He'd been sitting there for an hour. Honestly, he didn't even know why he'd shown up. Why bother? He wouldn't be there.  But still, it had been a hundred years, and Hob felt that he should honor the deal by at least showing up. Hob sucked the last smoke out of his cigarette and crushed it into the cheap golden ashtray provided for him at his table. Rather bored and strangely nervous, he reached for a new one out of the pack. Lighting it, he took a quick glance around the London pub where the tavern of the White Horse had once stood.  Nothing much had changed since their last meeting, just as he knew. Hob had always scoffed at the plastic-fantastic 50s visions of the twenty-first century. Flying cars. Jet packs. Dehydrated-burgers-in-a-pill. Oh, yes, everything was going to be wonderful, in the future....

I've seen the future, thought Hob. And it's never what you want it to be. Same old problems from the generations before. Crime, war, and misery. The future never came.

The blue smoke from Hob's cigarette curled up past his nose. He was used to the smell by now. "Bobby, those things are going to kill you one day," he remembered Audrey telling him one evening. Recalling her words would have made him laugh, if not for the tears welling up in his throat at her memory. So many close to him had died while he remained alive. Including Audrey.

And him.

I outlived an immortal, he thought to himself. I, Robert Gadling, outlived the King of Dreams. The man sighed, suddenly thinking himself crazy for coming. He'd shelled out several hundred dollars for a plane ticket, eaten rubbery airline chicken, and endured the child behind him kicking his seat to be here. Just to disappointed.

Well, not really disappointed. It wasn't as if he'd actually expected him to show. Hob had gone to the funeral, said his good-byes. And that had been many years ago. His friend was gone, replaced by another Dream King. One he'd never actually met. He wasn't sure if he would have wanted to, given the chance.

Well, Hob, my boy, you simply have to let it go. Drive back to your hotel room and go to sleep. Go back to America in the morn.... It's over. It was over a long time ago. Slowly, almost reluctantly, Hob stood and pushed his chair up to the table. Bloody hell...

"Hello, Hob," came a voice from behind him. Tired and slightly depressed, Hob only turned his head slightly to see who the speaker was.

Dream stood there, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his white jacket and his pale hair wild. A green stone hung about his neck, and stars shone in his black eyes just as Hob recalled. He was very much the same...yet so different. Almost like a negative of the Dream he'd known before.

"A-are you a ghost?" he stuttered, unnerved at the sight of him.

Dream seemed to smile a bit. "Ghost? Certainly not." In one motion, he draped his jacket over the back of the opposite chair and sat, motioning with his hand for Hob to do the same.

He remained standing. "How can you be here? You're dead."

"I can assure you that I am quite alive, as you can see." Dream paused. "Please sit."

Hesitant and perplexed, Hob did, keeping his eyes on the apparent phantom across from him. "Why are you here? I made no deal with you."

"Oh, but you did. I am Dream of the Endless, after all."

"Yeah, but..." The man scratched his cheek lightly, trying to provoke some thought. "But you're not him."

"Please, Hob. Did you want a drink?"

"Yeah, sure."

Dream ordered them two scotches, which he recalled from their last meeting. Hob waited for the usual questions about his life the past several decades, but they never came. He seemed to be waiting on Hob.

"Well?" said Hob finally. "Aren't you going to ask about what I've been doing lately? My misfortunes? The loves I've lost?"

"I was simply thinking, Hob," the pale man replied. "I was almost certain that you would not be here. I was quite surprised to see you."

Chuckling a bit to himself, Hob took a sip of his drink. It was rather weak, but it was harder to get a good stiff drink nowadays. Cheap bartenders always watered it down a bit. "I could say the same, old friend. But...I'unno. I just got so used to being here every hundred years. After a few centuries, it gets to be habit, you know." Suddenly, his face stiffened a bit, as if someone had pinched him on the arm. "Are you my friend?"

"I thought that we settled this a hundred years ago. Yes, I am." Dream tasted his scotch, no sign of displeasure at its poor quality showing on his face. Hob simply figured that all mortal food and drink tasted bland to him.

Hob's face was still skeptical. After all those years of Morpheus being dead, was he really ready to let the whole thing start up again? Was he ready to accept this new Dream as his centennial drinking partner? As a friend? "No questions?"

"Did you want me to ask questions?"

"I just sort of expected it. He...I mean, you always used to." Looking into his shot glass, he swirled around the pale amber liquid. "Maybe I should start...." He paused, unexperienced at this. "What's new with you? Anything interesting happen since our last talk?"

Dream's face looked suddenly grave. "Yes, although I would prefer not to discuss it."

"I recognize that look," Hob said knowingly. "Lost a girlfriend, didja? Well, it hurts for a while. I should know.... I haven't let myself get too close to anyone since Gwen...." Half-heartedly and half-jokingly, he lifted his glass. "To lost loves, eh?" Their drinks clinked lightly, and Hob downed the rest of the watery scotch quickly. The taste didn't affect him as much that way, and it achieved the proper intoxicating light-headedness. Dream simply continued to sip, a suddenly distant look in his star-eyes.

"A change of subject, then." Hob thought, and finally the issue surged back to the surface. "I...I still don't understand how you could be dead and talking to me at the same time."

Dream's attention seeme to return to the present situation. "For the last time, I am not dead. All that died was a point of view. I have simply...changed."

"Heh." Hob grinned. "You never were much for change. I suppose it was the effort...."

Dream grinned, as well. For him, anyway. "You could be right about that.... I have never seen the point of dwelling on my passing. I have had other things to occupy my mind."

"Such as picking up where you left off, I suppose," Hob interjected. "Learning the trade. Must be fascinating. Learning new things for the second time...."

"I have made much progress, actually. For several decades, my realm was flooded. Most of the damage has been repaired, however, and I am starting afresh."

"Hmm... I won't ask why it was flooded. Don't want you to get all gushy on me." Smiling at the irony in the statement, Hob glanced over his friend's shoulder and noticed a man across the bar beginning to stack the chairs on the tables. He looked at his watch. "We've been chatting for much longer than I'd thought, Dream."

He nodded, setting down his drink, which seemed to have hardly been touched. "Perhaps this century's meeting is at an end."

Hob stood and stretched off the hours of sitting in the hard metal and plastic chair. "That sounds like a good idea." He yawned, not really bothering to cover his mouth. "Back to America tomorrow, then."

Dream had already placed his white jacket back on his shoulders. "Good-bye, then, Hob."

The man placed a tired hand on his arm. "Good-bye, friend."

"In one hundred years."
 

Copyright Diana Marsh, 2000 (Dream, Hob, and all Sandman characters are the creations of Neil Gaiman and Mike Dringenberg and trademarks of DC Comics and Vertigo. This is a labor of love, and no money is being made off of it. Yadda, yadda, yadda...)

 Author's Note: I got the title "Waiting for the Man" from an Underground Velvet song. As some of you may know, "Men of Good Fortune," the issue where Hob made his first appearance, also got its title from an Underground Velvet song. I thought that some of you might get a kick out of that.