a lucky break(out)

by cuubism

Summary:

Hob acquires a familiar ruby at an antiquities sale. Said ruby summons something else into his home as well.

Notes:

• For bunswords.

here's one of me and buns' many, many crack dreamling headcanons. there are far worse ones. perhaps eventually they'll see the light of day

Chapter 1: fortune favors the mad

It was pure luck that brought Hob to the antiquities sale. Later, he would wonder if perhaps Fortune herself was also an entity, and had been looking out for the Dreams which so often brought her to fruition.

Hob found the poster for the thing by chance when he stumbled over a curb on his way home and nearly faceplanted into a lamppost. And it was similarly by chance that Hob was available that night. By chance, it was not far from his home. So many moments of happenstance stacking up into a bit of luck he’d be grateful for for the rest of his life.

Hob was always interested in any supposed magical artifacts. He knew that magic of some kind existed – no matter that his Stranger refused to tell him anything about himself, Hob was well-aware that he was not human and held powers of some kind – but it could be hard to discern real from fake. Hence, his habit of attending whatever strange auctions might pop up – more for curiosity’s sake than for the need to buy anything.

This sale was different.

This sale had something Hob recognized.

He froze in front of the display case, grip going tight around his glass of wine. Behind the glass panels of the case, a familiar ruby pendant glimmered. It caught the light strangely, reflecting prismatic bursts of rainbow in obliquely wrong directions, and that alone would have immediately alerted Hob to its not being a normal ruby even if he hadn’t been intimately familiar with its proper owner.

Where the hell was his Stranger?

Hob had only seen the man—being—six times, and therefore couldn’t make a wholesale judgment that he never went anywhere without the ruby, but he knew for sure the Stranger wouldn’t have let it wind up here, about to be delivered into the hands of any asshole with enough money.

So where was he?

Disturbed, Hob returned to his seat, waiting for the sale to start. He was tempted to simply break the glass and take the gem, but getting arrested wasn’t particularly on his list of fun things to do on a night out. So he’d have to do things the legal way.

One benefit of being extremely old: Hob had a lot of money to throw around. And while something in him rankled at having to buy something that was clearly stolen from his friend, he had bigger concerns.

Concerns that rattled around his mind as he walked home, ruby tucked safely in his pocket. Concerns whose screaming rose to a fever pitch as he sat down at his kitchen table, looking at his Stranger’s gem under the lemony kitchen lights.

It felt warm in his hands, the cut edges of the gemstone surprisingly smooth. The crimson at the heart of the jewel’s many faces was full-bodied as an old wine and deep as the sea; easy to get lost in.

Hob tore his attention away, looking instead at the empty apartment. The pendant chain pressed into his hands as he held it tighter, the jewel growing ever-warmer between his palms.

“Where are you, Stranger?” he murmured to himself. Hob had no way to contact him, and there were forty years yet before they were meant to meet – if his Stranger even decided to show up. “I hope you’re alright; I hope this”—he squeezed the gem—“doesn’t mean something horrible’s happened.”

He sighed. “If only you were here.”

The room shifted around him, like Hob had taken two steps backward in time and changed direction. Hob might not have even noticed if he hadn’t been staring absently in the direction of the living room at the precise moment that his Stranger appeared on the couch.

Hob jumped so high he banged his knee on the underside of the table. His Stranger seemed equally baffled, looking at his own hands, touching the fabric of the couch as if unsure it was real, then finally looking up at Hob with wide eyes.

Hob stared back at him, breath quickening. Somehow—he could only assume—the magic ruby had fulfilled his wish and summoned his Stranger here, but why was he naked? Oh God, this was Hob’s fault for having one too many… uh… dreams—

“Hob Gadling,” murmured his Stranger, voice hoarse but with wonder in it. “You have rescued me.”

“How?” This was all a lot to take in, but Hob went over to him anyway, pulling a blanket from the back of the couch and wrapping it around his bare shoulders. It was unnerving to see him so… unrefined. Disheveled. Hair a mess and body unprotected. “Wait, rescued from what?”

His Stranger’s gaze zeroed in on the ruby, still lying on the kitchen table. Hob wondered if he might be angry, but he just tilted his head in curiosity. “Now, just where did you come across that?”

“Um.” Hob forcibly tore his attention from the narrow line of his Stranger’s neck and shoulders – had he always been that thin under all those fine clothes? Had he eaten at all recently? Rescued from where? – and back to the gemstone. “Bought it. Just a few hours ago. No idea where it was before that. Knew it was yours, though. But no way to get it back to you.” Shit, he was rambling.

“And you used its power to summon me.”

Hob rubbed at the back of his neck. “That… wasn’t intentional. Though, I mean, probably would’ve been if I’d known you needed summoning.”

His Stranger stood, walking on wobbling legs – again, Hob wondered with deepening concern, rescued from where – blanket wrapped around him like a cape, to pick up the ruby from the table. A shudder ran through him as soon as he touched it and he seemed to stand straighter, taller. “How did you use it?”

“Just— just wished you were here so I could make sure nothing horrible had happened.”

His Stranger’s mouth tipped up into that tiny, fond smile Hob had seen so rarely but missed so dearly. “So you could make sure nothing horrible had happened?”

“Hey, you yourself just said you were rescued. Was I wrong?”

“No.” His voice was resigned now. He turned back to Hob, still holding the ruby. It looked far more fitting in his elegant hands than in Hob’s. “You have pulled me from an unjust imprisonment, and recovered one of my tools. I owe you a great debt.”

“You owe me nothing, friend.” Hob cringed internally as the word slipped out, but his Stranger didn’t deny him this time. “I would do it again. Though I’m still not entirely sure what I did.”

His Stranger sat down at the kitchen table. He must have been exhausted, mustn’t he? Who knew how long he’d been imprisoned. God.

Feeling restless at the thought, Hob busied himself making tea, as his Stranger explained, “The ruby contains some of my power. In the hands of humans, it can… bend certain happenings. I am grateful it was not in your possession for longer; it has the tendency to drive men mad.”

Great, Hob thought, of course it does. Kind of like you, my friend. Not that Hob had ever claimed not to be mad, from the start. “Does it usually summon whole beings, though?”

