#complex mathematics

[cuubism]

every one of Math AU Dream and Hob's text conversations is like this

[cuubism]

Order of Operations (8309 words) by cuubism Chapters: 2/3 Fandom: The Sandman (TV 2022) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus/Hob Gadling, Dream of the Endless/Hob Gadling Characters: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Hob Gadling Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Graduate School, Established Relationship, Engagement, Marriage Proposal, Fluff, elopement, Explicit Sexual Content, Cooking, Idiots in Love, engagement to wedding speedrun, Incredibly Sappy, how to occupy your adhd boyfriend Series: Part 12 of Complex Maths Summary: Dream was just trying to tease. He really didn't intend to propose NOW.

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part two ✌️

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Eventually, Hob says, “You know, we’ve still got twelve hours until the registrar’s office opens.” Dream groans. “What on earth will we do with the time?”

“Enjoy the quiet,” Dream says, pushing his face further into Hob’s throat, and Hob laughs.

“Don’t even want to celebrate? You don’t have any champagne, do you?”

“Death has vodka in the kitchen,” Dream says. “She says she buys it for cooking, but the rate at which she makes penne alla vodka does not match the rate at which the vodka is depleted.”

“Look at you, deductive mathematician,” Hob says, grinning. “Well, vodka shots it is. Unless you wanted to use it for its intended purpose and cook something?”

“We have the ingredients,” Dream realizes.

“Good! I’m hungry. Come on.” Hob takes Dream’s hand and drags him out of bed. Dream is helpless to do anything but follow him; truthfully he doesn’t care what they do with their time, he just wants to be around Hob.

Cleaned up and half-dressed in mismatched clothes, they wind up in the kitchen. Dream’s efforts at quieting Hob’s mind have evidently been completing unsuccessful in the end, because Hob immediately starts pulling ingredients out of everywhere and laying them out on the counter in an unorganized mess. How Hob even manages to function while cooking, Dream doesn’t know, but somehow the result is always tasty, which Dream can never manage himself.

“You’re in charge of sauce ‘cuz I know you won’t want to get the pasta dough on your hands,” Hob says, setting a pan on the stove and passing him tomato paste, onion, garlic, and several other ingredients Dream doesn’t immediately clock as he gathers them in his arms. It’s possible Death had all these ingredients on hand because she intended to cook this exact meal later in the week… Dream will have to make it up to her.

[ Rest on AO3 bc I don't have it in me to embed the images again ]

[cuubism]

Order of Operations (3957 words) Chapters: 1/2 Fandom: The Sandman (TV 2022) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus/Hob Gadling, Dream of the Endless/Hob Gadling Characters: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Hob Gadling Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Graduate School, Established Relationship, Engagement, Marriage Proposal, Fluff, elopement, Explicit Sexual Content, Cooking, Idiots in Love, engagement to wedding speedrun, Incredibly Sappy, how to occupy your adhd boyfriend Series: Part 12 of Complex Maths Summary: Dream was just trying to tease. He really didn't intend to propose NOW.

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Complex Math wedding fic for you :]

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Dream has become well-attuned to when Hob is getting restless. It happens at intervals. Sometimes when he has been working too much. Sometimes, conversely, when he is just getting bored. He needs something to occupy his mind, and his hands—and Dream does love being what he occupies himself with. So yes, he knows when Hob is restless, sometimes before Hob himself.

Like now, when he’s staring at his laptop screen, lines of utter computer gibberish Dream doesn’t comprehend, and bouncing his knee. Chewing on the end of a pen. He keeps looking over in Dream’s direction, like he means to say something, then pulls himself back from doing it.

He has, in fact, interrupted Dream three times already in just the past hour, breaking his train of thought. Looking for distraction, for stimulation. Well, Dream thinks, if he is not going to get any work done on this proof due to Hob’s fidgeting, then he might as well have more fun with it than this.

“You are restless,” he says, putting aside his work.

“Sorry,” Hob says. “Should I go for a walk? Am I bothering you?”

“Yes,” Dream says, and Hob looks crestfallen—until Dream takes his hand and tugs him up from the table. “So I must make better use of you.”

“Oh, yeah?” He sounds interested now, and it cuts through the fog of distractibility that sometimes descends. Dream does love being interesting.

“If you’re going to interrupt my work, I think there are better ways.”

“Oh… yeah?”

Dream squeezes his hand, smiling to himself. This will help. Hob needs a grounding exercise. Besides which, it will be fun.

“Yes.” He brings Hob into the bedroom, pushes him lightly on the chest so he sits down on the bed. Hob looks up at him like he’s starving, like he does sometimes when he just really needs something, and selfishly, Dream loves it. He loves being the one on the end of that look.

He works Hob’s shirt off, then his socks and trousers. All the while Hob gazes at him, enraptured. “Go on,” Dream says, unexpectedly soft even to himself, as he prods him further up the bed so he’s lying back against the pillows.

“Want to explain what you’re doing?” Hob says, but doesn’t sound like he’d be too perturbed if Dream didn’t. If he just took Hob along with him.

“As you are incapable of letting me finish my work,” Dream says, “I think you will have to be my canvas.”

“What does that mean?”

Dream snatches up a marker from his nightstand, and uncaps it, straddles Hob’s thighs, pulling a punched out breath from his lungs. “Stay still, so I can write.”

He writes the next line of his proof—starting from where he left off—right under Hob’s collarbones.

Hob jumps, smudging one of the strokes. “Dream, that tickles.”

“Stay still,” Dream orders, and feels a rush of arousal when Hob goes still again. “Don’t make me restrain you.”

“Jesus Christ…” Hob watches, rapt, as Dream keeps writing. It is… significantly harder to concentrate on solving this problem while sitting in Hob’s lap than it was while just listening to him fidget. A predictable obstacle, but then, the point of the exercise had not truly been to finish his work.

“I will reward you,” he says more softly, “if you are good.”

Hob’s voice is breathy, and his chest rises and falls sharply under Dream’s hands. “Will you?”

“My Hob,” Dream says fondly, and Hob actually shivers at the tone of his voice. “I know how hard it is for you to concentrate sometimes. So be good, and pay attention to me, instead.”

“Always,” Hob swears.

Dream tries valiantly to actually work on his proof, but it is, of course, a fool’s errand. Hob is the greater pull of his focus. The strength of his thighs where Dream is straddling them. The rise and fall of his chest under Dream’s hands. He stays very still, and each time Dream looks up Hob is looking at him, gaze heavy. Dream’s writing swiftly devolves into gibberish.

Still, he kisses Hob lightly on the mouth, a reward for being good. Hob is hard under him, but with great effort, he pays it no mind, yet.

“You’re cute when you’re all focused,” Hob teases, and Dream kisses him again, more to quiet him this time. Except it is pleasant to kiss Hob, and so he loses himself in it for some moments, his own ignored arousal stirring within him.

