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Dream always listened intently when Hob spoke about his workday. And he had mentioned, at least once, actually coming to Hob’s lectures to “experience his expertise in person.” Yet somehow, none of this had translated in Hob’s mind into the actual, heart attack-inducing experience of seeing Dream walk into his lecture hall.
He hadn’t really believed it would happen. Not for lack of trusting Dream’s word, but because his presence seemed so incongruous. This was Hob’s normal life. His normal human life of work and chores and errands and bureaucracy.
Dream, meanwhile, was from Hob’s other life, the one made of secret meetings in taverns with an ethereal stranger, the life that knew that magic, in some way, was real. That life seemed, in some ways, realer, for all that it was brief, hidden, threaded between lifetimes of normality. Being with Dream was to dip back into a deeper well of truth he usually had to lock away; his own truth, their truth.
That was not a life that was supposed to be striding down the stairs of his lecture hall and taking a seat in the front row.
“So, um…” Hob trailed to an uneven stop halfway through his description of the first printing press. Dream just smirked at him from where he’d sat down. He’d taken off his coat and everything, as if he really was settling in to listen to the lecture.
A few students’ heads swiveled in his direction, drawn by Dream’s not-so-subtle entrance and Hob’s uncharacteristic stumble. Dream’s gaze didn't leave Hob's.
“So.” Hob forced himself back into motion. “So, in 1482—”
It was only his years of experience that got Hob through that lecture without breaking, and even then, it was a close thing. Every second, he could feel Dream’s eyes on him. Saw more than one of the students looking at Dream, too. God, what was he doing here?
But Hob did manage it, and ignored the curious glances of the students as they filed out of class, leaving only Dream behind. Dream, who stalked over to him with a predatory little smile, stopping by the podium where Hob was shutting his laptop.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” Hob asked idly, trying to pretend Dream’s presence here, in this normal part of his life, wasn’t throwing him completely off balance.
“I merely wanted the see the professor at work,” Dream drawled.
Hob chuckled and leaned in quick to kiss him on the cheek. “Not much of a show, to be honest.”
Dream’s brow pinched as if he hadn’t quite gotten the reaction he expected. “Does it bother you for me to be here?”
“No, no, of course not.” Hob held Dream’s arms tight, made sure he was looking at him. “I always want to have you wherever I am.”
Dream’s expression eased, and he tilted his head, waiting for the other half of Hob’s explanation he knew was forthcoming.
“It’s just… a bit odd to have you in such a normal place,” Hob tried to explain. “This is like… my ordinary life. And you, you’re anything but ordinary. I got used to thinking of our meetings as… kind of separate from all this, I guess. Like, you know. A dream.”
Or perhaps it was Hob’s ordinary life that was the dream, for everything snapped back into multicolored focus whenever he saw Dream himself.
“I have not been around for much of this… normal life,” Dream conceded. “I do wish now that I could have seen more of it.”
“I know. It’s okay.” Hob rubbed up and down his arms. “Though not sure how interesting you’ll find it all, to be honest.”
“Everything about you is interesting to me,” Dream said. He seemed completely sincere about it, too.
“You’re sweet.” Hob caressed hi cheek. It was flattering—if occasionally unbelievable—to be interesting to The King of Dreams. Though Hob supposed Dream had had vanishingly little normality in his long life, to the point where what should have been mundane had become novel.
“I only hope I am not a disturbance,” Dream said. “You have always managed your life independently. I do not wish to derail it.”
Hob sighed. “My love, even if you were a disturbance, which you are not, I wouldn’t care? I love this job, don’t get me wrong, but you’re so much more important than that.”
Dream’s brow furrowed. “You have always held life most dear.”
“Well, life, sure, but life has infinite variations, doesn’t it? This version falls apart, I’ll make a new one. So long as you’re there.”
Dream still seemed confused, and Hob couldn’t have that. He couldn’t have Dream questioning his importance in Hob’s life.
“Look, you like pictures, right? I’ll draw it for you.”
Hob picked up a blue marker and drew a series of circles on the board, all in a line, touching end to end. “See those? That’s my life. Well, each of my lives, every time I have to start a new one. See how they’re all separate and only touch once one’s had to stop? Well.” He picked up another marker, this one black, and drew a line through the middle of the series, from one end to the other, bisecting each circle. “That’s you. Now do you get the difference?”
“I would have said that your ‘lives’ were more like concentric circles, compounding on each other, not in series,” Dream said, but it sounded weak, an automatic retort.
