I really like the concept of Morpheus going to one of Hob’s work events 🤧🤧 or just meeting with his friends!!!

I'll tell you what, I'll be here in 100 133 years' time. If you're here then too, it'll be because we're friends. No other reason, right?

(insp)

The thing is, even Mad Hettie knows who Dream is. Hob knows who Mad Hettie is. Hob could literally describe Dream to her when he's explaining how he became immortal in a convo between one immortal to another and she'd be like. "You're an acquaintance of lord Morpheus?"

And Hob is peeved because an 280 year old woman who lives on the street somehow knows his stranger's name, but he hasn't gotten a single hint in 632+ years.

So you know the Chinese saying that once you’ve saved a person’s life, you’re responsible for it forever? Dreamling Rescue fic where after hob saves Dream, Dream keeps showing up expecting Hob to take care of him and be responsible for him in a variety of situations and times. Bonus points: Dream explains exactly nothing to Hob. Those are the old laws, Hob should have been aware of what he was doing when he decided to arrive and save him and that’s that.

Based on this post

May I ask for new year’s eve Dreamling watching the ball drop because Hob celebrates every year, Morpheus isn’t the sort of person who cares at all, but Hob forces him to celebrate and wear the dumb paper glasses and stuff anyway

"Hob," Dream says, not for the first time, in a deeply pained tone. "I simply do not see why this rigmarole is necessary."

"It's necessary because I say it's necessary, you joyless git." Hob dulls the sting by leaning over to plant a kiss on Dream's cheek, adjust the 2024 cardboard glitter crown from Tesco that is perched atop the dread dark head of the immortal King of Dreams and Nightmares, and throw an arm over his shoulders -- all of which Dream suffers with the tense, bristled wariness of a cat suddenly subjected to excessive snuggling. "Plus, there's going to be a general election this year -- fucking finally -- and the Tories are going to get thrown out on their kleptocratic arses. Good as any reason to celebrate, if you ask me."

Morpheus mutters something under his breath that Hob can't understand but doesn't sound particularly complimentary, but for once in his eternal-ageless-stubborn-bastard life, decides not to press the point. He's already been horribly traumatized by enduring the New Year's Eve party and being forced to socialize with Hob's friends from around London and the South East and colleagues from Goldsmiths and all the other strays he's picked up over the years (indeed, very much like Dream himself). All right, socialize might be a stretch. More like lurking ominously with a single glass of prosecco and giving the other guests a fright when they come round the corner too fast, but at least he hasn't run screaming into the night or huffily evaporated into the Dreaming never to return, so Hob is going to optimistically count that as a success. Besides, it is tacitly agreed between the two of them that Hob's love language is cheerily bullying Morpheus into taking part in normal human courtship activities and Morpheus's concession is to act like this is the worst thing to ever happen to him in literally eighty billion years, but still grudgingly put up with it. Baby steps, Hob thinks, taking a swig of his own bubbly and looking back at the television. Baby steps.

It's already the New Year in Oz and the rest of Down Under, and five hours off yet in New York, where they're still greasing up the ball drop in Times Square, but it's just about time in London, the fireworks over the Thames are all set to go, and Hob and the ten other people in his flat (hardly an excessive number, not that you'd know it from Morpheus's face) lean forward in eagerness. The bloke on the BBC leads a countdown, it rolls over to 00:00:01 GMT, 1 January 2024, and everyone lets out a boozy cheer, raising glasses to salute each other and making more please-God-help-us jokes about the Tories. Hob, meanwhile, turns to Morpheus, who gazes expectantly back at him with those luminous, star-flecked eyes, and leans in to kiss him -- quickly, chastely, nothing to make the silly goose come over in his melodramatic conniptions all over again. "Happy new year, darling."

Dream huffs, but he does look slightly pleased. (It's a subtle art, reading his expressions, and to the untutored looks no different from "mildly constipated," but Hob still knows his Stranger well.) "Happy new year, Hob Gadling," he allows, after a long moment. "I still do not understand why you feel it necessary to celebrate all this. Have you not seen so many that it is no longer special?"

"See, that's exactly why." Hob should get up and refill the pigs-in-blankets tray, as there is evidently nothing that British academics love more and it has been descended on like starving vultures, but he doesn't feel like it, not yet. He grins at Morpheus instead, lowering his voice, not that there's much risk of anyone overhearing. "A bloke born all the way back in God's Year 1356, and I'm still here, ringing in the fucking year 2024? That's a bloody miracle, you ask me. And with you, no less? What else would I want in the whole world?"

