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“I have a bad heart.”
Those are the first words Hob tells Dream when they meet. Dream frowns, still woozy from the painkillers the doctors were very generous with, and he blinks at the boy in the hospital bed next to his. A paperwork mishap, the hospital overcrowded, and as much as Dream’s parents had huffed and puffed, Dream still ended up having a roommate for his overnight stay.
“What.”
“You keep staring at the monitor,” Hob says, gesturing at the machines that are beeping next to him, and Dream can’t help his eyes linger on the pulse meter on his finger. It is better than staring at the boy’s face. It is a good face.
“I was not.”
“Was to.”
“What are you, five?”
Hob smiles, and the machine makes a beep again, a sound half grating, half sad in the quiet darkness of the hospital room.
“And a quarter,” Hob says and laughs loudly, his face scrunching in amusement. The machine’s beep turns sharper, and he winces, his hand making an aborted gesture towards his chest. Dream’s eyes widen and Hob waves him off easily. “It’s fine.”
Dream bites at his lower lip, tries to keep the grating worry at bay. “It does not look fine.”
“Like I said, I have a bad heart,” Hob says, turning on his side. His cheek scrunches on the pillow under his face, and he looks young, younger than the machines make him look like. “What are you in for?”
Dream turns on his side too, mimicking Hob’s body, pulling his pillow closer to his chest. “They think it’s appendicitis. The doctors insisted I stay for observation.” He pulls his legs to his chest, and the pain in his abdomen spikes, not as sharp as before, but close enough. He keeps his face neutral, not wanting to show weakness.
“Sorry,” Hob says. Dream just shrugs, but something must show on his face, because Hob’s gaze softens. Dream wants to hate it, but try as he might he can’t. He is scared, has been all day, a fear that was like a small thorn in the soft parts between his ribs. His parents argued, the doctors spoke like he was not there, and Dream was scared but no one seemed to care.
Hob is the first warm thing he’s seen all day.
“It is fine,” he says, because he does not know how to voice the words inside his brain. They feel too sharp, like bone shrapnel digging into his skull, like the stench of antiseptic that has been clinging to his nostrils for hours. It makes his belly ache.
Hob just stares at him for a moment, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “I have a book. Wanna read it together?”
Dream scoffs, even as his heart jumps with a feeling he does not understand. He thanks the stars he is not the one connected to the monitor, the stuttering of his heart a hidden secret in the soft confines of his ribcage.
“That is childish.”
“Buddy, I’m gonna have to tell you something that might shock you,” Hob says, leaning forward conspiratorially. When he speaks again, his voice is a loud whisper. “This is the pediatrics ward.”
“Shut up, I’m seventeen,” Dream says, with a roll of his eyes. Even so, he can’t hide the twitch of his lips. It makes Hob’s smile turn brighter, and he starts pulling at the wires, drawing the electrodes from under his shirt. “What are you doing? Don’t you need that.”
“Nah,” Hob says, bouncing off the bed.
“What if you—die.”
Hob just laughs as he crouches down to his nightstand, opening the drawer and pulling out a book. “I’ve decided I’m never gonna die.” He sits up with a lopsided grin, eyes bright like amber. “Come on, scoot over.”
Dream opens his mouth, and sits there for a long moment staring at Hob. Finally, he says, “You are an idiot.”
“Probably,” Hob says with a laugh and a shrug. Dream decides he kinda likes that laugh, the thought making his ears warm with embarrassment, and he blames the shock of it for the fact that he does not complain when Hob gets into the bed with him. It is too small for both of them, and his bony knees bump Hob’s, his hand at an awkward angle as Hob scooches closer, Dream’s pillow pressed between them.
Up close, Hob’s face is even better. Dream looks away, and pushes his chin into the pillow.
“We’ll get in trouble,” he says, and Hob’s gaze finds his as he smiles. His cheeks are stubby, the kind of beard only a teenager can hope to grow, but his cheeks round beautifully as he keeps smiling.
