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Dream was scared. He wasn’t supposed to be in a situation like this. He was a squire to be a knight, sure. But he hadn’t even started his combat training yet. He had two weeks before he could start. Only because his birthday just made him old enough to do it but his knight didn’t want him to be fighting until he had a clean medical approval from the palace healers.
Dream was meant to be at the palace.
He was meant to be studying his lessons and working on his notes and a slew of other things. He wasn’t supposed to be stuck here and sitting and waiting and feeling his own blood running down the side of his head. It was tacky by now. He was trembling. He felt sick.
He didn’t know what to do.
Dream, the boy that had enlisted to be a knight to run away.
The boy that passed the trials of knighthood on the chance he’d met someone that made him push to fight.
The boy that was named as the Prince’s knight upon passing the trials. In a stand of everyone else, he’d been the one that was chosen. The scrawny, sickly squire that couldn’t take a full proper breath for long before he was doubled over and coughing. The one who had his face hidden so that no one would see him.
Dream didn’t have his mask now.
It was cracked in half and laying on the ground in front of him. Dirt was all around him. Some weeds that were brought in as seeds from boots of people that wer enow sprouting and making the air in the little room feel damp and dirty.
There were stone walls around him. Mostly at least. Three of the four walls were done. The back wall was still being dug out and the longer Dream looked at it the more he thought it was the project of an evidence store room down in the palace dungeons. He knew that it was being built and that there were discussions about depth going on for it. The royals and the builders had been focused on it for so long and Dream knew that the construction of it was paused. It was in the empty wing of the dungeons.
He knew that.
Sam had shown him when he’d given him a tour of everywhere.
He wasn’t supposed to be down here.
The door was locked. So heavily that he couldn’t even get it to budge. Dream had pounded on it and pushed and shouted himself hoarse to the point he was coughing and choking in his own lungs.
He was shaking.
Dream had been trying to go to lessons. He’d been trying to follow the directions that he was given and Sam had already told him that things were going to change for them. That with combat training Sam was going to be a bit stricter with him. When there was combat there were injuries and he was going to be doing all of this for his own good. He was going to be pushing him and Dream was fine with that. He’d wanted that. If it meant that he would get to be the knight that he was supposed to be then that was fine.
He was the Prince’s hand. Prince George already didn’t like him. He’d chosen him but it was because he thought he wouldn’t last as a knight. Dream wanted to do him well. He wanted to make sure that his Prince didn’t deem him a failure.
Dream wasn’t a failure.
But he’d been ordered to follow his schedule on his own and Dream was good at that. He could handle that. He had been doing it already without really being caught by Sam but having the walks by himself through the palace made him feel a little better. He still got looks. He still got glared at by a lot of the other squires, but Dream hadn’t let them get to him.
He was fine.
It was all fine.
Until of course, he was meant to be going to a lesson and felt hands grabbing at him and dragging him into a room of the barracks.
Dream could barely remember it. He knew the blurred images around him of people. How it was a group of them. He’d seen squire armor and he’d tried to call for help but they gagged him.
They hurt him.
Dream remembered the sneers and insults that poured over him that told him he wasn’t fit to be the Prince’s knight. That he wasn’t fit to be alive. That there was no point in him even being there and weighing the rest of them down from the glory that they’d earned. They had worked for their chance to be here and of course Sapnap had talked about Dream not working to pass until they were together.
The rest of the squires believed Dream thought they were jokes. That it was easy to be a knight and that he wouldn’t do anything.
Dream tried to get away. He tried to run.
They hit him with a chair.
He tripped.
The last thing he remembered was falling toward the edge of the desk in the room.
Next thing he knew, Dream was waking up here. Sitting in the room in the dungeons and no light and no way out. No one would hear him down here and he had nothing he could use. He had no water, no food. His head hurt so bad and Dream couldn’t make anything out. He thought he might have imagined his childhood home around him again but he couldn’t make it out the right way. He couldn’t hear anything.
But Sam would come looking for him, right?
His knight knew that Dream was never late. For anything, Dream was always early. He didn’t like being late and if there was a schedule then he would force himself to follow it. He wasn’t about to break on his lessons after two and a half years of working towards them. He was going to keep going. He was going to do the right thing. Sam would notice that. He would know that there was something wrong when Dream didn’t show up.
He thought it was days since he was down here. He didn’t know. There wasn’t a way for him to keep track of time but he counted it as best he could. The same patterns that he’d used when he was younger. The same things he’d done when he was sitting in the basement of his house and listening to his father swear and throw things upstairs. He would hear and take the punishments as they came to him and he knew that he deserved them.
Dream was a bad kid.
That’s what his father had always told him.
