Work Text:
Hob wakes up to the sound of rain against the windows.
He rolls over, grabbing his phone and tugging it loose from the charger. As is typical these days, his phone merrily tells him that his alarm will go off in two minutes, and asks if he would like to turn it off. Hob groans, and falls back onto the bed.
He could shut his eyes again, but he thinks a minute’s worth of sleep isn’t really worth it. “Come on, Gadling,” Hob mutters, smushing his face into the pillow. “Come on, it’ll be fine once you’re on your feet. You just need a cup of coffee and you’ll be awake.”
The pillow does not deign him with an answer, and the other side of the bed is cold. Hob reaches out and snags the other pillow, dragging it close and breathing it in. He can just about still smell the faint scent of ozone and earth after rain. It’s faded over the week that his bed has been empty, but Hob can’t help the smile as he presses his face into the pillow and breathes in.
His alarm goes off, his phone vibrating loudly on the bedside table, and the moment is utterly lost. “Alright, alright!” Hob protests. “I’m getting up, I’m going.” He hauls himself out of bed and stumbles into the bathroom. “Fucking first years and their stupidly early lectures,” Hob mutters around his toothbrush.
His flat is full of things he has kept hold of over the centuries. When it's not stupidly early and he's awake enough to steer himself around all the clutter, Hob loves it. He loves looking around at all of the memories he has accumulated, seeing the sword pretending to be a poker by the side of the fireplace and remembering the chaos of Agincourt, the tricorn hat on top of a lamp that he used at the latest staff Halloween party and told everyone was from a vintage store and worth about five quid, and definitely not as utterly priceless as Nelson’s spare tricorn would actually be. Hob knows he would never actually be able to prove the provenance or authenticity of the hat, but he knows.
Maybe next Halloween he’ll fully go as Nelson, just to push the joke a little further.
Hob gets the coffee brewing, and scavenges in the fridge for something to eat whilst waiting. It’s way too early for a proper breakfast, but Hob has long since given up on trying to stick to what people believe these days are the times you should be eating. There’s half a pork pie at the back of the fridge that Hob munches on as he fills up his thermos flask and dumps in sugar and whipping cream. He loves London, he really does, loves all the eccentricities of Britain, but he does miss half-and-half.
The tube is packed. Hob squishes himself in, guarding his coffee carefully, and resigns himself to whatever podcast he has downloaded on his phone. Rush hour is always so alive, and normally Hob loves people watching on his way to work, but he’s been sleeping badly the past few nights, and the person who keeps stumbling into him every time the tube jerks is getting really quite annoying.
He imagines there are plenty of people on the tube with him right now who's partners are away for work, but probably not quite in the way that Hob's is. He can tell that he's busy, because his dreams for the past few nights have been insubstantial, and he's woken up feeling tired more often than not.
Finally, Hob reaches his station and squeezes himself off. Any lingering irritation at the early start or being packed in as sardines is dusted off his shoulders by the stiff breeze that greets him as he steps out of the station.
This early in the morning, the streets around the university are quiet. Hob makes his way down from Euston Square station, dodging commuters as he checks his watch and picks up the pace. It’s too late to swing by his office and drop off his stuff, so he heads straight for the lecture hall in Darwin.
Seeing on his timetable that a lecture has been scheduled in Darwin are always foreboding. He doesn’t mind teaching the first years, setting them off on their university pathway and introducing them to the idea that studying can be fascinating, that there is so much richness and variety in the history that he teaches and that all of it is so relevant to how they see the world today, but at the moment, Hob just is mostly bemoaning the fact that the department always sets the first years’ lectures at the ungodly hour of eight fifteen on a Wednesday morning.
“Wow,” he says as he opens the doors to the lecture hall and is greeted by about three hundred expectant faces, chatter slowly dying off as he sets his satchel down on the desk and looks around the room. “Gods, that is more students than I expected to see this early in the morning.”
There’s a ripple of laughter through the room as Hob digs out his laptop and sets it up to project his presentation onto the massive board at the front of the room. It took him weeks to be able to get this right, but now his laptop skills are down to a fine art. “Can everyone see that?” he asks as the title of his presentation comes up on the board. “You lot up at the back, hoping I won’t see you falling asleep, can you see that alright?”
