Work Text:
The beginning of the end starts like this:
Robert Gadling, PhD, Associate Professor of History and Medieval Studies, is accosted outside of his 240C: Medieval Life for the Common Man – Food, Drink, and Song lecture on Tuesday afternoon and held at bookpoint by his fellow Associate Professor of History and Philosophy, Nina Arcosta.
Nina is, Hob would generously say at any time in which there is not a copy of Hesse’s Demian held against his jugular, a friend. A dear friend, at that.
Right now, however, Hob wonders if he has accidentally fucked up one of his faculty emails, or perhaps the coffee he so generously bought for her this morning gave her the shits, because the look across Nina’s face is nothing short of murderous.
“Hi?” Hob says in greeting.
“Robert,” and here there is a pause as Nina inhales, “Gadling. You have some explaining to do.”
“Do I?” Hob asks, stalling for time. He does, in fact, know what he has to explain.
See, Sunday had been the bi-semester history faculty department meeting a la brunch, and Hob had missed it, in spite of promising a great many people (Nina foremost) he would be there. Usually, he and Nina were joined at the hip against the droning of the Department head and the financier and what budget concerns there were and how many students they were or were not attracting to the program. Tedious, boring, necessary. Not explicitly mandatory to attend, but in effect compulsory to stay in good graces.
Hob had come home from the gym that Sunday afternoon, preparing himself to be suited and go rub shoulders with everyone and their mother. He had been so ready to do all of that, until Hob entered his bedroom and found Dream of the Endless splayed across his sheets, skin completely bared.
Hob never made it out the door.
“I had a bit of an emergency,” Hob lies.
Nina’s ferocious brows furrow. “Did you?”
“Yes,” Hob says. Nobody at the university knows about Hob’s relationship—not yet, anyway. Not if Hob has anything to say about it.
Nina does not press, but she jabs the book into his neck once before releasing him.
“You left me all alone, Robbie. I had to sit next to Emerson Keating for an hour and listen to the man’s droning on and on about church tithes. I missed you,” Nina says emphatically.
“I’m sorry, I really was held up,” Hob says, and they begin the walk down to the offices.
“Yeah, I’m just ratting on you,” Nina sighs out, tucking a flyaway strand of hair behind her ear.
“Anything important I missed?” Hob asks.
Nina sends him a completely saddened facial expression. “Oh, yes, Robbie.”
“Oh no,” Hob says.
“It is the History Departments 125th Anniversary since founding, and so the Dean and Sherry have decided to have our regular end-of-semester dinner be a more fancy affair.”
“Oh no,” Hob says, with feeling. Sherry is the department’s fiercesome head, and if she got an idea in her head, there was no availing her of it.
Nina’s face has transformed into a mask of malicious glee, to impart this news upon him like a malevolent Gabriel.
“We are having our dinner in the Alumni Hall, and it is to be a black-tie formal affair. Donors, the President, the whole nine yards. Real catering, I hope,” Nina tells him.
“No,” Hob groans.
“And—And,” Nina adds, “All of our partners are explicitly invited. As in Sherry might cut off your dick if you don’t show up with some sidepiece.”
Easy for Nina to say—she got married to Liliana last year (nice wedding, honeymoon in Paris), and will thus have zero issues with a date.
“On a scale of one to ten, how likely is it that I will survive castration?” Hob decides then and there.
It wasn’t that Hob couldn’t ask Dream; Hob just wouldn’t want to inflict that sort of human event on his unfathomably old, unfathomably beautiful, unfathomably antisocial partner who nobody at the university even knows exists.
“A three,” Nina says, completely deadpan. “I will find you someone, though, don’t worry your pretty little bisexual head over it.” She reaches over and pats his arm in a matronly way.
“Please, don’t,” Hob says weakly.
“Oh, I will have the time of my life, Robbie. You’ve been single for what—the last two years? You need to put yourself out there!” Nina says.
Hob opens his mouth to protest, and then closes it. There’s no use arguing with Nina once she’s set her mind to something, Hob’s learned. It’s what made her such an effective historian and researcher—nobody else could find sources like she did. Pure perseverance.
“I’m fine, I’ll survive,” Hob says, but Nina just shakes her head at him.
“No, you won’t. Plus, you’ll have to rent a nice suit for this one. Sherry had a slideshow of examples.”
Hob groans again as they enter their shared office. He collapses into his chair and buries his face in his hands.
“Man or woman? Are you looking to increase the history departments’ diversity quota?” Nina says, already having whipped out her phone.
“I’m a white bloke—find a guy I guess, let the stereotype be realized,” Hob mutters, succumbing to her machinations.
“Find me a man,” Nina singsongs. Between her and Liliana (a model from Spain), they must know half of the people in the world.
Hob doesn’t know how to put her off. What he and Dream have is still so new, barely a year old, and Hob doesn’t want to ruin it with other people just yet. Even if he kind of does want to show everyone up with Dream. But it would be a disaster. Dream is not a being made for small talk.
Hob sighs into the desk again, and then pulls himself back to his work.
♥
Later, Dream is washing dishes in the sink while Hob grades papers and tries not to think about The Faculty Dinner.
Well, Hob’s trying to grade papers. He keeps getting distracted by the sight of Dream. After six-hundred years plus of only seeing Dream for a few moments in a century, suddenly Hob’s been inundated by seeing his beloved every few days, and Hob’s riding high off the feeling.
So screw Hob if he gets distracted. Dream’s wearing pink rubber gloves and scowling at the casserole pan like it has personally offended him, and even the pout of Dream’s lips is beautiful. That Dream’s arms are bared from the elbow up until his triceps disappear into his thin shirt is an added bonus.
