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By chance, they had been the only two people trying this somewhat challenging hike to a remote campsite. It was remote enough that it was safer to go with someone else, even for just a single overnight. Even if that someone else was a stranger. Hob knew only that the other man’s name was Dream, that he was an omega, he was twenty-seven, (only five years Hob’s junior,) that he was an artist, and that he looked more like he belonged on the cover of a magazine than alone in the wilderness. Hob, who had not gotten this far away from the city to make small talk with strangers, hadn’t tried to engage him further, and Dream had seemed likewise uninterested in conversation. Hob had taken this trip for his mental health, the third anniversary of his mate’s death making him emotional enough that he had known ahead of time to request the leave and take a short getaway on his own.
They had spent an uneventful first night with only exchanged nods over their shared campfire, and Hob had slept late the next morning, then passed his time reading. He noted that Dream apparently had gotten up early to hike some more; Hob saw him going into his own tent about lunchtime and did not see him come out again. Then about two hours before sunset, Dream had stumbled over to Hob’s tent, flushed, shaking, and looking scared. And smelling a very specific way that Hob recognized immediately even before he unzipped the tent door.
“Hob?” Dream said, his voice shaking. “I think. Something is wrong.”
“You’re in heat,” Hob said, unsure if Dream was coherent enough to understand what he was saying.
“Oh…” Dream said.
“When did your symptoms start?” Hob asked, taking shelter from the way his body was reacting to the onslaught of omega hormones by intentionally shifting into professional nurse mode. His mind may not have paid attention to how gorgeous a man Dream was, but his body certainly had, and his instincts were screaming at him to touch the omega immediately.
“I do not know,” Dream said slowly, sounding dazed. “I woke up? Just now? I felt normal this morning.”
“You were sweating a lot when you came back to camp,” Hob pointed out. That had been just after noon, surely no later. “I assumed it was just exertion from the hike.”
“Was it?” Dream said. “After I got back. I felt… tired, and confused, so … Took a nap.” He blinked at Hob, dazed.
“I can’t believe you went hiking on your own, this far out, this close to a heat,” Hob couldn’t stop his voice from rising in consternation, even as Dream whimpered involuntarily at the sound of an alpha speaking angrily to him.
“I…” Dream stammered.
“Shh, I’m sorry,” Hob murmured. He reached out and instinctively pulled Dream to him, encouraging him to sit down and holding him tightly, pressing Dream’s nose into his neck so that he could let his scent calm the omega. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
“He didn’t…I did not…”
“Who didn't?” Hob prompted
“My husband. Made me take pills for most of the time I was with him. My cycles have been irregular since I got free. I did not know…”
Not his mate, Hob noted with a sinking feeling in his stomach. Not his mate, but his husband; and he had kept Dream on some kind of hormone-suppressing drugs? Were Dream’s parents of that backwards faction that still sold off their young omega offspring to rich older alphas? From his upper-class accent and Dream’s looks, Hob wouldn’t be surprised. He also took note that Dream was still mostly coherent, but getting noticeably worse as they spoke. Which meant that he was not yet past hour 7, but probably very close to it. They were also at least two hours' fast hike from a major road, which meant that even if he could help Dream get to civilization in that length of time, he would need to have someone from a specialty heat agency already waiting by the time they got there. And their cell phone service had been spotty since they had left the last waystation.
Or.
Or they could stay here, and he could help Dream through his heat. The erection that had been making his clothes uncomfortable since he had gotten close enough to touch Dream - a biological reaction to being this close to an omega in heat - was already well on board with this second option, but this wasn’t a decision he could make with his cock. He tried to move to let Dream continue to press his face against Hob’s neck while keeping his front turned away.
Hob swallowed hard as Dream whimpered, his fever-hot skin uncomfortable even secondhand, pressed against Hob’s chest. Dream was nothing like his mate had been, physically; Eleanor had been short, curvy and blonde, and he felt a suspicion it was that complete difference that was stopping him from panicking and being drowned in memories of her. With Dream pressed close against him, his scent flooding his mouth and nose, it was difficult not to think about what the omega was feeling. He remembered his own first rut after Eleanor had died in childbirth (his child, his fault, his mind howled , even three years later) and how he had not wanted to call an agency. The burning fever had been so miserable that it felt like what he had deserved. But as his sanity slowly left him, he had hallucinated that Ellie had been there in the room with him, yelling at him for being willing to give up, instead of being brave enough to go on living without her, and he had hit send on the text message to the agency that he had written and then stared at for hours as his mind slipped away.