Sam told him that was wrong. That he was good. That he could become something better.
Dream couldn’t help the fear now that was trying to tell him that Sam believed the same things his real father did. That his knight who he’d started calling dad was going to leave him.
What if Sam knew he was here? What if Sam didn’t care?
What if he wanted him to be down here? What if his knight was done with him? What if he—
What if….
Dream tried to stand. He tried to be good. He tried to be better. He knew the training that Sam was going to teach him. He’d sat on the sidelines and watched the other squires when Sam was the one that was teaching them. He knew that his knight was one of the best that there was so if he could try to just be like him then he would be okay.
He was okay.
This was just a test.
Dream stood.
He took a step.
He fell.
His head bouncing on the dirt ground and Dream felt fresh blood trickling through the tackiness of his hair and face. He felt a little sick. His head light even though he wasn’t able to see the world spinning around him. His stomach hurt. He knew he’d been kicked there. He knew he was in danger.
He coughed.
His lungs itching and hitching and then there was something wet and sticky in his throat and Dream heaved.
He felt it bubble through his lips and drip to the ground.
It smelled like blood.
It tasted like metal.
He wanted his knight. He wanted Sam. He wanted his dad.
To say that Sam was on edge was not enough of a description. He was paranoid. Looking around every corner and asking nearly every person he saw for information on his youngest squire. He was the Leading Knight of the Kingdom and he couldn’t even keep tabs on his youngest child?
The three others he’d trained had started up the joke of calling him dad recently and it had stuck. All of them referring to each other as a little family dynamic and honestly it fit well enough that the bond in Sam’s heart had shifted for the kids.
He’d raised all of them nearly.
Dream the most.
The tiny little eight year old that hadn’t been fighting on his trials for the sake of himself but rather because he’d caught sight of the other kid with him. The youngest candidate for knighthood that he’d seen in his life. Seven and eight years old, Sapnap and Dream. The two that would not go through a course without the other standing side by side. He’d been able to tell quickly that Dream wasn’t interested. That he was doing it for Sapnap’s sake so that he could push and do more and more. It had caught his interest. He wanted to see more of the kid and so when the time came, he’d taken him in as his squire.
It just also happened to be the lesson class that the Prince of the nation was choosing a squire that would grow to be his knight should they make it through their training.
He’d chosen Dream.
Sam knew that it was hard on the kid. The Prince hadn’t exactly wanted a knight and he wasn’t exactly the nicest person to Dream when the two of them were forced to be with each other to try to bond. Sam had stood with his King and Queen and watched their boys with each other. He’d seen Dream try to be professional on what he thought he should be doing and it had raised enough red flags to him that he’d pulled his squire out early.
No child should have known the things he did about professional handling.
All the other knights would have called it a compliment and a good thing that it wasn’t something Sam would have to train into him but he was only concerned as to why the boy knew it in the first place. It wasn’t like it was common knowledge.
He had learned it and practiced it.
He was only eight.
Dream had frail lungs. Something that had worried him since the beginning but he’d worked with the healers and his squire to try to get him healed and better and easier to lead the life that he would. He had sat and listened to Dream talk when they would sit outside in the colder days for him to build up endurance in his lungs and talking was a good exercise for him to safely perform.
He’d told him about the other squires and how mad they were that he took the place they felt they had deserved. It wasn’t right but Dream had never said the names of the others that commented those things and he would outright refuse to point them out during a line up.
Sam had seen bruises on his boy before.
He’d wanted to get the answers for who it was and launch an investigation on the squires and their knights if that was what they believed it was to treat someone under the knights code. He would take that issue personally to the crown if he had to. He didn’t care in the slightest.
But Dream wouldn’t tell him. His squire was trying to protect them and when he asked him why, he got the same answer again and again.
“Knights fight for themselves. If I was being hurt I’d fight back. I wouldn’t fail you.”
“It’s not failing. You can still be hurt.”
“I just fell. That’s all.”
He knew he was lying. He knew the little boy behind the mask was hurting but if Sam pushed at him then things would be worse. He needed to get Dream to just trust him and open up to him but he was still flighty.
When they’d celebrated his tenth birthday, he’d hoped that it would be a start to get him to trust.
Combat was a place where they couldn’t afford to be hesitant and questioning. They had to be ready to trust the other’s orders at a single moment. They had to be perfect and in synch or it could end up with lives lost and might even their own.
He wanted to teach Dream to fight but he also saw deeper bruises on him when his brothers lifted him up to celebrate him. Dream had been laughing and happy so he didn’t bring them up but he did tell him that they would be waiting until Dream had a clean medical bill before they would start the actual training. His goal was that he could have either their King or Queen to sit in with them for the report and frame it to Dream like it was normal procedure before they would go out to train officially since he would be the Prince’s knight. That if they could see the marks on him if Dream would refuse the ask from his royals to give the names of the ones that were hurting him.
