Chapter Text
Hob walked into his class into the middle of a series of giggles.
He stopped, instantly, his hackles raised, and narrowed his eyes, looking across the room. He took his time walking to the lectern, putting his things down, and double-checking to make sure that he wasn't late. He wasn't, was even five minutes early, but the entire class was already there.
Hob got his laptop set up, the presentation up, and turned to face his class, his eyebrows raised. "All right, what gives. What is.. going on?"
Another spatter of giggles but this time there was more than one set of eyes glancing behind him. Hob turned to look around and froze, swallowing hard.
Dream's usual look was far from what he would consider academic in any capacity, but he also tended to look like he lived, breathed, and ate all things goth. And he loved that about his husband, but now, it was weaponized. Dream was wearing perfectly tailored black slacks (and his usual doc martens), with a button-up black shirt that had the top two buttons undone, and his sleeves rolled up, exposing his forearms. It was... it was devastating and nothing was worse, of course, than the casual smirk that Dream was wearing while looking at him. He was fucked. Utterly and completely fucked.
"Professor," Dream said, inclining his head. "Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to attend this particular lecture."
Oh fuck him, he was going to die. He looked at the calendar on his watch and bit down a groan as he realized precisely why Dream was here. "You know, you could have warned me that it was today."
Dream raised both of his eyebrows. "Now where would the fun in that be, my love?"
There was another titter across the entire classroom and Hob looked at them, pointing at them as he watched Dream smirk out of the corner of his eye. "All of you behave, or else." This time outright laughter and he sighed and pushed his hand through his hair, taking off his jacket and hanging it over the lectern. If they were going to play this game, then both of them were going to play it.
"So, this is on me," Hob started, rolling up his sleeves, very proud of the fact that he could feel Dream staring as he did so. "But I forgot that we have a guest lecturer today. Now, we only have a guest lecturer, because I lost a bet-"
There was a loud laugh from his students and Hob shook his head, laughing. "Fuck we're going to get nothing done today," he muttered. "Anyways, Morpheus, here, is only here because I lost a bet about how long my average Shakespeare rant is." Louder laughter this time. "Turns out, I underestimated my average by quite a bit."
Dream smirked and raised his eyebrows, crossing one leg over another as he leaned against the far wall. "Which is why, of course, I suggested that I attend to give the bard his... proper due."
Hob took a deep, pointed breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm not going to survive this class," he said, mostly to himself, but also to the amusement of everyone else in the room. "Now, if you all behave, and I do mean behave, Morpheus here is going to read you several of his favorite speeches, as well as some of his sonnets." Hob smiled and glanced over at Dream.
"Now, you might not realize this, but this is a special treat, because while Morpheus is an artist - he is a master orator. So I suggest, those of you in theatre, take note. You'll never see anything quite like it," he finished and gave Dream a sappy grin. He took a deep breath. "Now, I'm going to have to be the one to survive my husband spouting bad love poetry at me over the course of the next hour-"
Dream pushed himself off the wall. "When in the chronicle of wasted time-"
"No!" Hob protested with a laugh, even as Dream's voice swelled in the room. "That wasn't an invitation!"
"I see descriptions of the fairest wights, and beauty making beautiful old rhyme..." Dream stepped closer and stroked a finger down Hob's cheek, smiling at him. "In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights-" he paused, pointedly and watched his husband flush. "Then, in blazon of sweat beauty's best, of hand, of foot, of lip-" Another pause, and Dream was aware of just how rapt their audience and his husband was. "-of eye, of brow, I see their antique pen would have express'd Even such a beauty as you master now."
Hob knew he was blushing, he knew it, and damn the man, but Dream throwing this at him to start, it wasn't fair, how was he supposed to... He bit down a growl as Dream, of course, didn't stop, the bastard.
"So all their praises are but prophecies of this our time, all you prefiguring;" Dream glanced to the class, pointedly. "And, for they look'd but with divining eyes, they had not skill enough your worth to sing." He turned back to Hob and watched his eyes darken and smiled. "For we, which now behold these present days, had eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise..."
Hob swallowed as Dream's eyes dropped to his lips and he swayed a step closer before he cleared his throat and stepped away, looking at his class. "Right, I uh." He cleared his throat. He took a deep breath and pointed a finger at a smirking Dream. "Menance," he growled.
