No Matter What (A Dreammare Fic)

Chapter 5: "This Is Going To Suck"

Nightmare rubbed his temples. "Could you shut up?" He glanced at the uncorrupted version of him freaking out over his shoulder, whose face was glowing purple. Nightmare had had to leave the dining hall with his food to eat in his library, because the figure in his head was so loud.

'But he was wearing--and you were, and we--who let--agh!' He screamed into his hands. 'Your lack of concern is appalling!'

"Oh, shut up, you baby," Nightmare scolded, "I'm not concerned because there is no reason to be."

'Oh, really?' The former guardian asked, floating over to antagonize Nightmare, 'you're not at all concerned that smiley, shiny, general-ray-of-sunshine Dream is walking around wearing his cape and the emblem of the empire?' 

Nightmare put down his plate on a table. "That is concerning, why?"

The guardian sat on the air in front of Nightmare. 'What is the sun?"

"You know--ugh, the 'sun' is supposed to be my other half, a kind, benevolent person who is presumed... to be the..."

'Uncrowned Monarch-Sovereign consort. And what is the rule with the symbol?'

"That only I or people of the royal family--oh void and stars!" The realization hit Nightmare like a sack of bricks. "Shit."

'Shit, indeed. And just what did you tell Rose yesterday?'

Nightmare shot a glare at the floating skeleton, "we told Rose that he was the sun."

The figure clapped. "Congratulations! You figured out why we're fucked!'

"What did you want me to do? Lie to her? Aren't you the one always telling me not to lie?" Nightmare growled out, his food forgotten. 

'No, but you could have told her that the staff's assumptions about the sun--moon dynamic is false.'

"Oh, bullshit, you try to explain to Rose that 'the sun--moon symbol was intended to display the balance in the multiverse between positivity and negativity, and their subsequently aligned worlds--and although the sun and moon are Dream and me respectively, it is not intended to imply we are to wed, even though the fucking ghost in my head wouldn't mind ruling beside the dumbass.'"

The uncorrupted version of Nightmare's flush returned. 'That's not--you're an ass,' he mumbled, burying his skull in his hands. 'You could have at least told her that--'

"That what?" Nightmare interrupted with a glare, "what could I have said that would have changed the ideas of the entire manor? If you've forgotten, they all think the sun is supposed to be our fucking consort! And everyone is going to assume that Dream is the sun even without Rose saying anything because he's fucking everything they think the sun is! It doesn't help that his fucking cape is a sun and that that damn servant let him wear--or worse, put him in--a fucking coat with the symbol on it!"

The figure dropped his hands from his face. 'She knows the rules with the symbol, so why...' he turned his gaze accusingly to Nightmare. 'You told Lucinda that Dream was the sun, didn't you?'

"She kept asking!" Nightmare defended as he threw his hands in the air. "The bitch wouldn't shut up about it! So I told her any of the clothes in the closet would work and that, yes, he is the sun to shut her up!"

'Any of the clothes in the...' the floating Nightmare froze, then deadpanned at the octopus. 'You knew there were clothes with the symbol in there, didn't you?'

"I didn't think she'd pick them!"

The figure smacked a hand over his face, before a realization dawned on him. 'Why where there clothes with the symbol in that wardrobe? Void, why do we even have extra clothes with the symbol on them?'