DreamSwap Multiverse/AU

Dream stole a glance at Cross, who wasn't trying to hide how antsy he was. "Where the hell is everyone?" Cross groaned, looking around at the empty halls of the JR castle. Dream shook his head, just as confused and concerned. Never, in the entire history of JR, had the place ever been so empty. Dream posted guards 24/7. Even if they were sleeping on duty, somebodyshould be there. As it was, Cross and Dream were alone in the entire castle. And Dream was certain something was about to go terribly wrong.

While Dream wasn't at all bothered by his company, Cross was less than pleased. His feelings towards Dream had changed so much in the past few months, hewasn't even sure how he felt about the guardian of positivity.

For a long time, Cross hated Dream for convincing his first (and at the time, only) friend to leave him. He hated Dream with his whole soul. But, since he found out that his 'secret admirer' (whom he had enjoyed talking to through the notes they left for each other) was Dream, and since Dream had started openly flirting with him, his perspective of the winged skeleton had shifted.

Why Dream cared about him, Cross had no idea. Hadn't he done his level best to be Dream's #1 annoyance? Hadn't he threatened to kill the guy when he thought he had killed Nightmare, Cross's best friend and Dream's brother? And yet, Cross still found himself trying not to stutter whenever Dream gave him litte thoughtful presents; usually chocolate, but occasionally other things. Once, when Cross had lost his favorite penguin plushie, Snowball, it mysteriously showed up a few days later with a note from JR's lost-and-found saying "we found your shit please b more carful." In a nicer and more professional way, but still. Inconspicuous, but definitely Dream. Another time, Dream randomly gave Cross the entire series of an anime he had reallywanted to watch but never had the chance to. Meaning Nightmare and Error could blame—I mean, THANK—Dream for Cross's latest obsession.

Cross wasn't going to admit that he thought he was developing feelings for Dream, too. But it didn't matter; partly because Dream could probably sense that and it was just a matter of time before he said something, and partly because they needed to figure out where everyone went.

Dream opened the door to the kitchens. Empty. Dining hall; empty. Even the hospital wing was dead silent, which was unnerving. Usually it was filled with coughing, or patients asking for things like ham sandwiches and blankets. As he and Cross wandered through the halls, Dream voiced a question that had been lurking in his mind.

Of course, being Dream he said it like it was a statement.

"You know, you don't have to follow me. We might search more efficiently if we split up."

Cross hesitated. Dream sensed his conflicting emotions; a desire to get as far away from Dream as possible, and a subtle need to be near him. The latter warmed his soul, but he ignored it. He only wondered which side Cross would listen to.

After a moment, the monochrome skeleton spoke up. "It might be safer if we stick together," he started. "If everyone's gone, who knows what might be lurking around."

Dream pondered this. It wasn't an entirely unreasonable assumption. "You do have a point," he said. "But what would-"

He was interrupted by a low chuckle. The pair turned around to see a tall, absurdly broad-shouldered skeleton in black and white clothes, similar to Cross's. The new skeleton, who was vaguely reminiscent of a Gaster, looked less like an intelligent monster and more like a beast. But Cross knew better. This monster was much, much more clever than he seemed.

The skeleton smiled at Cross; something that looked more like a grimace. Cross summoned his knife into his hands and pointed it at him. "Is that anyway to treat an old friend, Sans?" He asked in mock hurt. Cross gripped his weapon. "What do youwant?" Cross spat, rage, hatred, and fear swirling around inside him.

Gaster spread his hands. "Is it so wrong to want to visit my alleged son?" Cross lunged at him, but he jumped back. "I'm. Not. Your. Son!" Cross attacked again. This time Dream found Gaster right next to him. "Say, Lord Dream, I do believe he's trying to kill me!" He said, mocking surprise. "Isn't that a crime? Shouldn't you be doing something?"

Dream narrowed his eye sockets and carfully stepped away from him. Partly because he didn't trust this skeleton, and partly because he didn't really want to loose his legs today, and Cross was angry enough that he might not notice if there was another person in front of his blade until it was too late.

But Cross wasn't just pissed at X-Gaster for being there. He suspected that his creator had either brought them to an alternate reality where the castle existed but the people did not, or that he did something to them. What really put the icing on the cake though was that Gaster was trying to trick him into hurting Dream. Somebody who cared about him even though he had been such a shit head for so long.

No. He wasn't having that. Once the evil skeleton moved, Cross was on his a**. Murder or not, he was pretty sure Dream would agree that Gaster deserved it, even if he should've let him have a 'fair trial' or whatever they do here.

Gaster leaned over to whisper something to Dream, but Dream put his hand on the other's chest to stop him. "I believe you're the one who should be arrested, X-Gaster," Dream said coolly. "I seem to remember that you almost destroyed an entire universe single-handedly."

X-Gaster shrugged. "Perhaps it was an accident?"

Cross growled at him. "If that was an accident, then I'm adopting a cow."

That was very serious, coming from Cross, who was very open about how evil he thought cows were.

Instead of letting the skeleton who blew up his AU reply, Cross brought his blade down on his skull. As soon as it made contact, however, Gaster turned into a puff of smoke, which dissipated quickly.

