Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"I just don't get it," Hob says, for the fifth or sixth or possibly twentieth time that night, glancing over the rim of his cup at Will, who's sitting on the other side of the room, cuddling with his soulmate in an armchair that's really too small for the both of them. "Why everyone's so hung up on soulmates."

It's all anyone's been able to talk about tonight- and sure, that's fair, it is Will and Ann's engagement party, but Hob has overheard the phrases 'oh you're so lucky you found each other so young' and 'why did you wait this long?' far too many times for one night. Will and Ann met as toddlers; they've never had another option and Hob cannot fathom why everyone seems to think that's a good thing.

Case in point, even his little group of Unmatched friends react to his statement with varying degrees of exasperation.

Hob is just sober enough to be aware he should probably shut up, and drunk enough that he keeps talking anyway. "I mean, I've seen 'soulmates'," he says. "My parents were soulmates, both my siblings met theirs, half of my friends are paired off by now. It's not like I don't know how soulmates work. Soulmates are..." he takes a moment, gathers his thoughts, and even though he's not entirely sure what he's about to say, the moment the word leaves his mouth he knows it's exactly right, "Stupid."

His friends laugh uncomfortably. "You're an idiot," Andrew says, not unkindly.

But Hob's on a roll now, an argument that's been simmering in his chest for years spilling out of him, the exhilaration of speaking making the words come easily. "You literally don't have to stay with your soulmate. No one has to! Everyone just goes along with it because everybody else does. But not me. I've made up my mind," he says, setting his cup down and straightening his shoulders. He's been bullshitting a bit but he means this, knows down to his bones that this is something worth staking his life on. "I'm going to meet someone perfect who isn't my soulmate, and I'll marry them instead."

He feels like he should do something solemn to mark this occasion. Stand up on a table, maybe.

Instead, most of his friends laugh at him again. "Hobs, that's the literal definition of your soulmate. Someone who's perfect for you," Gwen points out. The laughter is teasing, and Gwen's tone is more reassuring than anything else, but still, Hob finds himself frustrated.

"But there's so much more out there. So many people to fall in love with," he insists. "Shouldn't I know who's perfect for me better than anyone?"

And his friends tease him for somehow being sappily romantic in his opposition to sappy romance, and he laughs along with them and points out that his perfect person will be more understanding than them, for sure. And he's genuinely a bit hurt, but Gwen bumps his shoulder apologetically and he thinks that destiny has nothing on these friends he's made on purpose, who know him well enough for these unspoken gestures. And there's movement in the corner of his eye.

Hob looks up.

The most gorgeous man alive is standing in front of him. He's tall- probably taller than Hob, even- pale and willowy, with a mess of soft-looking black hair. His eyes are a deep blue Hob didn't think existed in real life until this moment. He looks like the slightly magical prince in a fairy tale got loose in the real world and decided to become a goth. He's perfect.

"Did I hear you say," the man asks, his voice soft and deep all at once, resonant in a way that Hob's never heard before, "you have no intention of meeting your soulmate?"

Not if he's you, Hob thinks, I take it all back if he's you.

Despite what many of his friends will argue, he is capable of not voicing every thought that comes into his head, if only under extreme circumstances, so he offers the stranger his best grin and says, "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

"You'll need to tell me how that works out, then," the man replies.

"Don't encourage him!" Andrew calls from the other side of their little cluster.

The man- flinches, just a little. Hob probably wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't been staring at him, but Hob's universe just gained a new center, so he is and he does.

"Hey," he says, catching the man's eyes, "Don't mind him, he's just boring. You really want to know how it goes, finding someone who isn't my soulmate?"

"I do," the man says, seriously, like he genuinely thinks Hob's quest is worth his full attention. It leaves Hob feeling warm, almost giddy.

"Perfect," Hob says, and then, because he's never known when to quit, "Let me give you my number, so I can update you?"

The man nods, a teasing little smirk appearing on his face, as though he and Hob already know each other perfectly, and this is a shared, ancient joke between the two of them. His fingers brush Hob's as he passes over his phone.

Nothing happens. There's no spark, no splash of color on Hob's skin marking where this stranger's fingers first dragged over his.

They are, definitively, not soulmates.

And Hob knows for certain that he's right.

Chapter Text

Hob isn’t exactly expecting to run into his not-soulmate again. The man doesn’t text him after Will’s engagement party, not even to provide his name, and after a week of valiantly staring at his phone and willing it to buzz Hob is forced to admit that maybe he hadn’t been serious.

It stings. For once it would have been nice to have someone realize he means it when he says that soulmates are bullshit.

But he’s too busy to dwell on it, much. He has sets to build and an anxiety-inducing new job to get used to and about seventeen different hobbies he’s accidentally abandoning.

He’s at a party with some of Will’s Strange Art Friends, digging through the top shelf of Will’s absurdly tall cabinets, when a deep, familiar voice asks, “What are you doing?”

“Banditry,” Hob says cheerfully, once he’s finished not concussing himself on the cabinet door in shock. “Will promised me he’d bought some of ‘those gross licorice things only I like’ but he was really unclear about where they are.” The cabinet he’d been rummaging in is clearly not the place, being full of expired soda and electrical tape, so Hob closes the door and leans over to the next one. “Did you come in here for snacks, too?” he asks, when there’s no response from behind him.

“No,” his not-soulmate replies, blandly. “I was hoping for a moment alone.” His tone clearly implies that Hob’s presence is ruining his evening, and Hob should either leave the room or cease to exist immediately.

“Ah,” Hob replies. It stings, again, even though that’s utterly absurd and he barely even knows this man. “I’ll be gone in a sec,” he adds, because he’ll be damned if some asshole sabotages his Snack Quest, “just let me find my licorice.”

The man- Hob should really get his name if they’re going to keep running into each other like this- sighs loudly, but doesn’t make any sort of verbal objection to Hob’s continued presence. Hob ignores him, and resumes his Quest.

It takes three minutes of stony silence, but Hob eventually uncovers the licorice in a bowl on top of the fridge, which is not even close to being 'in one of the cabinets’, Will. He’s about to retreat from the kitchen with his prize, when the man says, “You actually do know Will,” in a tone of utter confusion.

“Yeah,” Hob says, slowly turning to face him. The man is sitting sprawled on the counter, his bearing almost regal except for the part where he’s staring at Hob like Hob is a dog who unexpectedly started doing calculus.

“How???” the man finally asks. Hob can hear the extra question marks in his voice, even if his tone stays even.

“Used to date his archenemy,” Hob says, with a shrug. “We stayed friends after Kit moved.”

If anything, this seems to confuse the man further. “Or we became friends after Kit moved, anyway,” Hob adds, possessed by a desperate need not so much to fill the silence as to keep voicing his thoughts. “Up until that point I’d wanted to support my boyfriend and all, but then he left and I wanted to keep building sets so I started to work with Will instead.”

“You. What?”

“I volunteered to help build sets at that little theater Will used to work at,” Hob says. “That was how I met both of them, actually. But then Kit and I started dating and that doesn’t actually matter to what you were asking, does it?”

