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scifrey · 11 months

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Hold Tight (3/6)

Status: Complete. Unbeta’d, we die like Hob doesn’t.

Fandom: The Sandman (TV 2022) Includes some comics canon, and some cameos from the wider Gaiman-verse, but it’s not necessary to know to enjoy the story.

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Discussions of grief and in-canon character death. Also includes some erotic content. Please curate your internet experience accordingly.

Relationships: Morpheus | Dream of the Endless/Hob Gadling, Past Eleanor | Hob Gadling’s Wife/Hob Gadling (past), Hector Hall/Lyta Hall (past)

Characters: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Hob Gadling, Matthew the Raven, Desire of the Endless, Lyta Trevor-Hall, Daniel Hall, Rose Walker, Jed Walker

Summary:

Hob is tasked with his first quest as Vassal of the Endless, Morpheus is bad at using his words, Destiny thinks he’s so clever, Desire makes a confession, Rose Walker meets her Uncle’s boyfriend, and Lyta Hall punches Dream of the Endless in the nose. Or, the one where Hob Gadling turns into everyone’s therapist, and honestly, he ain’t mad about it.

Set at the end of Cling Fast - after the premiere of “Elizabethan Manor”, but before the Epilogue.

READ ON AO3 or below:

Chapter Three

Hob wakes the next morning to the ping of a text coming in on his phone. He cracks a bleary eye at his clock, and pouts when he realizes that his alarm is going to go off in three minutes and he doesn't have the time to roll over and ignore the Waking world for a little bit longer.

He feels rested—he always does, nowadays, no matter how busy or, ah, athletic his dreams are—but he's still bedsore from where he's been lying funny on his pillow. He sits up slowly, stretches and cracks his neck and shoulders, yawns wide and splays his toes like a cat. Rubbing the last of the grit from his eyes, only then does he pick up his phone and check his messages.

There are the normal ones that come in overnight: social media likes, emails from students obviously pulling all-nighters, automated push notifications about this promo code or that newsletter. None of them woke him, because he tries to have good sleep hygiene and sets his phone to Silent Mode before bed.

But somehow, one single text message had made a noise.

On purpose, it turns out.

Vassal - what are you doing? the text says. And comes from contact D#5. It takes Hob a moment to remember if Desire or Despair is the older twin.

Hob thinks about his response, dragging his body into the bathroom to unglue himself from his pants and wash the sex-sweat from his body. Feeling fresh and wearing a clean, dry pair of pants and nothing else, he goes into the kitchen to fill and start the electric kettle, then pulls down a mug and tea infuser.

Decision made, he types back: As I’m bid.

There.

It’s just civil enough to be polite, and just snarky enough to hopefully get Desire off his ass.

If Desire takes issue with Destiny's quest, then they can take it up with their elder brother themselves and leave Hob the fuck out of it. He's already got his hands full with trying to wrangle Dream over this Walkers-and-Halls-and-the-Importance-of-Family after school special nonsense. He doesn't have the emotional bandwidth to hold Desire's hand, too.

Of course, Desire clearly disagrees, because Hob is accosted on his way back from fetching lunch a few hours later.

The breeze is brisk, the first promise of spring not quite strong enough to push off the lingering tattered winds of winter today. Hob fancies he can see the tightly furled buds on all of the trees along the grand university avenue pulling in tighter around themselves, shivering in their little verdant coats. Around him, students march between buildings with their hands punched into their coat pockets and their shoulders hunched up to protect their necks.

The world smells of approaching rain, and the tender crushed new-growth grass, and the coffee in his hand.

Hob has popped down to the Pret on the corner to pick up a flat white and caprese sandwich to take back to his office between classes. He’s just thinking about how much he wished it was warm enough to sit on a bench in the sun instead of huddling into his coat and scarf, when a beautiful person in a wide-brimmed hat a terribly a la mode androgynous white suit slides up to him on the sidewalk. They’re dressed more for a runway than a chilly afternoon outdoors.

The escaped-model falls into step with Hob. For a moment, he thinks that the person might ask for a selfie, that they’ve seen the show, and is one of the well wishers or Shakespeare lovers who want their own brush with Hob's brand of extremely niche fame.

