[FIC] The Beauty of the Beast
Fandom: The Sandman
Pairing: Dreamling (Hob x Dream)
Rated: E
Word Count: 3153
Tags: Top Hob, Bottom Dream, Dream of the Endless is a Horny Little Weasel, werewolf Hob, rough sex, mildly rough and very enthusiastic on all counts, werewolf, werewolf sex, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, knotting, wolf sex, for just a minute
Notes: We're a touch late for everything this was meant to be a part of, shh. Written for:
Smoctober day 1, full moon
Smoctober day 10, scenting
Smoctober day 13, claws
Monsterfucktober bingo, were-creature square
Dreamling Nation House of Horrors, making out prompt
And also pulling in Smoctober day 16, in the woods
Summary: Recently-turned werewolf Hob wants to protect Dream from this new side of him. Dream is. Not interested in being protected.
On AO3
~~~
"Moon's coming up soon."
The words are muffled against Dream's throat, followed by the faint drag of teeth; Dream shivers. "Yes."
"It's full, tonight." The wet warmth of Hob's tongue follows behind his teeth this time, and Dream purrs.
"Yes."
"You should—you should go."
The way Hob is clutching at Dream belies his words, and Dream's mouth turns down in a smug little moue of disagreement. "I think not."
Hob whines. "It's not—you know I'm happy to see you, always, I just—" His hands paw at Dream's waist, seeking skin beneath the layers and layers of sheer silk that make up Dream's robes. "Just…can't…"
Clearly his instincts are warring with his capacity for words, and Dream is moved to help. "This is only your second moon, since being turned."
"Yes, right, and it's—I'm not very good at—at controlling everything yet. I don't…I don't want you to see me like that."
"Hob." Dream cards gentle fingers through Hob's sweaty hair, cradles him close. "I am not in the habit of casting judgment upon you, not in all our centuries of acquaintance. Do not think me so callous as to start now."
Hob shudders, noses hotly from Dream's shoulder to his ear, breathing him in the whole way. "I might—hurt…I don't want to hurt you."
Dream threads his other hand into Hob's hair as well, guides Hob's eager mouth up the length of his throat and over his chin, tightens his grip and pulls Hob's head back until their eyes meet. "You cannot harm me, Hob Gadling, nor can you. Hurt me, in any way that matters." Hob's eyes are dark with lust, with the shadow of his impending transformation, and something in Dream thrills to the sight. "I would have you share this new facet of yourself with me, that I might know all of the ever-changing man who lays claim to my heart."
The noise Hob makes at that is very canine, a whimpering sort of whine, and he buries his face in the crook of Dream's neck again, inhaling shamelessly.
"Do you know how incredible you smell?" He's nosing into Dream's hair, panting, clutching at Dream's ribs.
"Tell me," Dream breathes, enchanted by this side of Hob, the rapid waning of his inhibitions by the moment.
"Always smelled good," says Hob, nosing down the side of his neck, kissing his bare shoulder where his robes have slipped. "But now it's so much more. Soft sheets n' clean air. Starlight." His parted lips trace over Dream's skin, back up behind his ear, and Hob inhales again. "Winter skies. When the moon is rising an' the frost's like diamonds in the trees."
"Such poetry, Hob Gadling," Dream breathes, and pulls Hob's head up and around to kiss him.
It is a thing of heat and urgency, this meeting of their mouths; Hob whines, surging forward, Dream pushing back, deftly avoiding the nip of Hob's teeth, biting lightly at Hob's lips in return. He coaxes Hob's tongue into play, stoking the fires of arousal between them until he feels near to combusting from the fervor of Hob's attentions.
"Wanna fuck you," Hob slurs, all breathless raw lust and desperate unfiltered passion as Dream finally draws back from the kiss.
"I should be gravely disappointed if you did not," he agrees, a gasping acquiescence, vanishing his robes for the sake of having Hob's hands upon him faster.
"But I'm about t'change, I can't—" Hob shudders all over, head to toe, hands splaying over Dream's narrow naked back despite himself. "You want me like that? You don't mind I'll get…feral?"