To Hob’s utter bafflement, his not-soulmate nods at him to continue. Again, 'regal’ is the only word for the gesture, even though he’s sitting on a grimy counter in the nasty, yellowish lighting of Will’s kitchen.

So Hob makes himself comfortable against the fridge and starts again, detailing the entire stupid saga of Kit-and-Will-and-Hob-making-the-whole-thing-much-worse-in-an-attempt-to-be-a-supportive-boyfriend. And at some point he swerves off into just talking about Kit-and-Hob, which is nice, because most of his friends were there for Kit-and-Hob, and don’t find his sappy reminiscing terribly interesting.

And somehow that loops all the way around to how he was technically working for the government at that point, which, of all things, was the root cause of him getting on speaking terms with Will again. That and Kit moving, although it is really weird talking to Kit now because he can’t avoid talking about the fact that he’s accidentally befriended Kit’s mortal enemy-

“You’re still in touch with him?” Hob’s not-soulmate asks softly.

Hob turns to fully look at him and regrets it immediately. Over the course of his ramblings, he’d moved from the fridge to the counter next to his not-soulmate, so that he could sit down and also easily share his licorice.

This means that his face is much closer to his not-soulmate’s than he’d expected it to be, and for a moment he’s lost in the blue of the man’s eyes, the open intensity of his gaze.

“Oh. Uh, yeah,” he says, when he’s managed to remember the question. “The breakup was…” he trails off, looking for a word, and finally settles on, “amicable?”

His not-soulmate gives him that little 'go on’ nod again. And Hob knows- he knows- that he should get some higher standards, but the quickest way to his heart is, and always has been, prompting him to keep talking, and he can feel himself falling as surely as he can feel the blush overtaking his face.

So he tips his head toward his not-soulmate, so that he can keep his voice low and still be heard above the crowd in the next room, and says, “Faustus got picked up. And like half of the filming was going to be overseas, but I couldn’t leave London, at least not right then.” His not-soulmate gives a look that isn’t so much 'confused’ as 'entirely uncomprehending,’ so Hob adds, “I’d messed up my knee real bad.” He gives the offending kneecap a hard tap and immediately regrets it. “Long story. I spent most of that summer in doctor’s offices. And hospitals. So. 'Quit your job to travel with your boyfriend for a few months’ was not really an option, for me. And he didn’t want to do long-distance. So we broke up.”

“Your soulmate left you alone, in pain, because he 'didn’t want to do long-distance’?” Hob’s not-soulmate asks. There’s something raw, close to pity but more tender, in his face, which makes Hob feel unbelievably guilty for laughing at the question.

“Oh, god, no,” he says, with an expressive wave of his hand. “Kit wasn’t my- No. Met his soulmate while he was filming Faustus, actually, otherwise we might have-” And then Hob shuts that sentence down, hard, because the breakup itself doesn’t hurt as much as that part.

“Anyway,” he says, and is about to ask if his not-soulmate wants to hear the story of how he busted his knee, it’s pretty funny, actually-

“But if he wasn’t your soulmate-” his not-soulmate asks, leaning toward Hob.

There hadn’t been much space between them in the first place, is the thing. And now Hob’s not-soulmate is leaning even closer, staring at him like an entomologist studying a particularly fascinating insect, and leaving Hob with exactly two options: tilt his head up, just a bit, and kiss him, or succumb to gravity and fall backwards into the sink.

“Hey, Hobs, I just realized-” Will says, walking into the room. He proceeds to choke on his own tongue, while Hob’s not-soulmate jerks away from Hob like he’s on fire, and Hob gracefully avoids the sink by falling off the counter entirely.

Will is the first to regain his composure. “Oh. Morpheus,” he says, nervously, “I thought you left.”

Hob looks sharply up at- at Morpheus, apparently, biting back a litany of questions. It makes sense that his aloof, mysterious stranger is the same aloof, mysterious stranger that Will credits for editing his first successful play to the point that it was a success. But with the way Will talks about Morpheus he’d been half-expecting a deity.

“I did not,” Morpheus says. He’s back to looking bored and regal, not a hair out of its artfully disheveled place, which is just rude given that Hob is still in a heap on the floor.

“Well if you’re planning to stick around,” Will says, “I’d been meaning to ask you about Midsummer-”

Morpheus’ eyes light up, and he slides off the counter and sweeps out of the room, Hob clutching his candy in both hands to stop himself from physically reaching out to say, No, wait.

Will, at least, lingers for long enough to mouth, “Sorry,” and shrug, before following him.

“What the fuck was that?” Hob asks aloud, when he’s left alone with his bruised dignity.

The cabinets have no response.

He’s not sure what he’s expecting after that, but it certainly isn’t for Morpheus to text him, Would you like to meet for coffee? the next day.

Of course Hob says yes.

He’s smarter about it, this time. Makes sure he’s seated in the café, with a double espresso and a plan, by the time Morpheus comes in. He doesn’t even ask so what the fuck was that when Morpheus sits down next to him, no matter how much he wants to.

Instead, he says, “Why did you ask me to come here?” with all the frustration he’d felt the exact moment he’d hauled himself off of Will’s kitchen floor, knee protesting viciously, trying to make sense of Morpheus, who’d willingly listened to him talk for close to an hour and then left without bothering to say goodbye. It’s a step above what the fuck was that, but not by much.

“Because I’m interested,” Morpheus says, his voice low.

“In. Me?” Hob asks.

“In your experience,” Morpheus says, with more exasperation than Hob thinks is really fair for someone who just said he was 'interested’ while staring at Hob’s lips. “I want to know what it’s like. Dating without looking for your soulmate.”

Ah, Hob thinks. At least that makes sense. He’s aware that avoiding his soulmate makes him an anomaly- sure, actually Waiting For Your Soulmate is less common these days than it used to be; plenty enough people are willing to have casual relationships in the meantime, but even then in the meantime is an implicit part of the equation.

He can accept it, if Morpheus’ 'interest’ in him is purely curiosity, as long as he knows where they stand.

And, to be honest, the fact that Morpheus is curious at all is… gratifying. Most people aren’t even that.

So Hob downs his drink, grins at Morpheus, and proclaims, “It’s fucking brilliant.”

Chapter Text

It becomes a tradition, after that. Morpheus and Hob will meet, at a cafe or a pub or completely by chance (their friend groups, it turns out, are bizarrely interconnected), and Morpheus will ask Hob if he’s found his soulmate yet, and Hob will say no.

Their first few meetings, Hob makes a genuine effort to try and explain. To talk about the people he never would have met, the love he’d have missed out on, (the life he’d have missed out on), had he just sat around waiting for his soulmate to find him. About how freeing it is to get to know someone outside of those horrible soulmate-matching dates where you shake twenty people’s hands in a row and move on when nothing happens.

Morpheus seems entirely baffled by it. Not just Hob’s approach, but the rest, too, soulmate-matching organizations and the goddamn nightmare that is dating apps and that brief moment of panic when the other person tries to grab your arm on the first date. Hob is almost as curious about Morpheus’ experience of soulmates as Morpheus is about his, but Morpheus shies away from even the blandest questions about his relationship status, so Hob is left to wonder- if Morpheus met his soulmate young, like Will did, so he’s never lived with the pressure to find the One. If he believes that Destiny will bring his soulmate to him when it’s time, and it’s not his place to go looking. If he’s cautious, gets to know a person on their own terms before touching them and finding out if they’re a Match.

