#THIS IS SO SOFT I'M SCREAMING | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cuubism · 2 years

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A little headcannon that has been stewing in my head for a while and has absolutely no proof from the cannon

Death has wings right? What if Dream used to have wings too but when his kingdom got invaded for the first time(that story he tells in the Overture) the invaders cut his wings off. That's the part of the reason why he crafted his helm and why's he so dependent on it. They took his wings so he took their skull and a spine, an eye for an eye kind of situation. Also, that's when Dream first started employing a raven. He still has scars on his shoulder blades that follow him to any form he takes. He's ashamed of them, sees them as a sign of weakness, a reminder of his failure and his flaws and goes to great lengths to cover them up. That's about it, but I'd love to hear what you think of it^-^

(Plus: Hob gently running his hands over the scars, showing Dream his own ones and reassuring him that there's nothing broken, or wrong with him)

NO BUT THIS IS SO ANGSTY I LOVE IT. i love suffering

i feel like a permanent injury like that would have to be done to dream's core essence, such as it is, rather than his 'physical form' - i don't know if dream's physical form in the waking world or other realms can even be hurt like that. it would have to be like, something that deeply wounds the dreaming, or the concept of dreaming, or just like the deepest core of dream as an 'entity' rather than it being a physical wound. (this is leading me on a mental tangent about injuries to large groups of dreamers also injuring dream, like, extinction events and such, but that's for another time).

you managed to rope me into it, congrats XD

content warning for blood, gore, violence, Things Done That Can't Be Undone, etc.

There is not much, in his long life and memory, that Dream is able to forget. Thoughts do not drift into irrelevancy, into the past, the way they do for humans. He is able to hold much, all at once, in the cavern of his mind, eons of all that has happened hovering close enough to touch. It is a heavy weight more often than it is an aid.

But he forgets, sometimes, with Hob.

With Hob, the rare points of their contact stand out as singularly bright stars in the nebula of Dream's existence. All else within him fades. When Hob takes his hand Dream feels clear as a desert sky, when Hob kisses him for the first time, Dream is floating free in a great salt lake, hanging weightless.

He forgets.

It's only after, bodies pressed together with pleasing heat and sweat-tackiness, Hob tracing patterns over his back, that Dream begins to remember again.

"Dream..." Hob's fingers stutter over his shoulder blades. His voice catches with the hesitance he has often displayed with Dream since their reunion. I think you're here for friendship. Dream feels the echoes.

He kisses Hob's throat, tastes the salt tang of his skin, hides his face away there. The weight of embodiment returning. "Ask your question," he says. "I swear not to part from you now."

"Is this from...?" Hob's fingertips dance up the raised arcs of scar tissue over his back. Pain sparkles in the wake of his touch like the sharpness of a hand-drawn tattoo in the permanence of its inking. As humans imagine it. Dream is not truly physical and could not bear such a mark. Except for this.

"No," he tells Hob. Blame for many of Dream's recent ordeals can be laid at Roderick Burgess's feet, but not this one. "Much older than that."

"Oh." Hob keeps tracing the scar over Dream's right shoulder blade. The touch aches deep in Dream's being where those wounds originate, but he does not tell Hob to stop. Even like this, Hob's hands bring him back, and back, and keep him here.

Hob is waiting, leaving an opening for him to elaborate. Dream is not yet sure whether he wishes to.

"It is not a pretty story," he says.

Hob strokes through his hair. Dream keeps his head tucked under his chin and so feels each word as it's spoken. "Neither of us is a pretty story, darling. Tell it if you want to."

Dream has not spoken of this in many years. There are those in the Dreaming who have served him for millennia whom he has not told. He has taken lovers, had them see the scars during their lovemaking, and still not relayed the story.

"When I was young," he begins, "and still coming into my power, the Dreaming was invaded. My borders were not as strong, then. My realm, less populated. Ancient beings, older than I was at the time, hungered for my realm. Sought its power for their own."

"Older than dreams?" Hob asks.

"In their universe, there were no dreams," Dream tells him. "Perhaps it is what drew them to me."