He had sworn never to risk getting anyone else pregnant. But if Dream had been on medication that messed with his cycle as badly as he described, the chances of his being fertile this time were small. And, biologically speaking, he had a better chance of helping Dream now than if they tried and failed to make it back to civilization in time.
“Dream,” Hob said quietly, tilting the omega’s chin up so that he would meet Hob’s gaze. “I need you to tell me what you want. I know we just met yesterday. But we’re far enough away from help that I might not be able to get you to an agency in time. Do you have a partner? Or a friend that you have an arrangement with?”
Dream shook his head slowly, not taking his eyes off Hob’s face. “No. I. After Roderick…” he bit his lip and shivered.
“It’s ok, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. But I need to know what you want. If we're going to hike down we need to leave now. Do you want to leave, or do you want me to help you through your heat?”
Dream reached up and gingerly touched the mourning patch that Hob wore on the left side of his neck over the bonding site. “You … have… had… a mate?” his words were becoming more and more slurred and Hob knew his judgment of how far along Dream was had likely been accurate. They weren’t going to make it down the mountain in time, particularly when Dream wouldn't be able to move at a normal speed.
“Eleanor,” Hob said, his voice hoarse. “Ellie. She died. Three years ago this month.”
“Oh,” Dream said, a small frown creasing his forehead. “Roderick died too. I should…” he reached up to touch the left side of his own neck, where Hob could make out a faint scar in the dim light from the solar lantern. Dream giggled in quiet hysteria. “My mother said I should wear one but…he was not truly my mate. He did not love me. I am glad he is dead.”
“I need you to give me an answer if you can, sweetheart,” Hob said, choosing to ignore the delirious ramblings of the omega in his arms. He wouldn’t hold Dream accountable for anything strange he said at this point. “I need you to tell me if you want me to take care of you, or if you want me to try and help you hike down to somewhere we can get help.”
“Smell good,” Dream murmured, rubbing his face against the scent gland just under Hob’s jaw. “Please. Hob, please.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Alpha, please. I will be good, I promise,” Dream whined, and Hob's heart sank just a little as he realized that was all he was going to get from the man.
“Shh. I know you will. You’re so good, sweetheart,” Hob said. “I’m going to wash up, I’ll be gone three minutes tops - and I want you to get comfortable, alright? Take off whatever you want to take off, and I’ll be right back." Dream whimpered pitifully but nodded, taking an order from the man his hormone-soaked brain had decided was his alpha. Hob tried to bury the part of him that screamed yes, this man was his, and he needed to prove his claim immediately, before some challenger showed up to fight him for Dream.
Hob’s first stop, as he said, was to piss and wash his hands with the camp shower he'd set up. It wasn’t a hospital-grade job, but he knew he’d be putting his hands all over Dream, and both of them had gotten sweaty and grimy on the hike, and then spent the night here. His next stop was to jog over to Dream’s tent and grab what he found there; a container of drinking water, snacks, and the sleeping bag and pillow, if you could call the pitiful inflating object that was built for hiking packs a pillow. He carried them back to his own tent. It would help Dream if he had things around him that had his own scent, as well as Hob’s. It might help to ground him, at least a little, to feel like he was in his own territory. He ignored the part of his mind that was yelling that this was a bad idea, that it was selfish and that Dream would hate him for it, after.
When he pushed his way back into the tent, he found Dream, completely naked, stretched out on Hob's sleeping bag. He had grabbed Hob's jacket and was shoving his nose into the collar, clearly trying to inhale the natural scent Hob would have left behind from wearing it. He was just as pale all over as Hob had expected him to be, sparse black hair on his chest trailing down his stomach and then thickening again to frame his slim omega’s cock. Dream was still slender, but without his clothes, Hob could see the wiry muscles that had been hidden before. His jet black hair hung damp in his face as his head snapped up at Hob’s arrival, and Hob saw his nostrils flare. He had to steel himself against the urge to throw himself at the omega and pin him to the ground.
