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A good grade in boyfriend is both something that is normal to want and possible to achieve.
Or at least that's what Dream thought.
To say that all of Dream's relationships had ended on something a little bit less than catastrophe is an understatement. This new thing with Hob is something too good to be true, something too important to ruin, that’s why he is making an effort to be a good boyfriend.
The problem is, he doesn’t know what makes someone a good boyfriend. He used to know how to be a good husband, a good father; but that was decades ago, people change, humans change, customs change and the requirements to be a good boyfriend must have changed too.
He guesses that there are things that are still the same, for example: making your partner laugh or smile is something a good boyfriend does, right? He is fairly sure that making them sad or angry is a bad thing, those things are still the same but now comes the difficult part: how do people nowadays keep their partners happy?
If Dream wants to keep this new thing with Hob, he needs to learn how to be a good boyfriend. He may have the knowledge of all the unconscious minds, but he still needs assistance, someone he can trust that has lived in this century.
And that’s how Matthew started what he likes to call “Boyfriend 101”.
—
Lesson 1: Give them a compliment.
Matthew said that he must compliment Hob whenever he could. It could be simple things, like noticing something new of his appearance (because apparently, all of Matthew’s girlfriends got mad if he didn’t notice when they got a haircut or used a new outfit), or praise him every time he did something nice or remarkable.
With this in mind, he walks into the New Inn. Hob is already there, reading The Sorrows Of Young Werther.
As Dream gets closer he notices a problem: There’s nothing new on Hob’s appearance. He has his normal jacket, an old bottom up and slacks, even his shoes look very used. Well, Matthew said even the simple things work.
He sits in front of Hob, who immediately puts his book down and smiles at him. “Hello, Love.” he says.
“Hello, Hob Gadling,” Dream greets back in his typical manner. “You have… hair.” He adds and Hob starts laughing.
“Yes, yes I do, so do you Dream, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“I’ve… noticed.” He nods and Hob laughs even harder. Well, it’s not what he was expecting but at least Hob seems happy?
“What brought that up?”
“Nothing.” Dream responds probably too quickly. “Just, you have hair. Nice hair. I like it.”
“Well, thank you, love. You have nice hair too that I like very much.” Hob smiles at him and, yes, he wanted to see him smile but this is not working, he is returning his compliments, that’s giving Hob boyfriend points, not him.
Matthew also said that he must praise Hob when he did something remarkable. “You are reading.”
“Oh! yes, this old thing! It's been a while since the last time I've read it. I wanted to do it again.”
Dream nodded. “That is extraordinary. To read an old text and not allow it to be forgotten. Good job.” Nailed it.
Hob seemed sheepish, rubbing his ear. Dream has noticed he does that often.
“Well, I mean, it is a classic text that’s studied in school, I doubt that it will be forgotten anytime soon.”
“It is still remarkable.” He insists.
“It truly isn’t, but alright.” He chuckles. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Nothing.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Alright,” he sighs, “just remember you can talk to me about anything, okay?”
Dream nodded but mentally reprimanded himself, worrying Hob will not give him a good grade in Boyfriend.
—
Lesson 2: Physical touch.
According to Matthew, people like to cuddle with their lovers. This must be easy, he had cuddled with Hob on the sofa while watching movies. Matthew had also mentioned that casual touches were encouraged too.
So, the next time they walked across the park, Dream intertwined his fingers with Hob’s, a thing that granted him a big smile and a small kiss on the cheek. He takes this as an incentive to keep touching his lover, their hands joined as much as he could, but a problem appeared when they arrived at Hob’s apartment and he sat down on the sofa to grade his students’ papers.
“Sorry, love, but I need both hands to do this.” Hob tells him. “You can turn on the telly or something, this shouldn’t take long.”
Dream nods and turns on the television, he doesn’t really pay much attention to it and keeps looking at Hob, who is frowning at whatever he is reading on his laptop.
That is not good, a frown is not something a happy lover shows in their face, Dream needs to fix it now.
