Chapter Text
Ranboo is painfully like his mother and that's what hurts Dream the most.
It's not in appearance, if anything the boy takes more after him than he does her. But the singular red eye, the visible freckles dancing across his cheeks. He has mannerisms from her too: the way when he’s confused, he’ll look around wildly, how his ears would flick at every noise, or when he’ll clamber up onto the couch with the biggest smile on his face.
Dream loves his son, he really does. Sometimes, though, it hurts more than anything to look at him, probably more than he could ever admit.
Speaking of his son, the boy is pointing to something.
He tugs on the sleeve of Dreams hoodie, making a high pitch grunting sound. Dream turns to look at what his son was pointing to.
Oh.
Quickly, he walks over to the teddy bear sitting on the shelf, cringing inside at the price. He couldn’t buy that, not when he was trying to save as much money as possible.
“Sorry ‘Boo.” He says. “Too expensive.”
Ranboos' ears flatten against his head, he glares at the teddy bear.
Dream hears a sniffle. All he can think is oh no, not in the store please. I do not want people to think anything’s happening and I do not want to deal with those hives today. Please do not cry.
Sadly, however, the universe is not on his side this week. Tears escape Ranboos eyes, Dream sets his shopping basket to the ground as quickly as he can. His ears flatten at the back of his head at the sound of loud sobbing.
He places his hands on the boys’ shoulders, trying to calm him down.
“Don’t cry- please.” He tries. “We can’t get the bear because we won’t be able to get lunch, or dinner if we do. Please do not cry we can get it another time-”
Ranboo continues to cry, hiccupping as he sucks in breath.
Dream attempts to keep his composure, luckily, he's able to. (When he doesn’t, he usually joins in on the sob-fest.) He can feel people looking at him, probably judging.
“How… How about if you stop crying we can go get ice cream? Yeah? How does that sound?”
The young werepup perks up at that, sobs ceasing. He still sniffles, making that sound you make when you’re trying to be quiet while trying to stop crying at the same time. Crying was hard to stop doing once it started, Dream knew that more than everyone.
“Can we continue to buy food now?” He asks tentatively.
A small nod.
“Okay!” Dream exclaims. He leans his head back. “Okay.”
Then he gets up, bringing the shopping basket back up with him. Pretending like no ones eyes were lingering on him, he offers if Ranboo would like to ride on his shoulder. The child nods his head vigorously, climbing onto his dad's back like a spider.
(Dream was going to have a blast trying to keep the boy from itching at the newly sprung hives on his cheeks. A blast. (That’s sarcasm, by the way.))
+++
Dream holds ice cream in one hand--vanilla, he didn’t want to stray from his usual--a bag on his arm, and his keys in the other. Ranboo waits patiently behind him as he lets them into the apartment.
Hope Sapnap didn’t almost burn the house down again. Dream thinks to himself, giggling silently.
Then he remembers the whole crying at the grocery store incident that happened just 20 minutes earlier. Quickly, he sets the bag of food on the counter, throws the icecream in the garbage (sadly) and closes the door.
“C’mon, let's get you an ice-pack.” Dream says, picking the toddler up and setting him on the counter.
Now for the other thing on hand: where are the ice-packs again? And where are the zip-lock bags? They'll need those since they have to do it the old fashioned way. (They didn’t have any enchanted shit or anything like that. Dream’s never been able to get his hands on any.)
It takes around a minute of Dream standing around uselessly to realize he’s an idiot.
Groaning, he opens the freezer, pulling out an ice pack wrapped in a paper towel. After that, he reaches into the drawer to grab a zip-lock bag. Ice was just frozen water, after all, and Dream did not need more water to touch his water allergic son. No thank you, not today. He does not want to deal with non-verbal complaining all week, and he thinks that's pretty reasonable.
Making sure it's sealed properly and no water will be slipping out of the bag, he hands it to Ranboo who had started to itch the area under his eyes.
“You know what to do, ‘Boo. Hold the ice-pack to where it itches.” He smiles when the four year old nods and holds the ice-pack to his cheek. “Now go bother Sapnap or something, I have some things to do not meant for small-people eyes.”