“Hey, sweetheart, look at you, you did such a good job,” Hob said, keeping his voice gentle and light with effort as Dream's scent threatened to overwhelm him again. He put the water to one side and laid out the second sleeping bag and pillow next to his own. Then he closed up the door of the tent and stripped off his shirt.
The noise that Dream made when Hob started to pull down his trousers was barely human; he sat up and growled at Hob, reaching out a greedy hand to try and grab hold of him.
“Hob,” Dream managed to get out, but that was all.
“You’re ok, I’m right here,” Hob said. “Not going anywhere, I promise.”
Hob sat and tried to get comfortable on the sleeping pad once he had stripped off the last of his clothes. He had never been with an omega whose heat had gotten so far advanced before, and knew what to expect only from his medical training and other continuing education classes. Clinical information. He wasn’t going to be able to remain detached, though, he could tell that already.
“Come here, sweetheart,” Hob said, holding out a hand, and an instant later his lap was full of hot, bare, pale skin. Dream’s mouth was on his before he could open it to say anything else, and his scent set Hob’s blood on fire; heady, suffocating waves that made his brain and body scream to touch, to kiss, to fuck. To take care of this omega who needed so very, very badly to be taken care of. Hob would still have tried to keep kissing off the table, not wanting to take more liberties with a near stranger than he had to, but Dream refused to stop kissing him . Hob ran a soothing hand down his spine, feeling how Dream shook against him. His hand dipped lower, over the faint curve of his bottom and down into the cleft of his ass, where he was dripping and soft already. Hob pressed one finger gently into Dream’s hole and Dream broke the kiss to moan so loudly that Hob felt like it shook the entire tent around them.
“Hob please,” Dream was panting. “Please, alpha, I need-”
“I know,” Hob moved his lips to Dream’s ear, licking and nibbling at the soft skin, so close to the source of that intoxicating scent. “I know what you need, Dream, I promise.” He pressed a second finger in to join the first, the worry about stretching him properly going out the window when he felt how easily Dream took him.
The next thing he knew, Dream had knocked him down, shoving him hard until he fell back against the makeshift bed, showing an unexpected strength in that wiry frame. Before he could open his mouth to protest Dream had lined Hob’s cock up and was sliding down onto him. Hob grabbed at his hips instinctively and tried not to yell. He didn’t want to scare Dream again by being too loud, but he could not stop the obscene moan that escaped his lips as he felt just how hot and wet Dream was around him. He hadn’t done this with anyone since his last rut, nearly eight months ago and he had to remind himself that his instincts were what he needed to follow, not his higher brain function that told him he needed to hold out for his partner’s pleasure.
Hob’s thoughts tapered off into static as Dream began to ride him in earnest, sobbing incoherently at the feeling of Hob’s cock inside him, only the barest hint of words escaping to make it to Hob’s ears “yes,” and “alpha,” and “knot.” Hob felt like he was drowning in Dream’s heady scent and the tight grip of his hole, and in only moments he felt his knot begin to swell. Dream could feel it too and moaned loudly again, moving faster until Hob came with a shout. The tight pressure of Dream’s body squeezing his knot as he came made him go dizzy from pleasure, and he felt himself holding the omega tighter, gripping Dream’s thighs until he felt his short fingernails pressing hard enough that he was in danger of breaking the skin.
His orgasm brought back some semblance of brain function, and he continued to hold onto Dream’s hips to keep him from tugging at his knot as he whined and sobbed with relief. With a partner in heat, Hob should be ready to go again in very little time; that was why he had made sure to get the extra water, he reminded himself. And as far into his heat as Dream seemed to be, knotting him quickly, as many times in a row as he could manage, was the best chance of getting his hormones to a level where they could have an actual conversation.
Hob only wished he knew how that conversation was going to go. Dream had been just this side of stand-offish during their hike up the mountain, and if he returned to that it could make the next day or two even more awkward.
But twenty four hours of intermittent fucking passed in a haze, and it somehow wasn’t awkward, at all. Dream with his ability to speak restored was even more of a menace than Dream who had been feral and just shy of completely non-verbal. It meant he could beg for Hob to hold him down and fuck him in the most absurdly elegant language, in that incongruously deep voice of his.
