Ad Aeternum - Chapter 2 - Cosmic_Myths (2024)

Chapter Text

“We’re not getting anywhere,” Wilbur anguishes, leaning back and dramatically flopping onto the bed, covering his eyes with his arm.

He hears Dream giggle beside him, and it takes all his willpower to stop himself from smiling, unwilling to break his woeful character just yet. Dream, however, doesn’t seem to agree with his decision, because the next thing he knows his arm is being pulled away from his eyes. It takes a moment for his eyes to refocus and re-adjust, but when they do, he sees Dream staring at him with fondness written all over his expression. It makes Wilbur’s heart stutter in his chest. He’d stay here forever, if he could, basking in the warmth of knowing his actions are seen as endearing.

“Who was it that said we were running on a time limit and had to focus on fixing the timeline?” Dream asks, voice teasing and face wearing a cheeky grin.

“Hm, I don’t seem to recall,” Wilbur says, and Dream rolls his eyes but even that doesn’t burn away the affection shining in them.

Wilbur grabs Dream’s arms, pulls him down, and grins triumphantly when Dream lands on his chest with little resistance. He wraps his arms around Dream’s abdomen, rests his hands on Dream’s lower back, and says, “now we have to take a break.”

“You’re actually so stupid,” Dream says, but he doesn’t pull away, instead shifting slightly to rest his head in the crook of Wilbur’s neck, moving his hand to rest over Wilbur’s heart.

It’s warm. The body heat radiating from Dream, the breath tickling his skin, the hand resting on his sternum, it all makes a fuzzy feeling emerge within Wilbur. It’s warm, and it’s a very sharp contrast to the chilled air seeping into the room from outside, even with the thermostat on. It’s akin to waking up with a weighted blanket on a cold winter’s day, except the desire to stay put and let time simply pass by is even more tempting. The rise and fall of their chests synchronize. Dream traces invisible patterns in the fabric of Wilbur’s sweater, seemingly as content to simply exist in this moment as Wilbur is.

It’s more intimacy that Wilbur has had the privilege of experiencing in a long time—more than he’s allowed himself to have, if he’s being honest with himself—and just the thought makes him feel as though he’s floating. He tilts his head slightly, nuzzling the tip of his nose into Dream’s curls, breathing in the smell of the barely scented shampoo provided by the motel. Dream hums, and though he makes a noise of contentment, Wilbur has a feeling the other shoe is about to drop.

“We do have a mission to complete, though,” Dream mutters, and Wilbur barely stops himself from groaning.

“I know,” he concedes. “But we’ve been at it for hours with no progress. We still have no way to find where Khan is. Actually, we have no way of even knowing how the enemy plans to eliminate him. You know how stepping on butterflies is; they don’t need to outright kill him to neutralize him.”

“I suppose we might have better luck if we look at it with fresh eyes after a short rest,” Dream says slowly, like he’s working through the reasoning in his mind as he’s saying the words.

“Exactly,” Wilbur says. “Maybe a nap would do us good. Or philosophical discussions of life and death.”

“What?”

“Or, we can talk about why anteaters are the worst animal on Earth, no, in the entire quadrant.”

Dream laughs a little, a hint of incredulity tinting the sound. Wilbur feels it before he hears it, feels the vibrations ricocheting off his ribs. It’s almost as though their bodies are acting as one. Or, maybe not quite as a single entity, but like two objects whose gravitational force pulls on the other. Though, Wilbur muses, it’s less like a planet and its satellite and more like binary stars, two forces of equal mass having an equal effect on each other, where one is not orbiting the other, but, rather, they’re orbiting each other. It’s a good analogy, he thinks. Dream is in many ways like a star, breathtaking and brilliant, shining brighter than anything Wilbur’s ever seen.

“How about,” Dream says, pulling Wilbur from his thoughts, “we just stay like this? What do you say, pretty boy? You seem to be enjoying staring at me, after all.” Dream props himself up on his elbows as he says this, arms resting on either side of Wilbur’s head, and he grins cheekily. Even with burning red no doubt painting his cheek bones and the tips of his ears, Wilbur prepares a comeback, but the words die on his tongue upon hearing a sharp knock on the door.

Dream’s head snaps towards the door. There’s a very notable shift in behavior from him, and Wilbur is reminded how easily the other can look like a predator waiting to pounce. Dream pushes himself away from Wilbur silently, getting off the bed without a sound, and Wilbur would spend more time mourning the loss of contact if not for his own training kicking in. He stands up but stays close to the bed, allowing Dream to lead and looking for objects that could be used as makeshift weapons in the meantime.

His eyes land on an envelope that’s been slipped under the door. Dream evidently notices it too, and he nods his head towards it before resuming his path to the door, pushing himself against it lightly to peek out the eye hole. Wilbur takes the cue to grab the envelope, having the foresight to quickly put on his gloves before touching it. Dream looks back at him and shakes his head—whoever left the envelope is long gone.

It’s unassuming. White with no writing and sealed plainly, the only hint towards the individual who left it being the faint scent of a cologne. When Wilbur opens it, he’s met with a typed letter rather than a hand written one.

“They covered their tracks well,” Dream says, turning to look at Wilbur. “We should be careful.”

Wilbur nods his head in agreement before turning his attention back to the piece of paper in his hand. Dream gets closer, presses up against his side wordlessly and without a glance as his eyes scan the words. Wilbur follows suit, and he purses his lips at what he reads.

I can help you fix the timeline. I was helping Karl until we slipped up and he got found out. Meet me at XXX XXX XXX tonight at sunset.

- J

Dream locks eyes with him, and, even without saying anything, Wilbur already knows they’re thinking the same thing; it’s suspicious. There’s too many unknown variables—who left the message, how they know about the timeline, how they know about them, how they know the room they’re staying in—and the timing is a bit too convenient, what with both of them struggling to decide on the best next course of action just before the letter arrived. And yet, “they know who Karl is,” Wilbur says. “Surely that must count for something.”

Dream pulls away, opting to pace the room instead, evidently weighing the options in his mind. Wilbur gets it. He understands the wariness that comes with making such decisions and the delicacy with which they must traverse all interactions they have with others whilst working to fix the timeline, but, at the same time, they don’t really have much choice, and he says as much to Dream.

Tracking tachyon radiation had been their best idea, but they’d followed that trail all the way to the end, and they found themselves with no clear way to proceed. Unfortunately for the both of them, the eugenics wars led to a lot of records of the early-mid 21st century being lost, including any hint beyond a city to where Khan and the other augmented children were modified. It’s somewhere in London, but that knowledge doesn’t really help either of them. So, they’re stuck and out of options, meaning they really don’t have any other choice than to give the letter sender a chance.

“I know,” Dream says, resigned, halting in his tracks. “But we proceed with caution, Wilbur.”

“Of course,” Wilbur agrees easily.

Dream sighs, and says, “I guess we’ll be getting that break you wanted after all.”

Wilbur chuckles, but the noise dies out when he notices Dream staring off into the distance, gnawing his lip and looking like he’s trying to manifest an alternate solution into existence.

“Hey,” he says, approaching Dream. “It’ll be okay. We’ll be careful, and, if the person turns out to be bad news, then we can take them, yeah? I promise it’ll be okay.”

Dream nods once, then again, as if trying to convince himself of Wilbur’s words. He leans forward and rests his head against Wilbur’s shoulder, letting out a breath but otherwise seemingly content to just stand there in silence.

And, if the two of them stay there like that for a while, then Wilbur thinks that’s their business and their business alone.

The grass is coated with a thin layer of ice crunching beneath their feet as they walk. The sound is barely audible, and it’s more of a difference that’s felt rather than heard, but it’s notable nonetheless. With the sun beginning to dip below the horizon, the temperature is dropping significantly, and the remaining moisture from the day’s rainfall has begun to freeze. Luckily, the slipping hazard isn’t too high, and it’s even lower now that they’ve gotten to the small, grassy park the letter directed them to.

Anxiety hums in Wilbur’s chest. His hands clench and unclench over and over again in his pockets whilst the pit in his chest seems to grow larger and larger, tugging at his lungs and threatening to make his breathing more difficult. The thing is, this meeting will either be incredibly good or incredibly bad for them; either they’ll gain a powerful ally, or they’re being tricked and will find themselves stuck in an unfavorable situation. Either way, it will most likely help them to the next step of completing their mission, but, even with the odds being in their favor, the anxiety is annoyingly persistent.

Dream, at least, seems to have calmed down from his anxiety spiral. The blond keeps switching his focus from the ice beneath his feet to the pink hues of the sunset above them, all the while having a look of amazement on his face. It calms Wilbur down a bit. Or, rather, it makes him happy enough that a bit of the anxiety gets pushed to the side in favor of being endeared by Dream. Wilbur observes Dream for a bit, a small smile forming as he watches the other bend down briefly to pick a stem of grass, watching as the ice coating it quickly melts.

“It’s seeming like it might snow soon,” he says.

Dream looks up at him, eyes shining with hope. “Really?”

Wilbur hums, turning to continue his walk to the meeting point. “There’s still plenty of water in the air, so if the temperatures keep dropping, then it’s not unlikely we’ll get snow.”

“I hope it happens before we fix the timeline,” Dream says. “I’ve never seen Earth snow.”

“Surely you’ve seen snow on other planets, though.”

“It’s not the same,” Dream says. “You hear all these stories about Earth when growing up, told from parents who heard it from their parents who heard it from theirs and so on and so forth.” Dream smiles, though the action is practically drowning in bittersweet emotions. “Even after so many generations, the connection to a species’ planet of origin is undeniable.”

A part of Wilbur has always been called to the promise of adventure and travel, enthralled by the idea of being constantly in motion, moved by the knowledge of all the places there are to see. In his time, that translates to being drawn to the stars and the promise of discovery they bring, but he’s been all around the earth as well. It’s easy, with transporters that can take you across the globe instantaneously. Because of that, he’s never really considered going to other places on the planet traveling—even visits to the other planets in the solar system seemed far too close to home to really be considered a trip. And, yet, hearing Dream talk about the home planet of all of humanity, he can’t help but think that, in another life, he would’ve really loved to take Dream around the world. (He wants to do it now, too, but he pushes that thought away and buries it deep. Because they are both burdened by a duty to something so much greater than themselves, and they don’t have the luxury to run off and explore 21st century Earth, no matter how much Wilbur longs to do so).

“Do you think it will snow before we fix the timeline?” Dream asks, breaking Wilbur from his musings.

“I can’t be sure,” he responds, “but I think there’s a high probability.”

Dream looks up at the clouds in the sky with yearning visible in his eyes. Wilbur opens his mouth to say something, though say what he doesn’t quite know—a promise, perhaps, to make Dream’s first experience with snow a positive one should they get the pleasure of snowy weather—but is cut off by an American voice saying, “I’m glad you could make it.”

Wilbur can tell that Dream is instantly alert, and he doesn’t blame him. He hadn’t even heard anyone approach them, and it unnerves him to be caught so off guard. The man approaching them is tall, about as tall as Dream, and wears a suit and tie despite the weather, only having a blazer to protect against the cold. An easy yet sly grin is plastered over his face as he approaches them with a confident gait. He’s a businessman, that much Wilbur can tell, and that automatically makes Wilbur feel a bit wary of him. Though, there are a few small but noticeable faults in the air of professionalism with which he carries himself; his cologne is strong and overbearing, but, beneath it, lies a hint of the smell of booze. And, though his hair is slicked back, there are dark circles under his eyes which he wasn’t quite able to cover up. It makes him seem more human, at least, but the fact that he even thought to attempt to cover such things up makes Wilbur continue with caution.

“Call me Schlatt,” he says when he stops in front of them, holding a hand out which Wilbur tentatively shakes.

Dream remains silent, staring at Schlatt with an intensity that would make others shy away, but Schlatt seems to only take it in stride. Wilbur tries to match his energy, puts on a charismatic smile and searches for the correct pretty words to say. It’s as effortless as putting on a mask, and Wilbur can’t help but think he would have made a very good actor in another life.

“I’m Wilbur, and this is–”

“I know who you are,” Schlatt says, cutting him off.

His words only seem to cause Dream to tense further, and Wilbur places a hand between Dream’s shoulder blades. A reminder that Dream isn’t in this alone, but, also, a signal to let Wilbur handle things.

“Spying on people is a nasty habit,” Wilbur says, and Schlatt chuckles, but it’s low and humorless, like he’s just making the sound as a pleasantry.

“It’s nothing personal, Noonien-Singh,” Wilbur flinches at the name. “It’s just business.”

Dream pushes himself in front of Wilbur ever so slightly, and Wilbur can’t say he’s not touched by the gesture. But all the while, Schlatt is observing them with a calculating look in his eyes, and Wilbur can’t quite tell if the intentions behind his meeting them are good or bad. Dream, though, seems to have enough of tiptoeing around the question.

“Did you have a reason for wanting to meet us, Schlatt?” Dream asks.

“I think I made that plenty clear in my note,” he says, and his response only serves to agitate Dream further. He looks like he’s having fun with it, too, like riling Dream up is amusing to him. It’s annoying, of course, but it doesn’t mean he can’t be useful to them.

“Would you care to elaborate? Just so that we’re all on the same page,” Wilbur says, re-entering himself into the conversation in an attempt to steer it into a more productive direction.