Hob would think that last one were the answer- Morpheus holds himself apart from other people, avoiding physical contact at all costs- were it not for the deliberate brush of Morpheus’ fingers against his palm the night they’d met. At first he’s terribly aware of where that mark would be, but it’s easy enough to let the crush he’d been nursing fade to the background. Morpheus’ interest in him is so clearly just academic curiosity, it’d be silly to dwell on it.

And even though the novelty of being listened to, if not fully understood, eventually wears off, Morpheus’ curiosity is still heartwarming, and Hob, as a person, is not given to running out of things to talk about. And Morpheus proves shockingly eager to listen to him ramble about playing Hades and argue with him about what qualifies a good adaptation of a book.

It’s nice. Settling. To be around him, in a way Hob doesn’t know he’s ever felt with anyone else.

Their fifth meeting, Hob spends the entire time gushing about Audrey, Audrey whose sister had introduced her to Hob because neither of them are terribly anxious to find their soulmate, Audrey who throws herself into helping Hob find the earbuds he lost at her house with the same fervor she applies to med school exams, Audrey whose laugh might be the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard…

The look of- disgust? despair? anger? On Morpheus’ face when Hob finishes that little tangent would almost be funny if it weren’t so insulting.

Their meetings peter off after that. Not intentionally. But Hob will admit that his every waking thought becomes- slightly consumed, by Audrey, from the moment she looks at him sideways to make a terrible pun about roses. And even after Hob’s found room in his head for other things, Morpheus is impossibly busy with some project he’s working on with Will.

And suddenly it’s been almost four months and they’ve barely spoken and Hob’s rushing into a fancy bakery three minutes before they close, when he notices a familiar black coat at the back of the line. He takes a moment to straighten his jacket- this place is fancy fancy, polished in a way that makes him feel too poor to afford the oxygen inside the building- before he sneaks into line behind Morpheus.

Morpheus glances back at him and freezes, as though he’d planned to commit Bakery Robbery and Hob is now a witness.

“Hey,” Hob says, grinning a bit too widely, in the vague hope that he can make them both forget the past months of awkwardness if he’s just cheerful enough. “How’s the playwriting going?”

Morpheus stares at him for a short eternity, then says, “Frustrating.” It’s the end of the sentence, but not the conversation. Hob knows he remembers that distinction.

He waits a moment, in case there’s more that Morpheus wants to say. The line shuffles slowly forward- Hob really shouldn’t have come here right after work, there are six people in line in front of Morpheus and only one incredibly stressed employee behind the counter.

“How is. Audrey?” Morpheus asks, uncertainly, just when Hob is beginning to think he should say something else.

Hob’s fairly certain the smile on his face is answer enough to that question. “She’s great. It’s been. Great,” he says, conscious of the fact that no matter how much he wants to wax poetic, Morpheus probably doesn’t want to hear it. “She’s actually- I’m going to meet her parents, this weekend,” he adds, and once he’s said the words aloud, it’s hard not to bounce in place with sheer giddiness- he’s going to meet her family! As her boyfriend! “That’s why I’m here, actually. I wanted to bring something nice but the last time I tried to bake I set my kitchen on fire, so…” He shrugs, and nods at the counter.

“You really are in love with her,” Morpheus says. That look is back on his face, that intense, almost visceral shade of pity. If anything it’s stronger than the last time Hob saw it.

Hob, frankly, would prefer disgust. Or confusion, or scorn. I know what I’m getting myself into, he wants to say. I thought you understood that part, at least.

“Of course I am,” he says instead, and the words only sound a little hollow. “Soulmates are stupid.”

Another eternity passes. Morpheus makes a tiny move toward Hob, and for a brief, foolish moment Hob thinks he’s going to kiss him on the forehead, as though he were a brother-in-arms dying on the battlefield.

“Then. Enjoy your dinner,” Morpheus says, and turns back around.

And that’s the end of the conversation.

The line keeps shuffling forward. Morpheus stares into the middle distance like a statue of some folkloric king. The woman in front of him shoots Hob several pointedly disgusted looks, and Hob- broods. Turns the question over and over again in his mind- Why is it so hard to understand that she doesn’t need to be my soulmate? She’s already perfect. I love her.

He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t get an answer.

And three weeks later, Audrey bumps into her soulmate at a concert, and he realizes she hadn’t understood, either.

Chapter Text

Hob texts Morpheus two days after he and Audrey break up, because he’s got two tickets to a ballet and absolutely no use for them anymore. He’d offered them to Gwen, first, but her girlfriend (her soulmate, actually, her soulmate she’d met at a Ren Faire in a moment out of a fairytale, complete with a kiss-print soulmark on the back of her hand) has even less interest in ballet than Hob does. And he knows bringing it up to any of his other friends will only get him concerned questions about why he keeps doing this to himself, wouldn’t he be happier if he stopped actively avoiding his One True Love.

So offering them to Morpheus, who hasn’t spoken to him in a month but probably won’t do that, is the best option by default.

Shockingly, Morpheus replies. He even offers to meet Hob at the White Horse, a pub they’d frequented back when they were still sort of talking, to pick up the tickets.

Even more shockingly, Morpheus is already at a table when Hob arrives at the pub four nights later, like he’s planning to sit and talk with Hob. Like before.

Hob is not entirely sure how he feels about that, but he’s also running on maybe three hours of sleep, and the chair next to Morpheus looks extremely inviting, so he lets himself topple into it.

“If you ask me how I’m doing I’m going to get up and leave,” he warns Morpheus, leaning back against the headrest and closing his eyes. He might just take a nap here. It’s been impossible to fall asleep, these past few days, without the warmth of someone else in bed with him. And it’s so easy, lying there with the tangible reminder of how alone he is, to let his thoughts spiral into why didn’t she stay why didn’t she even consider it wasn’t it worth it?

But here, with the warmth and the noise of people around him and this unbelievably comfortable armchair, an uneasy half-doze starts to overtake him. He’s drifting, wondering where in the world Morpheus found an armchair, when a soft tapping noise drags him back to reality.

When he opens his eyes, Morpheus is sliding a beer across the table to him. He doesn’t say anything, just looks at Hob levelly, and Hob thinks that’s why, why he opens his mouth to say thanks, what comes out instead is a cracking, “Do you know what it’s like, having people congratulate you for having your heart ripped out?”

His voice sounds even worse than he feels.

Morpheus inclines his head at Hob in that familiar little nod; go on, I’m listening.

It’s a small kindness, but it still makes Hob feel like his chest is cracking in half.

“Everyone acts like it’s fine. Like it’s a good thing. ‘Yeah it hurts now but at least you’ll stop wasting your life, at least now you’ll find the person you were meant for.’”

He takes a breath. Takes a drink. “Nevermind that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.”

And then the whole story is spilling out of him, in an out-of-order slurry: the moment it happened- Audrey gesturing wildly as they ducked through the concert crowd, hand in hand; her stunned little gasp as her arm bumped another emphatic gesture-er; they way he’d stood there, confused, still holding Audrey’s hand, while she and her soulmate stared longingly into each other’s eyes.