"Wh-" Cross glanced at Dream. "Did-did I do that-?"

Dream shook his head. "I think staying together would be wisest option," he said slowly, looking around the hall warily. "May I suggest heading to my office?"

"Yeah, sure." Cross put his knife back in its holster. "This is getting weird."

They walked down a few halls, went up a few floors, and they still weren't at their destination. But of course, what was a creepy adventure without the long trip?

Cross finally got annoyed at nothing happening, and looked down one hallway to see if there was anything interesting. He yelped and jumped, finding himself clinging to Dream's back as the winged skeleton looked between him and the hallway littered with stuffed cow plushies.

"Cross-"

"NO I AM NOT WALKING THROUGH THE HALLWAY OF HORROR AND YOU CAN'T MAKE ME."

Dream laughed. "You know, they're not real."

Cross glared at him. "Cows. Are evil. Stuffed cows are vessels for that evil and are not to be f***ed with because that will release their evil into the worldand everyone will die. Don't lecture me on how they're just stuffed animals because they will kill us if we aren't careful."

Dream raised his bone brow. "You're far too worked up for this, but if you're not going to walk I'm not going to force you."

He left it unsaid that he didn't mind the black and white skeleton riding on his back, but his faint yellow blush told Cross enough. Cross said nothing, but he turned his head away so Dream couldn't see the purple that was creeping up onto his face.

As Dream tread through the Hallway of Horrors, which Cross was silently swearing he would never go through again, he turned to look behind him.

The cows were looking at him. "U-uhh d-dude-?" Dream turned just as the cow at the other end of the hall threw back its head and mooed a battle cry. The rest of them took it up and prepared to charge.

"WHAT DID I TELL YOU?!?" Cross screeched as Dream flew at top speed through the halls. "COWS ARE F***ING EVIL!"

Dream didn't respond as he was too busy trying not to fly into walls at 25 MPH. In retrospect, he could go much faster, but he thought it would be too dangerous to go any faster than that in an enclosed area. But he nodded vigorously to show he had, in fact, just been told.

While Cross was clinging on for dear life, he noticed that Dream was using his aura to make him feel safe. Which he kind of appreciated, even though he wasn't sure how he could tell. After maybe a quarter of an hour of trying to escape, Cross looked back to see that the cows were still behind them and weren't gaining or loosing any ground.

"I was thinking," he yelled over the 'wind', "What if we tried to fight them? Do you think they'd do what X did and poof?"

Dream shook his head. "I don't know," he yelled back. "But are you sure you want to take them on?" Cross was about to protest, and say that he was more than capable of slicing and dicing a few dozen stuffed cows, when he looked back and saw more joining the herd from the rooms they were passing. The new ones mooed in stuffed bovine rage as their little beady button eyes glared at him and Dream.

"Yeeeaaaah, no, please don't stop."

Dream glanced at the ever growing herd, and an idea formed in his mind. "How intelligent do you think they are?" He asked Cross. Cross looked between his savior and his doom, then back again. "Not very, but I'm not an expert in cow IQ. Why?"

"Well," Dream huffed, running out of stamina, "I was wondering if they're dense enough to jump out a window if we broke one for them."

Cross grinned. "That's probably one of the best ideas I've ever heard, besides a Taco Bell delivery service."

Dream smiled, although Cross couldn't see it. For the umpteenth time he wished Cross would accept some sort of physical affection, but even if he would they weren't in a position where they could.

Dream knew there was a window a few turns and hallways away. As he approached it he yelled, "Watch your head, and hold on tight!" Cross buried his grape-I mean, face-in Dream's back, almost affectionately. Before he could react to that, Dream raised his arms protectively in front of his head mere seconds before he burst through the window. He felt the broken glass tear through his jacket and scrape across his skull. Judging by how Cross tightened his grip on him, he knew Cross didn't go unscathed either.

Dream turned to watch the herd of demonic cows jumping from the window six stories up, and turning into smokey mist on the ground.

Dream sensed Cross's emotions going from triumph and relief to something one can only describe as oh shit.

"Are you alright, Cross?"

"Yeah, just...I looked down. Please don't drop me."

"I wasn't planning on it."

"Good, because if I died I'd haunt your ass for the rest of eternity."

Dream shuddered at the thought. He already had (at least) one ghost in the castle, he didn't need two. Ani and Cross working together wouldn't be good for anyone.

Dream watched the last cow get smart and take a running jump, almost reaching them before gravity took over and killed it. Then, he looked around at the castle. "I could probably take us straight to my office from here," he suggested. "The chances of running into anything in the air are low." Then he smirked. "Of course, there might be flying cows-"

"Don't jinx us, you asshole."

Dream laughed, and after a moment Cross joined him.

Dream opened the window from the outside and let Cross climb through before he did. Then, closing the window, he immediately sat down in his chair and contemplated how weird it was not to see anything on his desk. At all. No papers, pens, paper clips. Nothing.

He also wondered why Cross looked so adorable when he was tired. The monochrome skeleton had plopped himself on the floor and was lying spread-eagle in the center of the room.

