#i know hob cannot die let me have this
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For Sandtober #6, "golden", and the Monsterfucktober bingo square "undead", I present you something based on one of the books that left an impression on my teenage mind and now that is all I can think of when I get "bones" and "gold" in relation to one another -
Servant of the Bones AU
In Babylon, about 600 years BC, Hob, a young handsome shepherd, is forced to become the new statue of the god Marduk but through a secret ritual conducted by a witch does not die and is made into an undying spirit who has to serve whoever owns his bones. The witch botches up the ritual and dies, leaving Hob with his mind his own - even if he has to obey the bones’ current master, he is able to think for himself and over the centuries he outsmarts a lot of his crueler masters, leading to their demise and to the box being inscribed with more and more warnings not to summon what is inside.
First AU variant:
In 2022, Dream Endlos [lol let’s give him the German name variant for once], a successful author of books and screenplays, buys an old mansion (Fawney Rig) which is full of old occult stuff from the previous owner. While he sorts through the stuff he comes to the conclusion that he’ll have to hire an expert to ascertain the value of a lot of objects. He trips over a box on his way out and it falls over and unlatches, revealing a glimmer of gold inside. Curious, Dream opens it and finds the golden bones of what seems to be a complete human skeleton. The box is inscribed with ancient warnings in almost every language from cuneiform to hieroglyphs to Greek and Latin. Dream is both horrified and fascinated.
He reverently places the bones back inside the box, carefully handles the skull and wonders about the person they belonged to. He goes to bed, his mind spinning with possible scenarios and stories concerning the bones, the box, the warnings. He lies awake for hours. Late at night he gets up again and goes back downstairs. He takes the box back up into his bedroom and sits before it. “Who were you?” he asks the box, and there is a quiet whisper of a man’s voice near his ear.
“My name. Is Hob.”
Second AU variant (that I like almost better because I know how it would end):
Burgess gets his hands on the bones after he captures Dream. He uses Hob to try and get Dream to talk, in so far as that he sends him down to talk to Dream and learn his secrets, in the hopes it might work because Hob is a supernatural being. Hob is fascinated with Dream immediately and tells him that he should not talk to him so he won’t have to betray anything to Burgess. “You mustn’t tell me anything important, I cannot lie to my master. If he commands me to tell him what you said I’ll have to answer. But I can tell you about a lot of things, if you’re bored. You must be bored, right?”
Dream is in turn fascinated with Hob and his strange curse and after a while they talk about unimportant things, things they like and dislike, they tell each other stories. Hob tells Dream how he was made into what he is against his will. Dream aches with sympathy.
Burgess is frustrated because he gets no results. Maybe he also tries to have Hob use force on Dream but luckily the magic circle and spells make it impossible for Hob to enter the sphere Dream is held in.
Events happen like in episode 1, Alex inherits Hob’s bones but barely uses him to do anything because he’s almost more scared of Hob than he is of Dream. Hob talks to Paul more than he talks to Alex and he tries to subtly influence the man to let Dream go. It takes decades but eventually Paul is showing signs of having had enough. Hob warns Dream to be alert and begs him to please take his bones with him if he escapes. Events unfold like in canon and Dream breaks free. He leaves without Hob’s bones, too weak to search for them right away. He knows where they are but he can’t get them without reclaiming his power first.
Hob thinks Dream has left him to his fate and is full of sadness and despair. He returns to the bones, his master caught in an eternal waking nightmare. Paul takes the bones and calls on him to help Alex, but Hob can't help and so he ignores the pleas and doesn't even manifest. Paul is frustrated and puts the bones into a safe and out of his mind. When Dream has got the sand, helm and ruby back he goes back to Fawney Rig and searches for Hob. He finds his bones and takes them with him to the Dreaming, putting them into his own private rooms. Hob does not answer him and Dream pleads for forgiveness and begs Hob to come back to him. Only when he places a kiss on the forehead of the golden skull do the bones start to vibrate and come together and Hob is able to form himself a new body, with the help of the power of the Dreaming, a body that holds his bones and is free of the box so he will not be bound to any master ever again. :)
#technically the servant is a genie/spirit but I still count him as undead because of the bones I hope that's fine#sandtober2023#monsterfucktoberbingo#dreamling#the sandman fanart#teejaystumbles#the sandman fanfiction#teejay writes
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Many gremlin wishes on this most auspicious of days, the day of your birf!! As a gift of words, I offer...
OKAY SO I KINDA COMBINED BOTH, SO WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A BIT OF BOTH.
~!~!~!~!~!~
It started because Hob needed something to care about after Eleanor and Robyn. The first plant, gently handed to him, with care instructions, and a small basket of fertilizer, a pot for it to grow into, and fresh soil, had been what he needed and he hadn't even known it until he'd gotten the plant home. It flourished, and Hob spent the better part of a week crying when it flowered for the first time.
He was back immediately after he'd managed to pull himself together, the enigmatic man behind the plant counter giving him a quick, secret smile as he asked for another, so his plant wouldn't get lonely.
Six months later, his flat had become a veritable jungle and he had no regrets. He had something to live for, something small, and it was enough, for now. The Orchids required daily care, the spices were flourishing (and he'd started cooking again to have a reason to use the spices), and his small shelf of succulents next to his computer made sure that he didn't fall too deeply into despair.
The benefit to so many plants, of course, was that he had an excuse to return to the garden center to see HIM. Dream, the man who had sold him his first plant, and then all the subsequent ones, who always seemed to know what his plants needed before he did, who always gave him the smallest and tiniest smiles, and nods of acknowledgment, was someone who understood Hob didn't know entirely how, but he did understand.
Which was why, when he made his way to the garden center, he blinked in surprise at seeing it was closed. His face fell, but he headed into the larger building to get what he needed. Dream was allowed to have days off, of course, but Hob had gotten used to being able to see him whenever he made his way over. Which made the sight of Dream standing behind a check out counter, looking pale, and thin, and drawn, even more surprising.
"Dream?"
"Hob," Dream said with a nod. "Apologies for..." he swayed, blinking hard. "For not greeting you outside as is custom. The shop required assistance."
There was no one else nearby, and the store was probably empty, so Hob stepped closer, and watched Dream's eyes that were glassy and cloudy, meet his. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. "Dream? Are you all right?"
Dream managed to summon a scowl, but only barely. "Of course. I do not need your-" his knees buckled and he grabbed onto the edge of the counter, barely managing to stay upright.
Hob was around the counter, with an arm around Dream's waist, taking his insubstantial weight in a split second. He steadied Dream and bit his lip when Dream went even more pale. "Dream? What do you need?"
Dream trembled, fighting down a growl. "Outside. Sun. Need sunlight."
Hob looked out the front door, but they'd draw attention to themselves if he went to stand out there. Lifting Dream into his arms, Hob strode through the store and toward the Garden Center. The other man felt like nothing and was almost limp in his arms. He shouldered the door open and strode into the bright sunlight, biting down on his lip.
He found a chair to sit on, keeping Dream carefully cradled, even as he tilted his chin up and to the sunlight. Hob smiled faintly. "That better?"
Dream nodded without speaking, keeping as much of his skin as possible exposed to it, and after a few minutes, he no longer felt ready to shake apart. "Yes, thank you."
"Vitamin D deficiency?" Hob asked. Dream hadn't moved from his lap, and Hob wasn't about to force him to move.
Dream hummed. "Without continuous exposure to the sun and other plants around me, I would die. Working in the store is akin to torture if I cannot take breaks. Today was the third day in the store." He shuddered and let his mouth fall open, breathing in the scents around him, deep and slow.
Hob blinked, opening his mouth before he shut it. Dream not being entirely human, or human at all, explained a great many things. Such as how Dream knew about his plants, and about what he needed for them all of the time. "And you work at a garden center?"
"No one suspects anything if I spend my days outside among plants," Dream answered, shifting to rest his cheek against Hob's shoulder, his skin warming steadily. "I can care for them, and ensure they are placed in homes that will care for them properly."
"So I should be flattered that you've steadily turned my flat into a jungle with your recommendations?" Hob asked, even as Dream squirmed and then settled properly into his lap again. He adjusted his arms and then wrapped them around the not-a-human in his lap once more.
Dream frowned. "You have been surprisingly non-reactive to the information that I am not human. Should I be concerned?"
Hob shrugged. "I don't get out a lot these days, and you helped me find something worth living for. Unless you're actively hurting people, I don't care what you are. I just want you to be all right."
Dream trembled with his entire body. "The shop must stay open. It allows my home to stay safe."
Hob looked up at the building, at Dream's reminder that he would die if he was stuck inside. "How about you stay out here and tend to your plants, and I'll run the register. I already know where most everything is inside, anyway, and the orchids will be all right if I water them after closing."
Dream's eyes widened and he tipped his head up to look at the human holding him. "You would... work inside?"
Hob leaned in and kissed Dream's temple, where at his hairline, he could see vines at the base of his hair. "I will. You stay out here, and if I need help, I'll come ask."
Dream nodded once. "I would.. be very grateful."
"Happy to help," Hob said, helping Dream rise to his feet. He made his way back into the store and did a lap around the store, helping the few people who had been lingering, checking them out and getting them on their way. He tidied the shelves, and straightened them, and put away the stock that had arrived, and waved to Dream when he could see him watching. It felt good to be working, to be doing something, and when he finished, he was a bit at a loss, and made his way outside.
"Dream?"
Hob laughed in delight as Dream's head bobbed up from behind a plant shelf, and held out the shop keys. "Everything is locked." He handed Dream the keys, and watched him hold them close. His heart turned over in his chest as Dream stared at him. His lips were pink once more and he relaxed at seeing Dream much more normal.
Dream cradled the keys close and looked down at them. "You have done me a remarkable kindness. I don't know how to repay you."
Hob lifted his eyes to the door at the back of the garden center that led to the greenhouses and swallowed. The orchids would be all right. "Will you... show me your home?"
Dream reached out to take Hob's hand and gave it a slow squeeze. "I would be honored." He turned and led the way back into the greenhouses. By the gasp the human gave the second they stepped through the doorway, he knew they were not nearly as small as they appeared.
Hob followed Dream through a veritable forest, and was led to a grassy clearing, and when he was pulled down to lay under the moonlight of two moons, he didn't hesitate to stretch out beside Dream, admiring his ethereal beauty. "I'll work the shop as often as you need. So you can stay safe."
"You would?" Dream whispered.
"I would," Hob agreed, reaching out to tuck some of Dream's hair behind his ear. "Often as you need, promise."
Dream reached out to cup Hob's chin, tilting it up. "It is customary for you to kiss, now?"
Hob managed a soft laugh and turned to kiss Dream's palm. "If you would like-" the words were cut off as Dream surged forward, sealing their lips together, pressing him back into the soft and comforting grass. He tightened his arms around Dream and pulled him close, letting the kiss go on and on. Whatever Dream was, Hob didn't really care, he could help, he was maybe a little bit needed, and he had missed being needed.
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hello hello, how about #6 for the spotify wrapped 👀
6 - Arwen's Vigil by The Piano Guys
This is an instrumental piece evoking steadfast hope and sweeping passions, and I think it calls for a Knight!Hob AU. Visually, Hob will be a tidied-up version of 1389 and Dream will have Tom's Hollow Crown look.
(Synopsis bled into scene-drafting oops)
Dream, the ruler of wherever, has sent his best men on a dangerous quest of some sort. Including his unspoken favorite, his most faithful, the man who holds his heart, the man who will never know it. Dream cannot abuse his station; he is the king; Hob is his knight. They cannot be together. But nothing can stop him holding vigil each night as he waits for news, his thoughts circling on Hob, praying for his safe return.
The news when it comes is bittersweet; the quest was successful but at great price. Only three of the ten men remain to return home; the message does not tell who. Dream paces endlessly, frets endlessly, heart perpetually in his throat as he grapples with the not-knowing, the fear that his Hob has perished.
When the men return they are only two; the third fell to bandits on the road and the second is gravely injured. The first, Dream sees with a relief that threatens to overwhelm him, is his Hob.
The injured man is seen to, rushed to the medics; Hob is tired and dirty but unharmed, and Dream calls for a bath to be drawn in his private quarters. He will tend to Hob himself, with the viable excuse of debriefing him re: the quest.
So before long we wind up with Hob dozing quietly in the warm bath in Dream's quarters, Dream watching over him, letting him doze and making sure he doesn't slip underwater, keeping the fire roaring, etc. Ooh, ooh, there should be a hair washing scene first, Dream washing Hob's chest and shoulders and beard for him, gentle and intimate and Hob protesting his king serving him this way and Dream shushing him with something like 'My noble steadfast Hob, my most loyal and enduring friend (dangerous, so daring to admit aloud he considers him thus), let me take care of you for once' and so Hob quiets, and lets him, and Dream moves on to the proper hair washing and by the time he's finished Hob is drifting asleep.
So Dream lets him sleep, keeps watch, tends the fire etc, and after a bit he's sitting on a chair by the tub lost in thought when there's a wet touch to his hand and he looks up to find Hob's warm brown eyes fixed steadfastly on him.
"My liege," Hob says softly, gaze unwavering, and brings Dream's hand to his lips, lets them graze over the knuckles.
Dream sucks in a breath, shaken, filled with such ardent longing that he fears to speak, lest he give himself away. But Hob is still speaking.
"I have faced death many times, but none more certainly than this last."
"Hob—"
"And I'm alright with that." He sits up, leans forward, still holding Dream's hand. "I will go where you send me; I will serve you to my last breath and die gladly if it means you're safe. But having faced that possibility so starkly—" he turns Dream's hand, presses his lips soft to the cup of Dream's palm "—I have realized. There are things I do not wish to take to my grave." He arches Dream's hand back gently, places a softly-heartfelt kiss to the inside of his wrist, lifts his eyes back to Dream's.
"My lord Dream. It is not simply my sword and my service which are pledged to you, but my heart as well."
Dream cannot help the gasp that escapes him; neither can he manage words, which is just as well as Hob is still speaking.
"I know we can never be, and I do not expect any return of my feelings. I am happy to love you silently from afar, as I always have. This—" his lips brush the pulse beating furiously in Dream's wrist "—is more than enough, your care and consideration of me here, they are more than enough. If I am to die in some future endeavor, then I will die at peace knowing you are aware that you were loved by me. And that is enough."
