y/n : your name

u/n : user name

tws: swearing

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

y/n's pov *

i swiveled in my desk chair, the bright colors of the "starting soon" animation on my stream casting a fluorescent glow across my flushed face. i watched as the number of viewers slowly ticked upwards as the minutes passed until it eventually plateaud at about a thousand, and then i unmuted my mic and flicked my gaze to the chat box to greet my audience.

"hey guys! how's it going? everybody doing well?" i started, reading the responses as they came in. i recognized a couple usernames that made an appearance in my last stream and greeted them specially. my community was small but close to one another, so it was easy to remember who was active on my streams. i really liked being a small content creator for that reason.

"my scores have been getting absolutely shredded on the leaderboard lately, so we're gonna kick back and do a bit of speedrunning today. it's not gonna be anything too competitive though because i just want to have a nice, chill stream, so behave, chat" i warned teasingly.

i clicked "create a world" and deleted the default title, looking to my chat for name suggestions. "ha, "a whole new world..." i appreciate the aladdin reference but i want more creativity!" i slammed my hand against my desk in time with the last two words and continued to i skim over chat, chewing the inside of my lip as i considered their ideas.

a donation came through and the text to speech read off the attached message in the classic robotic voice i had heard so many times before. "name it good seed, good rng, good luck :)"

i snorted and typed it in. "you know what? yeah, sure. i'll just manifest it. thanks for the dono—" i paused to read the username and my train of thought derailed— "oh, thank you dream. dream thank you for the donation." i sealed my lips before i could spew out any more stuttering. dream? the hottest minecraft content creator right now? not hottest as in hot but hottest as in popular— ugh.

i turned to chat to look for a distraction but was instead met with pure unadulterated chaos, which was the least bit reassuring. the messages poured in one after the other.

: DREAM IS HERE

: wait i didn't know they were friends??

: MY TWO FAVORITE STREAMERS WHAT IS HAPPENING

: HI DREAM

i ignored them and focused my attention on minecraft. i loaded up the survival world, starting the timer as soon as my character spawned in. i spun in a circle to scout my surroundings and found that i was in a plains biome with a desert bordering the edge. i could see the outline of a temple in the distance as well as a village through the small bit of forest that climbed up a nearby hill.

"wait, this actually looks kind of good so far," i commented, sprinting towards the forest as i punched my fist in the air excitedly. i collected logs and crafted basic tools before dipping into a surface cave to mine cobblestone, coal, and iron. while i waited for my ingots to smelt, i crafted a hoe to quickly collect the hay bales from the village and picked up the beds to use during the dragon fight later. i finished by crafting a bucket and then changed directions to run to the desert temple, optimistic that there would be iron and other useful resources inside.

as i crossed the river, i killed a school of salmon as they swam in my path, which chat scolded me for.

"oh my god, guys, stop calling me a monster! look, look, i'll take one with as a friend," i defended, filling my bucket with water and picking up a fish. "his name is sam, chat, what do you think?"

chat forgave me for my previous crimes against ocean life and fawned over sam as i entered the temple. i broke through the sandstone and placed water at the top so i could safely drop to the bottom, sam swimming downstream alongside me as my faithful companion.

as i drifted down the waterfall i opened a chest and squealed, clicking rapidly to collect the iron and gold inside. "this might be the luckiest seed i've played on, i'm not even joking. if i fuck this up i'll be so sad." i closed the chest and evaded the pressure plate in the center as i looted the rest of the room. as i sorted through the treasure, i heard sam hit the bottom and flop against the dry ground, so i turned around to push him back into the water, careful about keeping him alive as chat and i were both emotionally attached to him. before i could finish my rescue mission, he did the unspeakable, most betraying thing possible and triggered the trap in the center of the temple, igniting the tnt hidden beneath the sandstone with a hissing sound that made my heart drop. i ran to the waterfall to escape but i was out of time, and the hissing sound erupted into a raucous explosion that tanked my health and cast a red filter across my screen.

i stared speechlessly at my monitor, mouse hovering above the respawn button as i stayed silently stunned. i made eye contact with my chat for a brief moment and laughed under my breath as i read their messages.

