#arc852

He blurts out a startled curse, jerking back; the stranger seems just as startled, staring at him with wide eyes for a second before their shoulders hunch and their lips curl in a scowl.

Dream opens his mouth to shout for them to back off and they lunge, fingers curling around the empty air, yanking on something and somehow managing to pull him off-balance. Before he can recover, the guy kicks the back of his legs to send him to his knees and wraps an arm around his neck, using their other hand to cover his mouth.

"Who the fuck are you, and what are you doing in my house?" The guy hisses. Dream is taken aback by how familiar their voice sounds, so it takes a second for the words to register.

"Wha- huh?" Dream blurts out, going still. The guy doesn't loosen their grip. "This is my house!"

Dream's forced to the ground, flipped over so his back is pinned as the guy plants a foot on his chest and squints at him. When Dream tries to push their leg off, they grab onto empty air with a hand and his arms freeze.

"Hold on a second. . ." The guy mutters, squinting at him. Dream has to do a double-take when he gets a good look at their face.

They look like him. There are a few minor differences--they have a few small scars on their arms and face, they look exhausted, and he's pretty sure they're more muscular than he is--but the resemblance is uncanny, and now that he's listening, he realizes that their voice sounds almost exactly like his.

"What the hell?" Dream blurts out; this- this other Dream says the exact same words at the exact same time, although they sound a bit more pissed off.

"Who are you?" They snap, clenching their fist, and whatever invisible ropes are tangled around Dream start to tighten even more. "Tell me your name, right now."

Dream stares up at them, not sure if he should answer the question or not. He spots a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye and glances to the side just in time to see a cup clattering to the floor.

George stands on the counter, hands outstretched and trembling slightly as he stares at the two humans. The cup he'd pushed off the counter rolls around on the floor, and he takes several shaky steps back when Other-Dream's focus snaps over to him.

No, George, what are you doing?

"L-Leave Dream alone!" George shouts, still slowly moving back. "Don't hurt him!"

"George," Other-Dream breathes, voice much gentler than it was a minute ago. They take a step away from Dream but they keep their hand clenched; Dream still can't do anything except twitch, no matter how hard he tries to get up. "What are you doing? Where's-"

George lets out a nervous sound at their approach, moving back more quickly. They frown and reach forward with a hand, grabbing onto the empty air between them, and George's whole body seems to lock up.

They start to somehow pull George closer and the borrower lets out a horrified screech, desperately thrashing in the invisible grip; surprisingly enough, Other-Dream seems to falter and George manages to stumble back.

"C'mon, George," Other-Dream says, taking another step forward. "We need to-"

"Don't you fucking touch him!" Dream shouts, straining against the invisible threads wrapped around him and keeping him in place. "Leave him alone! George, run!"

George whips around and sprints for the wall, startling a curse out of Other-Dream. They reach forward, grabbing the empty air again, and this time they somehow manage to pick George up so that he's dangling in the air.

In the process, the threads around Dream loosened; he surges to his feet, moving towards the guy, but he can't lunge for him without taking the risk of George being dropped.

Other-Dream lowers George into their hand, holding him close to their body as they spin around and lash out at Dream with their free hand, nearly punching him in the throat. Dream jerks back just in time, but he can't help reaching out for George, just in case Other-Dream loses his grip.

"Dream!" That's George's voice, but it's. . .coming from the other side of the room? "Dream, stop!"

Both Dreams freeze, because he sounds desperate. They turn and George is standing on the floor by the kitchen entrance, wearing different clothes than Dream is used to, anxiously staring up at both of them. Then Sapnap steps into the room, the borrower closely followed by-

Wait, what the hell?

Dream glances between the two Sapnaps, horribly confused; the closer one is also wearing unfamiliar clothes and he's nervously watching the two humans. The familiar Sapnap is staring at Other-Dream and the George he's holding, looking horrified.

"Dream," Other-Sapnap says, moving to the front. "Put th- put George down. Please."

Other-Dream stares at him with narrowed eyes for a second before glancing in Dream's direction. "What-"

"Please, Dream," Other-George says. He hesitates, then starts to move closer to the humans. "Put him down. I'm the right George, can't you tell?"

