Chapter Text
“Alright, so stop me if you’ve all heard this one before,”
Hob leans back against the podium, tilting on his heels as he looks out towards rows and rows of glazed and screen-lit faces.
“It’s June, 1816, and we’re in Switzerland, nestled on the shores of Lake Geneva,”
“It’s been an absolutely miserable summer, a complete write off by every margin. It's been raining for so bloody long that you can hardly remember what the sun looks like, and you, your fiance, and your rag tag group of capital R romantics are stuck inside with absolutely nothing to do,”
Hob smiles, listening to the familiar taptaptap of keyboards furiously copying his gentle patter, like rain on window glass.
“Of course, being well-educated, poetic folk, you turn to your library for help, and many stormy hours pass trading pages back and forth, everything from politics to science to, of course, a good old fashioned ghost story,”
Hob reaches behind him, picking one of the many books off of his stand to hold up to his captive crowd, the laminated plastic glinting in the projector’s light.
“They chose this one in particular; Fantasmagoriana, a brilliant little collection of German ghost stories. It’s well worth your time, by the way, so feel free to drop by my office if you’d like a read, ”
He smirks, entirely to amuse himself.
“It certainly got old Byron’s approval, a solid four stars on whatever passed for Good Reads back then,”
He flicks the book open, turning the gummed pages beneath his thumb, feeling the binding’s weight in his hands as he speaks.
“- so much so that, as history has it, he challenged his companions to write a spooky story of their own,”
He snaps the book shut.
“Now, if you’ve done your reading, which I’m sure you all absolutely have, you’ll know what happened next,”
He steps forward, smiling as a few unfamiliar faces snicker between themselves, guilty grins and tired resignation fluttering across the hall.
“But just to recap, it went a little like this,”
Leaning behind him, Hob reaches for his laptop, clicking a few buttons to change the screen.
“Percy and Byron didn’t get that far, to be honest - they both talked a good fight, mind you, with one particularly dramatic reading for inspiration leading Shelley to hysterically flee the room after imagining a woman with, uh-,”
He huffs.
“Let’s just say a pair of eyes where they’re not supposed to be,”
There’s a few snickers from the audience, but Hob shrugs and carries on, trying not to get too side-tracked by that little rabbit hole.
“But yeah, nothing much from our two heavy hitters - they both wrote a couple of short fragments that didn’t really go anywhere - a bit embarrassing really,”
He gestures back to the slide.
“More promising was poor old Doctor Polidori, who, surprise surprise, actually took Byron’s little vignette and turned it into what is generally seen as the first proper Vampire novel,”
That gets a murmur, and Hob has to agree.
“Yes much more like it, I think, and again, on your reading lists if you have an afternoon going spare,”
He turns on his heels.
“But we’re not here to talk about them, are we?”
His keyboard clicks and the slide turns to a classic portrait, pale skin, black silk skirts and dark, doe eyes staring out at them all.
“We go back to Mary, the heroine of this lecture, if you like,”
“She famously had a bit of trouble coming up with her tale - we hear in her and Polidori’s diaries that she came down to breakfast day after day without a single thing to offer, all while the rest traded their pages or ideas back and forth,”
“Of course, she wanted to make it good - she only had two of the most famous writers in England, including her own future husband, ready to tear whatever she wrote to pieces, after all,”
He stops, feeling a grin creep its way on his face.
“It was after yet another long night in, one more evening listening to the blokes drone on and on, that the idea came to her,”
“You can almost see it, right?”
He lowers his voice, just a tad.
“The crackling fire and bolts of lighting, her baby fast asleep as they murmur in the candlelight, their chatter turning from art to music to science, specifically the science-,”
He can’t help it, Hob has to pause for effect.
“Of death,”
The hall barely blinks. There might as well be the sound of crickets, it’s so quiet, but sod ’em, Hob’s on a roll here.
“The conversation turned to Galvinism, which, amongst other things, explored the mystical power of electricity, specifically to bring corpses back to life-,”
Hob catches a few frowns in the front row, and waves his hands.
“Don’t worry - we’ll come back to that later on, hold those thoughts,”
He carries on pacing.
