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Despite everything Dream actually looks forward to his monthly visits with Nightmare. Most of the time the meetings end up cut short but Dream is mostly happy things were almost normal again.
Maybe as normal as they were ever to get be again.
Of course the new normal involves a lot more bickering than the old normal.
“It is not that I'm saying ‘negative’ emotions are pleasant. I am saying they can be just as productive as positive emotions,” Nightmares latest obsession, wondering what classifications designate their ‘domains’.
“I can see that for most emotions but I just don't get the benefit of grief,” Maybe Dream has been dwelling on everything he misses too much lately.
That hole where everything he has lost fits has felt more like a gaping wound than something useful.
“It has plenty of purpose. It is less difficult to be thankful for what you have when you remember what you no longer have,” Dream thinks he is a fairly grateful person without this haunting pain, “Then of course there is the memory of those a person has lost. If you lose someone who is worth grieving for a long period you will keep their memory alive for those years,”
Dream has considered a similar line of thought. Especially since he is the only survivor of Dreamtale who considers it worth remembering.
“I mean sure, but I sorta doubt you've ever really grieved someone properly though,” Nightmare wouldn't be calling grief positive if he had any sort of experience with the holes it tears through a person.
There's a loud clank as Nightmare forcibly sets down his mug. Anger spiking while his eyes narrow on Dream.
“Dream you have known nothing of the past century of my life. Do not speak as though you do,” Dream winces. Instantly regretting his words.
“Right. I'm sorry I shouldn't have said that. It was an unfair assumption,” He glances down at the table, where some of Nightmare's drink has spilled, “I just struggle to imagine you close enough to someone to experience grief the way I’m referring,”
Even with Night's friends now Dream somewhat doubts he would mourn them too deeply if anything were to happen. Not that he's completely uncaring, Nightmare clearly holds some affection for them. If he didn't he would have thrown them to the wayside the moment his and Dreams truce went into place. They mean more to him than their usefulness, but Dream had never gotten the impression that meaning was particularly deep.
Night talks about his former minions the way someone would talk about a pet or a barista they preferred. He'd be sad if they died but he wouldn't grief.
He's just too closed off for that type of closeness now. Maybe when they were kids Nightmare could have grieved someone, but in his current state it almost seems impossible.
“I grieved you, for starters,” Dream blinks.
“I wasn't dead?”
“I was under the impression you were for a hundred years. There was no indication that you would ever turn back,” Dream hadn't considered that. From his perspective a moment passed and the world around him had irreversibly changed.
Nightmare hadn't left survivors. No one else in the multiverse had known Dream before he was turned to stone save for Night. His brother who, when he came back, was very invested in killing him. So Dream never needed to consider how his stone prison had affected anyone other than himself.
“But you were so angry when I came back,”
“You coming back made my tears feel wasted. Besides, you were very invested in getting closure on Dreamtale and stopping my bidding. Both of which were frustrating in their own right,” bidding. Gods, only Night would say bidding with a straight face and mean it.
“I'm not sure if I count though. Since I did come back to destroy your evil plans and all that. The reason why grief is so negative is because it never gets to go away. You are always missing something. If you get it back it's not really grief,” Dream knew he was getting dangerously close to bringing up his own homesickness, all the people he misses. Yet he can't quite bring himself to stop.
“In that regard then…” Nightmare's face loses most signs of emotion as he stares into his glass. His voice flat, “I had a daughter,”
A pit opens in Dreams' stomach.
“What do you mean?” Dream's voice is the same careful tone he uses when comforting people as the guardian of positivity. Yet he can't keep a tremor from creeping in.
Nightmare rises from the table and takes a step back.
“Wait here,” he says before leaving the room.
Dream takes careful, deep breaths while he waits. He doesn't even know what he's waiting for. A daughter. Dream feels like he'd know if he had a niece, and Night has never seemed to be particularly interested in being a parent. Nor has he been in many romantic relationships that Dream knows of.
That's the issue though isn't it? Nightmare was right, a century is a lot of time for a lot of things to happen. A lot of things that Dream missed.
Important things it turns out.
Before Dream can spiral into his head any further, Night returns. An ornamental looking box in his hands.
The box is small enough to fit on the table comfortably while being wide enough that it takes up a lot of Surface area. It's painted a deep green with yellow flowers such as dandelions and marigolds carved in its sides. There is a space for a lock near the latch but there is no lock there.
It doesn't really suit Nightmares tastes. Too bright for his Gothic castle and too green for his purple everything.
Silently Nightmare opens it. Dream leans over to look in.
Inside there's a folded blanket, a plushie, a neatly bundled pile of papers, a plain black book, a pair of tiny shoes, a small purple bag- before Dream can finish cataloging what else is in there Nightmare shuts it again. Only taking out the black book.
He sets it in front of Dream.
“Her name was Evelyn. She preferred to be called Evie,” Night sits back in his seat.