Other-Dream's brows furrow as he squints at the borrowers. "Yeah, I definitely can. What's going on?"

"I don't know," Other-George says. Other-Dream sinks into a crouch, giving Dream a wary look before setting George on the ground. George immediately scrambles away, shivering badly; Other-George glances at him before returning his focus to Other-Dream. "But they're. . ."

Dream tunes out his words for now, focusing on his George because the poor guy looks terrified. He slowly kneels on the ground, holding his hands out.

"Can I pick you up?" He asks, keeping his words a soft murmur. "I wanna get you off the ground."

George squeezes his eyes shut and nods, still trembling; Dream carefully picks the borrower up, holding him close to his chest as he slowly stands. Other-Dream frowns at him, moving a hand closer to Other-George like he's trying to shield the borrower from Dream.

Dream backs away, moving over to the two Sapnaps. Other-Sapnap stiffens, staring up at him, so he sits down again.

"Sap?" Dream asks, offering a hand. "Do you wanna-"

Sapnap doesn't even hesitate; he climbs into Dream's hand, then starts trying to climb up his arm to reach George. Dream brings his hands together so they can both see each other, and Sapnap practically tackles George in a hug.

"Sapnap!" Other-Dream blurts out, voice firm as he holds out a hand. Other-Sapnap makes his way over, and Other-Dream scoops him up before standing, both of the other-borrowers sitting in his cupped hands.

Other-Dream studies Dream for a moment (Dream fights the urge to stand up too, not wanting his friends to be in a vulnerable position) before letting out a huff.

"Let me guess," he mutters, frowning at Dream. "Your name is Dream, too?"

Dream slowly nods. Other-Dream keeps studying him, and he doesn't seem to be impressed.

"Okay. . ." He eventually says. "So I'm guessing that means we'll have similar interests, then. Similar goals, similar boundaries."

"I'd hope so," Dream says, glancing down at the borrowers in his hands. "First rule: they're off-limits. Don't touch them, don't even fucking look at them if they aren't comfortable with it."

I don't like how willing he was to grab George. It seems that the other-borrowers are more okay with just being randomly picked up, so clearly there are some differences between us and them, but MY friends aren't okay with that and I need to make sure he respects that.

Other-Dream nods. "Of course. You leave mine alone and I'll leave yours alone, figured that was obvious. Do you happen to know how we got here?"

"No clue." Dream shrugs. "I mean, I'm not even sure what exactly is happening. Are you me from the future? From an alternate universe?"

"Based on your threads, I'd assume alternate universe," Other-Dream mutters. "This isn't my past, and you're definitely not me from the future; all the threads are too different, don't you agree?"

Dream squints. ". . .threads? What do you mean, threads?"

Other-Dream looks shocked. "The threads? You- what-"

He trails off and eventually shakes his head. "Okay, I guess that's the difference between our two universes, then."

He looks like he's deep in thought. Dream repeats his question, but Other-Dream ignores him, brushing his thumb against Other-George's back as he thinks.

Eventually he looks back up at Dream. "Based on your reaction to, well, everything, I'm assuming you didn't cause this switch. . .but something had to have happened here, because I'm pretty sure I'm in your universe, not the other way around."

Dream shrugs. "I dunno. Why don't- um. Why don't you go to the guest room for a moment, talk to your guys and give me a chance to talk to mine? Then we can try to figure all this out?"

Other-Dream nods and leaves. Dream lets out a relieved sigh, turning his attention to his friends.

I need to make sure they're okay, and then we can figure this out. Hopefully there's an obvious solution to all of this.

-----

Here's a bonus scene:

"I. . .I don't like how much your Dream grabs you," George admits. "It makes me nervous."

Other-George lets out a quiet laugh. "Oh, don't worry, we got used to it. That's just how he is, you know? He's a lot better about it now, at least. How about with your Dream? How long did it take for him to stop doing that?"

George frowns at him. "He. . .that was never an issue with him."

