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***
Sometimes, the New Inn is so reminiscent of the White Horse that Hob Gadling wants to weep.
On evenings where the crowd is thick, and the air is filled with the smell of whiskey and the sound of rambunctious laughter, the immortal can nearly convince himself that no time has passed since he first frequented the pub.
If he closes his eyes, he can nearly convince himself that it is 1389, and that he is seconds away from meeting a man that would continue to allure and confound him for centuries to come.
This afternoon, the New Inn is nothing like the White Horse. This afternoon, Hob runs a ball-point pen over one of his student's typed essays, a young woman by the name indicated in the footnotes.
Hob thinks about the momentous changes that have occurred in the last 633 years to allow for this singular moment to come to fruition. How much he and the world both have changed.
To begin, he can read and write now. Things that were denied to him in his youth by poverty. Furthermore the education and rights of women, the invention of the computer and printing and countless other marvels that allow him to put pen to paper.
This afternoon, the New Inn is nothing like the White Horse... save for the unknown, unknowable man that stares down at him, with eyes so familiar, yet changed that -not for the first time in their lengthy, tumultuous companionship- he is compelled to fall to his knees at the being's feet.
He resists the urge with a herculean will, with a centuries old discipline. He quirks his face into a pleased smile.
He will not inundate and overwhelm the flighty man with grand admissions or affection or even thanks.
"You're late," he says instead, pulling his bottom lip into his mouth cheekily. In this display, he hopes not only to indicate to his stranger how very normal he is about the man's sudden reemergence, but also to stave off the hot, desperate tears that threaten his waterline.
His friend- stranger huffs out a laugh, his face pulling with evident amusement. Hob gets a glimpse of that maddening, feline smile, like sun breaking through sheets of icy rain.
He feels his chest heat with his companion's undivided attention.
"It seems I owe you an apology," the man speaks, voice low and decorous as it is in Hob's dreams.
"I've always heard it impolite to keep one's friends waiting," he jokes, lightheartedly.
Hob cannot hide the widening of his grin, or the exhilarated rush of air through his nose that thankfully sounds like a laugh.
He wants, achingly, to inform his stranger-friend how much this admission means to him. How much it might have meant to him over a century ago, but once more resists in order to maintain the fickle man's favour.
There is a (likely non-reciprocally) charged moment of silence between them. The stranger takes his seat across from Hob casually, as though the immortal’s whole world hadn't just imploded, as though the man couldn't demand a pint of blood to drink and Hob wouldn't willingly open his vein into an appropriately luxe wineglass.
Hob wracks his mind for anything even remotely casual to say.
Maybe he should comment on the hair, playfully chide the man for being about a decade too late to play a scene kid. Maybe he could joke about the coat. Maybe he could tell the bastard it took him long enough to return the offer of friendship...
Instead;
"Where were you?" he demands of the man, in such a way that might suggest they were twenty years married and the stranger had come home smelling of another woman's perfume.
His friend is evidently rattled by the abrupt shift in tone and the accusatory nature of Hob's question, discomfort pulls across his features.
"I..." the man begins.
"You don't have to tell me," Hob interjects quickly, his cheeks hot with his misbehaviour.
"After how spectacularly I bungled our last meeting... I wouldn't have shown up either," he concedes.
The other man's face softens, his discomfort melting into something Hob hesitates to call endearment.
"You did nothing wrong," he whispers, so quietly that had the immortal's eyes not been transfixed to the man's lips that he may not have heard.
"I was the one that laid waste to our friendship, as with everything I hold dear."
Hob can barely speak for the other man's affection. He has his hand wrapped so tightly around his pen that he fears of the structure of the biro.
"Nothing a pint can't fix," he offers, resting the pen, followed by his hands flat on the table as though the act might stand a chance at grounding him.
His stranger nods shyly, raising himself from his seat so that he might fetch them both a drink. Hob cannot help but notice the blush that has formed on the peaks of his prominent cheek bones.