"Do you think, truly, that the king of nightmares would disdain the affections of a werewolf, whatever his state of transformation?" Dream presses himself up against Hob, groin to chest, pushes his hips brazenly forward and pulls one of Hob's hands to grip his arse, to indicate to Hob that he should take such liberties himself. "Feel, how you arouse me, how I want you—"
With a whine, Hob seizes the backs of both thighs and yanks them apart, lifting Dream up and around him, and Dream is. Delighted, to note the thrill that runs through him to be manhandled thus. His arms have wrapped behind Hob's neck already and he dives in for another kiss, eager, demanding.
Hob meets him with tongue, with teeth, the promise of devouring in the growl that rises in his throat, and then Hob is turning, stumbling forward; he throws Dream onto the bed with a soft bounce and crawls after, panting, trembling.
The moon is nearly cresting the horizon.
Dream opens his legs, wide, inviting Hob between them. "Take off your clothing, that it might be spared—" He is tugging at the hem of Hob's t-shirt, yanking it up and off over Hob's head, and then Hob falls upon him as he is attempting the confounded buttons of Hob's jeans. Hob's mouth is hot and wet and desperate, mauling Dream's with delicious fervor; Dream manages to open Hob's fly at last and immediately he plunges a hand inside, beneath underwear, seizes the hard length of Hob's cock with a groan.
Hob cries out, gasping, rutting into Dream's fist until Dream lets go, grasping at the opened trousers and wrestling them down Hob's beautiful hairy thighs. Hob drops his face to Dream's chest, mouthing at his skin with abandon and wriggling to help be rid of his jeans, kicking them off at last and grabbing Dream's arms, pushing them up over his head. Dream stares back with challenge and invitation simmering in his gaze, but Hob has buried his face in Dream's chest again, inhaling deeply and moving over a nipple with a passing lick, dipping down to scent up the side of Dream's rib cage to under his lifted arm, where he laves his tongue in long licks.
"Want you," he whimpers, eyes fever bright when they turn to meet Dream's from that vantage. "God, Dream, I want you so bad—"
"Then have me, Hob Gadling." Dream's own want shivers through him, prick throbbing where the hair of Hob's belly drags against it, and he is bereft at this point of all but the thinnest veneer of patience and pride. "Have me as you wish to; let the moon shape you anew and sate your appetites upon me—"
A sliver of moonlight spears through the window and Hob rears up, head thrown back, lets out a fearsome cry as his form shifts. His arms and legs go sleek and sinewy, claws growing in on his fingers and toes; the hair on his body thickens and spreads into proper fur, rich and golden brown. His cock juts proudly between his thighs, glistening dusky red and dripping, and he has sprouted a tail which bobs eagerly behind him as he falls forward again, caging Dream between his arms. His hair is longer, shaggier, ears tapering up into tufted points; his face is somewhat elongated, velvety fur along the burgeoning shape of a muzzle, nose keen and twitching, sharp teeth bared in excitement. And his eyes—
They are still Hob's eyes, dark and warm beneath the feral veneer, and they still burn with want of him.
"Hob, my Hob—" Dream wraps eager legs around Hob's body, draws Hob in to where he has made himself slick and open and ready, and Hob slides easily home with a whine. His hips move on instinct, immediately finding a rhythm until he is fucking with glorious abandon, and Dream arches his head back, moans his pleasure, digs his heels into the sleek fur of Hob's buttocks. Hob's tail brushes his toes intermittently; Hob's clawed fingers rake over his skin, clutching, possessive, soft pink lines rising along Dream's arms and ribs in their wake. Dream reaches up, buries his hands in the thick glory of Hob's mane and kisses his jagged mouth, tongue skirting the dangerous teeth with ease.
He caresses the soft velvet tip of Hob's ear and Hob tilts into it, needy noises spilling from him as he breaks the kiss; he licks a stripe up the length of Dream's throat, bites at his chin, tucks his reshapen face into the crook of Dream's neck, scenting him as before.
