Chapter Text
Hob's enjoying a well-deserved cup of tea before bed, relaxing down from a day of work, when a sandstorm appears in his living room.
To his credit, Hob only briefly panics before he remembers that, oh yeah, that’s just what Morpheus does sometimes. Now the first time he did it, there was much more flailing involved.
While he is vaguely familiar with the mode of transport by now, everything else about tonight’s visit is highly unusual. Once the sand unveils him, his friend stays on the floor crouched down and tensed, like an animal frozen in fright. Or fight.
“Morpheus?” Hob calls, when the figure doesn’t rise for too long, “Everything alright?”
At the sound of his voice, Dream jerks violently, finally raising his head so Hob can meet his eyes. His very angry, very red eyes.
“Hob Gadling,” he breathes, but even that sounds like a snarl, “I apologize, I did not mean to travel here.”
Hob drifts cautiously closer, wary of the way the man seems to tremble with feeling. “What’s up with you?” he motions to his own eyes, “Need any help?”
The creature on his floor jerks, again, wrenches forward and then stills, muscles painfully taut. “Yes, ” he whispers in a tone Hob can only describe as hungry. Then he rocks back, face contorting in horror. “No! No, you cannot, I forbid you.”
The usually chilly facade of his friend is nowhere to be found, and the pendulum of emotion makes Hob stay where he is. Still, he crouches down, trying to meet his odd eyes. “Hey, it’s fine! I don't mind helping you out.”
Dream wraps his arms around himself, heaving breaths he does not need but seems to lack. “I have been- cursed.” He confesses. “With a spell that is-” he trembles, a wave cutting off his words for a moment. He collects himself with difficulty, “Exceptionally strong.”
Alarmed, Hob leans forward, “What do you need?”
The hungry look flickers back, “You. You, I need you, Hob Gadling, I-” the he reels back, curls down with forehead almost touching the floor. He pants, struggling for composure. “My apo-My apologies.”
“What do you need from me, Morpheus?”
“Nothing! I need nothing, nothing,” he gasps, “It would be lethal for a mortal, the curse, it would kill a human, but I am better than it,” he growls.
Circumventing the other’s pride, Hob tries a different way, “Alright, what is it supposed to do, then? The curse?”
Dream seizes, twitching for a horrifying span of seconds, then collapsing against the floor again, eyes squeezed shut. When he speaks, it’s quiet and rushed and lacking. “It is an invocation of Hunger,” he murmurs, “Hunger for pain, for blood and violence. It intends to drive its victims to agony, to madness, unless they submit to satisfy its thirst. They are to bathe in blood until its purpose is deemed fulfilled.”
Hob tires not to show his growing alram. Morpheus is getting worse by the second, the struggle has been looking more and more painful- it looks like he is losing. What can an Endless do, driven mad with anger in the middle of a city?
“Alright,” he nods, “Alright! Blood and violence, huh? Well luckily for you you’re in the company of the one man in London who has no limit on blood and whom no amount of violence can kill,” he smiles tightly, “How about it, mate. Up for a round of two?”
He opens his mouth in to refuse, but the fire in his eyes heats up and he moves.
Even prepared, the speed of the attack takes Hob by surprise. An impossibly taut bowstring released, his stranger tackles him to the floor, teeth bared and sharper than ever before.
“You have no idea what you are offering,” Dream tries to refuse him, but he digs his nails into Hob's flesh that betrays his capitulation.
“Neither do you,” Hob snipes, before throwing him off with a kick. He follows the motion, getting to his feet just in time to evade a punch. And another, and another. Sloppy, predictable motions, driven by far too much emotion and not enough skill. Hob thanks his stars, even as he catches a knee to the gut, that Morpheus isn't composed enough to fight like himself. He really doesn’t want to fight any Morpheus, but he wants to fight a rational Morpheus even less.
