Chapter Text
Dream barely feels his own thumb hooking onto the leather strap of the book, though he distinctively knows he’s doing, is watching himself do it, can feel the pain shooting through his hands as he begins writing.
He wonders how long it has been since he saw the sun—
Feels cold deep in his bones—The cell is never cold, it’s impossible with it being encased in lava, so why is it now?
Perhaps the response lies somewhere between the blood on his bare feet and Quackity up in his face, as he berates him and forces him to write and sign the damn book.
He isn’t totally sure what the response is, can’t read between the lines in his state—but his arms are oddly shaky and he can’t quite comprehend where the blood comes from.
What he does know is that he’s doomed to an eternity of this—of wondering, of never quite knowing what’s wrong with him, of missing the sun on his skin, of being utterly alone—or, well, at least that’s what this feels like.
And it’s what it feels like when he’s dragged closer and closer to the lava, Quackity and Sam are screaming at each other but he can’t quite comprehend the words, his ears have been ringing since the first blow to the head he got this time.
The book burns underneath his fingertips. All that work for nothing. It wasn’t even the revival book.
Of course it wasn’t. He wasn’t that weak, that stupid, he would never do that.
Would he?
He gets the confirmation that it wasn’t the book when Quackity shoves him to the ground, yelling even more. He’s not sure he has ever heard someone go so high with their voice. He’s not sure he has ever seen Quackity’s wings before, and how they shake with anger and glow a yellow-painful-sun colour.
“You have fucked with me for the last fucking time, Dream!” echoes in his brain like a ping-pong ball, one he’s watching with distant eyes, with a weak grasp. “I don’t care about the fucking book anymore!” a lie, surely, because if he didn’t, why was Dream still alive?
“Quackity—” Sam tries. Sam always tries—tries to be a good man, tries to be a good warden, tries to do what’s good. Yet he always fails.
“No! Shut the fuck up, Sam,” Quackity thrusts his sword in Sam’s direction, the latter takes a step back and his mask steams out dark smoke. There is an in-fight brewing. Dream could and should capitalise on that. “You’ve done enough shit.”
The cold obsidian is feeling less and less cold as Dream is dragged to the edge of the cell.
He doesn’t put up a fight (what is a fight when he could barely lift his fist above his ribs? What is a fight when Quackity smells like smoke and his sword is yielded?)
He’s grabbed by the collar of his shirt, the uniform is orange and breaking apart (he’ll fall, he’ll fall, he’ll fucking fall), and is held right over the edge of the cell, and he finally comes to himself at the worst fucking moment.
“What—what the fuck are you doing, Quackity?” and he tries to be unflinching, he tries to be terrifying, he tries to not cough up the blood between his cheeks.
“I’m done with your fucking games! I’m done with all of this! I’m getting rid of you,” he states, shakes Dream and a thread of his shirt becomes looser. “And I’m getting rid of everything you stand for. All this fucking evil .”
Could one get rid of evil when they, too, are evil?
And Dream is starting to think that he really might kill him, and he looks at Sam in a moment of desperation, who is gripping his trident with enough strength to break it, but doing nothing .
Was this the end?
Truly?
At the end of someone’s hands?
He supposes it is a fitting end—to burn up in flames and the scorching hot lava that has decorated his existence for six long and painful months.
He supposes he was Icarus, flying too close to the sun with his one-goal-mind; he supposes his ending was always going to be the same, to end in the one thing he can reverse on everyone but himself—death has Her grips on his shoulders and She is unlikely to let go.
He doesn’t have much longer to contemplate because Quackity lets out a scream of pain and he sees an arrow implanted right on the man’s arm, the one holding him.
He also doesn’t have much time to celebrate because Quackity releases him right into the lava, just as he intended, quicker than he intended.
But his ending is in soft and, quite furry, arms, his ending is on yelled words and netherite armour banging against his wounds and potions thrown to help as the fur-filled person runs with him in their arms—
Dream only knows a handful of people whose body is decorated with fur, so he looks up, as well as he can look when his head is spinning again and he still isn’t sure what the fuck just happened and he is—
He is met with Technoblade, in all his warrior glory (everything Dream is not, not anymore, everything he hopes to be again), who’s focused on running with Dream in his arms and paying him no more attention than the one needed to not let him fall to the ground pathetically.
…Why was Technoblade here, again?
He feels like he missed something important.
Again.
Shit.
Technoblade is rushing them through a hallway Dream doesn’t recognize, it’s tight and all in stone and he’s pretty sure they’re underground but he’s not sure where .
Had… had Technoblade come to save him?
He hadn’t even come to visit him before.
Dream wrote him a letter recently, he thinks, but that was very obvious bait from Quackity.
Had he gotten the letter already? Did he see the meaning behind the words so well that he’d come to save Dream?
That was… an insane line of thought, to be truthful.
Dream was not a person worthy of acting that fast for, that was for sure, he had been told that many times; he also wasn’t someone worthy of saving.
The sun is warm on his skin—and attacking his eyes.
He kind of forgot it did that.
He was also being put down before he could so much adjust to the lighting and Technoblade was talking far too much, and Dream could only catch halves of sentences like “we have horses” (was he supposed to be riding one? He couldn’t wrap his hands around things very well, he’d fall. He doesn’t want to fall in front of these people) and “we have to leave and go back” (go back where? Dream, contrary to what he’d told Technoblade so many moons ago, did not have a house).
He stumbles and almost falls to the ground, before he feels lanky hands supporting and holding him up.
He knew these hands.
Ranboo?
What the fuck was Ranboo doing here?
Did he remember this time?
“I have him,” Ranboo starts, hands supporting Dream like he’s a rambunctious child, right under the armpits in an uncomfortable and painful manner. “I’ll take him, Techno. Go help Phil and Niki.” ah, so he hadn't remember, it was some Syndicate bullshit (he knew about it, yes, somehow. He doesn’t really remember how ).
And Technoblade does leave, armour making an awful amount of noise due to the heavy metal clanking together, but that noise was nothing compared to the alarm. Gods, Dream knew he was going to regret making Sam install that loud and annoying bullshit.
And he for sure was regretting it! So much! It was making his head hurt and swim and it was making the world look a little more blurry than it should be and he was starting to lose himself again.
