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Dream was tired.
It felt like more and more that was what he was saying and feeling. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy his work and it wasn’t like he wasn’t resting between his missions where he could. But Dream was the top ranked hero of the city. He was the leader of them here. He was the one that was trusted the most to be out and taking down the villainy of the city.
He was the one that was sent out more than the others.
He’d felt the bone deep exhaustion when he was out on patrol earlier. He’d felt it sinking into him and trying to make him slow and stop. It just wasn’t an option for him. In this line of work being slow meant being killed. He wouldn't allow it. He was being sent out on recon again and again by their higher ups. It wasn’t like Dream could exactly say no. Not when these were the people that were funding their gear and keeping their safe house safe and paid for and stocked with materials and supplies.
Dream couldn’t tell them no. And if he tried to say it was too much for him then they would take it out on his friends and that wasn’t an option either. If it meant protecting his friends then Dream was willing to do just about anything and everything. He was going to fight for it. He was going to push and he was going to stay ahead of this all.
That was his plan.
But now he was home. Home and his hands were still shaking even though he’d showered and changed hours ago. He was exhausted but his mind didn’t want to let him sleep. It was pushing at him and pulling him and the world wouldn’t be fucking quiet.
He was sitting by the window in his room. The others were all asleep. The few hours that they were able to grab of sleep at night. It was a crime rate trend they’d noticed but no one ever talked about in favor of tipping the scales. Criminals had what they called a haunting hour. It was the time they’d be out the most. Sets where they could make sure there were people out on patrols. In that middle area? They got to rest and have the peace they were hoping for. They could sleep and be people for a moment.
Be human. Just a normal human being.
Dream’s comm buzzed almost as soon as he had the thought. His body protesting even the smallest of movements but he knew he had to answer or things would be so much worse for all of them.
Another assignment. Another mission. Another scouting.
At the rate he was going Dream wasn’t even going to bother changing out of his uniform. He was just going to come back home and crash until the chirping of his comm unit woke him up and sent him back out again. Until the world was screaming at him so loud and so constant that he never had a thought alone or to himself.
He was tempted to ask George to rip his code apart and put him in the infirmary so he could actually sleep.
Tempted.
Some days he almost wondered if his code was doing it on its own after all the things he was doing to himself. All the things he was going through.
He couldn’t really ask his friends either. The more missions he was doing solo the less time they had to spend with each other. The more his energy was going down the less friendly he was to be around.
Dream knew he was the problem. He knew he was shutting things down and he knew that he was miserable to be around right now. He knew that. He wanted to fix that.
But more often than not he was coming back into the safe house feeling like he was about to just faint onto the floor and then his body wouldn’t even let him sleep when he made it to the place he was supposed to. His eyes felt like they were filled with sand. His body had times where he just felt numb.
He snapped at his friends when they tried to talk to him. They’d try to do anything with him and he’d just tell them he wanted to be left alone. He’d shut them all out and now he was afraid to try to bridge the gap. He was afraid to see their faces or try to explain how shitty he was.
To have them confirm it even though he knew it was coming.
Dream was a superhero but he was still scared to be rejected by his friends. Still scared to be alone.
His vision blurred when he stood up. His body nearly crying at having to move again but he wrapped the world around himself to use it as a brace. The major villains were in hiding. None of them had seen any of them in almost a month. If it weren’t for that fact then Dream might have even considered tracking down Blade and having him kidnap him.
It was stupid.
It was still something he considered.
He kept a hand on the wall until he felt stable enough to attempt to walk. He opened his door only to come nearly face to face with George. For a moment he thought it looked like his friend had been coming to check on him. The second he saw him, however, George’s face turned sour and a glare settled in his brow.
“Leaving all of us behind again?”
Dream had been snapping at them. They all had the habit to return the favor. It was in their nature. And George happened to be one of the ones who did it the most. The most anger. The most steadfast in not backing down in something like this.
