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It has been three weeks and four days since Dream of the Endless first pursued his dalliance with the immortal Hob Gadling, and they still have not had sex.
Incorrect, he thinks to himself. Because Hob would correct him, and he finds, inexplicably, that he values how he appears to Hob even more now that they have introduced a sexual component to their friendship. Hob would tell him that sex is whatever they decide sex is. That there is an ontological debate to be had, because once one has defined ‘oral sex’ as sex then it is a slippery slope to then define ‘intercrural sex’ as sex, or ‘masturbation’ as sex, and unless they have a desire to get into a proper discussion about it, better to call the whole thing a wash. Hob’s words, not his. He would use. More elegant words.
He finds, despite himself, that Hob’s inelegance is as appealing as his physical features, and his prowess in bed. This is why it baffles him that they have not yet had penetrative sex, which humans have always considered to be the singular most aspired-to act in the sexual pantheon. Correction: they have not had penetrative sex in the Waking. They have engaged wholeheartedly in it in the Dreaming, as well as a variety of other sexual acts. All of them have been…wonderful. All of them have made him feel safe, and satisfied, and Hob is insistent on remaining with him afterwards for what he calls his ‘typical post-shag cuddles.’
He had done this the first night, too. When he had invited Dream to stay. When he had drawn Dream back into his bedroom and laid him down in his rumpled sheets, still smelling powerfully of the musk of night-sweat and Hob’s skin, and there Dream had remained until the morning, when Hob had made him tea and pancakes.
Is this typical for…friends with benefits? he had asked, and Hob had shrugged.
Neither of us are typical, he had said, and Dream had been forced to agree. He had eaten the pancakes. They had been delicious.
And they still have not had sex in the Waking. Not in the way that he wishes to. He is, ultimately, not certain how to broach the subject. That first night, he had been driven by an exhaustion of both mind and essence. He had not been thinking straight. If he had, he would not have been so obvious in his yearning that Hob had no choice but to notice. But he is not exhausted now. He is more hale and whole than he has been in aeons, and so cannot use a muddled mind as an excuse to bring it up. He has considered simply…saying it. Aloud. But worries that the parameters of their relationship are still too nebulous for him to push at.
It has been less than a month. Perhaps this is normal for human ‘friends with benefits.’ Perusal of the Dreaming has provided him with no answers; every dreamer seems to have a different idea of what ‘friends’ means, and ‘with benefits’ has an equally wide-flung net of possibilities. One woman in São Paolo has a friend that she goes to who cooks her lavish dinners and hand-feeds her elaborate desserts, and she considers this a beneficial relationship, though the sexual component of it is often secondary to the satisfaction she feels from being taken care of. There is a person in Texas, genderless like his sibling, whose friend with benefits goes out drinking with them, and sometimes the night ends in sex, but more often it ends in heartfelt discussions of philosophy and ethics. A young man in Bristol calls his friend with benefits ‘daddy’ and wallows in the feeling of someone else taking control for a time. Dream studies this man’s dreams for…longer. Than he would like to admit. He does not have the same concept of fathers or fatherhood that mortals do, but he is achingly familiar with wishing to let go. Wanting to let someone else do the work. Longing to be little more than a soft animal. Hob has been agreeable to this so far. They have kissed and touched and stroked and licked each other in a variety of ways in the Waking, and in the Dreaming they have engaged in far more acrobatic bouts of sex, some of them defying conventional physics, and all of it has been wonderful.
And still Hob has not fucked him in the Waking.
He is beginning to grow. Frustrated. It is not that he is unsatisfied. Three days after their first encounter, he had visited Hob in the evening while he graded papers in the New Inn, intending to…to spend time with him. Unsure of what his welcome would be, despite the offered pancakes of before, and Hob’s insistent any time, you are always welcome here. Hob had greeted him with enthusiasm, and had ordered drinks and food for both of them. Providing for him. He had flashed back to the simplistic dreams of pigeons, of lifelong mates bringing their bounty back to the nest, and perhaps Hob had seen some hint of yearning in his face because he had cut his grading short, and taken Dream back upstairs to his flat, and in the quiet warmth of his bedroom he had stripped himself bare and then proceeded to open himself up on his own fingers while Dream had watched. Slow, he had gasped, when Dream had pushed into him, every manufactured nerve alight with sensation. Hob’s chest had heaved, sweat beading along his collarbone that Dream had eagerly chased with his tongue. Slow, that’s good, that’s…Christ, it’s been a while. In the flashbang of sensation that had followed, he had not even had the chance to touch Hob’s prick before he had been rutting furiously into giving heat. Hob had come untouched, of which Dream had been immensely proud, and afterwards he had taken the crown of Hob’s cock into his mouth to lick the taste of his spend from him. Even softening, it had been an ample mouthful.
So. No. He is not unsatisfied. Hob is a generous lover. He does not ask Dream to take more than he desires to take. He has been sure to mention, multiple times, that he knows his endowment is…substantial, and he does not expect Dream to do anything beyond his own comfort level. People don’t think about what a pain it is to have a big cock, he has said. Self-effacing, as is his way. I mean, anatomically it’s just not going to fit most places. Not that there aren’t plenty of size queens in the world. And then he had kissed Dream, tenderly, at the corner of his mouth, and he had smiled so softly and so fondly that Dream had felt it all the way down into the marrow of the universe. When Hob smiles at him in that way, it is like…clouds. Gathering over a desert. At the first drop of rain, the first hint of his regard, all of the tough and desiccated things in Dream’s existence slowly unfurl their leaves, and in no time at all he blooms.
And yet Hob has not had sex with him in the Waking.
“What are you thinking about, darling?”
In the heart of the Dreaming, it is difficult to lose track of himself. He must have been musing for some time; when Dream blinks, he finds that they are no longer sitting in his chambers, in his bed, as they had been before. He has reshaped the Dreaming around them without thought, and now he and Hob are lying in the centre of an irregular circle of wildflowers. The sky above them is the peerless, edgeless black-blue expanse of a desert at midnight, the moon so high above that only its light is visible, and every star a twinkling pinprick of white fire. Yet even in such darkness, their surroundings are clearly visible: beyond their cushion of vibrantly-hued flowers stretches out an endless, arid scrubland. Silver-leaved sagebrush butts up against their little sanctuary, and brittlebush, its buds just beginning to unfurl into yellow starbursts, provides them a measure of perceived privacy. Feather grass waves in a hot, sultry breeze, tickling at his bare calves. They are both still nude, though Hob does not seem to mind. If anything, he appears ever more enchanted as he takes in their new surroundings.
“Wow,” he says, eyes wide, staring around them with naked wonder. Flowers, in every possible shade of red and orange and yellow, entwine around his bare feet, petals tickling the soles, their damp leaves curling between his toes. He is the Dreaming; he feels all of it, and he wants, he wants. He wants Hob to have him in the Waking, in the same way that Hob has had him here. He can taste it in his throat, in the way he had taken Hob into his mouth, the sweet-salt of him, the musk, the fullness. He watches Hob scoop his fingers through the carpet of flowers, laughing in delight when they shower his palm with a dusting of golden pollen.
