Chapter Text
Being a spy was a difficult enough job. It was even more of one when he was being sent on missions that none of the friends in the field knew about or believed were real. It had caused arguments the last few times Dream was in headquarters. His friends felt like he was ignoring them but the higher ups had given him an order of confidence to their maximum level.
For the safety of everyone he loved he couldn’t tell them.
For the sanity of everyone he loved, Dream let himself be accused as a liar and manipulator.
For the sake of everyone he loved, Dream let himself be called a monster.
It had been fine, for a while. He tried not to let it get to him too much. It hurt. Of course it hurt. But it was a pain he was willing to put up with if it meant that he kept all of them safe.
Even now that he was sitting tied to a chair with rope digging into his wrists and ankles and pressing uncomfortably under his ribs into the soft part of his middle. He accepted this. He accepted what would happen.
It didn’t make it hurt any less.
Dream had taken the job because it was what was needed. He had accepted because that was what was necessary. Even if he could talk to his friends about them; he wasn’t sure he’d actually be able to. He didn’t know the details about why. He didn’t know the purpose behind his missions.
They were all strictly recon runs. He was sent in to investigate and observe. Only once had he been roughed up and caught in the crosshairs but it hadn’t been too bad and he was ordered not to tell the others.
If he’d laid on the ground trying to remember how to breathe in his spar with Sapnap the next day then none of his friends noticed and Dream was glad he didn’t have to explain.
That was out the window now. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to make it out of this with light or minor wounds. The knots and ropes used to secure him to the chair were more than professional. He didn’t know if his targets were a criminal organization or if this was something else. Was it a tail? Was this a hit against the agency he worked for? Was this his target’s security?
It was hard to make out the room he was in with the single light source hanging down above his head. It made the circle of light he was in unnaturally bright and the rest of the room filled with enough shadows and distortion to make it nearly impossible to see around. This was definitely something professional. The ropes were tight against his body too. He could barely get himself any room to breathe let alone move.
He was in trouble. He knew that. He knew he was in more danger than he’d faced on a mission in a long time. If a mission was going to be something like this normally they would have backup. His oversight had sent him in alone. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
He didn’t think this was supposed to happen.
Maybe it was.
Maybe they sent him here because they thought he’d seen something he wasn’t supposed to. Maybe they sent him out on this mission so he could be killed and they could write his death off as an unfortunate case of business.
A door opened in front of him. Normally if the people who had him were any less professional and good at their jobs he would have used that moment to escape. But as it was he had nothing on him that he could use. His utility belt was gone. His shoes, his gloves, his mask. All of his items that he normally would use to get himself out of his tricky spots were stripped away from him. He didn’t have a choice but to wait for his friends to find him. He didn’t have a choice but to hope that this wasn’t the agency and that they were looking for him after his missed check in and sending him help. His friends would come help. He’d be okay. He was going to be okay. They would come.
He had had a fight with his friends before he’d left for this mission. He didn’t want their last thoughts of him to be of anger. He wanted to try to live long enough to be able to apologize to them. He wanted to make sure they knew that he loved them and that he was only following orders.
And then he realized they had all told him to leave in their last fight.
They told him they wouldn’t come for him.
They weren’t going to come for him.
He wasn’t going to be saved this time.
They’d had fights before with each other but more and more things had been tense between them. Sapnap had accused him of not caring about them when he hadn’t been the one dispatched to get them from their hide out after a mission turned south. He’d been giving a top secret debrief and had to lie to them about where he was. He told them he just hadn’t seen their call out. He didn’t tell them that he’d seen it the moment it came in and begged their oversight to let him help but he was denied.
He had made sure he was with them for their next mission. He’d listened to them scold him and insult him. He listened to them tell him that they didn’t need him. That if he was so anxious to get away from them and take bigger missions without them ‘weighing him down’ then he could go.
They didn’t want him.
Cold dread settled in the base of his stomach along with fear and sorrow. He wouldn’t get a chance to say goodbye to them. He wouldn’t get a chance to apologize for leaving. He wouldn’t be able to tell them he loved them. This was it. This was the end.
He wasn’t going to be able to come back from this.
He watched a person come through the door. He saw the bag of weapons hanging from their arms. Dream wasn’t stupid. He knew what this meant. He knew what was about to happen to him.
The room stayed silent. The person was smart enough not to show their face. Good enough to not let him hear their voice.
Sometimes he really hated it when people were good at their jobs.
He watched the person turn to him. He watched them lift a taser gun.
The camera light turned red the same time they pulled the trigger.
Getting called in to speak to their oversight was never fun. George and Sapnap had both looked at each other when they got the order. Wilbur was with them too. He’d been waiting for Techno to come back from his mission and was hanging out with them only to hear them get their orders. One taunt of saying they were in trouble and Wilbur was being sent right along with them.