Ranboo was trying to lead him somewhere, with shaky hands still under his armpits, and a strength he forgot the guy even had.
They only manage to take a few steps forward before the two fall—
And, really, it was all Ranboo’s fault.
“I… I’m sorry?” Ranboo tries, his limbs tangled on themselves and Dream just a few metres from him. Dream glares. Why the fuck was he stuck with this guy to escape? They would get themselves killed way too fucking fast. That’d be pathetic. “I forgot you were in front of me.”
“You—you were literally carrying me.”
“...Yeah,” a slow-spoken word. “And I forgot about it.”
The two stare at each other for a moment longer. The dewy feeling of the grass is really starting to get to him, starting to bother him.
Ranboo untangles himself, then gets up, and almost starts walking away on his own before he remembers Dream is still, very much, on the ground, and turns back to help Dream off the floor.
Dream would’ve refused the help if he was of right mind, he thinks.
Ranboo forgoes the armpit hold this time, instead opting for a shoulder half-hug sort of deal (in which both were highly uncomfortable, one should point out), and properly starts guiding them both to where the horses were.
Dream thinks that’s where they were going, at least, and that that was their escape route, though he was also hearing withers in the distance, so reality was a bit weird for him at the moment.
Dream thinks to himself for a little, gathers his thoughts, gathers the facts:
- Quackity was about to kill him—like, for real, kill him
- Sam was going to let Quackity kill him (though, that was fairly usual, wasn’t it? Sam just going along with whatever Quackity says)
- The Syndicate had, apparently, decided to break him out
- The Syndicate had succeeded and now he was going… somewhere with them
The odds of this not being a dream were extremely slim.
Though if it is a dream (he sees the irony and the joke, yes), he should enjoy it, right? Not think about all the ways this could go wrong, of all the ways this could work against him and his plans, of all the ways this has screwed up with his brain.
Ranboo stops the spiraling of his thoughts by shoving him into a horse, essentially. It’s a grey horse with a matching iron armour set.
He isn’t sure why he notices.
Dream and the horse stare at each other for a second too long and footsteps approach them.
“What are you doing just looking, mate? Get on the horse,” Philza’s British accent and voice, however heavy and entertaining, almost sends Dream into cardiac arrest. He doesn’t look at him. “Need help?” Philza sounds like he might be frowning.
“I don’t—I don’t need your fucking help.” he’s being a bit hostile, but rightfully so, he thinks. Even if they are the people who helped him escape the worst situation imaginable—okay, maybe it wasn’t justified.
An awkward moment of silence falls between the three. Philza doesn’t look phased and the aggression, Ranboo is past the point of being awkward and is simply ignoring the situation at hand, and Dream is staring at the horse like it might change into an easier method of transportation.
It doesn’t.
“Fucking—fine.” he caves and it’s enough of a reply for Philza, who gets on the horse first, and then pulls Dream up and places him in from of himself, all on his own.
Seriously? Even the old man was strong? What the fuck was Technoblade feeding the Syndicate? Strength potions for breakfast, or some shit?
They take off as soon as they get on the horses, and Dream loses himself to the pain.
The galloping of the horses sends jolts and pain throughout his body, he tries to ignore them—the white of the cold terrain clouds his vision the closer they get to Technoblade and Philza’s cabins, and he wasn’t, at all, prepared for how cold this place was. It kind of numbs his limbs, enhances the pain of old broken bones.
Dream, just now, has decided he fucking hates horses.
Or, well, he hates riding horses, that’s far more accurate.
The tundra was never-changing. Even if structures were added and traps were made, it still felt… casual. Homey. Like it didn’t belong to someone who appeared as rash as Technoblade, like it didn't belong to someone as ancient and cruel as Philza.
The two leave Dream at the steps, his glare never-changing, trying to not look around too much and too obviously and too curiously, and they distract themselves with putting away the horses.
He knows when he’s not wanted in a place, he really does, but his chances of escaping were… slim to none, really, he was only barely holding himself up by using the rail of the stairs.
Yet it all changes when Niki and Technoblade arrive, just a few minutes of mindless glaring and whispered words later.
“Are you hopin’ to get caught again?” a hand slides over his back, startling him and almost causing him to fall.
Technoblade is suddenly at his side, warm and uncomfortably close, but he’s also helping Dream up the stairs and he prevented Dream’s (third?) fall, so he doesn’t say anything.
“I’ll grab some food,” Niki squeezes past the two, headed towards Philza’s cabin instead, voice low and careful, like she was handling a frightened animal (she might be— she was ). “And medicine,” she adds, as an afterthought, looking down at her hands, at Technoblade’s once-white poet shirt, at Dream’s… everything.
Technoblade seems to agree with her and keeps guiding Dream into his own cabin, helping him in the endeavours of sitting down on the couch.
They don’t talk.
Ranboo remains at the door.
Philza follows Niki instead.
“That was easier than expected,” Philza closes the door behind himself, Niki and Ranboo, as they enter Technoblade's cabin a few seconds later. He speaks to everyone, eyes surveying them all, deeming them well enough right after.
“Yeah, I sort of thought they’d have more… guards, at least?” Niki comments, setting down a bunch of shit she was carrying in her bag. Dream has seen medicine before, of course he has, but the amount that these people have just seems exaggerated.
(The tundra carries pain and war in its roots, its residents the ones to build upon it, and they’d never let anything ruin them, kill them, erase their efforts. The amount of medicine has never been too much, the care has never been too much.)
“Maybe they didn’t think anyone would be dumb enough to try and jailbreak Dream,” Technoblade adds, sitting down next to Dream after discarding his cloak… somewhere in the house. Dream looks at him (he sourly misses his mask).
“You just called yourself dumb,” Dream points out, seemingly startling Niki and Technoblade, who share a look as if hearing his voice was something out of the ordinary (the rasp of it was, the pain lingering in the wounds of his neck was, the almost-monotone tone was).
“Well, no,” Technoblade thinks his next words over for a second. “We’re cool and strong and did the unexpected.” he seems… entirely too sure of himself, Dream deems.
“That… makes no sense.”
Technoblade doesn’t deem that worthy of a response, just shrugs and then looks Dream up and down. Nods to himself, then gestures at Niki.
