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It starts (as does Hob’s sourdough journey) with The Great British Bake Off.
Yes, he’s late to the game, on this occasion.
He discovers the show sometime around November and, well. It’s a comforting show, and he’s not ashamed to say he needs comfort. Over ten years’ worth of tele, and he’s nearly caught up by the time 2023 rolls around.
Which is perfect, really, because the show is only getting better; and Dream’s visits are only getting more frequent; and lord knows that Dream needs comfort as well.
This is how it starts. Or, to be precise, how it starts is this: Crystelle presents her yuzu, coconut, and black sesame slices. And Hob says, more to himself than to his friend, “I would sell my bloody soul to try a piece of that.”
“Hob Gadling.” His name escapes Dream’s lips as a sigh. “There are beings in this universe who would gladly make this trade. You ought to speak more carefully.”
“Well, I mean, the last time I spoke uncarefully in front of a being of great power, I ended up immortal. So. It’s not really a motivation for me to stop, is it?”
He grins. Dream just tsks and goes back to petting Winnie, and Hob doesn’t think anything more of it.
Until the following evening.
Dream has been visiting more days than not, since New Year’s; it’s no surprise to hear the quiet footsteps that the (not-)god deigns to make for Hob’s benefit. It is a surprise, though, when he realizes their direction. His friend seems to have appeared in the kitchen instead of the living room, and Hob rises from the sofa with a grunt and goes to see what’s warranted the change.
The answer is instantly evident. There, on small plates on Hob’s counter, sit two layered slices: perfect replicas of Crystelle’s, from the other night, and Hob might let his mouth fall open if he weren’t so worried that a bit of drool might fall with it.
“Holy hell,” he grunts, crossing his arms for no real reason. “Dream, you don’t even eat. But you bake?”
“No.” He say this like it’s an absolutely absurd question, despite the fact that he has brought along a clearly custom-made treat on a random weekday evening.
“Does she— does Crystelle have a bakery? I mean. Where did this come from?”
Dream’s eyebrow lifts, ever-so-slightly. “She has dreamed of this many times. It was simple enough to locate.”
“Locate— in the her dreams?”
“In the Dreaming, yes.”
“You didn’t have to,” Hob murmurs, and his voice goes softer than he means for it to. Just, his friend has given the world to him. More or less literally. And that’s without mention of recent months, in which he has shared his name, and his story, and countless hours of his company, and his shoulder to be wept upon (on more than one occasion)…
He hardly had to bring treats.
And yet, he has.
“Again, Hob: it was no trouble.” Dream is smiling now, looking fond but also genuinely amused. “And it’s made of Dreamstuff. You won’t notice a difference, but I will, and it will taste far better to me than human food.”
“Dream—”
“And we are watching the finale today, are we not? I recall you saying, at the last finale, that a noteworthy episode required a— noteworthy accompaniment.”
“I’m sure I said a really good snack,” Hob replies, relaxing his arms again. “Well. I mean, damn. And I didn’t even have to sell my soul— I think.” Dream, obviously tickled by this, smiles again, and Hob smiles back. It took a few minutes, but it’s starting to hit him, now: he’s about to taste something he should rightfully only get to dream about. “Holy shit! I mean. That looks magnificent— are you ready? I’d like to have it, like, now, please.”
“I am ready when you are,” Dream replies, and takes a plate in each hand. Hob grabs two forks and ushers him excitedly into the living room.
*
Crystelle’s creation is, predictably, divine. Hob wouldn’t be surprised if he himself dreams of it in turn, though if he does, he doesn’t recall.
But here’s the thing. As delicious as it is, the joy it brings him directly does not even slightly compare to the joy it brings him indirectly, as he watches his friend— his stoic, gothic, more-than-a-god friend— absolutely relishing his own serving.
Seriously. Hob has, by now, seen a (relatively) full range of emotions from Dream; but among them, pleasure must be the newest. True enjoyment; maybe even delight.
Does it make him selfish, if he wants to see it again?
That Saturday he spends the whole afternoon baking one of his own favorite recipes (a custardy, jam-filled prinsesstårta); then tries not to sulk too badly when Dream declines to have a piece.
“Thought I cracked the code,” Hob mutters, around a massive forkful of marzipan. (Hey, apparently he’s going to be the only one eating it, so he’s taken a double helping.)
“The code?”
“Of what I could offer you to eat, that you’d like.”
“Have I offended you?”
“No. Not offended.” But he feels himself glowering a bit. “Disappointed, maybe,” Hob admits. “But only ‘cause, y’know. I wanted to make you smile.”