“But the story stays with Mary, of cold bodies waking from seemingly eternal sleep, and as she goes to her own bed that night, well-,”
He stops at his lectern once again, reaching for a much older, better-loved, cloth-bound book, brimming with sticky notes and bits of tape.
“Let’s let young Miss Godwin take it from here,”
He opens the book, thumb running gently over the fragile paper as he finds his passage, marked in vivid pink. Clearing his throat, he begins to read.
“My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie.”
“I saw—with shut eyes, but acute mental vision, —I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together.”
“I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion”
God, this woman could write a sentence. Hob lets it linger for a few seconds, enjoying the rise and fall in her words that he only hears on the page these days, a cadence and sensibility lost to time. Then he grins.
“Quite a night, huh?”
He holds the open book up in one hand.
“Now I’m sure we’ve all had a few pretty vivid nightmares ourselves- but this one, this swirling mess of her subconscious, left her with an image like no other, and uh-,”
He shrugs.
“- I think it goes without saying that it was a hit,”
Hob leans back, settling in his spot at the front, his words echoing off the theatre walls.
“In one night, an eighteen-year-old girl, far from home with some of the greatest minds of her age, solidified what would become one of the most iconic horror stories of all time, let alone effectively kick start the modern, money-making monster that is Science Fiction,”
He catches one girl, hoodie strings between her teeth, nodding along, ink-stained fingers thumbing at the paperback on her desk. He grins at her.
“Take that one, eh Byron?”
She smirks a little, ducking her head down in her notes, but he marks it as a win.
“Of course, the actual book we’re reading took a little while, the first version coming out in 1818 and the later, better known and less Vive la revolution edition in 1831,”
He taps the cover, feeling the hard worn edges give a little under his fingertips.
“- but, as we’ll see, there’s a lot of teenage Mary in this book; a lot of that dark and stormy summer with her friends in its pages, the issues and anxieties of her era in its words-,”
He smooths the bindings, fondly.
“-and a lot of that first nightmare, that first gruesome waking image, in its story-,”
His watch buzzes and Hob looks up to check the clock, pretending he doesn’t notice one student pass another a stick of gum. He’s right on time, watching the hands tick towards the hour up above them, so he sighs and gently folds the book shut.
“Right - before we get too ahead of ourselves, I’d like to leave us there, but wait-!”
He raises a hand, catching a few students already shoving tin water bottles hastily into their backpacks.
“As you know, Miriam will be handling your seminars on Thursday, is that right, Thursday?”
A few students nod and hum, but Hob checks his diary, sitting open on the podium with a freshly printed semester plan pinned to the top.
“Good, glad someone is paying attention, yeah, Thursday - and she’s gonna be chatting with you guys about everything I’ve been droning on about the last hour, getting you all thinking about biography and history, all that good stuff, so-,”
He raises his voice over the din, making his way slowly back behind the lectern.
“Make sure you do the readings, please, not just the bloody book, but the background stuff too, thank you - Feldman and Kelley are your friends, the lectures alone aren’t enough here folks,”
Even he begins to shut down his laptop, and the hall takes that as their cue to start departing en mass.
“Oh, and Darren wants me to remind you to update your Blackboard posts; three comments each, that’s the drill, and please don’t just copy and paste, alright-,”
The crowd files past, a few smiling and murmuring goodbyes, but Hob is fully aware he’s talking to himself right now.
“See you next Tuesday, bright and early, where we’ll - bye Priya, thank you, we’ll-,”
He waves the last few out, the hall stuttering into silence as he sighs.
“We’ll find out if the book is half as good as the dream,”
Hob slides his laptop into his bag as he shuffles around to unplug his cable. His footsteps muffled on old carpet and without a thousand pairs of eyes watching his every move, he lets himself groan, cracking his aching back.
That’s that then, morning finished. One week into term, first lecture on the module done, and he even managed to hit record for everyone unable (or too hungover) to come to class. Re-fucking-sult.
Checking the microphone is still on for whoever’s in the room next, Hob thinks about his lunch, which he hopes he can scarf down between emails during his next hour in the office, and-
“You speak well, Hob Gadling,”
Hob startles, following that warm, low voice up past the cables to meet-
Well, fuck me.
