last year I saw this 1989 Dreamling art by @webonchin, became extremely obsessed with it, pondered and mulled over it for much time, and now ten whole months later I have a fic
--
my kingdom for a kiss upon your shoulder
Chapters: 1/3
Fandom: The Sandman (TV 2022)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus/Hob Gadling, Dream of the Endless/Hob Gadling
Characters: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Hob Gadling
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Human, 1989 Hob Gadling and Dream of the Endless | Morpheus Meeting, Musician Dream of the Endless, Stockbroker Hob Gadling, Love at First Sight, Getting Together, New York City, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Queer Themes, Disillusionment, Explicit Sexual Content, Blow Jobs, Anal Sex, Recreational Drug Use, Depression, tfw you meet someone who makes you want to change up your whole life
Summary:
Despite Hob's success on Wall Street, life is starting to feel meaningless. Limitless sex, drugs, and money should be endlessly entertaining but instead he's bored, he feels empty, like something's missing.
Something, maybe, like the beautiful, tragic musician he meets at a party, who opens more than one new door in Hob's life--and reawakens the buried longing in his heart.
--
Hob lies on the couch of the crowded apartment he’s found himself in for the evening, head tipped back over the arm. Pounding music thumps distantly around him. Dim lights. Warm bodies moving in blurs. He ignores it all. Picks up his vodka soda from the coffee table and takes a swig. Half of it runs over the side of his mouth instead of into it.
He’s… bored. What’s wrong with him that he’s bored surrounded by as much drugs, sex, and general debauchery as he could possibly want?
But he is. All that climbing for so long and now… he doesn’t know where he is. Why he’s doing any of it. The climb, the growth, was fun for a while. Chasing hunger, chasing more, that was fun. But now he has all of it. Supposedly.
He sighs. Pours the rest of his drink inelegantly into his mouth. If he wants another one he’s going to have to get up. He doesn’t really feel like getting up. He feels like merging himself with the couch instead.
The party spins on around him, as it always does. Not everyone’s feeling as burnt out on sex, drugs, and debauchery as Hob is.
He could go track down some coke, he thinks hazily. Someone here’ll have some. Maybe it would kick his energy back up.
He just feels kind of tired at the thought.
It says something bad about the point he’s reached in life that even cocaine isn’t doing it for him anymore.
“This is very dull,” says a low voice, and a man slumps down beside him, sitting on the floor and leaning back against the couch. He tilts his head back, looking up at Hob. “Do you think so?”
“Yeah,” Hob says, and then does a double take as he catches a proper look at the man.
Christ but he’s gorgeous. Nothing like the men Hob would normally see at a thing like this—nothing like Hob himself—with their fashionable suits, slick hair, slicker smiles. This man is lithe and sprawling, like a wild predator, stark black and white lines, spiky hair, dark makeup, studs flowing down his ears like raindrops. Clever eyes. Long fingers clutching a cocktail that he doesn’t seem particularly interested in.
Hob is instantly fucked.
“I was promised good drugs and better sex and I’m bored on both counts,” the man continues. He takes a sip of his drink, and grimaces.
“That why you’ve come over here?” Hob asks. “Because I looked equally bored?”
“Exactly.” He offers the drink to Hob. “You should try this.”
Hob takes it. It’s… very blue. “What the hell is this?”
“There was a girl working the bar… very drunk. She said she would make me her ‘special potion.’”
That sounds… questionable. Hob takes a sip, and chokes. “Christ.”
“I witnessed her pour in vodka, Prosecco, and tequila. Blue Curaçao—for color, of course. And maraschino cherries.” He plucks one out of the glass by the stem—there are about seven of them total—and eats it.
“What the fuck.” The stuff’s revolting. Hob takes another sip. “That’s alcohol poisoning in a glass.”
“It’s been one of the better parts of the night,” the man says.
Hob returns the glass, and the man tosses more of the drink back, his throat working. Hob’s just drunk enough to not attempt to stop staring like a creep. He wants to ask him if he wants to get out of here, or even just to steal away into one of the many spare bedrooms—it wouldn’t be out of place at a party like this, hell, Hob could drag him into his lap on the fucking couch, everyone’s far too drunk to care—but propositioning this creature for a mere hookup feels like wearing an Italian suit to mud wrestle. What a waste of a perfectly-made thing.
