Dreaming of Demons (Dream x oc)

[60] Training

 Though the new house had an extra room, Dream and I slept in the same bed that night. He hadn't moved over his stuff anyway. And even though our nightmares had faded, we both sort of used it as an excuse.

I woke up rather early the next morning, my arm wrapped over Dream's stomach, the thin cotton shirt he wore doing little to hide the toned muscle underneath.

I carefully slipped my arm away to lean back and grab my phone from the bedside table. It looked to be a good time to head out to the battle arena. And with the Demon back now, I was more determined than ever to train. If we were going to take him down, I wanted to be ready, and that meant I had to train when I could.

I laid back on my pillow, staring up at the ceiling to think for a moment. How were we supposed to get rid of the Demon? He wasn't even human. Could he be killed? How did that sort of thing work?

I thought back to the ritual book. We had already tried so many of them on Ranboo, and it turned out one of them had called out the Demon. The one I used on Dream only separated them. How could I be sure the rituals would work? If we tried one again, would that make things even worse?

Maybe trying rituals wasn't the best course of action. They had already proven to be more unreliable than helpful. We had to figure out an alternative.

Dream stirred on his side of the bed, rolling over to face me.

"Are you okay?" He murmured.

I glanced at him. "Yeah, just...thinking about Nightmare."

His brow furrowed. "Nightmare?"

I sighed. "Yeah, I guess I forgot to tell you. That's sort of what the Demon calls himself now."

He was quiet for a moment, thinking. "Is that supposed to be a sort of play on my name?" He asked, a touch of humor in his voice.

I snorted softly. "Probably."

I pushed the covers, untangling my legs from the sheets so I could stand up. "Speaking of the Demon, I was going to head out to the training arena."

Dream pushed himself up to sit, brushing a hand over his hair. "By yourself?"

I looked up at him as I straightened out the bed cover on my side. "You can come with me if you want?"

He nodded. "Yeah I'll come."

"That's probably a good thing, actually, given the fact that Nightmare takes your likeness in every way including your fighting style. It'll give me some practice."

He tilted his head, watching me with a shadow of curiosity in his eyes. "Does he really look like me?"

My slight smile faded, and I turned away. "Not exactly, but...it was enough that once." I drew a breath, glancing at the window. "That's why I want to train as much as I can. I want to be good enough to beat him in a fight."

He seemed to ponder my words as he sat in the bed. Then the sheets rustled and he stood, "We should probably get going then."

---

It didn't take us long to get ready for the day and gather the weapons we wanted to take. The walk to the battle arena was a lot longer now that we lived in Kinoko. We saw Ranboo and Tubbo conversing off the side of the path and though everything seemed calm and otherwise innocent, I knew the SMP was anything but. Nightmare was probably lurking around, watching from the trees, waiting for just the right time to attack.

My eyes scanned the landscape around us constantly. Dream must have noticed how paranoid I was, and he slipped his hand into mine, giving it a squeeze and keeping me close as we came upon the arena.