Schlatt sighs like he’s lamenting the loss of pushing all of Dream’s buttons, but he does get back on track, and that, at least, is respectable to Wilbur.

“I’m part of a time travel agency whose focus is observing the timeline to make sure everything develops as it should,” he says. “However, we’re not allowed to interfere. That’s a different branch under different management than my own, which is why I was previously working with Karl—I can tell you what I know, but I can’t directly help you.”

It’s plausible. It’s really plausible, actually; even in Wilbur’s time, the federation is bound by the prime directive which states they are not to interfere with non-space faring civilizations, and, in the incredibly rare cases of time travel, that prime directive extends to temporal cases. It’s not unreasonable to think that the same temporal prime directive would prevent Schlatt from making direct actions to preserve the timeline. It’s plausible, and Wilbur can tell that Dream is realizing that, too.

“So what can you help us with?” It’s Dream who speaks, and, though he’s still evidently distrustful, he seems more willing to give Schlatt a chance.

“I can tell you what’s being planned, and I can give you coordinates to some helpful locations,” Schlatt says. “But unfortunately I can’t do much more for you.”

“Give us one moment,” Dream says before he grabs Wilbur’s arms and begins pulling him a few meters away.

Schlatt raises his hands up in mock surrender, but Wilbur’s too far out of ear shot to hear what he says. It doesn’t really matter, though, not when Wilbur is solely focused on Dream, who’s biting the inside of his cheek and looks so uncomfortable that Wilbur just wants to take him far away from here. But that’s not really an option, so, instead, Wilbur pulls his arm out of Dream’s grasp to instead lock their fingers together, squeezing gently and bumping his forehead against Dream’s in an attempt to convey some form of comfort.

Dream snorts and says, “what are you, a cat?”

“Meow,” Wilbur says, smiling when it gets another laugh out of Dream.

But Dream’s eyes still flicker over to where Schlatt is. Dream took them away from him for a reason, and Wilbur knows that, no matter how many silly distractions he throws at Dream in an attempt to get him to smile, it won’t fix whatever is bothering him.

“What’s on your mind?” Wilbur asks quietly, hoping his tone can at least set Dream somewhat at ease.

“I don’t like him,” Dream responds.

“I know,” Wilbur says softly. “But we don’t have to like him. We just need the information he has.”

An odd look passes over Dream’s face, but it’s gone as quickly as it came, leaving Wilbur unable to discern what it meant. Wilbur grabs his face gently, running his thumb along Dream’s cheekbone. Dream’s expression turns slightly pained at the gesture, so Wilbur begins to pull away, but Dream is quick to put his hand over Wilbur’s, keeping him in place. Dream leans into the touch and closes his eyes, as though he were savoring the moment, and Wilbur lets him. Inevitably, they will have to venture back over to Schlatt—or Schlatt’s patience will run thin, and he will approach them—but, for now, Wilbur is happy to provide as much relief to Dream as he can.

“We’ll be careful,” Wilbur whispers. “I promise.”

Dream opens his eyes, looks at Wilbur with the same pained expression, but this time, Wilbur is able to place what the expression is. Dream’s looking at him as though he’s mourning something not yet gone, and it makes something in Wilbur’s gut churn unpleasantly. He’s not sure what has sparked Dream to look at him in such a way, but he doesn’t like seeing the expression on Dream’s face. (Well, that’s not quite true; he has an inkling of an idea of what may be running through Dream’s mind, consequences of changing timelines and all that, but it’s a thought he doesn’t even want to begin to entertain).

“Thank you,” Dream says, and he hesitates, mouth opening and closing a few times like he’s on the verge of saying something else, but, in the end, he just purses his lips and looks back towards Schlatt.

Wilbur pulls away from Dream and locks eyes with Schlatt. The other time traveler gets the message and begins walking towards them. Wilbur props his arm on Dream’s shoulder and leans against him in an attempt to simultaneously soothe Dream’s nerves and project an air of casualness whilst Schlatt approaches. Wilbur doesn’t really like the look in Schlatt’s eyes as whenever he observes his interactions with Dream; it makes Wilbur want to pull away from the blond just so that Schlatt will stop looking at them like he’s figuring out how their dynamic will play a role on a chess board, but making sure Dream is able to get through this upcoming interaction is more important, so he stays. He stays, and he hopes that he’s simply reading Schlatt incorrectly, that his anxiety is causing familiar paranoia to bubble to the surface, altering his perception of reality.

“You two done working out whatever,” Schlatt waves his hands around, “whatever you were working out.”

“We have, thank you,” Wilbur says, trying to walk the line between politeness and condescending. “What can you tell us about the timeline?”

“Straight to the point,” Schlatt says with a chuckle. “You know, I can respect that about you, Soot.”

Wilbur doesn’t even want to think about how Schlatt knows his middle name, but he prefers his middle name to his last, always insisting that, whenever people refer to him by his rank, they call him Commander Soot. Whilst he doesn’t know how Schlatt knows his middle name, he can recognize a peace offering when he sees one. Still, some level of confusion must show on his face, because Schlatt is quick to elaborate on his words.

“I still have access to a fair amount of technology from my time, since I was given far more warning before my travel—unlike you—considering it is my job,” Schlatt says. “It’s not that hard to pull up your files.”

It takes all of Wilbur’s willpower to not squirm in discomfort at that knowledge. His file isn’t something he particularly likes people to read—it’s full of needlessly detailed recounts of his trauma, his past mistakes, including when he almost got kicked out of Starfleet, and various other personal tidbits of information that really have no business being in a file, in his opinion. With the way Wilbur can feel Dream tense, he figures that the other is also uncomfortable with the possibility of how much Schlatt knows about them. But, on some level, he also gets it. And, what with Dream being a captain and all, Wilbur’s sure he gets it, too. Because one of the first things officers get briefed on when getting a mission is all the available information on key people pertaining to the mission, and Wilbur is sure he and Dream count as key people in whatever Schlatt’s job of observing the timeline pertains to.

“Anyway,” Schlatt continues. “I’d be happy to give you more information on the alteration to the timeline.” Schlatt pauses, and Wilbur waits for the other shoe to drop. “On one condition, of course.”

Despite not looking at him, Wilbur knows Dream just rolled his eyes.

“What’s the condition?” Wilbur asks.

“It’s simple. I just need to know that you two actually intend to follow through with fixing the timeline.”

It’s not what Wilbur expects to hear.

He expects some material compensation—money, perhaps, since they’re in the 21st century during a time when currency was still used in human society—or some other tangible compensation. He’s taken aback, at first, because he doesn’t quite understand what about them even suggests that they don’t want to fix the timeline. And, yet, when Schlatt explains it, understanding dawns on him.

“You’d have plenty of reasons for wanting to stop your timeline from being erased,” Schlatt says, pointing at Dream. “And you,” Schlatt turns his attention to Wilbur, “have enough reasons to want to remove Khan Noonien-Singh from the timeline completely. We’re working on a time limit; I don’t exactly have time to be giving this information out to people who won’t do anything useful with it.”

“Shouldn’t the fact that we showed up at all be proof enough?” It’s a good point to bring up, Wilbur thinks, but he can tell the answer doesn’t fully satisfy Schlatt. “Besides, my duty to Starfleet and my timeline ultimately outweighs my own personal desires; you should have gathered that from my file.”

“Oh, trust me, I know all about your loyalty to Starfleet. It’s been nearly unshakeable—save for one, minor event during your time at the academy—ever since they saved you from Limbo.” Wilbur flinches at the mention, eyes going wide and heart hammering in his chest. He hears Dream’s breath hitch, but he doesn’t have the will to dive deeper into that. “Touchy subject,” Schlatt says far too casually, as though he had any right to bring up that place. “Perhaps you can bond over it. My point is, I know all about the two of you and where your loyalties lie. But I want to hear it directly from you; do you intend to fix the timeline?”

“Yes,” Wilbur bites out, trying to hold himself back from lashing out. He wants to curl in on himself whilst hissing at anyone who gets too close, wants to tend to the wounds threatening to reopen. Dream pushes closer against him, and when Wilbur turns to look, he finds Dream staring at him with a silent expression in his eyes: are you okay? The concern and care presented by the other is enough to calm Wilbur down a bit, at least enough to get through this encounter.

“And you’re not going to decide to just run off together and live out your lives in this time?” Schlatt asks.

“Of course not,” Wilbur answers, and he sounds more confident than he feels. He takes the part of himself that glows at the mere thought of running away from all of his baggage and simply existing with Dream, and he shoves it into the deepest corner of his mind. Because as much as he might want it, he knows he’d regret running away every day for the rest of his life. Because he is bound by duty, and because he has people he cares about, even if they do not care about him in the same way. (But he can’t deny that he likes to close his eyes and imagine that, sometimes, what another life might have looked like, one in which he and Dream travel the world together and fall asleep wrapped up in each other).

Schlatt looks like he doesn’t fully believe Wilbur, but he doesn’t comment on it.

“So, are you going to give us the information or not?” It’s Dream who asks, speaking up after staying silent for so long. He’s antsy to end this interaction, Wilbur can tell, and Wilbur doesn’t exactly blame him. They’ve been here for a while—the sun has set and the sky is colored a deep navy blue, getting darker and darker by the minute, and Wilbur wants nothing more than to return to the room, curl up with Dream in the blankets, and go to sleep.

“Alright,” Schlatt says after a few moments. He reaches into his blazer and pulls out a sheet of paper, which, upon being handed to them, reveals a set of addresses. “The top two are the places of operation for the time traveler working against us, and the third is the address to the facility where Khan Noonien-Singh is. Their plan is to detonate a bomb in the facility, not only killing Khan but also all the researchers who are creating the first wave of genetically modified humans.”

“Thus making sure the eugenics wars never even have a chance of happening, completely altering the course of the timeline,” Wilbur says, dots connecting in his mind.

“Bingo,” Schlatt says. “Now, the second base of operation may already be gone—hopefully you can get there before the evidence is destroyed, but the enemy didn’t seem fond of leaving a trail after their plans almost got foiled the first time. I’d be quick about getting to these locations, if I were you.”

“We’ve been to one,” Wilbur says, recognizing the name of the street in one of the addresses. “Though we didn’t find anything too useful. Hopefully the other location will prove to be more fruitful.”

“Well, the most important thing is stopping the destruction of the facility,” Schlatt says flippantly. “But, I do want to meet with the two of you again in a few days to check in on your progress, and I’ll see if I can learn anything new by then. But I do need to ask for one more favor.”

“What is it?” Wilbur asks, trying to keep the annoyance from seeping into his tone.

“Don’t end up like Karl,” Schlatt says, and there’s a surprising level of emotion shining through his words. There’s a regretful look in his eyes, too, at the mention of the other time traveler. It sets a part of Wilbur at ease. It’s a sign of care held for the deceased time traveler, and it reminds Wilbur that, no matter how much Schlatt may get on their nerves, he is ultimately helping them.

“Thank you,” Wilbur says.

A wry grin tugs at Schlatt’s lips. “It’s just business,” he says, and then he raises his hand in a farewell and begins walking away, leaving them in the darkness of the park.

Wilbur lets out a shuddering breath, feeling a shiver wrack his body. It’s cold, and it’s dark, and Dream is near silent beside him, still pressed into his side but not uttering a word. Schlatt has proven to be a useful ally, and they gained a lot from the meeting, but, in the aftermath, Wilbur feels like he could hibernate for years.

“Let’s go home,” he says.

And it’s almost an odd thing to say because, when he really thinks about it, he doesn’t truly think of their temporary accommodation as home. But he thinks that, maybe, home isn’t really a place but rather the promise of comfort. And, at the moment, he really can’t imagine anything more comforting than falling asleep to the sound of Dream’s heartbeat. Let’s go home, he says, but, really, he means, I want the privilege of home being defined by falling asleep next to you after every draining day.

Wilbur’s practically dead on his feet, exhaustion pulling at his limbs and weighing him down. He’s ready to collapse into bed at any given moment, but as they approach the motel, Wilbur notices that Dream begins slowing down. He’s been uncharacteristically quiet during their entire trip back, and it worries Wilbur a bit, but he previously figured it was a topic that would come up in the morning. Turning back to look at Dream, though, makes him think that maybe they’ll just have to settle for sleeping in the next day.

“How about we continue walking around the block, and we can talk about whatever’s on your mind,” Wilbur says, halting his gait and turning to fully face Dream.

There’s hesitance in Dream’s eyes, like he’s weighing the pros and cons of his next move.

“Have you really been to Limbo?” Dream asks quietly, like he’s worried about the affects his words might have. “Like, the planet in the Jubilee System?”

Wilbur wishes he could say he didn’t have a visceral reaction to Dream’s words. But his hands get clammy, his heart starts picking up its pace, and mouth drying nearly instantaneously as soon as Limbo is mentioned.

“I guess we’ll just have the conversation here, then,” he manages to say, sitting down on the curb of the sidewalk.

He breathes out, watches the air curl up in wisps away from him until it disappears into the frigid night air. The chill hardly bothers him, though; he’s too focused on the static in his mind which threatens to trap him and drag him down into unpleasant memories. He can practically feel the manifestation of his anxieties wrapping its claws around his throat, cutting off his air supply, always seemingly on the verge of tearing out his jugular and leaving him for dead. It’s a constant waking sleep paralysis demon, shadowing his every move, and he wishes he could just ignore it like he usually does, let it linger only in the far reaches of his mind, but the multiple reminders of Limbo have given it strength, and now it threatens to suffocate him.