His stranger, wool clad in the darkest black, as always, stands against the rows and rows of empty seats. Hands in his pockets, his silhouette glows in the white light of the projector’s bulb.
Hob stutters.
“Oh, cheers, thanks,”
Swallowing, he scrambles to put some thoughts together that don’t sound like a whistling kettle.
“How long have you-? I-”
He clears his throat.
“I didn’t know you’d be here,”
He tugs on his ear and his stranger, back straight and still, tilts his head.
“You asked that our next meeting need not be in another hundred years,”
God, yeah he did, didn’t he? To be fair, that was weeks ago, and the afternoon was a bit of a blur. It’s been almost a full month since that dark shadow he calls a friend strode in, bold as you like, and took a seat at his paper-strewn table. Hands folded but shoulders loose, Hob had to stop himself from pinching as his stranger smiled, acting as though he’d never left his life at all.
(No, not a stranger.)
(That day, he’d asked Hob to call him Dream.)
“Yeah, I suppose I did,”
Dream leans over the podium to inspect what’s left of Hob’s clutter, face smooth with what could be curiosity. Resisting the urge to scoop it all away, Hob swallows.
“What brings you here, then?”
Pale hands tracing the topmost cover, Dream picks a book up from the pile, delicate fingers gently following the printed title. The seconds pass so slowly, Hob wonders if he even heard his question, but then-
“I did not mean to intrude, Hob Gadling, only-,”
He frowns, smoothing the pages beneath his palm, before looking up.
“Have you any engagements, this afternoon?”
Shit.
“Ah, damn, I’m sorry - I’ve got office hours in five minutes, start of term is always busy, you know-, then another class at four, uh,”
Dream’s face stays still, placing the book down gently, but Hob scrambles before he can reply.
“-but! Uh, you could walk there with me, if you like? It’s on the other side of campus so, uh-,”
He smiles and Dream’s face is like a statue, pale and still.
“I could use the company?
Dream considers this, eyes cast in shadow against the lamp light. Hob half expects him to disappear on the spot, melt away to do whatever it is he does without a care, but then his guest nods.
“I would like that, Hob Gadling,”
Well, how about that?
“Oh, good! Great! Just gimme a second-,”
Hob scoops his books into his arms, tapping the projector switch with his elbow and nodding towards the still swinging double doors, but Dream shakes his head.
“After you,”
Alright then, Hob thinks, and he tries not to stumble as he sweeps out of the room, shoving the door open with one elbow.
Dream follows without a word as Hob leads them into the winding faculty corridors. A dark coat fluttering in the corner of Hob’s eye, they pass through a thinning crowd as the building clears, pouring through reception in a single stream. After a brief wave at Diane on the front desk, the pair are greeted by glass sliding doors, and Hob finally remembers to exhale as they step out onto campus.
“Right, this way then,”
Why is he running? You’re not in a bloody rush, you twat. His pace wanes as they pass through the courtyard, but he hasn’t really got a script for this, certainly not for a literal whatever he is waltzing unannounced into his place of work.
Hob takes a breath. Don’t be a knob, he thinks. Just be happy he’s here.
And he is. His stranger-called-Dream strides along the pathway like he’s always been there, his steps so smooth he almost glides on the cracked concrete.
He looks different, in the daylight. 600-odd years they’ve known each other now, but Hob can’t think of a time that face hasn’t been cast in shadow, hidden by dark corners and low candlelight. Now, in the last dregs of summer sunshine filtered through the bronzing trees, Hob finds that his hair is still black as Jet, his skin still pale as freshwater pearls. The ruby is gone, that priceless scarlet gem may be a little gaudy for the twenty-first century, he supposes, but otherwise, he wears the modern fashions in his customary black. For mourning, he’d once wondered. (It certainly suited his dour demeanour).
But some things have shifted slightly; his eyes are brighter than he remembers, blue and clear, and there’s a grace in Dream’s step that he’s never noticed as they walk side by side. The angles of his face seem softer through the cloud-touched sun, and his hair moves gently in the afternoon breeze, disturbing the mess piled on top of his head.
It’s almost surreal, to see the elements move him like this, to see him somewhere not made of wood, cement and stone. Hob has always known he’d existed outside those four walls of the White Horse, but to see him beyond them, well …
Hob thinks he can get used to it.
