Work Text:
"So tell me, love—what's it like to be so ancient?"
Across the table, Dream's perfectly pretty rose-petal mouth turns down in a thoughtful little frown. "It is…as it is. I have never known being. Anything other than what I am."
Hob chuckles lightly. "Right, makes sense. Just. Boggles my mind, sometimes, thinking on how much you've seen and how long you've been around. Would be easy to feel insignificant in the face of it, if I were a different person." He winks.
Dream smiles, slow and curling. "There is nothing. Insignificant. About my royal consort, Hob Gadling."
"Er. Well. Suppose that must be true, logically speaking!" Hob manages, flashing a brightly awkward grin. He doesn't think he'll ever quite get used to the whole consort thing, pleased as he is to accept it, and he's still easily flustered despite himself to hear Dream say it.
"It is undeniably true." Dream speaks with the grave sincerity that he can bring to bear like no other. "Consort to the King of Dreams is not a title lightly bestowed, and I would have you know. How singular you are, in my esteem."
"You do know how to bolster a bloke's ego," Hob laughs, glowing with self-consciousness and pride in equal measure, chasing his skittering glee with a hearty swig from his cup. He's so, so happy to have all this with Dream, even when he doubts he's entirely worthy of the regard Dream expresses, and will savor it for all he's worth. "Unfathomable age has given you a charmingly silver tongue, that's certain."
"An observation perhaps better made of you, I think." Dream shifts minutely in his seat, leans a hair closer. "After all. You yourself are inordinately more charming than I, Hob Gadling, and relatively ancient by human standards as well."
There is a teasing thread to his tone, now, and Hob seizes it gratefully, finds his footing again on comfortable ground. "Nah. I'm not even a thousand yet. Gotta have at least a hundred centuries under your belt before you can think of qualifying as ancient."
Dream runs one delicate fingertip around the rim of his wineglass, drawing forth the faintest of musical tones with his touch. "How fortunate, then, that you intend to continue living forever; in time, you will have the opportunity to experience being ancient for yourself."
He says it with teasing confidence, and yet there is the hint of a question in it, the faintest plea for affirmation, as if even after all this time he still fears Hob might one day grow weary of life, of living, of him.
Imagine thinking the medieval peasant he'd befriended, the absolute nobody he'd named his royal consort, could ever tire of him. Insanity.
Hob reaches across the table, takes Dream's hand firmly in his own, gives a heartfelt squeeze even as he answers with cheeky sincerity. "Oh absolutely. Can't wait to see my first millennium come and go, see what humanity achieves, bore you to tears carrying on about all of it." He squeezes again, smiling like the sun, all the love he feels for this impossibly magnificent creature shining forth in his face so that Dream will see it.
Dream gazes back at him, quietly fond, and squeezes Hob's hand in return. His foot touches Hob's beneath the table, moves to hook gently behind Hob's ankle, and his smile is soft and warm as Hob's favorite eiderdown quilt.
"I look forward to being ancient together, with you, Hob Gadling."
And isn't that just the most wonderful idea in the world.