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Dream knew something was wrong from the moment he stepped into that meeting room. From the moment his men were telling him that things looked wrong on the outside. From the moment he realized that the other mob and crime bosses in the room had left their people outside.
That he was the only one of them with his people in and around him.
Running one of the leading criminal organizations in the city was a hard job when one thought about it. It wasn’t something that was draining in the way that an office job would be, but it wasn’t something that was easy and kind.
He’d watched far too many of the people he cared about die. He’d seen far too much death and destruction by the hands of the people who called themselves saviors to believe in the world.
Dream held no hopes for them. He held no love for them. No care for their safety or their lives.
But something like this he had his concerns for the sake of his own family. The sake of the people he cared about and their fates that were coming.
One of the people here for this meeting had their watch in their pocket ticking away far too loud for him to be comfortable with. It didn’t sound l;ike it was something normal. More like it was warped or too thick for something like a normal pocket watch.
It worried him, if he was honest. It concerned him.
Out of the leadership of his gang it was just him that was here for this meeting. Just him who was ready to listen to the negotiate with the other groups and heads that claimed they deserved more of the land for themselves. Dream was the only one to stand their positioning to get more of the marks in the city. To get more territory and more of a death grip.
But Dream didn’t want to hurt his city. He didn’t want to rule it. He didn’t want to own it. He didn’t want to watch it bleed red. No.
He wanted to save his city. Taking it over and healing it from the ground up. His group gave people a chance for redemption. It gave them a chance to heal and to work and earn something for themselves. He gave people honest jobs when they were running the fronts of their houses and he gave them good lives.
Better than the politicians promised.
Dream actually made the markers of the things he said he’d do.
When someone got in his way then he would make them bleed.
Still though, it was the ticking that was grating against his nerves. Pushing on him and giving him a headache that was rivaling almost any of the others he’d had recently.
Closing his eyes against it he tried to settle his nerves. Convince himself that he was being paranoid and that it was nothing. That the tick of a watch wasn’t anything more than just that. If George or Sapnap or any of his family really were here then they would be telling him the same thing.
They’d be telling him that he was needing to breathe and take a drink of water and maybe even go lie down for a bit. It wasn’t that long ago now that his lover had pushed him gently to rest on the couch because of the headache he’d given himself. He’d meant to just lay there for a bit to please George. Instead he’d woken up in the middle of the night with candles lit around him and his husband working at the desk. A blanket resting over him and soft music playing in the background. It had been so peaceful. So calming.
He’d have George kiss away his headache again now.
He’d finish the meeting and go back to him and have him kiss it away. Remove the aches and the pains from him and let him rest and breathe. It would be fine.
It would be his only shred of honesty.
His love.
George was meant to be joining him later on. He was meant to be coming by after he finished a trade deal on the other end of the town. They were going to celebrate the completion of the negotiations. Go out to dinner and then back to their home for a quiet night between the two of them. They were going to relax in the company of each other’s arms. They were going to have their peace and their kindness.
He imagined George’s arms around him. A way to ease him and calm him against the ache in his head. He imagined his lips against him and kissing down his throat and into his chest. He imagined pressing his nose into George’s head and lifting his chin to hold him close.
To have his home.
But he had business to do first. Working and talking. Moving through the motions of being fully there and watching each move the others made to the checks of their wrists. The counting of the clock. The incessant ticking that wouldn’t leave him alone.
It was enough that Dream didn’t know what else to do but watch his own clock to try to ease his mind into understanding the tick it was hearing. To watch a second hand go by and see the shift of the hand in beat to it.
He thought that would help.
He thought that would make things easier for him.
Instead Dream looked at it and noticed that the frequency of the ticks weren’t matching to that of a second hand. It wasn’t a clock that was making the tick.
Instantly he was taking in the room again. Looking to all the other criminal heads who were in the room. Standing and laughing with each other. Drinks in hand and cigars lit to stink the room. He saw the guards of his people standing around. He saw many of them checking their watches. He saw the apprehension on their faces.
“Stop the meeting.”
The words were out before he thought about them. Rushing and demanding. Loud enough that all of them heard him and commanding enough that each of them listened.
“What is it?”
One of the older heads. One that Dream had known since his rise to power. Since he built a name for himself and began leading the city towards a redemption. They knew him and they knew him well. If Dream was willing to he might even consider him part of the family. He just wasn’t willing to say something that far just yet.
“Do any of you hear the ticking?”
If it was one of their watches they would say something now. They all had the honor enough to admit to it.
But when he looked at them he saw the concern in their faces that was telling him that they weren’t the ones who were responsible for the ticking. They didn’t have the answer for him.
He looked back to the one that had been there with him since he was younger and first starting into this kind of life. He saw the realization in his eyes.
“We’ve all been checking our watches to see—”
There wasn’t time to let him finish.
“It’s not mine. If it’s not any of yours then we—”
“Then it’s a fucking bomb.”
There was only one other thing that would make a ticking sound like this and all of them knew exactly what it was. They knew the risks and the dangers of the lives they took but they didn’t think it would end up as something like this. They didn’t think that it would end with them staring at each other and realizing the danger they were all in.
He thought for a moment that one of them was a traitor. That they’d pushed a bomb to be here and were all in as a way to take down the group together so they could get power. He scanned the others fro any signs that they weren’t actually used to meetings like this or a loyalty that told him they would die for something as simple as this.
He saw none.
Which meant that they’d been betrayed.