“So, how have you been?”
The question had to come at some point, though it feels a bit lame, given the circumstances. Still, it’s sincere - they had so little time to chat before, barely enough for a name and a smile and an almost apology. My absence was not intended Dream had murmured, before he walked out the door with a nod, leaving Hob standing in the pub to wonder if he’d hallucinated the whole thing.
Except he’d promised hadn’t he? His now-not-a-stranger had promised he would come back.
“I have been well, Hob Gadling,”, Dream replies, pausing as if tasting the words on his tongue. Hob waits, considering a thousand possibilities of what on earth a man like him could do in his spare time, when-
“I trust you too, have been keeping fine?”
Hob sighs, flicking a stray hair from his face. Of course, not a peep, but still he knows the drill by now.
“Yeah, you know, new term and all, new books to read, teenagers to torture- always busy me,”
He nods towards the fountain, leading them into the main student hub, and cutting through the path to avoid the inevitable e-scooters speeding the other way.
“A few articles on the go - reviews mainly to tide me over, but I have a PhD candidate to supervise this year, which is always nice-,”
He fixes the bag on his shoulder with a shrug.
“Timetables a bit full on, but it’s good content this year, you know, can’t spend all my time at the pub,”
He smiles, looking across to find his friend watching him, that smooth curiosity behind his eyes.
“You enjoy this then?”, Dream asks as they pass through the main green, crowds of brightly clad twenty-somethings gathered on the grass.
“Enjoy what?”
Dream nods towards the books in his hands, the papers in his bags, the students on the street.
“This. Tutorship. Sharing your knowledge,”
Hob laughs, a little breathlessly.
“Oh yeah, of course - why wouldn’t I?”
“I must confess, I never took you for an academic,”
There’s something behind the words, familiar and light. Hob grins.
“Ah well, reckon I’ve gotta have something to pass on by now,”
He ducks his head a little laugh.
“I hope so at least,”
Dream says nothing and they carry on their way, with Hob nodding a little helloat a few third years he recognises. They look up curiously from their bench, leaning in to whisper amongst themselves.
He sighs, shaking his head.
“Besides, keeps me young, you know?”
Dream smiles, one pale hand reaching out to catch the door for them both.
“I am glad to hear it,”, pausing a moment before adding, “Literature was an appropriate choice,”
Hob smiles, lifting his books a little higher to his chest.
“Well, a bit of History, bit of English lit - I’ve had enough time with both, right?”
“Yes,” Dream agrees, his eyes betraying something Hob still treasures after all this time, “A pupil of Caxton himself, I believe?”
“The one and only,” Hob grins, lowering his voice as they pass student services, “not much call for old Billy and his wares on this syllabus though,”
“No?”
Hob shakes his head.
“Nah, this year it's all about Gothic I’m afraid,”
They take the stairs to avoid the shoddy lift (seriously, when are they going to fix that?), and Hob gestures to the announcement board pasted on the walls.
“New compulsory module, just for the English lit kids, mind, but we have some other humanities joining in too, good for attendance if nothing else,”
One floor up, Hob gestures down the new corridor, leading his friend down an endless hallway of frosted glass doors and cardboard boxes.
“Everyone takes turns introducing a book, to talk about the themes and the history etcetera, get them used to thinking and writing about context and theory, yadda yadda- it’s good practice for the newbies in their first year, you know?”
Dream nods, his gaze surprisingly focused.
“Lasts both terms, so there’s plenty of time to cover everything, and then we gift ‘em with a nice 5,000-word report at the end,”
He smirks.
“You know, just because we’re nice like that,”
Dream says nothing, but looks expectantly, leaning in like he‘s waiting for him to go on. Like he’s actually taking any of his yammerings in.
It’s a face so familiar, Hob could sculpt it from smoke.
“Yeah, it’s practically the whole department, taking turns running lectures and seminars, you know,”
He nods to the doors as they pass.
“See that’s Julian there, he’s doing Dorian Grey, and uh-,” he sticks an elbow out to the side, “Miriam’s doing Beloved, that’s gonna be a good one, she loves that book, then I think Jaime’s doing Jane Eyre, or was that Lois?”
