Sans AUs Oneshots & Short Stories (Discontinued)

Dreamtale: Broken Innocence

Setting: Dreamtale, some years before the Apple Incident.

Characters: Dream, Nightmare, anonymous villagers.

Summary: Dream returns to the Tree of Feelings very late one night, and Nightmare is determined to get to the source of the problem.

Warnings: Mentions of rape, Dream getting hurt.

A/N: This took like 11 and almost a half pages on Google Docs. This is one of the longest things I've written and I don't know how to feel about it. So this is not Dreammare, it's brother bonding and overprotective Nootmare.

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It was late at night. Very late at night.

Nightmare had always stayed up until later hours. He knew it was important to have a balanced sleep schedule, but he wasn't affected by that in the same way humans were, even monsters. He was a magical spirit of negativity, he didn't necessarily need sleep. But he always did his best to sleep at some point, if only to pass the time. Even if he was only closing his eyes the whole time and laying still on his bed. Right now he was sitting on his bed, reading a book on astronomy, astrology, and the folklore behind each of the zodiac signs. He gave a quick glance up from his book to look to the other side of the large tree he lived in, but still didn't see his brother there.

This... deeply concerned Nightmare. His brother was always away from home, hanging out in the village. Helping out wherever he could and playing with the children. But he knew when the curfew was and always made sure to be back to the tree at least thirty minutes before then. It was currently an hour and a half after curfew. He was debating whether or not to go and search for Dream, as he'd done the first few times Dream had been running late. He'd decided against it because, even if he himself couldn't trust them, he knew he could trust the villagers to not hurt Dream. But.... now he was becoming seriously worried. Dream never took this long.

Finally, just as Nightmare was about to go and look for his brother, one of the long vines that was woven around a branch began to move on its own. Nightmare slid the bookmark in between the pages and closed the book, setting it down. Walking towards the center of the "room", he crossed his arms as he waited for his brother to appear. The vine began to recoil and hoist something up from the ground, but it wasn't going at the super fast speed it usually was. This time it was much slower and... gentler, if that made any sense. Like it didn't want to hurt whatever it was carrying.

The first thing Nightmare noticed when Dream was lifted into view was how shaken up he looked. He was shivering and curled into a bit of a ball, just barely holding onto the vibe that was carrying him up. Tears that were tinted with a hint of gold were building up in his eye sockets, the normally bright yellow pupils clouded over and dimmed. They didn't have their sparkle. The vine set Dream on his feet carefully, and paused for a moment by his side, like it was ready to catch him if he fell. Nightmare could see the way his knees were bent and his legs were shaking. The way his whole body was shaking. Something was definitely wrong.

"...... You're back quite late," Nightmare commented, keeping his voice as calm as he could. "Is everything alright?"

"Y-Yeah! Everything's great!" Dream nervously replied, heading over to his bed. Nightmare could see the limp in his step. "I guess I just got caught up in everything... more than I thought... hehehe....."

"... Hey, if something is wrong, you can tell me," he replied, keeping his tone just as gentle. "I want to help you."

"R-Really, Nighty, nothing's wrong!" He grinned at him, but he could see beyond that fake smile.

Dream never faked a smile. He was never this shaken up. He was never about to cry like that, holding it in, as though he was afraid of someone seeing. Dream had never acted like everything was fine when it really wasn't. Nightmare would know. He had no good interactions with the people of the village, only bad ones. Most of them involved rocks being thrown at him or words being spat at him. It was why he didn't leave the top of the tree anymore. He was perfectly content up here with his books and the apples. But Dream wasn't like him, and Nightmare knew that better than anyone.