“Human food does not appeal to me. There is nothing you could have done differently.”
“Yeah but the yuzu sesame slices— they just tasted like really good pastry. So I thought maybe you jut liked really good pastry. What’s the difference?” Hob sets aside the disappointment for what seems a natural segue into some questions of magical mechanics. Dream, for his part, seems to genuinely contemplate his answer.
“The taste is… unchanged. But. It isn’t a food’s taste I perceive most strongly. I perceive the— passion. That went into its creation. And this is much more evident in food from the Dreaming. Even from a cake such as yours, made with care and good intention, I cannot perceive more than a whisper if it is constructed out of— tangible ingredients.”
Hob tries to disguise his still-present sulk by taking another bite.
“If you like,” Dream offers, “I will check to see if you Dream of it. And if you do, I will eat it then.”
“Um. No, I’m not— I’m not trying to force-feed you. Just. I want you to enjoy yourself, when you come to visit.”
“Do you think I do not?”
“Just. I mean. Don’t be shy, bringing something for yourself to snack on, okay? I’m not asking you to bring me anything. I just want you to enjoy yourself, yeah?”
Dream nods.
When he visits again, two days later, he has brought an ancient-looking bottle of Chateau Margaux and a tray of chocolate-dipped madeleines.
And he does share (of course) but the food is (of course) not the truest gift Hob receives.
*
“You wished to know more about what dreams and what doesn’t,” his friend says, one evening, in lieu of hello. “I thought this might intrigue you.”
It’s been a month or so, since they caught up fully with the GBBO, but there has been no reduction in the frequency of Dream’s visits. If it’s four nights out of seven, it’s an average week.
And in that time, so sue him, Hob has been sneaking in more and more questions all the time.
So the statement, voiced from the kitchen, does not surprise Hob in the slightest.
He heads over to see what Dream has brought today. Even when the food is from the Dreaming, the (not-)god does not indulge frequently; but most nights he brings a drink for himself, be it tea or wine. (Tea, Hob is told, tastes mainly of the memories of its parent plants; wine, on the other hand, has passions and stories of its own.)
Tonight he has not brought either.
Instead, at the center of Hob’s small table, sits a bouquet of flowers unlike Hob has ever seen before. First off, it’s in no kind of vase. Instead, like a statue, it balances upright on a seemingly custom-made stand that supports its stems (four or five, each with a few flowers each) in perfect array, but could hold no water.
And even this feat is nothing compared to the flowers themselves.
They’re lily-shaped: six teardrop petals curling open around a tiny firework of pollen-laden stamens. The form is flawless, but it’s the color that really amazes.
The majority of each petal is a perfect matte black, a black of the depth that makes you question if you’ve ever truly seen black before. Spreading from the center, up each midline, is a faint pulse of deep blue. And, scattered atop all of this: freckles of the truest white Hob could ever have imagined. The stamens and pollen shine white as well, luminescing like fireflies.
“I have told you that plants dream, after a fashion.”
Dream’s voice is soft, reverent. Hob feels dizzy and dull in comparison, managing only to babble, “last week you said your tea had dreamt mainly of summertime.”
“A Stargazer Lily plant once learned what its name was, in English. Having no vision, it did not know its own colors. But it knew the stories of the stars, and this is how it pictured itself, through the human’s eyes.”
Finally Hob realizes that he isn’t breathing; and that’s some of the dizziness accounted for, anyway. “They’re gorgeous,” he rasps. “Should I— should I put them in water?”
“It’s a dream, Hob,” Dream replies, patiently. “It needs neither water nor food. Admire it now and then, if you will; and that shall be more than enough.”
“I don’t think admiring it should be a problem. Can I— can I smell them?”
“Of course,” Dream replies, looking curious himself. “I had not thought to do so.”
“No surprise there,” Hob teases, though he’s still breathless enough that the musical tone he’d been going for falls flat. He steps forward. Bends to hover just above the topmost blossom, and inhales deeply.
It smells of nothing, but perfectly so. Deliberately so. It smells of the gaps between stars, of the winter cold so biting it forestalls any other scent.
Hob shivers. Turns, quite instinctively, for a hug, which Dream provides without delay.
“Do they smell nice?”
“Yeah. Um. If anything they smell like— you?”
Dream’s laugh it soundless, but Hob can feel the twitch of it as it exits his chest. “I suppose that makes sense.”