Dream sits down next to him, legs and arms brushing together, and the contact at least delays Wilbur’s impending spiral.

“Limbo’s a pretty sh*tty planet, huh” Dream says, locking his eyes with Wilbur’s.

“That’s an understatement,” Wilbur says with a scoff.

Limbo is a barren world, barely habitable by human standards. The atmosphere is thin and dusty, so much so that it took years for his lungs to fully heal, even with the federation’s advanced medical technology and even with him wearing a gas mask for the second half of his unwilling stay on the planet. In addition to the state of the air on the planet, there are frequent electromagnetic storms, high winds that make travel nearly impossible, and liquid water is rare. It’s a very empty place, too, with so few people that Wilbur used to walk countless kilometers without running into anyone. It’s a planet not meant to be inhabited, after all, so the people there were usually stuck, in hiding, or only passing through.

“I was stranded there with a few members of my bridge crew,” Dream confesses, pulling Wilbur’s attention back to him, and Wilbur’s eyes widen at the words. “We were only there for a few weeks but it was… bad, to say the least. I’m sorry you had to experience that place, too.”

“I was there for years,” Wilbur whispers, like if he says the words quietly enough it will somehow make them less real. “I was just a teenager at the time, actually. A teenager who had recently lost his mother and was suddenly far more alone than he could’ve imagined.”

“Wil,” Dream says softly, breathlessly, as though putting more emphasis on the words would shatter whatever thread this moment is hanging by.

“What’s done is done,” he says. He half expects Dream to refute the statement, to try to convince him that he doesn’t need to accept what happened with such resignation, but, as he looks at the other’s scars, plastered across freckled cheeks like the ice fractures on Europa’s surface, he thinks that Dream might understand.

“It turned out fine, anyway,” he continues, simultaneously wanting the conversation to end and not wanting the silence to stretch on for too long. He tries to sound assured in his words, but the words sound like a lie even to his own ears.

“Did it?” Dream asks.

“Well, fine enough,” Wilbur says around the lump in his throat. “Phil and Techno stumbled across me, sponsored my years in the academy, and practically instantaneously added me to their crew. Phil gave me access to counseling too, which did less than he hoped, I’m sure, but it must count for something.”

“Counseling is always less straightforward than people hope it will be,” Dream says with a grimace, and Wilbur has no doubt he’s speaking from experience.

Wilbur doesn’t say anything to that, just nods and tries not to drown in unpleasant memories.

“Wait, did you say Techno?” Dream asks, and there’s a different inflection in his tone, now, and it’s a shift that Wilbur much appreciates. “As in Technoblade?”

“Yeah,” Wilbur responds. “I didn’t think you’d know him, what with humanity being at war with the Piglins in your timeline and all.”

Dream laughs a bit, surprised, and the sound cuts its way through the dense atmosphere and lightens it a bit. Wilbur takes a breath, relieved when it doesn’t feel like he’s trying to pull oxygen out of the vacuum of space.

“Of course I know him. He’s, like, infamous in battle,” Dream says, but there’s undeniable fondness in his voice when he says it. “He’s actually the one who gave me this scar.” He points to the scar running across the bridge of his nose, pride shining in his eyes as he shows it off.

“You seem to respect him quite a lot for him being a supposed enemy,” Wilbur says, and he tries to make his words more lighthearted and joking, but they fall a bit flat.

Dream averts his gaze, staring up at the clouded sky. They obscure the stars, though it’s not like there are that many stars to be seen from the city regardless, but there’s a different kind of beauty held in the dark grey.

“He saved me from Pandora,” Dream whispers.

Wilbur turns his attention back to Dream. “What?”

“I thought he was going to leave me—he was there on a mission to break out other Piglins, after all, not to rescue captured humans. But he still saved me. Even contacted my ship for me and everything.”

“If the Techno of your timeline is anything like the Techno in mine, then there’s no way he’d ever let people stay in a place that hurt them so much,” Wilbur says, thinking about Techno practically throwing him into the shuttle off Limbo after Wilbur stubbornly refused to go with him and Phil. He hadn’t been kind to Techno, then, clawing at his arms, leaving scratches in his wake, and pleading to them to leave him alone, telling them he couldn’t be what they were looking for whilst fighting tooth and nail, but Techno’s grip had held steady nonetheless.

“Sometimes I wish he’d just left me,” Dream says hesitantly, like it’s a confession.

“I think the same, sometimes,” Wilbur says, thinking about lashing out and screaming and words poised to cut deep and hurt. “Like it would have been better for everyone had they just left me to rot on Limbo.”

He shakily exhales, bringing his gloved hands up to wipe away the liquid gathering in his eyes. The cold is becoming more apparent now, and he has no doubt that his nose and cheeks would be rosy if he were to look into a mirror. They should wrap up their talk and retreat into the warmth of their motel room, and, yet, something about leaving it on this note doesn’t feel quite right.

“For what it’s worth,” he says, “I’m really glad Techno saved you. I’m glad I got to meet you. I’m glad I’m not in this alone.”

“Thank you,” Dream says, then he reaches out and cups Wilbur’s cheek in his hand, smiling softly as it causes Wilbur’s movement to pause.

The world freezes for a moment. It feels like that happens a lot when Wilbur’s with Dream, like the other is capable of causing time to stretch out infinitely, allowing them to steal moments to simply exist in moments like this.

“No one ever stays,” Wilbur says, voice wobbly and eyes beginning to sting. He doesn’t really mean to say it, and the words surprise him the moment they're leaving his lips, but their conversation seems to be opening the door to his innermost emotions.

“What about Phil and Techno? The people who rescued you?”

“They knew my mother, and she’s the reason they stay. No one ever stays for me.” He thinks about Fundy and Eret at the academy, pulling away from him and cutting contact in the wake of what he dragged them into. He thinks of George, who’s waiting for the day he gets transferred off The Syndicate. He thinks about the rest of the crew who he holds at arms length, scared that if they got to know him beyond the carefully curated layers he presents, they would leave just like everyone else.

He thinks about Dream, who’s held him gently and who looks at him like he’s something good rather than a sickness infecting everything around him, and he thinks that, maybe, he’s making a dangerous leap. But he’s so tired of being alone that he thinks maybe he doesn’t care about the consequences of letting himself get attached.

“No one ever stays,” he repeats, quieter this time.

“I’m right here, Wil,” Dream says, leaning forward to press their foreheads together. “I’m right here.”

There’s something odd in his voice when he says it, though, something deliberate in his choice of words. It’d be easy to analyze and pick apart—Wilbur knows it would—but he doesn’t want to. He just wants to close his eyes and melt into the comfort offered. He can worry about Dream’s words at a later time.

The 21st century has given Wilbur a lot, including his time with Dream, though that’s less of a 21st century thing and more of a time shenanigans thing, but Geoguessr is the best 21st century-only thing he’s encountered. At least, that’s what Wilbur thinks whilst his eyes scan the area presented on the screen in front of him; the architecture definitely hints at Eastern European, but he’s having difficulties placing the exact country. His eyes catch on a familiar red and white flag, and he’s quick to identify the country as Poland. He tries to keep his excitement at winning the round quiet, but, evidently, he catches Dream’s attention.

“What are you even doing?” Dream asks, leaning over to look at Wilbur’s screen. “We came to the library to do research, not,” he waves his hands at the computer in front of Wilbur, “whatever this is.”

“In my defense,” Wilbur begins, knowing damn well it will be the weakest defense he’s ever spoken, “this isn’t around in my century! This is the only time I’ll get to have fun with it.”

Dream looks at him unimpressed.

And, the thing is, Wilbur knows they need to be on top of their research. Because the second location Schlatt had provided turned out to be a total bust. It was completely cleared out by time they arrived, not even a hint of anything useful left behind. They’d come to the library to use the public computers to at least do research into the facility at the address Schlatt provided, but all of the articles are either purposefully vague or classified, and Wilbur is tired. He’s tired, and there’s a pit in his stomach, and all he really wants is a small break.

He spares a glance at the clock displayed in the lower corner of the computer. It’s late afternoon by now, which means it’s been far too many hours since Wilbur’s even looked at the outside world. Frankly, he’d found himself distracted by the sheer treasure trove of information provided by the internet long ago—it’s like a siren’s call, and he finds himself walking away with far more knowledge on the Romanov family of Russia, a Broadway musical called Hamilton, and a variety of other random things—though Geoguessr is the thing that has held his interest the longest. Dream, on the other hand, has been hard at work for hours on-end, diving deep into whatever he could find on the facility and the researchers there and Khan Noonien-Singh himself. It worries Wilbur, a little bit, how much the rest of the world seemed to fade away during Dream’s focus.

“Actually, when was the last time you even got up to use the bathroom? Or gotten a drink of water?” Wilbur asks. “Also, I feel like I should be worried about the state of your back. You’re like a shrimp. And shrimp don’t actually see more colors than us, so it’s not as cool as you’d think it’d be.”

Dream blinks, appearing a bit confused by the relevance of Wilbur’s shrimp comment, but, in Wilbur’s defense, it was just one of many interesting tidbits he’d found available on the computer. He watches as Dream glances at the time, only for the other to do a double take, a look of shock appearing on his face.

“When did it get this late?” Dream asks.

“When you were hunched over like a shrimp,” Wilbur responds instantly, though he doesn’t hesitate to pass Dream the water bottle they’d brought.

Dream accepts it with a quiet thanks. Wilbur props his elbow up on the table, cradles his chin in the palm of his hand and takes the moment to just watch Dream. He’s long since been eliminated from the Geoguessr game he’d previously been winning, but he finds that he doesn’t really mind—all the views in the world are at his fingertips with that game, and yet none of them really compare to the privilege of watching Dream simply exist. It’s a feeling akin to thrilling, but it’s exponentially softer. There’s a sort of intimacy to being able to watch such mundane things, and there’s a special sort of beauty that comes with it, too, one which he would love to keep experiencing forever.

Dream meets his gaze, eyes shining with mirth. “What’s on your mind, pretty boy?” He asks with humor notable in his tone, and Wilbur wishes he could say the familiar silly and cliché nickname didn’t make warmth spread through his veins.

“I’m deciding if I’d like you more as a shrimp,” he says, resulting in a shocked laugh, and Dream asking “what is wrong with you?”

It’s not really what he was thinking at all, but it makes Dream’s eyes shine a bit brighter, and Wilbur thinks that’s enough.

“Anyway,” Wilbur says, sitting up straighter and woefully letting the moment slip into the past. “What did you find?”

Dream’s grin turns more prideful at that, and Wilbur gets the feeling that he may be about to experience some embarrassment when comparing all that Dream had accomplished to what he managed to find.

“Well, it took a bit of time to familiarize myself with the basic types of code with which 21st century technology runs itself on, and obviously there are similarities to the code we use in the modern day, which did make it pretty easy, but I still wanted to at least have a quick crash course in the current types of code anyway. After doing that, I just worked on hacking into the facility’s database since the true information obviously wasn’t out in the public—”

Wilbur blinks, trying and failing to keep up with everything Dream’s saying. Wilbur may be a Starfleet officer, but he’s in the command division, not the science division. Sure he had to take the basic science classes at the academy, but whatever Dream is rambling on about is far beyond whatever knowledge has remained in his mind.

“—with advanced techniques from our century, so I was finally able to get access to the information needed, and I managed to not leave a trail.”

Dream looks back at Wilbur.

“And you didn’t understand a word I said, did you?”

“No, not really.”

But Dream doesn’t look annoyed at Wilbur’s inability to understand all his code-speak. Rather, there’s fondness visible in his eyes, and the edges of his smile soften.

“Anyway, you were saying?” Wilbur prompts.

“In short, I managed to get access to all their information—which, their research goals are really f*cked up, by the way—including a complete floor plan and staffing schedules,” Dream says, though the reveal that the research goals of the facility that eventually led to the eugenics wars are f*cked up doesn’t really come as a surprise to Wilbur.

“You’re f*cking brilliant,” Wilbur says, unable to keep the small level of awe out of his voice.

His words make Dream pause briefly.

“It’s not that impressive,” Dream says, his expression turning more bashful.

“I disagree,” Wilbur says, “but go on.”

Whilst Dream continues explaining more in depth what he found, Wilbur finds himself moving his gaze towards the windows in an attempt to gauge how much daylight they have left. Little specks of white particles are gently falling over a hazy backdrop, painting everything in soft white. It’s evidently been going on for a while, judging by the few inches that have built up on the window sill, and Wilbur wonders how neither of them hadn’t noticed before. (Though, with how focused they were with the computers, it doesn’t come as that much of a surprise).

“It’s snowing,” Wilbur says, and he feels bad about cutting Dream off, but the other doesn’t seem to care, head snapping to the window almost instantaneously.

There’s something heartbreakingly raw in Dream’s expression, and it’s reminiscent of the expression he wore upon seeing an Earth sunset for the first time. It’s like he can’t quite believe his eyes, like the mere idea of seeing such a thing in reality is so foreign that he can’t tell if he’s awake or not. It makes something in Wilbur fracture, just a tiny bit, and he thinks that, maybe, he’d give Dream the entire world in a heartbeat if he could.