“Like the Pokemon?” Dream blurts out.
Nightmare nods once.
“Killer gave her a handheld device with one of those games on it for her birthday one year. She became obsessed,” Dreams dread grows. Nightmare hasn't known Killer that long.
How recent was Evies passing? If she has passed at all.
Night is doing a better job than Dream of holding his composure. Dream's mouth is so dry and he knows he's looking around the room too much. He can only imagine what his aura is giving away on top of his external signs of anxiousness.
He doesn't really want to open the book. He knows Night isn't lying. That whatever he's about to learn is going to break his heart.
He takes another deep breath as he opens it to the first page. It's a photo album. On each page there are three pictures laid out in a column.
Nightmare taps the first photo. Voice as dead and flat as his expression.
“I found her when attacking an AU. Her family had abandoned her to flee more efficiently,” disgust flashes in his eyes. Dream understands why. Abandoning a baby to a demon is despicable.
Dream focuses on the first photo. It's taken in the castle, where a toddler is curled up in an orange blanket. She is clearly very young. If Dream were to guess she maybe is just shy of two years old. She is not of an age where she could have escaped Nightmare on her own if he had meant her harm. Despite that though, in the photo she is smiling in her sleep. Not a worry in the world.
“I didn't know you liked taking pictures,” it's not hard to tell Nightmare was the one who took it, "there's none up in your castle,”
“I haven't been feeling particularly inspired to pick the hobby back up,” Dream doesn't need to ask why these photos are locked up. He can read between the lines.
He slowly turns through the pages of the photo album. It's clearly an album of photos of Evie specifically, every photo focuses on her. In the first few pages she's mostly sleeping in interesting locations. Under a bed, on top of a side table, beside a gargoyle, and so on.
It's cute. Dream can imagine Nightmare losing track of a baby only to find her napping somewhere odd. He can imagine why Night had taken the photos in the first place, probably something between bewilderment of where she ended up and appreciation that she was okay.
Dream is a little surprised that the photos are so full of affection. He had been under the impression that Nightmare had repressed all his sentimental tendencies while Dream had been, ‘dead’.
He turns through a few more pages and smiles when he sees a selfie of Nightmare holding Evie. The concept of Nightmare taking selfies is amusing enough on its own. On top of that, Night seems so happy in it. He's grinning while Evie leans her head back against him to look at something out of frame.
“So you adopted her?”
“Moreso kidnapped,”
“But you kept her,” Nightmare nods again, “any particular reason,”
Night opens the box and pulls out the blanket. Passing it to Dream. It's the orange one from the first picture. Knitted together with a yellow sun. It reminds Dream of his old cape.
“It's foolish but I found her wrapped in that. It felt like a sign from the universe. If such a thing exists anyways,” He sounds embarrassed.
Night wasn't lying about grieving him. It's touching. That Nightmare was really thinking of him.
“Did you name her?”
“Yes,”
“Why Evelyn then?” Dream imagines it must be after a book character or something of the such. The name isn't one that suits a baby very well so an adult being the origin makes more sense.
“While I'm not sure of the accuracy, I had read somewhere that it was deprived from a foreign word for wanted,”
“Oh.” Of course Night would adopt a child and name her wanted. A child who was unwanted enough to be abandoned, named wanted.
Dream blinks a couple of times rapidly.
He turns another page. Focusing on the pictures once again instead. The blanket firmly under his spare arm as if it can provide comfort now.
It's mostly the same type of thing for a while. Though the outfits Night chose for Evie are adorable in a Little Women type way, nothing else is super noteworthy beyond the sheer number of photos. By the time Evie is about four there are still about twenty pages to go.
She seems like a very happy kid from the pictures. Dream especially likes a page dedicated to a trip to the zoo. There's one where Night is holding her up to feed a giraffe that Dream wants a copy of.
He is probably not close enough to Night to be allowed to have one. So he doesn't ask, but maybe some day in the future they will be close enough for a request like that.
The first time one of Nightmare's henchmen appears in the photo album it's Killer. Which Dream expected, Killer was probably the first one that Night met. There are a handful of things that he didn't expect though.
The first is Killers presence in the photos at all. Dream had already acknowledged that this album was made with affection. He didn't expect any of Night's gang to appear at all. Another surprising thing is the clear familiarity between Killer and Evie. In the photo, Killer holds her up towards the camera. Tilting his head so he can be seen past her. Evie is laughing and judging by the fact that the photo exists at all, Nightmare seems to have found it funny as well.
Killer appears in more photos as well. In a pillow fort, tangled in blankets while Evie stands triumphantly in the foreground.
“Was it Killer's idea to call her Evie?” How close was Killer to Night's daughter? How close were the others?
“No, she came up with that on her own. She liked the purple Eevee from her game. I don't recall the name but there was a time when she begged me to get her one as a pet,” Dream snickers, “It is funny to you now but I had to console her when she found out they weren't real,”
“She was disappointed then I take it?”