"Alright. Wow." Hob sounds thoughtful. He rubs Dream's back, between his shoulder blades where it doesn't hurt. "Go on, love."

"I fought them. But the collective unconscious of this universe was young and undeveloped, as was I; I had not mastered all elements of my domain. I fought, but inelegantly, and struggled to counter dreamless beings when all my power was in the unconscious. They were wholly anchored in the present; I, in the space between seconds; we were poorly suited as combatants."

"What did you do?" Hob asks, quiet. He can sense, Dream thinks, the direction this is going, that Dream would not be so hesitant to tell the story of scars born of victory.

"I did not know," Dream admits, equally quiet, still shamed by it, his own failure, and its branching repercussions, "what to do. And the Eldest God, he who had first rent open the walls of my realm, pounced on my uncertainty, captured me, held me--"

The memory, never forgotten, always just within reach should he turn towards it, rises again -- the silk-smooth black sand on the shores of the Dreaming, crushed into his cheek; the warm waters lapping at his mouth, nose, eyes, drowning him; the impossible weight on his spine of the impossible dreamless creature holding him down, arms wrenched behind his back, the feral animal growl that had escaped him, the equally animal panic beating under his ribcage, the fragile spun dreamstuff of him held in the sharptoothed maw of cold reality, his wings--

"Dream?"

Dream comes back to himself. Comes back to Hob. The overwarm flannel sheets. The soft press of Hob's body. He's tapping something on Hob's arm, and hadn't realized he was doing it. It's the rhythm of an old song from before the time of men, the electrical beats passed along root chains from tree to tree to tree, all the way across the great forests that now exist only in scarce patches on the earth.

Dream shifts ever closer to Hob's body, slips a knee between Hob's thighs to tangle them, bare skin to bare skin, limb to limb, root to root.

"I had wings, then," he says.

--his wings, flapping frantically in the face of the thing that pinned him, feathers catching and tearing on jagged armor, held to the ground the way a creature of flight was never meant to be--

"Oh," breathes Hob. He touches the long scar over Dream's shoulder blade again and pauses there. The pain catches the story to Dream again like a hook and holds it there as he continues bleeding it dry.

"The Eldest God dug his claws into me and tore the wings from my body." Dream's voice doesn't shake but he does not manage more than a whisper. "I am not a physical creature, Hob, understand this, I cannot be so easily harmed, it was not a physical form that was damaged, rather, the Old Gods came from stone and earth and it was stone they harnessed as their claws, ancient stone to carve into my being and tear out my wings from the essence of me, root and stem, flesh and bone, air and feather and starlight."

All of this comes out in a continuous rush, and Hob kisses the side of his head, says, "Breathe."

He can still feel, if he but thinks back, the tearing of the claws. A cold so bright it felt like burning. His face ground into the sand to muffle his scream, the howling whiteout of pain overtaking all other noise, the crack of his shoulder joint as it was broken. Star stuff spilling out over the sand - Dream hadn't even known he could bleed until then. Hands that should never have touched in the first place releasing him. Collapsing, disarmed, to the ground. Every limb on fire, the ones that were left.

"Dream."

He lost himself, and found himself again some time later curled in the shallows of the Dreaming sea, seeking shelter from the cold in the warm waters. Face half submerged, breathing as much salt water as air. Blood still spooling around him like leftover paint whirling in a water glass.

"Dream."

Even in those warm waters, he was shivering. Dream doesn't think he's ever been quite warm since; that cold latched itself in him somewhere and never left.

Hob's voice, now, against his ear. He's curled himself around Dream while Dream wasn't paying attention, Dream's back to the warm protection of Hob's chest. "You don't have to finish if you don't want to."

Dream will not leave a story unfinished, not even one such as this. "When I had regained my strength enough to fight back," he continues, "I was... not in control. I knew only survival. If the Old Gods had wished me to understand their world, they succeeded. I abandoned my powers and fought with my hands and my claws and my teeth, and I tore the Eldest God's skull and spine from his body. Both of us would be maimed, I thought; if he would have my dreams then I would have for my own the backbone upon which he held his earth. I listened to him scream. I watched each rib pry up from his chest and snap, my hands slick with his blood, his with mine, and felt nothing but the raw satiation of a wolf setting upon meat. I have told you, Hob." He takes his first breath in a while and feels it rattle, hollow, around his ribcage. "It is not a pretty story."