He gets a number of vague nods. First years really don’t like speaking up in front of an audience, Hob has noticed. “Okay then,” he says, leaning back against the desk. “Couple ground rules, for those who don’t know me. I’m Professor Robert Gadlen, but please don’t call me professor, it makes me feel really old. Call me Rob, or Robert if that’s too personal for you. I’m an expert on the Middle Ages specifically, but I’m here to teach you lot Approaching History because Marian is on maternity leave. Her baby is very cute, by the way, if any of you wanted to know.”
Eight fifteen in the morning is too early for this, as Hob just gets a few hundred blank faces staring back at him. “This is a two hour lecture at eight in the morning, which I know sucks,” he says. “You’re tired, I get it. I am as well, and I am way older than any of you and severely lacking that endless well of energy you have in your early twenties.” He flashes a grin. “Appreciate it whilst it lasts. One day you’ll really look forward to going to bed at nine in the evening.”
That gets a few laughs, at least. “Pay attention for two hours, and I’ll bring in doughnuts the next time we have one of these lectures,” Hob promises. “If you think you’re about to fall asleep, then by all means stand up, I don’t mind. And it’s very obvious to me when you lot are on your phones, so I will be picking on you for answers if I see you on them throughout the lecture. Please ask questions throughout by raising your hand, and I’ll be plugging my optional module for you lot on spirituality and belief in the Middle Ages towards the end, so absolutely ask me questions on that as well.” He claps his hands together. “Right. That should be it. Without further ado, let’s get started.”
As the coffee kicks in, Hob gets into the rhythm of teaching. Approaching History is a compulsory module, one that everyone studying history here has to take, but he tries to inject as much life and interest into it as possible. The first hour flies by as he talks about cultural history and the methods of approaching it, the biases inherent in research given that most extant artefacts are from the upper classes. Eight fifteen is too early to give them a list of historical terminology and expect them to remember it, so Hob inserts the terms within his lecture and gives them context with anecdotes, hoping that if nothing else the students will start to learn how to use them.
It hits nine, and Hob checks his watch. “Right, first half done and I’m even on time,” he says. “Take a ten minute break, stretch your legs if you need it, and then be sat back in here for quarter past.”
The students need no more prompting than that, and Hob smartly gets out of the way of the doors as a stampede makes its way outside. More than a handful of them, Hob knows, will attempt to get more coffee at the nearby student café, and will undoubtedly be late back, but he can’t force them to understand good timekeeping. They just have to learn that one themselves.
It’s undeniably tempting to shut the door and stick something through the handles so they can’t get in, but Hob holds himself back. They’re only first years. He’ll wait until third year to start locking them out of lecture halls.
About three quarters are back by quarter past. “Let’s get started again,” Hob says, clicking on to the next slide and a picture of an illuminated manuscript. “Part of the point of these lectures is to introduce you to some of the topics you might want to specialise in. I’m now going to spend an hour or so trying to sell my research to you so in a few year’s time I will have grad student minions to do my bidding.”
That gets a laugh. Hob switches onto the next slide. “I’m a medievalist, and particularly specialise in what we now call the Middle Ages. One of the most important things to first know about that time period is that we spoke a somewhat different language. To start this off, I’m going to read a passage or two from Gawaine and the Green Knight, in the original Middle English.”
He’s done this so many times that he can recite this from memory. The Middle English is comfortable on his tongue, taking only a few moments to settle, and then it’s like he’s right back in his old manor house out in the country, reciting a poem for Robyn as he sits on his lap, Eleanor embroidering a handkerchief next to him and smiling as she listens.
It’s an old ache, his family he lost so long ago, but a familiar one. Without it, it would be harder to remember them, and he can’t have that.
0-o-0-o-0
Hob wraps up his lecture with an inward sigh of relief. “And that’s all, folks. Now, because you’re first years and fairly new at that, I’ll let you off my usual post-lecture discussion period, but I am gonna need someone to ask me a question.” He grins at the sudden expressions of fear on all their faces. “Just one question,” he wheedles. “It can be on how the course is structured, what the assessments are like, whether or not I’m going to teach you Middle English. Anything at all. Just one question, and I’ll let you go.”