Other-George blinks, looking conflicted for a second, before he eventually just sighs. ". . .oh. Really?"

"Yeah, really." George reaches forward, taking a hold of Other-George's arm to stop him. "Why do you sound so surprised?"

Other-George shrugs. "With our Dream, we had to learn a lot of things through trial-and-error. We. . .we've also had to teach him a lot. It's just a shock to hear that you never had to do that with your Dream."

"Well, I mean, we did," George admits. "We had to teach him a few things. But it sounds like your Dream. . ."

The more time I spend around the other-borrowers, the more it seems like they've been through a LOT. I don't want to assume that their Dream is to blame, but. . .well. I have a bad feeling.

"Anyways." George clears his throat, pushing open the temporary door they've made. "This is my home with Sap, although if I'm being honest, we spend most of our time out of the walls with Dream."

Other-George nods in agreement before stepping in and studying the room. George wonders what he's thinking.

-----

Well, at any rate, he was still out of ideas. And this little (heh) theoretical session hadn't helped any. Maybe he'd have to start from scratch after all. The curtains fluttered in the windless atmosphere, and a bright light flickered from beyond them. Lime squinted. What in the heck? 

"...and since he doesn't know about the others living in his house, he doesn't get them out from the flooding!" Mandy concluded her dreary thought. She looked up and blinked. "Hey, what's that-" She cut herself off with a soundless noise that might have very well been a curse, as a fire bird flew in out of nowhere, and landed lightly on Lime's other shoulder. 

He flinched, but it turned out to not be hot, just pleasantly warm. 

"Um, hi?" He greeted, bewildered. 

"I know I'm not exactly one to talk," the phoenix began, definitely actually talking, "but I think you can do a little better than Miss Not-So-Infinitesimally Angsty." Mandy gasped. 

"How dare?!" The phoenix, who Lime now realized was Phoenix, rolled their eyes. 

"I'm just saying, there's maybe an imbalance there on hurt/comfort you know?" They had a point. 

"Hey, I know how to do comfort!" Mandy huffed. "I get plenty of comfort from readers screaming in the comments." Lime groaned. Phoenix, being one of her screaming readers, slapped their face with their hand- er, wing. 

"Alright, I think I need some backup," they said, muffled through their feathers. They dropped their wing and sent out a fire symbol. Lime couldn't quite see what it was, or if they used their mouth like a dragon, or if it was a feather or something. Pretty awesome, though. 

And suddenly there was a purple butterfly hovering in front of him. At least this newcomer wasn't too hard to figure out. 

"Nyn?"

"I hear you're having trouble with some plot ideas?" She seemed excited and willing to help, something Lime was very grateful for. 

"Yes, thank you so much, I can't seem to get away from the really awful permanent death ones." Lime stared obviously at Mandy, who just shrugged nonchalantly, spinning her magic pen around. 

"Ah. Yes. Well, I've got the perfect solution!" Her voice was so sweet-sounding, it was like music to his ears. Phoenix nodded their head. 

"Yes?" Lime listened raptly. 

"Kill 'em anyways." He froze. Surely, he must have misheard. 

"Wh-" he floundered for coherent English. "What?" 

"If you wanna kill them, kill them!" There was a snort from his shoulder.

"But your stories are usually so cute! And fluffy!"

"Usually,” she emphasized. "Unless Mandy picks the wrong number." Lime turned to Mandy, horrified. 

"Whoops," she deadpanned. 

"I wrote a fic about the werewolf getting a kitten," Phoenix said reproachfully.

Then he got distracted by a voice at his feet. 

"Heya!"

"Aah!"

"Woah!"

"Geez, now I know how Virgil felt," the voice joked. Lime looked down. It looked like...a box? With little cat features? That was adorable, but admittedly very confusing. He had to contain himself from petting. His talons twitched. 

No! Big, scary dragon! Rawr! He wouldn't cave to some weird kitty box! 

… Who was he kidding? He'd be cuddling it within the hour. 

Mandy squinted, staring down at the creature. She steadied herself on Lime's shoulder before sliding down his arm. He grumbled something about safety that went unheeded. 