Niki understands his gestures in whatever way she does, and hands him a small bag beside her. She then resumes her task of taking care of her own hands, which looked withered—black dust settled into her fingers, slowing them down and freezing them up just enough to hurt. It’d pass, soon enough, but it’d take attention and care.
Now Dream knows the withers were real, not imagined, and he knows who had set them off—though he imagines the provider of them was Technoblade, who always seems to have an arsenal of them.
Technoblade gets up, ignoring his own protests of pain (his arms sting from arrows and swords and his heavy armour, his chest aches from breathing in fumes, his movements and brain are slowed down from potions thrown at him), and he picks up Dream with a single arm, who struggles all the way, and takes both into the bathroom.
Dream thinks he’ll pass out.
“You’re not gonna mess up my house,” he states and Dream thinks he’s probably talking about the couch. He leaves Dream on the tiled bathroom floor, sitting down next to him right after. “Sorry,” he adds as an afterthought, after noticing Dream’s growing frantic breathing. “Did I hurt you?” he questions, confused.
Dream shakes his head. He hadn't, not really, not exactly, not directly.
He’s conscious enough in reality to understand and comprehend he isn’t in any immediate danger, yet he always reacts like he is nowadays, can’t really stop it—his walls are always up, always spiky to hurt those who try to hurt or help him.
“Okay…” Technoblade trails off awkwardly, turning his attention to the medical bag next to him, taking out whatever he thinks will be necessary. “This might hurt—well, it’ll hurt for sure.”
And the pain that shoots through his hand and up his arm as Technoblade peels away the dry-bloody bandage is almost unbearable enough to make him pass out.
He barely holds back a scream of pain, biting down on his lip strong enough to draw blood from the cracked and old wounds.
“Alright,” Technoblade stops his movements, steadying Dream’s hand on his thigh, holding onto it with a kind hoof (the two missing fingers in the middle of his hand were worrying, how would Dream flip people off with that hand?, same as how his various missing fingertips were worrying—he was so sure he had never seen these kinds of injuries on Dream, same as how he had never seen the man maskless, same as how the bandages wrapping up his whole body were bloodied and old, but not older than the prison). “You need painkillers.”
“I’m—I’m fine.” even Dream himself can spot the lie from a mile away.
“...Right. And I still think you need painkillers, so,” Technoblade knocks on the bathroom door, that Dream hadn’t noticed he had closed before, and Philza pokes his head in the room almost immediately. Paranoid, much? “Painkillers, please.” Philza nods, produces the painkillers from seemingly nowhere, and gives them to Technoblade.
“Everything good, mate?” he questions before he leaves and Technoblade nods for the both of them. “Alright.” and the door closes behind him again.
Suddenly, Dream can hear the faint movements of the others in the house. The kitchen bursting with life by, possibly, Niki using it, an animal running around (a dog, maybe?) and Ranboo’s low voice talking and chasing after it, Philza’s cane hitting the ground in a satisfying rhythm as he returns to his previous spot.
Technoblade wastes no time in giving Dream the painkillers, though Dream scowls the whole time and knows, for sure, they won’t work for shit. He allows it to happen, same as how he allows Technoblade to slather a regen potion in his hand. It fucking burns .
As Technoblades takes further care of his wounds, Dream’s winces and flinches are barely held back, his whimpers are masked as gasps, and he likes to think Technoblade will be kind enough to never fucking mention them.
Dream’s second hand is the next focus, visible and with its pinky missing, and with a branding of Quackity’s square-smile on its back.
Technoblade grips it with too much strength, causes Dream to flinch, causes Technoblade to rub the regen potion with more kindness and gentleness.
Dream loses himself (again? again? again?) somewhere between the taking care of his feet (rough and bare, always, some bones fractured, others completely broken—he doesn’t think his left foot will ever recover fully from the break his ankle suffered too long ago), and the humiliating stripping of his clothes, of the thousands of bandages.
He knows he’s given a bath—feels wet fur and rough hooves, feels them rubbing the blood away from his body.
Knows he’s taken care of further, feels the pain tingling into his brain numbly, feels himself downing a regen potion, feels bones being set back to their original locations, feels the cloth of the bandages neatly tied around his limbs.
Knows he’s given clothes far bigger than him—which oddly smells of what he (now) knows is Technoblade’s smell.
Knows he’s taken to a bedroom, feels the torturous climbing of stairs only in his body. He knows he’s laid down on the ground, a mattress entirely softer and more comfortable than anything he remembers touching, fluffy pillows and blankets decorating it.
Knows people will talk about him…
Yet he can’t even be bothered to open his eyes anymore, much less argue or prove his points or tell his story—he’d never do the last one, even if he wasn’t tired.
So, sleep it is, he decides, and rolls into a comfortable position, tucks himself under every blanket he can be until he’s completely hidden.
He has missed comfortable beds.
Technoblade is taken care of by Philza, who scolds him for not being careful enough in the heat of the battles, is given cookies (new, hot, that fill the house with this wonderful smell) by Niki, and is stared at oddly by Ranboo. Maybe he should question that.
Too many things to think about, truly; he saved a man from prison, and now he has to think of all the ways he appears broken, and he has to think of why he’s so inclined to take care of him, of why he feels this kinship.
“So,” he starts, looking around the room and taking a bout of a cookie (which he makes sure to praise Niki for how good it tastes). “What now?”
“I thought you had a plan?” Philza raises a brow and a wing (just slightly, just non-painfully), sitting down next to him after putting away the aid kits. “I mean, you planned all of this jailbreak, kinda imagined you had this all figured out.”
“Phil. Phil, come on, since when do I think that far ahead?”
“Since always, mate,” he says with a laugh, shaking his head. “I thought you would just leave him at the doorstep, tell him to figure out his own life.”
“See, the thing is, I probably would’ve before…”
“Before he looked like he was on the brink of death?”
“Exactly. Niki gets it.” he nods, Niki smiles just enough, and Philza shakes his head. “He’s…”
“Weird?” Philza’s wings fold so the man is more comfortable against the couch, and he speaks as he leans towards Technoblade.
“Different?” Ranboo chimes, after long minutes of silence from him, voice breaking just slightly.
“I was gonna say hurt, but I guess those too,” he sighs. “He has Quackity’s smile branded on him.” he pauses, waits for their reactions (Niki’s gasp and raise of her hand to her mouth, Ranboo’s mismatched eyes widening and enderman nature buzzing, Philza’s tensing of his wings and flinch of a hand). “He also got his foot badly hurt, somehow, so I don’t think he’s gonna be walkin’ on it anytime soon,” he lightens up.
