Chapter Text
Hob had been right. He had quite liked being a professor. He hadn’t really done much since leaving it. Hadn't really found his calling, he supposed. Not that Hob believed in “callings” much. He viewed the world through a very simple lens; there were jobs you liked and jobs you didn’t, and he had lived long enough to know those were arbitrary categories. If you had told him a couple hundred years ago that he’d be missing his job as a professor when he was owner of a mildly successful (he was being modest) pub, he would have… well, he would have had a little chuckle over it. Nothing much surprised him anymore.
Nothing much except Dream.
See, when his Stranger had shown up in his lecture (while he was bloody well trying to teach, mind you) Hob had been expecting it to be a one off thing. Like I apologise — no, not apologise, Hob hadn’t been expecting that at all — I regret that I was unable to attend our last meeting, I was busy making another Shakespeare or whatever it is that I do. I’ll never tell you of course. Goodbye until next century, Hob Gadling, and that would be the end of it. Or maybe, if he was indulging himself, they would even go down to the New Inn for drinks and Hob would talk and his Stranger would stare and then he would go and do whatever he does for the next 36, 499 days. He had not been expecting an explanation (the first in over 600 years), let alone a name (again, after 600 years), and he was most certainly just as awed as his students when Dream had wandered into his lecture hall like he owned the place. It had been just over a year since then, and Hob was still pinching himself whenever he saw the man. You didn’t even want to know what he did the first time he’d kissed him. Which, now, was a lot. Had he mentioned that they were basically living together?
Basically. Kind of. Well, while Hob slept he was in the Dreaming — more often than not with its king — and during the day, Dream was in the cozy apartment above the New Inn with him. So, if you added that all together… yeah, they were basically living together. They spent most of their time talking, or Hob did, at the very least. He’d had over a century to dwell on what he would say if he were to meet his Stranger again, and he even had a camera now! However, what he really loved was when he was able to coax some answers out of Dream. Not the I am King of the Dreaming, Lord of Nightmares bullshit, though he appreciated it all the same after 600 years of radio silence. The real stuff, to indulge in cliche. What Dream thought of it all. He’d gotten a glimpse of it when he was — uh — still in the slaving business, but now they were talking about all sorts of things. What was his favourite colour (black), his opinion on social media (complicated) and did he think that, one day, The Lion King would get a retelling where they were all Danish royalty as Hamlet returned to its original form? Dream had only quirked his lips when Hob had asked him that one. Worth it, then.
It was a peaceful life, one might say. Or, it had been a peaceful one. He was at the bar of the New Inn, idly pouring himself a pint to get him through the slow hour between 3 and 4, when the bell above the door chimed out. He glanced up, a cheerful greeting halfway up his throat before he coughed it back down. He turned quickly, attempting to busy himself with literally anything as the girls approached the counter.
“Ugh, these assessments are going to be the death of me, I swear,” Piper groaned. “Just let me get wasted, it’ll increase my productivity.”
“I’m so glad you switched out of politics,” Dylan laughed. “You’re a shit liar.”
Hob scrambled to push through the staff only door, but — fuck, this is why you don’t buy old buildings. Unlike him, they don’t get better with age. It doesn’t even matter if they’re cheap! It only matters if the doors fucking jam on you for no fucking reason when you need them to not do that! Hob glanced at the window and wondered whether he could bolt across the inn and out into the rosebush on the other side without Piper and Dylan recognising him.
“Clearly you haven’t seen me the day after a hangover. That shit puts your life into perspective, you kno — Professor Gadling?”
Piper stared. Dylan snapped her head round to face him so fast he thought her head was going to come clean off. He hoped it would, that would sure make his life a lot easier. Hob forced a confused but friendly smile on his face. One of his classics, really.
“No professors here, sorry.” Hob reluctantly let go of the doorknob. “There are drinks though, if you want any?”
Piper and Dylan managed to tear their eyes from him for a moment long enough to share one of the looks that he had come to dread from them.
“Are you… sure?” Dylan asked. “You just look an awful lot like —”
“Very sure,” Hob laughed. “I wouldn’t be running a pub if I had a PhD now, would I?”
“I suppose not…” Dylan bit her lip, looking nervously at Piper. She pulled a stool out from under the bar and perched awkwardly atop of it. Piper continued to stare at Hob, only glancing down to (very obviously) type a message. Dylan’s phone lit up a minute later, and before she could pull it away, Hob managed to catch a glimpse: it’s so fucking him. Dylan glanced back at Piper, pulling a pained sort of face. She jabbed her thumb at the stool next to her. Piper was almost gleeful as she sat down.