"Friend," he says hurriedly, standing so that he might catch the man by the arm before he turns away.
There is a moment of complete terror, as he realises that not only is this the first time that they've touched, but that he didn't even think to ask for the privilege, and that this misstep, no matter how slight, might see their friendship destroyed once more.
He's terrified that he might never see the man again, especially now he's remembered how incredible it feels to be within his gaze, within his favour.
His companion stills at the touch, looking between Hob's hand and face with none of the indignation the immortal had expected. On the contrary, the man looks as though he too cannot believe that they've never touched before. The stranger seems to have his own moment of realisation in the seconds before Hob tears his hand away. Mortified.
He racks his brain for something important to say, something that might warrant such an intrusion.
As 'please don't go' would likely entirely quash their fledgling friendship before it has even truly begun, Hob opts instead for his tried and true method of deflecting his feelings with humour.
"Make it two," he teases.
***
Dream comes around more often after that.
Post their New Inn reunion, Hob's friendship with the previously unknown man is almost what some would call healthy.
Sure, Hob finds himself baffled by the near-Eldritch level Horror of his friend's Endlessness, of his power and the responsibilities of his existence... but more often than not, Dream is just a man. Or man shaped. Hob supposes.
He is far more human, and far more relatable than the immortal might ever have given him credit for.
And despite his penchant for showing up at Hob's door at odd hours, spouting some excuse about 'not being ruled by the laws of mortal time' he is always kind, always gentle, and always familiar.
Speaking to Dream, after so long apart, feels like finding a set of grainy, yellowed polaroid pictures in an attic. It's a longing. A desperation, for a time one might never return to.
Except, by grace of the gift that the Endless has given him, Hob can return.
In Dream's eyes Hob sees himself, century after century. He sees how much he's grown. And just how much he has to tell the other man. To the point that he often finds that he talks himself to sleep. Hours spent on his living room couch or kicked back in his office chair, talking to the other being.
Dream has a way of listening which means he might say three words and have Hob speaking for hours.
Eventually, the immortal always lulls himself to rest, and when he awakens, Dream is gone. The only indication that the man does not exist solely in Hob's psyche, being discarded wine glasses, or missing books from his illustrious library.
When they're returned to Hob, there are always notes in the margins, clever or biting quips written in immaculate calligraphy.
Hob finds himself reading the same books over and over again, so that he might glean some insight into his friend's incredible, complex mind.
As Hob is normally that one doing the talking, these little notes exist as a way for him to get to know Dream.
In fact, he has one of these books cracked open, enthralled by Dream's humorous commentary, when the being returns to him.
It is a Thursday night, and with his classes starting late the next day, Hob has treated himself to a bath and a glass of wine (he cannot normally stomach the stuff, but Morpheus had picked this particular red and the immortal had to admit it was good).
Hob nearly jumps out of his skin when he hears a knock on the bathroom door, indicating that someone is already inside his apartment.
He is about ready to fight his attacker in the nude, when his steep anxieties are quelled by his companion's voice at the door.
"Hob, are you in there?" Dream's voice is low and teasing. His tone indicates that he is very much aware of where Hob is and what exactly he is doing.
The immortal cannot stand to comprehend the other man's level of omniscience. He can hardly stand to think of the Endless having an unobstructed view into his dreams.
He pulls himself quickly from the tub, wrapping a towel around his waist with the same haste as if the man were standing in front of him and not behind the door.
"I think you know I am!" He laughs abashedly, placing his half-read novel on the counter.
"I do." Morpheus chuckles, hearteningly. In over six hundred years, Hob has not tired of that sound.
"I'll pour you another glass of that red," Dream calls knowingly, his footsteps receding from behind the door.
The heat that flushes the immortal's cheeks in response might be enough to fry an egg.
***
Something is different tonight. Despite his jokes and joviality, there is something in Dream's eyes that Hob cannot ignore.
He's so scarcely seen the man sad.