“I don’t think anyone’s ever brought me flowers before,” Hob whispers. “Let alone flowers like these. Thank you, love.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m perfect.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m really, really all right. I’m so all right, I guess I’m just shaking,” Hob laughs. “I love them. You didn’t have to trouble yourself.”
“I did not. And. In truth, it— pleases me. To see such common sights through your eyes.”
Dream-flowers aren’t a common sight, Hob wants to reply, but instead he laughs again and hugs tighter. “Well, I’m happy to help.”
*
Spring arrives but even as the weeks pass, the lilies, now displayed atop Hob’s bureau, never wilt. (Nor do they succumb to Winnie’s attacks. Dream has assured him that, unlike lilies from the Waking World, they would not harm her, so he doesn’t keep her from them. But no toothmarks appear on the petals, no matter how zealously she nibbles.)
Dream is over so frequently now that it feels at times like he lives there. Hob is hardly complaining. The (not-)god explains himself with a vague statement about less business in the Dreaming, now that winter is past, but Hob doesn’t entirely believe that. He’s pretty sure Dream just likes having somewhere to go. Somewhere that he is more friend than King. Somewhere he can put his feet up and have a drink, even if he’s still obliged to supply the drink himself.
(For Hob’s part, he is slowly overcoming his bad-host complex regarding this because, hey, it’s not like he could very reasonably grab a bottle of Dreamstuff wine on his way home from work.
He’s even learning how not to have a minor freakout every time he thinks about how much some of Dream’s bottles of wine would likely fetch at auction. In centuries past, he was accustomed to excessive luxuries. Now the finest wine in his flat is likely no more than £30.)
He hasn’t brought anything specifically for Hob since the flowers, which is also good. He hardly wants Dream to think that some sort of fee must be paid to earn his welcome here. And Hob, at this point in his life, is thankful to say that he wants for nothing. Except, ooh, maybe he brought another pot of that gorgeous Wuyi oolong that Hob had been rhapsodizing about since they’d had it a few weeks ago—
None of this means that Hob is in any way upset when Dream greats him one evening with a soft, solemn, “I’ve brought you something.”
Hob catches himself before asking if it’s the oolong. Instead he looks over with a silent smile as Dream, now sat beside him, passes over— a folded piece of fabric?
Hob accepts it with a frown of curiosity. The fabric is dark grey, the kind of grey that likely faded from black, and now that he’s holding it, he can see neat, machine stiches. Clothing then, and relatively modern. Hob unfolds it— and finds himself looking at the face of the robot off the News of the World album.
The King of Dreams has just handed him— a concert t-shirt? But not just any. It’s a perfect likeness to the one he’d owned decades ago, from Queen’s 1978 tour.
“When we watched Bohemian Rhapsody, mentioned your disappointment at having misplaced your own.”
“Lost it ages ago,” Hob mutters, absently. “Like, two lives back.”
And obviously it’s not like he could tell anyone that he’d been there— Empire Pool, May 12, ‘78— but it’s completely within reason to tell anyone asking that it’s original. (Dreamstuff counts as original, right?) He can call it his dad’s, maybe, or a prize eBay find.
He’d love to take the shirt.
Instead Hob folds it just as it had been, and sighs.
Dream’s chin tilts downward. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. But listen. I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
“I did not think you did.”
“Just.” Hob shakes his head a little. “I’m not friends with you because you can do stuff for me. I’m friends with you for the same reason I’d be friends with anyone. Y’know? I like spending time with you. It makes me happy.”
“This— makes me happy.”
Some organ does something in Hob’s insides, but for the life of him he doesn’t know if it’s his stomach or his heart. “Really?”
“Is that all right?”
“I mean, of course. It’s, it’s more than all right, this is brilliant! I just— wanted to check.”
“I do not feel taken advantage of, Hob. You have my word.” He smiles. “I think you still don’t understand the extent of the Dreaming. Of my power.”
“Maybe not.”
“Finding this shirt for you was a simple errand. And one I was pleased to undertake.”
“Okay.” Hob’s smiling again, too. “Just one— just one quick question. The dreamer we took this from— I mean, do they still have it? Did we steal it from them?”
“It disappeared from that dream, on that occasion. There is nothing to prevent them from dreaming of it again.”
“Okay. Above board, then.”
“Yes.”
“Holy shit, I love this,” Hob blurts, beginning to swap shirts then and there. “This is great! Oh, that concert was amazing. One of my favorites. News of the World was the album with Spread your Wings on it. And, y’know, just a little song called We Are the Champions. Ta-da!”
Hob spreads his arms, proudly displaying the new/old t-shirt he wears. Dream nods in approval.