“Hm…” Philza hums, brain working. “Perhaps he could use some crutches.” and he almost gets up immediately to make them, Technoblade assumes, but he stops him with a hoof in his arm and a shake of his head.
“Later. Let’s figure this out first.” Philza concedes and stills.
“What’s there to figure out? We need to prepare—prepare for someone to come get him,” Ranboo states, hands moving with jagged stutters. “I mean—I mean, we don’t want to give him… back, right?”
“Obviously we don’t!” Niki shakes her head, turning to Ranboo. “Do you?” she asks in kindness.
“...No.” Ranboo is sure of himself on this one, he thinks, tail flicking nervously behind him. He hasn’t even sat down. “No, yeah, I don’t want that.”
“Well, I guess that’s a new housemate,” Technoblade grumbles, rolling his eyes. Philza smiles. “But Ranboo is right, we need to prepare for anyone to come for the guy. I mean, he isn’t the most well-liked person on the server. We’re probably in danger of bein’ attacked and all that.”
“I can prepare traps,” ah, Philza, always one to put his hands to work, even though he has already deemed himself the creator of crutches, always the one to distract his mind with actions. “And watch the perimeter first.”
“Sure,” Technoblade nods and turns to Niki and Ranboo. “You guys gather your things and return here, it’s probably best to stay together.” the two get up almost immediately, gathering their cloaks and bags, heading out soon after (Philza calls out for them to stay safe, the two wish the same to them back).
Philza stays behind, even as Technoblade turns his attention to putting on his reading glasses and picks up a book. His wings are trembling just slightly. Technoblade waits for him to speak first.
“This could be a really bad idea,” he says, voice low and careful—he doesn’t want Dream to listen.
“Or a really good one,” Technoblade shrugs, looking up from words he hasn’t begun reading. “It’ll be fine, Phil, surely. Plus, even if it isn’t, you know I wouldn’t let anythin’ happen to you.”
Philza’s smile is painful and understanding—he has never doubted the loyalty, the prioritisation of his life even above Technoblade’s own in the man’s mind.
“I know, mate, I know,” he sighs. “Maybe that’s why I’m so worried.”
And then he leaves, his words hanging over Technoblade heavily, and the room just feels a tad darker than before.
It makes Technoblade fidget with the book. It makes a dog come in and start sniffing at him.
Animals are good therapy.
Technoblade, definitely, does not spoil his animals.
Don’t tell Philza one of the dogs was on the couch, though.
Dream comes to life again (or, wakes up) when the sun is already setting and a weird orange light (that reminds him too much of lava) settles into the room.
It’s the first night he has spent without waking up screaming from nightmares. He still had a nightmare, he remembers vague pieces of it, but he didn’t wake up screaming. Progress.
He isn’t totally sure if he wakes up because of the light or because of the dog sniffling at his form, just above the blanket.
Dream pokes his head out of the blankets, just slightly, just so his eyes can fall on Technoblade, who is holding back three big fucking dogs from pounding on Dream.
“...What the fuck?” he manages to croak out his thoughts, frowning.
“Oh, hey Dream,” Technoblade almost-laughs, voice high. A dog barks and Dream flinches. It spurs Technoblade into talking again. “Right, so. The dogs kind of got out of their spots and they’re, you know, very interested in you.”
Dream stares at him.
“New scent… and all…” he trails off as he stares back at Technoblade, expression settled in sheepiness.
They stare at each other in silence for far too long.
The dog that was sniffling Dream’s form now sits down, with its head right on Dream’s leg, painful and comforting all the same—since when was this something he did? Find comfort in animals? (since always. He remembers a cat tail flicking under his nose, claws clinging to his uniform. It makes him bitter.)
“Make them leave.” he’s being unnecessarily aggressive, he knows, he understands, he can’t fucking deal with this now.
“Right, sure, I can do that.” Technoblade nods, observing him. He feels like a fucking rat in a lab. Gods, his brain is fucked up. “Sorry, by the way, didn’t mean to wake ya up and all that.”
And he forces the dogs out.
Dream half-wonders how they even got up, but they’re probably used to coming up here.
Before he leaves, too, Technoblade looks back at him.
“There’s food for you,” he says and points at a table, where a steaming bowl of, he assumes, soup is. Dream looks back at the blankets and ignores him. Technoblade powers on. “Try and eat, man.” he wouldn’t.
Dream doesn’t sleep after that, his brain far too loud and aggressive, his heart too accelerated, his ears too aware of the dogs moving downstairs, of Technoblade moving every now and then, the clinking of knitting needles.
He looks around, takes the room in, takes in the intrusion he’s doing in it, takes in the pain filling his body almost fully. He can feel every single pain, from the hot-red of his hands to the blue-cold of his neck.
He wonders if he’s even wanted in this room, if he’s being kept as another experiment (he knows Technoblade better than to think like that, he knows, yet he cannot stop his thoughts), if there’s pity in the air, if he’s a waste of supplies and time.
He has never, not before, thought like that.
Yet, nowadays, he can hear Quackity’s voice in the back of his brain, he can hear his own voice distorted and mean.
He thinks Quackity might’ve fucked up his brain further than it already was.
He wasn’t a saint or totally sane, before, he didn’t want to be. He wasn’t a harmless human being, subjected to bad circumstances—he was a villain, they’d call him that and he’d follow through, and he was playing his part exactly how he himself wanted to, and things were working.
Until… well, until the prison happened in a way it wasn’t supposed to.
A slight bump in his plans.
That’s what that was.
What this is.
Nothing else. He was fine. Totally and utterly fine.
(as fine as someone who just flinched because Technoblade dropped a book somewhere downstairs that echoed into his brain and shook his ribs, can be.)
He’s fine!
He proves (to himself) that by getting up, a slow endeavour that uses more strength than he actually has—
And immediately falls, a dull thud half on the mattress, half on the wooden floor, a cuss comes out of him automatic enough that it enrages him further.
“Fuck.”
Technoblade’s head pokes at the top of the stairs, looking around like a paranoid man, and his eyes settle on Dream and he immediately breathes out in relief.
