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Hob thinks it isn’t too much of a leap, all things considered.
His stranger doesn’t age. Hob has never seen him eat nor drink, nor step foot into the sun. He has always dressed as if he had just come from a wake, no matter the era. Add on top of that, the pale complexion, hypnotic eyes, and overall supernatural beauty—Hob thinks as far as theories go, it’s a pretty good one.
His stranger is a vampire. A full-blown creature of the night.
Perhaps it would have been a worrying thought, had it occurred to him in their first few meetings. But by the time the folktale had reached English soil, his stranger had already seen him at his heartiest (he can only assume his blood would’ve tasted the best on a healthy diet of venison pasties and lamb) as well as his weakest.
Surely if he had been drained of his blood in exchange for his immortality, he would remember it happening.
But Hob doesn’t think his stranger has spent all that much time around other humans. Surely, he would have already known about the invent of plumbing—his hypothetical feasts in the back alleys of London no longer interrupted by the contents of a chamber pot being emptied out a window. Surely if he were luring unsuspecting victims to their deaths on a regular basis, he would be better at talking to people. So surely, it must be some other manner of creature that satiates his thirst.
Regardless, by 1789 Hob figured he had a pretty good idea of what he was dealing with. The thrall his stranger had over Lady Constantine certainly seemed to confirm it. Not to mention the hungry glances he isn’t quite sure he imagined from his stranger across the table.
He figures as far as these encounters with the supernatural go, a vampire is not the worst creature to know. And yes, he’s read Twilight, and he can imagine how captivating it would be to be loved by a being who wants to drink down every drop of you. But he also knows there are certain quirks to be aware of when one entertains the company of the undead, and when Hob puts his mind to it, he is nothing if not accommodating.
- Sunlight
“Are you sure you’re alright at this table?”
Hob had been so wrapped up in the excitement of seeing him again—especially when the past thirty-three years alone seemed to have enough novelty to fill a century—that he had failed to notice the sunlight filtering through the window until now, a solid couple of hours into their reunion. It sings through the light ale in his glass, and casts his student’s papers (now ignored) in a hazy golden light.
He also knows, though, that that’s not completely true. While Hob has indeed spent those hours prattling on about the Beatles and space flight and the fact that some of his students still think they can get away with copying verbatim from Wikipedia, he has also been admiring the way the light from the window has been casting shadows across his stranger’s angular face and sharp jaw. That like a black cat, the sunlight has transformed his hair from a deep black to a rich chocolate brown. And while his skin may not be sparkling like some more recent vampire novels would have you believe, there are certainly diamonds to be found shining in his stranger’s eyes.
Which is why Hob feels like an idiot for not realizing sooner.
His stranger, for his part, only looks slightly confused at the suggestion. He runs a finger down the grain of the wood table, and Hob watches the way his hand flexes before reaching again to hold the glass of beer Hob had ordered for him (more out of habit and politeness than anything else, it’s not like they keep O negative on tap).
“The table is fine, Hob Gadling,” he says, in a tone that on anyone else might be considered slightly fond, “Did you yourself not choose it? Has something changed to make the table unsuitable?”
“No, no!” Hob twirls his pen in his hand, trying to find a way to express his concern that won’t cause the other man to bolt, “It’s just… a little bright, don’t you think?”
His stranger gives him an enigmatic smile, but his eyes betray a harsh sadness before he can direct his gaze to the window. Hob desperately wants to reach out and take the hand that has settled back onto the table.
“I have been much in the darkness, so to speak, in recent years. I am finding the sunlight now to be a welcome change…” His stranger meets his gaze once more. “If you are amenable.”
Cryptic as always but nonetheless, a morsel of new information.
“Of course,” Hob says, feeling slightly foolish about believing what is apparently vampire misinformation, “I just wanted to make sure you were… comfortable, I guess.”
“Thank you,” his stranger says, bowing his head slightly with a curl of his lips. There is something strange in the look he gives Hob when their eyes meet—a new brand of the wonder that would sometimes hint across them when Hob would state his continued intention of living. This look is no longer just a hint, however; in his friend’s eyes now, he sees disbelief. And gratitude. And boundless wonder.
It makes Hob wonder about the last thirty-three years, the last hundred and thirty-three years even. He starts to think that maybe they were not as comfortable for his friend as he had at first believed.
His face must convey his train of thought because his stranger’s eyes darken slightly, and he appears to gather himself to say something important.
“I feel I must apologize again for my absence at our last appointment,” he says, the grief in his demeanour transforming into awkwardness, “it was not my intention to leave you to drink in solitude.”
“Wow, this many apologies in one day? You spoil me,” Hob replies with a smile, attempting to return the conversation to its previous levity. But his stranger’s gaze is still pressing on him, so he adds: “Think nothing of it, my friend. What matters most is that we are sitting here now, together, after everything.”
“Quite right, Hob Gadling,” he says, and as Hob watches something akin to affection flood his stranger’s features, he finds he must clench his jaw to trap a hasty confession from escaping. Some things are better left unsaid, especially when one’s company has a habit of vanishing into the night.
But after a moment the tension passes, as it always does, and his friend leans back into his chair and looks and Hob with a smirk. “Now, I believe you were telling me a story. About men venturing through the cosmos…?”
“Oh, right! Okay so, Star Trek: The Original Series came out in 1966…”
- Invitation
Hob almost shatters his “Teachers Rule!” mug when he hears the knock on his apartment door. Not that it would be the worst hardship of his life, but he thinks the yellow ruler design that wraps around the base of the mug is cute, and it was a gift from a student after all.
The knock is the perfect excuse to ignore the dishes he had been dreading washing, and Hob almost sighs in relief at the distraction once the shock has worn off—he hopes in the next hundred years they come up with a dishwasher that is able to wash all manner of crockery without the designs being stripped away, or maybe just stronger designs. Though he can’t complain too much, the soap these days is certainly much more effective than the handmade lye he has used in years past.
After carefully placing the mug back in the sink, Hob wipes his soapy hands on a dishtowel and walks across his flat to see who could possibly be calling on a Sunday afternoon. He expects it’s his landlady. Or a postal worker who got their days mixed up, perhaps.
He does not, however, expect to see his stranger staring back at him from the hallway.