Hob woke up from a light doze to the sensation of Dream climbing on top of him again and sinking down onto his cock. The pace was less frantic now, at least. Which was good, because even though Hob had worked hard to stay in good physical condition this last year, servicing an omega in heat took its toll.
“What time is it?” Hob asked. There was hardly any light coming in from the mesh window of the tent, which only meant that it was at least an hour past sunset and that it was overcast enough that they couldn’t see the moon.
“I have no idea how to tell,” Dream admitted. “You turned your phone off to save the battery. I believe I slept for a few hours. Before it… oh yes, there!” his voice trailed off but it was less inability to speak than his quickly approaching orgasm. Hob reached down without thinking to stroke Dream’s cock and help him over the edge, hissing in discomfort as his knot inflated again in response to Dream’s orgasm.
“How long do your heats normally last?” Hob asked finally, when their breathing had slowed.
“I do not know,” Dream admitted. “It has been too many years since I had them as they should have been.”
“Why would that bastard do that to you?” Hob wondered out loud, mostly to himself, his face pressed into Dream’s shoulder.
“He found my heats … inconvenient,” Dream said with a sigh. “He was in his 70's and had difficulty keeping up with them. I had two heats naturally, after we were married, and then after I failed to get pregnant either time, he decided it was not worth the effort I required."
“Christ, I'm glad he’s dead,” Hob said, tired enough that he was only slightly concerned that he'd said it aloud. He tried not to yawn but it was useless. He heard Dream’s echoing yawn and then a sleepy chuckle.
“I was glad to be mostly ignored, truly.”
“Yeah but being on suppressants for years at a time…”
“My sister was quite as upset as you seem to be,” Dream said. “But it is over with, and the specialists I have seen think that my cycle will eventually stabilize back to normal. It has just… taken longer than we expected, evidently.”
“Whatever time it is, we've been at this at least 48 hours,” Hob said. God, it was so easy to talk to him like this, alone in the near perfect dark, half asleep and running on instinct more than anything else. "Can I convince you to eat anything?"
"Must I?" complained Dream.
"Just one of the high calorie running gels or something, love. Then we'll try to get some more sleep and see how you feel in the morning.”
"Whenever morning is," Dream muttered sleepily, bending over to lay his head against Hob’s shoulder
By the time they reached the small shelter at the base of the trail, Hob was nearly carrying Dream, as well as a good portion of their gear. Dream’s tent had been left in a bundle on the trail about a mile back, after the man’s exhausted insistence that he could simply buy another one.
There was a woman standing at the ranger station with a cell phone to her ear. She looked furious, and the park ranger looked rather as if she had been yelling at him.
“Sister?” Dream asked, sounding relieved. The woman whirled around, and hung up the phone.
“Dream! You were due back two days ago. Your phone wasn’t on, I couldn’t call you, we couldn’t track you…”
“I did not,” he looked at Hob guiltily. They had only had enough charge left in the portable battery pack to keep one phone charged up, and Hob’s had gotten better reception than Dream’s had. “We did not have a way to charge it. Telute, I am sorry, I…”
“He went into heat,” Hob said, when it became clear that Dream was not able to explain further. “Didn’t notice it until it was too late to make it back to civilization. He said his cycles have been irregular since-” he broke off, looking at Dream before he accidentally said anything she didn’t already know. But if this was Dream’s sister, perhaps she already did know. She looked nothing like him, her dark skin and tight curls a polar opposite to Dream’s pale complexion and wispy spiked hair. But the expression on her face was pure older sister.
“Since I have been on my own,” Dream finished for Hob. “Hob, it is alright; she is a doctor.”
“Come here, you nightmare,” Dream’s sister snapped, sounding as if she were fighting back tears. “Sit down, let me check you out. Ugh, you still smell like a heat, too,” she grumbled in true sibling fashion. She was an alpha, and the face she made when she got close enough to smell Dream’s residual pheromones said more than their lack of genetic resemblance ever could. Siblings.
“Hob?” Dream asked, tremulously, while still sitting down in obedience to his sister’s orders.
“I’m here, sweetheart,” Hob said. He sat down next to Dream, as far away as he could get while still being able to keep a steadying hand on the back of Dream’s neck. His breathing slowed as Hob’s fingers rubbed gentle patterns on his skin.