Hob rests his head on his hands and just. Watches. Dream had offered to do the dishes, telling Hob in that sleepslow voice of his that Hob needed to work, and Hob had relented before realizing that watching Dream of the Endless wash dishes was in fact both so sweet and hilarious that the papers sit under Hob’s arms completely forgotten.
“You’re not working,” Dream says over the rush of the faucet. His head hasn’t even turned around. Hob wonders if people dream about doing the dishes. Or maybe that’s more in the realm of Nightmare; Sisyphean tasks and all that.
“I’ve got the most beautiful creature in the world washing my dishes, how could I possibly think about anything else?” Hob asks sweetly.
Dream does turn his leonine head at the flattery; his expression is unamused. “I will give you something else to dream about if you do not finish your own work. At least one of us is working.”
It takes Hob a minute to parse Dream’s meaning.
“Are you threatening me? With nightmares?” Hob gasps, only half affronted.
“Of your students and your work, yes,” Dream confirms, setting the scoured pan in the drying rack. It’s a wonder that Dream even knows how to wash dishes in the first place. It certainly seems like the kind of thing that he would never stoop to do. Dream didn’t even eat, most of the time.
“Isn’t that an abuse of your power?” Hob wonders aloud.
“Abuse?” Dream scoffs. “I am Dream.” He says it with finality, as if the very notion is absurd. He plucks a fork from the mess of dishes in the sink and runs the sponge over it.
Hob sighs and picks up his red pen from the table. The actual art of grading the papers is rote and familiar to him, and so Hob barely registers the faucet being turned off. A shadow falls over Hob and hands pet up the side of his neck, still warm from the dishwater.
“And here I thought you wanted me to finish grading these,” Hob grumbles into his fifth of twenty-nine essays.
“You can work,” Dream of the Endless says, before pulling out Hob’s chair and the man himself from the table, slotting his thin form in-between them, perching lightly in Hob’s lap.
Hob butts his chin against Dream’s chest, and peers up into the seashell curve of Dream’s jaw. Dream’s weight is more present than memory but less tangible than fact, so all Hob’s brain tamps down on is the coolness of Dream’s thighs and the slight of his rib cage where it rests between Hob’s arms.
“I definitely cannot work like this, love,” Hob tells him. He can’t; Dream is almost as tall as Hob himself, and alight as he is on Hob’s lap, Hob can barely peek over his shoulder.
Dream’s arm encircles Hob’s shoulders, and Dream inhales audibly. This action is for Hob’s benefit, he thinks, but the exhale Dream releases is absolutely for Dream’s own theater-level dramatics.
“Then finish them some other time,” Dream says imperiously.
“They’re forgotten already,” Hob assures him.
Dream brings his head down then, blinks his moonlit eyes, and kisses Hob’s brow. The action is made sweeter by the smile tucked into the corners of Dream’s mouth when he pulls back.
It is moments like these Hob has to remind himself to breathe; that he is not dreaming, that Dream really is sitting in his lap, smelling like chemical lemon and breathing warm across Hob’s face. That Dream has come down like God unto mankind, that Dream loves Hob without boundaries. Even more: Hob’s love is reciprocated and in the depths of the night his centuries of yearning are absolved and soothed-over, that the mortal scars of his heart and his dreadconstant fear that he will be left alone at the end of it all are laid to rest. Dream is here, sitting in Hob’s dim kitchen wearing a faded t shirt that Hob had grown out of once he stopped partying so hard in the early thousands. He’s here. He’s Hob’s.
Hob hugs tight Dream’s waist, and tilts his head up, ever greedy.
And ever wondrous, Dream gives him what Hob desires.
♥
“You have a date tonight,” Nina says without preamble the next time their paths cross.
Fuck. Hob had been trying to forget about that.
“Who’s the unlucky bloke?” Hob asks, internally groaning.
“Brent, 32, does marketing, has two dogs and likes to hike and go to the roller derby,” Nina says.
Hob sighs. He really wishes he could just tell her he is already in a relationship, but that would open an entirely different can of worms, and it would be better to just humor her—and who knows, maybe Hob will have a funny story or two to share.
“Marketing? You have a picture of Brent,” Hob says.
“Indeed,” Nina says, and presents her phone with a flourish.
Brent looks nice enough. He’s got his dog in the photo. He’s broad and tan and admittedly has nice curly hair but frankly, Hob’s got the most beautiful person in the world waiting at home for him, and no one really compares to Dream of the Endless, can they?
“Isn’t it kind of unfair to Brent that I’m not actually interested in him? That I’m just using him as fodder for a faculty dinner?” Hob asks.
Nina shakes her head. “Everyone I’ve got lined up already knows you’re not looking for something. They want to try for you..”
“Wait,” Hob says, glancing over at her. “Are you saying you’ve shown me around? Like some poor grandmother who just really, really wants grandkids? What photos have you squirreled away of me?”
“Oh, a few,” Nina says. There’s a glimmer in her eyes.
“Oh, fucking hell,” Hob groans.
“If you’re really serious, you should tell me to stop right now,” Nina adds, a thread of concern weaving through her tone.
“No, you’re fine, I just know I need to find better blackmail material on you,” Hob says.
“Better?” Nina exclaims.
Hob just cackles, and no amount of slapping from her end is enough to divest him of his secrets.
Brent is, unfortunately for Nina who is a lesbian and thus not as fine-tuned in the art of Picking Men, just a bit dull. Marketing majors. Hob’s only supposed to be thirty-four, dammit, but the man has chosen a bright flashy club that 1994 Hob would’ve loved, but makes 2022 Hob just want to go home and have a lie-in. What is he, 25?
It becomes clear extremely quickly that whatever photos Nina had of Hob, they clearly gave the wrong impression about what kind of person Hob was. She should’ve taken one of him slumped over his desk at the end of the semester, wearing the same shirt two days in a row and gone without a shave. Maybe it’d attract more like-minded people.
