😭 for the WIP ask game
Here's a snip from something that I may not publish.
But as he wakes in the night and notes with concern the cold space in the bed next to him, padding out to the kitchen in search of a snack, and finds Dream sitting in the shadows, coiled on himself like the creature he once was, he forces himself to look the gift horse in the mouth.
Dream looks terrible, the lamp over the stove doing him no favours, his skin sickly and pale, dark pits of circles under his eyes.
"I do not sleep, Hob," Dream says dully.
"But you're human now," Hob says, uncomprehending. Not wanting to comprehend. "You have to."
Dream shakes his head.
"It's been three days!" Hob exclaims, horrified. Dream has been having mood swings, screaming and crying at the drop of a hat. Hob had thought it a reasonable reaction to sudden humanity. If only.
"She'll throw me in the black hole again," Dream sobs, almost incoherent. Hob has never had to try to understand Dream before, each word measured and clear. "And then Burgess--"
His mouth clicks shut, but Hob doesn't need to hear any more. He thinks of what little Dream has told him about his captivity. Summoned and bound.
If something about the process of falling asleep is triggering Dream, then that makes all of this very simple.
"That's not going to happen to you," Hob says, with all of the certainty with which he'd said he wasn't going to die. Dream looks up at him with wide, wet eyes. He's no longer a pretty crier, but he's still the most beautiful thing Hob's ever seen. "I'll watch over you. I'll keep you safe."
You need not come to my defense, Dream had once said. Well, Dream needs someone now. Hob's pulled lots of all-nighters in his long life, most of them for worse reasons. To do it for Dream is nothing.
Dream is still staring at him. "Do you trust me?" Hob asks. Normally he wouldn't. But none of this is normal.
"As no other." Dream's answer is unhesitating, and oh Hob wishes the situation were less dire so he could properly enjoy it.
"Come on then, love," Hob says, coaxing Dream to lie down, resting his head in his lap.
