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Swiping his fingers along the wards that protected his workroom Dream sent through a small red spark to activate them. What was designed to block spies and saboteurs would serve just as well to keep the guards and staff in the dark about his plan.
He could not help the way his eyes were drawn to Hob lying naked in the center of the room.
Hob’s body was unblemished, a pretty corpse to mourn. Patched up after the fact as a thank you for Dream's work in helping attend to the others who had fallen victim to the poisoning attempt. Though healing had never been Dream’s strength, making potions, droughts, and stilling fevered dreams into peaceful sleep had their uses.
Every hour, every minute, every second of that work Dream had wanted to attend to Hob instead, but knew that the other man would have demanded that Dream try and help those he could.
Hob would have said there was no saving the dead so help the living instead, but Hob had never studied magic.
Hob had not known better, but Dream did.
There were books that spoke of banned magic in the royal library, detailing the theory, and listing out exactly why the workings were prohibited. Dream had been ordered to read through them just in case they provided some edge, some benefit to king and kingdom.
That knowledge would be indispensable now, if only for just himself.
Dream sat down on the cold flagstone floor and ran his fingers through Hob's hair, the only part of him left flexible as the preservation spell held his body in that rigid state of death before decay set in.
Hob had been one of the first to die. His joy in eating ensured he got more than a lethal dose of the tainted food. It was not a swift or painless death.
Dream had not known, had not been there. He had turned away Hob’s invitation to dinner in favor of finishing his work as he had so many times before.
He had not been there to see the light in Hob’s eyes go out. Had not been there to try and heal him. Had not been there to fail to save him.
He had not known Hob was dead until hours later. No one had thought the death of servants to be a worthy enough cause to interrupt his work for the crown.
Dream had left his workroom to be greeted with the news of the poisonings by the knight that had been posted to guard him. His world had shattered without him knowing and now he was desperate to put it back together.
Unwinding his fingers from Hob’s hair Dream turned his attention towards the containment circle that he had drawn around them. It looked empty with only the two of them inside it, no symbols or words filling the space.
There was nothing to guide or direct his magic once he started, only the thin layer of charcoal to contain it if he lost control. This would be a working purely of intent, a test of will and endurance. An act that had no true how, only a why.
Why fight back against the declared order of the world?
Why do something that he had been taught was forbidden and wrong since the day the first spark left his fingertips?
Why gamble his life and soul for the smallest chance it would work?
The why was so simple.
He wanted Hob back.
He wanted Hob’s smile, the soft touches.
He wanted the kind of care that brought him pastries warm from the kitchen when he had been researching so late into the night that it had become early morning.
He wanted the stubbornness that dragged him into sunlight when he had spent days in the dark hunched over his cauldron with only fire for company.
He wanted to be told he was loved by the only person he truly believed it from when they spoke those words.
He wanted to be kissed by the man who stayed his friend even after they became lovers.
He wanted Hob to keep his promise even if he had to force him to do so.
Dream focused on that wanting thing that lived in the center of him. That hungry need to keep all that he claimed close to him which was nothing short of monstrous. He let it uncurl its needle-sharp claws. He let it start to roam through him, let it out into the world.
Sparks flew from him as if from struck flint, as if from steel clashing, driven into the world by force of desperation. Floating instead of falling, the sparks latched onto something he could not see and burned pinprick holes through it.
It felt like he was tearing himself apart, that desperate hollow nested between his heart and stomach starting to consume him from the inside out. An emptiness climbing its way up the rungs of his ribs until he was panting with it.
The sparks that had flared bright and ruby red were dimming to a murky clotted brown as he kept pushing, reaching, tearing, and wanting.
And then green sparks were falling like arrows to the stone floor. Bouncing and ricocheting with the force of their impacts.
A handful became a flood, became a conflagration.
Green fire danced around and inside of the circle he had drawn looking for an escape. Washing over him and crashing across Hob’s body before sinking in like rain on freshly tilled soil.
Dream felt the energy start buzzing inside of Hob, building up. Waiting impatiently like a hunting hound after a fox, pulling at its leash. Something ravenous denied its singular purpose.
Dream quickly started to unwind the preservation spell, the only thing that was holding the energy in check.
Hob’s heart was the first thing to start. Not the steady thud that Dream had fallen asleep to more than once but something off-kilter and fitful.
Then Hob’s lungs began drawing in wheezing breaths of air.
The body was so easy to restart. Designed to live it fell back into those base functions easily, barely a pull on the magic at all.
Color slowly returned to Hob’s skin, muscles loosening as Dream finished unpicking the last of the preservation spell.
Dream could not resist holding Hob close to him now that his beloved’s body would allow the movement. Hob’s body was unnervingly slack, skin cool as the stone it had been resting on, but Dream could feel the comforting pulse of blood, the heartbeat settling from its initial stumbling gallop.