Who the hell took a guy to a nightclub for a meet?
“Yeah, and here’s—“ Brent is trying to shout something to Hob over the bass thudding through Hob’s heart, but there’s a phone being shoved in his direction.
Two border collies stare up from the screen, and Hob likes them, he does, but the flashing lights are threatening to give him a headache. Hob’s clutching some overpriced, fruity alcohol that he had only taken one sip of before he knew it was going to make him sick to his stomach later.
“They’re cute,” Hob remarks close to Brent’s ear.
Still, Hob supposed he needed to take someone to the dinner. He’s made some small talk and learned an absurd amount of information about Brent’s dogs and his newest derby matches, all while offering up very little about himself.
Half of this is because Brent hasn’t asked, which is beginning to grate on Hob’s nerves.
But the interest must be enough, because Brent boldly solicits him at the end of the night, and if that doesn’t make Hob feel like a helium balloon left alone for a few days, deflated and unamused, he doesn’t know what will. Hob extricates himself from the man and the nightclub, and hails a cab home.
♥
Hob is standing in Richard’s ballroom. Hob remembers it specifically for the massive oil painting of the man’s beloved horse which commanded the gaze to the one wall. God, that had to have been the 1570s. What was the name of the horse?
The party is attended by too many people for this small a room, and amazingly, there is no smell of sweat or tallow hanging in the air. The light is yellow and hazy; and it is under this light that Hob sees the many ladies waiting in a line at the other side of the hall.
“Come on, Robert!” Richard calls, but Hobsie can’t, he’s too young for dancing!
“I’m just a kid!” Hobsie protests, but Richard, the dick, takes him by the arm and drags him towards the women. They loom over him, reminding Hobsie of his youth, that he’s only a boy!
“You need to pick one, and be polite to her,” Eleanor’s father says on Hobsie’s left, and Hobsie shudders under his gaze.
Hobsie searches down the line for Nelly, but his wife, his beloved, she is missing from the line, and Hobsie doesn’t want to spurn her by picking any other.
“Where’s Eleanor?” Hobsie asks his father-in-law, but Eleanor’s father is gone, and only Richard remains. His horse is there, chewing on the man’s hair.
“I dunno man, maybe she went home, or maybe she’s off being had by ----” Richard’s mouth fuzzes around the last word, and Hobsie is seeing red.
It takes the combined strength of all the dancing women to pull him off, and Hob’s a man again, his blood boiling at the offense, but Eleanor still isn’t present, and Hob shouts for her—but she’s gone.
Hob wakes, and cancels his morning lecture.
♥
“I’m inflicting another date upon you, since Brent didn’t work out,” Nina tells him.
“Oh? Found someone better this time?” Hob jokes. “Maybe someone who won’t take me to a nightclub? I’m old, Nina. The flashing lights were too much for this old man.”
“Ha-ha. No, I’ve found someone more interesting. He’s a TA at Hemst; studies bugs? Whatsit, Etymology?”
“I think it’s Entomology,” Hob says.
“Bugs. Anyways, his name’s Dan,” Nina says, showing him a picture of a man who, admittedly, looks exactly what Hob thought a guy who studies insects with a passion would look like.
“This is a wild deviation from Brent,” Hob observes.
Nina shrugs. “You’ve just got to find someone breathing, and I don’t think he’ll take you to a club.”
Dan did not, in fact, take Hob to a club.
They met at the park, which would’ve been nice if it wasn’t November and freezing, but apparently Dan didn’t mind the cold.
“Hey! Robert, right?” Dan is effusive and bubbly, and Hob immediately likes him, as a person, and feels kind of bad that he’s being misled.
“Just call me Robbie,” Hob offers, shaking his hand.
“Robbie! Alright—I’ll admit, I was real surprised when Nina hit me up asking if I wanted a date, I mean, the pictures—Whew! Man, you must be hitting the gym often—Can’t say the same for myself, but you know, the insects don’t really care and I’ve always been one for the second helping, myself—Anyways, it’s an absolutely gorgeous day, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Sure,” Hob says. Just what pictures does Nina have of him?
Dan offers the crook of his arm, and Hob stares at it for a second, wondering if the man is serious, before the elbow drops and Dan starts off down the pathway, rambling a mile a minute about the weather and the cloud patterns and Hob just blinks before setting off after him.
After learning about half of Dan’s life story and a few traumas besides, Hob is feeling the beginnings of a headache but again; they’re in the middle of a park, and this offers Hob no easy out to leave.
There’s a food truck parked near the front entrance, just in time for an early dinner, and Dan makes a beeline for it.
Hob won’t say no to food, and so he orders a gyro and looks up to the sky as if to ask for guidance.
“Nina said you teach medieval history,” Dan eventually says, and the question actually directed at Hob startles him.
“Uh, yeah, I do,” Hob says.
“Gosh, I could never. Just a bunch of reading and all those dusty old stories? Whew, man, people look at me for my love of bugs but they’ve got nothing on you,” Dan says, not unkindly, but Hob inhales and tampers down his urge to just. Get up. Walk away.
“Well, I really love what I do,” Hob says.
“I mean, hey—that’s what matters, yeah?” Dan says.
The food truck calls out Hob’s order, and when he approaches he looks back at the man sitting at the picnic table and the chill in the air and thinks to himself: I want to go home. So he does.
♥
Dream is sitting at the picnic table, absolutely demolishing a gyro and not letting Hob eat a single bite.
“But I’m so hungry,” Hob says, and his stomach is a black hole, a gaping maw such as he hasn’t felt since the late 1600s, so empty and devouring and Dream is right there! “Love, can’t you just—”
Dream just laughs at him.
