Chapter Text
It's early morning in August when Hob's doorbell rings, and he nearly trips over himself in his haste to get it open before it rings again; his head is pounding, the result of a bit too much Scotch and a bit too little common sense last night, though, in his defence, he is recovering from a less-than-stellar breakup. Not that he blames Gwen, absolutely not. Everything she'd said to him was hideously bang-on, even if he hadn't wanted to hear it at the time. You're always distant, she'd accused him. You're kind and you pay attention but you aren't here, you aren't with me. You're always talking about your friend, that one with the flash coat –
What friend? he'd asked, knowing precisely which friend she was talking about, and she had known it, and he'd known that she'd known, and Gwen had very generously allowed him to keep that last shred of his dignity by not disclosing that she knew, that he knew, that she...anyway.
You're in love with him, she'd said, and Hob...hadn't known what to say in return. 'Love' seems a paltry word in the face of six centuries of waiting. Six centuries of his axis tilted always towards his mysterious stranger, his benefactor, his friend. Is that what people who are in love do? They wait? If it is, he's been half in love with Dream since he first met the man.
He'd ultimately taken too long to answer, though, and Gwen had made a noise of disgust, thrown her arms into the air, and walked out.
Let me know when you get your head out of your arse, she'd told him, and Hob had been forced to agree that that was a fair request, and then he'd proceeded to get absolutely, ragingly sloshed about it. He has vague memories of some tipsy bastard asking him if he was alone, he seemed upset, was his partner around or did he need someone to take care of him, and then balling up his fist and punching the man square in the jaw, but everything after that is a blur of light and sound. He'd woken up in his own bed this morning, so someone must have hauled him up the stairs to his flat. Probably Marv, he thinks. What a mensch.
So it's with a throbbing headache and a mouth dryer than the Sahara that Hob opens his door to find Dream of the Endless standing awkwardly on his landing.
"Hello, Hob," his oldest friend says. "I have come to inquire about...staying with you. For a time."
This is the moment where Hob's stomach, to his horror, threatens open rebellion.
"Hold that thought," he says, and some of his panic must show on his face, because Dream only tilts his head and nods, and follows sedately along after as Hob makes a mad dash for the kitchen. He gets himself over the sink just in time for a wash of nausea to flood his mouth with spit, and then he's heaving, stomach clenching around the complete lack of food and the entirely-too-much alcohol he'd had last night. Nothing comes up except bitter, stinging bile, but he feels better for just getting that out of him, and when complete awareness comes back to him he's a bit surprised to feel a tentative hand holding back his hair, and another rubbing firmly over one shoulder.
"M'all right," he says, and spits a few times to clear his mouth. Then he fumbles for the tap and turns on a steady, cool stream, ducking his head beneath it, letting it run into his mouth and rinse away the taste of bad decisions.
"You are hungover," Dream observes, and Hob pulls his head out of the water, letting himself drip disconsolately over the sink for a little bit.
"Gwen broke up with me last night." He clears his throat and spits again, and feels, for the first time since he woke up, almost normal, so long as normal includes a headache that could kill an elephant.
"Ah. My apologies."
"Yeah, well. Wasn't going to work anyways. Her parents didn't approve of me, and I'd...have to fake my death eventually."
"That does seem as though it would impede a relationship."
"I'm used to it. Could you fetch me the Panadol from the cupboard?" The hand in his hair disappears, then the one on his shoulder, and there's a rustling sound around him while he keeps his head hung over the sink, just in case a second wave decides to make an appearance.
"...Which cupboard?" Dream asks, and Hob points vaguely.
"The one over the..."
He pauses. Lowers his arm. Has Dream ever needed to ask him where things were before? He doesn't think so. Normally he just...knows. Plucks it out of daydreams, maybe.
Staying with you. For a time.
"Dream," Hob says, and hears, from behind him, a soft hum of acknowledgement. Cupboards continue to open and close, and then there's another sound, a soft ah, and a moment later a bottle of paracetamol hovers into view. "Dream, why did you say you were here?"
He lifts himself up out of the sink, shoving his now-wet hair back from his eyes, and comes face to face with Dream. He's close enough to touch, close enough to kiss – down, boy – and he's wearing an expression that Hob could generously term 'neutral' but edges closer to 'wary' when he actually studies it.
"Dream," Hob says again, when no answer seems immediately forthcoming. Dream pulls his hand closer to his chest, fiddling with the ridges on the cap of the Panadol.
"I find myself. In need of a place to stay."
Hob thinks of the Dreaming, with its massive castle in the centre of it, and then looks around at his kitchen (empty takeaway cartons on the counter because the trash is full and he'd forgotten to take it out last night), and what he can see of his living room (books piled on every surface, eclectic art on the walls, his grading all over the coffee table, a broken umbrella? on the armchair? why is that there?), and thinks of how he remembers his bedroom looking last night (hasn't changed the sheets in the last month because he's been going through it with Gwen and he hasn't felt the need because she hasn't been coming over, laundry hamper not-quite-overflowing, down to his last pair of clean socks, another takeaway carton on the nightstand because on Friday he'd felt the urge to have chow mein in bed), and he squints at Dream in confusion.
"...Why?" he asks, and Dream pulls into himself, the defensive huddle that Hob's gotten so used to over the past year, like a cat that's been spritzed with water and still isn't quite certain what to make of it, only that it doesn't like it. That's Dream, but with feelings. Confrontation. Deep reflections on the self.
"That's not a 'no,'" he says quickly, when it becomes apparent that Dream isn't going to answer unless some of his ruffled fur is soothed. "Of course you can stay, of bloody course, you're my best friend. My oldest friend. Everything that's mine is yours." Dream's expression is becoming more carefully neutral with each word, which Hob takes as a good sign. He's still so fucking hard to read sometimes, and, credit where credit's due, Hob considers himself at least 'conversational' when it comes to Dream, but sometimes, when he clams up like this, it's still...
It reminds him of 1889. Uncomfortably. It's all water under the bridge, of course it is, but...But he remembers. Sometimes that night feels like it's seared into his brain.