He shrugs.
“Well, there’s a lot of us anyway,”
Dream hums.
“And you chose The Modern Prometheus,”
There’s something in those words, a fondness almost, curled and questioning like a tabby cat’s tail.
“Oh yeah, of course,”
Hob reaches for his keys, one hand fishing a lanyard out of his jeans as they jangle in his pocket. After a few seconds of fumbling, he reaches the last door in the hall gently clicking the lock open. Hob sighs as it swings open, dumping his bag on his desk and drawing the blinds.
His office is not and never will be anything special, but long years of service (relatively speaking, of course) have to have some boons. It isn’t the grey little hole some of his colleagues have to put up with, with the large windows at least offering some kind of natural light, if only a stunning view of the staff car park. Really, it’s little more than a desk, two chairs and a few dozen bookshelves, held together by white linoleum and a patchy internet connection.
Still, as he switches his desktop on and kicks a bag under his chair, he likes to think he’s made the best of it. A few postcards from annual leave, the odd gift from grateful students, and a pretty snazzy rug he’d scored in a charity shop a few years back; there’s enough colour to make his long hours in here a bit more bearable, at least.
Dream, of course, notices none of these things. He stands, hands straight by his sides (like a particularly goth lamp post) at Hob’s bookshelf, eyes slowly scanning the rows of bound and paper volumes.
Ah yes, Hob has to say he’s quite proud of this one.
“You like?”
Dream says nothing, but lifts a single hand to trace along the bindings, one long, delicate finger running across each title with gentle care.
He pauses a few times - passing a few sourcebooks, text analysis and academic musings to linger on Ovid, Don Quixote and Bridget Jones. It’s a mishmash - some are Oxfam rescues, others brand new treats from the research budget; a rainbow of plastic reprints and cloth-bound relics to keep him and his students in good stock.
“ You have a fine collection,”, Dream hums, lingering on a battered copy of The Canterbury Tales.
Hob preens, just a little.
“Oh this isn’t even the half of it,” he replies, tapping his password into his keyboard and opening up his emails, “Most of the good stuff is at the flat, you know - keep the sticky fingers at bay,”
And nosy colleagues, he doesn’t say, though the last thing he needs is his fellow academics wondering how he affords so many first editions on a lecturer’s salary. Not like he can say they were a workplace perk, can he?
Dream continues along the wall, finding relics from courses past and a few new finds for the school term. Tracing over Owen, Morrison and a particularly nice copy of Alice Through the Looking Glass, he takes a wander through Hob’s last 10 years in this place, preserved in the scribbled notes and coffee stains left on the margins.
Eventually, he comes to the shelf closest to the desk, stopping over three different but equally cared-for copies of Hob’s latest academic muse. This time he slides one off the shelf, the cover revealing a dark silhouette gazing grimly out towards a raging sea.
“Tell me,”, Dream asks, voice almost hushed as he opens the contents page, “-what was it that drew you to the work of Mrs Shelley?”
Hob shucks off his jacket and thinks.
“Well, I mean - it’s a literal masterpiece? Uh-,”
He laughs, running his hands through his hair.
“If I’m honest, totally passed me by when it came out,”
Ain’t that the truth. As far as Rupert Gadler was concerned, 1818 was not the time to be keeping up with the ever-evolving art form of the novel. With Napoleon sent off to his own private island (second time lucky, eh lads?), Europe was finally back open for business, and Hob was off having his own raucous regency adventure, thank you very much.
He’d never had much cause to travel beyond English shores before, not counting brief hop to France and back during the Hundred Years’ War (and its not like there was much time for sight- seeing).
So with enough money and many a reason to let his face fade from London’s memory, Hob had made good ground on this side of the Atlantic by the time Victoria got her bum on the throne. He drank wine, he sang songs, saw more faces and more places in two decades than nearly 500 years of life.
He saw the edge of the Rus, both ends of the Silk roads, walked the streets of Constantinople and took a tour of the Nile.
