Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Exhibit 3. Pour the Wine

Materials: silk, brass, vein.

Unpublished.

Retrieved from September 2022.

The rest of the week goes in nearly a blur. Thursday has him finally gathering the courage to text Dream back, and Friday sees him getting picked up by a black limousine to drive him to Dream’s museum.

“Driving people around is usually Matthew’s job,” the blond man at the wheel says through the partition, sunglasses glinting in the afternoon light, smile too wide to be safe and accent too American to be British, “but I suppose as a collector under Morpheus’ training, I should know how to collect people too.”

Morpheus. Another name earned from another person. Hob thinks of the notecard Dream had left behind, the spiked tips of the M signed at the bottom of it, of the name saved into his phone’s contacts – Dream (M?) – and he adds to his mental list of things he knows about his stranger.

“What do you collect?” Hob asks.

The man – Corinthian, Hob will later learn – grins at Hob through the rearview. “Your worst fears.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

The car lurches as it slips past the back gate of a building, off Brompton and into a private street. “His Lordship isn’t all flowers and rainbows,” Corinthian drawls, braking the car between two towering columns: the entryway to an old mansion turned into a museum.

“No,” Hob agrees easily. “He’s more thunderclouds than rainbows.”

He only gets a laugh in reply, and when he steps out of the car, he’s greeted by Matthew – who glares at Corinthian as he leads Hob inside, past corridors of glass displays, priceless paintings, and corded off marble statues that arc with a grace jaded by time. One flight of stairs up – the flooring covered by a padded, decorated carpet – and Hob finds Morpheus assessing a portrait.

It hasn’t been hung yet, its rebuilt frame resting on the floor and leaning against the empty wall, much like its subject: a ballerina sitting on the ground, her back resting by a mirror, hands frozen as she laces her shoes. Caught in an act of mundanity, away from the bright lights and the center stage, the myth stripped away and the magic dispelled: a dancer forced to stillness, mortality turned immortal as flight succumbs to gravity.

Here, she is only a young girl. No – not only. Here, she is a girl, outliving death.

“What do you see?” Dream asks without turning.

The bottom of his black coat reaches his knee, and his hands are clasped one over the other behind his back. Hob steps closer – Matthew having slipped away – and comes to stand beside Dream. He hadn’t brought anything for today. Hadn’t brought anything except a single paper flower, tucked into his pocket.

“A mirror,” Hob answers. His eyes trace the crooked line of her hand, the brushstrokes visible from this close. Layers upon layers, the light above them along them to be seen, allowing their stories to be told. “A person,” he wants to touch, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t. “A friend.” The painting must be at least a century old, and yet here they are. Still with it. Meeting this girl's eyes. “History isn’t just humanity lived,” Hob says. That hadn’t been why he had fallen in love with the stories. No, “I studied it because – history is humanity shared.”

Dream turns to him at last. “It is humanity lost.”

“No,” Hob shakes his head. Thunderclouds, thunderclouds and light refracted. “It’s humanity found, again.”

“I was not aware you studied history,” Dream deflects, quiet.

“You’re not aware of a lot of things.” He shrugs. That’s fine. “I didn’t always want to be a florist.”

“What did you wish to be?”

Hob fixes his gaze on the dancer. They’re here to talk about whatever mad scheme Dream had planned, not to discuss art. And yet. “A professor,” he answers, regret no longer a sharp sting. “I like talking – but couldn’t afford another degree and, well, my uncle left me the Inn.”

A pause. Dream’s hands loosen, and fall to his sides, the action forcing the back of his hand to brush against Hob’s. “I know people. You still could teach. If you wished.”

In another universe, maybe. Maybe he would have kept the Inn running as an inn and he never would have lost Eleanor. In another world, he might have sold the Inn and been rich by his own right and never have met Dream. In another lifetime, his name might line the spine of books tucked away in the history section, writing and teaching about other people’s legacies in hopes that he, too, might leave some burning mark on the world, so that some part of him too might still live and live and live impossibly beyond his death.