"I am willing to...pay...rent," Dream says, each successive word loaded with more uncertainty, until his voice has actually risen on the word 'rent.' Not quite a question, but as near to it as Dream is likely to get in this situation, which is rapidly becoming desperately uncomfortable (for Dream) and confusing (for Hob).
"Do you know how money works?" is the first question that pops out of Hob's mouth, and he quickly forces himself to take several mental steps back as Dream's eyes flick towards the door. "No, wait, hold on. You're not paying me to stay here. Why are you staying here? You've got a great ruddy castle, you've shown it to me."
Dream had, in fact, escorted Hob, had taken his hand and walked with him through gardens so lush and vibrant that Hob had felt like he'd wake with pollen on his lips, had led him through winding corridors of every stone known to man and a few that Hob had never seen before (and suspects heavily that no one has seen, perhaps aside from him), had actually flown with Hob. Actual, proper flown, bringing him high up into the air so he could get a bird's eye view of the castle and all its impossible spires, its stairways terminating into emptiness, its hundreds of doorways and balconies and buttresses and gargoyles. A pegasus had flown by them, and as it had done it had dipped its head towards Dream in a fancy little bow.
In short, Dream has a castle that's far better than anything Hob has to offer him, yet he's...here. Still standing in Hob's kitchen all flooded with early morning light, the golden dawn from the window running subtle fingers through Dream's hair like – ha! – like a dreamcatcher. He's pale and beautiful and perfect and the sort of thing you can't lay any claim to, like gravity or tsunamis, and so Hob shakes the fancy free before he can give it too much thought.
Half-in love. Right. Three-quarters in love, maybe. Seven-eighths.
Gwen had been right. Shit.
"I do not have access to my castle," Dream says. He's becoming increasingly cagey, as well as uncomfortable, and so Hob sighs, and pushes his sopping hair back sleek against his skull, and does what he'd usually do for a friend in need of a chat: he soldiers through his headache and he puts the kettle on.
"Tea," he says, at Dream's look of confusion. "Though I've gotten more into coffee, lately. And mixing the two. Do you drink coffee? Or...tea?" He's only ever seen his stranger drink wine, red, expensive. The look that Dream is giving him now – of blank nonrecognition – isn't encouraging. "Right. I'll make two cups and see how you get on with it, then."
He's got a fancy electric kettle these days – what will mankind come up with next? – and so the ritual of getting out mugs and milk and sugar is all a bit truncated, now. The kettle starts to sing within only a few minutes, and Hob finds himself, as he's digging through his junk drawer for the steeper (only the finest loose leaf for his stranger), in that pseudo-melancholic space of mind where everything seems just a little bit left of centre. He can so vividly remember a time when the tea took a good eight to ten minutes to come to a boil, and then you had to wait to let it steep, and during all of this you were chatting with your guest, stupid, meaningless things about the weather and the current state of the monarchy...
He doesn't think Dream's got much of an opinion on human monarchy, judging by the last time Hob had brought up the Queen, but still. There's something that's lost, these days, in the pursuit of speed and efficiency, and he finds himself longing for it as he turns the kettle off and pours, then stands there at the counter watching swirls of amber-brown eddy out from the strainer.
"Do you take sugar or milk?" he asks, and realises as soon as he's said it that Dream hadn't been able to answer if he liked tea, so asking how he likes it might be jumping the gun a tad. "Nevermind. I'll just make it how I like it and you can tell me if it needs something. Not like you need to eat or drink, right?"
Dream, showing up on his doorstep asking after a place to stay. Dream, rifling through his kitchen cupboards like he's suddenly forgotten where everything is – or like he'd never actually known in the first place, had only 'known' because Hob knew. Dream, as he turns now to face him with mugs of tea in hand, determinedly staring off into the middle distance somewhere over Hob's left shoulder while a muscle twitches faintly in his cheek.
Muscle. Twitching. There's a realisation trying to swim its way up through the muddy waters of Hob's hungover awareness, but it's not until he watches Dream take in a deep, stuttered breath that it actually breaches the surface. He doesn't drop the mugs, but it's a near fucking thing.
"You," he says, and Dream's eyes snap to him. They're watering, Hob notices. Not like he's crying, but like he's not blinking often enough. Hob can see the little flex of his nostrils as he takes in another breath, the rise and fall of his chest through his ridiculous coat, Dream's hands fisted at his sides, clenched so tight the skin is turning white...
"Me," Dream says, and raises an imperious eyebrow at Hob. It's so fucking Dream that it startles a laugh out of him.
"Fuck," he says, and turns right back around to set the mugs down specifically so he can scrub his hands over his face. "Oh, fuck. Dream. What happened? What...? Is this...?" He's babbling. Words making their way to his mouth without fully-formed ideas to back them, and when he turns back around Dream's there, close, too close for comfort but it isn't comfort that Hob's ever wanted from him. This near, Hob can see each individual spoke of his lashes and a chapped spot on his bottom lip and the pores on his nose, Dream of the Endless has pores, and one of those half-had notions manages to punch through to the front of his tongue, and Hob says, "Are you in trouble? Do you need help?"
Because ultimately it doesn't matter, does it? Whatever it is that's happened. He'll try to help anyway. Whatever Dream needs, Hob will provide, whether that's a place to stay or food or a slow, dirty shag against the – fuck, not the time, stop.
Dream licks his lips. It doesn't help Hob's libido at all. He's never been this horny when he's hungover before, but then, he's also never been faced with Dream on his doorstep at seven in the morning before, either. And he still in his pyjama bottoms and his ancient Tottenham shirt, which is more holes than shirt, at this point. There's a giant one in the right armpit and another big rip over the belly, and Dream isn't paying any attention to either of them. He's just...staring.
"We could go to the living room to talk?" Hob suggests, and, after a few seconds that seem to last an eternity, Dream nods. Hob grabs the mugs again, pressing one into Dream's hands – it's the one that says Shake it like a polaroid with a picture of Shakespeare wearing some cool sunglasses, a joke gift from a student a few years ago and which Hob is mortified to admit that yes, it's a bit of a funny picture, yes, Bill Shaxberd in sunglasses would have been hilarious, yes, all right. If Dream appreciates or doesn't appreciate the visual he doesn't make any comment about it, and holds the mug with tight-gripped determination as they troop out to the living room.