"Smell good," Hob manages, voice a guttural fractured shadow of his usual tones but lavishing the same ardent praise upon Dream, who thrills at the duality of it. Hob is still fucking him with delightful abandon; he rises up, leans back on his knees—knees which are still more human than canine—and grasps Dream firmly by the hips, careful with his claws. The full moon through the window casts the golden tones of his fur in molten highlight, magnificent to behold as he towers above Dream. He pulls Dream down onto himself in the same motion as he's thrusting in, and the deep jolt of pleasure has Dream's head lashing back, voice rising, back arching. He lets his arms fall above his head, the picture of passive debauchery even as his legs clench and shift about Hob, heightening Hob's rhythm, and when Hob speeds up just a little bit Dream cries out as orgasm tears through him like wildfire.
Hob grunts his satisfaction as Dream comes down from it, draws out despite the fact he clearly has not yet come. He shuffles about, clawed hands careful as they push Dream higher along the bed until Hob can dip to the mess on Dream's stomach. He laps it up, cool nose and warm tongue going everywhere—Dream's abdomen, the spent length of his cock, his testicles and the creases of his thighs. Dream arches into the attentions, already wanting for more, petting restlessly through Hob's hair as Hob finishes cleaning him up.
"Taste good," Hob says, looking up, overlong tongue curling across his semi-canine nose and licking his own short muzzle clean. He rises up and his claws grasp Dream's hips, and there's a sound in his throat halfway between growl and purr with nothing of humanity in it. It is clear in his demeanor that he wishes to resume fucking; it his clear in his eyes that he wishes assurance that Dream is amenable to whatever happens next. "Dream—" His claws flex, grip tighter.
His name spoken in that gutteral, primal voice swells the currents of want within Dream, makes him ache with need. He pushes up on one elbow, reaches to caress Hob's face with tender desperation, thumb running soft and restless over the fine fur, reaching to stroke behind his pricked-up ear. "Do as you please with me, beloved," he pants, keyed up, fraught with anticipation. "I am at your mercy, I submit to your ardor, willingly—"
And abruptly he finds himself thrown onto his front, lifted and turned and tossed down again so swiftly as to seem instantaneous, with Hob heavy atop him, pressing him into the bed. He is not rough, precisely, but neither is he gentle; his hands are all over Dream, grasping, claws pricking. His breath huffs hot against the back of Dream's neck, followed by his tongue, which then travels in lapping strokes down the knobs of Dream's spine to his open hole. Hob noses into him with an eager huff and Dream whimpers, clutches at the bedclothes and spreads his legs wider. Hob licks at him enthusiastically, little grunts and whines of delight, claws pricking at the backs of his thighs as he presses them still further open; his thumbs brush along their soft inner curves, claws gentle, and Dream is left trembling with want at the perfect balance of care and danger implicit in that touch.
He whines, bereft, when Hob at last abandons his hole and licks back up, up, until Hob is looming over him and setting first tongue and then teeth to the nape of his neck, a careful scrape that makes him shudder, makes him moan, makes him beg.
"Hob—please—"
Hob rises up, plants one clawed hand between Dream's shoulder blades, presses him down with a breathless growl. His cock bumps along the cleft of Dream's arse and Dream shudders, ready, wanting, his patience spent. Hob's hips move, the tip of his prick nudging at Dream's hole and Dream whines, trembling, thighs spread as wide around Hob's splayed knees as they will go. His voice spills from him, short and desperately eager.
"Have me—take me—Hob, please—" Hob's cock slides swiftly into him all at once, all the way to the hilt, and Dream gasps a short shuddering moan, squirms fruitlessly in pursuit of more. "Be ruthless in your use of me, Hob, my Hob—!"
Hob is nothing if not obedient.
Dream surrenders readily to the molten relief of finally being well and thoroughly fucked face down in Hob's bed, one of Hob's clawed hands gripping the back of his neck and the other laced with his own from behind; he gladly allows himself to be pinned thus. His face is mashed sideways into the pillow, muffling his open-mouthed cries somewhat; his hips are pushed up to welcome every fierce thrust, open and greedy, wanton in his need to let Hob claim and consume him. He struggles experimentally, mewling like prey; Hob's clawed grip clenches tight on his neck and the snarl that tears out of Hob's throat nearly has Dream coming again.