Disobeying his orders to be still, Hob curls his hands in Dream’s hair. Dream cannot find it in him to scold him for it; Hob’s touch is too pleasant, and Dream is too fond of him to really be stern.

“You are distracting me,” he admonishes, finally pulling away from Hob’s mouth. Hob gazes at him, lips wet. He does not seem so scattered now.

“Thought that was the point.”

“You are a perennial distraction,” Dream says, and Hob smiles, self-satisfied.

“Good enough to pull the world’s greatest maths genius from his labors. I’ll take that compliment.”

Dream pushes him back. Hob’s head knocks lightly against the headboard. Dream settles deeper in his lap, grinding down on Hob’s erection, and Hob whines at the not-enough pressure.

He writes the next line of his proof, relishing in the hitch of Hob’s breath at the scratch of the pen. Hob’s skin looks pretty, he thinks, adorned with these fragments of the universe, but prettier just as he is.

Though Dream does like putting his mark on him.

“Genius at work,” Hob muses, looking at him from under his lashes. “That’s sexy. D’you know how sexy you are?”

“‘Sexy,’” Dream grumbles, as he writes another line on Hob’s chest.

“Fucking hot. D’you remember when we met? When you behaved like an absolute twat about me ‘stealing’ your classroom?”

Dream remembers it well. He remembers how overwhelming Hob’s presence was from the very start. “It was my classroom,” he says.

“Um, according to the university schedule, it was mine.”

“We’ve had this argument already,” Dream says. “What were you saying?”

“Well, you told me to go fuck myself—which, by the way, I think I’ve heard you use that word maybe five times in the whole time we’ve known each other, so you really must have been flustered—” he seems very pleased at this— “anyway, you told me to go fuck myself and I really almost said ‘I’d rather you did it.’ I think the fact that the undergrads were already getting to class is the literal only thing that stopped that coming out of my mouth.”

Dream… did not know this. And Hob is just grinning at him.

“What would you have said?” he asks.

“I would have run away,” Dream admits, and Hob laughs. Truthfully, he had been interested in Hob from the moment he saw him. But he would not have been able to cope with being propositioned, or teased, in such a way. “Would you have… actually?”

“I’d have sucked your cock right there in that classroom if you wanted.”

Dream chokes, and his marker goes skidding across Hob’s skin. He is suddenly possessed by the vivid image of it, growing harder in his jeans, and Hob grins at him, running his tongue over his teeth.

“You are,” Dream says, struggling, “a menace.”

“Could do it now, too, if you want,” Hob offers.

How Dream does love the feeling of Hob’s mouth on him. He loves how Hob runs his mouth, and how he uses it.

“Perhaps I will allow you that, as a reward, if you are good,” Dream says stiffly, drawing himself back together. It’s difficult with Hob looking at him like that, tongue pressed to his lower lip. “If you let me finish my work.”

“I’m just a canvas, don’t let me distract you,” Hob says innocently.

Dream shifts himself back, so he can reach lower on Hob’s stomach, then keeps writing, faster now. Perhaps in truth, he would rather give up this exercise and give in to Hob’s offer to blow him. That, too, would accomplish the task of settling Hob’s mind… among other things.

He stops working on the proof. Instead, he writes another equation, simpler, just a few lines.

“Is that that one function that makes a heart shape when you graph it?” Hob asks.

Dream looks up at him slowly. “How do you know that?”

Hob grins, pleased with himself. It makes Dream want to nip him in the thigh. “I don’t. I just know you. I could tell your attention was drifting.”

Just to spite him, this time, Dream simply writes words. He does it backwards so they might be read in a mirror, from Hob’s point of view.

“You… are… so… annoying,” Hob says, grinning, reading along as Dream writes. Of course he can simply tell what Dream is writing, even if it’s backwards. “Aw, thanks, babe.”

“Only the truth,” Dream says.

I love you, he writes.

“I love you,” Hob says. He pets Dream’s hair. “I love you, too, Dream.”

Dream leans his forehead against his stomach, though he’s careful not to smudge the writing. Hob digs his fingers into his hair, pets his temples, caresses his cheeks. He is so good to Dream. Tolerant of his whims and strange habits, as Dream has come to tolerate, to love, even, Hob’s own forms of madness. Dream wants to stay here. Right here. Forever.

Moved by mad impulse, he writes another line.

Hob dutifully reads it out. “Will you m—”

He stops abruptly. Looks down at Dream, who looks back evenly, though his heart is pounding.

Hob tries again, more shakily. “Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” Dream says.

Hob pulls him up by the arms and kisses him. It’s off balance, his fingertips are digging into Dream’s biceps, Dream’s knee is jabbing Hob in the thigh, but he doesn’t care. He feels all alight, full of beaming joy from his toes to the tips of his ears, fizzy and hot. Hob pulls him closer until Dream is sitting properly in his lap, their bodies pressed together, and Dream wraps his arms around his shoulders.

“You really want to marry me?” Hob breathes, taking Dream’s face between his hands.

Dream nods. He had not planned to ask in this moment, but looking into Hob’s hopeful eyes, all those idle fantasies floating in the back of his mind come alive with a fury. He wants that. Hob to be his, and to know Hob wants him, permanently.

“I want to marry you,” he says.

Hob beams, and then kisses him again, hands framing his face as Dream clutches at his shoulders, sinking into his body and the warmth of his mouth.

He needs— he needs to be closer. He needs to be as close as possible to Hob in this moment. He tosses his pen aside and wiggles out of his shirt, plastering himself to Hob’s body as he pushes him down to lie flat on the bed.

“Don’t smudge the writing, I’m keeping it,” Hob says, laughing, as Dream fits himself between his legs.

“Keeping it?” Dream asks.

Hob touches Dream’s forearm where ‘the wifi password is I love you’ still stands out in fresh ink. “I want one.”

A lump forms in Dream’s throat at the thought that Hob would really immortalize his impromptu proposal in this way. He’s glad he used permanent market. “I will try not to smudge it,” he promises.

Though contrary to Hob’s words, he pulls Dream close again, chest to chest, and kisses him, fingers tangling in Dream’s hair. “I love you,” he says against Dream’s lips. Dream hears himself make a low wanting sound that once upon a time he’d have been embarrassed to admit to. Not now, though, not with this man.

Hob swallows the sound, pulling him closer, wrapping a leg around the back of Dream’s thigh. Dream grinds against him, but he’s still wearing his jeans and it’s not nearly enough.

Hob must have the same thought, for he goes for the button on Dream’s jeans and then starts tugging on the waistband. Dream reluctantly disentangles himself long enough to slip them and his underwear off his legs, and Hob does the same with his underwear, before immediately pulling him back in to press their now naked bodies together.

This is Dream’s favorite place to be. Cuddled up against Hob, skin to skin. He hums in pleasure, wiggling his arms under Hob’s back, squeezing him tight.

