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They didn’t even give him a coffin.
When Nightmare waved Dream goodbye for the celebration (“I’ll be fine on my own, go have fun,”) he anticipated one or two bold village folk to confront him at the Tree. He was ready, bracing himself for a whole night without the buffer of his brother to lessen the vitriol toward himself. He had thick, hard covered books and a staff for any necessary posturing, but they were ultimately useless to an ambush.
The blow to his head was hard. It could have been harder. He had taken worse things than shovels. Nightmare counted the stars that bloomed forth from the hit, eyes watering and teeth gritted. He would not lose anything without killing someone tonight. He was lucky he didn’t have a tongue to bite-it’d have split from the snip of his teeth. He was momentarily suspended in time, stunned by the pain, and his thoughts raced to orange, yellow, swaying grass, creaking branches, yellow gloves exactly his size-
Then, he landed with a thud on the ground, and they grasped him by the ankles of his worn and heavy boots. He quickly slipped out of them, easy and practiced, before throwing himself away from the shadowy figure that lunged for him. He fell to the ground again, unbalanced as the world fought him and screamed and rushed about. The green grass, black in the dark, scraped at his face and dug into his eye sockets. A hand again, one-two-three fingers, his ankle-and he went limp as a different hand took his second leg. They harshly tugged at him, and he tried to focus on the Tree, to see if anyone else was there. His lantern didn’t show anyone, at least.
A flash of yellow stars. The thought of Dream, and he bided his time. Nightmare wasn’t great at math, but he could do some simple arithmetic in his head, and was good at counting a steady rhythm. He took deep and slow breaths, listened (tried to) to the conversation at hand-ambush, kill, dig. One-two-three steps.
For him, of course. For killing him.
A strange calm washed over the strangling thorns of fear and hysteria creeping through his head. Dream laughed, far away, and he tried to turn his head to see him-but he knew Dream couldn’t be there. He imagined still bodies, bright yellow and red wildflowers, stained bones, and loose dust sparkling on tall grass. He imagined pretty chrysanthemums, seas of yellow flowers like dawn and the sky and the moon all pouring into big pools of reflective water. He imagined dancing under wide branches and swaying to music from the village, where it was barely heard. He imagined-He counted the steps. (One-two-three.)
He’s spent days upon days imagining how to react when this happened. In every single possibility, he lost. Though Nightmare could do his best to fight, the villagers existed perpetually in groups of two or more, and so they overpowered him in his mind. His chances would be best alone with someone the same size as him, and he was already at a disadvantage in that category by lacking much body mass. There had to be more than one of them, and they had a weapon. Nightmare knew he would lose this time, for real. But he would not lose easily. Never.
One-two-three.
Dream laughed as he spun in his mind, his arms around Nightmare’s shoulders. In that moment, the brothers had never been so free, alone together under the rustling leaves of their Mother and given no audience but the chirp of crickets. The village had hosted their annual summer festival and no townsfolk would come to bother them all night. It was perfect. Finally, just the two of them. They became bold enough to escape to the lake, just for a bit, to sit by the murky and black water. They pretended to be normal boys. Dream held his hand tightly, like he was afraid Night would fall in and never come back out.
One-two-three.
Dream’s pale face through the bright green leaves, the light from golden fruit reflected onto him. He glowed, in the sun. Bright, more than any star. Night couldn’t remember when he didn’t shine so much. His eyes always followed Night even when they were far apart. They smiled at him with a mysterious twinkle, like they were telling him a secret. But when Dream wasn’t watching him…
Sometimes Night caught the fleeting glimpse of a twisted expression on Dream’s face. It looked strange on him. Cruel, more like a snarl than the pretty smile that Dream saved for him and only him.
One-two-three.
The pulse in his head throbbed in time to the sway of his aggressors. There was no point in listening any further, he knew they were taunting and insulting him. Their words were far too muddled to guess anyway. The steps they took were long. In correlation to the size of their paws(?), he couldn’t get out of this without a heavy weapon.
