Chapter Text
The beeping of the alarm woke Dream up from his sleep. Even though he had to wake up at 8am literally every single day, his body still refused to wake up on its own. So instead Dream used an alarm, an alarm that he now wanted to throw out of the window. But he didn’t, instead he just gently tapped the device to make it stop before sitting up in bed and grabbing his phone. Like usual there were messages from George and Sapnap there, his best friends and also his housemates. They had gotten home late again, after Dream had gone to sleep. The first time this happened Dream had been so worried that he had woken the pair up as soon as he was awake because he was scared that they were still not home. From that point on either Sapnap or George would always send a message in the group chat saying they were home so Dream knew not to worry in the morning. That was probably the worst thing about your two best friends being heroes, every single second the two had to work, Dream was worried something would happen to them. Rationally he knew that Sapnap was probably the strongest hero at the Academy at the moment and George didn’t even work in the field so he had nothing to worry about. But even so he couldn’t help but worry. Luckily for at least the coming few hours he didn’t have to worry about his friends. Instead he had to worry about the 23 cats waiting for him downstairs.
Dream was the proud owner of the absolute cutest cat cafe in the whole of L’Manburg: Patches. Yes, he had named his cat cafe after one of his cats, but that’s because Patches was his very first cat and thus she was special to him. Not that he didn’t like the others, on the contrary, all the other cats held the second spot in his heart, just Patches held the first spot (Sapnap and George would never let it go that they were on the 3rd spot in his heart, after 23 cats so he just didn’t tell them). However, owning a cat cafe that opened every single day from 1pm to 6pm came with its daily tasks. First off, he himself had to eat breakfast, then all 23 cats needed breakfast (which sounds a lot easier than it is). Usually he was done feeding all the cats at around 10 am so then it was time to clean the cafe itself. With 23 cats, the litter room alone took 30 minutes to clean and the actual cat area another hour because there was always at least one cat that had managed to throw up somewhere. At around 12 he would usually start preparing the cafe part of his cat cafe, making sure everything for all drinks was ready and putting all the freshly baked pies and cakes in the right place. But no matter how much he had to do, he would always be completely ready to open his cafe at 1pm.
“Good morning” A sleepy George said from the middle of the room suddenly, giving Dream a heart attack.
“GEORGE, stop teleporting into the cafe, you will land on one of my cats one day!” Dream scolded his friend after he recovered from the shock.
“You know I won’t.” George mumbled back sleepily before stealing a piece of carrot cake from the display and sitting down at one of the tables. George’s favorite cat, Cherry, immediately jumped up from her sleeping place to sleep in George’s lap instead.
“Don’t forget to pay for that, you make a whole lot more money than I do.” Dream said while shaking his head before starting on the coffee he knew his best friend wanted.
“You guys were home late last night, difficult nightshift?” Dream asked and George nodded sleepily.
“The syndicate was active again but we managed to scare them away before they did anything drastic.”
“But still didn’t catch them?” Dream asked with a frown and George nodded.
“Technoblade managed to cut Punz in a surprise attack so I had to teleport him out before that demon could use his blood so Sapnap and Karl had to fight 2 on 4. Luckily Sapnap hadn’t used his powers all day and could go all out and that was enough to scare them away. Especially after Karl put that young one asleep. What’s his name again?”
“Theseus?” Dream provided and George nodded.
“Yes, Theseus." It’s so weird that they let someone so young fight. I really hope we can arrest them next time.” George finished his story and Dream just nodded.
“As long as they don’t try to recruit me again, I’m happy. I still don’t understand why Wilbur thought he could convince me of all people. Not that he knows that you and Sapnap are 404 and Blaze but still, I never even showed interest in his ideas. I just enjoyed working together on projects.” Dream said with a sigh before opening the doors of his cafe to show that he was officially open.
“At least that gave us very big clues on who the Syndicate actually are. Not that it helped with finding them. I don’t know how they do it but they always manage to hide away.” George said while finishing his carrot cake.
“Can you grab Sapnap for me? I can’t get up while Cherry sleeps on my lap.” He continued, looking at Dream with pleading eyes. Dream just rolled his eyes before teleporting away, grabbing a still sleeping Sapnap and teleporting back into his cafe.
“Good morning sleeping beauty.” He said sarcastically as Sapnap woke up in a panic from being teleported. It took him a second (and Dream stopping the flames in his hands from growing) to realize where he was before getting mad at his best friends.
