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dailydreamling · 6 hours

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Intemperate

alternatively titled, "consumed with lust for some fucking guy"

4300 words following the thought, "what would it be like to experience sexual attraction again after 100 years in a jar?"

Dreamling, E rated, post-2022 reunion, dom/sub vibes & daydreaming about bondage

Dream had never been a creature of the senses, but he did have senses. In the Dreaming, anything that smelled or tasted or sounded was merely part of his power, and therefore not really a subject of the senses as usually conceived. The Waking was a different matter, a cacophony of things outside of himself to experience.

But Dream never thought himself as driven by senses the way actual beings of the Waking were. His senses were an illusion, abstracted from physical reality, a way of bringing him closer to the living things his function was to serve but not really a part of him. So many senses were vague in dreams, after all, for they were products of the conscious mind and its understanding of the world. Not of the realm of dreams.

Dream was not driven by his senses. He was struggling to remember that at this moment.

“So I’ve been saving this one for a special occasion,” Hob was saying, as he poured from a bottle of syrah into two glasses, “and I know we’ve met a few times already, recently that is, but—” he finished off his pour, leaving the bottle to the side and slanting a bashful smile in Dream’s direction— “every time I see you still feels like a special occasion, to be honest. Anyway, you’ll have to let me know how it is.”

Dream took his glass in the hopes that the scent and taste of the wine might distract him from all the other senses currently bombarding him.

He had thought, for a time after his imprisonment, that he might have lost his senses entirely, become inured to the feelings of the Waking world. For one hundred and five years he had felt almost nothing in his cage: there had been no smell, no taste; all sounds were muffled other than the ones he made himself; he saw nothing but the inside of that basement, and the reflections of the glass. Even touch had atrophied when the only thing his skin felt for so, so long was cool, even glass.

He had nearly forgotten what it was like to be otherwise. But he was certain it had never been like this.

It was their first time meeting alone, upstairs in Hob’s kitchen rather than downstairs in the inn. And Dream was sitting altogether too close to him. They had taken seats at right angles to each other at the table, rather than across, and he was perpetually aware of Hob in his peripheral vision, of how their knees almost bumped under the table, of Hob’s forearm resting on the tabletop near his own. He was so close, had he ever felt so close?

The simple curve of Hob’s shoulder was catching like a knife under Dream’s ribcage. The angle of his jaw making a home in his throat, and the smile lines at the corners of his eyes landing somewhere in his vocal cords. The deft movement of his hands curling at the base of his skull, the scent of his cologne when he leaned close simmering low in his belly, the hum of his voice tickling up every inch of Dream’s skin. Grabbing hold of his breath.

“You’re quiet today,” observed Hob, sipping his wine. “More than usual, I mean. Everything alright in the Dreaming?”

Was it like this for humans all the time? Dream wondered. This heavy anticipation in his chest, the bodily attention verging on pain? He hadn’t known it was possible to be so intently aware of another person, but there it was, Hob Hob Hob in the pounding heart he didn’t need, a compulsion that wasn’t intellectual or even particularly romantic, but rather a strained desperation that could only be soothed by touch.

He had hardly touched anyone since his escape, and he had only touched Hob once, at their second meeting when he had told Hob where he’d been, and Hob had hugged him. Strong arms, solid chest, the tickle of hair against his ear, the resonance of life that hummed in Hob’s body. Dream had returned to the Dreaming afterwards and sat on the steps of his throne room for a very long time, palm pressed to his chest where their bodies had connected.

“I am fine,” he said now, and, because he was trying to be a better friend, added, “thank you.”

Not, he thought, with a tangle of chaos inside him, that it was really friendship that he was feeling now.

“Okay,” Hob said, with little conviction. “If you say so.”

Dream wanted to know what Hob would say about it. What he would say about it using his hands and his body and his skin. It was difficult to keep up any sort of conversation thinking like so. Hob was making him feel incredibly loud inside, and not the loudness of the Dreaming, of the dreamers, but a noise of his own making. A noise of his own longing.

He took another sip of his wine to steady himself, and found his hand was trembling.

“Whoa.” Hob grabbed hold of his wrist to steady him before he could drop the glass. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

Dream fixated on where their hands were connected, struck by the insane impulse to shake more so Hob would keep holding onto him. Dream had fallen headfirst many times—it was the only way he knew how to do it, in fact—but he could not now recall if it had ever been quite like this. Had he ever been so flung askew by someone’s mere proximity, made so insensate just by the desire to touch? He did not recall, but he did not think so, and he wondered again about his imprisonment, and how sunlight that one might normally turn one’s face towards with ease could be blinding when coming out of the darkness.

Hob realized belatedly what he had done, and let go of him with a guilty startle, and then Dream did drop his glass, ignoring how it cracked and spilled on the table as he lunged for Hob’s hand, catching it before he could pull away fully.

Hob stared at where they touched, utterly still. “I’ve never known you to get drunk,” he said. An out, perhaps, for Dream, if not a graceful one.

Dream gave in to impulse and brought Hob’s hand to his mouth, kissing his palm. The touch of skin was so bright, bright as the rush of power when the Dreaming was returned to him, loud as a billion dreamers’ minds filling him again where before there was silence. And Dream’s nonexistent blood was singing, or perhaps screaming.

“I am not,” he said, and looked up in time to see Hob’s eyes darken. Once such attention from Hob might have triggered the part of Dream that was prone to offense; now he wanted to do such unbecoming things as falling to his knees between Hob’s legs and biting the inside of his thigh through his jeans. Press his face between Hob’s legs and see if that alone would be enough to get him hard, if Hob would put his hands in his hair. To want such things was hardly new in Dream’s long existence but to feel it so strongly, like he was starving, like touching Hob might fix what felt perpetually broken inside of him, that was.

Intemperate. Out of control. Such feelings had never brought Dream anywhere good. But he was made of feelings.

