Chapter Text
“The mark’s name,” Arthur says, tossing the file on the table in front of Hob, “is Alexander Burgess.”
Hob raises an eyebrow at the case file, then turns his gaze back to Arthur. Arthur stares back down at Hob expectantly, his perfectly slicked back dark brown hair glinting in the sunlight of the Mexican sun. He’s blocking Hob’s sunlight and doesn’t even care. Bastard.
It’s tense between them for just a moment longer before Hob sighs, sitting up from his comfortable position on the cabana lounge chair and reaching over to pick up the folder. It’s a thick file, which means there’s a lot of dirt on the man, and a lot of people Hob may need to impersonate. Hob vaguely remembers the name Burgess from the early 1900s. Likely the man Hob had known was Alexander’s father, or grandfather even. The centuries tended to blend together after a while.
“You couldn’t have waited until after my vacation?” Hob asks as he takes another sip of his pina colada, trying to put off having to open the file for a little bit longer. He’s trying to sound annoyed, but in reality he’d been feeling restless lately. Hob had never been the type of man to just sit around aimlessly for long.
“Can’t wait,” Arthur responds, with a small wry smile. He sees right through Hob’s bluff, damn him. “The client’s in a hurry and paying our team triple our fee to get started right away.”
Hob whistles, his interest thoroughly piqued, then finally opens up the folder.
Alexander Burgess is old. Older than Hob expected him to be really. It suddenly makes sense why the client was in a hurry. Whatever decision they needed the old man to make needed to be done quickly.
“You sure this man’s not gonna die on us mid-mission?” Hob asks dubiously. He and Arthur had only been in a dying man’s dreamscape once, and the man had died while they were on their case. Hob really didn’t care to repeat the experience.
“He won’t,” Arthur responds. “He’s ancient, but healthy.” Hob holds back a laugh, but can’t help the snort that comes out instead. Compared to Hob, Alexander Burgess was a baby. Hob was the one who was ancient, and they both knew it.
“His lover, Paul, will be helping us with setting up the whole thing too,” Arthur continues, his tone still serious but his eyes betray their amusement. “He’ll monitor the mark’s vitals day to day and clear him for each session before we take him under.”
“So the client’s his lover, then?” Hob asks, as he thumbs through the file, reading up on Alexander Burgess’s life history. It wouldn’t be too hard to imitate most of the people on the list Arthur provided, and it certainly helped that he’d have direct access to Paul, the most important part Hob would have to play, to study.
Arthur hums in agreement, then sighs. “Apparently he’s been trying to get Alex to move out of his father’s manor for the better part of their marriage,” Arthur says. “They’re old men now, and Paul is desperate not to die in that manor. He says it’s haunted by demons or something, I don’t know. Seems like a superstitious kind of guy.”
“Well based on this, he has a right to be. Looks like old Roddy Burgess was a famous occultist back in the day,” Hob says, memories flowing back to him in bits and pieces. He’d definitely been to one of Burgess’s parties back in the day, come to think of it.
Arthur chuckles. “For all the good that studying in black magic did him,” he replies. “Didn’t save him from tripping and falling down the stairs of his own basement that’s for sure.”
“Are we sure he just fell?” Hob asks, feeling dubious. “Or maybe—Alex’s dirty little secret is that he pushed his daddy down the stairs, and that’s why he doesn’t want to leave.”
“Well that’s what we’re gonna find out,” Arthur replies with a grin. “And then we’re going to make sure he gets the fuck out of dodge and rides off into the sunset with his husband.”
Hob hums. “Fine. When do we start?”
“Tomorrow.”
Hob groans. He was planning on going out for drinks with the nice blonde girl who manned the bar of the resort tomorrow night. So much for that plan.
“I’ll be ready,” Hob replies, already transitioning into work mode.
After Arthur leaves, Hob tucks the folder underneath his arm and makes his way to the bar. He orders the most expensive bottle of wine they have, then the second most expensive one, and gifts that one to Carol as an apology for having to cancel their date tomorrow night. She saw Arthur and him talking from her spot across, so it’s easy enough to explain that’s his boss, and something urgent came up at work and he’ll have to leave first thing tomorrow so he won’t be able to spend her day off with her. Hob had really been looking forward to having her all to himself in his penthouse suite too.
Carol offers to come up to his room anyways once her shift is done later in the evening and Hob does seriously consider telling her yes. As tempting as it is, though, once Hob’s neck deep in preparing for a job, absolutely nothing can distract him. He regretfully turns her down, and then heads up to his room with the file on Alexander Burgess to prepare for his role.