The minute he gets a look at the person's eyes—fire and honey—Hob understands what he's looking at. Or rather, who he's looking at. He gets the vague feeling that he's seen this face before, but then he's likely met all of the Endless before, in one incarnation or another. They have the uncanny ability to make you forget what they look like.

"Desire," he greets politely. "Forgive me for not offering a hand in greeting." He holds up his sandwich and coffee in demonstration.

Desire steps in front of Hob, arresting him right there on the sidewalk. They hold their own hand out. On one finger perches an ostentatious gold-and-fire-red ring with a stone in the shape of a heart. Hob is both smart enough and old enough to stoop quickly and kiss it.

Desire, he notes, has two shadows and smells faintly of peaches. He wonders if that's a hand-cream, or just the Endless themself.

"Charming," Desire pronounces, and they resume walking. "But you don't really desire it to be warm enough to sit outside in early April, do you?"

"Oh no," Hob agrees. "Climate change, global warming, bad stuff, absolutely. I just don't like the cold. It makes all the old war wounds ache."

Desire smiles at him with too many teeth. "I can warm you up."

Hob cuts an unimpressed look at the being.

"Just an offer," they purr with a shrug.

"Not that I'm not delighted to finally meet you officially,” Hob says, “But to what do I owe the pleasure?"

Hob can see them chewing on the word pleasure, working out a pun or an innuendo, and then deciding to let that one slide. "I come to lay a quest before you, vassal," they settle on.

“Okay,” Hob says, leading Desire up the steps into the History building. “So long as it doesn't interfere with my class schedule or my ability to turn my marks in on time, or the other quest I’m already pursuing, I'm happy to help you.”

Desire studies them as they hold open the door for him. "You really mean that."

"Why wouldn't I?"

"You are my brother's creature," Desire says, following Hob into the building. "Surely that must make me your enemy."

The satellite campus of the University of York, nestled in one of the suitably historic and pokey areas of London, is filled with very old buildings that have painstakingly been brought up to code. They therefore leave behind the charming brick and stone exterior for the brutalist cement corridor, and Desire’s high heel clack with intriguing authority and mystery. It’s the kind of sound that is designed to make you want to poke your head of your office door to see who is making it.

Hob is impressed only one of his colleagues does so—the rest all be in class or the canteen themselves.

“Hey, Pradeep,” he greets the Politics of British India head. “Sup?”

“Hey Bob, hey…”

“This is Dez,” Hob offers up. “My partner’s sibling.”

Pradeep’s deeply quizzical look transforms into one of understanding and fondness. “Family coffee break?”

“Something like that.”

“Nice to meet you, Dez,” Pardeep says and ducks back into her office with her cheeks flagging crimson.

“Woof,” Hob says in low tones as they pass her door, heading down the hall to his office. “Whatever mojo you’ve got wafting around, turn it down. I’ve never seen her blush like that.”

“Can’t help it,” Desire says, and the look on their face makes it clear that they’re not ever going to try helping it, either. “And don’t think I haven’t noticed you changing the topic, Handsome Hobsie.”

Hob sighs and rolls his eyes. "Look, first, I'm your brother's lover, not his slave."

"You are his head priest," Desire points out, as if it's the same thing.

"Not at all," Hob demures. "And secondly, I'm Vassal of the Endless. It's my duty to help you out with the stuff you can't do for yourself. I'm never going to say no to you, Desire. And, you know full well I didn’t mean it like that," he tacks on, because ‘Vassal of the Endless’ apparently doesn’t mean ‘immune to their influence’ when they’re literally breathing the same air.

"Because you are my vassal?" Desire asks, dubious and perhaps, ah, yes, there it is, a little bit worried.

"And because you're the sibling of the man I love most in the entirety of existence. That makes you family."

"Family," Desire scoffs, but there's a tremble in the way they echo the word. As if they are realising, for the first time, that it actually can encompass good things, and not just the strife and spitting dissension that it does among the Endless.

Hob squinches his sandwich under his arm, and roots through his pockets for his keys as they approach his office door. Before he can withdraw them, Desire waves their hand and the door creaks open slowly.

"That's handy," Hob allows. "Come on in, sit down. I have a feeling this is going to be a long conversation. Do you mind if I have my lunch as we talk?"