I want you, Dream thinks, and Hob flops back into the blooming bed with another laugh. Pollen-laden petals brush his cheeks, and he sneezes once.
He cannot say it. He is not in the habit of…asking. For what he wants. He has never needed to. His intentions have always been plain before. He does not know how to make his intentions more plain. Even now, in what should be a dreaming landscape of natural beauty, the flowers instead creep between Hob’s fingers, parting their petals, revealing their soft inner cores to him. It is. Painfully. Obvious. He shudders when Hob’s fingers brush a brightly-coloured anther, smearing more pollen across the pad of his thumb. His prick twitches with interest.
“I am thinking of you,” he says. Tired. Unsure. Perhaps this will be enough? But Hob only looks at him, smiling his wide smile. He sneezes again, and it sends a cloud of gold rustling all around them.
“Been a while since I had sex in the desert,” he says, and reaches for Dream, and they go down together into the sink of petals and clouds of glistening pollen, and Dream thinks that perhaps this is the difference between ‘friends with benefits’ and ‘lovers,’ and tries to resign himself to taking what he is allowed.
+++
Hob wakes up with the taste of agave nectar on his lips and the smell of ripe, fresh pollen still in his nose. He takes a deep breath, luxuriating in the memories of last night’s dream, and promptly sneezes. Pollen flies everywhere; he’s covered in the stuff, almost drenched and, laughing, he picks a few bright orange petals from his hair as he gets up. He sneezes again, this time with more force, and rubs his nose with the back of his hand. It comes away glistening faintly with mucous, and Hob grimaces.
“Better not be getting sick,” he mutters, but there’s no one here to hear him. This morning’s not one of the ones where he wakes to find Dream still in his bed, more’s the pity. He sniffs, and fetches some tissues from the nightstand, and then goes to wash his hands, still thinking of the fading memory of Dream’s voice, surrounded by flowers and the cavernous emptiness of the desert, I’m thinking of you.
“Don’t catch feelings,” he warns himself. Still no one listening. Not that it matters, since the feelings he did catch some five and a half centuries ago have managed to grow and spread and mutate all on their own. Still, it helps to give himself a reminder: he had offered Dream ‘friends with benefits,’ and he’s not going to push. He’s not. He’s not. No matter how sweet he’d looked, laid naked in a field of bright orange California poppies, with the moonlight shining on his face and his hair soft enough that every time Hob’s buried his fingers in it’s always conjured up images of clouds and kittens and perfectly-milled talc and…
In the bathroom, Hob splashes cold water onto his face to rinse away the worst of the pollen. He’s never carried over something from the Dreaming like this before. Hopefully it means Dream is fine – he had seemed distracted last night. Actually, he’s seemed distracted for the past week or so, popping in and out more frequently but spending most of the time when they aren’t having sex sort of…gazing soulfully. Not that Hob minds. He’d spend hours on end doing a bit of gazing himself, if he was allowed to, but. Again. Feelings. Boundaries. Friends with benefits.
God, he’d really shot himself in the foot with that one. But what was he supposed to do, with Dream looking at him the way he had been? Confess? Let me love you, let me take care of you, let me be everything you need and more? It had taken six-hundred years for Dream to give him a name. Somehow he doesn’t think the man – er, man-shaped thing – is the sort to fall into feelings quite so easily as Hob does. Beds, though. Beds are always easy to fall into. And if he can’t have the whole of the thing he wants, then…then he can make do with what he can get, and be happy. He’d been happy with one meeting a century, surely it will be even better now that they’re shagging. Right?
He sniffs, and dabs at his neck and collarbones with more cold water. The air in the bathroom feels muggy and warm already; it’s promising to be a hot one. Tail end of August, now would be the time for a proper heatwave, but when he peeks behind the curtain everything outside is overcast and dim. It actually looks like it’s going to rain; that would explain the humidity, then. Hob sighs, and hears the soft wheeze in his throat that indicates that he is, in fact, catching something besides feelings.
“Shit,” he says. You’d think that immortality would grant him functional immunity to disease as well, but no. He goes through the same cycle of summer and winter colds as everyone else does, though at least they never seem to last long for him. Where everyone else is miserable and sniffling and coughing for a week or more, he’s usually fit as a fiddle within three days. So, he’s not going to worry about it. There are, after all, more important things for him to worry about, like what’s going on with Dream. He can’t just ask him. That’d be begging for trouble. He’s so buttoned-up all the time, and Hob’s only just managed to get him to loosen up enough that every time they get naked it doesn’t feel like it’s the first time all over again. Not that the first time had been bad, but…
But he wants Dream to be comfortable with him. He wants to be the safe place Dream can go to when he’s tired. And he is so often tired. Hob sees it, even if Dream tries hard not to let it show.
He sniffs around his rapidly-clogging nose. Well. No use in ruminating on it here in the bathroom. There’s work to be done, classes to be taught, decongestants to be purchased. He can think all about his feelings for Dream on the way to King’s, and if he’s very lucky the cold that’s brewing somewhere in his chest will decide to bypass him entirely and he’ll be feeling right as rain by lunch.
+++
It does not bypass him.
It doesn’t even come close.
Hob manages to make it all the way to the campus before the cold hits him in full. Up until then it had felt fairly standard: sniffles, a bit of a funny feeling in his chest, the air a tad warmer than usual. By the time he steps off the Tube, though, he’s sweated all the way through his polo and his hair feels like a lank, sodden mess. He manages to get to his office without running into anybody that he knows, though a few of the students who pass him in the hall give him odd looks, but once the door is safely shut and locked behind him he can address the, ah, secondary symptom that’s emerged.
Namely, that he can’t stop thinking about Dream.
Dream on his back in the middle of all those wild poppies, the fiery orange somehow not making his moonlit skin look sallow at all, but lighting him up from within. Dream, naked in Hob’s bed the first morning after, lying on his side and propped up on one elbow, watching Hob slowly wake. Dream, going to his knees in front of Hob on the sofa, eyes riveted to the shape of Hob’s dick beneath his joggers. Dream, in every form and variation: on his belly, the long, pale stretch of his spine, on his hands and knees with his arse in the air and looking coyly over his shoulder, on his back again but this time with his ankles up practically around his ears, spreading himself open so that Hob can touch and lick and caress him and fuck him, oh God, he wants to feel Dream clenching around him, wants to know if he’s as tight inside when Hob’s awake as he is when they’re both in the Dreaming.
He makes a strangled, whimpering noise and drops heavily down into his desk chair. He’d started to get hard on the Tube, sometime in the middle of the commute when the vague off-sensation he’d been having all morning had evolved from sniffles into an itch into thoughts, but now it slams into him like a freight train. He is so suddenly, painfully, fully hard that he actually goes light-headed for a moment, vision swimming. He’s mostly thankful he’s already sitting as, desperate for even a hint of relief, he starts clawing at his trousers. He’s got his belt unbuckled and his fly undone before he gets a hold of himself again, and sits there, breathing heavily, with the absolutely enormous tent that he’s pitching safely hidden behind his desk.
