Archive of Our Own

There was always something weird about Dream that George couldn’t put his finger on.

The younger teen was charming and friendly, if not overly flirtatious. Sometimes he’s almost offensively irritating with his quips and jabs, but never threatening, he’s not even that violent.

Despite that, George’s flight or fight response always gets triggered whenever Dream grins, showing off those sharp pearly whites. He can’t suppress a shudder whenever he gazes into those eyes. Eyes that are too bright to be human, too animalistic, too unnatural. 

George swears he once saw Dream’s pupils narrow into slits.  

There’s something about him – something ferocious in the way he bolts around worlds in a blur of lime green, in the way the younger teen bounces off from each of the steps in parkour, in the way he manipulates the world around him with no remorse, in the way he protects his friends, his family, with claws and teeth with serrated edges that rips his enemies to shreds.

Dream watches his competitors in a way that he wants to eat them, like, literally eat them–

“Hey, Georgie!” came the younger teen’s cheerful voice.

George flinches.

Emerald – at least, that’s what Sapnap says they look like – eyes meet heterochromia ones.

“You alright?” Dream asked, brows furrowing in concern. George waves him off, relaxing for just a fraction, and takes a sip of his mushroom stew.

“I’m fine,” he mutters, trying not to shudder at the sudden warmth enveloping his back, tickling his neck, tracing circles on his shoulder before slowly moving down his arm, lingering there for a few moments before disappearing.

Unearthly eyes stared at him clinically for a few seconds before he nods once, smiling slightly.

“Okay,” chirps the other boy. Sapnap came back from wherever he went off to and sits down beside him. Dream slight smile turns into a full-blown grin at his arrival. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Dream gives them a two-fingered salute before turning on his heel and running off to mess about in one of the parkour parks in the server.

Later, George will ask Sapnap, when he fully relaxes, when he realizes everyone else reacts the same way in the lime green-clad teen’s presence.

Sapnap will shrug, dark blue eyes gazing far out. “I don’t know what he is,” he admits. Then the ravenette regards him with a knowing look, as if he knows why he’s asking.  “But he’s Dream, and that’s enough for me.”

And that, surprisingly, is enough for George too.

---

Callahan remembers Dream from their time as admins in Bad’s server. He remembers the overly-enthusiastic blond who wheezes at the tiniest thing he finds funny. He remembers the feeling of awe and wonder when he talked and the way Callahan’s heartbeat quickened as he listened silently. His instincts telling him to run, run, RUN–

Right now, Dream is with Alyssa, chatting with her as they work on the farm together. His emerald eyes sparkling as he doubles over laughing at something she just said,

“Do you think lava tastes spicy?” Callahan cracked a smile at that.

Dream wheezes. “Why,” he manages to gasp out, “why would you even eat lava?”

“Actually,” Ponk speaks up, “since lava is molten earth, it would probably taste really bland and dusty.”

Alyssa claps her hands triumphantly. “You,” she says with a bright grin, “are the only one who understands me.”

Dream rolls his eyes. “Whatever,” he huffs, before turning back to his crops.

From a distance, he seems like any other person Callahan has encountered, but when he looks at him – like, really look at him…

Freckled tan skin dissolves to slowly flowing ooze, his wavy hair shifts to something like tentacles, eyes becoming darker – glowing fiercely despite being exposed to the morning sun, pupils narrowing like a dangerous reptile.

He wants to look. He wants to see more. But Callahan doesn’t, can’t look, there is a brilliance to Dream’s human-like body, one that is intensely white and scorching and hot, and oh, Prime, it hurts–

He quickly turns away, a hand clamped over his eyes, his head throbbing in pain, pain, pain.

He wonders if the others can see it too.

---

That MrBeast dude enjoys watching people fight a little too much, Techno decides as he observes the eccentric man excitedly prepare the arrangements for his upcoming duel with Dream.

pog pog pog

aYO DREAM VS TECHNOBLADE DUEL???

#dreamsupremacy

nonono Techno supremacy stfu

dream’s gon kick your ass techie lmao

Techno growls at the voices. “Shut it. I could definitely defeat Dream. And don’t call me ‘Techie’.”

“Techno! Hey!”

Speak of the devil...

“Dream,” he says flatly, turning to stare at the younger man.

Dream’s eyes sweep over him, coolly, predatorily, and he meets Techno’s gaze in a sort of calm way that screamed danger. The voices in his head go rampant.

WAHT TEH FUCCK?!???

mom come pick me up im s c a r e d

RUN TECHNO RUN

His ear twitches. He prays to Prime that Dream didn’t notice. He prays that Dream doesn’t feel his sudden urge to unsheathe his sword. He prays that Dream doesn’t notice his need to kill, kill–

KILL HIM! the voices demand in a cacophony of mismatched screaming.

“What do you want?” Technoblade says once he manages to rein in some semblance of control.

Dream’s eyes are burning with curiosity, though, they’re too bright, too hungry, too inhuman. Techno thinks he can hear a soft rustling of wings behind his back, sending chills up his spine. He hears something sharp, then something slithery and skittery and all sorts of wrong.

He doesn’t dare turn around to look, his eyes fixed stubbornly at the (creature? is he even human–) person before him.

Dream shrugs. “Just wanted to get to know you before we duel.” He grins. Widely. And Techno has never felt so terrified in his life.

For the very first time, the voices went deathly silent as Dream throws an arm around Techno and leads him towards the rest of the Dream Team.

Techno prays Dream didn’t notice how he kept his hand on the handle of his sword the entire time.

(He did.)

---

When it’s only him and George, Dream just... lets go.

Sapnap is used to it, obviously. He’s used to the migraine-inducing way Dream’s true form as he spreads out. Sapnap doesn’t think he can look at him directly, he doesn’t think he can, even though he knows Dream would never hurt them.

“Destroy him for me,” Sapnap says, patting Dream on the back, ignoring the feeling of a slithering phantom tentacle running down his back.

Dream chuckles, half-corporeal limbs flexing. “Literally or figuratively?”

“Figuratively you idiot,” George teases. “And you can’t do that.”

“Because, you know,” Sapnap adds, feeling the need to be the voice of reason. Sometimes George takes Dream’s... peculiarities a little too well, “murder.”

“But I’m an admin,” Dream protests, his words echoed by a thousand more voices – each of them slightly different than the other.

George stares, firm and unflinching, even as his cheek is lovingly brushed by a transparent wing, and says, “No.”

Dream sighs in disappointment. Sapnap sees a hint of snapping jaws at the edge of his peripheral vision but pays it no mind.

Then he suddenly brightens, turning to George.

“Kiss me for good luck?” Dream says innocently, and Sapnap can see a pair of wings fluttering, giving off a luminescent turquoise glow.

George blushes, rolling his eyes and muttering, “You’re impossible.”

Nevertheless, the brunet stands on his tiptoes to press a soft and chaste kiss on the blond’s cheek.

Dream smiles happily, kissing George’s forehead in retaliation.

“Ew,” Sapnap says, wrinkling his nose at the display.

George coos. “Want a kiss too, SappyNappy?”

Dream guffaws, while Sapnap glares at him playfully.

“I told you not to call me that!”

Dream’s painfully human visage smiles at their antics, so do all the other mouths with saw-like teeth and dreadful jaws, blood-like substance oozing out from some of them. Thousands of Ender Eyes watches them, bright and brilliant, and Sapnap feels like he’s looking directly at the sun.

But that’s just Dream. And he’s never been so terrified of his best friend.

~FIN~