Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Hob would be the first to admit he’d lived a strange life by the measure of any man. For one thing, he couldn't die. For another, his last meeting with the being who presumably gave him this power, his stranger, had ended with a woman holding them at knife-point, demanding the secrets to immortality. And now, years later, he’d completely rearranged his life and started anew, all on the advice of his stranger. His current lodgings were fairly bare bones, a house on his own a little ways outside London, in a quiet village where he hoped to spend a few years finding a new path for himself and trying to determine if he could ever make amends for his past.

The last thing he expected on any normal day when traveling back from the Sunday market was to see two people standing on his doorstep, arguing.

Both wore black, though one of them, the blond, looked as if he, or she, he couldn’t quite tell, was doing a spirited impression of a bird, with the feathers sprouting from the shoulders of their suit.

The other more closely resembled a raven, mostly owing to the deep, velvety black of his coat. But when he turned at the sound of Hob’s approach, he saw that this man was, quite literally, the last person Hob ever expected to see. At least, the last person he expected to see before the year 1889. His stranger.

“Ah, just in time,” the blond one drawled. “Here he is, brother. I trust you will be able to handle yourself on your own, hmm? And keep to the terms of our bargain.”

“A year among humans,” his stranger agreed. Hob noted his words distantly. Mostly he was trying to reassemble his perception of the universe, now that a part of it that had always remained tucked away in a pair of tidy little boxes, one labeled “The White Horse Tavern, once per century” and the other “late night fantasies, never to be spoken” was suddenly out, roaming the streets in broad daylight. And apparently, he had a sibling.

“Not just any year,” the blond corrected. “A year lived in a manner of my choosing.”

His stranger’s expression remained neutral but Hob got the distinct impression that were it not for pride, the man would be rolling his eyes. Hob had siblings of his own, long ago. He knew the look.

“Sorry, this is no doubt rude of me to ask, but I believe some introductions are due all around?” Hob said as he approached the arguing pair. It was not as if he had a choice to go around or ignore them, as they were blocking his front door.

“Desire, this is the human I have chosen as my companion,” his stranger said with his usual aloof formality. “Robert Gadling.”

Hob didn’t correct his stranger with a current nom de plume. This was owed to the fact he’d cycled back to his original name, which he did on occasion when feeling particularly nostalgic or fragile. It was nice to hear your own name from time to time, and it was common enough even today to go unnoticed in a crowd.

“Robert Gadling. This is my sibling, Desire,” his stranger continued.

“Charmed, I’m sure,” Desire purred and, before Hob could do anything to prevent it, took Hob’s hand and placed an artful kiss on the knuckles. They only released his hand after the kiss lingered a rather excessive amount, leering as if Hob were a bird and they a particularly hungry cat.

“A situation has arisen in which I will require your assistance, Robert Gadling. You see…” his stranger began, only to be interrupted by Desire’s imperiously raised hand.

“My dear brother, are you truly going to be so uncouth as to skip my portion of the introductions? Unless, you have already told him?” Desire said with exaggerated innocence.

“Desire,” his stranger growled in warning.

“Robert—or was it Hob Gadling?” Desire smirked. “My brother does think so much about you when he allows himself. Allow me to introduce you to my brother…”

“Desire!” his stranger barked.

“…Dream of the Endless,” Desire finished. “Lord of Dreams and Nightmares, Master of the Realm of Sleep, the Shaper of Forms, etcetera, etcetera…”

Hob felt the world tilt on its foundation. But, he’d been English for longer than the current language existed, so he rallied. “Dream?” he said pointedly. His stranger, Dream, glowered. “And… Desire? Interesting. Your parents had a certain preference for 'D' names, I take it?”

“You have no idea,” Desire snickered.

Normally, Hob would have taken a scrap of information like his stranger's name or the fact he had siblings and sit with it for several years, chewed it over, and meticulously dissected every second of his stranger’s expression when he finally released a word about himself. This was not how Hob had been expecting to learn his name. If anything he felt more than a little cheated after the buildup.

“Aaw, are you upset that it was so easy?” Desire pouted. “You know, it needn’t have been so hard, but our brother loves his games. And tormenting mortals for his amusement. Which is why I thought as a price for losing our wager he should be forced to live among them. Not, however, as he chooses, of course, but as an ordinary person. The wife, in fact, of an average country gentleman. Unfortunately, there’s nothing average about my brother except his prowess, or so I’ve heard, so we compromised and found it acceptable if his year of average life is spent with you, as your wife.”

“You mean… husband?” Hob frowned then shook his head. “Wait, I feel as if I’m missing something rather crucial here.”

Dream’s expression grew, somehow, more irritated. “What my sibling has failed to explain is this: Desire and I had a wager. The object of it was immaterial. The consequence of losing was that one of us must live among humans, in a manner of the other’s choosing, for one year. We may use our power to protect ourselves and to appear as needed to not arouse suspicion from other humans, but not otherwise to manipulate those around us or to escape. When I lost the wager, Desire chose that I spend the year as a…normal wedded human, bound to a household so that I might better understand the plight of those who are not permitted to live the life they choose.”

“And as a consolation prize for being such a good sport about it,” Desire smirked, “I said that Dream was allowed to pick his own very special human to be his husband.”

“His husband,” Hob said blankly, staring at his stranger. Dream. His stranger’s name was Dream. What kind of bizarre Shakespearean faerie name was Dream? Or Desire, for that matter? “You want me to be… Dream’s husband.”

“For a time,” Dream said placidly.

“But… that doesn’t work,” Hob corrected desperately. “Men can’t be married, not in England. At least, not if I don’t want to get run out of the bloody town with pitchforks!”

“Is that so?” Desire said and gave a disinterested, “Hmph.” As if they found humanity and their silly little laws completely beneath their interest. “Well, I trust your creativity, dear brother. Do what you must to satisfy the rules of the bargain.”

“Oh, I fully intend to,” Dream said with a mean little smirk of his own. Hob wondered if he was going to pass out. Or maybe he had already passed out and this was all a vision induced by his head injury. “You need not fear for your safety, Hob Gadling. When necessary, I will simply appear as your wife to anyone who would pry into your affairs.”

“Wait, that doesn’t solve anything. How am I going to explain all of this?” Hob protested as it appeared Desire was about to take their leave. “Even then, I can’t just have a wife appear on my doorstep, I have neighbors! Business partners! Friends! They’ll all wonder why they weren’t invited to my wedding!”