Hob somehow increases the ferocity of his thrusts and Dream trembles in his implacable hold, giving voice to his pleasure as Hob slams into him again and again and again, crying out as Hob moves faster, harder. It is exquisite, everything, a savagely beautiful inferno kindling within him, roaring to life in a glorious conflagration of possession, of claiming, of lust and want fulfilled.
He will feel Hob deep in the core of him for days.
It is precisely what he wishes.
He knows full well that he will not last, not in the face of Hob's primal vigor; indeed, all too soon he is verging on climax and frustratingly, exhilaratingly, there is absolutely nothing he can do about it. Hob pins him down and pounds him inexorably up to the precipice and then over into the throes of orgasm, continues relentlessly as Dream shakes and sobs with it, fucks him mercilessly through it such that his eyes are streaming with the sharpness of his pleasure and his voice has gone ragged, hoarse. He thrashes in Hob's grip, crying out breathlessly, body spasming around Hob's pistoning cock again and again; Hob pins him all the more firmly, fucks him snarling and growling all the harder until he is coming again, helpless, screaming and overwrought, mindless in his pleasure and soaking the pillow with his tears and saliva.
And then, and then Hob comes, at long last, howling to the heavens, and the heat of his spend flooding into Dream is exquisite; the way his body swells to keep them locked together after is the most precious and priceless sensation that Dream can imagine. He sobs and squeezes himself tight around it, unable not to, still shaking, and revels at the feel of yet more spend jetting weakly into him, oozing from Hob as Dream clenches hard on his knot and bears down again and again to milk him dry.
Hob collapses to his side at last, Dream caught close up against his velvety chest, furry-sinewy arms wrapped about Dream's ribs and stomach. He noses contentedly into Dream's hair, snuffling his scent, and Dream lies fucked out and slack and blissfully content, the fullness of Hob swollen within him, lets all of his disparate thoughts drift idly together, slowly coming back to himself.
He is not offended when Hob falls asleep still tied inside him, wrapped possessively around him. He is the Shaper of Forms. It would be less than a thought to shift himself free of the knot, out of Hob's lax hold, to return to his own realm and find Hob there.
He waits it out, content in Hob's embrace, warm, sated, coveted and treasured.
When nature has run its course and Hob's cock at last shrinks from within him, Dream slips free of Hob's corded and clawed arms and out of the bed, turns and leans over Hob's half-shifted form, presses a kiss to the furry slope of his forehead. "Sleep, Hob," he murmurs, breathing his power into it, and Hob's body loses all tension, transforms smoothly and quietly into his full wolf shape. He snuffles into the pillow with a little whine, still deeply asleep; Dream gives him another kiss, this one brushed to his snout, letting Dream's scent waft into his twitching nose. Hob snuffles again, contentedly, and Dream draws up the bedclothes to where Hob can easily reach them when he changes back in the morning. Dream has seen the vague shape of Hob's worries in nightmares, of running rampant, of causing harm; his power will ensure that Hob sleeps soundly through the night, at home and at peace.
He expects to find Hob in his usual human shape when he slips naked back into the Dreaming with the leavings of their lovemaking leaking from his body, but it is Hob's full wolf form that greets him—whining happily, tail wagging, nosing eagerly between Dream's legs to lick at the mess spilling down his thighs. Clearly Hob's appetites are yet unsated, as Dream had hoped, and Dream entertains the thought of kneeling for him just like this, of allowing Hob in wolf form to mount him and claim him while he yet wears his human shape.
But such privilege, he knows, is sweeter if one is made to work for it.
He shapes himself as a wolf, then, sleek and night-shaded where Hob is broad-chested and finely colored, and drops to all fours while Hob is still nosing about his genitals, eagerly scenting and licking. He draws away, presents his backside with tail raised in invitation; he allows Hob a few licks of interest there, where the remnants of their waking tryst have left him wet and open and ready. But when Hob sets paws about his flanks and moves to mount him he jumps away, flicks his tail lightly across Hob's snout and dashes off, checking over his shoulder to see that Hob follows.