"So professor, you like Shakespeare, but only when your husband purrs it at you?" Cynthia called to him, laughing. "I see how it is."
"Listen," Hob said, shaking his head. "Some of his plays were trash, and Marlowe was a better playwright and I will defend that to my deathbed, whenever that will and should be." He pointed his fingers at them. "However!" He paused and looked back at Dream, smiling fondly. "On rare occasions, he did know his way around a sonnet, and when you have someone who reads them like that..."
Hob gestured helplessly to Dream. "What am I supposed to do, huh?" He shook himself and took a deep breath. "Anyone want to attempt to tell me which sonnet that was if you weren't busy being mesmerized?" He waited a few seconds, but beyond a few murmurs, there were no answers, so he turned to Dream and smiled. "Love?"
"Sonnet 106," Dream answered, smiling faintly.
"So it is," Hob said with a nod. "Now, if Morpheus will let me get into the lecture a bit..." he waited pointedly and turned his attention back to class. "Okay, so let's talk about societal repercussions of a boom in the arts like was happening with Shakespeare and his contemporaries. What sort of impacts is it going to-"
"Sonnet 138," Dream challenged.
Hob paused and sighed. He'd been so close. So close to getting started, and now his students were laughing again. He held up a hand to all of them. "I'll make you all a deal." He could see that they were listening. "I'll email you the presentation tonight, all of you review it, and take the time to properly review it, and I will tell you that you have a pop quiz on Wednesday rather than springing it on you randomly. Deal?"
There was a pregnant pause before Cynthia spoke up again. "In return, do we get to watch the two of you... have... a sonnet-off? Or what would you call it?"
"Something like that," Hob agreed, his eyes locked on Dream. "What do you think?" By the cheer that went up and the rapid snapping of laptop lids being shut, he knew he had them. Crossing his arms over his chest, well aware that Dream’s eyes had dropped down to stare, Hob mimicked Dream’s leaning pose and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before pushing himself upright.
Hob smiled and shifted, before meeting Dream's eyes readily. "When my love swears that he is made of truth, I do believe him, though I know he lies." There was a look there, something flickering in Dream's eyes. "That he might think me some untutor'd youth, unlearned in the world's false subtleties." He grinned, smirking at Dream as he watched some of that confidence flicker as he took a step forward.
If they were playing the game of their romance out through sonnets then he would be happy to oblige, because this was a game that he could win, even if he had to be doing it with the bards. "Thus, vainly thinking that he thinks me young-" he caught the smirk on Dream's face and scowled. "Although he knows my days are past the best..." he shrugged. "Simply I credit his false speaking tongue: On both sides thus is simple truth supress'd." He stepped forward and reached out to touch Dream's cheek, his face softening as he did.
"But wherefore says he not he is unjust? And wherefore say not that I am old? O, love's best habit is in seeming trust, and age in love loves not to have years told-" Hob grinned and watched Dream soften for him, because if anything, years had done nothing but bring them closer together and prevent any sort of clock over their heads, something they desperately needed. "Therefore I lie with him and he with me, and in our faults by lies we flatter'd be."
Hob leaned in close enough for Dream to kiss, watched his lips part, and then smirked, his eyes lighting up. "Sonnet 116," he challenged, pulling back before Dream could swoop in to kiss him. He grinned and danced a few steps back, waiting for Dream with his arms crossed over his chest.
"Oi, I know that one!"
Hob laughed and looked at his class. "Everyone knows that one. However, I want you to hear Morpheus recite it, because..." he shivered a little and watched Dream's eyes shine brighter. "Because you'll never hear it said the same way again, and you need to appreciate it."
"Not as much as you're going to appreciate it though, huh professor?"
Hob's eyes cut to his class and narrowed. "I will move that pop quiz up to tomorrow."
Cynthia pouted. "Can we at least say nice job with the re-gendering of it?"
Hob threw her a wink and turned to wait out what he knew was about to be a devastating delivery of what was his (not that he would ever admit this, to anyone, ever), one of his favorites.
"Very well, Sonnet 116," Dream said, raising his voice as he met Hob's eyes and watched them soften. "Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments." He stepped closer and reached out to tuck some of Hob's hair behind his ear, watching his eyes dilate. "Love is not love, which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove."