He can only recall seeing the wetness, he sees in the other man's eyes tonight, once before. The evening he thought he had ended their friendship for good.
Tonight, Morpheus stares out of Hob's window and up into the evening sky distractedly. Hob can practically see the moon reflected in the other man's inky irises. The Endless' hand is wrapped so tightly around the rim of his wine-glass that Hob fears for the integrity of the vessel.
"Dream," he says softly, calling the man back from his obviously distressing thoughts with a gentle hand on his knee.
They've grown quite fond of sitting by one another on Hob's living-room couch. Generally, Dream sits on the far end, by the door -his legs crossed elegantly or pulled up to his chin depending on his level of inebriation- with Hob sat at the end by the window, his legs splayed onto his coffee table.
Now, Dream sits more rigidly than usual in his place, his eyes wet and solemn.
He starts at Hob's touch, but does not withdraw from the immortal. In one impressively fast motion, he wipes all of his grief away with a singular, ivory hand down his face.
He chuckles into his wine.
"I'm sorry," he covers, quickly.
"I've been rather preoccupied. It makes for an awful house guest and an even worse friend. What were you saying?"
Hob tuts softly, tilting his head as though he might gain more knowledge of the other man's plight from a different perspective.
He places his glass down so that he can address the Endless properly.
"I wasn't saying much of anything. Too busy worrying about you," he responds.
Dream shakes his head dismissively.
"You need not," he replies with an unconvincing smile.
"You don't worry about me then?" Hob retorts brazenly, trying to keep his tone humorous despite the accusation. He doesn't want to frighten the other man off, but he is desperate to know what is going on inside of his mind.
So much of their recent friendship has been Hob unburdening his soul to the Endless. He wants Dream to feel as though he can do the same.
"You're far more vulnerable than I am. You require more worry," Dream jokes, though there is none of his usual, amusing bite in it. He smiles weakly.
"Morpheus," Hob chides, using the moniker as though it were Dream's Christian name.
"You don't have to hide from me," he admits, boldly. His hand finds his friend's knee once again.
Dream draws a shaking breath.
"I know you've spent your existence hiding emotions you deem unseemly, but it doesn't have to be like that between us. It certainly never was for me. It always felt like you knew what I was thinking before I did. Like you knew the words I was going to say before they left my mouth," Hob continues, kindly.
The Endless chuckles sadly in response.
"I never knew what you were thinking. You remain one of the only beings I've known that is able to truly surprise me. In all the years we knew one another, I was never quite able to predict what you would do next," he explains, contorting his face in such a way that he seems to be fending off tears.
Hob feels sympathy and endearment tug like hooks sunk deep into his flesh. He's spent so much of their time together recently living as he now condemns Morpheus for. He's been fighting off emotions he knows Dream would find unseemly, since the man first appeared in the New Inn. Endearment at the top of the list.
"I think that means it's your turn," he offers, leaning over to the coffee table so that he might refill his friend's glass.
"Surprise me," he challenges.
Once more Dream appears as though he is somewhere else. As though he might be convening with the moon for advice. He places his wine glass down.
Hob gets the impression that he might live a hundred more lifetimes and never fully understand the being before him.
He wants to though. Desperately.
"Have you even been in prison, Hob?" the Endless asks suddenly, fully fulfilling the brief of shocking the immortal.
Hob splutters out a laugh.
"Once or twice. Never long enough to get used to the food. Why?" he responds, curiously.
Dream has yet to look at him. He is still in conference with the night, his eyes full and glassy.
"And if I said I'd been imprisoned," he whispers, voice near-breaking.
"Would you think I deserved it?"
His eyes flash back to meet Hob's then, accusatory and daring. He trembles with the question, with the weight of the words he is speaking.
Hob feels a lump form in his throat.
He knows more of the man than ever, and yet in this moment he feels as though he knows nothing at all.
Nonetheless, he knows how the man makes him feel, he knows the gift Dream has given him. He cannot believe that a man who draws poppies in the margins of Jane Austin novels could ever do anything that could warrant imprisonment.
