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Dream was lying in the grass, his torso upright as he watched Hob move around their small camp. They'd left Unity's barn a week past and his wound was now well healed enough that he no longer needed constant bandages on it.
His ears flicked at the sudden clatter of Hob dropping his bag — the human had so many things he insisted he, they, needed — before the man darted off to the treeline with a strange gait. The behavior was strange enough to unnerve him and Dream regained his hooves under him to warily approach Hob. Until he heard the telltale groan of relief accompanied by the sounds of urination and reared back slightly with an affronted snort. He wouldn't admit that he was in truth embarrassed and stamped one of his forelegs to dislodge the feeling.
Still, he had been heard and Hob cast a sheepish flushed face look over his shoulder as he stammered, "I'm, uh…just a mo' please."
Dream's ears were half-back, his tail swishing in annoyance as Hob did a strange shimmy of his hips and lowered the one hand he'd been leaning against the tree in front of him with. The man's movements were strangely focused around the bottom of his torso even though Dream had no doubt he'd heard Hob passing water.
He'd never stopped to consider where humans passed such things from but given their limit of two legs it had to be different from centaurs. Perhaps they expelled such bodily waste from the cleft of their behinds. Distracted by his thoughts, Dream didn't notice the boar approaching their camp until Hob was yelping and stumbling back from the charging creature.
Instinct took over and before he'd decided to do so, Dream was charging the boar in turn. He reared up and kicked at the incensed pig but his size and battle cry were enough to see it turn tail retreating back into the wood. Ears flat and chest heaving, he didn't realize how he'd positioned himself until from beneath him he heard Hob choke on a coughing laugh and flop down into the grass.
Dream carefully stepped clear of the human he'd positioned within the safe shadow of his body, between the cage of his four legs. He looked down at Hob, face red and eyes screwed shut, as the man let out a trembling breath and airy, "Fuck." Movement drew his eyes to the meeting point of Hob's legs where he now noted the man's hands were curiously tensed and cupped, as if he were protecting something, before relaxing and dropping to his sides.
He leaned forward, ears at attention in consideration of this curious behavior and how Hob's trousers remained undone. There was the same bulge visible in the pants beneath that Dream had previously noticed but couldn't understand. Eyes still closed, Hob sighed, breathing finally calming, as Dream's hand froze where it had begun to reach out, to touch.
"Never thought I'd get caught with my trou down like this…fuck!" Hob heartily exclaimed. "Between that boar and you, I thought my hobnob was about to become a hobnob-no-more."
Hob grimaced at his own words and barreled on before Dream's offense could take root. "Ah, christ, that. I didn't mean it like that. Shit, I mean if it weren't for you," the man finally cracked open his eyes before they went wide with surprise at Dream's continued, voluntary, proximity, "I. It's likely I'd have been gored by that pig. So, yeah…thank you."
Dream opened and closed his mouth several times, his ears mirroring the same indecision Hob's words had sparked within him. He shook his head and shrugged. "It would be troublesome if you became injured."
An awkward silence settled between them. Dream remained bent over Hob, hand outstretched, and all the while Hob remained perfectly still in his newly settled position in the grass, watching Dream with a disconcertingly intense gaze. Awe twinkled in the man's eye and it made Dream's withers shiver. He couldn't continue to hold that rapt gaze and broke it to instead look at the bottom of Hob's torso once more. Pointing to where he'd seen those tense protective hands, Dream asked, "Is this the 'hobnob' you spoke of?"
Hob turned a brilliant shade of scarlet at this question and Dream finally straightened as he continued. "Centaurs do not have any part called such a name. Do all humans have 'hobnobs'?"
The man was now propped up on his hands looking up at Dream from the ground. "Um, ah, well that is."
This hemming and hawing irritated Dream and he scowled down at Hob. Arms crossed over his chest he snapped, "You are preposterous! You tell me to ask you questions about humans and then you refuse to answer me when I finally do!"
Tail twitching in annoyance, Dream began to turn away from the sputtering creature on the ground. Then a hand was on his fetlock and he froze, ears flattening to his skull as he glared down. No sooner had the hand touched him than it was snatched back, the owner of it looking cowed.
"I'm sorry, Dream. I…I wasn't trying to refuse you an answer. Just got embarrassed I used that dumb name to refer to my," Hob looked away, "dick."
He couldn't help the small, surprised whicker that unexpected answer pulled from him. Dream's brain was spinning trying to incorporate this new knowledge. Hob glanced up at him, still red as a tomato, but nodded in affirmation when Dream pointed down his own body to his shaft nestled between his hind legs.
It…it wasn't fair and he shouted, "You mean it's right there?!"
Hob looked shocked at the sudden outburst but then slow realization began blooming across his features. He rose to his feet and held out a hand in offer to Dream, "It is. Do you want to see?"
A full-body shiver wracked Dream’s body at that and, despite a false start, he took Hob’s hand allowing himself to be drawn closer to the human. He followed Hob’s gentle tugging, leading him back to the spot they’d bedded down the previous night. The human pulled out his blanket from the bag he’d dropped and settled atop it after properly dropping his trousers. Dream laid back down in the grass before Hob’s perch on the blanket-covered log and drank in the sight of his furred legs, although Dream’s true view was blocked. Still, he had not realized how fully furred Hob was until this moment and was not overly annoyed at the man for delaying Dream’s sight of him while he freed one leg of boot and garments.
Nothing could have prepared him though for when Hob finished his task and sat back up. Those strongly muscled thighs fell open comfortably as Hob’s weight settled on one arm, leaning casually, while his other hand began tugging on his ear. Dream’s blood sang and warmth pooled low in his belly. He’d never realized how tantalizing humans could be. He couldn’t help but stare.
Finally a nervous chuckle escaped Hob after long moments spent in silence with Dream desperately ignoring his growing need to rut into the soft earth beneath him. “I suppose, I- us, humans must look a right sight to a centaur?”
The self-deprecating tone in Hob’s voice would not be borne. How could anyone look at this man and not think him…stunning? The thought, the realization that Dream found Hob — a human — beyond attractive but desirable took him by surprise and he unthinkingly snorted his annoyance. Hob startled and immediately started down for his trousers, a tumble of words spilling from his lips.
“Right, yeah. This was. Stupid. Sorry for sugges-”
Hob’s words cut off in a sharp intake of breath as Dream caught both of his wrists. It was the first time he’d voluntarily touched this warm, kind man who smelled of so many of the things he’d grown to loath over the last ten years, but also so many things that were uniquely his own. He loosed his grip and trailed his fingers down to trace the ridges and bumps of Hob’s knuckles, relishing in the shiver it elicited. Hob was looking at him with eyes as dark as a new moon and a flush spreading from his ears down beyond his neckline. “Dream?”
“I do not think you are a ‘right sight’, Robert Gadling. You are captivating and confounding.”
Smiling at Dream like a maniac, the man turned his hands twining his fingers with Dream’s where they had continued their lazy dance across skin. He flipped his hair and splayed himself out further in invitation. “Well then, perhaps, you need do more than just look, duck.”