Hob took a deep breath. “What do you girls want, then?”
“Umm, just some lemonade, thanks,” Dylan said.
“Answers.”
“Piper!” Dylan hissed, glancing sideways at Hob in lieu of an apology. “If he says it’s not him then it’s not him!”
Piper tilted her head, still not looking away from Hob. Her grin was, quite frankly, shit-eating.
“Uncanny, though, isn’t it?” she said. “Same face, same voice, same… everything. You know, I think I saw Professor Gadling wear that exact shirt before he left.”
You know, if Dream had asked him in that moment if he wanted to die, he might have just said yes.
“Who’s Professor Gadling?” Hob asked. Over the centuries, Hob had gotten pretty good at feigned ignorance as to the strange occurrences of his various lives. Piper was having none of it.
“Oh, our old Professor. We were told he died in a tragic and unexpected car accident. ‘Course, that’s easy to walk away from if you’re immortal.”
At this, Dylan groaned loudly. Hob wished he could do the same.
“Sounds like an interesting fella,” he settled on eventually.
“Which I’m sure you’d know,” Piper said. "Being the man in question.”
“Piper,” Dylan said with a tight smile. “A word?”
Piper and Dylan had never been particularly quiet students, and it wasn’t like they were difficult to hear as they huddled in the far corner of the pub. Hob could pretty clearly make out their conversation over the quiet chatter of the small afternoon crowd, but he hoped that he was the only one who gave enough of a shit to do so.
“You’re making us look crazy!” Dylan whisper-shouted at her friend.
“Oh, come off it. It’s obviously him,” Piper sighed. “I’m surprised he hasn’t been burned as a witch yet, how shit he is at covering it up. Not even any plastic surgery, god!”
“Professor Gadling died in a car crash! We went to his funeral!”
“Yeah. Closed casket, did you notice?”
“Yes!” Dylan almost cried, exasperated. “It was a car crash!”
“Look,” Piper said finally, in about the most even voice Hob had ever heard from her. “I know you were never as serious about the whole ‘Gadling’s immortal’ thing as I was but this is cold, hard proof. You can see it in the way he looks at us, can’t you? He knows us.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Hob watched Dylan glance up at him. It wasn’t… he wasn’t being fair to the girls, really. God knew that if Hob had been in their position, he’d have been just as bad as Piper. Worse, really. He’d spent the last 6 centuries trying to get answers out of a man who wouldn’t even give him the time of day, for Christ’s sake. But he needed this life. He’d only just been able to sort out Robbie Golding’s official documents, and he didn’t want to have to fake his own death so soon. Not when he’d already built something here. He saw a bit of that, in Dylan’s eyes. Like she’d only just managed to get to her feet after having the rug pulled out from under her, only to have a trap door open where she was stood. Hob knew it hurt to lose someone, even an acquaintance, and he had 600 years experience under his belt. She sniffed, then, and met Piper’s eyes.
“Even if it is him, which I don’t think it is, I… I don’t think he wants us here, Pipes. I think we should go.”
Piper was staring at him now. Nothing new there, really. But she shared an inkling of Dylan’s sympathy, and well, Hob got it. He got it, okay? What it was like to keep going beyond where he should, to keep questioning and to keep acting like a fucking menace. Fuck, he never should have left that job.
“Fine, yeah. We will. But let’s at least say goodbye first. I don’t think we ever thanked him.”
“Okay,” Dylan sighed. It was weird, watching the human mind comprehend what he had known for so long. Did he look so afraid, back then?
“I’m sorry,” Piper said, after a moment of standing awkwardly at the counter. “That was rude.”
“I’m sorry too,” Hob replied haltingly. “I hope… I hope you find what you’re looking for.” Piper and Dylan nodded solemnly.
“Well…” Dylan coughed into her hand. Her eyes were a little wet. “We should get goi —”
It was in that god-forsaken moment that the fucking staff only door opened (but not for him! Never for him!), and Dream stepped out. Piper’s eyes lit up like a bonfire, and she rounded on her friend.
“I told you! I told you it was him!”
Dylan only stared in shock.