In some other lifetime, maybe he might hold Dream’s hand.

But in this lifetime – “I could,” he says, quiet. “But I could also be looking at this painting.”

“You prefer this?”

There’s never any guarantee of happiness. He meets Dream’s frown with a smile. “I’ve lived.” He’s been a father and a widow and an orphan and a husband. “I’ve lived, and I wouldn’t change that.”

“You are unhappy.”

“What makes you think that?” Hob challenges, neither of them looking at the painting anymore. Just the overhead light with its yellow tint casting everything sepia, an empty museum corridor and no prying public. Just their prying hearts, their ribcage pried open with want, with hope.

A mirror, Hob had answered, and now he finds all his truths reflected back at him in monochrome shades. No color to differentiate each grief: all of them stacked too closely over the other that they’ve blurred into one unending wound.

“I believe we have business to discuss,” Dream doesn’t answer. Which was fine. Neither of them owed the other anything.

Tilting his head to their left, Dream walks over to open a door Hob hadn’t noticed, the wallpaper blending it in. It leads into yet another corridor – this one filled with unopened crates – a spiral staircase, and thick wooden doors. Engraved with a sigil Hob doesn’t recognise.

Dream’s office. Neutral ground.

One wall is lined with bookshelves, texts interspersed with bird skulls and smoking pipes and brass trinkets with a patina. The other has arched windows and a table pushed against it. An empty, polished surface, paired with high-backed chairs so tall they looked more like thrones than office necessities.

“So,” Hob clears his throat, the door swinging shut behind him. “You own this place?”

“It is my inheritance. Better a museum for the public than an unused private collection.”

Right. Okay. He might have bitten off more than he could chew. “You said – you needed me as a distraction?”

“You offered,” Dream reminds him, gesturing for Hob to sit in one of the chairs, as he settles opposite him. It’s remarkably comfortable – enough that Hob could fall asleep in them, if he himself wasn’t so distracted by Dream. “My sibling has a charity event, for a good cause. I do not wish to spend half the night with them in my ear.”

“The sibling sending you out on your dates?”

“The very same. They work in fashion, but are very close with their twin – who inherited a hospital.”

Hob blinks. “A hospital.”

“It is a fundraiser for the hospital. I wish to come,” Dream nods. “Are you available on Sunday?”

A charity event, he supposes, is better than sitting alone at home. He thinks of the paper flower in his pocket – most likely crumpled by now – and an inheritance of a hospital, of a museum. Caution tells him to tread slowly. But curiosity – curiosity tugs him forward, tugs him close, hangs him by the noose of his own confidence.

“Oh, yes,” Hob says. “Yes, I’m free.”

They agree on hand-holding and kissing (“Anywhere but the lips,” Dream had said, and Hob nods along – that’ll make it easier to compartmentalize), and a story for their first date (“You gave me myrtles and took me to the West End,” Hob had suggested, teasing. Dream had hummed, disapproving: “No, it was you who gave me the flowers, first.” That, technically, was accurate. “And I took you to my bedroom.” That – that makes Hob choke.), and settle on the length of their relationship (two weeks, but madly in love enough to disgust Dream’s sibling).

There are triggers they both mention: hunger, bright lights, camera flashes – and Hob doesn’t miss the way Dream offers to buy him dinner. Take out, any kind, from any place.

“There’s this small Thai joint,” Hob says, grateful. He notes the way Dream frowns, as if expecting Hob to ask for something more. “It isn’t the fanciest,” he quickly tacks on. “It’s exactly what makes it good, though.”

So they order, and they talk – over a surprisingly sober game of Two Truths and A Lie. Dream had chosen it to test Hob’s ability to play the part, but after his third loss to Hob in a row, he had taken it as a challenge.

“Let’s see,” Hob grins, resting his chopsticks over a half-finished box of khao pad. “I learned archery.” He pauses, watching Dream’s thoughts tick. “I was debate captain.” Seven years knowing him, and Hob’s learned the little nuances to how he holds himself. “I met the Queen.”