“They will not,” Dream said as if coolly amused by Hob’s panic. “All who feel they should have been invited will remember exactly the wedding they would expect based on their knowledge of you. They will recall the months of our courtship and at least one amusing but utterly typical moment where you introduced them to your fiancée. My presence will slip into and then out of their consciousness without a ripple when the year is done.”

“So I will live a year, a whole year with a wife by my side and all of society will know about it and then one day, you’ll simply be gone as if you were never here? And I won’t have to explain this to anyone?” Hob said skeptically. He could barely imagine the idea, and he regularly abandoned his entire life to reinvent himself. How could this not end with him needing to pull up stakes again and run when his wife disappeared one day under mysterious circumstances?

“We can simply say she died unexpectedly if you’d like to have everyone remember Dream was here,” Desire said with an easy shrug. “Perhaps in childbirth…”

“Don’t,” Hob snapped and only felt a flicker of terror at the unimpressed look this… whatever they were, this Desire flashed his way. Brooding and quicksilver and unaccustomed to being questioned, just like their brother. Hob didn’t care. “Don’t you fucking dare use that excuse.”

Dream glanced between Hob and his sibling, his expression unreadable. “Desire,” he said, a warning. “Leave it. I will decide how to best make my exit when the year has ended.”

Desire shrugged. “Very well, brother. I can already see you’re off to a lovely start. Don’t let me interrupt.” They blew Hob a kiss and gave Dream an exaggerated, cheeky little wave, and vanished.

“So wait, how will any of this work? What will everyone else see?” Hob said as he followed Dream into the house, after closing the door behind them. “I mean when they look at you beside me on the street?”

To his eyes, Dream was wearing a suit not altogether different from their last meeting: rich black velvet, cut to his slender form, a dark ruby at his throat. His wild black hair was tied back and his skin was pale enough to be the envy of any French noblewoman in the late Louis XVI’s court, from the days when they covered themselves in white lead. All Dream was missing was a beauty mark.

“They see what I choose,” Dream said, in his typically laconic way that made it very fortunate that he was attractive, or else Hob would have long ago resorted to dire measures, like shaking him until the answers dropped out. “You need not fear. I will pass unnoticed.”

“My friend,” Hob said. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but you’ve never passed unnoticed in your life. I caught sight of you the second you walked in the door in 1389, the whole tavern did.”

“Did you like what you saw?” Dream said archly and this was it, this was how Hob was going to die, choking to death on his own spit.

“Did I—?” Hob wheezed. “I mean, yes, but that’s beside the point! It’s not as if I expected in a million years that a nobleman with a great fuck-off jewel around his neck would pay me any mind.”

Honestly, Hob hadn’t been sure how Dream was going to make it out of that tavern of thieves and murderers alive, at least not without an army at his back.

“But I did,” Dream took a step towards Hob, right into his personal space, closer than they’d ever been. Hob felt suddenly dizzy at the proximity, at Dream’s blue eyes looking Hob once over, slowly, before meeting his gaze. “And here I am now, four centuries later, still paying you mind.”

Hob gulped, willing the rush of blood south to please, please reconsider, or at least wait until he could get a moment alone. He self-consciously tugged his jacket down. “I…”

“Indeed, you thought we were interrupted at our last meeting,” Dream said. Christ, Hob could feel Dream’s breath against his lips. He was going to pass out from blood loss at Dream’s feet. “In your dreams, you imagined what would have happened if I had accepted your invitation to continue our discussion.”

Hob whimpered. It just slipped out, but the heady rush of arousal mixed with pure mortification was doing very little for his self-control. “Would you have been… amenable to that?”

“I am here, aren’t I?” Dream said. He was so close. Hob could kiss him by accident if he moved even a muscle. Might be worth it. Might get him killed. Might still be worth it. “Out of all the humans on this earth, you are the one I chose to live this time with.”

“As far as I've been able to tell, I’m the only human you know,” Hob squeaked. “If your, umm, usual speed of getting to know people is any indication.”

Dream chuckled under his breath. “I know every living thing, Hob. You are the one I chose, and with good reason. I believe your company will be the least objectionable of all I could have chosen.”

“High praise,” Hob said dryly. Dream didn't back up. He was still studying Hob from an inch away as if deciding the best way to devour him. “And I am honored, truly, that you would trust me with this… ordeal of yours.”

“No ordeal,” Dream reassured him. “The time demanded that I live as a human will not be so difficult. Their lives are not complicated.”

“Well, then I’d hate to see what your idea of complicated is,” Hob muttered. He shook his head, forcing himself a step back from Dream’s beckoning mouth before he did something truly unwise. “My friend, I don’t wish to question your abilities, not after years of watching you blend in so seamlessly with humanity…”

“Is that a joke at my expense?” Dream said archly.

Hob waved him off. “Wouldn’t dream of it. And that wasn’t one either, Dream. The thing is, I am not a magical faerie creature, or a god, or whatever you are that can wave my hand and have people see and believe whatever I want. I’m a decent enough liar, I daresay a tolerable actor too for a limited number of parts, usually as myself with some slight variations when I need to change roles, so to speak. But I need something to work with. What is our story? How did we meet? Are there any… hobbies or food that you like? Do you even eat?” Honestly, he felt a little giddy at the chance to ask his stranger all these questions, and the pretense to do so, no less.

“You may tell those who inquire whatever you wish about my personal habits,” Dream said dismissively. “I am to be your perfect wife, after all.” Hob was going to have a stroke at this rate, he just knew it. There was no blood left anywhere in the vicinity of his brain. “As for how we met, the truth with some few modifications should suffice: that my sister and I saw you from afar in a tavern and placed a wager. That, in the course of that wager, you and I became better acquainted and when I found myself in need of a husband, you were the first man who came to mind.”

“You have a sister too?” Hob said. “Wait, what was the wager?”

Dream’s pert little mouth, which Hob had imagined far too many times over the centuries employed in more enjoyable uses, twisted into a rosebud of a smirk. “A lady would never tell. And yes, it was my sister who called attention to you in the first place. She was much in favor of this current arrangement.”

