Forget-Me-Not (dreamxreader)

36 || Adjustment

"When should we bring Phil here?" Ranboo asks hesitantly. It was a touchy subject despite everyone's agreement on the issue. 

"After we've eaten is probably best," I look over at Dream and see his clouded expression. He was anxious, it was obvious.

Instead of scoffing down his food like usual, he only picked at it. At least I knew that my regeneration potion was strong enough to have an effect even if he only had one bite. 

Even though Dream was used to me, he wasn't used to being without his mask. For my sake, I knew he wasn't wearing it, but if it was up to him I knew he'd never take it off. Not even if it was just us and we were in the old house. In the time I was gone, Dream's connection to the mask had only grown more twisted, more compelling and so much stronger. 

Dream sometimes seemed like he was addicted to the stupid mask. I didn't miss the long looks he'd give it or the way he instinctively looked at the floor to hide whenever Ranboo entered the room. It made me anxious too, it made me worry that I'd never be able to separate him from it. Most of all I wonder if he would ever let his walls down and allow people into his life again. It all started with that fucking mask, the most physical wall he had. 

I reach over to him and grip one of his twitching hands. As he looks at me I see his anxiousness fade behind a facade. I look at him in a way that I hope shows him that he can trust me. 

We finish and Ranboo leaves to get Phil and I sit with Dream on the couch. We both eye the stairs that lead upstairs to the creaking hallway and to my room where the mask is. I notice Dream become more fidgety and he takes a deep breath. Suddenly, he stands up and looks at me like I'm not even there. 

"I'm getting the mask," he turns around but I'm quick to stand and grab his wrist. At my touch, he freezes. 

"Why do you need it?'
"To hide my face."
"That won't help anything, you'll just put everybody on edge," my voice betrays me with a slight quiver. 

"Bullshit, you know I need it." Dream was barely recognizable, his voice didn't even belong to him. He was so desperate for walls, he was so desperate to feel protected. I feel him tug at my hand trying to get free, so I stand in front of him instead. 

His face nearly terrified me. His eyes were empty and I could feel the itching radiating from his skin. 

"Dream you don't-"

"You don't know that!" His shout cuts through the air like a hundred knives and I drop his hand taking a step back. I didn't know this person and I was afraid of them. 

The last person who yelled at me like that was Schlatt. 

Dream's hard exterior crumbles as soon as he looks at me. I must have everything written across my face. He reaches out a hand towards me but I take another instinctive step back feeling my heart rate quicken. I felt like a rabbit staring at a fox. 

"Y/N... Y/N I'm sorry," he mutters quickly trying to move towards me again. I force myself into stoicism and unclasp my hands from where I had gripped them together in front of me. Instead, they ball into fists at my sides. I force my voice to be stern and cold even though it only comes out as a whisper. 

"You do not need it. You only think that you do." He says nothing. Usually, I'd feel calm but Dream had a way of turning my emotions from stable to chaos. 

"Around Phil, Techno, Tommy and Ranboo you cannot wear that... thing," the words burst from my mouth like water through a crack in a dam. My voice continues to betray me and it wavers as I feel my blood boil with fear, anger and instinct. The three things that have kept me alive for so long.