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George stared into eyes that burned. Glowing green burning through the cracks of a shattered mask and displaying the man that he’d once fallen in love with and never allowed himself to admit to it.
The world on fire around him.
Swallowing their old home around them both and George was watching. Wings crackling and filled with lighting and power. Burning white like they were made of the core of the world itself. Arcing strong and large behind Dream’s back as he watched him.
Dream and his destruction of the world.
Their world.
There was blood all around them. Blood that was staining the earth and bodies strewn around. He knew that Dream had been in prison. He knew that it was painful for him and that his lover wasn’t going to be the same after.
But he didn’t think it was going to be this. He didn’t think that it was going to end with Dream coming out of the cell covered in wound and blood and screaming demands to the server. He didn’t think that it was going to be the marks of a God rather than the man he fell in love with.
He didn’t think that it was going to be more DreamXD than Dream. That the server was going to be consuming him with his rage and his pain and that he was going to be screaming. He saw the wings flickering. The wrath that Dream was using as he brought down the server.
He was killing everyone.
Destroying all of it piece by bloodied piece and it wasn’t going to end. Not until all of it was gone.
Dream was a man of loyalty. He was a man of diplomacy first before he would grow violent but George had known something changed ages ago. He’d been with Dream when the two of them talked about making something to protect the server as the wars grew more and more. The toll it was taking on Dream and his body was stronger than they thought it would be. They knew that it was hurting him but there was no way to really be stopping it. The only option that they’d had was to make another Admin. To siphon the power in a way that something else would be taking and handling it.
Dream had explained the risks to him before.
He’d taken him to the Church that he’d used as a power balance for him to work as the Admin of the world. Dream was strong. Stronger than a lot of people would ever give him credit for and he was dangerous. He could take down worlds in the blink of an eye if he wanted to.
But he’d talked to him on what the issues were and the struggles he was having now. The weight of his world boring into him and the best case he could see for them was either to take out of the world or to split him so he could take care of things.
George had told him to do it.
If it would save him, protect him from pain that he was feeling and couldn’t shake, to do it.
Dream had held his hands. Explaining to him gently then and there that if he did this he would be pulling out a part of himself in order to make this. That he would shape it so that it would appear as a God so that it would be obeyed by the world He would give itf power and he would give it strength. Dream explained the toll it would take to split.
That he would get sick. That he would have issues with balance because he wouldn’t be completely himself.
That there was risk to him changing without parts of himself.
George remembered asking what it meant.
“I will still be me. Both parts of me, but I…”
“Will you still love me?”
Dream stared at him; Green eyes watching and full of complete and true honesty.
“To make me stop would be to kill my every piece. No matter how I split myself there is not a single part of me that does not love you.”
George smiled. Cupping his lover’s face and holding him as Dream turned to press a kiss into his palm.
“If I split myself, I will need your help to regulate me. My emotions are controlled right now but either half could break without the balance.”
“Is it safe?”
“It’s the only way to protect the world.”
“Is it worth it?”
“If it goes wrong then you can save me.”
George looked at him. Staring into his eyes and letting himself follow the plan that was working in the brilliant mind that he loved so much.
“How would I save you? You’d be making yourself into a God.”
Dream huffed a laugh at him.
“I already am a God, my love.”
“A different one.”
“If you need to stop it then you need to get both pieces back to one. You’ll have me as I am now again for you.”
“How—”
“Know that I love you. That I will always love you. Use that. Use me.”
George hated the instructions then. He’d mulled them over in his head so many times it made him dizzy. The amount of nights he’d spent staring up at the ceiling and wondering if he should be summoning DreamXD to his side so that he could try to put his lover back together.
Dream had been right.
XD had vanished in weeks of his first encounter to the rest of the server and Dream was left handling everything on his own while the God took worship that it did not deserve. Dream got more violent. Pushing and fighting and leading the wars of the server with pride in his steps and while George knew that it was horror to be in war he also felt his pride at Dream. Fighting at his side until things grew worse and worse and his lover was coming home to him and telling him to stay hidden and away from the server. That he had a plan he couldn’t trust and he knew that there was going to be agony steeping through.
He knew a fight was coming and Dream had wanted him away from it.
So George stayed away.
Waiting for him to come home only for days to pass before Sapnap informed him that they’d locked Dream away into a prison and sentenced him there for forever. He’d acted proud of himself. Like the man he was talking about wasn’t one of the closest people either of them had. He felt his heart aching at the thought of Dream alone in the box but when he’d summoned XD for help he’d seen the God doting on him.
The denial for him to go to Dream in the cell.
He’d thought that they were too damaged at this point to go together.
That was what it had sounded like when XD talked to him. When he got part of Dream through him.
George felt the love still.
He felt his lover’s heart through the actions of the deity and it broke his heart just a little bit more each time he called him by his name and without the distinction of title at the end.
Dream was his lover.
XD was part of him.
He wasn’t him.
George had thought it would end like that. All of them torn away from each other and never able to really be together. No way to get the two parts together and Sam wouldn’t let him into the prison to see him. He wanted his heart back but he didn’t know how to get to him.