“Nice to know I have some members of your family on my side,” Hob said weakly. “Right, well, I suppose I can work with that. I can say how I was having a night out with some friends, laughing over a few pints, when the most enchanting and, frankly, terrifying creature I’d ever laid eyes on walked in the door. Never dreamt she’d take an interest in me but… from the moment she said my name, I knew she was more than she appeared.”

“Enchanting?” Dream remarked.

“What other word is there?” Hob grinned. Smooth Hob, very smooth, well done, you might yet survive this. “Oh, but she was a coy one. Led me on the longest courtship I’ve ever endured. Felt like centuries. But, I’m not one to give up, even when she expected me to, I think, many times over. I was always striving for her attention and her regard, even when she preferred the company of poets, no matter what I did to better myself. And, I’m sad to say, poetry is still a profession at which I’ve gained little skill. Certainly nothing near her exacting standards.”

Dream studied him, eyes flicking over Hob’s face, down to his mouth. “I think you sell yourself short. When you describe this lady-love of yours, you come dangerously close to the words of a poet.”

“I’m afraid that is entirely her inspiration,” Hob demurred. “I am but a simple man.”

“Never. You are many things, Hob, and none of them simple. Certainly not by the measure of your kind,” Dream said. “I would know. I have been here to watch you through it all.”

Something twisted in Hob’s heart, something nameless and huge and too grand to put to words, but if pressed he might call it an ache at being known. He was no monk, to live his life cut off from the company of others. He'd had lovers, those he was close to, even after losing Eleanor and deciding never to remarry. But no matter how close he grew to a lover, even in those rare instances when he told them the truth about himself, most of them only half-believed him until they saw his unchanging face with their own eyes. To them, his long life would only ever be a story, one too impossible to imagine.

But not with Dream. Dream had been there since the beginning. He was the beginning, the start of Hob’s life as he knew it. There was no need to explain or make excuses or simply hide all he had seen, all he had been. Dream knew him. Dream understood him, everything about him. Everything that he was.

“Perhaps that is why I could not be swayed from her,” Hob whispered. His fingers clenched at his side, desiring nothing more than to wrap themselves around Dream’s narrow waist and pull him close. Closer. God, they were so close already. “After all these years, it was she who always knew me best. Sins and all.”

“Despite her long absences?” Dream’s tone was teasing but his gaze seemed to pin Hob where he stood, dark, kohl-ringed, and tempting.

“Oh, yes,” Hob breathed. “A thousand times yes. It was all worth it to have her here, now, for as long as I am permitted to keep her.”

“You surprise me, Hob. I never knew you as one prone to such devotion,” Dream said, amusement rich in his voice.

But there was no humor in Hob at all. He felt as if he were half-asleep and dreaming but there, in this hazy in-between it was as if words flowed through him without stopping to ask his lips for permission. He felt opened up, raw, aching to display the inner workings of the heart in his chest if only to show he was sincere. Anything less would not be enough. “Always. You need only have asked and I would have given you everything.”

“Don't you mean, ‘she’?” Dream said.

“You know I don’t,” Hob whispered. He did not know when he’d reached out to touch his hand to Dream’s cheek, to pull him close and taste the breath that played between them, the lips just out of reach. But he stopped his fingers a hairsbreadth from Dream’s skin.

“You need not ask permission to touch me,” Dream said, arching an eyebrow. His eyes smoldered. “You are to be my husband, after all.”

Hob’s blood pulsed hot all through him, in every part, but he shook his head. “You have always set the rules of our engagements. I dare not overstep.”

Something in his words seemed to please Dream, as if Hob had passed some sort of test. “You may touch me, Hob, however you wish. I have seen your dreams and I have no objections to what I found there.”

If there was any heat left to spare within him, Hob might have felt a momentary pulse of mortification at the thought that Dream had seen his nightly imaginings, all of them, and found no issue with them. He might have also swooned a little, it was hard to think. How was his friend able to do this to him, in so short a time, centuries apart? Already that ache within him, that hopeless desire to touch, to hold, to have, was held back by only a thread, by the very last shreds of his self-control. But like a dog that would only respond to the call of its master, finally, he was set loose.

Hob closed the distance, wrapping his hand around the back of Dream’s pale throat, and crushed their lips together. He’d wanted this, imagined this for so long he wasn’t sure who he had been before the first time.

(Once, imagining Dream with curiosity, almost shame, at what it would have been like to drag his stranger into his lap, kissing him senseless and laying him down to worship every inch of him like he was something stolen, forbidden. Gradually, with each century, these fantasies had grown bolder. He’d imagined Dream touching him, praising him for all he’d accomplished. Hob dreamed of dragging his stranger’s attention away from any poet or interloper, using only the skilled touch of his hand to take Dream utterly apart, to keep his undivided interest. To desire Dream was by now more a part of him than any other thing in his life: to crave and crave and never have, not him. But now he was set free. From his own terrible experience, he knew the sensation he felt now: that of a starving man finally permitted to feast.)

He cupped Dream’s face in both hands, tasting, devouring his lips with his own, with teeth and tongue, only to be met at every step as if Dream could see Hob’s thoughts before he himself knew them. Dream was tearing at Hob’s coat, pulling it from his shoulders and he had to let go for an instant to let the offending fabric drop but already that was too long and his hands were back, touching everywhere, everywhere he’d dreamt of knowing across the wide gulf of years and the impassable distance of those few feet between them at every meeting, always out of reach.

He would have waited, he knew that much about himself, a hundred years or a thousand or more he would have waited and wanted and thought to never have this, this impossible being in his arms, his to touch. At least for now, and he knew he would suffer anything, any humiliation, any demand, any trial, to be permitted to touch again.

But Hob had him now and needed more of him, all of him. He was half-delirious with the feeling of Dream pressed against him. There were too many clothes in the way still, nowhere to lay him down so Hob could focus the last bit of his attention currently wasted on remaining standing to instead devote utterly to tending the man in his arms. Without thinking, Hob lifted Dream, threading one arm under his knees. He’d always been a skinny bugger, Hob could only imagine the hard lines beneath the black clothing he wore to their meetings, but he knew that much. There was a solid weight to Dream but, somehow, he was exactly light enough for Hob to lift with ease.

And then, wonder of wonders, Dream laughed. Not loud, but one of his little, secret chuckles at the back of his throat. His eyes, usually so solemn, were merry. Hob knew him long enough to see that much, where others might not. And it thrilled Hob, the thought that he’d made his stranger laugh, that he’d made him happy with nothing but his own strength and a little daring.