“Dream…” murmured Hob, turning his hand to caress his cheek. Hob held Dream’s face in his palm, and he might as well have been touching every inch of his skin for how Dream felt it. Easy. Takeable. Had. Dream had always prided himself on being above it all, untouchable, but really he was weak for a kind touch and for wanting and for the burn of skin on skin, and he felt especially weak, right now, for Hob.

Hob might not mind such weakness, he thought. Unlike most, might not hold it like a blade above his neck.

Again, Dream let his compulsions pull him, trusted Hob, trusted his friend, to keep him bounded as he slid off his chair and onto his knees, Hob’s thighs bracketing his shoulders. Hob’s breath hitched, and Dream looked up, meeting his stunned gaze, dark in the low light of the kitchen.

Hob swallowed, the bob of his throat visible, and laid his hand on Dream’s cheek again.

Dream did not kneel. Dream had been forcibly put on his knees for one hundred years. Dream was on his knees now at Hob Gadling’s feet, and he wanted to be there, he wanted to trust Hob to touch him and let him touch, to hold carefully the rope he had furtively woven around Dream’s throat when he wasn’t paying attention. To hold him there, so he couldn’t get up until he was satisfied.

“What—” Dream started, and had to swallow, mouth dry, the acidity of the wine clinging to his throat. “What would you have done to me, if you had me the way you daydreamed, the day we first met?”

Dream had caught the scent of those daydreams, of course, and merely pushed them aside. He wondered, now, if Hob could have always affected him so, had he merely looked properly in that direction.

“What’s more important is what I want to do with you now,” Hob murmured, thumb ghosting across Dream’s lower lip. “Of course I wanted to have you when I first saw you. Of course I did. You were like nothing I’d ever seen. But that feeling is— it’s practically nothing compared to how I feel about you now, when I lo—” he swallowed, cutting himself off. Dream kept looking up at him, and Hob kept holding his face. “When I love you.”

Love. Dream did not know quite in what respect Hob meant it, but perhaps it was all, or perhaps it didn’t matter. Dream had never had a love where it didn’t matter.

Dream leaned his cheek against Hob’s inner thigh, as he had so wanted to, and Hob ran a hand through his hair, tugging lightly. Even through his jeans, Hob’s body was warm, his hand gentle, and Dream sighed, put at ease by the proximity. It should be alarming, to be so easily soothed. Threatening, to be touched. But it wasn’t. Dream only wanted to be closer, no matter what direction it careened their relationship in. Hob would not let it end badly, he thought. What a strange thing to feel sure of.

“I have not been with someone in a very long time,” he admitted. He was sure Hob could surmise this of the past century, but it had been much longer than that. “Locked away, I became so divorced from sensation that… I no longer know quite what it is I am feeling, I’m afraid.”

Hob scratched at his scalp, and Dream shivered. “All you have to know is how to tell me off if I do something you don’t like.” He huffed. “Not that you’ve ever been particularly shy about that.”

Dream smiled, a small thing, but it came easier than it had in a long time. “Perhaps I should have been.”

“Much as I do wish you hadn’t run out on me, I kind of like you as the stormy thing that you are,” Hob said. “I like my Stranger. Tell me off all you want, only stick around. Don’t leave.”

“I won’t leave,” Dream said. “I swear it.” He had no desire to, either. Not for quite a while.

“I get the sense that a swear from you means a lot.” Hob’s hand was still in his hair. It was bliss.

“Yes.”

Hob’s smile was warm and the tiniest bit possessive, and something in Dream that had been holding him up for a long time, that should have been proud and indignant and resisted being bound, thrilled at it instead, and wanted to bare its soft throat. Part of him wanted to punish Hob for his audacity in going along with this, wanted to punish himself for this most unbecoming behavior, but the part that had felt Hob’s daydreams and his forgiveness and now the touch of his hands had seized control and thrust him forward into the river of his own arousal. And Dream found himself enjoying the current so much that he no longer cared onto what rocks it might dash him.

Again, he thought: Hob would not let that happen.

“I’ll have to be careful not to abuse it then,” said Hob. And he let go of Dream’s hair, and Dream, unaware of how much that touch had been holding him up, swayed forward until his face was pressed to the juncture of Hob’s thigh, where he was growing hard under his jeans.

“I know that you would not,” he said. Hob had always let him go. Even when he didn’t want to.

“Up you get, then,” said Hob, and hauled him to his feet. Dream went easily, surprised into movement. “We’re not doing this here. You’ll kill your knees.”

“My body is not human,” Dream said.

“Still.”

They were face to face, now, and Hob’s expression was so soft for him, even with the heat building in his eyes. “You would take care of me?”

Hob rubbed up and down Dream’s arms. “I would. I would take care of you.”

Dream leaned in and kissed the corner of his lips, and then, caught by the hunger that latched under his ribcage, captured the rest of his mouth as well in a growling, starving kiss. All that heat and hunger filled him up and he followed it in a way he had not let himself for an eternity. He chased the lingering taste of wine from Hob’s mouth. Curled himself into the warmth there.

Hob kissed him back, tongue and teeth and the wanting of a hundred-plus years. His hands slid up over Dream’s shoulders to his neck, held lightly there, and with that hold he pulled Dream backwards through the kitchen, their lips connecting with less and less grace as they went.

“Better get somewhere more comfortable before I lose my wits entirely,” Hob said, between breaths. “I’m feeling less compassionate towards your knees by the second.”

Dream cared not where they were; he followed Hob blindly. Overcome by touch and taste and the sound of Hob’s breath and all things that were so so so loud after a century of silence. And it was perhaps because he was not aiding at all in their trajectory that they crashed into the wall by Hob’s bedroom door instead of making it over the threshold. Hob’s back hit the wall, and Dream hit his chest, catching himself just quickly enough that he only came nose-to-nose with Hob instead of smacking their foreheads together. Which would have been terribly undignified, not that Dream was feeling particularly inspired by dignity at the moment.

“Look at you,” Hob breathed, running his thumb under Dream’s eye. Then added, eloquently, “Fuck.”

