TheResearcher
Recent bookmarks
-
Tags
Summary
Dream is given a second chance. Terrified by loneliness and drowning in humanity, he goes to find the only fixed point he has ever known. Hob Gadling.
Dream found himself explaining everything, the words tumbling out of him in a halting confession. The Kindly Ones, the choice to end or change. His siblings’ intervention.
“They… found a compromise. This form, it is mortal-adjacent. I must eat, sleep and breathe. I feel the cold. I grow weary.” He looked down at his own hands, pale against the dark fabric of his trousers. “I am, in all ways that matter now, very much like you, Hob Gadling. My body will not age. It cannot die. Unless I choose to accept my sister’s gift. I am… suspended. Between what I was and what men are.”
Bookmarked by TheResearcher
05 Jun 2026
Bookmarker's Notes
His body no longer served as a canvas for his vastness. It was simply a container for his consciousness.
...
The street held various commuters, their minds unknowable to him now because he could no longer slide through the Dreaming to see their sleeping selves. He had only his observation, like any stranger. That realisation stung. He would have to ask people questions, speak to them, and offer to introduce himself.
How tedious.
...
“I… I did not realise,” Dream said, his voice hushed, trembling slightly with the force of his epiphany. “I did not recognise these feelings. In you… or myself.”
He met Hob’s embarrassed, hopeful gaze, and the last of his confusion fell away. “But I believe… I am beginning to understand them now.”
Dream set his glass down and prowled across the sofa on his hands and knees, the cushions dipping beneath him, the wine-softened room spinning slightly as he closed the scant distance between them.
Hob stared, completely stupefied, his mouth parted, breath hitching and his cheeks blazing apple-red. Fear and hunger warred in his wide eyes. His fingers tightened around the stem of his glass until Dream worried it might shatter.
Something primitive took hold inside of Dream. Desire surged through him like a tidal wave, overriding caution and eroding centuries of restraint.
His new body moved with fluid, reckless certainty, as if it had been waiting for this moment since its first breath. He reached out and laid his palm on Hob’s thigh. The denim was warm and coarse beneath his fingertips. He pushed upward, slowly and deliberately, following the hard line of muscle.
Hob’s reaction was a strangled squeak that curled into something dangerously close to a moan. His eyes fluttered shut, then snapped open again, pupils blown wide.
“Forgive me for riling you,” Dream murmured, his voice rough with need, fingers pressing more firmly, testing the flex of Hob’s thigh. “For making you uncomfortable.”
He leant closer, his breath fanning across Hob’s cheek. “Yet I find I cannot be sorry that you desire me. If I have anything to say about the matter, I would have you desire me still.”
His hand slid higher, skimming over the seam where thigh met hip, drawing a shiver from Hob.
...
Then Hob’s mouth touched him.
It was not a tentative brush. Hob Gadling, with nearly seven centuries of life and love etched into his bones, knew exactly what he was doing.
His lips sealed around the crown, hot and wet and perfect, and his tongue swirled a devastating pattern over Dream’s sensitive slit.
-
Then I see you, you're walking 'cross the campus by academic_of_the_endless
Fandoms: The Sandman (TV 2022)
22 Feb 2023
Tags
Summary
Hob Gadling was by default, a relatively forgetful man. Not so much in long-term memory, but when it came to short-term stuff like dates or events – he was hopeless. He’d never found himself forgetting a date with his stranger, however, not until today.
Hob accidentally double-books himself and ends up taking Dream to campus with him.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 4,021
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Collections:
- 1
- Comments:
- 29
- Kudos:
- 455
- Bookmarks:
- 41
- Hits:
- 4,975
Bookmarked by TheResearcher
02 Jun 2026
Bookmarker's Notes
A soft hand on top of his, perhaps that hand on other parts of him after the lecture. The podium as a surface to lean against as his friend thrusts into him repeatedly. Breathy moans, trying to be quiet to avoid getting caught. Pale alabaster skin and a slim defined body…
Hob snaps out of his daydream quickly. Thankfully he wasn’t in his own head for too long and his students haven’t noticed. Dream is looking back at him, but he looks away again quickly. Several students approach the podium.
“Can we pet the cat, Robert?” One girl asks, he remembers her from a literary analysis seminar a few weeks ago. At the question Dream looks up and Hob stares back. He’s about to say the cat doesn’t want to be touched right now when he sees Dream give a small incline of his head. In slight disbelief he nods at the student.
“Yeah, sure. His name’s, uhm…” Hob panics, what does someone call Dream as a cat? “His name is Snuggles.”
Hob tries not to laugh as Dream makes a sound like coughing up a furball, he’ll have to apologise to his friend, but the temptation was too much. The students head towards Dream, or Snuggles, and pet him. Hob nearly chokes on a laugh when he realises Dream is purring. As Snuggles is being lathered with attention Hob sees a student with a familiar face approach him.