Dream's expression melts a little, despite himself. A faint pink flush climbs into his elegant ice-sculpted cheeks, and he huffs. "You are quite the flatterer, Robert Gadling."

"Eh." Hob takes a more comfortable position, settles deeper into the couch cushions, and feels, with great vindication, Dream's head tip and lean and rest on his shoulder, snuggling closer entirely of his own volition. "You love it."

On the plus side, my terrible experience has brought me to a Sandman human!AU.

Hob Gadling is a history professor who has the terrible habit of getting himself into shit situations, the newest one being hit by a car while walking to work and ending up in the hospital with some pretty serious injuries. After surgeries and stuff, since he has no family and doesn't want to bother friends looking after him, he gets an extra long stay in observation, and the only spare observation room happens to be near the pediatric ones. His doctor is Dr. Teleute and she's the best, they hit it off really well, even if her first experience was him drugged to high hell and badmouthing all doctors in general.

Dream is her little brother and an author, mostly children's books, but he has more adult (re: mature, not sexual) novels under his penname Morpheus. Every so often he'll go to the hospital and go around room to room, reading to the kids. Hob overhears him and as Dream goes to pass his room, jokingly calls out, "What, you're not going to read to me?" and gives Dream the biggest puppy dog eyes.

He's joking, of course.

Dream freezes in the doorway for a long second, awkwardly because he's fucking great with kids but this is a whole ass adult and he has no idea how to answer this. Not that he looks uncertain, he's way too stoic for that. So he just...

Walks into the room and asks, "Which book would you like? I have one about a raven named Jessamy, one about a wyvern, pegasus, and griffon guarding a king's castle, and one about the world's best librarian."

Hob wasn't expecting to get that far. He chooses the wyvern one because it sounds awesome. And it is! He genuinely enjoys it, and Dream enjoys telling it to an adult and still having the story thoroughly appreciated.

He keeps coming back to read the kids, more often than he would usually just because Hob confesses that's bored as fuck and it's nice to have some company and someone to talk to, and he brings different book options for Hob to pick from. They end up talking too, and Hob eventually admits that he likes hearing Dream read from the other rooms because he's really great with the kids. Super patient and chill, always answers all their questions even if the question is utter nonsense, and it reminds Hob of when he had his own son.

(Eleanor and Robyn were in a car accident. It took her immediately, took Robyn a few agonizing days afterwards, and Hob can't keep from choking up as he tells Dream. Robyn was five. He had been married to Eleanor for nearly a decade. Dream merely says that he understands, and though he says no more, the look on his face is enough for Hob to know he really, truly does.) Of course, the day comes that Dream shows up and Hob's room is empty and his sister is like, "Sorry, little brother, but it's against HIPPA for me to give you his contact information... JK, haha, he actually left me his phone number specifically for you, here you go."

Desire:”Welcome to the”Fuck Morpheus Club” where every week we say fuck you to Morpheus”

Hob,visibly sweating:”There’s been a misunderstanding”

So we all know that Hob mighta been a leeetle bit disappointed in 1789 when he didn’t get to jump Morpheus’ extremely defined bones because Constantine broke up their little tête-à-tête.

But--correct me if I’m wrong--he straight up owns the place in 1889, and has instituted a brothel there, to boot. Was he like--”No way in hell is anyone getting in the way this time around. I have a Plan. It’s happening. It’s not even going to be out of place.”

He bought the bar. So he could have some goddamn privacy.

a night in a club through hob’s memories, in the dreaming!

She asks him to bear witness to people in the last moment of their lives and that something happens when you look closely at something. You begin to understand it. And I think that understanding is the first steps towards love. And I think when he has that pivotal transition, he thinks to himself, if I can feel this about these people after such a short space of time, what do I feel about a man who I’ve spent 600 years with? And so he returns to him and in the episode you’ll find out.

Tom Sturridge on episode 6 of The Sandman and Dream’s relationship with Hob Gadling

I bet he’s had that on the ready for weeks!

A weirdly quiet evening at the Gadling house after Hob came home early from meeting his "old friend"

Extended? 😂

How did he shave, really?

Judging ™ aka flirty glancing to confirm he agrees

Classic meme