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Well, this sure as hell wasn’t the plan.
Techno had written in his will for Philza to bring him out of the prison after a week to ensure that Techno would have all the information needed to break Dream out. But nothing ever actually went as planned with Techno, so he should really not have been surprised when he woke up on what he guessed was the eight day of prison to see the same boring, horrible cell, and the same annoyingly terrified Dream. He was getting tired of eating raw potatoes. They tasted awful, and barely even satisfied his hunger!
Speaking of Dream, Technoblade had learned a lot of interesting things about the man for what was the what, fourteenth day? Thirteenth? Even the great Technoblade was starting to lose track of the time, being stuck in what felt like a timeless room.
The first thing Techno had noticed about Dream when he got stuck with the man was his face. Dream had somehow lost his mask, and he refused to tell Techno exactly what happened to it or if it still existed. The mask was like a sore spot to the man, which Techno found incredibly interesting.
But without the mask, Technoblade could see the big guy Dream himself, like really take a good look at his once beautiful face. He had seen Dream’s face once before, when they were sparring and it accidentally got knocked off. But at that time Techno had been respectful of his opponent’s wish for anonymity and stared at the green grass as Dream had panickedly put it on again.
Techno could really take a good look at Dream’s face this time, staring at his emerald green eyes, his sunken face, and most importantly in Techno’s own humble opinion, all of the scars and bruises that painted Dream’s face like an awful piece of modern art. It was horrible, and from the few glances that he could make without getting snapped at to stop staring he had counted a bit too many scars.
Dream had been tortured, that much was obvious enough. Techno didn’t want to ask since it was probably a sensitive subject, and Dream had already told him that Sam and Quackity were working together on the first night when Techno got “trapped” inside of the prison cell, so he could really just piece two and two together on his own.
However, one thing that did baffle Techno was the fact that Dream never slept. Sure, the man had told him that he didn’t sleep when Techno had called him homeless a long time ago, but he just never believed in it. Everyone needed at least a bit of sleep, that much was obvious. So Techno had decided to make it his personal quest while he was waiting to get teleported out to make Dream take a goddamn nap, just once.
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Project forcing Dream to sleep: a step-by-step guide.
Made by Technobade.
Step one: Make Dream calm the fuck down.
Step two: give him my cape as a blanket
Step three: zzzzz
Easy, right?
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Dream was sitting in the corner of the room, back against the chest and head slightly tilting against the wall with a pen in his thin, fragile-looking hand. He was still writing down how the prison worked, this book being about the Redstone of the entire thing.
On his right side, there was another book on the floor dedicated to the small sketches that he used to remember easier. Techno had stared fascinatingly at Dream as he groaned out loud, put the notebook down, and took up the sketch one to draw a simple box like it would give him the answer he was searching for. Dream then put random lines in the box, probably trying to make sense of some old Redstone works. It seemed to be working, because after a moment or two of an aggressive staring contest at the paper, Dream’s face lit up with recognition, and he then again focused on the notes and wrote down even more information with shaky hands.
Wait, his hands were shaky?
Almost two weeks of staying with Dream and he hadn’t even noticed the shake in his hand as he wrote. Techno should really take a good look at Dream’s hands once he was sleeping.
Dream must’ve noticed Techno’s staring. He was now staring back with confusion clear in his eyes.
“What?”
Techno mustered an awkward smile. “What what?”
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Well, there isn’t much else to stare at in this hole now is there?”
Dream’s hands let go of the book and met each other instead to silently fidget. He was now looking down from Techno’s glaze and at his hands. Oh boy, Techno must’ve done something wrong. He was really bad at this.
*lol awkward*
*Man I hate Dream he looks so dumb*
*E*
*shut up!*
*Kiss him lmao*
Techno ignored the voices.
He decided to get up to sit next to Dream, but as he got close to the prisoner his facial expression changed into one of fear, and Techno had to mentally kick himself for bringing his hands up like he had to show the green idiot that he was of no danger. Dream almost unnoticeably shook his head and sat up straight, silently inviting the piglin hybrid to sit next to him. Techno gladly took the offer.
“So… how’s the writing?”
“It’s uhh... it’s good? I mean I’ve so far written two books of everything I remember about the prison. But I have to be honest with you, Techno, I feel like I keep forgetting important details.” Dream shook his head again.
“I don’t know if this will be useful to you, or how you’re even planning on using some silly book to get us out of here. There’s no way out of here.”
Dream sounded defeated, almost, and nobody would hear this from Techno’s mouth but it broke him to see Dream like this.
“I’ve got my ways don’t worry. You will get out of here no matter what.”
