Chapter Text
It had been the day Dream hit his 45 million mark and was preparing to celebrate. He had pulled on a black suit with a lime green tie with plans to visit an expensive restaurant and waste money on food that was more than its worth. It was something he always envied as a kid, but now, as an adult, he understood the waste. However, with something this big, it was totally worth it in his mind and he was ready for it.
He was walking out of his front door with his wallet in hand, ready to call an Uber when the call came in. His phone had been left on his table to avoid drunk calling some ex-girlfriend, but rather than ignore it and shut the door, he ran back inside. His anxiety wouldn't let him leave without checking that his friends were alright.
However, his happy mood vanished when he was the caller ID. The call had come from George, who began frantically explaining his sudden rise in attention on Twitter, and the man no longer felt like a celebration would be wise to partake in. George immediately began speedrunning an explanation of how everyone thought his speed run was fake and assumed he had some mods on there. Without much of a goodbye, the man ended the phone call and ran upstairs. He wasted no time in logging onto Twitter and finding that the British spoke nothing but the truth. Upon clicking on the search bar, he found that 'hashtag dreamfakerun' was trending all over Twitter, and the blonde felt his entire life slip away from his grasp.
He looked over some of the recent tweets to find some reasoning, and of course, his speed run hit the top of the list. There were mentions of a possible lucky mod, but he knew there were none, so, why did this bother him so much.
On the second scroll, he came across a very angry speedrunner that held the previous record, and they were going all out on their insult game. From calling him a 'no good cheater' and 'an ugly bitch', the streamer could only muster enough mental power to turn his pc off before slowly striping his previous clothing off. He carelessly tossed it in the direction of his closet and pulled on a pair of black shorts from his drawer. He walked into his closet and dug into the back of his closet. After a few minutes of digging through stuff, he pulled out a Marines sweatshirt and slipped it on with gathering tears in the corners of his eyes.
It upset him with how much something so little hurt him, but what bugged the most was the question of, 'why did it hurt him'?
He made sure to shut the light off in his closet before plugging his phone in and burying himself in the safety of his blankets with the silence drowning him. With too much anxiety gathering in the giant bedroom, he made the call, "Alexa, play my 'Dreaming of a Better Time' playlist."
At a volume of five, the sound of 'Tears of an Angel' filled the room and on the third line, 'Tell me these words are a lie...' happily pushed him over the edge
He laid there for what seemed like hours, ignoring the hundreds of missed calls and text messages that he never bothered reading. He did a mixture of crying, screaming, and only getting up to feed Patches. He did nothing other than those three tasks, not even eating, using the bathroom, or drinking water. He knew that, despite it being only a day, that what he was doing could lead to a merciless constant cycle that left him dying or dead, but it was better than what he should've been feeling. After crying throughout the day, he'd go numb at night and stare blankly at the black screen of his computer. Eventually, he had wondered if this is how a breakup or divorce from true love felt like.
This horrid cycle continued for a total of five days before he began noticing the disgusting smell that went around his room, and he finally dragged himself out of bed on the sixth day to take a shower. He barely stood in the shower for less than a minute before breaking down again, and for most of the thirtyish minutes that he spent crying, his thoughts went towards picking up his old habit from less than a few years ago. The habit got rid of the pain, but he only bothered dropping it because of his friendship with Nick. However, at the moment, he was desperate to feel something and he shut the water off.
The dirty blonde didn't bother grabbing a towel before reaching into his second drawer and grabbing his replacement razors. A bunch of buried emotions flashed through him as he stared at the tiny silver blades with a feeling similar to lust. He flipped the cap open and pulled a single one out. The smooth, sharp metal ran between his fingers and he got a tight grip on the dull side. He ran a finger along it, gently, and a small smile rose onto his face as a small cut stretched out along his fingertip. A small drop of blood gathered on the wound before sliding down his finger and just before it reached his knuckle, it slid off of his finger. The blood hit the ground with a muted plop! and the streamer only then realised the reality of what he was about to do. He threw the blade into the toilet and flushed it before running back to his room. He cringed in pain as his dick bounced with the fast movement, but he just needed to get to the safety of his room. So, he gathered it in his hand and continued to run.
The moment he was in his room, the sound of a messenger call echoed around his room and he answered it without checking the Caller ID.
"Hello?" He winced at the raspy voice that left his lips.
The other line went silent, and Dream would've thought they'd hung up if it weren't for the short intake of air that was heard from the other line.
"Clay, what's going on?" He shrunk in on himself as he realised why the person was calling.
"I'm sorry," He muttered and buried himself under the covers with only his face peeking out.