“I love it,” Hob repeats, forcing his voice into something softer and more sincere; he doesn’t want to run even the slightest risk of Dream not believing that. “And it’s— ooh, it’s soft.”
“Well. It is a dream.”
“Yeah, it is,” Hob replies, with a grin.
*
And then it’s properly spring, longer days when just a light jumper will suffice; and Hob succeeds in dragging Dream out of the flat, now and then. They walk along the river. Sit in the park. They even see a movie while it’s still in theatres.
So really, there’s a couple of reasons that Hob mentions his birthday: work friends are taking him out, and he doesn’t want Dream surprised by his absence, and he doesn’t expect him to want to come along, but he is very very welcome to come if he’d like to—
He does not mention it to get a birthday gift. And that’s a fucking fact.
Still it can’t be said that he’s entirely surprised when, on the eve of his birthday (his 668th, he’s 99% sure) Dream arrives with a small, wrapped parcel.
“You brought me a gift?” Hob’s already on the sofa, and Dream takes the seat beside him, setting the parcel on the coffee table.
“I believe it’s customary.”
“I mean, sure, but— you didn’t have to. I hope you didn’t go out of your way.” It’s a strange thing to say to someone who, in the past few months, has given him impossibly beautiful flowers and a long-lost t-shirt, and also shared with him multiple bottles of wine that probably cost more than a year’s worth of his salary.
“If you are willing,” Dream intones, “I would see you open it now.”
Oh so serious. Hob grins. He makes to pick it up and unwrap it.
With the barest touch, the wrapping evaporates, solid to vapor like dry ice— but even such wonder cannot take Hob’s attention from the gift that the wrapping reveals.
There on the coffee table sits a little toy horse, made of bone-colored clay. Its legs are too small for its body, its face just two poke-holes for eyes— it could be mistaken for a child’s art project, if anyone saw it out of context.
And anyone else alive today, archaeologists excluded, would see it out of context.
“Orvyn,” Hob whispers. And only when his voice comes out muted does he realize that he’s covered his mouth with both hands. Tears well without effort and fall without sound. Then comes a hesitant touch between his shoulder blades.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Dream frets.
“No, no, you didn’t. I’m not,” Hob babbles, pulling his hands away and hugging himself across the chest instead. “This is amazing. Dream, this is amazing. Thank you. I mean, thank you isn’t enough, but— thank you. Where, um. Where did you find him?”
“You’ve dreamed of him. Many times. Hob— you know this is Dreamstuff. It isn’t really your horse.”
“I know. But no. It is. I mean. Look at him, it’s Orvyn.”
Dream is smiling. “I didn’t know he had a name.”
Hob nods, peeling one arm away to mop at still-streaming tears.
“You can pick him up,” Dream coaxes, softly. “He isn’t old. He isn’t fragile.”
It’s an odd thing to say of a piece that rightly belongs in a climate-controlled museum case— Children’s Toys of the Late Middle Ages— but it’s true that he doesn’t look any older than the last time Hob saw him. He lifts Orvyn, in two trembling hands, and regards him like the miracle he is.
“This is incredible,” Hob murmurs, relearning every detail in an instant. Taking in the ridge of parallel lines down his head and back, representing the mane; the nub of a tail; the thumbprint of the craftsman on one flank, just where it always was, immortalized in Hob’s memory just as surely as it had been immortalized in Oryvn’s clay.
“I don’t have anything from— Jesus. I really don’t have anything from before about 1800,” Hob muses. “Certainly nothing from my childhood. And it’s fine. I don’t think of it much. But—”
He sniffs again. Dream’s arm settles lightly around his shoulders.
“I can’t lie,” Hob continues. “Sometimes it does hurt a bit. Things are important, you know; we try to say they’re not, but they are. They help you remember. Like proof. If you can touch something from a moment, if you can hold it in your hands, then that moment was real.
“And so it’s like, look! Six hundred and sixty-some years ago there was a skinny little peasant boy. Sat on a dirt floor, playing with his horsie. And he was real. And he was me.”
And then Hob is bawling, like that same child would have, cradling Oryvn to his chest, as Dream holds him to his chest in turn. He hiccups noisily into the (not-)god’s shirtfront. And he is so safe and warm and loved, then, that he feels a piece of himself make its home in this moment.
(It’s the first home that the little peasant boy has had in over six centuries.)
“Thank you, love,” Hob murmurs, after some time, emerging from Dream’s embrace with aching eyes and an easy smile. “I didn’t know how much I needed that. Any of that.” He looks down at his hands, a tiny piece of him expecting the horse to be gone; but Orvyn is still there.