“We need to go out there right now,” Dream says, quickly turning back to his computer to start printing out everything he’d gathered.

Wilbur quickly follows suit; there’s nothing for him to print out, but he’s still careful to log out of everything and erase the search history. The printers are painstakingly slow, and Wilbur can practically feel how antsy Dream is. So, to make it all go smoother, Wilbur logs out and clears the search history from Dream’s computer the moment everything is printed whilst Dream goes to collect the papers. The grateful look Dream sends him makes it all worth it, and then they’re racing to the exit as fast as humanly possible.

It’s freezing, but the cold, crisp air is refreshing after hours stuck inside. Wilbur even finds himself enjoying the biting sensation of the frigid air, basking in the sensation of snowflakes landing on delicate skin. He’s been on plenty of away missions to snowy planets in the past year, but it’s been far too long since he’s enjoyed it. After all, there’s a stark difference between preparing to face the harsh climate of icy worlds and stepping outside into the soft blankets of snow that bring with it warm memories of childhood winters spent making snowmen and snowballs.

“It’s beautiful,” Dream whispers breathlessly, eyes shining with awe.

“Yeah,” Wilbur agrees, thinking Dream may have been onto something when he said there’s something special about snow on one’s home planet, “it is.”

Dream laughs, and the sound is light and soft and full of wonder, and Wilbur is beginning to feel the beginnings of familiar emotions clenching his heart. Dream reaches a gloved hand out, watching as the snowflakes melt in his palms with a smile on his face. Dream wanders a bit away from Wilbur, looking upwards and twirling around as though trying to process everything at once.

It makes a pit form in Wilbur’s stomach.

Because it’s not fair. Because Dream is so enthralled by everything the earth has to offer, and Wilbur wants to give it all to him on a silver platter just to keep such wonder in his eyes. But they have a mission to complete, and they’re running against the clock. And there’s a pit in his stomach. Because two versions of the same person from two different timelines are ultimately different people, and saving one is not saving the other. He’d told Dream saving one was close enough, but, as he watches Dream dancing under the snowfall, he thinks that isn’t really true at all. There’s a pit in his stomach, and he thinks that, maybe, he’s not as ready to fix the timeline as he thought he was.

(Because he is so tired of being alone. And he has a duty to his timeline and a duty to the betterment of humanity, but a part of him just wants to be selfish. And he knows he has to fix the timeline, and he knows there are people he worth getting back to even if he feels so disconnected from them at times, and yet he can’t help but imagine just hopping on the next train to mainland Europe with Dream, seeing where the wind takes them and experiencing the world together).

Something hits him in the side. He looks down, sees most of the snow falling down to his feet, though some stubbornly remains clinging to his jacket.

“Hey,” Dream calls, another snowball in hand, “come back to me.” There’s a competitive smile on his face, but a soft look in his eyes. Wilbur takes note of the softness, tucks it close to his heart, and makes the decision to focus on the competitiveness of the other’s smile.

“If you’re going to start a snowball fight, you should know that I have far more experience and thus–” a snowball collides with Wilbur’s face, followed by the sound of Dream laughing so hard that the sound is bordering on fully wheezing.

Wilbur runs a hand down his face, shaking off as much snow as possible. There are droplets falling into his eyes from the melting snow on his eyelashes, and it’s inconvenient and blurring his vision, yet he finds he doesn’t really mind when Dream is enjoying himself so much. He looks up and sees Dream staring at him with an odd expression, some unnameable emotion hidden behind viridian eyes, and all Wilbur can think to do is blink slowly before quickly taking the opportunity to crouch down and make a snowball of his own.

Dream’s reaction time is quick, even with his earlier distraction, and he manages to block Wilbur’s attack with his forearm.

“That is not fair,” he says breathlessly between laughs, “I was distracted.”

“Ah, no, sorry,” Wilbur responds. “You should’ve thought of fairness before breaking the sacred number one rule of no head shots.”

And then he throws another snow ball at Dream, causing the other to begin running away with pleas of mercy falling from his lips. The ground isn’t icy, but in some parts the snow is so compact and slick that it’s easily a slipping hazard. Running on such terrain in boots not meant for the snow is probably not the best idea they’ve ever had, but they’re having too much fun to stop. Still, Wilbur thinks Dream deserves at least a little warning.

“You’re going to trip and fall and eat sh*t, and I will laugh at you and hit you with more snowballs.”

Or, a warning of sorts at least.

Dream looks back at him, a co*cky grin on his face, and he spreads his arms out and says, “please, Wilbur, you’re looking at a parkour master. You’ll trip long before I do.”

Wilbur sees the exact moment that Dream loses his footing, sees the look of shock overtake his face, and, despite his earlier words, Wilbur lunges to catch Dream.

He manages to. And, it’s kind of funny, how cliché their position ends up being, with Dream’s wrist in Wilbur’s hand and Wilbur’s other hand wrapped around Dream’s waist. Dream blinks up at him, confusion evident, and Wilbur can’t blame him. It’d happened so fast. One moment they were taunting each other and trying and failing to hit each other with snowballs whilst in motion, and the next they’re pressed up against each other, the fog from their breaths mixing together.

They’re suspended in time, stuck in a moment Wilbur doesn’t quite have a name for. It’s a moment he goes to break, with more banter or words of concern, he doesn’t know, but Dream is quick to cut him off by, quite literally, stealing his breath.

Dream’s lips are soft. They’re ever so slightly chapped due to the dry and cold weather, but they’re soft nonetheless, and Wilbur finds that doesn’t mind at all. The kiss is slow and gentle; Dream gently cups Wilbur’s face with his free hand whilst Wilbur pulls him closer. Wilbur can’t say it’s what he expected, but, at the same time, it feels intrinsically right, like their bodies were made to fit each other. It feels a lot like coming home. Dream’s hand moves further back, slipping beneath the beanie and tangling into Wilbur’s curls, and Wilbur doesn’t ever want to leave, even as his lungs begin to scream for air.

Dream pulls away. He’s panting lightly, lips slightly parted, and Wilbur’s sure he looks the same. No words are spoken between them, and yet Wilbur understands perfectly. He leans forward, catching Dream’s lips in a kiss yet again and lets the rest of the world fade away, even if only for a moment. It’s a lot like basic laws in nature, Wilbur thinks, like ions of different charges being attracted towards one another and like magnetic fields existing wherever there are electric currents. It feels right in the way that it’s right that the sky is blue and stars are bright. Wilbur wants to stay here forever, and he knows he would, if he could.

“Don’t you want to enjoy the snow some more?” Wilbur mutters when they pull away from each other again, though their lips remain mere millimeters apart.

“That can wait,” Dream says, then he’s pressing his lips against Wilbur’s again, and there’s nowhere else Wilbur would rather be.

They don’t talk about it, not really, not in depth, not in the way most people would. And it’s not in an avoiding it way, either. They simply don’t need to talk about it because the understanding is already there. And nothing really changes; they still hold each other at night and lean on each other throughout the day, and they still share jokes and banter, and there’s still an undeniable softness and tenderness with which they look at each other. There’s technically minor changes—Wilbur kissing the scars splattered onto Dream’s body, Dream kissing his forehead and nose—but there’s nothing really different about the emotions behind the actions. And the labels don’t really matter because the emotions—whether they’re platonic or romantic or something that’s not quite either—are there anyway.

So, they don’t talk about it, not really, not beyond a quick boundary check. They care about each other greatly, and they know this, and, at the end of the day, that’s the most important thing.

“You’re not helping, you know,” Dream says, to which Wilbur grumbles and buries his face further into Dream’s back.

They’d started out sitting shoulder to shoulder, going through what they found in the library and what Schlatt had given them during their second meeting, but somewhere along the way Wilbur had laid down, attempting to wrap an arm around Dream’s waist and only succeeding in partially throwing it over his thigh whilst burying his face into the other’s neon green hoodie.

“Wil, we can’t put this off. We only have a few days to make sure everything goes perfect so we can fix the timeline,” Dream continues.

And, that’s the crux of the problem; they only have a few days. It’s tangible now. Schlatt had found out the date the bomb was set to go off, and that paired with everything Dream had learned in the library has led to an actual plan being formulated. Which makes it real. Not that it wasn’t real before, but it’s almost suffocating how blaring obvious its realness is now.

“What if we just pause and let ourselves sit in this moment?” Wilbur asks, the words slightly muffled.

Dream shifts, pulling away from Wilbur’s haphazard embrace, and Wilbur takes the cue to sit up. They’re sitting facing each other now, and Wilbur averts his eyes, tracing meaningless patterns on the bed sheets whilst waiting for Dream to say something.

“You keep doing this,” Dream says, an accusatory hint hidden in his tone.

“I don’t know what you’re talk–”

“Bullsh*t.” Dream says, and Wilbur snaps his mouth shut and purses his lips, but he stubbornly keeps his gaze on his hands. “Why are you delaying this, Wilbur? You were the one who wanted to fix the timeline in the first place.”

Dream’s right, and the shame of being hypocritical burns within Wilbur’s veins, but he can’t find it in himself to do anything about it. His lip trembles, and he bites in an attempt to prevent it from doing so.

“Fixing the timeline means you’ll be erased,” Wilbur manages to say.

“I know,” Dream says, and Wilbur cringes at the harsh tone. “I know,” he says again, softer this time, with resignation and regret audible in his voice. Wilbur dares to look up and is met with an odd yet familiar look in Dream’s eyes—he’s looking at Wilbur like he’s mourning something not yet gone, and Wilbur finally understands why. “I’ve known since day one, Wilbur.”

Wilbur doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just silently draws his knees up his chest, rests his head there and tries to think of something to say.

“I thought we established this early on,” Dream says, and he’s right. Wilbur had known what he was asking of Dream when he asked the other for help in fixing the timeline, and now he finds himself facing the consequences of his actions. “You were fine with it then, Wil, so what changed?” Dream asks, but Wilbur’s pretty sure he already knows the answer.

Wilbur opens his mouth, but he can’t seem to form the words. He desperately tries to ignore the stinging in his eyes and the rapid beating of his heart and the shaking of his hands. He bites the inside of his cheek and does his best to take a deep breath, trying to get himself under control enough to respond to Dream.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he manages to say.

The response is quiet, but Dream hears it nonetheless, face softening at the words.

“I know,” Dream says, and his voice is heavy with remorse.

Then, he sets all the papers further away from them and opens his arms, and it’s a silent invitation that Wilbur readily takes. He melts into the embrace. His legs rest on either side of Dream, and he buries his face into the crook of Dream’s neck, basking in the warmth it brings. Dream’s hair tickles his skin, but he doesn’t move, wanting to stay here for as long as he can. Dream’s arms wrap around him, and it feels like home, and Wilbur can cope with the soul-crushing reality of having to save the life of his ancestor who committed horrific crimes, but he’s not sure he can cope with that and cope with losing Dream at the same time.

“How can you be so okay with this?”

He wants to scream and lash out at the universe for putting him in such a position. He wants Dream to kick and bite and fight to stay. He wants to hear that Dream will at least try.

“Well,” Dream begins, “your timeline is obviously better than mine, so of course we have to save it. Besides, we’re all just a means to an end, aren’t we?”

“No,” Wilbur says instantly, pulling away ever so slightly to look Dream in the eyes, which widen slightly in shock at Wilbur’s outburst. “You’re not just a means to an end, not to me.”

He brings his hands up to Dream’s head to hold his face in his palms, thumbing over the scar that runs along the edge of Dream’s lip and tracing constellations in the other’s freckles with his eyes. There’s a sort of reverence with which he holds Dream, and he thinks that, in another life, he would’ve loved nothing more than to spend his days worshiping the other, to be a vassal of sorts. There’s an intimacy in devotion, he thinks.

But, there’s also an intimacy in the tenderness with which they handle each other in the here and now. Dream wraps a hand around Wilbur’s wrist, bringing the tips of his fingers to Wilbur’s pulse point and letting them rest there, and there’s an intimacy in that, too. And it’s the kind of intimacy Wilbur never wants to let go of. There’s no purpose in thinking of hypothetical other lives, he thinks, not when everything he’s ever wanted is right in front of him.

“Wilbur,” Dream says breathlessly. He’s looking at Wilbur with an intense emotion bubbling under the surface, and the only reason Wilbur is able to identify it is because he’s felt it himself—Dream’s looking at him as though he hung the stars and moon in the sky, and Wilbur knows he’d forge entire galaxies for Dream if he could. There’s fondness in Dream’s eyes, and all Wilbur can think about is how wonderful it would be to build a home in his gaze.

“Wil,” Dream whispers, and Wilbur can’t stop the shaky exhale that follows in the wake of hearing the nickname. “I want to stay.”

Wilbur lets the full weight of the words sink in. He thinks about George whose heart is dead set on another ship, and he thinks about Tubbo and Tommy who are just ensigns starting their Starfleet careers, bound to move on at some point. He thinks about Phil and the burden of being allotted the role of being a ghost of his own mother.

He looks at Dream, the first not only to stay, but also the first to want to stay, and he thinks maybe all this time f*ckery he’s found himself in may just be the best thing to ever happen to him.

“Then stay,” he pleads.

“I don’t know how,” Dream responds, voice breaking and looking so completely and utterly heartbroken that Wilbur’s own heart aches.