Hob is leaping after him in an instant, jaws grinning open; Dream shoots into the underbrush and races deep into the dense woods of Hob's dreamscape, thrilling to the sounds of Hob's pursuit. He leads him a satisfying chase, always barely out of reach among the trees just ahead, tantalizing, a tease, and when Hob howls with exhilaration, Dream echoes him in kind. And when at last he allows Hob to catch him, to wrestle him to the ground with teeth clamped in the fur of his neck, to mount him and fuck him and knot him again, the surrender is all the sweeter for having been earned.
===
Started: 10/13/23
Drafted: 10/31/23
Posted: 11/2/23
Title from the Nightwish song of the same name:
You told I had the eyes of the wolf
Search them and find
The Beauty of the Beast
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[Dreamling Week Day 4: Fake Dating] Fidelity
This is from the Comic!Hob x Show!Dream and Comic!Dream x Show!Hob AU, inspired by @alexxuun 's art. I'm interpreting 'fake dating' to mean miscommunication between 3 parties, where one thinks that the other two are dating, but they're really not.
This is the continuation of (and the actual happy ending I imagined for) The Burning House (AO3 | tumblr).
CW: Comic!Hob being mean, angst (heartache) with a happy ending.
Dream watches Hob, his Hob, the one he has been in love with for a long time, walk away and close the door behind him.
And he cannot, he cannot...
Dream of the Endless does not need to breathe, but he thinks he might be hyperventilating.
"You okay, sweetheart?"
He flinches and shakes off the hand that the other Hob has placed upon his shoulder. "Do not call me that."
"Do not call you--" This Hob, the other, more arrogant one, who does not look like his Hob at all, laughs in his face. "So, what, now that your Hob is back, you're just throwing me away?"
Dream raises his chin. "It was your decision to stay. Not mine."
And it was. He had said and done nothing to convince this Hob to stay or leave. He had still been reeling from the feeling of his Hob suddenly disappearing from this universe, and he had been waiting by the portal that appeared, hoping against hope that his Hob would return to him.
And every second the portal remained open and his Hob isn't stepping through made him think, 'Have I not suffered enough? Am I fated to lose everyone I love?'
Hob, the one constant in his life for 600 years, suddenly taken from him. Not by his sister, but by the universe itself. He had been unable to withstand it.
And then this Hob came and swooped him up. Promising to stay. And Dream, heartbroken beyond fixing, allowed him to touch and to do to him what he wanted his Hob to do to him. He had been held and kissed, and he had received the other Hob's touches like a lifeless doll.
And then his Hob returned.
Returned and seen, misunderstood and left.
Dream cannot take any more heartbreak. He doesn't think he has enough of his heart left to break, but apparently, there are still large enough shards to be crushed under a heel and ground to dust.
This Hob, the other one, the one he does not even love, has a cruel smile on his face. "Fucking typical behavior from a Dream of the Endless," he says, his even teeth bared like fangs. "You're a real piece of work, you know that? You, and the one from my universe."
"You should leave," Dream says.
"And go where?" This Hob asks. "Do you see a portal back to my universe anywhere, sweetheart? Can you conjure one up? You seem pretty helpless awhile ago, looking at the portal like a heartsick maiden waiting for her one true love to come back from the sea."
"The rest of the world is wide enough, is it not?" Dream says. "And if you and my Hob have a similar history, then you must have also sailed around the world in the 1700s."
This Hob snorts. "'My Hob,'" he repeats mockingly. "He's not yours, Dream. Weren't you paying attention? He thinks we're together now."
"And yet we are not."
"You know, this reminds me of when we met in the 1800s, when you claimed you weren't lonely. Well, newsflash, Dream of the Endless, you're so fucking lonely that any Hob would do for you. If my counterpart had not returned, you would have happily spread your legs for me and wept so prettily while crying my name."
Never. Dream would have wept, but he would not have accepted another Hob that isn't his into his body. "An eventuality that will not happen," he says, "since my Hob has returned to me."
This Hob shakes his head, chuckling. "Again with the 'my Hob.' He's not yours, darling. And having seen him for myself, seeing how he looked at us, I know he's never going to take you back. I wouldn't, if I were him. And," this Hob pretends to think about it before he snaps his fingers as if he just remembered something. "Oh yeah. I am him."
