CW: Dissociation, Unreality, Panic Attack?

Series: Legend of the Balancers × MC Dreams - Balancer Productions

AU: It's only a Nightmare (Crossover)

Characters: dreams!Box, ???, NetherBalance, others mentioned

Short description: How can you tell the difference between Reality & Fiction when you never experienced Reality? Hurt/Comfort.

it was between aOJ or IoaN. i chose IoaN because i like Unreality. not the best at writing it, but it's fun!! yippee.
another sneak peak, or just a "what if?" no idea lmao xP

The fog in his head feels thick and suffocating. Like he's breathing in smoke but it's not smoke, like they're clouds and they're filling up what's left inside of his body.

The corners of his eyes are blurry and his body feels oddly heavy. There's a campfire in front of him but he doesn't feel any warmth. It's cold. The night air is so much more colder then it should be.

"Yeah Energy's definitely colourblind," he hears himself say, but his mouth moves without much thought of his own. His fingers twitches but he doesn't move them.

Lava laughs and Nether only shakes his head, both of them around the campfire like he is. "You guys." Nether tiredly says, but he smiles unbothered anyways. He feels far away.

"Got any fish left?" Lava speaks and someone tosses him one, he thinks it was himself. "Thanks." The fish is placed by the campfire to cook slowly. The flame flickers and dances. It's bright, illuminating the three campers and only them.

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There's something in the distance. He only looks for a moment before returning to the campfire. The fish is burnt. "Oh, your fish's coal now."

"What!?" Lava reaches for the fish and through the fire, snatching the now dust of a fish it used to be. He looks upset. He thinks, he's focused on the fire.

"Wow, how do you suck so badly at cooking?" Nether, he thinks, teased. "It's not even cooking, it's like warming up something."

"You try it then!" Someone chuckled, and something light is thrown. A short "Ack—" and then laughter. It's familiar. It's his friend's.

There's hands on his shoulders, breathing too closely to his neck. There's a beating of his heart that doesn't feel like his. It's loud, he thinks, but oddly muffled. Like it's too slow. Like it's not of his own. His hands are shaking.

His friends are still talking. They're muffled.

Something whispers into his ears and he couldn't make out any of it. There's a patch in his hoodie that wasn't there before. The beating is loud, not so muffled anymore. He wants it to stop. He wants it to be quiet.

The hands are digging into his shoulders and his vision blurs, he can't hear anything that isn't his heart. The talking isn't there anymore, his friends aren't there anymore. It's so cold and heavy he couldn't move. He remembers the taste of water filling his mouth and overflowing and it wouldn't stop he couldn't make it stop stop stop st

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Something warm envelopes him and his body doesn't feel as numb anymore. It took him a moment to realize that he has stopped trying to support himself up, and has fell into whatever has him in their hold. He felt tired.

Slowly, he manages to tilt his head up at the being holding him. His blurry vision clearing slightly as he recognizes the red and orange colors of Nether. It wasn't the Nether he knew, though. It's the odd aliens— steves, right?— that lives in this world. His eyes still had bags under them, too.

Any sense of caution he had before, he didn't bother to keep up. His body still felt heavy, but he could breathe. He could breathe so much more clearly then he could before. And that was enough for him to let himself be a floppy fish.

NetherBalance: aree youu okkaay noow?

He slowly shuts his eyes and opened them again, doing it for a few times before burying his head into the Balancer's shoulder. It's warm. Like a blanket.

A jerk and he's slightly sitting— he thinks, up again. He didn't wanna fall asleep. He didn't want to. He's being held tightly.

NetherBalance: ovveer will bee here sooon..
NetherBalance: youu'll bee oki

He doesn't understand why he finds comfort in that, but he does. He nods and lets himself flop back into a boneless fish. Heh, fish.

... What does fish taste like, again?

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(738 words)