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A dangerous dog would be muzzled to compliance. A dangerous animal would be locked and guarded so that it wouldn’t be able to bite and that the world around them could feel safe.
An animal had no choice.
But the danger they held inside them. That was their choice.
Or so the people said.
Dream felt the straps of the muzzle burying into his jaw. He could feel how strongly it was sitting on him. How tight they were pulled by the angry police who were determined to not give him any chance to signal the people who would be in his support.
Afterall, why take down the largest criminal orginazation’s leader when his people would only set him free? Why go through all the effort to arrest him if not to make a show of his weakness to the rest of the city. Dream would love to point it out to them all that what they were doing to him was something that a criminal would do to an enemy he was in a territorial beef with. That it was all something out of a movie that they could see or something that would be performed for them all. Cold suits and stiff cuffs. Hard leather and metal bars that felt like ice.
Dream let them muzzle him. Like an animal. Like a dangerous dog.
Taunting him and lording it over him and he felt the way it dug into his skin more and more to the point he was sure he would be bruised. He wondered if it would cut into his skin as he walked. If he was going to end up bleeding from his face where the bars dug into his flesh and if his people would see him bleed.
The car he was in came to a stop. The police escort that were holding him into his place looked smug and proud. They were ready.
His hands were shackled. His ankles too. His jaw muzzled shut and still Dream didn't show an ounce of fear in his eyes. He wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of seeing him.
He didn’t feel it either.
There was a plan in place for him to get out.
As long as he could keep his wits about him then he would be fine. He was logical. The best for a reason. He wouldn’t let his emotions get the best of him for something like this. He was going to fight with his intelligence. He was going to fight with his plans. They were the best and anyone that knew him or dared to track him would know that.
Dream outsmarted everyone. That was how he ended up in the position that he did. He could just simply win against everyone else. He was going to win here as well. He was going to wait for his people and he would be fine.
He just had to be ready to run with them when the time came.
It was just that the second he was out of the car and being forced a stunted step forward, Dream felt the needle bury into his neck. The cold that washed through his veins. The dizziness that immediately had the ground tilting under his feet. Dream could hear the laughing of the cops around him. He could hear the sneers and the cheers of people that were lining the street to watch him be marched like an animal.
He just tried to control the beating of his heart.
“We know you like to run, mutt.”
At least he was a dangerous one. Dream could feel his thoughts turning muddled. The way that they were all tangling together and half forming. He wanted George. He wanted his people. He wanted to go home. He was in danger. No. He was the danger. The danger in danger. He was going to be sick.
“Try running with sedative in your system.”
They drugged him. Right. That’s right. This wasn’t him. This was because they were cowards and didn’t want to risk losing the image of their little show they were trying to put on. It was going to fail and Dream knew it. His people were going to come for him and he was going to be fine. His family would come for him.
George would come for him.
His jaw moved. Weak and almost no reaction before he realized that there was something holding him in place.
Muzzle. They’d muzzled him. Right.
Dream felt his head turning light as he was shoved forward. The grip that the officers had on his arms was bruising. They were all but dragging him forward more than they were marching him but Dream was a man of dignity. He would try to salvage what he could. What he could get for himself here when his legs were shaking and his head was spinning bad enough his stomach churned with each pulse of his heart.
What was the plan?
What was he meant to be doing now? Did he have to do anything?
He didn’t have to signal them did he? He wouldn’t have to order them, would he?
He couldn’t talk and his arms felt like lead. They were chained and he couldn’t run because his ankles were together too. He was stuck here and there was nowhere for him to go. He was surrounded and the people in the streets were blocking his other ways out.
Some of these people were his. At least, if he was remembering things right then they were. They were part of him. They were part of his team or they were loyal to him because he tried to protect them.
He was a criminal. He knew that.
But criminal didn’t always mean bad.
Dream had done bad things, he would be the first to admit to that. He had killed people but they were only ones that he felt deserved to be killed. He’d fought for territory so that the rules of an area could actually be enforced for a change. If that meant going outside of the law and becoming one himself then so be it.
He didn’t see what was truly wrong with doing the job that was meant to be done by the boys in blue around him.
The people that were in the pockets of politicians more than they were boots on the ground for justice.
Dream tried to keep his feet moving. To focus down on them and the way they were moving. One after the other. That was all he could do right now. His people would know something was wrong with him. If they didn’t see him be drugged then they would put together that something was wrong when they saw him.
He was always too proud to allow himself to get like this. His stomach rolling and twisting with all of his movement. His head spinning and his skin turning clammy. He didn’t know what to do with himself but he knew he had to push. He knew he had to fight.
No.
Not him.
There was going to be a fight though. There should be a fight. One for him.
That sounded better.
He just had to hold on until then.
Dream let the sounds around him bounce through his skull. The sneers and jeers that he could pick up from the officers. The cheering and applause that was coming from the crowds. He could hear the leading officer taunting and parading that he was caught to all of them. Taunts coming out that he was made helpless and insults hurling to his pride.
He should be fighting.
His body felt too weak.
He should be snarking back. His jaw was trapped in the muzzle. He felt like he couldn’t breathe. His eyes were growing heavy. He didn’t know what to be doing with himself.
He was a criminal leader. He was meant to be calm, confident, cocky. He was meant to be the leader that was full of pride and wrath. He was meant to be something more than life but right now he was staring and his eyes felt like they were being held down by weights. He couldn’t bring his gaze up higher than his feet. He couldn’t focus.
He couldn’t—
Loud pops around him bounced sharply through his skull. Feeling like bullets compared to everything else. There was smoke that was flooding through the air in the next seconds and this time Dream started to cough. He couldn’t breathe properly with them because of how the muzzle was holding him. He couldn’t take in the air and the tears that welled in his eyes because of it was a little from his body’s reactions and a little from his own fear that was dredging to the surface.
