#I needed to know what happened to Hob in 24 hours and so I wrote my own take on it

[teejaystumbles]

it’s still Halloween so have some more gory dreamling :P

For 24 long hours, when John Dee held Dream’s ruby, the world sank into madness, sleeplessness and nightmares.

Listen.

Hob Gadling dreams. He is in a dark stone basement. Moonlight through a skylight far above illuminates a broken glass sphere, large enough to hold a man.

There is a creature inside it, crouching between shards of glass. Hob steps closer, fascinated. The creature looks like a man, yet is not. Its limbs are impossibly long, its skin is white as marble and stretched tightly over visible bones. Its face is a face Hob has beheld only a handful of times but would know how to draw with his eyes closed, if he had any talent for such things. It looks like his stranger but its body is so strangely-shaped that he struggles to believe they could be one and the same. Its eyes are pools of black tar with red embers glowing in their depths. Hair that shimmers like raven’s feathers and black spider’s silk sits on its head like a crown, unruly and wild. Hob has fantasized about the feel of that hair. Despite himself he takes another step, still unsure. Can this really be…?

It watches him as he steps closer. Then it opens its mouth and releases a low and trembling moan that shakes the basement’s foundation and makes the hair on Hob’s arms stand on end. Needle-sharp teeth glint in a beam of moonlight and in a second the creature is upon him.

Hob falls to the floor on his back with a grunt, long white bony claws clutch at his chest and tear at his shirt. He stares up into the bottomless eyes and pleads:

“It is you, isn’t it? Let me help. I can help, I can…”

The creature snarls and rips straight through his shirt and tears bloody gashes into his chest. Hob hisses in pain and grapples with the creature’s – his stranger’s, he’s sure, it has to be – claws and shoulders to hold him off.

“Please, wait, what can I do-”

Needle-sharp teeth bury in his shoulder and he howls. Claws are ripping him open, digging deeper inside his chest and Hob sucks in desperate breath after breath, gasping in pain. The teeth release him and his stranger’s handsome face stares down at him with blood dripping from his lips and chin.

Give me Give me more so cold cold COLD

It shivers against him and Hob fights against the pain and lifts his arms to embrace the skeletal monstrous form of his stranger, draws painful breath to say:

“I’ve got you, I’ll hold you, I’ll warm you, please, I’m here-”

Stay stay STAY get me OUT of here give me more I NEED MORE hungry hungry cold cold HUNGRY

Sharp clawed fingers pull his ribs apart and soft lips and nose bury in his neck and pant against him as he screams. Hob is dimly aware that this must be a dream, it has to be. He has never held consciousness for so long under such physical strain and having his rib-cage opened is a first but he’s pretty sure he would have blacked out a while ago. His stranger is pushing at him as if he’s trying to crawl inside him and Hob can only shake and gasp for breath and pull him closer.

Closer Please closer more deeper deeper you you you HOB please

“Anything...anything, for you…” he whispers into unbelievably soft black hair, chokes on his own blood and coughs, pushes trembling fingers into bony shoulders to hold his stranger as he shakes and buries his face in Hob’s open chest to feast, to wear him like a mantle-

Hob HOB HOB

“Yes…”

“Hob…”

The stranger’s voice is suddenly different, no longer a rush of sound into his brain but a voice his ears register. Hob fights through the pain to open his eyes. His stranger looks at him, his face full of Hob’s blood, but his eyes are wide and glinting with now white stars in their midst and there is sanity and recognition in them.

“Ah… hello old stranger...” Hob wheezes and smiles. With a glance at them both the stranger releases Hob, a frown marring his beautiful features. He waves his right hand and suddenly the pain is gone. Hob looks down at himself and sees no blood, no torn open chest. His stranger stares down at him, now clad in a black shirt and trousers. He still has Hob’s blood on his face and Hob shivers.

He lifts his hand and brushes it over his stranger’s chin.

“You still got…”

His hand comes away bloody and his stranger’s eyes widen, he sucks in a breath and then the blood is gone.

“I am sorry, Hob. I did not wish for you to experience any of this.” he says in a voice full of sadness. “A madman held control over the dreaming for several hours. This was...a very personal nightmare that latched onto you. I apologize.”

Hob tries to think. “Oh...so this was your nightmare?”

His stranger cocks his head and then lowers his eyes. “Yes.”

“Why...why would it latch...onto me then?” Hob asks and waits with baited breath. Part of him is thrilled. His stranger is here, and even if it’s a dream, he knows it is real.

Lips like rose petals part and tremble for a second before giving him an answer.

“Because this is my nightmare. You, here...and me, like that.”

His stranger sighs softly and steps back.

“I was...imprisoned. For a very long time. When I escaped I left this part of me here… I could not control it. And you stumbled upon it. Of all the nightmares that exist, you had to find this one.”

He shakes his head angrily and turns to leave.

“There will be no more bad dreams tonight, Hob Gadling, I promise. Sleep well.”

“Wait!”

Hob desperately reaches for him, grabs at his shoulder and pulls him back. His stranger frowns at him but waits. Hob releases a nervous breath.

“It wasn’t a nightmare. Not to me. I would…” he swallows heavily. “I would give you all you need. Anytime. Anything. I mean it.”

The stranger stares at him, lips parted, looking taken aback, if Hob where to guess. Hob feels himself blushing, feels his heart tripping and beating loudly and gives a helpless smile. He releases the other’s shoulder and looks at his feet.

“Sorry. I, I just wanted to tell you. I...hope to see you again. Soon?”

He lifts his eyes to his stranger’s face again with so much hope it’s choking him. Twin stars glitter in eyes like black tidal pools and a tiny smile plays at the edges of the stranger’s lips. A voice like dark velvet is the last thing Hob registers before he is sinking into soft dreamless depths.

“Very soon, Hob.”

#I needed to know what happened to Hob in 24 hours and so I wrote my own take on it #haven't seen any fic like that around please rec me if you know any #also Dream leaving a monstrous part of himself that existed while in the cage rings very true to me #anyway I hope you enjoy my weird gory love language #own writing #dreamling #tw: gore #it's a dream so #not that bad I hope #dream of the endless #hob gadling