Dream nipped at his throat, then sank again to his knees in one smooth motion, dragging his hands down Hob’s body as he went before letting them land in his own lap. He looked up at Hob, feeling spectacularly unclothed for all he was still wearing his jeans, shirt, socks even, but without his coat or his cloak or his shoes. Rare, for him to be so bare, since. Hob, too, was dressed casually, barefoot in his jeans and long sleeve Henley, and it made Dream feel on more equal footing. No attempt at pretenses.

Kneeling there felt like the right place to be, at that moment. Dream left that feeling to interrogate for later.

“This is really not a good look for me,” Hob said, breathing unevenly as he took Dream’s face in his hands again. “Get my oldest friend back and not only am I getting into your pants, but I’m not even doing it in a bed. It’s a bloody good look for you, though, fuck.”

“You like seeing me thus?” said Dream, as Hob nudged at his lips with his thumb. Dream opened his mouth, let Hob press his finger to his tongue.

“Yeah, of-bloody-course I do, Dream, you’re gorgeous like that. I only—” he bit the thought off halfway through, biting his lip so hard it turned white.

“Trust that I would not be here if I did not wish it so.”

Hob softened. “I know. I’m just reeling a bit. Fuck.”

“Your mouth gets filthier as you get emotional,” Dream observed, gratified that he was able to make Hob so.

“Yup, ‘fraid it’s my first—” he jumped as Dream pressed him to the wall by his hips, took the button on his jeans in his teeth and pulled it open— “first— fuck— language. Anything respectable’s from later, if it was ever there at all. Sorry for the filth, Your Majesty.”

Everything in Dream jumped to hear Hob call him thus even as he was on his knees. “I don’t mind.” He pulled Hob’s zipper down, too, salivating as it revealed the heaviness of Hob’s arousal, still cradled in his briefs. “I know by now what kind of man I am taking as my lover.”

He meant this in many ways at once and he hoped Hob understood.

Hob cupped himself through his underwear. “Can I…?”

Dream nodded. In fact, he wished very much that Hob would. Whatever he was thinking. Anything.

Hob pulled himself out, and then Dream was faced with his cock and— he had never actually been in this position before. He could summon the experience, of course—Dream contained all memories of intimacy, all wet dreams, all fantasies—but that was not the same as feeling the rush of pained arousal happening to him, the need to open his mouth consuming his body. The newness made it all the more startling and intense, but for the first time since regaining his freedom Dream leaned into newness, into intensity—and pressed his lips to Hob’s cock.

Instantly, another kaleidoscope of sensation: heat and sweat and pressure as Hob gasped and jerked forward involuntarily, nudging the head of his cock properly into Dream’s mouth— and then there was the heaviness of him on Dream’s tongue and Hob’s hand going to his hair, and Dream wrapped his hands around the strong muscles of Hob’s thighs to balance and it was all very, very much. A noise loud enough to banish the quiet of the basement that he still sometimes heard, echoing within him.

“Alright, love?” Hob asked, petting his face, and Dream hummed an assent, and took him deeper. Straining in his own pants, enjoying the play between his own arousal and Hob’s. Enjoying hanging there with no relief because it made everything prickle louder on his skin. He took Hob deep, then pulled off again, taking a breath that was more for Hob’s benefit than his own.

“I am,” he said, voice already with a rough edge to it, “I think, very well indeed.”

Hob laughed. “God, you. You have no idea what I want to do to you. Or, maybe you do, what with your—”

“I can sense dreams, not all thoughts, as such,” Dream said. He imagined the noise if he heard every passing thought of every being around him. “That would be maddening.”

“Dreams already sounds maddening, you mad thing.”

“It is true that I have rarely been accused of sanity or reason,” Dream admitted, and Hob laughed, head tipping back against the wall.

“Nor I, apparently. I cannot believe I interrupted you sucking my dick to have this discussion. Curiosity really does kill.”

“Curiosity has kept you alive, Hob Gadling,” said Dream, pressing his lips again to Hob’s cock. “And I am grateful for it.”

He took Hob in his mouth again, humming at the taste and weight of him, and Hob swore above him. What would you do to me? Dream wondered. Given the liberty?

As if he had heard the question, Hob started rambling, eyes falling shut. “You have no idea how pretty you look like that, on your knees. I don’t take it lightly. I don’t. I know you’re a king, I know you’re— and you make me mad, you make me want more, how could I possibly be given more than this? But you know me. One day, if you’ll have it, I’ll tie you up properly. And I know, okay? I know, you’ll have to trust me. If you really want to be on your knees. You make me want awful things. Beautiful things. Fuck—”

This last bit came as Dream took him deep enough to bump against the back of his throat, possessed by the image Hob had spun, and Hob let out a strangled gasp as Dream swallowed convulsively around him, nearly choking on it.

“Dream, I—”

Dream knew he would come, and leaned into the sensation. Bitter spend flooded his mouth, spilled down his throat and over his lips, and as he rode through Hob’s orgasm with him he let Hob’s daydreams bump up against him. Images of Dream on his knees again, naked this time, rope wound around him in intricate patterns, holding him there. Hob’s hands on the knots. Bound by kind hands rather than those that meant him harm, held in place to rend nothing from him but pleasure. And steadiness. Captured from the rough currents of himself.

He moaned as he let Hob’s spent cock slip from his mouth, shivered once and then again, out of control as Hob’s imaginings and his physical sensations and Dream’s own arousal battered at him. Hob fell to his knees before him, said “Dream,” with so much broken longing in it—haven’t you had me already? Dream thought, aren’t you having me?—and kissed him, hands cradling his face. Dream felt he must be vibrating at the pitch of the universe itself, so elemental was his wanting, and Hob gave him what he wanted. Of course he did.

He lowered Dream to the floor, cradling the back of his head, braced himself over Dream with their chests pressed together. His weight should have been oppressive, but wasn’t. It merely held him in place, easy and steady.

Their gazes met. “You would—” Dream’s voice was rough— “bind me? Gently? Hob Gadling?”

“Only so,” said Hob, eyes dark, cheeks still flushed, and Dream shivered again. “But right now, I just want to make you feel good. Okay?”

