#an earlier draft referred to Morpheus' smile as 'the stray kitten of facial expressions' and while that is an objectively true descriptor

[just-j-really]

Unsoulmates part four (a new hope)

Masterpost

Hob texts Morpheus two days after he and Audrey break up, because he's got two tickets to a ballet and absolutely no use for them anymore. He'd offered them to Gwen, first, but her girlfriend (her soulmate, actually, her soulmate she'd met at a Ren Faire in a moment out of a fairytale, complete with a kiss-print soulmark on the back of her hand) has even less interest in ballet than Hob does. And he knows bringing it up to any of his other friends will only get him concerned questions about why he keeps doing this to himself, wouldn't he be happier if he stopped actively avoiding his One True Love.

So offering them to Morpheus, who hasn't spoken to him in a month but probably won't do that, is the best option by default.

Shockingly, Morpheus replies. He even offers to meet Hob at the White Horse, a pub they'd frequented back when they were still sort of talking, to pick up the tickets.

Even more shockingly, Morpheus is already at a table when Hob arrives at the pub four nights later, like he's planning to sit and talk with Hob. Like before.

Hob is not entirely sure how he feels about that, but he's also running on maybe three hours of sleep, and the chair next to Morpheus looks extremely inviting, so he lets himself topple into it.

"If you ask me how I'm doing I'm going to get up and leave," he warns Morpheus, leaning back against the headrest and closing his eyes. He might just take a nap here. It's been impossible to fall asleep, these past few days, without the warmth of someone else in bed with him. And it's so easy, lying there with the tangible reminder of how alone he is, to let his thoughts spiral into why didn't she stay why didn't she even consider it wasn't it worth it?

But here, with the warmth and the noise of people around him and this unbelievably comfortable armchair, an uneasy half-doze starts to overtake him. He's drifting, wondering where in the world Morpheus found an armchair, when a soft tapping noise drags him back to reality.

When he opens his eyes, Morpheus is sliding a beer across the table to him. He doesn't say anything, just looks at Hob levelly, and Hob thinks that's why, why he opens his mouth to say thanks, what comes out instead is a cracking, "Do you know what it's like, having people congratulate you for having your heart ripped out?"

His voice sounds even worse than he feels.

Morpheus inclines his head at Hob in that familiar little nod; go on, I'm listening.

It's a small kindness, but it still makes Hob feel like his chest is cracking in half.

"Everyone acts like it's fine. Like it's a good thing. 'Yeah it hurts now but at least you'll stop wasting your life, at least now you'll find the person you were meant for.'"

He takes a breath. Takes a drink. "Nevermind that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her."

And then the whole story is spilling out of him, in an out-of-order slurry: the moment it happened- Audrey gesturing wildly as they ducked through the concert crowd, hand in hand; her stunned little gasp as her arm bumped another emphatic gesture-er; they way he'd stood there, confused, still holding Audrey's hand, while she and her soulmate stared longingly into each other's eyes.

The way she'd yes-anded even his stupidest bits, the way they'd had their own shared language of in-jokes, the way conversations with her were a dance and she always knew the next step.

The way, within a week, she'd scrubbed herself out of his life entirely, like she needed to fake her death to start her new life with The One.

"And- and I knew marriage wasn't happening, right?" he finds himself saying, some time and several drinks later. "Fuckin nobody marries their not-soulmate, which is STUPID. It's so stupid, remind me to tell you how stupid it is. But I thought. I thought we- I thought there was something. Something good. I thought maybe we could last."

The sentence gets much too wobbly at the end, and Hob swipes a hand roughly over his eyes.

"What did you want, then?" Morpheus asks.

Hob glares at him.

"If not marriage," Morpheus says, as though clarity were the problem there. He seems... sincere, though. Like he's actually asking the question, not trying to nudge Hob into an epiphany about the futility of his life goals. Hob's heard the second thing enough to know what it sounds like. And Morpheus has that- look, on his face. The Hob-is-an-insect look, but not. It's... it's like if that look were kinder, more genuine. More vulnerable.

So for what may be the first time, when asked that question, Hob actually considers his answer before responding. "I dunno what I wanted," he says. "I just want- I want someone to choose me. Not have me forced on them."

Morpheus stares at him. Studies him. As though the secret of life itself has somehow been hidden in Hob's face.

Hob stares back, pinned. Entranced. A little confused.

"You know," he says, after a moment, "I'm not actually a bug."

Morpheus sighs. "Come on," he says, "Let's get you home."

Despite Hob's insistence that he is fine, really, just a little tipsy and a lot heartsick and sleep deprived, Morpheus does walk him home.

Hob only remembers the tickets when they reach his building, and only then someone had stuck a sticker of a dancer to the back of a lamppost. "Here," he says, rooting around in his jacket pocket until he finds the envelope, and handing it over, "At least someone will get use out of them."

Morpheus stares at the envelope like he's never seen one before.

When he looks up at Hob, his eyes are glistening with tears. "Are you," he asks, quietly. He pauses for a long time, long enough that Hob starts to wonder if he'd handed over the wrong envelope, and then wonder what deeply tragic envelopes he could possibly have been carrying around.

"Are you going to look for your soulmate now?" Morpheus asks. His voice is as even, almost soothing, as ever.

He's looking at Hob as though the wrong answer will be his death sentence.

"Are you kidding me?" Hob asks. Despite everything, he finds himself grinning. "Never. The love of my life is out there, somewhere, I'm not going to discount them for something stupid like soulmates."

Morpheus smiles.

Truly smiles, for the first time that Hob has seen. It's a lovely expression, soft, hesitant, but so genuinely, contagiously delighted. And Hob knows, with the same bone-deep certainty as his disbelief in soulmates, that he'd protect that smile at all costs.

"Also," he says, because there's not much protection he can offer right not but there is always the shining, thrilling possibility of coaxing another smile out of Morpheus tonight, "I'm starving. Do you want to get dinner?"

#dreamling #unsoulmates au #my fic #an earlier draft referred to Morpheus' smile as 'the stray kitten of facial expressions' and while that is an objectively true descriptor #it is not the one Hob would use in that moment