Chapter Text
Alright, look, the thing is –
The thing is, Hob Gadling doesn’t have a magical bone in his body, okay? No power. Nothing.
He can’t cast runes. He can’t read tarot cards. He can’t lay protective sigils or scry in water or anything else. Exorcising demons? Forget it. He can’t even light a candle without a match.
And he has actually tried all these things, over the years. Mostly in the nineteen-twenties, because there’d been a girl, and it’d been the twenties, and he spent most of that decade off his head with cocaine because shit, even though he can’t die, the things he’d seen in France had made him go completely off the rails for a decade or so, and he doesn’t think anyone can blame him for that. Anyway, there’d been a girl, and one way or another he’d followed her into some weird magic cult – not that there’d been much actual magic there, because Hob’s seen a bit of that, over the years. He’s seen hedge witches and sorcerers and fae-folk and seers, not to mention his Stranger. But this group in the twenties, there’s barely a speck of power among them. Still, he’d followed along, gamely, because he’d been trying to forget himself for a while, and he’d joined in with all their various harmless endeavours, and failed at all of them, just like every other time he’s tried anything like that. Once again he’d found himself a completely unremarkable human being.
Apart from, obviously, the not dying thing.
Anyway, the point is, it’s absolutely no fault of Hob’s that he doesn’t realise he’s managed to turn the New Inn into some sort of magical beacon...thing.
A beacon for magic, that is. Not a beacon made of magic. Sort of a reverse lighthouse, or at least that’s how Hob ends up understanding it, when the penny finally drops. Which isn’t for some time, though in his defence, some of the people who’re drawn to the New Inn don’t exactly advertise themselves as magical beings, or magic users, or gods, or muses, or personifications of concepts.
It starts when Dream of the Endless first visits the New Inn, and perhaps that’s why it escapes Hob’s notice in the beginning. He and his Stranger have been, after all, meeting for some six centuries, and Hob had built the inn so that they’d be able to meet again, should his Stranger ever forgive him for daring to suggest that he might be lonely. So it’s not completely unexpected, Dream of the Endless showing up in his pub. A surprise, and a great pleasure, but it is, after all, something that Hob’s spent thirty years hoping would happen.
After all, for hundreds of years, his Stranger has been the one unchanging point in his life, and when he hadn’t appeared in 1989, Hob had felt his heart break. When he’d heard the White Horse Inn was to close, his heart had shattered even further. No Stranger, and now no meeting place? It felt like a rubbish end to a very mixed century.
But Hob has spent many lifetimes looking for the wonder in ordinary things, and hope has become too much of a habit to break now. So he’d bought the closest building he could, turned it into a pub, and spent fifteen years there as Robert Golding before going for a wander across Europe, only to come back five years later as his own nephew – Robin, this time, because he likes to keep the ‘R’. The last few years, he’s been Robin Golding, pub landlord, PhD student and then university lecturer. The fact that his original history degree had been in the seventies is neither here nor there when he’s had centuries to work on his forgery skills.
He’s not just waiting for his Stranger – absolutely not. He’s living his life, fully and freely. He forms friendships and has casual sex and strikes up a correspondence with someone in Australia. He goes on marches and learns how to use social media and experiments in the pub kitchen until he’s chased out by his own employees. He reads voraciously and debates with his students and often he sits in the pub, in the afternoons when it’s quiet, and if, when he does, he glances up whenever the door opens –
Well, if he does, nobody needs to know it’s because he’s hoping, constantly, for his Stranger to come to see him. Hob has so much to tell him, if only he might have the chance. So many things he’d like to say.
When his Stranger does turn up, one warm day in April, and calls him ‘friend’, it’s like the sun rises for Hob, brighter and warmer than it has done in a hundred and thirty years. There he stands, the skinny, attractive bastard, all in black as usual, his hair such a complete bird’s nest that Hob wants to run his fingers through it to try and tame it.
He’s wanted to run his fingers through his Stranger’s hair for at least three hundred years, though, so it’s hardly a new impulse.
“It’s good to see you,” he says, meaning it more than anything he’s said in years. And alright, he’s sure he sounds like a complete sap – looks like it, too, no doubt – but he can’t help it, he can’t help smiling, can’t help the way his heart skips a beat in his chest at the sight of his Stranger. Here, after all this time, in the pub Hob has built so that he might be found. He’s real, he’s right there, taking a seat at Hob’s table and leaning back in his chair, like some weight has been taken off his shoulders.
“And you, Hob Gadling,” the Stranger says. “I am glad to see you well.”
Hob thinks his Stranger doesn’t look well, not entirely – it’s like he’s not quite here, somehow, some part of him absent, or hidden away. It’s not unusual but it’s more marked than he remembers. |Then again, they’ve met only a handful of times in a great many years, and Hob’s memory is only human, just like the rest of him, so maybe he’s wrong.
He looks, anyway. He looks and looks, and under the table he pinches himself on the thigh, just to be sure. But yes, it’s real. This is real. His Stranger is really sitting there, with more of a smile than Hob’s ever seen him with before, and Hob is –
He’s very happy, suddenly. Not that he hadn’t been before, but this is different. Because damn it, after all, there’s no fool like an old fool, and though Hob had promised himself he’d be more careful with his Stranger, next time, he can already see that promise going up in smoke.