“Yes,” Dream breathed.

Hob braced himself on one arm and reached between them, undoing the button on Dream’s jeans with some difficulty. Dream should have made his clothing vanish to make it easier for him, but found that he wanted Hob to do it for him, to work for it, and to take care of him.

Hob’s hand wrapped around his prick, and Dream startled. Hob’s grip was warm and deft and Dream was very close to the edge already, and then Hob kissed him. Tender and hot, like he had been waiting to do this for a very long time. Waiting, always waiting for Dream.

He bit down on Hob’s lip as he came, clutching at his shoulders for steadiness, feeling rushing through him to the point of pain, to the point of whiteout. Far too much released all at once. All the sensation he had craved, blinding as the noontime sun.

Hob worked him through it as he shook, and gradually came back to himself. Everything was pleasantly staticky then, and Hob's weight was grounding as he let himself sink fully onto Dream, blanketing his body on the floor. And then Hob kissed him again, gentle and sweet. This was a lot of kisses for a being who had not been kissed in a millennium, and Dream whined, overwhelmed, winding a hand in Hob’s hair like he could perhaps manage to keep him there.

“There's a good love," Hob was murmuring into his cheek. "You’re so needy, aren’t you? I love it.”

Dream of a century ago had bristled at the mere implication that he needed anything, but Dream of today, pinned under Hob’s weight, was forced to concede that he did. Was forced to admit that he liked when Hob called him such, because Hob always qualified it with and I want to give it to you. And he realized that Hob had done so then, too, only Dream had been too blind to see it.

Still trembling with the aftershocks of pleasure, he curled a leg around Hob’s hip, drawing him closer, and Hob chuckled as he complied. “I’m regretting the floor,” he admitted. “Your poor knees.”

“I reiterate that I am not human,” said Dream, “and am not bound by human bodily limitations.”

“Oh, but you could be,” Hob crooned, stroking a hand up and down Dream’s side under his shirt, “couldn’t you?”

A smile tugged at Dream’s lips. “Hob Gadling, do you wish to see me colored by your lovemaking?”

Hob sucked a mark on his neck. “Maybe.”

Dream shifted his form just slightly to let the skin there bruise.

Hob sighed. “God, you’re a marvel.”

“Careful,” Dream cautioned, as the words caught somewhere within him that he hadn't known was lacking. “A man might feast on such compliments.”

“Feast, then. You’re too skinny by far.”

“I thought I was pleasing to you.”

“Oh, you are.” Hob gathered him up in his arms, rolled them so that Dream was on top and no longer pressed into the hard floor. “You are, darling.”

Darling.

The mania that had possessed Dream had subsided, but he found himself still hyper-focused on Hob’s arms around him, the smell of his sweat when Dream pressed his face into his throat, the warm rumble of his voice. So much missing sensation. He did not know how to reel all of the parts of himself that had spilled out back in, but perhaps if it was only here, that was okay. He could stay unspooled across the floor, unwound and directionless, wrapped around Hob's hands, until he was forced again by his responsibilities to go.

He wormed his way further into Hob's arms and said, “I think I would like to stay for a while, if that is alright.”

Hob pressed a smile into his hair. “Love, I would be terribly sad if you didn’t.”

#dreamling fanfic #Author: Cuubism #dom/sub #e rated #nsfw

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dailydreamling · 7 hours

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Fic Teaser: Parasomnia

(The morning after Special Exhibition, so spoilers there if you haven't read it. This little bit is rated T.)

Dear Dream,

Many would start such a note with “I just couldn't bear to wake you…” but, to be quite honest, I fear it would be too disingenuous given that I did everything short of cracking the smelling salts to wake you before I left. I was worried enough that I checked all your vitals. Upon finding you not dead, nor bradycardic, nor hypotensive, nor hypoxic, nor hypoglycemic, I decided you needed the rest.

Make yourself at home. And I mean that truly. Hell, you know where the toys are kept if you somehow feel the urge. (I, for one, am giving my bollocks and backside a break for at least a few days. No regrets, though.) There is barely any food in the pantry because of my holiday schedule, but there is plenty of coffee and tea. Enjoy anything and everything I have in stock. Or just order takeaway.

I left my car here and took the tube in. Keys are by the front door. You are welcome to drive my car to the hospital or get on a block south and ride in to pick up your car. I told the hospital parking attendant to log it under my name, so no rush getting here, your car is safe.

Rest. Go back to sleep if you want. (Actually, drink a glass of water first. We exerted ourselves rather, ah, thoroughly last night.) Take all the time you need.

I’ll be back about 6 tomorrow morning. If you're around, we can have breakfast. If not, I hope I’ll see you soon.

Text me when you are up and moving?

Yours,

Hob

P.S. Last night was fantastic. You are absolutely stunning. xoxo

Dream reads the letter fully three times before putting it down.

“Yours.”

Something in his chest soars.

Mine.

He wants Hob to be his very, very badly.

Probably in ways Hob very much does not intend.

Probably.

Dream drops the note to run his hands over his face and flops back onto the bed. The sheets smell of Hob and he turns to press his cheek into them before he can think better of it.

Oh, yeah, he’s proper fucked.

One hand wanders down to his abdomen, to above his groin, and for a moment he feels Hob within him again and groans. His other hand lands on the bruising on his shoulder, presses softly, just enough to remind him of Hob's mouth.

Dream closes his eyes and remembers the taste of Hob, his skin and mouth and sweat and cum. He suddenly misses him, desperately.

Which is insane.

They’ve known each other–actually known each other, not the weird parasocial relationship he had with Hob via his TikTok ASMR videos–less than a week. How can Dream possibly miss him?!?

This is just the rush of a new relationship. It will pass. It will pass.

But Dream doesn't want it to pass.

God, it has been ages since he felt this good. Since he had someone respond to him, to his intensity, in kind, to meet him punch for punch. It is what he thought Corin would be, or Calliope, or, fuck, Nada way back when. He thought they could become this. He and Killala had it for one bright, shining moment, before they burned themselves out.