They sat in a kind of silence that Techno couldn’t tell whether it was awkward or not for a bit too long for his liking. Dream sighed and looked at Techno. Techno pretended he didn’t feel the man’s eyes at him. Maybe it would make it less awkward.
“You know,” he began. “It’s kinda nice having a roommate. I guess I don’t hate it as much as I thought I would.”
Techno couldn’t stop a smile from forming on his face.
“Oh, so you’re warming up to the thought of having me as a roomie, eh nerd? Now if only you would play I spy with me some more and learn how to cook potatoes in the lava then it would be just perfect.”
Dream stuttered at that.
“Well but- we did play that like five times already! There is literally nothing more to use for the game!”
“Hmm… I can still see a bunch of lava particles that I haven’t used yet.”
“... You know what? I take it back. I hate you.”
Techno’s laughter filled up the tiny room.
Laughing in the cell was hard, especially since the air was so intensely dry that even the nether would feel like a breath of fresh air compared to this. And yet, Techno had still laughed multiple times since he got stuck in there with Dream. Every time, a fond smile would show on Dream’s face. And every time as well, the smile would falter as soon as Techno started coughing right after.
Dream let his head lean against the chest once more with a quiet sigh. Christ, he looked so tired.
“Can I ask you something, Dream?”
Dream closed his eyes and made a tiny noise of permission.
“Why do you never get some sleep?”
Dream opened his eyes at that, staring at seemingly nothing. You could tell that he was deep in thought from miles away. Dream’s face was scarily easy to read.
“Well,” He started but then stopped again. “I uhh… last time I fell asleep it didn’t end up good.” Dream absentmindedly took his hand up to rub his right shoulder. The shoulder that had a huge rip in his prison suit.
Oh.
Techno couldn’t help but inspect the shoulder after that. He had seen the rip before, days before, but he never wanted to ask. Or, well, that was a lie. He knew that asking was a dumb idea, but oh how he wanted to hear everything.
What the hell had happened? That could easily have been a slash from an axe or a sword. Something like that would hurt like hell! Was it a form of punishment for falling asleep? Or was it something else entirely?
Dream looked tense again. Oh how Techno hated this version of Dream.
Maybe a joke will ease up the situation again. He thought to himself.
That usually works, right?
“That must’ve been a hell of an alarm clock, big guy.”
Dream let out a small wheeze. “Yeah, it wasn’t fun.”
“I bet…”
Silence again. Prime, Techno hated the silence. But he had at least made Dream wheeze, and that was the biggest improvement yet.
Okay, time for step two of the plan.
“I have an offer for you, Dream.” The green man looked up once more, this time giving Techno eye contact for a short second before looking slightly to the side. “I give you my cape, you let me tell you a story. Take it?”
Dream was confused again. His mouth was slightly agape, and his eyes were blinking continuously. It was honestly quite fun to see.
A simple counter-question: “Why?”
Techno shrugged. “I just wanna tell you a story. And also the heat is getting to me a bit now…” That was a lie, but Dream didn’t have to know.
Techno had even told this to Dream on the first day he got here, that the heat of the lava or the roughness of the obsidian didn’t hurt or annoy him one bit. He was half piglin after all, so these kinds of temperatures, while not being preferred, were actually not that bad for him.
“Look, Dream, you’re not too good at hiding your shaking,” Techno took off his cape and extended his hand, expecting Dream to take it. “do me a favor and hold it for me, ‘eh?”
Dream took it reluctantly. “If I wear it, it’ll get stained with blood, Techno.”
The piglin just shrugged again. Dream, still as confused if not more, decided to put it around his body like a blanket. Even though Dream was merely a couple of inches smaller than Techno he still looked so tiny as he was completely engulfed by the cape-turned-blanket. It was cute. Saying that out loud would end up badly, though, so Techno decided not to comment anything.
“So…” Dream started awkwardly. “The story?”
“Oh yes! Yes, the story, the greatest of them all uhh…”
And so, Technoblade started telling a story from the Greek myths. At first, he told Dream the story of Medusa, simply because he knew that Dream had already heard it before and had given a reaction to it so extreme that Techno had been laughing about it for days. Dream could be found spitting in the water for days after that particular tale.
But this time, Dream didn’t react. Technoblade wouldn’t be surprised if Dream didn’t listen at all, but just letting Dream hear his voice while he rambled about mythologies was enough to make the green blob calm down quite a lot. Techno took that as an invitation to ramble even more.
Next, he started to tell the story of Icarus, but before he even finished it he had gotten off of track at the mention of wings and started telling Dream how he had tried bribing Philza into seeing if he could take less damage while falling if he used his broken wings. Turns out he can, but not enough for it to be groundbreaking. And speaking of groundbreaking, Technoblade told proudly about how he had extended his farms to feed all of his cows that he would then slaughter and give the meat to his dogs, one of which had been so nice and well-trained recently that he had named her “Potato” because of his love for potatoes.