The three of them made small quips back and forth until they made it to the office. Oversight had always been fairly stiff. It was never fun to be called into the office. They would get missions or reprimands there. It would be lecture after lecture about reports and paperwork or it would be horror upon horror to make them prepared for the mission they were going to be walking into.
This time they thought it would be no different.
There was a screen lit up and paused over a mostly black scene hanging on the wall. It wasn’t very uncommon for them to need footage or photos in order to complete their missions properly. None of them thought anything of it. Not until the grave faces of their bosses sunk it in that whatever was happening was beyond serious and beyond bad.
“Sirs?”
George didn’t mind being the first one to speak up. Sapnap had always been nervous to speak to any of them and Wilbur was only tagging along because he’d been in the room when they were summoned.
The head of their organization was there. He was looking right at them. His eyes were impossible to read but George thought he saw a glimmer of something. A glimmer of grief.
“Agents, take a look at the screen.”
All three of them turned. It was the same as it was before. It looked like someone was standing in front of the lens. Black clothes and the edge of a neck. They couldn’t see anything other than that.
“Do you three know what this is?”
“It’s a ransom video, Sir.”
Wilbur was studying it just as much as they were. All three of them had been trained to look for clues for things like this. All three of them were taught to analyze and assess. All three of them were ready for something high profile here. Oversight’s reactions were clear enough for that.
“What you are about to see is of the highest confidence. Under no circumstance are you permitted to speak of it outside of this room.”
Very high profile then. He felt Wilbur shift beside him.
“What is it? The president?”
His joke fell flat against Oversight’s ears.
“One of our own.” Their town came out grave. “Watch.”
They clicked play and the video began. The screen didn’t change much aside from the person standing in front of the lens shifting a bit but they couldn’t see into the room. That still didn’t stop them from hearing the sound of electricity. George thought it sounded like a taser. Not something fun from his own personal experience. Depending on the type and the voltage they could be very messy weapons. One strike with it in the right place and you could very easily kill someone.
They were much more dangerous tools than people ever gave them credit for. They were disorienting, they shocked systems, they could kill, cause heart attacks and a slew of other issues.
He heard Sapnap tutt a bit at the sound. He was about to sigh himself when the person moved.
All of them paused. They knew the person in the chair. They knew the dirty blonde hair that stuck up in odd angles from where he’d clearly been manhandled. They knew the broad shoulders and muscled chest that was heaving with pants where he sat tied to the chair.
They knew what Dream looked like.
George turned to look at Oversight to make sure he wasn’t just seeing things but none of them were watching him. This was real. This was happening. Sapnap stood pale beside him. He brought his eyes back to the screen at the sound of a distorted voice.
“You’ve sent this tail for us how many times now?”
They were talking to the camera. It was beyond clear but Dream still found it in him to make a quip.
“Classified, sorry.”
All of them watched the slap that snapped his head to the side. All of them heard Dream’s mutter about hard hits and his looks.
The person turned back to the camera.
“We’ve allowed him to come home multiple times. We’ve had enough now. Either you pay us the money we are owed for performing for you or we kill the tail as compensation.”
George felt like his world was crumbling around him. Dream was in danger. Dream was in so much danger.
“We want thirty million in the next five hours or your agent will die.”
Dream moved to talk again. He went to be snarky, George could see it on his face. He knew his best friend enough to tell what was running through his head.
“That’s so sweet that you think I’m worth thirty—”
He got hit again. This time a punch. His jaw was blooming with a bruise already and his lip dripped blood from a new split but he still glared at the person.
“That the best you got?”
“You are making a fool of yourself.”
There was something like pain in Dream’s eyes when he glanced at the camera. Not physical. Something else. Something deeper.
“Because I know they aren’t coming. I know you aren’t getting paid. And I won’t give you the satisfaction of watching me break.”
It felt like the world fell away from under his feet.
Not coming?
Why would they not be coming?
Of course they were going. Dream was in danger they would always come for him. He’d vanished and they thought he was just on one of his made up missions but this? This was more than real. From how things were sounding all of it had been real. They’d had a fight, sure, but that didn’t mean they were going to just leave him to die. Not when he needed them.
Never when he needed them.
He missed some of the comments that were made but he saw Dream being gagged. He was glaring. He was holding his ground and George wanted to be proud of him but all he could think of was Dream sounding so sure that they weren’t coming for him.
Oversight had sent him on something that he needed help for and they hadn’t granted it.
Oversight was the reason he was in as much danger as he was right now.
Oversight had let this happen.
He watched the person turn back towards the camera. Staring at Dream now he noticed the clamps attached to the back of the chair. He felt his heart sink.