“No. It is curious… I will have to explore this more at a later time.”

Hob placed two cups of tea on the table, nudging one towards his stranger until he, reluctantly, took it. Though as soon as his skin touched the warm ceramic, he wrapped his fingers tightly around it.

“Are you alright though, my friend?” Hob asked, sipping on his own tea. He kept his tone low, casual, gentle, anything not to scare him off. But could he be scared off? Could he actually do whatever sort of quick, magical departure he usually did to disappear before Hob could possibly follow him out of the White Horse? The thought that he might not have the power for it made Hob a little sick to his stomach. “I don’t know the circumstances of this… imprisonment… but I would like to know if you’re alright.”

“I am… alright,” said his Stranger, in a tone Hob did not believe whatsoever, “but I am yet to be truly free. Your use of the ruby sprung me from Burgess’s glass prison, and restored some of my powers, but the binding circle remains intact. Without breaking it, I am bound here.”

Hob gripped his mug so hard it started to burn his fingers. Fuck whoever this Burgess guy was. And he knew, just knew, that his Stranger was downplaying by several orders of magnitude how awful it had been. What gave this guy the gall to capture a being like his Stranger, a being so beyond their mortal plane?

A being so… exquisite. So independent. So free.

“So you have to head back to break it, is what you’re saying?” Hob asked, shaking himself.

“Yes.”

“Well, alright, then,” said Hob, taking a fortifying gulp of his tea. “Then I’m coming with you.”

His Stranger looked—to the extent he ever made such an expression—alarmed. “No.”

“Yes. I’m not letting you walk back into a place you were imprisoned with no backup.” Hob crossed his arms. “As you may know, I’m a fair hand with all manner of weaponry.”

The stubbornness settling on his Stranger’s face ceded into amusement. “I am sure.”

“So that’s settled, then.”

His Stranger didn’t protest again. Hob wondered when the last time was that anybody had tried to help him. How long had he been in there?

“If you come along, you may not like what you see,” cautioned his Stranger.

“Are you saying you’re going to wreak horrible vengeance on them? 'Cause yeah, I’d hope so. You better save one for me, though.”

Again, his Stranger looked startled, but Hob just grinned.

“So, are we going now, or do you want a fortifying supper first?”

His Stranger was starting to look as whiplashed as Hob had felt when he’d suddenly appeared. “You would… feed me… supper?”

“Can’t go around killing people on an empty stomach.” Besides, Hob thought, more tenderly, you look like you need some care.

But his Stranger shook his head, coming back to himself. “We must not tarry. I do not know how my realm has fared in my absence.”

“We’ll grab a meal later, then,” Hob said easily, and was rewarded with a tiny nod and smile.

He stood, and offered his Stranger a hand up. Their gazes met, and Hob caught a glimpse of that same wonder he’d seen briefly before, when his friend had just been summoned. Confusion and hope at having a hand held out to him. Hob just smiled at him in return.

After a moment, the Stranger took Hob’s hand, pulling himself to his feet with a strength Hob hadn’t expected after such an imprisonment. He clasped the ruby pendant around his neck, and it lay gleaming against his bare sternum. Hob suddenly had to look away.

“We should, ah.” He had to pause to cough, and could just see his Stranger smirking out of the corner of his eye, the devil. “We should probably get you some trousers first.”

Notes:

second chapter? maybe. maybe so

Chapter 2: ride or die

“There are… many weapons on your person,” Dream observed with a frown. Just with a quick glance, he could count two knives, three throwing stars, what looked like a short sword, and a handgun.

“Oh, yes,” Hob agreed, tucking said gun into his belt. “This is far too high stakes to go in unprepared.”

Dream refrained from mentioning that he was already unprepared, having no idea of any of the context of this situation. On the other hand, maybe context didn’t matter. If someone got in their way, Hob would, evidently, cut them down. Perhaps it didn’t have to be more complicated than that.

The thought caused a funny feeling in his core. It had been a long time since Dream had felt anything other than anger or despair, so the new feeling was tricky to identify.

He thought it might be… tenderness.

Tenderness for Hob, who’d apparently decided he was going to ride with Dream wherever this expedition took them. And tenderness from Hob – his careful questions, the tea he pushed into Dream’s hands, the fierceness with which he said, I’m going with you.

The way he tucked the blanket around Dream’s shoulders.

It was a feeling Dream instinctively wanted to shy away from, but he’d been locked away for some time and his defenses against such things weren’t as strong as they once were.

“It is unlikely that you will have to fight someone,” he told Hob. “I will take care of them.”

“I believe you, but just in case.”

Dream looked out the car windshield at the Burgess mansion across the way. He had never seen the place from the outside, and it looked far more normal than one would expect the prison of an Endless to be. He found that, however much he was craving vengeance, he was not particularly looking forward to going back inside.

Hob made to reach across the center console, as if to straighten the lapel of Dream’s coat, but let his hand fall halfway. “Hey. You okay?”

Dream nodded. “Let us go.”

 

Every single light in the manor was on, and chaos rang out through the windows. Dream was sure everyone had awoken in an uproar the moment he’d disappeared from his glass prison.

“Guess they’ve noticed you’re gone,” said Hob, as they stood half-hidden in the shadows by the front door.

“The guards would have seen it,” said Dream absently. If only he still had his sand, he could have so easily blinked into the basement, accomplished his task, and disappeared again before anyone could react. It was possible he could manage it as he was, but testing the boundaries of his power while it was still bound by the circle might be… unwise.

“Guards?” repeated Hob, and swore colorfully. Dream couldn’t help a small smile in response. He hadn’t heard some of those curses for a few centuries.

“I guess our one saving grace is they can’t exactly call the police for help with their escaped eldritch being,” Hob continued.

Dream raised an eyebrow at him. “Eldritch being?”

“Hey, if you aren’t gonna tell me what you are I’m just gonna have to start making it up.”

This was said teasingly, but Dream thought about it. “I do believe… you may have earned that information.”

Hob looked at him, surprised. “Seriously? I wasn’t fishing for details, you know. I’ve long since come to respect that you have your reasons for your secrets.”

