#dream (the sandman) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thepaintedlady00 · 25 days ago

Text

Cursed

Part 1 | Part 3

The Cursed Meeting

Helllooooo!!! It's been a hot minute y'all! 😅 I swear I've been working on the huge list of projects I have and hopefully I'll be able to start posting more regularly once I get things to a spot I'm comfortable with. Until then I wanted to (finally) share part 2 of the Cursed series. I know a lot of people have been waiting for this since part 1 was posted, sorry it took me so long 😅 Hopefully the following parts won't be so far apart. I hope you all enjoy part 2! I know I'm absolutely falling in love with this story 😊

The music was loud, too loud for you to find anything to enjoy about it. You'd found that it all sounded the same if the volume was high enough. Still, you danced just as you promised your friends you would when you'd caved under the mountain of their endless pleas.

“Come on, you never come to the club with us!” Vivian had whined.

“You skipped out on my birthday party last year, remember? You owe me!” Alison added.

“It won't be as fun if it's not all of us,” Bree finished with a flutter of her big teary green eyes and staring back at all of them, shoving through your front door you suddenly couldn't get the words out of your mouth.

As you dodged sweaty body after sweaty body you silently cursed yourself—no thanks, guys. I'm not feeling it tonight, sorry! It would have been so easy! Yet here you were, the only one wearing pants that fit you, deaf, and covered in other people's sweat. Just how you'd wanted to spend your night off.

A body shoved you to the left, your face landing dead center into another person's chest. The chill that swept over you brought goosebumps to your flesh as the distantly familiar smell of poppies and lavender washed over you. Mortified, you quickly tripped over your own feet to step away from the blurred figure with a very embarrassing squeal of “I'm sorry!” As you scurried towards the door.

The chilled night air offered you some relief as the noise faded behind the thick door to the alley behind the club. To the left, you saw a few huddled groups passing a cigarette between them, but as you pressed your back against the cold brick you couldn't bring yourself to care. It was quiet and right now that was all that mattered.

You were a simple person. You liked the quiet of your apartment. You liked your books and your soft music and your simple job at the flower shop across the street. It was predictable. Safe. And you liked safe. You liked it more than anything, or, almost anything.

A thud drew your attention to the right where a small cat had fallen from its perch along the dumpster and quickly skittered beneath it. Everything else faded away as you dropped to the dirty pavement in the alley and met the small felines frightened eyes.

“Hello,” you’d whispered as you flattened yourself against the pavement.

The cat hissed back at you, curling in on itself.

“You shouldn’t be out here all by yourself,” you said as you slowly let your hand drift closer, hoping it would somehow be able to sense you meant it no harm if it could smell you. The scratch was immediate, but the sting had not deterred you. With a sigh, you retracted your arm and began thinking of other ways to gain the little creature's trust.

Entirely unbeknownst to you, this cat would lead to the end of your predictable, safe simplicity. Fates threads pulled taut around you like a noose as the ink of Destiny’s pages dried.

Dream didn't know why he'd agreed to this. His sister had pulled him from his important work and somehow talked him into accompanying her to The Waking World to be among the humans. Again. Though he couldn't complain about the first time now that he'd - unwillingly - admitted that Hob Gadling was his friend, he could certainly complain about this.

The lights were dim and the humans congregating here were even more so. If he'd not been an anthropomorphic personification he was certain his hearing would have been lost after enduring the loud ruckus droning through the speakers the humans had hanging from every wall and light fixture. And if that wasn't bad enough there were people. So. Many. People. The crowd of undulating humans looked like a sea from the stairs he hovered in front of.

“Come on,” Death urged from the bottom step, hovering on the precipice of the endless carnal abyss.

“Absolutely not,” Dream grumbled.

She huffed, cocking a hip and holding out her hand to him. “You promised you'd try it.”

“That was before I knew you meant to writhe with the mortals in this…” He looked around with a sneer of disgust, “cesspool.”

“It's a club, Dream,” his sister corrected with a bright smile. “And it's meant to be fun.”

Fun? He felt insulted on behalf of anyone who thought this chaos was fun. With a sneer set upon his face, Dream relented. He had promised, after all. The reward for this was almost instantaneous. His feet flattened against the floor among the moving bodies of mortals, Death happily venturing forward into the masses without trouble, yet the moment he’d moved to lift his foot a body slammed into his own.

He held in the disgruntled noise as a small, feminine form grasped onto his coat for a moment to find her footing. He noted how different she looked from the rest - or rather, how her clothes seemed to actually fit her. It was but a moment, a fleeting one, that she’d been pressed against him before she lifted her eyes and stumbled away from him with a bumbling, “I’m sorry!”