"Do your hands get hot?" Hob asks curiously as they sit down – Dream right next to him on the sofa, in deference to the broken umbrella in the armchair – and Dream looks down at his mug, and then leans forward and sets it on the coffee table. Hob owns coasters...somewhere...but they aren't currently here, and there are so many old scars and water rings on this piece of furniture that any protest he might have is a moot point.
Besides, he's more distracted by the sight of Dream's hands.
"Jesus, fucking Christ, Dream." His poor palms are a bright, cheery lobster red, and Hob's quick to set his own mug down (which he'd been holding sensibly, by the handle) and gather Dream's hands into his own. "Shit. All right. Hold on a tic."
He lets go of Dream and darts back to the kitchen, pulling ice out of the freezer, running the last clean flannel under the cold tap and then wrapping it all up together before he rushes back out. Dream is still sitting precisely where he left him, hands up on his knees, palms red. Hob dumps some bare ice unceremoniously into the cups of his hands and Dream flinches. A chip of ice flies off and goes skidding across the wood floor.
"They did not used to," Dream says. Casually, like he's making a comment on the weather. Hob moves the icecubes about his palms, watching them melt and bead into lifelines and heartlines and drip over the edge of his hand, between his fingers. Slowly, Dream relaxes a bit back into the couch. Dream has never relaxed a day in his life – not in all the years that Hob's known him, and not in the past year when Hob has gotten to know him better.
"I think you should probably explain," Hob says, and drapes the cool flannel over Dream's palms to keep the ice from moving. "Hold that there and...and talk to me?"
It's always been a toss-up, whether Dream will actually talk or will just give some cryptic, mystical answer and then fuck off for a week or two.
Hob has the sneaking suspicion that Dream right now, at this moment, cannot fuck off.
Dream sits in mulish silence, and normally Hob would be willing to give him as much time as he needs because dealing with Dream, sometimes, is a bit like dealing with a skittish feral cat, where you just have to sit very still and hope that eventually it thinks your lap looks comfortable (don't think about Dream sitting in your lap, for Christ's sake, Hobsie), but Hob's head is pulsing and his stomach still feels a bit tetchy and he's coming to the realisation that they've been meeting each other on and off for a year and this is the first time Dream's seen his flat, which is not in a good state at the moment, and...
"My sister informed me. That I should go out and 'touch the grass.'"
Hob has never heard a more petulant tone in his life, and he's raised a child before. He blinks at Dream, their hands still pressed together in Dream's lap, cold icemelt dripping over Dream's skin and onto Hob's. The shock of it does wonders for his hangover, but, unfortunately, doesn't make this whole situation any less insane. He waits while Dream licks his lips again, still steadfastly refusing to meet Hob's eyes.
"Once a century, Death spends a day as a mortal. It is a tradition she began many aeons ago, which she says is. Grounding." A picture is beginning to emerge in Hob's mind's eye, based on what he knows of Dream and his sister, which isn't much but he does know that Dream and all his siblings have a weakness for...
"She implied. I would not be able to do the same."
…There it is.
"And?" Hob prompts, feeling a bit like he's trying to pull an admission of guilt out of a naughty toddler.
"And I informed her. That I am more than capable of living a single day as a mortal. It is not difficult. Mortal lives are simple, and humans are not so complex as they assume themselves to be."
"Dream," Hob interrupts. "Did you make a bet with your sister that you could live like a human for a day?"
Suspicious silence. Then, "A year,” he says. “I may have suggested. I could live…for a year. As a human," Dream says. His fingers flex beneath Hob's. It's almost like they're holding hands. "Not 'like' a human."
"Fuck," Hob says.
He thinks that about sums up the situation.
+++
Hob leaves Dream sitting on the sofa, with his now significantly-cooler mug of tea and the cold, sodden flannel just in case his hands are still stinging, and he goes to take a shower. Normally a nice, hot shower is precisely what he needs to clear his head – a modern, good-sized bathroom had been one of his biggest requirements when he had hired a lad to renovate the flat – but he finds that this morning it doesn't help as much as he was hoping. His thoughts chase each other in circles, fixating on the most inane things: Dream is going to have to deal with eating and shitting, he thinks, Dream is going to stub his toe for the first time and be devastated with indignation, Dream is going get the hiccups, Dream needs...
Dream needs a place to stay, and he had come to Hob.
That thought, more than any other, cuts through the whirling dervish of his brain and lets him settle. Dream's come to him. He could go anywhere, set himself up with anything, and yet he's come to Hob for assistance in being human, and that's...
Flattering. Amazing. Incredible. He wants to kiss Dream so badly he can't breathe. Fuck.
By the time he gets out of the shower it's a bit better, helped along by the lazy wank he'd treated himself to while he was in there, very carefully trying to keep his mind blank as he'd done so (it hadn't worked, he'd come to the thought of pale blue eyes wide and reverent and familiar peony-pink lips wrapped around a thumb that had looked an awful lot like Hob's). The Panadol, which he had eventually remembered to take, is starting to kick in, and Hob spares a moment as he's towelling off to wonder why Death had seen fit to spare him the agonies of things like, say, a knife to the gut or Ebola, but not the little day to day sufferings like headaches or summer colds.
He feels a bit more clear-headed by the time he steps out of the steaming-hot bathroom, and poking his head out into the living room reveals that Dream is precisely where Hob left him, though it appears that the level of tea has gone down in his mug, so maybe he'd tried it? Or maybe there'd been some sort of fierce and localised evaporation event. Hob's not ruling anything out at this point.
He pops back into the kitchen and makes some toast. Extra butter and marmalade for him, strawberry jam for Dream. He has to scrape the bottom of the jam jar to get enough, reminding him that he hasn't been to the grocery for...for a bit. Since he started having problems with Gwen, maybe?
Yeah, about that long.