“Perhaps, but from what I have heard, there should not be so many secrets between—” Dream hesitated over the unfamiliar shape of the word— “friends.”

He would not have been surprised to receive some irritation in response to this long-belated admission, but instead Hob looked – delighted didn’t begin to cover it. He grinned so wide.

“As friends, then,” he said, and managed to tug a smile from Dream with the determination in the words, “shall we go set you free?”

Dream simply nodded in response, and went about his task of bringing the house’s occupants to sleep.

The summoning circle limited his power more than he'd anticipated. In his usual state, he could have put the entire house to sleep with a snap of his fingers. As it was, even with the ruby bolstering him, he wasn’t quite sure he managed it, or how long their sleep would last.

Hob watched him with a concern that rankled as the clamor inside the manor died down to a sudden silence. Dream yanked open the front door and stepped inside.

The grand foyer was like a tomb, but eerily flooded in bright lights. Everything was still on, lit, abuzz, but everything human had dropped to the floor. Or to couches, chairs, slumped against walls. Dream didn’t recognize anyone; they must have been house staff. No guards. No Alex Burgess, the boy – now man – who had once held such promise but let him down so utterly.

Hob sucked in a breath through his teeth, but otherwise didn’t make a sound. Dream, likewise, stayed silent; until his full power was restored, there was no telling how easy it might be to wake them.

Dream stared at one of the sleeping, unrecognized bodies for a long moment. More disconcerting than not knowing how long they had was the fact that these people’s identities still hadn’t come to him. Normally, Dream knew, instantly, who he was looking at, knew it from their dreams.

But he hadn’t touched the Dreaming in a long time. That knowledge was apart from him, right now. And half of these people… they were young enough to have been born after Dream was captured. He had never touched their dreams at all.

He tore his attention away. That would all be remedied shortly.

It was easy enough to pull the house’s layout from a sleeping mind. Dream quickly found the basement staircase, Hob at his heels, moving soundless as an ex-soldier could be expected to. They crept, two shadows, down into the basement, where Dream abruptly ran up against two feelings that were equally discomfiting.

The first was unease, a crawling sense that would have set his hair standing on end, if he were human. Dream didn’t even have to look at his glass prison to feel it; it crept up his arms and the back of his neck, prickled at his hair. It was like staring into a dark bedroom and finding two eyes staring back.

Rather like how a dreamer encountering one of his nightmares might feel, Dream thought.

The second was relief. Relief at having Hob at his side, at his back. Relief at having a human, a… friend, as if he wasn’t Endless, as if he wasn’t more powerful than all of this.

“Christ Almighty,” Hob hissed, gaze moving from the glass orb, to the circle and moat binding it, to the company they’d stumbled upon. “Jesus— what the fuck.”

Because here, of course, were the guards missing from upstairs, sleeping now on the cold stones. One had slipped into the moat; Dream didn’t bother pulling him out, and neither did Hob, though Dream saw his gaze glance over and catalogue it.

Here, too, were Paul and Alex Burgess, close to Dream’s prison, clearly in the middle of examining it for his means of escape when they’d been knocked unconscious.

“You were…” Hob whispered, and swore again.

Dream stepped towards the circle, weaving around fallen bodies. It felt like a sick game – make it across the room without waking anyone up, and you might be able to win your freedom.

“It was the only way to hold my physical form,” Dream murmured in response to Hob’s unasked question. He knelt beside the circle, a hair’s breadth from Alex’s prone body.

He stared down at the painted runes. Such a small thing, this, to cause so much torment. And so easily undone, had anyone considered it worth the effort.

Dream smeared his coat sleeve through the circle.

Hob sounded vicious as he repeated, “The only way to—”

Dream’s power exploded back into him before he could finish.

White light burst around them. Wind swirled in terrible gusts, blowing detritus around the basement; a howling rose in pitch until it became a scream. Power burned through Dream’s body, painful, ecstatic, euphoric.

Then it died, all at once. And Dream felt… normal again, for the first time in nearly forty years. He still needed to find his sand, his helm, but he could touch the dreams, the Dreaming. All the familiar voices swirled around him in a rising, chaotic chorus. He felt like himself.

Unfortunately, the interruption in Dream’s power meant that everybody else in the house felt like themselves, too.

Dream, momentarily lost in the swell of his returned senses, did not catch onto this immediately.

Hob, fortunately, did.

Two gunshots. Dream felt the disturbance in the air as they whizzed past before he heard them. In slow motion, he turned to watch a guard who’d been rushing for him go down, then spun back to face Hob. Hob’s gun was raised, brow set in determination, and as Dream watched, still frozen, he shot down another guard who’d leapt to his feet to rush at Dream. There wasn’t a single moment of hesitation in any of it.

Dream was not made for this world, the waking world. He rarely felt substantial here, rarely felt that he belonged, and his powers, though still considerable, were nowhere near as absolute as in the Dreaming. But this— this was reminding him that while he may not be made for this world, Hob very much was.

As he watched, Hob pulled one of his knives and threw it at a guard who’d gotten too close for his gun’s range; it landed true and dropped the man to the floor. For all that Dream was fairly certain it had been quite some time since Hob had been actively soldiering – and humans weren’t really using knives anymore, were they? At least not in the last war Dream had seen, though he hadn’t actually seen how that one had ended, now that he thought about it – he didn’t seem to have lost any of the skills. He fought with a vicious efficiency that was so transfixing Dream forgot he was standing right in the middle of a gunfight.

“Get down!” Hob yelled at him, and Dream came back to himself. Hob’s attention was already shifting to another potential threat – this time it was Alex, lurching to his feet at Dream’s side, a stolen gun clasped in his shaky hand. His eyes were lit with terror, matched only by that of Hob over his shoulder as he realized that he now had no clear line of fire, that he could so easily hit Dream instead, should he shoot.

But this boy… this boy, who Dream had once felt compassion for, who he had once hoped could deliver them both to something better. This boy – man – who had become a more fervent jailer than Dream’s original captor…

…he was no threat to Dream now.