“Fine, fine!” Hob said, chucking the dish towel he had slung over his shoulder onto the benchtop. Rather aggressively, too. “Fine! You two —” he gestured at Piper and Dylan, “ — come out the back. We’ve got a bit to catch up on, it seems. You —!” He tried to have a go at Dream, he really did, but his gaze softened as soon as it landed on the man. Thing. Whatever. Dream was as calm and collected as ever, with perhaps the barest smudge of a smile on his face. Hob sighed. Bastard, was what he was. “Just come out the back too.”
Piper, it appeared, did not need to be told twice.
+++
“Professor Gadling!” Dylan cried as the door swung shut behind them. “We thought you died!”
“Did you?” Piper asked, eyebrows to the sky. “Did you die and come back?”
“No, no,” Hob waved them off, leading the group to the break room. It was small and cluttered with trinkets museums would kill to have but, well, it was home. “I don’t die, that’s rather the point.” Dream was watching him, expression blank but curiosity in his eyes. No, not just curiosity; an offer. I could make them forget, they said, and Hob could have sworn he heard Dream say it directly into his mind. He shook his head violently. It was his mess, he had to clean it.
“So you don’t die? At all?” Dylan asked.
“No,” Hob said. “Not unless… not unless I ask to.”
“Ask who?”
Hob didn’t even deign that with a reply, just continued to stare at Dream. Dylan and Piper looked at him awkwardly.
“So is he… the Grim Reaper?” Piper questioned. Hob had always admired her unflinching acceptance of the strangeness of the world around her. She would make a good historian. Dream’s lips quirked into something that could actually be considered a real smile. Hob always said it suited him. He was right.
“No,” he said calmly. The girls appeared a little hypnotised by his voice. “No, my sister is what you know as Death.”
Piper and Dylan stared blankly, but nodded.
“C – cool,” Piper stammered out eventually. Her eyes flicked around the room, before landing back on Dream. Or, more accurately, on a point just over Dream’s shoulder. “... is she nice?”
“Yes,” Dream said. There was nothing more to it. Piper nodded and smiled a bit lopsidedly.
“That’s good then,” she said.
“Right,” Hob said, clapping his hands together loudly enough to make Dylan startle. “I understand this is a lot to take in —”
“Yes,” Dylan breathed.
“No, not really,” Piper replied.
“ — but is there anything you wanted to ask?”
Piper seemed ready to burst with questions and wit, but she stopped short when she glanced at her friend. Dylan was shifting awkwardly and staring at her toes with determination. Piper nudged her and nodded.
“Yes,” she said finally. “Yes. I guess I just… I was wondering… um, why did you leave?”
Oh. Hob had been expecting the question, but that didn't mean he was prepared to answer it. He sighed, and rubbed his temple. Humans! They’re always finding new and interesting ways to have awkward conversations, and Hob had found himself in the middle of far too many of them.
“It’s not about you… well, that’s not strictly true. It’s not personal. There’s always someone who figures it out, and you girls were a bit too on the ball for me to stay much longer. It’s dangerous for me, to be known too well. Rumours start and soon enough the whole town knows about my condition.”
“... And?” Piper asked.
“What do you mean, and?” Hob bristled.
“Well, it's just that —” Piper glanced at Dylan for reassurance, who gave her none. “Well, it's not like you can die! What’s the worst that can happen?”
“Capture, imprisonment.” Dream only murmured it, but Piper almost jumped out of her skin. “A life without death does not mean a life without misery.”
Hob risked a puppy-dog-eyed glance at Dream. They hadn't talked about… it much. Dream had a lot of walls that he had built up over millenia, and Hob knew what it was like to wrap yourself up in silence to avoid opening old wounds. Piper, of course, knew nothing of the sort and bulldozed through.
“If – if you’re Dream or whatever, then was it you who caused the Sleepy Sickness?”
“What Piper means,” Dylan interrupted as Dream opened his mouth. “Is that we heard you two talking when you first showed up at that lecture, about Roderick Burgess, and we were just wondering if…” Dylan opened and closed her mouth a few times in a way that reminded Hob of a fish (god, he hated his fisherman days), and waited for Dream to respond. He simply nodded.
“I'm sorry,” Dylan said finally. “If that means anything.”
“Me too,” Piper added.
“And for that reason, you should understand the dangers that Hob Gadling faces from mankind.”
“Yes, I —” Piper glanced back at Hob. “I do.”
Hob let that hang solemnly in the air for a moment before sighing. Piper had the same look in her eyes that he saw in the mirror the moment he resolved himself to accuse Dream of being his friend. He honestly admired that she had managed to keep the word tucked away in her tongue for this long.
“But?”