“Drink,” he decides, because if he keeps sitting here staring, his Stranger is surely going to notice. Certainly someone is going to notice, and Hob would quite like not to be teased by his own employees about his ridiculous crush, thank you very much. “A beer, friend? It’s not half bad.” He rises, intent on going to the bar, but his Stranger holds up a hand in an imperious, unmistakeable gesture.
“My name,” he says, “is Dream. Dream of the Endless.”
Hob sits down again, and is swallowed up by his Stranger’s – Dream’s – dark eyes. They’re fathomless – endless, which fits – and there are multitudes there, galaxies hiding in the pupils and something glistening that might, or might not, be tears. Hob’s mouth is dry as they look at each other, his mind blank except for the name, burned into his consciousness like it’s always been there. Then Dream blinks, slowly, releasing him, and Hob expels a long breath.
“Thank you, friend,” he says, gently. And then he says again: “It’s good to see you.” He doesn’t need a beer, he decides. He feels drunk enough already, just from hearing his Stranger’s – his friend’s name. Dream of the Endless. There are probably a lot of questions he could ask about that, but that’s for another time. That’s for later. For now, the name is enough.
“I have interrupted your work,” Dream remarks then, eyeing the papers spread across the table. “Should I leave?”
“No,” Hob blurts out. “God, no.” He shuffles the papers into some sort of order – though it’s possible Jacob Westman’s essay gets mixed up with Steph Webb’s, and isn’t that going to be fun to decipher later on, because of course all the essays are word processed these days so it’s not like he can go on hand writing – but anyway, he gets them all into a relatively neat pile, and shoves them into his briefcase, on the floor by his feet. “I was nearly done, anyway,” he excuses. Dream looks a question at him, silently. “I teach, at Goldsmiths,” Hob explains. “English history. The Tudors, basically, though I’m not bad on the civil war, in a pinch.” He winks, because Dream is the only being in the world who’ll understand why.
Dream’s smile is back, more in his eyes than his mouth, but clearly visible. “And do you like helping to shape young minds?” he inquires.
That’s a topic Hob can expound upon for hours, if he’s not careful, but after all, that’s what his friend likes, when they meet – to hear what Hob’s been doing. So he talks about his students, about teaching, about the weird and wonderful feeling of teaching about things he remembers living through. He tells Dream about the way listening to his students, hearing the way they think, makes him feel young again, when much of the last century has made him feel so very old. He enthuses about the random conversations that can sometimes sprout in a seminar, when someone connects one idea to another and they all go off on a tangent. The joy of helping somebody reach their potential, and the hardship of realising a student has slipped out of reach into depression, or drugs, or a bad relationship, and knowing that Hob is limited in his ability to pull them out of it.
At some point, Chris – who’s tending the bar today – brings them both a beer, and winks at Hob from behind Dream’s back. Hob very carefully pretends not to see it, but he’s glad for the beer. Dream doesn’t drink his, of course. But when Chris brings a bowl of mixed nuts, he does pick at them, almost idly, occasionally going so far as to actually eat one. Hob pretends he doesn’t want to lick the salt from Dream’s mouth, because his friend had fled upon being called ‘friend’, and Hob doesn’t want to spend another hundred and thirty years berating himself for pushing too far again.
“Your century has been a hard one, then,” Dream says, apropos of nothing, while Hob sips his beer to wet his whistle. “If you have felt old,” he clarifies, when Hob raises his eyebrows at him.
“Oh, well.” Hob rubs his thumb over the rim of his glass. “There’s things…” He trails off, and looks away from Dream, out of the open door at the world outside. He has to pick his words carefully, because they’re not alone here, for all it’s still too early for the evening crowd. Chris is hovering a little, paying a bit too much attention. “I’ve learned, once again, that humans are capable of great cruelty,” he says at last. “Sometimes that’s been hard. But,” he adds, unwilling to dwell on that, “look how far we’ve come! Space travel! The internet! We’ve practically eradicated polio, did you know? And antibiotics – good grief, antibiotics! How incredible to discover something so remarkable from mould!” He grins, filled anew with the marvel of it. “So many diseases, practically wiped out in much of the world. People living who would have died from infection, last time we met. We can transplant whole organs now, too. Think of it – giving the gift of life to someone else, even when we’re dead.”
The look Dream gives him is soft, approving. “So you still wish to live,” he assesses. It needs no answer. “I am…pleased, Hob Gadling.”
“Hob. Just Hob.”
“Hob,” Dream says, inclining his head. His hand rests on the tabletop, and impulsively Hob reaches out to cover it with his own. Dream’s skin is soft and cold, and he doesn’t pull away. “I regret –,” He pauses, as if he’s considering whether he really wants to speak, and Hob waits patiently, holding his friend’s hand, warming it with his own. “It was not my wish to miss our last meeting,” Dream says at last. “I was…detained.”
There are so many things held in that word, things that Dream maybe doesn’t want to say. Hob bites back his instinctive questioning, and squeezes Dream’s hand, because he can do that, at least, and Dream still doesn’t withdraw, though his hand is limp under Hob’s.