Dream touched his forehead and the gun fell from Alex’s limp grasp. “No….” Alex whimpered, and Dream could see, now, his nightmares over the years, how he had dreamt in terror of Dream himself, in the form that Alex supposed might make up his true power; how he’d spent decades fearing horrible revenge, dreaming of it over and over. Ironic that, in the end, he had visited it upon himself by his inaction. Dream would have shown mercy, once. No longer.

“Don’t kill me,” Alex whispered, eyes growing hazy under Dream’s power.

“It is not in my prerogative to kill humans.” Dream’s voice was a breath expanding to fill all of the chamber, all of Alex’s head, a gust of icy wind. “And I need not. I can make you suffer far worse than that.”

Alex’s eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped to the floor, already deep in the claws of nightmares. Looking around, Dream found everybody else either dead, or unconscious – knocked asleep as an afterthought as he unleashed his powers on Alex.

Everybody except, of course, Hob, who was staring at him, slack-jawed. Dream met his gaze, which only seemed to aggravate whatever had him stunned.

“Your…” he murmured. “Your eyes.”

Ah. Dream blinked, and his eyes returned to their more human appearance.

Hob, too, shook himself back into focus. “We should get out of here; everybody upstairs will have heard the gunshots.”

“Asleep,” Dream told him. “I can be sure of it now.”

“Alright, then.” Hob took in a deep breath, let it out, and finally tucked his gun back into his waistband. He stepped over to one of the bodies, yanked his knife out, and stashed that away, too. Dream watched this, the bloody human mechanics of it, so far divorced from the ways he usually found himself fighting, when he had to.

Finished, Hob looked around at the scattered bodies. “Am I going to hell if this felt kind of good?”

“You are not going to hell regardless,” Dream said automatically. “I would not allow it.”

Hob squinted at him. “Thought you weren’t the devil?”

“I am not.”

“Cryptic,” Hob muttered. “Alright. Onwards, my friend. I am very ready to get out of this wretched basement, and I’m sure you are more so.”

This was undoubtedly true.

Hob shepherded him up the stairs, a hand hovering over his lower back. It was strange, this. To be shepherded as if he could possibly need protecting when he’d just put the entire house to sleep with a thought.

Still, Dream allowed it. And didn’t look back.

Notes:

godammit. how did this happen. now there's gotta be a third chapter

Chapter 3: wait, it's that easy?

Notes:

A convo with an anon on tumblr illuminated me to the fact that I’ve now set the dangerous precedent of the ruby being able to summon anything even THROUGH a binding circle that could bind dream himself. This might have some ripple effects 😂

also fuck this chapter took so long and literally for what reason

There was something strange and absurd, Hob thought, about casually walking back to his car after having killed multiple people and witnessed the undoing of some kind of demonic ritual. His Stranger was following him, and it felt more like they were out for a peaceful evening walk than returning from an impromptu violent break-in. Hob didn’t know what else to do, though, and given his Stranger hadn’t offered a suggestion, Hob figured he didn’t either.

It had been quite a night.

His Stranger stopped him with a hand on his arm before Hob could open the car door.

That was new. Touching. Hob swallowed.

“Your shoulder,” murmured his Stranger, and pressed a finger to the gash torn in Hob’s coat. His fingertip came away bloody.

Oh, yeah. That. Hob had forgotten about it in all the adrenaline. “Just a graze,” he told him, as his Stranger’s brow pinched. “Already healing, you know me.”

Really, Hob thought he’d come out of that fight pretty well, all things considered. And he’d protected his friend, that was the important thing. Hob didn’t know if this being could be injured by a bullet, but he’d decided he didn’t want to find out.

“I did not see it,” said his Stranger, seeming pained by his own inattention.

“You were kind of in the middle of a wild vortex of power at the time, so don’t sweat it. Do you feel better, by the way?”

“Do I feel better?” repeated his friend, with a huff. When Hob just kept looking at him, he said, “I have tasks yet to complete. But yes, I ‘feel better.’”

“Well, good. I’m glad of it.” Hob opened the passenger door for him, ushering him inside, another action that seemed to perplex him. But his stranger slipped into the car anyway, a movement rather more like the draping of a silk robe than the bending of joint and muscle. He really was feeling more like himself, then, if he was moving like that, like he always had before – more a conglomeration of shadow than a man. Hob preferred it to the frightening humanity of watching his legs wobble when he’d stood up from the couch, earlier that evening.

“You have a rather poor sense of preservation for your own life,” his Stranger remarked, as Hob slid into the driver’s seat and started the car.

Hob laughed. “And who enabled that by making me unable to die?”

“Not I,” said his Stranger, and Hob nearly floored the car into a tree in shock. Calming himself, he pulled more sedately out of the drive.

“What do you mean not you? You’re the one who’s been bloody well asking me about it for five hundred years!”

“You may blame my sister for your self-destruction.”

A sister, now? This was too much information all at once. Hob was pretty sure you were supposed to at least know your friend’s name before learning about their family.

“Hey, now,” he said, reeling but feeling the need to defend his good sense. “I don’t actually spend my days having gunfights in basements, you know. It’s hardly my favorite pastime.”

“No?”

Oh, so he was capable of cheek now. You give a man his ruby and his godlike powers back and that’s what you get, apparently.

“Back to the point,” said Hob. “You’re saying you didn’t create this situation?”

“I suppose I was the one who wanted to see what would happen,” admitted his Stranger. “But my sister holds sway over death, not I.”

Hob rubbed his forehead, suddenly exhausted. “I think you’re going to have to answer a few questions for me, my friend.”

“I believe that may be overdue,” his Stranger agreed.

 

“So, what tasks do you have to complete?” Hob asked. They were once again in his flat, his Stranger still with him, which Hob hadn’t quite expected but was certainly not complaining about. After fixedly watching Hob tape a bandage over his grazed shoulder – which had been a little unnerving but also kind of endearing – he had let Hob ply him with tea and the meal he’d promised him earlier, scrounged together quickly from what he had in his kitchen.

His friend seemed more confused by the concept of food than he did hungry, but he picked at his rice. Hob wondered if the taste of anything stronger was too overwhelming after not eating anything for God knew how long. He still didn’t understand anything about how his Stranger operated, including in the realm of food.