By the time he emerges properly into the living room, Dream has set the mug – now empty – back on the coffee table and is sitting perfectly still with his hands folded in his lap beneath the wet flannel. No, not perfectly still. There's minute little twitches, the rise and fall of his chest, his feet shifting, and how had Hob missed it? Now that he's no longer looking through a haze of leftover Scotch and pain it seems so bloody obvious.
"You don't have to do this," he says, setting the plate of toast down on the table next to Dream's mug. "You know? You can back out. There's no shame in that."
Dream turns his head slowly, giving the impression of an incredibly offended owl. "There is every shame," he says firmly. "I will not have it known. That I am incapable of living as a mortal. For a paltry year."
"A year's a lot longer when you're mortal," Hob says philosophically.
"A year is a year," is what Dream counters with, and Hob decides not to start a conversation about time dilation and relative perception at – he squints at the clock on the wall – eight-thirty in the morning.
"Fine, a year. But still, if it's going to make you miserable..."
"I am not miserable."
"Let me see your hands," Hob demands, and sets his own plate down next to Dream's. Dream, bless him, obediently sticks out his arms, the flannel still draped over them, soaking wet.
As soon as Hob takes off the flannel, Dream hisses. Tears flood his eyes, and he rears back like he's been struck, and he stares at his own hands with such crestfallen betrayal that Hob has to bite his tongue to keep from laughing. Delayed reaction? some sensible part of his brain is wondering, or didn't actually notice the pain until now? Hands were numb from the ice, maybe? He tosses the flannel over his shoulder, water soaking through his shirt, and takes Dream's hands into his own.
"This is a lot of what being human is about," he says softly. Strokes his thumbs over the meat of Dream's palms, pulling forth another low hiss. The tears have spilled over the rims of Dream's eyes now, trickling prettily down towards his chin. His nose has also begun to turn a bit red, and there are little blotches of colour high on his cheeks, and Hob has seen Dream cry, before. There have been some days when he's seemed constantly on the verge of it, and it's never been anything less than beautiful. Like watching a statue weep, no flushing, no sniffling, no hiccups. Like someone crying in a movie.
This is nothing like that. Dream flinches when Hob manipulates his fingers, looking for blisters or any spots where the burns might be more than superficial, and he tries to pull away when Hob makes him curl his fingers into a fist. He lets him go. No sense in torturing the man.
Man. Dream is a man. A human man. He hasn't outright said it, but this is Dream he's talking about, Dream has never outright said anything in all of human history. Probably longer. He's old, Hob knows that, but how old? Older than whales? Older than trees? How many things can dream, and Hob's just never thought about it? Do fish dream? Moths? Do mountains dream?
"Yes, Hob," Dream says peevishly, snapping him out of his contemplation. "Mountains dream."
Oh. He'd said that last bit aloud. Maybe his head isn't as clear as he'd hoped it was, post-shower.
"Those shouldn't need bandages," he says, instead of what he really wants to say, which is you're human you're human you're human. He's not sure if the words would come out horrified or ecstatic, and he doesn't think Dream would appreciate them either way.
So he exhales sharply instead, and finds his eye drawn to the umbrella on the armchair. Why has he kept it? He thinks he had a vague idea, at the time, that he might be able to fix it, but...why?
He opens his mouth to ask Dream if he wants more tea, or if he wants a tour, or something, something appropriately bland and benign, and what comes out is, "Are you sure you want to stay with me?"
Dream flinches again, and there's a flicker of...Christ, is that hurt in his expression? Hard to tell, when his eyes are still running over with tears. "If you would prefer I leave. I am certain I will be able to find...accommodations...elsewhere."
Has he ever seen Dream with anyone else? Has Dream ever even talked about anyone else? For all he knows, he's the only human friend Dream has. Of course he's not going to turn him out, of fucking course not, but...
"That's not it," he says. "It's only that...I'm not in the best place right now, I mean, you see the state of my flat..." This is...only a bit of a fib. The flat's not tidy at the best of times. A few solid centuries of getting used to servants had rather atrophied his desire to clean up after himself, but he's relearning it. Slowly but surely. "And if you'd rather stay somewhere that's, ah, cleaner or just, you know, less of a fire hazard in general, I'd be glad to set you up in a hotel, or find you a flat of your own..."
He trails off. Dream is just...staring at him. Flush high on his cheeks and no longer crying, but looking so quietly despairing that the urge to lean forward and wrap him in a hug is impossible to deny, and before Hob can convince himself not to he's doing precisely that. Dream goes immediately ramrod straight under his arms, and Hob pats at his shoulders a few times, awkward, before he pulls back to find Dream staring at him, no longer devastated, at least, just confused.
"Why?" he demands, and Hob shrugs. Do people not hug you? Do your siblings not ever touch you, pat your shoulder, kick your shins, nothing?
"You're my friend," is what Hob says. "And you looked like you needed it. Of course you can stay, Dream. You don't need to pay me money. You can stay however long you want." If you want to stay longer than a year...He bites his tongue, and nearly misses Dream's short, imperious little nod. Then his eyes slide past Hob and to the coffee table.
"What is that?" he asks, sounding intrigued, which is how Hob ends up giving Dream both slices of toast, and figures that he'll explain the mechanics of the human digestive system later.
+++
The rules of the bet are painfully simple: Dream is to live an entire year as a mortal human, with no more strength or knowledge than he would have if he had been born that way. There are no clauses for if he gets into trouble. The only safety net, so far as Hob can make out, is that if Dream dies, Death won't actually take him, she'll just escort him back to the Dreaming. Other than that, though, he's not even like Hob. He's mortal, fragile and squishy and capable of getting sick. Hob spends a few hectic hours putting away everything in the flat that might be considered a health hazard, and in the process finds a vial of arsenic underneath the bed, a bottle of cocaine and alcohol solution beneath the sink in the bathroom (long-since evaporated, and with a distressingly dark and sticky-looking residue at the bottom), three guns in various states of repair (which he swaddles in an old pillowcase he's been using as a washing rag and then sets aside to be binned), and the bastard sword he'd used at Agincourt. That he can't bring himself to throw away – the guns had been from the World Wars, hardly ancient history, and he's not keen on remembering those years anyway – but the sword has memories attached to it. Stories. Centuries.