Dream laughs, but it’s a bitter sound, and Wilbur would do anything to raise the other’s spirits, but it’s hard to come up with ways to cheer up the other when he feels as mournful as the other.

“I keep thinking about it,” Dream says, “in the late hours of the night, but I haven’t been able to come up with a solution. Beyond the major issue of us simply not having access to technology that would even allow me to exist after my timeline is erased, there’s still the whole issue of two versions of one person existing in a timeline.”

“Well, similar things happen a surprising amount; you’d be surprised how many times transporter accidents create two exact copies of people,” Wilbur says, trying to lighten his tone to alleviate the sadness which is currently wrapped around Dream like a blanket.

A look of concentration passes over Dream’s face as he lets out a hum.

“Now that I think about it, that sort of thing does happen a lot,” Dream says, and Wilbur almost sighs in relief when he hears less of the sorrow from before in Dream’s voice.

“You’d just basically be like twins with the Dream of my timeline,” Wilbur says. “You’d need another name, though… something like Marzenie, perhaps.”

“Marzenie?” Dream echoes.

Wilbur hums in response, saying, “it’s the Polish word for dream, well more specifically a daydream. But it suits you well, don’t you think, Marzenie?”

Wilbur watches in delight as the nickname causes a small, shy smile to appear on Dream’s face.

“You can be so cheesy,” Dream says, though he doesn’t seem to really mind it all that much.

“Do you like it? Shall I go peel an orange and wordlessly give you half as a symbol of my care?” Wilbur drops his hands from Dream’s face to wave them around to accentuate his dramatics, grinning when it succeeds in making Dream laugh.

Wilbur finds that, despite the theatrics, his words are genuine; he truly would love to peel an orange and share it with Dream. There are a million small ways he can think of to silently let the other know how much he means to Wilbur, and Wilbur would love nothing more than to have a lifetime to share them.

Dream’s eyes are on him, shining with a mix of yearning and resignation that makes Wilbur’s heart sink, and he knows he would do anything to permanently wipe the look from Dream’s face.

“I really wish I could stay,” Dream whispers.

“We’ll find a way,” Wilbur says. “I promise.”

Dream’s silent, eyes downcast and lips pursed, but he’s playing with the chain of the pocket watch around Wilbur’s neck instead of picking at the skin on his hands, so Wilbur takes it as improvement. He rests his hands on Dream’s hips and closes his eyes, trying to focus his thoughts in order to come up with at least a hint of a solution to their dilemma. But, Dream was right; they have very limited options with the technology available to them in this century. He supposes they could attempt to ask Schlatt for help, but Wilbur has a feeling that someone whose job it is to observe the timeline without interference won’t be too keen on letting Dream exist in a timeline that’s not his own. (Besides, he knows the last thing Dream would want is to have to interact with Schlatt more than necessary, and Wilbur will gladly do everything in his power to keep Dream out of uncomfortable situations).

Dream stills—and Wilbur knows this because the slight tug of the pocket watch chain around his neck halts—so Wilbur opens his eyes and looks back down at Dream, a question ready on the tip of his tongue.

“Are you okay?”

Dream locks eyes with him, and it hits him suddenly that the other doesn’t look upset at all. Rather, a smile—a genuine smile which leaves crinkles around his eyes—spreads across Dream’s face, and he looks as though he’s just had an epiphany.

“The pocket watch,” he says, which, really, doesn’t clear anything up for Wilbur at all.

“The pocket watch?” He parrots.

“So your timeline was essentially erased and mine was created in its place, correct?”

“Yes, that is the entire reason we’re here.”

“But you weren’t erased. Because Karl told you to fix the timeline and gave you his fancy advanced technology pocket watch .”

The puzzle pieces click into place. (And, Wilbur internally scolds himself for forgetting about something he himself realized when he first was pulled into the alternate timeline).

“You’re f*cking brilliant,” he says, taking the pocket watch off his neck and putting it onto Dream’s.

“I mean, I don’t need it now,” Dream says, but he holds onto it and looks down at it with hope shining in his eyes, anyway.

“We should celebrate,” Wilbur says, pulling away from Dream and moving to put on his coat. “Planning can wait until this evening or even tomorrow. We’re never going to be back in the 21st century, you know.”

He grabs a room key and slips it into his pocket before putting his gloves on. He looks up and locks eyes with Dream, who’s still fiddling with the chain of the pocket watch. Dream’s head is tilted, like he’s pondering Wilbur’s words and weighing the pros and cons of putting off their work for a little while longer.

“We should go to the London Eye,” Wilbur says.

Dream’s face lights up, and, in that moment, Wilbur knows he would do anything for the other.

There’s a photo booth at the place to buy tickets for the London Eye. There aren’t really many photo booths still around in Wilbur’s time, so he’s understandably excited when he sees it. Thankfully, Dream shares his enthusiasm, and soon they’re both squeezing into the narrow booth and drawing the curtains closed, fumbling around as they try to make sense of the display screen in front of them. It’s a bit difficult, with how breathless they’re left from their giggling at the tight space, but they do their best.

Wilbur wraps an arm around Dream’s shoulder, both to prevent it from being squished between them and because he wants the warmth that comes with drawing Dream even closer to himself, and he can’t ignore the way his heart soars when Dream leans into the partial embrace. Wilbur turns his head slightly and plants a small kiss into the curls atop Dream’s head before turning his attention back to the camera and smiling.

It takes them an embarrassing amount of time to realize neither of them pressed the button to signal the machine to start taking pictures.

“Stupid 21st century technology,” Wilbur grumbles, but it’s more playful than anything, and it makes Dream devolve into another round of giggles.

“Wait, before you start, we need to decide on poses,” Dream says as his laughter dies down.

Wilbur hums. “Happy, silly, unnervingly cryptic, and something else?”

“Unnervingly cryptic?” Dream questions.

Wilbur nods, but doesn’t elaborate further. Dream takes it in stride just as he has upon learning various things about Wilbur, and Wilbur appreciates it far more than he says.

“Okay,” Dream says, and then he’s leaning into Wilbur again, smiling at the camera wrapping one arm around Wilbur whilst making a peace sign with his other hand, and Wilbur takes it as his cue to start the pictures.

They do a normal, happy picture first, then a silly photo in which Wilbur pretends to be on the verge of eating Dream’s hair, and then a photo where they both just stare blankly into the camera. When the time for the fourth and final picture comes around, though, they find themselves at a bit of a loss of what to do. So, Wilbur does the first thing he can think of: he holds out a hand and makes half a heart with it.

“Come on, complete the heart for the final photo.”

Dream seems slightly hesitant, but he raises his hand anyway, though his shape resembles a semi-circle more than a heart. Wilbur finds it kind of cute, and, when he turns his head only to be met with a look of complete and utter concentration on Dream’s face, he finds himself overcome with feelings of endearment. It’s not until he hears the click of the camera that he realizes he’d forgotten to look at the camera for the final picture.

“I think you were looking in the wrong place, pretty boy,” Dream says with an overconfident smirk, like he’s thriving on the knowledge that Wilbur was looking at him rather than at a camera.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Wilbur responds, a cheeky smile on his face.

Dream rolls his eyes lightheartedly but doesn’t say anything. He just grabs Wilbur’s hand in his own, opens the curtain, and pulls the both of them out of the booth. He quickly retrieves the two photo strips, handing one to Wilbur and saving the other for himself, and Wilbur accepts it with a small thanks.

The fourth photo is his favorite. There’s a palpable fondness in the way Wilbur is staring at Dream, the sight of which makes Wilbur’s breath hitch in his throat, and even Dream’s own eyes are averted from the camera, instead focused solely on trying and failing to form a heart with his hand. It has the same air that a candid would have, despite it being taken in a photo booth, and that may be the thing that makes Wilbur love it.

He turns, and he knows that Dream feels the same way by the softness of his eyes and smile as he looks at the photo. He’s content to watch as Dream grabs one of the pens from the pen-holder on the photo booth—for writing on the photo strips, Wilbur presumes—and writes ‘Marzenie + Wil :)’ on the back of his strip.

“Marzenie?” Wilbur questions.

“I like the nickname,” Dream admits, almost bashfully.

“Oh, Marzenie, darling, why didn’t you just say so?” Wilbur asks, and he delights in the glow of happiness that appears in Dream’s eyes as he says the nickname. “I’ll call you that for as long as you’d like, to my dying breath and beyond, to the heat death of the universe if that is what you desire.”

Dream scoffs and playfully shoves Wilbur’s shoulder.

“Okay, Shakespeare, no need to wax poetry at me,” he says, and Wilbur makes note of the pink that colors his cheeks and the tips of his ears and nose.

“But you’re my favorite muse,” Wilbur says, and he finds that, when he takes a moment to think about it, the words are far more genuine than he’d initially thought.

Dream doesn’t respond to that, just smiles and turns to look at Wilbur. He’s wearing the same expression he wore upon seeing an Earth sunset for the first time, and the comparison makes Wilbur feel weak in the knees, but before he can comment on it, Dream has turned his attention back to his photo strip. He places it into the pocket watch—an odd place to put it, but Wilbur doesn’t question it—and then he’s grabbing Wilbur’s hand yet again and pulling them to the line for the London Eye, leaving Wilbur no time to think about the implications of being viewed in such a way.

Wilbur tucks his own photo strip in the chest pocket of his jacket and imagines he’s tucking it close to his heart instead.

Unfortunately, the line for the wheel is outside, which means they’re exposed to freezing temperatures. Fortunately, this gives Wilbur an excuse to pull Dream close to him, pulling the blond to his chest and doing his best to wrap him up in his coat. It makes a few strangers in the line roll their eyes whilst others giggle and gush about it to their friends, but by far the most important reaction is Dream leaning into the touch with a content sigh.

The line is long and tedious, but Wilbur can hardly find himself bothered by it when he’s busy making shapes in the overhead clouds with Dream. It feels like no time has passed at all when it’s their turn to enter a capsule.

Dream immediately gravitates towards the edge of the capsule, putting one hand on the glass whilst keeping the other firmly in Wilbur’s grip, looking out with wonder evident in his gaze. More people are still piling into the capsule, so it’s not as though they have a breathtaking view currently, but Dream looks awed all the same. Wilbur’s about to have the opportunity of a lifetime—he’s quite literally traveled back in time and is about to view 21st century London from one of the most famous attractions of even his century—yet he finds himself more enthralled by the anticipation for what Dream’s reaction to such views will be.

Soon enough, they’re climbing into the sky. Albeit it’s at a relatively slow pace, but it doesn’t stop Dream from staring out the window with rapt attention. Wilbur gets it; the view is beautiful, with the River Thames winding beneath them and the British Parliament standing strong in their view. There’s also a beauty in watching all the people from up here, living out their intricate lives whilst Wilbur watches despite being born centuries after they walked the earth. And yet, over and over again he feels himself more drawn to staring at Dream than at the view itself. It reminds him a bit of the time his shuttle got caught in the gravitational pull of a black hole whilst on a survey mission, and though this situation is significantly less life-threatening, it seems to have the same effects on his perception of time. Time moves slower closer to a black hole due to its gravity, and Wilbur feels a bit like that, now, like he could spend eternity just staring at Dream without even noticing the world passing by.

He turns away, lest he be caught staring.

“This is the stuff musicians write songs about, you know,” Wilbur says, gesturing out to the sprawling city beneath them.

“Are you going to try your hand at songwriting, now?” Dream asks as he turns to look at him, and Wilbur can tell the words are intended to be teasing, but a bit too much genuine intrigue shines through.

“I already have, actually. I thought you would’ve noticed the guitar calluses on my fingers,” he says, and he finds himself genuinely surprised at the thought of Dream missing such a noticeable detail.

“I noticed,” Dream says, “I just didn’t know you wrote your own music.”

“I’ll show you.” The words come without hesitation. “After we fix the timeline, I mean. We can sit in my quarters, and I’ll play you my entire album. Then, maybe, we can have a go at songwriting together.”

“I’d like that,” Dream whispers.

Then, he leans forward, rests his head in the crook of Wilbur’s neck whilst his hands come to rest on Wilbur’s waist. Wilbur, though slightly taken aback at action, is quick to wrap his arms around Dream, burying his face in the other’s soft curls.

“Don’t you want to look at the view?” He mumbles softly, loathe as he is to leave this position.

“It’ll still be there in a few minutes,” Dream answers. “Let’s just stay like this for a bit.”

“Ah, but the sun is setting now,” Wilbur refutes, watching the hues of deep oranges and pinks begin to color the sky. “Wouldn’t want to miss that, would you?”

Wilbur certainly doesn’t want to, at least. And it’s odd, in a way. He’s seen plenty of sunsets on various different worlds and in both his century and the 21st, and yet this is the one that takes his breath away the most. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Dream is here with him, in his arms, the promise of staying laying over them like a blanket. Hope is a funny yet marvelous thing, Wilbur thinks, and it’s a bit of a new thing to experience, as well. But when Wilbur thinks about the future, he thinks of prose and music and cuddles and domesticity in a way he never previously thought was in his cards, and the mere idea of it is enough to make the sunset seem all the more vibrant.

He looks down, expecting to steal another glimpse of an awed expression on Dream’s face, but he’s met with viridian eyes full of fondness instead.

“You’re not looking at the sunset,” he says, though it sounds a bit silly to be stating something so obvious.