The way she’d yes-anded even his stupidest bits, the way they’d had their own shared language of in-jokes, the way conversations with her were a dance and she always knew the next step.

The way, within a week, she’d scrubbed herself out of his life entirely, like she needed to fake her death to start her new life with The One.

“And- and I knew marriage wasn’t happening, right?” he finds himself saying, some time and several drinks later. “Fuckin nobody marries their not-soulmate, which is STUPID. It’s so stupid, remind me to tell you how stupid it is. But I thought. I thought we- I thought there was something. Something good. I thought maybe we could last.”

The sentence gets much too wobbly at the end, and Hob swipes a hand roughly over his eyes.

“What did you want, then?” Morpheus asks.

Hob glares at him.

“If not marriage,” Morpheus says, as though clarity were the problem there. He seems… sincere, though. Like he’s actually asking the question, not trying to nudge Hob into an epiphany about the futility of his life goals. Hob’s heard the second thing enough to know what it sounds like. And Morpheus has that- look, on his face. The Hob-is-an-insect look, but not. It’s… it’s like if that look were kinder, more genuine. More vulnerable.

So for what may be the first time, when asked that question, Hob actually considers his answer before responding. “I dunno what I wanted,” he says. “I just want- I want someone to choose me. Not have me forced on them.”

Morpheus stares at him. Studies him. As though the secret of life itself has somehow been hidden in Hob’s face.

Hob stares back, pinned. Entranced. A little confused.

“You know,” he says, after a moment, “I’m not actually a bug.”

Morpheus sighs. “Come on,” he says, “Let’s get you home.”

Despite Hob’s insistence that he is fine, really, just a little tipsy and a lot heartsick and sleep deprived, Morpheus does walk him home.

Hob only remembers the tickets when they reach his building, and only then someone had stuck a sticker of a dancer to the back of a lamppost. “Here,” he says, rooting around in his jacket pocket until he finds the envelope, and handing it over, “At least someone will get use out of them.”

Morpheus stares at the envelope like he’s never seen one before.

When he looks up at Hob, his eyes are glistening with tears. “Are you,” he asks, quietly. He pauses for a long time, long enough that Hob starts to wonder if he’d handed over the wrong envelope, and then wonder what deeply tragic envelopes he could possibly have been carrying around.

“Are you going to look for your soulmate now?” Morpheus asks. His voice is as even, almost soothing, as ever.

He’s looking at Hob as though the wrong answer will be his death sentence.

“Are you kidding me?” Hob asks. Despite everything, he finds himself grinning. “Never. The love of my life is out there, somewhere, I’m not going to discount them for something stupid like soulmates.”

Morpheus smiles.

Truly smiles, for the first time that Hob has seen. It’s a lovely expression, soft, hesitant, but so genuinely, contagiously delighted. And Hob knows, with the same bone-deep certainty as his disbelief in soulmates, that he’d protect that smile at all costs.

“Also,” he says, because there’s not much protection he can offer right not but there is always the shining, thrilling possibility of coaxing another smile out of Morpheus tonight, “I’m starving. Do you want to get dinner?”

Chapter Text

“Have you found your person yet?” Morpheus asks. “Your- not your soulmate?”

It’s been a little over two months, since Hob and Audrey broke up. Somehow ‘getting dinner with Morpheus just after’ had turned into ‘additional drinks’ had turned into ‘brunch, a few days later,’ and now Hob doesn’t think a week has passed since the breakup that he hasn’t seen Morpheus, at least briefly. Morpheus has carefully avoided the subject of soulmates, of romance entirely, for the entire nine weeks, and Hob is a little ashamed and a lot grateful. Grateful especially because Morpheus is the only one of his friends who’s afforded him that break.

They aren’t… whatever they were, before. Hob still isn’t sure if ‘whatever’ was ‘experiment and mad scientist.’ He’s doesn’t really care, though, because whether or not he used to be Morpheus’ monster, he doesn’t think he is anymore. Not after two months of regular, friendly pleasantries and coaxing Morpheus into talking about the play he’s working on and Morpheus listening to him wax poetic about his new flat and its in-unit laundry and actual decent heat.

So it feels perfectly easy to say, “Haven’t really been looking for ‘em,” even if it aches a little. Morpheus looks a little startled by the admission, so Hob adds, “Morpheus. I just spent fifteen minutes explaining what I had for breakfast yesterday, I would have mentioned if I were seeing someone.”

In his defense, it had been a good breakfast. A breakfast worthy of fifteen minutes of conversation. He might have to steal Gwen’s soulmate solely to get her pancake recipe.

Morpheus stares at the table, twisting one cuff of his coat in his opposite hand. “But you’re certain,” he says to the table. If he were anyone else Hob would say he sounds hesitant. “You will look for them. Eventually.”

This means something to him, Hob realizes. Something more than research, or mad science, more than curiosity. Means something on a future-altering bone-deep soul-defining level.

The thought drops into Hob’s mind, like a dead bird dropped into his lap by a pet cat that genuinely thinks it’s being generous, that Morpheus’ soulmate may be dead. It would explain the coat, which he hasn’t taken off even though the White Horse is boilingly warm tonight. Would explain why Hob’s only ever seen him in sleeves that go down to, often past, his wrists. Scarred-over soulmarks don’t look terribly different from ordinary scars, at least not at a quick glance, which means that any suspiciously soulmark-shaped scar tends to draw prying glances and effusive pity, and people with actual soulmark scars do their best to hide them.

It would explain a lot about Morpheus, actually, from the distant intensity with which he’d approached the whole soulmate thing to his complete ignorance of how even normal dating works to the delicate way Will had gone about inviting him to his wedding, asking if Hob thought he was overstepping at least six times in the process.

And oh, god, Hob’s been staring at Morpheus’ arms like an asshole, hasn’t he? He consciously draws his eyes away from Morpheus’ sleeves, which means he ends up looking into his eyes instead. His eyes are so blue, a shade Hob isn’t sure how to describe as anything other than ‘pretty,’ somehow light and intense and warm all at once.

Mesmerizing, maybe. Hypnotic.

The truly off-putting combination of the disarming blue of Morpheus’ eyes and Hob’s own scramble not to think about dead soulmates is, possibly, why he says, “I’ll make you a bet,” before his brain has caught up with his mouth, or even finished trying to come up with synonyms for ‘blue.’

“Hmm?” Morpheus asks. His expression is cool, but there’s a teasing glint in those ultramarine eyes that goads Hob on.

“That you can keep asking me that, as long as you want, and one day the answer will be ‘yes, and we’re very happy together.’” Hob finishes off his drink, sets his glass down with just enough force to punctuate the challenge. “I’ll even stake something on it. You could shave my head.”

“Why would I want to shave your head?” Morpheus asks. His expression is still entirely bland, but his eyes- azure- are dancing.

“That’s not the point,” Hob informs him, leaning in. He might be a bit too enthusiastic about the idea, but he’s a little giddy for no specific reason, just a good day and good company. “The point is that I don’t want you to, and I’m still willing to bet on it because I’m going to win.”

