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Dream was kissing Hob.
Dream was kissing Hob with both hands fisted in his coat, holding the immortal human to him against the nearest wall like he needed both to stay standing.
Dream was kissing Hob and it was everything Hob had dreamed it could be.
Dream was kissing Hob, and for a moment, Hob let himself free-fall.
It wasn't like he didn't know how much he'd wanted his friend, his Stranger, all this time. A man can only resist so much temptation when his desires are handed to him on a platter, after all. He'd gone from getting his Stranger back, to being called his friend, to learning his name, and now this, in a matter of hours. And he didn't wonder why - he still had the blood and soot stains on his hand from violently extracting his beloved eldritch being from the clutches of that monstrous family.
Hob shuddered.
He put his hands gently to the sides of Dream's face, and pulled his mouth away, pressing their foreheads together. Dream chased his mouth for a moment before he seemed to register that Hob was asking for space.
Dream's eyebrows furrowed. "Hob?"
Hob took a deep breath, wincing at what he was about to say. "We should slow down."
Dream nodded slowly, and pulled away further, standing up straight. "Of course. You deserve a proper courtship."
Hob bit back a whimper. "I deserve..? Dream, no, that's... I just..." He listened to himself stumbling over the words and watched as his oldest, dearest friend closed himself off.
"I have overstepped. Of course. I apologize." Dream turned his head and released Hob's coat, moving sideways to pull away yet further. "You do not wish this."
Hob clenched his hands where they had fallen to Dream's sides, holding him in place. "I wish a conversation. Dream. Can we just... can we please talk about this?"
Dream paused, visibly collecting himself, and turned to face Hob, not quite meeting his gaze directly. His eyes glistening with tears reminded Hob too much of 1889, and Hob swallowed down a frisson of panic.
"Dream, you have to... I need you to understand. I don't want a slow courtship, no. I want you almost as much as I love you, and I love you more than I love life. Do you understand? I don't want to do anything other than dive into you wholeheartedly with everything I am."
Dream looked up to Hob's eyes, his own widening. His expression tilted back into hungry, yet he paused. "And yet...?"
"And yet. I need... You need..." Hob huffed in frustration at the words sticking in his throat. "Fuck! Dream, I just pulled you out of a spiked snowglobe where they held you for I don't even know how long! I can barely imagine how you must feel right now! If we do this, if I let myself drown in you, and you come to realize sometime later that you don't really want me... I need to know that this is more than gratitude."
"You deserve my gratitude." Dream pressed back into him, leaning in to press their mouths together once more.
Hob failed to bite back the whimper this time before pulling away again. "Sure, yeah, I get that. I do. But that's a reason to, I don't know, throw me a party or something. Hopefully see me more than once a century. Be my friend. It can't... I can't be your lover unless it's for love."
"You doubt my regard for you?" Dream frowned. Hob winced, but to his relief, Dream looked more pensive than indignant. "What must I do to prove my intentions?"
Hob sighed, pulling his hands down his face and then back up into his hair to pull at the roots for a moment in frustration before letting his arms drop to his sides. "I'm not sure. Time, for one thing. Time to collect yourself and be sure that you want me - that you love me - for myself, not just feel beholden to me for rescuing you. Does that make sense?"
Dream stilled, closing his eyes as if to focus on something inward. "It is traditional, in story, that the gallant knight who rescues the maiden shall carry her favor thereafter. I am the Prince of Stories. You have more than earned my favor. And yet." Dream nodded and opened his eyes to regard Hob seriously. "Yes. You are wise to be wary of that story. To be wary of me."
"No, Dream, I'm not wary of you. I'm wary for you." He shrugged helplessly. "Maybe I do deserve your gratitude. But you deserve a relationship grounded in more than obligation, yeah?" Dream started to shake his head, but Hob shook his own. "And I need-" He took another deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut against the tears that were threatening to fall. "I need to not find myself months or years from now set aside when the gratitude has worn away to resentment, and I still need you like air to breathe. I can do friendship. I have centuries of practice! But I can't dive in. I can't let myself love you, and then just... stop. It doesn't work that way. If you were just a beautiful man I happened to help who was feeling moved to thank me in a particularly personal way for one night, I could do it." He huffed a self-deprecating laugh. "Hell, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But with you? My oldest friend, my beloved Stranger, my anchor? I can't, Dream. I can't do this..."
He felt cool hands, slender fingers, cup his cheeks gently. His eyes fluttered open, tears finally falling.
"Hob." Dream sighed, wiping one tear from Hob's cheek with his thumb, his own eyes still watery, but restrained. "When last we met, you called me lonely."
"Yeah, about that, I'm-"
Dream stopped Hob's mouth with his thumbs against his lips, shaking his head. "You were correct, and I was too proud to accept it. But more than that, I was stung that it came from you, of all beings. I have had-" Dream swallowed hard, a startlingly human gesture, and smoothed his thumbs along Hob's damp cheeks, collecting his words. "I have had more than adequate time to self-reflect upon my reaction, to recognise why. It is not only with gratitude that I court you, Hob Gadling. It is with relief."
Hob raised both eyebrows. "Relief?"
Dream nodded, a faint smile pulling at his lips. "I am not accustomed to friendship, much less to courting a friend in a measured and temperate manner. Grand deeds, bold gestures, these I understand. But these had no clear place in our exchange. I had thought, for a moment, after Lady Constantine's interruptions, that perhaps we might-" He shook his head, "but no. Our agreement was more important to me than the trappings of story."
Hob nodded, though he wasn't sure he could say he understood yet, he wanted to encourage Dream to continue. This was the most he had ever heard his friend speak.
"When I could not meet you at our appointed time, I was certain I had lost your regard, your friendship forever. For you to come striding down the stairway to my defense yet again, now, when it was needed," Dream huffed and finally truly smiled, "I knew relief as I had not known it in centuries, perhaps millennia. Not only had I not lost you, I had the reason - the excuse - to court you as I pleased, and the story would not be bent out of a form our agreement could encompass. By coming to my aid, you have changed the terms of our friendship. Do you not see?"
"Dream," Hob smiled, bewildered. "You didn't need an excuse to court me." He laughed, wincing. "If you're the King of Dreams, you must know how I feel about you. God knows I dreamt of you often enough. I thought I was so painfully obvious and you were just politely humoring me as long as I didn't push you too hard. Hell, I thought I had pushed you too hard..."
Dream shook his head, still smiling. "I chose not to intrude upon your dreams, to hear your stories only from your lips." He looked down and back up, eyes heavy-lidded. "I would welcome your dreams of me now, if you would still have me."
"If I would still-?" Hob laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. "Idiots. We're both absolute idiots. Come here you beautiful, ridiculous creature!" Hob leaned in to kiss Dream, finally, only to find himself quickly spun around and pressed against the wall Dream had been leaning on. Dream kissed him back like he intended to devour him, and it was all Hob could do not to collapse into his arms.
After some immeasurable time losing themselves in each other, Hob pulled away again. "Let me take you home, Love. If nothing else, a bed would be nice."
Dream nodded, sighing with exhaustion, relief, and love. "Yes, Hob. Take me home."