“Do not,” he tells himself. “Do not have a wank at work. Oh my God.” But sweet Christ, he wants to. He’s shaking with how badly he wants, and every third thought is of Dream, or Dream’s hands, or Dream’s mouth, or, increasingly, Dream’s arse. There have been plenty of times in his life that he’s been frustrated by the size of his cock, but he’s never so thoroughly hated it before. It’s quite one thing to have sex in the Dreaming, where there’s no prep or clean-up needed, where Dream is always stretched open and Hob can just…fuck directly into him. But the Dreaming’s all fantasy though, isn’t it? Because the reality is that he’s had more than one lover laugh when they saw him pull out the extra large condoms, only to say ‘holy shit, I thought you were joking’ when he finally got his pants off. There’s been women he hasn’t been able to have sex with because he just couldn’t fit, no matter how slow he went, no matter how much foreplay he employed. He’s hurt people – on accident, yes, but caused actual pain, actual injury – because in the old days there wasn’t a Superdrug he could pop down to for an economy-sized pump bottle of Lovehoney Delight Extra Silky lube, it used to be olive oil if you had the coin, and spit and a prayer if you didn’t.
Fucking hell, but he’s hard. A quick press of palm to groin makes him hiss in discomfort. It would be so easy to just…have one off, and then maybe, maybe he’ll be able to get through the rest of the day, and when he gets home tonight he can take a few Benadryl to conk him out and then ask Dream what the fuck is going on. Because this can’t be natural. He hasn’t been this horny since…no, all right, he was absolutely this horny the first time, when Dream slid to his knees in front of him, but since then he’s been getting a fantastic amount of sex at regular intervals, so this shouldn’t be happening. He shouldn’t be so far gone just from the thought of Dream’s arse that he’s nearly coming in his pants at work.
God, though, Dream’s arse. He’s got a lovely arse. He’s such a skinny thing all over, so it’s not like he’s disproportional, but his skin is so, so smooth. Even when they’re both awake – er, when Dream’s in the Waking, and Hob is awake – every time he’s run his fingers over Dream’s hip it’s been like touching silk. And there’s not a blemish on him, no scars, no pores, nothing. Not even any hair, not unless it’s in a place that Dream wants it to be. Normally he’s got what’s on his head and what’s around his cock, and nothing else. Not even any around his arsehole, whenever Hob’s happened to have his fingers in the area.
Fuck. Now he’s thinking about Dream’s arsehole. Pink and fluttering around his cock, because in the Dreaming Hob imagines himself a little bit smaller than usual but he also can’t precisely lie, and so even though there’s never been need for prep it’s always looked like a stretch. And Dream’s always gasped and moaned and craned his neck like he’s felt it the way it actually feels. Hob’s not entirely sure how Dreaming physics works – when he wakes, he has all the memories of sensation, but were they actual sensations? Did his body feel them while he dreamt?
I’m going insane, he thinks. He feels so hot that he’s on the verge of combustion and his prick is pounding along to the tune of his heartbeat. The lightheadedness of before has returned with a vengeance, and he literally cannot. Stop. Thinking. About licking into Dream’s beautiful, skinny, hairless arse and working him open on his fingers and then finally, finally putting his actual real-life awake cock into him. Fucking him with his legs slung over Hob’s shoulders, a position he can’t ever use with women because it doesn’t matter what pornography says, having your cervix battered apparently isn’t very sexy. But he could, with Dream, because Dream could take all of him, he could feed his cock into Dream’s arse inch by inch and watch it swallowed up by all that soft pink flesh and he’d make it good, he’d make it so, so good, he’d be so careful…!
In the end, he doesn’t get the choice about whether he has a wank at work or not, because with a cut-off moan Hob hunches tight over his desk as pleasure speeds up and down his nerves, crackling like lightning, and he comes in his pants. Untouched. Just by thinking. He’s left panting, forehead pressed hard to the woodgrain, bewildered and sticky and coming down from possibly the least satisfying orgasm he’s ever had in his life because he is still hot, and he is still hard, though at the very least no longer on the verge of collapsing from rapid blood redirection.
But with release comes new clarity of thought. He wants to fuck Dream, yes, of course he does. He wants to have sex with him in the Dreaming, and in the Waking, he wants to have shower sex and sex over the kitchen table, he wants Dream to fuck him bent over the sofa and he wants to blow Dream kneeling at the foot of the bed, and he wants Dream to ride him with no condom because no matter how big he buys them they always seem to pinch, and it’s not like either of them have to worry about STIs, right? He wants all of that. And he wants pancakes in the morning and cuddles after sex and Dream sitting across from him while he grades papers in the evening. He wants to wake up and find Dream still there, next to him. He wants to give Dream a key to the flat, not because Dream needs it, but because…because he deserves a place to come home to that isn’t a huge, draughty castle full of nightmares and responsibilities.
He wants all of that. And Dream…he doesn’t know what Dream wants. Historically, it hasn’t gone well for him when he’s made suggestions. The smart thing, the grown-up human thing, would be to ask Dream to sit down and talk with him about it, but he can’t imagine Dream having any sort of emotionally-fraught conversation unless he initiates it first. Besides, what would Hob say? ‘I want to have sex with you, but I worry that I’m going to hurt you’? That’d be true, but it wouldn’t be the whole of it.
What if it isn’t what Dream wants?
That’s it, right there. Everyone thinks they want a big cock until they’re actually faced with one. And maybe Dream is the sort who likes it, but…but what if he isn’t? Hob can resign himself to only having any sort of sex in the Dreaming, where size doesn’t actually seem to mean anything, but…but he’d rather…not. If the choice is between maintaining things as they are and being mostly-happy versus opening his bloody stupid mouth and potentially ruining everything…yeah. Yeah, he’ll keep his mouth shut. He’ll let Dream come to him, if at all.
He thumps his head against the desk, groaning softly as his half-spent cock twitches in his pants.
First, though. First he’s got to find out whatever the fuck this is.
+++
Dream has not heard from Hob Gadling in more than eight hours.
This is not unusual. He often deliberately turns his awareness away from Hob’s dreams and daydreams, unless he intends to be present, and to interact with them. It is out of respect. Hob, though immortal, is still only human, and humans have…hang ups. About this. About being watched. About being perceived. Dream should know. He has incorporated many of them into himself, as part of the greater dreaming subconscious. That is neither here nor there. He has not heard from Hob in more than eight hours, but usually by this time of evening Hob reaches out to him. They are clumsy attempts at summoning…but there are few who know as many of Dream’s names as Hob does, and his will has grown stronger with every century that has passed. He hears, when Hob calls.
Hob has not called for him. There has been no wistful beckoning to dinner, nor more urgent demand to join him in bed. Then again. Dream has not looked.
He is afraid, after last night, of what he will find. ‘I am thinking of you’ indeed. Hob would be well within his rights to spurn Dream for as long as he wishes, after such an ardent declaration. He knows that Hob will not. He knows that Hob is a kind and forgiving man. Hob is. Soft. With him. Gentle. But such calf-eyed mooning is unbecoming of their relationship.
He wonders if Hob had guessed at the truth of his thoughts. If he had read, in the eagerness of the flowers, Dream’s desperation for him, for his touch, for his prick, for his kisses. If that is why he is now silent.