“I think I’ve spent a bit too much time looking at Earth sunsets and not enough time watching you look at the same sights,” Dream says. “Besides, I notice you staring all the time. I’m merely returning the favor.”

“Well, you’ll have plenty of time to stare in the future,” Wilbur says, ignoring the heat that is no doubt tinting his face with pinks not unlike the hues in the sky. “However, the 21st century sunsets are a limited time offer, only, I’m afraid.”

Dream sighs then pulls away slightly to look out at the view.

“Do you think everything with fixing the timeline is going to go okay?” Dream asks after a few moments of silence.

“I do,” Wilbur responds. “We’ll fix the timeline, and then I can take some of the shore leave I’ve built up, and I’ll show you around the earth of my time.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Dream says softly.

“It’ll be okay,” Wilbur whispers, turning to look back at the sunset. “I promise.”

The plan is simple, really. The security of the facility is tight and can only be entered by those with the correct mark in their genetic code—it’s like a key, but one that can’t be lost and one that can’t be replicated without use of the technology within the facility. The genetic mark is an artificial addition to DNA sequences, and, as such, doesn’t easily disappear throughout the generations, meaning Wilbur has it in his own DNA. (Wilbur thinks he understands why Karl said he was exactly what was needed to fix the timeline).

With security being a negligible factor, the rest of the plan should be simple; they merely need to get in, locate the bomb or the time traveling saboteur, and neutralize the threat. Thanks to the floor plans Dream was able to gain access to, they know the most likely place for the bomb to be. So, really, it’s a simple plan that they should have no issues executing.

Unfortunately, Wilbur’s anxiety doesn’t quite get the memo.

He tries not to focus on it. Dream’s hand intertwined with his own is a nice comfort, at least, though he still finds it increasingly difficult to stay focused on the conversation at hand when his heart feels as though it’s trying to escape the confines of his ribcage. But Schlatt had been insistent on going over everything one final time. Wilbur just wishes they could’ve had the conversation anywhere else, because the doors to the facility across the street beckon to him, and he wants nothing more than to just walk through them and get all this over with.

“The watch should work as a time traveling device again once the timeline is properly back on track,” Schlatt says, “so after you fix everything, just open it up. Make sure you hold hands or some sh*t while doing so, though, to make sure one of you doesn’t get left behind. That’s a mess I don’t want to deal with.”

“Your concern is touching,” Wilbur says, unable to keep the sarcastic undertone out of the words. If it were another day, perhaps, he’d have been able to mask his emotions better, but as it stands, he’s far too focused on trying to match his breathing to the pattern Dream is tapping on his hand.

“Yeah, well, prolonged time spent in a century that’s not your own isn’t for the faint of heart. I can handle it, of course, but you two wusses?” Schlatt laughs. “You’d be better off returning to your time.”

Wilbur rolls his eyes in mock offense, but he chuckles at the words nonetheless. In another life, perhaps, he could’ve been friends with Schlatt.

Nonetheless, now isn’t really the time for jokes, not when Wilbur can feel the weight of the entire quadrant resting on his shoulders, and certainly not when images of every possible thing that could go wrong is running through his head.

“Is that all, Schlatt?” Dream asks, seemingly as eager to start the mission as Wilbur is. “Or is there more you want to say before we fix the timeline?” The annoyance in his tone is palpable, though it’s not surprising considering how apparent he’s made his dislike of Schlatt.

“I just want to make sure of something for one last time,” Schlatt says, seeming to not mind the mild hostility from Dream. “Humor me, okay? You’re not planning on running off together and abandoning this mission, are you?”

“Of course not,” Wilbur says, and for a moment he swears he sees a glimmer of disappointment in Schlatt’s eyes, but it’s gone so quickly that he’s left wondering if he’d imagined it. He shoves the thought to the back of his mind, instead focusing on turning his attention to Dream. “We’re prepared to do this, aren’t we, Marzenie?”

Dream’s expression softens at the nickname, and the look he gives Wilbur is a stark contrast to the one he affords to Schlatt. Selfishly, Wilbur quite likes being able to see the difference. There’s a sort of thrill that comes with seeing physical proof of being held in a higher standing compared to another, and maybe that’s a horrible way to think of things, but after decades of being looked at as though he were lesser, it’s almost intoxicating to see Dream look at him as though he would cup the stars in his palm if Wilbur so much as asked. (And there’s a beauty in that, too, the fact that Wilbur knows without hesitation that Dream would, and Wilbur would do the same if the other desired it).

“Oh, great, you two have pet names now,” Schlatt says with a lighthearted sneer, pulling Wilbur’s attention back towards him and away from Dream. “Get out of this century and out of my face already.” And then he’s waving them away towards the facility.

Just as expected, entering the facility is a piece of cake, and soon they’re walking down a flight of stairs and wandering through the long, underground hallways that seem to never end. It’s quiet as they walk, except for the incessant hum of the fluorescent lights overhead and their own footsteps and, of course, Wilbur’s heart, beating so loudly he can hear it echoing in his skull. The entire thing unnerves him, a bit, the clinic-white walls and the complete and utter lack of people. He knows the reason they’re not running into people is because they meticulously planned their route in accordance with the schedules Dream hacked into, but the reasonable and logical part of his brain has no jurisdiction over the part which is currently spiraling towards paranoia.

It’s odd how much this place reminds him of Limbo. Because Limbo is open and vast whilst here the walls feel as though they’re closing in. Yet, both places are endless and empty, so Wilbur supposes they aren’t all that dissimilar. It’s funny, though, because in Limbo Wilbur wanted nothing more than to be able to see another living person, to be able to have proof that the entire universe hadn’t been washed away whilst he wasn’t looking, but here the mere idea of running into someone else causes dread to pool in his gut.

Distantly, he’s aware of his footsteps faltering, but it’s hard to notice when the expanse of hallways stretching on seemingly forever look the same both in motion and out. What’s worse, he can’t seem to shake the feeling that something is wrong. Logically, he knows everything was planned to go as smoothly as possible, and yet he can’t help but feel that things are too easy, that they’re making a very big mistake.

Dream hand squeezes his own, grounding him near instantaneously.

“Come back to me,” Dream says softly.

“Always,” Wilbur responds without hesitation. Like the decaying orbit of Neptune’s moon Triton, Wilbur knows he will always return to Dream. It’s as though the very atoms that make up his being are intrinsically connected to Dream’s, forces of gravity pulling them towards each other for eternity. Come back to me, they constantly say to each other, and Wilbur knows that they will never do anything but.

“Are you okay?” Dream asks.

Wilbur raises their still intertwined hands to his lips, places a gentle kiss on their knuckles, and smiles. “I will be,” he says. “Just a bit anxious.”

“I’ve faced worse odds than these,” Dream says, an overconfident smirk on his face and co*ckiness audible in his tone, and it’s enough to cause a small laugh to spring forth from Wilbur’s chest. “It’ll be okay,” he continues, voice softer and more genuine. “We just have to focus on navigating this maze without being seen.”

Easier said than done, at least in theory, but the words comfort Wilbur nonetheless. Hand in hand, they continue their trek through the facility, which truly is like a maze just as Dream said. Every now and then, they’ll hear the shuffling or mumbled conversation of people behind closed doors or around corners, but they’re successful at avoiding the facility staff. Despite the spikes of adrenaline and anxiety every time they come close to the staff, it eases something in Wilbur, too, because it makes it feel less as though they’re stuck in a liminal space, and, perhaps more importantly, it makes it feel less as though they’re being led into a trap.

They don’t talk much, unwilling to risk being overheard by prying ears; there’s too much at stake for them to be anything but cautious. Still, every time Wilbur’s anxiety begins to flare up in his chest yet again, he squeezes Dream’s hand, and every time without fail, Dream squeezes back. Words aren’t really necessary, not when Dream’s presence in and of itself is a great comfort. The mere reassurance that Dream is here, that Dream is staying, provided by the squeezing of hands does more to soothe Wilbur’s nerves than anything else. He appreciates more than he can articulate, but, when Dream steals glances into Wilbur’s eyes, he gets the feeling that the other already knows.

And Wilbur… Wilbur could wax poetry about these feelings for the rest of his life and never run out of inspiration. He already is, in fact, waxing poetry in his mind whilst they walk, enough imagery and symbolism and metaphors blurring together to fill an entire anthology of poems. There’s enough to write an entire album, too, maybe even multiple albums. There’s something undeniably beautiful about it, he thinks, the sheer number of inherent processes of the universe can be compared to him and Dream. It makes him feel as though there’s something inevitable about them, like no matter the circ*mstances of their meeting, they’re bound to have a connection. It’s akin to life being inevitable anywhere in the galaxy where there is liquid water and heat, and Wilbur’s never been one to believe in fate, but he thinks that maybe Dream may be able to change that. Soulmates , he muses, and this time the thought is sweet rather than sour.

Wilbur is so lost in such thoughts, that he almost misses the fact that they’ve reached the final door. His hand which is not holding Dream’s hovers over the sensor which opens the door, but he hesitates, mind instead drawn to the pictures he sees in the corner of his eyes. He lowers his hand.

“Sorry,” he finds himself saying, turning to more fully look at the pictures scattered at this end of the hallway. “I’ll open the door in a second. I just–” he swallows the lump in his throat but still can’t seem to form the words.

“Don’t apologize,” Dream says, voice barely above a whisper. “It’s a lot.”

“Yeah,” he says, and his mouth feels too dry and his eyes too wet. “It is.”

The pictures lining the walls are of children. They’re children who will go on to start one of the darkest chapters in human history, but, at this moment, they’re just children. And it’s weird to see pictures of them as children because history has always shown them as these terrifying, genetically modified adults who could barely be considered human. And yet, here they are, captured as children in photographs hung up on a wall.

It’s easy to recognize Khan. Too easy, in fact, and it makes something unpleasant churn in Wilbur’s gut. Because, despite never having seen a picture of what Khan looked like as a child, recognizing him is as easy as breathing; it’s as easy as identifying the familiar bridge of the nose and the familiar slope of the jaw and the eyes he’s seen countless times in the mirror. One would think that, after as many generations that exist between Khan and Wilbur, no similarities would remain, and yet he stands as physical proof that at least some of Khan’s genes have managed to stand against the test of time.

He thinks about the child in the photo, and he thinks about all the children who will die in a war Khan will lead, and he thinks about the implications of saving Khan’s life to fix the timeline. It’s for the greater good, but the children who are doomed to die will never know that, and it’s a truth that weighs heavily on Wilbur’s shoulders.

He sighs and turns back to the door—there’s no use in dwelling on such things. He raises his hand back towards the sensor.

“Wait,” Dream says, and Wilbur pulls away from the door immediately.

“What is it?” He asks, meeting Dream’s gaze.

Uncertainty and apprehension swim in the other’s eyes, but he manages to speak nonetheless. “Does this feel off to you?”

“Yeah,” Wilbur says, and it’s a bit of a relief to know he isn’t the only one who sensed it. “It does.”

Because there are too many holes in the situation, for lack of a better word. The security of the facility is incredibly tight, and the only reason they’ve been able to navigate it is because Wilbur is one of a very few people with the correct genetic code woven into his very DNA. The likelihood of another time traveler making it this far without leaving behind any signs is incredibly low, and, though there’s a chance they’d merely beaten the enemy here, there’s still something that feels wrong about this entire thing, like they’ve overlooked a crucial piece of information.

“Maybe we should–”

“Open the door, Wilbur.”

It’s Schlatt’s voice, which doesn’t make sense considering they’d entered the facility without him, and yet Wilbur can practically see the puzzle pieces connecting in his mind.

He and Dream turn around in sync, and he’s met with a gun aimed at his face, wielded by someone he was foolish enough to trust. The weapon is a revolver handgun, silver with a black leather handle, and suddenly everything makes perfect sense. The bottles and ties strewn around the apartment they’d gone to, and the underlying scent of booze and the suits that have always accompanied Schlatt come together to paint a picture Wilbur had been too blind to see before, and the feeling of being watched when reading a picture with a handwritten date, and the letters from Schlatt that were always typed only add to the picture.

“You’re the one who wants to break the timeline,” Wilbur says.

“It’s nothing personal,” Schlatt says, and Wilbur wonders if he’s imagining the regret shining in his eyes. “It’s just business.”

“You lied to us,” Dream says, anger seemingly only accentuated because of the gun pointed at Wilbur. Maybe in another scenario, Wilbur would’ve found the protectiveness sweet, but, as it is, he’s too busy fumbling with the new information that has come to light.

“You believed me,” Schlatt says. “Besides, we’re all just doing what we gotta do.”

“But why?” Wilbur asks, and he can’t find it in himself to care about the way his voice threatens to splinter and crack. He can’t fathom a reason why another human would want to destroy a future that has only ever benefited humanity in the long run.

“I was hired by The Eggpire.”

It feels like Wilbur’s been doused with a bucket of cold water. The Eggpire. He’d completely neglected to account for them whilst brainstorming who would benefit the most from a galaxy without Starfleet, which, in hindsight, was a stupid move on his part considering the rising tensions between the federation and The Eggpire. The thing is, no one’s ever seen the species or multiple species that comprise The Eggpire—they’re like a shadowy force lingering on the edge of federation space, mysterious and threatening and almost like a boogey-man of sorts. The thing about The Eggpire, though, is they always use proxies when communicating with other civilizations, and, perhaps, that fact alone should have made Wilbur wary of everyone, regardless of species.

