Chapter Text
These sleepless nights would catch up to him at one point, Fundy knew that well. Nonetheless, he continued staring at his laptop’s dull screen, the only light source in his dorm room, typing away on the keyboard every once in a while. If he didn’t get this code to work within 7 hours, his teacher would absolutely cut his head off, so pulling this all-nighter was his only option, wasn’t it? He supposed so.
Why couldn’t it just work, though?! By all means, it should’ve been up and running hours ago, but every time he thought he was finally done, there was something wrong! Was he missing a semicolon somewhere? Did he forget to close a loop? Mistyped a command? Who knew?! That was, apparently, a secret between this stubborn code and God, and he was neither. He was just a student who probably got less than 10 hours of sleep in the past week or two, barely comprehending the lines his own hands typed out…
He was snapped out of his dramatic internal monologue by something hitting his window.
He almost fell out of his chair and scrambled away until its back hit the wall, that must’ve been the first noise other than an “Error” pop-up he’s heard in the past few hours. It didn’t take him long to relatively calm down, though, and he looked at his window. When he saw a silhouette outside of it, his panic returned full-force, and he quickly unplugged and grabbed his desk lamp to use as a weapon. Just in case, of course. He wouldn't really have to use it for self-protection, it was just another one of those unexplainable thoughts his sleep-deprived brain was conjuring up.
He could ignore this, wait it out, and get back to work, he told himself. Then he realized that the person outside was very clearly trying to open the window, and that hope faded. In a feat of confidence he had no idea where he got, he fixed his grip on his lamp and carefully approached the window. Whoever was breaking in, they probably expected him to be asleep, so maybe confronting them would be enough? And if not, he could break that desk lamp over their head.
In a swift motion, he opened the window and pulled his lamp back, ready to use it if necessary- The man outside was certainly startled, just barely managing to stop himself from falling back, but… he didn’t look like a burglar, though. He looked to be about Fundy’s age and he seemed vaguely familiar, so he probably was another student, and the look on his face was that of pure confusion, not… disappointment, or even fear that would come with getting caught red-handed. For a moment, they both stayed frozen.
“...This isn’t my room,” the man spoke finally. Fundy was so taken off guard that he found himself looking back, as if to check if he wasn’t in the wrong room. He was not.
“...Yeah,” he confirmed, looking back at the fellow student hanging helplessly from his window. Another wave of silence followed.
“...What room number is this?” the stranger asked. Luckily, Fundy didn’t have to go outside to check his door in order to answer that.
“326,” he answered. It wasn’t hard to remember, and the first number was just the floor number anyway- “Wait, this is the 3rd floor,” he realized, and suddenly having a guy outside of his window was much more alarming.
“...I think I’m climbing the wrong building,” the stranger said, cautiously looking down as he probably planned out his climb down.
“Why are you climbing buildings?” Fundy shot back before he could stop himself. He probably would’ve added ‘at this hour’ to the question, but he really didn’t want to check his watch anymore.
“Forgot my keys, my roommate is out for the night… I figured I’d just climb in through our window,” the man explained. That plan had… a lot wrong with it, and Fundy wasn’t sure what to point out first.
“The windows lock from the inside,” he began, it seemed like a good start. The stranger paused for a moment before groaning and resting his face on Fundy’s windowsill.
“...Right,” he agreed, still resting on the cool metal. “I’ll figure out a different way inside, then,” he declared, but he sounded unsure.
He was about to climb back down, Fundy realized, and that did not sound like something anyone should be doing, ever, but especially not something a tired person should be doing while it’s pitch black outside.
“Do you want to come inside and take the actual stairs down?” he offered, and the stranger lifted his head.
“Oh, yeah, thanks,” he nodded. Fundy opened the window wider for him and set down his ‘weapon’ to assist him with getting back in, but luckily that wasn’t needed. The guy was either very athletic overall, or just really good at climbing buildings, and Fundy couldn’t see all that well with all of his lights still out. “...Did I wake you up?” the man asked once he finally made it inside.
“Oh, no, I was just working on something and didn’t bother with the lights,” Fundy explained. “I’ll get them,” he decided, quickly getting to the other side of the room and flicking the light switch. “I’m Fundy, by the way,” he introduced himself before turning around.
Upon seeing the stranger properly, he froze. He was a tall, handsome blond with a face littered with freckles and lit up by the brightest smile on Earth, wearing a very recognizable, but somewhat worn-out green hoodie. Well… Fundy certainly knew why the man seemed “vaguely familiar” even in the darkness. They shared a few classes, including the coding one. All the classes they shared were coincidentally the ones he was struggling with the most. Even more unrelated, he spent at least 75% of them staring at this very man. Oh. Oh, this was-
“Dream,” the man introduced himself. He then noticed Fundy’s expression, probably. “...Is everything okay?”
“Yeah!” Fundy answered instantly, shaking his head and trying to talk himself into getting ahold of himself. “I just recognized you! I think we share a couple of classes!” he explained hurriedly, and Dream nodded in acknowledgment.
“...You do look a bit familiar,” he agreed after a moment.
Well, the guy he’s had his eyes on since the beginning of the school year almost breaking into his dorm room at probably 3 am was one thing. That same guy doing all that and recognizing him too was another. So he nodded and ran his hand across his face in an attempt of checking if it was burning up with a blush. Not yet, luckily.
“Oh, what is this?” Dream’s question snapped him back to reality and he found the man looking at his laptop.
“My code for tomorrow,” he answered, and Dream nodded in thought while he briefly looked over the lines currently visible on the screen. “It doesn’t work yet, but… I’ll get it running soon,” he added.
“Do you want any help?” Dream offered with a smile and Fundy’s heart just about stopped. “I’m done with mine already, maybe I could offer some insight? You know, in exchange for you not making me climb back down outside,” he continued, finally looking up at Fundy.
“Sure!” he answered while he turned around, trying to hide his now-absolutely-red face. His eyes landed on the tiny ‘kitchen’ in his room while he looked for an excuse. “...Do you want some coffee? I have an electric kettle,” he offered. “...Instant coffee,” he clarified.
“Sounds good,” Dream agreed, and Fundy immediately walked over to the cupboard, getting out the jar of instant coffee and two mugs. “Can I look through your code now?” he asked.
“Yeah, go ahead!” Fundy answered, trying very hard to focus on making the coffee at… 3:47 am, as he found out by finally looking at his watch.
Well. This certainly seemed just unreal enough to be a very strange dream he was having with his face on his keyboard, endlessly feeling his program with a string of “jhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” somewhere where just a “;” would easily suffice.
He decided against pinching himself just yet, though. Who knew, maybe this possibly-dreamed-up-Dream held the secrets to getting his code to work. If not, maybe this imaginary meeting would give him just enough confidence to speak to the actual Dream in person, at least. Or maybe this was really happening, in which case, pinching himself would make him look like an absolute idiot.
So no pinching it was, even if this was most likely a crazy dream.
(It was not, in fact, a dream.)