“Can’t move, Dream,” Hob says, laughing. Dream’s arousal feels secondary now to the pleasure he gets just from being close to Hob’s body. But he does enjoy that form of pleasure, too. So he loosens his grip enough that Hob can actually breathe, which Hob takes advantage of by turning them so he’s on top, fit between Dream’s legs. Mmm. Yes, this is good. He does like to have Hob covering him.

“You’re a menace,” Hob tells him, laughing again. “Got to do the proposal so now you’ll make me do all the work?” He hitches Dream’s leg up around his waist, and like that Hob can grind against him, making Dream moan, already sensitive and wanting from all the teasing.

“You needed something to occupy you anyway,” Dream breathes, the words shivery for how Hob is kissing up his throat.

“Now I can occupy myself with making you happy for the rest of time, I see what you’ve done.”

Dream smiles to himself. Hob comes back up in time to catch the look on his face, smiles down at him, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Dream thinks about how he’ll get to see those smile lines develop over time, and the grey streak from Hob’s temples, and realizes he’s never thought that far ahead before. Never filled in the endless black void of the future with something he actually wanted.

“You want to marry me,” he says, more of a statement this time than a question.

“Yeah, Dream.” Hob bumps their noses together. “Of course I do.”

“When?”

Hob laughs, startled. “When?”

“Now,” Dream says. He had not even been intending to propose, but now he does not want to wait at all. Why should they?

“Can’t go now,” Hob says. Dream tries not to feel disappointed. Hob is only being reasonable, after all. Then Hob adds, “It’s dinnertime. It’s Sunday. They’re closed.”

“…Oh.” Dream had briefly forgotten there was a governmental paperwork component to this. In his mind they simply declared themselves to each other and the rest of the world had to sort itself out around that. “Oh.”

“Can go in…” Hob squints as he counts mentally. “Thirteen and a half hours. I don’t have a suit, though. So. That’s an obstacle.”

“You do have a suit,” Dream counters, instead of processing the fact that Hob is actually agreeing to marry him tomorrow.

“Not one that’s nice enough to get married in.”

He seems genuinely troubled by it, and Dream laughs so loudly at the expression on his face he has to cover his mouth. “I think you are quite handsome in it,” he says, calming himself.

Hob smiles. “Thank you, darling. Do you even own a suit for this?”

“Yes. But I refuse to wear a tie. It’s uncomfortable.”

“Well now I can’t wear one either or we’ll look all mismatched.” He only smiles wider as he says it, though. “You’re really going to marry me tomorrow.”

“For lack of ability to do it tonight,” Dream says.

Hob kisses him, smiling against his mouth, pressing their bodies close together, perhaps forgetting he’d wanted to avoid smearing Dream’s writing. Dream will just rewrite it if he has to. He’s enjoying having Hob close to him too much to tell him to move.

Hob slips deeper between Dream’s legs. Dream wraps both legs around Hob’s hips, sinking into the feeling of having Hob pressed against him. It feels so good to have Hob over him. Safe, where with anyone else it would feel smothering. He wraps his arms around Hob’s shoulders, humming to himself, as Hob slips a hand between them, taking them both in his grasp.

Dream gasps, lips pressed to Hob’s cheek. He loves Hob’s hands.

He feels the curve of Hob’s smile against his lips. “Get to do this all the time now, you know,” Hob says.

“You already do this all the time,” Dream says, urging him in closer with one leg, heedless of how it traps Hob’s hand between them.

“Still. You know what I mean.”

Dream does. It’s the permanence of the thing. It’s knowing every night he gets to come back to Hob in his bed. Always there.

“Kiss me,” Dream says, breath stuttering as Hob keeps working them.

“This is a lot of multitasking—” Hob starts to tease, but Dream takes him by the hair and draws him down. Seals their lips together.

He remembers first meeting Hob and being possessed by the way Hob talked. No matter how he claimed to be annoyed by it. He was captured by the relentless working of Hob’s brain. The intensity of him. Would find himself watching Hob’s mouth as he spoke.

He’s now similarly possessed by Hob’s kisses. He always kisses with surety, like he’s never once doubted it’s where he wants to be or what he wants to be doing.

Dream has doubted. Dream has wanted him and thought he couldn’t have him, has needed him and still felt sure it would inevitably fall apart. He… doesn’t think he feels that way anymore. Now he just falls into Hob’s kiss without wondering when it will end. It’s a very good feeling.

“You’re thinking too much,” Hob murmurs, lips brushing Dream’s. “I’m definitely doing something wrong if you’re thinking so much when my hand’s on your dick.”

“Perhaps I’m thinking about you,” Dream suggests.

“Figured you got distracted by the Hodge conjecture or some such maths problem. It’s so much more interesting after all.”

“It is,” Dream teases, and Hob laughs, incredulous.

“Are you sure you can get married when you’re already wedded to maths?”

“I want to marry you,” Dream says.

“I’ll just accept that we’re in an open relationship, I would never take you away from your one true love,” Hob swears, eyes sparkling.

“Nor I you,” Dream says.

“What’s my one true love in this scenario?”

“Being annoying to me.”

Hob laughs. “Oh, true. But you should see the way your nose scrunches up when I tease you. It’s so cute. That’s one of the first moments I fell for you, you know. How offended you looked when I was tormenting you about your classroom.”

“It was offensive,” Dream says.

“Didn’t anyone ever tease you before? Or were you too intimidating?”

“Not… lightheartedly,” Dream admits. He certainly had plenty of experience being tormented growing up. Desire still likes to do it to this day. It had taken him some time, initially, to realize Hob meant it fondly. That he was just trying to get Dream’s attention, rile him up a bit, not hurt his feelings. He doesn’t think he had fully understood Hob’s interest was serious until their first kiss.

“I did enjoy our arguments,” Dream adds, before Hob’s face can truly fall. He had, to what felt like his peril at the time, been interested in Hob as well. Had wanted his attention even as he was uncertain it was meant as a good thing. “Once I realized it was meant to be… fun.”

“Oh, darling.” Hob kisses his forehead, and Dream smiles to himself. He wouldn’t trade any of it, even with all the uncertainty.

“I’m only glad I didn’t scare you off with my behavior,” Dream says, as Hob holds him close, hands framing his face.

“Don’t be, I loved it, you have no idea how much entertainment you added to my life. I don’t know what it says about me that every time you called me a name I just wanted you more.”

“Something not good, I imagine,” Dream says, and Hob chuckles.

“I’ll have to keep on annoying you, then. For tradition.”

“For tradition,” Dream agrees.

“And one day,” Hob adds, lips pressed to Dream’s again, “we’re going back to that classroom. And I’m going to do to you what I wanted to do the first time.”

“I will expect it,” Dream says lowly, twining his hands in Hob’s hair once more, body taking interest again just at imagining it. “We. Got distracted.”

“Don’t we always? You’ll have to get used to it, with me.”

