Chapter Text
"He stared at me and I felt a change
Time meant nothing, never would again
Let's do the Time Warp again
Let's do the Time Warp again
It's just a jump to the left...
...And then a step to the right!"
At half past seven, Hob’s alarm goes off, quacking like a very loud mechanical duck.
He reaches for his phone to swat at the snooze button, then turns and pulls his laptop over from where it sits atop his nest of blankets in order to silence the Halloween playlist that’s been quietly serenading him since whenever he dozed off the previous night. The laptop’s battery is ominously low—he should have plugged it in the night before, as he usually does.
Hob meanders through his usual morning routine, absently humming an off-key rendition of the chorus of “Time Warp” as he assembles himself. He shaves and washes his face, then pulls on yesterday’s jeans, a fresh shirt, and—after a peek at the weather—a soft wine-colored cable knit sweater. In the kitchen, he toasts himself two slices of bread and slathers them with strawberry jam, only for breakfast to be derailed completely by the absence of instant coffee.
He inhales his toast and checks the time. It’s now eight; if he hurries, he can swing by the cafe near campus and be ready for class by nine.
On his way out the door, he grabs a pumpkin-shaped bucket filled with candy.
Hob likes Halloween.
In much the same way as everything else, it has come in and out of fashion over the centuries. Traditions have evolved with the people who celebrate, creating something new and nothing like the All Hallows’ Eve Hob remembers from way back when. Not that he’s nostalgic—quite the opposite, in fact. He favors Halloween’s modern incarnation; the variety of costumes, the kitschy home decor, the general atmosphere of joyful mischief.
Hob has another, more personal reason for his fondness as well—he'd been convinced at various points over the past six centuries that he personally knew one of the devils, witches, or spirits said to walk among mortals on the holiday. He knows better now, of course, but the habit of paying a little extra attention to the people costumed from head to toe in black is a hard one to break. Every sharp black coat and ghostly pale face makes his heart trip over itself, even if it invariably turns out to be someone dressed as Dracula or a character from The Matrix.
There’s a crisp breeze in the air as Hob walks towards campus, but the cold isn’t biting. Flame-colored leaves dance down the sidewalks and catch in his hair. He wishes he could take his time and appreciate the beginnings of the day’s festivities, but coffee calls to him.
Just around the corner from the cafe, Hob does take a moment to greet a small black cat creeping beneath a hedge in front of a stately row of townhouses. He thinks it must belong to one of the homeowners, as its coat is awfully sleek.
“Hello there, little one,” he says, crouching low and holding out his hand. “You’re always dressed for Halloween, aren’t you? But y’know, I never believed all that about black cats being bad omens.”
The cat stares at him with wide, acid-green eyes for a few seconds, then darts towards the townhouses, quick and silent as a shadow.
Hob careens into the lecture hall seven minutes after nine, maple-flavored latte in one hand and the candy-filled pumpkin in the other, slightly out of breath from jogging across campus with his heavy bag slung over his shoulder.
“My sincerest apologies, everyone,” Hob says over the quiet pre-class chatter. He’s not the only one behind schedule this morning, it seems; several students appear to have only just found their seats and are still pulling out notebooks and tablets. Someone must have been here early, though, because the chalkboard down at the front of the hall frames an elaborate sketch of Frankenstein’s monster. “You all wouldn’t believe the line at Helios this morning. But, I come bearing gifts.”
Every single pair of eyes snaps to attention as Hob sets the pumpkin down in the middle of the front row. There are one or two gasps of delight.
“One piece each—that’s got to last the whole day,” Hob says. “Come on, then.”
There’s a tremendous amount of scraping and thumping as backpacks and desks are pushed aside in the enthusiastic rush towards the candy. While the vultures descend, Hob pulls out his books, his laptop, and its charger—which, to Hob’s dismay, isn’t quite long enough to reach the nearest outlet from the lectern.
