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drjholtzmann · 11 hours
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Dead Boy Detectives 1.02
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drjholtzmann · 1 day
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i’ve only had edwin paine for two minutes but he’s precious to me and if anyone hurts him, i’m ready to fucking fight everyone to death.
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drjholtzmann · 2 days
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going thru the drafts. this one was originally a fluffbruary prompt (whoops) but i chickened out
shower | blessed | layer
Dream is already in the kitchen when Hob gets home. Clattering through the door in a flurry of muffled curses and rustling fabric. He shucks off his coat and violently jabs it onto the coat hook, continuing to curse his way out of his shoes before standing upright again, flicking soaking wet hair back off his face. 
“Hello, stranger.” He says, aiming for casual but falling a little closer to perfunctory, unable to fully hide his frustration. 
“You’re –” Dream’s deep voice begins softly as Hob rushes to add, “I know – I’m late, I know.”
Dream, hands deep in his pockets, shoulders square, resting in one of Hob’s kitchen chairs, does not move to finish his sentence. 
“‘Light morning showers’, my eye,” Hob mutters murderously as he passes Dream and the kitchen table and continues to clatter on into the kitchen. “Fucking pissing down all afternoon! Shoes are soaked. Thought my jacket would be enough for light showers so I didn’t take a sodding umbrella, like a fucking bellend. The tube was disgusting – full of everyone trying to get out of the rain. So it was full of rainwater and the water-soaked public which, let me tell you, is a particular bouquet I don’t need to experience again in a hurry. Not at the end of a work day. I mean – you want some of this?” He pauses, wine bottle in one hand, glass in another, gesturing with the bottle towards Dream. Dream inclines his head. “I mean say what you will about the past,” Hob continues, placing the first glass down and grabbing out a second, “plenty of smells of all kinds. But at least we didn’t have fuckin’ Lynx Africa. A tube full of B.O., soaked woollen suits, stale air, muddy rainwater, all coated with the chemical tang of Lynx fucking Africa?” He gags and pours a generous, sloshing glass of red. “Adding insult to injury. Didn’t know how good we had it.” He spins the cap back onto the bottle with a metallic little hiss. “Anyway,” he places the second glass down in front of Dream. “How was your day?”  
At this Dream stands, eyes passing over Hob’s hair, falling to his shoulders, then down to his feet. “You are wet.”
“Yeah. Did you not hear the whole vitriolic spiel just now?” 
Dream looks at him like he’s stupid. “You are still in your wet clothes.” He clarifies, emphasising each word even more than usual, his eyes glinting with mockery.
Hob swallows his mouthful of wine. “Yeah, well.”
“Your socks, at least.” Dream suggests. And Hob makes a show of rolling his eyes, putting his wineglass down, and slouching back to the door.
He bends to pull off his sodden socks, and they hit the floor with a wet and heavy splat. “Meugh,” his lip curls. His eyes slide back to Dream and he resists rolling them. “Happy?” He crows, arms wide.
“Are you?”
He wiggles his damp toes against the floorboards, head tilting to the side. “Better. At least.” He concedes. 
“You ought to get out of your wet layers.” 
“When did you become mother hen?” But by now Hob is struggling to keep up the fever pitch of his frustration, a smile starting to tug at his words. 
“If you do not want my help…” Dream turns his back on him, picking up his wineglass.
“No! No. Of course I do.” He’s still playing along with the teasing, but it’s true. Always. And Dream knows it. He turns towards Hob again, a smug little smile hiding behind the rim of his glass. Hob holds his hands out to his sides, letting them fall back against his thighs. “Help me?” 
Dream scoffs, but the smirk is still in place as he sets his glass down and walks over to Hob in the entryway. “How you survived centuries between our meetings I will never know,” he tuts, plucking at Hob’s unbuttoned overshirt, slipping it down off his shoulders, then free from each wrist. 
“Made a deal with a lady.” Hob parries back, but it sounds distant even to him, far too hypnotised by watching Dream’s movements to commit to continuing their banter.
“Mm. Quite.” Dream draws the neck of Hob’s t-shirt between his thumb and forefinger and, assessing that it, too, is insufficiently dry, pulls it upwards. Hob is pliant, and increasingly calm in his grip. 
Hob is shirtless for barely a second before there is a soft warmth sliding up his arms. Something that looks a little like a smoking jacket but feels more like a soft fleecy dressing gown has been conjured within Dream’s palm and his being fitted neatly across his shoulders. It feels like sinking into a warm bath. The warmth between sleep and wakefulness. The heavy-muscled heat of laying close to a fire for long night hours. And Hob can’t help the full-body contented sigh that comes out of him. He feels his shoulders relax down an entire inch. His head almost falls forward, eyes closed, ready to drop right off to sleep. 
“Is that not better?”