Or you could simply check on him.
They. They are allowed to do this, are they not? As friends with benefits? The benefits, after all, do not preclude the friendship, and friends check on each other when they are concerned.
He will check on Hob. That is not outside the bounds of friendship. It is allowed. It is allowed. Dream tells himself this, over and over, as he opens his awareness, as he stretches out towards the drifting subconscious thoughts of Hob…
…and is hit, immediately and in the centre of the chest, with such powerful want that he doubles over, gasping.
It is not unheard of, for humans to feel this level of desire, but normally he would assume the interference of his sibling. Yet he has made it very clear to Desire that he will do everything short of spilling their blood should they dare to touch him or his again, and this close to their last …conversation. He does not think it is them. He hopes it is not. Because the want, the lust, the overwhelming need is all directed towards him. Daydreams spin out like unfurling galaxies: himself on his back, with Hob between his legs, pleasuring him with his mouth, and Dream on his belly with Hob’s prick nestled in the cleft of his arse, rocking slowly, and himself on Hob’s bed with his cheek pressed to the pillow and his arse in the air as Hob fucks him slow and deep and he is wailing, he is begging for more, harder, deeper, and Hob is elated and thrilled because no one has ever taken him so easily and so beautifully before and it is freeing and it is a relief and…
Dream slams shut the connection, banishing the wisps of that last daydream from his vision. It is. So close. To everything that he has imagined for himself. What he has longed for. A connection bridging between Waking and Dreaming. To have each other in all ways, in both realms. It is important. He does not want to think about why it is important, but it is. If he thinks too hard about it he will…go. Places. That he does not yet dare to go. Perhaps will never. This is enough. Benefits are enough. Friendship. Warmth. Safety. Kindness. Yes.
He takes a fistful of sand from his pouch, and with a hushed breath lets it transport him to the Waking.
He appears in Hob’s flat above the New Inn, and is struck immediately by the musky, potent smell of sex. It is so potent, in fact, that he reconsiders the idea that Desire may be involved. But…no. There is no hint of his sibling’s presence here. There is only the skin of their realm laying itself over the flat like a blanket. Not, he thinks, like the blanket which Hob has insisted is now his, the soft, fleecy one with llamas in hats printed upon it, but a blanket that smothers. That overheats. He has no authority to dispel this pall; it was invited here.
He follows the scent to its source, passing a pile of forlorn clothing in the hall on the way to Hob’s bedroom. The door has been left open; Hob did not expect anyone to visit him this evening. From within, the sounds of movement, and the scent of musk and salt and semen, and Hob’s voice rising in a sobbing cry. “Oh God,” he says. He sounds. Pained. And pleasured. There is so much overlap between the two, and it is difficult to tell which holds ultimate sway over him. “Oh fuck, oh God, please, please please please…!”
Dream steps into the doorway, and at the sight of the tableau before him he is. Unwillingly. Immediately. Aroused. Painfully so. Urgently. He inhales sharply, and this does. Not. Help. Fills his temporary lungs with the scent of Hob’s pleasure and his bodily odours, his sweat and his desperation. Pheromones. Lust.
Hob is lying prone on his bed, facing away from the door. He has, at some point, removed all of the sheets; his entire body glistens with sweat, from the bunched muscles between his shoulder blades all the way down his spine, to the small of his back where there is a tiny curl of dark, sparse hair that Dream knows. Intimately. The feel of when he runs his tongue over it. When he nuzzles it. When he cups the globes of Hob’s arse and lays his cheek against it. Hob’s arse, now, is tensing and trembling. He is, all over, trembling; there is a pillow underneath him, one that Hob has given him the use of before. It is decorative, Hob has said, but very soft, and now it is covered in damp patches, with sweat and cum, and even as he watches Hob ruts against it, moaning brokenly.
“Please,” he keeps saying, “please, please.” He thrusts again, and makes a frustrated, awful noise. “Please!”
“Hob,” Dream says, and watches as Hob’s entire body seizes, as his bollocks pulse and tighten and his arse clenches down and then he is burying his face in the remaining pillows and he is making a pathetic, low keening sound as his hips stutter, and the smell of fresh semen fills the air. The sound of him rubbing against the pillow, fucking through the increasing puddle of his own seed, is. It should not be as titillating as it is. But it is. He wants, with a suddenness and viciousness that he must curb. He wants, but there is clearly something off. About all of this.
Hob’s orgasm lasts for long seconds, during which he twitches and groans and sighs. He sounds…pained. Nearly sickly. This does nothing to cool Dream’s ardour; if anything, it fires him further, because by the thickness of the smell in the air and the state of the bed, he imagines that Hob has been at this for…for some time. He does not know what has brought this on. He intends to find out. But, in the face of Hob Gadling’s passion, he is, he has always been, weak.
He takes a step further into the room, and then another. Hob flips himself onto his back, chest heaving. His cock is still hard. Thick and long and beautiful, so heavy that, even when its owner is lying flat, instead of standing straight it falls at an angle to the right of his navel. The foreskin has pulled fully back from the head, which is leaking, continuously. Covered in streaks of pearly seed, and so engorged with blood that he can see the vein along its underside throbbing. He takes another step closer, and this time the impact of his foot in the carpet is accompanied by a new scent. A familiar scent. Agave nectar. Pollen. Petrichor. An awful, niggling suspicion enters his mind.
“Don’t,” Hob says, dragging his attention back up. Hob has shakily pushed himself up to sitting, and is hunched over himself, eyes wide. Panting. “Dream. Dream. Fuck. Don’t…come closer. Don’t. Okay? I…something’s…”
Rejection. Immediate. Fervent. He feels it like a knife in the heart. It is. So much worse. Than any wound the Corinthian could have dealt him. He freezes. Wary.
“Hob,” he says, voice rising in pitch at the end – not quite a question. He is unable to keep a hint of hurt from creeping through, though with the state that Hob is currently in it may go unnoticed. All the better. He will determine what has befallen his friend, and then he will be able to swiftly make his escape. Hob need not look upon him longer than he must.
Hob laughs. It is wheezy and sore-sounding; he straightens himself up, his hand creeping, almost of its own accord, to his still-hard cock. He wraps his fingers around it. Even Hob’s broad palm cannot hide the girth of his erection. “I can hear you panicking,” he says. His hand begins to move, slick-sounding with the passing of skin over semen. “Sorry,” he pants. “I can’t…I can’t stop. If I stop it hurts. No, don’t…if you come any closer I might hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you. I always want you. Fuck. God. I want you so badly, Dream, what the fuck is happening?”
Not…rejection. Then. As swiftly as melancholy had crept within him, it is banished…though not entirely. The sting of perceived repudiation lingers. Makes him bristle. Prepared for the potential of further scorn.
He remains where he is, taking no further steps into the room. Instead, analysing the scent he had smelled before. Pollen. Yes. Still there, though faint beneath the much more pressing smells of Hob, and his pleasure. He thinks of last night. He thinks of the superbloom in the midst of the Dreaming’s desert. He thinks of himself and Hob, naked in a patch of wildflowers, covered in golden pollen. He thinks of what he had been thinking of, when he had manifested that part of the Dreaming.
