The End is Just the Beginning (a Bad End Friends story)

Chapter 6

Wirt walked down the cold stairs barefoot after his talk with Bipper. He went and stood by a window and watched the woods, almost out of habit.

He thought about his conversation with Bipper just a few minutes before. He thought about how vulnerable the boy sounded when he asked if Wirt was really worried. Wirt was, but he couldn't show it.

Bipper needed someone, most definitely, but that person could not be Wirt.

Wirt sighed. Even though he could stand at the window for hours longer, he decided to go to bed. He started towards his room but had to pass by Finn's, which leached frigid air.

As Wirt went by the younger boy's door without making a noise, he heard a piercing scream. Wirt entered the room at the ready, expecting one of the supernatural creatures that inhabited the forest or Bipper playing a prank.

But all he could see was Finn sitting straight up in his bed. He was paler than normal in the light of the hallway. He had his crown on his bedside table and his hood down, so Wirt could see his long blond hair sticking to his thin face from sweat.

He didn't seem to notice Wirt, so he tried to retreat slowly and quietly, but before he could cross the threshold, he heard a small voice. "Stop."

Wirt froze.

"What are you doing here?" Finn asked, his voice surprisingly steady for someone who looked so frightened. He looked at a point in the distance intently.

"I heard you scream," Wirt explained. "I expected a monster. Are you okay?"

Finn hugged his knees to his chest. "The only monster here is me," he muttered bitterly.

"What happened?" Wirt asked. He hesitantly took a step closer to the scared boy.

"Nightmare," Finn said and shuttered.

Wirt nodded his sympathy; he had his fair share of nightmares himself.

"What are you still doing up?" Finn asked, finally turning his head towards Wirt, who could just make out the boy's tear-stained face in the cold, dark room.

Wirt shrugged his answer.

"Yeah, sometimes it's better to just stay up then face the night terrors," Finn said, again uncharacteristically bitter. He looked back to his point on the wall and started to shiver, but Wirt knew it wasn't from the freezing air.

Wirt started to think of ways to help the boy. Greg used to get nightmares before the Unknown. His dad was always at work, and their mother was always out with her friends or socializing with neighbors, so Wirt was always the one to comfort his little brother. He used to hate it, but now he missed it and his brother's strange, inconsequential dreams.

Wirt took a few more steps forward. "You know," Wirt said slowly. "It helps to talk out a nightmare.

Finn still looked at the middle-distance as Wirt took a step closer still. He has no idea why he was getting so close or helping the teen. Did he remind Wirt of Greg? Maybe, but Wirt didn't know.

"Really?" Finn asked in a small voice.

Wirt nodded then realized Finn could not see it since he still wasn't looking at Wirt. "It always helped my little brother," he said quietly.

"C-can I tell it to you?" Finn whispered, his eyes screwed shut.

Wirt hesitated. He could leave; he could say he was tired and go back to his room, but he wasn't that mean. He had to stay now. "Of course." Wirt crossed the rest of the room finally and sat on the very, very edge of Finn's bed as Finn took a deep breath.

"It was cold. My dreams always are. I was in a room I've never seen before, but I know i-its name somehow: Prismo's Time Room. I-I don't even know what Prismo is, but I w0as panicking in the room for some reason. I-I I r-remember wishing for something, but I don't quite know what it was. Then the dream changed. It turned into my life, just flashed. All of it until my self-imposed exile. E-even though it was a dream, it was so re-eal and s-so cold!" Finn said shakily, his face wet with free falling tears.

Obviously talking it out did not help if the nightmare was about your past, Wirt thought to himself. I wonder if Greg would have had nightmares about the Unknown if we had made it out?

"W-what else helped your brother when he h-had night-m-mares?" Finn asked, pulling Wirt out of his thoughts.

Despite his better judgment, Wirt said, "I told him poetry until he fell back asleep sometimes"

"Could you pl-please?" Finn asked almost desperately.

Wirt nodded. Finn unsteadily nestled back into bed like a sad child about to be told a bedtime story, although Wirt supposed he was.

Finn shyly pointed right next to him next to his bedside table as if he wanted Wirt to move there, so he did. Wirt sat on the floor and leaned against the table.

"Thank you," Finn whispered.

Wirt nodded and started his poem:

"Underneath the fading moon,
That little star is leaving soon,
She's shimmering, in and out of view,
Underneath the fading moon.
Are we not longing for the sight,
Of seeing flowers bloom,
Night, from this grave and sleepy life,
That surrounds us.
How we stayed awake tonight,
The watch the gentle, shifting light,
The watch the stars retire to sleep,
Now in this faded glow between,
The night that lingers still,
Beyond this grain window sill,
Who now blanketed in mist,
Is curling up beyond the hills,
And one last star is vainly blinking,
Her cloudy, dawn lit dream,
As the fading moon dreams of fading,
Towards the darker side of things
In drowning light she no longer shimmers,
And our great star shall waken soon,
And while that little star remembers that we saw them both together,
Underneath the fading moon..."

Wirt noticed that Finn was peacefully asleep within a few minutes. He carefully stood up and left the room, being careful not to wake the boy. He went back to his room and fell asleep himself, content to have actually helped someone for once. 

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I got the poetry from "For Sara" which is on YouTube. I thought that it fit well enough for this and the poetry I tried to write was waaaaayyyyyy to happy for Wirt, nonetheless Beast Wirt. Even though this is a pretty sappy chapter as it is.

Anyway, I would love yall's feedback, but that is all so adieu!