the core of the creature's body poised over his groin and wriggling slowly. His prick is caught between wet linen and what feels like a hundred touching, grasping hands, studiously plucking at his breeches, his boots, his tunic while their master feasts up above.
"Let me touch you," he says, he begs. This creature is the sea, beautiful and wild, the tempestuous waves and the deadly calms, and he's the soaring salt-wind and the cry of the gulls along the shore, the bright flicker of fish in the shallows, the darkness of the depths, and Hob thinks that the sea has its hooks in the blood of all men, but in him deeper than most. He can feel it in his heart, with each pump that takes his blood from his body into the vast and wending sea.
The creature makes a noise too close to laughter to not be, and the teeth retract from his neck, leaving a feeling not unlike the emptiness after being tupped. Hob sighs with it, rocks his hips to try and find something to fill that yawning gap, and finds his hands being drawn in rippling motion to the creature's hips. He feels human, here, a pelvis that's vaguely familiar, the smooth skin of his flanks. No navel, Hob thinks, with no small amount of dizziness.
"Yes," the creature says again, and he bucks upwards with a sob. His neck feels hot and cold all at once, and he's empty. "Be mine. Have me."
The voice is like a fisher's gaff, that spears through the ear and into the brain; a pulse that skims over his flesh and leaves ripples in its wake. It's the lonely call of the lighthouse's warning on a foggy eve, a gull's cry, the sound of the lapping tides. It washes over him. It'd drown him, if he let it.
Hob curls his fingers into the white flesh and strains upward, fucking into the writhing, muscular twitch of tentacles that cover him. They've none managed to figure out his breeches, but the linen is barely an impediment at all -- something slim and tapered bunches the fabric around his cock, until there's a sharp rip of cloth and blessed, blessed contact. A cool, wet spiral of flesh that circles his prick, a dozen lightning-touched mouths laying kisses along the length of him, and he sobs again. Cannot help himself.
"A name," he says, and smoothes his hands over the angular planes of the creature's chest. What he'd taken for nipples from a distance are flat and soft beneath his fingers, but draw a similar response as with many men: a soft sigh, the creature's head thrown back to expose the long white column of his throat, and the sharpness of his teeth. "Give me a name to call you, sweet."
"A name," the creature repeats, and gives another fluting sigh, and does not answer. His hands are still in Hob's hair, now tugging, and Hob goes to them, heaves himself to sitting so that the creature is perched on him, and he's fucking into the wet grasp of it like he would a woman, bouncing him in his lap. Everything is a riot of movement and the slick noise of flesh, and Hob tilts his head, angling for a kiss.
"Douce mer," he gasps, and the creature bends, at last, to brush their mouths together. No proper kiss, no caress of tongue and lips, but a smear of blood into his mouth; the creature kisses like he intends to eat him. Hob kisses him back like he'd allow it. "Mer de nuit. I can keep going."
"Yes." The word is bitten into his mouth, a catch of teeth against his lip, which the creature chases with singleminded intensity. "More."
And they say that the gods of the sea are fickle, and proud, and desirous, and so Hob laughs, and between the iron tang of his own blood he whispers: my sweet, my treasure, my darling. The creature rides him in rolling waves, and his skin is flickering flashes of color, of reds and pinks as deep as the brilliant dawn, and silver as sharp as the moon.
When Hob peaks, it's with a cry that he bites into the creature's mouth, his blunt human teeth catching the berry-red lips, hips stuttering as the thing's tentacles wring every ounce of spend from him, and then some. They crowd him, smearing the warmth of his seed across his length, each of them fighting for a turn to touch him, and all the while the creature moans into his mouth, shuddering softly in his arms. There's a new taste on his lips, and Hob chases it with his tongue.
"Mine," the creature murmurs again. The hands in his hair curl and shiver. "Mine."
Hob lets himself lay down, his back flat against the unforgiving stone, the afterwaves of his pleasure still rolling through him like thunder over the open ocean.
"All right," he says, and licks his lips again. Salt, and living things, and kelp. The sea. "All right."
The creature pets his hair, tousling it this way and that. And then, with a gentle sigh, he lays his head upon Hob's chest. His heart still beats there, strong and steady, despite the hook the sea has stabbed within it, and slowly, gradually, the light in the grotto eases, the busy movement of the creature's tentacles slows, until it's only the moon, a fat and drifting pearl, that casts its unjudging eye through the cave's mouth upon the lovers entangled there.
