I am on hour 32 of no sleep because of work, and I had this idea to cope with the fact that I had to spend two hours in the ICU doing resuscitation after spending the day before watching all of the John Wick movies.
EDIT: part 2 here.
Dreamling, hitman AU, tw: character death (except not really?)
Hob who was one of the best in the business. The Immortal, they called him, and after years the name stuck, spoken in quiet whispers behind closed doors, in the darkness of the night, the one who always got the job done and came out the other side.
It was a good life and Hob enjoyed it for a while, lived off the adrenaline and the power. Except. He wanted more, craved it like a hunger that never left him for something more.
And then he meets Dream. He’s halfway through a job in London, a bruise still healing on his thigh, when he literally bumps into the most beautiful man he has ever met.
“Oh,” he says, hand coming up to catch the stranger by his elbow. “I’m sorry, I was lost in thought there for a moment.”
The stranger smiles, just the smallest upturn in his lips, and Hob’s stomach swoops like it does when he’s a second away from pulling the trigger.
“It is no problem,” he says, and gods, his voice. Soft velvet that curls around Hob’s chest and squeezes. The man tilts his head and glances at Hob’s hand still on him, but he looks amused when Hob pulls away quickly.
“So. Come here often?”
Hob wants to smack himself because he has never been like this, stumbling and stuttering through his words, but the stranger just smirks.
“Is that the best that you’ve got?” It’s almost challenging, a little mean, a spark in his eyes that are so blue Hob’s sure he’s pulled them out of a dream.
He laughs through the flush of his cheeks. “Would you judge me too harshly if I said it is?”
“Depends.”
“On?”
“On what you’ll say next.”
The challenge again, a fiery spark under Hob’s ribs, the stranger leaning forward just an inch but enough for Hob to feel the heat of him.
“Well, if we’re going with the classics I would ask if you’re interested in getting a coffee,” Hob says. “Or maybe dinner, if I were to say what I actually mean.” He lets his gaze drop to the strangers lips, then back up. “And if I were feeling brave…”
“Yes?”
And Hob has always bitten off more than he can chew, that’s how he is, wants and wants, more every time.
“I would say you are the most beautiful thing I’ve seen and I would give anything to keep you, even if for one night.”
The stranger’s eyes widen. This close Hob can hear the small intake of breath, a song in the middle of the chaos. And then he smiles again, even more beautiful than the first time. Hob wants to have it tattooed on his skin, right over his ribs so he can remember the way it made his breath catch.
They spend the night together, Hob taking all the stranger can give him and the stranger giving him all Hob wants. They fuck in Hob’s hotel room until Hob’s thighs shake, until his mouth tastes like the strangers skin and sweat and cock, until he makes his stranger scream until his voice is hoarse.
“Call me Dream,” he says, the name whispered against Hob’s mouth, and oh, Hob thinks, isn’t that fitting. Because that’s how he feels, like this is a dream that he’s managed to catch in the confines of his hotel room, a dream of want and need come true.
“Can I see you again?” he asks in the morning, cheek pressed to the soft curve of Dream’s thigh, mouth grazing the bruise he left there a few hours ago.
Dream’s hand stills in his hair. “I will not be in London long. Just this afternoon.”
Hob takes a deep breath, the stench of sex and the sweetness of Dream’s skin sticking to the back of his throat. “Next time you’re here then.” He turns his head and catches Dream’s eyes.
“I do not know when that will be. My work moves me around constantly.”
And Hob knows what rejection sounds like, knows when not to push. But there’s something in the way Dream’s gaze lingers on him, an edge of sadness that looks like Hob’s, so he says, “I’ll wait for you. No matter how long it takes.”
It’s too honest, the raw scrape of it on his throat, but Dream’s breath shudders out of him and he pulls Hob up, his mouth hot like wildfire, desperate and wanting. The memory stays with Hob all week, a high he never wants to fade, and he feels so happy he isn’t even bothered when his mark turns out dead before he can get to him.
They meet again. And again. And again. Sometimes after weeks, sometimes after months of silence. Hotel rooms that bleed into one another, Dream’s touch always as desperate as Hob’s, his smile when he meets Hob’s eyes always sweet like ambrosia. They start meeting outside too, Hob taking Dream on a walk in the park, kissing the taste of ice cream from Dream’s lips. Dream takes Hob to his favorite bookshop, holding his hand as they walk between rows of stories.
