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English
Series:
Part 1 of In My Dreams I’m With You
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The Sandman
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Published:
2022-08-23
Completed:
2022-08-25
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2,153
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2/2
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The Sweetest Dream Will Never Do

Summary:

Dream just looked at him with those utterly inscrutable eyes, dark and endless as the night sky. “Then tell me, Hob Gadling, what do you want?”

“I don’t want you to go,” Hob said, immediately regretting the words as soon as they tumbled out of his mouth. Dream’s expression didn’t so much as shift, his face and eyes as fathomless as ever. “I– to tell you the truth, I’ve missed you.”

Notes:

I just got to the Hob Gadling bit in my reading of the comic, so naturally had to go back and rewatch the episode, and then this just sort of...happened.

Usual disclaimer. Please be kind and tip your fanfic writers in the form of comments and/or kudos!

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

“So,” Hob said, though he didn’t quite know how he intended to continue the sentence. They had already covered their usual topics, namely Hob’s insistence on continuing to live and what he’d been up to for the past century – more like a century and a quarter at this point, though Dream had been unusually forthcoming in explaining his delay. And as much as Hob should be getting home to finish grading his papers, something kept him in the New Inn, sitting across from the man he’d begun to fear he’d never see again.

“So,” Dream echoed, his dark eyes searching Hob’s face for a long moment before he asked, almost carefully, “What is it, precisely, that friends do?”

Hob barked a laugh before scrubbing a hand across his mouth. “Sorry,” he said. “Wasn’t expecting that.” He took a sip of beer before shrugging. “Depends on the type of friends, really.”

A small smile lifted the corners of Dream’s mouth. “What of the kind of friends that have known each other for over 600 years?”

Hob laughed again. “600 years,” he repeated, marveling at it. “Well, you’d probably know more about that than I would. I’ve only got one of that kind of friend.”

Dream let out a small noise that might have also been a laugh. “At this point, I think I only have one friend like that as well.”

Hob’s brow furrowed. “What about, um, the rest of your lot?” he asked.

Dream lifted his shoulders in a delicate sort of shrug. “Most are family,” he said, tracing an idle finger through the condensation of his beer glass. “They do not count as friends.”

“And the rest?”

“Servants,” Dream said, something unusually grim in his tone for a moment. “Or my creations.”

Hob let out a low whistle under his breath. “Then we’re both fucked, mate.”

Dream’s smile widened, just slightly. “Or else we both have the freedom to make this friendship into what we want,” he said, his voice low in a way that sent electricity shooting down Hob’s spine.

He swallowed hard, before managing, “Creation is more your purview than mine, I think.”

Dream just looked at him with those utterly inscrutable eyes, dark and endless as the night sky. “Then tell me, Hob Gadling, what do you want?”

“I don’t want you to go,” Hob said, immediately regretting the words as soon as they tumbled out of his mouth. Dream’s expression didn’t so much as shift, his face and eyes as fathomless as ever. “I– to tell you the truth, I’ve missed you.”

Now something did shift in Dream’s expression, though it remained as unreadable as before. “I apologize again for being late,” he said carefully, but Hob shook his head.

“No, not that,” he said, a little impatiently. “I mean, I get that, you’ve explain that, we’re fine. But—” He hesitated. “It’s been over a hundred years, so my memory could be faulty, but I could’ve sworn you used to visit me.”

Dream stared at him. “Once every hundred years, Hob,” he said, a little dryly, as if he thought Hob had finally cracked.

And maybe he had, because that may very well be the only explanation Hob could think of for why he blurted, “No, I mean, you used to visit my dreams.”

Dream was quiet for so long that Hob was certain he had fucked this up beyond repair, and just when they had gotten on steady ground again. Until finally, Dream said softly, “You know who I am, Hob Gadling.” It wasn’t a question, but Hob nodded anyway. “Then you know my province is dreaming. It’s not unusual for one to see me there.”

Hob wet his lips. “Maybe,” he acknowledged, hesitating for a moment, though he figured he’d gotten this far. He might as well get it all out just in case he ruined things for good. “But is it usual for you to come as yourself, with those damned eyes, just to ask me to fuck you?”

It came out more pointed than he intended, but Dream did not flinch. “If that is what your mind conjures when you sleep,” he started, but Hob shook his head.

“No,” he said, adamant, refusing to let the memory that had sustained him for the past two and half decades as he feared Dream would never return be dismissed. “It was different than an invention of my own mind, I know it. I have had seven hundred years of dreams and these were always different.”

“Different how?” Dream asked, but his voice was quiet.

“Different as in real,” Hob told him, his voice low, heated. “Different as in it was you, it was always you, just as you’re sitting here now, not some pale imitation of you.” He leaned forward, his eyes searching Dream’s for a moment before adding, “Different as in I would wake with scratches on my back and love bites sucked into my skin.”

Dream’s expression flickered, and for the first time, he looked away. “If such dreams disturb you—” he started stiffly, but Hob cut him off.

“Disturb me?” he repeated. “Were you not listening? It’s been over a hundred damn years and I’m still thinking about them.” He paused, swallowing before adding softly, “It’s been over a hundred damn years and I still miss it.”

Still missed him, missed the warmth of Dream’s body and the all-too-human cries only Hob seemed ever to wring from him. Missed the way they’d move together in perfect ecstasy, knowing each other the way only decades, centuries of exploring every plane of each other could teach. Missed the fire that burned in Dream’s eyes, the fire he could taste on Dream’s tongue, the fire Dream left in the bruises imprinted on Hob’s sides.

He still missed him.

Dream did not meet his eyes. “For what little it may be worth, I doubt you will need wait a hundred years more—”

“No.”