He’d say that he hates these ancient university buildings, but it would be rather hypocritical of him.
“We love you, Professor Gadling,” says Oliver (tall, bespectacled, and wearing skeleton pajamas) through a mouthful of milk chocolate as he shuffles back up to his seat, prompting a chorus of grateful exclamations and a few pledges of undying loyalty.
Hob chuckles. “You can express your gratitude by turning in your papers on time next class.” He waits for the last few students to settle back in their seats before speaking again. “Now, then, I figured we’d get into the Halloween spirit, pun intended,”—a smattering of groans—“and continue our discussion of the English Renaissance with Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, which you all should have finished reading last week….”
Two-thirds of the way through his Faust lecture, Hob’s laptop dies. He considers improvising the rest of it—he’s certainly capable—but a glance around the lecture hall reveals that a good portion of his audience is either fidgeting or gazing longingly at the cloudless day outside, so he makes them all promise not to drink too much at the dormitory parties he’s sure are happening later and kicks them out.
By eleven, Hob is stationed in his closet-sized office, killing time until his laptop wakes up again by purging unnecessary papers from his desk and overflowing shelves. Most of Hob’s hoarding tendencies died off in the nineteenth century, but he has a weakness for papers that might possibly come in handy at some point. He discards receipts, interdepartmental memos with information that should have been emailed, and a rainbow of sticky notes with cryptic reminders that he doesn’t remember writing.
He keeps one: a blue note with a diagram on it that vaguely resembles a sideways sandwich with tentacles, a token from an unexpected visit from his friend a few weeks ago, during which—at Hob’s insistence—Dream had attempted to explain what, exactly, the Dreaming is. Hob’s still not quite sure he gets it.
“Knock knock,” someone says. Hob pockets the note and looks up at the open door of his office. It’s Milo, a classics professor with whom Hob had a very brief fling last year, after they’d bonded over a shared disinterest in academic drama. Their hands are shoved in the pockets of their corduroy trousers and they’re rocking back and forth on their heels.
“Hey!” Hob greets them with a smile. “It’s been a while. How are you?”
“You know, same as ever,” they reply, returning his smile as they tuck a strand of ginger hair behind their ear. “I was wondering if you were planning to go to the faculty party tonight?”
Hob shakes his head. “I’ve got my own to attend—the New Inn is world-famous for its Halloween bash! Well, neighborhood-famous anyway.” Milo laughs obligingly. “You’re welcome to come join us. We’re doing seasonally appropriate cocktails and the place will be decked out. It’s a great time, I promise.”
“Oh, I believe you. Would I have to wear a costume?”
“Costumes are encouraged, but not mandatory.”
“Noted,” they say with a nod, already retreating out into the hall again. “Maybe I’ll, uh, see you there, then?”
“Definitely.”
Hob gazes at the empty doorway of his office for a minute after they leave. It would be so easy; he likes Milo a lot, and he knows Milo likes him rather more than a lot, but despite their history, Hob isn’t sure he can in good conscience enter into any romantic entanglements while he’s so decidedly fixated on someone else.
Even if the “someone else” is not a human and, more to the point, not interested.
Hob sighs, brushing the last of the random scraps off his desk and into the waste paper basket, and does his best to put the matter out of his mind. He has a lot of quizzes to grade before he can worry about Halloween parties and anthropomorphic personifications—thank Heaven he doesn’t have any more classes to teach today.
Around lunchtime, Katie, who’s office is next to Hob’s, pokes her head in to wish him a happy Halloween and ask if she can borrow his stapler, prompting a lengthy hunt for staples to put in it.
Soon after, Oliver the skeleton and his friend Radhiya drop by. Radhiya is dressed as a rather magnificent witch, complete with a tall pointed hat and flowing midnight blue robes. Supposedly they are here to discuss Oliver’s essay, but that devolves rather quickly until Hob is merely spectating a lively debate over tea and candy.