How did something like this wind up at this party?
“Who’d you come in with?” he asks, as the man plucks another cherry from the glass and delicately bites it off the stem.
“Someone who gave me a rather mediocre blowjob after a show,” he says. “I suppose I thought I would find better here, but I was mistaken.”
“Fifty-fifty shot on that, I’d say,” Hob says. Based on personal experience. Sometimes mediocre is good enough. Sometimes sex, regardless of quality, is good enough. For a while it has been. He’s not so sure anymore.
“I dislike betting,” says the man. Then stretches up a limp hand to shake Hob’s. “If we are to commiserate, perhaps names are in order. I am Morpheus.”
Morpheus. What kind of name. Though he had said at a show. A performer of some kind? “Hob,” says Hob, shaking his hand despite the awkward angle.
“Greetings,” says Morpheus solemnly. “You are the first man I’ve met tonight who has not tried to impress me with inanities. I am indebted to you.”
Hob tips his head back against the arm of the couch again with a sigh. “Too tired for bullshit. What’ve people been saying to you, then?”
“I have been taught much,” Morpheus says seriously. “Thrice I have been ‘educated’ on the great promise of ‘mortgage-backed securities.’ The reactions to my disinterest ranged from offense to outright concern for my sanity.”
“I think they were just trying to get in your pants,” Hob tells him.
Morpheus frowns. “The finance lecture was not helping their case. In fact, with each passing minute, I became more aggressively repelled.”
Hob laughs. “You’re on Wall Street, baby,” he says. It comes out kind of slurred. “Only thing more important than the size of a man’s dick is the size of his portfolio.”
Morpheus hums in consideration. “Neither of those has a direct correlation to talent.”
“Try telling them that,” Hob says.
Morpheus sits up straighter against the couch, leaning his head on his arm to study Hob. “I suppose I should ask about yours.”
“You’re too pretty for me to be tacky like that,” Hob says honestly. Maybe he’s a bit more drunk than he thought.
“Am I?” Morpheus seems pleased.
“So pretty.”
“Hmm.” Morpheus rests his cheek on the couch cushion. The tips of his hair brush Hob’s hip. His eyes are so liquid in this light. Hob wonders if he’s hallucinating his existence.
He reaches out, mesmerized, to touch Morpheus’s hair. Morpheus doesn’t stop him. He lets Hob pet him, eyes falling shut. His hair is tacky on the ends with hair spray, but soft underneath.
“I’ll tell you a secret,” Hob says, and Morpheus hums. “All those self-important stockbrokers trying to impress you with their convoluted financial instruments… they just want to hide that it’s all really a scam.”
“Is it now?” says Morpheus. “I was under the assumption it was legal.”
“Something can be a scam and technically legal. Oh, it’s all very clever. But it’s just building money on top of money with nothing real to support it. Kick out the base of the tower and it’ll all go into free fall.” He makes a whistling, falling sound, and Morpheus smirks.
“And I suppose you are better than all this.”
Hob chuckles. “Oh, no. I’m a money-grubbing little vermin, too. Just letting you in on the game. How it’s not so serious.”
“Hmm. I am a musician,” says Morpheus. As Hob figured, then. “I’m afraid it’s as serious as death.”
“Hence the all-black ensemble and the makeup,” Hob says.
“Indeed.”
Hob wants to hear Morpheus play. Or sing, or whatever it is he does. He bets he’d be exquisite. Divine. Hob can imagine those lips pressed to a microphone. Or those long fingers on guitar strings.
“Do you want something more interesting than alcohol?” says Morpheus.
“Why, you still bored?”
“Less and less so.” He pulls from his pocket a small bag of pills and hands it to Hob.
“You brought your own drugs to a party where you were promised drugs?”
“Promises cannot be counted on,” says Morpheus seriously.
“What is it?” Hob asks, then decides he doesn’t care, and takes a pill, chasing it with the watery last drops of his drink, which is a terrible idea, but then, he’s full of them.