He helps the werepup off of the counter, smiling as he disappears into the room that belonged to Dreams' roommate.
Putting the food in the places it was meant to go (fridge, spice cabinet, that.) Dream opens his beat-up laptop at the table.
He had things to do, like looking for somewhere better to live.
(And maybe, just maybe, he was looking for a new hoodie. Wilbur was always saying he should start getting things for himself.)
+++
Dream wakes up as he does often: in a cold sweat, frozen in guilt and fear. With the wisps of a nightmare fading from his grasp, with the sight of a dead son on the floor. The logical side of his mind screams that that didn't happen, that wasn’t the truth, Ranboo is still alive. The other part of him, the one that's just woken up entertains the thought that this might be a dream.
Then he pinches himself, looks down to see a familiar wolf pup curled up at the foot of his bed.
Children were never good at controlling when they shifted.
After he stifles his quiet sobs, he sits there. He watches the window as the sun comes up through the trees, enjoying the light that soon would bathe the room.
When the room is flooded by golden sunlight, he shifts and lands his feet on the ground, ears twitching at the squeak of the bed springs. He stands up, walks to the kitchen and depending on the day he’ll see Sapnap on the couch with the Netflix ‘are you still watching’ screen on the TV.
If there's pancake mix left, he’ll pull it out and pour the mix into the gridle that his mom gave him last year. When the pancakes are done, he puts them on a large plate and sets them on a table. He’ll walk to his room again, shake the golden wolf pup awake.
Then, after that, his son will catch the scent of the pancakes. He’ll scrunch up his snout and in cute concentration until poof, a mini-Dream with two-toned eyes and rubbing the eye-boogers out of the corners of his eyes.
Slowly, Dream himself will wake all the way up. He’ll make himself some oatmeal and bread, greeting Sapnap as he leaves for work.
Then comes the waiting. Dream’ll wait for an hour; a thing that was boring, for the most part, but he made it work. By reading stories out loud and playing wordless games with Ranboo, the time will pass by fast until he hears a knock at the door.
Dream will invite Wilbur in, who most of the time has three other children clinging to him. He’ll watch as Ranboo perks up and rushes over, showing off his canines to the other werepups. (Tommy and Tubbo, Dream thinks their names are. He never sees the fox shifter kid joining in until Wilbur pushes him to.)
Those are the ways mornings for Dream go.
This time is a little different, just a little bit different than usual.
“You know, it would be nice if you could stop by at the cafe.” Sapnap says that day, halfway out the door.
“What do you mean?” Dream asks, not having had coffee that morning yet.
“The cafe, where I work. It’d be nice if you could stop by. Kiniko Cat-fe, on the street with the mushroom theme, has a lot of windows and a sign. Can’t miss it.”
Dream thinks to himself for a moment, before making up his mind. “I might stop by then, who knows.”
“Good to know.” Sapnap puts his hand on the door handle- “BYE DREAM!”
Dream jumps at the sound of the door slamming.
+++
dream: hey wilbur ill be picking ranboo up a bit later than usual if you dont mind
wilbursoot: don’t mind
wilbursoot: he’s like the most behaved out of them all he is a blessing i do not mind
dream: we obviously know different children
dream: anyways, thanks!
wilbursoot: np!
Dream stuffs his phone in his back pocket, stopping in front of the building that seemed to match Sapnaps vaguely vague description.
It was two stories tall, the ground floor seemingly behind the shop and the first floor being a living space. It seemed like any other building on the street: made of dark brown wood, sickenly mushroom themed, could be homey looking. It was ordinary, save for the unearthly amount of windows.
Windows of all kinds were showing the inside of the shop. Green windows, blue windows, yellow windows, all shining coloured light into the cafe like a kaleidoscope.
Who the fuck has this many windows? Dream wonders to himself as he takes a step into Kinoko Cat-fè.
And who the fuck had this many cats- Dream cuts that thought off as common sense returns to him. Cafe, Cat-fe.
