Chapter Text
As soon as he comes to, Dream immediately regrets it.
He wasn’t hit that hard, surely. Not hard enough for every single one of his bones to ache and burn like a fire that’s slowly eating away at him. Something is horribly, fundamentally wrong, he can feel it sinking in and it hurts. He rolls over, blinking blearily and letting out a small groan as his pounding head protests at the movement. Then he sees what’s beneath him and he yelps, scrambling to his feet before his knees buckle at a sudden pain in his leg and he falls forward again, staring down at the endless dark void beneath him.
Well, that explains the aching, his definitely concussed brain suggests. He’s in the fucking void. What is there for him to control here? This is the exact opposite of his element, and the response to the lack of anything to wind his strings around is apparently physical pain. The panic starts settling in as he finally sits upright, carefully putting one palm on the invisible surface he seems to be on. Thankfully, he doesn’t immediately start falling, so he lets himself fall flat on his back and pull his knees up to his chest as the earlier events start coming back to him.
Revealing everything. Sending Phil, Wilbur and Techno to the sidelines. Rewriting his universe. The belltower. Phil flying in and tackling him. The fight. Realising that Techno had given up his divinity, being so damn afraid , the scorch marks on his wrist, Wilbur and Techno showing up, trying to run, Wilbur’s arrow, Techno dragging him down with his whip, falling, hitting the bell, Phil, Phil, Phil—
He can’t help his tears of frustration. This is it. This is his worst case scenario. After eons and eons of writing and rewriting and trying so damn hard to stay one step ahead, he finally falls to Freedom, his destined enemy. The frustration gradually turns to rage, and he slams his fist against the invisible surface, letting out a strangled scream because of course he’s lost. He's made so many worlds he's practically lost count, and every time he becomes the villain, the manipulator, liar to the very end. It's not fair . To have freedom, there must be control. It's a balance. He didn't even dominate them completely, he let them have free will. He wrote the histories, but it was their actions that pushed it along. Wilbur pushed the button, Techno wrought destruction, Freedom killed his only son by their own free will. He didn't write their suffering; they brought it upon themselves and others, and he simply recorded them as they were. (So what if he got a little bored and made the characters suffer a little more than they should have to? Every writer does that. All his responses to boredom fit the role he plays. He is never out of character, and perhaps that is his fatal flaw.)
And Tommy, oh Tommy, he made a mistake in that first world, manipulating and ruining that child. He'd fallen to his own temper, let himself be blinded by everyone else's proclamations that he was wicked when he wasn't, not at first, and he'd become the villain he so despised. Yet Tommy, always connected to Freedom (not Phil anymore, just Freedom, the Songbird, he can't bring himself to acknowledge that his archnemesis is anything else) in some way, always snatches the heroic role with impossible ease and leaves Dream grasping at nothing. In every world, the boy with gilded hair and eyes like the frozen tundra lives and cries and fights with all his might, and yet even in death he is loved while Dream is reviled for all eternity. Can you blame him for being jealous? (There had been a sort of guilty pleasure in his chest when Tommy had died in the Blue Valley. Dream doesn't think about what that says about him.) What was it Wilbur had said… ah. 'I will love you forever.' What Dream wouldn't give to hear it said to him without some hidden motive just once. It'll probably never happen, though, given the only person he might ever see again is Freedom, who won't be very inclined to profess eternal love to him.
Oh, shit. He's stuck with Freedom forever. Freedom does not like him at all.
Clutching his leg and pushing himself up again, he scans the area around him for any sign of the winged god. While the void is dark, a large section is lit up nicely with floating paper lanterns (Dream's heart skips a beat when he realizes that they're red, white and blue), allowing him to see the almost transparent platform he is sitting on, as well as the pulsing bars that line its edges. A cage. Fitting for a prisoner and his warden. The bars are spaced out in very wide intervals, wide enough that Dream could walk right out no problem. It's probably to mock him, seeing as he can't actually walk out without falling and dying. At least the cage is big. That means a chance at dodging when Freedom inevitably appears to beat him to death, or worse.
His gaze lands on a figure standing at the furthest corner of the cage, head tipped upwards and staring at the void above them. There is a thin purple line in the black, and Dream watches as it pulses once before sealing over, disappearing into the darkness for good.
"Oh, come on," Dream mumbles to himself. That was the rift they came through. Now he's well and truly done for.
Freedom’s head immediately snaps toward him, and Dream resists the urge to flinch as the cage suddenly seems to shrink and he feels reality getting ripped through and repaired in less than a second. The Songbird now stands only a short distance from him, still in the furthest corner but a little too close for Dream's liking. Well, when there’s nowhere to run, the only option left is to fight. He might not have a weapon right now, but if there’s anything his first world taught him, it’s that his words can be the sharpest blade of all. He sucks in a breath, narrows his eyes and straightens, Freedom staring at him with an expression Dream can’t quite name.
"So, we’re trapped in the void, huh? Your element," he says bitterly, rubbing his ankle and staring at the impossible bruises on his leg. Marks left from the chain of a mortal. "You can’t leave unless I do too, you know. You just left your son again. Possibly forever. Just so you can keep me, the big bad villain, in check. A heroic sacrifice. How does it feel?"
Freedom sighs from his position on the other side of their cage, obsidian wings loose on his back. He peers at Dream, letting his gleaming blue meet emerald green, and the Spider prepares himself for the violence that is sure to come when the Songbird strikes with wing and claw. Instead, his warden gets up, moving to sit in front of him, not once breaking his gaze. Dream can't help the way his breath hitches in anticipation as he backs away slightly.
"I'm not going to hurt you, if that's what you're thinking," his fellow god states blandly, with eyes that have melted from ice to water that reflects the blue of a sky he might never see again.
"Oh, well thank you then! How nice of you to not hurt me any more than you already have," Dream snaps back, frustration he can't explain rising in his chest as he gestures wildly at the cage they reside in.
"I'm not enjoying this any more than you are," Freedom retorts, and there's the temper rearing its ugly head. The calm waters in his eyes have darkened into something closer to a tsunami, and Dream is going to fight it head-on.
"Then by all means! Take it out on me."
"I just said I'm not going to."
"Yeah? And how long is that going to last?"
“You—” Freedom groans, burying his face in his hands. “What the hell do you want?”
“If you think I’m in the wrong, you might as well treat me like it,” Dream scowls. “You have all the power here. Use it. ”
“What the fuck is that logic?” Freedom sputters a little too loudly, and Dream hisses under his breath when his concussion responds to the volume with a flash of pain. The older god picks up on it, though, and sighs again.
“I don’t want to do this right now,” he says, and his voice shakes ever so slightly. He reaches forward and Dream snaps back, reaching to summon a dagger into his hand until he realizes he can’t do that here. He holds his breath, but releases it sharply when Freedom gently cards his calloused fingers through his hair, and Dream feels the wound in his head close over. He sags ever so slightly with relief at the easing of the ache, though there is still a dull throb and it will take time to heal. He doesn’t ask for his other wounds to be healed, though. He’s pathetic enough already. Instead, he curls up in a corner of the cage and watches as Freedom pads over to the other side, sits down and begins making a red paper lantern. He falls asleep to the sound of rustling paper, the flapping of feathers and quiet sobs that he’s too tired to weaponise.
That is the first day.