He can’t hold Hob’s hand nor cuddle with him, but physical touch is something that makes his lover happy so, in lack of better ideas, Dream raises his arm and puts his hand on Hob’s upper arm, awkwardly.
Hob turns his head to him. “Yes, love?”
That is not what Dream expected, his intention wasn’t to catch his lover’s attention, it was just to show encouragement.
“Nothing.” Dream answers but doesn't move his hand. It is an awkward position, but he is proud enough to admit it was probably a bad idea.
“Then why are you touching my arm?”
“I just wanted to touch you.”
Hob frowned, confused, and Dream’s brow twitched, he is not doing a good job at boyfriend.
“... Alright. If you want to continue doing that, can you at least move your hand to my shoulder? It will be more comfortable.”
In lack of a better answer, Dream just moves his hand to his lover’s shoulder. Too deep now to back down on his physical touch mission.
Hob offers a small smile with a new confused look and turns his attention back to his laptop.
They did cuddle afterwards, but Dream doesn’t think that he can take boyfriend points for that. He surely is failing in boyfriend class like Hob’s students are failing with their essays.
—
Lesson 3: Make a nice gesture.
“I used to love it when my girlfriends cooked for me. It’s always nice when you arrive home to a home-cooked meal.” Matthew declared, reminiscing on his old days as a human, perhaps Dream could ask Hob to give the raven some food.
But back to the matter at hand, Dream has never cooked anything in his life, but the notions seem easy enough for him to follow. He has seen Hob cook before, how difficult can it be?
He tries to do an easy recipe that Matthew suggested: fettuccine carbonara with garlic bread. Something simple that couldn’t be messed up. It also helped that Hob had all the ingredients in his house already, it was just a matter of entering the apartment an hour before his beloved for him to come home to a nice home-cooked meal. Easy.
Well… As it turns out, it wasn’t that easy.
Apparently, you need to take the pasta out of the water after a certain amount of time, otherwise you will get a mushy mess. He cut himself slicing the bacon (it didn’t truly hurt him, but the knife spent too much time between his fingers to be comfortable in any way). Also, he had never used cooking oil before and didn’t know that bacon grease likes to leap everywhere, a thing that (he will never admit to anyone) frightened him a little. While he was busy fighting the bacon, he forgot the garlic bread, which ended completely burned.
When he tries to make the mixture of eggs, cream, and parmesan cheese, he ends up dressing the whole kitchen in almost-ready carbonara, because apparently, you aren’t supposed to whisk it that hard. In addition to that, he has never seasoned anything in his life, so he guessed the more the better… And added almost a quarter of a cup of salt, pepper and parsley, making the already mushy pasta acquire a curious texture.
The finished product is… disappointing, to say the least. Maybe he could create a new nightmare out of it.
Dream was already wondering if disappearing another 133 years would make him a bad boyfriend when Hob finally arrived.
“Dear lord, what is that smell?” He heard Hob say and Dream mentally cringed.
He was weighing the consequences of knocking Hob out with his sand when he appeared in the kitchen.
“Love? What are you doing here?”
Fuck it, he is the King of Dreams, an Endless, the Shaper of Forms and the Prince of Stories. He squares his shoulders, takes the plate of messed-up fettuccine carbonara and puts it on Hob’s hands. “For you.”
His lover looks down to the bowl on his hands in utter confusion and then looks around the clutter of the kitchen to finally land his brown eyes on Dream.
“You made this?”
“Yes.”
“Oh love, you shouldn’t have. Thank you.” He smiles and looks down the plate again, he doesn’t really look grateful at all.
“Will you try it?”
“... Sure.”
Hob grabs a fork and, after looking at Dream with an expression that the Dreamlord didn’t know how to read, he tries a little bit.
He chews once.
Twice.
And before Dream can react, Hob runs across the kitchen to spit in the sink and drinks what could be a small lake straight out of the faucet.
“God above, what did you put in it? The entire bottle of pepper?”
