Ask Me To Promise

She wakes up alone.

She moved months ago. She couldn't live in that place anymore.

She didn't take the bed with her. Wouldn't. Couldn't.

It still feels wrong. It still feels like it's their bed. Like Twilight should be sleeping on her left, groaning and rolling around in her sleep, the two of them fighting over the bedcover without consciously meaning too.

She expects that to happen. She expects to sense Twilight's presence, or hear her obnoxious snoring at three AM.

Despite the fact her mattress doesn't have the room.

She kept Twilight's things in boxes. Somehow it's worse than having them out. The boxes stare up at her instead, their taped-over, unlabeled faces mocking her whenever she sees them.

Sometimes, she pops one open. She keeps her eyes closed while she digs around, looking for nothing, feeling for everything. Each time she half expects to hear footsteps come up behind her, or Twilight's cold wet morgue hand hold hers from between the cracks.

If she did, Sunset would let Twilight pull her in.

She has nightmares about the crash.

It's usually at night, usually in bed. Sunset gets up late for a glass of water. She doesn't kiss Twilight's forehead, or tells her she loves her because she's already there, and she doesn't want to wake her up. No point, right? She'll see her again soon, she doesn't need to say it.

She half-fills her glass when the car comes in. It crashes through their bedroom, and Sunset hears more sounds in her sleep than she did awake.

The scream. The spine breaking. The thud of heavy metal deathtrap against soft, fragile flesh.

The car's windows are black. The lights glare blinding white, but she can never see into the driver's seat.

If the car doesn't crash into the kitchen, chase her into the street and run her over itself, it leaves. Sunset stands with the water clutched in her hand, calling out to Twilight. Asking if she's there.

Most times, she gets what's expected. Most times, Sunset wakes up, or she walks into the room and sees a perfect still of Twilight's body as it was that afternoon. Even in the room, she can't find her glasses.

Other times, Twilight answers, by dragging herself into the kitchen. Her gasps sound like rattling bones.

Those aren't the only nightmares haunting her these nights. Old dreams, once pesky and bothersome, morphed into ugly ghosts.

Starlight. A crush. A fling from highschool she didn't want to admit at the time meant anything. Then her Equestrian counterpart, so similar. Sunset crushed on her before Twilight but never did anything about it. She heard Starlight and Trixie from that side of the portal were married now, with twins on the way.

She hated them.

She hated that Starlight lived in her dreams. Hated she took Twilight's place. As her girlfriend, usually, one time her fianc.

Maybe she still had feelings. That was probably the case. Twilight told her so, and said the fact it bothered her so much made her less concerned about how much Sunset loved her.

She thought it was cute.

Sunset never did, because she wanted to dream about Twilight. She wanted to dream about the girlfriend, the fiance, the wife-to-be she had then and there, day to day. But at least without that, she had her when she woke up.

She doesn't anymore.

The dreams with Starlight are the same as they ever were. Except everything's different now.

And in that context, dreams become nightmares.