Dream’s smile curls with a familiar hint of smugness. “You were never a debate captain.”

Laughing, Hob tips his head. “I was editor of the school paper. Won a writing prize and met the Queen. What gave it away?”

“I may lose the details,” Dream rakes his gaze across Hob, and it’s only now that Hob realises his simple shirt stretches tight across him, “but I have noticed the – the big picture.”

It makes him skip a beat, and for the first time in years – since Eleanor – he feels a warmth rise up his cheeks. “This,” he answers, clearing his throat. “This – you didn’t take me to your bed on our first date. We ordered take out, at my place,” and Hob can’t help but think of Dream sitting beside him on his couch, the empty space filled again with some semblance of joy, “and we played shitty party games you hated but couldn’t back down from, and I walked you back to your ridiculous towncar, and you kissed me – ”

“I kissed you?” Dream protests.

Hob rolls his eyes. “And you kissed me – ” anywhere but the lips, “on the cheek. A perfect gentleman.”

“Is that so?”

“A half-truth. Easier to sell than a full lie.”

“And why – why would my sibling have any reason to believe you?” Dream asks, dry, but his smile looks almost fond, and his food has been untouched for half an hour, his attention strayed elsewhere.

“Cause you’re a romantic,” Hob points out again, smiling so wide it feels like victory, like friendship – like friendship returned.

This time around, Dream doesn’t deny it.

He only steals the last of the spring rolls.

Hob lets him have it.

Sunday morning arrives with Matthew at Hob’s door – holding up a three-piece suit from a hanger that looks as expensive as half of Hob’s flower collection.

“Hi,” he greets Hob with little introduction, “Corinthian’s got the engine running so can’t stay long, but Boss Man said you needed an appropriate suit, and he eyeballed your measurements for the tailor.”

“He eyeballed – ” Hob cuts himself off, shaking his head. The big picture, Dream had teased him. “Tell him thank you, I’ll return this as soon as the party’s over.”

Matthew takes a step back, arms held out. “Oh, no. No – Boss had one of his suits resized for you – too much rush to make a new one – and you keep it.”

It’s a dark gray, almost black, but in the shop’s lighting, the richness of the fabric shows. The dress shirt paired with it is a silk softer than Hob’s sheets.

They fit perfectly, and as soon as he confirms that, Matthew leaves with a promise to pick him back up at six sharp. No later, no earlier.

He had originally planned to put on his only tux, but he supposes if this act is to be believable, he has to dress for the part.

Carefully hanging the suit out of the way, Hob gets to work. He thinks of the paper flower left forgotten in his other pocket, so distracted he’d forgotten to give it – and while he could make another one out of paper, he plucks his freshest myrtles and trims their stems short enough.

A thin red ribbon for awareness, looped around the stems, and he digs out two old, long brass pins to hold them upright.

Only then does he change properly.

He combs his hair back, and decides against any gel, though he does spray a hint of cologne. Fresh jasmine. Sweet, fleeting. Without a tie, he leaves the first button of his dress shirt open – he is playing the boyfriend, after all, and Dream does want him indecent enough to press all his sibling’s buttons.

The bell above his door downstairs chimes, as promised, at exactly six. He grabs the flowers he’d prepared and hurries down the stairs –

Oh. He pauses.

Dream is standing there, no coat, no scarf, no turtleneck. The black suit he wears is tailored to fit, and the top button of his dress shirt – black, too – has also been undone, allowing a glimpse of collarbone and skin. It’s almost defiant, the way he holds himself up in Hob’s doorstep, chin jutting out in challenge.

“You’re just missing one thing,” Hob greets, walking over.

Dream turns to him, and is silent for as long as it takes to run his gaze down, and up, and down again. “I am pleased my suit fits you,” he dips his voice low. Unfair.

