Sanscest/UTMV Oneshots (Vol. 1)

Dream & Nightmare || The Last Letter

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING ONESHOT CONTAINS MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH.

READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED

~oOo~

Dream sighed as he leaned back. He gazed at the candle, watching the flame flicker. Tilting his head away to gaze at the window, where the night sky peeked through, stars shining, he taped the end of the pen on the desk, clicking it over and over again.

He closed his eyes for a minute.

It was quiet. Peaceful.

He opened them again and looked at the piece of paper in front of him. It was just over a page of writing. There were lots of small smudges and a few tear spots, but it was finally completed. He had been thinking about doing this for...years now. He had thought and thought about every single word written and, while he still had doubts, he felt this was the best it was going to get.

He smiled faintly, reaching for the envelope. Here's hoping it was good enough to do what he wanted it to do, whether or not he wasn't there to see it. He sealed the envelope with a wax seal of a sun and turned it over.

He wrote the name of the person the letter was addressed to in big and looping letters: Nightmare.

Just as he lifted the pen from the paper, a chill engulfed him, right on time. Like always, he tensed and gasped a bit, recognizing the negativity spike that meant his dear brother was attacking. Again. Only this time...he frowned. This time it came with a sense of finality, like this was the end. Like one of them would...

He stood up and tucked the letter into his jacket, opening up a portal to Nightmare.

He faintly hoped that it was Nightmare who came out of this alive.

This was it.

Dream panted, barely able to stop for breath as he dodged, over and over, Nightmare's attacks. They were harsh, harsher than they'd ever been before. They seemed to strike with a sense of finality. He dodged the best he could, stubbornly ignoring what that meant. He didn't want to give it a chance to happen.

It had been a long time coming.

They had fought before, of course. For countless years that had been all they did—fought each other, trying to hurt and make the other give up. But they had refused. They kept doing it, a sort of pride keeping them from admitting defeat. They continued the same routine, one growing frustrated and one growing tired.

Dream was tired. Anyone would be, if they were in his shoes. Doing the same old dance, helping the same people every day, fighting the same people every day...it all got to be so repetitive that sometimes he forgot what day it was, or what month it was. Years had passed doing this and the only day he could give a date to and describe in perfect detail was the start, the Apple Incident. That was the only one. Everything after was all blurred, the same events creating a stream of nothing, a fog of numbness.

I tried to do it.

He hated it—and as the guardian of positivity, he doesn't hate many things.

But this fog of memories? The numbness of repeating the same damn things? The pain of fighting his brother, his family, trying to get him back but knowing that the other hated him and wanted him dead?

He hated that.

I really did.

Nightmare hated him. He had said so, over and over. It was a common theme in the memories, just like fighting and helping and hiding and pain. It was the feeling behind every one of his words and actions and body movements.