“What are you up to, Dream?” like casualty is what they both need, Dream glares at him.
“The floor is comfier.” it fucking isn’t. His chin hurts. His chest hurts. His knees survived.
“Totally,” Technoblade agrees with a slow nod, though Dream can tell he doesn’t actually believe in the truthfulness of it. “But how about gettin’ you off the comfy floor, though?” he steps fully into the room, looking at where he had set the bowl of soup, now grown cold and totally untouched.
“No,” Dream stubbornly shuffles back, closer to the mattress. “I’m fine here.”
“The more you keep sayin’ that, less I’ll believe it, man,” Technoblade shakes his head as he says it, hands moving just enough to show the slightest of annoyances.
And, oh! There it was, the chance to capitalise on exactly what he wanted—
“Then let me go back to—”
“The prison? Absolutely not,” Dream frowns, instantly. What the fuck, man?
“Why not?” he sounds like a child. Damnit.
“Uh, well, let’s see: because we used up a lot of resources to save you and we hate the prison. By principle, you know?” Technoblade’s brow raises. “Plus, it doesn’t seem like the kinda place you’d wanna be in.” except it was , it was right where he needed to be.
A silence falls between the two. Dream wonders where the other three are, if they’re out there enjoying their lives as they always do, if they think Dream being inside Technoblade’s cabin is as much of a threat and invasion as he feels he is, if Philza’s crows in the window are a warning, if the soup was laced with something.
He doesn’t know, but he feels like, deep down, he’s blaming them for things they haven’t done, maybe never even will.
“Good conversation,” Technoblade clears his throat, looks around again. “Do you wanna go down? Or somethin’? You have the whole house to explore, if you wanna do that.”
“I’m fine here.”
“Yeah, right, of course, except that’s my bed.” Dream’s eyes widen and he’s about to spew some apology when Technoblade raises a hand. “Let me finish. You can stay there, alright? Just tell me if you wanna do that, or if you want us to set up somethin’ else for you, that’s all.”
“Where… where will you sleep?” he asks, half out of politeness, half out of worry (quarter out of paranoia).
“Probably the couch. It’s a great couch, actually,” he nods to himself, like he had won the couch lottery once upon a time. “Or just make a bed down in the basement, don’t really care which.” he shrugs, Dream swallows and nods.
He doesn’t really know why this interaction was fucking up his brain.
Had he missed kindness? He had barely known it before. He had given up on it, on people giving it to him.
There’s another moment, where neither knows what to do, what to say, how to act—except, well, Technoblade looks like he wants to write a whole novel of things to say to Dream. Dream sure hopes he fucking doesn’t. That’d be fucking terrible.
“Well, it’s settled then. I’ll leave you to… whatever it is you were doin’ before. On the ground.” Technoblade disappears down the stairs, leaving Dream to dwell on his situation some more. He supposes that’s all he can really do.
For now.
He looks towards the window and realizes night has fallen. He didn’t think time had passed that quickly.
The tundra isn’t plagued by pollution like the rest of the server, where it’s clouded in torches and lit-up paths, so the night sky is starry and— gods , he has missed the stars.
Dream gets himself up, through pure stubbornness and with the extreme help of the wooden walls, and wobbles to the window—wait, no, he walks to it, because he isn’t wobbling, or limping, or wincing everytime his left foot settles on the ground.
He first surveys what he can see of the tundra, finds Philza hunched over some… device at the front gate, cane completely discarded to the side and wings shielding him from the light snow falling.
Dream supposes they’re taking safety precautions. Which is good, surely.
(except it’s not, it means he can’t escape, can’t leave, which means he’s trapped, again, again, again—)
His eyes travel to the sky right after, ignoring the danger in the lights of the blinking devices, ignoring the pit growing in his stomach and consuming his bones, the pain settling in his skin—he focuses on the bright stars, the northern star brighter than he has ever seen it, the slash of blue-green cutting right through the dark-night sky.
He once didn’t have to stop and wonder if the stars would ever be visible above his head, yet now all he can think about is when will he lose this again?
When will he lose the feeling of a house? When will he start to miss it? The wood, the comfortable blankets, the company and the pets? When will he think of looking at the stars and not be capable? Which starry sky will be his last, which version of the universe will he see when he closes his eyes for the last time? When will he think of the people around him as hostile? (more than he still does, when will he think he has to have his fists raised, his wits ready, his emotions completely in check?)
Perhaps it will be today, anyways, nothing about the Syndicate is guaranteed. He doesn’t trust them, not really.
He… thinks he knows Ranboo. Or a part of him? He’s not really sure, not anymore, the guy is unreadable most times.
(there’s no kindness in those lanky hands, no memories of their time spent together scheming—he can call it scheming, alright? But if there is none of that, can he trust him? The purple particles aren’t comforting anymore.)
Technoblade has no favours hanging over his head like a knife on a loose string, so Dream’s unsure if he can trust him, if he ever even could, if their relationship has ever been anything other than transactional.
(he remembers Tommy and Technoblade, yielding confidence like they yield their swords, remembers Doomsday with a giddy feeling—they were always transactional, right?)
Philza and Niki are… mysteries of their own, mysteries he can’t bother to decipher, not now, not later, not until he’s safe .
(he remembers how Philza used to look at him, how he was only tolerated—probably still is—he remembers Niki’s cold eyes most times they met, so there wasn’t much to go off of.)
(the Syndicate does not remind him of his friends. Or his ex-friends—the ones that met tragic hands and it was planned and he won’t tell anyone otherwise or even admit it to himself.)
He finally decides to open the window, and, after a moment of struggle, is chilled to the bone by the winds. He climbs out onto the rooftop anyways—and he totally doesn’t almost fall at least three times, the slippery-icy-roof doing his injuries no justice and complicating his life.
He climbs to the top, doesn’t care about how foolishly his heart beats in fear, and sits down, chills going up and down his spine from the cold creeping into his clothes immediately.
The snow clings to the roofs and to him. Now, he thinks he knows why the Syndicate members all have some sort of cloak or cape—outside of the pretentious aesthetic.
Philza spots him the second he’s outside the window, and dutifully ignores him. Technoblade is rummaging the house, mumbling to himself about blankets and pillows and animals getting in his way (he even hears him apologise for having to reach for something behind an animal). He hopes he won’t be spotted by the latter.
