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Dream felt cloudy when he woke up. He felt like his head and throat were stuffed with cotton. He tried to blink open his eyes, but exhaustion was weighing them down. He felt like he was floating.
Dream tried to get his focus around him. He still couldn’t tell exactly where he was, or what he was doing before he got here. His head was pounding against his skull. The dull thudding made his stomach feel uneasy inside of him.
Dream tried again to open his eyes. This time he was able to do it. He was met with more darkness. He didn’t know if his eyes just weren’t adjusting or if he really was just in darkness.
He flexed his hands behind him. Wait. Behind him? Dream jerked his arms only to find them caught by rope. Alarm bells immediately went off in his head and Dream’s eyes darted around. His legs and middle section were also tied down to what he assumed was a chair. Dream struggled against them for a moment before falling limp in the chair. That wouldn’t work. He needed a better plan. He needed something. What even had happened?
Everything before he woke up seemed like a massive blur now. He didn’t really remember much of what had happened. From the mask that was on his face and the obvious feeling of his uniform on his body, he guessed he was fighting.
Dream frowned. Why couldn’t he remember anything? Were his friends okay? His head pounded and Dream bit his tongue to hold back a wince. Everything felt like it was spinning around him. He could only assume that he hit his head. It would explain the lack of memory and the pain running through him.
He tried to gauge his surroundings a little bit, but nothing was really coming to him. It was all still black around him.
Dream then noticed the fabric that was tired around his head, gagging his mouth. Dream tried to keep himself calm. Freaking out now would only serve him badly. Dream tried to take deep breaths.
His hands were definitely stuck. He was definitely stuck. He couldn’t really do much the more that he thought about it. He just had to pray that someone came to save him at some point. He couldn’t get out of this himself unless whoever kidnapped him made some stupid mistake in doing it.
There was nothing around him that made him recognize the place at all. His comm was off his wrist and his earpiece was gone from his ear. Everything that he would usually use to get out of a situation like this was gone.
It was scary, Dream would admit it. He didn’t like being at the will of someone else. Well, if it wasn’t his boyfriends that is. He didn’t like to not be in control of what was going on around him. It stressed him out and caused him to feel slightly sick.
Dream tried to reach for his powers inside of himself, but to his disappointment, he couldn’t feel them. There was probably some power neutralizer connected to him somewhere, but he couldn’t really identify where at the moment.
Dream huffed through the gag in his mouth. He didn’t know if he wished for these people to show up so he could know what they want, or to just be alone for as long as possible.
It seems like the choice was made for him as he heard a door behind him be swung open. There were footsteps and small mutters behind him. Dream flexed his fingertips. He could put on a show if a show is what they wanted. He just had to pretend it didn’t hurt. He could be fine.
There was a small chuckle behind him and the footsteps made their way to his chair. Dream’s eyes met a man with a black ski mask on the upper part of his face. There was a large grin plastered on the lower part of his face. Dream scowled back.
“Well, what do we have here?” The man sneered, reaching forwards to grab Dream’s face. He gripped Dream by the chin and Dream scowled at him. He opened his mouth to say something.
He choked on the gag. Fuck he forgot about that. He tried not to show the struggle to the man as he tried to breathe. It would be much harder to act fine if he couldn’t talk. Speaking gave him the advantage of seeming confident. It made him seem insane in a way that meant no one could hurt him.
He couldn’t be that now. He was stuck. No way to talk. No way to move. This was bad.
“Don’t choke now,” the man growled in the low voice, his breath hot on Dream’s face, “we haven’t had anything fun yet.”
Dream made note of the word we. We meant there was more than him. He had at least two or more people to deal with.
The first slap should have been expected. The crack sent his head whipping to the side and his cheek instantly bloomed with pain. Dream but his tongue. He heard the man in front of him chuckle.
There were more footsteps behind him and suddenly there was a hand in the back of his hair. The person ripped Dream’s head back by his hair.
“This is for all the times you’ve arrested us,” The man hissed, “escaping prison is a hassle.”
The man spat on his face and Dream cringed. Fuck that’s disgusting. It made his stomach swim in circles. The man laughed at his reaction, throwing Dream’s head forward so hard it made his neck pop.
Dream held back a pained wince from the motion. He didn’t have much time to recover before another slap was sending his head whipping to the side. There was a kick on his shin and Dream forced himself to breath through it. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. He couldn’t give any of them the satisfaction of seeing him hurt.
So even though the next kick made him want to groan out in pain, he held it back. There was a punch to his face next and Dream could taste blood in his mouth. It pooled up by the edge of his lip and slid out in a small line through the gag in his mouth. The man chuckled deeply, rubbing his hand through the blood,
It was obvious to Dream now that all they wanted was to hurt him. They wanted revenge for being sent to prison. What better revenge than tying the person who did it up and beating them.
Another punch landed to the side of his face. It hurt. His body was being beat by two different pairs of hands and it was hard to hold back each noise of pain that he wanted to make.