“I’m going to assume that you helped my brother through his heat,” Telute said, sounding both unhappy and relieved.
“Hob Gadling,” he said, reaching out his free hand to offer a handshake. “We were up on that mountain pretty much on our own. At least a two hour hike from anywhere with road access. I’m a nurse. Had the usual training. By the time he came to find me, I was pretty sure he was close to hour seven.”
Telute’s lips thinned as she checked Dream’s pulse and made him open his mouth to check his level of hydration before handing him an unopened bottle of water.
“I asked him, sister,” Dream said quietly as he sipped the water. “He did not take advantage of me.”
“Arguable,” Hob sighed, but the look Dream gave him was so hurt that he couldn’t stay upset about it. “Hey. You’re ok. We’re both ok. That’s what matters, alright?”
“I’ve already called for an ambulance; I’d really like to get him to a hospital,” Telute said, putting the blood pressure cuff and a few other items back into her backpack, and putting an arm around Dream protectively.
Dream’s own phone was still dead, so Hob got his number from his sister, as well as her own and sat down to wait for the ambulance to arrive. Dream insisted on sitting on the floor next to Hob and curled up against his right side, face pressed against his neck. His sister didn’t look thrilled about it, but she didn’t say anything. Dream needed the physical touch and Hob was bound to smell more comforting in the storm of post-heat hormones than his sister would. Dream nearly fell asleep that way, and Hob wished he could - they had both spent close to three days with far too much physical exertion and not enough rest, let alone the proper foods.
“I do not wish to go to the hospital,” Dream grumbled against Hob’s skin when his sister shook him awake.
“Probably a good idea though, just to be safe. I’m going to need help getting the rest of our gear down from the camp,” Hob said.
“You are leaving?” Dream said, sitting up and looking at him in panic.
“Shh, it’s ok,” Hob said, pressing a gentle kiss to his cheek. “Let your sister take care of you. I gave her my number, if you want to see me later, you can reach out to me."
Dream looked at the text message from Hob that was on his phone. All it said was “hi, this is Hob Gadling.” He had sent it before the ambulance had taken him away, with Tel driving to follow them to the hospital, before Dream’s phone had been charged at all to receive the message. He was fine, of course; Hob had almost certainly saved his life. When he had finally turned his phone back on to catch up on three days worth of increasingly frantic texts and voicemails from his siblings, it was already there, waiting at the top of the list. He had not yet decided if he should save the number in his contacts.
“I did a background check on him,” Telute had said, when he was discharged from the hospital, as she drove him back to his quiet flat. “He’s exactly what he told us. Thirty-three year old district nurse and widower. No indication you’d ever met each other at any point before you both decided to take a stupidly long hike in the same place.”
“He lost his mate,” Dream murmured, remembering bits and pieces of the conversation they’d had, wrapped around each other, sweaty and exhausted in Hob’s tent.
“Three years ago, yes,” Telute said, her voice still curt with tension. She walked him to his door and made sure he got safely inside, and that he had food in the fridge, and hydration drinks. “I feel like I should make you stay with me, but the doctors said you have no complications.”
“I am not an invalid,” Dream said with a sigh. “And I am not a child, Tel. I am a widower just as Hob is, in fact.”
"Your miserable excuse for a husband," Telute snorted. “If I’d realized that he was preventing you from calling or talking to any of us…”
“You would have done, what, precisely, my sister?” Dream shot back. “I barely saw my husband for the last four years of our marriage. He locked me away like a particularly lovely butterfly in a glass case and only rarely took me out to look at me. I never had to make a single decision about what to eat, what to wear or where to go. Now, after a year of trying to build my own life, I try to take one very short trip to find inspiration for my art, and to prove that I am capable of being on my own, and end up… like this.” He sighed again.
“Look, I’m not upset with you, I promise,” Telute said. “You’ve only been off the suppressants for a year. The doctors all said there was no reasonable way to predict you’d have a heat this soon after your last one, even with your cycle not stabilizing yet.”
“Should I call him?” Dream said, ignoring what she had said, and staring at the text messaging app on his phone that still showed one unread message from an unsaved number.
“Dream…”
“He said that I could.”