The pants are tight on Hob, leaving very little to the imagination, and he wills himself to focus. Taking one of the flower pins, he reaches out. “May I?”

A nod, and Hob slips the boutonniere onto the lapel of Dream’s suit, the myrtles a splash of white, star-like over the endless black. He takes care to keep the pin from stabbing in, and his hands gentle to smooth the fabric over when he’s done. Quick. Efficient. He doesn’t linger, doesn’t think about how Dream held his breath, no warm exhale ghosting over his skin –

“Allow me,” Dream asks.

Hob blinks. “What?”

Dream tips his chin toward the other boutonniere in Hob’s hand, slight crumpled now, and Hob – he offers it to Dream.

Nails scrape over his palm as Dream takes it, deft fingers smoothing the bent stems out. Leaning closer, Dream tucks his thumb beneath Hob’s lapel, pulling it up, and Hob feels his own breath stutter. Dream’s hand presses the pin shut –

“The color suits you,” Dream pulls back.

“The color?”

Dream’s smile curls, teasing. Testing. “Mine.”

Hob gives as good as he gets. If this is to be believable – he can’t let himself get this flustered this easily. Perhaps, he thinks dimly, he himself is out of practice with dating.

“And it suits you, too,” he forces himself to grin wide, opening the door for Dream and locking it behind them. “My flowers, my colors.”

There’s a small scuffle over the pavement as Dream almost trips, but they make it to the car, where Matthew is already sighing about them being helplessly slow.

The drive to the event – at a ballroom in the Ritz – turns them quiet. Dream’s growing nervousness shows in his stiffness, his hand curled into a fist on the seat between them. He jolts when Hob slowly covers it with his own hand, relaxing only in increments until it loosens, opening up as trust blossoms in the dark of the car.

To his credit, when they step out of the car and enter the hotel through its back door, Dream holds out his hand to help Hob out, demeanour polished again. As if he’d grown up trained to be what people wish of him, what people need of him.

“Two hours,” Dream promises, “and we may leave.”

They slip between the guards, all of them making way as soon as they recognize Dream, and Hob makes a show of slipping his arm around Dream’s elbow. A united front.

“Your siblings are here already?” Hob asks as they step inside the crowded ballroom – small tables dotting the wide space, decorated in rich colors, with champagne flowing and chocolate fountains offering dessert. He isn’t sure what kind of hospital might afford something like this, but it is Dream’s sibling paying, and he’s coming to realize that their family might come from wealth greater than Hob will ever touch.

My siblings do not take well to my direct aid, Dream had explained when Hob had asked why Dream couldn’t make an anonymous donation and call it a day. But my twin siblings would like to build a new postnatal ward, and are courting parliament’s support to improve regulations. And Hob – Hob had understood why Dream had wanted to help, why Dream had wanted Hob there as a distraction: so that Dream might aid the cause without his siblings derailing him.

A flash of gold eyes, and Dream’s arm tenses beneath his. “It is very much too late to run.”

“Dream dearest,” a thick voice greets them, eyes bright beneath contact lenses and a dress that’s not a dress plunging down to trail over the ballroom carpet. “So good of you to come.”

“Hob,” Dream introduces, “My sibling. Epithumia – or as we call them, Desire.”

“You found yourself a treat,” Desire replies before Hob manages to process, their hand outstretched to trace long, painted nails over the curve of Hob’s shoulder. He doesn’t pull back, only makes a clear movement to hold tighter onto Dream as Desire adds, “I should hope my darling brother’s been treating you well.”

“He has,” Hob replies, looking up at Dream with all the fondness he’s kept hidden for so long. A half-truth, a whole truth. Much better than a lie. “A perfect gentleman, with flowers and – ” he lets his palm rise up below the myrtles pinned on Dream’s chest, laying claim, laying intention. “Flourish.”

Desire’s smile, a deep red of layered lipstick, widens in amusement. Bait taken: hook, line, and sinker. “And where,” they pull their hand away from Hob, “did you find my gem of a brother?”