Death was not easy to find, as she’d moved deep within the crowd. But, when he finally found her she was beaming at him with that look of hers. “She was cute.”

“Can we be done with this place?” Dream asked, bypassing her statement entirely.

“We’ve only just gotten here.”

“And yet I’ve my fill of it for the next century.”

With a glare, his sister shook her head, “Fine. We’ll go. But, next time you come with me I intend to get a dance out of you.”

Dream scoffed as they turned to make their way out of the crowd. “That is unlikely.”

“Unlikely things happen all the time little brother,” she assured him as she led them out a different door than they’d come in at.

He rolled his eyes and greeted the quiet that awaited them as they stepped outside. Whatever humans had been lingering in the alley took one look at him and quietly departed. It was normal, he supposed, their ability to sense the otherness of him. Death had been walking among the humans before he’d even existed, and more so in recent times, she’d been warmer to them than he had. All mortals beheld him with a reverent fear of the nightmares they saw within his dark starlit eyes and he’d been grateful that this was the case on most occasions, though he did sometimes feel a twinge of something far beneath him. Disappointment.

“Come on little one,” a voice cooed to the side of the alley. His head turned, eyes casting down to the pavement beside mountains of garbage where a girl was lying, one arm extended beneath the garbage bin. Her hair fell over her shoulder, onto the filthy ground, yet she didn’t seem to care about the dirt and grime as she shuffled closer to the garbage. “It’s going to be a cold night. We should find you somewhere warm, don’t you think?”

A hiss echoed to his superior ears and piqued his interest. Stepping away from Death’s side, Dream of the Endless moved to stand closer to the girl until the feline beneath the dumpster could see his sleek black boots. Fear radiated off the animal, twisting its thoughts and perception of the world around it. Through the cat's eyes, the girl looked like one of his nightmares, dark eyes and clawed hands. This is not reality, Dream spoke to it.

The cat, sensing the power of the famed Dream Lord, quickly darted out from beneath the dumpster and ran into his boots. Its eyes were wide and its bony stomach moved with its quickened breaths as it gazed up at Dream in awe and fear. Before he could urge the small creature to calm it darted away toward the mouth of the alley. The girl stumbled to her feet, rushing past him after the cat as he darted out into the road. “Wait!”

Headlights caught in its eyes, flashing for a moment as the small thing froze in either shock, fear, or fatigue. Dream began to turn his head, not wanting to watch the scene undoubtedly about to unfold, but then he saw the girl step out into the road and couldn’t help but stare at her as she curled her body around the cat like a protective cocoon. He’d seen humans behave in every manner of ways, but so rarely did he see them prepared to sacrifice their own safety to shield the innocence still left in the world from harm.

Dream didn’t notice Death take a step toward them, he didn’t notice anything as his feet moved of their own accord until he too stood in the street beside the girl and the cat she cradled. The car honked and the headlights drew closer as he took the girl by her shoulders and moved her out of harm's way.

Well, your night certainly wasn’t going as you’d hoped. You should have stayed home. You should have left the club as soon as you were able to. You should have done a lot of things differently, and yet there you were on your knees in the middle of the road hunched over the stray cat that hissed and clawed at you as you shielded it from the car speeding towards you both. It would be just your luck that the one night you strayed from your simple little life would also be your last.

It all happened so fast that you didn’t even really know if it was real or not. Cold hands pulled you up by your shoulders and soft fabric wove around you as you were pulled into the body of a stranger and turned away from the car as it blazed past. The sound of the tires squealing and honking died out as it vanished into the night. Was this Death? You wondered, cradling the angry cat tighter in your arms as the smell of poppies and lavender engulfed you.

A pale hand settled over the cat's head and the creature calmed beneath it. You followed that hand up, your racing mind taking in every detail of your savior far quicker than it could even process them. He was tall, towering over you like some giant made of midnight and moonlight. You could feel the muscle that lined his thin frame, and see his strength in the way he held himself high, higher than everyone else. His skin was pale, glowing in the night like a precious gemstone, and contrasted against his ink-black hair that messily framed his perfect face. His high cheekbones and strong jawline made his face the most beautiful you’d ever seen, putting even the marble statues of ancient sculptors to shame, but it was his eyes of deep sapphire blue that enchanted you.

The cat purred as the stranger gently stroked its mangled fur with a slight frown. “Are you injured?”