“Fine,” Morpheus says, rolling his eyes, “I’ll take the bet.”

Hob can see right through him, though. More to the point, he can see the way Morpheus is biting at his lower lip, completely ineffectively hiding a smile, and he’s powerless not to smile back.

At first, Hob thinks Morpheus is going to take this bet as seriously as their initial Whatever That Was. The first thing out of his mouth, the next time he and Hob meet for drinks, is so have you met your person yet? And Hob says not yet, and Morpheus asks if that means he’s won, and Hob informs him that a ‘not yet’ is not a ‘no’ and also did Morpheus expect him to find the love of his life within a week? He is not the lead in one of Will’s plays, why would he do that.

For someone who looked so smug when he asked Hob if he’d won the bet, Morpheus looks- almost equally satisfied when he learns Hob hasn’t experienced a whirlwind six day long romance.

But he lets it drop, after that, and they fall back into their new-old pattern, and all is right with the world.

“You know I nearly drowned once?” Hob asks.

In hindsight, it’s not a thing he should have asked while leaning out over a large pond because he swears that’s an ancient, sunken paddleboat in the middle of it and he wants a better look. Morpheus grabs him by the shoulder and yanks him backwards almost as soon as the words are out of his mouth, as though past near-drownings make Hob more susceptible to a watery grave.

“In a wave pool, yes,” Morpheus says, steering Hob away from the water’s edge. They’d been on their way to a museum, but Morpheus, for unknowable and mysterious reasons, had decided they should detour through this park on the way.

“Oh, no, after that,” Hob says, still craning his neck for a look at the sunken maybe-paddleboat. “I was like- sixteen? Got stuck under a boat when it flipped.” They reach the gravel path leading away from the water, and Morpheus lets Hob’s arm drop with noticeable reluctance.

“Just how many times have you nearly drowned?” Morpheus asks, as they trudge back toward the main path through the park.

“Uh. Two?” Hob replies. “The wave pool doesn’t count.”

“The fact that you think that is not reassuring,” Morpheus informs him, and will not budge on the issue no matter how much Hob tried to convince him that it doesn’t count as drowning as long as no one calls an ambulance.

The argument lasts them the rest of the way through the park, on a meandering route that doubles back on itself at least six times, across city streets to the museum, and through the queue for tickets. At that point Hob concedes. Not because he is wrong. He is not wrong, the other times didn’t count, but he has accepted the reality that he cannot possibly convince Morpheus of this fact.

Besides, the lure of keeping up a stupid argument shrivels and dies the moment Morpheus directs them out of the lobby area, past signs for the Theater Through the Ages exhibit, his eyes practically glowing with excitement. Hob doesn’t know what could have withstood the thrall of watching Morpheus stare at an old manuscript, a soft smile on his face. He wants to see Morpheus look this happy every day. He wants to be the reason for it.

He wants to soak in that expression for as long as he can, and that one he manages, trailing Morpheus through the exhibit like a lost puppy, absorbing exactly nothing of the room they’re in or the helpful signage or the contents of the cases. The windows could look out on the surface of Venus and there could be a sea monster in the corner giving directions and Hob would be none the wiser.

It takes Morpheus a while- Hob’s not keeping track of a stupid thing like time- to stop being dazzled by the exhibits and notice that Hob is dazzled for other reasons, but when he does he- crumples, just a little.

“You’re bored of this,” he says, as though this is an established fact Hob’s been politely not mentioning this whole time.

“No!” Hob says, “I’m not bored at all, just-” and then, thankfully, his mouth grinds to a halt before it can say any of the things his brain wants to. “A little lost?” he finally mumbles, once he’s managed to shove aside oh god please smile at me again and or climb me like a tree and actually have a conscious thought.

If nothing else, ‘lost’ has the benefit of being true, if not The Truth.

“Oh,” Morpheus says, somehow crumpling even further. A nauseous wave of self-loathing washes over Hob, for causing the light in Morpheus’ eyes to shrivel in on itself, he should have said all the stuff about oh god please smile at me again because at least that would be better than this-

“What’s that one about?” Hob says, a half step too loud, pointing at the nearest old book in a glass case.

He is, in hindsight, extremely lucky that he managed to point at a display and not a fire extinguisher.

Morpheus looks startled- Hob isn’t sure if that’s due to the words themselves, or just the volume- but turns to the case, Hob mirroring him, and begins to explain that it’s one of the few surviving volumes of a medieval playwright’s work. The explanation is stilted at first, Morpheus glancing over at Hob every few seconds as though expecting him to have turned away in disgust, but the smile slowly creeps back onto his face as Hob nods along, occasionally nudging at him to explain more.

It's Hob’s accomplishment of the year, maybe, coaxing that smile back to life, and he hangs onto Morpheus’ words like they’re oxygen as they meander through the rest of the exhibit.

The why of it all doesn’t phase him for the next several hours, because he doesn’t have time for intense self-examination. Not with Morpheus’ presence turning his mind into a dizzy slush, like his brain is made up of sunshine and honeybees and a persistent, thrumming notice me notice me notice me. Not with Morpheus failing to look aggrieved as they wander through a gallery of paintings, Hob critiquing each of them based on the presence of action and interesting animals.

Not when Morpheus grabs them each a drink at the museum café, giving Hob the chance to sneakily buy him a magnet from the gift shop, not when he looks so surprised when Hob hands him the little gift bag.

It’s only when they part ways that Hob catches himself smiling at his coffee cup, and the name Murphy in scratchy handwriting on the sleeve.

Well, shit, he thinks.

It had been easy, before, to let been nursing wither and die. But now Morpheus is feeding it, refusing to let Hob pay for his own coffee and listening to him make stupid jokes about art history, and it has, accordingly, roared back to life, made itself comfortable in Hob’s heart.

Chapter Text

"Have you found your person yet?" Morpheus asks, while Hob wrestles with their dinner dishes.

Hob had dragged Morpheus back to his flat to force some food into him after Morpheus had admitted that, with the opening date for Will's play drawing closer, he can't remember the last time he had a full meal. He'd sort of been expecting Morpheus to leave as soon as he'd eaten, since he'd only agreed to food in the first place because Hob had promised to reheat some leftovers and let him go.

He had, in fact, suggested several times that Morpheus consider things like going home and getting some sleep, and Morpheus had replied that sleep could wait until the problem with act two was fixed and-

The point is Hob isn't really sure why Morpheus is still sitting in his kitchen, asking him questions Hob's already answered, instead of doing either of those things, and it takes every ounce of self-control he has to derail himself from saying I think I did. I think I did, even if you find way too much amusement in my lack of spoon-washing ability.

What he says instead is, "Do you think Soulmates account for dishes?"

"What?" Morpheus asks, taking his seeming change of subject entirely in stride.

"They're supposed to be your Perfect Other Half, right?" Hob says, with only a little bit of sarcasm. "So does that mean my soulmate just loves doing dishes? To balance me out? Because that doesn't seem-" and then chokes on the rest of the sentence, because Morpheus has appeared at his elbow and taken the plate he'd been washing directly out of his hands.