“The timeline accuracy doesn’t matter. This—” Hob touched the black line. “This matters.”
Dream studied the line. “That is a heavy meaning to draw from me,” he finally said.
Hob stepped back into his space, laid his hands lightly along his hips. “You’re the king of dreams, don’t people make meaning of you all the time?”
“Through me,” Dream said. “But you. See it— in me.”
How could I not? Hob thought. When you’re… it. You’re so much of it. “That’s what it’s like when you love someone.”
“Love,” repeated Dream, with the same awe he seemed to feel every time Hob said it.
“So yeah,” Hob said, “you can join my normal human life if you want to. Only don’t complain to me when it can’t compare to the crazy spectacles of your dreams.”
“You could not be uninteresting to me,” repeated Dream.
Hob leaned in to kiss his cheek again. “Sweet thing,” he said, and felt Dream’s tiny smile against his lips.
Dream clutched onto his hand as Hob packed up the rest of his things, and Hob let him, even though it made the process twice as long. “So did the lecture compel you, then?”
“I know these historical facts, but I enjoy your retelling of them,” Dream said. “However, the students seemed distracted.”
“Ha! That’s your fault, love.” He started leading Dream towards the door. “You created a spectacle. They’ll be mad curious now.”
“I was attempting to be unobtrusive,” Dream said with a frown.
"Oh, unobtrusive, is it? That's what that devious little look meant, hm?"
"...To draw your attention," Dream conceded. "Not the students'. I was affecting an appearance of average humanity.”
Hob snorted. “My love, I don’t think you could be convincingly human if you committed the rest of your eternal existence to the study of it.”
He led Dream out into the hall, and closed and locked the lecture hall door behind them. Dream’s nose scrunched adorably. “Oh? What am I doing wrong, then?”
“For one, you’re too pretty.” Hob tugged him close and kissed the tip of Dream’s nose. “Pretty like a fairy tale creature that’s meant to lure you into the woods. Don’t you dare change it, by the way!” he added, and Dream smirked.
“Is that all?”
“Nope. The other thing is, it is impossible to look at you…” he stepped in close to hold Dream by his hips— “and forget that you are a king.”
Dream raised an eyebrow. “You seem to forget frequently.”
“Willfully ignoring is not the same as forgetting,” Hob told him, grinning. “Besides, I’m not one of your subjects. It’s my job to ignore it and get you to let your hair down.” He scrubbed a hand through Dream’s already-messy hair, which Dream made no move to stop. “But I picked out the regality on you all the way back when we first met, it’s all in your jaw, and the tilt of your brow, and your spine—” he touched each spot as he spoke— “and especially in those eyes. Humans might play at being kings, but you are a king. Divine right and all. You’re a king from another world, a story, or—” he smiled— “a dream.”
“You have made a proper study of me.” They were standing very close now, hovering in the doorway to the lecture hall.
“Only for seven hundred years,” Hob told him. “Still think there’s lots to learn in Dream Interpreting, though.”
Dream touched his face to Hob’s cheek, leaning in close. “Interpret, then.”
Hob turned and kissed him, hands falling to Dream’s hips as Dream’s fingers curled in the lapels of his jacket. And for a long moment, he forgot they were meant to be going home, as the wet heat of Dream’s mouth kept him firmly in place.
“Um. Professor Gadling?” squeaked a nervous voice from beside them, and they broke apart, still holding onto each other.
One of Hob’s younger students was standing there, blushing furiously, binder held tight to their chest as if it could somehow block the embarrassment of witnessing their professor snogging on campus.
Hob could just see Dream smirking out of the corner of his eye, and poked him in the side. “Yes, Lily?”
“Um.” The student’s blush only deepened. “Do. Are you still supposed to have office hours after class?”
Fuck.
Hob looked at Dream. The bastard looked triumphant now. He sighed and turned back to his student. “No, I don’t think so. But email me and I’ll find time for you, okay?”
“Thanks,” they whispered, and practically fled, scurrying back down the hall.
Hob turned to glare at Dream. “Now look what you’ve done.”
“Me?” said Dream, duly offended. “Govern your own behavior, Professor. I am an unobtrusive bystander. I am not even here.”
“Oh, unobtrusive my arse, you—”
But Dream was gone, only a swirl of sand and a tiny smirk left in his wake.
“Bastard,” Hob swore to the empty hallway. Then went to go find him, inevitably, at home.