This is. Perhaps. His fault.
He wavers between telling Hob the full truth and…gentling it. A bit. But, in the end, they are friends, and friends are honest with each other, and no matter his wounded pride from his earlier misunderstanding, he owes that much to Hob. He owes Hob so much more.
Hob’s hand flies over his prick; he comes again with a choked-off sound, but this time there is only a weak dribble of seed that emerges from him. He strokes himself through it, hand moving wetly, and then collapses, boneless, back into the bed. With his other hand he gingerly nudges the pillow he had been utilising before, pushing it over the edge of the bed and onto the floor. His eyes are a tad clearer than they were before.
“I believe…this may be. An error. On my behalf,” Dream says slowly. Hob raises his eyebrows. He is no longer stroking himself, but he still keeps his fingers curled around his cock, protective. There is semen drying on his belly and thighs. He looks filthy. Debauched. His hair hangs in sweat-damp clumps over his face, and he absently tries to blow them out of his eyes. He is stunningly beautiful. Dream’s own cock throbs in interest.
“An error,” Hob says. He looks down the length of his body, and then back at Dream.
“Last night. I may have been…focusing overmuch. On my ardour for you.” He surreptitiously attempts to dispel the effects of the pollen – his fault. His fault, of course this is his fault. He has once again ruined something that has been good for him – and is not surprised when the miasma of lust remains stubbornly stationary over Hob’s form. While this may have begun with him, it has now entered his sibling’s realm, and he cannot interfere. He could, he thinks, beg Desire for their help, but he has the feeling that would go…poorly.
Hob, meanwhile, has not ceased to stare at him, eyes skating up and down Dream’s body. They make a hot shiver run down his spine.
“You’ve lost me,” Hob says. “I…I’m sorry. It’s hard to think. I feel like I’m dying, Dream.”
“You are not dying,” he says, perhaps slightly more exasperated than he intended to show. “You are immortal. This will pass.”
“Feels like I’m dying,” Hob says. His hand has begun to rhythmically squeeze his cock, which, Dream notes, still has not gone soft. “Can you make it stop?”
“It must run its course. You are too much within my sibling’s realm for me to interfere.”
“Motherfuck,” Hob bites out, and lets his head flop back into the pillows. He is in discomfort; to see him this way makes something in Dream’s chest tremble. He is not wrong when he says that this will pass. All things, eventually, pass. He is, however, likely adding to Hob’s distress by being here. As the object of at least some of his sexual desire, Dream’s presence is likely only heightening his lust. It would behove them both for him to remove himself from the premises.
…Or lend a hand.
It is a small thought. One of thousands that populate the vastness of him, but once thought, he cannot push it down again. Lend a hand. Or a mouth. Touch him. You want him. Offer yourself, let him push you down and claim you and take you and…
If he does not, if he leaves Hob to this misery, what then? Will Hob seek relief elsewhere? They have not discussed whether Hob would continue to pursue romantic relationships with other people. He has not seen Hob on any other dates, but then, he has not been looking. He had felt secure in his knowledge that he was the only being in Hob’s bed.
Now, he is not so sure. If he leaves now, he will relinquish any claim he has to his position as Hob’s friend with benefits, for is this not supposed to be one of the benefits? That friends help each other when in need? When he was weary, Hob offered him shelter. When he was sore, Hob doctored him. Hob gave him the succour of his body and the comfort of his words, and Dream wants. To give him that, also.
And Hob has not yelled at him. Has not blamed him for this slip of his power, not even when Dream had said he couldn’t make it stop. He has not even asked that Dream stay, even though the daydreams he had seen earlier indicate that Hob desires him very much.
“There is,” he says, “perhaps. Another way.”
Hob lifts his head again. His hand has begun to slowly stroke his prick, light touches, soft. Dream takes a step closer, and Hob lifts his hand.
“I think I am going to jump you if you get too close,” he says. His words are breathlessly sincere. “Just…just so you know.”
“You asked me what I was thinking about,” Dream says, ignoring the warning. He takes another step, and Hob surges up off the bed, going from supine to standing alarmingly quickly. He seems to catch himself at the last second, one foot poised to move closer, his hand outstretched towards Dream. He is trembling, his eyes huge, his breath coming in short, sharp pants.
“You said you were thinking about me,” Hob says. Dream steps closer, now within grabbing distance; the effort that Hob is exerting to keep himself still vibrates off him, but his voice is tenderly fond.
“I was,” Dream admits. “I was thinking…about how you have not had sex with me. In the Waking. And how much I wished that were not so.”
“Dream, I know for…for a fact that I, ah. God. Sorry. I sucked you off not…not twenty-four hours ago. You were definitely there.”
“You have not fucked me,” Dream clarifies, and the bald pronunciation of his intentions seems to break whatever iron-clad will Hob had been maintaining, because he finds himself abruptly wrapped in a tight embrace, with Hob’s hands roaming freely over his shoulders, his back, and then moving unerringly to his arse, cupping the swell of his backside through his jeans.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Hob is saying. He mutters it twice more, plastering himself to Dream’s front, burying his mouth against Dream’s neck. “Please, please, I don’t want to hurt you or have you regret it after, Dream, I don’t…”
“Do you think you could hurt me?” Dream asks, somewhat charmed by the idea. “If I did not wish it?”
“I don’t bloody know! But I couldn’t live with myself if I did, and…” Here Hob swallows. He has begun a slow, dirty grind along Dream’s front, effortlessly slotting their pelvises together. Dream inhales sharply at the firm pressure against his groin, his trapped cock, and the way that Hob’s erection is being dragged against him, smearing semen across his front. Hob does not even seem to notice.
“People always think they want a big cock,” he says. “And then they’re disappointed after. I don’t…I don’t want you to be disappointed.”
He does not see how this is a reasonable fear; he is not ‘people.’ Then again, humans are not reasonable. And…and he has, perhaps, not been so forthcoming as he ought to be. “Hob,” he says, and touches his friend’s cheek, his jaw, petting his sweaty hair until Hob lifts his head and meets his gaze. “I have found nothing but pleasure with you thus far. I fail to see how this would be any different.”
“Oh, you mean my incredibly specific anxiety doesn’t make sense? Wish I’d thought of that earlier.” But he is smiling as he says it. Any sting that might have been in the words is erased when Hob smiles like that, so welcoming and soft. His hands get a better grip on Dream’s arse and start to knead, rhythmically, and he finds that he is beginning to have difficulty staying upright. The smell of sex permeates the air so much thicker than the pollen had in the Dreaming; in the Waking things are always more solid. He cannot call forth a breeze to dispel the scent. To right the bedclothes and clean the carpets would take more concentration than if he were within his own realm. And Hob is different, here. He is more. In his dreams he remembers himself as he once was, a mortal man with mortal frailty. He imagines himself smaller, and less obtrusive, a background character in someone else’s story, when in reality he is…so much more. His enthusiasm, his kindness, his care, these things render him so much larger in the Waking that Dream is nearly consumed by it.