"Not at all," Desire allows, and slides themselves onto the sagging old sofa Hob has jammed up against one wall. Hob makes no comment when the sofa suddenly puffs back up, the springs repaired and the leather shiny and new-looking again.

Hob shuffled himself behind his battered desk, and into the creaky old wooden swivel chair that he’s had for, lord above, decades it must be now. The head of facilities keeps dropping hints that she’ll order him an ergonomic plastic-and-metal one in a heartbeat, but like a pair of clogs, Hob’s worn the perfect butt groove into this one and won’t part with it for love or money.

"Do you want a tea or something?” Hob’s got a little tea station and electric kettle on the top of his filing cabinet, half-hidden behind the overstuffed bookshelves. “Or I can run to the staff lounge, or…?"

"I have all I desire, for the moment," Desire purrs again, stretching out along the revitalised sofa. Clearly Morpheus is not the only cat-like sibling among the Endless. It should sound filthy, the way that Desire intonates their own name, but Hob's starting to become immune to Endless nonsense like that. They're just trying to wind him up.

As he'd decided this morning, he doesn't really have the emotional bandwidth for that today. So he's just going to ignore it. Better part of valour, and all that.

"Great, if you don't mind then," Hob says, sitting at his desk and tearing the foil off his sandwich. It's only slightly squished, and he takes a big bite.

Meh, he's had better. He's had worse, too. It'll do.

"So I do gotta tell you," Hob says after he's swallowed his first few bites. "I'm already doing the vassal thing for one of your other siblings right now. Is this something that can wait until that's done or…?"

"I believe," Desire says, fingers fidgeting with the long pearl necklaces they're wearing, and huh, that looks like nerves, Hob thinks. "That perhaps Destiny's quest and my own, ah, intersect?"

It's the first time Hob's heard one of the Endless sound unsure. He waits for the universe to crack, or for a fissure to Hell to open beneath them, or for the sound of the seas boiling. Instead the clock over his door continues to tick loudly, and there is no sound but the rustle of his sandwich wrapper.

"Alright," Hob says. "Lay it on me."

He keeps going at his lunch, though, because he has a feeling that as soon as Desire says what they want to say, he's going to have to get back on his feet and start vassal-ing. And it's no good going on adventures on an empty stomach, he already knows this.

"I desire…" Desire sits up and folds their hands over their knees with studied demureness, eyes lowered to their red-talon nails. "I desire a relationship with my grandchildren."

"Oookay," Hob says between bites, chewing on the food and this revelation. Intersecting quests, indeed, Hob thinks.

"Though my brother may tell you otherwise, I am capable of loving them," Desire snaps, fire flashing through their golden eyes when they glare up at him.

"I never said you couldn't," Hob says placatingly. "I'm listening. Go on."

"While the Endless are forbidden from romantic relationships with mortals, we are capable of feeling love for them. And parental love for the result of those unions."

"Did you love Unity Kincade?" Hob asks gently.

Desire fiddles with a locket on the rope of pearls, a gold heart that they snap open and closed–snick snick snick snick. Hob has no idea what, if anything, is inside it. He couldn’t even begin to guess who or what Desire of the Endless might want to honour in such a sentiment-laden way.

"No," they eventually confess. "To my shame, no. I used her because she was the Vortex, and it would hurt Dream. I could make him spill family blood, which is the only and ultimate sin for the Endless. It would mean his own doom, and I hated him…" Desire says, fisting their other hand on their knee, before taking a deep breath and forcing themselves to flex the fingers, to relax. "I hated him and I wanted him to suffer."

"He has suffered. Are you happy about that?" Hob asks mildly, challengingly. He sips his coffee and tries to make it clear with the warmth of his expression that he's not accusing or throwing anything back in Desire's face. He just wants to know.

Desire squirms again. "I thought it would make me happy. But I stood beside Roderick Burgess as he foamed over with vile, poisonous desire for that which my brother could not provide him, and Dream could not see me. He was… he looked…" Desire shakes their head. "And it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough, because it was not at my hand, so I found the Vortex and I…"

Hob waits them out.