“Do you intend to carry me to your bedchamber, Hob Gadling?” Dream mused.

“Well, we did just get married,” Hob said and stole another kiss, pulling back just far enough to nuzzle their noses together playfully and… God, what was he doing?

But when he pulled back far enough to see Dream’s face, apologies already rising to his lips, the expression he found was nothing like what he’d expected. Dream looked rather dazed, actually. Perhaps a bit delighted, but in a perplexed way as if surprised at the fact himself.

“No one has ever kissed me like that,” Dream explained, in response to Hob’s searching look.

“That’s because you’ve never been kissed by me,” Hob grinned, feeling delirious, drunk on having Dream in his arms. The fall might come but, by God, was it worth the heights. “Stick with me, love, and I’ll kiss you in ways you’ve never imagined with those stuffy godlike-types, or whoever it is you hang around with.”

Maybe he’d never really known his stranger, or perhaps he’d known him better than he realized, deep down, when that little voice Hob didn’t dare listen to whispered that perhaps his stranger would welcome such kisses, because it gave him too much hope, and that could kill a man if he wasn’t careful. But part of him couldn’t believe it and another part of him squirmed like an ecstatic puppy to be so right in his estimation of the man in his arms when the dazed expression on Dream’s face give way to the faintest pink blush on those alabaster cheeks.

“I…” Dream began and seemed to catch himself, shocked at his own hesitation, before he continued in his usual measured pace as if every word was carved into stone on a mountain somewhere. “I would like to see you prove this claim, Hob.”

As if Hob needed the excuse.

He barely remembered the rest of the walk to the bedroom, except for a moment at the threshold where with a roguish grin he made a great show of stepping over it. This didn’t quite earn him a full laugh, but he did get one of those secret little looks from Dream that he was beginning to suspect were his stranger being charmed despite himself. The man had a way of looking at things as if he was always somewhere deep inside his own head, seeing the world from a distance. And Hob would very much like to see if he could pull him out of that place. It wasn’t good for a man to spend all his time inside his own mind like that.

With that aim, Hob didn’t stop at the bedside to let Dream stand but carried forward, spilling his stranger onto the richly embroidered duvet of Hob’s canopied bed. He’d lived long enough to know there was no piece of furniture more important than a proper bed and so it was always one of his greatest expenses whenever he began a new life. He was quite proud of it, and all the more so seeing Dream sprawled out before him, like a pearl against the sea-blue silk.

Dream stared up at Hob, breathless, and the only thing that kept him from descending to taste every inch of him was the need to get these damned clothes off before they wasted another moment of this time they had together. Perhaps it was remembered pain at the brevity of all their previous encounters, but Hob still half-expected Dream to be ripped away, for them to be interrupted like their previous meeting, or for this moment to be otherwise taken by a capricious universe so soon after it was offered.

Hob nearly tumbled over in the effort to peel his last sock away and then he was scrambling onto the bed, only to find Dream naked there, pale and perfect as one of those Greek statues, black hair artlessly tousled and lips bitten red. Hob made a broken sound at the heat the sight sent through him, all the way to the now-damp head of his cock before bracketing Dream with his arms and leaning down to kiss him senseless.

He pulled away from the kiss when he couldn’t go a second longer without risking a small death from suffocation and gazed, panting into Dream’s face, that same face from the last four hundred years of longing, both gratified and in disbelief to see Dream was panting as well. It was as if the shell of ice that surrounded his stranger had received a fatal crack. Dream’s chest rose and fell with each gasp, Hob was hard-pressed to remember if he’d ever seen Dream breathe before this. Dream’s cock was flushed a deep, rosy pink, fully hard and smearing against his pale belly and the thin trail of dark hair that trailed up to his navel.

Overcome, Hob couldn’t help but press his palm to Dream’s cheek and just look at him for a moment, so open and wanting in Hob’s bed, without his layers and reserve and secrets and… sadness. There was always a terrible sadness lurking in his stranger’s eyes. Just once, Hob wanted to see if it was possible to banish those shadows, to push back whatever worries and agonies lurked beneath that wild, coal-black hair and bring him into the moment. Nothing else was guaranteed, not joy nor even the threat of future sorrow. All that could be known was what was here.

And here he had his stranger, with him in his bed. Hob swallowed and realized his throat had gone tight and his eyes stung.

“Second thoughts, Hob?” Dream said somberly and Hob started when Dream’s pale hand reached up and gathered a tear from his cheek.

Hob chuckled and shook his head. “Not a single one. Not all tears come from tragedy, love. Why, right now I’m crying because I feel like the luckiest bastard in the world to have you in my bed, even if this is all we got.”

A look crossed Dream’s face, shock maybe, but it was more like he was stricken. It was barely there, in the tightness around his eyes. “And if I were to leave, right now?”

“Then I would cherish the kisses we stole and look forward to the year of Our Lord 1889.” Hob offered a grin that turned into a self-deprecating wince. “And then nurse the most godawful case of blue balls I’ve ever suffered in my very long life. So, if it pleases you, I’d dearly love to put such maudlin thoughts aside and focus on what I can do to make you feel good.”

“To make me feel good?” Dream said, nonplussed, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him that that was Hob’s goal.

“Well, between you and me,” Hob leaned in to speak into the perfect shell of Dream’s ear, gooseflesh rising along his own arm to be so close, “I aim to make you feel a great deal better than ‘good’.”

Dream snorted a silent laugh and Hob couldn’t stop his grin as he kissed Dream’s throat in delight, down to his shoulder where he buried his face with a hungry little growl that only made Dream’s soundless laugh harder, trembling through the muscles of his stomach and shoulders.

“That was terrible. Four hundred years and that is the best line you could come up with?” Dream mused.

Hob laughed. “I told you, I’m no poet. I was a brigand if you'll recall. A scoundrel. I prefer to speak with action, rather than words.” And with that, Hob made the calculated decision that if Dream wasn’t going to offer him direction, he would just go with his instincts and trust the man to turn him into a frog or something if he went too far.

