Chapter Text
“H-how?” Dream asked. His eyelights flickered as though he was wounded and in pain. Although, perhaps he was in pain. Just not physical pain. Shattered tilted his head. “How what? How did I come to this decision? How did I hold the black apple? How did I survive eating it?” Dream couldn’t seem to bear looking at the monstrous alternative him. “I-I… I don’t know…. just… how?” Shattered shrugged.
“Perhaps it was from a small difference in our separate timelines. Maybe it was something to do with the soul, or our power set. Whatever it may be, I don’t know how I survived.” “W-why did you eat the black apple?” Dream whispered.
Shattered faltered.
I’m not bluffing. I’m going to help you! The past whispered, echoing through his mind. IT HURTS! EVERYTHING HURTS! ALL OF IT! I-IS THIS WHAT YOU FELT? I-IT HURTS, SO MUCH! TOO MUCH…
Shattered forced himself to pull away from those memories. No. He didn’t want to hear it any longer. Dream, sensing the sudden shift in emotions, reached out a hand, trembling. He hesitated, and remembered that he couldn’t touch him. Not even if he wanted to.
How did he eat it? A thought whispered. How did he do it? Could I do it, if I wanted to? What if he told me how? Another thought came to him. He quickly shut it down before it was finished, but he knew what the thought was anyway. No.
“I could actually tell you how to eat the black apple, you know,” Shattered said, as though he read his mind. Dream suddenly felt as though he was plunged into cold icy water, freezing his spine into an icicle, creeping into his head…
“I could whisper the secret of it to you, right this second. Would you like to know?” Shattered’s voice suddenly became soft, and almost kind, almost impossible to tell apart from Dream’s.
Dream slowly backed away, pure terror glazed across his face. “N-no. No, no, no, no, no. No.” Shattered seemed almost disappointed, like a small child who didn’t get the candy he was promised. What if I did let him tell me? What if? The thought wouldn’t go away. What if I did?
“I won’t let you tell me how. Never.” Shattered rolled his eyes and nodded. “Fine, then.”
“You still kept the crown.” Shattered froze. “What?” “You still kept the crown, even after… what you did.” Dream’s voice seemed hopeful. It reminded Shattered too much of… him. “You still love him, don’t you?”
Shattered tried to answer, that of course he didn’t, that filthy, horrible, crybaby of a brother was a nuisance, that that idiotic, hopelessly hopeful child would destroy his plans of covering the multiverses with pure, suffocating positivity.
But he couldn’t.
He hated the stupid boy, but at the same time…
He couldn’t bring himself to say it.
He hated him. He would destroy him if he could.
But at the same time, a small kernel of love kept him from doing so.
Dream smiled weakly, hopefully up at Shattered in a way that reminded him all too much of Nightmare.