He feels like a fucking reckless teenager. How stupid.
Dream leans back, eyes trained on the northern star, and he wonders where everything went wrong with his plans.
He has to fix that, he can’t just let his plans fall through because of a few hiccups.
“Don’t see a lot of people brooding up here a lot recently,” a voice startles the shit out of him, and he slips from his grip, sliding down and down and—
A small hand grabs his arm and pulls him up. It’s painful, but at least he doesn’t fall.
“Oh, god, I’m so sorry!” Niki is the cause of all his pains right now, it seems. However, the Syndicate member have, fortunately, very good strength, else he would have a broken leg and arm to add to his neverending list of injuries. “I did not mean to startle you.” he wonders how he didn’t hear her climb onto the roof as he readjusts himself after she lets him go.
“It’s fine,” he states again. He feels like his vocabulary has dimed. “Should’ve heard you.”
“Hmm, I’m a very quiet person, don’t think you would’ve,” she smiles and sits down next to him. She lays a blanket below her, wraps it around her lap, then sets another blanket on top of Dream’s lap. He ignores it. “It gets cold around here.”
He thinks she’s afraid of him, but she doesn’t seem to be. She’s weary, she doesn’t trust him for shit, she carries a knife on her hip.
Dream thinks he’s kind of afraid of her, at this point.
“I guess.” he agrees, because what the fuck else can he say? He could ignore her, he supposes, but that would result in more questions, more problems.
“Phil hasn’t stopped a single minute,” she sighs, changes the subject smoothly and without worries, shaking her head and looking at Philza’s working form, hunched over devices and pieces of everything. “I should give him something to eat. Techno is busy with the house and pets, Ranboo is still getting his things.” she’s more talking to herself than to or with Dream. He’s kind of thankful for that.
The trees echo with Philza’s work, the animals deep in the forest cry out in response, the monsters lurk because they can’t get closer, the Gods fear it.
“I’m not sure why you’re still here,” Niki starts again and he looks at her. She doesn’t. “I thought you would’ve left by now. Someway, somehow. I thought… maybe you had someone waiting for you out there.”
He shrugs as a response. He still has someone waiting for him. Right? Maybe they’d get him one day. Who knows. He just knows he won’t stay here for long.
“I’m…” she hesitates, takes a moment, gathers all the painful words she could say, and stores them away for someone else. “Glad we got you out. No one deserves to be in that place, or anywhere like that.”
She doesn’t get up, like he thought she would, she keeps him silent company and—his walls are all up, his defences are active, but he stays, too.
He doesn’t know why.
(it’s the comfort of knowing someone is there, of knowing she expects nothing from him, of knowing she’s here for her own benefit and not his own, of blankets soft to the touch and his wounds.)
Getting back in the cabin, some minutes of awkward silence and freezing temperatures later, through the small window isn’t his most elegant work, he almost falls off the roof multiple times, and the loud bang of his body hitting the floor inside the cabin is painful and causes Technoblade to poke his stupid piglin head in again.
He just glares at him, for far too long, and Technoblade sighs, sliding down the stairs again, seemingly getting the message of oh my god, leave me alone I’m completely fine, even if I’m face planted on the ground.
Dream hears him stomping on the floor below, grumbling something he can’t quite hear (though he knows it’s about him, playful banter, yet it drives like a stake through his heart), and hears Niki’s laugh echo.
He feels distant over and over again, the house brings an odd sense of comfort and not at all at the same time, it brings memories he wants to forget, others he wants to remember, feelings he can’t be bothered to feel right then and there.
The cold sticks to his skin, makes him feel entirely too far away from home—
Since when was ‘home’ the prison? Since when was scorching hot lava the temperature his body was most adapted to? Or—
Well.
His clothes are simply wet. And cold. And uncomfortable. And his thoughts are spiraling and Dream is not a man known for fucking spiraling .
He shivers his way to the bed, though not bothering to change the clothes (he didn’t have any others, and he for sure was not going to talk to Technoblade to ask for anything), and wraps himself up in blankets, ignoring the way the wet from his clothes wet them.
Although fully dressed, Dream has not stopped feeling totally naked and vulnerable ever since he left (unwillingly) the prison.
He isn’t totally sure why, but he thinks it might have to do with it being the Syndicate that has taken him in.
Next thing he knows, he passes out against the fluffiest pillow.
Technoblade is not a man known for his worry.
…Alright, that’s a bit of a lie… However, he is known for leaving people alone who clearly want to be left alon—
And, no, no, he totally isn’t poking his head into the room, his room previously, for the third time that night.
Totally not!
Except now he admits he’s doing it, because his eyes fall on Dream with focus and his ears pick up the lack of sounds that are supposed to be coming from the man.
He isn’t sure if the speed at which he moves is human (was Technoblade even considered human?), but the next thing he knows he’s right at Dream’s side, a hoof searching for his pulse to time it and the other turning Dream’s face to the side—he’s burning.
Had his wounds gotten infected despite his care of them?
Technoblade moves him and checks his bandages, which aren’t leaking or looking any terrible than they were before and—they’re wet. Niki said they had been outside.
Good gods, Technoblade has never felt stupider.
Now he has to deal with Dream plus a fever, resulting in a feverish Dream. What would that look like? Something terrible, for certain, with thousands of refusals of care.
He changes the blankets around Dream, after noticing they’re wet and growing cold, and tries not to think of the amounts of laundry he’d have to do later (he complains in his head, of course, but he’d do this again and again, wouldn’t he?).
He feels like he has done this a thousand times, filling up a bucket of water and a washcloth in a minty green colour dipped into it, and placed on Dream’s forehead, bottles of water brought up like they have an infinite supply of it, planning meals and drinks to get him better—he remembers Philza doing all of this for him, he remembers how kind it was to wake up and not feel alone.
And Dream does wake up a few moments later, mildly out of it and immediately flinching away from Technoblade’s hoof, which was resting on his head.
“Slow down,” he sighs, Dream frowns and looks at him through hazy eyes—Technoblade’s not even sure the man can see him. “You have a fever,” and Dream shakes his head, like he can will the fever away, like his head will stop pounding if he does so. “You’re gonna make it harder for both of us if you keep doin’ that, man.”
“I’m fine,” is barely mumbled, barely audible. Technoblade almost laughs at the blatant lie.