“Probably. Now you want me to read to you, or do you have anything better to do?”
Dream sucks on his teeth and ignores the pain in his belly and the warmth of his left knee as it presses to Hob’s thigh.
“Fine,” he says and Hob’s smile gets, surprisingly, even brighter.
That night, Dream falls asleep to the lull of Hob’s voice, and in the morning after he is taken to the OR and he wakes up in post-op, achy and blurry around the edges, Hob comes to visit him.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Dream says, tongue sticking to his teeth in a way that is both slimy and fuzzy. Hob just shrugs easily, and takes his hand in his. His hands are calloused even at their age, a complete opposite of Dream’s always cold, too soft fingers.
“Shhh, don’t break my cover, they think I’m an important neurosurgeon,” he says, and Dream laughs even as his belly hurts, stitches too fresh and new. “Besides, we’re friends now. Couldn’t just let you mope here all alone.”
Dream rolls his eyes, but knows Hob is right. They are now friends, to Dream’s awe. So he lets Hob hold his hand and talk to him of flimsy, funny things, and laughs even as his body aches.
When the nurse finds them she drags Hob away by the scruff of his hospital gown, and Dream buries his face in his pillow to hide his smile and he listens to Hob try to unsuccessfully charm the nurse to let him stay one more moment.
They remain friends, to Dream’s surprise.
Hob doesn’t seem to mind Dream’s sharp corners, even on days where Dream himself hates the way they grate on his insides. He does not mind when Dream never texts back, does not mind when Dream says he is not hungry and yet still steals half of his fries.
Hob does not mind when he can’t offer hugs yet still falls into Hob’s like a starving man offered a feast. It gets easier as time goes by, as their teenage years drip by, as their world moves to university.
Hob is - stays - his friend, so Dream ignores the way his heart sometimes skips a beat in a way that reminds Dream of the heart monitor the first night they met, a stone skipping over a deep lake, over and over again.
“I have a bad heart,” Hob would say when people ask him why he misses some days at school, why he loses two months in a college semester to hospitals and waiting rooms, to check ups and nights spent connected to a monitor.
Dream hates that phrase. Because Hob always smiles when he says it, an edge of a joke, but Dream knows it to be true. A blockage, Hob has told him, made it beat slower; a valve that was born weak, the operation he had when he was just three years old doing nothing but buying him some time. Some days were worse than others, and Hob’s skin would turn this side of pale as he got up, or he would need minutes to catch his breath after a long day of classes.
Dream wanted to scream when those days happened, but what he did was learn to wait.
He waits in hospital waiting rooms.
He waits at cardiology clinics.
He waits in the university library, shoulder to shoulder with the medical students as he reads their books, as he tries to understand the ins and outs of Hob’s heart, every inch of muscle and every line of his valves.
“You don’t have to,” Hob says, always says when they sit in uncomfortable chairs, waiting for another doctor. Dream just turns the page on the gossip rag that’s a constant in every waiting room and ignores Hob, as he always does. Hob huffs and presses his knee to Dream’s and says, “I’m not gonna die, remember?”
“Stop being an idiot,” Dream says and it pulls a smile from Hob, as it always does. The silence of the room grows softer around them.
He waits in the evenings, when Hob is too exhausted for anything. Dream brings him food, and books, and sits and waits for Hob’s heart to beat better again.
“Weren’t you supposed to meet Calliope tonight?” Hob asks on one of those nights, and Dream just shrugs. It is true, he had a date, but he finds he does not mind missing it. He likes Calliope, might even love her one day, but he feels happier being here.
Hob’s heart has been acting up all week. Dream passes him the new pills the doctor ordered, and then pops open the bag of take-out.
“She had plans of her own.”
Hob watches him, a tilt of his head. Dream wonders if Hob can taste the lie in the air, but after a moment Hob just sighs and relaxes on his corner of the couch, and Dream turns on the tv and clicks on where they left off with Doctor Who.