Hob realises in that moment that he has never once seen his stranger when he has not expected to, their meetings always planned a hundred years in advance. But there he is, and looking far more lovely under the fluorescent lights than he has any right to. Hob tries not to let his face betray his excitement too much, but from the way his friend’s eyes soften slightly, he suspects he has failed.
The surprise he feels is earth-tilting and could not be more welcome, and Hob thinks that he could get used to this kind of heart attack. It’s not like it will kill him, after all.
“You’re early this time, my friend,” he laughs disbelievingly, leaning against the doorframe, “Ninety-nine years, eleven months, and two weeks early to be exact. Or perhaps sixty-six years, if you would prefer to meet in 2089 as per our previous arrangement.” He tries for suave and teasing, but Hob thinks it probably comes out more awe-struck than anything else.
His stranger takes in Hob’s sweatpants and faded Thor t-shirt with a smile that resides mostly in his eyes. “I have been informed that most friends meet more than once a century.”
“You have been informed correctly,” Hob says, “and while I would normally say we are not ‘most friends’, pointing that out seems like it might be counter-productive to ensuring I see you more often.”
Hob lets his gaze linger on his friend and tries not to be too self-conscious of his own attire. In his defence, he normally has one hundred years to prepare. Not that it ever makes their meetings go more smoothly of course, but a man can dream.
When Hob meets his stranger’s eye, he finds it already looking at his face with an expression he finds himself unable to name. It makes his heart crawl up his throat, and he tries to swallow it before he says something even more foolish.
It is only then that he realizes the etiquette this situation demands of him.
“Oh, uh…” Hob starts, unsure if there is some exact phrasing his friend needs in order to enter his flat, “I invite you, my friend, into my home. Please, enter and feel welcome.”
Hob takes a step back into his living room, awkwardly gesturing inside with one hand and holding the door open with the other. His stranger simply raises an eyebrow in response, and steps over the threshold and into his apartment.
“I thank you, Hob Gadling, you are gracious as ever,” he says with a smirk, looking around at Hob’s cozy, if a little cluttered apartment. “Your home suites you well.”
Hob is sure he only says that because he is not in direct eyesight of the mess of dishes in the sink that have been delightfully ignored.
He watches with awe as his stranger removes his ever-present coat and hangs it on the coat rack Hob has placed near his door. It surprises Hob just how regular it looks when his stranger is not wearing it, filling it with enough mystery and drama to rival even Dracula’s cape. But next to Hob’s jackets, it almost looks domestic. And if that wasn’t enough, he watches as his friend leans down and unties his boots, struggling ever so slightly to keep his balance while removing them and setting them neatly beside Hob’s loafers. He would’ve thought dressing like a goth before the concept was invented would’ve made you an expert at all things Doc Martin’s, but apparently not.
“Uh,” Hob says intelligently, “thanks, I guess. I’m glad you were able to come in.”
“As am I,” his stranger says, settling onto one of the love-seats, “my affairs have been hectic as of late. But they have calmed for now, and I find myself with much time for leisure.”
Hob had mostly meant he was glad he said the right thing to let him pass through the doorway, but this works too.
Hob sits in the adjacent armchair and notices how his whole flat seems to morph for his friend. It’s strange to see him in his Hob’s home, one he’s only had for a few decades, instead of in the hazy light of the tavern. As if his stranger has been plucked from the White Horse that lives on in Hob’s mind and dropped onto his sofa, like an organ transplanted from one person to another. But the invasion is a pleasant one—the stark contrast of the green corduroy of the couch to the black cotton of his shirt, the way the armrest dips under his small wrist as he shifts the fabric between his fingers curiously—as if the flat itself was merely acting as an extension of Hob’s joy. The space feels more alive for his presence, ironically enough.
“Wish I could relate, my friend,” Hob chuckles a little, “I have been trying to grade these papers for the last twenty years it seems.”
“Dream.”
“Yes, it certainly feels that way sometimes…”
“No,” his stranger says, possibly trying to suppress a laugh, “my name. You may call me Dream, if you wish.”
His eyes turn downward with a look bordering on bashful and pulls the throw blanket—one Hob has only just recently finished after spending the past fifty years knitting it on and off—partially onto his lap and fiddles with it as if to calm himself. Ridiculous, given that Hob is the one that’s just had the bombshell dropped on him.
“Dream, huh?” he says almost breathlessly, “Dream… It’s weird, I like it. Suits you well, or whatever.”
Dream looks back up at him and smiles his small smile, and it fills Hob with pride to know his friend well enough to recognize the true mirth it holds.
- Animals
No matter how many times Hob lectures, the nervous butterflies he gets in his stomach right before he steps in front of a class never go away. But he cherishes them, delighted by the novelty of teaching a group of students something they had not known before stepping into the room, regardless of if they remember it when they leave. No matter how many times he teaches the material, the students each year are always different, and he never holds the same class twice.
After so long, he comes to relish each truly unique experience he has. After so long, he comes to realize every experience is truly unique.
There are, of course, certain experiences that are more unique than others. Namely, seeing a familiar mess of black hair and dark, piercing eyes meet his from the back of the lecture hall.
He falters, just for a moment, before picking his jaw off the floor, suppressing the massive grin fighting to spill onto his face, and walking to the desk at the front of the lecture hall to set up his things.
Hob considers himself an adaptable guy, and pretty good at quickly picking up new things and taking them in stride. But Dream’s presence has made his mind wander, and he struggles more than he normally does to set his laptop up to the projector. He thinks it might be a curse you inherit once you become a teacher with all those young eyes trained on you, waiting for you to show your age. If they only knew.
He begins lecturing, and he feels the room seem to narrow and collapse in until it is just the two of them. Suddenly everything he says feels like an inside joke between him and Dream—every topic a ‘you had to be there’ moment, tinted with more nostalgia than usually present in his lectures. Hob tries not to meet Dream’s eye too often, allowing him to blend into his regular mass of students, but his gaze is magnetic, and it is impossible to look away from him for too long.
The pre-lecture butterflies, for the first time in years, do not dissipate as he teaches. Instead, they undergo a second metamorphosis and become a new churning in his stomach and buzzing under his skin, which grows more intense with every time he looks at Dream and finds him looking back with a smirk that could swallow the moon.
After Hob dismisses his students, Dream wanders slowly down the stairs to meet him as he packs away his things once more. Hob’s students take his friend in with a suspicious eye, but they look more conspiratorial than worried about dying via blood drain, so he chalks it up to a win even if he must suffer a million questions about his personal life next class.