“You’re here now,” Hob reminds him. “And I’m very glad of it.”
“Yes, I am here now.” Dream glances about him, almost as if he’s taking in the place for the first time. Hob tries to see it through his eyes – the patterned wallpaper, the dark wooden furniture, the polished bar and the aroma of beeswax that always seems to cut through the smells of alcohol and food. The walls are littered with mismatching pictures, collected from charity shops and auctions and even, in one case, from somebody’s skip. There’s so much beyond this one room that he wants to show Dream, he realises. The little rooms upstairs, the garden at the back of the inn, his own home at the end of the garden in what had been, once upon a time, a small stable block. It’s nearly six o’clock, he notices. Dream has been here for two hours. He’s never stayed more than three before. Anxiety grips his stomach, and he squeezes Dream’s hand again, unintentionally. Dream returns his gaze to Hob, and at last he turns his hand so their fingers can entangle. “Tell me more, Hob,” he commands. “Tell me everything.”
“Alright, dove,” agrees Hob, because he’ll do anything to prolong this meeting, anything at all. “But listen, the pub’s going to get busy soon – the after work lot, you know. How about we pop over to my place? I’ve got some wine in, and I’m sure I can rustle something up to eat. No need to worry about being overheard, then.”
“Very well,” Dream says, surprising and pleasing Hob. “Is it far?”
Hob laughs, even when Dream’s expression shows his incomprehension, and he drains his beer and releases Dream’s hand. “Not far,” he says. “C’mon, I’ll show you.” He misses holding Dream’s hand at once, but he’s got his briefcase to carry, and if he leads Dream out of here by the hand, he really will get teased by his employees, because Chris especially has been here long enough to do that, and he’s been on at Hob for ages about needing to put himself out there again. Not that it’s any of his business, and it’s not like Hob’s a monk, it’s just –
Well, it’s Dream, isn’t it? It’s been him for years. He’s loved in between, of course he has, but the older he gets, the more Hob feels there’s a part of him he can never give to anyone else. And Chris, the bastard, is a bit too perceptive and way too romantic, and anyway, the point is, if Hob walks out of here hand in hand with a handsome stranger, Chris is going to have things to say. Also, he’s not a teenager. He can absolutely go five minutes without physical contact with his significant other. Not that Dream is that, or anything like that. Although, in fairness, he is very much other, and very much significant.
Dream follows him across the bar room, down the little hallway that leads off to the toilets, the kitchen and the garden, and then they’re in the open air. Hob inhales the scent of the big wisteria that sprawls across the back wall of the house, breathing deeply like he’s drinking it in, because he loves it and it’s habit, and then he starts down the path towards his little home. But Dream doesn’t follow him; he stands in the doorway, one hand lifted to brush across a low-hanging bloom.
“You live in the inn?” he inquires, a deep note in his voice, something unnameable. Hob stops and looks back at him, struck by the rightness of it, of his Stranger standing there underneath the wisteria, his pale skin lit up by the sunshine, his eyes like dark stars as he gazes at Hob.
“I own it, dove,” Hob says. He means to be casual, but he’s fairly sure he doesn’t manage it and, well, it’s not like his Stranger has ever been casual about anything, so maybe it’ll go unnoticed. “Practically built it from the ground up,” he adds, because he’s got to say it somehow, he’s got to, even if Dream doesn’t hear it, even if it’s hopeless. “It was falling apart when I bought it, but I could see it’d polish up right, and I had time, and money, so…”
“…so you built this inn.” For us, Dream doesn’t say. But Hob thinks the implication’s there. He’s staring at Hob with a scrutiny that might be alarming, if Hob weren’t punch drunk from the last few hours. If Hob hadn’t just put his heart in his hands and held it out, even if he’s likely to get it broken again. “So close to our meeting place.”
“Well, yeah.” He stuffs his free hand into his pocket, hunches his shoulders a little, because maybe if he seems less threatening – though he’s hardly that, not these days. His fighting days are long over, and besides he’s never been a threat to his Stranger, not ever, except maybe on that one occasion in 1889 when he’d dared to suggest they were friends – anyway, maybe if he makes himself a bit smaller and a bit softer, maybe Dream won’t take offence this time. “Sprayed the paint, as well,” he adds. “So you’d find your way. I broke the law for you, dove, you realise that?” He smiles, because there’s a lot he’d do for Dream, whatever or whoever he is. He’d go to war for him. He’d die for him, probably. Which is ridiculous, because they’ve met six times in as many centuries, and Hob’s spent all that time not wanting to die for anything. But there it is.
Dream keeps looking at him. His fingers seem to flutter against the wisteria flowers – or maybe it’s only the wind, moving them, because otherwise Dream is absolutely still, like he’s turned into a statue somehow, between one blink and the next. Though it’s a still day, today, not much breeze, so it must be Dream, after all. And then something settles into him – he settles into himself, maybe, but either way, he looks more present than he has so far, and Hob dares to hope.
“I am honoured, Hob Gadling,” he says gravely. And the funny thing is, Hob’s pretty sure he means it.