The picnic table is a slab of stone, and the gyro is scattered across it, lamb chunks an unholy sacrifice to God, and Dream is leaning against Hob’s side.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here in the sight of God,” Nina says, wearing a starched collar and standing in front of the altar. There’s still the remains of gyro on it, and Hob stumbles forward to try and brush them off, because it’s his wedding day and there can’t be a mess.
“Will you, Hobert, take this man as your wedded wife?” Nina asks him, and Hob turns to see Brent, 32, Marketing, standing at his side.
“No!” Hob exclaims, but there’s already a ring on his finger and Brent’s perfect face is leaning close for a kiss--
Hob wakes with a gasp.
“Holy hell,” Hob curses towards the ceiling.
♥
“Nina, I can’t do another. I can’t. Let me just lose my penis, please,” Hob says first thing when he arrives at their shared office.
“Was it that bad?” Nina looks genuinely concerned.
“He talked a lot, wasn’t bad just not—Not for me,” Hob says.
“Are you sure? I’ve got one more but I can cancel it,” Nina says.
Hob weighs his options. The dinner is now a week away. “Fine. One more.”
“I went a bit outside the box, this time,” Nina says, and Hob just audibly groans in response.
Nina could not have known how close she got to winning. If Hob was well and truly single, Rhys would’ve been Hob’s type.
First: the venue. A perfectly normal cafe. No bright lights, warm, inviting, quiet. Hob had gotten there early, and ordered himself a cup of tea, which he was now nursing as he tried not to look up each time the cafe door opened. Nina hadn’t shown him a picture, insisting that it would “ruin the surprise,” and so Hob just has to sit there, wondering.
A man enters the cafe, and he’s a tall, pale, thin goth thing with just the right amount of tousled hair, several piercings flashing in his ears. He orders at the counter first, before carefully picking his way across the cafe in his combat boots. Hob swallows. There is no way he could ever take this man to a formal dinner.
“Robert?” Rhys’ voice is not low and sultry, but normal and average and Hob curses himself for the beginnings of a comparison.
“Just call me Robbie, that’s fine. Rhys?” Hob asks, rising to shake his hand. The man’s grip is firm.
Rhys nods, and gracefully takes the opposite seat.
Hob immediately wants to go home, and see the better thing.
“Listen, I’m sorry to do this to you,” Hob begins, wanting to do the right thing. “But Nina explained to you the whole deal, right?”
Rhys nods. His fingers drumming on the tabletop are also long and pale, but unlike Dream’s they have little silver rings on them.
“Well, I haven’t told her I already have a partner, but I just don’t really want to ask them to this dinner thing, cause it wouldn’t mesh well,” Hob begins, rubbing over the side of his neck.
Rhys watches him impassively. “Does your partner know about this meeting?”
“No?” Hob admits.
“Nice meeting you,” Rhys says with a glare, and just as smoothly gets up, retrieving his coffee from the counter and leaving the cafe.
“Smarter man than me,” Hob mutters under his breath.
♥
Sherry is calling Hob up to the podium. Hob glances down at his clothes, and thankfully, he’s wearing the correct type of black-tie suit, so he strides forward to take the mic from her.
“Let’s give it up for Hob Gadling, who just won this year’s award for distinguished Economics!” Sherry cries into the mic.
The audience, when Hob blinks past the spotlights, is an amorphous black making a cheering sound.
“Uh, thanks.” Hob takes the mic from her, and immediately feedback shrills through the hall.
“Why don’t you tell us about it?”
Economics. Right. Hob glances back at his slides, and it’s only that picture some of his students have shown him, of the smooth man in front of the downwards graph, and Hob’s mind blanks.
He doesn’t know a lick of economic theory.
“Um, thank you so much for your support of me, I’m really grateful to be given this opportunity,” Hob begins, but then he’s not standing on the stage, but instead he’s at the beginning of a line, and his partner across from him is in a full-length gown.
Hob steps forward, confident in his dancing abilities, but then his lady frowns. Hob looks down and sees that he’s only in his smallclothes, and even though nobody except his lady has noticed, he knows.
“I’m so sorry,” Hob apologizes to her as she puts her hand on his chest.
The musicians are playing the notes slightly faster than Hob can do the steps, and he’s nearly panting by the end of the first dance.
His lady is pale and tall; Hob feels inadequate next to her, and is she wearing a leather choker? Hob’s head spins, but he’s so tired from the dancing, but it’d be impolite to leave the lady behind…
When Hob wakes, he still feels like that lady is spinning him around and around in his arms, and it takes him a second to recall the meme which had been his starting powerpoint slide. Stonks.
Hob blinks, and finds himself looking into the open eyes of Dream. They are very piercing, and unblinking, and for a moment a shot of fear goes through Hob.
“Morning,” Hob mumbles, and reaches out for his love.
Dream of the Endless does not suffer from morning breath, but he doesn’t seem to care that Hob does as Dream kisses him.
“You were having a Nightmare,” Dream observes idly when they break.
“Mm. Yeah,” Hob says, and even though the covers are warm with heat, the pressure on his bladder is stronger, and he leaves Dream in the bed to use the toilet.
“I told you not to interfere with mine,” Hob calls back from the bathroom while he washes his hands.
“And I have not,” Comes Dream’s reply.
Hob returns to his bed, and finds the sheets kicked to the edge of the bed, and miles of pale skin and long legs bared against the navy sheets, his love looking up at him, uncaring of the cold.
Hob grabs the edge of the comforter, fiddling with it even as he shivers in the morning air. “So what if I had a nightmare.”
“I wish you would let me interfere,” Dream says in a rare admittance of direct want.