“Yeah. He said that because you were coming down off the hormone high of an off-cycle heat and were panicking every time the person your body had decided was your alpha got too far away from you.” Telute said the words as gently as she could but Dream still felt himself flinch away from them. “You need to figure out your own life, little brother, not get into a relationship with the first person who turns your head.”
He was kind to me, he wanted to say. He was good to me. He made me feel more alive than anyone I have ever met.
But Hob Gadling was still hardly more than a stranger, just like the professionals from the heat agencies had been. He had done something to help save another human being’s life, following what his siblings informed him were normal alpha instincts. And perhaps that was all it had been, no matter the gentle words he had said to Dream, over and over. Perhaps he was so kind to everyone. Dream waited until his sister left and then stared at the unopened text message on his phone for a long time.
Desire showed up at Dream’s door two weeks later, with tequila and ice cream, and shoved Dream aside to let themself in.
“So explain to me why Tel is so pissed off and won’t talk to any of us about why you were missing for two days,” they said, after handing Dream a pint of caramel fudge and a spoon.
Dream told them the whole story, quietly, not meeting their eyes until he had finished it.
“So are you going to see him again?” Desire asked immediately once he had stopped speaking.
“I do not know if he wants to see me,” Dream admitted, risking a glance upward to check the look on their face. “He lost his mate and he said he did not think he would ever want to take another.”
"I'm not suggesting a wedding, brother, I'm saying at least let him know you would like to see him again. Ask him out for coffee, invite him to see your next gallery show."
"I do not even know if he drinks coffee," Dream said, despairing.
“How was the sex, then?” Desire asked, their eyes glinting with amusement.
Dream blushed. “I do not have that much basis for comparison.”
“Liar,” they laughed. “I know for a fact that you've had to use alphas from at least two different agencies since that stupid husband of yours died. We’re not even going to count him .”
“Hob was… wonderful,” Dream said. “But what if I ask to see him and he says no?”
“Then he says no, and I bring you more ice cream,” Desire said with a shrug. “Honestly Dream, if you don’t at least text him, I’ll steal your phone and do it the next time you accidentally leave it at Tel’s house.”
As Desire held out their hand and Dream jerked the phone away from them, holding it against his shoulder, it buzzed. A new message from Hob.
"Thinking about you; hope you are doing well."
“How did you do that?” he asked Desire, accusingly.
“Me?” Desire scoffed. “I don’t know what kind of magical powers you think they grant with a theater degree, but I guarantee you I don’t have them.”
“He said that he hopes I am doing well,” Dream said, mostly to himself.
“You should ask to see him.”
“Telute said-” Dream started but Desire didn’t let him finish.
“So don’t tell her! Our older sister means well, Dream. But she also doesn’t think you are capable of making your own decisions, and she’s wrong. You’re allowed to do things just because you want to do them, my precious, confused older brother.”
That ‘older’ was always hanging there between them, since Dream had gotten free; the fact that even though Desire was younger, they had lived more of their life independently than Dream had. That Desire had run away from home just before they turned seventeen, vowing that they would not be sold off like Dream had been. That when their parents had tried to put Despair in a mental hospital, they had essentially kidnapped their twin. That Dream had not known about any of this until years after the fact, because he had been trapped in the Burgess mansion, with no access to a phone or computer and with all his mail intercepted. For years, all that he had to live through were his pictures and his stories. He knew that his older sister had berated herself over it; what if she had pushed harder to find out why Dream had never called or written? Dream also asked himself, if he had fought harder against his own ill-fated marriage if he would have been able to help his younger siblings instead of leaving them to fend for themselves. Now, he had his freedom, and with it the burden of deciding what to do with it.
Hob had collapsed for nearly the entire forty eight hours he was at home by himself, sleeping the exhausted sleep of someone who had pushed himself too hard. But those hours he was awake he couldn’t stop thinking of Dream.
He had never gotten a response to his message, but Dream was doing fine, wherever he was, obviously. His big sister had made sure he got proper care and would probably check up on him afterwards from the sound of things. The fact that he had not called or sent a text just meant that Dream’s hormone induced attachment to Hob had worn off and he was fine . The last thing he needed was another overbearing alpha trying to take over his life. Christ. The things he had told Hob, half out of his mind, about his family and his marriage. If he remembered saying any of it, he would probably be too embarrassed to see Hob face to face again. Never mind that Hob had told Dream plenty about his own past, if Dream didn’t want to see him again, he had to accept that, and needed to get back to some semblance of his normal life.