Someone had gotten the information about them and was using it to their advantage. They were taking hold of them all and putting them all in one place to eliminate. He racked his brain to try to come up with who it could have been. He tried to think of who would have the mole that would have the gall to do something like this.
Until he remembered the cops that had tried to infiltrate the organizations about two years ago. It was a year ago that Dream had taken a bullet and nearly died in George’s arms. Cursing to himself he wondered what god it was that he’d angered that he ended up in a situation like this as often as he did.
The ticking wasn’t stopping. He thought it sounded like it was beginning to speed up.
For the first time since the meeting began he hoped George was as far away from him as possible. He hoped his lover was going to be completely safe from the events that would happen to them here tonight. He hoped that he was fine and protected and wouldn’t be harmed in the slightest.
He hoped he would be safe.
He hoped he wouldn’t have to watch him die.
All of them began to run. Getting out of the building as fast as they could but it still didn’t feel like it was fast enough. Dream remembered the nightmares that George had after that. After he’d woken in the middle of the night to his lover crying and shaking in his sleep. Dream remembered how George had fret on him after he woke in the hospital. Guarding him and protecting him and making sure no one got closer to him than they needed to at any given moment.
He remembered how his lover had cared for him. How he’d hovered for him and made sure that he was safe.
He remembered the toll it had taken on him.
Dream pushed himself to move faster. He felt like he could still hear the ticking slamming through his skull even though he knew he couldn’t. What he did hear was the sound of the building rocking. The deafening crack that came from beneath it. The screams of the people behind him.
He saw the light that rose up behind him.
He felt the heat that tried to swallow him whole.
Dream didn’t remember being sent through the air or hitting the ground. He didn't’ remember bouncing into the street and sliding across the stone until he came to a stop. He didn’t remember hitting his head or being sprayed by rubble.
What he did know was that he felt sick when he opened his eyes. That his hands were shaking as he pushed the rubble off of himself and tried to make his body listen to him and move.
There were dead bodies lying around on the ground around him. Some of them were in pieces.
He couldn’t feel it if he was like them.
With his vision swimming and stomach cramping Dream tried to get his legs under him. Almost immediately the vertigo was taking him down. Sending him back to laying against the street with his eyes trying to close.
His chest hurt. Breathing felt like it hurt. Grinding and grating and feeling like he’d swallowed sand. Like there was something trying to wear down the insides of his lungs until there were holes in them and letting them leak all of their air into the cavity of his chest.
He could hear the flames and the crashes of falling rubble. He could see the light of the flames and smelled the char of the bodies and wood he’d been with.
He heard the sirens of the police.
If he didn’t get out of here then he was going to be caught and if he was caught then he—
“Dream?!”
The sound of George’s voice made him pause in where he was trying to push himself up. Forcing his eyes open and focused he saw George running to him and kneeling down to him. Reaching out and running his hands over his face and neck. Lingering hovered over his pulse and checking him over.
“Dreamie—”
“‘M right here.”
His tongue felt like ti was glued to the roof of his mouth. His throat cracking and grating as he tried to speak and his lungs hitching over the words. He ended up coughing as soon as they came out of his mouth. Ash and blood sitting on the back of his tongue and making him fight off the urge to gag.
“I saw the explosion and I came as fast as I could but—”
“It was a trap.”
Someone had leaked the plans. Someone had a mole in their ranks. Someone was going to pay.
“Are you hurt?”
He couldn’t tell. He couldn’t really feel his body.
“I don’t know.”
His stomach rolled but he couldn’t tell if that was from an injury or if it was simply his body trying to adjust to the smells around him. Burning flesh. Gunpowder and ash was never something he enjoyed smelling or tasting. Mixing it with death and blood just made it even more nauseating.
The pounding in his head had yet to go away. The headache from the ticking was still haunting him and hurting him.
He could hear the police getting closer. The cops that had likely planted the bomb that tried to kill them all. The ones that had almost succeeded. Coming to gloat in their achievements but Dream wasn’t about to let them.
“We need to go.”
He tried to move.
He felt the world fizzle out from beyond his grasp.
“Dream—”
Hands were on him. Holding him and steadying him through his sparking vision and muted hearing. Until the world came trickling back to him that was how it was. Dream struggling and fighting for air in his lungs and his husband holding him close.
He heard the faint orders for the people of theirs that were still alive. He heard the guarding commands and the calls for assists.
Dream let himself hold his husband closer.
“Don’t let go.”
He felt the kiss to the top of his head.
“Never.”
The ticking in his head was still there. The annoying pattern that was making him feel like he was shaken out of his own skin even though he knew it wasn’t possible.
It made him sick.
“Let’s get you up.”
“I can’t walk—”
“I’ll help you. We’ll get out of here. You’re gonna be alright.”
If George was telling him he would then he would.
If George was telling him he’d be fine then he’d be fine. It was their promise with each other. It was their honesty with each other. Their protection.
So when his lover wrapped his arms around him and helped him get onto his feet Dream didn’t hesitate to sag his weight into him. He didn’t pause in telling him what was hurting and what he could feel. In telling him he felt light headed and might pass out on him as they went to the car.
George helped him through it anyway.
And if in the next weeks the moles were found in all organizations and brought to criminal justice then that was of their own concerns. If George spent his nights sitting by Dream’s bedside once more and wrapped in his arms then that was for their own comfort and no one else's.
Their honesty.
Their safety.
Their love.