He was angry about the solo runs. Angry that the rest of them were being left at home with him barely telling them anything. They were meant to be a team. They were meant to be doing all of this together. That was part of the deal when they all became heroes. That they’d stick together. That what went after one of them went after all of them.
“It’s not like I get a choice.”
“You could tell them no.”
“I’m not having you get sent out.”
Dream didn’t mean to show that much anger in his voice. He didn’t mean to have hurt rolling through him or the sound of irritation bubbling through his words.
George’s glare got deeper.
“So you don’t have the rest of us holding you back.”
He took a breath.
“That’s not—”
George was already turning to leave.
“Whatever, Dream. Do your fights. Leave. See if any of us care if you come back.”
The words felt like a knife straight through his heart.
Burning and aching into him like venom was dripping through a bite.
“I—”
George turned to leave. Storming down the hall like he was full of rage and anger. He was marching away from him and Dream wondered if his friend had been able to feel the errors in his code. He knew that George used to watch him. That he would be the one most likely to pick up when something was off because of how closely their powers were connected. He thought that his friend would be on his side until the end of the line.
Sapnap had barely looked his way. Anger rolling through him and full of hate like he was disgusted to even be in the same room as him. He hated him. Spitting the words and insults every chance he got now.
They were both mad. Feeding off each other when they did their patrols together while Dream was out alone.
His heart wasn’t beating right.
Dream let his vision double over on itself as he walked. Stepping forward to leave the safe house and lock it tight behind him. To make sure it was safe for his family even though he knew now that they didn’t want him.
His chest hurt. His head hurt.
He still moved on the directions ordered into his ear like he was a puppet following strings.
Dream at this point was a soldier. He followed orders and he followed them well and he moved to the fight. The major villains were gone but that didn’t mean the minor ones were. They were pushing and fighting and they had to deal with them if that was anything to go by. They had to be fought and handled and for some ungodly reason his higher ups decided that Dream was the only one that would be able to handle them. That he was the only one that could do it. He was the only one that would be able to win.
Not any of the others.
His mind was buzzing the more he worked. Pushing with his powers to cover the slack he felt as his body didn’t want to do the fighting anymore. He was exhausted beyond repair and if he didn’t stop soon then he was going to be in trouble.
But that was what was wanted of him.
Never in his life did he think he would hear George tell him they didn’t care if he came back. Never in his life had he believed that he would run into the situation where his friends would all hate him enough that he would be hearing them wish him hurt.
Maybe he should have asked George to tear his code apart. Maybe it was what his friend wanted of him right now.
Dream finished the fight he had. Dizziness swarming him and his lungs falling short of air. He stumbled a step forward before he was listing over to the side and hitting the wall for support. Lungs heaving and vision swimming around him. He tried to balance and he couldn’t find anything.
He was trying to breathe the right way and it didn’t seem to be working.
Maybe he should sleep here.
Get back to the safe house and he would just pass out on the floor and not get up again. Maybe it would make him feel better at the end of this. Maybe he would feel a little more secure in everything that happened and was still planned to happen.
He could sleep until the sun or the world would wake him up and he could let himself relax. He could breathe and maybe he could get George and Sapnap and talk to them and—
His comm beeped loud in his ears.
“Smiler, attack at the riverside.”
He wished his heart would stop. That he could allow himself to rest and he could breathe for once.
“What kind of attack?”
His voice croaked through the comm. His stomach flipping inside of him as he pushed himself from the wall to try to stand. Closing his eyes against the multiples in his vision.
“Gang violence. Nothing that you can’t handle.”
“Report it to the police.”
His head was pounding. His eyes felt like they were full of grit.
He heard the biting voice that came through his ear.
“The police are busy because you haven’t been doing your job well enough. Go. It was not an ask.”
The riverside was on the other side of the city.
“I won’t make it there fast enough.”
If the police were already notified of it then it wasn’t going to be long before the gangs that were fighting would split up and head out on their own ways. They were going to lose the path of them anyway and there wasn’t anything they could do about it.
“404 and Blaze have been deployed. You will meet them there.”
