FicWad

Mr Sandman started to wake. It had been so very long since he last slept that the experience of waking was completely alien to him. Slowly he opened his eyes before being suddenly gripped with panic. Sitting bolt upright, he looked around, his eyes wild and unseeing. It was only when a cool hand was pressed to his forehead and another pressed him gently back down onto the bed that he began to take in his surroundings. Eleanor, the Guv'nor's wife, his mother, ran her thumb across his forehead soothingly.

“Shh,” she whispered again as she moved her hand to smooth his hair back. “You've been through a lot, you have to rest.”

“Mother?” he blinked as he began to wake fully. Looking around the room, he could see he was lying in a hospital bed, in a quiet dimly lit, comfortable room. “Where's Silas?”

“He's busy, sweetheart. You have to rest now, get your strength back.”

“Busy?” Sandman asked, puzzled by the reply. “What's going on? Where's father? Or Donnie?”

“Donnie will be here in a few minutes, he needs to ask you a few things, but until then…”

Sandman was already pushing the covers away and swinging his legs out of the bed. No longer listening to his mother's protests, he was determined to find out what he was certain she wasn't telling him.

“Marcus, no!” she cried as he tried to push himself upright.

“Didn't your mother just tell you to stay put?” Donnie asked, catching Mr Sandman only inches from the floor as his legs collapsed from under him.

“How do you do that?” Sandman smiled as he allowed Donnie to help him back up onto the bed. Leaving the pair to talk, Eleanor slipped quietly from the room.

“It's my job,” Donnie smiled as he pulled the sheets over Sandman's bruised and battered form.

“And you're good at it,” Sandman smiled faintly in return before turning a more serious expression towards his friend. “Mother says you need something from me.”

Donnie looked down at his hands, as he nervously interlaced and released his fingers several times in quick succession.

“Donnie?” Sandman prompted. “What's wrong?”

“One of the Normal Worlders was infected with hatred from one of the nightmares,” Donnie explained quietly.

“Which one?” Sandman asked equally quietly.

“The one that had you in the bottle,” Donnie replied with a frown. “Does it matter?”

Sandman offered a thin smile. “I meant which of the Normal Worlders?”

“Oh,” Donnie replied with an embarrassed expression. “Patrick.”

Sandman nodded knowingly. “Because…”

Closing his eyes in distress, Sandman knew what was coming.

“He… Silas… he needs to know, doesn't he?”

“Marcus, I'm really sorry… if there was any other way…”

Sandman nodded again; there was no way to avoid this most unpleasant of tasks. Even if the air was cleared now and there was understanding and forgiveness, Sandman knew he risked it all, the desperate fragility of it all, by having to show in graphic detail how much he had once hated his brother. The antidote to the poison depended on knowing the exact amount of hatred and just how concentrated it had been. Any attempt to disguise the truth or lessen the depiction of the quantity would result in the antidote being too weak. It would mean that Patrick would die. Someone from Carousel, they would be seriously ill, dangerously so, in fact. A Normal Worlder, on the other hand… well, it was difficult to predict the outcome, but it was safe to say that Patrick would stand no chance of survival without accurate information.

“This is my fault. My nightmares, my stupid feelings. I couldn't have been more wrong about him if I'd tried. There's not a single hateful feeling that I had that he deserved. Not one!”

“Marcus, you're not a bad man, neither is he. He'll understand, I'm sure,” Donnie tried to remain optimistic.

“Donnie, I have to show him… my own brother, who deserved none of this… I have to show him how much I hated him. I could lie about it, keep it small but if I don't do this properly, Patrick'll die.” Sandman paused. “And then, well then he'll know I lied anyway! Not that I'm really thinking that's a viable option.”

“It'll be okay, Marcus, I'm sure.”

“Are you? Tell me, Donnie, does he like me?”

“Like you?” Donnie frowned deeply as he stared at him. “He loves you!”

“Then how can I do this to him? After all we've been through… how can I say this is how much I hated you? It's… it…!” Sandman threw his head into his hand. “I don't have the words to describe. Donnie, I can't lose him again… I just can't!”

Donnie nodded sincerely. “I'm sorry, but I have to ask… how much?”

With a heavy sigh, Mr Sandman placed his palms together, one overlapping the other and began to conjure a small, dense, jet-black ball that glowed with a gold haze over its surface. Slowly the ball grew larger and larger until finally Mr Sandman wasn't even able to cover it with his fingers.

“Marcus?” Donnie gasped, incredulous at the sheer size of the ball of hatred he had built up over the years.

Unable to look his friend in the eyes, Mr Sandman offered up the glowing black melon-sized orb.

“Here, take it,” Sandman's eyes welled up at the sight of what he now viewed as a cancerous mass that had covered his heart and excluded his brother for what he now realised was no good reason at all. “Look at it! I don't deserve his forgiveness anyway.”

Reaching for the heavy shimmering orb, Donnie frowned in sympathy as he noticed the silent tears spilling down Sandman's face.

“At least it's gone now,” he added comfortingly.