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Hob had – over the last months – gotten used to Dream occasionally staying overnight. He’d gotten used to Dream showing up unannounced, anywhere, anytime.
What Hob had not gotten used to was the attire Dream often chose to show up in.
Because Dream – Dream of the Endless, Lord Morpheus, King of Dreams, Ruler of Nightmares, Shaper of Form, Oneiros – his all-powerful, mythical, bloody boyfriend seemed to favour one particular piece of clothing.
A bathrobe.
A bloody bathrobe.
The first time Dream showed up in a bathrobe, Hob was surprised, but positively so. It had been one of the first times Dream had spent the night – or what passes as that for a being such as Dream, whose consciousness was always, somehow, in multiple places at once.
By the morning, he had manifested the silkiest black bathrobe Hob had ever seen. And damn, Dream somehow exuded an air of grace and authority in it that made Hob question his stance on the appropriateness of this particular garment in various social situations.
This stance was tested much sooner than Hob had expected, when a few weeks later, Dream showed up in his office, again wearing his bathrobe.
And nothing else.
“Fuck, Dream!” Hob scrambled to shut the door, thanking whatever deity was currently overseeing these things that nobody had walked past just then.
“You can’t just… show up at my office wearing— this !” Hob stammered, the colour of his face rapidly approaching cherry-red.
In his distress – and distraction – Hob wasn’t entirely sure, but he could’ve sworn hints of a mischievous smile were dancing around the corners of Dream’s mouth.
“My apologies,” Dream said and the blink of an eye later, he was fully clothed in the usual T-shirt, skinny jeans and peacoat.
“Better?”
“…better. ”
Damn social conventions.
The third time, Hob didn’t notice the bathrobe at first.
He’d seen the familiar shock of feathery black hair, half-hidden behind a big tree, and decided to say hello. He had not expected to see around fifteen cats perched around Dream, whose eyes were glinting like stars. Hob stopped a few meters away, something telling him that he shouldn’t interrupt, but after only a few moments Dream turned to face him, and the cats dispersed.
“Hello, Hob.”
“I didn’t know you were some kind of cat whisperer. Can you talk to them- I mean, do they understand you?”
“Perhaps.”
Mysterious bugger.
Only then did Hob notice the bathrobe.
“You know, you really shouldn’t just walk around in that. People are staring.”
In truth, they weren’t. Dream blended in surprisingly well with the local student population, looking like yet another sleep-deprived grad student who had just rolled out of bed after a late night, not bothering with proper clothes just to hand in an assignment.
Dream chuckled. “And what of it?”
Hob, frankly, didn’t have a good answer.
In the end he just walked home with a scantily clad Dream beside him.
The fourth time, Hob was out at a pub with his colleagues.
They were on their second round of pints when the door opened and there was a brief silence at the tables nearest the entrance, followed by hushed murmuring. Hob didn’t pay it any mind, after all it wasn’t uncommon for odd characters to make their way here.
That was until this particular character stopped right next to Hob, greeting him with a kiss on the forehead.
“Hello, Hob.”
This time people were staring and Hob could once again feel himself go red as a cherry.
“Dream…” he started, but he couldn’t exactly ask Dream to magic himself into proper clothes in front of his colleagues, so he settled on getting Dream a chair and a glass of wine. He would never live this down, but worst case scenario, he could always die early. Run away. Live in the Australian outback for a few decades.
The fifth time, Hob was home again.
Exams were coming up, so he’d arranged regular Zoom sessions for anyone who had questions or just wanted to chat. It was surprisingly popular, Hob usually had at least a handful of students on his calls.
In his own video, Hob could see Dream moving around the kitchen wearing his bathrobe. Had this been a regular lecture, Hob would’ve been up and shooing Dream away immediately. As it was, it was a Monday morning and he figured his students wouldn’t mind.
That was until the student who was talking stopped in the middle of the sentence.
“Rob…,” another student started, staring at their screen with wide eyes.
Hob noticed movement in his peripheral vision and turned around to see Dream, two mugs of coffee in his hands, bathrobe hanging open-
“Fuck, Dream!” Hob practically tackled Dream out of the frame and frantically muted himself.
“You just flashed my students!”
Dream had that mischievous glint in his eyes again.
“They don’t mind.”
“They don-“ Hob huffed. “Yeah, well I do!” He took a deep breath.
“No more bathrobes outside the house or when I’m on a call, okay?”
Dream nodded. “If you insist.”
When Hob went back to his students, they pretended none of this had never happened.
They all had quite enjoyable dreams that night.
Of course, Hob should’ve known that he would regret his bathrobe rule.
He was on a video call with a friend he hadn’t seen in years – one of the few he’d told his secret – when he found Dream spread out on the living room couch.
Wearing not the bathrobe, but… well, “wearing” might be too generous a term.
A large black sheet was artfully draped over his shoulder, covering his side and most of his crotch.
Most.
“Hob… Who is that?”
“It’s… err… I’ll call you back.” Hobs voice came out a tad too high and he barely waited for a response before hanging up.
After that incident, Hob revised his opinion on the bathrobe. Slightly. And while he may never get used to his lover’s clothing choices, really, he didn’t mind.
He loved it.
But Ssshhh .