Aconitum

Sunder

He froze. Dream should not be awake yet. Ink always acted like Dream waking was a distant future. Inevitable, but far away. Nightmare had come to terms with Dream essentially dying, but it appeared that that's all the universe needed.

"Nightmare!" Dream threw himself at his brother, hugging him tightly, "what happened?"

Nightmare pulled Dreams arms off of himself.

"I killed our village, and you turned to stone." Nightmare replied bluntly.

"That wasn't my imagination...?" It nearly sounded accusatory really. Like Nightmare shattered Dreams world for fun.

'It was never my world.'

"You..." Dreams eyes started watering, "you killed them! You bastard! How are you my brother?"

"I killed them because they were horrible to me Dream." Nightmares brother punched him in the middle of his chest.

'one of the weaker times he'd been punched in dreamtale.'

"Don't talk about my friends like that Nightmare! They were nice to you. You were just weird!"

"What?" Hostility fell off Nightmare like embers off a flame. Sparking and hitting the area around him.

"You heard me! You were weird an standoffish and no one liked you for that and so you killed them! You're a bully Nightmare."

"They hurt me Dream. You know it as well as I do. I came home with bruises and you healed me and-"

"Nonono. You were clumsy! You said so yourself!"

"When did you ever see me get hurt in front of you?" Dream froze but like ice on a lake, he found a way for fall through.

"They didn't hurt you either way." Nightmare was a fire.

"You just don't want to accept that your little friends were harming your brother. You just wanted to belie-"

"Stop."

"Believe that you could have the best of both worlds. The world-"

"I said stop."

"World where you got to be hero for everyone and everything was great. You just wanted-"

"Stop it!"

"Wanted to be friends with my abusers. So you could conveniently avoid the subject of why I hated them. And what-"

"Shut up!"

"What I did to deserve their hatred. You wanna know what I did, huh Dream? Don't you!?" Dream shook his head and hid his weeping face behind his hands.

"I said stop..."

"I existed. I was the big bad because of our mother. Because you allowed them to think so. Every time you let them badmouth me. Every time you turned a blind eye."

Dream continued to cry. Nightmare continued his blaze.

"They would have done anything for you! ANYTHING. They would have stopped if you had just said so! If you had just done something, anything. If you had just been a better brother."

Dream remained pitifully silent. It could of been a confession of guilt as far as Nightmare was concerned though.

"So yeah. I am your brother. Exactly the one you deserve too."

"I hate you." It was ridiculous. Such few words for what Nightmare had put into so many.

"They brought it upon themselves. Just like how you brought me upon yourself. Reap what you sow Dream." Nightmare turned to leave, "I hope you never find any happiness outside of this au and rot here forever. Just like how you did as a statue."

He left. If left is even the right word. It was more fleeing than anything. Dream couldn't see it but Nightmare was so weak in that moment. So weak he let his emotions out of control, just like that night of freedom, that night of pain. The one with the literal fire, both in the sky and in his hand.

The one that stained his hands.

Nightmare became that fire again once Dream woke up. He didn't want Dream near. He didn't want to have to see the face of a victim on someone else. Especially not someone he turned to the victim.

Because this time he looked in the mirror, the happier mirror, the mirror that was meant to shine where he smoldered. What he saw wasn't what he wanted, what he saw were the same sad eyes and wrongness. Like an approximate version of a human. Like Nightmare.

Dream was never meant to be the mirror Nightmare shattered. That mirror was always meant to be the one he saw when he woke up in a cold sweat. The one he saw when he looked to the past. Not the one with a future.

Dream was the shattered mirror though, and Nightmare was the one who was to blame.

All he was left as, was ash.

~~~

Those fire puns were forshadowing (lying)

Anyway! This ones shorter than usual. That's cuz i did not want to overstay my welcome with the argument, or the rambling afterwards.

Have y'all heard A Burning Hill by Mitski? You should listen to it.

Also shout-out to the single person commenting. You fuel me. (Please comment if you aren't them. I have no way to know what I'm doing right or wrong otherwise)