"No." Hob's hand finds Dream's against his middle, tangles their fingers, holds him. His breath is shaky in Dream's hair, words more so. "No, darling, it's not. I'm sorry."

They rewrote the story of the Dreaming, Dream recalls saying to Destiny, after. Before he had come to know, truly, what Destiny was. Kneeling in his garden, blood still draping his raw back like a shroud, Dream had sought meaning, answers, reason. Foolish, in retrospect, to even consider asking for succor.

Destiny had said that the Dreaming had seeped too far into the Waking world. That what had happened was a necessary rebalancing.

Had Dream not been forbidden from physical violence against his siblings, he would have bitten off one of Destiny's hands with his own sharp teeth and asked if he felt more balanced then.

"Now you know what vicious creature you lie with, Hob Gadling," Dream says. The words are heavy in his throat, but he can't find it in himself to slip from Hob's hold. Now you know the jagged turn at the beginning of my story.

He wonders, sometimes, what the Dreaming might have been like had it continued on the other branch of Destiny's forking path. What he might have been like. There is so much space between a winged creature and a once-winged creature. The entire sky.

"I know." Hob bites at the back of Dream's neck, light but sharp, then kisses that same spot. The nip of pain is unexpectedly soothing. Hob too knows what it is to bite and claw and writhe and maul. “I know. I’ve known your darkness, honey. Don’t you worry.”

“They fled me,” Dream tells him. “The Old Gods. After. I did not understand why at the time.” He had stood, bloodied, shaking, over their Eldest one, bones grasped in his hands, and watched them disappear. These beings that could still have shredded the Dreaming and swallowed it, but chose to run. “Now, I imagine it is like the way men will flee from an animal that is so much smaller than them but has gone rabid. The wrongness. The danger of irreparable madness. They saw me ruined and wished not to catch it, saw the Dreaming—”

This wound has dulled over time and become but a throbbing ache at the base of his skull, a reminder of something missing. But it never disappears.

“The Dreaming, changed, from what they had wanted.”

Dream’s back has never been quite right, since. His anatomy is meant for two sets of joints, not one. But it is only a fitting marker of the permanent damage done that day.

“Changed?” says Hob, so gentle now, lips brushing his skin.

“There was once more,” Dream says. “The collective unconscious was once more… collective.”

“Wait. D’you mean…?”

“Yes. There was more interconnection between minds when I was young. There were not human minds in the sense that you would know them, not yet. But there was communication, and knowing, back then.”

Vestiges of it still linger. In the vast underground networks of the trees, the paired spins of distant atoms. The matched steps of lovers finding perfect synchronicity in a dance. But—

“That was sundered with my wings.”

The cold that had washed over Dream when that realization hit had been worse than the pain of losing the wings in the first place. How he had failed the dreamers under his care. Let things fracture and tear and separate when they were meant to be together.

Hob sighs against the back of his neck. “I’m so sorry, Dream.”

“I am sorry,” Dream says. “It should never have happened.”

“No, it shouldn’t,” Hob agrees, and it’s sweet pain sliding between Dream’s ribs, for Hob to press his fingertips to the rawness of him and say, yes, failure, failure, I see it now.

But Hob kisses the point of his shoulder, the ever-tense muscles of his upper back, the hard curve of his scapula and the calcified line of another almost-joint, lost to time. His lips find the uneven scar tissue and press there, which is its own sweet pain, but sliding towards sweet, a sharp bite to kissed lips.

“It shouldn’t,” Hob whispers, and the words vibrate to the core of him. Hob does not see his failure, will not; Dream had forgotten Hob’s charity towards him, how he will see the blood on Dream’s hands and wipe it away instead of asking how it got there. Dream’s failures have stolen something from him he does not even know to miss, and still.