There is dead silence. Hob sighs, and sits on the edge of the desk. “I have more patience than all of you combined,” he says flatly. “And this lecture hall isn’t needed for another hour. Hit me.”
Tentatively, one hand goes up in the front row. “Excellent!” Hob says. “Go on, what’s your question?”
“Well, you did say we could ask you anything,” the student says hesitantly. “I- uh, was wondering why your thermos flask says Don’t Ask Me About Shakespeare? ”
Hob laughs. That one he truly hadn’t been expecting. “That’s because my boyfriend is really awful at gift-giving, and so deputised finding a gift for my last birthday to his assistant, and said assistant Matthew has a terrible sense of humour." That leaves out how Hob had to be the one to actually buy it, as Dream still doesn't know how to successfully navigate the internet and Matthew doesn't have opposable thumbs, but that would take too much explaining. "And also because Shakespeare is an over-studied, overdone talentless hack. If you take my module next term I will do an entire lecture just on that topic.”
The student looks even more confused, but Hob really wants another coffee now, and if he goes on a Shakespeare rant now he’ll never make it to his favoured café before the last of the chocolate croissants are gone. “I said one question, and I did mean it,” he tells the lecture hall. “Go on, scram.”
They don’t need to be told twice. Hob packs up his laptop and empty coffee flask, stuffing them into his satchel. A few students are lingering hesitantly near the desk, and Hob fields their questions about the course and his own module as he gets tangled in his laptop charger and tugs at it fruitlessly. One of them unplugs it from the wall, and hands the end over. “Thanks,” Hob says wryly. “Come on, let’s get going.”
He heads for his office, via the café for a chocolate croissant, as the students flock to the student centre, probably bemoaning the state of affairs that have them in a two hour lecture at eight in the morning. The history department is awake now, professors coming in and out on the way to and from lectures and seminars. A number of grad students are in the lounge, discussing a presentation over coffee that Hob fought tooth and nail to get put into the department lounge.
He loves this building, the old facade of warm brown stone that looks out onto the park across the street. No matter how much they update the inside, adding in a study area with computers that were brand new about five years ago, a digital system for cataloguing history books and giving students access to copies of manuscripts too fragile to be moved from the British Library, the age of the building still peeks through. Hob remembers when these were townhouses, when the park in the square was for private use only. Around then he had been well off enough to be acquaintances with those living here, though as a merchant and not a titled noble at that time many of them had looked down their nose at him and his new money. Hob gets a perverse pleasure from wandering around the park each lunchtime, a fuck you to people long since dead.
“Morning, Mi-rae,” Hob says as he refills his coffee. “How’s the research going?”
Mi-rae busies herself with her own thermos flask and the quite frankly intense selection of teas laid out on the side. “Slowly, as usual,” she replies. “I’m down a PhD student at the moment and it’s affecting the timelines a lot more than I thought it would."
"I would offer you one of mine, but they spent all of last week debating the translation of one word in that recovered manuscript found in a church basement, so they might just bog you down," Hob says wryly. He could just tell them what the word means, he does remember the translation, but half of the fun is letting them work it out themselves. That, and he doesn't precisely have any evidence for how he knows that. "Any applicants?"
"Oh, there's always some, but we're in the wrong time of year for it," Mi-rae replies as she pokes at her teabag with a wooden stirrer. "I'll manage well enough. Might have to hand off the Christmas party planning to someone else this year, though."
Hob eyes her. "If that was a blatant attempt to get me to volunteer for the job, I'm already organising the department Bake Off. You'll have to bribe me if you want me to take that on as well."
Mi-rae hums, considering it. "I'll take you out to Ottolenghi's," she offers. "We can make it a double date. Me and my wife, and you can bring your boyfriend."
"That's just a shameless attempt to get to meet and interrogate him," Hob says with a laugh. "He's busy with his job, and it's unpredictable I'm afraid. He can't commit to anything too far in advance."