“No can do, love. I’m human and I don’t want any special treatments. Even you said it, didn’t you? That Nightmares serve a purpose,” Hob says, and lays back down on the mattress.
“And what do you suppose yours served?” Dream asks, curling up around Hob’s back. His arm snakes around Hob’s ribs, hand petting over his chest hair.
“Oh, I have a work function,” Hob says. “’Suppose I’m just worried about it.”
Dream makes a low rumbling sound in his throat, but doesn’t press further, instead mouthing up Hob’s spine.
“Nina had tried to set me up with people to take to it,” Hob hedges.
Dream’s mouth pauses at the crest of Hob’s spine. “You are already mine.” The words ghost over Hob’s skin and the possession in them sends shivers down Hob’s spine.
“Yeah, I refused them,” Hob says. Dream’s hand has begun to creep lower.
“Good.”
There is a moment of silence, before Dream’s hand trails over Hob’s cock, cupping over him, just holding him there. It feels rather distinctly like a threat.
“So I’m just going to face the wrath of my department head,” Hob says tightly.
“This meeting is important?” Dream asks, and his hand leaves to stroke over Hob’s furred thigh.
“I guess? It’s formal.”
“The ladies in the dresses?” Dream asks, and Hob has to think a moment before he realizes Dream is referencing his nightmare.
“Um, yes,” Hob says.
Dream rumbles against the back of Hob’s neck, but he sounds thoughtful.
♥
Hob’s rented his suit. If Hob hadn’t spent hundreds of pounds on clothing in his long life, he would’ve thought the suit a travesty, for such a cost.
“Black tie, my arse,” Hob mutters as he does up his buttons.
He’s prepared himself well, he thinks. Black’s not really Hob’s color; he prefers grey or navy suits in the modern era, but the suit itself is tailored well enough. It looked the sort of thing Robert Gadling, university professor, would be able to afford.
Hob meets Nina and her wife outside the event. They both look at the open doors and the large bouquets in front and the yellowed lights and Hob knows they’re sharing the same thought: wow, wouldn’t this money be more useful somewhere else?
“You look nice,” Hob offers to both of them. They do; Liliana is resplendent in a slinky evening gown in a shade of violet, and Nina is more austere in a simple grey affair.
“Thanks, Robbie. You clean up nice,” Nina says.
“Ah, well,” Hob laughs.
“We must brave the mediocre catering and the speeches, yes? Let’s go,” Liliana says.
“For all the lengths they’ve gone to, I sure hope the catering is actually good,” Hob bemoans.
“If it isn’t I’ll kill someone,” Nina says.
“I’ll volunteer if you get to me before Sherry does,” Hob says.
“Deal.”
They shake hands on it. Nina’s body is turned, and so she peers past Hob, before quickly looking back at him.
“Don’t look now, but there’s this gorgeous woman who just got out of a cab,” Nina says lowly, and of course, Hob needs to turn.
His jaw drops when he sees who it is.
Dream of the Endless has just stepped out of a cab, one long stockinged leg disappearing behind a slit in a floor-length black dress. Hob feels his face heat as his gaze travels up to where a pair of generous breasts absolutely threaten to spill from a low square neckline, no jewelry at her neck, up to her face, adorned with a small smile.
“Oh, fuck me,” Hob curses under his breath as Dream’s gaze falls on him.
Dream strides forward, propelled on heels that will make her taller than Hob, for certain, and the light spilling out from the hall illuminates a thousand little gemstones sewn into the small train of the dress which sparkle and dance in the light. Her shoulders are bare to the night, but Hob knows this is because Dream does not feel the temperature. Dream’s leg appears and disappears under the skirt as she saunters closer to them.
“Robbie,” Nina breathes, “why’s she coming over here?”
“Robert,” Dream greets Hob as she approaches, and nothing about her voice is any different, though the curve of her jaw is softer and her hair wisps down to her chin. There are black bangs curtaining her eyes.
Hob cannot help but reach towards her, and Dream slots into the curve of his hand like she belongs there, and fuck, Hob’s going to die at some point tonight.
“You’re a right bastard,” Hob tells her.
Dream’s eyes glitter with mirth, but then she says: “No praise of beauty for me?”
“I—” Hob begins, but his mouth is terribly dry.
“Hello,” Liliana says, and this draws Hob’s attention back to his friends.
Dream tears her eyes away from Hob too, noticing the rest of the people.
“Uh, this is—That is, this is my partner,” Hob manages. “Dream.”
Nina gives him a look that absolutely conveys we are going to talk about this later, which is fair.
“Pleasure, Robbie’s said nothing about you!” Nina says, extending her hand.
Dream somberly shakes it, and Hob finds himself transfixed by the way her lashes flutter against her cheekbones.
“Well, we’ll see you inside, yeah?” Liliana says, and Hob thinks he nods, because they leave and then it’s just Hob and Dream standing there.
“You… I mean, I—You’re beautiful,” Hob manages to say. He abruptly wishes he had rented a better suit.
“Thank you, Hob,” Dream says, and kisses his cheek.
Hob flushes all over like a schoolboy, and looks up at her again. It is Dream, but subtly different. Her lips might be a bit pinker, and the curve of her brows thinner, but she is still pale and thin and muscled in chiaroscuro.
“How’d you, I mean, I’m glad you’re here,” Hob stumbles over his words.
“Do I ever need to explain? I am here because I wanted to support my partner, and you were dreaming so avidly,” Dream says. There is a thread of worry in her words.
“Oh,” Hob says. If it is possible to fall in love all over, then that is what happens to him.
Her dress is made of a thin velvety material, held in place by two slender straps that loop over her shoulders. The black of them is, as always, a stark contrast to her skin.
She’s not wearing a coat, like Hob is, and so he settles his mortal hand over the cup of her hip and leads her inside.