: KARMA IS A BITCH

: BWAHAHA

: THAT WAS REVENGE FOR KILLING HIS FAMILY

i put my head in my hands and continued to chuckle. while i was looking away, another donation came through and the text to speech read out the message. "breaking news: top ten minecraft speedrunner u/n gets outplayed by a fish /j"

"oh shut up with your "breaking news" joke smartass," i sassed teasingly, looking up to read the username. it was dream again. my eyes widened in disbelief. "oh, pff, thank you for another dono though dream, wow." i couldn't even believe those words were rolling off my tongue.

a dono that was not from dream followed his message. "is dream your sugar daddy yes or no" the robotic voice read off.

i wheezed as chat started spamming "SUGAR DADDY DREAM" and banged on my desk. "PLEASE CHAT HE'S NOT MY SUGAR DADDY!" i said through breathless laughs.

after the spam died down, i begrudgingly created a new minecraft world, naming it "fish are friends not food" as a reminder of my last world and an ode to finding nemo. i loaded in, repeating the same process i went through every time i speedran with practiced precision.

the seed was not as good as the first one, but after a minute spent walking i found a village and collected enough resources that gave me hope that i could turn it into a good run.

that hope was shattered when i went to the nether and saw no fortress or crimson forest in sight.

"shit guys, this might have just turned sour fast," i grumbled, mining gold from the ground as i passed through the nether wastes.

i listened to a donation message as it filtered through my headphones. "go back go back there was a fortress off in the distance i think" it said.

"no way, no way," i replied, taking the tip anyway and tracing my steps backwards. i looked left and right and leaned forward in my chair to get closer to my screen. as the donator had promised, there was a nether fortress in the distance, a single strip of the netherrack base peeking around a mountain. "no way!" i exclaimed, looking back at the message to read the username, which elicited a giddy chuckle from my stomach, "thanks for catching that dream, that actually just saved this run."

i successfully navigated my way to and from the fortress, having acquired enough blaze rods and ender pearls to go to the end. after placing the eyes in the portal and teleporting to the final dimension, i killed the ender dragon using the beds i got from the village and a stone axe. xp rained from the sky and i ended the timer as soon as the credits started to roll on my screen.

"nineteen minutes and forty-three seconds," i read, "i'm pretty happy with that. i probably could have shaved quite a bit off if i had spotted the fortress sooner but that was a good second attempt for today i think. let's do it again boys!" i waved my hand in the air like i was rounding them up despite my offline webcam.

text to speech read off another donation, messing up the translation of the emoticon like it usually did. "nice time :D" it said, and i chuckled. i already knew who it was from.

"thanks dream," i sighed, a smile teasing the corner of my lips as i created a new world.

i streamed for an hour longer after my first successful run and beat that time by fifty-six seconds because of a streak of good luck with pearl drops. after that achievement, i was satisfied with my progress and said goodbye to my chat, raiding another small streamer and watching a few minutes of their content before turning off my computer all together and climbing into bed. despite my tired eyelids, my body was still riddled with adrenaline after gaming, so i opened up twitter to unwind for a few minutes.

i saw several tweets that i was tagged in talking about how dream donated during my stream. i scrolled through the replies for a minute just out of curiosity.

"flirting, irl friends, flirting," i mumbled as i read through them. did people actually think he was flirting with me? it was surprising enough that he watched my stream at all, let alone donated, but flirting too? this was the first time i hadn't seen only dreamnotfound ships on my twitter feed.

i scrolled farther and came across a tweet from my sugar daddy dream himself.

streaming manhunt at 1pm tomorrow! get ready!

i mindlessly liked it and stared at his profile picture for a second, reflecting on the donations he had sent me today as i made eye contact with the smiley face. in a rush of impulsiveness, i typed in the username of his alt account and opened a chat with him.

: hey i just wanted to thank you for the donos today :)

: you summoned an entire fandom to my content on accident and i'm very appreciative lol

i pressed send on the double text and tossed my phone to the end of the bed, running my hands through my hair nervously as i thought about what i had said. my boldness wore off in and instant and i scrambled to pick up my phone again, desperate to read and overthink the text. as i fumbled to type in my passcode after failing the face id, a notification popped up on my screen, and my eyes widened in shock.

dream had messaged me back.