"I'm not a rapist!" Desire blurts, all of a sudden. They press their palm against the chest, as if expecting to find a wound there, gushing blood, and is surprised to find themselves whole. "Unity Kincaid was a means to an end. And desire is not the same as love. All the same… I cared for her, in my way. The realm of Dreams was shut off, for her, being what she was a victim of the Sleepy Sickness both. So I took her into the Threshold, made a home of it for her, became the man of her greatest childish romantic fantasies. I made of myself lover and husband, and father, and her life was good, there. With me.”

“Playing house,” Hob says, wanting to be very clear on his understanding of the events.

“Playing house,” Desire says softly. “But when it was over, I pushed her out of my realm without a second thought. I sent her back to the Waking, and cared only if Rose Walker would punish my brother as I designed."

"But she didn't," Hob ways, tossing his empty wrapper into the bin by the door. It bounces once and then against all the rules of physics and gravity, tips into the bin because he wants it to, and Desire is in the same room as him.

"That child was born of my hate," Desire says, confusion rippling across their whole body. "And Dream showed her such love."

"And that confuses you?"

Desire just nods.

Hob scrubs his hand over his eyes, and wonders how such incredible cosmic beings can be so stupid. "Desire—you're his sibling. Of course he loves you. And of course he'd love your children, as well."

"But he doesn't like me," Desire protests.

Hob shrugs. "Well, there were days that I didn't like Matilde, or Isobel, or John. But I didn't stop loving them. Or Mattie and Isa's children, and grandchildren."

Desire glares at Hob flatly. "I wanted Dream dead."

"Okay, so your family is… yeah, complicated," Hob settles on. "You all are big universal concepts, with big personalities, and therefore big problems. I’m honestly surprised that there isn’t a Drama of the Endless.”

Desire snorts, an inelegant sound that fills Hob with warm fuzzies and pride. It’s rare that he gets to surprise one of the Endless enough to make them spill out awkward sounds. “My brother holds that subsidiary title among his vast list of others.”

Hob sips his coffee and gives Desire his best best oh come now professor-look over the rim.

Desire huffs. “It is one that we share,” they admit.

“True,” Hob says. “And listen, I’m not trying to minimise what you said, about how deeply vindictive what you did was. But also… you've all suffered. You've had traumas. Bigger, scarier, more hurtful things than I’m sure I’ll ever understand. But you’re all also just… just people. And as people, we hurt the ones we love the most in the most desperate, painful ways possible, because we know them so well, because we love them.”

Desire says nothing to that, but looks away, at Hob’s messy bookshelf, golden eyes unfocussed and introspective. They chew on their thumbnail thoughtfully.

“I wanted him dead,” Desire says again, but this time it sounds more like a question. “Surely, Uncle Dream will never let me near the children now.”

Hob takes a moment to digest that. “Morpheus is not their gatekeeper.”

“Is it you I must convince, then?” Desire asks, and they lean forward earnestly, ready to say whatever pretty thing they think Hob needs to hear.

Which is… not how it goes.

“I’m not their keeper, either. It’s Rose and Jed themselves,” Hob says. “You gotta lay it all out for them and let them make up their own minds. And it won’t be easy, but I think if you come to them with a genuine apology and a genuine, heh, desire to be a good part of their lives, I don’t see why they wouldn’t want a relationship with you, too.”

Desire snorts and slumps back against the sofa. “Because they only exist as the result of a fratricide plot?”

“One that didn’t work,” Hob points out. “Are you still planning to kill Dream now?”

“No!” Desire gasps. “I… no.”

“Because he threatened you, or because you genuinely don’t want him dead anymore?”

Desire snorts again. “Does it matter?” they ask, dismissing the topic.

Hob does not allow the topic to be dismissed. “Yes, it does. If you sit there and tell me that you’re planning to harm my beloved, we’re going to have a problem.” Hob allows something of the old bandit to glint in his eye, puts the swing of a sword and the hot spray of aerial blood into the grim line of his mouth.

Desire regards him with genuine surprise, which slowly morphs into something Hob suspects might be respect. They sit up and meet Hob’s eyes with all the gravitas of a monarch laying forth an edict.

“I no longer wish to harm Dream of the Endless, nor specifically the facet known as Morpheus, this I swear to you on the First Circle,” Desire intones seriously. “Nor shall I knowingly seek cause him harm in the future.”