The grass grew longer around his head. They were taking him to the woods. Dream smiled at him in his mind, holding something in his glove. Night tried to recall what it was. He was twelve paces from the Tree. If they had any more assailants with them, it could be raided right now-but to be perfectly honest, he couldn’t give a rat’s ass about it. Nightmare twisted, writhed, and as one of them lifted him up slightly-he pulled the knife from his waistband and shoved it in as deep as he could.
It was a small knife, but at least he hit something. Better than nothing.
Nightmare felt his soul-whatever it was-in his chest pulse again. (One.) Dream was saying something, reaching for him with a bloodied hand. (Two.) The blood was not Dream’s. (Three.) The stars smeared around him. A glint of the silver blade, dark with liquid. He thought of the plum he cut for Dream today. The color was almost the same. One-two-three strikes in almost the right places. Every contact sparked a blinding pain from his target, and he drank it down, the fear and hatred and agony, relished in it. It was not enough to heal him.
He was thrown off. He kept a stubborn grip on the blade, huffing quickly through the nausea and pain and the stupid spinning of his head as he focused (tried to focus) and swung again. He couldn’t see anything. Just the slightest blurs and different shadows, cut by the moon’s hallowed light. Everything was obscured by the drip of something cold down his face.
Someone screamed (terrible noise, almost akin to a fox being skinned alive) and he was hit again. He hoped it was because he killed their partner. Their emotions had dwindled to nothing, and he couldn’t sense them. He gripped his knife and tried again, heard a thud and the obstruction of bone, felt cloth along his fingers as the handle went further in, and his target screamed again (so loud, so annoying,) and he was hit. Nightmare grunted. Something was beating his head, a rock, (a cracking noise,) but he could care less-he could die here, listening to Dream laugh and dance, (the steps, he remembered- three of them, a waltz,) hearing strange festival music and screaming, as long as he made them bleed. He felt something powdery between his fingers. Shattering pain splintered across his face as something gave way, three strikes, and his assailant shrieked and fell away from him as Nightmare felt more coldness spill across his face. The coldness writhed like the dark eels he once saw in a pail, moving along the docks and swinging in a bucket of murky water.
Blearily, Nightmare wondered if the slimy and miserable creatures had brothers. He wondered if the eels knew they would die, and if they struggled anyway. If they would struggle like him, even if they knew they’d die regardless. If their brothers wouldn’t bury them or have time to look for them, either.
What would Dream do? What would his brother do when he realized Night was gone? What would he do to the villagers?
He was hit again, across the side of his head. There was a metallic clang, and his ribs shuddered and vibrated with it. It sounded oddly like the first note of that song, the one they danced to. Nightmare tried to remember the melody. It came back in flashes, striking him again and again in every musical, metallic, hateful note. He felt the cold turn into blissful numbness.
Who would cut his brother fruit into slices? And sew the rips and tears in his shirt and trousers? Who else would clean his scrapes and kiss his bruises?
Nightmare tried to roll away, to protect his already damaged skull, and the shovel landed again on his side. Someone was saying incomprehensible things again. Laughing. The moon reflected unwavering light upon him, he could feel it, sighing against his bones and dirt covered clothes as he tried to think of his brother. Counted his breaths, one-two-
What would Dream do? When he saw all of Night’s things left at the roots, and a trail of disturbed grass? Would he investigate? Would he-?
He gasped, but didn’t scream (good, at least he had that) as there was a final clang-and his body stopped responding to his pleas to move. His spine-stars and constellations and unloving mothers and waving fruit-it was like someone cut him on a butcher’s table. He was split apart. Everything was wrong about his body, painful and cruel, and he did not let himself cry. He couldn’t even keep his own body, the control, and the calm began to seep away to leave only an aching cold. He wanted to keep at least the last of his tears. He wanted to give nothing away when he died, and leave only his painful hatred. The most agonizing, scarring, despairing hatred he could, that would curse them all and leave them twisted and broken and as ugly as he was, so they could tear each other to shreds the same way they did his brother and himself.
And the coldness spread further through his body, slow and viscous like tar, as he was forced to lay still. There was silence. Then, a shovel pulling up the roots of grass, and dirt piling. Somebody spoke again, the same voice from before, sharp and clipped and angry. Nightmare could care less. He would grin and smile if he could, and as if sensing his thoughts-only managed to flinch as a glob of spit landed on his back.