“Starfleet is the biggest thorn in The Eggpire’s side, so they hired me to travel back in time to stop the federation from ever forming,” Schlatt says. “Originally I wasn’t even going to kill Khan—I had no way of getting into this facility, after all—so it was looking like I would have to cause a ripple effect elsewhere. Something which turned out to be very difficult to do, mind you, leaving me stranded here for over a decade!”

Schlatt’s voice is erratic towards the end of his sentence, and Wilbur would sympathize more if Schlatt wasn’t still pointing a gun at him. Schlatt takes a deep breath, smooths out his suit with his free hand, and continues speaking.

“You know, I was really hoping you two would give up on the timeline and run away,” Schlatt says, and the regret in his eyes bleeds into his words. “But, hey, it worked out well, didn’t it? Now I can kill Khan and be done with it.” His eyes flicker between Wilbur and Dream. “I don’t want to kill you,” he continues, “so why don’t you just open the door for me, and you two can spend the rest of your days in this century? It wouldn’t be all that bad.”

“What about Karl?” Wilbur asks, trying to steer the conversation away from opening the door, hoping that he can buy enough time for Dream to think of a way out of this. Besides, he finds himself bothered by this seemingly loose end. “Your remorse at his death seemed so genuine! Was that all a lie?”

Schlatt purses his lips. “Karl and I had a,” he falters, an unreadable emotion flickering in his eyes, “mutual connection to someone in a future century. I really am sorry about what happened to him, but, again, it’s nothing personal, just business.”

Schlatt pauses, seemingly lost in thought, and Wilbur uses the moment to steal a glance at Dream. There’s a look of alarm on the other’s face, but, beneath it, Wilbur can see the gears turning as the other tries to formulate a way out of this. He has no doubt that the other will be able to come up with something if given enough time, which leaves him to stall Schlatt for as long as possible.

“Open the door, Wilbur,” Schlatt says, pulling Wilbur’s attention back to him. “I won’t ask again.”

He co*cks the gun, and Wilbur’s breath catches in his throat. His heart is beating wildly in his chest, and, out of the corner of his eye, he can see the alarm on Dream’s face grow. But he has to buy some more time. He pushes through the haze of panic, and searches for a flaw in Schlatt’s threat.

“You won’t kill me,” Wilbur says, hoping his voice projects a confidence he doesn’t have. “You need me to open the door. You’re not going to kill me.”

“You’re right,” Schlatt says, and something in his tone causes alarms to blast in Wilbur’s mind. “I’m not going to kill you.” Then he’s turning the gun and—

BANG

Static fills Wilbur’s ears and vision. He feels a bit as though he’s floating out of his body, like cotton has been stuffed in his ears or he’s been tossed underwater. Everything feels muffled, detached, even the shaking of his hands and the tightness of his chest. Wilbur logically knows the gun is smoking, but he feels removed from it, like he’s asleep and he can just pinch himself awake.

He hears the stumbling of footsteps and a choking sound, and suddenly all of his senses are flooding back at once, threatening to drown him with the intensity. He turns his head, praying to anyone and anything that will listen that he’s wrong, that he’s expecting the worst, that it was a blank or the bullet missed or– or something. He turns his head, and—

“No.”

Dream’s hands are pressed against his chest, but Wilbur can already see the red slipping out of the other’s fingers, dripping down and pooling at his feet. There’s blood seeping out of the corners of his mouth, too, which is most definitely not a good sign. Wilbur doesn’t think he’s ever felt as helpless as he does now, watching as shocked viridian eyes meet his, and then Dream is falling. Wilbur doesn’t make it in time to catch him, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on it, collapsing to his knees at the other’s side and focusing instead on putting pressure on the wound and assessing the damage.

Dream’s breath is wheezing and stuttering, and pain is etched on every part of his face. Wilbur can barely think about that. Wilbur can barely even hear his own mutters of reassurances over his own panic.

“I’m sorry,” Dream manages to say, though the words are weak.

“What the f*ck are you sorry for?” Wilbur says, and, distantly, he makes a note of how salty the words taste, flavored by the tears stubbornly falling from his eyes.

There are tears falling from Dream’s eyes, too, and Wilbur would wipe them away in a heartbeat if that didn’t mean removing his hands from the bullet wound. It’s not doing as much as he’d like, not when he can see blood beginning to pool out from beneath Dream, indicating the bullet went all the way through, but he can’t afford to think about that, not when he has to fix this.

“I would’ve loved to spend decades with you, just” Dream laughs weekly, a few more tears dripping down his face, “peeling oranges for each other.” His words are raspy, and his breathing is labored, and his face scrunches in pain after he speaks, and Wilbur feels like the world is crumbling at his feet.

“Do not talk like that,” Wilbur hisses out, leaning forward so that his face hovers over Dream’s own.

The shift causes him to put even more pressure on the wound, and, if Dream wasn’t bleeding out beneath him, he might feel worse about the look of pain that momentarily flickers over the other’s face.

“You’re not supposed to leave,” Wilbur says, breath shuddering with his sobs. “You can’t leave.”

The pain in Dream’s eyes intensifies, but Wilbur has a feeling it’s not because of any physical ailment. Dream’s bleeding out beneath him, and yet the other looks like Wilbur’s sorrow is the thing causing the most hurt, like Dream’s sorry not for being shot, but for being the reason behind Wilbur’s tears.

“Don’t go,” Wilbur begs, voice cracking. “I just want someone to stay. I just want you to stay.” Then, quieter, he adds, “Please stay.”

He watches as his own teardrops fall onto Dream, falling into the tear tracks on the other’s face. He feels rather than sees as the other weakly tugs a hand out from underneath Wilbur’s, feels rather than sees the bloody hand cup his cheek, no doubt leaving streaks of red in its wake. And Dream is looking up at him with a far too bittersweet emotion swimming in his eyes. He looks at Wilbur as though Wilbur’s the best thing he’s ever laid eyes on, like he’s committing the other to memory before leaving, and Wilbur wants so badly to fight against it, to force the other to stay.

“I love you,” Dream whispers, voice thick with countless emotions that Wilbur does not have the capacity to decipher, and Wilbur feels like his heart has stopped in his chest.

And, the thing is, Wilbur knows this. It’s been an unspoken truth between them for a while now, but they’d never had a reason to say it. They never had a reason to say it yet, at least, not when they felt as though they had all the time in the world. But something about hearing it spoken aloud, now, hearing it come directly from Dream’s bloodstained lips, causes something within Wilbur to shatter, perhaps irreversibly. He wants to say it back. He wants Dream to hear audible proof that he feels the same, but by the time he gains some semblance of control over his tongue, the other’s eyes have gone dull, and the hand formerly cupping his cheek has fallen to the ground.

“No,” he says, and it’s a miracle he’s able to form the words at all. “No no no.” His hands move up, cupping Dream’s face softly in his palms, his gaze frantically searching for any signs of life. “Come back to me,” he pleas pitifully. “Darling, Marzenie, please, come back to me.” He presses his forehead against the other’s, and he sobs, muttering “I love you” over and over and over again as though Dream could hear the words from beyond the grave.

He wants nothing more than to curl up here for eternity, to let his body bleed back into the Earth by Dream’s side with the hope that, when they return to the stardust from which they came, they will be together. But then a hand is pulling him up by the collar of his coat, pulling him away from Dream. He thrashes, but Schlatt is stronger than he looks, and Wilbur has been thrown so deep into the seas of grief that his movement is sloppy.

“Listen, I’m sorry to cut your grieving short, but I really need you to open this door for me.” The mere sound of Schlatt’s voice sends burning hot rage through Wilbur’s veins.

He squirms in the other’s grip enough to catch a look of Schlatt’s face, and he sees the other staring at Dream’s body with a look akin to remorse. It makes the anger in Wilbur burn tenfold, and he wants to shout at Schlatt for having the audacity to look so upset at a tragedy he caused. But Schlatt is clearly distracted, so Wilbur takes the opportunity, not to yell at the other, but, rather, to deck him in the face.

“f*ck, Soot,” Schlatt says, loosening his hold on Wilbur instantly and bringing a hand up to his cheek. “You pack one brutal punch.”

“f*ck you,” Wilbur spits.

“It’s just business.” Schlatt repeats the same words from earlier, and Wilbur wonders if he actually believes that makes it any better.

Wilbur goes in for another punch, but Schlatt grabs his arm and gets him back in the other’s grasp far too easily. Then, he’s being dragged towards the sensor pad by the door, and none of his struggling is able to stop Schlatt from using him to open the door, potentially dooming Wilbur’s entire timeline.

The room the door opens up to is unnerving, to say the least. Wilbur can tell that it’s meant to be comforting, with a colorful couch and various beanbags arranged in a circle atop a fluffy rug, and with the toys strewn about, but the clinic white walls and far too glaring artificial lightning still makes the space feel too sterile to feel truly lived in. It’s a facade, a mere mockery of a normal home. Wilbur’s eyes are drawn towards the two doors at the other end of the room; he knows from the floor plan Dream had managed to get a hold of that one leads to a bathroom, and the other leads to a bedroom where Khan Noonien-Singh is sleeping, if the commotion hadn’t woken him up, of course.

He thinks about the pictures of children hanging on the walls. He thinks about the ultimate good that comes in the wake of eugenics wars. He thinks about The Syndicate—Techno and Niki laughing about something in the mess hall, Tommy and Tubbo dragging Ranboo into their games, George holed up in his lab analyzing whatever shiny new sample they have but still looking grateful every time Wilbur stops by to see if he’s eaten. He thinks about Dream, experiencing the earth for the first time, bright eyed and hopeful at the thought of Wilbur’s timeline. He thinks about all of this, and he knows he has to shove his grief to the side in order to focus on stopping Schlatt.

But grief doesn’t like being shoved.

So, instead, he coaxes it to a corner of his heart, cooing and comforting it as though it were a small child. He promises to give attention to it later, wraps it in a metaphorical blanket, and leaves the forefront of his mind with the ability to access the focus it needs.

He twists himself out of Schlatt’s grasp and knocks the gun from his hands. He ignores Schlatt’s grunt of surprise and lunges for the weapon, but Schlatt slams into his body, sending them both flying to the ground. The impact knocks the wind out of Wilbur, and the breathlessness bleeds into the grief which painfully squeezes his chest.

Schlatt recovers far more quickly than he does, and Wilbur barely has time to think before the other is moving towards the gun. It’s only adrenaline and years of experience that pushes Wilbur to move, grasping onto Schlatt’s leg and pulling the other down. Wilbur’s height gives him the advantage, and he’s able to reach the weapon sooner than Schlatt. He doesn’t give himself the chance to hesitate, just turns around, co*cks the revolver, and fires.

Schlatt’s body drops dead.

Wilbur’s practically pushed against the wall, chest rising and falling erratically whilst the revolver shakes in his unsteady hands. His mind is reeling from everything that’s happened; it simultaneously feels as though it happened too quickly and too slowly, like so much occurred yet it only resulted in an anticlimactic end.

A door creaks open, and Wilbur turns his head, meeting terrified eyes that look far too much like his own. It makes a wave of calm wash over him—it’s a detached type of calm, like a dam has been put up between him and his more intense emotions, but it’s a calm nonetheless.

“Are you going to kill me?” Khan asks, and it’s hard to believe the horrors he’ll commit when, in this moment, he sounds so much like the frightened child he is.

Wilbur puts the gun down and stands on legs that are far more stable than they should be. And maybe he should comfort the scared child, give words of assurances, but all he can think about is all the lives that will be lost during this following century, and he wonders if saving Khan’s life makes him an accomplice of sorts. It’s not your fault, Dream had said, yet here Wilbur stands, allowing the history that haunts him to unfold in the name of the greater good. It’s simple arithmetic; save the sinking ship with 300 people rather than the one with 200, but it doesn’t stop the blood of the dead from staining the hands that condemned them.

He thinks about the implications of being complicit in the crimes Khan will commit, and when he looks at the face of a scared child begging for comfort, he knows he will never be able to be the one to give it.

He walks away.

When he reaches Dream’s body, he considers just staying. He’s fixed the timeline, done what he came here to do, and he wonders if it would really be so bad to just curl up at Dream’s side and sleep forever. But, in the absence of Dream, his obligations retake their place at the forefront of his mind, and he knows his ship will need her first officer back. So, all he does is get back down on his knees, closes Dream’s eyes and brushes the hair from Dream’s face and leaves a kiss on the other’s forehead whilst choking back tears. It’s akin to a symphony left unfinished, he muses, and he wishes the thought didn’t feel so bitter.

He allows himself one moment to take Dream in. Despite the multiple gun shots that have gone off, alarms have yet to start blaring, which means he’s in no rush to return to his time. He can see his own bloody hand prints on Dream’s face, but he tries to not to focus on that; instead, he counts the freckles on Dream’s cheeks, counts the constellations hidden there, and tries to burn it into his memory for the last time. Then, he unclips the pocket watch hanging around Dream’s neck and stands up. He can see a slight glow coming from inside the device, and he takes it as a sign that he’s successfully restored the timeline.

He takes one last long look at Dream, then he opens the pocket watch, and everything fades to white.