(He saw Lagos and Porto Novo, Jakin and Badagry. West Africa was no gentleman’s holiday, but it was not meant to be. Though his ships had not sailed since ‘89, and the act had been passed in ‘07 and then ‘33, the words of Equiano, Sancho and the rest still rang true. The oceans were stained with the blood spilt by his coin, out of his sight in the shadow of his ignorance, his apathy and his greed, and he …
He cannot change the past, cannot know how many lives he clad in irons to their doom.
But now those pounds and pennies went elsewhere, to societies gathered in city centres, to pamphleteers on the streets and knocking on doors.
Most of all, they went to those travellers, the righteous and the free and the furious, who sailed back across those same treacherous waters to share their stories; every sweat-soaked, sugar-stained drop.
And for him, for Hob’s malignant link in the rusting chain of it all, the world and its people would never feel so far away again).
Hob swallows.
Let’s just say no one recognised a Mr R Golding, the humble merchant’s hand, when he stepped off at Greenwich in 1841.
But yeah, not many W H Smith’s on the docks, and by the time he’d set himself up in dear old Blighty, happily inheriting his ‘Great Uncle's’ fortune with little fuss, Frankenstien was hardly the biggest title in the print shops.
“Still,” Hob continues, shaking himself from his memories as Dream stares steadily, “-got round to it with the reprint in - ooh I want to say 1865? Long after Mary’s time,”
Hob nods.
“It was a good read, obviously, I enjoyed it, I liked the play too!”
He sighs, leaning one elbow against the lowest shelf, close enough to read that ever-present title, the author only just hidden by a pale, perfectly manicured thumb.
“But if I’m honest?”
Hob laughs, tugging his ear.
“I only really got it after the Talkie - the Movie, I mean,”
His companion doesn’t react, but Hob doesn’t give him a chance to.
“I know! Sacrilege, whatever, I’m sorry,”
He laughs.
“Went to see on a whim with some lads I knew, amazing it was, talking pictures, and the sets and the make-up and the music - all the way from the States? Brilliant!”
Hob shakes his head, gently taking the book from Dream’s hands and flipping through its pages.
“But they bloody butchered it, didn’t they?”
Dream huffs, a light, breathy thing, his face still but eyes bright. Amused. Hob laughs right back.
“Seriously, I spent half of it wondering if I read the damned thing drunk - by the time we got to the fucking windmill, let alone the names and the Creature and the fact he’s not supposed to be a damned Doctor, I knew I had to go and read the fucking thing again,”
And he did. The next day he tore out of his East London flat and straight to the markets, practically pelting the poor sod on the stands with his change. He had re-devoured the book in a matter of hours and…
Something changed.
A book that had passed a few evenings by eighty years ago, perused over a glass of port by the fireplace, met with a pleasant appreciation of its themes and lyrical style, now lit his mind anew in that modest little room on the wrong side of Canning Town. He read it again the following night, and once more in slow hours at his latest venture (a pawner’s antique shop, just off the dockside), pouring over every page, every detail.
Mary’s words, written over a hundred years ago now, rang truer, her pictures, of rugged coasts, snowy forests and lamp-lit studies, shone clearer.
Turns out he did remember the story perfectly well, appreciating the seeds sown in earlier chapters to be reaped later as plot, anticipating the character’s faults as they met them at each crossroad.
But he knew this story, recognised it in a way beyond hearing a familiar tale. Like trying to make out a face in the dark, a tune through brick and mortar. A sketch through layers of thick, expertly placed paint.
What had passed at the turn of a new century? Why had all this seemingly sailed right over Hob’s head, only to smack him in the face with its brilliance in an era with machines that flew and pictures that spoke.
What was different?
Two new Kings, electric lights, a World War and the Gin Rickey. A few new names, a couple of addresses nd a quiet slip from the insular world of society soirees back into the shifting and slightly more anonymous towns of the trades.
A few words, harshly spoken, bitterly regretted, in the rain.
“Yeah,” Hob clears his throat, tapping the cover on his palm, “New appreciation I suppose,”
He laughs, turning back to his bag. After a few moments he retrieves it, the same very same copy he nearly tore out of that seller’s hands. It’s in surprisingly good nick, all things considered, but thick with almost a century's worth of notes, sticky tape (and the odd blob of Tomato Ketchup).
He hesitates, just for a second, before handing it over. Dream takes it, hands hovering as if sensing Hob’s reluctance, slender fingers cradling the cloth almost with reverence.