His heart clenched. Dream tasted bile in the back of his throat. He felt sick to his stomach but he still forced himself to breathe.
He couldn’t fail them in this.
He’d failed them so many other times and they thought he was leaving to do things on his own when he was leaving for these missions. They were mad at him and blaming him and Dream knew that it was all his own fault but he still wanted to fix this. He wanted to make things right and he knew the first step of that was doing this so that they could go home together.
If they would still accept him.
Dream pushed with his powers. Keeping them wrapped around him tightly to act like a brace and push him forward. He was feeling the world blur around him until he was dropping to the warehouse where the fighting was coming from.
Portals and flames.
His friends.
His family.
Dream joined the fight through the skylight. Dropping into the middle of it and throwing a wall to defend Sapnap from bullets that would have gone straight into him and killed him otherwise.
He was hardly even looked at.
Dream didn’t have time to think about it.
Pushing himself in on the targets and listening to the shouts that went through them.
“Smiler is here!”
“Run!”
“Get out now!”
They should have been doing that the moment it was George and Sapnap. They should have already been going. Dream was barely able to stand right now, he wasn’t the threat.
He could feel the intensity of Sapnap’s portals. George’s presence in the world drawing him in and searing at him with the amount of hate he could feel from him. The anger that was rolling off them both so thickly it made him feel like he was suffocating.
The world was so loud in his head that he missed when the gunfire stopped.
He missed the fact that he was somewhere deeper into the warehouse with unconscious goons laying at his feet. That there were no more people to fight and that the meat of it was done.
They had to restrain them now. Get them ready for the police and have a squad car come to pick them up. That was the end. They could go home.
Dream was finishing wrapping the final restraint with shaking fingers when his comm crackled again in his ear.
“Four, you good?”
“Peachy.”
He heard anger in both of them. Dream didn’t miss the fact that he wasn't asked about. He could feel their presence in the world. He knew the two of them were side by side.
“This fight was fucking stupid.”
He heard Sapnap laugh. The frustration that was there.
“It wasn’t even hard. They didn’t need heroes for this. Certainly not three of us. We did all of the work. He couldn’t even be bothered to stay for the end.”
Dream frowned. His eyebrows pinching at the realization that his friends were using their comms because they thought he’d left them behind in the fight. He stood up to start walking back to them. To tell them that he wasn’t gone and set things right.
But the moment his legs were straight he was tripping. His heart stalling in his chest and sending black dancing through his eyes. His body washing cold and numb before he was blinking spots and trying to catch himself again.
“Way to hit your comm and not say anything, jackass.”
It took him a moment to figure out the words were to him. That he’d turned it on before he stood.
“I’m still here.”
Sapnap scoffed. Ready to yell and call him a liar but he heard George tutt.
“He’s here. Couldn’t be bothered to join our fight then? Had to go on your own? Had to be special? Too good to even be seen fighting on our side?”
There was hurt that was there. Dream’s tongue felt too thick for his mouth.
“No…”
His lungs didn’t want to take in air.
“That’s not…”
“Save it, Dream.”
“Something’s wrong.”
“Yeah. You. You shouldn’t be our leader.”
“I don’ feel good…”
“Good.”
It cut like a bullet through him. The confirmations of their anger.
He was so dizzy. He could see them down in the open beyond the hall of the warehouse. He was in the main room but they were already by the doors. Down a hallway shoot out and he could see they were watching.
His head hurt so bad.
“Not…’m not…i….”
“Not in the mood, Smiler. You aren’t getting pity out of us. Certainly not on a fight we all know damn well you weren’t hit in. How stupid do you think we are?”
He couldn’t breathe.
“It was just a gang fight. You were barely here for it.”
His legs couldn’t hold his weight.
“You’re fine so stop—”
Dream hit the ground. One moment he was standing and the next he felt his knees hit the concrete before his body fell with them. His shoulder taking the weight of his body before his head bounced a bit off the ground.
His heart was racing. He couldn’t move. His vision was swarming black.
“Get up.”