"Kat?" She asked, tilting her head. "Is that you?" The box- Kat, apparently- nodded. 

"Yep. I'm here to help out!" Mandy squinted. 

"Why the heck do you look like that?"

"Well, like my username. You know," she sighed, Callboxkat? Box Kat? Box cat? Yeah."

"Wait, isn't it supposed to be a callbox? As in a telephone booth?"

"Yeah, but the author doesn't watch Doctor Who." Kat watched Nyn fluttering back and forth, repressing her newfound cat urges. 

"Wait. I thought we were the authors?" Phoenix furrowed their eyebrows. 

"Listen, this is already so meta, does it really matter?" Kat raised an eyebrow. 

"Fair point." Mandy jerked her thumb back in Lime's direction over her shoulder. "So, do you have any suggestions?"

"Do I?!"

"Do you?" Lime echoed back at her.

"So I was thinking," she box-stepped over to one of the lower-set universe basins, "you take some of your tiny characters,"

"Yeah…" He considered the few universes where he had borrowers.

"Then you slap a tail on them, and have them almost drown!" She concluded triumphantly, lithely swaying her own tail at the mention of them. 

"Almost drown them?" Lime asked warily.

“Almost drown them?" Mandy asked with a gleam in her eye. 

"Okay, that's it." A new voice called out. Lime thought he recognized it, turning his head to confirm. Yep, there Allison was, dressed in her own witch outfit of purple and teal. "You," she pointed at Mandy with her magic quill "have had enough angst for the day. You're being cut off."

"No!" Mandy pouted, readying her puppy dog eyes. 

"Yes," Allison crossed her arms triumphantly. 

"Um, not to encourage her," Phoenix spoke up, turning to face her, "but haven't you been just as guilty of angst recently?" 

"What do you mean?" Allison frowned, confused. 

"Yeah!" Kat turned to her, "all those Perspectives lately have been pretty heavy and angst-laden."

"Wh- hey, first of all, recently is subjective, we wrote those a while ago. And we've had a lot of fluff in there, too!" Lime considered this. 

"Vampire Perspective, Pet Perspective…" he listed off. 

"Mandy's been choosing the wrong numbers," Nyn nodded. 

"And! And Lilliputian, Freezing, those were also recent-ish!"

"Face it," Mandy suddenly appeared next to Allison, leaning her arm on her friend, "we're in the same boat now." She flopped over dramatically into her arms. "I've corrupted you."

"Noooo…"

"Hey, Allison, what's that building on your hat, by the way?" Phoenix asked. She sighed, and threw a photo version their way. 

"Arc."

"Oh my god." There were snickers around. Mandy was still draped over Allison, shaking her head at the truly awful pun. 

"PSSSST!" Everyone turned around. There, as if summoned by the bad humor, was a stick figure, looking shifty-eyed, and unmistakably Lefay. She was wearing a trenchcoat, and hat. Of course, the hat wasn't the typical hat associated with a trenchcoat. It was, instead, an umbrella-hat.

"Um," a new voice came in before they could address that. They turned back, seeing a small snail with a dorsal fin on his back. Fin. Lime was starting to see a terrible, terrible pattern here. "I was also invited, but, I don't know, maybe I should leave? You guys are all so cool, I think I probably don't belong here."

"Fin, please!" Everyone chorused together. 

"Alright, alright!" He acquiesced, really taking in the room. "Hey, I guess not everyone's cool, you're looking pretty hot, Phoenix!" He made finger guns at them somehow, and they laughed at his antics. Lime smiled, before remembering the previous interruption. 

"Hey, Lefay," Lime started, slowly, turning back to her, "why's there an umbrella on your head?"

"The costume store was out of trench hats-"

"There's no way that's what they're called," Allison balked. 

"-so I decided to go with the rain theme. And I got this instead!" She patted the umbrella headband happily before tensing, and crouching inward, voice lowering to what was definitely not how she spoke a second ago. "Pssst. Hey, hey kid. C'mere. I hears ya need some help with your woiks."

Lime took a moment to mentally translate this. He was uncertain, but he did need help with his works. He twisted his long, scaly neck over to where she stood. 