The next part would be the true test of Hob's promise to him. His vow to return, that even if he had to go he would never truly leave Dream.
Dream could try and pull Hob's soul back from where it had gone, but the soul was a delicate thing. Any true force and it could shred and unravel, returning only in fragments if it returned at all. It was why necromancy was banned.
What was pulled back was most often mindless, violent, and ravenous. The body of a loved one turned into a mad beast tortured by an incompleteness it had no way to fully comprehend. Always fighting for anything that could make it whole, that could fill the void.
To properly bring back the dead, to in the end have a person, you couldn't return them at all. They had to come back on their own.
It was Dream's job now to hold open a tear between the realms long enough for Hob to find his way back and travel through it.
With a deep breath, Dream settled Hob against him and poured all of his energy into his spell. He held onto Hob tight and let the hollow hungry thing consume him.
Dream lost all sense of time. Panic, fear, and hope distorting the moments into eternities. Every piece of him shaking and shuddering. His bones felt like shattered glass and if he was not already sitting on the floor he would have long since collapsed.
He felt lighter in the worst kind of way. He was a ship’s anchor trying to hold against a whirlpool. He was trying to swim upstream before the river plunged over a cliff into a waterfall.
He was losing the fight.
Death takes everything in the end and it has no reservations about taking them earlier than it should and here Dream was making an easy offering of himself.
He could feel his own breathing stutter with strained sobs. Tears cascading down his face, painting his lips with salt. He did not cry when he learned Hob was dead but now there was no stopping it.
If he could not hold out long enough now Hob would truly be gone from him.
There would be no second chance at this.
He would succeed or he would die trying because he would not allow Hob to be where he was not.
Dream cradled Hob’s face looking into his eyes that were glowing green and lifeless. The flickering light making a mockery of the eyes’ stillness, of their lack of looking.
“You promised to never leave me!” Dream’s voice cracked with anger.
He was yelling at the near corpse in his arms, scolding it for no longer being what he wanted it to be, who he wanted it to be. Words pouring out of him incoherent and unstoppable, chased out by fear.
He had never raised his voice at Hob, his anger turning him sharp and cutting instead of loud, but now Dream’s whole body ached with the force of his screaming as if sheer volume could be enough to pierce the veil between them.
He screamed until he tasted blood, iron mixing with salt. His words snapping in the middle as they failed to hold up to the force of his agony.
There was so little of himself left here and he was so lonely. He had never before felt lonely when Hob was in the room with him.
Dream almost wanted to give way, to give up. Surely wherever death would take him would also take him closer to Hob. But Hob would want him to live, would want him to stay in this world.
So Dream dug in, past the meat of him, past the bone, to the core of him to find more magic to sustain the working even as the effort sent pain racing through him.
There was a surge of power strong enough that Dream swore he could feel his heart start beating backward, all of his blood being pressed until it was flowing the wrong way. He felt something start coming through, taking his invitation and pushing its way into this world.
Sweat broke out along his skin, feeling ice cold as it slicked the grip he had on Hob’s body.
He could not breathe, every bit of him was screaming that this was wrong.
He held steady, trying to keep the connection open as wide as he could. Hob had always been the most overwhelming thing he has known, it is no surprise to Dream that his soul would be so as well.
If it was truly Hob’s soul that was coming through.
Dream's chest was burning and he did not know if it was his heart or his soul but something was straining like fabric about to tear. Someone was pulling at him, sinking their claws in and claiming their territory. Each puncture was like hot iron striking through him.
It was not the just currents of death trying to pull him in, powerful but mindless. Whoever was trying to cling to him was just as desperate and scared as he was.
There was a reason all records of successful necromancy indicated the practitioners had only done so once. Dream felt it now, why that was, why this magic was said to cost one their soul.
A soul could anchor many mindless fragments, but it took an entire soul to hold another one whole.
He did not care.
Hob had already earned his heart entirely, Dream’s soul was so much easier to give after that.
Dream knew he should not, that latching on and pulling could shred Hob’s soul still, but he could not help it, he had to have Hob back with him, had to hold him close. Even these few days apart have shown him he could not do this alone.
Reaching out with everything in him, all the love, all the fear, the anger, the frustration, all the happiness that Hob ever given him Dream grabbed back at whatever had sunk its claws into him and embraced it.
Hob blinked and Dream's breath caught as those eyes focused on him. Hob surged forward and suddenly Dream was on his back with Hob’s now warm weight holding him down.
The kiss was clumsy and awkward and Dream could not tell if this was Hob or if something else had come to take over the empty vessel. It was not even a true kiss, more a bashing of faces and Dream had a moment of panic that whatever was in Hob’s skin was trying to bite into him as teeth scraped against his lips.
Dream tried to shove Hob back, to put distance between them so he could check, but Hob had always had more muscle and he held Dream tight, fingers tangling in his hair to hold his head still.