Hate. So much hate.
“Meet us at rendezvous or don’t bother coming home.”
Dream tried to look for them. He saw the blurred shapes of them leaving. The multiples he saw in and out of focus.
He tried to reach for them.
To talk to them.
But the dizziness was too much.
George let his anger burn through in his heart. Seeping over with his worry for Dream and all his frustrations coming out to a head.
He’d been worried earlier in the night. When Dream had stumbled into the safehouse and barely acknowledged anything else that was around him. He’d looked like he was in a daze and he’d thought there was something going wrong. His code didn’t feel right.
Dream through the world had always felt so green. Despite being colorblind, George had began using Dream as his marker of the color. He could feel it in the world because it simply felt like Dream. Like his presence and it was the only way he knew the color.
It was Dream.
What he’d felt after he’d come home had nearly been a screaming red. Blaring with alarm and worrying him until his heart felt like it was trying to pull from his chest.
They had all been fighting with each other recently but that didn’t mean he didn’t care. He and Sapnap had talked about it so many times and they just couldn’t figure out why Dream wasn’t fighting against their higher ups. They knew that he was getting assigned but the only thing that was making sense was that he was asking for them. Probably so that he could be promoted into other hero groups or leave the business all together.
Dream was leaving them.
The both of them wanted to deny that but they kept seeing the proof of it over and over again. The idea sinking it’s fangs into them until the venom was too much for them to think past.
He’d worried about Dream. Going to check on him with fear in his heart that he’d find him seriously hurt.
Instead, Dream was walking out for another damn mission. Ready to leave them.
Ready to get rid of the burdens that he clearly saw them as.
It had been the knife in his heart and when Dream tried to push back against it he knew he couldn’t take anymore lies or excuses. He didn’t want to think about his best friend leaving them.
So he did it first.
He told Dream to do his fights.
“Leave. See if any of us care if you come back.”
He’d regret it the moment the words came out of his mouth but he didn’t allow himself to stop. Committing to the fight that he’d sealed and waiting for Dream to yell out that they needed to talk. To do something because this wasn’t right. That they were meant to be friends and closer than that and—
And Dream had been silent.
George listened to him leave and he didn’t stop him. He listened to him leave and George ended up with Sapnap for the next hours. Hearing things on the news of Smiler once again being seen around the city and the amount of his powers he was using. He was showing off. He was being cocky. Some of the moves he was doing were down right stupid and risky but it was flashy and it would get him the attention of everyone.
It made him sick.
He refused to look at Dream’s code.
He didn’t want to feel him in the world and know that it really was his friend that was leaving them. That it was Dream that was doing all of this.
Until they were called to a fight in the riverside and informed that Smiler would be meeting them there.
Neither of them were happy about it.
Sapnap had reacted the meanest between the two of them. Everything that happened that he and Sapnap talked about coming into a flaming head until they were both spitting Dream’s name with grief lining their words.
“I hate him. I hope he doesn’t show.”
“That could mean he’s hurt.”
“You heard the news, Four. The bastard is fine. I don’t want to talk to him.”
The skylight came crashing down and there was Smiler. Flinging himself around the warehouse with his powers with enough recklessness he was going to kill someone at this rate. And then he was chasing after the people that ran.
They let him go. They expected him to come back.
But the fighting was well and truly over before they took up their posts beside each other and waited for their third to join.
He didn’t.
The thought of Dream leaving them had them hitting their comms with fury in their hearts.
“Four, you good?”
“Peachy.”
The conversation felt routine. Comforting. Despite the anger in both their voices he knew the drill on what he was supposed to say. He wanted Dream to hear it too. Their anger that he couldn’t even be bothered to check on them after the fight.
They had been family. They were meant to be family and this was how Dream left?
All of their memories? All the fights they’d had in the past and this was going to be the one that finished it? He couldn’t help the next words that came from his mouth.
“This fight was fucking stupid.”
Sapnap laughed. He still heard his frustration anyway.