“I am used to it,” Dream murmurs. He truly would not trade the strange way Hob’s mind works for anything. It’s an invigorating complement to his own.

“I still want you,” Hob says. “Always. But right now I mean.”

“I would be rather disappointed if you didn’t.”

Hob wraps his hand lightly around Dream again. “Still interested,” he says with a grin.

“Of course.” Dream so loves the way Hob touches him. Always firm and sure, but playful. Hob is so very playful, which is not something Dream thinks he himself has ever been, but he soaks it in and feels nourished.

Hob starts stroking him lightly, but says, “What do you want? We’ve got all night, you know.”

Dream does know. All night until they are to get married. He doubts he will be able to sleep for any of it. But it’s no matter, for he’s with Hob.

“I just want you close to me.”

“Alright.” Hob sets his weight more heavily on Dream, though he has to remove his hand before it gets trapped between their bodies. Dream’s cock rubs pleasantly against his belly. “I want that, too. Come here, darling.”

“I am here,” Dream breathes, as Hob kisses him, arms wrapped around him, drawing him close. “I am here.”

He wraps his legs tight around Hob’s waist. Kisses him long and slow, their lips sliding, bodies rocking together, merging into one. Pleasure builds between them, but Dream doesn’t feel much urgency to chase it. He’s happy just being close to Hob.

He gets to have this every day now, he thinks. For the rest of their lives together. Every day he gets to watch Hob fall asleep in bed beside him, and curl up with him once he finally falls asleep himself; he gets to bury his face in Hob’s chest when he’s overstimulated and have Hob calm him when he feels like he’s going to melt down.

Dream never thought this sort of peace could be for him.

They don’t get far into anything particularly elaborate. Dream is holding Hob so close that Hob can do little but grind against him, kiss him, tug on Dream’s hair. But Dream doesn’t need it to be more complicated. He loves the way Hob moves over him, the weight of Hob’s body, all their skin touching. He doesn’t have to think, he can just feel all the points where they’re connected.

He shakes as Hob brings him off, breath trembling, body all alight. Then he turns Hob onto his back and kisses down his chest, lingering on the words written there, and finally taking Hob into his mouth, relishing in the grip of Hob’s hands in his hair as he comes.

This feels peaceful, too, lacking the urgency that chases so many of their times together. Dream doesn’t feel like he has to rush, because he has so much time with Hob. So much time.

After, he lies curled against Hob, resting in the movement of his chest rising and falling. Hob’s hand traces up and down over his hip. And Dream thinks he could rest there forever--there, in the peace of their space together.

[cuubism]

Can I pressure you to work on the 'having a job sucks ass' math AU fic?

yeah 😂 i started working on it when i was annoyed with my job. which is always

here's a snippet from earlier in the fic, because i think the later part i'm working on won't make a ton of sense out of context

[ make me work on one of my fics if you want ]

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Dream shuts his laptop as Hob approaches. Oh, yeah. He was definitely waiting for Hob, specifically. Hob is getting the sense that he’s in trouble. And he’s not stupid. It’s not hard to guess what has Dream upset.

“Look,” he starts, “don’t even—”

“Hob Gadling,” Dream interrupts. Yep, that’s the trouble tone, the one Hob used to get when he did shit like giving himself a concussion playing pick up football on the quad. “It is ten p.m.”

“I own a watch too, Dream,” Hob says tiredly. Does Dream think he wants to be working this late? He’s just trying to stay employed.

Dream’s lips press into a thin line. And Hob knows him well enough, can read him well enough to recognize that what’s underneath the annoyance is concern. But what exactly does Dream expect him to do about it?

Hob sits down—more like collapses—into the armchair diagonal to where Dream is on the couch. God, what he really wants is to just fucking face plant into bed, not deal with this.

Christ. When did he start thinking about talking to Dream as dealing with?

Then again, this is less talking to Dream and more arguing with Dream, and he fucking hates doing that.

He scrubs his hands over his face. “It’s far away, alright?” he argues, though it sounds more like a whine. “It’s not like I can teleport.”

“It is not acceptable that they keep you so late,” Dream says. Then his tone softens. “I worry over your level of exhaustion. That is not even mentioning the commute.”

“Honestly, the commute’s not the worst part,” Hob says. “Gives me more time to get stuff done. Or fall asleep.”

Dream gives him a flat look. “Precisely.”

“I don’t want to hear judgment about work ethic from you of all people,” Hob snaps. God, he hates arguing with Dream, he hates it. It’s not like when they bicker. And it’s not like arguing with anyone else. The thought that Dream is upset with him is genuinely distressing.

“I think I of all people am uniquely qualified to give it,” Dream says.

He’s not wrong. Dream is a workaholic if ever there was one. It’s something Hob’s had to talk to him about in the past. Frequently, in the past, Hob was the one who was better about it.

It’s just that having this job is a level of relentless he couldn’t possibly have anticipated.

Hob can’t just quit though, even if he is overworked. It’s a good job, career-wise, and it pays really well, and he wants Dream to be able to keep his post-doc position without worrying about the salary because Dream is just quite frankly not cut out for anything where he isn’t able to work independently at least ninety percent of the time and Hob doesn’t want to see him suffer, and he wants them to be able to buy a house someday—

“Look,” he says, before Dream can suggest that he actually quit or something, “Dream, we’re making fucking bank, okay?”

Dream raises an eyebrow. “We are?”

“Yeah, we’re married, or did you forget?”

“It’s your money.”

“The joint bank account says otherwise. Half of it is yours.”

Dream frowns, then gets a wicked look in his eye. Oh no. “Does that entitle me to half of your suffering as well? Do I get half a say in whether it continues?”

“That’s not the point—”

“Are you going to watch me suffer half your exhaustion and do nothing about it?” Dream challenges, steamrolling right over him. He’s impossible to argue with when he really gets going. And great, now he’s employing that look. That pleading look that he knows Hob can’t say no to, eyes wide and helpless. “Will you leave me to my agonies?”

“Alright,” Hob says, pressing his hands to his eyes. “Enough. Stop joking around.”

“I’m quite serious. I don’t wish to see you suffer.” He crosses the room, kneels in front of Hob’s chair, and takes Hob’s hands, bringing them down from his face. “Your unintended comparison was more apt than you realize. When you prosper, I prosper. When you suffer, so equally do I.”

“Should have been a fucking poet instead of a mathematician, Dream,” Hob says. It shouldn’t come out as bitter as it does.

Except— “Maths is poetry,” he says, echoing it just as Dream says it, too. Hob had known he would.

It makes him smile, that he can predict Dream like that.