“You know just waking me up is an option right? I don’t need to be teleported first thing in the morning. Thank you very much.” he said grumbly before also grabbing a pastry from the display and settling down next to George, giving Cherry the pets she deserved. Immediately three other cats came running to sleep on his lap. He was popular among the cats because he ran warmer than normal people due to his pyrokinesis power.
“Ooh shut up, you love getting woke up by my cats!” Dream teased before also getting Sapnap his morning coffee.
“You two have to work today?” Dream asked, sitting down next to them with his own drink and giving Sapnap his.
“Hmm, Sapnap traded with Punz because Punz wanted to have a date night with Foolish and if Sapnap works, I work. So thank you for that.” George answered and a few seconds later the two friends were once again bickering over nothing. Dream just sighed before he heard the bell ring, signaling that a customer was coming in. Dream turned towards the door and as soon as he saw the girl standing in the doorway, he gained the ability to read people’s minds. He was so used to gaining random new powers as soon as he saw people that this fact didn’t even faze him. Instead he just smiled at the girl who was looking at him with big surprised eyes. She could read minds, of course she immediately understood that Dream could do so too. It almost felt like an infinite mirror effect, making Dream chuckle to himself.
“I take it you want a matcha latte?” he asked the girl who nodded in surprise but with a smile. She opened her mouth to ask a question but never did, as Dream had already seen the question in her head and she had seen the answer. Instead she just thanked Dream when he handed the drink and sat down at one of the tables and started working on her homework. Not long after one of the cats settled in her lap. Sapnap had been looking at the whole exchange with a weird face before it all seemed to click into place in his head.
“Not another mind reader… Please… Did you know that last time we got in trouble at the Academy for telling you secrets because you bumped into a mind reader and suddenly read our minds without warning??” Sapnap complained loudly, making both Dream and the girl on the other side of the room snicker.
“Well, it’s not my fault, that's how my power works!” Dream fake complained back.
“Yeah yeah, mister I have the strongest power ever but refuse to work for the academy cuz I just want to run my cat cafe .” Sapnap said in an annoying voice, making Dream pout at him and George just shook his head.
“Welp, just expect me to still be able to read your mind when you get back home tonight cuz she’s planning on staying here for a while to make her homework and I told her she could!” Dream said with a teasing smile, making Sapnap groan again.
“At least the Academy accepted that Dream knows like almost everything that goes on there.” George simply said before grabbing Sapnap, giving Sapnap some time to mentally prepare for another teleportation.
“Anyway, we have to get ready for the night shift. We might give you a call if the Syndicate appears after 6pm cuz we still don’t know what Theseus’ powers are exactly so the Academy has been wanting you to copy it.” George said and Dream just nodded in return.
“As long as I get paid, I don’t mind.” he simply said and George nodded before teleporting himself and Sapnap back to the apartment above the cat cafe so they could get ready for their nightshift.
Patches was a popular cat cafe in L’Manburg City and thus, at around 3pm the cafe was almost completely full and Dream was busy serving everyone and making sure all the cats were being treated with respect and that nothing was going wrong. It was a busy job but he liked it and with help of George’s teleportation, he could always easily immediately intervene if something went wrong. That’s also why almost all customers thought that his power was simply that, just teleportation. But no, he had been unconsciously copying all powers that came through the door all day long. Which meant that right now he had around 60 different powers he could use. He knew that by the time he left the cafe and went up to his apartment, this total would probably be down to about 20 and most likely in the morning only Sapnap’s, George’s and the mind-reading girl’s power would be left. The longer someone stayed within his vision (or came back into his vision before he lost the power), the longer the person’s power stayed copied. He still didn’t know exactly what the conversion rate was, he just knew that if someone was staying all day to do homework in his cafe, he would probably still have their power in the morning. And in the case of George and Sapnap, he saw them daily and had their powers copied for years now. He didn’t know how long he could go without seeing them before their powers faded, but he knew that it was longer than 2 days as that was the longest they hadn’t seen each other and he hadn’t even felt the powers starting to fade. He did know that if he accepted the Academy’s offer to work for them, he would learn the limitations of his powers within weeks but he simply didn’t feel like dealing with life-threatening situations on the daily. He didn’t understand how Sapnap and George did it but gladly let them do the hero-ing. Instead he helped out every once in a while if the Academy needed to analyze a power without being able to capture said person with said power. It was also through these mini missions that he came to realize just how strong his powers are. He had always known that copying other people’s powers was a strong power, but at the Academy he had learned that his copies were always perfect. He would have the exact same power as the person he copied, the exact same, including anything that they would consider their “secret weapon” and he would instantly and intuitively know how to wield the power perfectly, or at least, as perfectly as the original wielder. Years earlier, through George and Sapnap he had found out that if they got better at using their power, he would get better at using their power too. As Sam from the Academy had put it, every copy was the same as the original.
