One of these days I'm going to write a 5+1 "Hob's students gossiping about him" fic, where they notice a bunch of "he's immortal" weirdness he has going on, and interpret it completely incorrectly. Like the list of "Dr. Gadling's Possible Deal" Goes:
Escaped victim of a cult (he's got no family to speak of; he's implied several times that he didn't receive any formal schooling until he was well into adulthood; he misses a lot of the Obvious Childhood References someone his age should get and once said they didn't have TV when he was a kid even though he can't be older than 40)
Former hitman in witness protection (the missing family thing again; he's deeply cagey about his past when asked directly but will offhandedly make some deeply concerning remarks; and anyone who's seen him legitimately angry will tell you that he's scary. Yes, that Gadling. I wouldn't have believed it either.)
Guy pulling a scam like in Catch Me if You Can (nobody can make the timeline of 'he's got a PhD' line up with the seventeen other careers he's alluded to having, including what sounds like a pretty long stint in the military, so clearly he's been scamming his way into interesting careers since he was a teenager and then running when it looks like he'll get caught)
The human version of a failed service dog (started as someone jokingly suggesting that he was supposed to be some sort of fantasy Chosen One but refused the call, and that's why he's got all this esoteric knowledge about the past/knows how to swordfight/treats the idea of Actual Magic, if it's brought up, with this air of 'yeah shit happens sometimes'- but he treats everyday things such as 'microwaves' and 'ibuprofen' like legitimate miracles. Then a bunch of people went "Yeah, 'He was Kidnapped by the Fae for Unknowable Purposes' makes as much sense as anything else on this list" and it stuck.)
Ghost ("That's why he hangs around the New Inn looking sad all the time!!! He's a ghost caught in a loop!!! It makes perfect sense!!!")
The +1 is, obviously, someone asks him directly what his deal is and he says "Oh, I'm immortal" and not one person believes him.
There are two options for how Dream fits into this fic. One is that the Professor Gadling's Deal debate is rocked to the core by the appearance of a man in all black who is, depending on who you ask: another former cult victim he's finally been reunited with; someone from his old life trying to drag him back and/or assassinate him; a detective investigating his crimes; or the fae who did the kidnapping. The 'ghost' theory is shaken too badly by the man's appearance to hold up, since suddenly Gadling isn't sitting in the New Inn being sad all the time, he's sitting in the New Inn all the time flirting with... whoever that guy is.
The other option is that the fic is told from the POV of one of Gadling's students, explaining the Professor Gadling's Deal debate to the new kid.
She does not understand why this Murphy guy started laughing so hard midway through her explanation.
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