"You keep saying that," Mi-rae replies. "I'm beginning to think he's scared of us."
"This department is a pack of nosy busybodies," Hob points out. "Who would waste no time in interrogating him about every aspect of his life. You just want to be the first to attempt it."
Mi-rae nudges him. "You have to let us meet him sometimes," she wheedles. "He's so mysterious!"
Hob sighs. "I'll introduce him slowly, when he wants to," he says. "I'm not lying when I say he is devoted to his job, and it keeps him very busy. And he's not…great with a lot of people at once. Especially if he's the centre of attention, which he undoubtedly would be." He pats Mi-rae on the shoulder sympathetically. "You just have to be patient. Now, I'll have to love you and leave you, because I have a seminar in twenty minutes and I don't remember what it's even meant to be on."
He spends twenty minutes consulting his diary and then trying to find the right set of notebooks to remind himself, and then heads to the seminar room he'd booked. These are much smaller rooms, modern still but with more of the age of these buildings peeking through, and Hob likes teaching in them. They remind him of some of the libraries he has been through over his many years, wood panelling still on the walls and old light fittings overhead, even if the lights themselves are modern and white.
His seminar group are the third year students studying his module on animals, demons and the boundaries of the human in the Late Middle Ages; Hob had been particularly pleased when he came up with that title. They trickle into the room in ones and twos, chatting amongst themselves until all front three rows are filled. Hob does a headcount and finds himself one short.
"I know I don't actually take nominal rolls for this," he says as they settle into their seats and he sits up on the desk, "but you're all normally good at turning up and on time. Who are we- where's Lucinda?"
The others in the seminar glance around. "She wasn't in earlier," Mark says hesitantly. "The library, I mean."
"If someone can text her and let her know if she can't make it I'll send her my notes, that would be appreciated," Hob says. "But we might as well get started. How did everyone get on with the translation of the text?"
"It was hard ," one of them says. "A translation from Latin into Middle English, that we then had to translate to modern English? That was mean. I spent so long researching Latin conjugations."
"Precisely what I wanted you to find out," Hob points out. "And Latin was a fairly static language at this point, and our modern understanding of it is very similar to theirs. Imagine trying to translate something that had been translated from a living language, where it has changed over the past five hundred years or so." He kicks his heels against the desk. "Anyone want to share their own translation?"
Just as the first person starts speaking, the door swings open wildly. "I'm so sorry," Lucinda gasps as she struggles through the door, weighed down by bags. "My babysitter is sick and I couldn’t find anyone to help out on such short notice. I promise he’ll be really quiet and won’t disrupt anything, I just-” She cuts off, struggling to get what Hob now realises is a stroller through the door.
He hurries open and holds the door open for her. “I’m so sorry,” Lucinda says again.
“Absolutely no worries,” Hob says, smiling down at the baby in the stroller. About six months, maybe, and terrifyingly cute. “What’s his name?”
“Ozzy,” Lucinda says as she gets clear of the door and expertly pilots the stroller to an empty table. She dumps her stuff on the table and starts sorting through it. “Sorry, everyone, I’m so sorry. I promise he’ll be good.”
“We were just starting to talk about translating the text,” Hob tells her. “Take your time, settle in whilst we get the discussion going. Mark, you were going to say something?”
That kicks off a good twenty minutes of debate, during which Hob mostly sits back and listens in. He loves teaching the third years in seminars, when they really have the opportunity to engage. He makes a note in his calendar to book a session in the British Library archives. This group would probably like to explore some of the more restricted manuscripts there, based on how fierce the debate is getting.
Lucinda takes a few minutes to compose herself, and then joins in. One hand is resting on the stroller, absent-mindedly rocking it back and forth as she jots down notes.
"Okay, okay," Hob says as the conversation starts going in circles. "Rein it in there. Great discussion on the translation, but a work isn't just what it says on the page. We need to consider the context in which it was written. Why was this piece written down? Why did the author choose these particular words to preserve? What can someone tell me about the-”
A shrill cry pierces the air. Lucinda’s face falls, and she leans over the stroller. “Shush, shush now Ozzy,” she whispers frantically. “It’s okay, mum’s here.”
