The voice, when he finally spoke, sounded brittle, so contrary to the usual silky baritone something in Hob begins to ache. In the yellow light of Hob’s living room, the sparkling blue orbs seemed almost fractured, like thin ice on a lake. “Is there something on your mind, my friend?” It took a minute, but finally the man turned and met Hob’s steady gaze. He approached quietly and offered up the glass. When it did not bring any reaction from the slim figure, he poured two glasses of wine, deciding it was time to bite the bullet. There’s a new set to it though, one that speaks of years’ long weariness and almost- resignation. Right now the shadows seem to coil deeper around him, the stiffness in his shoulders which has been absent before is back tonight. Hob however has spent six nights watching and six centuries analyzing every miniscule expression on this person’s (entity’s? god’s? he’s still not sure what being Endless means) body language. To an untrained eye Dream would seem perfectly indifferent. His Friend is quiet, more so than since they reunited two months ago (only two months, and three visits already! Hob couldn’t in his wildest dreams believe that his proposition of meeting more often would be so easily accepted). He spends the first half an hour upstairs going from picture to picture hanging on the walls, while Hob fills the silence with little stories of some of them and opens one of his better wines to let it breathe. He still has his coat on, like always, despite a warm summer night. He’s nervous when proposing, but Dream seems content enough to relocate. Logically speaking Hob could keep it open longer for them, he’s the owner after all, but there’s a small thrill going down his spine at the thought of having Dream here, in his home. They’re at Hob’s apartment above the Inn, having moved here after the bar downstairs closes. It all comes to head on their third meeting. Their hands stay intertwined between them for the rest of the night. He’s still smiling, that entirely new, wonderful smile. Dream loosens his hold, but doesn’t let go. The New Inn hums with quiet activity around them and the hand is soft and cold to the touch, but solid under his calloused fingers. Hob should be still angry, at being stood up, at the way he was treated in 1889 and so much more, but right now, it feels so distant, it might not even have happened. “It is my understanding that friends should know each other’s names.” A pale, delicate hand is extended over the table. Then the Stranger takes a deep breath, and all comes to a stop. He’s got so many questions, so many things to say, where have you been’s and I’m sorry’s and thirty years’, it’s all bubbling inside him he doesn’t even know where to start. His heart is so loud, he’s sure the other man can hear it. For a moment they stay like this, drinking each other in (and Hob feels like a parched man presented with a fresh spring). He’s smiling like a loon, he knows it, but then his Friend is smiling back at him, not a whisper, not a tilt of the mouth, but an actual smile, so he figures that’s okay. His friend- His Friend!- takes a seat on the opposite chair, and Hob has to wrestle his lungs and heart into submission. Then his Stranger calls him friend, and suddenly it’s the most beautiful day to ever grace this Earth. The moment their eyes meet, blue pools of crystal against his brown, the day’s category in Hob’s mind instantly jumps from “pleasant enough” to “one of the best ones in all six centuries”. His breath halts in his chest, as his eyes travel up the black clad form, to the painfully familiar face. There’s nothing remarkable about this day. Hob’s just spent the past hour slowly grading his students’ tests, when a pair of black boots enters his field of vision. It’s a warm July afternoon, when his Stranger comes back.
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