Dream frowns and, without saying a word, grabs his sand to disappear into the Dreaming.
Later that night, Matthew informs him that yes, he will get a bad grade at boyfriend but not because of his awful cooking: because he left without saying goodbye.
—
Lesson 4: Go out on a nice date.
Two days after the disastrous dinner attempt, Dream invites Hob to a date at Fiddler’s Green.
Well, it wasn’t exactly an invitation , more like Dream just dragged Hob there as soon as he fell asleep.
Matthew said that he needed to apologize, and the best way to do it was to take Hob to a nice place and have a cute, small date together. A picnic on Fiddler’s Green seemed perfect for the purpose, the only problem was that Dream was so nervous and embarrassed to face Hob again that it was raining cats and dogs in the dreaming. Literally.
Cats and dogs of all races, shapes and colors were falling from the sky, all of them landing softly and proceeding to run across the dreaming once they touched the ground.
“Is this normal here?” Hob asks, standing under a tree big enough to shield them from the animals falling from the sky.
“... No.”
He finishes the dream before Hob could ask anything else. Animals continued raining on the Dreaming for the rest of the night.
—
Lesson 5: Support your partner on their job
Weeks ago, Hob had told Dream about a winter party that the university where he worked was hosting. He heard his lover complain about it being a black tie event, the horrors of renting a tux and how everyone kept pestering him about who would be his plus one.
That’s when Hob asked Dream if he would accompany him to the event. At the time, Dream had declined the offer, because nothing sounded more dreadful than going to a human party that Hob described as an ‘utterly boring gathering of old fucks’.
Of course, Matthew was livid when Dream told him that. “When your partner tells you to go to a boring event with them, you go! That’s not up to discussion!”
Dream truly doesn’t want to go, but he is already failing on being a good boyfriend and if he wants to keep Hob by his side, then going to a boring formal event it is.
He arrives at the party and quickly changes his clothes to something similar to what the other male attendants are wearing. If it’s a little more elegant than the rest, it’s only because he is a king, he is above everyone else. It has nothing to do with him wanting to impress Hob. Nope. Not at all.
He finds his lover soon enough, he is talking with two men and a woman, his coworkers. He can see them talking and laughing, and one of them places his hand on Hob’s shoulder and Dream frowns. How dares he touch his lover?
Moving quicker than humanly possible he arrives next to Hob, making everyone jump in surprise.
“Jesus Christ! Where did you come from?” the woman asked.
Dream, of course, ignores her. "Hello, Hob Gadling." He says and holds his lover's hand, pulling him to his side.
It takes Hob a moment to react. "Hi, love. Not that I'm not happy to see you, but what are you doing here? You said that you didn't want to come."
"Matthew said that it is customary to accompany your lover to work gatherings as moral support." Dream answered, mechanically. “I am here to support you. Morally.”
Everyone, including Hob, laughs but Dream frowns. He wasn’t trying to be funny.
“Well thank you, love, I feel very supported.” Hob teases while Dream’s brow twitches.
“So, is this your boyfriend, Robert?” One of the men asks.
“Yes! This is Morpheus, Morpheus, meet Agnes, William and Francis, my colleagues.”
“Morpheus,” repeats William, “that’s an unusual name.”
“It is not.” Dream answers, already annoyed.
“Did I hear wrong or did he call you Hob ?” Agnes interrupts.
“Oh, yes, it is a very old nickname.” Hob answers full of mirth.
“Oh, that’s cute! Can I call you that too?” She asks.
“No.” Dream answers before Hob can. All of the human friends he has made this century call him Robert, Hob is a precious name that is reserved for non-mortal beings.
“Can you excuse us for a second?” Hob offers a smile to his colleagues and practically drags Dream away from them. “Ok, what's going on with you?” he questions once they are out of earshot.
“What do you mean?”
“You said you were here to support me but you are just being rude.”
“I am supporting you, and I am not being rude.”