[cuubism]

I love all of your stuff but somehow the first specific thing that came to my mind was how accurate I thought you made Dream's takes on which mathematical concepts are a Smash and which ones are a Pass

thank you 😂 it's all based on my experiences in high school calculus. i hated Series a lot. i remember they put a Maclaurin series question on the AP Calc exam and i just fully left it blank

discrete math in college almost got me interested in series, in terms of how they expand out to polynomials... unfortunately discrete math was also terrible and i got a C-. whatever they are trying to do there, my brain doesn't work that way, alas

multivariable calculus on the other hand was kind of fun... since i took Multivariable for Economists where they dumbed it down LMAO ahh i took so many random classes in college

[cuubism]

Little Math AU drabble

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Dream doesn't realize, until Hob goes away for a conference over a long weekend, the degree to which his only form of self-care has become Hob. Hob encourages him to eat, and to get enough sleep, and to leave the house. With Hob absent he's found himself crouched on the floor for the twentieth hour in a row, bent awkwardly over his white board where he's laid it flat after getting tired of standing, scribbling furiously upside down while trying not to smudge any of the writing, several cups of half-finished coffee and piles of notes around him. He doesn't realize how much time has passed until he hears the front door open quietly and Hob creep in, setting his bag down carefully by the door.

The fact that Hob feels the need to tiptoe into his own flat at noon for fear Dream might still be sleeping should probably be a red flag for Dream in terms of his own sleep schedule. As it is he's too preoccupied by the fact that if Hob is home that means it must be Tuesday. He had not thought it was Tuesday.

Hob stops abruptly as he reaches the living room, staring down at Dream where he's frozen, balanced on all fours over his white board with one marker in his hand and another color held in his mouth.

"You look like something I'd not like to meet in the woods at night," Hob says. "How can you even balance like that?"

Dream tries to extract himself from his twisted position without smudging his writing or falling over. He mostly manages it and gets to his feet, shoulders popping loudly, swaying as all the blood rushes from his head. "I didn't want to smudge the writing."

"Let's get it off the floor, then," Hob says, and helps him set the whiteboard back upright. This makes some of the text upside down. Hob tilts his head trying to read it.

"I solved it," Dream tells him. Now that he's stopped thinking about it, and started thinking about Hob instead, he couldn't possibly explain what he solved. He's been thinking about it for thirty-six hours. Possibly he needs to stop thinking about it now.

"No clue what this says," Hob says. "But I believe you."

He turns to Dream then, taking Dream's face between his hands and giving him a kiss. Dream hums, leaning into him.

"How was the conference?" he asks.

"Oh, delightful, they had an open bar. S'the only thing that saved it, really."

Dream is aware that Hob doesn't particularly enjoy academic conferences as they usually involve much sitting around and listening to slow presentations. He smiles to imagine Hob coping with the unbearable dullness by having altogether too many drinks in the hotel bar. "A terrible ordeal, I'm sure."

"Mmm. Missed you." He runs his fingers through Dream's hair, drawing him closer. "When's the last time you slept?"

"How could you--"

Hob chuckles. "You look like death."

Ah. Dream frowns, thinking. "...Sunday. Perhaps. I was... preoccupied."

"You know if you sleep your brain will have time to process the information and you might solve it faster," Hob tells him. Hob is becoming far too advanced, Dream thinks. He's graduated from simply telling Dream sleep is good for him to citing manipulative reasons that Dream might actually be compelled to agree with.

"Next time I'll call you each night and tell you a bedtime story," Hob says, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. "But only if you sleep."

Of course, there is also the bribery.

Dream swallows. He has missed Hob. "Or perhaps now?"

Hob laughs. "Oh, darling." He slips his hand under Dream's shirt. "You at least have to eat something first. Did you eat anything at all while I was away?"

"Coffee," Dream says. And a lot of it.

"Dream, I left you food in the fridge."

"I was preoccupied," Dream insists.

"I'll need to create some kind of rewards system for you, like for the rats that press the lever," Hob muses. "Only the food is the task instead of the reward."

"What is the reward, then?" Dream asks.

Hob just winks.

"How will that work if you are not here?" Dream asks, frowning.

Hob takes Dream's hips in his hands. "Mmm, I'm sure we can figure it out."

Hob's voice in his ear might well inspire Dream to set aside his work. It is one of the only things that can.

"In the meantime, you need to eat something," Hob tells him, and kisses him on the cheek, and Dream knows that, exhausted from traveling or not, Hob will make him something to eat, and get him to shower and take care of himself, and then, when they've slept, will listen to Dream talking extensively about the proof he's solved, no matter that he doesn't understand it himself.

(Hob always says he's incapable of understanding it, but Dream does not think that's true. Dream is just not very good at explaining his reasoning; it's so intuitive to him that he forgets the steps necessary to make it clear to anyone else. But then, Hob often underestimates himself.)

Hob listens to him describe it anyway. Takes care of him. And he does the same now, takes Dream into the kitchen to have some water while Hob cooks him some pasta. He always takes such good care of Dream.

And Dream thinks, while sitting on the counter and watching, hazy from exhaustion and full of warmth, that one day he's going to marry him.

[cuubism]

finally

FINALLY

finished the wedding/elopement chapter of Complex Mathematics

[cuubism]

Predictive Modeling

Part 10 of Complex Mathematics

[ just a little hurt/comfort sorta fic for you I guess]

Dream gets overstimulated fairly easily. It caused him issues as a child: needing to leave rooms, getting constant headaches, losing his ability to function if there was too much going on.

But he has been dealing with it for so long now that he knows, for the most part, how to manage it. He knows how much time he can spend in certain environments before he needs to leave. He knows how to best approach class obligations to limit the time spent in distressing, overwhelming situations. He knows how to set his own boundaries. Perhaps he sets them too hard, sometimes, as he had done at first with Hob, not wanting to let him near. But he has figured most of it out, and knows how to retreat before getting overwhelmed.

Hob exists in such a state of energy that it takes Dream a long time to realize that he gets overstimulated, too.

He’s not certain Hob realizes it, though.

Hob recognizes the overstimulation in Dream. He’s learned to see when Dream is starting to shut down, when he needs to retreat back into his room and his work. Dream has started to find himself capable of letting Hob stay with him in those moments, so long as Hob is able to just be with him quietly. They’ve passed many an evening with Dream buried in a notebook, using his equations to push away the outside world, while Hob lies beside him on the couch, watching or listening to something on his phone, headphones in, toes pressed to Dream’s thigh, a light, grounding touch.

Hob is so much more capable of coping with chaos that Dream wouldn’t have thought him to get overstimulated. Hob goes out and meets with friends, enjoying the play of a group conversation that Dream always finds too difficult to follow. Hob teaches big sections for his classes and doesn’t seem to find it overly burdensome to manage all the students. Hob likes to go out drinking, and clubbing.

(This latter activity is one he’s managed, somehow, to get Dream into, on occasion. Dream had indulged him the first time, with great apprehension, warning Hob that he would likely need to leave immediately— but Hob had said trust me, I have a feeling. Armed with earplugs to cut the harshest edge of the noise, Dream had let Hob draw him into the darkness and flashing lights and the sound.