Ozzy seems to settle down for a few moments, and then starts up again. Hob winces in commiseration as Lucinda’s tone becomes more and more frantic. “I’m sorry,” she says to the class. “He’s not fond of spending too much time in the stroller. I’ll take him outside, walk him up and down a bit, that usually quiets him down.” She starts to get up and pack away all her stuff.
“I’ll take him,” Hob offers.
Lucinda stares at him. “What?”
“I’ll take him,” Hob says again. “If he’s happier in someone’s arms I can take him for a bit, see if he quiets down.” He smiles. “I have a very soothing tone. Lots of the first years fell asleep this morning in my lecture.”
“I- are you sure?” Lucinda asks.
“Absolutely, I would love to,” Hob replies, already heading for the stroller. “He can be my teaching assistant for the seminar. Isn’t that right, Ozzy?”
Ozzy yells up at him. “Quite right,” Hob says. He checks with Lucinda, and at her nod gently lifts Ozzy up out of the stroller. “Now I know I’m a stranger, little man,” he says to him as he bounces him in his arms. “But your mama needs a break, and I think you and I are going to get on just fine, aren’t we?”
Ozzy stares up at him with big blue eyes. The yelling seems to have trailed off into confusion at this new person who is holding him. “You, mister, have some cheeks ,” Hob tells him. “Yes, you do. Yes, that’s right, you do!”
Lucinda seems to deflate slightly in her chair. “He’s quiet ,” she murmurs. “Oh, thank you god.”
“You’re welcome,” Hob says with a laugh. He bounces Ozzy up and down in his arms. “You’ll be a good little man now, won’t you, and let me do some teaching? Never too early to get you started on your higher education.”
“You’re good with him,” Nadya says.
Hob keeps bouncing Ozzy as he heads back to his desk and connects his laptop. “I had a son, once,” he muses as he keeps Ozzy on his hip and starts walking with him, up and down the front of the classroom. “For months, he wouldn’t sleep unless he was walked to sleep.”
The class stares at him for a moment. Out of the corner of his eye, Hob sees one of his students mouth had to the one sitting next to them. “Right,” he says, clearing his throat. He adjusts Ozzy’s little jacket so it sits more comfortably on him. “Let’s continue, shall we Ozzy?”
His feet are aching a little from pacing up and down the front of the classroom after about thirty minutes, but he can’t quite bring himself to put Ozzy down. He’s a champ, staying quiet as Hob directs discussion on the influence of the Plantagenet dynasty on culture and art within England, and what it reflects about the wider society that isn’t so readily available to study. And if he maybe throws in a few anecdotes of things that he remembers, they’re only ones that he’s sure he can find in a long-finished notebook in storage somewhere. Just in case he needs to reference a primary source.
He’s talking about the everyday influence of the Church when the door to the classroom opens. Hob turns. “Oh, hello love,” he says, bouncing Ozzy in his arms. “You’re back early.”
“Things were accomplished quicker than I had anticipated,” Dream replies, glancing between Hob and the students in the class. “I can return later.”
“I’ve only got ten minutes left, if you don’t mind listening to me prattle on for a bit before we can go,” Hob says with a smile. “Take any empty seat.”
Dream, of course, takes Hob’s seat at the desk. He is still staring at Hob, and it takes a moment for Hob to realise that he still has Ozzy in his arms. “Oh. I haven’t kidnapped a child?” he tries. “This is Ozzy. He’s Lucinda’s.” He nods over at Lucinda, who like most of the class is watching this exchange with wide eyes.
“I did not think you would,” Dream says.
“I’m just keeping him quiet,” Hob explains. “He doesn’t like the stroller.” He can’t quite see behind the intense stare that Dream is pinning him with, and it’s a little disconcerting. He’s normally pretty good at interpreting Dream’s expressions. Is he not a fan of small children? Hob would have thought that being the Prince of Stories and all, he would derive some enjoyment at least from the imagination of children. Though perhaps a six-month old doesn’t quite have the imagination of an older child yet. “Not keeping him, duck, I promise.”