“No,” you answered without thinking, drawing the stranger's eyes to your own and nearly causing your heart to stop in your chest. He looked at you curiously, as if he hadn’t expected you to answer him, and as your mind caught up to everything else you quickly realized he might not have been speaking to you at all. The cat was, still in your arms. “Oh,” you sighed, casting your eyes down far from his burning gaze as heat rose to your cheeks. “You meant the cat.”

Just as you’d opened your mouth, ready to assure the stranger standing far too close that the cat seemed unharmed his hand lifted from the creature's fur and gently tucked a stray piece of your hair behind your ear. Perhaps it was the shock of it all that gave you the courage to meet his gaze again, or maybe it was just that enchanting pull he seemed to have, either way, you found yourself staring into his eyes counting the stars within them as he spoke again in that voice softer than silk, “Are you injured?”

“No,” you said again, softer this time, as you glanced back at the road, the shock of it all seemingly catching up to you as a chill swept through your body. You’d been closer to Death now than ever before - in more ways than you even knew. Yet, the only words you could stumble out to your savior were, “You’re really fast.”

Idiot, you scolded internally.

The stranger, however, chuckled. “I am simply glad you and your friend are safe.”

Friend? Right. The cat. You pulled the too-thin creature closer, quickly examining the scabby skin and the missing chunks of fur. “Oh, you poor thing.”

Though the cat now accepted your hold on it more comfortably, the bite marks and scratches that marred your arms burned in the chilled night air. You tried not to take it so personally, after all, what mattered was the cat was safe now. You weren’t an expert in caring for animals, but you’d taken in many strays before this one and done your best to give them a long, happy, healthy life. If the ornery creature would allow it, you intended to do the same now.

As if the stranger could somehow read your thoughts - could hear the mental notes you took of the condition of the cat's skin and wounded ears and fleas - he asked, his tone one of utter disbelief, “You truly intend to care for this creature?”

Looking back up at him your brows furrowed. “Of course I do.”

“After all the trouble it’s caused you?”

You laughed then, shaking your head with a modest shrug. “There are few things in this life that don’t cause trouble. Besides, it’s not the cat's fault. It was scared, probably rightfully so after all it’s been through.”

He said nothing more as a woman with beauty that matched his stepped beside him and looked at you with a curious sort of smile. She felt familiar, her face one you’d sworn you’d seen before, the sound of her voice one you somehow knew before even hearing it. “And you said the night was going to be dull.”

The stranger rolled his eyes and glared at her. “One eventful moment does not erase the senselessness of this outing.”

A sudden feeling of embarrassment filled you as you realized just how close you stood to the man who had saved you - the man you did not know. This is probably his girlfriend, your thoughts betrayed you, making that feeling amplify as you nervously took a step back, nearly tripping over the curb. The stranger caught you effortlessly, a cold look of confusion marring his stoic face as you shrugged off his touch and found your footing. “I should go. I’ve caused you enough trouble.” You turned, hurrying away before turning around again and offering the only thing you could think of to repay the kindness he’d shown you, a smile. “Thank you, for… being fast.”

Before he could reply you were practically running away, your face burning hot and your gut twisted in embarrassment. Idiot!

Dream watched the girl flee, the image of her soft lips curved upwards stuck in his head. Mortals rarely smiled when they saw him, they often feared him the moment they laid eyes on him, but not this mortal it would seem. She’d been shy, and timid, but not afraid.

Death leaned against him, watching the human fade into the night. “That was interesting. So, you gonna follow her? Get her name?”

“Yes,” he’d said without thinking, quickly rectifying his mistake by fixing his coat and shrugging his sister off him to give her a bland look. “To ensure she truly does not mean to harm the creature.”

Her grin was more smug than he’d seen in eons as Death nodded, “Of course.”

The two siblings eventually bid one another farewell and as Dream returned to his realm to sit upon his throne Matthew had just arrived at the correct apartment. He’d peered in through the windows, finding the girl hunched over the bathtub with the cat flailing in her arms as she rinsed out its fur and diligently combed the bugs within it. The task had taken her hours, and after she’d attempted to dry the cat's fur the creature had taken refuge beneath her couch as she tended to the cuts on her arms.

Dream watched as the girl lay down on her floor, much as she had in the alley, offering what assurance she could to the cat. Humans were confusing creatures, so much so that Dream of the Endless often found himself gladly staying far from them. This human seemed different, though, intriguing and sincere… something he’d not experienced in well over a century. And so, the mighty Dream Lord found himself in the library, pouring over every book he could find depicting the girl's dreams and nightmares, learning all he could about her until he could no longer deny the urge to see her once again.

32 notes · View notes