“Hob Gadling: a shaper of minds,” Dream says in lieu of greeting, “I am gratified to know you are passing down your wisdom to the dreamers of the future.”
“I don’t know about wisdom,” Hob chuckles as he shoves his laptop ungracefully into his bag, “I just run through the curriculum.”
“You undervalue your talent; your students are inspired by your words, as am I.”
Hob looks up at him then from where he has been fastening the last buckle on his bag, and drinks in the softness that swims in the corner of Dreams eyes.
“I’m finished lecturing for the day, if you’d like to grab a spot of lunch perhaps?” Hob says, swinging his bag over his shoulder and praying his eyes don’t look too pleading, especially given that Dream doesn’t eat. “There’s a nice spot on campus that none of my students seem to have noticed yet, or if you’d prefer we can head back to the Inn? Up to you, really.”
He tugs on his ear out of habit as he trails off, waiting for Dream to inevitably turn his offer down, but to his surprise Dream gestures to the door and says:
“Lead the way, my friend.”
Hob feels slightly anxious at the lack of stated preference, but decides that a change of scenery can’t do them too much harm—especially given that Dream came all this way to watch him teach, apparently. He leads them out the door and through the building, eventually emerging into the crisp autumn afternoon.
Autumn hasn’t always been Hob’s favourite season; no matter how bountiful the harvest was, it always meant that they were soon to enter winter. Nothing was guaranteed back then, and he much preferred the relief and hope that came with spring to the dread that autumn sometimes brought. Of course, that became less of a concern as the years rolled on, and Hob finds he appreciates autumn in ways he couldn’t before.
The most notable of which being a new group of students each September. While he sometimes gets new students in his January courses as well, the students in the fall are generally coming off a summer vacation spent working shitty nine-to-five jobs or undervalued internships and have had the time to miss school properly. They’re not burnt-out yet, and are passionate about learning and excited to be in Hob’s class, for however long that lasts. Hob tries to make it last as long as possible.
Their meetings over the last six hundred years have always taken place in the summer, and Hob tries not to get swept up in how well the current season seems to suit Dream. For one, the long coat is certainly more appropriate for this weather. But he seems at home in the vibrance of the red and yellow leaves in a way that he hasn’t anywhere else. They make the black of his hair, the gleam of his skin, the shine of his boots, all more vivid and real feeling than Hob has ever seen. Maybe that’s just something that happens once you become a vampire? The closer you get to Halloween, the stronger you become? Hob can only speculate.
And perhaps he would, if his mind were not focused completely on how close he is walking to Dream, and the way their arms brush slightly as they head to Hob’s bistro of choice. It strikes Hob how human Dream feels in this moment, and he struggles to squash the overly hopeful and domestic thoughts as quickly as they arise. But Dream does not glide through campus as Hob expects, and instead awkwardly bumps into him sometimes as they walk side by side. Dream watches his step to ensure he doesn’t trip down the stairs. He makes awkward eye contact with others on campus and cringes slightly at their reactions.
He is desperately trying to fit in, and there is nothing quite as human as that.
That is, of course, until a seasonally appropriate black cat crosses their path.
Hob watches with shock as the cat stops in front of them and turns to face Dream, who in turn kneels on one knee to look the little critter in the eye, and they both become completely motionless. Hob then stands awkwardly, occasionally shuffling his feet, and stares at Dream while he and the cat stare at each other, eyes wide as saucers, unblinking and unmoving, for several minutes.
He had forgotten that vampires were said to be able to control animals. He’ll have to make sure to remember never to take Dream on the underground, lest he get run over while hypnotizing a rat.
Hob is so distracted by Dream’s thrall over this cat that he nearly jumps out of his skin when he sees a raven, out of the corner of his eye, swoop down to land beside him—much closer than he would’ve thought birds would land to humans. City life never fails to surprise him.
A vampire, a raven, and a black cat. He’s got the whole Halloween trifecta, it seems.
“Do you know if there are any more goth animals hanging around this place?” Hob laughs, looking at the bird. He hopes it comes out sounding sarcastic, but there’s a non-zero worry about a bat flying at his head at this point.
“I mean, it’s usually just me,” the bird beside him says. “It would be nice to have some more company though, honestly.”
Hob closes his eyes.
He opens them again.
The bird is still there, staring at him.
“Oh,” Hob says.
“Yeah,” The bird replies, a tad exasperated at Hob’s shock, and shifts its weight from foot to foot.
Eventually it looks back to Dream and says, “Oh man, he’s doing the cat thing again?”
“The cat thing?”
“Don’t worry, he’s probably just asking if the little thing is alright, double checking the rest of the cats in the area are being treated well, that kinda thing,” the bird says, and Hob gets the impression that if this raven could roll his eyes, he would be doing it now. “I’ve always found it freaky that he can do it silently, but I guess I’ve got the talking animal market cornered where he’s concerned. It’ll only be a couple of minutes, hopefully.”
“Smashing,” Hob says turning back to look at Dream for a moment, who is still staring silently at the cat with wide eyes.
“You must be Hob Gadling,” The bird says after a moment.
“I see my reputation proceeds me,” Hob replies, surrendering to the absurd enough to string a sentence together, “despite the fact I did not know I had one.”
“I mean, the boss never really talks about anything personal, but word gets around.”
“The boss…?” Hob wonders aloud.
That’s when it dawns on him.
“Of course,” Hob smiles knowingly at the raven, “you must be his familiar.”
“If anything, I’m too familiar with him,” the bird laughs (the bird laughs?). “Not as familiar as you though, probably.”
“What makes you say that?” Hob asks.
“Come on,” The bird ruffles his feathers, “he doesn’t come to London for just anyone, you know.”
“Is that so?” Hob says conspiratorially, turning his entire attention toward the raven now. He has never spoken to anyone else who knows Dream, and the possibility of learning something new about his friend itches under his skin.
“Yeah, the only time he’s ever down here these days is to see you.” The bird says. “And you didn’t hear this from me, but Mervyn said that whenever the boss used to have a meeting with you coming up, he would spend ages—"
“Matthew.”
They both turn to look at Dream. He stands menacingly over the raven (Matthew, presumably) and if he were anyone else, Hob would say he is blushing slightly. Impossible, of course, so it must be a reflection of the red leaves instead.