Ozzy is staring at Dream, seemingly transfixed by him, and Hob sees the twitch in Dream’s hands before he stills them and places him firmly in his lap. He is sitting rigid in his chair, and Hob realises that his gaze is actually focused a little below Hob’s own face. “Oh,” he says as a number of things fall into place.
He turns to Lucinda. “He’s a heavy baby. Would you mind if I passed him over to my partner here, Morpheus? He’s very good with children, I promise.”
“I had a son, once,” Dream says, his voice low. His gaze falls on Lucinda. “I would care for him as I cared for my own, when he was young.”
Lucinda nods. “If you’re sure,” she says, glancing back and forth between Hob and Dream. “And stay in the room.”
Hob gives her a reassuring smile. “He’ll stay right here, don’t worry.” He carefully detaches Ozzy’s grip on his jumper in order to hand him over, and Ozzy’s face immediately starts to crumple. “Perhaps this was a bad idea,” Hob says, shushing him as Ozzy grizzles into his neck.
There is a hand on his shoulder. “Allow me,” Dream says, suddenly standing next to him. He crouches down slightly to look Ozzy in the face. “I understand your attachment,” he says, his voice low and entirely serious. “He is an excellent man, and you could have no better companion. But he has a purpose he must do right now. I would like you to come and sit with me for a few moments, if you are amenable.”
Ozzy babbles at Dream as Hob feels his heart melt entirely. “That is an acceptable compromise,” Dream says with a nod. “Come, Oswell.” He reaches out and Hob transfers Ozzy over. “We shall take a seat here, at this desk,” Dream tells him as he cradles him in his arms, Ozzy’s blue jacket bright against his black clothes. “And then we shall observe Hob as he teaches. You are not too young to benefit from such teaching.”
Hob watches as Dream settles at the desk and turns Ozzy around so he is sat on his lap, facing out to the classroom. One of his hands is securely wrapped around Ozzy’s stomach, holding him in place, whilst the other smooths unruly tufts of hair back from his face. He’s almost unbearably gentle with him.
Hob doesn’t know what his face is doing, but Dream glances up at him and Hob can see his face soften, in that way where his expression barely changes but Hob can see everything behind it. “You have an attentive audience, my love,” he says. “Please continue.”
Hob desperately tries to remember where he actually was in his seminar. “The Church,” Nadya helpfully points out.
“Right. Yes. Sorry.” Hob clicks through the slides on his laptop to the right place. “Let’s keep going. Talk to me about the Church.”
Despite the interesting topic, Hob can’t help but keep one eye on the two behind him. Dream is listening to their discussion, head tilted to one side, and Hob is half-afraid that he is going to start correcting people on minutiae that aren’t quite accurate to anyone who lived through the fifteenth century, but instead he ducks his head and starts talking quietly to Ozzy.
Ozzy babbles, slapping one of his hands on the desk, and a distant part of Hob’s brain that will always be labelled father recognises the sound of an impending tantrum. Dream looks up. “Lucinda,” he says quietly. “He would like his rattle ring. The green one.” His gaze skips over to Hob for a beat. “Please.”
He remembered Human manners. Hob is so proud. Lucinda looks slightly baffled, but takes a somewhat battered rattle ring out of one of her bags, and scuttles across the front of the classroom to hand it over. “Thank you,” Dream says. He jiggles it in front of Ozzy’s face, and the sight is so incongruous that Hob either wants to laugh or melt into a puddle of delighted love. He’s not sure which one will eventually win out.
“Quite right,” Dream says quietly to Ozzy as Hob prompts the discussion to start up again. Ozzy babbles, reaching out for the rattle ring, and Dream lets him try and grasp at it with tiny fingers. “A conundrum indeed,” Dream says, seemingly in response to the babbles. “There are many charms on this to choose from.”
Ozzy sticks the rattle in his mouth and gums at it. “It is made of a kind of plastic,” Dream says to him. “The shapes are dinosaurs. A very broad classification for various species of reptiles that were on this planet many millennia ago.”