"You dare." Dream finds his voice at last, though it trembles terribly. "You. Dare. To speak so carelessly of dying, when I have spent days sick with worry of your welfare, when I have not slept for fear I had lost you this time, when I have only just had those fears assuaged by your return—"
Hob is quite taken aback, but still he holds Dream's hand. "My liege—"
"Dream." The tremor in his voice matches the wavering of tears filling his vision, the way his fingers tremble in Hob's gentle hold. "You will call me Dream when it is only you and I, and you will not greet death so cavalierly should it come for you. You will exercise every caution, you will fight with your all to return to me, for I could not bear to lose you, not now, when you tell me that the heart I so long for is pledged to me in truth, I could not bear it—"
He is cut off by the soft touch of Hob's fingers to his lips, wet and wrinkled from the bath water, beseeching his silence. He meets Hob's eyes, tears spilling over soundlessly, and finds Hob's gaze wide, wondering, warm and hopeful and dark enough to drown in; when Hob's fingertips move gently from his lips to touch his tears, to reverently stroke a single droplet away, Dream shivers. And when Hob releases his hand, moves closer, when both of Hob's hands are gently framing his face, when Hob is gazing up at him with naked adoration, Dream knows he is lost. He does not fight the way Hob leans up and draws him down; he cannot fight his own desires any longer and he cannot deny this man any wish.
The kiss is tentative, soft, Hob's lips sliding across his, between, pressing gently until Dream gasps—
And Hob draws back, eyes searching Dream's, seeking permission, confirmation that his forwardness is welcome, and Dream can think of no better assurance than to kiss him again.
He lunges forward, mouth finding Hob's unerringly, and it is Hob this time who gasps, whereupon Dream brings his tongue into the kiss and then Hob moans. Dream touches him, as he has longed to do for years, strokes through his wet beard and wet hair, touches the wet curves of his shoulders and the glorious mat of wet hair on his chest, heedless of the drag of his own sleeves in the bathwater.
"My lord Dream—" Hob barely pulls away, lips brushing Dream's as he speaks.
"Not here," Dream interrupts. "Never here, think me not your lord when we are alone, I beg—let me be just a man, let me be but the one who would hold your heart dear and trust that you hold mine the same—"
"Dream," Hob says then, tremulous, wondering, and the blossoming familiarity of Dream's unadorned name on Hob's lips has him swooning back into a kiss.
It quickly grows desperately impassioned, fierce and frantic as emotions rise and inhibitions fall in their wake. Hob flounders about in the tub and stands, bringing Dream up with him, pulling Dream to him and picking him up, cradling Dream bridal-style as he steps out of the tub, naked and streaming wet and still kissing his king. Dream clings around his neck, lost in the ardent warmth of Hob's mouth, uncaring of how Hob's wet hirsute body makes an absolute ruin of his clothing.
He will not be wearing it much longer, regardless.
So I guess this will be going in the wip pile but there is no telling if or when I'll get back to it. The rest will just be smut; Hob carries Dream over to the furs spread on the stone floor in front of the fire, lays him down, strips him bare of his wet robes with reverence, tenderly fingers him open and then makes love to him over and over, ardent and adoring and attentive until tears of joy and pleasure are streaming from Dream's eyes, until his heart and body sing with the love Hob bears him, the love he bears Hob in turn. Or something equally purple-prosed and sappy. This will be smut to rot your teeth on I assure you.
Inevitably this art and the third one here ended up rotating in my mind even if they don't quite apply to what I scribbled down - they convey the same kind of mood.
Spotify Wrapped Askmeme Post
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I am pretty sure that a lot of fans before me have caught up on this discourse but I want to get this off my chest. Also this post will contain spoilers from the comics (Brief Lives and The Kindly Ones) so please proceed at your own discretion.
.
.
.
Keeping my Dreamling shipper heart aside for a moment, I just want to say that it boggles my mind that there is kind of a running parallel between Morpheus and Hob throughout the comics. I mean like I understand Hob is just some guy and that he is like the personification of humanity as a whole. But I cannot let go of the fact that both him and Morpheus have similar experiences in their lives. Both of them are terrible people (or were, if you see the storyline from the current timeline) and both of them lost their families (although because of completely different reasons). But Hob was able to change and grow as a person meanwhile Morpheus was stuck in the change or die dilemma and we all know what route he chose in the end. And this is what I find the most heartbreaking thing. Like you already have a character who did horrible things to others and was sometimes on the receiving end of those horrible things but still was able to withstand all that and accepted his faults and just matured, meanwhile Morpheus just...didn't.
Bye, I will chew on glass instead.
#the sandman netflix#the sandman#dream of the endless#hob gadling#morpheus#the sandman comics#dreamling
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Keepsakes:
A Hospital Bracelet: Comfort
Status: Ongoing Ficlet collection; unbeta’d
Series: the Hob Adherent series
Fandom: The Sandman (TV 2022) Includes some comics canon, and some cameos from the wider Gaiman-verse (including the Good Omens and Lucifer television shows), but it’s not necessary to know to enjoy the story.
Rating: Mature. There are discussions of medical torture and wounds in this chapter. Please curate your experience accordingly.
Warnings: Discussions of violence. Some whump and hurt/comfort.
Relationships: Morpheus | Dream of the Endless/Hob Gadling, Eleanor | Hob Gadling’s Wife/Hob Gadling (past)
Characters: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Hob Gadling, Delirium of the Endless, Death of the Endless, Dream of the Endless | Daniel Hall, Destruction of the Endless, Desire of the Endless, Despair of the Endless, Destiny of the Endless, Matthew the Raven
Directly follows the previous part, A HOSPITAL BRACELET: HURT
READ ON AO3 OR READ BELOW:
A Hospital Bracelet: Comfort
Inspired by a prompt from @hummingbird231 on Tumblr.
“Let me in!” Matthew shouts. “I’mma peck his eyes out myself, the stupid, noble fuckface.”
The noise is enough to rouse Hob. He who opens an eye to take in the vision of Matthew buffeting at the small window in the hall-side door with gimlet-eyed fury. He is resplendent in his little neon-blue coat that declares him a Service Animal Do Not Pet.
The door pushes open, and a startled-looking nurse immediately flattens himself against it. “I’ve never heard a crow speak in full sentences–”
“Raven!” Matthew and Morpheus correct together.
Morph flows into the room with all his magnificent, royal fury, dragging his sleek wheeled suitcase behind him and practically flinging it into the corner. He must have come straight from the airport.
“Get out,” Morph snarls at the nurse, and before Hob can even work up the spit to scold him for his manners, the fellow is off like a shot.
Morph locks the door behind him. Matthew lands on the bed rail behind Hob’s head and actually does peck him. But it’s just once, on his bare cheek, and gently.
“Ow,” Hob moans softly.
“You deserve worse,” Matthew complains, fluffing up in agitation.
“You are foolish,” Morph adds, as he drags a chair right up against the side of the hospital bed. He sounds so wrecked that anyone would think that Morpheus was the one who was in a car crash. “Jumping in filthy, frigid water, Robert! With a hole in your head!”
“I had to try to save her,” is all Hob says.
“Foolish,” Morph repeats. He takes Hob’s nearest hand between his own and presses his forehead against it, bowing into the bed. It causes the thin, plasticky hospital bracelet to rub against Hob’s road-rash, but he doesn’t say anything about it, too happy to have the warmth of his husband against his skin. “I know you cannot die, erasti, but I will kill you myself if you do this to me again.”
“Hey,” Hob croaks. “Not my fault.”
“He sounds worse than me, boss, get him some water,” Matthew says, hopping over to the bedside table where someone has left a pitcher, a cup, and a paper straw.
Morph pours, and Hob takes the opportunity to look around the room. Besides registering that he was now in a hospital, he hasn’t had much time awake in here to take in his situation. He’s been drifting in and out of consciousness since the ambulance, swapping so frequently between this bed and a soft bit of meadow Fiddler’s Green that they’ve sort of blended together in his scrambled brains.
God’s bones, he hopes he doesn’t have permanent brain damage. Or memory loss.
Matthew extends a wing and holds the straw still as Morph uses one of his hands to hold the cup, and another to help prop Hob upright enough to drink without spilling all over himself. He knows enough to go slow, to take it in little sips, and is grateful for Morph’s patience as he wets his throat.
"I won't be able to stay awake for too long, duckie," Hob says when Morph sets the cup aside. Hob fiddles with the morphine pump button on the side of the gurney but doesn't press it yet. "But I'm glad you're here."
"Hob," Morph says, miserable. He lifts Hob's bandaged hand and presses a long, slow kiss around the bruised flesh of the IV port.
"I am fine," Hob reassures him. He wants to brush his hand through Morph's hair, more wild than usual, undoubtedly from his fretting. He wants to smooth it down, and then smooth down Matthew's ruffled feathers. He wants to put them all back to rights, so this can be behind them.
But it hurts too much to move, so he lets his head flop back, carefully resting on his intact right side, and takes in the hospital room. This is the longest stretch he's been awake so far, and he's been here… hours? Days? Hob's not actually sure.
There was surgery at some point, he remembers that. Daniel had come to keep him company on the Green while he’d been under anesthesia.
It’s probably only been about twenty four hours, considering the fact that Morph would have had to make his way back from the convention in Glasgow, then hired a cab to bring him to Hob in… whatever hospital they're in. An eye-flick at the window on the far wall offers Hob a view of pastureland and a small garden, dotted with other patients, close to the building. So definitely not in London. They must be close to where the crash happened.
Good. Small hospitals in out-of-the-way places are easier to vanish from, and the doctors are less likely to want to perform expensive and unnecessary tests. They’re easier to bribe off with cash, too.
While he and Morph aren't wealthy, they live comfortably enough that their health insurance is sizeable, if only for exact situations like these where a private room and a dedicated nursing team would make it easier to explain away their strange physical conditions. Like surviving a bullet grazing past one's head and taking out a chunk of skull the size of a golf ball, and not dying from it.
"Beg to differ. You got a hole in your head, Hobsie," Matthew argues, hopping down to roost on Hob's belly, pretty much the only part of him that doesn't hurt right now. "And a wrenched shoulder, a broken ankle, and your hands look like you went ten rounds with a hellcat."
"And all of that will heal," Hob assures the bird. Then he squeezes his husband's hand in his. "Though if your mom wants to speed things up for me this time, duck, I wouldn't say no."
He tries to wink at Morph while he says it, but it comes out as a wince instead, which seems to upset Morph even more.
"I should never have gone," Morph says, his voice little more than a broken rumble. The way Matthew scoffs makes it clear that this is already well-trod path between them.
"You couldn't have known, boss," Matthew reassures Morph, but it falls on deaf ears.
"I ought to have," Morph growls. "I was King of all Dreams, I should have—I shouldn't have been surprised—I—"
"Hey, hey," Hob says gently. He uses his grip on his husband’s hand to slowly pull his hand up so Hob can kiss his knuckles. "Shhh. You're not Dream of the Endless anymore. There's no way you could have seen her fantasies."
"Maybe I was hasty in abdicating," Morph says in a miserable, red-eyed rush. He fits his free hand against the side of Hob’s face without the crisscrossing bandages, soothing the little spot where Matthew had poked Hob with his beak. "If I had remained in my role for a few more years, I could—"
"No," Hob says firmly. "No, we're not playing what ifs. And you're not going to beat yourself up for not seeing something coming every time something happens to us. This is what human life is, duckie. It's just rolling with the punches as they come, getting back up, dusting yourself off, and moving forward."
Morph runs his thumb back and forth over Hob’s temple, the place where Hob’s started to bleach and colour his hair into a charming grey stripe.
“This is Desire’s doing,” Morph grumps.
“I doubt that,” Hob soothes him. “Desire doesn’t give a shit about your old rivalry any more. Stop looking for people to blame. Jill’s already dead, poor thing. There’s no one else.”
“Poor thing,” Matthew snorts.
“Well, I feel sorry for her,” Hob says. “Imagine, going through what she did, losing her mum, and then figuring out that some other bastard gets eternal life and you don’t, she didn’t, and it’s not fair—that’s enough to drive anyone mad. Believe me. I should know.”
“Yes, speaking of knowing, how did she?” Morph snarls.
Hob tells him.
It just makes Morph angrier. “Lucifer, that flamboyant, self absorbed–”
“Cut it out,” Hob barks, trotting out his Professor Gadlen voice.
Matthew startles enough to puff up, and Morph jerks back, stung. His face falls from surprise to hurt. Morph draws his hands away and curls into a ball on the hospital chair, and Hob wishes he could chase after him. But even raising his IV’d hand to follow tugs and burns painfully, and Hob hisses and drops it to the bed instead.
Matthew looks like he’s about to say something, but Hob shoots him a warning glare, and the raven snaps his beak shut.
“Morph, babe,” Hob says gently. “I’m not mad at you. I just need you to stop thinking that this is anyone’s fault but hers. I know you feel lost and aimless because there is no one to punish, and no one to blame, and no one to yell at—it’s hard to have all that anger in you and nowhere for it to go. I get it. But you gotta let it go.”
He holds up his hand and Morpheus pounces on it, clinging like Hob is floating in the sea and he is the only life raft.
“Erasti,” Morph breathes, and his lower lashes sparkle with unshed tears. Where once they glowed sliver, mercurial as stardust, they’re now just regular old saltwater… but no less beautiful. “I was… I was so frightened.”
“Me too,” Hob assures him. “But nothing was going to keep me there. Nothing will ever keep me from you.”
“I couldn’t… the… glass… I couldn’t stop thinking about…” His sentence devolves into panicky little breaths, and, by god, does Hob wish he was the kind of immortal creature that heals quickly, so he could be over all of this nonsense and out of the hospital already. That he was able to fold Morph in his embrace and kiss away every one of his terrible fears and memories.
For half a moment, he enjoys the extremely bitter irony of not being a vampire.
“Here, come up here,” Hob says, wiggling as much as his bound shoulder and casted foot will allow. He makes a small gutter of space between his side and the rail of the bed.
Matthew rides him out, waiting until Morph has folded his skinny arse on the mattress, and then picks his way over Hob’s chest to hunker down on the pillow, right behind Morph’s upturned shoulder. He lays his head over Morph’s pulse and watches Hob with worried black eyes. Morpheus presses himself so close to Hob it’s like he’s trying to crawl through his skin.
“I can’t do this without you,” Morph warbles.
“And you never will. No one is ever going to take me away from you.”
“Dee said that when you didn’t show up for class, he went to check on you. He said it looked like someone dragged you out of the flat, and Destiny gave us the CCTV footage and you were so limp, and so alone, all I could think about was… the… the basement…”
The glass prison, Hob realizes. Being trapped while a demented human demanded boons and power that are not within you to give.
“That’s fair, duck, I would think of that first, too.”
“And then I… I didn’t know… I’m powerless now, Hob. I can’t–”
“Shhh, shhh, you’re not powerless. You’re here. Right here. Right now. Right where I need you to be.”
“I had to rely on my family to find you. To save you.”
“And they did. That’s what family is for.”
“I felt so helpless.”