Until the day the prison sirens blast through the air. Until they were screeching through the server and the others were running like frightened animals that were scared for their lives. Running from the monster and tyrant that they’d forced him to become.
George was watching.
Peering out from the sidelines to see his lover make it out of the prison only to see him wounded nearly beyond repair. Blood and filth covering the jumper he was in and the armor handed and borrowed to him. He watched Dream take in the fight and handle it for himself and then he’d seen him shout the orders.
Summoning XD to himself.
The God appearing behind him with a crackling energy as the server drew them for each other. He saw something wild in Dream’s eye. Exposed to the world through a broken hole in his mask.
George heard him yell demands. Threats.
Like he thought the server had killed him. Like Dream thought that he was dead and gone from him and he was fighting like this now in order to take out his revenge. Like he wanted the world dead and gone as payback for taking something they’d never stolen.
George had watched.
XD and Dream flickering together. The power taking over and his lover becoming one again but he didn’t balance. Rage still pouring through him and now there was nothing that anyone could do in order to stop him. The server’s sky had fallen dark.
Poised and poisoned and ready for the killing blows. He had moved still with his axe. Despite the fact that George knew he was able to take his powers now and handle the conflict in moments, Dream opted to fight like a mortal. Like he was wanting to give them the chance to run only to watch them when they realized they wouldn’t be able to make it out alive from him. That even with an even ground to fight they were no match to him. They were nothing to him.
They were humans.
None of them mattered.
None of them but George.
He’d run for him. Seeing the wounds and marks on his lover as he did and still he didn’t allow himself to stop. He wanted him and he wanted him safe.
To know that Dream was going to be okay and that it was really still him that was in there. He wanted him safe and he wanted him protected and he didn’t know how.
“Dream!”
Their eyes were locked. Dream in his killing had not hesitated even once against the enemies of the rest of the server. He had killed without love and without remorse. He’d paused the moment he saw him.
“It’s over!”
He saw the corpses around them. He saw the stillness of the world.
He saw the bodies of their friends.
“The fight is over!”
The roar of his power was loud in his ears. He knew that Dream was listening but he wasn’t giving him a response. He knew that he could hear him but he didn’t know if he was processing. He didn’t know if he cared. If he was still in there as the loving and kind man that he’d been before the split. If he was dead.
But he knew the eyes he was looking into. He knew the man he loved.
“You need to stop.” Still nothing. “Dream!”
“That man is dead.”
The crackle rolled through his voice. Pushing the echo through him and making George stare. The man he was facing didn’t move. George didn’t back down.
“I know your eyes, love.”
Their names for each other that they never used anywhere else with anyone else.
Just theirs.
“I know your eyes. I know you’re in there. I know you’re still here.”
“He was tortured.”
“I will heal you.”
“George.”
The crack came through but he heard the humanity lurking inside of it. The person that he loved. He saw the glow in his eyes. He watched him move forward. The rage leaking from him with each step. Turning to something calmer. Turning to something more docile.
“Come back to me, Dream.”
He watched the wings flicker.
“I don’t know how.”
George swallowed.
“Follow my love for you. Like I followed it for so long. Follow our love. Come back to me.”
He waited. Watching the flicker of the wings grow stronger and then weaker. Watching Dream fight with himself as he struggled for purchase against his own strength and power.
The world smelled of smoke. George felt his adrenaline racing as the wings vanished. As the glow slipped from Dream’s eyes and his body began to fall. As he caught him in his arms.
“I have you.”
“George?”
“You’re alright. You came back. You’re alright.”
He said it over and over for himself. He said it like he would forget it if he didn’t.
Dream was back.
This was his Dream.
He hadn’t realized it until now but there was a shift in the way he would speak. A change in his voice between the splits that was more than just his power and the strength that was running through them at any point.
This was the voice that he’d fallen in love with.
This was Dream.
“I’m here. You’re alright.”
He could feel him shaking.
“It hurts.”
Dream was tortured. He’d heard that. He knew that. He knew that his heart was hurting and bleeding and that he was trying to make it past this all but he was still here and that was all that would matter.
“I know. I know it does.”
Dream clung to him.
“The server betrayed me.”
Dream was their God. he was meant to be the one that they listened to.
“They broke it. The code. They—” He gagged. “I split and they started to poison the server. They betrayed everything that a server should do with an Admin. I felt like I couldn’t breathe and then the fight—”
“I know, Dream.”
“They tortured me in that prison.”
“I know.”
“I thought I would die.”
He could see it. One half dying while the other half lived. How destroyed it would turn him.
“You didn’t.”
“I could have killed you.”
“You didn’t.”
He wasn’t about to let Dream go down that path. He wasn’t going to let him get hurt like that.
“How did you even know? Why didn’t you run? Why didn’t you—”
George cupped his face. Bringing them together to press a kiss into his lips. To hold him close.
“Because I know your eyes.”
The ones he would love no matter how many betrayals tainted them.
“I know I love you. I know you love me.”
He held him close. Their world turning to silence around them.
Just the two of them left.
“I know you would never hurt me.”
Dream smiled to him. Soft and broken. Still hurting but still loving.
“For as long as I live.”