There Are Two Types Of Children Who Come Out Of Abusive Homes. Sirius And Regulus Are Them, That’s

Felt like I could've used c!Ranboo or c!Niki here in place of c!Phil easily, but "Mr. Arson bestie" gave me too much Philza energy

months after the prison, the plan, the half-assed apologies everyone on the server had given each other in order to move on, dream adopts a cat.

he calls her patches, because she has patches over her face and body and okay, maybe he isn’t the most creative, but shut up, punz, it’s a nice name, and it suits her. patches seems to like it: when dream hangs a loose little name tag around her neck, she nuzzles against him, blinking sleepily up at him. drizzles of sunlight spill across her body from the open window. dream lets her lie on his chest that afternoon as he sleeps — he never sleeps during the day, no matter how tired he gets, but somehow, with patches, things are different. she’s small and soft and sleepy and it feels like a crime to put her somewhere else to rest.

it’s with patches that dream feels like he can trust himself again. since the prison, he hasn’t trusted himself with nice things — living or otherwise — and maybe it has something to do with the pets that came and went in the prison, he’s not sure, and he doesn’t want to think too deeply about it. but patches is so unafraid of him and so affectionate that dream can’t help it: he trusts himself, and only himself, with her, and okay, maybe ranboo and techno from time to time.

not punz, though. punz and patches maintain a very healthy rivalry, in which patches scratches punz every opportunity she gets and punz attempts to persuade dream to adopt a dog instead. but dream caught them both playing together when they thought he wasn’t looking, so, smugly, knows punz loves patches as much as he does, even if they pretend otherwise.

and maybe it’s through her teasing of punz, or maybe just through her staunch love for dream, that patches learns… just a few tricks, as the months pass.

she learns to paw at dream’s face when he’s having nightmares in so specific a way that he doesn’t lash out when he wakes up, and instead is greeted with a face full of fluffy cat. nightmares now dissolve in light of his baby, and where dream used to pace the floor for hours after nightmares, he now drifts off back to sleep, patches’ purring soothing him into better dreams.

she learns how to diffuse tension between her loved ones — whenever she senses dream being stubborn or punz being abrupt or one of the syndicate members being infuriatingly secretive, patches will find her way in between the conflict, staring up with big yellow eyes and meowing plaintively. arguments and brewing fights are forgotten in the wake of patches being demanding, and are resumed later when emotions have calmed and logic kicks in.

“i think she’s just learned to stop fights because she knows uncle techno will give her, like, a ton of fish for being good,” dream grumbles one night, eyeing patches sitting smugly with a full bowl of food, “you’ve pavlov’d her, techno.”

“whaaaat,” techno drawls, dropping an extra fish into patches’ bowl that’s almost larger than her whole body, “what’re you talkin’ about, i would never.”

“you spoil that cat,” philza calls as he enters the room, shaking snow off his coat and wings, “and you say you’re not soft, mate.”

ranboo chuckles while techno scoffs.

“soft? no, no, phil, you don’t understand. we’re raisin’ a warrior here. she’ll be the best one of us all, wait and see.”

…and dream isn’t sure whether or not techno really is training patches, but he starts noticing some suspicious activity that leaves him squinting at patches in a new light.

the way unfamiliar footprints in the snow approach the cabin, and heavier, hurried ones leave very abruptly, almost as if chased away by something. the way shadows seem to shrink off of walls whenever patches looks at them. the way sam and quackity seem very loathe to ever approach the house, and the way patches is always very threateningly chewing something red and tentacle-like whenever one of the eggpire appear for a visit.

bad actually brings it up to dream, one time. “i think your cat’s possessed,” he says nervously, eyeing the closed door like he expects patches to float through with glowing eyes, “i’m not even memeing around. i think she’s possessed or something, dream.”

“patches?” dream chuckles, warily. “she’s harmless. literally just last night she, um, got stuck in a two block hole in the ground and sat there meowing for ages for us to free her. she’s just a baby.”