The first thing he sees is the metallic grey walls of L’manberg Station. By some stroke of luck, he finds himself standing a few feet away from the puddle of slime Tommy & Tubbo had used to trap him. It feels like a lifetime has passed since then, like it’s nothing more than a distant memory from a very long time ago. He looks back at the pocket watch, no longer glowing and back to looking like a typical clock, and his breath catches in his throat when he sees the photo strip Dream had tucked away in there. He picks it up gently, captivated by the moment of pure joy captured for eternity in the picture. If he really focuses and pretends, he can almost fool himself into believing he never left that moment, that he’s still sitting next to Dream, a fond smile on his face as he watches the other try to make a heart with his hands. He turns it over, traces Dream’s handwriting, and he tries not to think about it being the last thing Dream ever wrote.

“Wilbur, are you ready for transport?”

George’s voice, muffled and full of static, originating from whatever pocket Wilbur shoved his communicator into, breaks through his thoughts. He fumbles with his hands, a bit, trying to safely put Dream’s copy of the photo strip into the same pocket that holds his own copy whilst simultaneously trying to locate his communicator. He can’t risk being brought to the transporter room, not when he’s sure he looks a mess, weighed down by a story he knows he will not be able to tell.

“George,” he says whilst activating his communicator, voice scratchier than he’d like it to be. “Have me beamed directly to my quarters.” There’s an unspoken order in the words, one which Wilbur has no doubt George will pick up on.

There’s a lull of silence, and, for a moment, Wilbur thinks George will question him and his tone of voice and ask him if he’s okay, but instead he just says, “aye, Commander,” and beams Wilbur directly to his room.

Wilbur lets out a shaky breath.

“Computer, lights,” he says.

The lights come on, and he’s immediately met with his reflection in the mirror hanging on his wall. Everywhere he looks, there’s blood stains; it’s on his cheek, his ear, his hair, and it’s staining his pants and his shirt and his coat, and his hands are absolutely covered in it, dried blood visible under each of his nails. It makes him a bit sick, to think of it as being Dream’s blood, but at the same time a part of him doesn’t want to wash it off, as though doing so would be washing the last physical remains of Dream from the timeline. Still, he knows he needs to shower—his hair is like a rat’s nest atop his head, and the bags under his eyes make him look like he’s aged decades.

“Sorry, this seems like a bad time,” a familiar voice says, and Wilbur jumps at the unexpectedness of there being another person in his room, especially considering who the other person is.

“Karl,” he says, turning to look at the miraculously alive time traveler. “I thought you were dead.”

“Well, I was, in a sense,” Karl says, “but I’m not really affected by linear time, not like you are. It’s–” he waves his hands around a bit as though it would make an explanation materialize out of thin air, but, in the end, he gives up. “It’s complicated.”

“Evidently,” Wilbur drawls, and Karl winces at his tone, though he can’t find it in himself to really care about that.

“I’m sorry,” Karl says, “about Dream. I really really am, Wilbur.”

Wilbur bites his tongue, clenches his fists, and tries to remind himself that Karl is not deserving to be the target of his ire. Because for all that Schlatt did, and for all that Wilbur didn’t do, the fault of Dream’s death rests not on Karl’s shoulders.

“Listen, Wilbur,” Karl continues, “I just need to make sure you understand that no one can know about this. It’s the–”

“The temporal prime directive. I know.” The words are harsh and biting, but the anger coiling around Wilbur’s heart like a viper is growing ever stronger, and he can’t fully prevent it from coloring his tone.

“This was never supposed to happen, Wilbur,” Karl says. “The other timeline was never supposed to exist. Which means, no one from this timeline can know about it. You were never supposed to know about it, certainly not supposed to become close to a version of someone that was never meant to be.”

The dam breaks, towering waves of bitter emotions flooding his system. Because for once in his life, he had something good. What happened in the 21st century was good; Dream was good. In fact, Dream, with his soft smiles and infectious laughter and never ending care, was everything Wilbur had ever wanted. He was happy, and he was loved, and, no matter how much the fall hurt, he won’t sit by and listen as someone tells him it was a mistake.

Wilbur sees the exact moment Karl realizes the error in his words, though it’s difficult to see through the blurry vision caused by the tears that have yet again begun spilling from his eyes.

“That is not what I meant. Oh, I worded that so badly, I just meant–”

“Get out.”

Karl’s mouth snaps shut.

“Okay,” he says. “I just… I need the watch, Wilbur. It’s technology far beyond this century, and–”

“Get the f*ck out!”Wilbur throws the watch to Karl, uncaring of the way the time traveler fumbles to catch it. If the red staining the device bothers the other, he doesn’t show it. He just looks at Wilbur as though he wants to say more, but, ultimately, decides against it. He opens the watch, activates a panel with technology more complex than Wilbur will probably ever understand, and then he’s gone, leaving Wilbur completely and utterly alone.

There’s static in his ears, static in his vision. It’s hard to breathe, too, and the walls feel as though they’re closing in on him. Within him, there’s a build up of energy; rage and anguish and grief clawing their way up his throat, desperate to be released. He turns and kicks a shelf, barely registering the items which clatter to the ground, and he screams. He screams until his voice is hoarse and his throat raw, and he continues screaming beyond that. He’s like the storms on Jupiter, a destructive force of nature leaving carnage in its wake, throwing items at the walls and knocking things over in dramatic sweeps, all in a desperate attempt to alleviate the building pressure in his chest, but it just continues to grow, threatening to crush his heart completely, and he can’t breathe, lungs desperately heaving for air. But his lungs are working overtime, and though his screams are now mixed with sobs, it doesn’t stop his lungs from barely getting enough oxygen before he’s releasing it.

He brings a hand to his chest, right above his heart, and he clenches it around the soft fabric of his sweater as though it would somehow calm the erratic beating of his heart, but it doesn’t change anything, and his breathing is coming in short increments, and there’s black dots swimming in his vision, and, like a star which has used up all of its helium and hydrogen, he burns out, falling to his knees in the wreckage he made. There’s shards on the ground, cutting his skin and leaving his fresh blood to mix with Dream’s old, and, distantly, he reasons that he must’ve broken the mirror at some point during his hazy spiral of destruction, but he can’t really be bothered to care about superstitions of bad luck when he’s just lost the most precious thing in his universe.

(And it hurts, to think about how if Dream were here, he’d gently guide Wilbur to the bathroom, washing the blood from his hands and cleaning his wounds all while calming him down, but Dream’s not here, and he’s never going to be here again, which is the entire problem, and just thinking about it makes Wilbur sob harder, straining his already aching lungs even further).

There’s static in his ears, static in his vision. A precipice looms above him, taunting him, asking him if the fall was worth it. It’s worth it, he swears, and he knows he’d climb back up it without hesitation, even as jagged rocks broke his skin. He’d climb it if it gave him even one more second with Dream. He’d exist in those times spent with Dream forever, if he could, would live it over and over again even if he knew he couldn’t change the ending, just for the chance to hold him again.

There’s static in his ears, static in his vision. He’s on his hands and knees, heaving like his lungs are about to eject themselves out of his body, heart hammering so fiercely that he feels like it will break his ribs, leaving in its wake splinters of bone dangerously close to piercing the soft tissue of his organs. If he closes his eyes, he can almost picture it happening, body failing in the way he feels his mind is, descent and decay dancing in tandem as Wilbur struggles to stay afloat after such a devastating loss.

There’s static in his ears, static in his vision. He squeezes his eyes further shut as though it could wash away the static, but it stubbornly remains. He can feel his tears falling onto his hands and into his mouth, the taste of salt mixing with the taste of iron, and he wonders if this is what dying feels like.

There’s static in his ears, static in his vision, and he’s completely and utterly alone in a room that is his but couldn’t feel further from home, and he’s not quite sure how he’s meant to ever come back from this.

“I worry about you sometimes, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

A wry smile, sadness in viridian eyes.

“What if everything goes wrong tomorrow?”

“We’ll fix it.”

“What if it’s unfixable?”

A frown tugging at chapped lips. Brows furrowing over brown eyes.

“It won’t get to that point.”

“I worry about you.” A repetition. “I need to know you’d be okay without me.”

The sound of a heartbeat picking up speed. Clammy hands becoming shaky. Familiar anxiety clogging a throat.

“But I’m not without you. Can we not think like this? Nothing will happen to you, and nothing will happen to me.”

“I know that. I do believe we’ll be fine. But, I’m a captain; I have to prepare for the worst. Promise me you’d survive without me, Wilbur.”

A beat. Hesitation.

“I promise.”

It’s months before Wilbur sees him. It’s months full of stifling grief that wants to be unabashedly loud, smothering it and hushing it because no one will understand. It’s months spent locking it away because he is a man bound by duty above all else, and the temporal prime directive prevents him from even uttering a hint of what happened. (And, selfishly, it’s because he wants to keep his experiences to himself. He wants to keep Dream tucked close to his heart and keep the memories of their time spent together forever untainted).

He’s on Kinoko Station, a starbase located near one of the only known naturally occurring wormholes in the galaxy. It’s The Syndicate’s first time stopping at a starbase in a while, and, considering everything that happened the last time Wilbur was on a starbase, he would’ve loved to avoid it. But he’s been ordered to get off the ship and away from his duties for a while, which has led him to wandering around the promenade of the station whilst peeling an orange. He could’ve had the replicator give him an already peeled orange, but the repetitive motion calms his nerves and will inevitably make the fruit taste sweeter.

In hindsight, Wilbur should have expected to run into him. George had offhandedly mentioned The Manhunt being stationed at Kinoko at the same time as them, making some nonchalant comment about introducing the two crews in a way that probably meant George was looking forward to his friends from two different ships meeting, but the implications had completely flown over Wilbur’s head. So, Wilbur’s taken aback, breath hitching when he sees a familiar sight walking his direction on the promenade.

He looks different. His blond hair is shorter, barely curling around his ears, and his face is unmarred by any scars, but it’s still undeniably him. Or, a version of him, at least, and it’s the wrong version, but it’s a version nonetheless. And Wilbur’s so caught in the emotions brought forth just by seeing him, that he doesn’t have the reaction time to move away when this timeline’s Dream, whose attention is glued to the padd in his hands, bumps right into him.

Brown meets viridian.

“I’m so sorry,” Dream’s eyes flick to the pips on Wilbur’s collar, “Commander. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“No harm done, Lieutenant,” Wilbur says, looking to other's own pips and adjusting to the difference in rank between the two versions of Dream.

“I don’t think we’ve met,” Dream says, holding out a hand, and Wilbur had already been coping with the blank expression devoid of recognition, but Dream’s words only serve to make his heart ache further.

Dream’s hand hangs in the air, waiting, but Wilbur merely looks between his hands—one with the orange and the other holding the peels—and Dream’s. The other notices, and brings his hand down, taking what might otherwise be considered an embarrassing moment in stride.

“I’m Dream,” he says.

“Wilbur Noonien-Singh,” Wilbur responds, and he doesn’t tend to like introducing himself with his full name, so he’s not quite sure what his goal is. Maybe a part of him—the part full of self-loathing—wants to see eyes that used nothing but warmth be filled with contempt, as though he wants to really drive the knife in that this is a different Dream. (Or, maybe, he’s hoping to see a spark of familiarity).

Dream’s eyes light up.

“You’re George’s friend! From The Syndicate,” he says, and that’s it. There’s no recognition beyond that, but there’s also no mention of Khan nor any negative remarks.

It lifts a weight off of Wilbur’s shoulders, and, before he knows it, he finds himself splitting the orange, offering half to Dream. The lieutenant looks at him, confused, and Wilbur awkwardly clears his throat before explaining.

“Would you like some?” He asks, realizing how odd the offer may seem, especially between two people who should be strangers.

“Thank you,” Dream says, taking the offered slices, and Wilbur tries not to dwell on how it feels to have his hands brush against his own. Dream grins and says, “I didn’t know Commander Pretty Boy himself was handing out gifts.”

The nickname makes Wilbur’s heart stutter in his chest. There’s something almost painfully familiar about all this—the circ*mstances are different, and Dream’s different, yet it reminds Wilbur of how his Dream had acted when they had first met. Like humanity finding life on Europa, he muses. Just as life is an inevitability wherever there is liquid water and heat, perhaps there’s an inevitability about him and Dream, too. He’d like to believe so, anyway, and he finds himself grasping the hope tightly, pulling it close to his chest.

His eyes rake over Dream’s face, counting the freckles on his face and finding familiar constellations in them. There’s an ache so deep that Wilbur wonders if it’s inflicting his soul, and he’s not sure whether what he’s about to do will be better or worse in the long run, but he’ll be damned if he lets this opportunity slip through his fingers. Because it’s still Dream. It’s not his Dream, not the Dream that will hold a special place in his heart until his very last breath and not the Dream he knows he will love from beyond the grave, and he’s not sure if it’s fair—to this Dream or his Dream or even to himself—but there is still a version of Dream in front of him, and he refuses to walk away.

“Do you want to go get lunch with me? Pizza, maybe?” He asks, and there’s something painfully raw and vulnerable in his voice that he prays Dream doesn’t pick up on.

Dream looks at him quizzically, and, for a moment Wilbur fears he’ll be rejected, but then Dream says, “I’d like that,” with a smile so bright and brilliant and familiar that it tugs at Wilbur’s heartstrings.

And Wilbur thinks that maybe, maybe, things will be okay. Different, but okay.