““It wasn’t even hard. They didn’t need heroes for this. Certainly not three of us. We did all of the work. He couldn’t even be bothered to stay for the end.”
The two of them could have handled this. They could have done it alone and without Smiler there and if they had then they would be able to trick themselves into thinking that Dream still cared about them. They could believe that he was still their friend and that he wanted to be with them.
They heard the beep of another comm turning on. The channel they were on was their private one. The only other comm was going to be Dream’s.
There was still only silence on the other side. He was listening. He was there.
He wouldn’t speak to them.
“Way to hit your comm and not say anything, jackass.”
“I’m still here.”
Sapnap scoffed. Tossing his hands to him to vent his anger without actually saying anything.
“He’s here. Couldn’t be bothered to join our fight then? Had to go on your own? Had to be special? Too good to even be seen fighting on our side?”
Sapnap’s anger was saying the same things he was feeling. George felt his heart burning at the memories of the three of them founding this team. With the way he was acting toward them now, he knew that it was over.
“No…”
Dream trailed off.
Trying to come up with excuses. Trying to play an act like he was breathing hard. If he was being serious then it was the amount of his power he was using. How careless he’d become.
How stupid.
“That’s not…”
“Save it, Dream.”
“Something’s wrong.”
“Yeah. You. You shouldn’t be our leader.”
“I don’ feel good…”
“Good.”
George didn’t even want to look. He could feel Dream coming closer but he refused to feel anything from the code in his direction. Worried about feeling the glow of green that he was so used to coming from Dream. The marker of him that let him always find him and feel him.
George didn’t want any of it.
Not when Dream had proven how much he hated them. How he didn’t care and would leave them the second they were in a fight together.
“Not…’m not…i….”
“Not in the mood, Smiler. You aren’t getting pity out of us. Certainly not on a fight we all know damn well you weren’t hit in. How stupid do you think we are?”
Sapnap was watching him. He could see it in the way his eyes were locked in further in the warehouse. The bite of his voice still holding everything when they knew the betrayal that would meet them if Dream told the truth. They were in the field. They couldn’t be doing this here.
“It was just a gang fight. You were barely here for it.”
Something like this was routine for them. It was something they did all the time and it could hardly be considered to be a challenge or anything of the sort.
“You’re fine so stop being an idiot and leave the damn warehouse.”
George was facing away. He heard a dull thud from inside and he watched the way Sapnap went stiff. How his eyes darkened like he was about to march in and murder someone.
“Get up.”
If George didn’t know better he would almost say Sapnap was talking to an enemy that he was contemplating just straight up killing.
It hurt to know that he was talking to their friend.
“Meet us at rendezvous or don’t bother coming home.”
He was turning after that. Reaching out to grab hold of George’s arm and pulling him forward. He went with him willingly.
“Blaze?”
“He’s fucking faking being injured.”
George’s heart squeezed.
“How?”
“Collapsed. Did all that breathy shit on the comms and thought he could just collapse.”
“Blaze—”
“You saw that fighting, Four, we both know he isn’t hurt. He’s— He thinks we’re actually that dumb. He has five minutes to fix the mistake or I say we don’t let him come home. See how he likes it without us if he really wants to be solo so badly.”
George left the frown on his face the whole way through portaling up to the roof that was meant to be their meeting point. A good vantage so that they would be able to see the police taking the captured goons and leaders. They would be able to sleep with the job well done and everything would be fine.
They stewed in their thoughts in silence. Listening in on the world around them and trying to figure out the best things that they could do.
There was no sign of Dream.
One minute.
Three minutes.
Five.
Ten.
“How long do we wait?”
Sapnap’s voice trembled when he spoke. His nerves finally showing beyond the anger. They were both worried. They didn’t want to lose the friendship they thought would be forever.
“Give him five more and I’ll go see what’s inside if he’s not here.”
“He left us, George. He—”
“Five minutes.”
It came and went.
Fifteen minutes total that left them sitting and wondering where their third would be. If he had truly abandoned them there and if he was ever going to come.