Hob decides it’s worth the pain and effort to stop up Morph’s mouth with his own. The kiss starts desperate, dislodging Matthew, who flaps back to Hob’s belly, but Hob is able to slow it down into something sweet and reassuring.
“You’re not useless, you’re not powerless, and you’re not helpless,” Hob reminds his husband, in between lingering pecks. “Even if you did not have your siblings to turn to, I don’t doubt for a second that you would have found me. Not one second, do you hear me, beloved?”
“You suffered,” Morph whispers, so soft it’s nearly lost under the beep and whirr of the machines around Hob. “And I was not there to make it stop.”
“I’m not suffering now,” Hob says gently and kisses him one last time. “I am safe, thanks to you.”
Morpheus mumbles something, but it’s buried between Hob’s neck and pillow, and he doesn’t catch it.
“I’m going to reup my meds. All this moving around has me in agonies.”
Morph sits up. “Erasti, you should not have let me–”
“Nah,” Hob says, reaching over Morph to press the button to release a dose of his husband’s namesake drug into his IV. “I’m much happier with you here. Stay ‘till I fall asleep?” Hob asks, pleased when Morph both against the mattress to keep him company.
#
"It wasn’t me, you know," a voice drawls from the window-side of Hob's bed, the next time he regains consciousness.
"Hmm?" Hob asks, working to get his eyes gummy open.
The little birdie weight on Hob’s stomach is gone, as is the press of Morph next to him.
He reaches out, wincing, but finds Despair in the hospital chair next to him, and not Morph.
"They've gone to fetch tea," Despair says, with thin grey glee. "Hospital tea is the worst kind of tea."
Hob rolls his head the other way—or, at least as far as the wad of bandaging on the ventilated side of his head allows—and Desire winks from the narrow sofa under the window. They're lounging like it's a luxurious settee from a golden age starlet's dressing room, instead of the sagging, pokey thing it is.
"I didn't know that the woman had such designs. I would not have…" Desire makes a disgusted sound. "I’ve laid my quarrel with your husband to rest. It’s no fun, now that he’s a boring old human.”
“I’m making an effort not to be offended,” Hob sing-songs, then coughs against his dry mouth. Despair helps him get some pillows behind his back to sit up, and to take a few sips of water.
Desire only rolls their golden eyes. “I did not set the woman on you to punish him."
"I know," Hob says.
Desire pouts petulantly. "He doesn't trust me."
"He doesn't trust anyone," Hob offers gently. "Don't take it personally."
"He must trust you," Despair says. Hob knows that she’s saying it to hook anxiety and resentment into him, and that she can’t help it. It’s just who she is. He doesn’t let the barbs break skin.
"He loves me, which is not the same,” Hob corrects kindly. “There are still things he doesn't trust me with. I think maybe the only person he really trusts is Daniel. Maybe Matthew."
"But you are his spouse," Desire says, the confusion drawing them out of their sulk. "Surely he trusts you."
"To an extent," Hob says affably. He wishes he could shrug but he knows that it will just hurt, so he doesn't. "I'm not offended by it. He's been hurt a lot in his life—hey, look at me, Desire, don't pout, I'm not calling you out here—he's been hurt because he loved too much, too fast, and too completely. And he’s had the trust that this kind of love engenders broken a lot. Then to top it off, he naively believed that humanity was the sum of all its best parts–and it is, it can be–but he’s been disabused of that by some very awful humans doing very awful things to him. And to one another. And now that he's just human, he lives in dread of the day that I’ll succumb to the same thing every other lover he’s had has succumbed to–that I’ll find the size and intensity of his love too much of a burden. And that eventually I’ll resent him, or get bored of him, and send him off."
Desire bursts into howling, hysterical laughter. "You? You? Fall out of love with our darling Moron Morph? Ha! Better to think you could piss on the sun to put it out!"
"Colourful," Hob chuckles. "But accurate. He needs to settle into that realization himself. I can't do it for him. And," Hob adds, as Desire’s expression turns mischievous and thoughtful. “Don’t you go meddling either. Let him sink into it naturally.”
“My darling little brother,” Desire drawls. “I am Desire of the Endless. There is literally no force in existence more natural than I.”
Hob just levels them a flat, unimpressed look.
“Oh fine,” Desire says, throwing up their hands. They flip around on the sofa, irritable, laying on it head down with their long, long legs propped against the wall under the window, crossed at the ankle. “Spoilsport.”
“Thank you.” Hob turns his attention to the other twin. “And how are you, darling Despair?”
“Wonderful,” she effuses with a sated sigh. “I love hospitals.”
Hob grins at her. Some people might be put off by another’s joy in people’s misery, but that’s literally who Despair is. The sun rises in the east, water is wet, and Despair of the Endless revels in suffering. He’s just happy she’s happy.
“Your lovely hair,” Despair moans theatrically, brushing her hand through the ends of it visible on the side of his head. “You must be sad.”
“Of course. But it’ll grow back,” Hob assures her. He tries to reach up to tug on his ear, the little tick that has given away his embarrassment since he was a wee boy, and his mam caught him in a lie, but the motion pulls on the bandages on his shoulder, and he drops his hand to the bed instead.
“Of course it will,” Desire adds, grinning with their tongue between their teeth. “Handsome Hobsie.”
The urge to tug his ear grows stronger. "Where's Delirium?"
"She had her turn to sit with you while you slept through the drug-haze," Despair says.
"She's out pestering the nurses right now," Desire adds, gesturing at the door as if whatever Del was up to was simply childish nonsense, not worth remarking on. "Confusing them into allowing you a discharge tomorrow. After that, the files will simply vanish."
"The head nurse will berate herself for weeks," Despair adds with relish.
"That's… really thoughtful," Hob offers with a blink. "Thanks, guys."
"It's almost as if we love you, little brother," Desire drawls, stretching and rising to their feet, amused by the way Hob's gaze latches onto the bulge in their anatomically-impossibly-tight trousers, which of course they had done on purpose to fluster him.
"Destruction will pick you up tomorrow afternoon," Despair says, rising as well and setting the chair in just the right place to trip anyone coming into the room. "Oh! Morph should learn to drive."
"Oh, no, he absolutely should not," Hob rejoinders. "Not if he doesn't want to end up in one of these beds himself."
"But he'd be so bad at it," Despair points out, full of hope.
#
Morph returns with two cups of truly wretched tea, and informs Hob that Del’s pulled some unseen strings to get him released into Morph’s care. Apparently she’s convinced the hospital that Hob is being moved to a posh, ultra-private clinic under specialist supervision.
“So private it only has one bed!” Matthew jokes, and Hob tries not to wince at the volume of his caws. It’s not the raven’s fault that Hob is having problems regulating his sensory input due to a traumatic brain injury.
As Hob and Morph grimace their way through the appalling tea, Matthew pulls the chart off the foot of the bed and painstakingly flips through it, reading the most interesting bits aloud.
“Three-dee printed disk of human bone fitted into your skull, isn’t it a wonder what they can do with technology nowadays, with a skin graft to cover the wound…”
“Where did you learn to read the chart?” Hob asks.
“I was a cop, wasn’t I?” Matthew says with his version of a shrug. “Got lots of practice hanging around in hospital rooms with vi–witnesses and the like.”
Hob tries not to be offended that Matthew thinks he’ll be triggered by the word ‘victim’.
“Oh!” Matthew snorts, “They took the skin from your ass! You’re a real and genuine asshat now!”
Hob groans and shifts on the bed. “No wonder I can’t get comfortable.”
“Are you in a great deal of pain, erasti?”
“Only from this tea,” Hob jokes, handing it back to Morph.
Morph looks like he wants to protest, but instead just takes the tea and sets it aside.
“Sorry,” Hob fumbles, unsure how to parse Morph’s quiet thoughtfulness. “I… I didn’t mean to insult–”
“No, no,” Morph murmurs. “It is just…”
Matthew mantles and, after a moment, finishes Morph’s thought with: “We’re just worried about you, Hobsie. You seem a bit–”
“Am I slurring?” Hob interrupts, fear surging up his spin. “Do I sound funny? Is my brain scrambled, I mean, I sound fine to me, but am I–”
“You are perfectly intelligible, erasti,” Morph reassures him. “Only, you are being… unexpectedly genial.”
“What?”
“Your good mood is freaking us out,” Matthew clarifies.
Hob takes a moment to parse what they mean. “Wait, you’re worried because I’m not acting traumatized enough?” Morph takes his IV’d hands between both of his, looking theatrically sympathetic and worried. “Oh, come on! I’m fine.”
“There’s a hole in your head,” Matthew says gently.
“And they filled it with science fiction medical shit,” Hob grouses. “I can’t die.”
Morph looks hesitant to speak his mind, which, perhaps, a first for him. At least for as long as Hob has known him. Which is damn near seven hundred years, now. But he clearly has something he wants to say. It’s written all over his face like a ticking time bomb.
“Go on,” Hob says. “Spit it out, already.”
Morph blinks hard. Gently, he begins with: “You once told me that your greatest nightmare was to be captured and experimented upon. Despair told me what was done, and–”
“Stop.” Bile, hot and sour, rushes up Hob’s throat. He swallows hard against it, refusing, refusing to let that woman hurt him any more. He squeezes Morph’s hand hard enough to probably hurt.
Morph stops.
“No,” Hob says firmly, screwing his eyes shut, forcing his breathing to remain steady, to not speed up, to not betray his…no. No. “No. We’re not… no.”
“Okay,” Matthew says, wobbling over the blanket to press his head comfortingly against Hob’s heart. “It’s okay.”
“I’m fine,” Hob says, pushing him off gently. “I just don’t see what good dwelling on it will do. It’s over. I’m fine.”
Morph and Matthew exchange a look that makes it clear that they don’t believe him. It settles like a nettling irritant under his skin.
“You know, I fucking hate it when you guys conspire,” Hob snaps. “Makes me feel like a third wheel in my own fucking marriage, sometimes.”
Morph doesn’t outwardly react to Hob’s words, but the shine in his glacier-blue eyes gets brighter, his entire vibe closing off.
“Yeah, I guess that’s my cue to fuck off,” Matthew says, voice pinched.
“Wait, Matthew, I didn’t mean–” Hob starts, but doesn’t finish, as Matthew’s already leapt into the air and, in the span of two wingbeats, vanished into the Dreaming. Hob turns to look at Morph. He wishes he could cross his arms across this chest. “What?”
“Excellently done, erasti,” Morph says, and sarcasm oozes like sludge from every syllable.
“Well, I do feel that way, sometimes,” Hob snaps.
“Then why have you not said so before now?” Morph challenges. “Why bring it up only to weaponize it right when we’re all feeling at our most vulnerable? Do you seek to hurt us the way you have been hurt? Or in recompense for my failure to protect–”
“No,” Hob interrupts hastily, shame flooding his body and dousing the prickly standoffishness. “I’m sorry. I am. That wasn’t fair. My brain-to-mouth filter must have been in the glob of grey-matter that fell onto the van floor. I’m sorry.”
Morph sniffs, clearly not ready to forgive Hob yet, and that’s fair. That’s fair. He’s going to have to grovel to Matthew, too. “Was your emotional intelligence in that glob as well?”
“Ouch,” Hob laughs, but it’s thin and strained. “Okay, I deserved that.”
“Hob, we were scared for you. We are still frightened of what complications may arise from what occurred. Will you not concede that our fears are well founded, at least?”
Hob chews on that for a moment, and while he thinks that it’s all ridiculous, that it’s nothing, he won’t deny Morph the right to feel what he feels.
“No, yeah, of course,” Hob says softly. “I’ll… I’ll do better.”
“You do not need to do better at trying to lie to yourself and us about your mental state,” Morph warns him. “You need to allow yourself to process what happened and experience it.”
Hob makes a sour face at that. “Right now?”
“No, of course not in this immediate moment…” Morph heaves a sigh.
“Okay. Later,” Hob says, meaning not ever.
Morph eyes him like he knows, but lets it drop. After a few long moments of awkward, frustrated silence, Morph says, “What else was in that glob of grey matter, do you suppose?”
He’s trying for a joke, and Hob’s replying laughter is too forced, but neither of them remark on it.
“I dunno. Why don’t you quiz me?”
“In what year did we first meet?”
“2019,” Hob says promptly, just for the way Morph’s face transforms with shock and dismay, only to curl into sly amusement.
“Ah, you jest.”
“Of course I jest. 1389, June 7th. Best day of my life.” He uses their entwined fingers to pull Morph’s hand to his mouth for a quick kiss. “Give me a hard one.”
“Hƿæt ƿæs þīn earste inƿætling þū me?”
“I č ierēamde þīn ēagan for dæᵹ,” Hob replies.
"Menteur. Je suis revenu en arrière et j'ai regardé tes rêves à propos de moi après que nous soyons devenus amants."
"D'accord, j'ai rêvé de tes yeux et de te pencher au-dessus de la table, juste là, au milieu de the White Horse."
“Kinē sōhaṇē śabada. Tusīṁ mērē nāla kivēṁ rōmānsa karadē hō, isa la'ī.”
“Tusīṁ saca magi'ā, rōmānsa nahīṁ,” Hob says with a cheeky wink, feeling much more himself now that they were back to flirting.
“That’s not truth either!” Morph blurts out. “��ú virðir mig. Þú óttaðist mig.”
“Ég hef aldrei óttast þig.”
“I glóssa sou eínai asiménia ópos pánta. Den nomízo óti écheis chásei kamía glóssa.”
“Ti anakoúfisi,” Hob says, with a sigh, and indeed it is a relief. Whatever it was what made Hob Hob, that formed his personality, and his memories, and his core identity, seem to be intact.
#
Hob’s not entirely certain he trusts Destiny of the Endless to drive any more than Morpheus, considering he’s never seen the entity’s eyes through the curtain of his hipster-emo hair. But it’s Destiny who greets them from the driver’s seat of Dee’s junky little Jeep hatchback. As Dee lifts Hob from the wheelchair into the back seat, Hob supposes it makes sense for the big strong burly Endless to be the one to manhandle him around while his motor function is still shot. Still, he thinks he might prefer the one who’s lived among humans to be the one navigating.
“We will arrive at the New Inn safely,” Destiny sniffs as Morph scoots in the other rear door, and gets Hob buckled in.
Hob is reminded sharply that his in-laws can read his surface thoughts, so long as they pertain to their sphere of influence. A spike of annoyance flashes through him, but Hob shoves it down. It doesn’t matter.
“Fair enough, fair enough,” Hob laughs lightly, instead, trying to keep the mood light.
He’s already exhausted from their little escape. Okay, so said ‘escape’ is agonizingly slow, in broad daylight, and under the approval and supervision of a bunch of people who won’t remember it afterwards, but perhaps they were a bit hasty in getting him out of there so fast. He really does wish he’d been able to bring some of that lovely IV-strength morphine with him.