The very idea of his friend's confinement makes his chest heat with rage.
"No," he responds, truthfully.
"No, I could never think that," he reiterates.
Dream softens instantly at the concession. The tears he had been fighting careen down his face like forlorn sheets of rain.
"I spent a century confined to the basement of a manor, with a madman as my captor," he admits, his voice trembling.
"I've done wrong. I know that to be true. But there is no wrong that could warrant such horror. I was untethered from the Dreaming, I saw my raven killed, I was forced to miss our meeting, along with countless other indignities. I hide from you not because I do not trust you, but because it aches to be seen by you."
Dream's confession is cut off by a wretched sob. Hob pulls the trembling Endless into his arms before he can consider the other man's pride.
He holds the being with all of the care he had been abating in the weeks of their blossoming companionship.
To his surprise, Dream holds him back. He wraps his arms around the man's biceps and sobs into the exposed space of his collarbone.
Hob aches in a way he didn't know he could, grief and anger threatening to tear him in half.
He yearns simultaneously to hold Dream forever and to rip the man's captor limb from limb.
"I'll kill him," Hob whispers against the man's forehead, his pulse racing in his ears. He swears with each rushing thump of his heart to end the man who harmed his friend.
Dream pulls away from Hob's chest, his face reddened by tears. He looks up at the immortal with enough gentle grief to fracture him down the centre.
"You'd do that for me? Knowing so little of the circumstances of my confinement?" he asks wetly, his hands wrapping cloyingly around the collar of Hob's hastily-buttoned shirt.
"You're... you're my friend, Dream. Say the word and he's dead," he swears with a solemnity frightening to even himself.
Dream lets out a wet sort of chuckle, reaching up to wipe a tear away from Hob's cheek. The immortal hadn't even known he'd been crying.
"It's been taken care of," he reassures Hob, still clinging to the man's shirt with a singular, quivering hand.
Hob feels hopelessness wash over him. With nowhere for his anger to go, he flounders.
He wraps his hand around Dream's arm pleadingly.
"What can I do?" he begs.
He wants nothing more then to end Dream's suffering. He wants to carve all of the hurt from the man's chest and stow it within his own heart.
He would ache for the rest of his life if it meant Morpheus never had to ache again.
Dream sighs wistfully at the question. Hob has to strangle a gasp as the being adjusts himself so that he might lie his head on the larger man’s shoulder.
"This is a good start," he whispers, gut-wrenchingly.
Hob's heart is crushed into a fine powder by the man's gentle admission. That his comfort might be all the Endless desires is nearly too much for the immortal to comprehend.
"I'm here," he agrees unwaveringly, running a comforting hand up the other being's spine. He allows himself to relax further into the couch, and so too does Morpheus into him.
"As long as you need me."
***
Dream hadn't been lying when he'd told Hob that he was one of the only few beings that could still surprise him.
He had always found himself astonished by the immortal, by his endurance, his brass, his alacrity.
Dream is no more surprised by Hob Gadling then when he wakes up in the man's embrace. The rising sun indicating that the Endless had allowed liquor and the allure of companionship to coax his foolish mouth to truth and his body to relinquish itself to the other man's comfort.
He recalls, with a painful clarity, unmarred by his excessive drinking, the events of the night prior.
He remembers telling Hob of his confinement, and the immortal's instant sympathy and subsequent comfort.
Hob had been willing to kill for him. He had been willing to chip away at his very soul without hesitation.
And he had held Dream. He had held the Endless with such tenderness and mercy that he had nearly been able to forget about his confinement.
He had been able to lose himself to the other man, to the soft caress of his hands. He'd allowed himself to sleep in the larger man's arms, something he rarely did, especially outside of the safety of his realm.
Hob remains blissfully unaware of the elder being's spiral.
He lays with his head against the armrest of the lounge, one hand slack on his chest, and the other down by his side. Morpheus recalls it having laid around his waist with a humiliating fondness.