“You seem… much restored...” Hob continued, when he didn’t say anything. That ethereal quality he’d always carried at their meetings had returned, holding him again at a level of remove from the world. “But I thought you might… rest. A while longer.”

“This is but one of my tools,” said his Stranger, twisting the ruby pendant between his fingers. “I must track down the others.”

“What are the others?” Hob asked. He’d only ever seen his friend carrying the ruby. Then he remembered, and snapped his fingers before his Stranger could even open his mouth. “Oh, right! Sand!”

“Ah, yes. You have seen me use it before.”

Hob recalled that incident… vividly. But probably better not to get into that right now. After everything else, his poor heart might just give out. “What are the other ones, then?”

“My helm.”

“And I don’t suppose Burgess still had them?”

His friend shook his head. “I did not sense them there. The boy, Alex, recalled them being stolen, but knew not where they ended up.”

How, exactly, his Stranger knew that Alex had remembered that, Hob was a little afraid to find out. “Well,” he started with a sigh, “we’ll just have to do it the hard way then. I can talk to the auction people who had the ruby, see if they know—”

His friend was looking at him with wide eyes, mouth open to say something, but Hob cut him off with another thought before he could.

“Hang on. Do you think…” His gaze had caught on the kitchen light glinting off his Stranger’s gemstone. “So, the ruby was able to summon you. Do you think it could summon your tools, as well? If I wished for it? I imagine it doesn’t work that way for you, or you’d have done it already.”

His friend’s mouth shut, and he gave Hob a look that he was pretty sure meant that is ridiculous, it’s not that easy. But then he paused, considering.

“I would not have you overuse it, too much contact with a dreamstone is harmful to humans,” he said at last. Then he unclasped the pendant from around his neck and held it out to Hob. “But if you wish, you may try.”

Hob took it, their hands brushing in the tradeoff. That was a magnificent show of trust, he thought. Hob could easily use it for selfish purposes, or, hell, wish about the end of the world. But his friend trusted him not to.

Hob pressed the jewel between his hands and thought of his Stranger’s sand. He had never seen his helm, so that would likely be the harder one to get. Baby steps first.

He thought of it, and he got…

Nothing.

Silence sat heavy in the kitchen, no pouch of sand landing on the table.

Perhaps thinking of it wasn’t enough. When Hob had summoned his friend, he hadn’t just been thinking of him. He had been feeling for him. Worrying about his well-being. It was that rush of pure feeling, he thought, that must have wished him into his living room.

He thought back to their tea that had been so rudely interrupted by Lady Constantine and her goons. He thought of stepping in front of his Stranger and summoning all the scrappiness he’d picked up on the street to protect him. Instinct, really; he knew his ethereal friend was unlikely to be harmed by the likes of a few humans.

(He was, though, wasn’t he? Later on. Different humans. But he was.)

Hob shook off the thought, a thought that made him wish he could have been there, somehow, when his friend was first captured. One couldn’t change the past. Only the present.

He thought of his Stranger putting Lady Constantine to sleep with a breath, filling her mind with horrible images. Sand streaming from between his fingers.

Sleep. Images. Dreams. That was what his deal was, wasn’t it? Sleep. Dreams. Of course. All the people asleep at the manor. The dreamstone, as he’d just called it. The sleepy sickness that, now he thought of it, must have arisen around when his Stranger had been captured. Hob didn’t know how he could have been so dense.

Focus. One thing at a time. God this had been a day.

Sand. He thought of the sand streaming to the floor. He thought of the two of them standing beside each other, Hob’s chest heaving from the fight, his Stranger preternaturally still as always. That was the first moment when Hob had felt almost like they might be comrades, friends, rather than that his Stranger was a mysterious benefactor bestowing immortality.

He felt the protectiveness that flared on both ends, for his Stranger had stood in defense of him as well, hadn’t he? He probably had not actually needed Hob’s protection then. But he’d needed it today, and Hob could protect him again now, by restoring his strength, retrieving his tools, the sand that, evidently, he used to protect himself.

And it was in his hands.

Hob laughed, delighted, staring at the tiny bag cradled in his palms. It weighed nothing, but echoed with more – the potential for weight. How curious.

His Stranger looked… alarmed by Hob’s success. “That is… disquieting,” he said, plucking the bag from Hob’s grasp and spiriting it away in the folds of his coat. “But I shall not look overly close at good fortune today.”

“It’s dreams,” Hob exclaimed. He should probably give them a moment to settle but it was just bursting on his tongue. “That’s your thing.”

“My… thing,” echoed his Stranger.

“Your deal,” Hob stressed.

His friend seemed disturbed by Hob’s manner of phrasing it, but he inclined his head. “Clever.” A smile found its way to his face. “You are correct. I am Dream.”

It took Hob a second to realize he meant that was his name.

“Dream,” Hob repeated, savoring the shape of it. It was softer than he’d expected of his sharp-edged friend with all his darkness and mystery.

Something in Dream, too, softened as he said it, and it was marvelous to watch. Hob wondered when the last time was that he’d heard his name, or at least heard it from someone who didn’t mean him harm.

“Well,” Hob said, “I’m glad to know it. And you.”

“I am glad to know you as well, Hob Gadling,” said Dream.

“You’re the only one who calls me that, you know,” Hob told him, sipping his tea to avoid losing his composure from the breadth of his smile. “It’s not really like Hob is a modern name. Never used it since that first lifetime.”

“Do you prefer another?”

Not from you, Hob thought. You’re the only one who knew me then. “No, it’s nice to have it remembered, I think.”

“Then I am glad to remember it,” said Dream. Hob met his gaze, and the warmth there charmed his heart.

He let them linger in the moment for a minute or so, then he said, “Getting your helm’s going to be a bit harder, I think. I’ve never seen it, after all.”

“You have already performed me a great favor in retrieving two of my tools,” Dream said. “This is not your responsibility, Hob.”

“Perhaps not,” Hob agreed. “But if I can help a friend, why wouldn’t I?”

Dream tilted his head at him, studying that response.

“Tell me about your helm,” Hob said. “What do you use it for?”

