Achilles, Achilles, Achilles come down // DNF (dreamnotfound)

How the most dangerous thing - part 2

“By your what?”

And that’s when Dream knew he fucked up.

“Nothing.”

“Oh, no, please, tell me more about it. What did you mean by your name? What name?”

Radio silence met the god of fire’s question.

“What name?” the god insisted, making Dream so annoyed that he considered attacking his friend. “You are a god. Gods don’t have names.”

With their fight reaching its peak, Dream forgot why they even fought in the first place. Probably was something stupid as dirtying each other’s furs or stepping on a wildflower. But at the same time, their fight might have started from raw anger and pure annoyance. It didn’t matter what was the trigger of their fight, what actually mattered was how they were going to calm things down.

“I… have a name now.”

They were both exhausted. Even his friend’s anger subsided and was replaced by visible tiredness. Instead of replying, the god of fire only stared at him.

“He caught me when I was leaving. I swear I was trying to leave and never see him again, but he saw me then. And I had to improvise.”

“I swear to the goddesses, if you said your name was Leaf or some sort of weird thing you saw laying around-”

Somehow their conversation reached a point where the other god wasn’t angry at Dream for choosing such a lowly thing as a name, but angry at the possibility of choosing a really bad name. That thought scratched Dream’s ego a little.

“Dream.”

“Dream?”

“Yup.”

“As in the god of dreams?”

Dream nodded and silence filled the air between them. It was a heavy kind of silence, the kind that could take one out of consciousness. He feared to look at the god’s facial expression, he could already picture his deep frown.

“That’s a stupid name,” the other god finally said.

A smile that was almost indistinguishable formed on his face to Dream’s surprise.

Dream slid on the cold wall of the cave and laid on the even colder floor. Something stung his knee, a pain of an injury that wanted to make its existence known once again.

Silence again, but this time it was the confortable kind. They sat there, looking at the walls, zooning out and thinking about their fight. It wasn’t their first fight and surely it wasn’t their last fight. But it was their first time fighting over such a matter.

“You really couldn’t think of a better name?”

The god of fire couldn’t let go of Dream’s stupid first choice of a name, could he?

But it was good. It was perfect. Not having his friend being angry at him anymore was the best thing happening that day.

Dream was aware that whatever more his friend talked about with the goddess, it wasn’t for his ears to hear. Not that day, not the following day, not even in a thousand of days or years. He found himself trying to guess what his friend intentionally left out, what other reason he had for being that angry, for running to the cave and needing time to catch his breath. But no matter what kind of plausible scenario his mind came up with, upon second revision he would realize that it wasn’t the plausible one.

“Put yourself in my shoes. What name would you have given him?”

“I don’t know, but not something as lame as Dream.”

“You would have said Fire one hundred percent.”

“I’m not an idiot.”

“Lie all you want,” Dream shrugged.

A lot of things happened in just a few moments, as Dream noticed that the morning had barely passed.

“I’m not going to call you that way,” the god of fire said. “I’m going to pretend that I don’t know anything about your name.”

Only by admitting that Dream had a name, the god of fire was displeased to his very soul.

“I know.”

“Good.”

There was a strange peace that came after a confrontation. A great conflict was always followed by an even greater peace. But that peace had to be disturbed as Dream still had a few questions that couldn’t be shoved aside.

He looked at his friend, now also laying on the floor, surrounded by the rocks they threw at each other. His eyes were closed as if he was sleeping, but gods didn’t sleep.

“What do you want?” his friend hummed.

“What will happen now?”

“What do you mean?”

“With… George.”

“I have a feeling that you aren’t going to let go of him even if it means ignoring my pleas or defying the goddess.”

“You’re right.”

“We’ll figure something out. Now I’m exhausted, shush.”

“But-“

“Go. You’re tiring me.”

***

With the sun high up in the sky and the day barely reaching its first half, the god of dreams dreamed of a cold remote place, lots of ice and even more snow. If only he didn’t hate cold as much as he hated heat, he would continue entertaining the thought to the point of actually visiting the blood god.

He was walking aimlessly through the lulling cover of the forest’s shadow. There was something about that forest that attracted them there in the first place, when the trees he was passing by were only sprouts and the big river was just a strip of water, as big as a rope. He would lie if he said that he didn’t miss those sweet times.

He knew that forest for longer than anyone ever had, even longer than the protector god of nature. At a second thought, he doubted that bastard knew about this forest in the first place, which was a reassuring thought.

The shadow was getting dimmer and dimmer as Dream unconsciously walked out of the forest. His steps got him to the place he loved the most, a field filled with beautiful crazy-colored wildflowers, interesting poisonous mushrooms and a single big tree in the middle of it with branches so long that could reach the sky, and with leaves so abundant that seemed to be infinite. A place he created long ago when he needed somewhere to be alone with his thoughts, to contemplate his life and imagine countless what ifs where he was a human.

He realized way too late where he was and what was happening, as he saw a familiar figure resting at the bottom of the tree, a bouquet of flowers right next to that worn out basket. It was him, the human, George, humming the melody of a song Dream didn’t know.

Dream found himself smiling at that image. He took a step in George’s direction before he realized what he was about to do. He wanted to go back, but hesitated for a moment, thinking about how much he needed to talk to his new friend.

“Hi,” Dream waved at George, ignoring the zestful sensation of turning back and running.

°°°
I feel like the god of fire would be goals in terms of best friends. The man would risk everything for Dream (and Dream for him). Goals my dudes, goals.
I like how this part turned up, but the third part is by far the best. Like really, you'll like it if you are a DNF shipper.