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tampire · 2 years ago
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Dream without his Hob / Dream with his Hob
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cosmic--static · 1 year ago
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thinking about baking competition opponents to lovers and bakery co-owners au dreamling
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martybaker · 2 years ago
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hob gadling having a huge collection of vinyls because some songs only sound right when played on a record player
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aetheltrythh · 1 year ago
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The fine medieval disciplines of king-fuckery and running in chainmail (not necessarily in that order)
New Dreamling fic is up. Read the whole of it (7,5k words) on AO3: Fine medieval disciplines.
Summary:
At work, Hob makes a bet that he can run a half marathon in chainmail. There are consequences; heat is only one of his problems... Dream doesn't let him suffer alone.
Snippet:
"All right then. Bedroom. Sleep."
Dream stands up in a liquid motion, offers his hand to Hob, and leads the way. He'd been in Hob’s apartment three times so far, but never in the bedroom. Not anywhere near it. However, Hob supposes that finding the way to his bedroom is nothing compared to navigating the Dreaming.
Without switching on the light, Hob sheds everything except his boxers and lies down on his preferred side of the bed, expecting Dream to take the vacant place opposite him. Instead, Dream circles the bed and sits at the edge right behind his back. Hob cranes his neck to look at him. Quietly, his voice even lower than usual, Dream murmurs, "Move a little, please."
The next thing he knows, Dream is pressed along the whole length of his back. Completely naked.
Holy fuck. Sweet Jesus.
It takes his brain a good long while to process that bit. An expanse of cool, smooth skin. Surely Dream didn't have to undress? Not that Hob isn't losing his mind over the fact, but how is he supposed to sleep like this? Come morning, how can he go back to his everyday life?
Whatever this is, he goes along with it, but there are some boundaries that he probably shouldn't cross. Such as rubbing against Dream's groin; the shape of Dream’s half-hard cock resting against the cleft of his buttocks is clearly discernible and impossibly tantalizing. Nonetheless, he doesn’t. Even if all his nerve endings seem to have moved to that point of contact. 
His treacherous heart, though, beats louder and faster, and he lets out a low groan.
"Apologies. I did not think my proximity would affect you so."
Sure you didn't. Also… likewise?
Mouth dry, as if all the water that he's drunk in the past hour suddenly evaporated from his body, Hob croaks, "That's what happens when a beautiful prince leads you to your own bed and climbs in after you."
"Well, I must confess I am hardly indifferent to being this close to you myself." 
As if that wasn't like a scene from a smutty piece of fiction, Dream digs his fingers into Hob's shoulders and neck, massaging the most painful spots. Or rather, all of them. Now, at least, Hob has a good excuse for moaning, which is all the reply to Dream's words that he can muster. Apparently, Dream is also the king of bedtime neck rubs. At length, he purrs in Hob's ear, "You shall sleep now."
Unlike anyone else in the world, his friend has the power to actually make it happen.
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doctorhouse5343 · 1 month ago
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Nyx, taking a sip from a wine glass while staring at her son with contempt : So....this is your newest boy toy? *gestures to Hobo Heart vaguely, not looking at him as if the mere sight of him is burning her eyes*
Morpheus, not very pleased with the tone she's using : The proper way to refer to him as is lover, Mother and while I do understand your...reservations due to his werewolf nature, I fail to see how that would affect you and Father in the slightest. Afterall, you have merely lifted an eyebrow when I brought Hob here the first time with Corinthian. Chronos : That is simply because Hob actually had enough of a spine to not start running when he walked in like the people you brought here in the past. Another thing that worked in his favor is that he doesn't smell like a wet dog, unlike the flea-covered mutt you brought in *stares at Hobo Heart in disgust*
Hob, trying to bring the mood up : I actually love the way Heart smells, besides he doesn't really have a flea problem, he's always clean
Corinthian : He is also a very good boy, he doesn't cause much fuss either *grins while ruffling his werewolf boyfriend's hair*
Hobo Heart : *trying so hard to not snarl at his future-mother in law*
yep, i'm already planning things for this fic, goddamit i'm in deep *rolls down a foggy hill* happy 1st October, dears
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