“Mm,” Hob shuffles closer. “Better,” he agrees, curling his hands into the sweeping lapels of Dream’s coat and, allowing his eyes to finally close, drops his head against Dream’s shoulder. 
“We are only half done.” Dream says after several seconds of silence and stillness from Hob. 
Hob huffs against his neck. “You just wanna see me in my pants. Cheeky.” 
“You’re impossible.” Hob can hear the smile in Dream’s words. Smiles in return, hidden against his neck, as Dream’s hands snake around his back and hold him in a warm, impossibly fond embrace. And Hob melts against him a little further. 
“S’me. Impossible. Wearing a robe my love just conjured from the ether. Which is very normal.”
“I only wish for you to be comfortable.”
“I am, love,” he promises, voice soft, all fight and frustration drained from him. “So comfy. 'n I promise I’ll take off the trousers in a minute.” He sighs, deep and cleansing. “Can we just go to bed? I know it’s still early but fuck I’d love this day to be over.”
Dream’s hands press tighter against him, soothing up and down his back. “You will hear no complaints from me,” he murmurs against Hob’s temple, pressing a featherlight kiss into his hair.
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drjholtzmann · 3 days
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somehow i did not expect it to be this gay. which is my fault, it's neil gaiman, of course it's queer as fuck, i should've known better. still prefer to be pleasantly surprised than disappointed tho
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drjholtzmann · 3 days
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I am four episodes into Dead Boy Detectives and I cannot bring myself to skip this title sequence ever. This is Good Omens all over again. Like how can you not love skeletons dancing in bisexual lighting to upbeat spooky music?!?
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drjholtzmann · 3 days
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every gay friend group has: the repressed academic, the ska loving "brawn", the formerly mean girl psychic, the match making anime fan, the astrology lover, the lesbian butcher/reluctant big sister, the sexy cat with nine lives, the walrus who runs a magic shop and the local witch who wants to kill everyone
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drjholtzmann · 3 days
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drjholtzmann · 3 days
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Ask Game: List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who liked or reblogged something from you! get to know your mutuals and followers :)
hullo!! aight let's go
making stuff. literally anything, a sketch or writing a couple lines
perfectly ripe pears
the lil waddle walk ravens do
the moon
shower+fresh sheets combo
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drjholtzmann · 4 days
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Still can't believe this happened
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drjholtzmann · 5 days
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getting up at 6:45am to watch the dead boy detectives livestream & panel was the best damn start to the day, im still so hype about it. i can't wait to watch the rest of this showwww (and get the playlist cos the tuneeesssss, absolute bangers)
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drjholtzmann · 5 days
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I went down a different Gaiman rabbit hole and now I have a sketchbook page for Sandman, oops.
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drjholtzmann · 5 days
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The Sandman S01E01 (2022)
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drjholtzmann · 6 days
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this is dreamling more than dead boy detectives but it's been in my head since reading issue #25 after s1 of sandman. so, now feels like a good time to release it into the world. i just want them all to get in each others way
(season of mists spoilers)
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It’s not often that Hob smokes. It’s an expensive habit, and secondhand smoke and all that. But it’s hardly going to kill him, so he’s usually got an ancient pack on hand somewhere. Handy, especially in situations like this. Not that there’s ever been a situation like this before but, well. You live long enough. 
He slips out into the beer garden of the pub, lighting up almost absent mindedly, the action still muscle memory. 
“What the fuck,” he mutters, rubbing his thumb along his lower lip, “what the fuck. Dream, if you have bloody anything to do with this, I swear to god, Morpheus. What the fucking fuck.” He closes his eyes, lets his head fall back against the brickwork. Despite it all he huffs an exhausted laugh. Because sure. Of course. Yeah, why not. Of course this would happen. “Jesus Christ, Morpheus. Even if this isn’t you, bloody… fucking wish I could just ask.” It’s all said barely above a whisper. Just in case. Always just in case. He blindly ashes his cigarette and heaves out a heavy breath, “Lord above,” he scoffs, raising the cigarette to his lips again. 
“Hob?”
Hob startles, eyes snapping open, head knocking back sharply against the brick. “Fuck – ow – Dream?” He raises his free hand to rub the back of his head, wincing slightly. “That, uh… that worked better than expected.” 
“You were calling for me?”
“Yeah… sorta. I didn’t… think it worked like that. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You did not. I had thought briefly of you.” 
“Oh, yeah?” Hob grins. “How come? You miss me already?”
Morpheus sends him a withering look. 
“I, um… dreamt of you. While ago. Was that – real?”
“It was.”
He nods, thumb nervously tapping the filter of his cigarette. “Uh huh. Figured. With the wine, and…” he trails off. The hollow feeling of that dream, or rather, of that waking coming back to him in full force. “You said some ominous shit. Then I said some ominous shit. Was that real, too?”