And yet here Hob is, matching his steps, following his lead in this dance, seemingly without much effort, on the first try. Dream is going to have a whole lot of trouble letting that go, now that he knows it possible.

Fuck.

Dream grabs his phone from where it was placed on the nightstand next to the letter and looks at the time.

Which makes him sit up in bed like a shot.

It is almost five in the evening. He has slept for over twelve hours.

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dailydreamling · 7 hours

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Eton Mess from A Hundred Years, Then by @nuttersinc

This is the second part of fanfiction recipes from the fic; you can find Part 1 where I made Baked Ziti here. I was supposed to make it with the ziti, but the strawberries were the only ingredient missing in my grocery delivery, which was annoying because I had a whole combined food post planned and did not want to go out of the house when I've been in a mood since I got back. Anyway, I just had to get the strawberries today and now I'm so full of sugar, cream, and meringue that it's hard to stay mad.

Eton Mess is a layered dessert and one of the foods that Hob makes in his kitchen in his dreams when Dream visits him.

He offers it to Dream after his rescue, who gobbles all the food because he is starving. Here are a few lines referring to the desert ~~

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The hunger inside him finally simmers down to a manageable level and Dream lowers the bowl of Eton mess he’s been devouring,

licking cream from his upper lip, to find Hob leaned back on the counter opposite him, his robe hanging open to show his hairy chest and the lovely tanned skin of his stomach with lean muscle beneath a small pinch of belly fat. He’s smiling at him indulgently and it occurs to Dream that while Hob has been a first-class host, he’s been a dismal guest so far, and he carefully places the bowl down, wiping his sticky lips on the back of his hand.

Bonus pic: Watching Dead Boy Detectives on my TV instead of my tab in bed. So, progress.

“I’m sorry,” he offers, actually feeling a little embarrassed by his behaviour. ”I suppose I was very hungry.

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dailydreamling · 17 hours

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wa- aaaa

wanna share????

im gonna, im gonna die, new otp feels pretty nice, also, im still thinking i cant draw them that well but anywayssssssssssssss

jknckabdhbakbakjsxnkjabvsbksnkjdasc,ancsj,n

And a kiss

I liked the background

#artist: watercubebee #Dreamling fanart #kissing

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dailydreamling · 19 hours

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For context see this post by @cupcake-de-abacaxi

#dream of the endless #hob gadling #meowpheus #Fanart #Artist: Disc0bandit

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dailydreamling · 19 hours

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The Sandman/Dreamling fandom be like

#Author: Academicblorbo #Knight! Hob

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dailydreamling · 20 hours

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lover, be good to me (6579 words) by CinnamonCake Chapters: 1/? Fandom: The Sandman (TV 2022) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus/Hob Gadling Characters: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Hob Gadling, Matthew the Raven, Lucien | Lucienne (The Sandman) Additional Tags: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Past Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Abortion, Hurt/Comfort, but focusing on the comfort part, dream learns to heal and grow into himself, Omega Dream, Alpha Hob Gadling, hob wants nothing but to love and take care of his hisband, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, hob would die for his husband

Summary:

“What I’m saying is— I understand.” He catches Dream’s hand in his. His touch is careful, soft like a summer breeze. It makes Dream’s breath catch somewhere under his breastbone.

“I know how it is to live against everyone’s expectations. How to live in spite of them.”

Dream stares at their intertwined fingers, feels Hob’s pulse in his fingertips. It’s a beautiful, quiet thing; it’s the first time he’s felt quiet in ages.

(Or: Dream de Endless was suppose to be his family’s most prized jewel, but when he is taken, he loses the last thing the world considered valuable about him. Broken down to his core, he does not expect anyone to want him again. Until Robert Gadling walks into his life.)

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dailydreamling · 22 hours

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Last Line Tag Game

Tagged by @zzoomacroom weeks ago - thank you! All my most recent writing has been trickling out on the wip asks but here is a bit of MerHob lore I drafted up today separate of any of those:

"My great-gran was half selkie." He strokes a hand through the hair on his chest, showing off the hair on his arm at the same time. "Genes came through real strong in me, heh. Also why I can shift into a human so easy."

"So that is a trait unique to you, then?"

"Mmm, sort of, yeah. Most mers can do it if they have to, but it's super painful and they can't really stay that way long-term. So my selkie blood is a huge asset in that regard; I'm the go-to guy for shore excursions if the community ever needs something from dry land."

All of this is fascinating anthropologically, culturally, and Dream is carefully filing it away to mull over later, but one question has risen to the forefront of his mind and refuses to leave. "You haven't exactly got a skin to shed?" He's got comic-horrific visions in his head of Hob splitting his tail and pulling viscera-covered legs out like deboning a fish at the market, but Hob just laughs.

"No, thank the Deep, I can change without all that malarkey. No chance of getting shafted into marriage and labor exploitation for me on a stolen body part, thanks. I just have to focus and…sort of…feel the transformation to make it happen? And it's definitely easier in the water."

Tagging, no obligation, etc and so forth: @chaosheadspace , @staroftheendless , @delta-pavonis , @valeriianz , @teejaystumbles

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dailydreamling · 23 hours

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Tumblr Top Ships Bracket - Round 2 Side 1

This poll is a celebration of fandom and fandom history; we're aware that there are certain issues with many of the listed pairings and sources, but they are a part of that history. Please do not take this as an endorsement, and refrain from harassment.

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dailydreamling · 23 hours

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Round Two - Let’s gooooo!

Thank you to everyone for taking the time to fill out our survey, we really appreciate the feedback!

Based on the results, Round Two will start June 1st and will last until November 1st. Everyone who signs up will have the option of choosing between a 3x3 or a 5x5 card, both of which will have a free space right in the center.

For those that took our survey, one of the questions asked what card size you might be considering. Don’t worry, your answers aren’t set in stone. This question was entirely because we were curious to see how many would pick each option. If you end up changing your mind, you’re absolutely allowed to pick a different size once sign ups officially start.