“Oh, hey boss…” Matthew says, sounding slightly embarrassed.
“You have no business here,” Dream says, all dark eyes and imposing posture. “You may return now.”
“Yeah, yeah, alright,” Matthew hops over to Hob, smile present in his voice where it can’t be on his beak, “nice to finally meet you!”
Hob gives him a wave and watches as he takes off and heads away from the university.
“He seems nice,” Hob says somewhat cheekily, turning back to Dream.
“He is meddlesome and aggravating,” Dream says levelling him with a murderous look, before turning his eyes to the bit of sky Matthew had just occupied, “but he does come in useful at times.”
“How is the… cat?” Hob asks.
“She is well,” Dream informs him with a wistful smile, turning back to face him, “just out for a stroll, same as you and I.”
“Glad to hear it,” Hob says, returning Dream’s upturned lips with a grin and gesturing to the path ahead of them. “Shall we, then?”
“Onwards, Hob Gadling,” Dream almost whispers, voice deep and earnest, and Hob focuses on ensuring his knees don’t give out from under him as they start walking once more.
- Mirrors
Hob is big enough to admit that he may be a little drunk.
In his defence, the night wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. Hob just wanted to get out of his flat for the evening to grade some papers, maybe order a drink or two just to make sure they didn’t kick him out. He finds it hard to get work done at home, in the space he does all his eating and sleeping and relaxing, so he often ends up in the New Inn with a stack of essays and a desperate hope that his students are engaging writers.
But Dream had showed up at his table near the end of his stack and in the middle of an especially tedious paper, and stuck around just to listen to Hob babble on about the musty smell in his new office and how one of his students asked if his office hours could be moved to Friday evenings (as if anyone would come to them then), so the rest of the papers ended up more or less ignored.
Hob had almost forgotten the way Dream looks in the low light of a tavern. He thinks about how his skin used to look warmer in the torchlight, but how much more of his facial expressions (minute as they are) Hob can see under the modern lamplight. It makes his eyes look more alive, the dark of his lashes more prominent, and the stars that seem to reside between them even more luminous. Hob could list a thousand words to describe the galaxy he finds there, but he has always been a romantic like that. None of them would truly do them justice anyway.
It's distracting, to be frank. When Hob looks at Dream, those words seem to bubble up from his stomach and cause heartburn of an entirely different nature.
And Hob must constantly swallow them back down. No matter how familiar they become, Hob knows how quickly Dream’s mood can change, and how much damage a single slip of the tongue can do. So, he has learned to keep his mouth shut, a skill practiced faithfully.
Tonight is proving exceptionally difficult. They share a comfortable familiarity that has never been present in any of their centennial meetings, as they reminisce on days long past and taverns long closed. And Hob is tired after a long day of lecturing and marking and tonight especially, Dream’s beauty would make even the moon turn green with envy, so Hob finds his mouth threatening to run off without him. Therefore, to keep his lips busy with other things, he takes a sip of his drink every time he thinks he’s about to say something stupid.
It turns out he wants to say a lot of stupid things. Especially the more he keeps drinking. It’s a vicious cycle.
Hob may be more than a little drunk.
“How do you always look so good if you can’t look in a mirror?” Hob eventually blurts unprompted.
He realizes with horror that he has reached the turning point. In his inebriated state, his mouth has become faster than his hand with his drink.
“What?” Dream replies, confusion only visible in the small crease between his brows.
Oh well. In for a penny, in for a pound.
“Like, how does your hair always look so good if you can’t do it in the mirror?” Hob asks, trying his best not to slur his words.
“I do not ‘do my hair’, this is simply how my hair looks,” Dream replies.
“What do you mean you don’t ‘do your hair’?” Hob sputters indignantly, “It used to look different every time I saw you!”
“The collective mind of the time dictates what is societally acceptable for me, and my hair, to look like,” Dream says, like it should be self-explanatory, “and then it just is.”
Hob stares at Dream, eyes drunken and half-lidded, and while he understands each of the words Dream said in theory, he struggles in vain to derive meaning from the whole. The fact that Dream feels comfortable enough to confide in Hob is one of the greatest prides of his long life, but it does mean he sometimes has to listen to sentences like that.
“That,” Hob says finally, “makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.”
It must be the alcohol that soften the lines of Dream’s face, and makes his eyes look gentle in a way Hob has only ever imagined glimpses of. Dream smiles, an incredibly rare one that shows the barest hint of his teeth (fangs hidden in some manner, presumably), and Hob allows his train of thought to careen wildly off the tracks, argument forgotten. He lets Dream’s smile be the infectious one for a change, and silently thanks every force in the universe for allowing them this small moment, no matter how little of it he may remember tomorrow.
“Also,” Dream adds, a touch cheekily, “I can, in fact, look in mirrors, you know.”
“Well, yeah. Now you can,” Hob replies in kind, “they’re not made of silver anymore, dummy.”
The rest of the night follows much the same, with Hob desperately trying not to say anything stupidly romantic and instead saying something stupidly ridiculous, and Dream listening and responding with a tenderness and mirth that perhaps anyone but Hob wouldn’t have expected from him. Hob has suspected all along, of course, that he was capable of such things, but truthfully it was always easier to chalk it up to wishful thinking.
It becomes apparent at one point that they are the only two patrons left in the Inn, and after finally noticing one of the many pointed glances Hob is sure the bartender has probably thrown their way, Hob packs up his papers (most of which he did end up grading before getting sloshed, thankfully) and prepares for the short walk back to his flat.
“May I see you home, Hob Gadling?” Dream asks politely, standing up and pushing in his chair.
“Nah, it’s alright,” Hob says, head swimming as he stands. He wobbles slightly, struggling to stay upright and Dream grabs his arm to steady him. The touch feels like a thousand volts of electricity, but it is not enough to sober nor satiate him.
“Please,” Dream says, his voice betraying an awkward sincerity that makes Hob melt, “it would put my mind at ease to ensure you are able to arrive safely in your… state.”
“Psh, and they say chivalry is dead,” Hob is a grown man, and he does not giggle. “Alright duck, you can walk me home.” The endearment slips out before he can catch it, and he desperately hopes his words are slurred enough for Dream to have missed it.
