Chapter Text
The thing of it is, Hob Gadling knows he should have cut his losses. After years of trying to save the White Horse and preserve the only place his stranger knows where to find him, he’d failed. Well, he failed to a point and the building that had once housed some of the shortest but most memorable and staggeringly meaningful moments of his life, was left to ruin. It might not be new flats but it isn’t ever going to be open for business again.
He knows he should have cut his losses because his stranger missed their 1989 meeting and that should have been enough of a hint to just stop. And yet Hob is, as ever, a stubborn fucker and not prone to giving up on anything that means something to him. On something he desperately wants.
Maybe it is friendship and an acknowledgment of such. It’s more, though, and he’s not sure it will ever not be more and he bought this building and gutted the inside just to make it feel old and familiar and theirs. He just needs his stranger to see it so he knows and maybe finally, understands.
He can’t ever put his finger on when his brain (and his heart) went haywire. Well, actually, that isn’t true. Something in his brain had gone haywire in 1789, but he’d spent years trying very hard not to think of the come hither looks and very real way he’d wished his stranger hadn’t been the smart one and thinking of their safety all because he wanted to throw him into a room upstairs and fuck him until he saw stars. He tries to convince himself that that particular memory is beside the point, but he knows. He’d waited an entire fucking century to see those looks again and then he’d gone and fucked it up and his stranger had a god-damned tantrum.
If Hob is really honest with himself, he knows it started before that, but carrying around six centuries of longing and unrequited love just gets to be too heavy sometimes. He considers himself lucky in more self-pitying moments that his biggest in the flesh (or not flesh because he’s still not sure what his stranger is) reminders are only once a century, though that now has been hanging in the balance.
It’s all just a mindfuck especially when he’s two centuries late. On one hand, his life might be easier if it was all out in the open, even if it meant another tantrum. On the other, he’s lucky his stranger is fantastically obtuse so as to avoid another tantrum and what could be centuries of humiliation. Either way, Hob is trying not to give up hope because sometimes, he thinks, that’s all he has.
Hob lives in this conundrum and goes about life as he knows it with temporary attachments, superficial matters of the heart, and dreams that just don’t let go of him.
And it’s okay. He has his work, his books, memories that drift in and out like the lapping wake of boats passing through. He’s got his pub that will hopefully do its duty to keep his stranger in his orbit. He’s got his regulars and good whiskey and a good life. He’s gotten to see the very best and worst of humankind and be a constant part of the searching and trying to just be better. He knows what he sacrifices and he will until kingdom come because it still beats rotting to maggots in the ground.
It’s quiet when the new guy comes in. Hob’s working the bar because one of his closers called off and he’s got a stack of papers at the corner and just a couple of folks sitting on the far side. The new guy takes a seat next to the papers. He seems to be fascinated by them but he looks up when Hob puts a beverage napkin on the bar and asks what he get for him.
All at once Hob’s breath catches and he’s taken back by the unbelievably striking blue eyes that do nothing but spark familiarity. The face is similar though covered in an unkempt beard. He sees delicate curve of his nose and thinks he can make out the high arch of his cheekbones beneath the hair. His hair, dark but not black, is wild and also unkempt. He’s a bloody mess but the longer Hob looks at him, the more he can see the sadness, or perhaps more aptly, the grief in his eyes.
When the guy speaks, it’s a low and shuddery thing, but it is perhaps the first line he can draw between the familiarity that’s completely messing with his head.
“Whiskey, please,” the guy says and reaches into his pocket for a card he puts on the bar top.
“We ‘ave a few. You have a preference?” Hob asks, setting a glass on the napkin.
He shakes his head, “No. Just leave the bottle.”
Hob thinks, yeah, it’s got to be grief. The thing is, he knows the look this guy’s got. He had it himself once upon a time when he lost Eleanor and their baby. He’d had it compounded when his boy went next and there was nothing to take away that pain. He knows he could be projecting but there are just some things he’s learned to spot fairly quickly.