He feeds the almost-lucid man some of the regen potion—Dream grimaces at the taste but doesn’t spit it out, thankfully. He’s glad he chose the potion and not tea.
“Suure, Dream, I totally believe that, especially after you passed out and are burnin’ up,” Dream shrugs, doesn’t quite catch everything, but he knows he’s not being believed in, and turns away from Technoblade’s blurry face. “You were outside with Niki and didn’t even bother changin’ clothes? What kinda idea was that, man?”
“Don’t have clothes,” he mumbles, and Technoblade stops, frowns, then breathes out and almost-laugh.
“Yeah, sure, Dream, but you have a mouth. You could’ve asked literally any of us for some clothes. Or a shower. You could use a shower, actually.”
“Fuck off.”
“No, but I’m serious, you can ask for things around here,” he translates that in his brain to mean you’re okay here, we won’t hurt you, we’d never do what they did to you. Dream doesn’t seem to get the message very well.
“Can you just—just leave.” he doesn’t ask, doesn’t beg, doesn’t bother making his voice clear.
Technoblade hears the pain beneath the words, the words that aren’t said, and he leaves the washcloth over Dream’s forehead, leaves the buckets and insane amounts of water bottles in the places he brought them, and heads towards the stairs.
“I’ll be around.” if you call, if you need .
Technoblade feels a cold settle into his shoulder blades, tenses and untenses, as he heads downstairs, further down into the basement, where Philza is, and plops his chin on top of the letters hat, wings brushing and tucking into themselves out of habit as a response.
“Something wrong, Techno, mate?” Philza asks, not stopping his task at hand of making… something that looks a little bit like a few fingers attached to something close to a hand. Technoblade is sure they’re for Dream, same as how the clutches made out of a neat sanded down dark oak wood that sit against the basement’s wall is for him.
“Nah,” he starts, shakes his head a little afterwards, and then shrugs. “Well, Dream is sick. Apparently he went out, with this snow, to the roof.”
“Oh, yeah, Niki mentioned she saw him there,” Philza nods. “And that she almost made him fall.” Technoblade huffs out a laugh, something between the stress and humour of it all.
“You guys are gonna kill him, seriously,” Technoblade sighs, Philza slowly comes to a stop on what he’s doing. “And you shouldn’t kill him. You know, ‘cause we went through all that trouble to save him, and it’d be a waste of materials.”
“Yeah, because we all totally believe that’s the only reason you want him alive, safe and well, mate,” Philza laughs, shakes Technoblade off his back and turns to him, leaning against the table now behind him, and crosses his arms. “The only person you might be fooling is Dream himself.”
Technoblade leans himself against the opposite wall. He’d never regret having built a small cabin, it gave him the opportunities to be close to people without being obvious, it kept the heat well, it was easy to build, easy to defend—though he does hit his head on his doors a bit too often.
“Now, why would you say that? You keep exposin’ me,” he jokes, Philza smiles and shrugs, like the smug fuck he is, and motions towards Technoblades whole form. “What?” Technoblade asks, confused and looking down at his clothes. They were perfectly fine, neat and comfortable.
“You can’t say I expose you when you come back looking like a kicked puppy—”
“I don’t do that, Phil! Those are lies, simply and truly.” Philza raises a brow at his words, doesn’t back down.
“...Everytime you come back from talking to Dream and it doesn’t go well.” he finishes, Technoblade rolls his eyes. “Oh, maybe I’m imagining things?”
“You absolutely are, Phil, you’re goin’ senile.”
The two share a look, a moment, a kindness.
Technoblade doesn’t know life without Philza’s emerald-green. Philza dislikes the lives he lived before Technoblade’s royal-red.
Niki drops something in the kitchen, and follows it up with a bunch of cuss words.
“What are you workin’ on?” it snaps Philza into his work-self again.
“Oh. Well, I had to keep my hands busy, you know?” Technoblade nods, he knows, knows too well, has seen it happen every time tragedy strikes or a change comes in the horizon. “So I was tinkering with some prosthetic models for, you know, Dream’s hand.” he frowns a bit as he finishes the sentence.
“Hmm,” he hums, nods. “Don’t know if he’ll take ‘em, but it’s a good idea. We can ask him about it when he’s not deliriously sick, I guess.”
“Sounds good, mate. They probably won’t be done anytime soon, but it’ll be easier if he knows, even if he refuses them.”
“Do you think he’d refuse them, truly?” Technoblade frowns and Philza sighs, taking off his hat and adjusting his hair just enough. It tangled up where it fell off its braid. Technoblade resists the urge to fix it. Philza places the hat on the table.
“I don’t know, mate, I can’t figure out how his brain works. Never could. You’re the one who understands him more, Techno, at the end of the day. What do you think?”
“I wouldn’t know, not really. Maybe before I would’ve,” Technoblade sighs, looks up at the ceiling, thinks he can imagine Dream as he left him, curled up under blankets and a washcloth that’s probably barely working.
They share a look, momentarily, and communicate so much that would be incomprehensible to others and a few questions lay before them afterwards.
What would they do? Realistically, Dream doesn’t seem too willing to open up to them (they wouldn’t force him, either. What is free choice and will if you’re not giving it to everyone?), and it’s more likely he will flee to wherever he wants to, once he’s better (or earlier).
Would they truly put themselves through threats of violence for a single man?
(they would, they have, they have done it over and over again, they will do it until their legs cannot stand them up anymore, until the earth claims them back, until they meet Death in her own kind ways.)
Do they understand what they’ve brought into their home?
(not the criminal, not the villain, the traumatised man whose trauma follows—they’ve brought the questions they want to ask yet cannot, the history they don’t know and are unsure if it will help to know—are they qualified to help? Would they only make it worse?)
“Either way,” Philza starts the conversation again, voice soft and understanding. “We’re prepared for anything.”
“Yeah, yeah, for sure, Phil. We’ll be fine,” Technoblade nods.
“And so will he,” Philza adds.
“Well, that one is a bit more debatable—”
“You’ll have to admit, someday, that you actually like the guy, you know? This whole rivalry thing isn’t working anymore.”
“No, I will not.”
The conversation continues under hushed tones, and Dream stops being able to hear them somewhere halfway through a joke, senses clogged with fever and delirium.