“Ketamine,” says Morpheus. Oh, great, Hob thinks. Morpheus takes it back from him and takes a pill himself. “It occasionally makes me feel less like I am going to hurl myself from the balcony.”
He doesn’t seem to be joking. “Good for something, then,” Hob says. “Why do you want to jump off the balcony?” He still has his hand in Morpheus’s hair. He honestly can’t believe he hasn’t propositioned him yet. That’s not like him. These parties are usually only good for quick, casual sex. He even thinks Morpheus would probably agree, and yet.
“The state of things,” says Morpheus. He has such a deep, solemn voice. Hob wants to touch his mouth, or throat maybe. Okay, this is already not going so well. “And the state of my heart.”
Hob pets his hair again. Morpheus leans into the touch. “Writing songs about yearning and angst and stuff isn’t fixing it?” He can well enough guess what Morpheus’s music is probably like.
“No,” says Morpheus. He seems to really think about it. “I think it is making things worse. Perhaps I will try manipulating the financial markets instead. Is that giving you existential fulfillment?”
“There’s only so much money you can make before it starts feeling stupid,” Hob says. Maybe he should just throw all his cash out the window and go live in the woods or something. Carve figurines out of fallen trees. Probably do more good for the world, not that that’s ever been a focus of his. “Maybe it was always stupid.”
“No solution has been found for us yet, then,” says Morpheus. “Would you care to go outside? I find that if you are high enough, the city lights look like stars.”
“You’re not going to jump off the balcony, are you?” Hob asks, suspicious.
“This is not the right locale for my dramatic end.”
Somehow, Hob actually believes him. Morpheus wouldn’t truly kill himself unless it could have the right effect.
Hob levers himself up from the couch. Oh Jesus, now the room is spinning. The pounding music is starting to feel louder, starting to thud through him. Feels good, though. Everything being bright and hazy.
He helps Morpheus to his feet. Leads him, hand in hand, out to the balcony. They lean against the stone wall, looking down at the street, dizzyingly far below, cars poking along like lines of luminescent ants, distant horns crying. Then up, out at the collision of skyscrapers.
Morpheus was right. The lights are spinning and twinkling, just like stars. It reminds Hob of the first time he’d come to New York, when he was looking for adventure, and to get a little rich—or a lot rich—and everything had seemed like it was glowing and buzzing and flying.
The air is clearer up here than down on street level, and Morpheus tips his head up, breathing it in. His throat is so long, his shoulders and collarbone so angular. He looks like he’s been starving. But the stud in his ear at least looks from afar like a real ruby. Intentional, then, to be skin and bones.
“I think I am tired,” he admits, still looking up at the sky. “Do you know that… all I had ever wanted was for someone to like my music. And now I have that and it has not fixed anything.”
Hob takes his arm and pulls him close. He’s feeling very touchy-feely now, which could be the drugs but could also just be Morpheus. He’s so pretty and he looks so sad, and his sadness is beautiful and all the more terrible for that.
“I could kiss it better,” he offers. It’s still not a real proposition. Hob’d just kiss his hand if that’s what he wanted. Or the sharp bone of his sternum under those hanging necklaces. Or kneel at his feet and kiss his thigh—
Christ. Hob’ll be lucky if he survives the night, at this rate.
Morpheus looks at him, eyebrow raised. But Hob must look serious about it, because he says, “Okay.”
So Hob leans in and kisses his cheek. And Morpheus smiles, a bright, truly happy smile, just for a moment.
“Do you wish to dance?” he says. “I do not usually, but I feel I may fall over if I move from this wall without something to hold onto.”
Yeah, the floor is kind of moving. And Hob will certainly not turn down having Morpheus in his arms. “You wanna dance to this shit?”
They’re playing some godawful thumping grating song over the speakers now, and Hob doesn’t think either of them is up to the kind of bouncing thrashing dance that would call for.
“I will sing something different in your ear,” Morpheus says.
So Hob draws him in, wraps his arms around his waist. Morpheus plasters himself to Hob’s body, mouth to the shell of Hob’s ear. He starts humming a low, melancholic song. Hob shivers at the brush of his voice.