“He’s an old friend,” Hob grins right back, “we decided to try things out – see where they go.”

Something flickers in Desire’s confidence, the sharpness wavering into an old hurt, before settling back into cool stone. “I didn’t know my brother was capable of friendship.”

Clearly you don’t know him well enough, Hob is ready to fire back, but he hesitates. He doesn’t want to be cruel. Doesn’t want to give Desire more reason to continue their fight with Dream.

“He isn’t capable,” Hob confesses, even as he feels Dream throw him a frown. “But only ‘cause he doesn’t know how to stop – doesn’t know how to give anything less than his whole self.” The lie slips all the more easily for all its sincerity. “And it’s a good thing I don’t want anything less than that.”

Dream hums beside him, eyes strange. “I see our sister,” he looks over Desire’s shoulder, “Despair looks almost pleased.”

“Your sister’s called Despair?” Hob pauses.

“Aponoia – but it is how she likes it,” Dreams answers as Desire’s curious gaze flicks between the two of them, a predator hunting for the fissures, the cracks, the doubts. “She asked to inherit the hospital – a reminder that even in despair, one might still find kinship.” A pause, and Dream’s voice turns quiet with the lilt of memories resurfaced. “That even in despair, one need not be alone.”

Hob thinks of how Dream had found him after Robyn’s loss, of how Dream had continued to come, year after year, to ask for his son’s favorite roses. For all of Dream’s faults – his pride, his temper, his stubbornness – it’s impossible to fault him for wanting company. For wanting to fix, to help, to heal.

“Go on ahead,” Hob lets go of Dream’s arm, “Talk to her – Desire can keep me company, can’t they?”

“I can indeed,” Desire happily takes Hob’s hand, and this is their plan – he doesn’t know why Dream looks so sullen so suddenly, or why he’s glaring at where Desire is touching Hob, but Hob sticks to the plan anyway.

If he plays his cards right, he might help a law get passed, might help a new hospital get built. Children, taking their first steps into the world – safe and loved enough to outlive him. Safe and warm enough to never be lost – to never be alone.

It’s a good thing he’s always up for a little madness.

Two hours later, Dream finds him by one of the chocolate fountains, a bowl of fruits in Hob’s hand.

Desire had left him after an hour of interrogation. You love him, they had accused, words sharp as want unsated, you’re not the first to fall for it – take what you can while he allows it. And Hob had taken a glass of champagne, tipping it back.

No thanks, I’ll give him what I can while he wants it, Hob had replied, and he must have passed some sort of test, because Desire had introduced him to Despair as ‘Dream’s latest experiment’ and Despair wished him all the worst of troubles.

Across the room, he had watched as Dream weaved his way through the guests – there was never any true smile, and none of the conversations Dream engaged in seemed to be particularly amicable, but Desire never approaches Dream again, and when Dream finds Hob by the chocolate fountain, chewing on the fresh strawberries, he looks as pleased as his siblings.

You love him, Desire had noticed what both of them had been too blind to admit, and it’s hard – harder to deny it when Dream is right next to him, when –

“I must thank you,” Dream leans close, voice curling low: to anyone else, they’re two lovers sharing a secret, still unbearably high on affection. But the truth is a wound breaking open inside, a bruise covered up by silk and linen and cashmere. Close enough to touch, not close enough to have. “You performed – admirably.”

“Don’t forget to give me a five-star rating,” Hob forces a smile.

The lights are dim in this corner, and he’s grateful for it when Dream tilts his head. “Is that all you would wish of me?”

“What – what’re you asking?”

Another pause, Dream’s hands toying with the edges of his sleeve. “You had a wife. A family.”

“So did you,” Hob points out.

“And yet.”

And yet, here they were. Pretending. To love, again. To not love. Hiding so well they might never be found.

“Eleanor loved me enough to want me happy,” Hob swallows. The bowl is a heavy weight in his hand. “It would be a disservice, to not live as fully as I can, while I can.”

“You have done me a great kindness.”

