Work Text:
“That was foolish of you.” His voice is low. Dream smiles. The room is not dark enough to hide how his yellow eyes are bleary. No darkness could hide his pain from Nightmare.
“Since we’re allies, just for now…” his voice is hoarse. Nightmare doesn’t look at him. He feels the plea in every curl of his word, hiding, flaking off the syllables. See me. “I want to protect you.”
“You’re an idiot.” The only arrows that can pierce him are his brother’s, after all.
Dream chuckles. It’s too pathetic sounding to be called a laugh. “I just moved, that’s all.”
He shuts the door behind himself. It feels like Dream is watching him, even though there’s old wood between them both. He isn’t sure why he bothered to visit.
”I want to protect you.”
He flips the page. Another one waits. Printed words smear together but he reads them anyway, diligently scribbling away while hunched over his desk. It will take Dream two months to be able to sit like this again.
“I want to protect you.”
The pen runs out of ink again. How long has he been working? Whatever. He needs to finish this folder before the next meeting. He can’t afford to be distracted. Dream isn’t healing as fast as he used to.
“I want to protect you.”
The fire is getting low again. Time to add wood. He’s feeling strangely cold. The windows need to be sealed again. They’re always so drafty in this time of the year. Dream’s room in the clinic, they forgot to draw the curtains at night. The moonlight, it illuminated too much of the floor and not enough of…
”I want you.”
He stops, holding the fire poker in his hand. The warm light dances on his cheeks, on his mouth, painting under his eyes and on his forehead. Its crackle is steady, rhythmic, and he cannot rest. Nightmare rubs his face, feels his mouth under his fingertips, and thinks: I’m unworthy.