Hob falls asleep halfway through, and Dream tries not to stare at the gentle pulse under his jawline.
When Calliope dumps him a month later, he is not surprised, even as it makes an old ache spike behind his ribs. She cups his cheeks, her smile this edge of sad, this edge of tender and says, “I cannot share your heart, you know that, right?”
He nods and lets her walk away, and then goes and waits for Hob to finish his last exam of the year. When Hob asks about her, Dream just shrugs again and says, “She found me— lacking in certain areas. I do not blame her.”
Hob catches his hand in his and squeezes. “Hey, that’s bullshit. She’s mad to find you anything but perfect.”
Dream rolls his eyes to cover the way his stomach swoops, and hopes his cheeks aren’t as red as he feels them.
“You always think the best of people.”
And Hob just smiles and says, “No. just of you.” He lets go of Dream’s hand, and then bumps their shoulders together. “Come on, let me take you to the pub so we can drown our sorrows.”
“You’re not allowed alcohol.”
“Yet you are,” Hob shoots back, and Dream lets himself be dragged away, biting at the inside of his cheeks to keep his smile under control.
He becomes so very good at waiting, but he becomes even better at listening. Some nights, when Hob sleeps, body dragged down by a wonky heart rhythm and the drugs he took, Dream sits with him and pressed his ear to Hob’s chest and listens.
Their University days drag by quickly, the days afterwards even more so, but nights like these are when time slows down until Dream’s own heart unclenches from the seed of anxiousness that has dug itself right in the muscle of it.
He listens and he counts. One, two, three, and then more and more and more and relaxes only when he gets to a thousand.
He falls asleep like that in dorm rooms, and then flats all over London. He falls asleep with Hob’s heartbeat as his lullaby, and wakes up to Hob’s smile, some days too tired for someone who slept for twelve hours, but always bright.
“Good morning, duck,” Hob always says, and Dream mumbles, “Five more minutes,” when he means five more hours, days, decades. Hob ruffles his hair until Dream glares at him and then makes them breakfast.
Dream loves these mornings. Hob always breathes better in the mornings, like the sunrise drags his heart back to life, and says, “Tell me the story of your week.”
Hob is also good at listening, and he does not mind if Dream is never as good at finding the right words, he still listens with happiness and a smile as bright as the first morning rays in the kitchen. Those are Dream’s favorite moments, and some days he wishes he could stick them in amber and keep them unchanged.
Those are the mornings he learns he loves Hob. It was always there, he thinks, in the pauses between each heartbeat, in the flutter of his pulse under his jawline where his skin is probably just as soft as the one on the inside of his wrists. It had to be, because that was where Dream would count the proof that Hob was still warm and alive.
He loves Hob. The realization hits him not suddenly, but like it was always meant to be, like the waves of the ocean at dawn, like the unfurling of flowers in the morning. Always there, like his very heartbeat.
He loves Hob and always did, and always will.
Hob doesn’t love him, but that is okay. Hob was too busy loving the world and life and that included Dream, so it was okay. Hob let his love encompass the world around himself, and Dream kept his love close, close.
So Dream learns the song of his heartbeat and sits back as Hob falls in love like he did breathing, and some days it hurts, but he can live with it. Hob’s heart is broken, maybe, but it also always gives and gives. Hob is warm, even when his heart struggles, so of course he loves. Dream could never fault him for that.
It hurts, maybe. But Hob’s heart keeps beating, and that is what matters. Even when he falls in love with Eleanor, and with Jack, and with all the other people Dream forgets, at the end of the day, Hob still searches him out.
He still calls him duck in their mornings, and still drags Dream to the pub even though he’s not allowed alcohol but he knows Dream enjoys a sweet wine. He’s there for Dream’s first gallery opening, and every other one afterwards; he’s there when Dream is forced to attend a family dinner and comes back stripped to the bone; he still lets Dream hold his hand in the days when his body is too tired to move but not tired enough to read to him.