Hob began to trail his lips down Dream’s shoulder, lingering to press wet, open-mouthed kisses to his nipples, running his nose along the center of Dream’s chest. His own cock strained against his thigh, hot and craving, but maybe something about meeting Dream every one hundred years had broken his brain a little, because at the thought of waiting, of pushing his stranger to the very brink with his hands and his mouth and his tongue and putting off his own pleasure until the very last second so he could fully enjoy the sight of Dream coming apart under his hand… Just the thought sent a delicious shiver through Hob far more satisfying than any quick wank to ease the tension.

Hob prided himself on his skill in the bedroom. He’d need to be half dead to not be one of the most sexually experienced humans that had ever lived and that wasn’t even boasting, that was just facts. His taste in women ranged far and wide, if less towards blondes since Eleanor, but his taste in men had since 1389 been far more… narrow. And skinny. And pale. With a shock of black hair like a bird’s nest and sure, while none of those men could measure up when they spoke, dim candlelight could do wonders for the imagination. (If anything, his male lovers' shortcomings as far as not-being-literally-his-stranger didn't always mean the end of their tryst. He’d had plenty of fascinating lovers whom he'd only met because they bore a passing resemblance to Dream. It hadn’t meant he kicked them out of bed after. Life was far too varied and rich to get hung up on things like that.) He just… happened to have a type.

And now he had the source of that type in his arms. Which, all told, was making his head go a bit funny, excitable and relaxed all at once when he took Dream’s slender cock in his mouth and began to show off what Dream had earned by granting Hob immortality with which to improve himself all those years ago.

Dream gasped, his hand scrabbling at the embroidery on the blankets, his hips thrusting up in surprise. Hob took the motion with the ease of a great deal of practice. His hand was tanned dark compared to Dream’s pale skin, and he spread his fingers over Dream’s hips, holding him down, soothing him. With his other, he grasped the base of Dream’s cock, working it in concert with his mouth.

“Hob,” Dream choked on a gasp, his hand flying up to bite at his knuckles as if to control the pleasure with pain. They couldn’t be having that.

Hob gently brushed Dream’s hand back down, placing it in his own hair, and took his mouth away just long enough to rumble against the flesh of Dream’s thigh, “There’s no one nearby, love. Be as loud as you like.”

Hob lived alone, at present, and he’d specifically chosen a house a little ways separate from his neighbors for privacy. And, especially, for occasions like this.

Dream let loose a strangled groan from deep within his chest, his voice was always so much lower than one would expect for a man of his build, and Hob made a special note of that sound to cherish in his memory. That was the sound of a personal, hard-earned victory that he’d fantasized about for, quite literally, centuries. And it would not be the last time he heard it today if he had his way.

Hob's eyes raked Dream’s body as he worked, enjoying every tantalizing detail of the way Dream shivered and twitched beneath him, no longer a marble statue held aloof by pride, but fully a man in the throes of pleasure. A proper cocksucking had a way of doing that, in Hob’s experience, no matter how self-important the man in question might be. Dream proved no different. Hob worked him slowly, methodically, teasing at the rest of his body with his free hand until he could feel the small muscles of Dream’s abdomen tremble uncontrollably with building ecstasy.

(Hob had dreamt of this moment, of taking his stranger in his mouth and driving him to incoherent heights of pleasure, breaking that veneer of his and watching him come apart under Hob’s hand. Dreamt of it longer than probably any other single fantasy in his life, if you considered the daydream went back all the way to when he’d first spotted Dream entering that tavern in 1389. Hob had wondered at the time what it would take to make that nobleman’s pissy little frown on his too-beautiful face melt into slack-jawed pleasure, far more becoming on those features. He’d wondered if the nobleman had caught Hob’s look when he came over, perhaps he’d signal that they find a shadowed corner somewhere where Hob could drop to his knees and see if he could take some of the iron out of that stiff-necked posture of Dream’s, make his knees tremble. Even that night, before he’d had the faintest idea that he could no longer die after that encounter, he’d stroked himself hard and fast and desperate to the image of making that soft voice shout his name. Sometimes, the best things in life were worth waiting for.

“Hob… Hob, fuck, Hob…!” Dream panted without rhythm of any kind, just the breath torn from his lungs, his head tossed back and his spine arched into Hob’s touch. His hand clutched at Hob’s hair, his nails lightly scratching at his scalp in time with Hob’s movements, and he groaned in pleasure at the sensation, and groaned again longer, rougher at the answering desperate whine that broke from Dream’s throat at the vibration. “I need…I need… you must…”

Hob hummed in understanding, drawing another breathless gasp. He could try to draw it out, but he wasn’t about to push his luck with one as proud as Dream, and he had no intention of letting the matter rest at this. He sped up his motions, tightening his grip at the base of Dream’s cock, and pressed onward with single-minded focus.

Dream began to shiver and then to thrash. His hips bucked, seeking the heat and relentless motion of Hob’s mouth. His fingers clawed at Hob’s hair, not forcing his movements, only as if desperate to touch him. Hob couldn’t look away for a second, committing it all to memory, watching, rapt as a flush worked its way down Dream’s chest. His mouth was open, each breath a gasp, building in speed, in desperation. Hob could taste how close he was, the surge of salt, the rushing sensation beneath his tongue. He knew the precipice was rushing up for Dream, with only a thought for how to make the climax inevitable, inescapable.

Dream sucked in a gasp and went silent, lips parted, eyes screwed shut and fingers clenching, desperate, in Hob’s hair as he came. His spine arched and his hips trembled in shock after shock. Hob felt the muscles in Dream’s abdomen tremble uncontrollably, his whole body wracked with the shivering aftershocks of each pulse. Swallowing was no effort at all, Hob hardly tasted the salt surge, too focused on watching Dream tremble and shudder and become just a man at the height of pleasure under his touch.

Then, bit by bit, Dream’s body quieted and went still. Gently, Hob let Dream’s cock slip free of his mouth and for a moment just watched him, the rosy flush at his cheeks, those coal-black eyelashes swept closed as he breathed through the final shudders of pleasure. His fingers unclawed from Hob’s hair and trailed, listlessly through it, an unconscious gesture of care that made Hob’s heart turn to melting sugar in his chest. He pushed himself up from between Dream’s legs, just enough for the leverage needed to begin stroking idle, soothing circles on Dream’s skin, his stomach, and arms. Glorying in this chance to touch him everywhere, with all tenderness and longing that had ever lived within him.

