Safe With Me (Shatteredmare fic)

You Shouldn't Be Here

Nightmare could hear the loud clacking of Shattered's boots go down the hallway. When he could no longer hear them he let out another sigh. He stood up off the bed, brushing off his pants for some reason by habit. He looked around the bedroom, trying to find something to do. For some reason he didn't feel as bad with Negativity as he usually was when he was at the tree. Maybe it was because of Shattered.

Nightmare blushed a little, silently thanking him as he came to a bookcase and knelt down. He looked over the book's titles, but for some reason some of them were in Japanese?? He didn't know Japanese, although it was a pretty cool language and he wanted to learn it sometime. He looked for a book to read and he saw a book that said something about "Hanahaki," he was surprised it wasn't in Japanese since Nightmare knew you could spell the word completely in Japanese letters. He took the book out and flipped it open, only to find that it was written completely in Japanese. He sighed, shutting the book and sliding it back into place. That was when he saw something with a different type of paper. He pulled it out, curious, wondering why the spine was pointing in the wrong direction. He found that it had a hard back and a soft front. Not to mention it had a spiral spine, which could mean it was some type of journal.

Upon closer inspection, the front said "XL Sketchbook". Nightmare made an "OHH" face, realizing what this was. He flipped it open, finding nothing whatsoever inside of it. It was kind of weird... Nightmare didn't understand the point to journals. Why write something down when you could just remember it?

Nightmare had a sudden spike of deja vu, but he couldn't think straight, there were flashing images in his head... Finally his brain made up its mind and showed him a memory that felt like it was thousands of years ago, although it happened just yesterday. Or the day before that. Nightmare didn't know much... but it happened before the "Incident."

Nightmare yawned, sitting down on the dead grass as he stretched, leaning his back on the tree, holding his book. He was reading a story about a boy who had a bad past, but he changed his ways, no longer becoming evil... although in replace of his wicked ways he had obvious, black ink-like scars planted all over his head and body, which reminded people of who he truly was, the point where they would bully him nastily to get their revenge in some way. As if that made things better. You should always forgive and forget.

He heard someone step beside him and, expecting it to be someone other than Dream, he flinched a little, only to realize that it was his happy beam of energy known as Dream the Guardian of Positivity. Nightmare made an "OOF" sound when Dream swooped down to hug Nightmare's left side tightly, him squishing his cheeks to Nightmare's face. Nightmare giggled to this, shutting the book and set it beside him.

"What are you reading??" Dream asked cheerfully. He stopped pressing his face to Nightmare's and looked to him, although still holding him with both hands on both of Nightmare's sides.

Nightmare laughed. "Eager for tonight's story, eh?" Nightmare asked playfully. He rubbed the top of Dreams' skull, and he blushed a little as his head lowered. "I get it, I love it too. I only read ahead a little bit so I could tell the story a little more dramatically!" Nightmare said.

Dream laughed. "Oh! I love the way you read, Nighty, you always make it so interesting!"

Nightmare laughed too. "Yeah, right. I make it too goofy to be taken seriously," Nightmare replied, rolling the eyelights in his sockets.

Dream frowned. "N-No! I love the way you read, you make it sound like the character's right there in front of me, actually speaking, and I think that's really cool! Not even any of the Elders can do that!" Dream insisted.