Hob loves life and Dream loves Hob and it is more than enough.
And then it all changes.
Thinking back now, Dream thinks he was naive to think this wouldn’t happen. They’ve been running from the monster nipping at their heels for over twenty years, and their luck was bound to run out.
“Excuse me?” His voice comes out cracked, a breath stuck between the rings of his trachea. “What do you mean you’re getting surgery?”
Hob covers a flinch, and his gaze falls away for a moment before he looks back up at Dream. “Doctor David, he’s the new one, remember—“
“I know who he is.” Because Dream knows, of course he knows, he knows all of Hob’s doctors and he knows his medications by heart, and he knows the rhythm of his heart and yet he did not know this.
“Yeah, well, I went to see him last week and he said my valve is looking worse than he expected, which is making the arrhythmia harder to control,” Hob says, and he shrugs. Dream’s own heart lets out a broken wail.
“Your appointment wasn’t for two weeks.”
Hob makes a face, scratching anxiously behind his ear. “Yeah, well. I went sooner cause I was not feeling well.”
Dream’s knees shake, because he did not know this. He stares at Hob and curses himself for not seeing it. The exhaustion that clung to Hob’s frame even more than before, the deep purple under his eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to worry you,” Hob says, and Dream must make a sound, something both sad and angry because Hob closes the space between them and cups his cheeks in his warm hands. He is still warm, even now. “Hey, don’t make that mopey face. You had your exhibit to plan, I didn’t want to add more to your plate.”
Dream wants to punch him. What he does is say, “You’re an idiot.”
“Always have been,” Hob says, and huffs out a laugh. His face is open, always so gentle. “That’s what you like about me.”
“Don’t test me,” Dream says, but he sighs and shoulders sag in something close to defeat. “When.”
“Three weeks from now.”
“Hob!” Word pushed out in a growl, but Hob still holds his head in his hands like Dream is a tender, soft thing.
“Hey, it’s fine,” he says and when Dream just stares at him with a look that part anger, part apprehension, his thumbs caress down Dream’s cheeks. It shivers down his body like the flutter of his arteries. “I’m 38 years old, Dream. We both know it’s a miracle my ticker lasted this long.”
“But you keep to your diet and you take your med—“
“I know,” Hob says, still smiling. “But it’s not enough. Doc has gotten me in on a valve replacement. It’s not— the doctor said the surgery is not that bad.”
“Open heart surgery is not that bad?,” Dream spits and when Hob gives him a look, he lets out a breath. It pulls at his chest slowly, achingly. “Fine. When are we going?”
“You don’t need to—“ Hob starts, and then yells when Dream pinches his side, makes it hurt harder than it should on purpose. “Ouch, fine. Fine, you stubborn ass.”
But he laughs as he says it, and Dream closes his fingers around Hob’s wrists and feels his pulse. Slow, broken, yet still there.
The weeks pass by torturously slow. The hours in the uncomfortable hospital chair even more so. But they do not compare to the hours at Hob’s bedside, as he holds his hand and waits for Hob to wake up, the days where he was allowed just half an hour in the ICU after the operation.
Hob is pale, as he should never be, but Dream presses his thumb to the tender skin of Hob’s wrist and counts along with the heart monitor, one, two, three, on and on and on, until his own pulse is the same song.
When Hob finally stirs, blinking his eyes open slowly, Dream has to bite back the sob that is like a crack of ribs. Hob watches him for a moment, and his hand slides up Dream’s palm, their fingers intertwining.
“Told you I’ll never die,” he says, a weak smile making his eyes crinkle, and Dream says, “You are such an idiot.” Hob just laughs, more a gasping breath, but still a laugh.
Dream means to say, I love you. The words sit there, a predator always close to nipping at Dream’s heels, always there. I love you, he thinks as Hob tells him the doctors say he’s fine, as Hob sits in the hospital for a week and flirts shamelessly with all the nurses to make them smile on their long shifts.