Ozzy blows a spit bubble. “A millennium is a measure of time,” Dream explains, as if Ozzy asked him. “A large measure, of a thousand of your years all together.” He gently shakes the rattle again to set the charms swinging. "Ironic, that the plastic here was derived from the remnants of the dinosaurs in question."
Ozzy pulls the rattle ring out of his mouth, drool following it down his chin. Dream just calmly uses a corner of his sleeve to wipe it from his chin as Ozzy tries to grasp at the ring again. “Quite,” Dream says as he tries to put his own hand in his mouth. “A fascinating proposition. I would argue that there is more to the purpose of life than discovering what function your hands are for, but I concede that it is a fundamental building block.”
There are muffled laughs from Hob’s class. Dream doesn’t seem to hear them, seemingly intent on Ozzy’s babbles, muffled by his own fingers. Hob sighs. “Shall we wrap it up here, then?” he asks. “Because evidently none of us, including myself, are concentrating.”
Dream does look up at that. “We are having a very productive conversation,” he says, a mildly petulant expression on his face. “But if we must cut it short, then we shall.”
Ozzy grizzles when Lucinda takes him and puts him back in the stroller, the rest of the class packing up around them. “He’s getting tired,” she says as she tucks a blanket around him and pulls a tiny knitted hat over his head. “He always fights napping, it’s a nightmare.”
Dream leans over the stroller, and Ozzy quiets to look up at him. “Yes, I am afraid that you do sleep a lot,” Dream says. “I imagine it could be irksome, if you wish to see more of life.” He lets Ozzy clumsily grasp at his finger. “But know that you will see more of life as you grow, and in the meantime I shall ensure that your dreams are fulfilling.”
Ozzy quietens. Within moments he’s asleep, quiet puffs of breath as his eyes shut. “Amazing,” Lucinda whispers. She looks up at Dream. “That’s…I’ve never seen him go down so fast.”
Dream smiles down at Ozzy. “He will sleep well, Lucinda Claxton, and he will dream of great things.”
“Thank you,” Lucinda breathes. “Both of you.”
Hob smiles. “Bring him any time you need to. I’ll see you next week, okay?”
Lucinda heads out, a couple of classmates holding the door for her and the stroller, and then the classroom is quiet. “We should hire you out,” Hob says, slipping his arm around Dream’s waist. “Expert baby-soother. We could make a fortune.”
Dream allows the touch, leaning into Hob. “You already have a fortune,” he says.
Hob pinches at his waist. Dream can barely have felt it, but he still turns and gives Hob an affronted look. “Hello, duck,” Hob says with a smile as he leans up and kisses the look off Dream’s lips. “I didn’t get to give you a proper greeting when you came in.”
“Neither did I,” Dream says, and then he’s turning and capturing Hob’s lips with his own, one hand sliding around the back of Hob’s neck as he deepens the kiss, pulling Hob close into him. “Hello, my love,” he murmurs against Hob’s lips as he pulls back. “I trust you have had an engaging week.”
“Taught the first years at eight this morning, which was exhausting,” Hob says with an easy smile. He pulls back, but before Dream can get that affronted look again Hob takes his hand and laces their fingers together. “Let’s go get lunch, and you can tell me why you’re back early. I thought you said you would be two weeks.”
“The faerie delegation were surprisingly eager to work out a deal favourable to all parties,” Dream says as Hob leads him through the department. “I was able to conclude my business quicker than expected, and came straight here.”
Hob hums. “Is that why you smell of honeysuckle?” he asks. It had taken him a few moments to place the sweet, slightly cloying scent, but he got there eventually.
Dream brushes at his coat with a scowl. “Unfortunately. It is one such hazard of engaging with the faeries that dwell in part of my realm.” He glances at Hob. “I can go and remove their lingering essence, if you wish me to.”
“No, I’d rather you here,” Hob says easily. He swings their linked hands between them. “Now, the entire department here is very eager to meet my mysterious boyfriend, and I would like to keep the suspense as high as possible until the betting pool is more in my favour, so let’s take the back entrance. This way, duck.”
They manage to avoid anyone Hob knows on the way out, though he is sure that some rumour will start circulating as soon as they’re gone. “There’s a good café down the street where we can pick up some sandwiches, and then it’s warm enough to eat in the park,” Hob says as they head down the street. London passes around them, entirely oblivious to the immortal and Endless walking together down the street.