Destruction climbs into the front. “All set?”
“Yeah,” Hob says. “Good as it’s gonna get, at least. You know, it’s sweet of all of you to check in on me, but I’ll be fine.”
Matthew lands on Morph’s lap, and they exchange a skeptical glance as Morph shuts his door, and Destiny pulls away from the hospital carriageway.
“What?” Hob chuckles, leaning as far back in the seat as it allows to cradle his poor head, broken ankle propped on the wheel well. “Really, I’m fine!”
“Boss,” Dee says, turning awkwardly around in the passenger seat. “Not to make, you know, light of it, but you were drugged, abducted, imprisoned, medically violated, shot, and then in a horrific car wreck. You’re allowed to be not fine. Anybody would be not-fine.”
“I was not-fine after only two of those things happened to me,” Morph says softly.
“That was a whole century, though,” Hob says. “I was only gone a day. Twenty-four hours at most.”
“A short duration of torture lasts does not make it any less torturous.”
“Torture!” Hob echoes, with a forced guffaw. “Come on, guys.”
Morpheus lays a gentle hand on Hob’s thigh, and somehow the usually comforting gesture feels condescending this time. “Erasti, waking nightmares have been spawned by less. There is no shame in–”
“Stop pestering me,” Hob snaps, shoving Morph’s hand off, his good mood starting to strain.
“Hobsie, come on,” Matthew says, scrambling up Morph’s arm to perch on his shoulder and preen Hob’s visible hair under the bandages. “I thought you didn’t buy into the toxic masculinity bullshi–”
“I said I’m fine!” Hob snarls. “So leave it.”
Matthew jerks back with a startled squawk, landing on his back in Morph’s hastily cupped hands. No one else says anything, but the silence that descends on the car is thick with I told you so. Four pairs of eyes drill into Hob accusingly, worriedly; even Destiny's, while he still somehow manages to keep them on the road. Or so Hob assumes, cause he can’t see them.
“Ow,” Hob says, his head throbbing so hard that he sees dark spots in his vision.
Morph sets Matthew to rights. The raven faces away from Hob on Morph’s lap, Morph helping him groom his feathers smooth with stiff, pale fingers. Hob immediately feels like an arse.
But everyone is finally quiet, so he closes his eyes and rests the intact part of his skull on the cool window and closes his eyes, and tries to banish the vision of the needle coming toward him, over, and over, and over again.
#
Death and Delirium are waiting for them at the flat, and Hob tries not to be irritated by it.
He’s not a fucking child, he doesn’t need babysitting.
Hob is handed off like a grouchy baton, Destruction setting him gently on the sofa, Death covering him with the hand-knit blanket from the back of it. Delirium twines the stem of a flower—drooping, partially managed echinacea, which otherwise would be a sweet wish to get well soon—through the bandages around his head. Destiny reviews the uses of the medication the nurses had discharged Hob with in the kitchen, with Matthew and Morph.
“Brought you a present,” Death says. She holds up a stunningly beautiful art-nouveau style stoppered pitcher in emerald-green glass. It’s filled with what appears to be an ever-swirling golden storm of Dream Sand. "And it's not addictive, like opiates or morphine."
"Well, not that much more," Despair says, from where she's appeared on the armchair next to the sofa.
"Tsk, this is so tacky," Desire says, grabbing his wrist without even asking Hob, and cutting away the hospital bracelet with one blood-red, razor-sharp nail. It drops to the floor with an anti-climactic flutter. "There."
Hob recoils from their touch, overwhelmed and feeling very much that he wants to be left alone. And also, very much, that he is desirous of a shower. He feels objectively disgusting under all the sweat and grime and reek of the hospital.
"Well, I'm not washing your back, Hobsie," Desire purrs. "Though if you got permission from Mister Morose, I think I could be persuaded to give you a sponge bath." With a seductive gesture, they're suddenly dressed in an extremely frilly, extremely skimpy candystriper costume.
"Bath?" Death pipes up from behind the sofa, where she was in discussion about security of the flat with Destruction. "Absolutely not. You’ll get your cast wet, and water in your cuts, and soap in your brain, and that can’t be good, even if it won’t kill you.”
“They put a skin graft over the hole,” Hob grumps. “Nothing can get in my brain.”
“They took it from his ass!” Matthew chirrups from the kitchen. “So Hobsie’s a real asshat now.”
“Yes, thank you,” Hob growls. “Ha ha ha. That gets much funnier the more you tell it.”
Matthew mantles and harrumphs, puffing up like a particularly irritated soot sprite. “Hey, I’m just trying to lighten the mood around here.”
“There’s no mood,” Hob says. The bandages itch. The adhesive is pulling uncomfortably on his hair, and he just feels so gross. He wants to brush his teeth, but he doubts any of the Endless will even let him piss in peace.
Despair smiles. “There’s definitely a mood.”
“AGGresSioN aNd uNUsUAl CoMbATiveNESS is A sIgN oF TrAuMaTIc bRaIn InJuRY. HaVe yOUr puPiLs ReTuRnEd to THE sAmE SiZe, oR—” Delirium floats far too close to Hob, peering into his face, the tip of her nose touching his.
"Okay, that's enough! Everyone out, out!" Hob snarls. Silence falls like an atom bomb. The assemblage of his in-laws all turn to blink at him with expressions ranging from amused to offended. "Please, I am exhausted. I appreciate your concern but please go. Please."
"Of course," Death says, graciously, as if it were her idea and not because Hob just bit off the collective heads off of six of the most powerful entities in existence. "We must let Dream have his time with our littlest brother, as he is still too young to step into the Waking."
"No," Hob moans. "No, I beg you. I don't want to be coddled in the Dreaming either, I just—" But then he's talking to an empty room.
Well, not quite empty.
Morph and Matthew are still in the kitchen. Morph has a pill bottle in each hand, and a raven on his shoulder, and a look of intense scrutiny on his face as he pointedly does not divert his attention from the medication.
Matthew shoots a few looks between Hob and Morph, and then spreads his wings.
"Yeah, good luck with that, bossman," Matthew says, and launches himself off of Morph and through the open window, into the sky.
"Fuck," Hob says with feeling, punching the sofa cushion beside his thigh. And then, once more, "Fuck!"
Which of course makes his head start to ache and his vision dance, and his stomach roil.
He wants to scream, and puke, and pass out, all at once. Instead he does his best to throw off the blanket, and shove himself furiously to his feet.
"Do not stand," Morph says, setting down the bottles and crossing the flat in floor-eating strides. He scoops up the discarded bracelet and shoves it in his pocket, then puts his hands carefully on Hob's arms. He tries to guide Hob back down onto the sofa.
"I'm not fucking made of glass!"
"I never said that you were."
"Stop treating me like it!"
Sneering bitchily, Morph obligingly releases Hob's arms. But Hob's honestly still struggling with his balance, and he wobbles, then steps down hard on his airboot. He yelps as his broken ankle screams its protest.
Morph simply crosses his arms and glares at Hob, unimpressed.
Hob grits his teeth, firms his chin, and gives him back a glare of his own, determined not to budge. He takes deep breaths through his nose to push through the pain.
A small part of himself is calling Hob a stubborn fool, and reminding him that he’s only hurting himself by pushing away everyone, by trying to power through instead of taking the rest that he needs, but laying down hurts in a way that Hob can’t describe.
It’s not physical, it’s… it’s in his head, in a part of his brain that the bullet didn’t scramble, and he’s so stupidly tempted to poke through the wound on his scalp, get his finger in there, hook into the place where the fear is writhing and yank it out, make it quiet, make it stop–
Laying down is too much like surrendering.
It’s like willingly putting himself on that table again and just letting—no.
Hob’s stomach interrupts their silent standoff with a frankly mortifying gurgle.
“You must sit. And then I will bring you something to eat, and your medications. They must be taken on a full stomach.”
Hob only lifts his chin and grits his jaw harder.
“You are being a brat.”
That gets a rise out of Hob. “Don’t bring your cute little BDSM terms into this, this isn’t the bedroom, I’m not… I’m not being sassy so I can get spanked,” Hob says, so offended that Morph would take something that is supposed to be fun, and intimate, and weaponize it against him like that, when he’s already feeling so–so…
Go on, he thinks viciously at himself. Put a name to what you’re feeling. Be a grownup about it.
No.
No, because if he names it, if he acknowledges it, then he has to feel it, and if he has to feel it then he has to admit to it, to deal with it, and he’s not ready to… not ready to…
“Erasti, sit.”
“No.”
“Hob Gadling!” Morph snarls, drawing himself up, clearly at the end of his patience. His voice booms deep and resonant: “Cease your whinging and do as I command!”
Hob plops down on the sofa, glaring mutinously all the while. Not because Morph commanded him to do so. Because he chose to do so. Because his ankle was really, really starting to hurt.
Yes.
That’s it.
“Now, please,” Morph begs, deflating a little but still ramrod-straight with his agitation. “Please, my beloved, just allow me to help you.”
“I don’t need help, I just need… I just need to get back to normal,” Hob says helplessly, and he hates how small and desperate it comes out. “I just want everything to go back to the way it was, before she… before…”
He squinches his eyes shut and shakes his head hard to dispel the sense memory of cheap scratchy cuffs at his wrists, and a hard table against his back, the prick of a needle in the bend of his elbow, the revoltingly violating touch against the intimate curve of his neck—
Which of course makes his head throb again, his stomach heave, his world slide. The discomfort in his gut increases, both starving after days of little sustenance and no solid food, and so nauseous that he’s afraid that even the smell of food may make him heave.
He wants tea.
He wants a bath.
He wants to cry.
“And you will, erasti, I promise. Things will return to normal. But you must allow yourself the time to heal. Body and mind.”
Hob scowls, even as he drags the knit blanket over his lap. He’s aware that it looks like he’s trying to hide himself in it. Or armor himself. He just needs something to do with his hands, he feels so useless. “There’s nothing wrong with my mind.”
“I never said there was anything wrong–” Morph starts and then stops. He heaves out a bone-deep, growling sigh of frustration and scrubs his long fingers through his already-wild hair. “You were not this difficult when you cracked your rib.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t strapped down to a fucking lab table then, was I?” Hob sneers, and then actually claps a palm over his own traitorous mouth.
Morph, in response, looks utterly stricken.
“Oh, no, no, duckie,” Hob says, voice and hands suddenly trembling as he drops them away from his face. “I didn’t… please don’t worry… I…” He blinks hard, refusing, refusing to give in to the—to the…
His stomach gurgles again.
It spurs Morph into action, sending him back to the kitchen, where he takes a moment at the counter to not-so-subtly wipe the tears from his eyes. Then he’s pulling a baking sheet from the oven, plating up something that fills the flat with the divine scents of buttery pastry, savory spices, and rich gravy.
The nausea Hob feared doesn’t rear its head. Instead, his stomach just growls louder.
Morph putters a bit more, setting things out on the tea tray, opening and closing the fridge door, but Hob is too busy flexing his hands on his knees and counting out some calming deep breaths.
Face dry and once more rearranged into something less wrought, Morph returns to the sofa with a glass of water, a bottle of pills, a meal-replacement shake, and a plate with two little wonky, misshapen pasties. He sets the tray on the coffee table within reach of where Hob’s slumped in the corner of the sofa, and takes the chair beside it.
“Did you make these?” Hob asks softly.
“Destruction did this morning, and if you say one word about how terribly formed they are, I do believe it will send him into paroxysms of melancholy.”
“I’m not going to get food poisoning, am I?”
“No,” Moph says. “Only the outsides are queer.”
Hob doesn’t move.
“They are venison.” Morph says it in such an achingly tender, hopeful voice that Hob’s eyes burn.
Something huge and hot and harrowing surges to life in his chest, stoppering up his breath. Hob leans back into the corner of the sofa and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. “This is too much,” Hob gasps.
“This is how I show you how much I love you.”
“Duck?”
“Because this is how you show me,” Morph says, in a soft tone that nonetheless conveys his belief that he’s married an idiot.
“How…?”
"Do you think I am unaware that your love language is acts of service?" Morph asks, sitting forward to lay a calming, claiming hand over the crown of Hob’s bandaged head, just shy of the wound over his ear. "Especially when it comes to the provision of victuals?"
Hob feels his face flush. He didn't realize his little kink had been that obvious. Or that he'd been quite so transparent. "Awww, you know my love language, babe?” Hob teases, without looking up, trying to get his footing in this conversation back. “That's embarrassing for you."
“Stop deflecting,” Morph says. "Do you not think that I am also aware that you despise being babied, and greatly dislike the thought that you cannot provide for yourself? Or for me?"
“I… it’s not about being babied, it’s–”
“You have been alone for centuries, my dearest heart,” Morph says, sliding closer and pressing the side of his face to Hob’s, cheek to cheek, clearly not minding how greasy his hair is or how his breath must reek. “You have been forced to shift for yourself this whole time, and so you see accepting help as a weakness. But it is not a weakness, my beloved. It takes great strength to allow others, others who love you, to see you vulnerable and in need, and to allow them to meet those needs. As much as I cannot do this without you, you no longer need to do this without me.”
"I hate this," Hob grumbles mutinously. "I hate this. I hate this!"
And then, without warning, he's sobbing.
Great, horrible, face-twisting, throat-shredding, revoltingly snotty sobs heave their way out of the deepest, filthiest part of his guts.
“Go on, sweetheart,” Morpheus soothes him gently, sliding out of his chair to kneel at Hob’s side, to wrap his arms around Hob’s chest, press his ear to Hob’s heart, and hold on. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
“I was so scared!” Hob gulps and splutters, gids his fingers into Morph’s shoulders and holds on, holds on. Doesn’t ever think he’ll be able to let go. “I was so afraid that she’d do something and it would be permanent, and I’d never get to tell you… never get to see you…”
“I’m here. I’m safe. We’re both safe,” Morph murmurs into his chest, deep voice buzzing against Hob’s rib cage, here and alive, alive, alive.
"She wanted me to marry her. She shot me in the head and then expected me to drink your blood and marry her and I was scared, I was so scared she would hurt you, that you would—I can survive anything, I've been through everything but I couldn't bare to see you hurt again, locked up again, I couldn't—I c-couldn't—"
Hob curls over Morph’s crouched body as much as his aching shoulder allows, pressing his husband into his stomach, wishing he could merge their skins, their flesh, wishing he could tuck Morpheus up behind his own bones where no hurt could ever find him ever again.
"I cannot die either, Hob."
“I know that, I know that, in my head I know that. But my heart… in my heart, I just, I j-just—”
Morpheus just squeezes him tighter.
