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With everything Dream had ever done, he thought he’d endured enough of a punishment. He thought with the prison and the torture and the suffering he’d gone through that it had been enough.
With the rattle of the chains around his wrists he knew that the world did not agree that he’d gone through enough. He knew that there was still punishments for him to be had. For the straps that wrapped around his head. For the cage that locked around his mouth. He knew that it wasn’t enough and that the world wasn’t done. His screams were gone now. The bruises and the blood that painted his skin. The shivers that trembled through his frames.
He wanted to fight but he couldn’t find the will inside himself to do it.
He didn’t know how long he’d been here.
A gnawing that reached to his stomach and etched its way through him and he couldn’t focus anymore. His thoughts floating around him and he couldn’t tell the difference between the cave that hung around him or the cell that he’d escaped from.
There was enough that he’d had thought for a moment that he was dead. That he was back in the cell. That he’d not set a respawn point for himself and then managed to get himself cold and dead out on the snowy shore where he was meant to meet Punz and he’d woken incapacitated in the cell again and he was left there to die. Quackity and Sam weren’t going to come for him and if they did then they were just going to kill him outright because they weren’t going to take the chance of him getting out of the cell again.
But he knew that it wasn’t the case anymore.
Dream had been fighting to get out to Punz. He’d been with Techno and everything had been safe for the moments the two of them were running together. He ran and pushed and he ignored the pain that shot through his body. The scars that had torn through his middle where the scars showed the lines of Quackity cutting into him and pulling his organs out for him to see. The wounds that pushed on everything he was doing. The agony that sliced him.
The memories that ate the thoughts he tried to pull into his mind and dragged him through it all. He could never get himself away from them. He was never going to be free of them. He’d known from the beginning that he was going to be stuck in the end of all of this and he knew that there was no way out.
It was for the betterment of the server. Even when he was running for his life to get away from the prison and away from Techno where the fighting was going to track them. He didn’t have armor and he didn’t have a way to protect himself. He was too weak to fight and he just had to get to Punz and he would be fine.
The shadows had swallowed him first.
The shadows stalked around him even now. The movement that he’d gotten used to seeing in the last however long it had been. He wanted to know where someone who cared about him might be.
“Are you still thinking about it?”
The voice that sounded like his own layered over itself too many times. Dream tried to focus his eyes. He saw something wrapped in shadows in front of him. The blonde hair that he knew from seeing in the mirror all the times before the prison. The body mass and the muscles that once had been so familiar to him and now he didn’t have it with him anymore. Now he was tired and weak and he shook when he had to run for so long. He had gone through so many things and he couldn’t build it back fast enough.
“You know that it’s useless.”
The voice had been the only thing filling his head for what felt like days. He wasn’t being touched to be tortured. His wounds from the prison showing themselves against him in the face of a lack of proper care. That he wasn’t able to heal himself or help himself and it was just like being in the cell again. Like Pandora had not left him and he was still alone there. Like all of it was fake and he’d never had the chance to leave it in the first place.
He was stuck. He was alone. He would stay alone. He would die alone.
“Dream.”
Red eyes pierced his from the shadows. He knew the shape. He knew the image of the man standing in front of him. The armor that he’d once worn and the body that now filled it. The shine of the teeth and the dark that wrapped around his limbs.
“Nightmare.”
His voice sounded shred apart from the lack of proper use and the metal locking his mouth together. Any word he got out was choked and strained and grit from teeth that barely would open enough for the spoon to leak flavorless broth into his mouth.
He was dizzy. Too weak to move. Too pathetic to save himself.
The dreamon in front of him grinned.
“So you do remember me still.”
He knew that dreamons were things that could happen with the servers. He knew that there was a risk and the moment he realized that one was here on his home server that he had to do something. Locking him into the armor that he would always wear seemed like a good idea at the time.
He figured it was the best way for him to be able to protect the server. He would be able to feel the armor if it got too weak or if the dreamon got too strong. He was sure that he would be able to stand strong. He was sure that he would be able to protect them.
He failed.
“How do you have a body?”
He was straining. He was hurting. He wasn’t going to make it. Nightmare laughed.
“You gave me one.”
The dreamon walked over to him. Crouching down to his eye level and grinning at him with too much of a twist that he felt the need to look away. He wondered if this was how the others felt when he’d grinned. He wondered if this was why it was so important for him to have his mask before. He’d lost it in the mask and he hadn’t gotten it back.
“Quackity in the prison.”
He stared. Nightmare laughed again.
“All the flesh he carved out of you. All the skin he pulled away from you. All the fun you two had in the cell. He threw it out, you know. Really easy for a shadow to get to when I wasn’t being locked with magic.”
