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Hob awoke with a start, gasping for air and feeling a dull pain in his knuckles. He had punched the headboard of his bed again, dreaming it was the lid to a coffin. He pushed his back up against it, taking a deep breath through his nose and out of his mouth.
There’s no water in my lungs, no reason to panic. Even if there was water, panicking wouldn’t help.
He scratched at his stubble, yawning as the adrenaline left his system. Hob took another breath and swung his legs over the edge of the bed and slid his feet into his slippers. Stumbling to the kitchen, he filled the kettle with water and set it on the stove. It was the weekend, he didn’t have to get up particularly early but his body managed to subvert his wishes of sleeping in anyhow.
Waiting for the water to boil he filled a glass with a pitcher from the ice box---refrigerator, whatever. Drinking it down, he closed his eyes and savoured the cool liquid rushing down his throat. What a novelty it was, having ice cold water whenever he wanted. Or near scalding hot water for the nights he came back from work and showered right before bed. Kneading the tension out of his neck and shoulders where the muscles had been wound tight, hunching over papers in the pub or craning towards the monitors at his desk. Cleanliness used to be a luxury, now it was a requirement if you wanted to be a respectable member of society. Hob huffed through his nose, tutting to himself quietly. The kettle began to whistle.
He sat at the table with his cup of tea and toast with fig jam and cream cheese. Munching quietly, he scrolled through his Twitter feed. Politicians being idiotic, madmen selling alligators as pets across the pond, a new show being criticised for being ‘unrealistically diverse’, another show being criticised for buggering up the religious and mythological themes. Everyone’s dirty laundry was being aired for all to see, no one could hide anymore. It was a double edged sword, as it were. Good for keeping people accountable but giving no room for redemption. Hob sighed, better stop scrolling. Makes no sense to ruin my morning over fleeting cock-ups.
Hob slipped on a white tee shirt and pulled his well worn, brown leather jacket over his shoulders. He’d pop down to Sainsbury's to get his shopping done for the week, drop off rent, then head to the pub to grade mid-term papers. Planning anything past lunch always made him anxious, things hardly ever go to plan. It reminded him of something he read a long time ago. ‘Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can.’ Couldn’t remember who said that. Certainly not old Shaxberd, the bastard.
A half hour later and Hob was pushing a trolley down the aisles of Sainsbury’s, picking up yoghurt, bananas, and other relatively healthy things. He long since learned that just because you can’t die doesn’t mean cavities and weight gain are pleasant conditions.
“Rob?” a woman’s voice called from behind him. He turned to look at the woman and recognised her to be someone he went out on a few dates with a year or so ago.
“Oh! Hello, Lisa? Was it?”
“Laura.” She smiled, rolling her eyes. Shit. He winced.
“It’s alright, what are you up to nowadays?”
“Er, teaching history at the university currently. How about yourself?” Hob found himself uncomfortably warm under the collar, he hadn’t been expecting to run into anyone let alone a woman he’d awkwardly rejected after she leaned in to kiss him on his doorstep.
“Same old, my girls are starting year six now. Growing like weeds, they are.” Laura smiled fondly, her eyes floating past Hob.
“I’m happy for you all, I miss those---” He cut himself off with a shake of his head and a lump in his throat. Laura looked at him with pity, she reached a hand out and squeezed his arm.
“I get it, Rob. I do.” Even though there’s no way she possibly could. He offered a thin lipped smile.
“I’ve, uh, got to get going… Sorry.”
“Rob? I know it’s none of my business but… You’ve got the rest of your life ahead of you. They’d want you to be happy. Be loved.” Her green eyes shone with care, they reminded him of Eleanor’s. He flexed his jaw, fighting between the urge to be defensive or downright pathetic.
“Thank you, Laura.” He sighed, untensing his shoulders. “Best get going now…” He murmured partly to her, partly to himself as he pushed his trolley away.