"Clay, I don't care that you missed the call," The woman let out a tired sigh, and he heard the sound of a door slam shut.
He heard the wind pick up on her end and wondered if it was humid in Afghanistan like Florida.
"I'm your sister bud, you always talk to me," She muttered, and he heard the sound of a door slowly opening.
"I'm not sure how to explain it," He admitted after a small moment of silence.
His hummed from the other end, and the wind went silent as she likely entered a tent.
"Well, try," She muttered.
Dream let out a defeated sigh and blurted out everything. And if it weren't for his shorts intakes of breath every six sentences, she wouldn't believe he took a single breath.
"And I just finally got out of the shower," He finished and let out a long sigh.
His sister was only silent for a moment before bursting out in rage.
"Clay," She shouted his entire full name, but it crackled out with the power of her voice. "You didn't fucking cheat, so, why are you upset over these bullshit accusations."
"They-" He's cut off.
"You don't deserve to feel this way."
"T-" He's cut off again.
"You're a-" He voice cuts off at his last name again.
"Tyler lis-"
"I'm going to hurt whoever-"
For some reason, his body immediately lost the motivation to continue talking, and he hung up on her. He uninstalled Messenger and went back to being buried in his blanket burrito.
However, it was only a few seconds after that, his phone rang once again; however, it was Discord.
Not bothering to check the Caller ID, he accepted the call and answer with a blunt, "What?"
The caller on the other remained silent, and Clay assumed he must've surprised them.
"Dream, are you ok?" The young voice asked, and for some unknown reason, this caused a heartwrenching cry to escape his mouth.
"Hey, hey, Dream," Tommy obviously closer to his mic as he spoke. "It's alright."
"I didn't cheat," He kept repeating as he tugged on his hair.
"Dream, you did really good on your last manhunt!" Dream paused his crying, startled by the teen's enthusiastic outburst.
Dream sat up a little and grabbed his phone off of his bedside table to set it on his pillow, closer to him.
"From over a month ago?" He questioned as a wave of exhaustion hit him.
"Yeah, but it was epic," Tommy chuckled. "I'm thinking of doing a parody remake of it."
Dream let out a small chuckle and pulled his head out of the blanket, revealing his still-damp hair sticking out in every direction.
"With who?" Dream chuckled.
"Why, Techno, Phil, and SnapMap, obviously!" Tommy shouted dramatically.
It must've been the delirious state of severely sleep mind that pushed him into wheezing laughter for the following five minutes. The blonde had to push his blankets off of him as he got sweaty from all of the laughing he was doing. It felt like such a relief and an amazing feeling after everything.
Tommy joined in his laughter, and what Dream couldn't see was the reactions of his other friends listening in. Unbeknownst to Dream, the entire Dream SMP, including the rarely active members, had been in a VC chat, discussing ideas of how to get through to Dream and help him. Tommy had discreetly rung Dream into the call, and nobody had spoken a word since Tommy spoke the surprising greeting. Everyone had the same idea to stay quiet and let the teen do his work. They were thankful they had done so as the laughter rang out from their speakers, bringing a relieved grin onto each of their faces.
Tommy was brought out of the laughing spell as a message pinged on his Discord.
Thanks for this, I messaged the server to stay quiet
I hate to eavesdrop, but I need to know what's going on with him before I get there.
but forgot to mention I booked a flight there haha
I got free wifi, just so I could chat with yall
Anyway, I just got off of my flight and into the Uber.
I'll call once I'm there and have him handled???
Is that really a good word to use???!?
Tommy read the messages from Technoblade with an amused smile and barely managed not to laugh. He knew that after this last week, even with the relieving phone call, Techno was the perfect person to be there for Dream. The man had been absolutely furious when Dream ignored his pings on the same day they planned to stream for clout, but after finding out why the man went MIA, he had a change of views. The California man took to spamming his 'rivals' messages on every known app the two shared, and he even took to downloading Tik Tok, shutting down a fake app while he was at it. The man was furious with the viewers and even went as far as to threaten to quit YouTube altogether; going even further by getting Philza to threaten the very same thing.
Once they had posted the videos, Techno went online and booked the earliest flight to Orlando, Florida. He was going to see the other man whether he liked it or not.
Now, as Techno rode in his Uber towards his best rivals house, Tommy and Dream stay talking on the phone until a doorbell was heard on Dream's end.
Dream left the call with a simple, 'talk later!'
It was no less than an hour later when Tommy's phone pinged with a Discord message. He opened it and immediately burst into a huge spout of laughter.
Dream: I'm gonna fuck your mom and dad.
That night, for the first time in a long while, everyone slept peacefully. Two closer than most thought, the couch stayed cold.