“All I’m saying is,” Oliver says, gesturing with the wrapper of his second chocolate bar, “if I were Faust, and I knew I was going to Hell, I’d have made much better use of my demonic powers. I mean, what does he accomplish, really? Giving some blokes antlers and taking the Pope down a peg? He’s supposed to be a scholar, for fuck’s sake! Surely he could’ve come up with—”
“But that’s the whole point!” Radhiya interjects. “There isn’t anything worth spending forever in Hell. It wouldn’t be a good story if at the end he was, like, ‘that was chill, fair’s fair, I’m ready for damnation now.’ There wouldn’t be any moral to it.”
“Morals are dumb. Faust should have asked Mephistophilis for eternal life, so he’d never have to go to Hell,” Oliver declares with conviction. Hob smirks privately into his tea. “And then he should have asked for a dragon, cause it’d be cool.”
Radhiya pops a peanut butter cup into her mouth and rolls her eyes. “That’s like asking a djinn for more than three wishes, it doesn’t work like that.” Her dark eyebrows shoot up as she looks past Hob, towards the window behind him. “Woah, that raven is huge!”
The students both jump from their seats. Hob spins in his chair just in time to see the corner of a black wing disappear from view. Strange; they don’t get birds larger than a pigeon around campus very often. He waits a moment longer before turning around again, but the raven doesn’t return.
“I think we startled it,” Radhiya continues, remorseful. “It looked like one of the ones from the Tower of London. And it was staring right at us!”
“Probably a demon,” Oliver quips, sprawling back in his chair. “It heard us talking about souls. What would you sell your soul for, professor?”
Hob’s mind conjures a face of chiseled marble and piercing, silver-blue eyes.
“I think I’d settle for not having to grade all these papers,” he replies, tapping the stack on his desk with a knuckle. “Speaking of which, don’t you two have afternoon classes?”
Once Hob’s office hours have concluded for the day, he packs up his things, grabs the empty pumpkin, and heads towards the New Inn and home. On the way, he ducks into a shop to buy instant coffee.
Things are really starting to pick up now; he passes two ghosts, a devil, and a zombie on the sidewalk. A family wrestles fake cobwebs into a tree outside their home. As he turns down his street, he’s almost bowled over by a pair of teenagers dressed as mimes who are already completely sloshed, despite it being barely three in the afternoon.
When he arrives at the pub, it’s completely dark, which is odd. It won’t be open for another hour or so, but Tabby and Peter should be there, prepping for the party.
The front door is slightly ajar. His mind on the string of burglaries in the suburbs of London he’d heard about on the news the other day, Hob slips inside and sets his stuff down in case he has to fight.
“Hello? Anybody in?” He calls into the darkness.
Silence.
Well, near silence; whoever was behind the bar last didn’t turn the sink off all the way, and the tap is dripping steadily. Irritation blots out caution as Hob crosses the room and weaves around the bar, muttering about water bills. He secures the handle and the dripping stops, but as he does so, he becomes aware of another sound.
There’s something in the kitchen. He can hear its heavy, rasping breaths.
Hob picks up an ice scoop from the bar and moves slowly toward the door to the kitchen. It’s pitch black in there, with the blinds of the only window in the room drawn. The light switch is just a few steps from the threshold; he enters, trying not to think about how the breathing is definitely getting louder as he reaches for it.
Something bumps his shoulder and Hob yelps, lurching forward and flipping the light on in the process, then whirling on the spot, ice scoop held aloft, to find himself face-to-face with a monstrous, furry snout—
The werewolf laughs with a familiar lilt.
Hob lowers his makeshift weapon with an exaggerated sigh. “Not funny, Tabby! Jesus, I thought you were somebody breaking in!”
The werewolf—otherwise known as Tabby, one of his bartenders—yanks off her mask with a final snort of laughter, revealing her usual immaculate makeup and pin-straight black hair. “What the fuck were you gonna do with that?” She asks incredulously, pointing at Hob’s ice scoop.