What he had expected to happen, but hadn’t, was the emotional crash he’d experienced after his last couple of ruts. The sense of shame and self-loathing, hating his body for his part in the pregnancy that resulted in the death of his mate. Through sheer luck, Dream had needed an alpha, and when Hob had given in to his instincts, to what they both wanted, nothing bad had happened.
Two weeks later, his resolve had cracked and sent Dream another text before clocking in for his shift. He hadn’t let himself truly expect a reply, but one came anyway.
“I would like to see you again. It does not need to be in a romantic context should you not wish it,” the message read, almost funny in the way that it stood out from the rest of his messages, with its complete sentences and proper punctuation. Dream texted exactly like he spoke.
Or… he texted like someone who hadn’t been allowed to use a cell phone to send text messages for seven or eight developmentally formative years, Hob realized with a wince.
That wasn’t important though. What was important was that he said he would like to see Hob again, which was a surprise that Hob tried to keep from bubbling over and out of his chest. It was surprising enough to learn that the place Dream proposed to meet - an out of the way park that Hob had somehow never been to - was not that far away from where he lived.
Dream was, unsurprisingly, looking much better than the last time Hob had seen him, his pale skin in the sunlight making Hob immediately think of sunscreen. He carried a small shoulder bag and a folded blanket.
“My sister did a background check on you,” Dream admitted when Hob pointed out the coincidence of their convenient location. “She is… perhaps over enthusiastic in her wish to protect me.”
“What did she say about wanting to meet with me?” Hob asked.
“I did not tell her. I did not tell any of my siblings,” Dream said, a little stiffly. “I am an adult, regardless of what my sister thinks, and it is not her business if I wish to meet up with a friend.” It sounded a little bit like he was reciting a line he’d said many times before, but Hob was tactful enough not to point this out.
“I’ve never been here before,” Hob said, looking around at the minimally maintained trees and flower beds.
“No, it is not a popular location, I have found. It is too far away from the business centers for anyone to use it for a lunch break, and there is nowhere for children to play. But I will show you its main attraction, as it were.” Dream took Hob’s hand, shyly, and pulled him over across a small green, spread the blanket on the ground and gestured for Hob to sit down.
“This is nice,” Hob said, making it almost a question.
“Wait a moment,” Dream told him. He took a sketch pad and bag of peanuts out of his backpack and handed them both to Hob. Then he cupped his hands around his mouth and whistled nine notes, a short tune. Within moments the green was covered with cawing black birds, fluttering in from the trees and gathering around them on their blanket. He took the bag of peanuts from Hob and began tossing them to the birds.
“Are you secretly raising an army of crows to take over the world?” Hob asked, delighted in spite of himself.
“They are my friends,” Dream said, with a small smile. He handed the bag of peanuts to Hob and took the sketchbook back, flipping quickly open to a page in the middle that already held several drawings of the birds.
Hob took his assignment of tossing snacks seriously, and Dream began to work on another drawing to match the others. Eventually one of the largest birds hopped over to the blanket and poked gently at Dream’s boot with its beak. Dream chuckled and took one of the peanuts from Hob, handing it to the bird.
“That one’s different than the others,” Hob remarked.
“I call him Matthew,” Dream said, smiling again. “He is a common raven, and, yes, it is very odd for one of his kind to spend time with the crows, which are a different species. But they seem to have accepted him.”
“And you as well,” Hob said.
“There was a raven I regularly saw, when I was permitted into the gardens at my husband’s manor,” Dream said, not looking up from his sketchbook except to glance briefly at Matthew and then back to capture the lines of him on paper. “She allowed me to bring her tidbits from my breakfast, and I became quite fond of her. She was perhaps the only thing I was sad to leave behind. When I started coming to this park, I met Matthew, and he seemed to take to me immediately. And then his crow cousins learned that I come bearing food, I think. Perhaps that is why they permit his presence.”
“Maybe he was friends with your other bird,” Hob said. “I think I heard once that they can teach each other things.”
“Perhaps,” Dream said, as if the idea pleased him. He continued to draw, pausing only to run a finger gently over the feathers on the raven’s head as it attempted to untie the laces on Dream’s boots, until the man paused in his drawing long enough to hand over another peanut.