He doesn’t go for the cheapest bottle of whiskey, nor the most expensive, just something mid-road that won’t completely break the guy’s bank. He doesn’t take the credit card just yet but takes note of the name on it as he pours the first spot of liquor. The guy - Alex - doesn’t waste any time and downs the liquid in one mouthful. His face scrunches up a bit and his eyes squeeze shut, but he sets the glass down and takes the bottle in hand in order to pour another.
Alex looks again at the stack of Hob’s papers. It’s like he wants to say something, but words don’t seem to come to him and he drinks down the second glass. Rather than wait him out, Hob speaks up.
“My day job is teaching,” he says and gestures with his chin towards the stack.
Alex nods and without care reaching for the top piece and pulls it towards him. “History?”
“Indeed,” Hob says. Oddly, he doesn’t feel the need to pull the paper back. He probably should but there’s such defeat in this guy, he doesn’t think it’s necessary.
“Specialization?”
Hob laughs and vaguely wants to tell the guy he’s got a specialization of the last 600 years but he settles for Medieval. Alex reads through the paper and then replaces it on the pile. “Are they all that engaged?”
Hob laughs and shakes his head. “Only in the higher level classes.”
“I suppose that makes sense.”
There’s still a cadence to his voice that slides into the familiar. It’s unnerving but it also draws Hob in and keeps his attention on the guy. “What do you do?”
“I was - am - a photographer, I suppose.”
“You suppose?” Hob asks and leans against the back counter, folding his arms across his chest.
“I suppose because I haven’t taken a photograph in,” Alex looks at his watch and says, “thirteen weeks, three days, eight hours, and thirty six minutes.”
“That’s pretty exact,” Hob says and he knows. He’d counted for 80 years.
Alex pours another shot of the whiskey and drinks it down. His eyelids flutter as he swallows and again, it looks like he’s going to say something, but then his lips close in a thin line.
Hob’s entire being seems to gentle and he says, “Hey, can I get you something to eat? Seems you’re hunkering down for a bit with that bottle. Food might be a good idea.”
Alex looks to him and shakes his head. Hob’s not surprised. He’s thin like his stranger and not entirely in the lean, hot sort of way. “Perhaps later, but not now. I’d like it to do it’s work.”
Hob nods in some kind of silent understanding despite not being keen on the guy drinking himself into oblivion and passing out on his floor. He knows what a man needs sometimes, especially if it’s something as deep as Hob’s sure it is. “If you’d like to be by yourself and I can make myself scarce and not bother you.”
“You don’t have to. You’re not a bother. And you’re not threatening to cut me off.”
“Does that happen to you a lot?” Hob asks, not entirely surprised about that either.
“Yes and no. I hardly go to the same places as I used to.”
“Why is that?” Hob asks and fetches a glass for himself and pours some whiskey into it.
Alex watches him curiously and perhaps a little amused. “I just want to go where no one knows me and will do nothing but feel sorry for me.”
“Why would they feel sorry for you?”
“You have a kind face,” Alex says and takes back the bottle for his fourth shot. He swirls the amber liquid in the glass. “You haven’t urged me to slow down and you waited for me to tell you to go. This tells me you have your suspicions and perhaps,” he peers at Hob, nothing but a strange confidence in his voice. “Understand.”
Hob drinks down his whiskey and sets the glass down on the bar top. “I lost my wife, newborn baby, and not longer after, my son.” It still isn’t easy for Hob to say and he understands that no amount of time will change that. He’s learned to live with it and manage his attachments in as much as his soft heart can.
Alex closes his eyes and breathes out a sigh. “Yes, you do understand then.” When he opens his eyes, there’s moisture there. Hob wishes he wasn’t right but feels suddenly connected to Alex.
“Wife?” Hob asks, taking note of the wedding ring on his left hand.
“Daughter,” he says. “My Lucy, my sweetheart, my world.”
Hob breathes in and then out slowly. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Thirteen weeks, eight days?”
Alex nods and drinks the fourth shot. “Helen, my wife, she left and we’ve become just another statistic of people who don’t make it after the loss of a child.”