“So, Professor. I was stuck on this assignment we have for next week. I know you aren’t our usual teacher for this class but I was wondering if you’d be willing to look over my work. Perhaps we could get a coffee in the canteen?” The student looks at him through round-rimmed glasses. Hob is vaguely aware of Dream watching the interaction.
“Oh, hello Michael. I appreciate you asking, but, I am incredibly busy.” Michael, Hob now remembers his name from previous approaches, looks slightly dejected but still offers a small smile. He swallows and Hob sees his Adam’s apple move with the motion.
“Anything I can help with professor?”
“No, it’s all good Michael. Speak to your usual tutor if you’re having issues.” Michael seems to get the hint that his professor will unfortunately not be trying to lose his job today and steps away, heading over to pet Dream.
All the other students have left, Hob notices, so when Michael goes to pet Snuggles and he lunges suddenly at his arm no one is left to hear his sharp cry. Perhaps he will be losing his job after all.
-
This Time the Water Had a Different Feeling by speccygeekgrrl
Fandoms: The Sandman (TV 2022)
09 Sep 2022
Tags
Summary
Every time Hob leaves a drinking establishment into a rainy night between 1889 and 2022, he feels a stab of heartbreak that's no less acute for the passage of time.
When he leaves the New Inn with Morpheus on a stormy night in 2022, though, the place in his chest that's normally full of pain is full of something wholly different.
Series
- Part 3 of Smutember 2022 Fills
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 1,070
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Collections:
- 1
- Comments:
- 33
- Kudos:
- 380
- Bookmarks:
- 44
- Hits:
- 2,576
Bookmarked by TheResearcher
06 Jan 2026
Bookmarker's Notes
Every time Hob left a drinking establishment between 1889 and 1989 into a rainy night, he felt a stab of fear in his chest that his Stranger would make good on his threat to not return for their centennial reunion, so scornful of Hob's companionship that he'd forgo it evermore for the sake of his stung pride. Every time he walked into a rainy night between 1989 and 2022, the stab was even sharper, the pain refined with his knowledge that he'd gone and fucked everything up for real by naming his Stranger a friend, by reaching for more than he deserved and ending up with nothing at all.
...
Those rosepetal lips skim back to Hob's ear, mouthing at the hair hanging wet and limp under Hob's temple. "You beg sweetly," Morpheus says, his voice as low and rolling as thunder as he grinds against Hob's thigh, "but you need not beg for what I'll gladly give you who are dear to me."
...
"I'm taking you home with me and out of these wet clothes and then you can have whatever freedom you need to learn, my love."
-
Tags
Summary
Sometimes Morpheus surprises him by responding to things. Morpheus very rarely, nearly never, initiates something.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 2,041
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Collections:
- 1
- Comments:
- 26
- Kudos:
- 637
- Bookmarks:
- 77
- Hits:
- 4,558
Bookmarked by TheResearcher
01 Jun 2026
Bookmarker's Notes
“Talk to me, Morpheus,” he prompts, because he doesn’t entirely trust Morpheus to tell him if he doesn’t like something. Morpheus is wonderful, obviously, Hob trusts him with his own life often enough that he knows that Morpheus is someone to be admired in many, many aspects. One of those aspects, however, is not self-preservation, and Morpheus is stupid enough to consider his own well-being nearly last in every situation.
Hob isn’t about to unpack all of that with two fingers in Morpheus, so, for now, he’s dealing with it by making Morpheus talk to him, god damn it.
“It’s— strange,” he finally says, and Hob slows, just in case, “not bad, only— it feels like an intrusion,”
Hob slows way down, pressing a hot kiss to the inside of Morpheus’s knee, before he says, “yell if you want me to stop.” Morpheus nods, and now he’s watching Hob finger him, and, god, it feels like a blessing, he’s in love, he’ll do anything for this mess of a creature.
-
no fate(for you are my fate by Delta_Pavonis
Fandoms: The Sandman (Comics), The Sandman (TV 2022)
24 Jul 2024
Tags
Summary
It is only when tears start to slide down his cheeks that Hob moves, first to wipe at his face and then to swallow down the rest of the pint in one long go of it. He has come to a decision. “Alright,” Hob slams the empty glass down on the table, startling Daniel enough to make him flinch. “Let’s go then.” He gets up, gathering his coat and heads toward the door.
“What are you…” Daniel starts reaching out as Hob walks past.
Hob turns back to him. “My flat is just down a ways. I need stronger liquor and a more comfortable chair for this conversation, if you wish to have it.” Then he tilts his head in invitation and continues out the door.
Series
- Part 9 of Dream Songs
Bookmarked by TheResearcher
01 Jun 2026