Technoblade then went on a rant about potatoes, and how bad those in this prison were farmed, and how the soil was filled with too much gravel so the water drained too quickly which made the potatoes just taste so awful. He ranted and ranted about everything he could ever think about, just like he usually did back at home when Philza was there, or how Ranboo would to him as well.
And when Niki came over, they would stop the ranting and just appreciate each other’s company. Niki was so good at making people smile, she barely even had to lift a finger and then the whole room would look at her happily like she was the sun after a particularly bad day of heavy rain. Techno didn’t want to say it out loud, but he really missed them all.
His rambling stopped as he heard a response from Dream after a long time of silence. But when he looked back at the green man, he noticed that the sound Dream had made wasn’t speaking but a small snore. Huh. Dream was a snoring kind of person.
Techno had had so many plans for when Dream was asleep, like seeing if he could braid his now long hair or inspect all of his injuries to make sure that he had enough healing potions at home for when they escaped, but as he now sat there simply looking at Dream, he found himself unable to move. He didn’t want to wake him up from what must have been the first good sleep in a while.
Dream didn’t stir around like he was having a nightmare, and he certainly wasn’t tortured to the point of unconsciousness. You wouldn’t snore so sweetly if that was the case, or at least Techno thought that was how it worked.
Techno just stared. He stared with a smile on his face. He decided to stay awake while Dream was sleeping, to make sure that Dream didn’t wake up afterward feeling exposed or scared as he had been feeling the last two weeks when Techno was there. It was obvious he had been waiting for his torturer to show up, but they never had. Techno was eternally glad about that.
Tecnoblade felt the pull of sleep on his eyelids, but he refused to take the bait and snooze, so he took Dream’s notebooks and opened up the first page of the prison mapping.
That definitely worked, because Techno could feel himself focus on the paper and the writing. In his head, it was Dream that read it out loud to him, and he could easily see where on the page Dream would look up with excited eyes, or where on the pages he had been proud of himself for remembering just based on the handwriting itself. Techno knew Dream so well.
He read and he read, brushing through the pages like it was nothing, only taking in half of the information but still enjoying every second of it. However, his reading was suddenly stopped when he could feel the tug of an… enderpearl?
SWOOSH
He got up immediately to be greeted by his old friend.
“Techno! I am so so sorry for not getting you back earlier! Are you okay, mate?” Philza.
Oh, how he had missed Philza. Oh, how he wanted to punch him right in the gut.
“Get me back, Phil. I need to hold my promise!”
Phil looked confused. “What promise?”
“The promise, Phil! I promised to keep him safe, now he’s sleeping and god knows what would happen if I’m not there when he wakes up!”
Phil’s confusion only got worse. He put his hand on Techno’s shoulder to calm his friend down.
“Don’t worry, mate. When Dream wakes up he will be confused, but he will be okay. Did you get what you needed?”
Techno let out a grunt of frustration. “Phil. They’re torturing him.”
“They’re what now?!”
“Torturing! He had scars all over, the prison reeked of blood! I had just finally made him sleep for once, and now he will wake up all alone, or worse!”
Philza turned around, silently motioning for Techno to follow his walk.
“Come on, we got a prisoner to save. No time to lose. you got the blueprints?”
Techno only nodded.
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In the prison, Dream had the best sleep since back before any of the wars began. No nightmares, no fear of being wakened up by an axe to the shoulder.
However, that changed when he could feel Techno’s arm on his, gently shaking him awake.
“Not now, I was laying so good Tech.” he slurred in his still half-asleep mind.
His comment was greeted by a chuckle from a voice that was definitely not Techno’s.
“Oh come on, Dreamie, wakey wakey eggs, and bakey!” A hand slapped him across his face and he woke up immediately.
Dream covered his cheek as he looked up at Quackity’s horrifying grin. As he glanced around quickly he couldn’t see Techno anywhere.
“Where’d your friend go, Dreamie?”
“I- I don’t-”
Quackity stood up, looking much taller than he really was compared to Dream as the man was slumped in the cape.
“Let me take this,” He said and ripped the cape in half in an attempt to take it from Dream. He looked down on the now destroyed thing and shook his head, deciding to throw the half in his possession into the wall of lava. Dream winced at the sound of it getting burnt.
“Dream,” He tore his gaze off of the lava and looked at his tormentor with a look he hoped to not be too scared. “Where. Is. Technoblade.”
Dream couldn’t do anything but stare.