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Dream knew when he first woke up that today would be a bad day.
There had been a bad thunderstorm all night, so what little sleep he had managed to get had been restless. As the sky lightened (not as much as he would like, since it was still raining), he finally gave up trying to sleep. His head was killing him; hopefully it was just a bad-night headache that would fade in a few hours.
He eyed the grey, dismal drizzle outside and grimaced. As much as he'd love to stay inside and relax for a bit, he had work to do.
Dream mentally ran over his list of responsibilities for the day as he dragged himself out of bed. A supply run to Pogtopia (and he should maybe speak to Wilbur while he was there), a meeting with Schlatt, fixing a glitch Sam had found the other day, and cleaning up some of the creeper holes and half-cut trees scattered around the server. Not an awful workload, assuming that glitch was easy to isolate and fix.
Unfortunately, he was so focused on his to-do list that he forgot to pay attention to his surroundings, and he accidentally slammed his toe into a doorframe.
Dream yelped and leaned against the wall for a moment, letting the worst of the pain dissipate.
Rocky start this morning.
It only got worse when he got out his favorite hoodie (it was the softest, and ever so slightly too big for him, and he usually wore it on less-than-stellar days like this to make himself feel better) and realized there was a sizeable hole in it. He suddenly remembered a group of skeletons he'd run into several days ago; he'd gotten hit a few times, and he must have forgotten to fix the hoodie afterward.
It left a bit of a sour taste in his mouth as he dropped the hoodie into a small pile of clothes to be mended and pulled on a different, less comfy hoodie. After a moment of thought, he grabbed a waterproof cloak and put that on, too. Usually he'd just ignore the rain and go about his business, but today, he didn't want to add damp clothes to the list of annoyances.
Thanks to the onslaught last night, the ground was one big mud puddle, and Dream had to dodge quite a few treacherous areas as he made his way to Pogtopia. Maybe that was due to the out-of-the-way paths he was forced to take (he doubted areas like the Prime Path were so bad), but it was still a hassle. He reached the hidden entrance and headed down into the ravine with little preamble.
Wilbur was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs, grinning. "Hello, Dream."
"Wilbur," Dream replied evenly. He set down a chest and began filling it with the supplies he had brought. "How's the revolution coming?"
"Good, good. You know," Wilbur leaned down and whispered, his face alight with manic glee, "I've been thinking. It would be a real shame if that TNT never got used, don't you think? After all the trouble you went through to get it for me."
Dream let out a non-committal hum. "You wouldn't be telling me that if you hadn't decided what to do about it."
Wilbur straightened again, still grinning. "Right you are. So I was thinking, why not just do it, you know? Just out of the blue. Get it over with."
"And waste the spectacle?" Dream asked as calmly as he could, closing the chest.
"You're suggesting I wait and make a show out of it?"
Dream turned and headed back up the stairs. His head was still pounding. "I'm suggesting that you only have one chance to set it off. Use it wisely."
Wilbur's thoughtful muttering trailed after him as he left Pogtopia, sealing the entrance behind him. It was only then, out of earshot and hidden by the steady drizzle, that Dream let himself sigh - a shaky, unbalanced sound - and lean against a nearby tree. Ever since he'd made the admittedly rash decision to give Wilbur all that TNT (he'd thought it was the lesser of two evils, Wilbur had been so sure, he'd thought Wilbur was still sane), talking to the former president made his skin crawl.
One chore down, several more to go.
Schlatt had requested a meeting about something or other, Dream didn't remember (he liked talking to Schlatt about as much as he liked talking to Wilbur), but that wasn't until later, he had some time. And cleaning up some of the server could probably wait until the ground was a little drier, he decided with a grimace as he accidentally stepped into a large puddle. So that left him with time to kill and a glitch to fix.
His communicator buzzed.
Sapnap whispered to you: hey are you busy?
You whispered to Sapnap: no, why?
Sapnap whispered to you: want to hang out at the community house?
You whispered to Sapnap: sure :)
You whispered to Sapnap: can I work on code while I'm there?
Sapnap whispered to you: yeah
Dream grinned and headed for the community house. He could work on the glitch while talking to Sapnap! That would be better than working on it alone. And maybe hanging out with a friend would make the gross, buzzy feeling starting to build in his jaw and his chest go away.