Hob felt his heart trip over in his chest and he stared at Dream, their eyes locked together, the rest of the classroom falling away as Dream purred the words that he had known for centuries now.
"O no," he breathed, unable to keep from smiling the faintest amount. "He is an ever-fixed mark, that looks on tempests and is never shaken." Dream knew that Hob had caught his mild alteration by the quick exhale of breath and smiled at him before continuing. "He is the star to every wandering bark, whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken."
Hob was going to melt into a goddamn puddle, and he was pretty sure his students were going to melt with him. He'd known precisely how devastating this particular sonnet would be, but fuck if he was going to lose their game this early. He'd asked for this.
"Love's not Time's fool, though rose lips and cheeks..." Dream stroked a finger down Hob's cheek, just to watch that blush darken. "Within his bending sickle's compass come; love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom." And wasn't that the truth of what they were, Endless and Immortal, somehow finding each other in a world such as this?
"If this be error and upon me proved," Dream let some of his power creep into his words, echoing around the room, watching Hob shiver in front of him, and the promise in each word ring loud and clear to his husband, his heart. "I never writ, nor no man ever loved."
"Fuck," Hob breathed, even as the class broke into laughter, releasing some of the tension in the room. He laughed and shook his head and gave them a rueful grin, gesturing to his husband. "But you get it, right?" There were louder cheers and he grinned at Dream and the slight pink on his cheeks now. "All right, love, which one am I doing?"
Dream hummed, considering. "Sonnet 130."
Hob narrowed his eyes. "Stop making me do all the re-gendering!" He snickered and shook his head. "Apparently someone needs some compliments after that last sonnet," he teased.
"Professor, I just want you to know, this is the weirdest and simultaneously hottest flirting I've ever seen in my life."
Hob laughed, turning to look at a few of his students. "Listen, you find what works for you as a couple and you lean into it. The Bard might be who we're using today, but I could challenge this one to a poem off and he'd still absolutely wipe the floor with me. Even when I know his weaknesses." He shrugged. "Besides, you're getting a free class out of it, so are you really complaining?" When silence greeted him, he nodded and smirked. "That's what I thought."
Hob took a deep breath and took a second to walk through the sonnet in his head before he nodded. "All right, let's see if I can do the gender alterations on the fly." He cleared his throat and stepped around Dream to stand on the other side of the class, smiling widely at him.
"My husband's eyes are nothing like the sun." They were stars, galaxies, and the endless comforting night sky. "Coral is far more red than his lips red," he winked at Dream. "If snow be white, why then his chest is dun, if hairs be wires, black wires grow on his head." Hob stepped closer, pausing, and reached out to run his fingers through Dream's hair, twirling some of it around a finger.
"But no such roses see I in his cheeks, and in some perfumes there is more delight than in the breath that from my husband reeks." Hob leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to Dream's cheek, nuzzling in against his skin, just to feel him shiver under the quiet praise.
Dream watched, swallowing hard as Hob continued to breathe the words of the sonnet to him, soft and gentle praise. Every word felt, was true as Hob spoke them.
"I love to hear him speak, yet will I know, that music hath a far more pleasing sound." Hob held up his finger to indicate a pause and looked at his audience. "Bullshit lies in this particular sonnet, but nonetheless a nice sentiment, even if it doesn't apply here."
Dream could have laughed, but instead, he only smiled and shivered under another press of Hob's fingertips against him, keeping him steady and there at the moment.
Hob winked at his class before continuing. "I grant I never saw a god go, my husband, when he walks, treads on the ground, and yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare as any he belied with false compare." He met Dream's eyes and leaned in again, kissing just to the right of his lips, before pulling himself back. "Sonnet 104, dove."
"Hey Professor," Cynthia interrupted. "You didn't change that description much at all, did you? The, the physical stuff?"
Hob chuckled and looked at her. "You're correct, I didn't. Convenient that Shakespeare fell in love with a snow white of sorts." He shot a glance at Dream and raised a pointed eyebrow at him, grinning when Dream narrowed his eyes back at him. Oh yes, he would go there, because he had his suspicions and had for years precisely who Sonnet 130 was written about and it was not some mysterious lady love that the Bard had had.
"Are you comparing me to snow white?" Dream asked, narrowing his eyes.
