Dream was a very private man, always hiding his true feelings behind unimpressed glares and wry commentary, but he was so very, very fragile just like the rest of them. It had taken years for Dream to open up enough to Puffy for her to coax the his life-story out of him, years of reading in between lines of poetry and half-assed jokes alike, but when he had finally bore his soul to her, he had latched onto her as if a duckling imprinting upon its mother. And so he was just that, her Duckling, her hatchling—the boy turned man too fast, who couldn’t stand the sight of bottle caps or broken glass, the poet who treated his friends as if they were each a work of art, who cradled each person he loved so close to his chest she thought he’d suffocate, who taught himself to leap from rooftop to rooftop because he liked the feeling of splitting wind, because he liked heights, so much so that she was afraid one day it would ruin him—the boy who had become her little brother. He was her Duckling, and she was his.

And if you were Dream’s, he would never let you go.

So yeah, when you had messaged him to check his letter from her in the mailbox tomorrow morning he was worried, he was even more worried when every other team member got those messages from you.

And the Dream fashion he held himself in, her got his jacket and shoes on and ran to find you before you did something regrettable.

He made the twelve minute walk to your house in a seven minute run; he shouldered open an unlocked door into an empty house and running up stairs.

He heard music playing in one of the rooms, water seeping from under a bathroom door, and running faucets. Her busted the door open, dragged you out from under the overflowing bathtub and preformed CPR until you were breathing, even if he accidentally broke a rib.

And now, here you both were, on the floor of your living room, Dreams hand securely wrapped around your own, matching the squeezes to your breathing, watching you with the care someone would treat a gun.