Then, the digging continued.
One-two-three.
Dream beaming as he showed him a fish he caught, before Nightmare coaxed him into letting it back into the stream. Dream said it would be a good meal. He brought a knife along, it sat under the folds of their blanket. Night disagreed. They couldn’t care for it or digest it, it’d be cruel to kill it or keep it as a pet. Dream’s eyes flashed strangely as he held the fish above the water for just a second, watching it helplessly flop and struggle, before letting his palm dip back down into the stream. The fish was swept away. Nightmare dismissed the look as the reflection of the light from the water. But later, he remembered the knife in the basket, as he hung their herbs upside down to dry. Where did Dream get a hunting knife?
One-two-three.
His brother was good friends with the hunters of the village. They admired his marksmanship, his unwavering precision and focus in spite of distraction. They said lots of good things about him, about how quick he was, how his shots always sank deep and true. He was always invited out on trips through the woods. Night was proud of his brother, how could he not be-but Dream always came back more and more unsatisfied, something like the frustration in Night festering in him. There was a certain restlessness to Dream that never ceased after he picked up his first bow, and only grew as time passed. It felt like hunger, but no matter how much Dream fed on the townsfolk’s emotions, he couldn’t get rid of it. Night was worried about him. He wished he knew what to do to help. Dream only smiled at him strangely when Night asked to talk about it, like he wanted something from him, like he was keeping a good secret. Night was distracted after that.
One-two-three.
When Night learned what Dream had been doing, it was an accident. Night stirred from his sleep at the sound of a struggle, but Dream’s even and cheerful tone over the sound of the rustling grass made him roll back over to sleep further. The Tree ushered him back to his dreams. Whatever, his brother could deal with it. He was too tired to bear the brunt of insults at this time. If Dream was there, no one would try to attack him. It was fine-probably just some annoying villager nagging Dream to help them again.
Later that day, he left the Tree. A rare occurrence, he hated to abandon his post (and only purpose in life, besides Dream,) but he could… sense his brother. Just barely, on the edges of his periphery, out near the woods.
Dream was supposed to be out on a hunting trip with the guild, what was he doing out in the shallow brush? Everyone was out deeper in the trees, that was where the wild boar were.
The grass got taller as he waded through, Dream’s name in his throat-and stilled like a deer as he heard a thud. There was a stuttering breath, and another noise, like a pig squealing at a butcher’s. Night figured he was processing an animal as a favor, but couldn’t help but wonder why it was so far from the town. Dream’s emotions flared with a flash of excitement and triumph and joy.
Night got too curious.
It could have been minutes or days that Nightmare laid in the dirt, trapped in the darkness of his mind and the swaying, moving ground, tossing him around until he landed in a pit of dirt and worms. The soil was cool and soft and wet, and Nightmare at least could see the moon partly from where his head landed. It was a bit obscured by the walls of his prison, but not too much-it peeked out the sides and looked back at him.
Then, he laid there, helpless as the grave was covered.
When he felt the presence of the monster finally leave, he began to scream. Dirt filled his mouth-it was already uncomfortably mingling inside of his skull, and grinding between the joints of his feet. He couldn’t hear anything, not even himself pushing his voice as far as it felt it could go-he wasn’t even sure if he was screaming. He pushed and pushed at the dirt, but his arms wouldn’t move, and his fingers would only twitch. There was something so, so, wrong with his back that hurt more when he thought too much about it, but there was nothing else he could do but think. The weight was pressing down, down, down on him, and he thought he might let himself cry just a little when he heard the muffled sound of rain.
The time he spent there, immobilized, blinded, pained, and helpless could have been endless.
Then, he let himself finally wonder: would his brother dig him out? Or would the glee he saw in Dream as he cut apart that villager-would he see the same look when Dream found him? Would Dream watch him suffocate like the fish he held over the stream? Would he pull him out, only to take him apart?
Did Dream ever really need him?
His chest felt as though it were slowly bending further inward, like the foundation of an old house made with rotting wood. His bones wanted to give way to the soil. He couldn’t tell if it all hurt so bad because of the thought of Dream finally abandoning him, or because his ribs couldn’t bear the pressure any longer.