“a baby demon.” bad shifts uneasily. “maybe she plays the innocent card in front of you! but i dunno, dream… quackity was telling me—”

“well, that’s quackity, of course patches isn’t gonna like him,” dream scoffs, “she probably picks up on his horrible, horrible vibes.”

“it’s not just that! he says some… creature chased him away from the cabin one night. okay, so— he admitted, he was having like, an awful day and he wanted to come and pick a fight with techno— which is stupid, and he was a jerk, but this was ages ago— and all of a sudden, a huge, cat-like creature with glowing red eyes and tendrils of black magic appeared in front of him, hissing and yowling— he thought he was gonna die.”

quackity is more stupid than dream had originally thought. still… dream thinks dubiously of his baby cat, who hasn’t learned not to hiss every time she goes out in the snow because she’s still surprised how cold it is and who acts like she’s dying every time she’s forced to bathe. “and he thinks that’s patches. my patches. what, was he drunk or something? or, like, i don’t know, out of his mind? patches is a baby. and her eyes don’t glo—”

he’s cut off by bad’s screech and stumble back. hands raising protectively, dream whirls around, ready to fight, but instantly relaxes when he sees who it is. “oh, patches!” he says, scooping her up. patches offers him pathetic eyes and a whimpering little meow. “oh, come on, now, i’m gonna get you lunch soon, i promise. you literally had breakfast an hour ago, how are you hungry?”

“you— you didn’t see that?!”

dream blinks, bemused. “what, patches?”

bad’s mouth is agape, and he points a trembling finger at patches. “you didn’t— her shadow grew on the wall and her eyes glowed, all her fur stood on end— dream,” he babbles, “you’ve literally adopted a demon. a demon cat. patches isn’t normal!”

“…that’s mean. look, she just— sometimes when she’s hungry or in a bad mood, she gets a little agitated, but she’s a sweetheart.” patches purrs affirmatively. “see? she’s not— a demon cat, bad. look, you’ll see. let me get her food, and then you’ll see she’s calmer.”

but it’s as dream leaves the room that the lights over bad flicker and go out completely, leaving the spooked man in the dark. when he turns around to leave, all he can see are patches glowing eyes, looking down on him evilly from dream’s arms as he exits the room. a gust of cold wind hits bad out of nowhere, and if he’d been outside, he would have seen the lightning strike right above his head.

instead, he just hears an imprint of words in his head, like someone — something — is speaking directly into his mind. it’s nowhere near as evil as the egg, but it’s ten times more powerful, and ten times more scary.

don’t tell my secret, badboyhalo.

bad gulps, and hurriedly follows dream into the kitchen, where patches is being given a generous helping of fish. as she wolfs it down, she blinks up at bad, and bad shivers. there’s ancient wisdom in those eyes, the very forces of good and evil reflected back at him.

but dream is smiling fondly at his kitten, and bad hasn’t seen him smiling in a long time. so, he ducks his head in understanding at the benevolent god cat eating fish in front of him, and patches — whisperer of worlds, echoer of eons, guardian of realms and bringer of dreams — purrs softly back.

Honestly major L to Odysseus. What did he do? Trick one cyclops into thinking his name was Nobody. Try tricking millions of people into believing your name is Dave

Reblog for a larger sample size for no sample size at all, because obviously nobody will vote

we need to romanticize lying on the floor and not doing anything

i keep forgetting the sky does that

In light of the news that Hasbro is considering using multiple properties it owns for NFTs, including D&D, I would just like to remind everyone that PDFs of virtually all D&D source books are available online for free if you look and it's always moral to pirate from WotC

I think humans should be socially allowed to have a jumpy/crazy time like some pets have. We would definitely benefit from having a time to jump and dance ourselves off everyday

i'm bored. i want attention. i want to lay on the beach and have a group of kids gather around and poke me curiously with a stick

i support bi rights. but more relevantly i support bi wrongs