so I've been working on a Dream POV companion piece for would you let me know for the last few days. parts of it will have spoilers for the last two chapters of wylmk so I won't be posting it until after the original story has finished up (which it nearly has!!!!???).
but this little chunk is taken from after the post-strike night out in chapter 6, and I really loved writing it. shout out to my Honk Zone gang for lovingly pressuring me to write it for them. you guys are great. as is everyone else who's loved on this story of mine.
He hears the sound of the front door opening, and a shuffle as a coat is removed and shoes placed on the rack in the hall. Dee, he realises. Coming in from a late shift at the hospital. It dimly registers that for her to be back this late, it must have been a difficult shift. However, the ceiling lights do look like stars from this vantage, and his head really is spinning quite a bit.
“Dream. Why are you on the floor.”
“My colleague. Hob. He is beautiful.”
There’s a small sigh, then Dee is sitting down, cross-legged, next to his head. “Have a good time out on strike, then?”
Dream nods, happily. Rimbaud comes trotting past and settles between his shoulder and his sister’s scrub-clad knees.
“Where did you go?”
“I believe it was a Be At One.”
“Classy,” Dee replies, but she’s smiling. “And you went with Hob?”
“Yes. I think he may be interested in me.” He enjoys the taste of this statement on his tongue.
“Yeah?” Dee sounds happy. He likes it when she is happy.
“He stares at me when he thinks I am not looking. And. He wrapped me in a blanket when I fell asleep in his office."
“Awww!”
“And tonight. In the club. We were dancing. I sang ‘Don’t You Want Me’ to him.” Dee makes a funny sound. “Don’t laugh at me!”
“I’m not, I’m not, you’re just adorable, Dream. How did he respond?”
Dream hums, remembering the way Hob had looked as he danced and sang, playing his part. Remembers the thrum of music and desire in him. “His eyes went very wide. I believe he was open to my advances. I meant to initiate a kiss in the smoking area, but Matthew interrupted.”
“Bro, you are clearly bombed out your nut if you’re telling me about your plans to seduce your hot coworker.” She gets up, taking a glass from the drying rack by the sink and filling it. “C’mon, have some of this,” she says, helping him to sit upright.
“I was not – I did not mean to seduce –” he says, feeling his cheeks heat. He takes a sip of water. “I merely meant to announce my interest.”
“Hence ‘Don’t You Want Me’.”
“Precisely,” he says, glad that Dee is finally understanding. He takes another sip of water. Sisters are complicated.
“So you’ve finally decided to give Hob the chance to decide if he wants to go out with you, rather than assuming you don’t deserve it?”
“He forgave me for my behaviour over the strike,” he says simply.
“Course he did,” Dee says, ruffling his hair like she did when they were children. “From my point of view, given how much you’ve been talking about him the last few weeks, he sounds perfect.”
“I do not – I have not been talking about –”
Dee gives him the very unimpressed ‘don’t try your nonsense on me’ face that she perfected when they were still in primary school. “Dream. Bro. You have talked of nothing else.”
“I have –” She folds her arms, and he has to admit defeat. “Fine. He has many wonderful qualities. It is difficult not to.”
“Oh yeah?”
“He is kind. He is not afraid to tell me when I am wrong.”
“Useful skill for a potential partner of yours,” Dee interjects, and he glowers at her.
“He makes me laugh. I love how his mind works: quick, unique, unpredictable. He never stops swearing and I adore it. He has so much passion, Dee – I have never known anyone like him. He – he makes me feel alive when I am arguing with him, when he is making me laugh, when he is letting me ask him strange questions.”
“Oh, Dream,” Dee says, and he thinks there is something else gilding the edges of her tone, but he can’t quite parse it. “You really like him, don’t you?”
“I do. He is one of the best people I have ever known.” He pauses, trying to think if there is anything else vital about Hob’s character that he needs to add to convey to Dee how special his friend is. “He is also singularly handsome with an excellent arse.”
Dee chokes. “Alright, little bro, I think you’re probably going to regret saying anything more to me. C’mon, I’m putting you in your room with access to your own bathroom which you will clean if you throw up.”
“I do not throw up,” Dream says, feeling affronted. “I have not vomited due to alcohol in a decade.” His world lurches as Dee pulls him to his feet, and there’s a part of him that wonders if he’s about to be proven embarrassingly wrong. Thankfully, his constitution does not betray him, and he’s standing without too much issue.
“Do you need me to help you upstairs?”
He waves his hand. “No, I am quite capable. I am far less drunk than the last time I went out with my colleagues.”
“Ah, right,” Dee says, and there’s a certain light in her eyes that Dream could put a name to had he not had quite so many White Mocha-tinis. “That’d be when handsome Hob put you up, right?”
“Yes,” Dream replies. He only stumbles a little bit on his way over to the stairs. “Goodnight, Dee.”
“Night, Dream. Don’t throw up on the carpet.”
“I won’t!” he says, and nearly catches his foot on the first step. Then he hears Dee’s voice from the kitchen, in a tone quite different to the one he’d just been enjoying.
“Dream, where are my florentines?”
read the original story from the beginning here