Night felt his eyes water again, but he couldn’t tell if any tears made it out. Everything was slowly being soaked through by the rain. His sockets were blocked off by dirt. He couldn’t blink.
His anxieties rose as he suddenly felt a large flare of fear-not at all his. It was a conglomerate of people, all of them terrified and frightened, all of them from-the village. Where Dream was.
Night’s senses wane until there is only numbness, stillness, and the burden of dirt pressing down on him. Then approaches a familiar person, boots, and the sound of dirt hastily dug.
When the warm summer air finally breaches the wall of dirt covering his face, he can’t find the strength to even gasp or react. His world is recentered around the hot hand gripping his own like a manacle. How much it feels alive, how it shivers under his vice grip, how it holds him just as tightly. He begs his brother not to let go, can’t speak around the dust in his mouth-and doesn’t know that Dream’s bare hand is not wet because of the rain. That it isn’t gritty from the soil.
“I got you,” and he can barely hear at all. “I have you, brother, no one-“ and he barely hears the quaver in Dream’s furious, relieved voice, “-can take you away from me.”
Please, Night thinks. Please never let me go. Please never leave me again.
He can’t even wrap his trembling arms around his brother. He doesn’t have to, but he manages the tiniest whimper as Dream pulls him up by his shoulders. The soil cascades from him, his head lolls and more showers down, and some of it is mixed inside the cold in his body. He thinks it may never leave him, the grit and discomfort of his shallow grave. He wants to run into the stream and wash himself off until every granule is swept off in the current, including himself.
Nightmare can only shiver with stark relief as Dream touches him, holds him close and fragile. Every contact is new and sensitive, enhanced by the deprivation of his senses. He thinks of brilliant yellow and distant festival music and murky water. He feels his bare feet in the cool, tall grass, hears the village in the distance, a terrified unanimous screaming, and he feels something underneath his watering eyes as Dream cradles him closer. Like he’s precious.
“I have you,” his brother utters again. “I’m here, I’m here, I’ll never leave you alone again. I’m sorry,” and here his voice cracks, so painfully true that Night can hear it well despite the way the world still feels muffled and silent. His soul sighs in unison with Dream’s, aches and clenches and falls back together. Every tear that scalds down Dream’s face is Nightmare’s. When the teardrop lands on his sullied tunic, it sizzles into steam. At least this way, he feels something.
His spine twinges painfully, preventing him from escaping into blissful darkness and unconsciousness. Dream apologizes further, ushering him away from his death and back to the familiar Tree. There is something different about it that he doesn’t quite understand, disoriented and confused, partway blinded and immobilized from the neck down. Something important feels like it’s missing. He should say something, alert his brother. But he still has dirt inside of his skull, wet and packed in there by the rain, and he can’t even gesture for Dream to help him get it out.
Night is propped up against the trunk of the Tree, his lantern placed off to the side. The light is blurry and obscured. He finds it comforting, at least, the familiarity of it making a wave of relief rush to his eyes again. Dream murmurs, and he says something that wavers in and out of Nightmare’s hearing. He’s speaking too softly. Then, fingers begin to prod the sensitive parts of his skull, and the pressing, horrible feeling lessens before falling away. Gentle hands undo his pain and leave him clean, but not pure. There’s still pieces left behind in him that won’t come out, too deep and far inside of his head to reach. Dream tries anyway, but only makes Night uncomfortable. He eventually gives up.
By now, Night can hear slightly better-can see as well. It’s bad, everything is still blurry and strangely smeared, like there’s something wrong with his eye. It makes him nervous, and he doesn’t know what’s happening. But Dream’s presence soothes him enough, and he latches onto his brother’s emotions, tracing every flicker of relief and comfort and anxiety and mirroring it-until Dream’s low muttering turns to impassioned rage.
“We can’t let them get away with this.”