"Oh, you don't- I wasn't asking-" Hob manages to sputter, once he's gotten over the shock. In that time, Morpheus has dropped the plate four times, splattered water all over his nice coat, and, crucially, made even less progress re: dishes than Hob was making.

"You can dry," Morpheus informs him, and that's that.

"Have you found your person yet?" Morpheus asks, through the door to Hob's flat. Hob had texted him- something, earlier, to let him know he was too sick to cook tonight, sorry. He's not sure what words he'd used, in hindsight. He's not sure they were English. He'd taken a nap immediately afterwards and woken up to find his fever finally gone down and Morpheus at his door with takeout.

Hob's not letting him in. He's not risking spreading this bullshit.

"You find 'em for me," Hob says, sliding to a seat against the door. It's nice, not to be standing. He might take a nap here.

Morpheus makes. A noise. A raspy, grating noise, like the sound that the concept of rusted metal would make if it were sentient, had some sort of lung disease, and was being tortured.

Hob is back on his feet and flinging the door open before he can think, coming face-to-face with Morpheus, who has one hand clamped over his mouth to stifle his-

Laughter, Hob realizes. With the context of the way Morpheus' eyes are sparkling and his hand is doing nothing to hide a wry smile, that horrific noise was definitely laughter. The weird little snorting sound he's currently doing an extremely unsuccessful job of muffling is him giggling.

It's hideous, and unrestrained, and adorable, and Hob immediately decides that he would cross and burn any number of bridges in order to hear him laugh like that again.

"I'll take the food for now, though," he says, voice hoarse in a way that has nothing to do with illness.

For some reason this sets off Morpheus laughing again, which means that despite the ache in all Hob's limbs and the fact that standing so quickly made the room start wobbling and his stomach churning, today officially gets marked as one of the best he's had all year.

"Have you found your person yet?" Morpheus asks, opening night of his and Will's play, the moment Hob pushes through the crowd in the lobby close enough to speak to him.

"You're asking me that now?" Hob replies. His eyes are still itchy from crying and he thinks he's going to need another week or so to be able to think clearly, after Morpheus methodically, delicately pulled his soul apart and rewove it into something better over the course of four acts, and he doesn't have the words to explain any of that so instead he just sweeps Morpheus up in a hug that lifts his feet from the ground.

Morpheus makes a startled little noise and clings to Hob's shoulders with both arms. "You're incredible," Hob says. He allows himself to hold Morpheus for one more moment, not long enough to matter to anyone but him, before gently setting him down. "Absolutely incredible. I don't- that was amazing. How the fuck are you this talented," he says. "I think you broke me."

In all the time he's been rambling, Morpheus has kept his arms around Hob's neck, perfectly still, like he's afraid he'll fall if he lets go even though his feet are firmly back on the floor. So Hob tugs him a little closer, and Morpheus sighs a little and leans against his chest, and Hob gets so distracted trying to preserve every detail of this moment in his memory that he forgets he was trying to explain to Morpheus how beautiful his play was-

And now they're just. Standing in a corner. Hugging.

Hob's life is perfect.

"Sorry," Hob says, eventually. "I should let you talk to people." The crowd around them is beginning to thin out, and as much as he wants to Morpheus all to himself he knows he should let him go mingle.

To his surprise, Morpheus shrugs. "That can wait."

It's a shot of sugary delight directly into Hob's bloodstream, and he can't restrain the smile that spreads across his face, over-enthusiastic to the point of hurting his cheeks a little. Morpheus wants to spend time with him! Specifically! Over reaping the rewards of the project that's consumed his heart and soul for as long as Hob's known him! Life is so wonderful!

Hob pulls out of the hug, just enough to scan the room. He's not familiar with this theater, but there has to be somewhere nearby they could slip off to, for a bit. Maybe talk a little. Maybe-

Maybe. Maybe Morpheus still has an arm looped around his shoulders, even though they're no longer hugging. Maybe Hob's arm is still around Morpheus' waist, and Morpheus has done nothing to shrug it off. Maybe, when Hob wraps that arm a little tighter, Morpheus only leans into him, lets his head drop onto Hob's shoulder. Even though there's a crowd around them, and anyone could see him nuzzling up against Hob in a way most people only do with their soulmates.

Maybe, Hob realizes, that crowd is so firmly clustered around Will not a single one of them would notice if he and Morpheus were actually, currently fucking. They're looking with Will with a sort of fervor that suggests he's going to start healing the sick with a touch or something. It doesn't seem like he's making any particular effort to direct them over to Morpheus, either, and sure Hob's been clinging to Morpheus for the past several minutes but Will's never seen that as a problem before.

"Wow," Hob says, not bothering to disguise his distaste, "Does he normally do this?"

"What?" Morpheus asks, sounding genuinely confused.

"This," Hob says, nodding at Will and His Adoring Public. They're still standing close enough that he barely needs to move his chin for Morpheus to understand what he means.

"It's his work," Morpheus says, his voice distant. "He deserves the credit."

Which is. Fair, Hob supposes. Probably. He could maybe even convince himself of that if Morpheus' expression weren't so resigned.

So he turns his head to Morpheus, close enough that no one else will be able to hear him, and says, "You deserve just as much. That bit where they hold hands in the last scene, after she dies? That made me cry. And I know that was all you." It was a tiny, subtle bit of stage directing that had the entire play's worth of meaning packed into it, of course that was Morpheus'.

Morpheus goes very, very still. The look on his face is less shocked than entirely disbelieving, like Hob had just recited some lost verse of poetry that archaeologists would sell their souls to rediscover.

"Don't deny it," Hob says, softly. "You broke my heart. Take responsibility," he adds, keeping his tone light enough that Morpheus can accept it as teasing even if what he means is Take my heart.

A small, pleased smile slips across Morpheus' face, and he melts back against Hob's side, lets his arm drop to Hob's waist. "I'm. In fucking awe of how talented you are," Hob says quietly. "And everybody else should be, too. You should have to wear sunglasses in public all the time to avoid getting mobbed by fans. There should be statues of you, and parades, and-"

"Yes, yes, alright," Morpheus says, elbowing him. He somehow manages to bring them even closer together with the gesture, so he's leaning more against Hob's chest than his side. "That part isn't important," he adds. "The play itself is. People saw it and it moved them, inspired them. That's what matters." His tone is the textbook example of 'haughty artist, far above mortal concerns.' It compliments his smile- satisfied, a little flustered- beautifully. What matters to Hob, at any rate, is that the confidence finally doesn't seem like a front.

"I still think you should get a statue," he murmurs, voice low, "But if you really don't mind missing out on all this, you wanna get out of here?"

Chapter Text

They go to the White Horse, because of course they do, and end up tucked into a table so small their legs brush, in a corner that's so out of the way it's practically its own room. The contact, combined with the thrill of sneaking away from the theater like a couple of teenagers skipping class, has Hob giddy, babbling about Morpheus' directorial choices and a book series it turns out they both loved at age eleven (see, it's meant to be, Hob's stupid little heart whispers) and being a teenager, general-

And then he realizes just how long he's been talking, mostly because Morpheus is giving him that I want to dissect you stare that really, really shouldn't be as attractive as it is, sputters, “Sorry! I'm rambling! Anyway!” and then takes a long drink to physically stop himself from speaking, because he's pretty sure he wouldn't have otherwise.