Sadly enough, the strength of his power also meant that there were many people that tried to get him to join their side. First off, you of course had the Academy but they had given up on sending him letters and what more after he had accepted to do mini missions every once in a while. Secondly there was the Syndicate, easily the most dangerous villain organization out there. Dream still didn’t know what their objective was exactly, besides apparently creating chaos and killing innocent people. Thirdly you had all the different gangs, security companies, petty thieves and whatever who had one way or another heard of his power and decided to approach him. Over the years he had denied many, many invites to different groups, all with the same excuse, he simply wanted to run his cat cafe and not have to worry about anything else. And thus that was what he did. However, even so there was one group in particularly that didn’t not stop trying to recruit him, no matter how often he had told him no.
“Dream, how have you been doing my friend?” Wilbur said in an extravagant nice voice, making Dream sigh deeply before turning around to face one of the members of the Syndicate, for the 3rd time that month.
“I’m not your friend Wilbur, and the answer is still no. No matter how often you come here. You do realize that one of these days I’m just straight up gonna call the Academy and get you arrested, right?” Dream said annoyed before he also saw Technoblade appear behind Wilbur.
“Don’t be mean! Besides, it doesn’t matter if you call the Academy, they won’t come anyway. at least, not fast enough.” Wilbur said cheerily. Dream just bit his lip and sighed deep. The problem was, if he called the Academy, yes they would come running full force, but he couldn’t let anyone know that he was friends with the Academy, especially not two of the worst villains in the country. It wouldn’t only put him and his cats at risk, but it would also put Sapnap, George, all his other friends at the Academy and even his whole neighborhood at risk. He also didn't want to because even if he could get the two arrested in seconds, it wasn't his job or responsibility. He did what every normal person would have done, told the Academy who two of the members of the Syndicate were and that was it. So no, he couldn’t call the Academy but he could keep threatening to do so because the two members of the syndicate were very annoying, no matter if they were in their civilian clothing or not.
“Just leave. Or at least order something and pay up if you’re gonna stay. And if you try anything funny I will just teleport you to the other side of the city.” Dream threatened with another deep and annoyed sigh but Wilbur simply ignored Dream’s attitude and instead ordered a drink for him and his twin brother (who totally was not already completely snuggled up with one of the cats in the corner of the cafe, totally not.) When Dream finished the drinks, Wilbur took them and sat next to his brother, where they stayed for the next 2 hours, until every other customer was gone and Dream was about to close up his cafe.
“I’m closing up. Leave.” Dream said shortly at the two villains in the corner. Technoblade was fully ignoring him in favor of petting a cat called black sheep ( traitor ) and Wilbur just smiled before he started talking.
“Dream, come on. Just join us. Your powers are too strong to just sit here at the cafe. Besides, don’t you think this country is fucked? It needs a change and we can bring that!”
Dream just shook his head. He honestly did not think the country needed any change. The government right now was really good and they had implemented many good changes. Yes, the way the new system had been implemented had been absolutely brutal and too many people had lost their lives, including Wilbur and Techno’s mom, but that false start did not mean that the current system was bad. Should the government apologize? yes. Should they compensate the families that lost members? Absolutely. But that was not what the Syndicate was after. The Syndicate wanted to get rid of the whole government, by any means necessary. Honestly, Dream found them very hypocritical, as they did this all because of innocent lives lost but in the meantime they themselves were killing innocent people.
“Like the other who knows how many times you asked me, no. I don’t think change is needed and especially not through killing innocent people. Now get the fuck out of my cafe or I will feed you the poison that I can control cuz one of my customers today could.” Dream threatened. Technoblade was the first one to get up and grabbed his brother by the arm.
“Wilbur, leave it. He’s not gonna join and he can easily take the both of us on. Who knows how many powers he has copied at the moment.” Technoblade mumbled and Wilbur looked at Dream one more time before letting his brother drag him out of the cafe.
“Goddamit, I just really need his fucking power for our plan.” Dream could hear Wilbur grumble to his brother when he closed the door behind the two. Dream knew what the plan was, even before the mind-reading girl had come in since Wilbur had explained it before. But it was a stupid plan and Dream felt absolutely no need to join them in overtaking the government. Instead, he just went on with the closing of his cafe, sent Sapnap and George a fast message complaining about the Syndicate twins before getting ready for a relaxed evening in his apartment.