With a sharp tug on Dream’s scalp, something white pulled away wrapped around Hob’s clumsy fingers as Dream finally pushed him away. It was an unnerving sight, but was something he would worry about later.
This close Dream could hear the wetness in Hob’s breath, where the fluid had settled in his previous stillness. The noise got louder as Hob surged forward once more to bring their faces closer together, Dream too exhausted to keep him held back for long.
Despite the time he took to wipe Hob’s teeth clean Dream could taste the lingering dregs of rotting stew as Hob pressed their mouths together again.
He had a fleeting worry that the poison could be lingering, but he was not sure if he would mind if what had come back was not truly Hob.
Hob finally pulled back, looking at him with eyes still glowing that eerie green, his face slack but trying to twitch into something like an expression.
“I love you” The voice was rusted and ragged, words slurring as lips and tongue failed to work together.
Dream let out a sob. They were the words he had heard every time he had woken up next to Hob. The first thing Hob had wanted him to know as he became aware of the world once more.
He did not know now if it was a sign Hob had returned to him or if the words had become reflexive, another instinctual action taken as the spark of consciousness returned to Hob’s body. Words as thoughtless as the breath filling his lungs.
The words ‘I love you’ should not have filled him with fear.
“I promised” the words came out steadier “I promised you” Hob’s mouth was closing properly after each word, no longer being left to hang open.
“I promised I would come back.” there was a smile in his voice, a smile on his face, the corners of his mouth lifting, his crow's feet crinkling gently.
He looked like he was in love, that same besotted expression Dream had seen every time Hob had turned his attention Dream’s way.
It was so familiar despite the uneven and sloppy way the expression came together.
Dream wanted to hold on to his spell, to keep going, to hold the rip open to ensure all of Hob had come back to him. But he was tired, he felt worn thin and drained.
If he kept going he may have ended up trading places with Hob on the distant side of death.
He let it go, let the rift collapse and the power dissipate. He pulled what he hopes is Hob close to him, and tucked Hob’s face into his neck. He could not watch the life drain from Hob’s eyes if his spell work had not managed to anchor him here.
He felt like he was floating, stars were dancing everywhere he looked, moving in time to the pounding of blood as it hammered away at the inside of his skull. Dream closed his eyes before the darkness could finish its march across his vision, letting the brush of Hob’s hair across his cheek be the last thing he felt as he slipped away from the world.
---
Dream felt a hand moving to trace his face, following the curve of his cheek. Adrenaline streaked through him like lightning and he was moving to pin who he desperately hoped was Hob before he had even opened his eyes.
There was a half-winded chuckle below him before the hands returned to cradle his face. The calluses that caught against his skin were more familiar to Dream than the ones that grace his own hands.
Dream clenched his eyes tighter shut, muscles locking and stomach cramping as fear battered away against hope. He could not unknow the answer once he opened his eyes and checked if it was truly Hob here with him.
“I love you” The cadence was off, slurring slightly as it moved between words, but it was Hob’s voice.
A whine was crawling its way out of Dream’s throat, catching on all the places that his screaming had left raw.
“I promised to come back, and you brought me home.” There was warmth in that voice that Dream had desperately missed, had desperately needed.
The tears that were leaking from Dream’s closed eyes were wiped away so gently compared to the violent sobs that wracked their way through his body.
“Please love open your eyes, I promise I’m here.”
Dream opened his eyes staring down at Hob’s concerned expression. Hob’s irises were their familiar warm brown, now dotted faintly with green, like lichen on tree bark.
“There you are love. It’s been a while since that memory has gotten to you so badly.”
“A while?” Dream asked. It could not have been long, even if he had passed out. A few hours, maybe a day at worst.
Hob’s hand moved from where it was resting on the side of Dream’s face to reach behind his head and pull something forward.
A braid half undone, messy and bright as bleached bone. Dream could feel the slight tug of it against his nape as Hob let it drop from his hand.
The braid was long, the end coiling against Hob’s chest from where Dream was still hunched over him. The hair was far, far longer than it was when Dream tried to bring Hob back.
Dream blinked at it—almost a decade of growth.
He has not cut it besides the necessary trimming of split ends since that day.
Dream could not keep himself from running his fingers along the plait, feeling the tugs against his scalp as he hooked his fingers into the twisted strands.
It was real. The words rang in his head louder than any church bell. It was all real.
Hob was here. They had made it out of his old workshop, they had managed to run away.
They were wandering the lands now, waiting out the memory of the high mage turned necromancer before they settled anywhere for long. And they could wait because they had time stretching out before them, unending if they could manage it.
Hob had come back to him.
Hob had kept his promise.
The adrenaline bled from Dream and he let himself collapse against Hob’s body. Reveling in the strong arms that wrapped around him and pulled him closer, the warmth and security of the embrace. Dream felt all of him slackening with relief but for the grip he still had on Hob. He would never truly let Hob go again.