Hob laughed and raised his eyebrows. "You've definitely got the skin as white as snow down, love, whether you like it or not. Now come on, Sonnet 104, time for some compliments in return, I think."
Dream snorted and shook his head. He tapped his fingers on the edge of the desk and let himself drift further away, several centuries back before he turned to face Hob Gadling once again.
"To me, fair friend, you can never be old." Dream made sure the words landed with the weight that he meant them, saying friend with the same reverence that he had since the day he'd been able to say it to Hob at last. "For as you were, when first your eye I ey'd, such seems your beauty still." There was a faint snort and Dream fought down a smile. A touch of irony in this particular sonnet, but it still fit them.
"Three winters cold, have from the forests shook three summers' pride," Dream continued, smiling, reaching down to touch the ring that he wore in the Waking world. Three years they had been married, now. "Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd. In process of the seasons have I seen, three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd." Three years, three turns of the seasons, three years of figuring out and understanding how to be friends, how to be more, and now, after all things, how to be husbands.
Dream stepped in and pressed their foreheads together, smiling at Hob, at the way his breath caught, and at the way his eyes were shimmering with tears. "Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. Ah! Yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand, steal from his figure and no pace perceiv'd, so your sweet hue, which methinks doth stand-" He stepped back to survey Hob properly, the forearms exposed by his shirt, the jeans that he found so comfortable, the strong shoulders, thighs, and neck that he wished to leave far more marks on. All his.
"Hath motion and mine eye may be deciev'd, for fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred." A shiver up Hob's spine had him smiling. "Ere you were born, was beauty's summer dead." He pressed a soft kiss to Hob's cheek to mirror the one he had been given before and stepped back, raising his eyebrow at Hob, smiling when he wiped a single tear away.
"Yeah, I'll always be a little weak for that one," Hob said, laughing a little. He looked to his class and raised his left hand. "We've been married for three years, so that hits a little harder than you'd think." A series of cheers and wolf-whistles from his students had him grinning and he took a deep breath, meeting Dream's eyes again. "All right, which one are you giving me?"
Dream hummed in consideration. "Sonnet 29?"
Hob laughed. "You know I'm going to make you do 24 if I'm doing 29, right?" When Dream lit up, clearly pleased at the prospect, he nodded. He looked to the class and explained. "Twenty-four is the one from an artist's perspective, so it's one of Morpheus' favorites."
"You say that as though 29 is not one of yours," Dream challenged.
Hob gave a rueful grin. He wasn't going to say as much in front of his class, but Dream was right. Now to give it a delivery worth writing home about. "Okay, let's see if I can do it justice."
Hob took several strides away from Dream across the room and spun on his heel, taking a deep breath to summon every emotion that he'd felt just before their 1689 meeting, focusing on it, letting it fill him before he took a step forward and let the words pour out of him.
"When, in disgrace, with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state," Hob flung his arm out, the righteous anger at what he had done to himself. "And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries," Another step forward. "And look upon myself, and curse my fate, wishing me like to one more rich in hope," he scoffed and gestured to himself, spinning away to take a few steps before back to Dream, pointing to him with another sweep of his arm.
"Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd, desiring this man's art and that man's scope!" Hob's chest heaved and he felt the weight of Dream's eyes on him, the tension in the room rising. "With what I most enjoy contented least, yet in those thoughts myself almost despising." He ripped a hand across his shirt, as though to tear the emotions out of him and deposit them on the ground beside him, still breathing hard.
"Haply, I think on thee," he breathed, his voice soft, lifting his eyes to Dream again. "And then my state, like to the lark at break of day arising, from sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate," Hob made his way closer to Dream, a planet orbiting a sun, brighter than any other in the sky.
"For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings that then I scorn to change my state with kings," he finished, staring up at Dream, his King, his husband, his everything. Hob laughed into the kiss that he was yanked into and wrapped his arms around Dream's shoulders, hugging him tight and leaning into the kiss before they finally parted, holding onto Dream tightly. He blinked and became aware of his class cheering for him and laughed, his head falling back, especially when he saw more than a dozen phones pointed his way.
"Damn," Cynthia whistled. "Not sure where that came from, Professor, but that was awesome."
Hob pushed his fingers through his hair and stepped back, grinning at the class. He checked the clock and nodded. "All right, one more, and then we'll let you out with about twenty minutes to spare and I expect you to use that extra time reviewing the presentation I didn't give today!" There was a series of laughs but willing enough nods and he turned to face Dream, leaning against the lectern.