He realises, earthshakingly, that he quite enjoyed the way it felt to be comforted by Hob Gadling. Known by him.
He cannot stop himself from imaging what it might be like to always be held by him, to start and end every day by his side.
Dream forces his hands into fists before they can wander, before they can smooth down the immortal's wayward hair.
He fights the urge to hold Hob the way a beachgoer might be forced to fight a particularly formidable rip pulling them to sea.
Hob Gadling feels inevitable. Like something Dream might have always wanted but only now realised.
With near comical consistency, he disappears before the other man wakes.
***
When Hob had awoken to an empty flat, an empty bottle of wine and a missing copy of the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe, he'd expected never to see Dream again.
He'd expected his comfort had pushed the Endless too far. He'd expected that by virtue of his unabashed display of affection, that the flighty being would have prescribed him with a century to cool off.
Thankfully, that was not the case. Dream had returned to him. Unthankfully, the Endless was resolute on acting as though nothing had happened. As though their relationship remained as it always had, and so too, it seemed, must Hob.
"You were insufferably macabre!" he teases from his end of the of the plush, ivory couch that adorns his living room. He has one leg tucked to his chest, and the other pressed against the back pillows, laid across the length of the sofa. He interrupts his own impassioned monologue with a swig from his nearly empty tumbler.
The whiskey burns his tongue. He needs the excessive liquor, if he is to act as though he cannot remember the feeling of falling asleep with the other man pressed to his chest.
Across from him, Dream plays at offence, his wicked, quirked smile betraying his enjoyment.
He's better at this than Hob. He's better at pretending.
"I've no clue what you mean," he japes in return, his rosebud lips wrapping around his own wine glass for an extended pull.
Getting drunk has become a hobby of theirs, a fortuitous overlap in their mutual interests. Dream has seemingly no desire to venture into the ever widening world. He sees no value in technology or sporting matches or reality tv. He merely wants to hear about humanity from Hob's perspective, and the best way he has found, has been to wilfully liquor the immortal up. Tonight being no exception.
Dream is the only being Hob has ever met that is able to outdrink him. Sometimes, especially after the evening they shared, the immortal wonders if the Endless can even truly become drunk, or whether it is something the being plays at for his benefit.
"Oh please," Hob snorts, gesturing wildly with his empty whiskey glass (he might have overdone it with the grog).
He straightens his spine, before trying his hardest to convincingly brood, the way Dream had for the first five hundred years of their companionship.
The Endless practically guffaws at this dramatic characterisation.
"I cannot comprehend how you still desire to live, humanity is pain, existence is a prison, so on and so forth," Hob mocks, playfully.
Dream's begrudging smile presses endearing little dimples into his once-stony, porcelain face.
"I don't believe I ever said 'existence is a prison'," he retorts, wetting his lips once again with wine.
Hob is nearly too distracted by the centre of the man's mouth, dyed red with liquor, to formulate a coherent rebuttal.
"Your mouth mightn't have said it, but your eyes definitely did. You were doing goth well before the architecture or the music, dove," the immortal jokes.
There would have been a time wherein Hob would have lost his tongue for speaking to his friend the way he does now.
A time wherein Dream would have seen any mockery, no matter how lighthearted and nonsensical, as vicious, a time wherein Hob's playful teasing would have driven the being away.
Now the Endless embraces the playful razzing, and gives as good as he gets (likely thankful for the return to their usually scheduled banter).
"That is an awful lot of gall for a man who was scarcely bathed for all of our meetings before the twentieth century," he replies, boldly.
Hob grins back at him.
"Forgive me Lord Morpheus, not all of us knew such luxuries as running water," he rebukes.
Dream's laughter rings at much the same frequency as Hob imagines Heaven's gates must.
"You're drunk," the smaller man accuses, placing his stemmed wine glass between his inelegantly, tangled legs before reaching toward the coffee table.