Nightmare reached out to him. Holding a hand against the buckles of the muzzle and Dream could feel his energy flickering away from him. He could feel it all slipping away and the thoughts in his head moving away from him. Leaving him cold. Leaving him defenseless. He knew the dreamon was dangerous from the beginning of all of this. He knew that there was risk for everything that happened and that was why it was important to keep him in the armor.
He was out of the armor now. He didn’t know how he was out of the armor now.
“You aren’t supposed to talk.”
He couldn’t get his mouth to move. He was too tired to fight against the muzzle.
“Just a little while longer, Dream. No one knows you’re here. No one cares. The only people looking for you are looking to kill you. You know that?”
He remembered that. He remembered—
“Sapnap wants you dead. George wants you dead. All of them want you dead.”
He tried to nod. The red eyes gleaming at him looked thrilled.
“All of them want you to die and give all the rest of your power to me.”
Everything was dark. He couldn’t feel his body.
“Understand that, Dreamie?”
“Get away from him!”
The shout and steps sounded underwater to his ears. Like they were close but still too far away for him to really grasp. The whoosh of an arrow over his head knocked something in front of him and light was shining towards him again. The shadows fading away and then there was a shing of a blade and Dream could only focus on the cold of the stone beneath him.
Pandora was always hot. He was used to things being hot.
“Dream?!”
Warm hands were on his face. Moving him and turning him and only then did he realize he was laying on his back now. The hands fluttering over his body and Dream let his eyes slip closed before something was patting at his face.
“Hey, hey no. No. Eyes open Dream. Look at me.”
Someone was moving the buckles that locked around him. Pulling a weight off his face and he could hear the fighting that happened around him. He could hear shouting and curses and rapid fire magic and spells.
He knew the voice that was fighting.
“G’rge?...”
Something wet sounded above him. He thought it might be a laugh.
“He’s kicking the dreamon’s ass. Don’t worry.”
They wanted him dead. They wanted to kill him. They wanted—
“We didn’t know, Dream. We’re sorry.”
He didn’t understand.
“We didn’t know that it was a dreamon. We didn’t know that you were being hurt. We didn’t know that he was pretending to be you and we didn’t—”
Sapnap cut himself off. His hands were so warm. He felt so cold. He was so tired.
“Look at me, Dream.”
There was so much fear in his voice.
Dream could barely feel it when his brother in all but blood lifted him from the stone and held him against his chest. How he cradled him in his arms and Dream let himself bury his face to Sapnap’s shoulder. To breathe against him and let himself know that he was safe here.
If Sapnap was still going to hold to his promise then he would be doing it.
But something didn’t make sense.
“Wasn’ possessed…”
Sapnap held him tighter.
“Your armor was. Your armor that you never took off. That you were always in and that was driving you up a wall. Bad said you’d changed in the cell but I didn’t believe it. I didn’t believe any of it. I didn’t know you were trapping that thing inside until we saw you fighting the server and you weren’t the same as you were when you escaped.”
There was guilt in his voice. Dream didn’t get it.
“I had ‘im trapped.”
“And he was hurting you.”
Dream shook his head. Sapnap wasn’t understanding. He felt fingers in his hair. He was too tired. Too dizzy. Talking hurt. He didn’t think he was supposed to talk.
“Dream, did you ever once consider that having a dreamon as your protection might not be the best idea? That while your magic was sealing him inside his magic could still reach you because there was nothing between you two?”
He hadn’t. The thought of it alone was enough to make his head spin. It was throbbing already. Like a knife was sitting inside of his brain and spinning around in circles. He couldn’t make it. He was so tired.
“Dream,”
Sapnap’s face was above him. He saw his friend watching him.
“George is trying to trap him again. He’s trying to kill him. The moment it’s safe, we’re getting you out of here.”
The thought of it made his stomach want to roll.
“I can’t…” He made himself breathe. Remembering how to move his mouth and make the words. “I can’t walk. I don’t…don’t know where…I don’t feel good…”
Sapnap nodded.
“That’s fine. That’s okay. We’ll carry you. We’re going to take care of you. You’re going to be okay, Dream. You’re going to be okay. “
The sounds of the fight reached him again. He could hear screaming.
It wasn’t George screaming.
“He was about to kill you, Dream.”
He knew that. He hadn’t been scared.
“‘S’okay…”
“It’s not.”
Sapnap’s grip turned bruising.
“He got in your head. He’s hurt you, bad. But George and I are here now. We know now. We’re going to fix this. Okay? It’s going to be okay. We’re going to fix this.”
Dream let himself fall deeper against his friend.
“‘M tired..”
“I know, brother. Just a little longer.”
They listened to George fight.
“Just a little while longer.”