They sway together with very little coordination. Eventually Morpheus starts singing, though Hob’s brain isn’t capable at the moment of taking in many of the lyrics. It’s something about longing, and losing things in a terrible fire. Hob presumes it’s one of his songs. Morpheus’s voice is gorgeous, low and hypnotic, and Hob closes his eyes as it rumbles straight through him.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs eventually, filled with a sudden tragic pain about it. “Please don’t throw yourself off the balcony.”
Morpheus chuckles. “Another time, perhaps.”
“Never,” Hob says vehemently, and clutches his warm body close. He might cry about it. Fucking drugs. “We should go get food. You’re so fucking bony I think might you die of an overdose if we don’t sop it up. You had that wretched drink, too. Christ.”
“You are worried for me?” says Morpheus, sounding touched.
“Incredibly. Come on.” Hob finally pulls away from him, with chagrin, and takes his hand. “This party’s shit. I’ll take you to get pizza.”
“Pizza,” Morpheus repeats, with a tiny smile. It’s gorgeous on his face. “Very well.”
--
One dollar pizza is one of New York’s greatest inventions, in Hob’s opinion. They find some hole-in-the-wall place barely a block from the apartment building, and stand outside the door, eating incredibly greasy pizza off of paper plates, and it’s fucking heaven. It might be the best pizza Hob’s ever had in his life—granted he’s still very high.
Morpheus is scarfing his down like all pizza on earth is about to be chucked into space. Poor bony thing. Hob just wants to feed him up until he stops looking like a skeletal waif that’s about to drop dead at a cold breeze.
And wants to fuck him, too. Yeah, that’s still there, even with Morpheus licking grease off his fingertips. It’s actually getting worse because of that.
“Told you,” Hob says. “Needed some bread to soak up the fifteen shots in that drink.”
“I think I may throw up,” Morpheus says, with the careful articulation of someone who very well might. “But I am enjoying it nonetheless.”
“Let me know and I’ll find you a bin,” Hob says. He’s had worse nights than puking on the street corner.
“Now I owe you sexual favors in return for this generous meal,” says Morpheus, folding the empty paper plate with surprising precision, considering his enduring level of intoxication, and sliding it into a nearby trash bin.
It says something about Hob’s own level of intoxication that he barely responds to this statement. “Oh, yeah, the whole four dollars of it. What does that get me?”
Morpheus scrunches his nose in thought. “Two kisses,” he decides.
“We’ll save it for after you’ve decided if you’re going to throw up.”
Morpheus giggles. He’s so cute.
Hob tosses his own plate, and takes Morpheus by the arm. “Come on. You can come back with me. I don’t live that far.”
“Ah, now the proposition,” says Morpheus, but doesn’t sound unhappy about it.
“The ‘make sure my new friend doesn’t get hit by a cab effort’, more like, but sure.” He feels kind of responsible for Morpheus now. If Morpheus actually threw himself off a balcony Hob would never forgive himself.
“Friend,” repeats Morpheus, sounding pleased.
“See, isn’t this better?” Hob says.
“Better?”
“You got to eat pizza and didn’t even puke yet, isn’t that better than killing yourself?”
Morpheus huffs. “Quite a dichotomy. If you recall you too stated that you felt your efforts becoming meaningless.”
“Yeah, but I’m not gonna jump out a window about it.”
“Fortitude,” Morpheus says, and it sounds mocking but Hob doesn’t really mind. Maybe it is fortitude, he doesn’t know. Maybe to Morpheus fortitude is gullibility, continuing to play the game when it’s long lost its spark and its reward. Hob likes the game, though.
“What will you do about it, then?” Morpheus asks.
“Dunno.” It’s the first time Hob’s really thought about it. Up until now, it’s been about chasing. Always wanting more. But now— now he’s basically at the top. Where he wanted to be. And... there’s really nothing there at all. “Leave New York, maybe.”
The words surprise him, even as he says them. Midtown is so bright, even at four a.m. It’s something Hob once loved about the area. About the city. But now he’s staring into Morpheus’s darkness. Into the ink stain of his hair against the glowing storefront lights, the sway of his body, graceful even while swimming in dissociation. And everything feels different.
“To go where?” says Morpheus.