Cross, on the other hand, was thinking about how bad-ass his companion had been, breaking through the window like that. That was cool. Cross wanted to try it.

...Just. At ground level, not the sixth story up.

Then there was the stupidly cute face of I can't believe your serious but I'm going to go with it Dream had made before the demon cows attacked. Just thinking about it made Cross' emotions, which were just as conflicting and confusing as ever, fight each other. Half of him screamed at him to just get over himself and tell Dream already. Dream had become very open about how he felt about Cross, why couldn't he tell the winged skeleton that his feelings were returned? But the other half of him kept reminding him that Dream was the reason Ink left. Dream was the reason he, Nightmare, and Error had been on the run for years; Nightmare for at least fifty before that.

Yet the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if Dream recruiting Ink wasn't a good thing. After all, even if the CEO of JR hadn't come, Ink would've left eventually. Somehow. If Cross had gotten back before they left, he probably would've joined JR too, meaning he wouldn't have been a part of the Meme Squad. And Cross thought that the Meme Squad, finding his friends, was one of the best things that ever happened to him, next to discovering tacos.

Maybe, just maybe, Cross could forgive Dream.

After he and Cross started looking through the surprisingly limited amount of books left in this version of his office, Dream sighed and put his head in his hands, with his elbows resting on his desk.

Just behind him, Cross stretched and yawned. "Any luck?" Cross shook his skull. "Nope. I've only gone through like ten of them though because they're so big." He knocked his hand against one for emphasis. Dream shrugged. Comparatively, he had already searched all twenty books in his stack for anything that might help them get home or explain where they were. The only hints so far were the fact that the books missing were all on multidimensional travel theories, and theories on how other dimensions and other universes were two different things.

Still. There had to be something, and Dream was no stranger to all-nighters. After a few minutes in which Dream started looking through the rest of the books in Cross's stack, Cross walked up next to him. "Dude. It's like, 2:30 in the morning." He sounded and looked half asleep. Dream, on the other hand, felt fine. Which probably wasn't a good thing, but he always took care of others before himself, and that usually meant boatloads of paper work.

"Yes. Your point?"

Cross gave him a look that said, Are you crazy? At this hour? "SO, it's sleep time. Stop what your doing and at least take a nap, okay? Not sleeping is bad."

Dream raised a bone brow. "You seem forget that I rarely ever sleep."

Cross made a face. "Maybe I just wanted an excuse-"

Cross's eye sockets widened as his face erupted into yet another grape-colored blush. He quickly shut his mouth and turned away, pulling up his hood in a vain attempt to hide.

Dream stared at him for a moment before a small smile grew on his face. "Cross," He said slowly, "What did you want an excuse for?"

"U-u-uhhh, n-nothing," he stammered. "Forget it."

But Dream's grin only grew wider. He pushed his chair away from his desk and turned to fully face his friend, who was blushing madly under his jacket hood. "Cross. Are you sure it was nothing?"

Cross made vague 'Uh-huh' noises, his back now turned to Dream.

"Croooss," Dream said, almost flirtatiously. "You know I can sense how you're feeling right now."

Cross's embarrassment grew even further until he was only a few steps away from mortified. The only thing that kept him on that threshold was the fact that there wasn't anybody around.

"I j-just...I kinda wanted..." He groaned, not unlike Mom, you're embarrassing me! If he wasn't a polite and respecting person, Dream would not have able to resist the urge to comment on how f***iNg CuTe He WaS bEiNg DaMn CrOsS hOw ArE yOu So CuTe-

Instead he remained silent, trying not to grin as Cross finally started to get over how big of a tsundere he was.

"I...um...I kinda wanted to c-c-cuddle..." Cross muttered the last few words so quietly that Dream barely heard him. But Cross turned just enough to see Dream all but beaming at him in delight.

"You could've just said that and it'd have been fine," the winged skeleton laughed, still smiling. A small smile tugged at Cross's face, and he laughed sheepishly.

Morning found the two peacefully asleep on the floor in a pile of books, with Cross curled up against Dream's chest, and the taller skeleton with his arms and wings around his new boyfriend. Even though Cross would never get over being a tsundere dork, in that moment they were happy. Now all that they needed to do was get home.

I will pay you in memes if anybody makes fan art of this-

And no; I have no idea where I was going with this other than an excuse to write fluff of this weird obsession. Even though it's pretty cringey and unrealistic; I doubt Dream and Cross would ever interact like this, even under the circumstances I put them in.

​​​​​​​So even though it satisfies my fluff needs it also triggers my inner hardcore fangirl that requires me to make everything seem like it could actually happen.

Hence my reasoning behind DS Cream. I can't just say 'HA NOW UR SOULMATES AND YOU'RE IN LOOOVE >:D' because even if they were there'd be a lot of plot that would have to happen for them to get over their differences *coughHATEcough*. I mean, soulmates are cool and all but that's too convenient of a way to get two character together. Especially these two.

wELL I JUST WENT ON A RANT ABOUT MY LITTLE FANGIRL PROBLEMS

PLEASE ENJOY THE REST OF YOUR DAY

I should write some Graphite one-shots oml-