The pair are close enough to one another on the lengthy settee that Hob's extended leg rests near Dream's hip, sinking into the more pliable flesh there. The other man's impossibly long lower limbs and narrow feet end just before the immortal's shin.
Hob watches the being reach toward the ornate whiskey bottle, seemingly with plans to refill his tumbler despite the accusation of drunkenness.
In spite of the Endless' efforts to keep his own drink contained, the abrupt movement of his body unrests his wine from its home. The (apparently similarly drunken) being's jet black pants absorb an impressive amount of the spilled wine. Only a singular drop of red exists on the sofa between them.
Hob cannot help but laugh.
"I'm drunk?" he replies, incredulously.
Embarrassment draws an abashed smile across Dream's face and heats his snow-white cheeks until they're beet red.
"A minor spat with physics does not a drunkard make, Hob Gadling," he defends, placing his empty wine glass on the alcohol-laden coffee table.
He waves his hand across the couch quickly, erasing any evidence of his faux pas.
Hob's laughter hasn't ceased, he feels joy and drink make a fool of his tongue.
"Oh, I love you."
Hob realises the monument of his words a second too late, the admission hanging in the air like a heavy, foreboding cloud.
The words slipped out without his notice. Without his consent. He'd forgotten, in his desperation to return to normal, to keep them locked away.
So long his feelings had been a great treasure, high in a guarded tower, a fearsome moat between him and anything resembling love.
Now, the foolhardy admission flows from him like treacherous water rushing through a stream.
Sobriety slaps the immortal in the face with a crisp, demeaning hand.
When Dream looks up from the couch, it is evident that he too has heard the confession. His pupils are wide and searching, his body stilled as a prey animal locked eyes with a fearsome predator.
Hob braces for the blow. Whether physical or verbal he cannot foresee. He knows though, that this is an admission that he cannot take back. That these words, this feeling, that has freed itself by force from his chest, will not go away. He knows now that he will live or die by the man before him's love.
"I think I'm falling in love with you," he admits, quieter this time, less reckless declaration and more hushed plea. As though he is apologising for poorly delivering terrible news.
To Hob's surprise, Dream does not become enraged by his affection, instead his eyes flood with tears.
"Don't," he begs.
Hob's thoughts rattle like a caged bird in a thunder storm.
'Don't love me'?
'Don't say it'?
'Don't ruin what we have with your own selfish desire'?
A million outcomes pulse through his mind with the insistence of his inbound hangover.
"To love me..." the Endless begins, tears catching in his throat. He drops his head.
"To love me, is to court ruin. You must stop," he pleads. When he raises his face to regard Hob, his cheeks are wet with tears.
The immortal feels confusion and grief once more threaten his heart's constitution.
He cannot comprehend how his love might cause the other man such heartache.
He had expected anger, disgust, indignation, malcontent, and every other negative emotion under the sun.
The Endless' determination to ignore what had happened between them had nearly assured Hob that any and all declarations of love might leave the other man enraged.
Never had he imagined that this abrupt confession could bring the being to tears.
He reaches forward with trembling, surely foolish hands, taking Dream by the face so that he might wipe the away man's tears with his thumbs.
Despite the gravity of their situation, Hob feels heat in his stomach at the sensation of the Endless' soft, cool skin against his fingertips, and the notable difference in the size of his palms in relation to the man's slender face. More than anything, he is bolstered by Dream's acceptance of his touch.
"You know I can't do that, right?" he asks, gently, his thumb repeatedly caressing the man's cheek almost unwittingly.
Dream pulls out of their embrace minutely, his brow furrowing with discontent.
"Have you tried? Truly? Have you considered the cruelty I treated you with for 500 years? My stubborn refusal to let you know my name? The general distaste of my position as King of Nightmares?" he demands, wetly.
Hob chuckles sadly, a quick exhalation through his nose.
He gathers Dream's lithe hands within his own.
"Can you really not fathom my loving you?" he asks, quietly.
Looking at their interlocked palms, the immortal cannot fathom not loving the man before him.