“This happened,” he says, “because I was immoderate with my desires. So perhaps. If those desires are fulfilled. The effects of them will end.” He does not, strictly speaking, know this to be fact. But it makes the sort of sense that his sibling would enjoy, and even if it does not work…it cannot hurt to try.
Yet still, Hob hesitates. His whole body is held as taut as a bowstring, and the only movement is his hands restlessly pushing and clutching and massaging at Dream’s arse.
“If it will ease your mind,” Dream says, “I need not have this specific form.”
This draws Hob up short. “What?”
“I am the Shaper of Forms. I am not limited to the constraints of human flesh.” And, perhaps, given Hob’s size…it may be beneficial for him to have a form that is more forgiving of him. He concentrates; it is easier to reshape himself while he is still within the Dreaming, where all things are possible and his power is strongest, but it is not impossible here. It takes only a bit of extra will. Hob continues to talk while he works, his words growing more slurred and stuttered as the seconds pass.
“Morpheus,” he says. “Fuckin’...Ovid. Should’ve. Okay. Should’ve known. But what does that, ah. Mean? Do you just…” Hob blinks at him, dazed, and then looks down between them. For a moment, incredulity seems to have overtaken his lust. “Did you just…?”
Dream shivers. A female form is not beyond him, but for tonight…tonight, just a fraction of it will suffice. He reaches for one of Hob’s hands, gently removing it from his backside and drawing it around to his front, to touch the crotch of his jeans. A damp patch has already formed there, and the ache that he had felt in his prick before has become a deep, thudding tenderness in his belly, a tightness that winds a single notch higher when Hob’s mouth falls open and he rubs his fingers along the denim-covered cleft of his cunt.
“Oh my God,” he says. The sound of his own voice seems to snap something in him, the coiled tensity breaking all at once. One moment, Dream is standing, mostly under his own power; the next, he finds himself being hefted up, Hob’s arms scooping him under his thighs and bringing his groin almost to Hob’s nose. It is a casual display of strength and control that should mean nothing to him – he has seen far more impressive stunts – but which nonetheless makes him clench his thighs as his cunt grows impossibly wetter. Hob grunts with the effort, but Dream is not aloft for long. He feels Hob’s nose brush against his belly, a hot puff of breath, and then he is deposited unceremoniously onto the bed, on his back with his legs high around Hob’s shoulders. He has enough forethought to dissolve his boots before Hob is lunging for his mouth, and then all thoughts that are not of this current moment vanish. Hob kisses him, yes, like he is dying. Like he is starving, and Dream is the first meal he has been offered in years. His tongue sweeps past Dream’s teeth and claims him, slick and hot and demanding, and Dream is so wet. Reminded. Why this is a form he rarely takes in the Waking. Messy. Desperate. He makes a high noise in his throat that Hob drinks from him; he only breaks away because he must breathe, and even then he does not remain away for long. He dips his head to begin sucking and kissing at Dream’s neck. He cannot leave a mark, not unless Dream allows it, but he does so anyways.
Dream. Wants to allow it.
Hob makes a noise of delight when he draws back, finding that his ministrations have yielded a bruise over Dream’s jugular, the shape of his mouth, a hint of teeth. “Beautiful,” he says, and Dream squirms beneath the praise. “Oh, beautiful, my gorgeous darling, I want to make you feel so good.”
Hob already has the benefit of being naked, and so Dream, with the last sense that is remaining to him, dissolves his clothes, leaving the both of them bare. Hob laughs – even the smallest display of power thrills him – and runs his palms over Dream’s chest, his thumbs over Dream’s nipples until they are pebbled and tight, and then he bites his lip and groans.
“I can’t,” he says, “I feel like I’m about to bloody explode, I can’t, I can’t…”
To see Hob rendered so base and animal does something to him. Hob, overwhelmed by his desire for Dream; his daydreams are now so close and so strong that he cannot help but hear the whispers of them, fantasies of burying his face between Dream’s thighs and feasting on his cunt for hours, of pulling Dream atop him and letting him control the pace of their coupling, of fucking Dream’s arse and pressing a vibrating phallus into his cunt until he is sobbing with pleasure. So many of his fantasies focus on Dream’s enjoyment that he feels faintly dizzy with it. Even in the midst of the most sexual discomfort he has felt in his life, Hob wants to take care of him.
“Then take your pleasure,” he says, voice dipping into the register that he knows Hob likes. Hob likes when his voice is deep and rumbling, when he can lay his tongue against Dream’s throat and feel the vibration of his speech, and it gets the desired effect now: Hob swears, and his fingers go delving between Dream’s legs, finding the straining nub of his clit and giving it a gentle rub – making him hiss – before tentatively sinking first one, and then two fingers into the heat of his cunt. The noise they make is obscene; he is so wet that Hob’s fingers glide into him, the eternal calluses on the pads of them catching at his sensitive inner walls and dragging out another hitching inhale, another soft moan.
“God,” Hob says, “God, you’re so wet for me. I want to taste you so fucking badly.” He crooks his fingers upwards, searching, and they press against…something. Dream is distantly aware that what Hob must have been searching for was his Gräfenberg’s spot, but in the present moment he has difficulty formulating thought, let alone conclusions. He clenches down on Hob’s fingers, a startled keen emitting from him as more fluid soaks Hob’s hand to the wrist. When Hob withdraws his fingers it is with a wet sticking sound that seems very loud, and very obvious, and his hand is glistening.
“You’ll tell me if I hurt you,” Hob says. He sounds desperate. He is sweating and shivering all over, like a man in fever, and between his legs his cock hangs, the head blushed a dark, furious red and his bollocks heavy and swaying. From this perspective he looks as enormous as he worries that he is, and for a moment – just a split second – Dream feels he understands where some of Hob’s anxieties have come from. He had wondered, once before, what acts Hob had been able to meaningfully experience, and this is another piece to that specific puzzle.
“I will,” he promises, knowing that Hob will not hurt him, though even if Hob were capable of doing so, he knows it would also be pleasurable. That anything Hob does to him is done in kindness and friendship. That it will be what he needs, because Hob always sees to it that he gets what he needs.
Then Hob makes another quiet, gutted sound, and he pushes the head of his cock against Dream’s cunt, the blunt, broad head of it nudging through his folds and skidding briefly against his clit. It sends sparks of pleasure dancing along him, almost too much…and then Hob adjusts himself, and this time there is pressure and heat. He opens under Hob like a flower unfurling after long-awaited rain, and at first he is big, he is so much, there is so much of him, not only the size but the scope, his softness and the warm inviting sweetness of him, and Dream wraps his legs around Hob’s waist and his arms around Hob’s shoulders and digs his nails into his back and must focus on taking long, slow breaths. He. Is breathing. He does not need to breathe. He does not need. Oh, but Hob is so very good at sussing out what he needs. He stares sightlessly up at the ceiling, waiting the same as Hob waits, letting him adjust. Hob pants warmly against his cheek, gulping air in long, luxurious swallows; he is whispering quietly, “I’m in you, Christ, I’m in you, baby, I’ve got you.” Then he carefully nudges his hips forward, and Dream realises, oh, Hob is in him but not in him. There is more and more of him, pushing inexorably forward, and he. He yields. There is no better word for it.