Dream’s hand remains on Hob’s arm as they leave the New Inn and step out into the night, curled gently around Hob’s bicep. The point of contact between them is burning on Hob’s skin, and he laughs breathlessly to himself as he thinks about holy water and other such corrosive materials. He thinks about all the churches over the years he has prayed in, all the priests who have urged him to recite their holy words, and what they would think if they saw him now. Dream shoots him a questioning look, but now looking back at him, all Hob can think about is the pink of his lips and what they would feel like pressed against his own neck.
Which causes him to trip over a lip in the sidewalk. For a moment, he is sure he will be spitting out gravel and nursing skinned palms, and he is about to begin mourning whatever dignity he had when he left the Inn, when an arm shoots forward lightning-fast to catch his chest. The other hand is moved up his arm and placed on his shoulder to steady him, and when Hob looks up at Dream once more, he expects to see amusement at his clumsiness. But he is met only with concern.
“This is precisely why I could not let you travel alone,” Dream says gravely.
“You are such a weirdo,” Hob replies, and he knows just how much love and awe and wonder he has probably infused into those five words.
They are standing close now. The night is cool and clear, and Hob basks in the view of Dream haloed by the light of the street lamps. His hand remains on Hob’s chest, and he wonders whether Dream can feel the racing of his heart from beneath his t-shirt and his skin and the burning sensation that still lingers just under it.
Hob thinks about how easy it would be for Dream to whisk him away into the narrow space between the buildings just behind them. In the dead of night, while the rest of the city lies dreaming in their beds, it would be a simple task for Dream to crowd him against the wall of the alley and feast. Hob meets Dream’s eyes for a moment in his reverie, before looking down to his lips. He imagines what sharp dangers might linger behind them, and starts to understand what it might mean to have a hunger that will never be satiated. He exhales once, shakily, before deciding to commit his biggest mistake of all. He no longer has a drink to keep his mouth busy, after all.
He does not realize quite how close they had been until Dream pulls away. Hob realizes then, as Dream draws his hands from Hob’s shirt back to his sides, just how long it had been since he’d been touched before tonight. When he meet’s Dream’s eyes, there is a guarded look there that he can’t quite parse. Hob doesn’t even want to speculate what his own eyes might betray.
“Come,” Dream says with finality after a moment, with a hand outstretched towards the direction of Hob’s flat, “you are in need of rest. You may… feel differently, in the morning.”
He doesn’t touch Hob again for the rest of the walk, but he does stand close enough to catch him again should he trip. Hob is very careful to watch where he puts his feet.
When they arrive, and Hob manages to unlock the door with only a moderate amount of trouble, he is surprised to find Dream enters his flat as well. He reaches out to help Hob remove his jacket, and Hob feels his fingers almost, but not quite, brush against his neck. He lets out an involuntary shiver, which Dream seems to interpret as a chill and he quickly ushers Hob into his bedroom.
“Sleep well, Hob Gadling,” Dream says after Hob has flopped fully clothed onto his bed, and even in his drunk and exhausted state, he notices something wistful in his friend’s tone. “I shall watch over you as you dream. No nightmares shall torment you this night.”
“Pshh,” Hob says into the pillow, “you are just like Edward.”
- Thrall
In his quietest and most contemplative moods, Hob will often find himself at the gates of a cemetery.
Ironically enough, he finds peace sitting among the dead and is especially calmed by the reminder that he will not be joining them anytime soon. He feels the hard wood of the bench beneath him, the brisk wind that signals the oncoming winter, the soft fleece that lines the inside of his sweater, and thinks about how grateful he is, even after all this time, to still be here.
Today, Hob visits the last in a long line of men who worked behind the bar of the White Horse Tavern. Ian McKay’s grave is modest, but tasteful; a simple grey stone and lettering not yet faded with time (they really are getting so much better at that these days). He looks at the years on the grave and marvels and how close the two dates are in the whole scheme of things.
This is why he comes here, of course. To remind himself that most human lives are fleeting and short lived, but that even in that small time, they accomplish so, so much. Hob has never been a visionary, has never been the great mind of his generation (any of his generations), but he has always had an eye for progress. Even in their scant eighty years, a human life sees so much change.
There is a small piece of text on Ian’s grave, below his name and the years he lived. Hob kneels down to brush his fingers over the words, ‘Though we die, yet shall we live’, and desperately hopes that Ian is enjoying wherever he has ended up as much as Hob is enjoying not being there.
Though Hob is spared her touch, in many ways death has been a constant in his life. Everyone that Hob grew up with, everyone he worked with at the printing press, everyone who had ever been to his estate, served him mead—they are all gone. His wife, his son, and before that his mother and father and siblings have all, in their own way, left him behind. He is the sole keeper of the memory of thousands that others have forgotten to time. While his self-centered nature used to allow him relief from this burden, it does no longer.
He comes to the cemetery to try desperately to remember those who have passed, so that no matter how small, they might live on through his memory. Hob thinks of the glass of whiskey Ian McKay poured him in 1989, and prays that will be enough of a legacy.
“This is the last place I would expect to find you, Hob Gadling.”
It has taken months of practice, but Hob no longer startles when he realizes he is not alone. He looks to find Dream sitting on the bench behind him, eyes filled with poorly concealed worry as he watches Hob leaning over Ian’s headstone. Hob feels his own gaze soften, and joins Dream back on the bench, trying to convince himself he’s left a normal amount of space between them as their thighs brush. It figures Dream would haunt a place like this, and Hob wonders if he had to claw his way out of a grave just like the one before him at one point, like so many of the legends say.
“Nah,” Hob says, “I’m not scoping out a place for myself here quite yet. I just like how quiet it is, that’s all.”
“I see,” Dream replies, and Hob has a feeling that he genuinely does.
“Being here helps me remember,” He adds, just in case.
Dream nods solemnly, and Hob notices with relief that the worry from before seems to have faded.
“Did you… know Ian McKay?” Dream asks him, voice quiet.
“Not really,” Hob admits, “he served me a drink once, and watched me mope for an entire evening in the White Horse.”
“Is that so.”
Dream does not pose it as a question, and Hob can almost see the walls of guilt and grief he is beginning to build around his heart at the reference of their missed meeting.
“Hmm,” Hob nods, looking back down at the gravestone, “he struck me as a wise man, though. Seemed like he gave good advice. He was the one who told me our tavern was shutting down in the first place.”
Hob looks back at Dream and remembers the bartender’s words about friends and fights and the ability to laugh at the end of everything.