He chews on another berry. “Did you manage what you wanted?”

“I reminded Lords Choronzon and Burgess who they have to thank for their position,” Dream nods. “My sister will have her ward, and my sibling will have their law.”

And you will have your peace from them. All according to plan. Hob will go back to his shop, Dream will have no more need for this farce, and they can go their separate ways.

“Good, that’s – that’s good,” Hob says, except he catches Desire looking their way, and he wills himself even closer into Dream’s space. “Your sibling’s watching us.”

There’s barely any distance between them, and Hob feels it when Dream asks, “Are they, now?”

“Smile,” Hob says, both to Dream and to himself. “I know it’s hard for you, but – ”

Dream smiles. Not a big smile by any means, but certainly a handsome one. Enough to lift his cheeks up, eyes crinkling and dimples dipped. “I am not incapable of happiness,” Dream huffs at him.

“Just out of practice,” Hob can’t help it, teasing, because he needs to say something, needs to do something other than stare at the sun of Dream’s smile. He wants, he wants, but they had set boundaries, rules, and he will take only what Dream allows him to have: a hand, to hold. A lie, to tell.

“You’re welcome,” the smile curls into a smirk. Which is safer. Which is worse, the way it suits Dream.

“What?” Hob blinks.

“You wished to teach. And you are now teaching,” Dream lets himself touch Hob. A hand, over the small of Hob’s back, where the suit from him curves to follow Hob’s waistline. An hourglass of sorts, sand running out of time. Want, running out of space. “Happiness.”

“Dream,” Hob says, and Desire is still watching them, still hunting for pressure points to use the next time around. “Take a strawberry.”

“Lord,” Dream corrects, sudden. “Lord Morpheus.”

It takes a moment for the pieces to click together – Corinthian’s nickname, the warning – and it takes all of Hob’s acting to not make too much of a scene. “You’re a lord?” he hisses through a smile.

“You wished for my name,” Dream – Lord Morpheus – says with a blandness that speaks of the opposite of innocence. “You pride yourself on knowing names.”

“I – ” he shoves the fruit bowl between them, for lack of anything else to do. “Eat,” Hob insists. “You haven’t had anything all night.”

Head tilted, Dream’s hand on his back loosens with surprise that his eyes don’t let on. “You noticed.”

Hob shrugs. “Isn’t that what boyfriends are supposed to do?”

Dream’s free hand takes a strawberry, and he takes small bites from it. Delicate. Dainty. “Perhaps,” the reply comes.

His eye strays back to the myrtles over Dream’s lapel. Still there, still fresh. Marriage flowers. Love, fidelity, courage. Luck. Star-shaped for a fallen wish. He doesn’t know how much longer he’ll last –

“Is it,” Hob clears his throat. “Is it time to leave?”

A nod, and Dream’s hand falls away from Hob’s back. He takes the empty bowl from Hob to put it away, then holds his hand back out, palm turned up, waiting.

“Your hand,” he asks Hob.

Hob shakes his head. “Why?”

“Is that not what boyfriends are supposed to do?” Dream parrots back at him, and Hob – Hob ducks his head. A picture-perfect flustered lover.

He rocks back on his feet, stretching the distance between them, then snapping it back into place. “Is it what you would do?”

Dreams hand stays outstretched. His smile loses their crinkles, turning sharp, lidded, guarded. “My sibling is watching.”

“Then home, my Lord,” Hob takes Dream’s hand. He lets their palms press together, and doesn’t flinch at the coldness. Dream’s fingers fold around his own, a gentle thing keeping Hob’s hand from falling. “Time for privacy.”

“It does not trouble you,” Dream whispers into his ear, a question so low that any watching them might mistake it for a proposition, “my wealth, my position?”

He could write an entire book on the history of class in the country. Hob could, but he shrugs instead. “Strangers, right?” he repeats, voice somehow steady. “Doesn’t matter what I think.”