“I’m going in.”
He didn’t wait to hear Sapnap’s response before George was portaling himself down to the entrance of the warehouse again.
He turned.
He saw Dream on the ground inside.
Like he hadn’t moved.
George walked at first. Moving forward in case this was fake like Sapnap had said but the closer he got the more he thought that all of this was wrong.
He ran when he couldn’t tell if Dream was breathing.
Hurrying to his side and dropping down to feel for his pulse.
He hit his comm.
“Blaze!”
“What?”
“Get down here! It wasn’t fake!”
Dream’s skin was clammy. His breaths weak and shallow and his heart racing in his chest. It was going too fast for his breathing to be supplying enough air to his brain. He was lucky that nothing worse had happened yet. He could only imagine what would happen right now if Dream had a seizure.
The cursing in his ear went ignored as he tried to pull Dream's mask from his face only to see the dark circles under his eyes and the pale skin beneath. He was sick. He was more than sick. Pulling back one of his eyes he saw the whites. He saw how bloodshot they were.
He took a breath before he looked at the world code. Using his powers and finally looking at the man in front of him.
Blaring and screaming, bleeding, red. Nearly every line that was supposed to be a vibrant and brilliant glowing green was stained like crimson blood.
Errors.
Damage.
Dream’s code looked like it was skinned alive and all of the errors were pointing to so much exhaustion that it was making him sick to look at. Pain and heartache. Fear.
Those were the last things he was feeling.
He was stuck in it
“Dream?”
He cupped his face but Dream wasn’t responsive. His body staying limp.
He heard running steps toward them but he didn’t bother to look up. He knew it was Blaze. He knew Sapnap when he slid on the ground to reach him on Dream’s other side.
George saw nothing but fear in his eyes.
“What is it?”
“He’s—”
He didn’t know how to explain it.
It looked like his code was nearly melting off of itself and the more he saw the more he thought it was a miracle that Dream was even still alive at all. His powers were amazing and strong and dangerous but they were also incredibly volatile and if he didn’t rest them then the world would relate on him.
George had been the one to help him through that more than a few times.
“Dream?”
He was cupping his face. Stroking his thumbs over Dream’s cheekbones and he saw the way his eyebrows furrowed.
“That’s it, come back, it’s alright, we’re here.”
They were listening now. They were paying attention now. George heard Dream’s comm beeping in his ear. He hacked into it to listen.
“Smiler, dispatch to grove end. Bank Robbery.”
The higher ups would be able to see his vitals. They would know that he was crashing. They would know that he was hurt and needed rest. That—
“Get up. You waste of space. You already had us send out your friends. If you don’t want them in danger again then you do as we say. Go.”
George felt sick as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
“Fight. That’s what a hero does. Your heart can wait. The world comes first.”
Dream’s heart was weak. Fluttering and still George heard him whine. He saw Dream blinking his eyes like he was trying to force himself to wake up.
He broke the comm in his ear. He ordered Sapnap to deactivate his.
“Dream?”
Dull eyes found his. George nearly cried for that miracle in itself.
“Just stay with us. We’re going to figure this out, okay? We’re going to help you.”
He looked confused. It drove the knife through his heart.
“We’re taking you home.”
Dream’s heart was still beating wrong. Like he could feel the pain that was pumping through it.
“You can sleep.”
He saw the world warnings. The ones that were trying to attack him as he finally got to rest. The world was screaming the danger he was in in his own body but he knew how Dream thought of things and he knew that his friend would have seen it as something else. The world, either way, had been keeping him from resting when he was able.
“We’re taking you home.”
He got Dream into his arms. Readying him and Sapnap before George was ripping a portal open and they were finding themselves on their living room floor. Dream breathed a sigh too heavy. They felt his body going limp. The last of his energy leaving him.
“Sleep, Dream.”
Sapnap was already moving for medical. They knew the work that was cut out for them now. They knew the danger of continuing as they had. They weren’t going to lose Dream to this.
“You’re home.”
He breathed.
“We’re home.”