“Our tavern?” Dream asks, the corner of his lips curling like he can read Hob’s mind. That same damned smirk, like Hob wouldn’t give anything for just the briefest taste of it. Hob lets himself smile up to his eyes and tries not to worry about the years Dream might see in the creases there.
“Yeah,” he replies softly, “I mean, I never went there unless I was with you. It was singular in that way; you were my stranger and we met in our tavern. It made it a sacred place, at least to me. Though, we have our new inn now and, of course, you are no longer a stranger.”
Hob’s words hang for a moment between them. He isn’t sure where this bout of honestly has come from within him, but seeing the wonder and amazement that flood Dream’s eyes, he cannot bring himself to regret speaking the truth. Hob savours the look, and desperately tries to take in everything about this moment—Dream’s hair blowing gently in the wind, the chill of the December breeze, the long column of Dream’s neck from beneath his black coat, his small smile, his eyes—so that he can remember every detail later. It’s a habit Hob picked up without realizing, hoarding the memories to fill the hundred-year span of yearning left between their meetings, but it’s not a habit Hob figures he’ll break anytime soon.
He watches as Dream’s eyes flick down to his lips, just for a second, and back up again. Hob feels the familiar pull at his chest, a tug on the invisible fishing line that Dream has hooked around his heart. He feels his stomach twist, and a thousand questions and confessions begin to crawl their way up his throat. Instead, as if being pulled by destiny itself, Hob reaches up to take Dream’s jaw in his hand. They have always been better at letting their eyes speak for them, after all. Hob strokes along Dream’s cheekbone with his thumb and thinks about a thousand different times over the hundreds of years that he has imagined doing this exact gesture. He revels in the feeling, and wonders what kind of spell Dream has cast on him to make him suddenly this brave.
“Is this okay?” Hob almost whispers, remembering the sting of rejection pierce through the alcohol-induced haze after a moment cut short. Remembering the pain of 1889. But desperately hopeful that things are different now, that they truly have changed.
“Yes,” Dream replies.
Hob can feel the motion of Dream’s throat as he swallows before licking his lips. Hob touches his face with the reverence it deserves, and after what feels like a lifetime, finally cannot help but succumb to the thrall Dream has placed on him.
For that is what it must surely be. Hob has kissed people before, has fallen in love before, and it pales in comparison to what he feels when his lips meet Dream’s.
Every one of Hob’s nerve endings comes alive at the contact. Dream’s skin does not have the chill of a corpse, but the cool of a freshwater lake after a day spent lounging in the hot sun, and his lips are gentle and almost nervous. The hair at the nape of his neck is soft like silk when Hob’s fingers brush through it, and Dream makes a breathy sound when his fingers catch in it. He doesn’t know what he expected, the hundreds of thousands of times he must have imagined this moment, but it was nothing like this. He feels adrift at the tenderness with which Dream kisses him.
And with every new press of lips, each gaining more and more confidence, Hob can feel the rush of his blood grow louder in his ears. He feels it travelling through his arm to the hand that cradles Dream’s face, to his thigh as they press closer together on the bench, and finally journeying back to his heart. He imagines it pumping through each chamber, atrium to ventricle, and passing along the feeling of these touches so they gather and bloom in the center of his chest. He feels the love he has for Dream pumping through his body with each rapid beat of his tired heart, and knows in a second that he would let Dream taste every last drop if he asked.
The place the blood doesn’t seem to be flowing, however, is his head. When his dizziness threatens to overtake him, Hob reluctantly pulls away with a gasp of air he didn’t realize he was lacking. He presses his forehead against Dream’s while he waits for the world to stop spinning.
When he feels steady enough to open his eyes, Hob pulls back slightly to look at Dream, who pushes his head further into Hob’s hand in response. He sees hunger in Dream’s eyes, but a nervous, restrained hunger, how a starving man might look at a potentially poisoned meal.
“I wish you’d used your freaky vampiric thrall a bit sooner,” Hob laughs, trying to reassure Dream, “it would have saved us a couple hundred years, and me a hell of a lot of self-imposed heartbreak.”
Hob succeeds in wiping the nervousness from Dream’s features, unfortunately it is replaced with confusion as he pulls away from Hob slightly in shock.
“My what?” Dream says flatly.
“Y’know,” Hob says, starting to feel nervous himself, “your thrall… thing? The thing you do to make everyone obsessed with you all the time?”
“I can assure you that they absolutely are not,” Dream scoffs, but it’s undercut by the breathiness in his voice. Hob replies with a questioning look as he thinks about every look he has ever received when standing next to Dream.
“Regardless,” Dream continues, “manipulating the emotions of others is not a power that I possess.”
“Hmm,” Hob replies, “manipulating emotions? Perhaps not. But inspiring emotions, that is a completely different story.”
Dream smiles slightly at that, and picks up the hand lying between them that had moments ago lain on his cheek. He brushes his lips to Hob’s knuckles and meets his eyes with an intensity that would surely have caused Hob’s knees to give out had he not already been sitting. Hob can do nothing but surge forward and kiss Dream once again.
These kisses have more heat than before, more passion. Dream runs his tongue along Hob’s lower lip, and he opens them eagerly, glad that the formal invitation rule only applies to houses. Dream does not taste like blood, but instead like the first rain of spring that summons flower buds up from the ground and bird eggs to hatch. He tastes like rebirth. He tastes like reinvention. He tastes like revelation.
They cool once more after a time, as the bench starts to feel harder under their thighs and brisk wind becomes biting. Hob looks around at all the headstones after a moment and laughs softly at the absurdity of kissing a vampire in a graveyard. Dream turns Hob’s chin with one hand back to face him and levels him with another look, silently asking to be let in on the joke.
“I know I’ve got plenty of misconceptions about your kind,” Hob chuckles, eyes scanning the empty cemetery, “but this seems a touch stereotypical, especially for you.”
“My kind…?” Dream starts, when seems to remember the earlier comment suddenly. Hob watches his eyes grow wide with the beginning of understanding. What Hob does not expect however, is for Dream to grin—teeth barred, eyes crinkled with silent laughter, the whole nine yards—and take Hob’s face between both hands before asking:
“Hob, what manner of creature do you think I am?”
Hob groans.
“C’mon, don’t make me say it…” He says, or tries his best to. Dream’s hands on his cheeks have pushed them together slightly and he’s having trouble closing his lips.