He wasn’t confident or cocky now. He was scared and weak.
He was pathetic.
He was a coward.
Without the arms of the officers at his sides to hold him up Dream went crashing to the ground. Only when his knees collided to the stone did he realize that he was kneeling in blood. He turned his head to the side with choking breaths. Looking directly into the still open but dull eyes of one of the officers.
Dead.
A hole straight through his forehead.
Only then did Dream register the sounds of actual gunfire around him.
The fighting that was happening all around him. He could hear the screaming and shouting. The sounds of fists landing against flesh. The grunts and groans of people but he could hardly focus.
His vision was blurring. His body was numb. His hands were cold and when Dream tried to move them he only found that he couldn’t. That they were stuck in their place and he couldn’t get any kind of a response out of them.
The panic once again clawed at his throat but he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to save himself. He didn’t know if he even could.
What if this fight wasn’t done by his family? What if this wasn’t the breakout being attempted by his people? What if this was an enemy gang that was trying to get him for their own use. Dream didn’t have any of his weapons on him. He wouldn’t be able to fight. He would be useless. He would be pathetic.
He couldn’t—
Hands were on him.
Dream flinched and forced his eyes to open. Feeling like there was sand digging under his eyelids and scraping at him the second the smoke and light hit his hazy vision. Someone was talking to him but the words were swimming through his skull and he couldn’t make any of it out.
He saw brown hair and eyes in front of him. A pale face. Cool hands that felt gentle against him.
He felt the fingers trail down to check his pulse. An order being shouted to someone that he couldn’t see.
“Dream?’
He nearly cried at the sound of the voice. The feeling of his tears sliding down his cheeks making Dream realize that it wasn’t a near miss and he was, in fact, in tears. He hiccuped at the feeling of the hands moving to the back of his head and working on the buckles of the muzzle.
Sobbing harshly when it pulled away from his face and he felt the blood rush back to where the cage had been digging into his flesh.
“George—”
He called his lover’s name on instinct and instinct alone. Reaching for him blindly and trying to get himself close despite the weakness that still felt it was burrowing into every part of his tissue and trying to drag him down into the street like it was his grave.
“I have you. I have you, Dream.”
The arms wrapped around him. Tight and holding him close so that his head was resting against a shoulder. He knew he was safe when this was the body he was up against. He knew that it was his family that was here. His people that were here to guard him and defend him.
“We need to move. We need to get you home. Can you walk?”
Dream tried to answer only to find his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. His body trying and failing to find the energy to actually respond. He tried to breathe but the smoke and the exhaustion that was weighing him down was finding the effort of drawing his lungs to be too much.
It was all too much.
Dream hardly felt it when they started to move. When his body was being lifted and he could feel the vibrations of George’s shouted orders moving through his head. His husband was warm. He missed him. He didn’t want him to let go.
Dream hardly even registered it when the sounds and the smoke went away. When the light of the sun was replaced by the light of candles in a room and the thing around him was no longer street and air but rather bed and blankets. His hand was being held. His body being cleaned by damp cloths. Dream looked up to find his lover watching him carefully. A small smile on George’s face that was ridden full of pity and heartbreak.
It was a long day.
He felt better than he’d been before. The sleep that he’d apparently gotten to get here leaving him feeling like his body was pulled apart and put back together. He didn’t think that he’d done anything too strenuous but that must have been wrong and he just didn’t remember.
“Hi.”
All the strength he had only allowed Dream to hum back his response. George’s fingers found their way into his hair in the next moment. Carding through and rubbing at his scalp enough to make him almost completely forget about the feeling of the muzzle’s straps burrowing onto him.
“They gave you too much sedative. Your body was shutting down. Your heart almost stopped when we got you back. Too much excitement is what the doctors said.”
Oh.
Well at least it explained why he felt as weak as he did still. Why it dragged him out of his thoughts as fast as it had. Why it felt like such a monumental task for Dream to even just stretch his fingers to try to grab hold of his lover beside him.
“You need to rest. That’s what they said. That you just need to let it work its way out of your system. You’ve been out since noon. About eight hours so far.”
He would have nodded if he had the energy for it. Instead, Dream’s eyes were sliding shut again and he was feeling his body beg him for sleep. He could still feel where the metal had dug into him. He still felt like his jaw was being caged shut.
His heart jolted a bit at the thought. The worry lancing through him that he might still be in danger like that. That he might still be held silent and that he couldn’t get out. That he’d imagined George getting it off of him or that his lover had left it on.
He tried to open his mouth.
He couldn’t.
George picked up on his panic all the same.
“You’re okay, it’s okay, Dream. It’s gone.”
The hand that wasn’t in his hair moved down to be resting over his heart. To rubbing gentle circles into his chest and trying to ease him.
“The muzzle is gone.”
But what if it wasn’t? Why couldn’t he move his jaw? Why couldn’t he do what he was meant to be doing? Why couldn’t he—
George’s lips touched against his. Soft and careful with him. Not forcing and so light but enough pressure between them to make sure that he was feeling it and that he knew it was real.
He held them there together for a moment, then two, before he was pulling away but stayed hovering over him. Just long enough for Dream to open his eyes again to see him there.
To look his lover in the eye and offer him a look of pure love and adoration.
“You’re safe, you’re home.”
Dream breathed. For what felt like the first time since he was in the back of that police car, he breathed. This time finding the strength and will in himself to work his jaw enough to just confess to the man he loved most in the world. Whispered, weak, but there all the same.
“I love you.”
George smiled. A huff of a laugh. Tears in his eyes that showed his fear from the day.
“I love you too, Idiot.”