Sapnap was leaning out of the doorway when Dream walked up to the building, waving and grinning. "Hey Dream!"
"Hey Sapnap!" Dream hurried inside, shaking the extra water off of his cloak just inside the doorway. "How's it going?"
"Pretty good, pretty good. Haven't gotten the chance to hang out with you recently, though," Sapnap pointed out with a small pout.
Dream sighed. "I know, I'm sorry. I've had a lot going on."
"'S okay, I get it. What's the code you need to work on?"
Dream grinned and pulled up what George and Sapnap called his 'admin screen.' It was a large, floating rectangle, and it was the way he interacted with the code of the world. With a few taps, he pulled up the chunk of code that Sam had been complaining about - a redstone clock that wasn't working correctly. "Sam said there's a small glitch and asked me to fix it."
"Cool. I'm just gonna start talking, you can respond or not, just do your thing."
Sapnap was a great friend, Dream decided, sitting cross-legged on the floor and starting to sift through lines of code.
An hour later, Dream was about ready to tear his hair out. The code refused to cooperate! By all accounts, the clock should be working perfectly, but when he built a test clock to make sure, he'd seen the same glitching that Sam had reported. Sapnap had been a patient listener and had provided background noise and occasional distractions, but he couldn't help all that much. At some point, George had shown up and tried to help, and he was as frustrated with the stealthy bit of code as Dream was.
And all the while, the reminder that you have a meeting don't forget don't be late pinged at the back of his brain, making him more and more antsy, sapping his ability to concentrate and making him feel even more frustrated.
His head still hurt. The buzzy feeling was getting worse.
Finally, Dream dismissed the admin screen with an irritated flick of his wrist. "I have to go. I can wrestle with this thing later."
"Where are you going?" George asked curiously as Dream put his cloak back on and pulled up the hood.
"Manberg." Dream didn't bother hiding how unenthused he was. "Schlatt wants to meet about something."
Sapnap made a face, standing so he could walk Dream to the door. "I don't like Schlatt."
"Me neither," Dream admitted, walking out into the drizzle. "But you know, he is in charge of Manberg, so I-"
All it took was one tiny lapse in attention. Dream was focused on Sapnap and getting to Manberg, not on the walkway, so he missed the puddle right outside the community house door. Or at least, he missed it until he stepped in it.
The rain had made the planks slick.
Dream slipped.
He fell off the walkway and into the lake. For a moment, there was a shock of cold dark cold what happened can't breathe cold, before he broke the surface again, coughing and spluttering.
George and Sapnap were laughing from the doorway of the community house. And on some level, Dream knew that they weren't really laughing at him. That it must have looked really funny. That on a better day, he would have started laughing too, no matter how soaked he was.
But his head was pounding like his skull was about to crack, and it felt like there was static electricity humming in his jaw and chest and palms, and it felt like the world was too sharply in focus, and he was wet and cold and they were laughing and his brain screamed hide hide get away get away-
He barely even registered what he was doing before he teleported away. When the momentary disorientation faded and his vision cleared a little, he saw the familiar stone walls of Techno's base, and he relaxed ever so slightly. A small, hidden space that he knew was safe. Perfect. He could calm down and head back before anything else happened and no one had to know.
"Dream?"
Dream tensed and whirled around.
Techno was standing in the doorway of his tiny enchantment room. He obviously hadn't been expecting guests; his cloak was draped over a bookshelf, his sleeves were rolled up, and his hair was loose. He was looking at Dream with a surprising amount of concern.
"Dream?" Techno asked again, taking a small step forward. "Are you okay?"
Dream couldn't move. He couldn't speak, he couldn't breathe. Techno was home. He'd panic-teleported to his friend's house without permission and he was home and Dream was just going to be an inconvenience and bother him and miss his meeting because he couldn't calm down -
A hand rested gently on his shoulder.
And Dream shattered.
He sank slowly to the ground, arms wrapped tightly around himself, making a soft keening sound. He was shaking and couldn't focus on anything and his head hurt so he squeezed his eyes shut, curling tighter into a ball.
"Oh geez - Dream, what - um." Techno was saying something. There was too much static in Dream's head for him to really process the words, but he sounded vaguely panicked, which made Dream feel more guilty he was such a bad friend he needed to leave
Then Techno was next to him on the floor, carefully taking his cloak off. A hand rested gently against the clasp of his mask, and there was a very quiet "May I?"
