18 Works in Book 7: Brief Lives (The Sandman)
Listing Works
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X Marks the Spot by gleamingandwholeanddeadly (something_safe)
Fandoms: The Sandman (TV 2022), The Sandman (Comics)
19 Oct 2025
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Summary
For reasons best known to themself, Desire of the Endless pays Hob Gadling a visit one fateful night. The results are a curse, and a race against time for Dream.
(Part one of a tumblr fic, based on the prompt: Fake marriage - though this is an admittedly meandering journey to that point)
Series
- Part 3 of Dreamling Tumblr Prompt Ficlets
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here, now, always by ineverfeltyoung for roachboy7
Fandoms: The Sandman (TV 2022), The Sandman (Comics)
11 Oct 2025
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He’s probably stuck around the New Inn for too long anyway, and it’ll be fine without him; he’ll drift on the currents of the Universe and go where he’s needed- maybe he’ll even find some nice, distant, quiet planet to settle down on and try something new. Or maybe he’ll just find an island somewhere in the Mediterranean and grow some vegetables. Either way, he’s got so much to live for, and truly, this time, nowhere to go but up.
Hob learns to cope. Dream learns to be better. Delirium (sort of) learns how to drive. A family learns how to heal. And somehow, all manner of thing shall be well.
Series
- Part 8 of the abstract entities dinner club
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Summary
'For the dream he just awoke from, was a true dream. As true as the one he had about floating in the sea, before all that tragedy came to pass. This dream, if he lets it, will come to pass as well. He does not wish to let it.'
Orpheus has a premonition. He knows what will happen to Dream, and wants to change it. For a child made of wanting, who better to help him then Want itself and an immortal who is also made of it? Let's see if we can convince our dear king of nightmares not to die.
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Tragedy has its place, it always has, from the catharsis of Aristotle to watching The Notebook after a breakup.
Unfortunatley, Hob Gadling is done with tragedy.
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more sky comes and more days, by Chrome, (podfic) by cookiemom6067 for SolarisRasa
Fandoms: The Sandman (TV 2022), The Sandman (Comics)
18 Jan 2025
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Summary
In the aftermath of her imprisonment, Calliope is determined to learn to trust humans again, so she finds a roommate and settles in the mortal world. Meanwhile, her former husband has been on another quest that ended in grief, and he seeks her out for solace.
What could possibly go wrong?
or,
“Hey, Zed,” Hob answered. “Something the matter?”
“Yes,” she said. “Calliope’s ex showed up and he’s fucking terrifying.”
Podfic of more sky comes and more days by Chrome.
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In the Time of Contagion by Anonymous
Fandoms: The Sandman (TV 2022), The Sandman (Comics)
30 Jul 2024
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Summary
It is 1376, and Hob Gadling finds himself locked up in a plague house, surrounded by the corpses of his companions. He wakes up in 1349, in the arms of a dark-robed stranger who calls himself Hob's friend and tells him he must find his way back home through time and dreams.
The horrors of the Black Death however, are the least of Hob's problems. Caught between timelines, dreams, and nightmares, Hob has to navigate not only his feelings for a stranger determined to save him while shattering under the weight of his own duties, but also a realm and its lord in desperate need of change.
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(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return’d, Yet out of that I have written these songs) by Delta_Pavonis
Fandoms: The Sandman (Comics), The Sandman (TV 2022)
03 Apr 2024
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Summary
The first time it happens is in a dream.
Which is, incidentally, why he doesn’t think much of it at the time.
In which something apparently not much becomes something much more.
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To Be Brand New by Dira Sudis (dsudis)
Fandoms: The Sandman (TV 2022), The Sandman (Comics)
28 Mar 2024
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On a rainy day in the Dreaming, Dream of the Endless watches the dreamfolk doting on Daniel Hall, and wishes he could be someone small enough to be loved.
Hob Gadling has waited a long time for a chance to be closer to his stranger. This isn't the way he ever imagined it happening, but he does love nothing better than being surprised.