Dream doesn’t reply, which is fair enough. Hob cannot deny him anything at the best of times, let alone when he is this close and touching his face and smiling.
“You’re a…” Hob flounders, “…vampire?”
They stare silently at each other for a moment.
Just when Hob is about to backpedal with lord knows what excuse, he hears a deep sound seem to fight its way out of Dream’s throat. It continues as Dream removes his hands from Hob’s face to cover his own. He rests his elbows on his knees and his shoulders shake as he desperately tries to muffle the sounds coming out of his mouth.
Hob realizes belatedly that Dream is laughing. At him.
“Well to be fair,” Hob says huffily, crossing his arms, “it’s not like you ever did anything to prove otherwise! You don’t eat, you don’t drink, you don’t age…”
“A vampire?!” Dream finally manages through his laughter. When he looks up at Hob, there are tears streaming down his cheeks, which are scrunched up to his eyes in the widest smile Hob has ever seen on him by a landslide.
Hob feels all his breath leave his lungs in one fell swoop. Dream, face wet and eyes crinkled, is the most beautiful sight he has ever seen in his six hundred years.
He’s still very confused, though.
“Well, yeah?” Hob says, “I mean, you didn’t give me any reason to think otherwise! You didn’t say anything when I gave you that big formal invitation into my apartment…?”
“I thought it was quite polite of you,” Dream says, terrifying laugh turning into deep, slightly ominous chuckles. Hob rolls his eyes.
“What about when I made all those drunk comments about you looking in mirrors?”
“I did inform you, I can see my reflection in them just fine.”
“But,” Hob is floundering at this point, “you only wear black…?”
“Do you not have a preferred colour?”
It’s Hob’s turn to place his head in his hands as he groans again in frustration.
“I can’t believe this,” Hob says, mostly to himself.
“Worry not, Hob Gadling,” Dream replies. “It is an understandable assumption. But I must ask, how long have you thought this?”
“Can you not leave me with a shred of dignity?” Hob pleads, turning his head in his hands to look back up at Dream. Dream is still smiling, but its softened again.
“Hmm, that long?” Dream teases, “Very well, I shall not ask further.”
Hob scoffs, but it probably comes out fonder than it has any right to. Hob has been embarrassed more times than he can count—he cares about a great many things and is known to occasionally mess said things up in quite dramatic fashions—so he is practiced at willing his face to stop being red and his palms to stop being clammy. Though all that could also be from the make-out session, now that he thinks about it.
“You thought I was a creature that could tear you apart at any moment to satiate my thirst,” Dream says pensively after a moment, “and yet… you would still offer me your heart?”
“Well… yeah,” Hob replies easily.
“Oh,” Dream says softly. It is more exhale that word, but Hob hears the realization all the same. Dream has finally understood the scale of his feelings, glimpsed the massive shape of his devotion, and it’s all Hob can do not to frantically grab his hand before he has a chance to run off again. He knows how this conversation goes, and desperately hopes it won’t be another hundred and thirty-three years this time.
Instead, Dream moves to brush his fingers along Hob’s forhead, travelling across his hairline to tuck the strands that have fallen in front of his face back behind his ear. Dream’s smile is full to the brim with wonder, and Hob suspects he looks much the same. As Dream’s fingers move hesitantly across his cheek, Hob thinks that maybe he too understands he how brave of an act love truly is.
When their lips meet again, they can hardly kiss through their smiles.
+1. Garlic
Hob has never considered himself a very prolific cook, but after doing something every day for hundreds of years (at least since the days he had a serving staff) he’s picked up a thing or two along the way.
The kitchen he stands in does not look familiar in any way, and yet he knows instinctively that it is his kitchen. And it’s certainly a nice kitchen, with lots of counterspace to work and a stove where all the burners cook the pan evenly and a dishwasher that would never even think about stripping the design off a mug.
Hob knows each detail for the declaration of love that it is.
He chops onions. He finds the rhythmic slide of the knife soothing, and revels in the way that his eyes don’t well up with tears here. He places the onions in a bowl, and searches through the cupboards to find a frying pan.
After searching through more cupboards than would spacially fit in this kitchen, he finds what he is looking for. A sturdy, cast iron skillet he had purchased sometime around 1832 and accidentally left in his old flat when he moved to start yet another new life. The weight feels familiar in his hand, and he gives it a flip before catching it again and placing it on the stovetop. He is about to turn the stove on when he hears:
“Very impressive.”
The deep voice from behind him seems to reverberate throughout the kitchen, filling the entirety of the space.
Hob smiles and turns around to find Dream leaning on the counter he was just chopping onions at, although now the bowl appears to be empty once again, and a few unsliced yellow onions rest on his cutting board.
Dream always seems different here. He looks different—his coat is longer here, and it (as well as his hair) seem to scoff at the very notion of gravity. His eyes hold even more stars, and sometimes Hob thinks he can see one supernova, turning into a massive cloud of dust and gas sitting in his pupils where new stars can be born in its stead. His voice is more resonant, and the deep bass tones slide across Hob’s skin and tingle at the base of his neck.
But mostly, Dream just seems more at home. More comfortable in this space, this realm. Hob has noticed from the moment they met that in the “waking world” as he refers to it now, Dream has always been keenly aware of the space his body takes up. He would stand awkwardly, shuffle about unsurely, and shove his hands deep into his pockets so he didn’t have to think about where to place them. In the Dreaming, he lounges openly—letting his legs sprawl lazily, hands roaming the countertops and eventually picking up one of the newly-unsliced onions, tossing it from hand to hand. He is more comfortable in himself here than Hob has ever seen when he is awake.
Which makes sense, this is his kingdom after all. Everything here is his, and he is part of everything here.
“I’m pretty sure I just diced that onion already, darling,” Hob says reproachfully.
“Did you now…” Dream teases, holding the onion in front of his face not dissimilar to the way Hamlet would hold the skull of poor Yorrick. Hob rolls his eyes and wonders idly which came first.
“We can do one of those ‘no matter how many times I slice the onion it never ends up sliced’ dreams tonight if you want,” Hob says with a laugh, moving to stand in between Dream’s legs, “but then you won’t get any gnocchi, so it’s up to you.”
Dream seems to think about it for a moment, but Hob guesses date night won the battle as Dream passes him a bowl full of diced onion with a sheepish grin.