He must make some sound – he does not know if he has full control over his faculties at the moment – because Hob stops, trembling violently with the effort of holding still. “D’you need…?” he asks, and then stops, and swallows, before continuing, “Lube? Or…?”
He thinks if he were any wetter he would drown. He thinks if Hob leaves him, even for a second, he will die. He will simply stop existing. Every nerve seems to be firing randomly, unsure whether what he is experiencing is pleasure or just slightly too close to pain; he is stretched, thin and warm and pliant as dough. Dream clutches at Hob’s shoulder and hisses, “Do not. Do not go. Stay. In me.” It is so much more than he had thought he’d wanted, and the thought of being without it now is agony.
“Bit less than halfway,” Hob says. He is. So good. To Dream. Holding himself so perfectly still, and only moving when Dream nods, and then he is deeper. More. In. The sound of him sinking his cock into Dream is wet and filthy and perfect and the only noise he can hear, save for Hob’s own laboured breathing. And then Hob props himself up on one elbow, and he reaches between them; Dream has a moment to realise what is about to happen, and then Hob’s fingertips find his clit where it strains and throbs and aches. They press lightly, teasingly, it is almost painful, and Dream whines, and tries to lift his hips, and Hob slides. In in in. He is so deep that Dream can feel him up near his navel; he imagines pressing his hand to his belly and feeling the little bump of Hob’s cockhead spearing up towards his heart.
“Oh, fuck,” Hob says, and once again falls perfectly, suddenly still. Breathing. Breathing. “I’m…I’m all the way…”
Did I not tell you I am the Shaper of Forms, Dream wants to say. Did I not tell you that you could not hurt me? That I am not human, and thus have no human limitations? These thoughts spin in and out of existence, quick as light, and then there is only the overwhelming pressure inside him, the ache around the entrance to his cunt where he is stretched tightest, and the sound of Hob’s heaving breaths.
What he says. What he actually says, voice breathless and shaking. As he leans up towards Hob’s ear. Is, “Fuck me.”
Whatever dam had been stoppering him up, whatever force of will that had been holding him back, whatever bottomless well of restraint Hob has been tapping into, seems to shatter and burst and dry up under Dream's words. He makes a terrible, wonderful noise, an animal noise, a growl that shudders through him and vibrates through his chest and then he grinds. In. He does not thrust in, because he is, yes, all the way, he is encased in the wet heat that Dream has made for him, perfectly shaped for him, and still he tries to climb in further; his pubic bone butts up against Dream's clit, makes him keen with the startled pleasure of it, and then Hob is raising himself up, bracing himself on his knees and pushing Dream down. Folding him in half, so that his legs are up around Hob's shoulders, and he is so close that he can smell his own arousal, thick and musky-sweet.
If Hob wished to say anything else to him, the words are gone, now. He pulls out, each inch lost leaving Dream empty empty empty inside, cognisant of the shape he has made where only Hob truly fits. When he fucks inside again, one long, luxurious thrust, it is the satisfaction of finding a puzzle piece that fully clicks, it is a full-body firework, it is good and deep and full and his. His friend, who takes care of him and gives him what he needs, whose only response to Dream clawing welts into his shoulders is to start fucking him harder, faster, bollocks slapping against Dream's arse with each powerful thrust. He smears his mouth across Dream's throat, finds the bruise he has already made and, in tender counterpoint to his brutal fucking, lays his lips there and kisses it, over and over again.
And Dream is. Flying apart. Coming undone at the seams. He has made himself into the perfect receptacle for Hob and now this is his purpose, the only function he need concern himself with, the wet sound of their bodies moving together and Hob's soft kisses and the punched-out ah ah ah noises he makes as Hob fucks in deep and then grinds. He is climbing higher and higher, growing dizzy from how tightly he is being wound, from the breath thundering in his lungs, because he doesn't need to breathe and he is not human but Hob imagines him a person. Treats him as a person. Form following function, he feels lightheaded and strange and good and full, and when Hob's fingertips creep down through the wet curls at his groin and once again find the swollen nub of his clit, rubbing firmly, it is enough. He wails, all of his neat stitches snap at once, and orgasm sweeps over him as a rainstorm over a dry land, picking up speed as Hob fucks him through it, his cunt making slick wet wonderful noises as Hob's cock fills him fills him please please please.
He does not realise he is actually saying the words aloud until Hob is whispering back to him, voice raspy, "I know, I know, I've got you, I promise, I've got you darling," and then he is pulling out.
"No," Dream chants, reduced. Temporarily. To a clinging, greedy animal, grasping at Hob's shoulders, trying to pull him in again, he is so empty when before he had been so full and the contrast is maddening, how will he ever be able to be empty again? He was hollow for so long. And he has had a taste, now, of fulfilment. "No, no, please, come back, please."
"Shh, shh." Hob's body vanishing from above his, and then Hob's hands on his hips, urging him over onto his belly. His vision is filled with the rumpled fitted sheet of the mattress, the pillows above him; he is warm, warm all over as Hob drags him backwards to the edge of the bed, and then oh oh, pressure again, wonderful glorious pressure as Hob plunges back into him. Dream pushes his mouth against the sheet to muffle his cry; Hob does not wait for him. With the new leverage he fucks Dream fast and hard and good so good, and now the sound of their skin slapping wetly together is so loud that it is like a thunderclap, and he is so wet that it drips down his thighs like rain, he is full to bursting with blooming and fragrance and he is budding under the downpour of Hob's attention and Hob leans over him, draped over his back, a better blanket than any he has been given before.
"Hob," he says, he sobs, he is tumbling down the side of a mountain, picking up speed, he is the roiling stormclouds gathering, weighty with rain, he is the thirsty earth awaiting succour and Hob's hand worms underneath him and presses the heel of his palm hard to Dream's belly and he can feel him. Inside. Every so often plunging deep enough to touch some secret hidden core of him that flares bright as a summer bonfire and then fizzles out through his limbs. He is so close to something, some new depth that he can plunge to, vibrantly aware, and he tries to warn Hob, tries. To tell him. "Hob, I am, I am," but the words disappear with the next hard thrust, and all he can do is moan and pant and cry.
"I know," Hob says again, and kisses the back of Dream's neck, hands on his hips, pulling him back into each thrust. "I know, one more for me, one more."
One more? he thinks, overwhelmed and overstimulated; Hob's fingers rub gently against his clit, spurring him onwards, driving him inevitably towards some great unfathomable plunge, Hob's cock hard and hot and huge inside him and Hob's mouth wet and gentle on his neck and his fingers expertly strumming Dream's nerves through his clit and then Hob's mouth is near his ear, a soft kiss placed just beneath it, and Hob is saying, "Come for me, love."