That Hob doesn’t understand, not fully, but he hums his acknowledgment.
“I come into places like this and I drink until I can barely stand and when I go back, they always want to talk and slow me down and eventually stop serving. I don’t want to talk and yet,” he traces the neck of the whiskey bottle and then looks at Hob. “I have said more to you than I’ve said to anyone since she died.”
Hob doesn’t quite know what to say to that and goes for humility and perhaps a little humor. “I’m told I have that kind of constitution but I think it’s because I have the best whiskey.”
Alex barks out a laugh that seems to surprise him. He pours another glass and drinks it down. Hob can see how his eyes are starting to glaze over and some part of him does want to slow him down without scaring him off.
“How about some food though? We don’t have five star roast dinners but we’ve got a passable burger and chips.”
“Just passable? What kind of salesman are you?”
Hob laughs lightly. “Not a very good one.”
“Alright as long as you share this bottle with me. Commiserate in misery with me.”
Hob looks around the pub and it’s empty enough and late enough that he doesn’t feel completely guilty for even considering the offer. It will also serve in keeping the guy from drinking the entire bottle himself.
Hob agrees and puts in the food order. He refills drinks at the bar and lets Flo know that he’s taking care of a customer. Just how much she doesn’t really have to know and well, he supposes, he doesn’t either.
He has another drink before he can put the burger in front of Alex and he waits for the guy to at least start to eat. He sprinkles more salt on the chips and eats one.
“You lost your wife in childbirth,” he says and takes a healthy bite of the burger. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand while crumbs cling to his beard and talks despite having food in his mouth. Hob’s sure that’s the drink and he doesn’t really care one way or another. “How did you lose your son?”
Hob doesn’t talk about his loss that much anymore. He’d stopped halfway through the 20th Century. It didn’t help him and choosing more private moments to grieve on anniversaries and birthdays kept him marginally sane. Plus, it’s just more difficult to explain that Robyn had died in a tavern brawl, especially with his own superficial age. “His name was Robyn and he was reckless and just at the wrong place at the wrong time. He was killed.”
Alex places the burger down, at least three bites taken from it. Hob considers that a win and won’t feel so obligated to push him to more. Alex finishes chewing and washes it down with more whiskey. Along the edge of his beard, Hob can see his cheeks starting to pink.
“I’m sorry,” Alex says and doesn’t question how old Robyn had been and that suits Hob just fine. “Lucy was eight. She fell off a… cliff and,” he stops and it’s clear that he’s not going to continue. He picks at the chips but it’s also clear he’s not going to really eat anymore but he continues to drink and Hob doesn’t say anything.
They don’t finish the bottle and Hob doesn’t charge his credit card. He can barely walk and before Hob puts him in a car, he says, “Izzz because I can’t stand to be home.” He laughs bitterly and sad. “I can’t look at everything. Her blankets, her toys, and the dresses that we never washed. I wouldn’t let her touch it. Any of it. Helen. Then she left because she couldn’t look at it either and tried to clean it and put it away. But I couldn’t. Still can’t. Women are just built stronger for this, don’t you think?”
Some of the words are slurred but it’s the clearest Alex has been. Hob gets into the car and signals to the driver that they can leave.
“Sometimes they are,” Hob says. “But we all process it differently and it’s no less strong to take longer to manage it because you don’t ever get over it. You don’t ever move on. You just learn to live with the hurt. And you do. I promise, you do.”
Alex sighs and eventually his head drops to Hob’s shoulder.
He hands his keys to Hob when the arrive and Hob helps him into the house. He asks to keep the lights off and it’s barely intelligible but Hob complies. He gets him to drink a glass of water and tries to keep him awake for at least a little while, but it’s an impossible feat and Hob takes off his shoes and puts him to bed. He leaves his keys on the counter with a note that tells him he’s welcome at anytime. He doesn’t look at anything in the house, none of the photographs or books. Nothing. If it’s in the cards for him to see, he’ll see.
When he gets into his bed, it’s still his stranger he thinks about before nodding off.