Quiet – no response as they slip back out between the guards. The back door, again, that their departure might not cause too much disturbance. Then, at last alone in a deserted service corridor, Dream lets go of Hob’s hand.

“Matthew has the car ready.”

Hob continues to walk – and he stops, turning around to find Dream standing still. “You’re not coming with me?”

“My thanks,” Dream deflects. “For tonight.”

“Anytime,” Hob walks back toward him. “It was – it was interesting, meeting your family.”

Dream hums. The corridor lights are a harsher white than the ballroom, and there’s no loud music to keep their words from echoing. “You have not met them all.”

“Don’t worry,” he grins, “you’re still my favorite.”

“You no longer need to play the part,” Dream frowns at him.

Touchy, as he always is. Hob lets out a dry laugh. He steps closer. “And you’ve gotten the lie wrong.”

Dream looks at him – really looks. A mirror. Reflecting and amplifying and refracting. There’s so much to hide. There’s nothing he can hide, everything coming in waves so strong that neither of them can quite look away.

“Which,” Dream crowds him, against the wall, against the truth, “was the lie, then?”

Hob stares at him, drinks as much of the sight as he can, headier than any champagne. His throat dry, his heart loud. “You asked not to be kissed.”

“I asked: anywhere but the lips.”

“Anywhere?” Hob challenges in return.

“You promised me nothing to lose,” Dream comes closer. “Strangers, without strings.”

They’re in some corridor in a hotel. They’re – what the hell, Hob thinks.

He steps forward, forcing Dream to take a step back, and then another, until Dream’s back hits the other side of the corridor. Cool, unrelenting concrete. Their shadows, pressed against each other, and Hob – Hob is just a man. He leans up, and kisses Dream’s pulse, feels it pick up beneath his teeth, hammering, racing, the fabric of the shirt’s collar grazing his lips, as his hand scrambles up to tangle itself in Dream’s hair, pulling, tugging, wanting.

A small gasp, skin rippling beneath Hob’s tongue, and Dream muffles the sound of it into Hob’s own hair, his hands clawing at the collar of Hob’s own suit.

“You are,” Dream says between heavy breaths, “a distraction.”

Hob grins against his skin. Far too distracted himself to feel anything but a rushing warmth. “It’s what you asked for.”

Hands, scraping along his back, as Dream too fights for more to touch. He grapples until his own lips brush beneath Hob’s ear, the crook there where nerve became firework.

“My museum is having an event,” Dream somehow finds the wits to say, to offer. “In a fortnight.” He pulls skin between teeth, harsh even as his hands come to cup gentle over Hob’s skin, a truth brought to light. “Will you come?”

“Stop thinking,” Hob chides, because he knows – he knows he can only have one answer. He knows he’ll never have enough of this. That he’ll lie, that he’ll twist himself out of shape to have more.

Dream stops, abrupt, pulling away – the loss of it almost a wound. “Will you come?” he repeats.

“What for?”

“I would have my boyfriend there.” Dream trails his hand down Hob’s lapel, thumb catching over the flowers, the red ribbon a stark contrast to his skin. “If he is willing,” Dream promises, and Hob lets him take.

Lets him bring Hob home, Matthew cursing at them the entire way in the car, their feet stumbling over the threshold of the shop, over the stairs and into the couch, and yes. Yes, Hob’s familiar with the concept of a one-night stand –

Only, he pulls back and finds a new patch of skin to kiss – anywhere but the lips – and he kisses over jugular, over the corner of Dream’s eyes, where temple becomes worship, and he kisses along Dream’s collarbone –

Never hard enough to bruise.

He doesn’t want to hurt, he wants only to hope. He wants only to feel. So he gives, he gives for as long as Dream wants it –

“I'll be there,” he promises. He can. He can play the part, if Dream needs it.

And if Hob drifts off with Dream’s head pillowed on his chest, ear pressed right over where Hob’s heart beat and erratic pattern – then they have no witnesses. No jury to test the truth of their lies.

There’s only them, only them, and only want.