Years pass and Hob falls in love, crashes into it with reckless abandon.
“I love you,” he says one night, mouth pressed to the pulse point of Dream’s throat. Dream shudders under him, nails digging into Hob’s back.
“That is a dangerous thing to feel,” Dream says, and Hob can feel the spike of Dream’s pulse under his mouth so he says, “And yet, you love me too.”
Dream breathes out, the shake of it like a summer storm in Hob’s grip and says, “Yes. Yes I do, Hob Gadling.”
Three months later, Hob does his final job. He pays for it in blood, in gold, he pulls every favor he’s ever owed, but he gets out. Three months and one day later he asks Dream to marry him.
Dream laughs and kisses him and says, “Yes.”
It’s easy to fall into a normal life, in the alias that has become Hob’s true life, in the flat he owns in London that now becomes home, in the job that was always just a cover that he now falls into like he always belonged there. Because he has Dream.
Their life is good. Hob teaches in the morning at a middle school, Dream works from home in the afternoon, they have dinner every night, they fight over who has to take out the trash, they make up with kisses and touches, fucking in their bed, on their couch, in the shower.
It’s a good three years.
And then one day, Hob’s perfect life that he has paid for in blood, stops so suddenly. He’s halfway through grading papers when his phone rings.
“Hello, is this Robert Gadling? We’re calling from the London Royal Hospital. It’s about your husband.”
A car accident, they say. There was nothing they could do, they say, his wounds were too severe. We’re so sorry, they say.
Hob listens to the doctor talk, and he feels like he’s underwater, numb to his core. It’s a joke, it has to be, because Dream can’t be dead. Dream would never leave him. Dream loves him, he said they’d be together forever.
He follows the doctor to the morgue like he’s sleepwalking, signs the papers they give him, and then sits in the cold room for an hour staring at the body.
“Wake up,” he says, whispers the words against lips that are so cold, so unmoving. “Please wake up, love. You promised me forever, Dream. You promised.”
When Dream doesn’t open his eyes, Hob sobs and sobs and sobs until his body gives out, until there is no more anger or anguish, just emptiness, cold and gnawing at his insides.
Six months pass in a blur. Hob cries until he cannot cry, he sleeps until his bones ache. He eats when the hunger gets so bad he thinks he’ll die, and then crawls back into bed and lets the nightmares take him. In his dreams, all he can taste is the coldness of Dream’s skin, unmoving.
It all changes one night.
He’s at an all night supermarket, basket stuffed with instant ramen, when he hears the commotion. A groan of pain, a cold laugh. His chest tightens and he tells himself he should just keep walking as he passes by the isle, as gaze falls to the man on the floor clutching his stomach, the two others standing above them.
What he does is say, “Come on fellas, break it off.”
The two men turn to him, and the one on the right scoffs. “Fuck off,” he sneers, and Hob sighs. He stares at the man on the ground who’s still groaning.
“Are you alright?” Hob asks him, and the man shakes his head.
“Hey,” brute number two snaps, taking the few steps towards Hob. “You better walk away, mate, unless you wanna get hurt.”
Hob huffs out a laugh. “Sure.” The brute makes an angry growl and lifts his hand. He was probably planning on punching Hob, yet he doesn’t get that far. Hob catches the side of his arm and twists, using the moment of surprise to kick the guy's legs from under him. The sound his skull makes as it hits the floor is loud even under the pop music blasting through the speakers. The second one swears and moves towards Hob, clutching a knife. It ends up stuck in his throat a few seconds later.
“Holy shit,” the man on the floor says, staring at Hob with wide eyes. “Who the fuck are you?”
“No one,” Hob says, and drops his basket. He pulls his hood over his head and walks away but the man follows him, tripping on his own legs.
“Seriously man, that was like some superhero shit. They didn’t even know what hit them, that was awesome.”
Hob walks out of the market, head held low. “No it wasn’t.”
“Are you kidding me?” The man says, still stumbling after Hob. “That was amazing.” He jogs after Hob when Hob quickens his pace, and he won’t shut up. “I’m Matthew, by the way.”