Dream watches him perform his frantic cleaning from the sofa, where he nibbles his way through a third piece of toast.
"Your living space is in some state of disarray," Dream observes while Hob balances the blade on his palms. Still sharp, he notes with approval. It had been a good sword to him.
"I've always had a problem with collecting things," Hob says absently. He cracks his neck, rolls his shoulders, and then grips the pommel with both hands. It's not quite second nature to fall into the stances, but his body remembers eventually even if the words come back slowly: Ox, Plow, Fool, Roof. He moves through each one, each shift of muscle bringing back a sense-memory of when he had used it. "My mam said I'd bring the whole field back in with me every time I went out to play. Rocks, flowers, bird's nests, anything I found interesting."
"You have a curious mind."
"Mm, I do like learning things. There's always something more, you know? Every year there's changes. New gadgets, new politics. New medicines."
"New diseases," Dream counters, and Hob pauses to raise an eyebrow at him. "New corruption. New instruments of war."
"I feel like you're maybe focusing on the wrong bits of humanity, duck."
"Duck," Dream repeats, and subsides back into the sofa.
"I mean, that's how it started with your sister, right? She told you to go out and touch grass." He's having a bit of trouble reconciling what he knows of Death – hard-working, dependable, cheerful – with the new realisation that she apparently knows what memes are and considers her brother to be some sort of terminally online NEET, but he can see where she's coming from. Dream does need to get out more. Not in the sense that he lacks experiences, but in the sense that he's sometimes so far in his own head that it's like looking into a black hole.
I'll bet I could get him some Prozac, Hob thinks vaguely. How long's it take for that to start working? Three months? Would the cumulative effects carry over when he isn't human anymore? He shakes the notion away and lowers the sword; his shoulders have begun to ache, the pleasant, familiar strain of holding a single position with a goal in mind.
"Dream," he says. There's toast crumbs all over his sofa. Not that he cares, God, no, the other night he'd stepped on a dehydrated chow mein noodle, but still, the sight of Dream of the Endless not knowing how to eat toast without getting it all over himself is...
Precious, is what it is. Stupidly, delightfully precious.
"Dream," he says again, "what, precisely, is the point of this?"
"I have told you. I have wagered with my sister..."
"Yeah, but what's the goal? What does she want you to get out of this? What does she want to get? A wager has winnings, right?" He sets the sword down on the ironing board that he's used precisely once since he bought the damn thing (it had seemed like he ought to have one, when he'd renovated, and that had been more than twenty-odd years ago now) and swings around the edge of the sofa, dropping down into the space next to Dream with a heavy whumpf.
"What do you get?" he asks, and Dream stares at him.
"...We did not negotiate winnings," he says eventually, and Hob covers his mouth with his hand. Dream's got toast crumbs all down the front of his posh black coat, and a smear of strawberry jam at the corner of his mouth. Hob has the insane urge to lick his thumb and wipe it away, followed by the equally insane urge to cut out the middleman entirely and just use his tongue.
"...So you're doing this for, for pride," he says, and Dream stares stonily out into the distance. If this were a windswept bluff overlooking the sea, Hob thinks it would be rather moody and aesthetic.
There's still crumbs down his front. Hob bites his cheek and reaches out with his other hand, tenderly brushing them away. He can hoover later, and it has the added benefit of snapping Dream out of whatever funk it is that's possessed him. The pale eyes flick down to where Hob has dared to touch him and track his movement like a cat watching a string, but he doesn't protest. It's a step in the right direction, maybe.
How can he take it further in the right direction? He's got a flatmate for a year. Excellent. He hasn't had that experience since sometime in the 1400s, when he'd still been apprenticing under Caxton. Even when he was in uni he'd kept a flat off campus, and at least within the last century he's had enough money that rent has never been an issue. This isn't about rent, though, it's about Dream. Being his flatmate, for a year, and how Dream is going to survive that year. Hob's fairly certain he's going to be traumatised for the rest of his life if Dream up and offs himself two weeks in because he can't stand being human any longer. His hand lingers over Dream's chest as he tries desperately not to picture it, coming home from work and finding the bathroom door open, Dream's pale hand hung over the edge of the tub, a slick red inkblot spreading in cooling water...
"Hob?"
He shakes his head.
"I'm here, duck."
This time, the nickname doesn't elicit quite as ferocious a response. Dream purses his lips, and says, "If my presence would be a detriment to you..."
"Christ. Christ, no, I've already said that, haven't I?"
"Not...in so many words."
"Well, I'm saying it now. I'd love for you to stay." Stay as long as you like. A year? Two years? Forever? "I'm just trying to wrap my head around why you felt like you needed to do this at all."
Dream licks his lips. There's that little chapped spot again, just there on the left half of his bottom lip. Hob studiously tries to ignore it.
"...Death observed that I looked. Tired," Dream says at last. "She has made this observation before. Previously, she took me with her as she performed her function. An attempt to...make me connect. With humanity."
"And did it work?"
"I went to find you. Afterwards."
A little bloom of warmth kindles in his chest. Him? He half-raises his other hand to his own chest. Me? Dream is looking at him like a particularly fascinating bug that he's found underneath a rock. That's probably Hob projecting, there, but having Dream's regard on him at all is...heady.
"All right," he says, after clearing his throat a bit. "So, you looked tired and she, what, thought humanity would be a vacation for you?"
"That was the point at which she informed me. I needed to touch the grass more often." Hob suspects that that wasn't the precise phrasing, and definitely not the intended meaning, but arguing over it won't get him any brownie points. He holds his tongue. "And when I asked her what, precisely, she suggested I do. She informed me of what she does. Which I have already told you. To which I said that I did not believe it would benefit me."
"...And it snowballed from there."