See you soon! :D

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dailydreamling · 1 day

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today’s poetry class doodles — dream “heart eyes” of the endless and hob doing some morning reading

#Artist: xx-vergil-xx #tradicional art #glasses

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dailydreamling · 1 day

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Complex Mathematics

a university au

---

If asked a year ago, Hob would have said that what he was looking for dating-wise – such that he was looking for anything – was someone nice, someone kind, someone easy to get along with, someone to build a comfortable future with.

That, he would have said, was his type.

Oh, how horribly wrong he was.

“I do not,” growls Dream, still scribbling unintelligible nonsense on the board, “require your supervision.”

Hob sips on his coffee. A poor choice of beverage, in retrospect, considering it’s 2:35am, but usually necessary when dealing with Dream. Hob needs all the brainpower he can get. “Someone needs to make sure you don’t open a door to another reality and kill us all.”

“That is not possible.”

“I thought maths could solve anything?” says Hob, leaning back in his chair. Actually, Dream had said maths can explain any mystery of the universe, but, details. “‘Sides, I promised your sister I’d get you to eat.”

Dream’s voice drops into an even more annoyed register. “She should not interfere.” He finishes whatever strange equation he was writing with a flourish, and turns to Hob. “Nor should you.”

“You like the company, I know you do,” says Hob. “Even if you won’t admit it.”

Dream looks at him stormily, eyes glinting. Hob has never had a more moody and petulant friend. Not that Dream would consider them as such. In fact, he’d once said Hob made him want to claw his own eyes out of his head so he wouldn’t have to look at him.

But he never actually makes Hob leave.

“Your writing is unreadable, by the way,” Hob tells him, and Dream swivels around to look at his chalk scribbles again. “If you want the recognition for finishing whatever heretofore unsolvable proof you’ve just completed, might want to make it legible.”

“I do not care about recognition,” says Dream, with incredible disdain. “The answers are there in the mathematics. If others cannot see them, that is not of my concern.”

Hob tips his head back with a groan, rocking his chair onto its back legs. “God, you’re such an arrogant twat.”

Dream looks at him in astonishment, and Hob smiles beatifically back at him.

“Last week you were extolling my brilliance,” says Dream, stiffly.

“Oh, I didn’t say it was unearned,” Hob says. “Just that you’re fucking insufferable about it.”

Dream slides into a chair across from him, looking at him like he wants to step into his mind and pick apart his thoughts to find out why Hob says the things that he does. Funny, Hob feels pretty much the same about him.

It must be far too late at night for rational thinking, because he doesn’t catch the words before they slip out.

“I kind of want to take apart your brain to figure out how it works.”

Dream raises an eyebrow. “Like you do your devices?”

As a child, Hob had taught himself how a computer worked by taking it apart, piece by piece. Nearly zapped himself to kingdom come in the process. He thinks he might be in the middle of doing the same thing now. Meddling with things made of dangerous voltage. “Exactly.”

Unexpectedly, Dream smiles. “That is flattering.”

Now that they’re closer, Hob can see goosebumps rising along his bare arms. It’s bloody cold in the Maths building late at night. Hob is pretty sure they kill the heat after classes end for the day. Not that Dream prepares for such things.

Hob holds out his sweater. “Here.” He might have worn an extra layer for just this purpose. “You’re freezing.”

Dream takes it with more docility than Hob had expected, and tugs it over his head. It drapes loose over his shoulders, because he never fucking eats anything so he’s a twig. His hair sticks up in all directions with static. Hob wants to dig his hands into it.

Actually, there’s a lot more he’d like to do with Dream wearing his sweater like that.

He’s got it so bad for this idiot.

Dream leans his elbow on the table between them, head propped in his hand. “I still do not know how computers work,” he grumbles. “Despite your attempts to explain.”

Hob grins, because this has been a thorn in Dream's side for ages now and he can't help but find it amusing. The fact that there's a branch of mathematics that Hob is better at must piss him off to no end. “I don’t know why. The maths has got to be simpler than what you do. Must be because it’s all logic-based. Not sure you’re capable of logic.”

Dream doesn’t deny it. “Logic is overrated. What is it meant to explain, but simplistic human thinking? The universe operates on poetry.”

“Poetry? That’s what maths is to you?”

Dream nods, looking strangely vulnerable to have voiced such a heartfelt thought on the subject. “Do you not see it?”

“Frankly? No. But that’s why you’re the maths whiz.” Hob leans on his own hand in turn, looking into Dream’s eyes at an angle. The only poetry I see is the poetry of you, he thinks, but decides Dream would not at all appreciate the sappiness of this comment. “I think you might just have a direct line into the world’s secrets.”

Dream’s nose scrunches up. “That is ridiculous.”

Hob taps along his arm with a fingertip. “You’re just a higher order being that lives on tangent lines and deigns to grace those of us on earth with its presence.”

“You are ridiculous,” says Dream. He doesn’t pull his arm away from Hob’s touch. “And what you said makes no sense whatsoever.”

Doesn’t Hob know it. Nothing about Hob has been making any sense whatsoever either, recently. Particularly not how enamored he is with this aloof, superior being who is, quite honestly, a complete asshole ninety-nine percent of the time.

“That’s just how it is with us normals, honey.”

Dream’s cheeks color at the pet name. “You are not,” he says.

“Not what?”

“Normal.”

Hob presses a hand to his heart. “That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Dream rolls his eyes. “I meant that you are—” he starts, hard and fast like he does when he needs to explain why Hob is so wrong in his understanding of what Dream’s said, but then pauses, as if he isn’t sure he likes where that bullet train is taking him.

“You are…” he starts again, tapping his elegant fingers in the air to a rhythm only he can hear – the same habit Hob’s observed when he’s working through a particularly difficult equation. “A stymying problem,” he finally concludes.

It sounds, bizarrely enough, like a compliment. And there is something flattering about holding the attention of someone who normally disdains the company of others. It makes Hob feel…

…well, like maybe he isn’t in this strange dance of theirs all by himself, after all.

It makes him feel bold. He takes Dream’s hand on the tabletop. Waits for him to pull away. He doesn’t.