“Back to London, maybe.” He has enough money to go anywhere. And yet, it’s hard to feel a particular point to anywhere. Where’d his sense of adventure go? His ambition? Somewhere it all slipped, in the glut of the present.
“I grew up in London,” Morpheus says. “It is too personal there, now.”
So he’s chasing something too. Or running away.
“Tokyo, then,” Hob says, as if Morpheus coming with him is a key part of the decision. “Is’at the furthest city from New York? Gotta be close.”
“It’s Perth,” says Morpheus.
“You’ve looked it up?”
Morpheus nods solemnly. “And from London: Wellington.”
“It’s settled, then,” says Hob.
“I am coming with you?” says Morpheus.
“Course.” Hob’s not going across the world by himself. Not anymore. He bumps his shoulder with Morpheus’s, squeezes his arm where they’re leaning together. “You’re coming with me.”
“We should go further, then,” says Morpheus.
“Antarctica?”
“Mars.”
Hob finds himself giggling, mirth rising in him like champagne bubbles. Morpheus giggles, too. It’s truly a ridiculous sound in his deep voice.
“They don’t have cool jackets on Mars,” Hob says, poking at Morpheus’s studded blazer.
“Ah.” Morpheus frowns. “Maybe not, then.”
That only makes Hob laugh louder, leaning on Morpheus’s arm, and Morpheus sighs, irritated to be made fun of, but doesn’t push him away.
“Come on, I’m here,” Hob says, steering Morpheus into his apartment building as it comes up. They make their way across the lobby and to the elevator bank, only a little unsteady, and then slump against the wall once the elevator doors close.
“I think I am very sleepy,” Morpheus says, tipping his head back against the mirrored wall as they go up, up, up the insanely tall skyscraper Hob’s for some reason chosen to live in.
“You think you are?”
Morpheus squints at the infinite tunnel being created by the opposing mirrors on the walls. It’s dizzying, more so now, when they aren’t exactly sober. He shudders and closes his eyes. “I would have to be connected to my physical form to know for sure.”
Yeah, Hob’s feeling that too. The walls are kind of tipping in at him, which is particularly uncomfortable when they’re mirrored. “I’ll put you to bed, sweetie.” He still really, really wants to bed him, more specifically, but he might also be about to fall over. He’ll rue the missed opportunity in the morning, but it can’t be helped.
“Sweetie,” Morpheus echoes, with vague distaste, and tips his head against Hob’s shoulder.
The doors slide open, and they stumble out into the hall. Hob somehow manages to get his keys in the door and get them inside without dropping Morpheus, who’s now using him to support almost his entire weight, and then gets them into the bedroom.
What follows is a dreamlike whirlwind of undressing, where the floor keeps tipping under him, where he tries to hold Morpheus up as he slips out of his boots and his bloody complicated jacket, his skintight jeans and even tighter shirt, helps take each ring off his slim fingers to leave carefully on the nightstand, and the pendants too, and gives him a t-shirt to sleep in, and Morpheus says, “Wait— I must—” and flees to Hob’s adjoining bathroom to strip off his makeup with some makeup wipes scavenged from Hob’s cabinet, undoubtedly left behind by a prior hookup. The silly thing talks about killing himself but still puts effort into skincare. Hob just shakes his head, then regrets it as it makes the room spin.
He strips down to boxers and undershirt and climbs into bed, because he is actually about to fall over, and soon enough Morpheus stumbles back out and collapses into the sheets beside him. For a moment they just gaze at each other in the dark. Hob means to do something, to kiss him, maybe, claim one of the ones that was promised. But exhaustion claims him first.
116 notes
·
View notes
Blurb expanding on this idea. Not proofread, written in an hour tops.
Nsfw
College!Artrick in the modern day instead of 2006/7. They're bored, Art's finished his assignments and Patrick's procrastinating so they decide to go to a party someone is throwing near campus that they've heard people talking about. Patrick wants to get laid, Art wants to talk to someone other than Patrick (he loves his friend but they've been around eachother 24/7 for days now).
Art's the first to come across you at the party. Platform pleather boots with metal buckles up the sides, a black, lace trimmed miniskirt with ripped fishnets underneath. A large black knit sweater with small holes at the collar, and Art's wondering to himself if it came like that or not. Like moths got to it. A large silver cross on your chest with layers of necklaces stacked with it, the fingers gripping a red solo cup clad with chunky rings and long acrylics.