Hob replayed the interaction in his head on the ride home. Somehow, four hundred years was still too soon to talk about his losses with someone who couldn’t understand. The last time he felt like he was understood was when he’d told his stranger. The man---being? Had looked at him with those soulful eyes that seemed to glitter with otherworldly beauty. In the shadows they were a pinprick of light as bright as the sun in place of where the pupil would be, in the candle light they were a brilliant shade of frost blue. He had looked upon him with knowing sorrow, his grief hung thick in the air like fog along the docks. His stranger always had that grief, ancient, unending. He’d wished he could reach out like Laura had, squeeze his thin forearm to say ‘you’re not alone. I’m here with you’. But the stranger had rejected that, he remembered with a twist in his gut. It dawned on him, as he parked in his garage, today was THE day he was supposed to meet his stranger.
“Fuck me.” He sighed, rubbing his eyes. He got stood up in 1989, perhaps their little ‘arrangement’ had ended there.
That, and the inn had been sold and was to be demolished to make way for bloody townhouses. He’d started going to The New Inn down the street to grade papers and, embarrassingly, wait. It wasn’t like he didn’t have things going on in his life, he had his job, he had friends, coworkers, students. Even dates, though he’d go on one date every year and they all ended approximately the same. A failed kiss, either on his part or theirs, and it’d be enough to put him off dating for another year. Would he still go?
“Why not?” He opened the car door and got out, slamming it shut with a little more force than necessary.
He popped the check through the slot in his landlord’s door and rounded about towards his flat. Why did it trouble him so much that he’d been rejected, stood up? It’s not like he hasn’t been before in his many, many years of existence. Though it’s not every day you’re rejected by a supernatural entity. It wasn’t as if he’d said anything particularly radical either, just the mere suggestion that he might be lonely! He WAS lonely, goddammit. Then he had to go and follow him out into the rain and make a big scene like some crestfallen lover. It was like a scene out of the bleeding Notebook. Not that he’d ever seen the film.
Hob found himself gathering up his things to go to the pub anyhow. He crammed his satchel full of papers, grabbed his scoring guide and pencil case alongside the textbook and shoved it in a bookbag---knapsack--backpack, whatever. Doesn’t matter. He marched down to the pub but paused before opening the door. Oh, come off it. Take a breath, you can’t control what happens. Why bother worrying? Just get some work done and you’ll feel better. He inhaled deeply and exhaled through his mouth with a sigh before opening the door and walking inside.
Sun shone through the glass panes as he worked on grading an assignment. Red pen for spelling and grammatical errors, purple for suggestions, green for conclusionary statement. The kids were doing well overall, there were some that misunderstood the goal of the paper and fewer still that totally blew it off. Only two students failed on all counts.
Something in the air shifted suddenly, there was a person standing in front of him. Hob slowly lifted his head up, not daring to dream--- but it was. It was his stranger. He couldn’t suppress the smile that crept over his face, his stranger stood awkwardly above him. Looking down with practised impartialness, but his eyes betrayed him. There was tension, an unspoken fondness and maybe, just maybe, hope.
“You’re late.” Hob grinned, suppressing his giddiness. His stranger’s eyebrows raised and the corners of his lips formed a smirk, most surprisingly, he huffed a small chuckle.
“ It seems I owe you an apology. I’ve always heard it’s impolite to keep one’s friends waiting. ” He had emphasised the word friend, which shocked Hob to no end. His stranger just smiled knowingly and pulled out the chair across from him, sliding into it languidly like a cat. The casualness of it struck Hob as amusing and he let out another chuckle.
“ I did not mean to keep you waiting. I was… otherwise indisposed. ” His friend said carefully. Clearly in effort to keep any details hidden.
“Right, well, you’re here now. S’all that matters.” He tried to keep his voice cheery, inviting, the last thing he wanted to do was scare his friend away after he just got him back.
“ Hob Gadling, you have not changed. ” He smiled. Small, rose bud lips turned up with mirth and perhaps relief.