This wrenches a new wave of horrified, whining sobs from Hob. “It’s my worst fear. The worst–the table, the needle, I screamed, I screamed and nobody came, nobody—I was alone, and I–I–I, I… I…”
Morpheus rises on his knees, slides his hands to Hob’s face, cups his cheeks and presses a revenant, worshipful kiss into the deep furrow between Hob’s eyes.
“I will never let that happen to you again,” Morph vows, lips pressed against Hob’s forehead.
“You can’t... you can’t promise that. You can’t be sure—”
Morpheus sits back. “Please look at me, Robert.”
Hob takes a moment to calm his stuttered breathing and pry his tear-sore eyes open. Morpheus’s expression is grave and gaunt.
“Be reassured that I know this is your greatest fear. You berated me for it so roundly in Gadlen House that it is seared into my heart, erasti. I shall not forget, even if we live for a hundred thousand years. Please also be assured that I am furious that this happened to you, and more furious still that I could not stop it.” Morph sweeps his thumbs across Hob’s cheeks, comforting and kind. “And so, I have spoken with Dream, and he has granted you a great boon.”
“A… a boon?” Hob echoes, reaching up to pull Morph’s hands into his own shaking ones, desperate for the long-familiar comfort of his fingers laced between Hob’s, needing the reassurance and the grounding like air.
“Originally I asked for a raven of your own to watch over you,” Morph says, with a disappointed twist in the corner of his fine pink lips. “But it seems that only Dream of the Endless—or his former incarnation—may be so blessed.”
Hob jolts with the memory of his childish, cringey accusation that Matthew and Morpheus’ relationship makes his marriage feel crowded and lesser. “I should apologize to Matthew.”
“Yes, you should,” Morph says, but doesn’t allow himself to be diverted. “Instead of a raven, Dream has gifted you this.”
He pulls back just enough to pull a golden ring from his back pocket. It looks so much like Hob’s wedding ring that he has to glance at his own hand to be sure, but no, the crazy bitch hadn’t stolen it off him while he was unconscious, thank god. This ring is slightly thinner, plain, but with a deep emerald chip embedded in the band in such a way that it would be impossible to prise out.
Slowly, with great veneration and ceremony, Morph slips it onto Hob’s finger, to settle snug against his wedding band as if made to go there. Which it actually, literally, was.
The stone flares bright, gold-green for one gloriously beautiful moment, then quiets down.
“Should you be in danger, the moment you fall asleep or lose consciousness, Dream will find you in your sleepscape. If necessary, he will alert the other Endless. Should the ring be removed by any but you or I, it will alert the Endless. If the ring is destroyed, or someone attempts to tamper with the Dream Stone, it will alert the Endless.” Morph bows his head and kisses the ring like a medieval troubadour making courtly love.
“Awww, babe,” Hob sniffles. The tight, searing bands of panic wrapped around his lungs ease away, and Hob feels like he can breathe again. “You microchipped me. That’s so romantic.”
Morph smirks at Hob’s trembling attempt at good humor, and holds up his own left hand. An identical ring of silver and green is snugged up against his own wedding band. “I microchipped us both.”
Hob snorts a laugh, but it comes out disgustingly wet and miserable. Very carefully, Morph joins him on the sofa. Morph tucks into the corner and pulls Hob back against his chest, sheltering him in the cradle of his pelvis, guiding Hob’s head down onto his own shoulder.
“I hurt,” Hob sniffles, in a tiny, broken voice.
“I know. Will you eat? Then you can take your medication.”
“Yeah,” Hob says.
“The pasties, or the shake?”
“I’ll try the pasties. If only so Dee doesn’t pitch himself out a window.”
Morph’s chuckle buzzles against Hob’s skin, comforting and alive.
He takes very great delight in feeding Hob careful, gentle bites of one pasty, alternating it with sips of water, until Hob feels full and warm, and cared for. Together they wrangle the morphine pill down his throat. And then, very, very carefully, Morph pours a trickle of Dream Sand out of the pitcher and into Hob’s eyes, all the while promising Hob that when he wakes, they will figure out the best way for Hob to bathe.
Hob’s eyelids grow heavy, and Morph tucks the heavy knit blanket over Hob, a pleasant, steadying, reassuring weight.
And in the Dreaming, Daniel greets them both with the waking nightmares that Hob’s ordeal has germinated at his side. They are small dark things, rambunctious and shy by turns, barely out of their infancy. Hob crouches on the pale marble floor of Daniel’s throne room, and lets them climb all over him, eager in their puppish devotion to their duty.
With Daniel’s gentle guidance, and Morpheus’ support, Hob spends the night diligently working through the trauma they leave clinging to his skin. He relives it over and over again, nightmare flowing into nightmare, until the dark, scrabbly little things begin to soften at the edges, becoming insubstantial and wisp-like.
Just before dawn, they fade away, returning to Dream Sand in order to be called back into existence and to another Dreamer, at another time.
When Hob opens his eyes, the morning light cuts across the room and into his eyes. Morph must have carried him to their bedroom sometime in the night, likely waking while Hob was distracted. Now he is sprawled against Hob’s side, feet carefully tucked away from the cast, head pillowed on Hob’s chest above his heart.
Hob kisses the pieces of Morph he can reach–mostly hair–and only then registers that there is more fluffy blackness there than usual. Matthew is asleep against Morph’s neck. Hob pets gently down Matthew’s back with one finger, and relaxes into the knowledge that he is home, and he is loved, and he is safe.
____
Morpheus and Hob's language-testing conversation:
Morpheus (Anglo-Saxon): "What was your first impression of me?”
Hob (Anglo-Saxon): “I thought of your eyes for days."
Morpheus (Contemporary French): "That’s not true. I went back and viewed your dreams of me after we became lovers."
Hob (Contemporary French): "'kay, so I dreamed of your eyes and bending you over the table, right there in the White Horse."
Morpheus (Contemporary Persian): "What pretty words. How you romance me so."
Hob (Contemporary Persian): "You asked for the truth, not romance."
Morpheus (Contemporary Icelandic): “You venerated me. You feared me.”
Hob (Contemporary Icelandic): “I have never feared you.”
Morpheus (Contemporary Greek): “Your tongue is as silver as always. I don't think you've lost any languages."
Hob (Contemporary Greek): "What a relief."
(If you speak any of these languages, PLEASE correct me. I am leaning heavily on GoogleTranslate. The French was graciously provided by UldAses.)
#Losyark#the hob adherent series#hob gadling#hob adherent#hurt/comfort#keepsakes#cling fast#cling fast adjecent#hob x dream#dream x hob#dreamling fic#dreamling#dream#lord morpheus#hob x morpheus#morpheus x hob#morpheus#the endless siblings are motherhens#every last one of them#centennial boyfriends#centennial husbands#the endless
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Hob understands Dream's conception of time better by the decade and like that somehow Does things to me... Like where does one draw the line between human and Being, between mortal and Endless?
The thing I love about Hob, as other people have pointed out, that he is Just Some Dude (his name literally MEANS "Bob the Common Guy," more or less). He was born a peasant, he has no special powers, he has no magic, he has nothing extra at all, except for his ability not to die. And unlike all the other angsty immortals in fiction who are like WOE IS ME I CANNOT PERISH, he's constantly able to adapt, to get through even the worst periods in his very long life and still want to try again, to see the bright side, and be excited about humanity's successes, even in the midst of all their failures.
This is why Hob is such a good match for Dream: while Dream only sees the worst in people, Hob sees the best, and while Dream takes eons to change or forgive or let go of anything ever, Hob’s best quality is his ability to do just that. He quickly adapts to the fashions and customs of every era, he doesn't spend his time constantly looking back and brooding (again, unlike Certain Entities) and yet, he's able to become kinder and wiser and gentler with the passage of time, rather than harder and meaner. Which is, again, something that Dream needs to remember, and which he's even appreciative of when Death, giving him knowing big-sister looks the whole time, tells him to reconnect with Hob. Because she knows that they complement each other perfectly and Hob can help Dream see the things about humankind that he struggles with, and I have many feelings about this. Many.
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an unsent letter: June 5th, 1489
In two days time you’ll walk through the door of the White Horse and I will lay eyes on you for the first time in 100 years. 100 years alive and well and unharmed. 100 years but at what cost? I thought you were a devil, once, and for a while I convinced myself you couldn’t be, but now I’m not so sure. Your eyes and face and pallor all speak to a creature beyond man. The very shape of your mouth in that too-knowing smirk makes me believe you cannot possibly be human. It was too wicked looking. Too tempting. Is that what you’ve come to do? To tempt me to hell? I can’t very well enter hell if I refuse to die, now can I?
Will you let me live another hundred years, beautiful stranger? Will you grant me an additional boon, or are these hundred years meant to spell my end? I would accept death, if you made me take it, but I pray you grant me another hundred years. If you are a devil, maybe that prayer will be my end, but how could you be a demon, with a face like that? With a voice like that? Silk I’d wrap myself in. Honey I’d like to savor. If you are a devil, are you also the temptation? Do you mean to destroy me?
I think I would let you.
We will meet again in two days time and I don’t know if I’m excited for it. I feel the thrill of something new beneath the anxiety I get when people start to look at me strangely and I have to move away for a while. I’m just a man, and you are something more. I fear you and yet I want to see you again. I haven’t spoken a word of my unending life to anyone. I think, even if you are a devil, I’m excited to talk about it with you. Even if you only tell me why you’ve chosen me.
In fear and anticipation,
Hob Gadling
——
This letter, upon it’s completion, was placed in a traveling bag and forgotten about until it eventually was made wet by an over-wet spring and ruined beyond recognition.
----
psst, here's the ao3 fic I'm starting to compile these in.
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So I've been going through some old roleplays I've done with people, and one of the stories I wrote with my friend is just.. the perfect plot for a Dreamling fic??? Like, it fits these two so well, and I might write it myself- But if anyone in the fandom is inspired by this, feel free to take the idea! and also link me to it please and thank you <3
(Please note: This would be a medieval fantasy AU where there is magic, but the Endless siblings aren't their actual anthropomorphic personifications. Maybe they have minor powers over their domains, or they just have their nicknames, I say go wild with it-)
Okay. Let us set the scene.
Through some shape or form, Morpheus, one of the Endless princes, is cursed to see his first spouse die in a horrific way before his eyes. This, of course, scares away any potential suitor when they find out about this curse, because fuck that, they're not too keen on dying in a horrific way??
So, the king and queen decide on a plan; Morpheus will just have to marry some commoner who nobody would really miss, somebody who would've probably keeled over from illness within a month or three, so the curse will claim them and Morpheus will be free to find someone he wants to marry without y'know, constantly fearing he'll see them die a traumatizing death-
Enter Hob Gadling, an ex-soldier with no family, who the royal guards just plucked out of a local tavern, under the guise of "providing a special service for his country". He gets taken to the palace and is freshened up a bit, before going straight towards the chapel to marry the prince.
Morpheus is very much Not Pleased with all this, and after the wedding ceremony, once they are alone, he tells Hob about the curse. That he doesn't know when Hob will die, could be hours, days, months, or even years, but he will be dying a gruesome death and Morpheus will be forced to watch it happen. So, y'know, he's sorry this guy had to be roped into all this, he seems nice, it's a shame he'll have to die.
Yet Hob seems to take it pretty well, for someone who's been told they are now fated to die in terrible pain and all that jazz. He just smiles and basically goes "Welp, then I'll enjoy the remaining time I've got I guess- Life is still very rich and I intend to enjoy it by your side, your highness."
Morpheus can't help but admire the other's optimism a bit, but he tells himself that no matter what, he will not get attached to this man, because it'll only hurt more in the end. He tries to avoid Hob at the castle, but fate/the Plot keeps steering them back together into the same space, and spoiler alert, the prince starts to like this guy more and more, even though he knows it's gonna hurt when Hob perishes.
And then one day, while out on a ride together or something, Hob gets kicked in the chest by a horse, which would be breaking every rib and undoubtedly puncturing all the possible organs in that region of the body. And Morpheus, as stated by the curse, has front-row seats to the "Watching your husband choke to death on his own blood" show, sitting there all alone.
Only problem is... Hob doesn't die..? Like, he's clearly choking, but the bruises seem to slowly.. disappear? And he slowly stops choking on his own breath?? He even begins to cough and sit up???
Cue Morpheus freaking the hell out because huh???? How the fuck??? And Hob is just complaining that ow, fuck, that hurt like a bitch, can he please get some water?
More incidents like this start happening, to everyone's confusion but Hob, who seems to believe he's just ah.. very sturdy.
Hob's food gets poisoned with something that would've killed three grown men, and he gets violently ill, but a week later he's back to normal, and the spy on the staff who did the poisoning gets exposed because they cannot hide their extreme confusion as to how someone survived a triple dose of Night's Kiss???
Someone's fire spell goes wrong and Hob should've been burned to a crisp, but he's only got some first and second-degree burns, that'll heal, he's sadder about the fact that one of his fave new outfits got destroyed :c
A drop from the tower, the tallest one in the kingdom? Yeah, that one. Geez, it was high, and he has some broken bones, but he'll be okay, bones heal within a month anyway, right? (Right?, he asks, to a horrified but kind of impressed Morpheus, who can't even bring himself to tell Hob no at this point-)
Hob falls into a very strong river current, which sweeps him under and must surely drown him ten times over, but two hours or so later, Morpheus is met with a very soaked and chilly Hob, who climbed out of the river a few miles downstream and look, he even caught his prince a fish or three during his little adventure ^^
It's not until Hob 'dies' in a way that cannot be explained by having a strong immune system or being able to muscle through some pain, like.. I dunno, a decapitation or something, that Hob goes "Wait a second, weird idea, but maybe I'm immortal?"
"YOU THINK???" - Morpheus, on the verge of a nervous breakdown at this point-
And also at this point they realize that wait a fucking second, Hob literally cannot die, and the curse cannot pass on to a second spouse, holy shit, Morpheus gets to keep him- And it'll be cute and whoever/whatever gave Hob immortality in the first place goes "Okay, sure, your hubby can live forever too, here you go-"
Really tempted to write it now, but feel free to steal this word vomit idea of mine if you want- xD
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After watching The Sandman and falling completely in love with Hob Gadling and Ferdinand Kingsley, I've jumped into Victoria without a second thought after finding out that our beloved Ferdie starred in it.
I have now finished the first season and, apart from really liking the show, my mind has slowly been creating this AU in which Charles Francatelli, the character Ferdinand plays in Victoria, is actually one of Hob Gadling's alter egos through the centuries.
There is quite a resemblance between the two characters' personalities and there have been a couple of scenes that made me scream: "Omg, this would be such a nice parallel with the Sandman!"