Oh, the wave of sound. Dream had expected it to shatter his skull, to need to flee—but the music was so heavy, so loud and undulating, that it somehow crested the threshold of overwhelm and flattened out on the other side. It rolled over him instead of cutting, the bass pounding through his chest so hard he could feel it in each heartbeat. He closed his eyes to block out the flashing lights. Moved close to Hob, let Hob wrap around him so he was all Dream could feel. The press of his body, and the weight of the music so beyond loud he could not even hear his roiling thoughts. He could only feel.

Hob had leaned in close to his ear. Dream could not hear what he said, but he knew it anyway. Told you.)

In retrospect, that should have been his hint.

He knows, already, that Hob is more attentive to Dream’s needs than to his own. He hadn’t realized Hob’s mind moved so fast he simply skipped over his own needs, sometimes. It would be better for Hob, maybe, if he had someone other than Dream to look after him, someone who wasn’t so often behind the curve in understanding what was going on in other people’s minds. Perhaps that person would have picked up on it quicker and figured out something to do.

They wouldn’t have been like Dream, and missed it until it became a panic attack.

~

Hob is. Maybe. A little bit scattered.

Not that it doesn’t happen often enough. And not that it should really be a surprise, considering. But it’s— yeah, he’s a bit all over the place. He’s glad he had the foresight to put Dream in charge of logistics, like the hotel reservation, otherwise God knows if they’d have gotten there.

They’re in London for the weekend. Hob has a tech conference, and Dream came with him because he wanted to go to the library, apparently. Hob half wonders if Dream just wanted to keep an eye on him, or wanted the company, but it doesn’t matter, he’s always glad to have Dream along.

In any case, Dream’s gone to amuse himself reading some arcane mathematical text while Hob’s at the conference, and they’re meant to meet up after. Hob’s been working nonstop on his presentation for this thing for weeks, and now that it’s over he’s—

—he’s supposed to meet Dream to get dinner. Right. Assuming Dream doesn’t get lost in the library.

“Hob.”

Hob whirls around. “Oh! There you are.” Dream’s just come up the stairs from the station entrance, and is now a lone still figure in the sea of people streaming around him. Hob weaves his way through the crowd to meet him. Just his luck this conference had to be in such a busy area. He hopes it’s not too chaotic for Dream.

He takes Dream’s hand. Dream smiles at him. He says something, but the chatter and traffic and noise around them is so great that Hob misses it.

“What?”

“Should we go to the hotel?” Dream repeats.

Their hotel is also nearby. But Hob shakes his head. “No, we were supposed to get dinner, remember? The place you wanted to try?”

Dream nods. Hob consults his loose mental map of the area. “Should be… this way.”

He leads Dream along, still holding onto his hand, weaving them through crowds, past street vendors and people congregating in doorways, passing conversation and music and the smells of food cooking in restaurants, flashing lights in the dusk and cars whizzing by—

“How was the conference?” Dream asks as they walk.

“Um.” Hob darts them across a street, keeping an eye out for traffic. “Um. It was good! I mean. I had to explain the project about eighty-seven times in a row. So.” He’s probably going to be reciting the introductory spiel in his sleep for weeks. Dream knows it too, Hob’s practiced it in front of him enough.

“Lots of networking,” he adds, and Dream grumbles. Hob doesn’t mind it too much, though. At least, when it involves actually talking to people about their work with genuine interest, he doesn’t mind. He could do without the false veneer of the thing, and the fake manners.

The restaurant should be around here… probably? It’s starting to get a bit dark and the lights everywhere are very bright and it’s really very loud, all overlapping noises, he might have taken them across a wrong street? Circled or doubled back? He was distracted. He feels… very distracted.

He spins around, trying to figure out where they are. He thinks he’s… maybe taken them the wrong way? Fuck.

“Hob,” Dream says. Like he’s not saying it for the first time.

Turning again to face him makes Hob’s head spin. He feels kind of dizzy. Maybe he didn’t eat enough? No, he ate lunch… probably. Just needs some water, maybe.

“Hob,” Dream repeats, brow pinching.

“I’ll— I’ll find it,” Hob tells him, reaching for his phone. It slips from his hand and Hob watches, as if through tunnel vision, as it drops to the pavement. Dream picks it up, holds it out to him, unharmed. It takes Hob a second to take it back.

He puts it in his pocket. Finds himself reaching out to touch Dream’s arm to make sure the world is not actually spinning the way it feels like it is. It doesn’t seem to be. Dream is solid under his hand. But Hob can’t. Can’t think. It’s too loud. His throat feels tight. He stares at the buttons on Dream’s jacket. Counts them. One. Two—

Dream takes his arm. Starts leading him down the street. Hob tries not to stumble. Everything whirls past. He clutches to Dream.

Well, maybe Dream’s figured out where the restaurant is, at least. That’s something.

He doesn’t figure out where Dream’s actually taking them until they’re through the sliding doors of their hotel—apparently it was closer than he thought—up a flight of stairs, and through their hotel room door. Only then does Dream release his arm, and Hob finds himself hunched on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, collapsed in the sudden vacuum of silence.

It all rushes from him, all at once, all the noise, chaos, energy, and what’s left is a sweeping sense of doom. He might actually be dying. This is what the imminent collapse of death feels like. Sudden assurance of the end.

“Hob,” Dream says. Hob’s closed his eyes, and only feels the dent of the mattress as Dream sits beside him.

Hob means to tell him he just needs a second and then they can get back to what they were doing. Instead he plants his face in Dream’s chest.

Dream makes a surprised sound, then tentatively wraps his arms around him. He doesn’t say anything more. Gradually his embrace grows tighter. He slips his fingers into Hob’s hair and holds him close.

Hob always ends up surprised by how solid Dream actually is. He’s appreciating it now as he hides his face in Dream’s shirt, trying to block out everything else. Being in the quiet of their hotel room helps, though. Everything’s not spinning as much. He thinks he can breathe again.

“Hob,” Dream says, eventually, “are you..?”

“I’m good,” Hob says, and finally lifts his head from Dream’s chest. The room, thankfully, doesn’t spin. “I’m— I don’t know what that was.”

“Overstimulation,” Dream says solemnly. He looks almost guilty about it, though Hob can’t for the life of him fathom why.

“Oh.” That… doesn’t make sense. He’s seen Dream get overstimulated. He usually describes it like something is itching under his skull. Like even the slightest sensation starts scraping at him. This was more like… there were just too many things going on. He got caught up in a whirlwind. Pulled in too many directions.

“I believe you had a panic attack,” Dream continues, still with that vaguely ashamed look that Hob doesn’t understand.

“That doesn’t make sense.” Wouldn’t you have to be afraid of something to have a panic attack? At least upset? “It wasn’t even a bad day or anything.”

“No, but perhaps a loud one,” Dream says, gently.