“She was devastated,” a fond expression passed over Nightmares face.
“Was that the only thing stopping you from getting it for her that they weren't real,”
“I suppose. If she could have had one I would have helped her care for it,”
“You spoiled her then huh?” Dream teases.
“I suppose,” ‘i suppose’ Dream could laugh. The photo of Evie buried in plushies in her princess canopy bed inside the castle she lived in proved she was very much indulged.
The thought makes Night seem like a real parent. Who really bends to the whims of their kid.
Dream turns the page. Dust and Horror start appearing in the occasional picture, though far less than Killer. It seems more that they don't appreciate being in photos than favoritism. Their photos tend to be more candid. Taken without their knowledge or when they're busy. Evie is still in all of them. She seems friendly with Dust and Horror.
There's four more pages to flip through before he reaches the last one. Where the final photo is of Evelyn by herself, high up in a tree looking down. Dream can see a missing front tooth in her smile. She's probably eight years old.
The rest of the album is empty.
Dream gently shuts it, sliding it to Night. He does not ask the question burning in his mind. Instead he says,
“She liked all your friends a lot,”
“Dust and Killer had competition to be her favorite uncle. Horror usually didn't participate but she enjoyed his company as well,” Dream carefully keeps his smile pleasant when his brother says the word uncle, “She'd always say Killer was her favorite because he would do whatever she requested if she did. I knew she liked Dust best though,”
“How’d you know?” It's not fair of Dream to be hurt that he didn't get to meet his niece. It is even less fair to be jealous of the people who did get to be in her life.
That doesn't make it sting less.
It's not personal. He was either a statue or fighting Nightmare when Evie was around. It would not have made sense to have told him.
It's just another thing the years he lost took away from him.
“Lyn would always greet him second. She would also give him more of her drawings than Killer. I am fairly certain he kept them as well,” That's interesting, Dream supposes.
Beneath the prickling jealousy and sadness Dream feels numb. A hollowed void of a person underneath the knee jerk emotional responses.
“You called her Lyn?” Night nods.
“Occasionally. We all had our own nicknames for her. Horror called her Evie Lyn sometimes to annoy her,”
“What happened to her?”
“...you know what kind of person I am. That I have harmed many people. Eventually it caught up to me,” Nightmare shrugs as if it means nothing but his aura swirls through different emotions, “I was the one who found her. Dust was meant to stay home with her but he was lured away,”
Dream doesn't say anything.
“I think he blames himself,” Dreams surprised Night doesn't blame him, “I was the one who found her- I mean they left her in my old room,”
“...”
“I could not sleep in that room after that. I kept seeing her whenever I tried,” Nightmare drags his finger along the surface of the table, “The people who killed her, I had apparently blinded one of them. He rallied others who I had also harmed. The funny thing is I not remember doing so, but I do not doubt that I had blinded him,”
“That doesn't mean… they killed a kid,” Dream offers sympathetically. No matter what terrible things Nightmare did, Evie didn't deserve to be killed.
And it wasn't Nightmares fault she was killed. Her murderers are the only ones at fault.
“What happened to them? The people who…”
“You saw,” Night closes his eyes, “It took me half a year or so to track them down. Whenever I encountered anyone who assisted I killed them. You tried to intervene several times. You insisted that I was taking things too far. I was already upset at you and that certainly did not help…. Though, I suppose, that you were correct that harming others did not make me feel better,”
Dream does recall that. When he first woke up Nightmare was so grotesquely violent, like he was a whole other person. It had shocked and hurt Dream to see him that way.
With hindsight it makes sense that those grisly scenes Dream encountered were personal. Especially when they became less and less common.
Dream had believed that his words were reaching his brother finally. That Nightmare was slowly improving because of him.
Night's explanation makes more sense.
“I'm sorry that happened to you,” Dream pats Nights arm reassuringly, “And I'm sorry I didn't ask you why you were acting like that. I still wouldn't have approved of your actions but I would have been kinder to you,”
Nightmare shrugs his hand off.
“It has been years since then, there is nothing to do about it now,” Night's eyes are glazed over and all the sympathy that's been threatening to overtake Dream finally bursts.
He hugs Nightmare for what must be the first time in a century. Squeezing him tightly.
“She didn't deserve that. You didn't deserve that,” Dreams eyes are starting to tear up as well. He hadn't even been there for Night. He hadn't even known. Nightmare handled it remarkably well. Dream can't even imagine what it's like to lose a child. He can't imagine himself moving forward after a loss that personal.
He's comforted a lot of people who have and he still can't imagine it.
Dream doesn't let go until Nightmare pulls away. Politely ignoring the tears, Night desperately scrubs off of his face.
“Yes, well. I believe we were having a debate,” Nights voice cracks. He tucks the photo album and the blanket back into the box.
“I believe we were,” Dream lets the subject change.