Slowly, Dream’s eyes opened and took Hob in. For a moment he just gazed upon him, saying nothing, expression unreadable except the softness around his mouth, the drooping of his eyelids, as if all that invisible tension Hob long suspected this man carried at all times, the constant weight on his shoulders, had faded.

And really, there was nothing Hob could do with such a sight before him but crawl his way up to lay beside Dream, continuing his idle stroking along Dream’s pale skin, and pressing their bodies close just to feel the soft warmth of him, to bury his face against his shoulder and breathe him in.

“You’ve been planning that for a long time, I take it?” Dream said, his voice soft and slurred, the usual hard certainty of his words gone.

“Oh, I've been planning much more than this,” Hob chuckled. “But, yes, I have. For a very long time.”

“How long?”

Hob craned up to catch Dream’s eye. “You’re the one who says he can see my dreams. Don’t you know?”

“I’d like to hear it from you,” Dream murmured. “Dreams can be imprecise. You might dream of something long before your waking mind knows of the desire, or ever has any wish to act on it.”

“Hmm,” Hob conceded and thumbed thoughtfully at his earlobe. “In some form or another, I’ve been planning that since I first laid eyes on you. But I don’t think it was until after 1489 that I wanted to impress you, and it was only at our last meeting when I began to think I might have a chance, however distant. Might have even said something if we weren’t interrupted. I think by 1889 I would have tried to at least hint at asking whether you were amenable in return. Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“You can be quite an intimidating fellow when you choose,” Hob said. “I wouldn’t want to risk having sand flung in my eyes or to be shown my own old ghosts just for the sake of asking if you’d be interested in leaving those fine black clothes of yours on my floor. I would have been content to wait.”

Dream was watching him intently now. “For how long?”

Hob considered this and sighed ruefully, shaking his head at himself. “How long would it take? Until the stars burned out, until the seas boil on Judgement Day? I waited four hundred years to learn your name, my friend. I would wait until you told me yes or sent me away. Then again, having you to look forward to in my life has always been more important than brief pleasures of the flesh, however enjoyable they might be. So, I suppose the answer to your question is: forever.”

“Truly? Even when I have offered you so little in return?” Dream said and, if Hob didn’t know better, he’d say there was a hint of shame in Dream’s words.

“Ah, don’t think of it like that,” Hob waved the concern away like it was a bothersome fly. “Think of it as keeping things interesting. We’ve got all the time in the world, love, no need to rush in. No one has ever driven me wild the way you do, so you’re probably doing something right with all the waiting. Maybe in a few thousand years, you can tell me your favorite food.”

“Sherbet.”

Hob blinked. “What?”

“I enjoy sherbet. Chilled, preferably with rose water. I tasted it for the first time in the dreams of a sultan, eight hundred years ago.” Dream smiled at him. If Hob had been standing, his knees would have gone weak.

“You best be careful, spoiling me like this, love,” Hob said softly. “Before you know it, I’ll be asking everything about you.”

“Why?” Dream said, tilting his head. “Why do you care to know such mundane things about me?”

Hob hesitated but then, the opportunity was far too good to pass up. “Because I’m interested.” Hob waggled his eyebrows at Dream. “In your experience.”

“Did I sound so lewd when I said that to you?” Dream said, mirth glinting in his eyes.

“God, did you! I thought I was being propositioned! I just couldn’t be sure because you always sound a little lewd with that voice of yours,” Hob laughed.

“Well then,” Dream said. “Next time, I will simply have to be clearer when I proposition you.”

“When you…?” Hob began only to be cut off by Dream pushing himself up on his elbow to kiss him soundly tasting, perhaps a little, of rose water.

“Remember, husband, we haven’t finished consummating our wedding night,” Dream murmured. There was a hint of mockery at the idea in those words but not, Hob dared to think, as much as there had been earlier.

Regardless of whether Dream found the idea ridiculous or not, Hob’s cock certainly didn’t and where it had been softening slightly at the turn of their conversation, it was now back at full attention. Painfully so. Apparently, his cock took an interest in Dream calling him husband. Who would have known? Certainly, Hob wouldn’t have dared to fantasize about Dream granting him that title, even in the privacy of his own mind.

Christ, he was in so much trouble.

“And since you have taken such attentive care of me,” Dream continued, running his fingers up through the thick dark hair on Hob’s chest, stopping at his shoulder, “It is only fair to ask what you want. Man. Woman. Something other?”

“In general? Either, I suppose. Not sure what that has to do with–wait,” Hob shook his head, trying to grasp what Dream was saying. “You can do all that? Just… become anything at all?”

Dream’s answering smile was just this side of preening. “I am the Lord of Dreams and Nightmares. Desire themself is my younger sibling. I can become whatever I wish. Or whatever you wish. You have earned at least this boon from me.”

Hob frowned. “Love, I…” he touched his fingers to Dream’s chin, and Dream tilted his head up as if expecting a kiss but Hob only stroked his thumb over Dream’s cheek, not sure how to say the words that were battering against his heart, threatening to break it if he thought too hard about what Dream was saying, what he seemed to assume of Hob. At least, how to say them without giving offense. “I just want you? You are the one I’ve been thinking about for centuries now. Just you. You don’t need to be something else for me.”

Dream’s expression closed and Hob’s heart would have jumped to his throat if Dream had looked angry rather than so… pensive. “Most who have the chance to lay with the Lord of the Dreaming desire experiences no mortal can give them.”

“I didn’t know you were the Lord of the Dreaming when I met you,” Hob reminded him with a playful little nudge. “Truth be told, I thought you were some kind of spirit, the Ghost of the White Horse Tavern, fated to return every one hundred years. Or maybe a faerie, bound to a nearby spring.”

Dream frowned. “Truly? You thought me to be such a low creature?”

“You forget that I had very little to go off of,” Hob said and placed a peck on Dream’s forehead to remove any sting from his words. “But like I said, not knowing kept things interesting. At least, once I wasn’t scared out of my wits thinking I’d sold my soul to the Devil.”

“Mmm,” Dream hummed, his gaze hardening for a moment. “As if I would let Lucifer claim you.”

And before Hob could ask what in the world Dream meant by that, Dream leaned up and kissed him, then kissed him again, deeper, bearing Hob back to the blankets. And Hob wasn’t about to complain when Dream climbed atop him, looking as arrogant and assured while stark naked as if he sat upon a throne.