Dream didn't have the spare energy to respond - and the static-y feeling had an iron grip on his throat anyway - but he managed a tiny nod.
Slowly, with an overabundance of care, Techno undid the latch and eased the mask off of Dream's face. Dream heard it get set down somewhere nearby, but he didn't care to open his eyes and look for it.
There was a moment of hesitation, then rustling sounds and the creaking of hinges as Techno rummaged through chests.
Dream just focused on breathing. In. Hold. Out. He could do that, he'd done it all his life, it wasn't hard. In. Hold. Out.
"Hey. Is it okay if I touch you?" Techno asked softly. He was back on the floor now.
Dream nodded again.
He wasn't expecting a towel - he was pretty sure that's what it was - to be dropped on top of his head. Dream opened his mouth, about to make a sound of protest, but paused when he felt Techno start drying his hair off.
"You remind me of a cat sometimes," Techno mused, keeping his voice quiet. "Like now. Someone gets you wet and suddenly you look half as big as usual. You're just fluff, look at you."
Dream hummed softly. He wasn't up for responding yet.
"... I got overwhelmed like this sometimes when I was younger," Techno admitted. "Especially when I was first gettin' used to Phil. But he never laughed at me, and he always had this song he'd sing when he was helpin' me calm down. Never failed to make me feel better. I'd sing it for you, but, uh. You know how my singin' voice is."
Dream hummed again, leaning into Techno's hand. That was really sweet, he thought, noting absently that the buzzing was starting to fade slightly. He'd like to hear the song.
Techno chuckled. "Alright, fine." And then he began to hum.
It was hesitant at first, but the longer he did it the more confident Techno got (He was quiet, though, and Dream was really thankful for how careful his friend was being about that). The tune wasn't one Dream recognized. It was a kind, flowy sound, like a creek in a flower field on a warm spring day, bathed in sunshine.
After a minute or so, Techno took the towel away, and Dream whined a little in protest, but the humming continued. Techno carefully helped Dream take off his hoodie and boots and set them down somewhere, then wrapped him in a different towel. This one was warm, and Dream burrowed into it, focusing on the fluffy texture instead of the static in his brain. It felt really nice. He couldn't tell if he was shaking from the cold or stress or both, but it wasn't quite as bad now regardless.
Techno wrapped something else around him, and Dream only had to brush the fabric with his fingers to know what it was. He opened his eyes a little in surprise, wanting to make sure he was right.
He was. It was Techno's cape.
"Hey." Dream's gaze flicked up to Techno, who was smiling gently at him. "Back with us?"
Dream shrugged and buried his face back in the towel and the fur lining of Techno's cape.
"That's fine. Take your time. I'm gonna move you real quick, is that okay?"
He nodded.
Techno carefully picked him up, bridal-style, carried him over to the bed, then sat with his back against the wall and Dream leaning against his chest in a sort of half-cuddle half-hug. "This okay?"
Dream wasn't cold anymore, and the buzzing was subsiding, and he was actually starting to be able to think again, so he let out a happy sigh and let himself relax.
"I'll take that as a yes," Techno chuckled, and he started humming again.
Dream felt the tension melt out of him as he felt the comforting melody rumble in his friend's chest. This was really nice. He frowned, though, as he remembered something. "... Got a meeting, Tech." His voice was uncomfortably scratchy.
"Hmm?"
"Meeting," Dream repeated, dread pooling in his stomach. "With Schlatt. Gonna be late."
Techno's hand moved to his head and started gently carding through his still-damp hair. "So what? You're the admin. You can tell him somethin' came up and he can deal with it. And if he wants to come get you right now, he's welcome to try. I have a very strict 'trespassers must die' policy."
"'M not a trespasser?"
"Of course not. You're my friend." Techno's tone was matter of fact. "Friends are welcome any time, especially if they need space to breathe."
Dream felt the last of his panic unravel, leaving behind a relieved calm. "Thanks, Tech."
"No problem. Now take a nap, you need it."
So Dream did, drifting off to the sound of Techno humming and the feeling of a hand running through his hair.
How lucky he was to have a friend who could make him feel so safe.