“Pathetic little hero,” the man sneered at him, “not so strong now huh?” Another slap cracked through the room.
Another hit. Another kick. Another punch. Dream could feel bruises blooming onto his body. He was huffing through his nose at this point. He wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction. He wouldn’t.
Eventually things started to get weird around him. He could recognize that his attention was beginning to slip away from what was happening. Dream let it happen. If not thinking about the beating would help the pain, then he was fine with it.
His mind was elsewhere. He tried to keep it off the immense amount of pain flooding through his body. He tried to keep it away from the fact that he was helpless to the people in front of him. They could do whatever they liked with him because he was unable to fight back. It made him want to panic. Dream pushed it down. He couldn’t.
He felt like he did all those years ago. He felt like he was just a child being beaten by his father on the floor of his parents room for not being normal. Hits raining down onto his fragile body from a man so much bigger than him. His parents would scream hatred at him as the pain triggered his powers to try and protect him.
His father just hit him harder when that happened. He would slam his head into the floor until Dream was crying so hard he couldn’t breath with blood on his face, or his powers stopped trying to help him.
Sometimes even now Dream would have trouble triggering his powers when he was in danger. He had been trained not to. Then he had been trained the opposite way. It had worked for the most part. Dream was comfortable fighting with his powers and letting them protect him. Sometimes though, he couldn’t help the fact that his powers froze in fear.
He never revealed to his friends or his partners why it would happen. He didn’t talk about his childhood much with anyone. It wasn’t necessary. Sure George and Sapnap had asked, but Dream had just brushed it off saying he was happy when he lived with his adoptive mom. They didn’t need to know more than that. It wasn’t important.
But now Dream just felt so helpless. He felt so weak and he hated every moment of it. He kept his mouth shut, something that he wasn’t able to do as a child. He would cry when he was being hit. He didn’t know how to hold himself back. His father would chastise him for it. He would call him weak. He would tell him that real men don’t cry.
Dream wasn’t crying now. As much as each new hit against his body made him want to scream, he bit his tongue. He kept his mouth shut and he took the punches. He could feel blood start to trickle out of one of his nostrils after a particularly hard hit to the face.
He just hoped that they didn’t break anything. Anything that was a severance injury would be a lot more difficult to deal with than just a couple of bruises.
“You’re nothing,” the man mocked him, slapping his face again. His cheeks were red from pain. The words sounded like a broken record of his father. He had heard it so many times before.
He was stronger than that now though. He was better. He wasn’t a weak kid with nothing going for him. He was an experienced hero that was used to pain. He could take it.
“Weak fucking bitch,” the another man hissed, kicking his knee and making a small gasp slip from his lips. It wasn’t loud enough for either man to really hear, but still Dream bit his tongue to try and keep anything else from coming out. Blood filled his mouth again as he bit too hard. He was fine. He could handle it.
He wasn’t weak. He tried to convince himself. The words of his parents were ringing in his ears. The sounds of punches against his own skin and pain was all too familiar. He didn’t like it. He wanted it to stop.
He could feel punch after punch being landed against his temple and the pain started to ebb into the background. A groan slipped past his parted lips and Dream felt blood spill out. His vision was beginning to blur and he felt dizzy. He could still feel hands against him, yet everything felt so far away.
Dreams' eyes slipped closed against his will and it didn’t take much longer for the world to fade around him. He saw black and his body went limp.
______________________
Dream peeled his eyes open. He could hear water dripping around him and a cool breeze passed over him. He curled in on himself trying to shy away from the cold. His limbs protested at the movement. Aching pain moved through him and Dream groaned loudly.
There were clouds above him. He was outside. They looked dark like it had just rained. They would explain the water. Dream pushed his body up on shaky arms. His limbs were stiff and Dream huffed at the effort.
Dream looked down at himself. He was a mess. Bruises were blooming all over his skin. Purples, yellows, blues, and browns coated almost every single bit of uncovered skin.
Looking around, he could see that he was in some type of alleyway. The villains must have left him here after they finished beating him. They had gotten bored and decided he wasn’t worth it. They had thrown his unconscious body into an alley like he was nothing more than a piece of garbage.
Dream frowned slightly. Looking down, he could see that his suit was also fucked. There were marks of spray paint and markers covering him and Dream felt humiliation course through his body at the feeling of being reduced to this.
Across his chest in big letters was the word pathetic. There were many other words covering him, but that was the most obvious.
Dream knew it was stupid, but he wanted to cry. He wanted to be warm and safe in his apartment. Eating food and drinking hot cocoa with his two favorite people. Instead he was here. Discarded in an alleyway shivering and soaking wet.
He felt worthless and some voice in the back of his head told him he was.
Dream pushed himself to his feet with a grunt. He had to get out of here. He had to get back home.
A shower sounded nice.
His body was aching and each step he took hurt.
He would rest later.
He just had to keep pushing now.
He could do it.
He wasn’t weak.
He couldn’t be weak.