Slowly, practically caressing the yellowed paper, Dream peels it open. The pages fall back to where Hob had left off, an old Tesco receipt marking Mary’s introduction, penned in 1831. He too seems familiar with the tale, that often imperceptible lip twitching as he follows the words, eyes creasing with a barely-there smile.
Hob cocks his head.
“Why, are you a fan then?”
At first, Dream says nothing, continuing to scan the page, and Hob is suddenly aware of how close they are. Neither stepped away when he passed him the book, both sharing the same square of carpet. There are barely inches between them and Hob can’t help but be aware of the complex knit in his coat, the gentle tumble of his hair, and the dark shadows of his eyes.
“I-,”
Hob jumps, only a little, but regains himself as Dream sighs.
“I am familiar with its origins, yes,”
Hob frowns.
“It’s origins?”
Oh you’re fucking kidding me.
“Don’t tell me you were there? At Diodati?”
Oh, so you chatted Mary up too, huh? he doesn’t say, but boy Hob can see that, the bastard. Byron as well, no doubt; hell, the whole bloody Villa. It’s surprisingly fierce, the thing that flares in his chest; hot and bitter. But he has just enough time to mentally flick himself on the nose before Dream can shake his head.
“Not in so many words, no,”
Then he smiles. Not a half flicker or begrudging smirk, the most Hob had ever gotten until … well until the last time he saw his mysterious not-a-stranger.
A real, honest-to-god smile. It’s a little smug, full of that cryptic pomposity that has been as much infuriating as damn near captivating for over 600 years, but it’s there.
Who is it for?
Dream turns back to the book.
“But I remember its birth quite clearly,”
Hob follows a pale finger back to one of his own notes, the same passage he highlighted for his class today, though a little further on.
"I have found it! What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow."
Dream traces the last few words, like the delicate petals of a flower.
“It is not often that the creations of the Dreaming enter the Waking World, let alone represented by a mortal hand, and especially with such purpose, such life,”
He shuts the book, careful not to crease Hob’s notes before placing it back in his hands, like a nursemaid handing over a sleeping babe.
“You were correct in your assessment before, Hob Gadling,”
His eyes shimmer, palms lingering on the cover, the book suspended between them.
“Mary Godwin was quite the dreamer,”
The gentlest brush of skin. Two hands meeting, not quite touching, around the thick, aged tome.
“-and, it was indeed, quite the nightmare,”
Hob blinks.
Okay, and what does that mean?
His mind runs laps inside his skull, eyes still locked with the impossible, infuriating man before him. Hob thinks he might be able to work up to a sentence when-
Knock Knock Knock
“Dr Gadling?”
Shit
Dream releases the book and both men turn towards the door, where a shadow lingers on the faded carpet. Oh God-
“Fuck, I’m sorry, office hours, I can-,”
Dream raises his hand, eyebrow raised but face calm.
“Be at peace, Hob Gadling - I too have responsibilities I must attend too,”
Good, yes. That’s good. They’re both busy people, with things to do. Always busy, him.
Still, Hob can’t help the disappointment dropping in his gut, even as he places the book on the table and moves towards the door.
“Yeah, of course, sorry to keep you-,”
Dream smiles, soft creases gently gathering around his eyes.
“Don’t be - your conversations are always … illuminating,”
Guess Hob can take that as a compliment. Still, even as he sees the shadow behind the door rock back and forth, obviously waiting for him to wrap whatever this is up, he wishes Dream could stay. He always wants him to stay.
So he asks-
“You know, you’re always welcome here, doesn’t need to be a hundred years,”
He’s still smiling. Wow, Dream’s still smiling, even as he removes something small from his coat pocket, deliberately resting it in his palm. It’s that pouch, he realises, tied with charm-strung strings and filled with something that Hob knows could bring even the strongest foe to their knees.
“As you said before,” he pauses, taking a pinch into his fingers, “I will see you soon, my friend,”
Soon.
Hob smiles, before raising a hand.
“Good, great!”
He reaches for the handle, ready to greet his intru- his visitor and let Dream pass by, when the latter smiles.