When the Sleeping Sickness calamity had started, scientists all over the world had come together to try to find a cure. Hundreds of drugs and medical treatments were developed over the years, all with varying degrees of success. In the midst of all those treatments, research in the human brain had advanced far enough to be able to tap into another person’s dreams. Suddenly, through the use of the PASIV device, people could share dreams.
Of course, Hob immediately saw the risk to himself if other people could simply walk into his dreams and see all his memories of his past lives. Having his mind so open to infiltration was a liability, and Hob did not want a repeat of the 1600s in this lifetime. So he started learning how to control his dreams, how to lock away some of the centuries into mind palaces and layered floors of subconscious that only the most experienced dream walkers could possibly hope to break. Hob had made sure to test out all his defenses too, which is how he’d met Arthur Freeman, and all of the associates that came with him.
Hob hadn’t meant to fall into the world of corporate espionage but well, his foot was already halfway in the door, what with having to reinvent his identity every few decades. And if there was anything people who lived outside on the fringes of society were good at, it was keeping secrets about things that could cause the world to fall apart.
Arthur knew Hob’s secret from testing out all of Hob’s defenses, but Hob also knew one of Arthur’s biggest secrets too, and that alone kept them permanently intertwined. And well paid.
But if Hob were being honest, the real reason he’s stuck around with Arthur specifically is because of their shared love of exploring dreams. Hob loved the intimacy of being able to share the most intimate parts of himself with another person through dreams, and Arthur loved the challenge of exploring the most intricate dreamer’s minds and figuring out what made them tick.
They both found out it wasn’t particularly easy trying to navigate the dreams of an immortal, and Hob and Arthur had spent what felt like centuries in dreams trying to untangle old desires and hurts that even Hob hadn’t known he’d collected over his long lived life. In reality, those meetings were maybe two to three hours, at most.
Arthur had let Hob into his dreamscape as well, something Hob would later learn Arthur never did for just anyone. His old best friend, who had gotten out of the life, had been one. An old lover that still ran the circuit of corporate espionage had been the other one. Hob had met Eames once or twice on a job with Arthur, and found that he had more in common with the other Forger than Arthur had initially led him to believe. Eames was just as much of a glutton for life and all its pleasures as Hob was, which is exactly what brought him and Arthur together and drove them apart over and over again. Arthur liked to claim he was done with Eames for good all the time, but Hob knew better. If the way Eames glared bloody murder at Hob every time they ran across him was any indication, he knew Eames was far from done with Arthur too.
As Hob studies the file of Burgess and all his closest associates, memorizing their likes, dislikes, and mannerisms, he finds his thoughts drifting back to the Stranger who had granted him immortality all those years ago, and what he would make of the life Hob’s shaped for himself in the last few years. Hob knew that his next appointment with his Stranger wouldn’t be until 2089 (he refused to think about whether or not the man would show up, surely 200 years was long enough for a tantrum, right?), but there were days he wished he could call him somehow and show him just how far society and technology had advanced. The PASIV device had to be Hob’s favorite invention to date, truly.
If sharing his dreams with Arthur was intimate, how much more would it be if Hob shared them with the Stranger? Would Hob finally know the being’s true name and true essence after all these centuries? Would Hob’s Stranger event want to share in Hob’s dreams? Hob would let him, he didn’t care how much of a risk it would be.
“Welcome home,” Arthur says as Hob exits from the plane hanger and into the arrival gate at Heathrow.
“Aww, personal chaperone service, all for me?” Hob grins as he hands his briefcase over to Arthur, who rolls his eyes, but takes it anyway.
They chat about innocuous things like the weather as they make their way to the carpark. Once they’re safely within the privacy of Arthur’s sound-proof, bug-proof car, they switch to talking about the job.
Persuasion, sometimes referred to as Manipulation amongst their circle, was slightly more difficult than Extraction, but still far easier than Inception, which required an original idea to be planted in the user’s mind. The hardest part of the exercise required the user not suspecting their mind had been tinkered with, which is what made Hob and Arthur such an exceptional team. Not only was Hob an exceptional Forger, having already memorized the entirety of Paul McGuire’s life in less than 48 hours, but he was attuned to Arthur’s mind in a way that made crafting dreams together practically flawless. They had yet to fail a single job together, though there had been some near misses here and there due to extenuating circumstances.
Hob is feeling confident by the time they reach Wych Cross and walk up the steps to Fawney Rig. The rest of their crew would be arriving within the next few days, but it would be up to Hob and Arthur to make sure everything was ready to go when they did.
Arthur knocks, and the man that answers is so familiar to Hob, he feels he’s known him all his life, even though this is the first time they’ve met. He smiles grimly at the two of them, recognizing them immediately.
“Welcome to Fawney Rig,” Paul says.
Hob smiles back, and then follows the man as they are led inside.