If the sand was any indication, Hob had to be able to attach some emotional connection to the thing to be able to summon it. He didn’t think merely knowing it was important to Dream, and therefore important to him by proxy, was going to be precise enough.

Dream considered. “It is a very long, very old story,” he said, the weight of that story held in the gravel tones of his voice. “But, in brief: my realm was once invaded by great beasts, who would occupy it and tear it apart for their own purposes. Alone, I defended it, nearly perishing in the attempt – and afterwards tore from one of the invaders his exoskeleton, fashioning it into a helm of defense that others making similar attempts might know their fate. It has since become a symbol of my office.”

Hob had to take several moments to try to comprehend this. Dream waited, considering him. Hob was struck by the image he’d painted – Dream, alone, bloodied, his attacker’s corpse in his hands as a shield. He was also struck by the amount of detail Dream had actually offered, letting Hob, in a sense, behind that very shield.

“So, it protects you?” he said, latching on to what he could use, what he had used before.

Dream’s mouth popped open automatically, but he paused before speaking, as if Hob’s approach had taken him by surprise. “I… suppose. Symbolically.”

Close enough.

“Alright.” Hob pressed the ruby between his palms. It was warm, now, from his skin. “Let’s try it, then.”

He focused on the image Dream had created for him. He focused on his desire to protect Dream from any who might hurt him, and his desire for Dream to protect himself.

He could… almost sense it. The size, the shape, the weight of the thing, the way Dream carried himself when he wore it. Hob could feel it in his mind like an impression, but…

…no matter how hard he pulled, he couldn’t quite grab it.

“Sorry,” he said, chagrined, releasing the gem. “Guess I just don’t know it well enough.”

“Do not apologize. You have already spared me much time and effort.” Dream took the ruby back and clasped it around his neck. “And I do not think this is your failing. Rather, it suggests to me that my helm is somewhere the dreamstone cannot pull it from.”

Hob’s eyebrows rose. “Somewhere even stronger than that cage? Like where?”

Dream tilted his head, thinking. “Another realm,” he said at last. “In all likelihood.”

“You mean not on earth?”

Dream nodded.

Hob dropped his head in his hands. “Christ.”                                                            

Perhaps this shouldn’t have been the worst thing, but this felt like the final— no, there had been a lot of final straws. Theoretically Hob had known Dream came from… elsewhere, he had even mentioned his realm, but realms, plural, many, was just—

This had all been a lot, frankly.

“Hob.” Dream’s voice was tentative. “Are you… well?”

“Oh, just having my worldview shaken for the fifth time this evening. But no big deal.”

Dream patted his arm awkwardly.

Hob summoned his composure, sitting back up and dragging his hands through his hair. There’d be time to internalize all of this information later. “Right. I don’t know anything about realms, but I can call the auction house and find out who sold the ruby. Maybe the same person had your helm at some point. Could be a start, right?”

“You do not… have to do this,” said Dream, frown deepening.

Just accept some help, you ridiculous creature. It wasn’t like Hob was even offering much. They’d already broken him out, this was the easy part.

“I want to,” Hob said.

If anything, Dream looked more troubled. “I do not know what you would have in return.”

Hob bit back a groan of frustration. But the last thing he wanted was to berate his friend, not now. “Tell you what. Meet me for drinks some time before 1989, and we’ll call it even.”

Dream kept frowning, but it wasn’t a look of upset now. It was something more confused and fragile. Hob wished he could banish it from his face. “That is what you wish?”

“A few hours out of your very busy schedule, yes.”

Dream’s frown didn’t dissipate, but it did soften. “Very well. I will meet you when I can.” An easier light came back to his eyes. “After all, I believe I promised you some answers.”

Hob chuckled. “Oh, you very much did. And I plan to hold you to it.”

It ended up being just Hob’s luck that the auction house didn’t know anything about the ruby’s mysterious seller or any other items they might have possessed. Hob supposed things had been rather too easy already, not everything could just fall into his hands. He could only be grateful that Dream had.

This also, unfortunately, meant that he couldn’t keep his friend here for longer.

Hob wanted to be greedy about it. But he knew how Dream was anxious to return to his own realm. At least he could now count himself lucky that he wouldn’t have to keep wondering whether Dream would show up in 1989.

“I suppose you’re off, then?” he said once he’d hung up the phone.

Dream nodded, but didn’t seem as relieved about it as Hob might have thought, which made Hob feel like maybe things were really different between them. Like maybe compelling Dream to visit some time before their next appointment wasn’t really a burden.

“I have left my realm without proper guardianship for many years, this is not fair to my subjects, or to the dreamers,” he said. He stood from the table, elegant as ever. Hob loved just… watching him, and that was how he knew he really had it bad. Not that he hadn’t known that for centuries now. “I thank you, Hob, for your hospitality.”

“Anytime.” Hob’s smile was tempered by sadness at having him leave. He walked him to the door.

Dream hovered on the threshold, looking back at him. “You have… performed an act of great service for me, and after I had so rebuked your friendship—”

Hob couldn’t listen to this any longer. “Oh, just come here.”

He pulled Dream into a hug.

Dream stiffened as Hob’s arms went around him, and Hob realized a second too late that going for a full hug with his friend who’d been in a bowl for forty years maybe hadn’t been the best move—

Then Dream hugged him back. He gripped Hob’s shirt and leaned into him. He felt so… fragile to hold. Hob knew he wasn’t, he knew well, now, how powerful he was. But still, he felt it.

Hob hadn’t understood, before, Dream’s frustrating inability to accept help. But he understood then. Decades trapped and alone, he thought. With people near but none willing to offer so much as a compassionate glance.

No wonder any outstretched hand felt like a trap.

Hob squeezed him tighter, caring less and less if doing so was too much, because God.

Dream tipped his head against Hob’s temple, hair brushing his ear, and Hob stopped breathing.

Then, quick as he’d moved against him, his friend pulled away again. He looked serious once more, like that moment hadn’t even occurred. Hob let him keep his stoicism.

“It’s called an act of great friendship,” he told him, throat tight.

Dream tipped his head in acknowledgement. “Indeed.”