He shrugs. It’s better than a teacup, but Tabby doesn’t need to know about that.
“And it was funny, actually,” says Peter as he comes out from behind the door, grinning like a shark. He has his phone out; he taps it, and the sound of breathing cuts off.
“Et tu, Peter? I’m too old for this kind of treatment.”
Tabby tosses the werewolf mask up on a shelf and starts turning on the rest of the lights. Hob notes that they have been busy, beyond scheming—the kitchen island is filled with freshly-iced shortbread biscuits shaped like severed limbs.
“That’s ridiculous. Peter’s the old one.” Tabby says, ignoring Peter’s offended sputter. She eyes Hob speculatively. “What are you anyway, thirty-five? Thirty-six?”
“Close enough,” Hob says on his way back out of the kitchen.
(In fact, he has no idea how old he’d been when he stopped aging. He doesn’t even know when his birthday is. He generally picks a day in early April; he’s been assured many times since the popularization of astrology that he seems like an Aries, for whatever that’s worth.)
“You’re both fired, by the way,” he calls back over his shoulder, because he knows they won’t believe him.
“He's the hairy handed gent who ran amok in Kent
Lately he's been overheard in Mayfair
You better stay away from him, he'll rip your lungs out Jim
Huh, I'd like to meet his tailor
Ah-hoo, werewolves of London, Ah-hoo
Ah-hoo, werewolves of London, Ah-hoo..."
By sunset, the New Inn’s party is in full swing, with people packed into the pub and spilling out onto the patio and sidewalk. Hob may not be an expert in much, but he does absolutely know how to throw a good party. There’s a huge spread of haunted hors d'oeuvres laid out across several tables. Fairy lights and ghosts (handmade, with the help of the internet) are suspended from the ceiling. Hob’s Halloween playlist is piping through the pub’s speakers.
The crowd is an eclectic mix of their regulars, friends and family of employees, and Hob’s students who’ve snuck in despite his halfhearted efforts to keep his teaching and pub-owning lives separate. Hob himself is in the middle of the throng, regaling a small group of people (a fairy, a pirate, a priest, and a zombie version of David Bowie) with a bit of local history.
“There used to be hardly anything to do in this particular end of London, you know,” he says, waving his novelty cauldron-shaped cup in an all-encompassing motion. “Really, all anybody did was work and hang about in taverns until they crashed, then they’d wake up and do it all over again.”
“You make it sound like it was the bloody Dark Ages,” says the young woman dressed as a fairy. Hob’s seen her around; he can’t recall her name, but he remembers that she likes mulled wine.
“Just a little bit after, actually.” There’s laughter, for the wrong reasons. “Anyway, when the White Horse closed in eighty-nine, my father was devastated—he’d been a regular for as long as anyone could remember.”
“Didn’t you say he’d met his best friend there?” The pirate—who is also Tabby’s wife, Amanda—asks.
That’s right, Hob had said that, hadn’t he.
“He did indeed,” Hob confirms. “He was so attached to the place that he dropped his promising tech career entirely to buy land here and open up the New Inn. Didn’t know a thing about running an inn, but he figured it out eventually. And now, here we all are, thirty-odd years later.” And out of debt at long last, as of 2019, he omits. Hob never wants to see the inside of a bank again.
“I heard the White Horse was haunted as fuck,” says zombified David Bowie.
“I heard that the Devil used to go there for a pint every century,” the priest chimes in. Hob bites back a startled laugh. The priest cocks his head to the side, considering, then continues: “now that I think about it, that was probably teetotaler propaganda.”
“And on that note,” Hob announces, raising his cauldron, “I’m gonna go get a refill.”
He weaves his way towards the bar, where Peter is serving drinks. Broad-shouldered and well over six feet tall, he makes for a rather horrifying clown, but none of the partygoers seem to be deterred by his appearance. Hob flags him down with some effort.