Obviously, Night thinks. But what would they even do? He squints as the lantern glows brighter, while Dream’s words grow louder. His hand, once gentle and warm, now feels burning hot on Night’s cheek. Still, he leans into it anyway, the best he can. Dream softens, his wrath aching and twisting into love and sorrow. Night tries to project something soothing and forgiving to him, because at least Dream can sense him. It only serves to make his brother sigh.
“You’re-Night, you’re beyond my healing.” Dream whispers. “I can’t… you can’t even speak.” His head comes to rest on the wood over Night’s shoulder, his breath gusting over his neck and into the wet collar of his shirt. “I can’t even fix that. What’s the point of my abilities if I can’t even help you when you’re in so much pain?”
Night feels his sorrow, and closes his eye. The other remains stubbornly open, bleary and dark. Oh, Dream. He always pushes himself too hard. Night tries not to flinch as Dream lets his head rest against Night’s shoulder-even the barest weight, it hurts so badly. And then Dream is angry again.
“How could they do this to you? How could they? You’re everything that is good and worth protecting in this world-I’ve done everything to appease them, I’m- I don’t know what to do anymore. I can’t do it anymore.” He manages, though the last part feels self-directed.
You could kill them, and Night feels a rush of glee when he hears Dream whisper it to himself. Thinks of the handle of his little paring knife in his hand, the satisfying sink of it into flesh and the obstruction of bone and sinew. Night and Dream are silent, are one, in the temptation of murder, before Dream shakily sighs.
“I could,” and Night pushes comfort to him. Dream’s hot hand runs along his arm. At least Night can shiver. “I could kill them. But your injuries…” And Dream’s head falls back as he closes his eyes. When he opens them again to the branches over their heads, he pauses, and the idea is visible on his face.
He reaches up, up, up-and plucks an apple from the Tree. Even in the darkness, it is not hard to discern a golden apple from a dark one. What concerns Night is how the surface dulls when Dream touches it, as if it were losing its luster. But as Night locks eyes with his brother again, a rush of relief and love and comfort instantly fills them both, and the apple begins to return to its original, shiny state.
Night watches, his soul pounding, as Dream retrieves a clean knife from his belt and begins to cut it into pieces. It smells delicious, like every good memory he has of his time with Dream. The fragrance is almost overpowering. Once the first slice is made, his brother presses it to his mouth. Night obediently chews, though his jaw feels gritty and horrid. It’s sweet and refreshing and it makes his body grow even more lax, the aches and pains smoothing away into softness. Dream watches with wide yellow eyes as Night gently slumps over, his head dizzy with apple crisp memories of his brother’s smile and the flush of yellow and fingers locked around his own. It’s enough to soothe the pain, but not to fix it.
So, Dream gives him another slice. And another, and the rest of the golden apple, until Night is gone. His head is empty, save for a strange and blissful nothing that makes it easier to focus on his brother as a hand gently corrects his ragdoll state. The coldness on his face is still stark, though, and prevents him from fully falling into the euphoric depths of the apple.
“It won’t go away. It won’t heal you,” and Dream despairs, clutching the material of his pants as he kneels before Night’s broken, blissful body. “Then… the dark apples. They’re yours, aren’t they? But…”
Night hazily smiles at him.
And Dream’s hesitance falters. He leans forward, one hand balancing him in the grass as he reaches up again-and pulls down a dark apple. Even at his fingertips, it seems to faintly absorb the light around it. Night watches in a fog of contentment and warmth as his brother cuts him fruit, mouth opening easily for the dark slice he presses against it.
Like the apple before it, the fruit is sweet and crisp, but it… every chew is a pang of the shovel and the kick of a boot or the jeer of a villager. The thoughts he had, alone in the grave, slink back and curl on his tongue. Delicious, rich agony seeps forth from Nightmare, his emotions twisting like gnarled vines and thorns in his chest against the sweet haze. Before he can swallow, Dream lunges and pries the fruit from his mouth. His fingers invade his skull and scrape it off his tongue, dumping it on the grass with a near feral expression of terror. Night just blinks, the lingering negativity and positivity struggling to reconcile-before balancing out into an odd numbness not unlike a daydream.
The cracks in his bones begin to reseal.
“That can’t be it.” Dream whispers to the Tree. Their Mother does not respond, has not for years. “Why does he need to feel pain again to be healed? Why do you do this to my brother? Why do you hate him so much?”
