Chapter Text
Hob Gadling, the man who decided death was not for him, who has lived as many lives as he could get his hands on, who dines with a gothic immortal entity once a century – is feeling rather ordinary. Even privy to the secrets he is, he has never felt more insignificant, or fleeting, than the instance his friendship was rejected by the stranger who once again sought him out.
He’s been rejected before, plenty, and deserved it too (though that instance with her majesty really was a misunderstanding, honest). But this time he was sure he was right. And worse, he hoped he was.
And now, he is watching his mysterious Not-Friend disappear into the rainy night, and his hope is wilting, and he has never felt plainer.
And so, he lets it happen. Lets the days, weeks, months slip by, and tries not to think of starlit eyes, or lips that form a permanent moue of distaste, as if tasting his plainness and finding it wanting.
And if he fails, and that look of disappointment spurs him into cleaner living, and cleaner industry, then so what? It’s not like the stranger is around to know about it, judging and sneering, maddeningly cool.
If, over the years, that judgement steers his actions, then Hob doesn’t acknowledge it to himself. He tends his business, spreads his wealth to those who need it, farms himself a more reputable name, and pointedly does not let it knock him when their agreed date in 1989 comes and goes again without a sign of cosmic eyes and pale, spider-like hands.
And, of course, he does not buy, and invest in, and secure a replacement pub for their meeting place, just in case, and does not drink in it several nights a month, hoping, and waiting.
And so, when the shadow falls over the table in front of him, his stomach does not, of course, swoop with relief, and his face does not ache from smiling so wide.
He was right, a century and more ago. His stranger has changed. He’s smiling now before Hob, and he reaches, in his careful manner, and actually takes a sip from the glass before him.
“Never seen you do that before,” Hob comments. He learns from experience, but slowly.
“Drink?” Asks the stranger, his friend, and his compass. “No, I suppose I haven’t.”
“You don’t need it?”
“It’s not how I sustain myself, no.”
“Well, beer isn’t how I sustain myself, either, but it’s something else to do.”
Considering that, the stranger narrows his eyes, then nods and takes another sip. Hob looks him over, taking in the deep shadows under his eyes and cheek bones, the hollowness to him. Usually there’s a magpie-gleam to his hair, shifting green, purple, blue in the light like auroras against the ink of his wild hair. Now it’s duller, even the constellations in his irises dimmed.
“Where were you?” Hob asks, soft as if he were coaxing a stray from behind a bin.
“I was… captured,” the stranger says, with a faint sigh. “My tools were taken from me, and scattered. I was left powerless, locked in the dark for…” he licks a little foam from his lower lip. “Well, a long time.”
There is so much more Hob wants to know, but the stranger is never usually so forthcoming, and so he decides not to push his luck with a traumatic game of twenty questions. Instead, he settles on just a couple more.
“And now, you’re..?”
“I am well, Hob Gadling. Glad to see a friendly face.”
That answers one of them. Hob smiles wide immediately. “Did you miss me?”
Even in the sonorous, ambient tones, his friend sounds dry. “Terribly.”
“Enough to tell me your name?” Hob cheeks, and for the second time in as many minutes, he’s graced with a warm smile.
“You may call me Dream.”
Hob digests this, and decides to take it for the generosity it is. “That makes sense.”
“Does it?”
“It does,” Hob flashes another grin, “I’ve always thought you’re what dreams are made of.”
He thinks, after six hundred years of ankle flashing, he’s entitled to a bit of a flirt. Bonus points if the stranger – Dream, Dream – is scandalised. He’s so beautiful, ethereal and statuesque, it’s only fair that Hob gets to rattle him a bit.
The words actually have the delightful effect of making Dream’s lips part on a surprised smile, one of his dark brows cocking.
“Hob Gadling…”
“I think six centuries is enough familiarity to earn you first name privileges, don’t you? Now that you’ve finally told me yours, that is.”
“You have gotten braver.”
“No, you’ve just gotten more mellow. I’m not so afraid you’ll bolt, now.” He takes another long draw on his own pint, flicking his hair back, noticing the way Dream’s eyes track the movement.
“I did miss you, Hob Gadling,” he says then, and it’s Hob’s turn to balk. “I thought of you often, during my confinement. Of your smile, and your lust for life.” Holding Hob’s gaze, he sips his, too. The way his deep, quiet voice wraps around the word lust triggers something in Hob that has him flushing down his neck.
Hob wants to say more, but it’s the middle of the afternoon in his local, and he really, really needs to take Dream somewhere else.
“You’ll have to tell me what else you thought of,” he smirks, “somewhere we won’t be overheard.”
“Where might that be?” Dream asks, expression gone cat-like, entirely self-satisfied. For a moment, he looks more like what Hob thinks he is, ageless and cunning and coy.
“My place? After we’ve finished our- shit-” Hob sloshes a bit of his drink onto the glass surface of his kitchen table as he lands in the chair there with a slight thud, eyes darting to reorient himself. “Bloody hell.”
“Not quite,” Dream says, setting his glass down with a satisfying clunk, his face the picture of demure smugness. “Now, what were you saying?”