So here's my essay:
"WHY CHARLES FRANCATELLI AND HOB GADLING ARE THE SAME PERSON"
Warning: there will be Victoria S1 and The Sandman S1 spoilers
Firstly and foremost, I have to aknowledge the obvious: they're both golden retrievers. This is quite an easy one, but both of the characters are so kind and genuine and have an incredible joy for life, from what I was able to see, that you simply cannot love them immediately!
In Victoria, Francatelli is a great chef. Like, an incredibly good chef. And it would makes sense that Hob Gadling, an immortal who must have lived thousands of lives, might have become incredibly good at many things, cooking being one of it.
Francatelli, as a chef, is always looking for new flavours and combinations and he's delighted when Nancy, a dressmaker he then falls in love with, suggests adding something to enhance his already great work. And this love for novelty really reminds me of another character we all know...
This love for new things is also shown when he shows Nancy (yes, I will talk a lot about her, so what?) the ice they have in the palace and you can tell he's so happy that he can show her something unexpected and new (just as Hob was so passionate when telling Dream about all those changes he had witnessed in 1489)
In episode 1x06 of Victoria, Francatelli quite literally faces the indian plague in the London slums to go rescue Nancy's cousin and her baby and he puts them in a better accomodation. Now, his gesture alone makes him a brave man that we know Hob already is, but also it would make sense that Hob Gadling, a man who cannot die, would go in a place like that to help someone else (even if it is to impress the woman he loves)
Still in 1x06 of Victoria, after helping her, Francatelli asks Nancy for something in return, and what does he wants, I hear you ask? Her FUCKING NAME! When I tell you I screamed at that scene because a) OMG, THIS MAN IS THE MOST ADORABLE CUTIEPIE THAT I'VE EVER SEEN ON TELEVISION WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE'S NOT REAL??? b) obviously Hob Gadling, who's spent the last 400 years meeting with and crushing on a stranger who never revealed his name, would want to know first thing first the name of the person he's falling in love with!
In 1x07 of Victoria, Francatelli prepares a dinner date and a special dessert for Nancy (he literally creates it just for her!) and, apart from the fact that all that scene is just so. freaking. adorable!, all I could think of was Hob and the big feast he arranged to impress Dream in 1589. This man really read somewhere that "the quickest way to your crush's heart is through their stomach" and blindly believed it.
The fact that we know close to nothing about Francatelli's backstory lets my mind wonder... we just know that he worked his way to get where he is and that he comes from a lowly background, which could easily apply to Hob (quick reminder, I'm still in S1, so they might delve into Charles' backstory more in future seasons)
Also, very small detail, but Francatelli says at some point that "he never forgets a face" and, I don't know, I feel like Hob could have a good memory for people. Remembering those he met and lost along the way; friends, family, lovers and so on...
These are my main thoughts for now. I will add more as they come to me and as I watch more seasons (I've already spoiled myself quite a bit of the third season and GOD!, there are some good and painful parallel right there!)
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed my ramblings! :D
#hob gadling#charles francatelli#the sandman#victoria#the sandman netflix#dreamling#nancy skerrett#dream of the endless#morpheus#hob x morpheus#centennial husbands#ferdinand kingsley
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Wanted to let you know that I LOVE the conversation with Desire in Here there be dragons (which, btw, the title, the meditations on how to make the map infinite again in the face of like, current small/limited-world angst, woven together SO well). First off, excellent emotional beat, of course it would be Desire themself who could make Hob most clearly go "forget what everyone thinks is reasonable or possible for me, I *want* to understand wtf is happening right now". But honestly just kinda delighted at the other viewpoint into the Endless family drama about, apparently, this whole entire universe's existence.
Like, the whole multiverse premise (if I read it right), of a world in which Dream comes out the other side of being able to pursue what he wants AND change, AND do what he needs to do without self-destruction, the idea that he chose to do this so that he could have a universe within him where those two versions of him were one and the same, and maybe even possibly help bridge gaps between those versions of him in other realities? Fantastic.
But like, having Desire there for it for a bit also brings out some of the inherent comedy in the situation too because like. It is Just Like Dream to be on a universe reset and go "what would it take to make a universe where I circumvent the most tragic aspects of [canon events]" and to (somehow) go "ah yes, clearly the only solution for this problem is that we all be sea creatures". I just love love the irritation in Desire here as they all regain broader understanding/consciousness of their function and take a new form and then look around at this universe with new eyes and now have the context to go "Yo, Dream, what - and I cannot stress this enough -- the FUCK?"
Idk, it was just such a fantastic little extra moment of levity I was reading into the wonderfully somber vibe of some of these moments that is just so fitting for all the characters involved.
Ahhh hello hello! I am SO so glad you liked the fic, I've got a lot of feelings about the "change or die" aspect of Dream, and how that's his tragic flaw is that he either CAN'T change or can only change very slowly! He's set himself in a fixed narrative and, because stories are all he is, he doesn't have the authorial power to change it!
But you know who WOULD? Daniel.
I've made a big point to say that Daniel DOES NOT appear in Here there be dragons, because he doesn't! But there's another reality out there where everything proceeded according to canon, that Dream prepared his elaborate suicide attempt, that Daniel Hall the child became the vessel for Dream of the Endless and meanwhile Morpheus was allowed at last the chance to rest. Leaving behind people who loved him.
And what if Daniel, who was once human, who has a spark of human imagination and free will in him, decided to try and change that? There are countless aspects of Dream of the Endless, of which Daniel is only one, so what's the creation of one more? All that's needed is for someone to dream it hard enough. Say, someone like Hob, grieving his friend? Someone like Death, grieving her brother? Dreams only need a little push to become new stories. Stories very easily become reality.
Daniel doesn't appear in Here there be dragons because Daniel, in another time and another reality, is tapping his fingers together and wondering why the FUCK everything turned out sea monsters, but this is the most successful iteration of Morpheus-merged-with-Dream to date, and so he's just. Not going to poke at it too hard.
(The difference is the satiation of hunger and longing. Being allowed to be monstrous in your wanting. Being encouraged to be too much!)
(In another reality, Desire is HATING this entire thing because the thing that's allowed their least favorite sibling to actually grow and flourish as a creature? Is fulfilling his DESIRES? Is indulging his WANTS and his HUNGERS? What the FUCK, Daniel? Daniel shrugs. I don't know why you're so upset, he says. Look how much happier this other version of Dream is!
I don't care if he's happy, Desire says, I want LEGS again.)
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Effigy
(Sandman “The Kindly Ones” spoilers)
The King of Dreams met the Fates on top of the hoodoos and pillars of the canyons at the edge of the Dreaming. They had wrought enough havoc in his realm and it was time to end this.
Suddenly a man stood beside him that had not been there before. A dreamer. It was Hob Gadling. He looked only briefly at Morpheus, who stared back in confusion. Then Hob smiled and stepped between him and the Three.
"Hob, wait!"
Dream reached for him but Hob pulled away and stepped towards the Fates. He gave a perfect bow and Dream felt reminded of a younger version of him with much less centuries under his belt.
"Greetings, Gracious Ladies. I have a proposal."
The ladies spoke in alternation, like usual, regarding the human with impatience.
"A proposal?"
"You are of no interest to us, Robert Gadling."
"Step aside and let the Dream Lord receive his judgment."
Hob did not move.
"I will be his effigy."
The silence that struck the Dreaming at his words was thunderous. Morpheus stood dumbstruck and the Furies stared at Hob with mouths agape.
"What?" they asked all three at once. Hob took another step towards them and, suddenly clad in a black robe, pulled it open to bear his chest.
"I would offer you myself, to unleash upon me your fury and judgment, as substitute for Lord Morpheus."
"Hob..." Dream croaked, but the Furies sneered.
"Why should we accept that?"
"It is not you who invoked our wrath."
"And you cannot die."
Hob nodded. "Exactly. I will be his effigy every year on the day he killed his son. That is my offer."
Dream reached again for Hob with trembling hands.
"You cannot mean that, Hob. Please let me..."
Hob looked over his shoulder at him, eyebrow raised, his voice strong, unfaltering.
"No. I will not. I choose to do this for you and you will not stop me."
He turned from Dream’s stricken face and addressed the Three again:
"Tell me, Mother, Sister, Wife: do you accept my offering?"
A bolt of lightning crackled across the sky and Morpheus, suddenly bigger than any man, rose before Hob.
"Hob Gadling, I will not let you suffer for my crimes! Esteemed Erinyes, do not let this human take my place. I would answer for what I've done. It is time."
"Now, Dream, look-" Hob began but the cackling laugh of the crone interrupted him.
"Look how he squirms!"
"Look how he begs - for his beloved who would suffer for him." the young woman crooned. Hob's eyebrows rose. "Beloved?"
"Look how he fears! It would be a fitting torment, to have him see his love punished for his sake, year after year." the mother said with a hungry smile. The Furies rose up and pushed Morpheus aside with little effort despite his current size.
"We will accept your bargain, Robert Gadling. You shall be the Dream Lord's effigy."
“No!” Dream roared, but the Furies were already upon Hob and the Lord of the Dreaming was thrown back violently by their force. Dream was sure that the terrible sounds that followed would haunt him for all of his long existence. Helpless to safe his dearest friend, he put his face in his hands and wept.
When the Erinyes were done, they left cackling and howling.
“Until next year, Hob Gadling! We look forward to your sweet and tasty sacrifice. Until then, Lord Morpheus!” Like a violent gust of wind they whirled around them, screeching and laughing, and then they were gone from the Dreaming.
Morpheus had returned to his regular size and was cowering a few feet away from his friend’s body, his face still buried in his hands. He could not move, he dared not look upon what they had done to Hob. He could not. He wanted to disappear into darkness and hide, inside a nightmare of glass and void, to condemn himself to suffering and anguish - but he owed it to at least sit vigil until Hob rose.
He didn’t know how long he sat in desperation, weeping, until suddenly a strong but gentle hand lay on his cheek and made him look up.
Hob knelt before him. He was drenched in blood, but whole (again, Dream thought), and he gave a wobbly smile. A black robe heavy with blood hung shredded around his body.
“It’s alright.”
With a cry Dream threw himself at him and clutched at his shoulders. “How can it be alright? Why would you do this, Hob? Why would you take such torment upon yourself, for me?”
He felt tears still running down his cheeks. Hob gently brushed them away, stroking the scar the whip of the Three had left on it and cupped his face.
“Selfishness, really. I did not want to be drinking alone every one hundred years.”
He chuckled but then said softly: “I… did not want to lose the one I love. I’d rather die – and so I will, once a year. It’s alright.” he repeated with such a kind smile, that Dream felt something like a heart swell in his chest, filling him to bursting, making more tears spring to his eyes.
“You love me…”
“Of course. Did you not know that, Lord of Dreams?” Hob laughed. “I love you more than I can say. I thought I was pretty obvious.”
Dream put his fingers almost reverently on the matching scar on Hob’s cheek. “The last who took a scar like this for me felt neglected by me...even though I still loved her... I am not a considerate lover. I do not deserve you, Hob Gadling.”
Hob shrugged and leaned in closer, brushing his nose against Dream’s.
“But I think I deserve you...for as long as you’ll have me.”
The King of Dreams sighed softly, trembling fingers finding their way into Hob’s hair.
“Then promise me you’ll remember… when I am gone for too long… when it seems I have no time for you… when my mind is full and far away… remember that my love for you is endless.”
Hob’s eyes shone with love and he was still smiling so brightly Morpheus felt lit from within.
“I know how to wait for you, Dream.” He grinned cheekily and added: “And I can be pretty hard to ignore. I will make you confront your issues. You can change. You already have.”
Dream sniffed and then rasped:
“Then be mine, and I will be yours, Hob Gadling.”
“I thought you’d never ask, love.”
The King of Dreams then pulled his impossible human in for a kiss and clad him in a shimmering robe woven from his tears.
(Whynoctober #7 - Effigy)
#I know there are loads of issues in this one#and they will talk#a lot#but for a prompt fic I thought this was enough#dreamling#own writing#whynoctober22#the sandman fanfiction#the sandman fanart#Hob is still floating on whatever chemicals are released when the pain stops and therefore he's pretty lenient with Dream haha#the sandman comic spoilers
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I cannot believe I’m writing this in the year of our lord of 20-fucking-22 but here we go ig.
Let people ship whoever they want to ship and mind your own damn business. Repeat after me:
Let people ship whoever they want to ship and mind your own damn business.
I am honestly SO disappointed at the Sandman fandom to learn Dreamling shippers are attacking Corintheus shippers. I am an exhasperated grandma who has seen countless fandoms be torn apart by shipping wars and I know, I know it’s naive and even stupid of me to expect this one to be different from the others, but that does literally nothing to temper the fact I am thoroughly disappointed over it. Shipping wars are the Dumbest form of discourse.
Look, I’ll be real with you: those who follow me know I’m a die hard Dreamling fan. Obsessed wouldn’t be too out of whack, and I don’t particularly enjoy the Corintheus ship, I prefer to see the Corinthian and Morpheus dynamic as father/son. So you know what I do?
I bloody ignore it. I see it often on my dash because I have friends here who love it, but I don’t even bother blacklisting it, I just scroll right past! It’s literally that easy, and with the blacklist app, it’s even easier!! There is no excuse whatsoever for attacking and cyberbullying the fans who enjoy that ship except out of pure vanity, spite and boredom. It’s a motherfucking ugly look to make someone feel bad for liking a ship and y’all should be ashamed.
If anyone who reads this practices abuse over ships, I urgently advise you to look within yourself and ask if this is really the kind of person you want to be. Is making someone sad over who they do or don’t ship really going to bring you happiness? Is it going to take away the joy you feel by engaging in your own preferred ship? Is it going to make you proud to have unnecessarily acted like an asshole? If the answer to all that is no, then just stop. Again:
Let people ship whoever they want to ship. Mind your own damn business. And blacklist that ship’s tags so you don’t have to see them. PLEASE. This fandom has been so sweet and chill, so help me try to keep it that way. Don’t ruin someone’s day to make yourself feel better. We should be united by our love of The Sandman’s universe, not fighting over niche spaces. You can discuss what you like or don’t like in a polite, calm and respectful manner. And if you still disagree at the end, it’s to each their own and we all go to our favorite corners and stay friends. Okay?
You like the Corintheus ship? Good.
You like the Dreamling ship? Good.
You like the Corinthian-Hob-Dream ship? Good!
Just chill and have fun. That’s all. Rant over or wtv.
#The Sandman#a Crow's rants#Gosh Dream would bring down a deluge and flood the entire Dreaming if he was real and saw y’all at each other’s throats over ships.
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Expectations Exceeded and Surpassed
another part of feathers and fur on ao3! feel free to yell at me about it. it's probably some of my writing that i am the most proud of.