"Yeah, alright."

She opened her trench coat wide, causing a flinch or two throughout the group, to reveal what was lined on the inside. Lime could identify a turnip, a rutabaga, celeriac, a parsnip, a yam, taro, a daikon, and jicama. "Um…" Lime was confused. "What-"

"Oh my god" Kat put her paws over her face. 

"Did youse need help wit' some titles?" Lefay waggled her eyebrows. There was absolute silence, aside from some traitorous snickering from some of the others. 

"..............No," Lime decided on as his response. "Titles I can figure out later, but I just need some story ideas to title in the first place." 

"Oh, why didn't you say so!" She responded in her normal voice. "I can totally help with that!" Lime brightened. Lefay smiled back, and then promptly fell to the floor, pillow under her head, asleep. 

Lime flinched back, and turned back to the rest of the room, slumping his head in his hands. 

"This is never going to work," he lamented. "I'll never get a new idea like this!"

"Well," Nyn cut in, "maybe that's your answer." Lime slowly lifted his head, squinting in confusion. "I mean, if you're not coming up with ideas this way, maybe this way isn't the way to go about it?"

"Right," Allison agreed, as Mandy un-flopped from her. "Just because this works for some people, or even if it's worked for you before, doesn't mean you have to use this method."

"Inspiration comes differently for everyone." Kat piped in, tail swishing in excitement. "You shouldn't feel pressured to choose one specific way and stick to it." 

"And if you're forcing yourself to come up with ideas, doesn't that negate why you're writing in the first place?" Phoenix added. 

"Heck yeah!" Fin shouted. "Writing fanfic is supposed to be fun!" Mandy gently put a hand on his arm. 

"You shouldn't feel pressured at all. If you can't think of something to write, you don't have to." Lime looked up at her, she smiled gently down at him. "You're allowed to not write. You're allowed to take a break. You're allowed to put yourself first." Lime sniffed out a laugh, before looking at all the smiling, encouraging faces of his friends and fellow fanders. 

"Okay, I give. You guys are right." He stood up on all fours, nails clacking against the wood floor. "Now let's get out of this…" he looked around again, frowning. "Wait, where are we?"

"Looks like a stage of some sort?" Kat voiced, uncertainly. A voice sounded from all around them. 

"I'm a theater, sweetheart." Brook responded. There was a rimshot.

"You know, it's things like this that make me really glad that I picked my authorsona myself." Lime deadpanned. Allison and Mandy nodded. 

Over in the corner, a shovel fell over onto a sketchpad in agreement. 

"Yeah, I don't know who's doing this," Mandy spoke a little too nonchalantly, "but these are really, really bad. Like, objectively terrible. I mean just completely awful. As if whoever did it started with zero sense of humor, and then got worse." Hey, watch it, witchy, I’m in control of this story. "And I'm in control of a lot more stories, I can make angst like you wouldn't believe," she cheerfully stated, appropriate of nothing, according to the others' perspectives. 

…I surrender. 

Mandy smirked, satisfied, before bounding over to Lime's back. "So, wanna give us a ride back?"

"Sure," Lime offered his hands out, palms flat for everyone (except for those with wings) to climb on. When everyone had settled, he spread his wings, and took flight. As he faded into the horizon, he mumbled to himself, "Maybe I'll write something with Virgil…"

About a minute after he left, Lefay jolted awake. 

"Alright! I've got like six more plausible ideas for AUs, there's this one where-" Lefay paused, looking around. She seemed distressed for a moment, before continuing. "-but I never figured out what happened with the incident with the noodles. TIME FOR MORE RESEARCH!" She pointed dramatically up to the sky, before immediately flopping back into sleep. 

BONUS!

There was a ringing sound. Every set of eyes snapped to the source. 

"Are you ringing from your body?” Allison asked Kat incredulously. 

"I've got a phone in the box," Kat blushed, fishing it out.

"Getting a call, box-Kat?" Mandy grinned wickedly. Kat barked at her. Mandy frowned. 

"Why-"

"I love dogs," she shrugged.