Sam walked him to his classes. He tried to protect his squire for as much as he could but as the Lead he had several duties that required his attention constantly. He didn’t have the time to be with Dream twenty four seven like he would have loved to be. He couldn’t guard him all hours of all days and he couldn’t defend him for the rest of their lives even if he wanted to.
Eventually there would come a day where Dream would be left without him and Sam needed him to know how to care for himself.
His other squires told him that Dream was itching for independence. That he was wanting to prove himself and so, reluctantly, Sam had left him to walk alone. He’d hoped it wouldn’t be a big deal. That nothing would happen.
But now he hadn’t seen his squire in over a day.
No one had.
He’d already turned himself to his royals to ask for their help. They were sending guards to covertly ask and see if anyone had seen him. No one knew where he was but they had at leat a rough time table of what happened that he would have vanished.
It was between classes.
He’d left on time from his first as he did every other day and then he never showed up to his second. There was a bit of gap between the two fo them but Dream usually was early since it was his writing class and he knew that his squire enjoyed it the most. He loved writing and he loved getting to make up his own little tales. If he was asked, Dream would say it was his history or his geography class that was his favorite. But Sam knew what the truth was. He knew when his little squire would sit in his tent with him in the yard and talk about the things he’d learned but all he would get excited about were the stories he got to read and write.
He was proud of Dream. He was proud of the boy he was and the man he would one day become. Even if Sam hadn’t gotten to meet him yet.
He was nervous.
The palace gates were the only way in or out of the palace and it had been guarded the entire way since Dream missed his first class. Sam himself had been on the front walk in front of it before that so he knew that wherever his squire was, it was in the palace or the yard. The grounds had been swept about a dozen different times by different groups of knights and the palace had as well.
No one could find him.
Sam was running out of options and sanity both.
Maybe that was the reason he was walking around the palace halls himself without a real aim. He just wanted to see everything. To look in each and every hallway and see for himself that his squire wasn’t there. That something hadn’t happened and everyone was missing him.
If he couldn’t find him tonight then Sam was going to have all the squires lined up for interrogation in the throne room until they found out what happened.
If this was anything less than a pure full accident, Sam was going to do it anyway.
He was going to have them dismissed with the highest of shames and he wouldn’t regret it for even a second. The only thing he might regret is not being able to give a death sentence himself under the ranking of a knight.
Sam walked around until he was out of spaces. Looking down the hall toward the staircase he knew would lead him down to the dungeons.
He knew it had been checked. That people had examined all the cells and the barracks of it and no one had seen anything about the little squire.
Sam went in that direction anyway.
He walked down the stairs with his eyes scanning the bricks for anything he thought might look out of place. He wanted to find anything for his boy and he was desperate. He was scared.
He knew that Dream still struggled with his lungs sometimes. Two years of treatment and it wasn’t quite enough to undo the four years of abuse that he’d gone under from his father. It was another thing that made Sam protective of the kid. When Dream had first called him Dad he knew it was something he could not mess up. He knew it was something to be treated with the highest respect and honor and he wanted to show to the boy that family was meant to be something good that would protect them.
Not hurt them and hate them at the drop of a hat.
Dream’s mother’s death was not the drop of a hat.
But it also hadn’t been Dream’s fault like his father made him believe.
He was four. The crash wasn’t his fault.
Sam was just about to take another step when he caught sight of a dark spot on the ground. Sitting in the crack of the stones but there nonetheless.
His heart turned cold.
Blood.
His heart beat quicker. Something happened down here. There were no movements marked for prisoners or he would have been notified of it so that knights could be on standby in addition to the normal guards. He racked his brain for who could have been on duty for the day but he didn’t know. He would have needed to check with the Captain of the Guard to know for sure who was supposed to be where.
He looked closer at the ground now.
Sam saw more drops.
His chest was tight as he followed them. Using the path like a trail of breadcrumbs in a forest. He kept his hand on the hilt of his sword. Expecting this to lead him to a cell or something of the sort where a prisoner would be sitting and ready or maybe even into the barracks if it was a guard that hadn’t quite realized they were bleeding until they’d made it back.
It led him straight to the door for the unfinished expansion.
His heart was tight. The door was locked and he would need to go get the key from his royals. They were set to be in a meeting right now. He wasn’t going to be able to get to them. He was going to have to wait with his heart beating in his chest like this unless he could find the Captain and get them to come down. They should have an extra key. They should—
He heard coughs from inside.