“Listen, Dream…” Hob added, chewing on his lip as he deliberated, studying Dream’s stolid expression. “If you’ll permit me any advice. I know that this was… hard.” Understatement. “And I don’t know how it works for you, but if I know anything about such things, broadly speaking, it will get harder before it gets easier. Just—” He ran his hands up and down Dream’s arms as if this could somehow help when the hurt he had suffered was soul deep, not just of the body. Could warm him a bit, maybe. “You’ll find your way, I’m sure. But…”

He thought, again, of Dream and his helm on a field of bodies. It hurt his heart, and not because he was sad for the beasts that Dream had slain.

“Don’t make a shield of it,” he finished.

Dream frowned at him, searching Hob’s eyes for understanding. He didn’t get it, Hob knew, and perhaps it was still too raw for him to get it.

“I assure you,” Dream said at last, “I am… poorly shielded at the moment.”

This was the opposite of reassurance, but Hob mustered a smile for him anyway. “Take care of yourself.”

Dream nodded, and stepped through the doorway. And then in a flash of sand, he was gone.

And Hob knew that he’d just traded worrying about his friend coming to their 1989 meeting for worrying about his friend period, but he still wouldn’t change it.

Now he’d just have to wait.

 

Hob didn’t see Dream again for nearly a year, and honestly, he’d expected it to be longer. The only parameter he’d given had been some time before 1989, after all. Who knew when that would be.

Hob ached to see him, at least in part to make sure he was alright, that’d he’d recovered his helm, that he’d recovered himself after his ordeal. Even for such a being, it could not be easy to return to normality after suffering like that.

He got his wish a scant eleven months after Dream had first appeared on his couch. This time, he knocked on the door.

Not expecting anyone, Hob opened it with a frown – which immediately burst into a brilliant smile upon seeing who was on the other side.

“My friend!” There was something still so thrilling about being able to say that, even though he now knew his name as well. “Expected you’d arrive by materializing in the living room.”

“I thought it best not to repeat that,” Dream said with a smile.

He seemed much restored. Hob hadn’t realized how much restoring there had still been left to do until he saw him standing there, looking warmer, less gaunt, and settled back into himself.

Hob gestured him in.

“I’m glad to see you looking well,” he said, making his way to the kitchen and filling up the kettle. “I assume you were able to get your helm?”

“I was,” Dream confirmed, leaning against the counter at Hob’s side. “It was in Hell.”

Hob’s hand spasmed, water splattering wildly over the kettle’s rim. “I’m sorry. What?”

Dream had an amused look on his face when Hob turned to him. “A demon had it,” he explained, which did nothing to calm Hob’s shock.

“Um,” Hob said, steeling himself enough to put the kettle on the stove and lean beside Dream on the counter as it heated, “okay. Leaving aside that Hell exists, because that is too much for this hour—”

“It is but early evening,” Dream countered.

“For any hour, just—” What did he even want to ask? “Did you— did you make out okay? Are you feeling well?”

Dream looked… Hob would dare say almost charmed. “You would care for one such as I?”

“For one such as you?” Hob scoffed. “You mean a friend? Yes, I would care for you. You think I killed six people in that manor for laughs? Of course I care about you.”

This all came out in a rush, and Hob leaned stiffly against the counter afterwards. Maybe that was too much.

But Dream turned to him, leaning, again, beside him. Hob took in, in a way he hadn’t in his shock at seeing Dream at the door, his attire. He wasn’t wearing the usual clothes of the age, as he had when Hob had met him before. His shirt and trousers looked… vaguely correct for the current year, though more an approximation than a specific style, but his coat was long and sweeping, more a cloak, or a robe, than anything Hob had seen someone wear on the street. Hob wondered if this was closer to his natural state, when he was in the realm he apparently ran, as opposed to the mask of human normalcy he wore out in the open.

The thought was unexpectedly affecting. It also made him think, unexpectedly, of the moment he’d appeared on Hob’s couch wearing nothing at all.

Hob swallowed.

“It was not the first time, was it?” Dream said.

Hob had lost the thread of the conversation. “The first time…?”

“That you… cared for me,” Dream clarified. Hob couldn’t quite read the expression on his face.

I’ve cared for you since at least 1489, Hob thought. But he tried to conceive of the matter from the angle from which Dream might be looking at it.

Then he understood. Oh God. “Do you mean with Lady Constantine?” he asked, cheeks coloring.

Dream nodded. He tipped his head in that birdlike way of his, eyes gleaming. “As I recall, you were quite gallant.”

This was going in a direction Hob didn’t know how to handle. But hell if he wouldn’t seize the opportunity. “If that’s what you call smashing a teacup into someone’s face.”

Dream didn’t take back his words. “I have thought of it,” he said. “Frequently. This past year.”

He had thought of it?

Well, Hob thought, a nigh hysterical laugh bubbling up in his throat, at least we’re on the same page about that.

Hob still didn’t know where this was going. He knew where he hoped it was going, but he was going to have to let Dream tell him if he was right.

“You’ve thought of it, hmm?” Hob said, and Dream nodded. “I’ve thought of you, too, you know.”

“Have you?”

“Constantly.” This was not new to this year, but, well… “The way you brought all your power back to yourself. How… incredible you were. But I suppose you know that, from dreams and such.”

“I… can see dreams, if I choose to,” said Dream. He felt imperceptibly closer, though Hob didn’t think he had moved. His eyes were deep as the sea in the low light of the kitchen. “Would you like me to choose to, Hob?”

Hob was caught by his gaze. Then the kettle screamed to a boil behind him and he realized that maybe it was better for his self-preservation to slow things down for a second, actually, and turned to the stove to begin assembling the tea.

“This is… different,” he observed. “Not that I’m complaining! But.”

Dream was quiet for long enough, thinking, that Hob was able to press his tea into his hands. “I did not understand what you said, when we last spoke,” he finally said, looking off across the kitchen in thought. Hob had always thought that there was something a bit haunted about him, and he saw it again now. “About… not creating a shield. But I have reflected and… I believe I do, now.”

Hob’s heart suddenly picked up in a pattering beat. “Oh?” Honestly, the mere fact that Dream had reflected on something he’d said was a shock; clearly his ordeal had shaken something out of him. Hob hoped he hadn’t been too alone, this year. It wasn’t good to be alone with such thoughts.

