Chapter Text
“Well… maybe you aren’t real but… the feelings are real, aren’t they?”
“What?”
Cross furrowed his eyes, looking at Dream as he was curled up, back against the tree they made for XGatser in the Omega Timeline. The little, purple flowers under his weight, rim lighted by the glow of a familiar presence.
”You still feel them, right?” A voice echoed throughout his mind.
“Well… what do my feelings matter? It’s a feeling I feel, sure. But what do I matter?”
“I’m not even real.”
“But the feelings are.”
“What about my feelings?” Cross crued, snarling at the blinding ball of light. “How can my feelings be real if I’m not even real? I feel it. It feels real to me. But if I’m not real, what do I matter?”
“What does the world matter to you, you’re real.”
“What?” Cross had noticed Dream was very old style and spoke in ways he couldn’t quite understand or grasp. Poetic and abstract with their words, but he knew whatever they said always held some sort of meaning.
“You are your whole world. You will never be somebody else’s whole world, whole life, because they are their own whole life.” Dream explained, Cross still not understand what the other was on about.
“What makes you any less real than the world we inhabit?” The glowing light floated around Cross, illuminating the world around him. “The feelings you feel are proof you are as real as anyone else here.”
“People get created and then they die. Language moves and changes. Stars burn and then explode.” The light stopped to float before Cross, as if staring into his soul. “You were created, and you can be changed. You can disappear in an instant, you can be altered with a snap of a finger. You are a mere idea and thought, projected into a physical being. “
“But at the end of the day,
Isn’t that what this world is?”
“These flowers are real, despite them being created not too long ago, by a single snap and will of mind.
This world is real, despite it being the wish of one young child and a result of their determination.
Its inhabitants are real, despite them being a person's desire for a concept to exist, who’s original homes could be destroyed in a single pull and tear.”
“You are real, even if you are not. Because if you say you are not real, then you must say the entire world we exist in is not.“ Looking down, his hands were presented. Clenching and unclenching his fist, he could move his hands. Waving them through the flowers, he could feel the soft petals grace his palms with a touch. The physical feeling he knew must be real. “If you are going to compare yourself to what you believe is real, then you must challenge what ‘real’ is.”
“To me, you are real.
If to you, you are not, then what does that make me?”
“Am I real?”
“If I believe you matter, does that mean I don’t matter?” There was a genuine curiosity in the echoing voice, Cross couldn’t tell if Dream was being genuine or rhetorical. “Or does that mean you matter more? Does that mean you’re more real if I believe it so?”
“You may believe you aren’t real, and your feelings don’t matter.”
Their light blinding, they radiate warmth and comfort, a mere being of energy and essence of emotion couldn’t possibly care this much about him?
“But I can feel the pain, the hurt, the hope, the pride. And if I must accept you believe you are meaningless, then you must accept I believe you have as much meaning to this world as any other being that has the honor to share this plane with you.”
———————
“You’re like- a work of art!”
“What?”
Cross looked at Ink, confused.
Here he had just poured his heart and soul out to Ink, expressing how he felt so…. pointless.
Meaningless.
There were thousands of ‘him’s. Thousands of ‘sans’s.
He was a mere idea that could easily be overwritten and reset in an instant.
He was… nothing.
And now here Ink was… ignoring all of that to talk about art?
“Are… are you trying to flirt with me?” Cross eyed the other weirdly, leaning back as Ink had jumped up after hearing his woes.
“No I’m aroace,“ Ink started, moving back themself and going on a tangent. “A lot of people seem to forget that about me I’m not exactly the biggest fan and I draw those things for anatomy I don’t actually want to- Anyway-”
It would always amaze Cross how distracted and spontaneous Ink get’s, unsure how they ever finish an art project without the focus.
“That’s besides the point.” Ink got back on track. “You’re like a work of art!”
“Uh… explain?”
“Well, art is pointless.” Ink explained. “It’s just paint on a thing. It’s words put together in a specific way. It’s noises that sound nice.”
“You’re just… a character.” Ink gestured to Cross, spoken in a tone Cross couldn’t exactly place, unsure if it was supposed to be comforting or mocking. “The same as anything else.”
“But that paint mixes together in a way that creates the most breathtaking picture, that captures the essence of life and feeling in a way that just one look can stun someone in their spot.”
“And those words can conjure emotions so powerful it moves nations to change, and people to hoard, and voices to be heard. Break someone down to pieces or build them up and break free anew.”
“And those silly noises can emulate words no language can even begin to fathom to create. Communicating beyond communication, nothing but pure wavelengths that can alter a heartbeat and brain chemistry to remember the forgotten, to express the repressed, to connect the detached.”
You’re nothing. And you're everything. You’re just like everyone else, but nothing like anyone I’ve ever known. You are pointless, and meaningless, and you hold so much power you impact everyone and everything you come across and interact with.
You are a work of art.
Absolutely nothing to the world.
And completely everything to anyone.