He stiffens as something starts to rub between his legs, he looks down. A tabby cat with a white chest and paws is rubbing its head against his leg. He honestly did not expect that; cats tended to not go near weredogs. Even if technically he’s a werewolf, not a dog. Same thing to him, no matter how much Wikipedia begged to differ. Dream thinks he’s more correct than Wikipedia, being a were-creature himself.
His train of thought--which had been running off the tracks for a while--finally snapped back to reality. Curiously, he squats down to pat the cat's head. It purrs, Dream takes this as a chance to take a look at what the cat's collar said.
Patches.
If lost, return to Kiniko Cat-fe.
She’s a girl :}
He giggles. At least he knows her name now.
He gets back up, starting to walk towards the counter where Sapnap was-
Keyword: was.
The second the man had seen Dream, a grin had crossed onto his face and he had disappeared into the staff room--Dream only knew it was the staff room because the sign said staff room.
Dream decides not to question it, instead whistling to himself and rocking on the balls of his feet while he reads the menu. The menu had strange names for one, Happiness Latte, that sounded unoriginal and boring. The little blurb by it said it would make you happy-- oh god Dream didn’t walk into a magic coffee shop/cat cafe did he?
Before he has time to freak out over the fact he was in a magical cat cafe and magic things tended to be expensive and he did not have room for that at all, the staff room door opens.
A very disgruntled (and slightly cute, his mind notes) guy wearing a stereotypical witch hat is being shoved towards the counter by none other than Sapnap. Sapnap whispers something into the guy's ear, earning a groan in response. Dream watches as the guy turns around, seemingly with the intent to punch someone, only to find the staffroom door closing with no Sapnap in sight.
The guy sighs and walks behind the counter with annoyance in every step. He looks Dream dead in the eyes.
“I swear I will murder that Bitch-nap-” the guy clears his throat. ”Welcome to Kinoko Cat-fe what can I do for you? Also please do not kidnap any of our cats and do not pet them when they do not want to, last time someone did they ended up with no eyes. The cats can be very vicious when they want to be.”
Dream couldn’t help it when he bursts out into a wheeze.
The guy stares at him like he personally wronged him.
“I-” Dream gets cut off by his own laugh. “The fact you had to say that in the first place-”
“Just order something.” The guy says in a deadpan voice. “I beg of you I do not want to deal with more men that look like they live in the sewer to come in here. I should put a sign up: attractive men only.”
“Isn’t that like, body shaming?” Dream laughs out.
“I don’t know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder or whatever you say.”
“As the beholder of my own beauty, I say I am so very sexy and attractive.”
The guy snorts. “I think that's just being narcissistic.”
Dream rolls his eyes. “Whatever. For my order uhm… surprise me?”
“Name?”
“Uh… The most pretty guy you’ve ever met?”
“Yeah, sure, let's go with that. Now go sit at a table or something, I’ll call you up.” The guy points at one of the many tables, one where a yellow and green glass window shone down coloured light onto it.
Dream nods, giving the guy a smile before going to sit at the table.
He brings his knees up to his chest, resting his tail beneath his chin and closing his eyes. Relaxing for a few minutes would be nice, now that he thinks about it.
A meow and the small thump of paws against wood makes him open his eyes. The tabby cat--Patches--is back. She sits down at the edge of the table, staring at him with unblinking eyes before looking away.
Dream holds his hand out and rests it on the table.
Patches glances at it, getting to her paws and bending down the sniff at the hand. She bats it with her paw.
Dream laughs.
For a few minutes he sits there with the cat until-
“Okay, the- okay yeah I am not calling you that. Green and white hoodie guy, orders up.”
Dream jumps up, surprising the cat on the table significantly.
“Thanks!” He grabs the steaming cup of coffee. “How much?”
“Uh, like- $2.20.”
Dream nods, bringing out his wallet and quickly paying. He turns around-
“Oh and, it's a de-stress iced coffee. You looked like you needed it.”
For a few seconds Dream doesn’t answer.
Until he does.
“Thanks uh….”
“George.” The guy answers. “Names George.”
“Dream. Now if you don’t mind I have things to do!”
Like picking up a child from their babysitter.