“It occurs to me that we should at least work out the form I will take in the eyes of other mortals. Desire was being deliberately obtuse, but they know as well as I that this century and place would not abide two men living together as husbands in the manner necessary to satisfy the rules of our wager,” Dream said, looking contemplatively down at Hob stretched out before him. The cleft of his arse rubbed against Hob’s very erect and weeping cock, not that Dream appeared to pay this fact any mind. Hob, meanwhile, was fairly sure his soul was going to leave his body if Dream didn’t do something soon.

“Dream, you don’t…” Hob shuddered and sucked in a breath, his loins clenching as Dream leaned back to listen to him, pressing against his cock. “You don’t need to do anything for me. Except, maybe get out of the way if you’re not going to take care of my situation here, so at least I can.” He tried to reach past Dream to wrap a hand around his aching cock, only for Dream to take it, wrapping his fingers through Hob’s.

“What about... this?” Dream said and suddenly where he’d been sitting, exactly where, because indeed she replaced him, was a very generously endowed woman with raven black hair and… assets. Enviable assets, by any measure.

Hob’s startled so hard he would have fallen off the bed if not for Dream’s thighs trapping him on either side. “Shit!”

“Do you not like this form? I only drew from your own dreams and fantasies,” Dream frowned. His frown looked utterly bizarre on such a soft, objectively beautiful, but extremely feminine face.

“Not that! Not a blonde either,” Hob added quickly. “Nothing personal, just not… ready for that again, any time soon. Love, this situation is mad enough as it is. I know it’s for the best if you don’t just look like yourself but in a dress. But is there any way you could get a little… closer? For the sake of my sanity, if nothing else.”

The woman sitting on Hob’s lap—Dream’s brow furrowed, and he appeared to consider this. Then he changed.

The person next sitting on Hob’s lap (still rubbing up against his poor bewildered cock, which had no idea how to feel about any of this) was Dream. There would be no mistaking that this person was the stranger Hob met in a tavern centuries ago. But it was also, unmistakably, a woman. Every fiber of his being knew it, without question, and it had nothing to do with the pert breasts tipped with delicate pink nipples or the thatch of black hair between her thighs, the cock Hob had sucked not a moment ago suddenly gone. The thing was, had there been no change on those two counts, Hob would have still known this person to be a woman.

But Dream didn’t appear to be done yet. She… he? Hob’s brain was starting to ache from trying to decide how to think of the person before him, ran her fingers through her hair and grew it out beyond her shoulders. Her face had the same strong angles and aristocratic profile as Dream but somewhat softer, the features narrower, the blue eyes more pronounced.

Hob’s cock stirred. Confused or not, he knew for certain if this woman had walked into a tavern at any time in the last four hundred years he would have proceeded to move heaven and earth to find a way into her bed, for entirely immodest and possibly unethical reasons owing entirely to her stark resemblance to the man he’d been chasing for centuries. They could be twins. Except there was one thing that wasn't quite right: this woman also looked entirely human, with none of Dream's ghostly pallor.

“Will this do?” Dream said. Even the voice was different, slightly higher, tasting of warm honey instead of mist. “Hob? You seem troubled.”

“No, I’m… I mean, yes, I am, but…” Hob rubbed his hands over his face and left his palms over his eyes, keeping them shut. “It’s fine. Go with that look, at least that way I can’t possibly forget it’s you. But could you please change back? At least while we’re in private. This is too strange, even for the life I’ve led.”

There was a slight shift in his lap that made Hob think it was safe to open his eyes again. When he did, his own familiar stranger was gazing back at him, lips quirked in amusement.

Except, Dream hadn’t entirely changed back. The pert breasts and black thatch of hair were still there, but the person sitting atop him was definitely male, definitely his Dream.

“You are a puzzle of your own at times, Hob,” Dream mused, looking down at him. “Most would welcome a lover who could become any fantasy, yet you seem to shrink from the idea.”

“It’s rather difficult to be excited about your magical shape-changing abilities when most of the men I’ve bedded for the last four hundred years could have been your brother. Or at least a distant cousin,” Hob wheezed and dearly hoped he hadn’t said something stupid with that admission. “Besides, if I’d met anyone else with this power, I probably would have asked them to turn into you. At least, if I was very drunk. And not too concerned about getting punched for my trouble.”

“Hmm. I can’t say I recall the last time I alone was the subject of a dreamer’s fantasies.”

There was something in Dream’s voice. Hard to tell, with his usual calm, measured tone hiding most emotion, but if Hob was any judge he would label that tone… baffled? Wistful? Whatever it was, it opened up a yawning pit in Hob’s heart to imagine Dream always changing to suit others. Offering visions and fantasies and dreams and yet, somewhere, at the center of the storm was the core of the man himself, hiding behind the shadows and the wishes of others. Concealing himself behind what others wanted of him. Hob didn’t even know for certain if he was any better, if even the face of Dream he knew was one concocted only for him, but he felt at least he could be true to that one and hope it was enough.

“Come here, love,” Hob said and reached up to wrap his arms around Dream and draw him against his chest. Dream accepted his embrace, unresisting, which at any other time Hob would single out as the strangest part of the day. He placed his chin on Dream’s head, where it lay against his shoulder. “Look, I don’t… completely understand the terms of this wager that brought you here, or what you need to satisfy it, but… just know, it’s already been more than I’d dreamed to ask to have you here, even for just a few hours, so far ahead of our usual meeting.”

He let Dream sit with those words for a moment, let them sink in. Hob wasn’t yet sure if he dared ask that they meet more than once a century, but he could at least put the idea out there and hope Dream heard him.

“I want to help you, love. I would have under any circumstances, though I admit, I find this current arrangement particularly appealing. So, if at any time in the future you need a husband for a day, or another year, or what have you…” Hob heard an exhale, what might have been a chuckle from Dream, and smiled to himself, bending to press a kiss to the top of Dream’s head. “I’d be honored.”

Dream shifted in his arms, pushing himself up enough to kiss Hob deeply, probing at his mouth with his tongue, tasting him fully. Hob moaned into his mouth, hands flying to his hips, clutching them, using every scrap of willpower within him not to begin grinding helplessly against Dream.

“I accept your proposal, Robert Gadling,” Dream breathed against his lips. Hob looked up, dazed, only for Dream to kiss him again, and begin to move against him.