Your head is turned away from him initially, so he only gets a look at your clothes at first. He approaches because he wants to ask about the sweater (he's never been good with icebreakers). When you turn to look at him, he thinks his heart stops.
Your lips are painted a dark red, almost black, and the first thing he thinks of is if it would transfer to his lips if you made out. Because fuck, he wants to kiss those lips.
"It came like this" you explain, and then he realizes that you're answering his question. "Why?"
You shrug. "I don't know. Cause it's cute, I guess."
Art couldn't explain it, but he believed you could make anything look cute. So he shrugged, agreeing. It's when you introduce yourself by name that Patrick finds Art again, and it's his turn to oogle at you.
He's never been a picky guy, barely has a solid type unless saying his type was "hot" was a valid answer. But seeing you... you're his type. Just you. Patrick's shoulder to shoulder with Art in an instant, leaning in to introduce himself loud enough so you can hear him over the shitty party music.
When he gets your name, he smiles over his solo cup as he repeats it. Art gives his best friend a look. Oh great, he's into you, too.
"I like your makeup." Patrick points to your face like you don't know where it is. "I didn't know emos could look so hot."
That makes you laugh. "I'm not an emo, but thanks, I guess."
Art nudges Pateick in the ribs before speaking up again. "And your jewelery, too. How long does it take to put on?"
The rest of the night is spent with the two friends competing for your attention, flirting with you the best they can. You know what's going on, and you let them if not for your own amusement.
You start noticing the two more on campus, and when they see you (which isn't hard to do) they awake sure to strike up conversation. It isn't long before you can call them friends.
Neither of them want that, though. They wanna see if your panties are as black as the bra peaking from your tank top when the sun's threatening to turn the school into melted goo. You wore a sweater at the party when you met so they couldn't yell, but this tanktop showed off the absolute rack you owned. They wanted your tits in their drooling faces. They wanted your glossy lipstick smeared over their cocks. They wanted to hear you scream their name as you bounced on top of them, feel you cum around them.
Instead, they settled on the long game. While hanging out, you'd mention the music you liked, what album you were listening to, what band you went to see over the weekend. The moment classes end and you all leave to your respective dorms, the two tennis players are both removing Drake and Carseat Headrest from their ques and playing whatever song you last mentioned to them. They do it just so they can tlak over eachother the next time they see you about the songs on the album they both suddenly know. Patrick finds himself unexpectedly loving Seether, especially, and he didn't even think he'd leave the experience liking the music for real.
You really start liking Art and Patrick, which you didn't expect. Sure, they were cute, attentive, and incredibly hot, but they weren't exactly the type of guys who normally approached you. Guys like them actually tended to be intimidated by anyone in alternative styles or genres. And they listened to you. Would let you talk about your interests for hours if you wanted. It made you like them even more.
They were surprised, too. Like I said, Patrick doesn't really have a type, just hot people, but most girls he's been with aesthetically have been pretty "mainstream" all things considered. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but it made you stand out to him in his fantasies. Both your style and your tits. He really liked staring at your boobs every chance he got. His top fantasy lately when he jerks off involves him smothering himself in your tits while he fucks you. He comes hard to the idea, making bigger messes over his fist and chest than usual.
Art usually got with "clean girls" or girls adjacent to that aesthetic, so hes confused by the complete 180 his tastes seemed to have taken since meeting you. You're all he could think about now. He wanted to wake up next to you in the mornings and see you fresh faced before your daily beat, watch your ritual of doing your hair and picking out your clothes and jewelry. He wanted to witness the whole process. And he wanted to motorboat you, but that's a side thought. He's also gotten off to the idea of being with you, but he's always so ashamed. He doesn't want to sexualize you like that, it doesn't seem fair or nice. Does that stop him? No. He's still scrolling through your Instagram, painting his fist and the corner of his phone white with cum to your latest thirst trap selfie, imagining that it's your hand around him instead, your acrylics wrapped around his needy cock when he whimpers your name into his pillow. It's hard to look you in the eyes afterward.
97 notes
·
View notes