"He is not you," Dream says, though he feels himself wavering. The two Hobs might not be the same person, but they still have a similar enough history. Would Dream be able to claim he knows his Hob better than Hob's own counterpart in another universe? "I will...I will talk to him." He will do anything for Hob to look at him again without heartbreak clear in his beloved brown eyes.
This Hob looks at him derisively. "You? Talk about feelings? Not exactly your strong suit, but alright. I'll wish you luck with that, sweetheart." He smiles savagely. "You'll need it."
Dream looks away from him and stands up, not bothering to smooth out his wrinkled clothes and instead just uses his sand to do it for him. A second later, his clothes looked impeccable once more. "You should go, Robert."
"You sure you don't want me to stay and offer you a pity fuck when my counterpart eventually throws your feelings back in your face?"
Dream ignores him and walks down the same path his Hob took and goes down to the Inn.
--
"That was quick," was what his Hob says the moment he spots Dream sit down on one of the barstools. He says nothing else and goes back to repairing the beer tap.
"Hob."
"Hold on, I need to concentrate on this for a bit or it's gonna spew beer all over the counter."
Dream obeys and watches him fiddle and tinker with the thing in silence. It looks pretty old by modern standards, but Hob still handles it with care.
Just like he handles everything with care.
Dream watches Hob's handsome features, brows furrowed in deep concentration, his rough, capable hands and the muscles on his forearms, the width of his chest and the lock of hair falling down his face...
Hob does not see, but Dream's hands are slightly shaking. He is terrified that anything he says will push Hob further away from him.
That he has all the words in the English language available to him would mean nothing if he cannot put them in the right order to make Hob understand that it's only him for Dream.
He needs to be honest. State his feelings clearly and earnestly so that when his words reach Hob, he will feel the sincerity in Dream's words.
He needs to be brave, even when he's fucking terrified. He thinks inanely that walking through hell isn't half as difficult compared to this.
Hob is sticking his tongue out a little as he concentrates on turning a bolt, spanner in hand, and it draws Dream's eyes to his tongue, then to his lips.
It looks redder than usual.
Dream's nostrils flare in anger as he catches the feeling of something other that clings to Hob's lips like a miasma.
Had the other Dream..? Had he dared--
But of course he did. Dream could not think of anyone who would let his Hob go unkissed. And were he braver and more honest, he himself would not have let Hob depart in 1789 without kissing him senseless. He should have. He had thought of little else ever since Hob came to his defense. It had rained flower petals in the Dreaming for an entire decade. Jessamy had said nothing, but if ravens could smile, she would have worn a shit-eating grin on her face. Mervyn certainly did, while Lucienne had the best poker face of them all.
"Alright," Hob says, a few minutes later, when the beer tap looks in a slightly better condition and he had asked the bartender to call for an actual professional to either do longer lasting repair work, or advise them on the technicalities were they to upgrade to something more modern. "You wanted to talk?" Like his counterpart, his Hob sounds dubious about Dream's conversational skills.
"I will try," Dream says honestly. At least Hob knows not to expect much from him. It's a little disheartening, but Dream hopes it would mean that Hob would forgive him if he comes across like a bumbling fool rather than the actual Prince of Stories. "But before anything else, I would like you to know that you are the one I am in love with."
Hob trips a little on his way to sit on the barstool next to Dream's. It would have been funny had Dream not felt so desperate. "What? But...but you and the other me..."
Dream shakes his head. "I thought you were never coming back," he says, tears once again brimming from his eyes at the thought of Hob being gone from him forever. "I thought...The other you said..."
Hob clenches his fists. "What did he say? That I'm never coming back for you? Is that what he said?"
Dream hesitates, then nods miserably. "He said that you would not want to return because of how I treated you, and that you would pick any other Dream other than me. That I had been too cruel."
The other Hob said many other things, but that was the one that stings the most. The one that hits too close to home.
But Hob is seething in his seat, a coiled snake about to strike. "I'll kill him," he says. "I'll fucking kill him for saying that shit to you." He looks like he's going to get up and leave Dream to do just that to the other Hob, so Dream darts a hand out and squeezes Hob's hand in his.
Hob freezes at the touch, and Dream realizes that this is the first time in 600 years that the two of them had skin-to-skin contact. Hob is looking at their joined hands in shock and wonder. "Dream..."