“Could I trouble you for another…” Hob squints into his cauldron. “I’m not sure what you gave me, actually, but it was amazing. It tasted a bit like apple pie?”
Peter smiles brightly, his red-and-white face paint stretching. The effect is disturbing. “Just thought it up an hour ago. I think I’m going to call it a Cold Corpse Cider.”
Once he has his drink, Hob moves to the side of the bar, where he can observe for a while without being in the way. He breathes in the smell of fall spices and people, listens to the laughter and unintelligible overlapping hum of conversation.
This is how Hob feels the most alive: surrounded by people having a good time. Immortality has made him excessively aware of the ends of things—the ends of eras, places, ideas, individual lives. But in this moment, all their energy compounds and creates something that feels almost as permanent as he is. No matter where he is in time, a full tavern is the opposite of death.
Caught up in his musings, Hob doesn’t notice Milo sidle up until they speak to him directly.
“You weren’t kidding. This is quite the party.”
Hob turns to him and grins. “Yeah, it’s a good turnout this year.” He takes in Milo’s costume, a white chiton and a cloak held in place by a broach. There’s a crown of laurel leaves on his head; the green is striking against the red of his hair. “I’m glad you made it. Nice costume!”
They rearrange the folds of their garments self-consciously. “Thanks—I’ve explained ancient Greek fashion to enough of my students by now, I should be a master of wearing it. But alas, it’s too chilly for sandals.” They give Hob an obvious once-over. “And you look spectacular, of course.”
Hob glances down at himself reflexively. He’s wearing one of the few complete eighteenth century ensembles he’s managed to keep in wearable condition all these years; it consists of breeches in sage velvet, a matching frock coat with elaborate gold embroidery, and a pale gold silk waistcoat. There’s a large bloodstain on the breast of the coat.
He’s been telling people that he’s the ghost of someone who lost a duel in 1768—which is completely true, minus the bit about being a ghost.
“I always thought a high collar suited me,” Hob says, pretending to adjust his.
Milo half-laughs, ducking their head. “Um,” they begin, then pause bite their lip, clearly wrestling with something. “Could we talk somewhere quieter, for a minute?”
“Sure.”
Hob leads Milo around the outskirts of the crowd and down the hall towards the back door, walking until they’re just past the kitchens. It’s not quite what Hob would call “quiet,” but there’s a lot less activity.
“Look. I know this is a bit weird because we’ve, uh, hooked up before, but I suppose it’s not a secret that I really like you. I guess I—well, I was just wondering if maybe you might want to go out again? Sometime?”
Hob exhales slowly.
Even though he’d known it was coming, it still feels a little like a punch to the gut to be presented with a potential reprieve from the hopeless pining he’s been subjecting himself to since Dream reappeared in his life, and be patently unable to let it go.
Maybe one day. Maybe once he’s no longer riding the high of learning his friend’s identity after over six centuries and the increasing frequency of their meetings, from once a century to every few weeks. It’s just that, as Hob’s learned lately, it’s very difficult to be followed through the aisles of a Tesco by one of the most beautiful and powerful entities in the universe (who seems to have dropped in just to watch you do completely normal things with thinly-veiled fascination) and not fall in love with them.
Maybe it’ll pass. Maybe...
Hob pulls himself back into the moment. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I can.”
“Okay,” they breathe. “That’s okay. I understand.”
Their disappointment is obvious, and Hob feels terrible. He’s not used to turning down people he wants to remain friends with. “It’s not—” Hob stops himself from saying “it’s not you, it’s me,” even though the sentiment is applicable. Unfortunate, how these theoretically useful phrases lose their meaning over time. “It’s complicated.”
Nice work, Hob. So much more helpful and sympathetic.
Thankfully, Milo’s willing to take pity on him. Their expression softens. “Do you want to talk about it?”
If Hob’s honest, he kind of does want to talk about it. But even if it weren’t impossible for practical reasons, where the hell would he start? With being in love with someone he rarely sees, and only for one invariably bizarre conversation at a time? With description-defying Dream himself? Better yet, with the fact that Hob’s older than the fucking Sistine Chapel?
He shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he repeats.
Milo’s lips quirk into a small, sad smile. “It’s really okay. I’ll be around, if you—uh, need anything.”
Once Milo has vanished into the bowels of the party, Hob leans back until he hits the wall behind him and rests his eyes, just for a second.
“Everything okay, boss?” It’s Tabby, who’s just come out of the kitchen with two gigantic plates of tiny sandwiches. Her brow is furrowed in worry.
Hob nods once and puts a smile back on his face. “All good,” he assures her, hoping to trick himself into believing it. Tabby certainly doesn’t. “Here, let me help you with that,” he says, taking one of the plates of sandwiches.
Hob laboriously ascends the stairs to his flat at midnight, pursued by the muted sounds of the party below. He’d offered to stick around until closing time to help with cleanup, but Tabby had told him rather indelicately that he looked exhausted and should go to bed.
He sheds his costume carefully, then heads straight for a much needed shower. The hot water seeps into his muscles, melting away the tension in his back and shoulders. That’s something that’ll never get old; Hob remembers when the closest thing to a shower available to him was upending a bucket of water over his head. Not the same at all.
After several minutes, Hob emerges from the bathroom in a small cloud of steam with a towel wrapped around his hips. Before he can do anything else, a passing glance down the hall yields a sight that makes his blood run cold.
A vaguely person-shaped shadow stands in his living room, right in front of the window, backlit by the indirect glow from the street lights and the full moon beyond. It’s not completely dark inside, but the shadow is black velvet, absorbing everything, utterly featureless but for two bright pinpricks shining out from where the shadow’s face should be. Like the eyes of a spider in the beam of a torch.
Hob can’t seem to breathe. His pulse beats erratically in his ears. Unlike when his employees had decided to have some fun with him earlier, he now finds himself frozen uselessly in place, hypnotized, mostly naked and lacking any random bar utensils to defend himself with.
“I swear to God, if that’s you two again, you’re really fired,” Hob says unsteadily. “It’s one thing for you to pull pranks down in the pub, but this is my...home…” he runs out of steam as he remembers that neither Tabby nor Peter have his spare key anymore; he redid the locks last month.
Speaking aloud seems to have broken the spell over him, though. Without breaking eye contact with the shadow, Hob steels himself and flicks the living room light on.
There’s nothing there.
Hob holds his towel securely in place as he strides over to the window, even though he knows what he’ll see. There’s nothing around that could have cast a shadow like that. Nothing in his flat, nothing outside. He exhales shakily.
Maybe it was a trick of the light. Maybe he’s still a little buzzed; he’d had a fair few of Peter’s Cold Corpse Ciders. Maybe he’s hallucinating.
It’s been a long day.
He makes his way distractedly through the remainder of his evening routine. He brushes his teeth, pulls on nightclothes, and checks to make sure his laptop is plugged in. With a yawn and one final wary glance into his living room, he slouches into his bedroom and collapses on the unmade bed. He’s awake for just long enough to set his alarm again—seven-thirty, as usual—before he falls into a deep, dreamless sleep.
"He stared at me and I felt a change
Time meant nothing, never would again
Let's do the Time Warp again
Let's do the Time Warp again
It's just a jump to the left...
...And then a step to the right!"
Quack! Quack! Quack!
Hob wakes and hits the snooze button on his phone. Then he pulls his laptop over to turn off—wait, hadn’t he left his laptop on charging on his table last night?
He stares groggily at the screen as Rocky Horror fades into the Suspiria soundtrack. The battery is low, of course. It’s strange, he really thought he’d plugged it in. Last time he checked, laptops didn’t sprout legs in the night and crawl into their owners’ beds…
His gaze catches on the little date displayed at the top left corner of the laptop’s screen.
It’s the thirty-first of October.