Dream nods, looking grateful that he doesn't need to explain himself again. Maybe it's his imagination, but Dream does seem a bit easier to read, now. There's little tells that he didn't have before, twitches and inhales and fleeting glances. Hob notes as many as he can spot and hoards them in his memory like a dragon. He finally takes his hand off Dream's chest. It's an awful feeling and he'd rather not, but also, it’s not really on to keep fondling your oldest friend’s pecs while you try to have a serious conversation about burnout.
"So this is a vacation," Hob says eventually. "Sort of...wrapped up in a bet. And the goal of the bet is to make you enjoy the vacation."
"I do not believe that I will enjoy this. But I am determined to see it through."
"Not with that attitude you won't," Hob says automatically. Dream's mouth thins.
"What, then. Do you suggest?"
It's been so long since Hob has seen Dream this pissy, but he thinks he definitely talks in more sentence fragments when he's wroth. It's more obvious, now. His voice is just...a regular voice. A gorgeous, rumbling baritone still, but no longer infused with the power of dreams and starlight and whimsy and sex.
Focus, Hob.
"Best revenge is living well," he says philosophically. Dream's eyes narrow in contemplation. "She doesn't think you can make the whole year? Fine. Show her up. Not only will you manage the entire year, but you'll enjoy it, too. Be better than Death at being human." He hasn't got the faintest notion where this idea is going – it's all getting a bit away from him, honestly – but Dream is nodding like Hob is making sense, so he keeps on it. "I mean, you're the King of Dreams. If anyone should know how to human it's you, right? You've seen everyone's fantasies and, and daydreams and nightmares..."
"I contain the whole collective subconscious of all things that dream," Dream says placidly. As if that's a perfectly normal thing to say on a Sunday morning. Hob powers through.
"Exactly. She thinks you can't last a year as a human? Don't just prove her wrong. Make her eat her words." The words that are coming out of his mouth belong to a crazy person. He's not talking about his best mate's tetchy big sister, he's talking about Death. Make Death eat her words. He knows she liked his moxie when he was that brash, bold-faced bandit back in 1389, but he wonders how far that's actually going to carry him.
Still, he can't stop himself. He's dug this hole for Dream and by God, he's going to bury them both alive if it kills him. No. Mixed metaphors. Awful metaphors. He's never claimed to be a poet.
Dream is looking at him, though. Really, truly looking at him, like he's said something...surprising, and clever, and that warm feeling in Hob's chest catches and spreads and fills him all up with light.
"And will you aid me in this as well, my friend?" Dream asks, and Hob's heart soars. Friend, friend, friend. It's not enough, it'll never be enough, but he'll grab it with both hands and hit the ground running because he's Dream's friend. How many other humans have that pleasure?
How many beings at all?
"If you'd like," he says around the sudden thickness in his throat. "It'll be like one of those movies."
"Movies."
"Yeah, you know. Bloke with a stable homelife and his wacky best mate? They have to be roommates to satisfy the plot?" Dream is staring at him, not blinking. Hob scans through his memories of recent cinema and comes up with, "The Odd Couple?"
"I...do not currently contain the collective subconscious," Dream says slowly. "I do not know this movie."
"I'll bet it's on Netflix. We can watch it together." Together. Thank God that Dream has all the perceptive abilities of a wet stone, because he's fairly certain there's a specific tone to that word that would come across to any other human as definitively, well...dreamy.
Dream looks down at his lap (covered in crumbs). He looks at the sofa cushion next to him (has a hole in it from where Hob had accidentally dropped a candle when he'd been trying to set up a romantic night for Gwen). He looks at the ceiling (perfectly sound, thanks, Hob takes the structural integrity of the building seriously even if he's rough on his own things).
"If...I am not. Too much of a burden," Dream says, and for just a moment there's something heartbreaking in the way he says it, in how he's sitting, the way his shoulders have rounded down and his head has tucked in and his knees are pressed so tight together you couldn't slip a business card between them.
"Not at all," Hob says, around his heart lodged in his throat. "Not if it's you." He pats Dream's shoulder, and this time the touch isn't met with a stink-eye strong enough to curdle milk, but...but with a tiny, barely-there flicker of a smile. Hob's heart plummets back down into his chest where it proceeds to do a few loop-de-loops just for the fun of it. He stands, sure his legs are going to start shaking underneath him, but they...don't. He's perfectly steady as he holds out his hand to Dream.
"Come on," he says. "There's some, ah. Rather urgent things you ought to know about eating and drinking."
+++
It takes a somewhat harrowing two or so hours to explain all the intricacies – well, not all of them, but as many as Hob can reasonably get to in a single sitting – of the human body. Dream sits patiently and listens to him for the first fifteen minutes while he talks about blinking and breathing and heartbeats, and that seems to do some good because Hob's fairly certain that Dream's eyes aren't watering quite so much anymore, but when Hob reaches the section he's titled in his mind as 'the consequences of having a digestive system' Dream is quick to hold up a hand.
"I am aware of the excretory functions of the human body," he says firmly, with the tone of one who Isn't Doing This Today, so Hob shrugs and lets it go, because either Dream is telling the truth and he's going to be fine, or he isn't and Hob's going to find himself summoned to the toilet to walk the newly-human Dreamlord through how to flush and wash his hands. It's not particularly bothersome either way – he's lived long enough that he's seen every fluid and solid that can come out of the human body, often up close and in graphic detail, and a lot of those times it had been his body and his assorted fluids and solids. The 1600s had been a rough century in more ways than one.
So Hob moves on to more nuanced things, things like 'listening to what's painful' and 'avoid sharp objects in general' and 'do you have any clothes other than what you're wearing right now?' The answer to this last is 'no,' so Hob digs through his closet until he finds clothes that might approximate fitting Dream, mostly joggers with ties to cinch at the front and the tiniest, tightest t-shirts that Hob's ever worn, back when he'd tried a few months with nipple piercings in the early 2000's and had been keen on showing them off. Dream accepts the clothes with all the solemn appreciation of a king receiving a tithe, and then they both realise that he's got nowhere to put the clothes.
