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“Are you sure that you’re not cold?” Hob asks, five minutes into their walk back to the New Inn.
The street they are walking down is quiet, snow blanketing this corner of London in glittering jewels of white, and something treacherous flutters in Dream’s stomach at the open concern.
“I believe to have told you before that I do not experience temperatures as you do.”
Hob stops him with a light touch to his wrist; Dream feels it all the way down his spine.
“And I believe I've told you before that it doesn’t mean you can’t be uncomfortable,” Hob says, exasperated affection pressed into the corners of his mouth. He turns Dream with another touch and begins to unwind the scarf from around his neck.
“What—” Dream starts, but the words get stuck in his throat when Hob looks at him, smiling and bright-eyed, cheeks flushed from mulled wine and the cold.
Hob had insisted to take him to the Christmas market in Camden, much as he is now insisting to wrap his scarf around Dream’s neck, calloused fingers brushing the skin of his throat. Which is to say, he hadn’t let Dream protest, no matter that Dream did not want to do so, to begin with, neither then nor now.
“I know, I know, self-knitted isn’t really your style, and dark blue isn’t part of your usual colour scheme,” Hob says, and his hands rest on Dream’s chest even as his expression seems to grow bashful. “But at least I have a proper winter jacket, and if you really don’t want to wear it, not even until we’re back at the Inn, you obviously don’t—”
Dream catches Hob’s wrist just as he is about to pull away, heat flaring in his chest that is both terrifying and thawing something ancient he thought long dead. “No, I would—I would like to keep it. For now.”
For as long as you’ll let me have it, he does not say.
Hob tilts his head. “You do not look certain of that.”
“I am. I merely… You are much more likely to get cold than I am; why would you give me this?”
It is a loaded question, is about more than a scarf and Hob’s gentle tenacity.
Silence stretches for longer than it should. Hob is looking past Dream until his shoulders straighten with a shuddering breath.
When he speaks, his voice is too steady to sound light-hearted. “Because I love you, and I want you to have it. To know it.”
He states it like a fact, something axiomatic and indelible; night follows day and humans dream. The sun keeps rising, and Hob Gadling loves Dream of the Endless.
Dream swallows, helpless, even as Hob’s eyes stay fixed on him.
“Does this not scare you?” he asks, voice hoarse as the words trip off his tongue.
“Of course, it does; it’s terrifying. That does not change the truth of it, though, does it?”
Dream searches Hob’s face; he is not sure for what. He searches for his own courage and finds it in the warmth of a scarf wrapped around him with care. Finds it in the memory of outrageously sweet coffee orders and cups of mulled wine, in stories told over centuries, and in an Inn built for him. In Hob waiting, always waiting for Dream to catch up.
He admits, “It is terrifying to me, too,” and watches as Hob’s expression morphs through shock and disbelief, finally settling on caution. “You did not expect reciprocation.”
Hob huffs a laugh that borders on hysterical. “I—no, I did not. The last time I dared to call you my friend, you stormed out on me.”
“I apologised; I—”
“No, I know, I’m not…” Hob sighs, and beneath the lingering caution, a hint of a smile starts to form.
A part of Dream itches to vanish into the safety of his own realm, to wrap layers of iron-clad protection back around himself and hide the soft, tender, human pieces once more.
Stepping closer, Hob slips his hands inside Dream’s coat. His palms are warm on Dream’s waist, and it calms his racing, non-existent heart.
“If I kiss you, would it scare you off for good?” Hob asks. His smile is solid now, warm as if sun-soaked in a way only he ever is.
Dream finds that his terror is melting beneath Hob’s touch like snow in a child’s hand. Distantly, he thinks that should scare him. He also finds that he is quite exactly where he wants to be.
“You may; under one condition.”
Hob laughs, his eyes glistening with it. “Of course. Anything.”
Swaying forward, Dream leans into him and closes his eyes. “Tell me again.”
Hob’s fingers dig into Dream’s skin. When he speaks, his breath fans across Dream’s mouth.
“I love you,” Hob says, voice low with the weight of it. “I love you so much that it burns, and I will tell you as many times as you want. I will tell you in languages that I have never used to tell—”
Dream kisses him, falling into it, inevitable; Hob tastes like winter nights and spices, cinnamon and anise and orange. His mouth opens beneath Dream’s as if he has been waiting for this through all his lifetimes.
“Maite Zaitut.”
Pushing closer, Dream cards his fingers into Hob’s hair. “Again.”
“Volim te.”
He bites Hob’s bottom lip and swallows the sound it elicits, tucking it away beneath his ribs for safekeeping. “Again. Please.”
“Ani ohevet otcha. T’estimo. Tá grá agam ort.”
Any more of this, and Dream fears he might choke on his affection. “You know a great many languages to say this in.”
Hob smiles. “Come home with me, and I might tell you why.”
“Incorrigible.”
“You love me, really,” Hob shoots back; beneath the affected cockiness, he looks as if he might need to hear it a few more times, too.
Dream brushes his mouth over Hob’s temple and says, “Indeed I do. Dearest.”