Huh. Is that really what happened? Did he just… snap?

In retrospect… maybe Hob’s felt that way before. Only he usually just pushes through it, rides the feeling out until it goes away and he can think again. Surely, if he were getting overstimulated, he would feel the need to retreat like Dream does—

Oh.

“You think so?”

Dream nods.

Well, he’d probably know better than Hob. “Well. I think I feel better now, so—”

Dream raises a hand to stop him. “We will order in. I will see if they do takeaway.”

While he’s ordering on his phone, Hob contemplates. Finally, stuck on that guilty look on Dream’s face, he asks, “Why did it make you upset? Wait, that came out wrong, I mean—”

“I should have known better,” Dream says.

“What?”

“I… I have dealt with this,” Dream says. “I ought to have noticed. Known it would happen. I could have done something. Before it got so bad.”

“Dream—” Hob really picked the most ridiculous man in the world to love. He can’t believe this is the same Dream who once told him he wanted to carve out his own eyes to avoid having to look at Hob. Something Dream would probably be mortified to be reminded he said, though Hob still finds it hilarious. “It’s not your fault.”

“I am supposed to help you,” Dream insists. “Particularly when it is something with which I have experience. Am I meant to sit idly by while you suffer?”

“Dream.” Hob squeezes his hands. “Of course not. But you can’t blame yourself for what’s going on in my brain. Besides, you brought us back to the hotel, didn’t you?”

“I’ve seen you like this before,” Dream argues. “I should have recognized it.”

“All-knowing, all-powerful Dream,” Hob teases, but Dream’s frown only deepens. “If I couldn’t recognize it, how are you meant to?”

“I have experience,” Dream insists, but Hob pets his hair, and he quiets.

“Well, if nothing else, you’ve distracted me from it—I’m just going to be thinking about this instead, now.” He ruffles Dream’s hair, which makes his mouth pinch into a little moue of irritation. “Sweet darling.”

“Sweet,” Dream echoes, with some distaste. He is, though. Can’t deny it.

“I will take your experience into account for next time,” Hob tells him, which seems to mollify him.

“The food will be here in approximately twenty minutes,” he tells Hob, after again consulting his phone. “In the meantime, stay there. I will fetch your pajamas.”

He’s doing that thing again that he did once when Hob got a concussion. Taking charge of the situation. Hob kind of loves when he does that. He hopes he’s not just doing it out of some misplaced guilt, though.

“I’m really fine!” Hob calls after him. “Could’ve still—”

Dream is ignoring him. Hob just shakes his head fondly.

While he’s alone, he takes stock of himself. He gets, now, what Dream meant about overstimulation. It was all very loud, and there was a lot going on, and he’d been in the thick of it all day. But. Could Dream actually be right about it being a panic attack?

Hob’s impression was that panic attacks were more… obvious? Surely he’d be crying and hyperventilating on the floor, if he was having a panic attack. Not just— just—

freezing.

Hob goes into the bathroom to wash his face. He still feels a little… shaky. Better, but… he remembers that crushing feeling. Like the world was bearing down on his throat. Strange.

When he goes back out into the bedroom, Dream’s managed to find his pajamas in the mess of the bag Hob definitely overpacked. Maybe he should have delegated that task to Dream like he did with the hotel reservation. Dream would have considered and had a reason for everything he brought.

Dream hands him his pajamas, then promptly disappears again, presumably to fetch their food. By the time he comes back, Hob’s changed and is sitting up in bed. “Didn’t get drinks with that, did you?” he asks hopefully, as Dream sets the takeaway bag on the nightstand.

Dream sighs in exasperation, but opens the bag to reveal a small bottle of wine. Hob mentally cheers. Dream hands it to him, and a glass from the room bar, but says, “Though I think it may not be the best idea.”

“Noted.” Hob opens the bottle—thankfully a twist-off lid, as he didn’t really want to have to break out his undignified uni-era bottle opening tricks in front of Dream. He has no idea if the wine will be any good. He doesn’t much care, just pours out two glasses.

Dream changes clothes too, and sits beside him in bed. Often Hob puts the telly on as background noise to settle his mind but today he just… can’t. So they sit in the quiet. Hob downs an entire glass of wine before even opening his pad see ew. Dream ignores his and just takes solemn, deliberate spoonfuls of his customary green curry. He stays solid and steady as he lets Hob lean against his shoulder.

“Have you had panic attacks before, then?” Hob asks when some time has passed, though it feels far more awkward to reopen the conversation now.

Dream nods. “Not for some time. But. Before I learned what it felt like when I needed to go somewhere quieter. Then yes. It— much of it is in my own mind. And so. Anything outside becomes too loud.”

Yeah. That does track. Sometimes Hob revels in having bustling chaos around him. But today, it’s like his mind was already fielding so much sensation, inside and out, that it just fritzed out.

“I wasn’t afraid of anything, though,” Hob argues.

Dream taps his spoon against the rim of the takeaway container. “I think. Panic. May be a different emotion than fear. Fear looks forward and backward; panic reacts only in the moment. It’s instinctual. An instant flight. Or freeze. Even if the problem is inside.” He ducks his head. “As it often was for me.”

Hob pets his hair, and Dream leans into the touch.

“In any case, it can be prevented if one can remove the overwhelming stimuli. But only if they can be identified.”

“Hmm.” Hob will have to think on it. “What’s your prescription then, Nurse Dream?”

Dream sighs, always long-suffering about that moniker. “You simply need to rest in a calmer environment. And remove sources of stress, if possible.”

“Alright, then.” Dream’s taken care of a lot of that for him already. “Thank you, darling.”

For once, Dream doesn’t tell him not to thank him.

Hob steals a bit of his curry—and then struggles to even swallow it. “Wow. They make that proper spicy here, eh?”

Dream’s lips quirk in a half-smile. “As I was hoping. I don’t think the place at home believes me when I tell them I want it spicy.”

Hob’s not sure he’d believe it either, if he hadn’t watched Dream eat it without even blinking. Dream’s relationship with food is strange, and Hob can’t always get him to eat at all. At first he’d thought he should just try to get him to eat bland foods, but no, it’s actually easier to tempt Dream to break his habits with sashimi than it is with toast. Hob already knows he’s going to have to get some sort of fancy tech job after graduation, because whatever salary comes along with being a maths genius isn’t going to keep Dream in biweekly sushi.

The thought just makes him smile.

“I’m glad. You should have it the way you want. Even if it burns your tongue off. Though on second thought, if you lose feeling in your tongue that affects me too—”

“You must be feeling like yourself again if you are rambling this nonsense at me,” Dream says, going back to eating his curry, but Hob can hear the fondness in his tone.

“That’s a pillar of our relationship.”

“Yes, nonsense certainly is,” Dream agrees, and Hob pokes him in the side in admonishment. Dream breaks into a true smile then.