“I mean, we’re not Roderick Burgess!” she blurted. “We weren't going to, I don't know, lock you up on grounds of being the centre of a long running joke about having an immortal professor!”
“No, but you could have told someone who would.”
Piper’s mouth slammed shut, and her grey eyes turned calculating. Hob could almost hear the argument she was running in her head in an effort to generate the perfect defence. Dylan placed a hand on Piper’s shoulder and stepped forward.
“So what changed? Why are you telling us now?”
“You figured it out,” Hob flung his hand up. “There’s no death I could fake now that could convince you that I’m not out there somewhere. You’ve got my whole, immortal life in your hands.”
“Yes but, well… that’s how it is with everyone, isn't it?” Dylan said gently, like she was explaining to a toddler why their dog had to go 'very far away'.
“No?” Hob blanked. “Very much not. There’s what, five immortals on this earth? Definitely not everyone.”
“No, not like immortal, but just… secrets.”
“That could get you imprisoned for literal eternity?”
“Well, also no, but…”
“This is where we admit we’re undercover MI5 agents trying to stop World War 3,” Piper added helpfully.
“No it’s not, because we’re not,” Dylan sighed. “But that doesn't mean we’ve never had anything to hide, either.” Dylan was looking at Piper very pointedly, while the other girl made a series of over-exaggerated facial expressions before finally bursting out “fine!”
“I’m a lesbian.”
This was not news to Hob. He doubted it would be news to anyone. “Okay?”
“And that has been very difficult for me to come to terms with.”
Hob softened slightly. “I understand.”
“It would be even harder for my family to come to terms with, and would probably involve something along the lines of ‘you’re a disgrace to this family and to God, and also you’re homeless now’. Hence why they don't know, and won't know until they kick the bucket and I get the inheritance.”
“I’m sorry, Piper.”
“God, don't be, there’s nothing you can do,” Piper waved him off. “But the reason I’m telling you this is because I’m trusting you not to go off and tell them. That’s the trust I put in Dylan all those years ago, when we were just two pimply girls in Catholic school. You know, I was so scared that I couldn't even get it past the braces on my teeth, so I wrote it down and then made Dylan burn it as I watched.”
“Extreme,” Hob half-laughed.
“I always have been,” Piper agreed. “But I still have a home to go to at night, for better or worse, and I didn't spend my entire fucking life miserable because I was lying to the people who made me feel safe.”
Piper glanced at Dylan, who nodded. “And Dylan’s got similar shit going on, but the reason this is my speech and not hers is because you don't have to tell anyone you don't want to. And also I’m funnier.”
“Honestly, we are sorry for prying so much,” Dylan added, ignoring Piper’s final comment.
“I’m sorry.” Piper’s voice was quiet as she lowered her gaze to her shoes. “For taking the choice away.”
Hob sighed, and kneaded his forehead. “What’s done is done and that doesn't make me happy about it, but you girls are right. I appreciate the apologies. Truly.”
Piper smiled weakly, while Dylan stared up at him earnestly.
“Will you come back?”
Hob shook his head. “Unfortunately, that will bring about questions from more professional sources than two twenty-somethings. But, well, it does get lonely when your only friends are secrets…”
Dylan gasped. “So we can visit? With permission?”
“You can,” Hob conceded. “On the strict condition that this is my secret, and thus mine to tell. I was a soldier for a very long time, and I’m not unwilling to put those skills to use if I hear even a whisper of a ‘list’ about Robbie Golding's immortality.”
“So long as we get free drinks,” Piper laughed.
“After what you put me through, I think I’ll be charging you double.”
+++
It was long past close now, with the only light being the stringy hands of moonlight that managed to make it through the blinds.
Dream stood in the doorway, his robe liquid darkness over his lithe form. His eyes seemed to hold the moonlight despite their pitch, like the room was orbiting him.
“Did you ever tell Eleanor?” Dream asked, voice in the carrying murmur only he could master.
Hob grimaced. “Been a while since I heard that name.”
“Nobody else knows what it means to you.”
“No,” Hob said finally. “I never did. Guess it made my life easier that she died so young. Meant I didn't have any real explaining to do.”
“And was it easier to bear that grief without anyone who truly knew you? Without friends?”
Hob laughed. “I was waiting for you, really.”
Dream’s lips twitched.
“Oh come off it, who did you ever tell? It took you 600 years to fess up to me, and I would consider myself quite the exception.”
Dream’s smile widened, and Hob sighed.
“Who?”
“I believe you know him as Shakespeare.”