Morpheus nods solemnly. 
“Right. Don’t suppose you’ll explain that?” Morpheus remains silent. “Right. Course not. Things okay, though? Now? I mean,” he gestures to his friend, “you’re here. That must be good, yeah?”
“Yes. And no.”
“Great. Fab.”
“What I thought I was facing has… changed.”
“...’kay. Well, can I ask you a question?”
Morpheus pauses but, after a moment, nods.
“S’it got anything to do with the dead kids hanging out in my pub?”
“What?”
“Yeah, couple of boys who look like they should definitely be in school – about, oh, fifty years ago. At least.”
Morpheus’ eyes don’t actually widen in alarm, but there is something to that effect happening… not quite in his expression, but in his aura, perhaps. Hob gets the feeling that if he were a cat the fur along his spine would be standing on end. 
“So… it is related?” 
“Perhaps.”
“Definitely, then.” Hob takes a short puff of his cigarette. 
“Show me?” 
“Uh… I don’t know if they know that people can see them. I don’t know if people who aren’t me can see them, actually. So just, um…” the caution dies in his throat as he realises who it is he’s talking to. Morpheus will do what he will, Hob’s advice be damned. 
Dream draws close, peering in through the windowpane of the door back into the pub. “How do you know?”
“You get pretty good at feeling when things are off once you’ve been around the block six hundred years or so. Also, they walked in through the closed front door. As in, passed right through the solid wood and glass.”
“I see.”
“Why are they here?” 
“To sample your fine selection of craft beer, perhaps?”
“Oh, he’s joking,” Hob has joined his side in peering not-so-surreptitiously through the door. “‘Mortal plane’ here, not here-here.”
“Death must have been busy… It is not like her to leave a job unfinished without good reason.”
“Must’ve…? What the fuck could be so horrific that Death is being kept busy?”
Morpheus, beside him, is silent. Deadly still. And it tells Hob all he needs to know. 
“Dream,” he hisses, “what the fuck is this? What’s going on?”
There is a long pause. “I ought not to tell you.” Dream murmurs, still facing the glass panel of the door.
“And I ought not have two dead teenagers in my pub. All things relative.” 
“They are causing no harm.”
“I don’t doubt that. It’s you I’m worried about now.”
“Your concern is of no use. What I mean is that they are no poltergeists, not aggressive, there seems to be nothing demonic about them.”
“Which means… there are poltergeists and demons running about at the mo?”
“I told you, I ought not say. There are diplomatic proceedings to take place.”
“You get that that makes even less sense, yeah?”
Dream seems to, at last, with an almighty eye roll, give in. “Hell is closed,” he hisses, turning to face Hob directly. 
“Hell is closed.” Hob repeats back, dumbfounded. “And that means… The devils are all here?”
“Precisely.”
“But the boys… aren’t devils?”
“They are not.”
“Okay. That’s good news. And the devils?”
Dream shrugs, sharp and languid. “Anywhere. Everywhere.”
“Great. Okay. Less good. Very much less good. So, uh. What… do I do? Am I supposed to exorcise them? Because, I have to be honest – would really rather not do that.” 
“You are under no obligations.”
“Oh.” 
“They could not be here without Death’s knowledge or her say-so. She will come for them in time.”
“Oh.” Inexplicably, Hob’s heart sinks a little.
“They are not alive, Hob.” Dream says, looking him in the eye. “They cannot live forever as the dead.” 
“Hm. Yeah. S’pose.” He looks through the windowpane at the two boys, chatting animatedly at a corner table out of the way. “They’re just kids, though. Barely got a normal life.”
“You cannot save them, Hob.”
“Why not?”
“You cannot. They may not be destined for Hell, but that doesn’t mean they can stay amongst the living.” 
“Says who?”
“The universe. Death, herself.”
Hob smirks, tilting his head down a fraction to look up at Dream from under a quirked brow. “You know what I think of Death.”
And Hob catches the tension at the corner of Dream’s mouth that he knows, whatever he might say to the contrary, is a suppressed smile. 
“C’mon, what if I just help ‘em live a little? While they’re here?”
“Hob.”
“What?! Can’t a guy be nice?”
“I have meetings to attend to.”
“That’s not a no.” 
“I think it a poor choice to flaunt immortality in front of two who have died so young. I would caution against it.”
“Okay. Fuck, fair point. But they don’t have to know about me. They wouldn’t somehow know, right?”
“I would caution against it, Hob Gadling.”
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drjholtzmann · 7 days
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Annalaura_art
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drjholtzmann · 7 days
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Still waters - Carla Vize-Martin
British , b. 1970 -
Acrylic on board , 20 x 20 in
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drjholtzmann · 17 days
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Morpheus - art by Tyler Crook
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drjholtzmann · 17 days
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