Dream’s fingertips pressed white against the ceramic of his mug. “It has been tempting to allow my imprisonment to validate my feelings about humanity. For many months, I did just that. But… I recalled your friendship. Like a candlelight against my canopy of shadow. And what comfort, truly, can the blanket of that shadow be if it blinds me to you?”

Dream spoke with barely an intonation, but still Hob shook with the feeling of it. With the… trust, in the admission.

He laid his hand lightly over Dream’s wrist.

“I believe I have been quite blind,” Dream concluded. He didn’t move away from Hob’s touch.

“Pain builds up walls in us,” Hob said quietly. Lord, the number of people he’d pushed away after Robyn’s death. Maybe, if he hadn’t, everything else wouldn’t have fallen apart as it had. “I know it well enough. But kindness takes them down, eh?”

Dream met his gaze again, eyes glimmering, a soft smile on his lips. “You have a simple and direct wisdom, Hob Gadling.”

“That’s just life experience,” Hob said, but he was touched nonetheless.

“All men live, but not all men learn from it,” said Dream, and Hob felt his regard, then, stronger even than in 1889 when Dream had observed that he’d changed. “As I have so recently encountered.”

And as in 1889, Hob couldn’t help but be presumptuous. He took Dream’s face in his hand, stroked his thumb over that angular cheekbone. Unlike in 1889, he was rewarded by Dream tipping his face into his touch. Had anyone touched him kindly since they’d last met? He had a sister, Hob recalled, but did he have any other friends, someone to comfort him, on the rare occasions he might allow it?

Dream’s eyes fell shut as he sank into Hob’s touch, and Hob got the sense that the answer was no. This poor thing, he thought, not with pity but with affection and melancholy. Poor, dear creature.

Dream tipped further forward into him, and Hob took his tea back from him before it could spill, setting it aside. Then he brought that hand to Dream’s face as well, and Dream made a soft sound at the touch, barely there.

“Much as I was enjoying the flirting via recollection of heart pounding scrapes we’ve gotten into,” Hob murmured, “you don’t actually have to do that. Don’t you know how long you’ve had me?”

“What shall I do, then?” breathed Dream, looking at him again.

Fuck, he was so close, and his eyes were so dark, and for centuries Hob had thought that he was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen but never more so than standing there in his simple kitchen, loose in his long robe and with his chest rising and falling like Hob had never seen it, affected like he’d never seen him, real like he’d never seen. Touchable. Soft. In reach. And never mind the ethereal dream creature that had allured Hob’s waking and sleeping minds both for centuries – it was this real thing, this hurting and feeling thing in his hands that Hob would do anything for. Had done anything for.

“Just this.”

Hob kissed the corner of his mouth, barely slotting their lips together. Dream’s lips were soft and just a bit cold, like he’d been out in the chill, but started to warm at Hob’s touch. Dream tipped his head in and caught his lips properly. His hands found Hob’s shirt and held on.

For all that Dream seemed a bit adrift in emotions, he clearly knew what he was doing here. But he was made of dreams, wasn’t he? Or something like that, Hob still had some questions about how it worked. A being made of dreams would have felt near every kiss ever kissed, and it showed.

Hob laughed against his mouth, both at the thought and the elation of having the man – being? – he’d loved so long, so futilely, it had once felt, pressed against him now. Pressed against him, and kissing him deeper, hands holding Hob’s sides through his shirt.

Hob let his hands slide back and into his hair, something he’d wanted to do for centuries, and Dream hummed into his mouth, pleased. Hob loved the sound, loved the idea of him pleased, pleased by Hob, by them together.

He still had his hands in Dream’s hair, holding him close, when they pulled apart. It stuck back up, straight as ever, every time he ran his fingers through it, which was charming. A little bit of out-of-control chaos poking up amid his general stoicism.

Dream didn’t look stoic now, though. His lips kept tugging up in a little smile, irrepressible, and his eyes had a light in him that Hob hadn’t seen in a long time, or maybe ever. Hob was so in love with that look, he just wanted to touch his face forever, and then did, running a thumb over Dream’s lips.

“Just that?” said Dream, teasing. His voice swept low through Hob’s body like the rush of another kiss.

“Or more,” Hob told him. “Though I usually find it’s polite to kiss first if one wants to give the right impression.”

“And what impression is that?”

Hob could just go ahead and say it but he wasn’t sure they were quite ready for that, Dream especially. Instead, Hob said, “That you aren’t casual to me.”

Dream’s eyes flickered with a brightness that was rather like starlight. “This is fortunate,” he murmured, “as… I have been told that there is no casual for me.”

“Why do I believe that so easily?” Hob wondered, with a grin. “You are wonderfully intense and serious, and I wouldn’t want to be casual to you.”

If anything, meaning something real to Dream was all he'd ever wanted.

Dream tipped his face in toward Hob’s; Hob decided to take this as a hint and pull him into a proper hug. He had a feeling Dream had been rather deprived of them.

“Does this mean I’ll be seeing you more than once a century?” Hob asked.

“I should think so.”

“Good.” Hob pulled back but didn’t let him go. Hell if he’d ever let him go. “Because you still owe me answers, you know.”

Dream gave him that tiny smile again. “I do know. And you shall have them.”

“And by the way,” Hob added. “You disappear again? I’m coming after you this time.”

“You would rescue me?”

“Don’t offend me by even asking that question.”

“I did rather… enjoy… the last rescue,” Dream drawled, hands running up and down Hob’s sides. “You were very efficient. It was pleasing to watch.”

“Oh.” Hob thumbed at his lip again, pressing into the soft flesh. “Pleasing, was it?”

“Very.”

“Guess we’ll have to figure out how to repeat that,” Hob said. “Though preferably without the actual rescue.”

Dream hummed in agreement, leaning into his touch. Hob would hold him as long as he needed to to banish all those years without, and then after, too.

“I would come for you,” Hob said again, more seriously. “And without even mysteriously summoning you this time.”

Dream gave him that charmed smile he so loved. “I do believe you would.”

Notes:

i swear this was crack when we started out