Now Dream does wish for Hob’s hands slipping under his ribs. Hob would find the aching wretched thing within him that had been loosed that day and hold it in his palms, wash the blood from it with careful strokes. Would that Hob could have held him then, submerged him deep in the waters of the Dreaming sea until the dark and the warmth and the strong hold of his arms had soothed the flayed and violated creature that Dream had become back to sanity. Before the gnashing rageful part of him had turned predator and fully grown its claws.

Perhaps there is succor to be found, after all. How quickly Hob Gadling has become it.

“I wish that I could have…” Hob sighs. It sounds mournful, longing. “I don’t even know. Helped you. Held you. Futile, I know.”

“I would not have you feel badly. It is long past and cannot be undone,” Dream says, as if Hob’s words don’t mean more to him than he could possibly know.

“Nothing can, sweetheart,” Hob says. His hair brushes Dream’s shoulders. It is terribly soft now, in this day and age. Dream suspects it was not always so. Human lives have rarely been soft on their bodies. He appreciates the softness of Hob’s body now, and how it cradles him. Dream himself has long been unchangeably hard-edged. “But I would still help you.”

“Sweetheart,” Dream repeats. Dream might have been sweet, once, at the end of a different story. “You would call me this, at the end of this tale?”

Hob turns him so they are facing each other once more. A tear has gathered in the corner of his eye, and slips down to wet his pillowcase as Dream watches. Tears for Dream. Warm salt water. He smiles at Dream anyway.

“You’re my sweetheart. My dear one. You think I would think anything about this other than sadness for you?”

“Dear one,” Dream echoes. “Always good to me, my Hob.”

“‘Course.” Hob squeezes his hand. Hands that too have known violence, but soft for Dream, always. “Is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all?”

“Only what you have already done,” Dream says. “Be a cavern where I can shelter from the cold.”

Hob kisses him, hot and lingering, and pulls the blankets up over their heads.

#thanks for sending this anon i'm extremely obsessed with it now #thinking about young dream still new to the world building the dreaming for the first time and learning his powers and still full #of softness and wonder and getting ripped to shreds for it #and now i am Screaming #dream of the endless #hob gadling #dreamling #my writing #ask #anonymous #tw gore #tw blood #fuck i did this while i'm supposed to be working so i should really get back to that now. adios

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smolmakerel · 1 year

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"Do you sit down in the shower, Tara?"

Tara blinked in surprised before narrowing her eyes. "What?"

Her new therapist, Abby Turner, was staring at her with a relaxed expression of genuine curiosity. She didn't really look the part of a therapist, sitting there in a yellow cardigan that matched the socks with SpongeBob on them. If anything, she looked a lot like a teacher Tara had in second grade minus the thick rimmed glasses.

"Do you sit down whenever you take a shower?" Abby asked again, shifting to cross her legs. She drew her fingernail over the metal clip of her clipboard.

Still, Tara was taken aback by such a question. She felt oddly seen through.

"Why?" Tara shot back instead.

Abby laughed softly. "There's no need to be defensive. I was going over our notes from last time and thought about what you said."

What she said? What did Tara say, exactly?

"I don't remember saying anything bad," mumbled Tara.

"No, nothing bad. I'm sorry if I made you panic."

At that, Tara hardened her gaze and looked away. Leave it to the therapist to know when her thoughts were spiraling out of control. God, Tara only had 7 sessions with her, and Abby thought she knew everything about Tara.

"It's ok if you do," Abby went on to say. Tara's face soured, and Abby unfortunately caught that. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Another one?" Tara tried to joke, but Abby saw through her facade. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were trying to play 20 questions."

She chuckled awkwardly. "Why do you sit down in the shower?"

"Because... I uh..."

"Take your time."

Tara was at a loss for words. Why did she sit down in the shower? She never really noticed she did it until Abby sent her back with homework to figure out things she noticed about her dailey routine. Which included an hour long shower; Tara would be sitting in the tub allowing the hot water to hit her back. While she sat, tremors would rack her body and her irritation would rise.

"I get in the shower in the morning," Tara explained slowly, still processing her thoughts. "Before class so no one has to see me all... icky."

"And do you think there might be another reason for sitting down?" Abby inquired. "I only ask because of your water bottle comment."