In reality, few people notice their entrance, but Hob feels like the entire hall has noticed the person he’s led inside. Dream outstrips every single over person here in beauty and class, Hob thinks. He wants to turn heel and walk right back out of the venue, back to the cab Dream had exited from and tell it to take him home, so he can have this vision all to himself.
Hob checks his coat at the door, mourning how his hand must leave Dream’s waist for a moment as he removes his coat.
Hob leads her through the groups of people until he finds Nina and Liliana again, who have already managed to find both a little clear plastic plate of hors d'oeuvres and tiny glasses of wine.
“There you are! Cheese cube?” Nina offers him.
“No,” Hob says, feeling some of his brain come back even as he takes it.
“Sublime catering,” Liliana says wryly.
Dream is surreptitiously gazing around the hall, and Hob becomes entranced by the line of her nose and the fall of bangs over her forehead.
“Earth to Robbie,” Nina says, not unkindly.
Dream’s eyes travel back to Nina, and Hob follows not far behind.
“Huh?” Hob says.
“Look at him, he’s smitten,” Liliana remarks. There’s a wide smile across her face.
“How did you two meet?” Nina asks.
“We met, uh, in a bar,” Hob manages to say.
“He was quite drunk,” Dream adds.
“No,” Nina gasps, and it is at this moment that Sherry, the department head, finds them.
“Robert! Who is this?” Sherry asks warmly. Hob will not be losing his manhood tonight, hallelujah.
“This is my partner,” Hob says weakly.
“Dream,” Dream introduces herself with all the imperious nature of an empress, and Hob wants desperately to leave this function.
“Robert’s been hiding you from us,” Sherry exclaims, and in the corners of Hob’s vision he can see Nina nodding at the comment.
“I am often gone for my work,” Dream says, and it's technically not even a lie. “But today was important to Robert.”
“Well, I appreciate you taking the time out of your schedule to come. Have you sampled the cranberry crostini?” Sherry asks, snagging one of the little bow-tied waiters bobbing in and out of the crowd.
“No,” Dream says slowly.
“They are heavenly,” Sherry exclaims, and then she must spot someone important, because she excuses herself and swans away.
The waiter offers a tiny plate with an even tinier slice of bread with some kind of berry topping, and Dream absolutely snubs it. The waiter almost crashes into another attendee with the force of trying to get away from Dream’s disdain for mortal food (not prepared by Hob).
Dream leans over Hob and speaks low into his ear; “She was in your dream.”
“She’s the head. The boss,” Hob explains, trying not to shiver under the weight of Dream’s voice.
Dream just nods. Hob needs to sit down.
Somehow, Hob manages to introduce Dream to a half-dozen more of his colleagues before he finds them a table to sit. Dream gracefully sinks down and rearranges her dress about her, exposing one leg that is covered in sheer black stocking.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” Hob whispers in her ear, and wonders if the smile Dream gives him is proof that she is toying with him.
Hob fills a plate with a selection of food, barely noticing what is what, not wanting to leave Dream alone for more than a few minutes. In the time he has been gone, however, he finds Dream surrounded by a half-circle of various colleagues, donors, and other persons.
“Excuse me,” Hob interrupts, setting the plate between his seat and Dream’s.
“Robert! You never told us you had such an accomplished wife!” Bert, the oldest tenured professor, says when Hob tries to bully his way into the crowd.
Wife. The term sears into Hob’s brain.
“Yes, I’ve been hiding her away,” Hob jokes weakly. Wife, wife, wife. Dream’s not his, his wife, per say, but Dream is Hob’s, and having other people acknowledge it is almost as bad as the glint in Dream’s eyes when she notes the word.
There’s a general round of friendly pats on Hob’s back, and then the crowd melts away, leaving a bemused Dream and a very tired Hob.
“Your colleagues are very kind. They think highly of you,” Dream says. Her finger pokes at a kalamata olive balanced precariously on top of some kind of whipped dip on top of a cracker.
“Do they?” Hob says. “Also about—“
At this moment, Sherry takes the microphone and the stage at the far end, and Nina and Liliana seat themselves at their table. Hob shuts his mouth.
The speeches are long, and Hob can feel Dream’s eyes resting on the back of his neck the entire time.
There is a brief break where Sherry tells them she’ll be back with the plans for the history department’s future, and at this Hob gets up and motions to Dream.
She follows behind him as Hob maneuvers through the crowd, desperately trying not be seen leaving, but Dream turns heads wherever she walks, so the task is futile in the end.
Hob collects his coat and drapes it over her bare shoulders.
“How very kind of you,” Dream murmurs, giving him a secret smile. She does not get cold.
“We’re getting out of here. I’ve payed my dues,” Hob says viciously.
“Oh?” Dream raises her brows, and Hob sweeps her back into the night.
Hob barely remembers the ride home, he thinks he gives the cabbie a fifty pound tip, and then Hob’s unlocking his front door and leading the most beautiful being in the world into his home.
“You are,” Hob begins, after shutting the door behind them and locking it. “So unbelievably beautiful. I literally have no words. Dream.”
She stands in the middle of his foyer, towering and resplendent in black, where she has stood in front of him a hundred times before and hopefully a million times more, and Hob reaches for her, draws her close to him and she goes.
Hob finds himself skimming his fingers over the slightness of her waist, draped in the velvet fabric, feeling the cups of her hips up to the valleys of her ribs, and he can scarcely breathe. Hob has had it pummeled into him that it is rude to stare, but Dream’s tits are right at his eye level and by God, they are made to be seen in that dress, and Hob wonders if Dream herself is aware of Hob’s burning desire to bury his face in them.
Dream’s shoulders shudder, and when Hob glances up, he realizes she is silently laughing.
