hob gadling being so goddamn normal compared to his anthropomorphic husband, in-laws, and husband's social circle that he circles right back around to being the more sus/shady one OR hob gadling keeps accidentally derailing dream's attempts to be King of Nightmares by horny vibes/going "joke's on you, i'm into it"/"promise?" to any and all threats
Hob isn't normal, is the thing. He's not. He never was. He was smouldering with strangeness and hunger long before his future sister-in-law took one look at him and decided he'd be good for her little brother.
He asked her, once, bit drunk, if that was why she chose him: if she'd heard him forswearing her in the White Horse and looked at him, peered into the contents of his soul, and thought: well, there's one at least as stubborn as my brother - maybe they'll be good for each other. She'd just smiled and waited for Hob to take another sip before saying, "Good? I just thought it would be interesting," and twinkled at him when he sputtered. Hob said older sisters were terrors, and they'd toasted to that.
Whether she'd intended or not, they were good for each other, him and Dream. It took them a little bit to realize, a small handful of centuries holding one another at arm's length for fear of what would be seen any closer. Then they'd crashed together anyways, and it had turned out they were matched not just in that bloody-minded stubbornness to keep a decent thing going, but also in all the intensity they'd tried to smother to do so, the roaring hunger and devotion and need; the both of them strange creatures capable of giving so much and greedy enough to take just as much in kind.
On the outside, though, others see Dream, his distance, his power, the thunder of his voice, and don't see it as the armour it is, the necessary carapace protecting the sort of tender feelings that could scorch the entire earth, because he is a vessel for human emotions that are strong enough to live on in stories and dreams, because he is, in that respect, - and Hob gets choked up about this, if he allows himself to think about it too much - fundamentally more human than him, than all of them, the embodiment of every fantasy and fear and tall tale of men, tending to them each night, taking no rest for himself.
On the outside, others see Hob, his banal humanness, and other humans assume the rest of him is the same, and so do most non-humans, except they're baffled by it, baffled by why he is Dream's husband. So he plays it up, because it's funny, and if they're too incurious or gullible to figure out what lays beneath, then that's alright, because his husband figured it out, and loves him for it, and that's all he needs.
Dream didn't understand at first why Hob acted extra human whenever they mingled with other capital-e Entities and inhuman sorts, but now he finds it so amusing as well that Hob wonders how the gig isn't up from the moment anyone sees his twitching smirk. His husband has a terrible poker face, Hob thinks.
He's much better at pretending. In fact, he's so good at performing the petty normality expected of him that it goes full circle and becomes, somehow, magnetically strange to all the fantastical creatures in his husband's social circle.
He had not realized the heady effect of normal human upon non-humans until the time he had gone to a Samhain 'do in the Underhill, in his formal role as Prince Consort to the Lord Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, first of his name, et cetera, and, rather comfortable with those sort of events by then, which were really not that dissimilar to interdepartmental faculty parties, with all the posturing and alcohol, only far better outfits, had, a bit soused on the fantastic elphin mead, accidentally started talking with a member of the faerie delegation about the football tables. At first he thought he'd committed a faux pas when the faerie just stared at him, slack-jawed, but later that night, he'd found himself surrounded by a cluster of wide-eyed dryads and undine and fae, gratifyingly holding court on why Billy Wright had been such a shite Arsenal manager. Apparently, it was the highlight of the evening.
It also helps grease the wheels of immortal statecraft, which Hob thinks of as something of a secondary benefit to making his husband smile. He would be a fierce bodyguard and soldier for Dream, in a heartbeat, he would curry favour on his behalf with pretty words and eager gladhanding, but what works out best, he's realized, is when important folk approach them to talk shop with Dream, to head it off with warm conversation about things like Tube construction, ABBA, and sausage rolls, until they look thoroughly disconcerted, before gracefully handing them off to his husband.
Whenever the occasion allows it, he'll skip on the finery too (another thing, he thinks, that he only cares about his husband seeing). Once, a baku ambassador, himself arrayed in glorious golden robes that matched his sharp gilt claws, had been so baffled by Hob's appearance on the arm of Dream, in his ratty old jeans and a United jersey he got as a gag gift once (and, on principle, refuses to wear in the Waking) that the chimera had absently agreed with Dream's suggestion for revised quotas on devouring nightmares.
Dream had been so delighted by that victory that he'd pressed Hob up against the front door of their flat in Islington, the moment they got back in, and laid kisses all over the hideous jersey, murmuring that Hob was a fearsome diplomat, and Hob had laughed and said he was only a distraction, then let Dream drag him to the bedroom anyways to thank him for his contribution.
Some see what's underneath, of course, and Hob's just as glad for that too.
The second time they'd had dinner with Crowley and Aziraphale, well past the food and making excellent headway on the rest of the wine, Dream had been called away on urgent business. Hob thought the night would end there, but the moment Dream left, Crowley had leveled an unsober finger of accusation at Hob and said, "Don't think I can't tell what you're doing."
Hob hadn't needed to try and look confused, but then Crowley leaned in and said, conspiratorially and only accidentally hissing a little, "This 'regular bloke' thing, but you're worssse than him, aren't you? Bet you are. Bet anything," and Aziraphale had genuinely emitted a tiny gasp of affront on Hob's behalf, and Hob was too busy laughing to say that he wasn't wrong at all, while Crowley gleefully swiveled around and said "I told you so, angel. S'obvious. Humansss. Not a normal one among 'em."
It was a lovely thing to say, actually, and all too easy for Hob to forget sometimes, being a particularly abnormal human leading a particularly abnormal life. But Crowley knew what he was talking about. He spent far more time with humanity compared to most of the inhuman lot. When Hob had made him promise to keep his secret from the rest of them - humanity's secret, really - and explained why, Crowley had laughed and laughed and laughed. He thinks it's the moment they became proper friends.
Hob isn't normal, is the thing.
But it's fun to don it like ceremonial garb and be an ambassador of humanity twice over: in truth and performance both. It's fun to be exactly what's expected and still disconcert.
And most of all, it's fun to go back home with his husband, to their terribly normal human flat, and curl up together in their terribly normal human bed, and watch Dream's face flush with pride or amusement as he debriefs Hob on what chaos he's wrought this time, intentionally or otherwise, with his terribly normal human presence, and Hob just laughs, then smiles until his face hurts, because Dream is his husband, wholly apart from humanity and still the most human creature Hob has met, and he knows all the ways that Hob feels like both, too.
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