They sat in silence until the birds dispersed, Matthew last of all, and Hob looked carefully at Dream as he finished the last few lines of his sketch and then closed the book.
“If I’d known what kind of you were planning, I could have at least brought us snacks,” Hob said. With a completely deadpan expression, Dream held out his hand, offering him a peanut, just as he had to Matthew, and Hob laughed in spite of himself.
“We could go somewhere, if you wished,” Dream said, looking away shyly. “I did not suggest a meal, or coffee, or anything else that could be interpreted as … traditionally romantic.”
“Did you want for it to be romantic, though?” Hob asked gently.
“I am… not opposed,” Dream said. “But I would also be pleased if you wished merely to be friends. I do not have any remaining, who knew me before my marriage. And making new ones now tends to require… uncomfortable explanations of my particular circumstances.”
“Explanations that I already got as a byproduct of… everything else.”
“Precisely."
“You have your family, though,” Hob said, somewhat wistfully. “How many siblings was it?”
“Six,” Dream said, “though that itself is… complicated. And only my two older siblings have any sort of contact with our parents, now.”
“Still. My family died years ago, and when I lost Ellie and the baby, too…”
“I understand,” said Dream. “It must seem strange to you, then, that I feel so conflicted about my own family.”
“Not really,” Hob said, smiling. He put his hand gently over Dream’s, who did not flinch, but merely looked at their two hands together as if contemplating a puzzle.
“I do not know how normal people engage in a courtship,” Dream said. “Outside of what is portrayed in movies, and what my own siblings have chosen to do. I do not believe either source to be particularly accurate.”
“Probably not,” Hob agreed. “What kind of movies?”
“Old ones,” Dream said, “Nothing released in the last twenty years. The collection was all on video tape.”
"Well, if you'd like to catch up on more recent films, I'd be happy to watch some with you," Hob said.
"Truly?"
"Yeah," Hob said with a nod. He took hold of Dream’s hand and gently squeezed. It felt good, and he remembered suddenly how much he missed having someone he could just…touch. "Look, I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know how ‘normal’ people date either. Ellie and I got married young, and we were together for almost ten years before she died. I don't think either one of us wants to jump into anything head first."
Dream nodded tentatively, but did not let go of Hob’s hand. "I do not wish to have worked this hard to learn to live on my own, only to give up that autonomy now."
"Of course not," said Hob. "And I'm still not sure I can even be that for you. But I'll tell you the one thing I kept thinking about when I didn't know if you'd reply to my text message."
"What was that?"
"Well," Hob said with a sigh. "It was the thought that if you never wanted to see me again, that you'd still probably have another heat in the next half year. And if you didn't have me..."
“Then I would seek out another.”
“Yeah,” Hob said. “I’m not…I don’t want it to sound as possessive as it does. I don't think you belong to me or anything."
"Many alphas would," Dream murmured.
"Yeah," Hob sighed. "But that's not why I told you. I just wanted you to know how I feel." He paused and looked at Dream to gauge his reaction.
“I had similar thoughts. Regarding both myself and you,” Dream admitted. “When was your last rut, if you do not object to my asking?”
“A while,” Hob admitted. “I’m due for one in two months or less. I would…" he took a deep breath and looked down. "I would want to take precautions. I'm not ready to deal with the risk of pregnancy again."
"We were fortunate this time," Dream agreed. He was silent for a moment, but he removed his hand from Hob’s while he put away his things, and zipped up his backpack.
"Would you want me to call you, when it's my time?" Hob pressed.
“Perhaps," Dream said. "But I promise I will not take offense if you choose to call an agency instead of me. For now, though, we have time to decide. Let us meet here, again, Hob Gadling. Or elsewhere if you prefer, perhaps once a week, if that interests you?"
“Well, I’m free for the rest of the day,” Hob said. He stood and offered Dream a hand to help him up. “Why don't we start by watching a movie together. No other expectations.”
Dream took his hand and stood, finding himself suddenly standing very closely within Hob’s personal space. “An old movie, or a new movie?” he asked.
“Something new,” Hob said decisively. “That way if you don’t enjoy it, you can show me one of your old favorites to finish the evening."
Dream smiled. "I would like that."