"Stay with me," Dream says. Pleads.
"Alright," Hob says easily. He sits back down and intertwines their fingers, as if he's afraid that now that Dream has gotten him to stay, he's going to let go of Hob's hand. If it were up to Dream, he'll hold Hob's hand forever and never let go again. "Alright," Hob repeats. "He can live for one more day."
Dream huffs a laugh at the unexpected statement. "You should not kill yourself."
Hob scrunches his nose at how strange the sentence sounds in this context. "Trust me, Dream, if it's that bastard, I'm sure killing myself would feel cathartic."
Dream looks down and huffs a laugh again. He'd laugh a full-bellied laugh if it were just him and Hob in the room, but as it was, he'd rather not frighten both the employees and the customers of the New Inn.
Hob is smiling fondly at him when he looks back up, then clears his throat awkwardly when their eyes meet. "So. Just to be absolutely, perfectly clear on this, you definitely, definitely prefer me over that asshole?"
Dream nods shyly. His heart feels like it's beating too loudly that Hob must hear it. Or at least feel its frantic beat against their intertwined fingers.
He must be courageous and speak his mind. Hob will appreciate it. Hob has always been truthful to him, even at his worst. "It's not just prefer, I'm afraid," he says, slowly and carefully. He wants his words to convey the depth of feeling he has for this man. "I have been in love with you since the 1600s, longed for you the entire time I was imprisoned, especially on the day we were supposed to meet in 1989, but I only realized that it was love I felt for you when I saw you again in 2022, beautiful and waiting for me."
"Fuck, Dream." Hob tightens his hold on his hand. "You can't say things like that and expect me not to kiss you."
Dream unconsciously licks his lips and sees Hob watch the flick of his tongue with avid interest. Fortune favors the bold. "Kiss me."
'Please. I long to feel your body against mine and bask in the warm sunlight of your soul.'
Hob sways forward, but hesitates at the last second. "You're absolutely sure it's me you want?"
"Hob," Dream says, already leaning forward himself to lessen the distance between them. "You, this you, are the only one I have ever loved."
Hob makes a wounded noise and leans the last bit forward to capture Dream's lips in a perfect kiss. Dream kisses him back with all the passion he feels, and perhaps it is a bit too desperate for their first kiss, but he cannot be expected to hold back now. He wants this, has needed this, ever since he saw Hob again after his imprisonment.
Someone wolf-whistles in the background, and Dream realizes that they are still in the Inn. Hob moves as if to break the kiss and Dream whines, gripping Hob's coat tighter.
Not yet. He can't let go of Hob's lips just yet.
Hob calms and returns to kissing him back, and pulls Dream closer to him until they're both just standing in between the two barstools, lips locked like a pair of lovers who have been separated for far too long.
They'll be fine. It's not like anyone would kick Hob out since he owns the place, and Dream doesn't think Hob would let anyone kick Dream out. And besides, they deserve this. It's been a long time coming.
They kiss until Hob has to lean away to take a much needed breath of air, and once that's done, he leans in to kiss Dream again.
They kiss until Dream is satisfied that the other Dream's taste is gone from Hob's lips, until the two of them are wholly each other's Dream and Hob again, as it should be.
"I love you," Dream says. He does not know how much time has passed since they started kissing, but his lips are tingling pleasantly, and his heart feels lighter than it ever has in centuries.
"And I you," Hob says against his lips. There are tears in his eyes as he says this, and Dream leans up to kiss them away. "Gods, Dream, I think I've loved you ever since I first laid eyes on you."
Dream knows he does not deserve this wonderful man, but he's working on becoming someone who does. He's going to make Hob the happiest person in the world. "I apologize if I took too long to return your regard. I--"
Hob laughs and interrupts him with a quick peck. "Hey, none of that. We both got here in the end, didn't we?"
"We did," Dream says. He could not bear to think otherwise. He kisses Hob again to banish any remaining negative thoughts and doubts, and Hob happily returns his kiss.
Hob, his Hob, has chosen to return and come back to him. And Dream chooses him as well. No other Hob would do.
They are both right where they should be.
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