“No?” Dream repeated, a dangerous lilt to his tone, and for not the first time Hob was reminded that, whatever role Dream had played in his immortality, he could almost certainly cause it to be revoked at any time.

Not that it stopped Hob, who figured he was well and truly cooked at this point regardless. “No,” he said, a second time. “You asked me what I want, so I’m telling you. I want you to stay with me while I’m awake. Even for just one night.” He glanced at the window, where the sun still filtered in. “Or, well, one afternoon, I suppose.”

Dream looked at him closely, his expression again inscrutable. “Is this what friends do?” he asked finally, and the question again took Hob by such surprise that he could not help but laugh.

“Some do, I suppose,” he said. “Friends with benefits, at least.”

“Friends with benefits,” Dream repeated, rolling the words around in his mouth as if they tasted strange to him. “What odd concepts you humans devise.”

Hob ignored the comment, too used to it after all these years. “Is that a no?” he asked instead.

Dream was silent for a long moment. “It will not be any more real,” he said finally, and Hob blinked.

“What?”

“My staying with you,” Dream said. “My physical form is no more real here than it is in your dreams. And—” He hesitated. “I cannot give you everything you want.”

Hob jerked a shrug, his heart beating painfully in his chest. “Maybe,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t try.”

Dream sighed. “Hob—” 

“Look, the way I see it, it took over 600 years for you to admit you were my friend,” Hob continued, barrelling forward as if Dream had not spoken. “And as far as I can tell, I’ve got an eternity still to convince you we could be something more.”

Dream shook his head slowly, something as close to sadness in his expression as Hob had ever seen. “Dreams of this nature rarely end well for your kind, Hob Gadling, immortal or otherwise.”

“Let me worry about that,” Hob said, hesitating before reaching out to rest a hand on top of Dream’s. “Come on, if it’s been over a hundred years for me, it’s been at least as long for you. Let me—”

Dream’s eyes flashed to his, and he couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought.

Let me help you.

Let me take care of you.

Let me love you.

He voiced none of that, though he wondered if he needed to. Silence stretched between the two and Hob took a sip of lukewarm beer just to give himself something to do other than sit and stare at Dream, who seemed perfectly content to sit and stare at him. Then, that small half-smile that Hob loved so much reappeared on Dream’s face. “My sister reminded me of the nature of humanity recently,” he said. “In her own way.”

“Ah,” said Hob, feeling like he needed to say something to that. “Didn’t know you had a sister.”

Dream ignored him, which was perhaps for the best. “Perhaps it is time I remind myself of some of the other aspects of humanity.”

It took a moment for Hob to realize what he meant. “Is that a yes?” he asked, his undying heart beating a staccato rhythm in his chest.

Dream inclined his head, just slightly. “It is, as you say, what certain kinds of friends do,” he said, and Hob laughed again, a laugh full of relief and joy and one hundred and some odd years of pent up want that he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding.

He wanted to kiss Dream then and there – hell, he wanted to take Dream then and there, hang the other patrons in the inn. But even more than that, he wanted to take Dream to his house, their shoulders brushing together as they walked. He wanted to lace his fingers with Dream’s pale ones and tug him up the stairs. He wanted to push that black coat off of him, to watch it puddle on the floor like a pool of night. He wanted to lead him to the bed, his bed, the bed he slept in each of these long, agonizing nights that he had been without him. And he wanted to sink into him the way he remembered until they were lost in each other.

And perhaps, if he was feeling brave enough, he wanted to whisper, just once in the waking world, so that he could know that he had said it and know that Dream had heard it, “I love you.”

So he stood, draining the remnant of his beer in one gulp before setting the glass down with a satisfying thud. “Well then,” he said, grinning. “What are we waiting for, friend?”

Chapter 2

Notes:

Look, I had every intention of leaving this as a one-shot. Really, I swear, I did. But as I reread it, I realized I rather inadvertently left it on a note that really lends itself to expansion.

...And the next thing I knew, I had two more parts plotted out.

Consider this a tiny epilogue or prologue of sorts. A very small something to set the stage for what's to come...

Chapter Text

“Attend, sweet sibling,” Desire said, their voice low. “It is I, Desire. I stand in my gallery and I hold your sigil.” They pressed their crimson lips against Despair’s hook. “Our brother has found his way out of his cage. Our plan has failed.”

There was very little that Despair hated more than having a plan foiled, or failing to come to fruition. Perhaps their efforts could be better used elsewhere, were they so inclined, but they were very rarely so inclined. After all, where was the fun in that?

And devising schemes that involved their brother…well, there was no better fun than that.

Of course, just because one plan had failed did not mean that there weren’t other schemes afoot. Especially ones that had seen Desire have a more ready hand in their…machinations, as they say.

“But don’t worry,” they continued, though very little would likely reassure Despair. “I have a new one.”

So they did, but not even they could have anticipated this newest development. Dream did not often stray into Desire’s realm, and for very good reason, but Dream also could not control his little human.

Hob Gadling. Desire had never cared much about what Death and Dream got up to with the immortal human.

At least, not until now.

Their golden eyes gleamed as they felt the echoes of the desire that had emanated from Hob in waves. Desire for Dream, desire to bring him home, desire to – well, Desire knew well what that led to. But better still, their brother had forgotten himself, and given in to his own desire, just enough to whet Desire’s appetite for the fun that was certain to follow. The last time Dream had been so foolish had been Nada, and they remembered well how that turned out.

This could not have gone more perfectly had Desire planned it. But even if they had not, that didn’t mean they couldn’t still take advantage of it.

Desire’s lips curved into a smirk. “And this time,” they added, their grip on Despair’s sigil tightening, “should our new plan fail, I have a plan B.”

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