“Very well, my love,” he says, and there is no power in this universe that would be able to hold Hob back from kissing Dream when he uses pet names like this.
Hob stands between Dream’s legs and marvels at the feeling of him pushed against the counter. He holds himself up with one hand on Dream’s hip while the other is free to roam up his back underneath his coat, as his own hands tangle into Hob’s hair. No matter how many times they do this, it doesn’t get any less unbelievable, and Hob feels like it’s the first time.
As different as Dream seems here, kissing him feels the same as in the waking world. The passion is always there, but Hob is always awestruck by the gentleness and care Dream pours into their embraces. Dream touches Hob as if he is something precious, and Hob doesn’t think he has ever been treasured like this. He is dizzy with it, almost as if Dream had sucked the blood from his body after all.
They pull away after an indeterminant amount of time. To Hob, every kiss in the Dreaming feels like it stretches for eons while its happening, but feels like seconds once its over. Time moves differently here, and he rejoices in living these stolen centuries in Dream’s realm, short as they may seem sometimes.
Dream presents the bowl of chopped onions back to Hob, who smiles before taking it and placing it beside the stovetop near his old pan. He turns to check the fridge to see what other ingredients Dream has left him with (he doesn’t remember getting the onion from anywhere, he either found it on the table or entered the Dreaming chopping it) and laughs with delight at what he finds.
“Now I know I’m dreaming,” Hob says, turning around to show Dream a handful of fresh garlic bulbs, “I haven’t kept these in any of my kitchens since the early 1700’s.”
“Oh?” Dream replies. “And why is that?”
“You know why,” Hob says with a teasing glare. After a moment of silence, he continues: “I just thought that, on the off chance you were to visit my humble abode, I didn’t want to scare you off before you’d even had a chance to enter.”
Hob shakes his head, and takes a moment to think about all the time he spent over the years stressing about Dream’s vampiric needs.
“Ah well, at least I knew you would never have garlic breath,” Hob says with a laugh, “and it’s not like I have to worry about your dietary habits anymore.”
Hob can see an idea form in Dream’s head well before he actually does anything, and Hob is about to ask what he’s thinking when he notices the red nebulas in Dream’s eyes seem to overtake the black void. His face grows (somehow) gaunter and more slender, and Hob notices two canines grow to overtake his bottom lip. Finally, because Dream has never been one to shy away from theatrics, Hob watches as his coat grow longer to become a cape, with its lapels flipping themselves up to circle his head in true Dracula fashion.
Hob finds himself face to face with Dream: the vampire. He drops the garlic without noticing.
“Oh.” He says faintly. Dream smirks, fangs gleaming.
“Well,” Dream starts, circling Hob like a predator waiting for a moment of weakness from its prey, “as you know, my love, in dreams all things are possible.”
Dream presses up behind him, one hand on Hob’s hip as the other pulls on his collar, pressing his face into the junction between his neck and his shoulder. Hob exhales shakily as he feels the sharp fangs barely graze his skin, and it feels as if every nerve in his body has become electrified.
“Is this more what you imagined from a little kitchen rendezvous?” Dream says against his neck. Hob feels his hands roam from his hips, under his shirt and across his chest. The adrenaline coursing through his veins at the knowledge that Dream could drink him down right now, coupled with the knowledge that he never would, makes Hob’s heart feel like it could burst out of him.
“Is this what you had hoped for?” Dream asks with a slow kiss to Hob’s neck that has him struggling to stay upright, “Is this what you wanted?”
That gives Hob pause. He finds his footing and turns in Dream’s arms to look in his now blood-red eyes, trying to gauge the hidden meaning behind his questions. He places his hands on Dream’s gaunt, pale cheeks, careful to avoid pricking himself on the still-visible teeth.
“It seemed foolish to hope for what I thought was the impossible,” Hob says, “but as for what I wanted…”
Hob thinks back to all the meetings he and Dream have had over the centuries. He thinks about all the nights spent at the New Inn telling stories, the days spent walking around campus discussing the inspiration of the next generation, the time spent in Hob’s flat just enjoying each other’s company, and he can’t think of a single thing he would change. He wouldn’t dare to dream of rewriting a single line of their story.
“All I wanted was to be with you,” Hob says, pressing his forehead to Dream’s. “All I want is to be with you. Exactly as you are.”
At that, he sees the galaxies in Dream’s eyes return. His fangs are gone, as if they had never been there, and his coat returns to the billowing enigma it always is in the Dreaming. He looks at Hob with unbridled wonder, and Hob thinks he has never been more in love than he is in this moment.
“I do not know what I did to deserve this kindness.” Dream admits quietly.
“What you did?” Hob sputters. “I still can’t believe you of all beings would want me.”
“Why would you say that.”
There is not a hint of a question in his voice.
“I’ve never had any big dreams, no huge ambitions for my life.” Hob shrugs. “I stay in one place until the wind changes and the next opportunity is planted at my feet. The only real dream I’ve ever had is to keep living.”
Dream looks up at Hob with astonishment before gathering both of Hob’s hands in his and kissing each with less grace than normal.
“Hob Gadling,” he says, “is that not the greatest dream of all? To dream of more time? To dream of more dreams?”
“Oh,” Hob replies.
“Why did you think I returned to you, time and time again?” Dream asks disbelievingly, like Hob has misunderstood one of the principal pillars of the universe.
“I dunno,” Hob shrugs, “I guess I thought maybe my blood smelled good or something.”
Dream rolls his eyes and scoffs, and Hob feels like all the love he has for Dream blooms in his chest at the gesture.
“And what of you?” Dream counters, but there is a slightly self-conscious note to his voice now. “Why did you return to me?”
It is Hob’s turn to level a dumbfounded, disbelieving stare.
“Dream,” Hob says, clutching Dream’s hands, “I have loved you from the moment I set eyes on you that first night in the tavern. I can no longer remember a time when I did not love you. And it has never, ever stopped—even when you made it bloody difficult.”
Hob brings Dream’s hands up to his mouth and presses a kiss in the middle where his hands meet, returning the gesture from earlier.
“Especially then,” he continues, “you’d have to be a fool not to see it.”
“Perhaps love makes fools of us all, Hob Gadling.” Dream says.
Hob thinks it will take him until the end of the universe to tire of hearing Dream say his name like that, or possibly longer.