A second of distraction costs him a punch to the face. He reels with the force of it, and Dream uses the chance to wrestle him to the floor once more. Hob refuses to go down without a fight, struggles and kicks on the way down, manages to drive the other back enough to brace a forearm against his chest, keeping him away.
They pause, panting in tandem, Dream’s eyes wide and wild, mouth twisted in a snarl.
Hob smiles around the sting in his lips. Damn but he packs a punch. “Still with me?”
Dream swallows compulsively, straining closer, staring at Hob’s lips.
“Morpheus? Dream.”
Finally, red embers rise to glare at him, “What?”
Hob can’t help but laugh at the familiar pout, even in a situation such as this. “Is this helping? At all?” he asks.
He watches Dream come back to the present, watches him blink through the haze of bloodlust and try to formulate a coherent thought. From this close, he can almost see the curse in his expression. A foreign being, fighting for control.
“Yes,” he discerns, “It does,” he sounds surprised, like he expected nothing short of murder to help. Lovely.
But it doesn’t take long before his attention drifts back to the blood on Hobs’ lips, the pressure on his forearm gradually increasing. Gone again, then.
Hob doesn’t like his chances in a straight out strength contest, not once Morpheus realizes he is basically a god, so he braces against the floor and pushes him to the side, ducking away.
Their dance begins anew. Hob keeps mainly to the defensive, ducking and evading, but finds that fighting back brings a sharp smile to Morpheus’s face. It suits him scarily well, and Hob briefly pities his enemies and tries his best not to rile him pup further.
He throws him off against his desk, wincing at the rough landing, sweeps his feet and fucks with his balance as often he can. He uses his anger against him, baits him with the soft of his vulnerability and ducking away at the last second to ram him against furniture. Stalling.
Hob, however immortal, isn’t impervious to damage, so eventually his injuries and the duration of the fight compound on him. He’s used to bar fights and brawls, or to the desperate march of war, this dance isn’t sustainable for him.
This time, when Dream brings him down, he knows he isn't getting back up. Still, life hath seen no man stubborn as Hob Gadling. He trashes and flails and kicks, gets in good strikes, blows that would free him of a mortal man, but ends up pinned all the same.
Once again, Dream pauses in victory.
“Morpheus?” Hob tries, but there’s no diverting his attention this time.
Dream leans closer and Hob holds his breath as the Dreamlord bows and mouths under his lips, at the gathered blood.
Hob's mind momentarily blanks out.
Then, sharp teeth come into play and Hob snaps out of it, jerking his face away, craning his neck. The image of his face getting bit off flashed through his mind faster than he could think through. Only a second later he recognises it as a bad idea, but it is too late, Dream takes it as an offer and shifts to mouth at his neck instead.
Were he a weaker man, Hob would’ve made an indecent sound.
The action quickly turns from intimate to hungry, and Hob grits his jaw against the sting of teeth. He had not the chance to ever meet quite this type of pain before, but hey, new experiences are what he’s all about.
So far, worse than a needle. A lot worse than a needle. Not yet on the same level as a little friendly stabbing, though. Overall, not the gory vivisection he was imagining.
Dream seems dissatisfied with only one wound, biting down again whenever he grows restless. Hob knows very well it takes him too long to bleed out, and he worries if the curse only lifts once he dies. Not that it would stick for very long.
It feels like hours before the wet, angry noises peter off. Hob thinks he can feel a tongue, through the pain, drawing through the rivets of blood around the wounds.
“Morpheus?” He tries again, a little rough from blood loss.
The Dreamlord hums, busy.
“Morpheus. Dream. Origami. King of cats, or whatever. Think you can come back from vampirism now?”
The only response is a sigh against his throat, a body sagging against his. He doesn't resist when Hob shifts from underneath him, though, so he rolls him off.
Too weak to stand on his feet, Hob crawls to the coffee table to gulp down cold tea. He sacrifices his least favorite blanket to press against the mess of his neck. He hopes he’ll be able to stand up and bandage himself before Morpheus wakes.