Night wishes he knew. He closes his eye. Dream cries for a minute, and he feels the shuddering sobs against his chest that Dream tries to reign in. Night wishes he could run his hands along Dream’s back, but he can’t. He wordlessly watches as Dream struggles to accept the apple, his tearful expression twisting his face into pain, before the fruit is slowly pressed to his mouth again. His back hurts. Coldness drips down his face, and Dream's hand trembles as he presses the slice against his mouth again, begging him wordlessly to eat it.
Nightmare takes it slowly. He can’t chew less or he’d choke, though he wishes he could just swallow and be done with it- like medicine. It’s foul, though it tastes so good. It's nothing to do with the fruit itself but the things it invokes, all the hatred and misery and tragedy solid and concentrated in his chest. There's a strange noise like a creak, and his face hurts around his eye socket, where he felt something crack and shatter. There's no more pain than the things he's already lived. His jaw grows tired of chewing and chewing, and he wants to sleep, but Dream gently shakes him awake. Nightmare looks to the moon, but he can't see past his brother's worried expression. They’re only made it through one apple, and his bones are beginning to look mostly healed-but it’s still not enough. It wouldn't be that easy, never for the two of them.
Night looks back at his brother’s haunted expression, before trying to speak. He manages the tiniest rasp. “It’s okay.”
His brother’s expression crumbles in on itself. It’s funny, how Night wondered earlier if Dream would let him struggle or suffocate when he found his grave-and now Dream was pained by having to torture him for his healing to work. Night found it endearing. He was glad Dream’s cruel malice didn’t apply to him, at least.
Dream’s dirty gloves and the scattered remnants of an animal that was once human come to mind. Sparkling red, orange, yellow, colors spinning and blurring and smearing together like a beautiful painting. He had never felt Dream so happy, so satisfied, and though he was disgusted... he couldn't find it in him to feel bad for whoever he killed. If it made Dream happy, if it would make him smile again...
He opened his mouth. His brother watched, eyes flaring gold, and Night thought that he was lucky to have him. “Another.”
And so Dream fed him.
When Night was finally fully healed, he needed to have his spine reset and his shoulder relocated. The bones had regrown but did not do so correctly. Dream reluctantly did so for him, though there was something very wrong about his vertebrae that he could not fix. Night just waved it off. He rasped. “I’ll be okay. We can find… a doctor. The village doctor. They'll listen to you.” His skull didn’t fully heal, either, the slightest seams where his skull had to forcibly regrow visible. The cracks wouldn't go. Dream wasn't willing to give him another apple.
His brother briefly appeared chagrined. Nightmare squinted. His newly healed eye socket didn't quite comply. "... What did you do." Dream's fake smile, the one he did around the towns folk, uneasily spread on his face.
He thought back to the flare of terror he felt from the village before, and tried to look at Dream for any injuries-but he couldn't see well enough to know. He relied on Dream's trepidation, the tiniest seed of doubt nudging his soul. What if Dream..? No, he wouldn't be conspiring with the village against his own brother, not after digging him up with his bare hands.
"Nothing."
"... Then we can get the doctor tomorrow." His brother nodded. "How did you... rather, why did you come back out here? I thought you would..." leave me here to die. I thought I would be stuck there, under the grass with the worms and insects, until dawn. A hand held his own, and he squeezed it, settling.
"The celebration ended earlier than I thought. I left to check on you, since you were out here on your own."
Immediately, Nightmare wanted to say something like 'I can handle myself,' but the pressure of the earth packing in on him made him drop the words. Instead: "Thank the stars for that." And Dream preened. Despite himself, Night smiled back, the side of his face crushed by the blows of the shovel still less responsive.
He continued, and Dream paused. "Though... I am curious."
"Why was everyone so afraid?"
The stars flickered in his brother's eyes, and Night tilted his head to the side. There it was again. The look, the expression he got-when he was hungry. When he was hunting something. There was that pretty smile he reserved for Night, though the darkness lingered in his eyes.
"There was a small incident with an animal loose in the square. It's nothing you'll probably need to worry about."