“He’s a bloody charmer, your man,” one of the nurses tells Dream as he’s leaving one evening, and Dream just smiles and runs before she sees his cheeks turn red.
He presses his ear to Hob’s chest every day as Hob sleeps and listens to the new, unfamiliar beat and knows he will learn this one too.
They’re finally back to Hob’s flat on a Friday. Dream spent the day listening closely to everything the doctor said, takes notes and saving every emergency phone number, and then carries Hob’s bags all the way from the hospital to his bedroom. Hob watches him through all of this with a gentle tilt of his lips, an edge of amusement in the lines of it.
When Dream bullies him through a shower, standing by the door in case Hob gets dizzy, and then frets around the room, pulling every pillow in the flat on the bed, Hob huffs out a laugh.
“I had heart surgery not brain surgery, love. I can do this on my own, ” he says when Dream brings two more pillows from the closet, fluffing them up and stuffing them behind Hob’s back. Hob’s hair is wet, strands curling around his nape, falling from his uneven bun, and Dream tries not to worry about him catching a cold.
“Unfortunately, you are too far gone for a brain transplant even if it would do you good,” he shoots back, and Hob laughs, hand pressing to his chest.
“Ouch, sure, make fun of a mortally wounded man.”
Dream just narrows his eyes at him and says, “I will suffocate you with a pillow.”
Hob leans back on the pillows and he looks tired but also so very soft. Dream looks away, because he can’t not, because he might do something stupid. In the periphery of his gaze, he sees Hob’s smile turn gentle.
“Hey,” Hob says, and his hand finds Dream’s. It makes Dream go still like the world has been paused, even the air turning quiet around them. Only his heart jumps up in tempo, a stutter before it jumps right in his throat. “Stop worrying.”
There are so many things Dream could say, yet something cracks inside of him. He doesn’t know what causes it, maybe it’s the still bruising under Hob’s eyes, maybe it’s the way Hob’s thumb sits over the bones of his hand, maybe it’s the exhaustion of the week.
“I was scared.”
The words are out, and Dream’s breath comes out in a trembling exhale, and Hob’s expression shivers.
“I’m sorry,” he says, taking a breath that shakes his chest. Dream worries about his stitches, about the air stuck between them. Hob smiles, and it is so sad, a break in his face that turns Dream’s stomach. “We both knew I had a bad heart.”
His mouth twists in a sad curve, and he suddenly looks both so young and so tired. Dream remembers that first night, and how young they both were, and how Hob was scared then too, even if he didn’t show it.
“You never did, that was the problem,” Dream says, and places his free hand over Hob’s chest. One beat, two beats, rhythm solid, and it unfurls the tension under his ribs. “It was always too good.”
“I have about twenty echocardiograms that prove differently,” Hob says, and Dream laughs wetly even if he does not feel like laughing. Hob watches him, eyes wide and wet, and filled with something that shines like awe. “Dream,” he says, and then stops, mouth parted on the last consonant of Dream’s name.
“You should rest,” Dream says, because he feels his palm burning over Hob’s chest, and his eyes sting and he can’t let the tender parts of himself out, not now.
“Dream,” Hob says again, and pulls him close. Dream’s knees dig into the mattress, and they both dip closer. “What— what are we?”
Dream’s stomach tightens, and he says, “What do you mean?”
Hob tilts his head, and his gaze falls to Dream’s hand on his chest. He is warm, always has been, and Dream’s fingers curl against his t-shirt.
Hob’s cheeks round in a smile, and he waits for Dream to look back up at him. “It’s always been us, hasn’t it? You and me and my wonky heart. Since that night at the hospital, it’s always been us.”
Dream’s fingers shake, and Hob places his palm over them and squeezes. Dream’s eyes widen, and Hob’s gaze turns, a gentle sweep of his features that light him up from the inside.
“And I think— I always loved it, you know, even when I didn’t realize it,” Hob says, voice a tender whisper. “I’m gonna die one day, I’m not stupid to not realize it, and it’s always scared me. Fuck, it scares me so much, love.”