“You can solve it if you want,” he says. “Or try to. Lord knows I’ve been trying to solve you since we met and haven’t managed it.”

The night presses down on them. The meager lighting of the classroom sets Dream’s face in shadow. Dream, Hob had thought when they’d first met, who fucking names their kid that?

Their inauspicious first meeting had resulted from Dream refusing to give up the classroom he’d covered in his scribbles even though Hob had to teach an undergrad discussion section in there. You know, actual university business? Hob had said. So? Dream had sneered in return.

Hob hadn’t been able to get that scrawny self-important nerd with his black clothes and chalk-covered hands out of his head. So of course he’d gone to bother him again. Retribution, and all that.

“Solve it,” Dream repeats, watching him fixedly. He’s started playing idly with Hob’s fingers; Hob’s not sure he’s even aware he’s doing it. His gaze is a very intense thing to be pinned and picked apart under. Dark starry eyes and infinite cleverness.

He’s so damn pretty. Hob is so into him it’s unreal. Apparently, his actual type is brilliant, insufferable gits. Who knew?

“Well, go on,” Hob says.

Dream lifts Hob’s hand, studying it. Hob watches, breathing shallowly. Dream looks back up at him, and Hob can only imagine what expression he finds on his face. Want to the point that it’s pitiable.

Dream tilts his head, eyes half-lidded, taking apart the apparent problem that is Hob. Hob waits for him, waits for him to figure it out. To see if it’s something he wants.

His grip tightens on Hob’s hand. He pulls Hob to him, and Hob goes, leaning across the table and into the kiss.

It’s not tentative. Hob doesn’t know why he thought it would be. Dream is demanding about it like he is about everything else in his life, and again Hob questions why he loves this man – but he does, and it’s good. So good.

Hob must have just been born insane, but if this is the reward then he’s not complaining.

Dream’s mouth is hot against the cold room. Hob holds his face between his hands, nearly overbalancing across the table, and at the touch Dream makes a pleased sound that sends Hob’s heart singing. Dream tips his head up, daring Hob to lean in more, put himself even further off balance for him.

Hob does, of course, but not without a grumble that Dream swallows with a tiny smile. His hand tugs on Hob’s shirt, streaking the fabric with chalk dust. Hob’s not complaining.

He huffs against his mouth, half fond irritation, half laugh. “Bloody difficult, you are.”

Somehow, it’s the wrong thing to say. Dream lurches back like Hob’s stung him. “Is that so,” he growls, and staggers to his feet, mouth just tinted red from kissing but now set in an upset line. “In that case, I will deprive you of the problem.”

Hob watches, whiplashed, as he starts walking towards the door.

Then he gets his wits about him and jumps to his feet after him. “Dream!” God, why does he have to be such a— concern overrides the thought halfway through. “Dream!”

Dream doesn’t stop, shoulders wound tight. Hob follows him out the door at a clip, his heart jumping around in his chest.

He catches him just down the hall, snagging him by his wrist and pulling him to a stop. Dream yanks his arm out of Hob’s grasp, but Hob grabs him by the shoulders and pushes him against the wall, stilling him in shock.

“Listen,” he insists. “For one second, God.”

“Why?” Dream grounds out through his clenched jaw. “So you can taunt me about how difficult I am?”

Hob has called him a dick at least fifteen times with barely an acknowledgment, but somehow this, now, is what’s got to him. Hob is pretty sure he knows why.

“You are the most difficult fucking person I have ever met,” he agrees, but continues, before that pinched unhappiness can settle on Dream’s face, “but you are not difficult to love.”

Dream stares at him, gaze moving around Hob’s face. Disbelief at being read like that, perhaps. Yeah, Hob thinks, I fucking pay attention to you, you nitwit.

Hob takes his face between his hands. “I like difficult, don’t you fucking get it? I like you.”

Dream meets his eyes. Hob hopes he can tell how serious he is.

Slowly, the anger unwinds from Dream’s shoulders. “I… like you as well,” he says, seeming uncomfortable to admit it. Caught having human emotions. How terrible.

“Okay, then.” Hob finally exhales. “Alright. Come here.”

He drags Dream down into a hug, tucking Dream's face into his shoulder. Dream wraps his arms around his back. Hob sighs into him, so relieved.

When they’ve stood there long enough that the remaining tension has melted away, Hob pulls back, ghosting a finger over Dream’s lips. “You aren’t difficult to want, either,” he murmurs. “We got interrupted.”

Dream leans back against the wall, pulling Hob with him. “I would have thought you would want someone…” his lips press thin as he feels for the word. “Nice.”

Hob chuckles, holding him by his hips, pressing a kiss into his neck and whispering there, “Oh, love, where is the fun in that?”

#complex mathematics #Author: Cuubism

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dailydreamling · 1 day

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some Hob Gadling with posts that made me think heavily of him (here's a Dream one i made earlier)

#meme #hob Gadling

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dailydreamling · 2 days

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red currant

Read on AO3 here. No one can outrun grief, not even Morpheus, formerly Dream of the Endless. Grief is patient, and it will wait, even in the aisles of a grocery store, to take him into its arms and hold him tight. contents: Dreamling, human Morpheus, post-Kindly Ones, mild gore, brief discussion of food-related issues, grief

At first, Morpheus was too busy dealing with a body that needed things. It was often too cold, its joints ached terribly, and it took him longer than he cared to admit to recognize what hunger and thirst actually felt like. The latter came with their own host of indignities, not least of which was the seeming inability to properly digest dairy, and a strong aversion to certain textures, no matter how appealing the food in question might be in theory.

Hob both understood, and didn’t. He was always warm, something Morpheus deeply envied, even if he wouldn’t admit to it aloud. He too struggled, sometimes, with food, albeit in a much different way; the cupboards were often overfull before being carefully culled for in-date products to donate away, and he ate to uncomfortable excess on occasion, as if he forgot that there would be more for the foreseeable future.