It is too much. It is precisely enough. Dream turns his cheek to the bed to suck in a lungful of humid, sex-scented air and screams as the drop comes to him, as it rises up to meet him in explosions of sensation and colour and light; his thighs shake as he clamps down around Hob's cock, a sudden gush of fluid leaking from him, dripping down his thighs, pattering onto the sheet. Hob fucks him through this peak, too, groaning low in his throat, his wet fingers carding through the curls of Dream's mons as he shivers and pants and cries. Hob thrusts in hard -- he will allow himself to have bruises later, he knows it -- and then he is coming, too, with a bitten-off wail and a hot pulse of cum bathing the fluttering walls of Dream's cunt. He draws back, makes another few shallow thrusts, both their spend oozing out from around the seal of his cock; Dream's thighs are soaked with it, the curls at his groin glistening and wet, and yet more comes gushing out of him as Hob pulls free. He makes a broken noise of protest, only to see the vague shape of Hob kneeling behind him.
"Oh my God," Hob is saying, and Dream feels his thumbs prying apart the lips of his cunt, revealing his loose entrance, muscles fluttering, seed dripping from him, his and Hob's. "Oh my God, I made you squirt."
And then, marvel of marvels, Dream feels the puff of Hob's breath against him, and then his tongue, soft and glorious and soothing, licking at the wet gape of his cunt. Dream squirms, moaning, unsure if this is too much or if he still wants more, but Hob is so gentle in his ministrations, and his tongue is a strip of velvet, stroking along his folds and gathering up their combined cum and swallowing it greedily. Another little peak races through him, starting deep in his belly and shivering out to his toes; more fluid gushes from him, soaking Hob's chin; Dream can hear it dripping.
"Oh my God," he says again, and then laughs. "You are a marvel." Then Hob's hands are on his hips again, helping to scoot him further up the bed. The sound of dripping continues, now a rush, and Dream realises that what he had heard had not been the noise of his cum covering Hob's face, but the sound of rain, beginning to tap gaily against the half-open windows.
Hob flops down beside him, the heat in the room broken, the smell of the storm blustering against the thicker smell of sex and slowly coaxing it to disperse. Hob's arm curves over his waist, and they rearrange themselves together, until Dream is on his side facing Hob, tucked against his chest. He is marvellously sore, and still very wet between the legs, and he has an. Awareness. Now. Of the space that he had made for Hob within him, that has been ploughed open and made vibrant and beautiful, and which he now does not know how to fill save for with the man it was made for.
"Think that did the trick," Hob says. His voice has begun to normalise, and Dream can feel his cock softening slowly where it nudges against his damp thigh. His cunt pulses in sympathy; even now he wants Hob within him again. Not even fucking him. Just...there. Filling him. He makes a noise of agreement, nuzzling closer to Hob's neck, fastening his mouth there and sucking in the way that Hob had done to him. He will give them matching rosettes, he decides, bouquets to carry in the Waking while in his own realm the fields bloom in lush verdancy. If he closes his eyes he is aware, as he is at all times aware of the Dreaming, where it lives within him, the great cavernous hungry maw of it, now filled with thousands upon thousands of orange flowers, their petals waving in the low breeze as a storm sweeps in from the south. Bearing with it the last of the warm summer rains.
"Indeed," he murmurs, once he has finished his work. A livid red-purple bruise has formed beneath his mouth, and if he tilts his head and looks at it from just the right angle he can imagine it is in the shape of a flower.
Hob's hand strokes up and down his spine. Fingers tripping over the notches of vertebrae. Beneath his touch Dream is made a new and sprouting thing, joyous, rapt with growth. "Probably we could have avoided my cock nearly exploding if we actually talked," Hob says. His voice has the carefully neutral cadence of a man who is bracing for backlash, but Dream is...tired. Not the bone-deep weariness he had experienced when he had first come crawling, wounded and pitiful, to Hob's doorstep. It is a pleasant laxity. Having expended the energy to bloom, he wishes, now, to drift into torpor, to gather food and sunlight and rest, and to await the next rainfall.
"How would you have suggested I broach the subject?" he asks, too lazy to feel annoyed at Hob's suggestion.
"Dunno. 'Hello, Hob. Lovely evening, isn't it? Would you care to shag me through the wall? Thanks much.'" Dream snorts. This is, apparently, impetus enough for Hob to continue. "Or you could have left a letter if you didn't feel up to talking. 'Dearest Hob, my beloved fuckbuddy...'"
"Fuckbuddy," Dream repeats, mesmerised despite himself.
"Hush, I'm doing a bit. 'I cordially invite you to give me the deepest dicking of my life, by the way, you can have your choice of cunt or arse. With fond regards, Dream.'" There is a point, towards the end of his 'bit,' where Hob begins to slip down into a mockery of Dream's own voice, and his chest rumbles underneath Dream's cheek, and the rain taps against the window, soaking the sill, and he is. He is.
Happy?
It rushes up out of him, a river, a font, laughter. How long it has been since he laughed! Heaving, braying honks of noise that he initially tries to keep trapped behind his teeth but which, like the blooms in the Dreaming, come spilling out anyways. He thinks, if this were his own realm, his laughter would be petals, bright and orange, but this is the Waking, and so it is only tuneless, helpless noise. Hob stares at him for several seconds while Dream tries to get a hold of himself, and then he starts to chuckle. And to laugh. Rolling, thudding laughter, rhythmic like the rain that drums the rooftop, entwining with Dream's, watering it, making it grow.
"I've never," Hob gasps, tears beginning to gather at the corners of his eyes, "I've never heard you...on God, you're precious, you're darling, you're..."
"Stop," Dream begs. Waking or not, he thinks that if Hob continues he will crack open like an egg, will not be able to contain himself; flowers will come spilling out of him to fill the room, and there beneath the fluttering petals will be a hole in his chest precisely the shape of Hob. "Stop, I cannot..."
Hob, blessedly, does stop talking. They both wind down slowly, listening to their own wheezy laughter and the rain and the dim sounds of the New Inn below them, ramping up for the evening. Clinking glasses. Low chatter. Soft music. Hob touches his cheek with his cleaner hand, and thumbs back a few wisps of hair from Dream's forehead.
"Next time," he says, "let's just tell each other if there's something that we...I don't know. Want, but we're too worried to ask for it."
Just tell each other. As if it is so easy. As if it is so simple. Dream opens his mouth.
Closes it.
Perhaps it is. That simple. Perhaps that is...another benefit. Of Hob being his friend. Hob has already seen the worst of him. Knows that he is mercurial and strange and overwhelming in his affections. Hob, despite this, is still here. Waiting for him.
He is lucky to have such a friend.
"Agreed," he says. And then, in the interest of honesty, adds, "I will. Try. I am not accustomed to asking for...what I want."
"Mm. Probably you're used to just getting it yourself, yeah?"
He is not wrong. He has not had another person to turn to for...many years. Not since Calliope.
Hob does not need to know that. He does not need to hear about Dream's past mistakes. Dream shrugs, and Hob leans down, and kisses first the tip of his nose, and then his cheek, and then, chuckling softly, his mouth. It is slow, and languid, and sweet as nectar, and Dream lets him fall into the rhythm of it until Hob must break for air.
"You've got me, now," Hob says, and Dream smiles against his mouth. Outside the storm blusters and wails, skimming over the streets of London and scouring them clean.
And in the Dreaming, in a sleeping desert over a vast superbloom of riotous orange and yellow flowers and silver sagebrush and deep blue-green waving wild rye, the clouds break and the sun shines again.