“Fifty million, five hours, or your agent will die.”
He watched the person turn to look at Dream over his shoulder.
“That is of course, assuming his heart lasts five hours.”
They heard the flick of a switch. They heard electricity whir to life. They watched Dream tense and arc as far out of the chair as he could with the restraints.
They watched the screen go black.
George felt like he couldn’t breathe.
“How long ago was this?”
Sapnap sounded terrified to ask. He understood. He was scared to know.
“An hour ago.”
Rage bubbled through the fear in his heart.
They’d had this information for an hour and they had done nothing. Dream needed help. Dream could be dying. It didn’t take long for a heart to shut down from electricity. They didn’t know what voltage was being pumped into his body. They didn’t know if he’d been drugged with anything to make him more susceptible. They had none of the answers they needed and instead of helping him Oversight had sat on their asses and dwiddled their thumbs while waiting for the world to fix itself.
It wouldn’t fix itself. It needed Dream for that. Dream was what needed saved.
“Agent XD has been running top ops for months now. Under our orders he was to keep all of you in the dark about his missions. That was meant to remain the case until now. We have his location. We just need a team—”
“Where is he.”
George didn’t care that these were his bosses. He didn’t care that these were the people directly responsible for his job and his life. He needed to get to Dream. He only cared about Dream. His question was a demand.
They’d wasted more than enough time already.
Sapnap and Wilbur were with him. Oversight was going to hear from him when all of this was over but right now he couldn’t afford to waste more time on getting to Dream.
The moment they all had the coords they were gone. Racing as fast as humanly possible to get from their HQ to the warehouse the video signal had come from. They were moving fast but they needed to enter quietly into the building. They needed to make sure their rescue attempt wasn’t caught. If it was, it could end with a bullet taking Dream’s life rather than the electricity or old age like he was meant to.
All of them had their hearts in their throats. George was more than sure he wasn’t the only one who kept replaying that video over and over again in his head. He couldn't think of anything else. Just how Dream had looked in those moments. Just how certain he’d been that they would leave him.
They needed to apologize. They needed to get him back to them. They just had to find him first.
That’s when the screams reached them.
Blood curdling and pained. Strained and more than exhausted. Desperate and wild they echoed through the halls of the warehouse and made all of them even more on edge. They couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
Think positive. Come on. Think positive. If he’s screaming that means he’s alive.
If he’s screaming that means the pain is too much.
This wasn’t the first time Dream had been kidnapped. All of them had their fair share of hostage experience. Dream had always been the one to laugh and joke and make quips throughout. Sapnap had seen him be tortured before and mock the guys doing it while it happened. Dream always made it a point to never scream. To never show how much pain he was actually in.
He was screaming now. Full of agony and heartbreak.
Dream was screaming and George felt his own heart begin to die with him.
They picked up their pace. Turn after turn, hall after hall. It took them too long but they made it to the right area. The building was empty. That’s what they’d found so far. No sign of the culprits. No sign of the people who wanted the ransom. They must have guessed they’d been tracked and left before they were caught. They must have thought Dream would be dead before they made it here to save him.
Bursting into the room they found it empty aside from Dream in the center. The camera was still set up. The single light only made the sweat coating his body more noticeable. Wilbur hurried to the camera immediately. There was a switch remote hanging on it.
Dream was still screaming. His body was rigid. His eyes were screwed shut from the pain. His chest was heaving too much. It was too much.
Then the electricity stopped. The god awful whirring cut out and Dream’s body dropped back into the chair. He was trembling, at least in those first moments. And then his body started to go limp. His breathing spaced out into half pants that weren’t nearly enough to support what he’d just gone through.
They stood there as he passed out in his chair while the electricity cycled his body.
Sapnap moved to get rid of the clamps while George reached for the gag. Dream gave no reaction when the cloth fell away from his mouth. He was drolling. It wasn’t comfortable but still it gave them no response. Even this close he could barely tell if Dream was still breathing.
Sapnap and Wilbur worked to untie him. George reached for his neck. He felt his heart try to suffocate him in his chest.
“I’ve got a pulse.” He could cry. “He’s weak but he’s still alive. We need a medevac, now. He needs a hospital.”
Slowly but carefully they got Dream down and out of the chair. He refused to lay him across the ground and instead he held him in his arms. It was for his comfort, that’s what he told himself. In reality it was how George knew that they’d made it in time. The weak move of air against his chest when Dream breathed was the only thing keeping him from a breakdown of his own. They were so close. They were almost home. Just a little longer.
“We’ve got you, Dream.”
He kissed the top of his head. He let himself breathe. They’d made it in time.
“I’ve got you.”
