TheResearcher
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Summary
"Does it bother you? The—" Hob gestured vaguely towards the front door, encompassing Max and, by extension, the entire catalogue of bodies that had preceded him through it. "All of them. Does it bother you?"
Yes, Dream thought, with a force and immediacy that startled him. Yes, it bothers me. Every face, every mark on every throat, every time I arrive to find the space around you already occupied by someone whose presence I must accommodate before I can have you to myself—
"No," he said. "Why would it?"
Bookmarked by TheResearcher
10 May 2026
Bookmarker's Notes
Dream is a pick-me. It's working.
...
It was not a pattern. Dream refused to classify it as such. Patterns implied data, and data implied observation, and observation implied that he had been paying attention to Hob's sexual partners with a consistency that bordered on surveillance, which he had not.
Except.
It was coincidence.
It was emphatically, definitively coincidence, and Dream would not think about it further.
He thought about it further.
He thought about it in the throne room during a dispute between two nightmare factions. He thought about it while reshaping the eastern approach to the palace, a task that required the full focus of his will and received approximately half of it. He thought about it in the library, where Lucienne found him standing motionless before a shelf of unwritten books, staring at nothing.
"My lord? You've been standing there for three hours."
"I am contemplating."
"Might I ask what you're contemplating?"
"No."
Lucienne adjusted her spectacles, which was her version of a deeply expressive sigh, and left him to it.
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flux, hiss, welt, groan by woveninharmony
Fandoms: The Sandman (TV 2022), The Sandman (Comics)
04 May 2026
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It was not until he was shin-deep in the mud and gore of the field at Agincourt that Robert Gadling felt the first seed of doubt.
Bookmarked by TheResearcher
08 May 2026
Bookmarker's Notes
He focused on the velveteen softness of his surcoat, slippery beneath his own grasping hands, and the smell of him - the smell of him. He smelled of smoke and hearth-fire, damp earth and blood, raw meat, the astringence of medicinal herbs, the musk of a man’s sweat, the brine of a woman’s sex, flint, a snuffed candle, burnt parchment, Hob’s own tears. Hob nosed against his hairline and whined at the feeling of the man's fingers delving so very deeply within him.
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That night, Hob Gadling slept like the dead, deep, deep under, as though at the bottom of a grave. He dreamed he was running - running to or from what, he could not say. He ran through the muddied field of Agincourt, he ran across the grey sand of the beach where they had made their berth, he ran through the cobbled streets of the village where he was born, made labyrinthine and strange. He ran through the forests as a deer, pursued by death, through a fen as a dog, pursuing, through the skies as a star, falling, falling. He ran through nothing, all about him was dark as pitch, a night so black the darkness hummed, the sound susurrating, soothing, familiar. Night as dark as his stranger’s black, black eyes. In a breath he was a hound again, and he chased the fleeing hare of that thought as best as he could, until he feared his heart would burst with the effort of it. He bade himself dream of his stranger, the soft and reverent way he had touched Hob, his frightening smile and his star-dark eyes.
He could not remember his face.
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Summary
After their first encounter in 1389, Hob will not see Dream for one hundred years.
Seventy-five years early, however, on the battlefield at Agincourt, Dream will see Hob.
Bookmarked by TheResearcher
08 May 2026
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feel your ocean (come to my moon) by Delta_Pavonis
Fandoms: The Sandman (TV 2022), The Sandman (Comics)
29 Nov 2024
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Summary
Hob’s hand comes up and cups Dream's cheek, doesn't let him move too far away. “Is that because I am dreaming right now?” He smiles like he knows it isn't true, like he knows this is real but still can't quite believe it. Honestly, neither can Dream. “Or are you a dream?”
“That question,” Dream says as he leans minutely into Hob's touch, and oh look at how Hob's pupils dilate at that, “has a very complicated answer. One that I would give you. But not in such a public place.”
Watching Hob's expression soften, seeing his eyes look at Dream with such affection, is intoxicating. Dream wants to taste it.
So he does.
Bookmarked by TheResearcher
05 May 2026
Bookmarker's Notes
“Patron Saint of Size Queens is what you are…” Hob mutters as he retracts his arm and rapidly plunges back in.
It is transcendent.
Dream is screaming now, a continuous flow of sound as Hob rams into him, deeper each time. He pushes back with his arms on each thrust, meets Hob each time, until suddenly Hob flattens his hand at the bottom of a stroke and-
Hob slices through the center of Dream. Dream's screaming increases in volume as his insides are split in twain, until suddenly his human-like vocal chords are filled with Hob’s fingers and the sounds come to a gargled stop.
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Hob had told Eleanor what he was before they married. She deserved to know what kind of man she was going to spend the rest of her life with.
But Hob hadn’t told Dream.
Hob is a selkie and Dream is Dream.
Bookmarked by TheResearcher
26 Apr 2026
Bookmarker's Notes
Hob woke in his bed with Dream in his arms. Beneath them was his faux fur blanket. But draped over their bodies was his skin spun from sand and dreams.
...
Hob bared his teeth. He knew he was only tiny, but he knew how to bite. The creature ignored him, however. It draped his mother’s fur over its back, and it—became his mother.
“It is what we are,” his mother said as he fled under her flipper. “Part seal, part human. You’ll be able to do that when you grow old enough.”
But he didn’t want to be a human. He didn’t like shedding his fur. He didn’t like walking on legs. He didn’t like living on land. There was no fun on land.
______
Oh, there was so much fun on land.