A thousand grains of silver spread around his feet, falling with a shimmer like summer rain. Hob squints as that dark coat, those pale hands, those sparkling eyes vanish into a swirling cloud of dust.
He is alone in his office.
Knock Knock Knock
Dr Gadling?
The door opens, the handle sticking slightly to Hob’s hand, and he smiles.
“Oh, Hi Siobahn,” he says, though his words sound very far away, “sorry to keep you waiting-,”
The second-year smiles, a frazzled grin that only a student in crisis can muster, but frowns a little as she looks expectantly over Hob’s shoulder.
“Just had a quick Zoom meeting to finish up,” he decides, impressed at his own quick thinking, “you know how it is, now-,”
He ushers her into his office, drawing out his spare chair so she can sit. As she walks he hears her trainers crunch on the carpet, tiny specks littering the floor in an almost perfect circle.
“What can I do you for?” he asks, wincing at the thought of wrangling the vacuum cleaner out of the supply cupboard.
She smiles, almost apologetically, as she tucks her bag between her legs.
“Well, I uh, I have a question about the World Dramas: Theatre and Performance assignment. The comparative one?”
Ah yes, the essay that’s not due for six weeks now, fantastic.
Still, Hob smiles. “Sure, fire away,” he replies, shaking his mouse to wake his computer screen from the dead and bring up the module handout.
She ducks her head, twisting her hands a little before finally asking-
“Are you sure we can’t use The Globe? Only-,”
It takes every bone in Hob’s body not to groan.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
That night there is a house. The house is by a lake, and the lake is on fire.
No, that’s not right. It could be on fire; stuff around here does that sort of thing. He knows, because he comes here all the time. We all do.
But no, right now it is impossible, because it’s raining. It’s always raining here, or it never is; it’s about to start, or it’s almost finished.
Drops as big as glacier mints hurtle from the sky, hammering against the water’s surface and shattering the mirrored calm like glass on a paving slab. The wind howls, buffeting the tree tops like a grudge, and- there!
Lighting strikes the tallest branch, flashing like fresh grease in a pan and setting the raging water aflame. Jagged sparks wreak their vengeance on the mountain tops, the eternal rock under siege from relentless, ink black clouds.
Thank goodness he’s inside. Of course he’s inside, because there is a house.
He can’t remember how he got here, staring out through bubbled window glass into chaos. The porch groans, doors creaking on their hinges as the walls are rocked in the gale, but there is no reason to fear. Not when the hearth crackles behind him, casting the drawing room in such a rosy, crimson glow, with fresh wine on the table and a healthy pile of books just begging to be read.
He’s even wearing his favourite shirt; a plain, pleated thing with cuffed sleeves of the softest linen. He’d lost it two hundred years ago, or was it just the other night? How careless of him, either way, but at least he has it back now. The fabric, loose around the collar and untucked from his breeches, is a pleasant sensation, especially against the cruel chill threatening outside the door.
There is something behind him.
Tall. Dark. Everywhere, but he can’t see him. Why would he need to? He just said, he is everywhere, and there is nothing to fear here, not for him.
No, not for him.
So, instead he watches the waves break against the shoreline, once a place for pleasure now a site of battle; sea vs land, sky vs earth, light against-
It’s closer now. The dark. He can hear it tread softly on the rug, but he still stares ahead, watching yet another branch strike the forest floor like fist. The darkness moves with the house, each step shaking the pillars and bowing the roof, every blink a crack on the surface of the lake, a streak across the sky.
It is beautiful. It is terrible.
He leans back, the storm caught in his eyes, to feel the shadow like a wall, or maybe a cloak, behind him. Not quite skin, not quite wool, still the shadow is warm, something gentle brushing across the back of his neck, like breath.
They stay there a little while, that shadow and him, in a house by a lake with a name he should know. They say nothing, see nothing. They are simply together; it is a truce, a treaty, maybe even a test.
But none of this matters, because soon he will wake, and two things, twisted by the logic of a world without waking, will become clear;
Hob Gadling never remembers his dreams, not once in over 600 years. But somehow, as he rolls out of bed in the bleary morning light, and stumbles towards his kettle, he can’t help but be certain.
He has never had this dream before, and the shadow’s eyes were blue.