"Sonnet 24 to finish us off, dove," Hob said, grinning at him, especially when Dream shifted and took a few steps toward him.
Dream nodded and took a moment, studying Hob Gadling and the picture that he made. He was aware of several of the phones pointed in his direction and the daydreams in the classroom were loud - but if he focused on his husband, there would be no need to pay attention to them.
"Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd they beauty's form in table of my heart," he pressed a hand to his chest and watched Hob soften, his brown eyes always so warm and welcoming. "My body is the frame wherein 'tis held, and perspective it is the painter's art." Hob Gadling was art. Some miracle conglomeration of hope, determination, and stubbornness, all of that somehow mixed together in a way that was endlessly fascinating and endlessly loving by turn.
"For through the painter you must see his skill, to find where your true image pictured lies," Dream paused and looked to Hob and the understanding of precisely where that was for them resonated loudly, in that hanging moment. "Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still, that hath his windows glazed with thine eyes." He reached out and touched the corner of Hob's eyes, the warmth there enough to suffuse his heart, to have him lifted and brought higher than he had thought possible.
Hob swallowed down the emotion threatening to choke him as Dream carefully spoke to him in a sonnet that encompassed everything they had learned to build together in both the Dreaming where he was Consort and in the Waking, as husbands. He swayed closer, drawn in by the magnetism of Dream's voice, hypnotizing him as it always did.
"Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done: Mine eyes have drawn thy shape," Dream traced his fingers along the line of Hob's jaw and down his shoulder and arm. "And thine for me are windows to my breast, where-through the sun delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee." Hob should always be in the sunshine, caught in a constant beam of light that shined from the very depths of his soul.
Hob grinned, watching Dream get lost in the sonnet itself before their eyes met once again.
"Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art, they draw but what they see," Dream reached out and pressed his fingertips to Hob's heart, finishing off with ringing finality. "Know not the heart."
"C'mere," Hob ordered, tangling his fingers into Dream's shirt to pull him in for another kiss, laughing against his lips as he made sure Dream knew just how much Dream did know his heart, even if others did not and never would. He didn't need them, not when he had Dream standing by his side. He broke the kiss and pressed their foreheads together, smiling.
Hob reached out and poked Dream in the side. "You completely ruined my lesson plan."
"Well," Dream said. "Your students suggested I prompt a Shakespeare rant from you, and, sensing you might be prepared for such a ploy-"
Hob cursed, because he definitely had been. He'd even practiced the five-minute rant he'd managed to whittle it down to.
"-I suggested this instead," Dream finished, pleased.
Hob turned to look at the class, and at the phones he could see out. He pointed a finger at them. "Tell me nothing," he ordered, especially when they started laughing. "I don't want to know a damn thing about any, any memes, any hashtags-"
"Our portmanteau is Dreamling," Dream stated. "As Morpheus is the God of Dreams."
Hob clenched his eyes shut for a brief moment and then looked to the ceiling as some of the students started to laugh harder. "Or portmanteaus, which I've now learned against my will," he said, weakly. "Now get the hell out of here and be ready for that quiz on Wednesday!"
When the stampede of students had finally left them alone in the classroom, Hob turned to Dream and narrowed his eyes. “Conspiring against me, are you?”
Dream nodded. “Apparently we are, Relationship Goals, as some have stated.”
Hob stared at his beautifully ridiculous, stubborn, lovingly perfect husband. He took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Also,” Dream added, stepping in closer, removing Hob Gadling’s hand from his face, cupping his chin to tilt his face up. “Your classes have finished twenty minutes early… and your office hours don’t start for another hour.”
Hob shuddered. “Dream…”
“Shall I recite Sonnet 116 against your skin?” Dream teased. “Perhaps as I strip you?”
Hob groaned. “Oh fuck you,” he whined, even as Dream teased him with a scrape of teeth along his jaw. “That’s cheating.”
“Hmm,” Dream agreed. “Do you feel as though you’ve lost?”
Sighing loudly, too loud for it to be real, Hob tipped his face down and pulled Dream into a kiss, one that went on for several long minutes, slow, hot, and deep, until they both had to break apart, panting softly.
“With you, my Dream?” Hob whispered. “Never.”