He pulls Dream close until Dream tips over and falls, barely stopping himself when their chests meet. Hob’s right hand immediately cups his jawline, a caress like a summer morning. Dream can’t help the gasping breath that leaves his chest.
“But even when I was scared,” Hob continues, breath so close to Dream’s lips. “It didn’t matter. Because I could live with my fucking broken heart because I also had you.”
“Hob,” Dream says, a whine pulled from his chest.
“Because I think,” Hob continues, leaning forward. “You’re it for me. I can feel it here.”
His hand squeezes Dream’s, presses it close, closer right over the place where his heart beats and beats, where his heart still beats even after everything.
“See that, love?” Hob says, and his voice is broken but so, so lovely. “It’s still there because of you.”
Dream makes a sound, just as broken, just as lovely and finally closes the distance between them. Hob’s breath catches, yet his mouth opens under Dream’s in a kiss that is desperate yet heart achingly tender at the same time, a bite of teeth but also a careful swipe of his tongue.
It is the kiss Dream was waiting for since that first night, when they were both nothing but bony knees and scared, broken hearts.
It is perfect.
He kisses Hob and Hob kisses him back, bodies fitting against each other like they were made to be. Hob tastes like his cheap toothpaste and the tea Dream made him drink as they came home, and he is warm everywhere they are pressed together. When Dream’s hand drags through Hob’s hair, he feels the wet strands drag through them, and he pulls.
Hob makes a sound, a gasp that Dream can feel everywhere they’re pressed together and warmth turns into a slide of heat.
Hob pulls away with a whine, and he holds Dream close, fingers digging into the lines of his body like he’s the most precious thing he’s ever touched.
“My love,” Hob says, and he laughs, beautifully breathless and flushed like he’s made of cotton candy. Dream kisses him again, drunk on the taste of him. Hob’s hips twitch against his, an uncontrollable edge to it, and his breath quickens. Dream can feel it everywhere they’re pressed close, feels the swoon of it under his palm.
His eyes snap open and he pulls back with a gasp, palms pushing down on Hob’s chest.
“Your heart!”
Hob’s mouth works silently for a moment, lips bitten red and so delicious looking that Dream has to force himself to look away. “What?”
“The doctor said we shouldn’t raise your heart rate,” Dream says, eyes wide and panicked and staring at Hob. “Oh my god, what if something happened and I hurt you with—“
“Your dick?” Hob laughs, and when Dream just splutters and glares he tries to get up, but Dream pushes him back down into the mountain of pillows. “Dream, my love, my darling. We were having a moment, it was nice, your mouth was on mine, I said I loved you—“
Dream inhales loudly. “You didn’t.”
Hob just smiles, a smile so beloved and perfect and Dream’s heart stutters and dips.
“I love you,” Hob says, so easy like it’s a breath, like it’s the sun coming up in the summer. Dream smiles, can’t help the rushing bloom of it, the way his own heart feels like it’s been given a new chance.
“Now, can I kiss you again?”
Dream holds Hob in his place and leans forward, brushing their lips together in the softest, tenderest caress.
“That’s all you get until we talk to the doctor.”
Hob groans, the flush of his cheeks like the bite of summer cherries. “You’re not gonna call my doctor to ask if we can have sex.”
Dream kisses him again, this time lingering for a second too long, sweet like honey.
“I love you and I spent my life scared I was gonna lose you to a wonky nerve ending in your heart or a ripped valve. Now that that is fixed, I plan on keeping you forever. Never gonna die, remember?”
He kisses Hob’s forehead before pulling back, and Hob stares at him with awe, with love, with a dopey smile on his lips.
“So yes, tomorrow morning I’m going to call your doctor and ask when we can have sex.”
Hob just laughs and holds his hand and Dream thinks, yeah. Broken hearts, both of them. But the healing is so, so worth it.