“Wait,” Hob stuttered. “Are we doing this? Do you want to…” Hob looked down Dream’s body, “… change first?”

“Does this form bother you?” Dream said, tilting his head to the side. Curious. Without judgment, as if the changes to his anatomy were no more consequential than if he changed the color of his shirt. Probably less consequential, Hob would definitely notice if Dream didn’t wear black one day.

“Not really,” Hob said breathlessly. Dream began to nip and kiss at his jawline. Hob’s eyelids fluttered at the sensation. “I’m fine with both. Either. Whatever you choose.”

“Good,” Dream rumbled in his ear. “Because I thought this form would make some aspects of our consummation easier.”

“Easier?” Hob said, dazed. Dream pressed against him, sinuous and demanding, hands cupping Hob’s face to kiss him deep then moving down to touch him, to stroke him everywhere. Then Dream leaned back, leaving Hob bereft and disoriented, struggling to understand.

Dream shifted back to the other side of Hob’s cock, then took it in his cool, pale hand. Hob groaned at the contrast of his own fevered skin against that touch, unable to hold back the garbled, “Mmph,” that escaped his lips.

Dream smirked, a king who expected to rule and to be obeyed without question. Hob’s chest was working as he sucked down frantic breaths and then Dream fitted Hob’s cock to his entrance, already slick and so wet, and lowered himself to the hilt.

The muscles in Hob’s stomach jumped and he arched backward with a groan, arm thrown over his eyes, trying to muster every ounce of his skill to not come on the spot or grab Dream and pound into him again and again and again until he felt that sweet, desperately needed release.

Dream was even now lowering himself down over Hob, working his hips to take him deeper, and then, with a sure, steady motion he began to move. Hob moaned helplessly, afraid to open his eyes, torn between simply reveling in the familiar hot, tight clench around his cock and hope not thinking too hard would let him last a little longer or, dare to open his eyes and see Dream, the stranger, his stranger who had haunted and bedeviled and seduced Hob with his presence and his absence for all these centuries, was here, on top of him, taking his pleasure from Hob…

Hob whimpered and let his arm drop down from his eyes so he could behold Dream above him, imperious, demanding, studying him intently with parted lips as if fascinated, unable to tear his eyes from Hob’s pleasure. Hob’s hands locked around Dream’s hips, not daring to guide his movements, having at least the presence of mind for that, but the clench of his fingers on that pale skin would be hard enough to bruise, were Dream mortal.

“My friend, I… please,” Hob babbled. “Please, have pity.”

“Your friend? Is that all, even now?” Dream teased and bent low to bite kisses against Hob’s jawline.

“It was the first… hnngh, the first name I knew you by,” Hob tried to explain through the haze of arousal, the pressing need to come, please, he just needed to… “The most important. Before…anything else, after everyone’s… gone. You’re there. You’re always there, if I can just make it to you.”

Dream pulled back to regard Hob at those words and, overcome, Hob brushed the back of his hand against Dream’s cheek. The audacity of it, the untold luxury, to have this much, to be allowed this much. Even if it was never again. Even if this was all he ever had.

But maybe… maybe he could have more, Hob thought through the delirium as Dream began to move again in earnest, still gazing down at Hob. Perhaps there would be another time, with Dream moving atop him as he did now, or inside him, or beneath him, however he wanted, Hob would provide. And maybe Hob would do this right, for once, and he would not be dismissed for another century of waiting. And maybe, if they lay together again, when they lay together again, Dream would let Hob call him husband and he would be one again. He would hold Dream in his arms, the only being that would ever be worth the pain of trying on that title again, the one person who had never left him, who he would never lose to death as he had so many others. And he thought of Dream, his stranger, his friend, tangled up in his arms, of his body arching over Hob’s as it did now, taking him deep and whispering in his ear, “My husband, my own.” And…

Hob’s breath left him in a rush and he could not hold back a second longer, but clutched at Dream’s hips, thrusting his own upward to meet him, burying himself deep, his cock pulsing inside that scorching heat and Dream’s mouth on his,  bending down to kiss the moans from his lips, milking every drop of Hob’s climax from him, wave after wave, shuddering until there was nothing left within him. And he didn’t care if it was too much, if he overstepped, he wrapped his arms around Dream and held him close, burying his face against his shoulder as he sobbed through the final wracking shudders of his orgasm, through the tears that pricked his eye at the thought,This might be the only time, as much as at the thought that, This might be only the first of many, many times, and he wasn’t sure which one made him shake harder, and hold Dream tighter. To hope Dream would have pity on him and let him have at least this.

Hob wasn’t sure when he drifted off. At some point when Dream had gone soft and pliant in his arms and had lain down beside Hob, whispering words that might have been spells in his ear to make him sleep, or might have simply been sweet nothings, the kind that lovers exchange.

He was still fading in and out, unsure if he wanted to wake up the rest of the way and return to the world where they would have to deal with the consequences, where they’d have to answer what happened next. He just wanted to stay here, forever, and then bottle up this feeling and carry it with him everywhere, take it out like a perfumed letter someday just to remember the scent.

So he didn’t rouse the whole way, didn’t try to make sense of the muffled words nearby.

“Desire, I see you there. Are you well pleased with yourself?”

“Oh, extremely.”

“You realize this is nothing I wouldn’t have done without your influence? Leave Hob alone.”

“You think I did something? As if I needed to do anything more than put you two in a room together. About time, too. You would have left that poor, delicious man over there languishing for another millennium without me.”

“He and I will always have time.”

“Mm, you seem quite certain of that. Maybe you're right. He wants you, you know. Badly. Badly enough to kill. Badly enough to live. It would almost be sweet if it wasn’t you that he chose to want badly enough to turn himself immortal.”

“He is immortal through other means.”

“Because of our sister? You really think that, don’t you? How adorable. Ask her next time, about this man she forgot to collect. The world is full of wonders that even your dreams cannot conceive of, brother. Perhaps you should ask yourself: is he still here because he is one of hers, one of yours, or one of mine? Desire rules him. Desire to live. Desire to strive. Desire to find you and follow you wherever the centuries lead. Death alone does not have the power to give him endless life.”

None of it made any sense and, certain he had misunderstood the bewildering conversation, Hob squeezed his eyes shut and turned over, willing himself back to sleep.