BINX Choppley did not come to the Bloom for co-conspirators…or friendship…or love . She came for revenge on the Court of Wonder and to stop whatever nefarious plans——apparently now including the Unseelie Court——were being set into motion to keep the magic to themselves. They did not come to this Bloom, after scraping and clawing their way to survival, making deals and connections with mortals, learning to understand and face the destruction of her court, to spend time dealing with fluttery feelings in her stomach and comforting those who made her feel the warmth of having someone at her side again.
Yet here they were, ready to risk everything to make sure her new best friend was safe. When BINX had connected with Rue in the hedge maze it was like something lit within them. It was the feeling of gathering in her court before everything they knew came to an end: warmth and comfort and home. When BINX saw Rue enter the tea party she knew that they would understand. And later, in the maze, Rue saw BINX for who she really was, deglamored and vulnerable. They had helped without question, comforted without judgment and BINX knew she would die for Rue if ever necessary. Rue was complicated and beautiful, braver than most and kinder than any of the gathered fey deserved. Well, counting out a select few…maybe.
Rue had opened their heart to everyone at the Bloom and most did not even know how lucky they were to finally behold them. BINX understands what Rue is doing. They are claiming the praise of their own and other courts openly but doing it on their own terms for once. They have climbed their way to infamy for their involvement with the Bloom and now they have decided to show the fey that they didn’t need to be seen as how the courts think they should, but how they see themselves, truly and unabashedly and beautifully monstrous. BINX has never felt stronger than when she looks at Rue. There is an aura of bravery that hovers around them and feeds into the well of BINX’s soul.
She felt tears in her eyes for the first time in a very long time when Rue spoke of the way she felt about the Court of Wonder. They cannot fathom what it must have been like to be plucked from a home and to then be gawked at and passed around like a party favor until they got too big and was sent away on a job guaranteed to keep them at arm's length for the rest of time.
BINX might not have realized it at the time, but they think that was when she decided to steal Rue away from their court. Rue was after all, a lost thing from the mortal realm.
And conspiring with Hob! Hiding away in clandestine meetings but somehow also sharing secrets of their own, admittances they would utter to no one else. Things joyful and exciting and terrifying and confusing all at the same time, mixed together in a tornado of emotions that they couldn’t quite come up with a new name for. Joyciteterrifusing? That was nothing, never mind, forget that last part.
For a moment in that tailor’s shop, BINX was loose and free, talking without fear of retribution and just finally being herself again with someone they cared for and longed to help. She knows that Rue is in love with Hob just as much as she knew he would say their name when pressed—-it wasn’t much of a press if they’re being honest, just a shared look and the two of them seemed set on sharing their hearts.
In Hob they see themselves just a little too much to let him slide past on some ridiculous notion that there was anything but true love waiting for him with Rue. BINX could see the way the Goblin Court had taken him and made him feel so small and so loyal that he cannot bear to lose that part of himself even if it means a life of happiness. The Goblin Court had succeeded in tearing up Hob’s mind, ripping and shaping him just enough for anything else in the world to completely terrify him.
Hob needs to be the order to their chaos. He craves it more than anything because when he feels used and useful, it fills that ache inside him carved by milenia of being different . BINX knows that feeling of being an outcast when all you want is to be with someone who makes you feel good and loved and happy . When Hob talks about just wanting to remember the one good night, knowing that it was the only thing he deserved to receive from Rue, BINX wants so badly to tell him. They want to shout it in his face, RUE LOVES YOU, DUMMY ! but instead does the only other thing she can think of.
She asks him… why ? Asks him how he can make decisions for Rue and wishing more than anything that they could tell him the truth, that losing him would hurt Rue irreparably and everlastingly.
Then he gets to “And for me to have known even a day of love is a gift that I never thought I would be lucky,” now with tears in his eyes, voice right in his throat, “enough to have and I will not squander it hoping for more. I will not spoil it hoping for more. It was beautiful for what it was.” BINX’s heart breaks for him. For the life he must have been given to have these things tied up so tight within him that he would rather keep safe one good thing instead of betting on a lifetime of them. BINX knows they’re not really the epitome of emotional intelligence but Hob must be so broken to not see the love pouring out of every action, the honeyed tones Rue melts around their words, and in every interaction, the tiny smiles, a barely there crinkle of their eyes at the corners.
“And I am ordered to marry,” he says and BINX knows now the danger of Hob’s court. He is so scared to lose what he has earned and fought and bled for as he rose in station and then being crafted and molded into the perfect pawn in their schemes, unable to say no for fear of being placed back and away, alone forever in darkness. To escape the darkness once is hard enough, but to be thrust back into it? They cannot imagine.
BINX does not miss the way he steers the conversation away from her solution. The very thought of his own story ending happily was too much for Hob to think about for fear of hoping .
And then she’s in love !? Like a fool?!
Now BINX is not exactly good at things like… emotions or feelings but the rush of her pulse around Andhera and the way he looked kneeling, open and earnest and focused only on them, could only be one thing… love . There was something about him that lit that same fire as Hob and Rue but then this fire was deeper and hotter and different than what she felt for them.
The softness about him as he let his greatest secret spill from his lips and he shared his biggest fault in the eyes of his family but with the intonation that maybe those things everyone else thought less actually made him so much more . He described being punished for his laughter and his tears, his fear and his happiness and and despite that, Andhera is still one of the kindest people BINX has ever known.
How could she not love them after that?
Andhera was vulnerable and stuttered though most everything, so unlike BINX who doesn’t hesitate to say what is on their mind regardless of the situation. With the mention of a scarcity of love in his family, BINX’s heart aches as she thinks back to her court gathered around the fire with blankets and cocoa, showered and steeped in love, a gentle comfort they had never gone without…until she was the last remaining and cocoa by the fire had suddenly become the lonliest torture. She wants so badly to grant him the love they’ve been searching for their whole life.
BINX is the plant and Andhera is the sun. They reach for him, want to absorb him into themself and keep him forever. It hits her quite suddenly that she wants nothing more than to be his source of magic, to be the thing that he loves so much it makes him feel .
When Andhera knelt at her feet with a paper tube in his hand, he did not stutter. His voice was strong. “I pledge my oath to your cause,” and he didn’t break eye contact, almost as if to say, I pledge myself to you.
Something that has surprised BINX, possibly more than her connections with Rue or Hob or Andhera, is Lady Featherfowl. BINX is unprepared for the information the Lady drops into their lap. The words swirl around in their head and they have to parse quickly through the tangle of emotions when they hear Unseelie Court before envisioning Andhera in their radiator with intent in his eyes. Lady Featherfowl is truly incredible in more ways than BINX can count on two hands (extra thumbs included).
They have been watching her throughout the Bloom—-observation and espionage have always come easily to them as a purveyor of lost things. There has been something niggling at the back of BINX’s head this whole time, something about the way the lady has pushed hard for her cousin’s success but has allowed herself to fade quietly into the background. BINX does not know if it has anything to do with the moral realm but they’re glad they took the chance with the lady.
The confirmation of their friendship and the securing of their partnership with the beetle brooch and Mrs. Haversham, the reveal of a wedding ring and the trust the lady had put in BINX lights up one more candle in the window of their home.
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Another letter beneath their pen and this time there is no fear and no apprehension in sending it. This time, Rue is ready for their words to be read and their love to be felt. They have truly been walking on air since standing close to Hob, waltzing slow circles around the ballroom, matching step by step with the heat of his hand through the back of their gown. It was like a brand, something they can still feel even now in the light of day.
They had spent the night happier than they can remember, reveling in the true Hob that they think few have seen. The delicious taste of his joy and the sweetness of his laughter as he missed a step or stuttered though an explanation, confused but proud of their interest in him. Having eaten his dance card with only their name on it, it only stood to rights that they would share all their dances together or Hob would not be able to dance at all.
It was in a quiet moment of another slower, sweeter song that Rue realized that there was nothing they did not want to share with this man. His care for them and the way he treated them as if they were something precious and fragile even in their true form took root in their heart and endeared him to them even more.
They discovered the small moments with Hob were worth more than any accolades from any court or any promotion through the ranks of the Court of Wonder. The small moments were what they set out to do with each Bloom but most essentially this one. This Bloom had been a chase of love, a test of true desire and motivation. Rue had planned it carefully, methodically, down to the last detail but had made one major miscalculation.
They were never meant to be the one to fall in love.
Of course they had hoped . They had dreamed it in the dead of night or heard it whisper in the echoes of the early morning as they lingered in bed on the days where facing their existence was nearly too daunting, but it was never meant to be for them .
But Hob was kind and sincere. He was loyal, brave, and honorable, something Rue strived to be always. He may not see his own worth, but Rue could see the way it piled and grew in everything he did. They saw it in the way Prince Andhera looked at him in the tailor’s shop. The young man held Hob in the highest esteem, eyes burning with affection and care that they’re sure Hob would never notice, too busy putting himself down again . They also saw it in the way he offered his help and more importantly his acceptance of BINX. Hob was a leader and Rue was inspired by him.
Perhaps the largest clue that Rue was totally lost when it came to Captain Hob was their desire to learn every part of him. They wanted to take him apart piece by piece, showering each one with the love and affection it deserved before putting him whole again. They wanted to hold the answers to his big questions but also to the small ones like which sleeve goes into his jacket first and how he takes his tea. Rue wants more than anything to know everything and hoard those secrets like a dragon does gold.
In that slow waltz, he had told them his name in full when they had asked. He had hesitated for only a moment, ears flicking in the nervous way they tended to before his resolve returned and he whispered his name against their cheek, one of his tufts of fur brushing against their feathers. The words have been ringing in their ears all night, chased by the buzzing beneath the skin where they had merely brushed. Knickolas Pnackolas Hob . They floated around in Rue’s brain, nudging that part of them which had been tamped down by preparations and work for so long. It was not often that Rue wanted but they wanted Hob an almost dangerous amount.
This time, they would let Wuvvy deliver it.
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Major Hob .
The words ring hollow and feel stale on his tongue when he whispers them to himself on the way to meet with the Lord Blemish and Lady Boil. Before this Bloom, he would have been overjoyed to serve his court in any way possible, especially with this generous career advancement. But now…
They’re using you, Hob.
So what if they are , he thinks miserably. If this is how he must serve his court, then he must ignore the voices in his head that sound like Rue and Andhera and BINX. They can rattle around inside his mind all they want but he knows that his role is to serve and complete whatever mission is put before him.
Hob must take what gifts he was given by Rue’s kindness and courage (to be seen with a low born goblin such as himself) for what they are: a once in a lifetime opportunity. His one night of happiness will no doubt sustain his heart for years to come and knowing that that one perfect night could never be ruined or taken from him is the only thing that holds back his rage as he reads about the path being set for him. He has a flash where something starts to curl awake inside him but the marching pace of his movement to see the Lord and Lady seems to lull it back to sleep.
He thinks for a moment, back to a letter he penned to Wrackingspelt. In it he had longed for simpler times with simple orders and no concern for who was watching him.
If only , he thinks ruefully, mouth turned down in a frown. And then he cannot help his mind from drifting again to the night before and the way Rue had felt in his arms and the way he had felt in theirs. There was some fleeting part of him that knew that the moment their hands had brushed when they returned his dance card that he loved them. That was why he took the sturdy paper to his mouth and had eaten away whatever part of Rue they would willingly give.
If everything were normal and quiet, and simpler he would never know the feeling of Rue’s hand holding him steady as he missed a step of one of the complicated courtly dances (honestly, the Cupid Shuffle ? It was laughable and really quite hard to manage with his particular set of legs). He would also never know the gentle mint laced with the sweet fruit of the punch on their breath as they huffed out a laugh at one of his ridiculous, barely-counts-as-a-joke-jokes. If everything was simpler, Hob would never know the truest, kindest, bravery that Rue had shown him last night and he would never have gotten to experience what it might be like to love and be loved in return.
But he’s getting married.
Even as he details the other potential outcomes and partnerships that are floating around, he wishes that something he offers will be enough to prevent this. He cannot ask Rue to love him the way he more ardently loves them but in the brightest parts of his mind that provide him with the occasional hope, he always thought that he might fall in love and then marry.
In perhaps the more normal and regularly lit places of his mind he knew that without escaping his court by way of marriage, the only thing that would really happen would be that he served as a soldier for the rest of his days until his death in either war or taken by time on its own.
Without experiencing it first hand before, he was impossibly ill equipped to deal with falling in love. Whatever he had imagined it feeling like, whatever ideas he had built up in his mind——nothing compared to the fire ignited within him over and over, sometimes without the necessary cooling between each, every time he interacted with Rue. It smoldered in the forest and caught again when they revealed themself at the tea party.
When he was tortured by the smell of peonies and witnessed them in their garden frosted in moonlight, a stoking of a hearth fire burning on the coldest night. Seeing them with BINX and their recognition of his accomplishments he could almost see the Goblin bonfires he usually marched on the outside of. And when they had danced?
Hob thought he would burn up entirely.
But he was instead presented with the gift of every dance that Rue had to give. They were endlessly patient and kind, showing him the steps and performing corrections with gentle hands and the brush of their claws across the back of his coat that sent a shiver down his spine that he hoped they didn’t notice. He was given that chance. That night of happiness and love, safe and comfortable in the bubble of the dance floor—-gods they had barely left it except to get punch and to catch their breath out and away from the crowds, standing just a little too close in the relative darkness. Never crossing the line that he desperately wanted to cross but still wanting so badly it hurt.
And he’s being ordered to marry.
Hob is honestly unsure if he is more surprised or more relieved when Prince Apollo catches him on the way to visit the Seelie Court’s dappled meadow. He’s not prepared to think about what that means for too long, not with the Prince drawing his sword and preparing to strike.
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BINX Choppley, the sole survivor and leader of the Court of Craft, the Weaver of Fate, did not come to this Bloom looking to rebuild their court.
But here we are.
The plans are circling around in her head, the way she could collect them all for herself, bring them into her court and soon be able to think of simpler things like how many marshmallows they would like in their mugs of cocoa. That is, if they survive the fight ahead of them.
Rue, she thinks might be easiest. They were a frog and therefore heard Sorwen when he had looked at Rue closely, considering and then said “People move courts all the time. That’s all.” BINX could feel Rue’s breath of surprise, like they truly had never considered it and listened to them make excuses for the trap the Court of Wonder had set for them, another way to control the things they did and could not do. BINX had almost forgotten The Sea Wall was still escorting them away when he said, “Well, I began at the Court of Stone and I followed my heart here,” a brief pause, then “And it's worked out ever since.”
BINX wanted so badly to be one of the things that could draw Rue’s heart to the Court of Craft and with Rue on the court, BINX was sure they could ensnare Major Hob to their cause. She would force Rue to admit to the things they’d been too afraid to say for so long and should have told Hob before now . It would probably be a solid 10 minutes of stuttering and stammering on his part while Rue looked on fondly and then perhaps an hour or two of denial until Rue really showed him how they felt.