“Don’t care.”
Matthew does not seem to care either. “Like, you just saved my life.”
“Cool, now fuck off.”
“Those guys were really out to get me,” Matthew continues like he doesn’t care Hob is not listening. “I’m a researcher, you know, a really good one. I work - or, used to work, I guess - for a guy who is like, bad. Except he paid well, and I thought he would appreciate the shit I do. But noooo, one little mistake, and suddenly I’m out, can you believe it?”
Hob grits his teeth to keep from punching the man.
“Except it was not a mistake, I did what I was supposed to do. They say, ‘hey Matthew, we need you to find this shit’ and I did, except how is it my fault I also realized the shit they want is connected to other shit, and then other shit. You know when you find the exact string you need to pull to make everything make sense?”
Hob groans and counts to ten.
“But like, I’m not an idiot, you know? I’m not gonna share the shit I found because I know what I just got myself in! And if boss guy thinks I’m stupid enough to give away the fact that I found out who the fucking Sandman is, he’s lost his marbles!”
“Shut up, please. Just shut up.”
“The Sandman, can you believe it! Guy’s a fucking legend, trust me. You know people thought he was just a myth, cause no one even knew his face? And here I am, finding not only that but his name too.” A pause where Matthew makes a choking sound. “I am so dead, oh my god, I am so freaking dead.”
“Good riddance.”
“He’s back, you know? The Sandman. Three years and no sign of him, and I had to find out about him right when he’s back. He’ll kill me, he will.”
“Sucks to be you then.”
“Fucking Dream de Endless. Why couldn’t he stay fucking dead?”
Hob feels his entire body still, a shudder and then numbness shaking him to his core.
“What—“ his voice cracks in anguish. “What did you just say?”
Matthew stares at him with wide eyes. “Shit, I should not have said that. Forget I said— aaaah!” Matthew’s head thuds loudly as Hob pushes him against the wall, his hands fisted in Matthew’s shirt.
“That name,” Hob growls, feels his whole body shake. “How do you know that name?”
“Hey, what are you doing?” Matthew yells, and then lets out a painful groan when Hob shakes him. “Ouch, okay, okay! The Sandman, that’s his real name, or the realest one he’s had.”
“That’s a lie!”
“Fuck you, man! I know what I found out, and it’s the truth. He’s—“
“I know what The Sandman is.” Because Hob does. He was always the thing that went bump in the night, the closest thing to a nightmare in their world. Hob never met him, but it was hard to not be impressed with the greatest assassin that ever walked the earth. “And he is not Dream.”
Matthew watches him with wide eyes for a long moment. “And how the hell would you know?”
And Hob laughs. It’s hysterical, pulled out of his chest like a knife. It’s a laugh, and it soon turns to a sob, because it cannot be true, it just cannot. He feels the sting in his eyes, his chest, like the day he got called to the hospital, the wound made fresh and bleeding in every crevice of his chest.
“Are you okay?” Matthew asks, staring at Hob with wide, scared eyes and Hob shakes his head as the tears fall.
“No,” he says. “I don’t think I am.” He wipes at his face with angry hands and pins Matthew with a look. “You are going to come home with me and then you are going to tell me exactly what the fuck is going on.”
An hour later, he’s sitting at his kitchen table, listening numbly to Matthew as he tells Hob everything he knows, of how he stumbled over the flimsiest paper trail, a few puzzle pieces that clicked together, of how one thing led to another.
“And then the guy I work with, he’s like big, I mean big with the underground drug business. But I’m not stupid, I can’t just let him know what I know, because then I’m painting a target on my back. Cause he’s back, and has been killing left and right.” Matthew takes a sip of his tea, shakes his head. And then his eyes fall to the fridge door, and he stops. Swallows. His hands shake with fear as he says, “Umm. Just a weird question, but why do you have a photo of the fucking Sandman on your fridge?”
His voice goes high, croaky. Hob takes a deep breath and stares at the photo. It was their one year anniversary and Hob had taken them on a picnic. He can still taste the sweetness of Dream’s mouth as they sat under the shade of a tree, Dream’s happiness a bright bursting thing under Hob’s fingers.
“Because that’s my husband.”
Matthew drops the mug he’s holding and it breaks into jagged pieces on the floor.
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