Tara looked unsure at that. She brought her hands to her lap to fidget with her nails. The comfortable gray armchair she sat on never felt more uncomfortable under the watchful eye of her therapist.

"S-Sorry, but I don't remember talking about that."

"That's ok," her therapist assured her. "Last time, you talked about how you needed to clean your room. You have a lot of water bottles on your table and floor, clothes in your bed."

Recognition flashed in Tara's eyes. "Right. Sorry."

"Depression and anxiety after a traumatic event is completely normal, Tara. In fact, I would be surprised if you didn't have one of those with what you've been through."

Tara shrugged. "It's nothing. Other people have been through more than me; I'm just being selfish."

Selfish. She had always been selfish; even her own mother thought so, and she made sure to remind Tara anytime she was in town.

Abby wrote something down, nodding to herself as if all of Tara's issues were understandable now.

"I sit on the floor," Tara suddenly said in the uncomfortable silence. She didn't look at her therapist at all, ashamed. "I get so... tired sometimes. And it isn't because of the metal in my leg! It's me! I wake up tired, go through the day angry because of how tired I am, and go to sleep tired. But then I can't sleep and I just..." She huffed in frustration, nails dug into her palms. "I don't know what to do."

Abby leaned back in her chair and flipped her clipboard over on her lap. Her eyes watched Tara's face closely.

"Is there anything you have that could help you sleep?" Abby asked. "A stuffed animal, a nightlight...?"

Tara's mind immediately drifted to her older sister. Sam was strong enough to keep Tara's night terrors away, yet she's soft enough to wrap Tara in her arms and calm her down. No matter how much Tara yells and sobs in her sleep, no matter the bloody scratch marks on her arms, no matter how Tara dissociates to protect herself. Sam was always there.

"No," Tara claimed instead.

Abby cocked her head. "And your sister isn't willing to help you?"

Tara shook her head. "No, she is but... I don't want to bother her with my problems."

Abby flipped her clipboard back over and wrote something down. Tara wanted to chuck the damn thing out the window. She lowered the clipboard again.

"Based on what you've told me about your sister, she sounds like just the person you need at night," Abby pointed out with a soft smile. "I'm sure she'd be willing to help if you asked."

'But I can't!' The words burn acid on Tara's tongue.

"Ok."

Fuck.

[♡♡♡]

Tara raised her hand at Sam's door and drew it into a fist. It hovered in the air for a long few seconds.

Then she knocked.

The door opened not even a second later, and Sam was standing there rubbing her eyes.

"Tara?" Sam mumbled. She instantly woke up, eyes darting over Tara looking for some sort of injury. "Are you ok? What are you doing up right now?"

"Can... Can I sleep in here with you?" Tara asked and before Sam could respond, she was babbling. "I'm sorry if I woke you up with this. Fuck, I'm so stupid. This was a mistake, I didn't mean to wake you up with my stupid problems. I-I'll go back to my room. Sorry -"

"Tara."

Tara's breathing hitched when Sam gently cupped her face, and - Oh. That was actually kind of nice. She sank into the warmth of Sam's palms.

"Let's go to bed, ok?" Sam whispered.

Tara nodded, throat thick with emotion. "Ok."

It was about 20 minutes later when they were settled in Sam's bed. Tara was dozing off finally, face buried into Sam's chest as her arms wrapped around her.

She stirred slightly when Sam kissed the top of her head. Her fingers tucked a few strands of hair out of Tara's face.

"I love you, Tara," Sam muttered.

Tara, too exhausted to say anything, simply turned her head and kissed Sam on the palm. She settled back down and relaxed into a peaceful sleep.

#scream #scream 2022 #scream vi #sam carpenter #tara carpenter #I was tempted to make the therapist bad but then I thought of my therapist and how nice she is and thought “better not”#They're so soft for each other #I'm still figuring out how to write them tbh #So enjoy while I'm working on breaking your hearts in my next post #Tara learning how to ask for help after everything #She trusts Sam but doesn't trust herself #And it's all because of Christina fucking Carpenter #Fuck Christina Carpenter #My writing

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