"Right," Hob says, studying his bedroom. In his head it's already Dream's, because he can't imagine housing the King of Dreams and Nightmares on his ancient sofa while they get the office set up as a spare bedroom. At least it isn't in a terrible state: the sheets need to be changed, and he needs to give the whole flat a good hoovering, and he should probably empty the hamper and do several successive loads of laundry and actually hang things up, and... "Well, you're sleeping in here, obviously."
Dream opens his mouth, and then closes it again. Then, "Sleep," he says, sounding bewildered.
"Yeah, sleep. You know. The thing that humans do."
"I...have never. Tried it."
Of course he hasn't, Hob thinks fondly. In the same way that Dream's probably never tried 99 Flakes or LSD or an orgy (Christ, but he cannot wait to get Dream settled so he can have a another nice, leisurely wank in the shower, and maybe that will finally clear his head), this is just another pleasant, wholly human experience that has passed him by. Hob's got no idea if he was even capable of sleeping when he was that huge, endless creature of before, but now...
"You'll love it," Hob says. He gets started on stripping the bedsheets, adding to the piles of to-do laundry, and then goes digging through his chest of drawers to clear out a few of them for Dream's use. "How's that working, by the way? You being here, instead of...you know." In the Dreaming, he thinks. It still feels a bit silly to say aloud, even though at this point in his life it's fairly difficult to refute that supernatural things exist. Still, the distinction between the Dreaming and the Waking is one he still has to think about. The idea that dreams aren't just the product of his own head, but an entirely different world...
"I have...delegated," Dream says. There's a hint of pride in his voice. "I have gifted my Librarian, temporarily, with a Dreamstone. That she may oversee the creation of new dreams and nightmares. And she is able to contact me. If anything goes awry." Something shadowed and painful crosses over Dream's face as he steps up beside Hob, gingerly placing his gifted joggers and shirts into the drawer that's been cleared for him.
"I will not allow my realm to suffer. For the sake of a paltry bet," he says softly. Hob thinks of what he knows about the years between 1889 and 2022, and what Dream's deigned to tell him. Delayed, he'd said at first, and then a few weeks later, detained, and it hadn't been until three whole months into the rekindling of their friendship that Hob had learned the truth. A century trapped behind iron and glass, knowing that his realm was going to shit without him and completely unable to do anything about it...
"That's a good failsafe," Hob says, and he can't help himself, he's weak and it's early and he's spent the last few hours giving an eldritch being a crash course in humanity, and he figures he deserves a little bit of tenderness as much as Dream does.
So he puts his hand over Dream's.
It's warm, is his first thought. The few times that he's dared to touch his stranger in the past, it's always felt like brushing his fingers against a statue. Cool marble, perfect and smooth. Not so anymore. Dream's hand is the faintly-damp warmth of someone who isn't used to the heat and has started to sweat, or someone who's anxious, maybe, and there's a textural quality that wasn't there before, which takes Hob a few seconds to realise what he's feeling: hair. Tiny little hairs on the back of Dream's hand, so fine that he can't see them casually, but his fingertips are so tuned to everything Dream-related that it might as well be a flashing neon sign: This man is human.
Dream takes in a shuddery little breath that makes Hob's chest flutter with restrained emotions. For a moment they just stand there together at the chest of drawers, hands touching, a few inches between the rest of them, the rising sun illuminating floating dust motes like little specks of gold in the air. He really does need to hoover.
Then Dream turns to look at him more fully, blinking, and says, "May I use your restroom?"
Moment of truth, Hob thinks, and has to bite his cheek to keep from snickering. What he says aloud is, "Yeah, of course. Your bathroom now, too, innit? This way."
He'd already given Dream a tour of the flat, but he leads him back to the bathroom anyway, partly to be polite and partly because he rather wants to be nearby in case there's some sort of emergency. He's not sure what kind of emergency – hopefully not the sort that involves cleanup – but in his heart he's prepared to forgive and forget just about anything that happens this year, and especially anything that happens in the first few weeks. Hob makes a fancy little gesture towards the toilet, and Dream inclines his head regally. Jesus. Jesus help him.
"Right," Hob says. "If you need, you know. Anything." He sweeps his hand in a wide arc. "Anything at all..."
"I will call for you," Dream says. His nose has wrinkled up slightly, a dear little expression of amusement, and there are crinkles at the corners of his eyes that hadn't been there before, and all Hob wants to do is sweetly kiss the tip of his nose and each crow's foot and...
He clears his throat. "Right. Crack on, then."
"I intend to," Dream says, and then his hands go to the fly of his jeans. Hob makes an ungainly squeaking noise that he has never heard from himself before, thanks much, and backs out of the bathroom, letting the door swing shut behind him.
"Focus," he mutters to himself. And then, because even after six centuries Hob's got some limits, and lingering around outside the door listening to his oldest friend take a piss is apparently one of them, he goes back to the bedroom to do a bit more tidying.
He's managed to get all the laundry together by the time he hears the toilet flush, and while the taps are running he hauls the whole lot of it to the washer in the kitchen, and it's not much longer after that when he hears the bathroom door unlatch, and Dream emerges looking no more or less ruffled than he had before, though his hands are, Hob notes, still dripping wet.
"All right, then?" Hob asks, in the midst of gamely trying to fit one more pair of jeans into the washer. He gives up when it becomes apparent that he's reached maximum capacity for this load – that is to say, when he tries to close the front of the washer it almost doesn't at first. He's forced to take a few cardigans and pants out and drop them forlornly back into the hamper.
"It was unpleasant," Dream says, and Hob turns to look at him, really, properly look. What he'd taken for a lack of reaction before becomes, under a more scrutinising gaze, a carefully-neutral facade. He doesn't look devastated, which...is good. But he's also lost those lovely crow's feet, and his lips are pressed into a thin, displeased line.
"Sorry, duck," Hob says. "Comes with the package. Did you dry your hands?"
Dream blinks at him. Hob, feeling generous, pulls a tea towel down from its rack over the sink and offers it. Their hands brush again as Dream takes the towel, still so solemn. Hob's beginning to have a better idea of what Death had wanted out of this.
"Did Death suggest coming to me?" he asks, trying to keep his voice light and politely interested while Dream sort of...rolls the towel between his hands. Hob manages to go about three seconds before he reaches out and starts helping, holding Dream's hands between his own with a layer of terrycloth between them, rubbing gently.
