Work Text:
Being the Admin of the world meant many things. It meant that he knew what would happen before anyone else did. It meant that the world tended to lean more in his favor than in others. It meant that he could call to the land. It meant that he could feel it. And he did. Dream felt it all.
It just also meant that he knew what was going to happen to his world. He snuck away from the community house for what felt like the millionth time. He didn’t remember the last time he got a good night's sleep. He knew George and Sapnap were worried. He knew they were going to come up with some insane plan sooner or later but he wanted to see his world. He wanted to see it at peace before it was gone.
Every world spoke to their Admin differently. For Dream it was small whispers in the back of his mind. That and dreams. Nightmares really. He’d seen his world burn in his sleep. He saw trench coats and flags and nukes and bloody obsidian. He saw it all. And it made his heart break. Every Admin knew the price of their power. They would know things before the others but regardless of how much they didn’t want what they saw to happen they had to let it. They needed to let the world flow.
They couldn’t stop what was meant to be.
He’d already let Tommy into the server. He knew his time seeing it like this was coming to an end. A time where the pranks were still just pranks. Where his people and friends all still got along. Where buildings weren’t burning and no chunks of land were destroyed by bombs. Where he still had the family he’d always wanted.
He walked around. Looking at buildings that the world told him would be gone in time. Looking at the homes he knew were going to be destroyed. The land that was going to be burned or poisoned or bombed. His heart ached every time he walked and the world whispered to him about more destruction. He wanted to stop it. He wanted to make it all stop. But he couldn’t. It was meant to be. He couldn’t stop it.
Crossing by Tommy’s house he heard whispers calling him a monster. Heard his own voice distort as he ordered Tommy to put his things in a hole. He heard the hiss of TNT and whispered words.
“It’s not your time to die yet, Tommy.”
“It’s never my time to die.”
He saw images of bloody obsidian and a raw potato. His own hands bruised and bloody.
It hurt when he saw open water and saw the image of a looming black building sitting over it. When the world whispered words like ‘warden’ and ‘prisoner’ and ‘monster’. When he saw blood blending to obsidian tears. When he heard his own screams echo in his head and his own voice break to plead and beg. When he heard his own shatter point as he gave up.
“Yes sir.”
He looked over a hill and into pretty oak trees with a river running through them. The ghost scent of TNT filled his nose and he saw two men. One with horns and one with a trench coat. He heard laughter and screams blending into one sound. He heard three different voices with different levels of confidence and emotion saying the same thing over and over.
“It was never meant to be.”
But it was. It was meant to be. They were meant to live and feel but they were meant to destroy. He knew. Dream knew. He knew where they’d end up. He knew his family was going to be torn apart. He wanted to stay with them. He wanted to stop it. And maybe he would try. Maybe he was meant to try. Maybe he was the cause of all of this in the end. Maybe he was the reason they were all doomed to fail from the start.
He hadn’t learned any of it until he made the world. Until it was too late to turn back. He’d brought it up to George and Sapnap to make a server. To make a home for them and their friends. To build a place where they could all live as a massive family and relax and have fun. Where they wouldn’t have to search for a village to sleep in or a clearing to set up camp. Where they would have a place to go at the end of every day and sleep and eat and stay together.
But he’d made the world and he heard Sapnap promising to kill him. He heard George demanding that he say he hates him even though it was something that Dream knew he could never do. He saw Sapnap crying when he was alone because he was trying to save everyone on his own and he felt like he was failing. He saw George sleeping his life away because it was better to sleep through it and go to a world that didn’t hurt as much. He saw his family transform to just friends and later enemies. He saw it all shatter apart.
He saw himself in the center of it. Heard his name fall from each of their lips like it was nothing but a pretty poisoned apple. He saw his own body breaking apart in a dark obsidian room surrounded by lava. He saw his own world burn and suffer and he could do nothing but help it get there.
With pain in his heart he made his way around the SMP before starting back towards the community house again. He could see the sparkling water it sat on as he came over the hill. The planks of prime path leading over the water and already starting to grow moss on the sides. The images in his head of it blowing up. The way the water would pour from it. The way he knew it would be his hands burned from the flint and steel. He would destroy his own home. Even when the destruction of the server caused him physical pain.
He climbed onto the roof and sat to watch. The sun was just barely peaking over the horizon. Pale pinks and pastel yellows creeping into the dark sky as his world began to wake up. He heard the groans of zombies in the trees behind him. Heard the rattle of skeletons that were out of sight. He heard the birds start singing. He heard his world whispering that sunrise would be filled with smoke and ash in the near future. That he would never be able to sit and watch it again. That he would one day never see the sun again and his only light would be the liquid sun of hell.
He let himself mourn. There would be no witness to the silent tears that fell behind his mask. There would be no witness when he took the bone and porcelain smile from his face and sat it next to him. When he faced his world and let the rays of gold touch him for what could be the last time. He wanted to stay with it. He wanted to protect his world, not watch it burn. He wanted it to stay his and not be locked away from it. He wanted his home to stay a home and his family to stay a family.
But the whispers were back. They were telling him he had to. They were telling him it was meant to be. They were cheering for heroes that had yet to be made. Consoling the villain that he would have to become.
He didn’t want this. He wanted to stay here. Just like this. Where it was calm and peaceful and safe and happy. Where he could go to Sam and laugh with him. Where he could playfully banter with Quackity. He wanted to stay where he could be happy. Where all of them were happy. He wanted the sun to stay peaking over the horizon and filling his world with golds and pinks and pretty pastels.
He didn’t want the screams or blood or smoke or ash. He wanted his family. He wanted to fight for it back. He wanted to never let it fall away in the first place.
His communicator buzzed lightly on his wrist. It forced him to wipe his tears and take a deep breath before he looked. If Sapnap or George had woken up to find him gone and they were messaging about where he was then he’d have to go back down. If they saw that he’d been crying they wouldn’t let him go without an explanation and he couldn’t tell them that he’d cursed them by trying to build them a home.
Instead he looked down and felt his heart shatter even more. It was time. His sunrise. His lonely sunrise before he lost his world in the spiral that was to come. The message sat on the screen of his Admin panel. It haunted his dreams. It haunted him now. And he was about to let it.
[Whitelist Request: WilburSoot]
The whispers started their chant. They wanted this. His world wanted this.
It was meant to be this.
It was meant to be.
It was always meant to be.
…
It was never meant to be.
He wanted to fight. He wanted a chance. The words and whispers and pictures and smells. They hurt him and they were only ghosts. But his sunrise was real. His world was real. The people he called his family, they were real. He could try to fight it. He could try to keep them safe. He could deny the request. He could save them all.
But someone else would take the place. You cannot fight. It was meant to be.
The sun rose higher and higher in the sky. The people of his world were going to wake up soon. His last dawn. His last night of peace. His last night with his home still being his home.
The last night he had a family.
Dream pressed accept.
[WilburSoot joined the game]