And Andhera. There was something that told her that he already had one foot in the door.
They can still see him kneeling at her feet, looking at her with a gaze that shares the intensity and weight of a massive shelf of storm clouds making their way up the countryside, presenting them with their paper tube of all things. It was the way they never looked away when they said My happiness up until this point has been like striking a piece of flint in the darkness, little bits of spark which I was very grateful for. This is a fire .
BINX can feel it burning even now.
#binx choppley#acofaf spoliers#acofaf#acofaf fic#battlemaster of ceremonies#captain k.p. hob#prince andhera#delloso de la rue#dimension 20#a court of fey and flowers
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(comic spoilers ahead) actually crazy to think that morpheus must have been worn out for so long (since orpheus & then the overture situation) and that burgess capturing him had only catalysed that fatigue like it definitely changed him but that change was also accelerating his meticulously cultivated suicide (that he himself may not have been entirely aware of) because we all know the lord of dreams hates change it throws him off balance and balance is something he holds so dear to himself that's his entire principle — which is why it's so tragic to see from that angle because you end up thinking. well that's just inevitable isn't it. that just seems bound to happen. he was bound to die. he was already exhausted from what happened during overture despite not even remembering the events that occurred. he was exhausted after being trapped in that cage. he was exhausted when he had to do that to orpheus. he was exhausted with how much he was changing. and the Lord of dreams cannot change. that exchange between matthew & lucien explained more than anything ever could; "lucien? why did he let it happen?" "let it, matthew? i think he did more than let it happen. charitably, i think, sometimes, perhaps, one must change or die. and in the end, there were, perhaps, limits to how much he could let himself change." orpheus' death changed him. overture changed him. the imprisonment changed him. befriending hob changed him. watching lucifer leave their post changed him. alot more changed him. until. he simply couldn't. and because he cannot abandon his responsibilities due to that change he just. submits to death instead. he succumbs. he was given a way out. and he willingly fell through it. and it's that lack of fight on his end is what breaks me the most. how he was so tired he didn't have any strength to fight back. even death said he'd been through worse & managed to get up but not this time. and i think that's the most tragic part of it.
#sorry this is a very diluted analysis but it's only because delving deeper would only hurt me#im STILL hung up on this#i STILL think of the dialogues:#'dream of the endless cannot die'#'what are we mourning then'#'the death of a perspective'#as if that was all he was. a perspective#even though afterwards it was so obvious he was More than that#mad hettie knew that#hob knew that#his entire Endless family knew that#all his otherworldly acquaintances knew him#and so to see that dialogue reducing him to just being a Perspective of an anthropomorphic personification of dreams. yea that hurt#sandman spoilers#sandman comic spoilers#the sandman#the sandman comic spoilers#dream of the endless#the kindly ones
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EDIT: THIS TURNED OUT SO MUCH LONGER THAN I INTENDED; I'M SO SORRY
I think... it's time. Ever since I saw the show, questions have plagued me. And I guess I just need to get them out. This is going to be an absolute mess but it's really just me trying to get my thoughts out. It mostly covers Hob, Morpheus, and The Corinthian because I have the most questions regarding them. I'd also like to preface this with the fact that I've only seen the show.
So, let's start with Hob and Immortality. How the actual fuck does his immortality work??? Hob says they tried drowning him as a witch and it makes me wonder. Does he just... drown, die, wake up, repeat? Or is he just stuck underwater, water in his lungs but no relief to be found unless he passes out? Can he pass out from lack of oxygen? Does he even need oxygen anymore? He still needs to eat, and feels hunger still, so it's likely he still needs to breathe, but that implies that basically, he spent who knows how long just drowning over and over like Stefan did in The Vampire Diaries, which is horrifying to think about. Fanon claims he can technically die, but that his soul doesn't leave his body seeing as Death won't take him, that it's more like falling unconscious and just waking up when his body is healed enough.
In the same vein, he cannot die, but Dream tells him he can be hurt. So... does he heal, then? If he gets a cut on the palm of his hand, does he have regenerative capabilities? And if yes, what is the extent of them? He can't actually die so could he, theoretically, survive without a head? Is he like Deadpool? Deadpool's regenerative capabilities are so advanced that he was once disintegrated and he healed from it. He's been ripped in half, and had his head removed and all that happens is he passes out for a bit and then wakes up, fully capable of moving and reattaching limbs (like his entire waist and legs in the video game, even reattatches them incorrectly aka backwards) Can Hob do that????? What is the fucking limit to his immortality? Is there a technical limit? Or is he, functionally, Deadpool? I really need to know because we see what the AoP (Amulet of Protection) can do so... Hob can't die so what would happen if the AoP was used on him????? Would he be rendered a smear of blood and muscles and other stuff, only to slowly be pieced back together? Would his entire body just... reform, leaving a mess behind???
In the same vein, but now moving to Morpheus. Fanon claims that he can only be hurt if it's what he wants (ie love bites, hickeys, bruises left on hips or thighs etc), and while I have no idea if that's true in Canon, because the show doesn't fucking talk about it (no show or movie ever goes into details about stuff like that and it never fails to drive me up a wall), we'll take it anyways because I have questions about that. And we'll use the scene Cori stabs him as a basis, though removing Rose from the equation, leaving Morpheus at full power.
If he cannot be hurt unless he wants it, then what would've happened when Cori tried to stab him? I've got 3 different ideas about it.
1. Cori tries to stab him and his skin is hard like a twilight vampire, so the knife either bends, or shatters (which admittedly would be kind of funny)
2. Cori tries to stab him and his skin opens, but there is no blood, nor any pain, and the 'wound' reseals almost immediately
Or the one I think is most likely:
3. Cori tries to stab him but the skin refuses to bruise or break. Like poking someone, the skin pushes in, it indents briefly, but it doesn't break, doesn't split open, doesn't even fucking bruise (because he won't bruise unless it's what he wants). I just imagine Cori trying to stab or cut him and its like using a plastic blade lol
On a slightly different topic, to take a break from things driving me crazy and turning to something I'm merely idly curious about... Morpheus gets big in episode 5. He holds John in his fucking palm and he's about the height of a quarter maybe a half dollar, and Morpheus is huge (not as big as Arishem in Eternals, but still!) Is that as big as he can get? Is there a limit to his ability to change size in The Dreaming? Obviously in the Waking World, there are limits to his capabilities, especially because he has to pass as human, but in The Dreaming? The imagination is the limit so, theoretically, could he get as big as Arishem?
Onto my questions regarding Dreams and Nightmares. Seeing as The Corinthian is the one we get to see the most, I will be using him in my examples.
First and foremost, he screams when the AoP destroys him. Is that actual pain he's feeling, or is it just a mental thing? He thinks it should hurt and so it feels like it does, but really it doesn't, kind of thing? Second... okay so the AoP is used on Cori. We get to, sorta, see his insides as he gets destroyed, and then again as he reforms in The Dreaming. What is he made of and what exactly is his anatomy??? Right before the flesh (???) reforms, there is what appears to be some kind of metallic structure vaguely reminiscent of bone that reforms, most clearly seen as his outstretched hand reforms, and something else underneath it, like he's made of 3 layers. It's really intriguing. Does he have organs beyond his mouths? Also, Fanon likes to claim his ocular mouths have tiny tongues (which is cute af) and I need to know if that's Canon immediately.
Furthermore, does he breathe?? Morpheus gets trapped in a sphere (I feel like fishbowl is too rude, like it's taking how fucking serious and traumatic that was for him and just... 'ooh funny' so I refuse to call it that) made of glass and iron for over a century and according to Google, the average amount of time for air to run out in a sealed area is 12 days. Less than 2 weeks. He spent more than a century just... not breathing because after 12 days THERE WAS NO AIR.
Which implies that he either A, doesn't need to breathe at all and does so out of convenience (you need air to speak, Burgess you fucking dumbass) and maybe habit or B, because he cannot die, he feels the need to breathe but it just... won't kill him. Which means he spent over a century with all the terrible symptoms that a lack of air provides, including a constant burning in his lungs and his head feeling like it was going to explode...
But all that to say, does that mean Cori doesn't need to breathe? Does he even have lungs??? WHAT IS HIS ANATOMY??? HE CLEARLY HAS A DICK SINCE HE USES IT THROUGHOUT THE SHOW! What else has he got??? I just... I want concept art or something similar that shows his insides and what he's made of, as creepy as that probably sounds. I need to know how human he is on the inside. My morbid curiosity will not be satisfied without these answers man. Also, random side note: why tf is his hair platinum blonde when he enters Burgess' manor?? When Morpheus confronted him before, it wasn't platinum, and at no other point is it platinum blonde. Why just THAT scene? It always vaguely irritates me because it's weird.
Also... what, exactly, is The Darkness? Because if it's what I think it is, that is the cruelest thing Morpheus could fucking do. It sounds like it's a fucking void where your consciousness sits, no body, just you and your thoughts, alone, no ability to see, or speak, or breathe, or touch, or fucking feel anything and... God I'm about to go into a fucking panic attack just THINKING about it, wtf Morpheus! Just pitch black NOTHINGNESS, more of an absence of everything than anything else, the goddamn VOID.
Back to Hob though, is he the kind of guy who will eagerly tell you about all the ways people have tried to kill him, completely casually, maybe even laughing at some of them no matter how bad they are, or does some of his almost-deaths haunt him? Does he have an uncontrollable fear of bodies of water because they tried to drown him??? Does he have PTSD and recurring nightmares from all the War he's seen, or does his immortality render his brain incapable of 'breaking' under pressure? Orrrrr has his brain 'broken' multiple times from all of it, but because he's immortal, he always comes back from it?
I ALMOST FORGOT!
Morpheus tells Rose that he 'failed in his duty, an entire universe was lost' uh... wtf does that mean? This is at least the 2nd Universe the Endless have been in and I want to know if they just... went to another one once their previous one died (which, Death says something about shutting the door behind her when she leaves so maybe???) or if they pulled a Futurama and just waited for another universe to form around them. You know, that episode of Futurama where Fry finally gets a date with Leela, but the Professor built a time machine THAT ONLY MOVES FORWARD IN TIME and Fry doesn't have much of a choice and gets dragged along and they fuck up and end up going through 3 different universes before they finally stop moving forward in time and Fry just barely makes his date. Is it like that???
Also, Morpheus says he holds 'the entire collective unconscious'... is that just Earth, or the entire Universe? He doesn't say human unconscious, partly because we know most animals on earth can dream and so he holds their collective unconscious as well, but is it the ENTIRE UNIVERSE? Because the human population on Earth alone is 7.837 billion. That isn't including ANY of the animals that can dream. It's no wonder he has such strict and rigid rules! That's a LOT OF PEOPLE AND THAT'S JUST HUMANS! Even if you say there are only 5 total planets in the INFINITE universe with beings capable of dreaming, one is ours, and the other 4 only have half our population, that is still 23.511 billion beings (including our 7.837 billion) that he holds the collective unconscious and STILL doesn't include our animals or any potential animals on the other planets. That's just 5 planets. The universe is fucking INFINITE
#the sandman netflix#hob gadling#morpheus#dream of the endless#deadpools regenerative capabilities#the corinthian#mentions of ptsd#kind of graphic?#morbid curiosity#burning curiosity
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Please tell me you are indeed a King of Cats
TW: animal drowning (incomplete)
It happens some time after our lovely cat king and his immortal professor reunite at The New Inn and eventually decide they indeed are friends. Hob some time around Christmas walks around the lake nearby his flat and spots some man throwing a black sack at the water. Hob at first isn't sure what is inside it, but he knows that this could end really badly. So, just as he has gone through previous 600+ years, he without a thought jumps into the lake and gets the sack. When he opens it, he sees a bunch of rocks and three kittens. He curses and immediately starts praying to Morpheus on his way home. After all, if he is more than God, he could be prayed to, right?
*
"Uh... Dream? You indeed are the King of Cats, right? Please be. I need your assistance"
"Hob?" A black cat appears suddenly at his feet and wrap its tail around Hob's calf.
"Oh God, you're here. I immediately need a cat mother." He shows him, what he has in his arms. He looks utterly shaken. "They'll die if I don't help them. I cannot feed them like a mother! I-I-I..."
"Hob, focus. You are... wet?"
"I got them from a bag in a lake. The termophore is warming in the oven. Please help me save them."
"I have quite the cat. Just don't try to claim her. I'll be here in a minute." And just like that, he disappears.
*
Hob is waiting in a bathtub - he doesn't want to ruin his home completely. Besides, when the cat takes care of the kittens and feeds them, he will be able to finally bathe and redress. He will be sick, no doubt, but at least he won't die. He starts to shake, but he cannot regret what he did. Especially when he sees the kittens start to move and purr again. They are blind and still wet, but at least a little more warm. A siamese cat enters the room and Hob sighs in relief. She looks at him as to say, "don't you even try to pet me, mere human".
"Oh, thank goodness you're here. These kittens need you. Please, feed them. Take care of them, please." With still wet hands, he places the termophore on the floor and starts to undress. "I am sorry, Mother, but I really need to get a little more warm." She hisses, but at last she focuses on the kittens and feeds them and warms them with her body.
*
Hob is sick for the next two months, but he doesn't regret a bit.
"Robert Gadling, what were you thinking, you insufferable, incredibly insensible human being?"
Hob still cannot speak, so he writes "Well, I couldn't let them die."
"She will not let you keep them. Even I cannot order her to."
"Doesn't matter. They are safe."
"You are truly a wonder, Hob Gadling."
And so, Dream, without being asked, guards Hob in the Waking and when he isn't able to, he sends Matthew to do so.
"I'll manage, you know? You don't have to do this, Dream"
Without a word, Dream takes his pen and places it out of Hob's reach.
Right, I get the message.
Bonus: Although the Siamese doesn't like humanity, when it is necessary for her to stay somewhere and f.e. heal, she knows Hob will feed her and her maybe-children, too and won't harm them in any way and won't require anything in return. So she sometimes approaches him, silently demanding food. Hob, as always, sighs and let her.
"It was supposed to be my dinner, you know?" But, as always, he gives her the best meat he can get out of his fridge.
And maybe sometimes, sometimes, she lays beside him on a pillow.
#dreamling#hob gadling#dream of the endless#morpheus#the sandman netflix#episode 11#the cat#the siamese#hob is immortal and immune to common sense#i rescue three kittens but i get severe cold right after?#thats not even a choice#dream x hob#the king of cats#i cant die remember?#you can be hurt ~~or get a cold~~#do i look like i care? oh#thats a lovely cat right there!
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