(he doesn’t understand the intricacies of what has happened, he doesn’t know the shared looks, doesn’t know the hands careful enough to take care of him when he needs it, doesn’t understand anymore how to be with people who will not hurt him.)
Ranboo loses himself somewhere between SNowchester and the arctic, somewhere between saving Dream and relocating-temporarily some more into the arctic, into Technoblade’s cabin, somewhere between a too-thin figure in bright orange and shaking hands missing some fingers, somewhere between the face of a man he’s never seen and the realisation that he is, utterly and truly, human.
He sort of finds himself, in Niki’s buried city, a day later, carrying a bag of belongings and a shaky self, unsure if she would even be there again today.
“Ranboo?” she asks as she rounds a corner, he had startled her into dropping whatever she was holding. “You scared the shit out of me. I thought an enderman got inside and I looked at it and—are you alright?” she notices the changes, she always does.
Ranboo takes a second to answer, but his answer is a firm shake of his head.
“Um. Alright, hold on,” she starts moving around, moving things, cleaning up a few, all in the span of just a few seconds, a few minutes. She returns to Ranboo just to guide him to sit down in the most comfortable looking chair he has ever had the pleasure to see.
He thinks, at least.
He sits awkwardly, with his legs bent and to the side—his legs are too tall for him to ever be comfortable when sitting down, he thinks.
He’s fine with it.
“Alright,” Niki starts, sitting down next to him and turning her body to him. An open body language, or whatever she’d explained to him once, that he remembers only a little bit. “Want to share what’s going on? You look like you’ve seen a ghost—and if you have, don’t tell me, please.” she jokes, Ranboo manages to smile just slightly, fangs catching on his lips.
“No, no. Not ghosts. At least… I don’t think so?” Niki isn’t convinced. Ranboo clears his throat. “So, we saved Dream, right? I didn’t—I didn’t dream that up, did I?”
“You didn’t, no,” she shakes her head. “We did save him and he’s currently with Techno and Phil. And we’ll both be with them for the foreseeable future, so we’re not in danger,” he enjoys when Niki breaks down the events that happened, finds it reassuring instead of condescending, jogs his memory right into place again, slows his heartbeat down just a bit.
“Right. Yeah. And…” he gulps, harsh, noticeable enough in the stutter of his speech. “And… why?”
“Why did we save him?”
“No, no, I know that bit, Technoblade talked to us about it a lot, right? I even wrote it down—”
“Why are we letting him stay, then?” he nods and she pauses, thinks, frowns. “I… don’t know?” she admits. “I mean, I also don’t know why we… wouldn’t, I guess,” she sighs and looks around her city. Ranboo mimics her actions, takes in the tall walls, the way it’s underground, the way it’s safe. “Dream… has done some really terrible things, we can never deny that, you know?”
Ranboo nods, thinks back to what he knows were terrible acts—some part of his brain points out the good acts, too, the kindness behind the scenes (he isn’t sure they’re truthful).
“But… seeing him like that was just… I mean, how could that happen? Do we want to look at the implications of it? I mean, of course we do, and we probably all already have, so how could we just let him go? Leave him all alone?”
“Is… is he alone?”
“I mean, I think so,” she looks at Ranboo again, eyes somewhere on his forehead—he also likes when she does that, avoids eye contact like she understands utterly why he dislikes it. “I don’t remember anyone not at that… that confrontation, you know?” she shakes her head. “And no one has come for him, so, all of that makes me think we should really continue staying with him, maybe try and help him.”
Ranboo nods, soft and understanding. Niki does the same, then looks away from him again.
A few moments of silence pass, Niki is itching to get up and to start working again, worried and curious as to how Technoblade and Philza are, how Dream is, even, not totally because she cares but because she’s scared he’ll get worse.
“I’m scared,” Ranboo starts out of nowhere, voice trembly and careful.
“Scared? Scared of what, Dream? He—”
“Not… exactly,” he stops, ponders how to word it in a way that makes sense, and isn’t just a bunch of stringed sentences of an unknown language thrown together. “I think I’m scared of what he can make me do.”
“Ranboo…”
“No, no, wait, you have to wait,” and she does wait, and looks over at him. “I think… I think he made me blow up the prison…?”
“Blow it up?”
“When Tommy died,” she frowns, almost instantly, at the mention of that name. “I think he made me set off TNT so it would set off the alarms and—well, the rest… happened.”
“How did he do that, though? I mean, I’m not doubting you, and we know he has some necromancy powers, or whatever, but are you implying that he… controlled you, or something? Like a puppet?”
“I—I don’t know what I’m implying…” she ponders over this for a second, wonders if she has to fear for Ranboo’s safety even more, if this implies even Technoblade and Philza are in danger, if she herself is in danger. “But—oh, god, how do I explain this?”
“Just say the words, I’ll figure it out.”
“I don’t think I’m implying anything… bad when I say that? It—I can’t remember it, right? But it feels like, deep down, that I wanted to do it and—I can’t possibly have wanted that, right? I wouldn’t put Tommy in danger, I know that!”
“Ranboo—” she gets interrupted by the panic in his voice, by a hand stuttering across the air with purple-glowing particles following it.
“No, Niki, I really—” she wraps her cape around his shaking shoulders, black on top of the white collared shirt and black vest. He slumps in his chair, runs a hand over the long white hair on his left side. “I don’t like not having complete memories,” he admits. Niki holds the cape tighter, brings a hand to his and squeezes it.
“I know. But we’ll help you. We’ll figure it out,” she reassures and Ranboo nods, holding onto her hand back.
She remains as she is for as long as he needs it.
Ranboo’s core shakes when he thinks of the things he has done and doesn’t remember, the hurt he has caused and doesn’t even know where to begin apologising for—yet the kindness of the Syndicate holds him steady.
He wants Dream to receive the same treatment, to have done wrong and to still be loved—that is the strongest kindness they can give, that Ranboo wants to give.
He knows it will be rough, that it will change and twist and pull at their strings, he knows it can impact his relationships beyond the Syndicate, he knows how Dream acts, but no one gave up on Ranboo, so how could he give up on someone else?
Niki and Ranboo return to the arctic together, Ranboo with his last bag and some of Niki’s, Niki with so much stuff she doesn’t know where they’ll store it.
The arctic is a home.
It just isn’t Dream’s.