“What?” Hob demands.
“How often you forget I can see your daydreams too, Robert,” Dream says, and for the second time that night Hob feels his face go up in flames.
“Uh, I’m—Respectfully, you wouldn’t make yourself this way if that was not an outcome you wanted, I’m smart enough to know that,” Hob says, with only a bit of petulance shining through.
“I am the Lord of Dreams, and the Shaper of them,” Dream says haughtily.
At this, Hob does laugh, pushing Dream back towards the bedroom. “Come on, darling.”
Dream lets herself be led, and then finally, finally, Hob has her standing in the center of his bedroom, looking every ounce out of place, and when Hob turns on the lamps her skin glows like sand under moonlight, and in the center of her eyes shine the cosmos, and Hob approaches her like a penitent to his god, sinking down to his knees and finding his gaze resting at her feet.
They are resting, arched and curved and covered in thin black silk or nylon or dreamstuff, in a pair of black heels. Not too high, but enough that Hob is very impressed with the way she had smoothly glided across the room. Of course, Hob supposes, Dream does not ever have to be clumsy.
He reaches for them, and Dream’s hand finds his shoulder and holds it for balance as Hob slips the heels off, one at a time, and places them gently at the foot of the bed. Her toenails have been painted black.
Hob looks up, and finds that the angle on Dream is not unflattering, and the shades of her eyes are low over black sclera, watching him with rapt intensity.
Hob’s mouth is dry. He swallows, and feels his tongue be a thick weight in his throat.
“Well?” Dream asks him, her voice a distant storm, the sound of heavy rain a mile away.
Hob runs a hand over the jut of her ankle, the thin membrane of fabric catching on the callus of his palm, and he slides the hand up, up the pale of her leg, under the drape of the dress, up further until, suddenly, the fabric of the stocking ends and his fingers encounter bare flesh. Hob raises his hand a bit further up the thigh, and only when he reaches the curve of her buttock and past a thin layer of underwear does his brain compute: stockings and—his hand goes further—a belt encircling her waist.
Hob can feel Dream’s stare on him, acknowledging that he has understood the peculiarities of her dress; and the care with which she has chosen them.
Hob retracts his hand, suddenly, and stands up, spurred by the distinct desire to kiss Dream, which she allows.
There is only a second while Dream melts into Hob’s mouth, and then she solidifies under his grip, parting her mouth. She opens with the barest sigh, the coolness of her mouth thrilling Hob for the thousandth time. Her hands slide under Hob’s rented suit, resting on the edges of his leather belt, before she grips his belt loops and pulls him close to her.
Hob gasps against her mouth, and he knows his prick is reacting, beginning to be aroused, but he is surprised by the matched arousal that grinds against him as she pulls them together.
“Oh, God,” Hob breathes, feeling his knees weaken.
Dream presses a kiss to Hob’s jaw, and Hob can feel her smiling at him.
“Show me how to get this off of you,” Hob asks, not yet at begging, but he is seized with the desire to see the lines of the body only half-obscured by the fabric in the first place.
Dream pulls away from him and turns herself around, exposing her thin shoulder blades and the top of a nigh-invisible zipper resting against her spine. Hob takes the tongue of it between his fingers and carefully pulls it down, exposing the expanse of pale skin and the slight curve of her ass. The top of the garter belt is unsheathed at the end, a sleek black thing with lace embroidery of bird’s wings.
Hob trails his knuckles up the knobs of her spine, until he has reached the thin straps which are the only thing holding the dress to her body. With a quick inhale, he slips them off her shoulders, and she untucks them from her arms, and the dress falls in a puddle around her feet.
Hob sucks in a breath. Indeed, the stockings end at her mid-thigh, and thin ribbons hold them up, connected to the belt which is covered in little birds, their wings spread in mid-flight. She’s wearing simple underwear underneath it, which is an additional surprise.
Dream spins around with all the vulpine grace, then, and Hob barely gets an eyeful of her breasts before she’s pushing him against the bed.
His clothes are gone before his back hits the mattress, and Hob sucks in a breath when Dream climbs on top of him, arching her back over him.
Hob opens his mouth, but before he can extol her many virtues, her mouth is on him. Dream’s tongue laves over the roof of his mouth, running over his teeth and attempting to swallow him whole.
Her tits are brushing against his chest, and an animal desire overcomes him, and well, she didn’t make them for nothing, did she?
Dream gasps into his mouth when he cups her breasts, relishing in the weight of them in his palms, in the natal softness of them, in the hardening nipples against his palms, and it pleases Hob so sharply that he laughs aloud.
Dream pulls back, concern overwriting her features, but Hob surges up with her and grins.
“You’re utterly perfect, you know that? Like, I just can’t believe it—you’re wonderful, and it’s not just about these,” Hob fondles her right tit, “but you just, just, you’re a dream.” Hob knows its cliché, but it's true.
“A?” Dream’s grin is full of mirth even as she questions his word choice.
“You’re the sole object of all my daydreams ever, and you could be the subject of all my dreams too if you didn’t have standards,” Hob says, thumbing over one pebbling nipple.
“Dreams and Nightmares have their purposes—!” Dream begins, but her voice cuts off when Hob takes one of her nipples into his mouth.
Hob licks over the hard nub, before grinning around his mouthful.
“Hob!” Dream exclaims, but Hob merely nuzzles into her chest, relishing in the soft flesh and the smell of Dream, the smell of wells and deeply buried secrets and sometimes petrichor.
“I’m in heaven, I can die happy now,” Hob murmurs into her sternum.
“I’d prefer it if you did not,” Dream says, and hauls him up by the hair for another kiss.