“You are being snappish and are clinging to my arm like you want to pull it out of my body.” Hob remarqued.“You’ve been acting weird lately, and I don’t mean just today, this has been going on since last week. What's going on, love?”
“Nothing has been going on.”
“Please Dream, let me help you.”
“I do not need help because nothing is going on. I will take my leave now, Hob Gadling.”
Hob didn’t even have time to react before Dream disappears.
—
Bonus lesson: Communication.
For the very first time, Dream is willing to admit that he is pouting. He has totally failed at being a good boyfriend. Matthew doesn’t even bother to ask about the party.
It’s been days since he visited Hob on the waking world. He can feel him somewhere in the dreaming now, but even with him so close within his reach, he refuses to see him; embarrassed about his previous demeanor.
He is sitting at the bottom of the stairs in his throne room, because it seemed like a good place to be: close to the ground where the bad boyfriends belong. He had requested to not be interrupted, but a flutter of wings got in the way of his sulking.
“I am not ready for another boyfriend class, Matthew.”
“Not even for a guest lecturer?” That isn’t the raven’s voice.
Dream looks up and there his boyfriend is: standing awkwardly with Matthew by his side.
“What are you doing here?” Hob is a dreamer, there is no way he could find his way there without help.
“I figured the two of you should talk, boss,” Matthew says before Hob can even open his mouth; “that’s why I brought him here.” He shuffles a little, rearranging his feathers. “I will go now.”
With that, Matthew flies out of the room, the door closes behind him. Dream doesn’t know if he should be annoyed at the raven or be grateful because he’d truly missed his boyfriend.
“So… Matthew told me about your little class.” Hob said and yes, Dream is annoyed now.
Hob walks closer and Dream stands up. “Whatever Matthew told you, do not take it seriously.”
He can end the dream now, convince Hob that whatever the raven told him was just a product of his imagination. He is embarrassed enough and his pride will not be hurt by a nosy bird who cannot keep his beak closed.
He puts his hand up, and before he could say anything, Hob takes his hand and kisses his knuckles, rendering him speechless.
“That’s what’s been troubling you the last few weeks then?” Hob asks, with his hand still close to his lips, he can feel the brush of his mouth on the back of his fingers.
Swallowing his pride, Dream nods once.
“Oh, love, what brought that up? Did I make you think you were doing a bad job?”
Gently, Hob guides them both to the stairs to sit one next to the other, their hands still interlaced.
“No, you did nothing wrong.” Dream responds, looking everywhere but at Hob. “I do not know how to make you happy, how to keep you by my side.” He finds out that now that he started talking, he can't stop. “In past relationships, I’ve failed to be a good partner. I want to be better to you, but my attempts have proven to be fruitless. It made me think that perhaps I might not be the right partner for you, so I apologize, Hob Gadling, for failing at the task of being your boyfriend.”
There, he said it. And now he will lose Hob forever.
Hob releases his hand and just before his heart could finally break, he pulls Dream in a hug.
“That’s the thing innit? You’ve been thinking about all this as a task, but in reality, relationships are not a task, love. You don’t need to pass a class for me to love you. If you wanted to know how to make me happy you could have just asked .”
He holds Dream closer and he can’t do anything but hide his face on his boyfriend’s neck.
“And if you had just asked,” Hob continues, “I would have told you that you are already doing a great job at making me happy by just being by my side.”
At that, Dream looks up. “It cannot be that simple.” He declares, because not a single one of his past relationships had been simple, being the lover of an Endless is never simple.
“Oh, except it is. We have known each other for more than 600 years, when have you found me to be anything but a simple man?” he smiles. “A simple fool who called Death stupid and now is calling his boyfriend stupid for believing I would ever stop loving you.”
“You dare call me stupid.” He says, with no real heat behind his words.
“See? A simple fool.”
Hob might have said that he doesn't need to pass a class to be a good boyfriend; but mentally, Dream graduates boyfriend school after kissing that stupid simple smile out of his stupid simple lips.
The end.