Chapter Text
As years passed, Dream and Nightmare kept their relationship, with Dream secretly hanging out with his brother's gang while sparring fighting with them when they met on the battlefield.
Except, it was getting harder and harder for Dream to keep doing that when the star sanses had gotten stronger.
Before, both sides were evenly matched- Dream could easily fight with them without worrying about either side being seriously hurt.
But Ink had recruited half a dozen Sanses from different AUs a few years ago to join their cause. It was harder to keep sparring when the so-called 'bad Sanses' , his friends , were getting overwhelmed. It was hard to keep fighting while secretly worrying about his brother and his friends, watching from the corner of his eye while trying to go easy on his opponent.
He had began to spend more and more time with his brother as time passed. And as time passed, he watched as his brother struggled to stay alive as negative emotions died out. He tried to hold back when spreading positive emotions as a result, but Nightmare had found out and scolded him for doing so, telling him not to do it again. It wasn't like it had helped much anyways - doing so had weakened himself while only giving a slight boost to Nightmare, not enough to help him. Dream couldn't produce negative emotions, after all. The balance between positive and negative was starting to unravel, and they would have to do something about it soon.
He watched as the gang struggled to find food to sustain themselves when it was so difficult to raid AUs while outnumbered and outmatched by Ink and his Sanses. He noticed how their food supply had started to run low as he visited. Horror had gotten a number of panic attacks lately, and Dream could see that Nightmare was struggling to keep it together. So he had resorted to smuggling some food into the castle where they lived. It wasn't enough, but it had helped.
* * *
A few days after visiting his brother, Dream found himself in one of the Underfell AUs, which Nightmare was raiding for food. The Sans of the timeline had alerted them to the attack, and so the Star Sanses had come to stop them. They had found Nightmare and his boys in Snowden forest and attacked.
Ink was fighting with Cross, Blue was fighting with Killer, and Dream was fighting with his brother. The rest of the Star Sanses were fighting with Horror and Dust.
Dream dodged a tentacle, whipping out an arrow and sending it at Nightmare, clipping his shoulder. His brother hissed a few curses under his breath in frustration as Dream smirked and lunged with his tentacles. In response, Dream jumped out of range, sending another arrow which Nightmare managed to dodge. "You can do better than that, brother."
"Do you want to have a bad time, then?" said Dream, shooting another volley that Nightmare managed to dodge. Both of them knew that Dream was going easy on Nightmare, especially since Nightmare had been weakened by the decrease of negative emotions.
As they continued their fight, Dream watched the rest of Nightmare's gang. Cross was holding his own against Ink, and neither seemed to be able to gain the upper hand. Ink was creating shield after shield, trying to slow down Cross's attacks so that he would have a chance to counter, but Cross kept cutting them down. Blue and Killer were also evenly matched, but Horror and Dust, surrounded by the other Sans and outnumbered, were struggling.
A stinging pain brought Dream back to his own fight as Nightmare managed to scratch his forehead. His gaze was annoyed, turquoise eye glowing brightly, as if telling Dream to keep up the act. Dream grinned in reply, shooting a few arrows in return before more subtly watching the boys.
Killer had turned to help Dust and Horror, and the three were now fighting Blue and the other Sanses, struggling to fend them off. As Dream watched, Blue and the other skeletons launched a barrage of bones at Killer, heading straight for his target-shaped soul. Killer managed to deflect most of them, but one bone managed to get past his defense. It headed toward his chest, where is soul glowed.
Without thinking, Dream whirled around, nocked an arrow, and shot, barely dodging his brother's tentacles. A thrum filled the air as he loosed. For a moment, the arrow hissed through the air.
Then it intercepted the lone bone, pining it to the trunk of a nearby tree with a dull thud.
Everyone froze. It suddenly became very quiet, the sounds of fighting dying down.
Blue blinked, thinking it was a hallucination. Then he blinked again, the arrow stuck to the trunk proof of what Dream had done.
Dream realized what he had done, his smile dropping as he struggled to keep his face blank.
Nightmare froze.
"D-Dream?" said one of the Sanses timidly
The noise brought Nightmare out of his stupor. Quickly lashing out with his tentacles he brought his boys to him, snagging Dream as an afterthought and teleporting straight to his castle.