Dream hums, tilts his head ever-so-slightly. “You know, you dream of yourself as a peasant, more often than not.”
“Do I? You mean, with the— with the beard and all?”
“Yes. Not always. But frequently.”
“—and how often are you spying on my dreams?”
Dream huffs a soundless laugh.
“Gah,” Hob mumbles; he never wants to put Orvyn down again, but he really does have to blow his nose. He sets him back on the coffee table, pulls a hanky from his pocket, and does so. “Need to get you something amazing for your birthday, now,” he remarks, stowing the dampened cloth.
Dream’s voice is warm, amused. “I don’t have a birthday, Hob.”
“Unbirthday, then.”
“If you wish.”
“I do. I mean. I can’t just let you give me this and not give you anything in turn!”
“I’m pleased you like it. I did bring cake, as well.”
“Cake!” This is as good a reason as any to finish gathering himself: to wipe his eyes one last time, and give his spine a good cracking. “And what kind of cake have you plucked from the ether?”
“From Dream, Hob Gadling,” Dream replies, with a haughtiness that is most certainly intentional. “I have selected another that was made for your show.”
Pretending to not know the name of The Great British Bake Off has got to be intentional as well, given how may episodes they’ve watched together by now. Hob grins. “Go on, then. From this last series? One of Maxy’s?”
“It is from the series that in currently in production,” Dream replies, casually.
“You mean—the one filming now?”
“Yes. I thought this might serve as a preview.”
“Ohmigod, ’m gonna cry again,” Hob whispers; and he doesn’t, but the laughter that follows is damp and gasping and not entirely within his control. He rubs both hands across his face, from the centerline outward. “Ohhh my god. Okay. I wonder what the copyright lawyers would have to say about that.”
“I think they would encounter difficulties in building their case.”
Hob laughs, less wetly now. “Good point. Okay, ‘m ready for cake.”
“It’s in the kitchen,” Dream replies, getting them both to their feet. “Come.”
And Hob, a grown man and then some, brings his toy horse along.
*
For a never-born, not-a-human entity, Dream has some distinctly English characteristics: even as the days grow warmer and warmer, he still arrives with steaming pots of lovely, earthy tea.
On this occasion, it’s exactly what Hob had hoped for. He dashes to his cabinet to procure two mugs, purchased just this afternoon, and precisely for this reason. He sets them on the counter and takes the pot from Dream’s hands so he can pour.
“I was hoping you’d bring tea! Look what I got,” he babbles. “They’re so tacky, I know. But I saw them at the store and it was just a moment of, well, dammit, I want the one with the H on it. Even though I’m Robbie this time ‘round. I wanted the one with the H. So I got it, and while I was at it I figured you should have one here too. It’s important to have a designated mug. Should I have— gotten you the one with M on it?”
Because Dream has not matched his enthusiasm, not even in his typically restrained way. Instead he is silent, and veritably staring.
An old ache, a flare of insecurity— it’s almost enough to send Hob backing down. Luckily an iota of wisdom has come with age.
That isn’t the face of a man offended.
“All right, love?” Hob prompts, setting the teapot down.
Dream nods.
“You sure?”
“It’s— perfect.”
“Yeah?”
“The gift. It is perfect.”
“Oh. No, that’s— that’s not your gift. I’m still thinking about that, I swear. This is just— a mug.”
Just a mug, he says; but something inside reminds him gently that Oryvn is just a toy horse.
“I mean, I’m glad you like it,” Hob continues, softer now. “You can take it with you, if you want, it doesn’t have to stay here—”
“It stays here,” Dream interrupts, firmly.
“Okay.”
“For when I need a mug, and I am at your flat.”
“Exactly.”
Dream smiles; and it occurs to Hob that those blue eyes have gone damp. He smiles back. Starts with a hand between Dream’s shoulders, and just the smallest bit of pressure; it’s all he needs to do before his friend is wilting into his arms, burying his face against Hob’s neck.
“I know,” Hob murmurs, “I’ve got you.” Not because he thinks Dream is actually properly crying, but because, well. He does have him. And he does know. He knows very, very well how important it is to have somewhere safe, somewhere private. Somewhere you keep that tacky mug with your initial on it.
Hob lets Dream be the one to pull away; in the end it’s long minutes before he does so. Then, in comfortable silence, they head into the living room, respective mugs in hand. Dreamstuff tea in a £4 Tesco mug, Hob muses. What’s a better gift than that?