"She asked. Where I would like to be left. Her suggestion was to prevail upon the good graces of Johanna Constantine. As we have some history."
Why is that name familiar? Hob extracts Dream's hands from the towel, bare and lovely and dry again, and he slings the towel negligently back over its rack before the name clicks. "Constantine?" he asks, voice rising on the first syllable. "The woman who accosted us in 1789? Is she still alive?" He's suddenly struck with the upsetting notion that Dream's been handing out immortality to other people, maybe a lot of other people, and it makes his stomach clench unhappily.
Dream's giving him a look, though. A little bit bewildered, a little bit pissy, a little bit – and this is the lovely part – fond. He tilts his head, and for a moment it's like nothing at all has changed, it's him and Dream downstairs in the New Inn and Hob is trying to get him to take a sip of a cocktail, eat a chip, listen to some new music that passed him by when he was trapped...
Then the moment passes, and Hob remembers that things are different now. It's a strange new world that they're traversing together for the next year. Holy God, for an entire year, which isn't much in the grand scheme of things, and certainly isn't much for them, but. A year. He's encouraged Dream to pursue the ultimate expressions of humanity for an entire year and Hob has no idea what he's going to do about it.
"Lady Johanna Constantine does not yet live," Dream says, dragging Hob's gibbering brain back to the present. "Her descendant is also named Johanna. And bears a striking resemblance to her ancestor. However. I chose you, instead. I deemed you a more patient teacher. For the things that I am least familiar with." His eyes crinkle at the corners. His lips are a perfect rosy pink and they curl up at the edges and Hob wonders how he's going to survive a year of this. Thinks of awful porno tropes, of uni dormmates and instant attraction and lazy handjobs under the guise of practising for girls. We're best mates, of course it's normal to snog, he thinks wildly. And explore each other's bodies, and also maybe a bit of light frottage, sure, all within the purview of friendship.
He needs to shower.
"I'm flattered," he says, and means it with all his heart. It's a lovely warm glow around the edges of his ongoing low-level arousal, the idea that Dream would choose him. He means more to Dream than some...he doesn't even know what this century's Constantine does. Some great-great-et cetera granddaughter of the world's most awful cockblocking cunt.
He is, perhaps, still holding a bit of a grudge.
The washer chugs along, clothes flipping sedately in the little window as Hob reaches out again, and dares to lay his hand on Dream's shoulder.
"Thank you," he says softly. "For choosing me."
Dream's eyes flick to where Hob's hand curls over the ball of his shoulder, his fingers gently indented into the soft skin, skin that, yesterday, would have been as unchanging and unyielding as stone, but which Hob can now feel shifting underneath his fingertips. He can feel the minute movements of Dream's breathing, and this close he can see the fan of his eyelashes as his eyes flutter closed for just a moment, and when they open again his focus is entirely on Hob's hand, his lips slightly parted...
Then Dream's gaze snaps back to him and he nods, once, short and sharp.
"You are...my friend," he says. "There is none other that I could imagine turning to."
Hob's heart melts into a little pile of goo almost immediately. He squeezes Dream's shoulder once and then turns away, manfully trying to keep himself from tearing up or sniffling as he busies himself with haphazardly sorting the rest of the laundry. Dream, bless him, doesn't point out that the first load wasn't sorted, so why would Hob start sorting this one? Or maybe Dream just doesn't know. 'Laundry' is likely not high on the list of things that kings ought to know about. Hob's grateful either way. It gives him a chance to focus on something else for a few minutes, to get himself back under control.
Eventually, though, there's no more laundry to sort, and Dream is still just...standing there, watching him. As if the laundry's currently the most fascinating thing he's ever seen. Hob rubs his palms against the thighs of his pyjama bottoms and glances at the clock over the stove; it's almost ten and he still hasn't showered, and both their mugs of tea are still sitting out in the living room, mostly untouched. He'd been so concerned over Dream's burnt palms that...
"Let me see your hands again?" Hob asks, and Dream tilts his head, but puts out his hands obediently. They're just as warm as they had been before when Hob takes them in his own, tilting the palms this way and that until he's satisfied that the burns haven't gotten worse. "How do they feel?"
"Tender," Dream says. "But you did not seem concerned. Beyond the initial injury. So I have been attempting to ignore them."
"Remember what I said about pain being important, though. This is okay, because you know why it's hurting and you know it isn't a big deal, but if something starts hurting suddenly and you don't know why?"
"I will tell you," Dream says. He says it with the air of someone reassuring their elderly aunt that yes, he'll put on a sweater when it's raining, of course nan, but...he says it. It's suddenly vitally, incredibly important that Dream knows he can come to Hob with anything he needs. Whatever he needs.
"You can always tell me," Hob says firmly. "No matter what it is, no matter how embarrassing it is...You know how long I've been human. I like to think I've got a decent handle on it by now, and nothing much shocks me."
They're still holding hands. Well, Hob is holding Dream's hands. Dream is somewhat passively allowing himself to be handled, and so Hob gives his palms – now only faintly red – one more look-over before he lets go.
"I...thank you," Dream says. He holds his hands in front of him for another second, flexing his fingers before he lets them drop to his side. "I will take your offer. Under consideration."
Hob nods. "Good. Now, let's go have a sit-down while the laundry runs and we'll figure out how to really stick it to your sister, ey? I can make some more toast if you'd like. Or...eggs? I've got eggs." He doesn't think he has anything to go with the eggs, but Dream probably doesn't have anything to compare it to, right? Unless he does. Shit.
"I would enjoy that," is what Dream says, though, and he watches as Hob makes another few slices of toast – slathered liberally with jam and butter – and he listens as Hob explains how the toaster works, so Dream can make his own in future if Hob isn't around, and then they both head back to the sitting room together.
And if Hob feels again that helpless, hopeful flutter in his chest every time he watches Dream get a smear of strawberry jam on his chin or toast crumbs all down his front, well. That's between Hob and his heart and the toast, isn't it?