"No," Dream responds, achingly. Hob watches with awe and heartache as the Endless manoeuvres one of the immortal's wide, tanned palms back to its home on his cheek.
"Do you really want me to stop loving you?" the larger man asks daringly, his voice quavering.
"No," Dream says again, tears strangling the reply some.
"For centuries I've ached to hear you say those words," he admits.
"Then why try and push me away?" Hob begs in response, moving his other hand to rest upon Dream's cheek.
The Endless looks as though he is sparring with himself, as though his feelings are at odds, it seems as though he is desperate for Hob's touch but terrified of what the dreaded need might mean.
"I'm afraid to hurt you," he confesses, his voice smaller than Hob has ever heard it. He has never seen the other being so woeful, even when he had disclosed his terrible confinement.
The idea that Dream would push Hob away to protect him, at the cost of his own heart, only strengthens his endearment.
"You won't hurt me," he reassures firmly, unflinching in his resolve as he presses his forehead to the smaller man's.
"Despite your best efforts, I've had the privilege of knowing you now, and the man I know, the man I love, the man who has shown such beauty to a world that has only harmed him, could never hurt me."
They're so close now that Dream's trembling breaths seem to fill Hob's lungs. He feels a tear from the Endless' cheek wet his chest.
"What if I do? I could not bear to lose you, not now I truly know you. I've done terrible things, Hob. But breaking your heart would be the most loathsome," he worries aloud.
"It would be worth it," Hob rebukes, instantly, running his hand down Dream's face. If this ends with their separation, he swears he will make the most of the affection the Endless allows now. He will love Dream up until the point that his love becomes his undoing.
"No matter how painful. These weeks we've shared, the centuries we've known each other, heartbreak pales in comparison... I would walk headlong through Hell, if it meant being yours, love."
Dream's wanting, his longing, the love that he had been desperately fighting -believing it to be for Hob's benefit- comes undone with the immortal's words.
The Endless drags Hob nearer with a yearning that can only be described as cosmic.
He closes the space between them with the fervour of a mountain climber in view of the summit, with the relief of a drowned man gasping for air. He pulls Hob Gadling into him with such urgency that one might imagine the man's lips as the antidote to a deadly poison.
Their mouths unite with all of the heat of magma beneath the earth's surface, stirring and churning.
They kiss like teenagers, like they might never have kissed before. Hob imagines that the first kiss, the passion first felt between Adam and Eve in the garden, must have felt just like this.
"Say it again," Dream whispers against Hob's lips, his tone longing and desperate.
In this moment, the Endless could just about demand Hob's soul and the man would wilfully, happily oblige.
"Say what?"
He's drunk once more, this time on the rush of the other man's reciprocal love. The taste of Dream's mouth is the sweetest high the worldly man has ever known.
"Tell me that you love me. I'll get it right this time," Dream breathes, running his lips up the side of Hob's face to rest next to his temple.
"I'll not be so foolish as I had been in 1889, or as cowardly I was to leave your embrace while you slept. If you should face Hell for our love, then I can readily face my demons."
Hob feels long-denied love compound in his chest. He fears for the intensity of his endearment for the other man in this moment.
Dream has known so much torment, so much pain. He has every right to fear loving again and yet he will brave the cause for Hob's sake.
He will love despite.
They are in love, despite.
"I love you, Dream," he whispers against the man's cheek.
"I love you, I love you, I love you."
He feels the effects of his admission and his gentle breath on the Endless' skin. Dream shivers, his cheeks flushing and his hairs raising.
Hob lavishes in the sensations he might impart on the Endless' mortal form.
"I love you too, Hob Gadling," Dream agrees, taking the immortal by the chin so that he might hastily reunite their mouths.
Once more, Hob imagines the expanding of the universe between their lips, the creation of the Earth and the original lovers.
When Dream speaks again, it is with none of his earlier grief or apprehension. He is resolute, determined. He is a man devoted to his heart.
"I think I've always loved you."
***