Every hair that Hob’s got–and to be fair, he has rather a lot of them–stands straight up. A frisson wracks his body, something like a gong, and also at the same time something like the roaring silence of the end of the universe jams up his ears. He knows, he knows, in the deepest part of his soul, that this is not the kind of oath that any being takes lightly.

“Thank you,” Hob chokes out, struggling to breathe around the intent that is so thick in the air that he can taste it, heavy and grim on his tongue.

“Besides,” Desire says gravely, and then suddenly the atmosphere is broken when they throw up their arms with a seductive giggle. “I like you too much to get on your bad side, Handsome Hobsie.”

“Oh, well,” Hob says, clearing his throat with a thin chuckle of his own. “If only to spare my ire, then.”

“I would rather…” Desire starts, and then stops. When they speak again, their voice is very, very small. “I wish it could be as it was. At the start. Back when he loved me.”

Hob lets that hang between them for a moment. He wishes there wasn’t a desk and half an office between them, because he thinks that Desire could really use a hug right now.

“Listen, I’ll be honest,” Hob says instead. “I don't think you're toxic, not to the point where you can't work things out with Dream. Not to the point where I think it's better for you, or him, to go non-communicative. And you wanting to find a way to have a good and healthy relationship with your grandchildren? You coming to me to help? This right here? This is proof that you can be better. That you can work toward it, the same way that Morpheus is working toward it."

Desire blinks at Hob at that. "Dream is working on bettering himself?"

“Yeah, he's working on himself,” Hob says gently. “He's been in a millennia long depression since the death of his son. He had to start climbing out of the hole, or it’d drag him down. And, I’m gonna flatter myself here, I think if he didn’t have outside support, he might have let it.”

Hob should probably feel a little more guilty about airing his lover’s dirty laundry so casually, but he was talking with one of the undeniable forces of the universe. They absolutely already knew. Though knowing and understanding seem to be two separate things for the Endless.

"Depression," Desire murmurs, thoughtfully. "That is not an Endless sibling I am familiar with."

"And let's hope you never do become acquainted," Hob says gently. “Frankly, I think the whole lot of you could use therapy, but it’s not my place to say so.”

Desire shoots them a smirk. “And yet you just did.”

Hob finishes his coffee instead of answering, utterly unrepentant.

“Well, what an indulgent waste of a quarter of an hour this has turned out to be,” Desire harrumphs. “I came to you with a quest and your response is to tell me go to therapy.”

“You never told me how to solve your problem,” Hob points out. “Only that as your vassal, I have to.”

“Cheeky vassal.”

“Stubborn liege,” Hob reposts. "Now, I hate to kick you out, but my office hours start in three minutes, and I know for a fact Cassie is freaking out about her poster presentation and will be here at 2pm on the dot."

"Cassandra O'Brian desires to keep her scholarship so she can escape her living situation," Desire murmurs.

"She's a smart kid. I have every faith that she'll succeed," Hob agrees.

"Still, as a devotee, I should reward her dedication," Desire says, rising. "This I will do as a favour to you, Hob Gadling. In return for helping me."

"If I'm honest," Hob says, climbing to his own feet to get the door for Desire, which feels like an appropriately gentlemanly and vassal-y thing to do. "You don't need to do anything in return for me. The reward will, I hope, be the improved relationship between you, and Dream, and the kids. All the same, Cassie deserves to have her dreams come true, so you won't get any complaints from me. Just don't break her heart, yeah?"

Desire lopes over to the door, predatory and confident again, now that they are back in more familiar territory.

"I make no promises, Hob Gadling," Desire rumbles, and tucks two of their fingers under Hob's chin to raise it up, so that they can meet his eyes. Gosh, those heels make them tall. "I do, however, express my gratitude for taking up this task for me, and grant you my protection and favour in return as you do so."

And then they kiss him.

It is long, and slow, and not at all chaste. But Hob keeps his mouth closed, and his eyes open, and doesn't let Desire get a rise out of him.

"Pah, you're no fun," Desire sighs, wiping a bit of red-red-red lipstick off his lower lip with their thumb. Then they sashay out the door, and vanish in a cloud of cinnamon-heart-scented glitter halfway down the hall.

If Hob catches Pradeep running her fingers through it with an intensely confused look on her face a few hours later, well, that’s between Hob and the glitter.

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