There was also the question of fashioning a life out of nothing. Morpheus was dragged to a tiny shop in an out of the way street and photographed for a passport purchased in cash, along with all other relevant cards and certificates that made someone human. He was, with great effort, persuaded to allow the doctor with kind eyes who still made house calls to examine him, who pronounced him to be in fair health and left him with a number of pamphlets on proper nutrition. He came to know how to use a phone in practice, instead of merely in theory.

But Hob couldn’t stay with Morpheus in the flat forever, and Morpheus threw himself into the process of becoming human. He spent long hours reading, books he once would have known simply by touching their spine, learned instead page by page and word by word. He slept more often than he thought an adult human might need, and he spent time submerged in the bathtub, topping up the hot water the second it began to grow tepid. He played music on Hob’s speakers, any album that Hob owned, and didn’t stop to think why he couldn’t bear to sit still without distraction.

Because Morpheus was fine. He had been trapped in a human body in a glass cage for a century; being suddenly and irrevocably shoved into the same form, pieced back together lovingly by hands he could not bear to contemplate, was almost a familiar feeling. He had not felt hunger or thirst or pain in that prison, but to discover them for himself was not mind-breaking. He endured, and he allowed Hob to care for him, and he did not let himself be otherwise.

But all things, as he came to know, must change.

He was alone in the shop around the corner from Hob’s flat. In exactly seventy-four minutes, Hob would be home for tea, and they were, inexplicably, entirely out of jam, which meant that he could not have jam on toast for tea, and that was entirely unacceptable.

To Hob’s unending surprise, Morpheus liked the shop, just as he liked the park at noon when all manner of people were milling about, and the pub of an evening when it was full and loud and bright. He did not want to speak with people, but he wanted to be within them, surrounded by them, the rise and fall of their voices, and Hob hadn’t asked him why. He had, instead, shown him a website dedicated to ambient noise, and told him that he could have the coffee shop in the flat all day if he wanted, if that was what he liked.

Morpheus was standing in front of the shelves dedicated to all manner of spreads, contemplating the relative merits of strawberry (a known quantity, which he liked very much) or red currant (unknown, untested, but also free of any bits, which he disliked very much, and red, which was a promising color when it came to foods), when he reached for a jar to peer at it up close, and instead met the hand of the shopper beside him, who had crept up without his awareness and reached for the exact same jar at the exact same moment.

He withdrew his hand, out of courtesy, and began to offer an apology as the woman beside him did the same, and neither of them kept hold of the jar, which fell, end over end, until it landed with a very final sounding smash at their feet. The woman stepped back with a small cry of alarm, and Morpheus stood, as if rooted to the very ground itself, and contemplated the slightly wobbling red mess in front of him. Vaguely, he was aware of the woman stepping to the end of the aisle to catch the attention of a shop worker, who would undoubtedly gather cleaning supplies and in fifteen minutes, it would be as if it had never happened at all.

There was a scent, a cloying sweetness that rose from the shattered remains of the jam jar, a scent that Morpheus was unsure anyone else had noticed, or that was perhaps unique to him as he stood, still and unmoving, a buzzing in his ears, like the whine of a particularly persistent fly, and he moved his hand as if to shoo it away and clean up the mess besides only to blink and see—

Viscera, deep and red as rubies; he was walking through a field of carnage, each step staining him further, gore working its way over his feet to his ankles—why had they bled? they were never flesh and blood (but that was a lie, a lie he told himself again and again and again—they had been flesh and blood to him) and he was walking towards the end of all things, or maybe just the end of himself, and it was quiet, so quiet, an unearthly silence so vast that it nearly swallowed him whole and he felt it, a physical thing, the shattering of all that he was, all that he was ever meant to be, but it hurt less than he thought it might, and for a moment, just a moment, he thought it was over, the power gone, until—he had never felt so hollow, and he tried to reach out, to feel the warm familiarity of uncountable minds of his creation and those entirely independent of himself, human and creature alike, and found only an unending void, he had thought it quiet before but this, this was true nothingness, an abyss in which there was only him, and him alone and he was nothing, nothing, nothing at all—

“—all right, duck? Just a bit of jam on your boots and trousers, nothing that won’t wipe right off, I’m sure, and no staining to worry about, not with that very sensible black, hides a world of sin, doesn’t it?”

The woman was standing near him, close enough to feel the warmth emanating from her, and once, he would have known her name. She was not touching him, only hovering a hand quite near him, as she continued, voice even more gentle.

“Let’s just step to the side, and we can get out of everyone’s way while they clean up.”

For one horrible, painful moment, he thought she might say more, might even offer to call someone for him, the look in her eyes well-meaning, but horribly perceptive. He could not bear to be seen. It was enough to jolt him into motion, and he nodded, somewhat stiffly, and moved away from the puddle of jam. The arrival of the shop worker, complete with cleaning supplies, distracted the woman long enough for Morpheus to enact his escape, abandoning any thoughts of tea or toast as he made his way, with single minded determination, back to the flat.

It was too quiet on his walk back, and it was too quiet inside the flat, the soft tick of the clock on the mantle and the gentle hum of the refrigerator not enough, never enough. Hob would be home in fifty-three minutes, and it was not enough.

He burnt the paper in the sink, watching it crumble in on itself and smolder into ash, not knowing if it would even work, being as he was. Morpheus waited, hands gripping the cold porcelain of the sink, his knuckles nearly white enough to match. She would understand, his sister. She would know what it was like. She could tell him what to do, how to live, now, that he was apart from the only piece of himself that he had ever cared for, no matter how imperfectly he had done so. He could not abide being so terribly, horribly alone, with only the sound of his own voice in his head to keep him company. There was no consciousness within him, save for his own.

Morpheus did not hear her enter the flat. She had always been so good at silence, slipping into spaces like smoke. Her hand, when she laid it over his own, was slightly clammy, and so painfully familiar that it made his chest ache.

“Brother,” she said, and he tried to speak, to greet her in return, but found that he could not force the words past his lips. She would know, he thought, she would understand.

She led him to the couch, pulling him to sit beside her, and Despair enfolded Morpheus in her arms.

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