“Don't apologize,” Morpheus says, catching Hob's eyes. “I was just. Startled. You said you'd want to go back? To being sixteen?”

Hob trips over his own tongue several times trying to respond; whatever color Morpheus' eyes are it's apparently destroyed the part of his brain that knows words, and Morpheus somehow, miraculously, wants him to keep talking, so even if he did know words he’d be far too giddy to say anything. Eventually he manages to croak, “Yeah,” which is less eloquent than he'd wanted to be but is at least an answer.

The look Morpheus gives him in response is the perfect combination of unimpressed and confused.

“What?” Hob asks.

“I know you don't mean that,” Morpheus says, like he thinks this is the setup to a less-than-funny joke. “Did you forget you told me that's the year you nearly died? And that's probably the nicest thing you've said about it.”

Hob's not sure if he wants to flinch at the reminder, or melt in delight because Morpheus remembers that conversation. The full-body shudder he end up doing in compromise must be alarming to witness, because Morpheus' face crashes abruptly from suspicion into guilt. His hand twitches, like he wants to reach out to Hob but his hands are locked to the table in invisible cuffs.

Hob slides his own hand a few millimeters toward Morpheus' and watches, fascinated, as Morpheus' hand creeps just slightly closer to his in return. “No, you're right,” he murmurs, without looking up from whatever it is their hands are currently doing, “That year was miserable. I'd still go back, though.”

“Why?” Morpheus asks.

Hob shrugs. “There were parts that I miss.”

“Like what?”

“Playing cards,” Hob says, automatically.

Silence. When Hob glances up, Morpheus is giving him that look again, and for the first time since the beginning of this- whatever it is- between them, Hob finds himself bristling. “It was a thing! With my friends!” he says, absurdly protective of a lunchtime card tournament they'd known they were taking way too seriously even then. “It was fun!”

A soft smile breaks over Morpheus' face. “You,” he says, with the authority of a detective naming the murderer in the last scene of a movie and the fondness of a man talking to his spouse of six decades, “don't make any sense.”

“Well, what age would you go back to, oh Arbiter of Making Sense?” Hob replies, grinning, and Morpheus asks why he would go back to an event in his own life if he had the power to time travel, and the conversation moves on.

Morpheus buys his next drink, calls it an apology for doubting the excitement to be found in card games. Morpheus keeps leaning closer to talk to him, rather than shouting to be heard over the noise, so that he's practically in Hob's lap when the White Horse closes and they're kicked out. Morpheus insists on walking Hob home, because you look flushed, are you certain you're feeling better?

And really, Morpheus has no right to accuse Hob of not making sense; he's basically swaying with exhaustion by the time they leave, and Hob ends up throwing an arm around him just to make sure he doesn't brain himself on a lamppost. Once he's done that, though, Hob's world narrows down to the warmth of Morpheus pressed up against his side, leaving no room to question Morpheus' decisions. Of course Morpheus is walking home with him; this is where Hob belongs.

And after that it feels perfectly natural for Morpheus to come inside with him, for Morpheus to make himself comfortable on the half of Hob’s couch that isn’t taken up by Hob’s latest attempt to build a PC. There isn’t much room left for Hob at that point, but while he’s trying to figure out if he should drag over another chair or just sit on the floor, Morpheus scooches to the side and clears his throat.

By the time Hob’s wrangled himself into that tiny silver of space, with his back against the arm of the couch and his legs on top of Morpheus’, his project shoved precariously toward the other arm, it has occurred to him that he could have just. Moved the thing. But Morpheus is smiling at him and asking him to elaborate on what he’d meant earlier, when he’d said I think I’d do pretty well as an immortal cyborg zombie, so Hob isn’t about to change a thing.

Even as it gets later and later and begins to approach the point where the correct word might be earlier, Hob doesn’t want to break the perfect bubble he’s found himself in, keeps coming up with the most silly, threadbare excuses to keep their conversation going a few minutes longer. He's in the middle of telling Morpheus about the ‘soulmate-less meetup group’ his sister had suggested to him when Morpheus yawns so hard it looks physically painful, and he finds, somewhere within himself, the strength to say, “I should let you go.”

“You didn’t finish,” Morpheus protests.

Which means that all Hob can do is smile foolishly at Morpheus’ collarbone, marveling at the wonder of the universe, at having found a someone who will tell him to keep talking multiple times in one evening. But then Morpheus shifts uncomfortably and says, “Unless you want to-”

“Oh! No, I’m wide awake,” Hob says, fully aware that he is slumped against his corner of the couch like he’s about to pass out at any moment. “So I’m genuinely getting ready to go to this meetup, and then I look it up to make sure I have the location right and it turns out it’s a meetup group for people who are ‘soulmate-less’ as in widowed.”

“Do you think she did that deliberately?” Morpheus asks, as concerned as if Hob had said turns out they actually keep a bunch of man-eating tigers in that building, and they’re specifically trained to eat people who haven’t met their soulmate.

“Like. Tried to get me to go to a grief support group on purpose?” Hob asks, uncertain if Morpheus has misunderstood him entirely, and thinks he’s talking about mortal harm instead of an admittedly shitty prank. Morpheus nods. “Nah.” Morpheus’ shoulders slump the tiniest bit in relief. “She’s- before I met you, she was my standard for ‘people who take my soulmate thing seriously.’ You’ve raised that standard immensely, by the way, so thank you for that,” Hob adds, trying to lighten whatever mood has taken hold of the conversation.

“It is. Entirely selfish of me,” Morpheus says, grimly. He’s looking across the room at Hob’s front door like there’s some horrible monster outside that only he knows about, and it’s his fault the monster is there in the first place.

“I don’t care,” Hob says. Silence stretches between them for several seconds while Hob tries to figure out a way to break Morpheus’ staring contest with the door, short of climbing into his lap. When he opts for nudging Morpheus’ shoulder, Morpheus looks over at him sharply. The look on his face is less waiting to fight monsters and more kitten that’s been kicked and then thrown outside in the rain, and all Hob wants to do is pull him into a hug and keep him there. “You- It means a lot, alright? That you believe me. I don’t care why you do,” he says, and tugs at Morpheus’ sleeve, opening his arms in the most low-stakes offer of a hug he can think of.

“You should,” Morpheus whispers, leaning toward Hob without actually hugging him back. Their faces are perilously close, Morpheus looking at Hob less like an entomologist and more a man scanning the sky for UFOs, searching for one missing, impossible connection that will solve all the mysteries of the universe.

“I don’t,” Hob says, firmly, “Thank you.”

In a turn of events that was basically inevitable, given how closely Morpheus was scanning Hob’s face, but manages to be surprising all the same, their eyes meet. Hob smiles, softly, hoping that will get across how sincere he is better than his words have.

It works. Morpheus smiles back, his eyes lighting up in a way that makes Hob think of those high-resolution photos of other galaxies. “You’re welcome,” he says. He slips, finally, into Hob’s offered hug. The way they fit together isn’t at all like two magnets snapping together. It’s slower and gentler and elbowy-er but somehow no less inevitable.