They sounded strangled.
He heard the small wheezes that came after.
Sam didn’t need anything else than that.
Without wasting a single second, he backed up a step and kicked at the lock of the door. Again and again until with the third kick the wood itself snapped and shattered. Enough that he could punch his fist through it and unlock the door from the inside. It was a slide lock. One that had to be turned at the end.
It had been slid already. It hadn’t been turned.
The moment he opened the door there was light flooding into the small filthy room. The construction of it had left it riddled but that wasn’t what had all of Sam’s attention. No.
That was the small pale body of his squire and the blood that was pooling around his head.
The blood that was trailing from his lips to the ground.
The bruising he could see deeply coloring his stomach from where his shirt had lifted when he fell.
Dream’s eyes were open but they were lidded and even from here Sam could see he wasn’t really aware.
He moved to his side in the space of a heartbeat. Rushing for his squire and feeling his pulse despite the small huffed wheezes he knew he was breathing. He needed to get Dream awake. He needed to make sure he was okay. He had to protect him and he had to—
“Dream? Dream, can you hear me?”
His squire was always incredibly diligent about answering people. Especially if they were of a higher rank. For Sam? He never ignored him. He was always the first to respond and the fastest to give his attention.
Now it was silence.
“Come on, kiddo. I need you with me right now.”
He ran his hands over his body. Feeling the breaks in his ribs and seeing the swelling in his wrist. One of his knees too. He hoped that the damage wasn’t too bad and that the healers would be able to fix it.
What scared him the most were the head wound and the bruises on his abdomen.
Bruises that Sam had more than enough experience to know meant internal bleeding was likely. It was a miracle that Dream wasn’t dead yet. Given the combination of that and the blood loss he was bound to be experiencing from the smeared amounts in various areas of the room. From inside he could see the scratches on the door too.
His little squire had tried to save himself. He’d tried to get out and he’d been blind while doing it. This badly hurt and he’d still been trying to fight for himself.
“I wouldn’t fail you.”
He needed to talk to Dream when he was better. He needed his squire to understand that this wasn’t failing. That losing a fight was not the same as failing what a knight was meant to be.
He needed Dream to know that. He needed him to understand that.
He needed him to live first. .
“Give me a sign here. Come on.”
Sam patted at the sides of his cheeks. Dream hadn’t given him anything and he was terrified for how short his breathing was. He didn’t want to risk giving him a potion right now when he didn’t know what it would do. A potion was just as likely to heal something in the wrong place or heal damage unless the body was ready for it first.
He had to get him to the infirmary but he didn’t want to move him if Dream didn’t know what was going on.
The longer this went though, the longer Sam knew he might not have a choice.
“Dream?”
Head wounds were tricky and they were dangerous. Beyond dangerous. He saw the line through his skin where it cut and he knew that it was from something like a fall. If he’d been pushed or if he tripped when he was trying to get away. He didn’t know. It didn’t matter right now.
All that mattered was that Dream could die from it.
“Come on, kid. Come on.”
He cursed.
There were no guards down here for him to call for. No one that was doing their damn job to watch the cells and instead a squire was beaten and locked up like nothing more than a prisoner.
He felt sick.
He was out of time.
Sam slid his arm under Dream’s legs. Trying to watch for his knee as much as he could while he tried to get his other arm under his shoulders. At the shifting, Dream made a sound. A small whimper that was hardly even there in the first place but Sam heard it all the same.
“Dream?”
He was blinking. Sluggish and out of it but he was trying. Sam saw his eyes drag on the walls. He saw him look at him. He saw him process what it was he was seeing.
The tears that came with it.
“Dad?...”
He breathed just a little easier.
“I’m here. I’ve got you. I’m going to get you help.”
As carefully as he could, Sam pulled his son into his arms. Tucking him into his chest and moving out into the dungeons to get back to the stairs. He still heard the smallness of Dream’s voice when he slurred his words against his chest.
“You came for me?...”
Sam hated that he heard a question.
He held his squire just a little tighter.
“I’ll always come for you.” He needed him to understand. “Always, Dream. I will never leave you.”
His boy didn’t answer him.
“Just hold on, I’m going to get you help. Okay? We’re gonna be okay. Alright, Dream? You hear me? Just stay with me, kiddo. Come on.”
He wasn’t answered. But Sam didn’t dare to stop.
He made it to the infirmary. He watched Dream be laid out on a cot and the healers begin to work. He waited for them to tell him that Dream would be fine. That he’d gotten him in time and that he would make a full recovery.
And if Sam lined the squires up to demand answers, if he and his royals dismissed five of them for acts unbecoming of people let alone knights.
Then that was written to records of the palace that would never be found.