Hob loses himself in fondling her, relishing in the new flesh and kissing the warmth of her mouth, listening to her getting gradually more worked up. Her knees press into Hob’s hips, and the hang of her bollocks and the swell of her cock occasionally brushes against his stomach when she leans low over him.
Dream is not one to rut, but she gets close. Eventually, Hob’s brain is satisfied with mapping the newness of her tits, and he finally directs his gaze downwards.
The black panties she is wearing are damp at the tip, and Hob hooks his fingers into the thin elastic at the top, snapping it once.
Dream inches herself closer to his head, towering over him, framing his sight until he sees nothing but black sheer stockings and black underwear and the smooth expanse of her stomach and the hang of her breasts.
“Go on,” Dream prompts him, her voice breathy.
“Yes, m’lady,” Hob says, and he knows from the tense of her stomach Dream is trying not to laugh.
He rucks down the elastic band, and exposes her. Of course, her prick is as pretty as the rest of her, flared to red at the tip and pink to the base. A neat thatch of black hair crowns it.
There is precum collected at the tip, making her head shine, and Hob’s mouth waters.
“Come up here, then,” Hob says, and runs his hands around the back of her thighs, gripping her ass and pulling Dream closer.
The muscles in her thighs flex when she inches forward, and they’re still half-covered by the black stockings, and Hob takes one glance again at the lace on the garter before he’s presented with her cock.
Hob takes her into his mouth with a pleased sigh. Feels the heft of her on his tongue, the stretch of her in his jaw, and this too is a kind of beauty that he’s honored to share. Dream’s hand curls around his jaw, holding his head, and he sucks at the tip and feels pleasure when she pulses in his mouth.
Dream curls around him, and her fingers dig into his hair and tug him closer, so Hob opens his jaw and takes the perfect length of her deeper. He hums around the length, relishing the heat of her, and hollowing his cheeks, sucking once.
Dream is always a quiet lover, and it is with perked ears that Hob listens to her breathy sighs and pained little grunts as he tongues over the underside of her cock, pulls back to lap against her slit, to rub at the smooth skin past her bollocks with his thumb, to worship her with his mouth and his hands, to make of himself a willing receptacle for her adoration.
Hob reaches upwards, and instead of holding Dream’s shuddering and jerking hips still, he grasps at her breasts. He breathes out through his nose, closing his eyes as his mouth closes around her and his nose hits the bone of her pubis, and focuses on the sensations. The weight of her. The gasp and full-body shake Dream grants him when he pulls back until just the head of her rests between his open lips, and when he looks up through his lashes, her chest heaves above him.
“Hob,” Dream of the Endless moans, and this is the moment Hob forgets so that each time he may experience it anew: her hips jerk, and her cock pulses, and Hob feels hot come spill over his tongue, tasting bitter but Hob lets her shudder through her peak, and only when she softens does Hob let her fall from his mouth and swallow.
Dream’s face is flushed, and so is the skin over her chest, as she cradles his head near and kisses the crown of it.
Hob’s own need is a distant, pulsing thing, and when Dream sits back he begins to acknowledge it. Dream is still languid and feline, and she tugs at Hob’s bare shoulders, bringing him up from the bed and to sitting.
“Come here, lover,” Dream calls to him, and Hob follows her voice, lured like a sailor to his doom.
“Dream,” Hob murmurs against her cheekbone. His hand is resting upon her hip, and the other on the curve of her neck.
“You are ever-giving, lover of mine,” Dream says. Her voice is like a balm to Hob’s ears.
“Yes, anything for you, beloved,” Hob slurs, still fuzzy in his head, and tasting of her in his mouth.
“What do you want?” Dream asks him, and it is a heady question, the implication of giving wrapped up within it.
Hob reigns back in his mind, considering the lady in front of him, Dream of the Endless, who is his dreams personified, and Hob thinks about how full his cock already is, even untouched, and about Dream’s perfect, ample breasts, and the pale of her skin—Dream is already laying down against the duvet.
She reaches out her pianist's hands, and anchors them on Hob’s hips, dragging him closer, until he kneels over the concave curve of her stomach.
When he takes himself in hand, he looks into the black galaxies of her eyes, and holds their gaze, feeling small under the weight of eons, of a metaphorical heart which has condensed itself for Hob. His hand's path is made slick from the pre leaking from himself at the sight of her.
Dream’s hands rest on Hob’s hips, and he feels them tighten as he thrusts into his palm, gaze locked with hers, and it takes no time at all for him to spill over, his seed hitting the swell of her breasts, running down the curve of them. Hob sighs out, and enjoys the sight of him, white against her pale skin, before he slumps back on his heels.
Hob hears his own panting breath and thudding of his heart against his chest, and his tacky hand rests, palm-up against his thigh.
She is resplendent beneath him. Dreams hair fans out around her like a halo, bits of her bangs sticking to her forehead.
“I love you,” Hob says for the thousandth time.
“And I love you also,” Dream promises him, surging up from beneath him, manifesting a warm towel in her hand. She kisses him gently.
Hob takes the towel from her, and considers her chest before carefully wiping away the evidence of his pleasure. Dream lets him, sitting cross-legged on the sheets, still in her garter and stockings. She lays down against the duvet, and Hob sets aside the cloth to unclasp the clips and slip the stockings down her legs. He lifts up the garter belt too, careful to avoid touching her soft prick, and slides it down. Suddenly bare, Dream hums and gives a happy wriggle, which is the only indication that maybe, just maybe, the stockings and the belt were for him.
Dream plucks the cloth from where it is making a damp spot on the duvet, and reaches for Hob. He sinks back and allows her to touch him, still sensitive and mellow from his orgasm. When she is done, Dream lets the cloth drop out of existence, and then she curls up next to him.
Her head rests in the crook of his elbow, and Hob presses a kiss to her temple.