Series
- Part 1 of Still Growing Up Now
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The wedding was just the beginning, they still have some ways to go before they reach their happy ending. Fate has been changed, in ways many will never fully know, but some decisions must still be made, important decisions, which will shape friendships, families, love, the future of them all. It’ll be hard, but love will see them through.
Series
- Part 4 of Never Say Goodbye
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Blood of the Endless by Lalaith_Quetzalli for Wei_Crazy
Fandoms: The Sandman (TV 2022), The Sandman (Comics)
30 Nov 2023
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Summary
Hob Gadling: peasant, soldier, bandit, printer, knight, sailor, businessman, teacher… so many things he’s been. But those things are what he is, not who. The ‘who’, that’s complicated. Born mortal, immortal by choice, in love with one of the Endless. Truth is he’s much more than human, always has been. Might never have known it, were it not for choices made. And now, now one more choice will determine what he shall become…
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Illusion of Permanence by Emanohugs
Fandoms: The Sandman (Comics), The Sandman (TV 2022)
01 Oct 2023
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Summary
Warning: Brief Lives Spoilers
When Hob accidentally summons Dream, he turns up moping and heartbroken. Like any good friend would, Hob offers his help. He's intending to provide emotional support but ends up flying halfway around the world to act as Dream and Delirium's guide to the waking world, while they search for their missing brother.
AKA Hob replaces Ruby in Brief Lives, and then some.
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A "retired" human Dream AU wherein Hob Gadling is his Waking World guide. Or Dream gets his own story.
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The Start of a Bad Joke by hotdiggityfrog
Fandoms: The Sandman (Comics), The Sandman (TV 2022)
02 Jun 2023
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Summary
Somewhere between a burning hotel and a strip club, Delirium wants breakfast, Matthew wants fries, and Dream wants them to stop tugging on his limbs. Lee, for his part, would just like to leave.
Or: Two anthropomorphic manifestations of the mortal mind and a bird walk into a McDonald's
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Give Me Everything You've Got by 7_wonders
Fandoms: The Sandman (Comics), The Sandman (TV 2022)
05 May 2023
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Summary
After a fight, you learn that Morpheus does not have the best coping skills. Like, at all.
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(Everything Looks Worse) In Black and White by Dira Sudis (dsudis)
Fandoms: The Sandman (TV 2022)
28 Apr 2023
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Summary
Like any citizen of the 21st century, Hob wants photos of his gorgeous boyfriend, but Dream's nature makes that impossible... until it isn't.
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Blanket Permission by notallsandmen (notallmaenads) for acadethicc, Quilling
Fandoms: The Sandman (TV 2022), The Sandman (Comics)
12 Apr 2023
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Summary
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and sometimes Morpheus just needs to get swaddled into a purrito.
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Introducing Wasteland, Baby!, a series about you and Dream of the Endless.
You are not immortal. You have just led a longer life than most mortals. There are some who are much older than you — there are those that remember the mammoths, those who remember Rome in her prime, those who remember the Plague.
In the year 1915, you catch the sleepy sickness, encephalitis lethargica, and dream of an endless desert — a soft place. You cannot escape.
105 years later, Dream of the Endless escapes his captivity. However, you are stuck in the shifting zones for five more years, until Dream himself rescues you.
Since you've been deprived of 110 years of true dreaming, Morpheus offers you a chance to live in The Dreaming for the same amount of time. You accept. But what happens to The Dreaming — and to your budding relationship with Morpheus — when the Kindly Ones show up at the Gates of Horn and Ivory?Series
- Part 1 of Wasteland, Baby!
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more sky comes and more days by Chrome
Fandoms: The Sandman (TV 2022), The Sandman (Comics)
10 Oct 2022
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Summary
In the aftermath of her imprisonment, Calliope is determined to learn to trust humans again, so she finds a roommate and settles in the mortal world. Meanwhile, her former husband has been on another quest that ended in grief, and he seeks her out for solace.
What could possibly go wrong?
or,
“Hey, Zed,” Hob answered. “Something the matter?”
“Yes,” she said. “Calliope’s ex showed up and he’s fucking terrifying.”