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Living for a long long time has a lot of perks.
You get to watch as time moves, era after era, stars being born and dying.
But.
What they don’t tell you is that your memory—which used to be incredible —fades.
Things like your childhood fade away in to distant moments in time, only this faintly reminding you of them being: smells, certain kinds of foods, or if the sun hit your curtain a certain way.
But…only for a minute.
This was the dilemma Dream was facing, although, the timing of it just seems cruel.
Why now?
Why must the multiverse have to crumble for these faint feelings of nostalgia come and haunt him now when he would have no time to sort them out?
Why is it now he is finally able to have a conversation with his twin brother (and for the last couple years, rival) and neither of the two can speak.
“So.” Dream started.
“ So. ” Nightmare finished.
Stars above , this was horrible…For someone so smooth with words, the fact that he couldn’t talk to his own brother , was embarrassing. But who would be able to? This was the man who has been trying to kill you for at least a few years and your brother.
Maybe, if he took his mind off of…this, maybe just maybe, he could form the words.
“The stars look nice, right.” He muttered, voice a little raspy.
The brothers stared up at the constant night sky of Outertale. Dream was a little thankful that this AU wasn’t yet crumbling, even though it was now completely deserted, the empty air cold and soft, like the blankets he and Nightmare would wrap up in when there were thunderstorms.
“ Yes, the stars are beautiful, such a shame they may not be here when we wake. ”
“Yeah…”
They soon fell into a heavy silence again, but now looking into the sky.
“Hey, Nightmare?” Dream turned his eyes to his brother, watching as Night’s tentacles wiggle around.
“ Yes? ” He didn’t look at Dream, and honestly, he preferred it that way.
“I have a silly request. Please don’t laugh at me, okay?”
“ What is it? ”
Dream turned his head fully to see his brother, the permanent light from the stars dancing on his corruption, giving it a slight blue glow.
“Do you think we could find any fields out here?”
“ Field s..? What for ?”
“It’s a silly reason I suppose, but…” Dream paused, words fizzling out of his teeth.
“I’m…not going to live much longer, and I want to spend those last moments, however long they are, happy.”
Nightmare straightened himself and looked his brother’s way. His singular sockets meeting Dream’s.
They both stared at each other, a small part of Dream thought that Night would laugh at him for something so silly as his request. Bark with laughter and tell him that he is a fool to believe that he could go out happy.
If Nightmare had wanted to, he didn’t, instead, he turned back out to the dying stars.
“ Perhaps. Maybe not here,” He gestured out the expansive galaxy in front of them, “ Maybe in a different AU.”
With a furrow of his brow bone, Dream began to think, what AUs were left? There had been to many lost to remember.
“Uh, well, what about a Farmtale?”
“Unlikely there would be any out there, but…I guess it wouldn’t hurt to look.” He said as he started to stand, Dream just chose to stay seated on the stray asteroid.
He continued to stare into the vast blues and purples of the universe, choosing to ignore how the edges of it seemed to flicker in and out of existence.
“ I believe I found one. I doubt that it will be here much longer so we should go now.” Nightmare soon after opened a portal, letting the sounds of an empty farmland flood into his senses
“Alright, alright, I’m coming.” Dream chuckled as he rose to his feet, soft pops leaving his joints.
The twins walked through the black sludge portal and were soon blanketed in golden sun and the smells of baked goods that were left behind in the rush to get to the Omega Timeline.
“Brother—if you don’t mind me calling you that—do you wan to run around with me?” Dream slowly took off his tunic and folded it over his arm. “That is, if your joints are up for it, I would hate for your old man knees to buckle and cause you fall.” He finished with a chuckle as Nightmare’s corruption covered brow bones furrowed in annoyance.
“ Please” He rolled his eyelight, “ whoever told you that, must have been a fool.”
“That would explain why it was Killer who told me then.”
They both began to laugh as they both began to walk in the sprawling fields of wheat. And then soon began to jog, then running, that soon turned in to loud laughter as the two men turned in to boys once more, regaining some of their lost youth in the empty universe.
It was hard to try to be cordial with someone you had been fighting against day in and day out for years on end, however, with the end of the multiverse in the literal horizon, somethings needed to be set aside.
“ Sans.” Nightmare slithered beside Swap, who had been trying to busy himself with anything to take his mind off of his inevitable demise.
Swap whipped his skull around, his eyes bulging out in a cartoonish fashion. “HUH-Oh…” He sighed, soon dropping his shoulders, a furrow etched into his bone, “Do You Need Something?”
“ Have you seen Dream? I cannot sense him anymore and I would assume that you would happen to know where he may have ran off.”
Swap shook his head, his brows pushing impossibly closer, “No, He Said He Had Something To Attend To,” He paused.
Nightmare honestly did not have time to spare waiting around to try coax Swap to speak again and he was just about to voice his thoughts when Swap spoke again.
“I Tried To Get Him To Say Where He Was Going But He Never Told Me, He Just Told Me To Stay Here And Help In Any Way I Can.”
Nightmare nodded. For someone who found pleasure to torment those who were unfortunate to cross his path, something deep in him told him that it was worth it. So, he just walked away, continuing his search.
Here he was again. Same wheat field, same smell of pies, and the same sun. However now the sun, once providing warmth, seemed cold.
The stalks of wheat now dry and shriveled, the once sweet and warm pie now filling the air with rot. Not that he cared. Not when his body began slow, joints locking up and bones becoming brittle, at first he wondered if his apathy to the current situation was selfish, ‘as the guardian of positivity’ the voice in his head nagged ‘ your top priority should be the wellbeing of others! Not yours’ , but now? He simply sighed as he walked towards the edge of the now crumbling universe he and his brother ran in only a day ago.
“Oh mama, as mean as this may sound,” Dream took the ringlet off his head, allowing it to shine in the flickering sun, “A small part of me is glad that you nor Night are here to see me like this.”
He spoke to the wind as he brushed his distal phalanges against the once smooth gold. “Mama…” He started again, his voice cracking as tears prickled his sockets. “I already told Nighty this but I think my time has run out on me. And if I’m being honest, I don’t want it to.”
Dream took a ragged breath in and let out a small sob. It wasn’t like he didn’t know he wasn’t going to live forever, eventually something would kill him. He just didn’t think that thing would come so soon.
Dream sat in silence for a while, curled in on himself, clutching onto his circlet, listening to the howl of the wind.
Slowly, he unfurled himself and arose to his feet and pealed off his gloves and vest, allowing it to fall to the dirt with a quiet thud. A small shiver shot down his spine as the chill of the empty wind flowed through his rib cage.
Then with one final breath, he turn around and had one final look to the empty farmland in front of him, choosing to not look at the tar portal forming some feet away, choosing. Blank out seeing his brother step out and meet his gaze, his sharp cyan eye light shrinking to the size of a pin.
And let himself fall, feeling the wind rush past him and soon feeling nothing at all.