Ink Stains (MCYT Oneshots)

[R] Not-Dream's Therapy (CC!Dream & DSMP)

(A/N: request as a pic. i didn't include most of the examples listed aha sorry-)

"Before you try to say anything, hear me out. I'm not your Dream; I'm... a different Dream."

Phil has had his fair share of odd dreams. This, though, staring at a Dream that acts and looks like the Dream he knows, but at the same time doesn't?

This is way more than odd.

"What?" he can only manage. Dream — Not-Dream? That seems like an acceptable name — shrugs.

"Well, I really did have to pull some strings in order to do all of this," Not-Dream gestures around vaguely. "I'm going to go into everyone else's dreams, hopefully I'll be able to give... like, good advice? Enough to change the plot?"

"...what?"

Not-Dream's eyes drift to the side. "I'm running out of time," he says. "But from me to you: stop keeping all your feelings to your chest. You'll be better for it."

Then, Phil is thrown into a spiral of memories, of the memories he holds closest to his chest, some not for the right reasons.

Phil wakes up with tears in his eyes. Pent up emotions have built, and now they are escaping. It feels like catharsis, almost, as Phil shakes on his bed, even as his crows caw in distress.

He doesn't move, not even when something wraps around him, warm and kind.

Phil buries his head into Techno's cape, and cries even harder.

"It's alright," Not-Dream — he can't be Dream, Dream would've never treated him so kindly — tells him gently.

Tommy shakes. Just because this Dream doesn't wear a mask, or doesn't talk to him like Dream does- that doesn't mean he'll let down his guard so easily!

Then, the Not-Dream walks until he's just in front of him. Tommy gapes.

"I'm proud of you," Not-Dream smiles at him, genuine and true, even as Tommy glances up wide-eyed at him. "We all are. You've been nothing but brave all this while. You've been through more than anyone else has, and you've come out alive and true to yourself. We're proud."

Tommy stiffens, as Not-Dream ruffles his hair. It feels... warm.

"Now go out there and bamboozle the world," Not-Dream grins at him, and despite the cheesy words, the morning that comes after is the first morning that Tommy doesn't wake up in tears.

"You'll have your friends to remind you," Not-Dream tells Ranboo. "And even if you don't, you'll find a cure eventually; trust me on this."

"When?" if Ranboo's voice cracks at that word, neither of them remark on it.

Not-Dream smiles at him, and reaches to pat his head. Ranboo purrs, and immediately flushes up after.

"Soon," Not-Dream promises, gazing at him with gentler eyes than the actual Dream has ever looked at him with — not that Ranboo has even seen the actual Dream's eyes. "Soon."

"You won't have to hoard your money anymore. You and your skills are enough, and despite what you might think, your friends will be all too happy to help you in case you ever find yourself in a monetary trouble," Not-Dream tells Punz.

The problem with this, however, is that he's given that piece of advice... after giving Punz a list of different places on the SMP that could become money stashes.

"Shouldn't you have told me that before you told me about the places?" Punz can't help but ask. "It seems redundant to do it in this order."

Not-Dream hums. "I needed to get you comfortable enough to actually listen to me, somehow."

"...fair enough."

"You may not be happy," his clone rolls his eyes. "But I am. With friends, with family, with attachments."

Dream grinds his teeth, snarling. It takes a lot to crack his composure, but how dare his clone say all of that to him, with such smugness in his tone, as if he has gotten the better deal?

"Do you think forgiveness is easy?" Dream snorts. "I don't need attachments. I don't know what sort of- I don't know what you're thinking, but I know what I'm thinking, and it will be for the good in the end. Everything will be okay again, once the pests have been removed."

"Well you definitely won't be forgiven," his clone rolls his eyes. Then, strangely, his expression seems to soften, as he says his next words. "But you can be... redeemed, in a way. At the very least, you can make relationships again. Mend them with broken glass and bandages. Your actions can never be excused, but you, and all the others, can heal."

Then, his clone laughs; he laughs like there is no danger in the world, laughs like how Dream used to laugh. Full of happiness and warmth, at those he'd loved.

Dream wakes up with a tingling feeling in his heart.

In the end, the mystery of the weird dream Not-Dream never gets solved.

But people are happier, and really, who else do they have to thank for it but the dream Not-Dream?