“Capsaicin does not create actual burns,” Dream continues. “My tongue will continue to be at your disposal.”

“At my disposal, eh?”

“I ought to feed you more of it,” Dream warns, and Hob grins.

“I’ll happily swallow anything you care to feed me—”

“Eat your dinner, Hob.”

“Yes, Nurse Dream.”

~

Hob wakes the next morning with his face planted in Dream’s stomach, and feels immensely grateful they don’t have any plans for the day other than eventually going home. He’d like to stay right here until Dream wakes up, which could very well be at—

Dream is already petting his hair.

“Did you even sleep?” Hob asks, voice muffled in Dream’s shirt.

“Do I ever?” says Dream, deadpan.

“What are you thinking about? And if you’re going to be awake can you get some coffee before I die?”

“You are too stubborn to die,” Dream says, and hands him the hotel room phone.

Hob muzzily asks room service to bring coffee, then rolls on his back to look up at Dream. “Hey.” He reaches up to touch Dream’s jaw. “What are you thinking about?”

Dream takes his hand and starts playing with his fingers. “I did not like seeing you like that.”

“I’ll try not to let it happen again?”

Dream shakes his head. “It was like you simply… froze. I did not like it at all.”

As usual, Hob ends up rambling to distract from the lump that puts in his throat. “Well you’re always telling me to shut up, so—”

Dream shakes his head fervently. “No. I did not mean it. Did you think I meant it?”

“No.” They’ve always been like that, poking at each other, since they first met.

“You did not notice it,” Dream says, apparently back on the track of Hob’s little silent meltdown. Hob’s not sure how much he cares to go over it again. If he lets the possibility worm into him, he’s never going to stop thinking about it. “You thought. It was normal.”

“I guess?”

Dream seems truly distressed by it. More so than Hob, even.

“I do not want you to suffer and not do anything about it,” Dream says, voice cracking, and oh, darling.

Dream presses Hob’s head in to his chest, arms wrapped around him, and Hob strokes his side, throat tight. “It’s alright, sweetheart.”

“It’s not.” Then again, Hob feels much the same when he sees Dream not eat. Helpless to fix it. And Hob knows that even if he doesn’t have that problem, he can definitely be prone to forgetting that too much is a thing that exists. He hadn’t realized it bothered Dream.

“It is not alright,” Dream repeats. Then, quieter. “I do not want to see you suffer.”

“Then don’t look?”

“Hob Gadling.”

There’s a proper snap in Dream’s voice now, and Hob winces. “Don’t make yourself responsible for me.”

“I am responsible for you. I do not know what the point of this is if I am not. For us to simply glance ineffectually off each other with not a care? Is that what you want?”

It’s not. And really, he’s already made himself responsible for Dream. Hypocrisy, not to acknowledge it.

Hob’s spared from answering by room service knocking on the door. But he can’t help but feel regret as he goes to fetch their coffee.

Dream looks sullen when he gets back, but he accepts the cup of coffee Hob offers him. Hob sits back in bed, but this time facing him. He lays a hand on Dream’s knee.

“I do feel responsible for you,” he says. “I’m sorry I said that.”

Dream sniffs. “Thank you.”

“Don’t make my problems your fault, though,” Hob adds, and Dream’s lips twist in dissatisfaction, but this time he doesn’t argue.

“It distresses me when I can see you are hurting,” Dream says, insistent. “You have always wanted me to share my feelings. Well, I am sharing them.”

“I think it’s distressing you more than it is me,” Hob says. But when he picks up his coffee cup again his hands are trembling. Never mind that it’s a day later. Never mind that he should be over it, thought he was over it. It’s the thought of the thing that’s getting to him more than anything. The thought that he could just shut down and not see it until he’s over the precipice.

He thinks. Maybe he was wrong in saying there was no fear there. He might not have been afraid of anything in particular, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t rise up to choke him anyway, that crashing fear when there’s just too much, when your own mind is slipping out of your control.

Panic, Dream had said. The snap instinct to fly, or freeze.

Dream catches it, takes the mug from his hands and sets it aside. Then he draws Hob to him so Hob can press his face into his throat. He often mimics the things Hob does for him, and this is no exception— when Dream is feeling overwhelmed, and hasn’t decided he wants to be alone, he’ll often curl up in Hob’s lap, tuck his face into Hob’s shoulder. Hob does it now, worms in close, takes in the familiar smell of his skin, all the sharp lines of his body that Hob has memorized by now. He thinks of Dream, his very first sight of him, bristly and sharp and quick to snap, and how careful he is now, with Hob, how quick to jump to blaming himself, like he thinks Hob doesn’t have any of that armor and so Dream’s got to provide it himself. And to be fair, Hob let himself get pricked by Dream’s thorns a hundred times before even knowing for sure there was something soft to find underneath. He’s demonstrated himself incapable of operating with caution.

Dream’s learned to protect himself, sometimes too well. Hob’s never felt the need. So Dream’s done it for him.

“Looking out for me, hmm?” Hob says, still with lips pressed to Dream’s skin, and it comes out wavering.

“I do not know what the point is if I don’t,” Dream says, tucking his nose into Hob’s hair. “I do not know how to do this in a way where I am not protecting you with all that I am.”

“Dream…” God. Hob doesn’t know what to say to that. Except that he feels much the same. “I love you.”

Dream squeezes him tight and doesn’t let him go. Hob submits to his fate, gladly, curling in closer against him. It is nice, really, to have Dream hold him. Dream’s better at it than he thinks he is.

“Maybe next time we just won’t plan dinner out after an already busy day,” Hob says, in concession to Dream’s concerns that he ought to stave off overwhelm.

“See,” Dream sniffs, “it is not so hard.”

“Well now you’re just being a superior twit—”

Dream laughs, breath ruffling Hob’s hair, and it feels like they’re able to find their usual rhythm again. “I am not superior. I am only telling the truth.”

“That is, in fact, exactly what someone who’s being a superior little twit would say—”

Dream bundles him down into the pillows, and Hob laughs as he’s nearly smothered in the mess of blankets. “You will pay for your name-calling.”

“Oh, like I’ve paid for it so far?”

Dream kisses him very much like he means to shut him up. Hob laughs into his mouth, tangling his fingers in Dream’s hair. “My perfect darling,” he says when they part to breathe, “my love. Is that better?”

“Yes,” Dream says. “I like when you call me that.”

“Good.” Hob caresses his cheek, and Dream smiles. “So then, just don’t behave like a—”

Dream pushes him down further into the sheets before Hob can finish the sentence, and Hob loses himself to laughing as Dream kisses his cheek, his jaw, his neck. This is really more of what Hob initially had in mind for last night, so he’s glad they’re getting to it now. He wraps an arm around Dream’s back, pulling him closer.

“Hey,” he says. “I’m glad you’re here with me.”

Dream leans his cheek against Hob’s, still holding him tight. “As am I.”