Dream says nothing, which is as good as agreement for him, so Hob keeps up the flow of easy conversation as they head through London and throughout the purchasing of two sandwiches and a bottle of some hideously sweet soft drink. He won’t drink it himself, but the face that Dream will make when he inevitably tries it will be worth the two pounds forty-five extra he spends.
“That was very kind of you,” Hob says as they sit in the park. He has both the sandwiches unwrapped in front of him, and is carefully removing all of the filling of one and putting it into the other. When there is just one massive sandwich and then two pieces of bread left, Hob hands the bread over to Dream and squishes the sandwich down to a reasonable size to eat. “Entertaining Ozzy, I mean.”
Dream shrugs. He starts tearing up the bread into tiny pieces and tossing them out onto the grass. Within a few moments there are a number of birds waiting nearby for their turn. “I was merely answering Oswell’s questions,” he replies. “He has a very inquisitive mind.”
“Oh, does he now?” Hob asks. He takes a bite of his sandwich, just about managing to keep it all contained within the bread. “What do babies dream about?”
“Their parents, often,” Dream says after a moment’s consideration. “The things that they see. At his age, Oswell is beginning to understand that his hands are part of him, and that he can use them to accomplish things. And so he dreams of holding things, like that rattle of his. Soon, he will realise the same thing of his feet.”
"Robyn used to love sticking his feet in his mouth." Hob takes another bite of his sandwich. "Remarkable," he muses. "How quickly they grow up."
Dream hums. "Quite."
Hob knows of Orpheus. He knows that Dream too understands the agony of losing a child. And he knows that he wouldn't welcome proving questions about it, not yet, so he merely takes Dream's hand, stroking a thumb over his knuckles. "Tell me about the faerie delegation," he says instead. "What do they look like, by the way? I can't decide whether to picture Tinkerbell-type creatures or something more akin to Tolkien's elves."
"They are a small race, but the current delegation is very war-like," Dream muses. He pauses, frowning slightly. "Tolkien. He created Middle Earth, did he not? I have walked through many different shades of the realm within the dreaming."
"He wrote The Lord of the Rings and the surrounding legendarium, yes," Hob says. "And then Peter Jackson made it into a trilogy of films. Excellent, by the way. Had to take some artistic liberties with the plot, given the sheer volume of story that Tolkien wrote, but the amount of love that went into them is incredible."
"I have not seen them," Dream says.
Hob gasps. "We need to fix that, duck. We'll watch the Fellowship tonight, then, and the next two over the rest of the week."
"We cannot watch them all at once?" Dream asks, tearing off another corner of bread and tossing it to an expectant pidgeon. "That seems more efficient, and it is better to not interrupt a story until the end."
"That would be about ten hours of viewing, if we stuck to the original release and not the extended editions," Hob says with a laugh. He brings Dream's hand up to press a kiss to his knuckles. "You may be an anthropomorphic personification that both never needs sleep and is also always asleep at the same time, but I have a nine am class tomorrow and do need to sleep tonight."
Dream is pouting at him now. "First film tonight, and then the rest on the weekend," Hob says firmly. "Can you stay tonight?"
"Lucienne has everything well in hand," Dream replies. He frees his hand from Hob's, but only to bring it up and cup Hob's cheek with one hand, his skin deliciously cool against Hob's. "I have attended to the duties of my realm," he says softly. "Now I must attend to my duties to you."
Hob turns to press a kiss to the palm of Dream's hand. "I do hope you don't consider me a duty ," he teases.
"I consider you a great many things, Hob Gadling," Dream says quietly. He pulls Hob forwards with a light grip on his chin. "My lover," he murmurs against his lips. "Devoted to his students. Obsessed with reality television. Occasionally insufferable."
"Oh, charming," Hob says with a smile.
Dream quiets him with a kiss. "I was not finished," he says, nipping at Hob's lip. "You are also kind, and generous, and so very full of life."
"Flatterer," Hob says, and kisses him back.
finis