#i'm not ready to let go of the nonexistent duo that is cdream and cphil

[lookinghalfacorpse]

in the wild all lessons last - au/bonus????

@chrysalizzm ​got me thinking about the butterfly chat headcanon and “in the wild all lessons last” happening in the same verse with this awesome drabble they wrote and honestly the imagery was impeccable.  so here’s more of that.  

takes place very early on in the itwall story.

read the full fic here , info and trigger warnings here

The steam rising from the soup bowl seemed especially thick in the chill cabin air.  It was a bitter cold night, and Philza was starting to wish he put on a pair of socks underneath the slippers he slid himself into earlier.  At least the soup offered some warmth– he held it carefully in one hand while the other turned the doorknob to the guest room.

Dream had only been with them for three nights.  Full meals still upset his stomach, so Phil was careful to make sure that he had a number of smaller meals throughout his day.  No more than five hours passed without some kind of food, which unfortunately meant waking him in the night.  Phil might not be so strict about it if the boy wasn’t so thin; he heard of strong-willed men dropping dead from the effects of starvation long after they were eating normally, and he wasn’t willing to take any risks.  Plus, eating and then heading right back to sleep afterwards should be a good way to put weight back on.  

So, mindful of the noises he made as he shuffled around, Phil entered the darkness of Dream’s room and lit some candles.  

Orange light blossomed around the space.  Dream was sound asleep in the center of his bed, his head lolled gently to the side and his features relaxed.  His hands, free of the trembling that infected his waking hours, rested atop Em as she lay on his chest.  

Phil nearly jumped when he saw the fluttering.

A blue butterfly rested on the wall directly above Dream’s head, its wings flapping slightly and catching the candlelight.  Another was on Em’s paw, its legs shifting through her fur.  Phil approached slowly as he placed the soup bowl on the nightstand, careful not to startle one that was perched there.  Thankfully, it was calm and still.  Phil wondered, for a moment, if they remembered him– Dream’s chat was an alluring and stealthy ally in past battles, and Phil enjoyed talking with them and trying to interpret their unique body language.

What he interpreted now was a message of overall calm, and maybe even relief.  He had no clue how these delicate little insects made their way to the cottage on such a cold night, but it might’ve been quite the journey.

Phil lowered himself onto the edge of the mattress.  Dream offered no response– he was deep in sleep and completely still.  Free of nightmares, hopefully.  Phil offered a finger to a butterfly on the wall, and it crawled onto him.  Its little feet tickled his skin as it traveled around, investigating his pointer, and then his middle finger.  

“Dream,” Phil said quietly.  He hasn’t quite mastered the art of waking Dream without scaring him, so he tried to speak as gently as possible.  “I brought soup for you.  And you have company.”

Again, no response.  Nothing besides the same soft, steady breathing as before.  The candlelight illuminated many of Dream’s most lovely features– his eyelashes seemed gold-dipped– but it also highlighted the ridges of his scars and the hollows of his cheeks.  No child should be so thin.  Still worried about startling him, Phil gingerly ran his fingertips across Dream’s cheekbones and then all the way down to his jaw.  “Dream,” he said again, a little louder, “Look who came to see you.”

Dream’s breath halted and then sighed, his shoulders tightening for a moment.  When his eyes finally opened, he briefly made eye contact with Philza and flinched, gasping.

“You’re alright, mate, it’s just me.”  He redirected the hand he had on Dream’s face to the boy’s shoulder.  “Well, I guess it’s not just me.  Look, mate.”

Dream’s eyes fell to the butterfly that was grasping Phil’s fingers.  He seemed awake in an instant, his expression bursting with energy as he scrambled into a sitting position, crumbling his pillow behind him. “Wha– How?!” 

“I’m not sure, honestly.  They were here when I walked in.” Phil replied, “It’s a bit cold for them to be traveling, isn’t it?”

The butterflies gathered around them, landing in Dream’s hair and atop Philza’s shoulders.  There were only about 10 of them, but that alone was vastly more than Phil would expect to make it through such a great distance on a winter’s night.  Seeing them flock around Dream was a bit of a relief, though– he looked more like the young man he once knew, who had hundreds of them at his beck and call.

“It is,” Dream agreed.  He lifted a hand and a butterfly landed obediently on his fingertips.  He watched it, his eyes alight and shining with tears.

“Hm.  Well, to make it so far, they must be stubborn little creatures.  Much like yourself.”

(Phil was right.  Dream had no less bullheadedness in the face of the cold– he ran into the forest with all the strength he could gather after spending so much energy dodging Sapnap’s blows, and his butterflies followed close behind him.  They landed on his back, on his arms, on Em’s shoulders as she ran alongside him.  And when he collapsed, they gathered there, intermixing with the snowflakes and looking so ethereal and surreal as his vision faded.)

#this is your fault chrys #in the wild all lessons last #itwall #killing butterflies #drabbles #my fic #itwall extra scenes #...gonna hide this in the tags for the observant folks but uh #all the talk about immortality from both cdream AND cphil has got me Thinkin lately #i don't wanna promise an itwall sequel per se... #BUT #i'm not ready to let go of the nonexistent duo that is cdream and cphil #so uh look forward to that i guess???