“In that case,” Morpheus asks, as he sits back up, “Have you found your person yet?”

He looks nervous in a way Hob’s never seen him, face carefully blank, toying with the cuff of his shirt.

And oh. Oh. Hob’s been so stupid.

“You know,” Hob says, “I think I might have.” They're still close enough that it’s easy to reach out, to thread his fingers through Morpheus’.

Miracle of miracles, Morpheus’ smile only brightens. “You do,” he asks, an affirmation more than a question.

“I do,” Hob replies, with perfect assurance, because this is Morpheus. He’s still not certain of what he’s doing, but he’s always been certain of Morpheus. “He keeps asking me how I feel about soulmates,” Hob says, “And I keep telling him, I’ve got everything I could possibly want right here.”

Morpheus stands up so quickly Hob nearly falls off the couch. By the time Hob has steadied himself, perched on the edge of the couch, the haughty, untouchable version of Morpheus that he met more than a year ago is staring down at him, and saying, “You can’t do this.”

The effect would almost work. It might have worked on the Hob of a year ago, but he’s gotten used to watching Morpheus’ face since then, and he can tell his eyes are shining with tears.

The floor drops out from underneath him. “I- shit- I didn’t- I’m sorry,” Hob says, the apology coming out in half-coherent bursts as a panicky wave of you fucked up you fucked up holy shit did you fuck up threatens to overwhelm him. “If it helps, I completely misread- I thought you were-” 

“You didn’t,” Morpheus says. His voice is perfectly, utterly flat. For a moment, Hob assumes he means you didn’t think, which is a gut-punch of an accusation but not unfair. And then Morpheus says, “You're lovely. I would be happy to be- to be yours.”

For the second time in under a minute, Hob is left frantically trying to recalibrate his understanding of this entire conversation and possibly also the universe. Before he can think of what question to ask, let alone ask it, Morpheus continues. “But you deserve better,” he says, like that’s a genuine compliment and not the most horrible thing Hob’s ever heard in his life.

“Don’t say that,” Hob says.

Too much of the nauseating hurt-pity-horror-anger he’s feeling must show on his face, because Morpheus scowls at him and snaps, “You do! You said it yourself, I’ve been taking advantage of you-”

“Okay that’s not true at all,” Hob retorts, anger- or at least frustration- briefly winning out. “I didn’t-”

“I only take your ‘soulmate thing’ seriously,” Morpheus spits, “For the most selfish possible reasons. You deserve someone you love. Someone who’ll choose you. I won’t let you waste yourself on me.”

“I wouldn’t be wasting-” Hob says, talking over Morpheus- half-shouting, actually, if only to stop him from calling himself a waste.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Why not? What could possibly-” Hob says, and then bites his tongue as his brain disgorges the obvious answer: dead soulmate.

Shit, Hob realizes. I’m an asshole. 

Morpheus laughs, a bitter, awful sound that’s nothing like his normal adorable screeching, and turns toward the door. 

“Wait,” Hob whispers. He’s on his feet and stepping cautiously toward Morpheus before his brain, or his mouth, have caught up with what he’s doing.

Morpheus stops.

“Give me the word,” Hob says, scrambling for what to say as he speaks, "And I will never mention this again. We can keep meeting up because we're friends, if you want, no other reason. But. I mean it. I’d rather have you than my soulmate. And it wouldn’t be a waste and there’s not someone better, because-”

Morpheus whirls on Hob, yanking up his sleeve and thrusting his arm out, palm up, hand clenched into a fist. 

“There,” he says, like he’s somehow won the argument.

For half a second, Hob thinks Morpheus had tried, extremely unsuccessfully, to punch him.

Then he sees it. A rectangular patch of skin on Morpheus’ arm, high up by his elbow, stained vivid, bloody, soulmate-red.

It’s an awkward place for a soulmark, some part of Hob’s mind notes, distantly. An awkward shape, too. Old-fashioned in its intentionality, the sort of soulmark that suggests he was formally introduced to his soulmate, in the hope that they’d be a Match.

“You’ve met your soulmate,” a voice says. It might be Hob’s voice, but it sounds too hollow for him to tell.

Morpheus nods, sharply. “Several years ago. She would rather spend the rest of her life alone than with me, and she is. Justified. In wanting that.” He lets his arm drop, just enough that his sleeve slides back down. 

Hob, who has already experienced what he’s fairly sure is the full spectrum of human emotions and was in no way prepared to deal with the additional non-human emotions that sentence produced, thinks he can actually feel his brain do a hard reset. It takes several oppressively quiet seconds for him to come back online, piecing through a mess of holy shit I’ve got a shot- do not feel happy about a thing that made your best friend miserable, you fucker- wait who in the world would give him up to find some coherent response. He fails entirely, the words who would give him up jamming themselves firmly at the forefront of his mind, leaving him staring at Morpheus and biting his tongue against them.

“It's alright,” Morpheus says. He sounds so tired. "I understand.” He offers Hob an expression that is genuinely, painfully fighting to be a smile. “You didn’t know what you were offering.”

“Well,” Hob replies, quietly, “Now I do. And I’m still offering.” He reaches out, and thinks better of the gesture at the last possible second, but he can’t bring himself to snatch his hand away, only to stop mid-motion.

Morpheus looks at him, agonized. “Hob,” he finally says, like he thinks Hob misunderstood, “I am such a terrible romantic partner that the other half of my soul rejected me.”

“Soulmates are stupid, though,” Hob says, and he means it down to his bones, “I’ll do better.”

And then Morpheus is kissing him, soft and sweet and gentle, like the kiss at the end of a fairy tale. Hob melts into his arms immediately, deepening the kiss, and Morpheus makes a low, pleased noise into his mouth and suddenly nothing matters but Morpheus Morpheus Morpheus.

When- some time- has passed, Hob’s entirely lost track of it, and they’ve stumbled a few steps back in the general direction of the couch, Morpheus pulls away. Just slightly, not enough to even take him out of Hob’s arms, but enough to dump a bucket of cold water on Hob’s brain.

“You’re certain?” Morpheus asks, cupping Hob’s cheek in one hand and staring at him as though he genuinely thinks his kisses are poisonous.

As if Hob would want anything else. This is where he belongs, with Morpheus safely tucked against him. The fact that they got this far away from the door without tripping each other is proof of that, probably, and the arm that Morpheus has snaked up under his shirt is warm like a heat pack on a sore muscle and fits there like a puzzle piece. “Of course,” he murmurs, pressing a gentle kiss to the corner of Morpheus’ mouth. “I’d rather have you.”

Morpheus sighs, sharp and relieved like he’s just finished a good cry, but when he meets Hob’s eyes again that haughty confidence Hob adores has resurfaced.

“I’ll prove it,” Hob adds, in what is probably a Pavlovian response to Morpheus looking at him like that.

“Oh, will you?” Morpheus asks, basically purrs, that little spark of confidence glowing at Hob’s words. He wraps both arms around Hob’s neck, leaning in as if to kiss him and stopping cold before he does, his breath ghosting over Hob’s lips.

“Promise,” Hob breathes, and kisses him, then tugs him toward his bedroom to start doing just that.