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Months had passed since George broke the husk that was Dream out of prison. Since he had snuck past the guards, a near-delirious man carried in his arms, and took him away to his little cottage. Since he wrapped Dream up in rolls and rolls of bandages, watching over him like a guardian angel.
It didn’t seem like much progress had been made away from it.
Dream still could barely breathe without permission, some days. Some days his eyes would meet ones that wavered in and out of existence, a vivid scar striking through one of them. Some days his mind would imagine shackles binding his hands. Some days he would round the corner and his brain would trick him into seeing obsidian.
But he was getting better, George insisted. There had already been some improvement, not that Dream noticed it.
The biggest thing, he thought, was that the wounds on his body had finally all closed up, and he didn’t have to worry about tearing them back open. It left behind ugly scar tissue, so much of it that he avoided mirrors like the plague. He was unwilling to see what kind of broken, patchwork monster he had become, the doll with limp limbs and mangled hands as if a dog got to him.
The shirts he wore were often long sleeved, even if it was mainly to cover up the chill. His body never did get used to normal temperatures again. He’d asked, once, to make a room with lava so he wouldn’t feel cold. That went…awfully. George had agreed to it initially, but quickly regretted it when Dream’s nightmares only got worse. After that, he replaced the lava with a regular heater, and after another week of similar results, Dream was moved into his room.
Much to Dream’s relief, his nights after that seemed to be relatively restful, even if he only slept for a few hours and spent the sunrise sitting against the window with a blanket over his shoulders. George initially used to sigh in disappointment when he saw Dream up. Now, he just looked at him with a sad expression. Dream wasn’t sure which hurt worse. Probably the second one, because at least he used to get an audible message of disappointment. Now, he just felt sad.
Some days, he couldn’t even eat. While he didn’t eat much in general—two meals a day, if that—sometimes the shaking in his hands grew to be too much. Sometimes he couldn’t even get a grip on the utensils, let alone cut up anything with his trembling fingers. George would try to help, but it was more often than not he didn’t eat that day. He always got so frustrated with himself.
Could he really not live by himself anymore? Was he really that fucked up, that useless, that he couldn’t even pick up a fork to feed himself?
Those times, he would tightly curl his shaking hands into fists, feeling hot tears bead in the corners of his eyes. George would try to comfort him, and he would turn it away. It wasn’t something he deserved.
And there were still other days where he would wake up in bed, screaming and crying and blabbering hysterically, sobbing into George’s shirt as he was hugged close. The close contact both made his heart lurch in panic and his body melt in relief, but he didn’t want it to stop. Not yet.
Call him selfish, really, for clutching George close to him long after his tears had turned to sniffles and the remains of the nightmare turned to a mere tremor buzzing in his bones. For praying that he would stay, even when he had no reason to.
George was kind. Kinder than he needed to be. Kinder than Dream ever deserved. Kind in how gentle he made every touch, slowly guiding Dream to lay back down and collapse into the pillows underneath them. Like always, he would curl up, hugging one of his pillows or the blanket close, running his fingers over its soft surface. And like always, George would lay down next to him, a hand curved around and over his waist as a comforting reminder that someone was still here.
It both warmed his heart and broke it to pieces.
Sometimes, then, he could actually sleep. Close his eyes and pretend that he didn’t see flashes of glistening metal any time he saw the slightest light source. Sometimes then he would sleep without worrying about nightmares or waking up before the sun rose. If he was particularly lucky, he would wake up to the smell of tea and cooked eggs, and George and he would eat together. The quiet, domestic peacefulness was almost enough to convince himself that things were okay.
Almost.
These days, he didn’t often go out on his own. Even with months having gone by since the breakout, it still wasn’t safe for him to be seen, and especially not with George. There was also the added fear that the moment he stepped outside, he would be there. He would take him back to the prison. He would rip apart Dream’s mind, body, and soul more than he already has.
Next time, there would be nothing left for George to save.
But George’s home in Kinoko Kingdom had large windows that let all the light in, even when the drapes were pulled over them. The inside was crafted out of deep and pleasant spruce wood, with mushrooms and flowers growing in little pots on the windowsill. He could still gaze out at the land, sometimes even sitting on the back porch if the weather was particularly nice. He never could stray too far, not without George and especially not with Sapnap walking around. It was too much of a concern that he would try to keep his promise.
For Dream, it was enough. He loved the outdoors, but sometimes the sight and sounds and smells were too overwhelming. It was enough that he got to see it from indoors, in a comforting and warm environment, where he didn’t have to worry about Sapnap or Karl or him or someone else showing up while he was vulnerable, not that he wasn’t vulnerable all the time.
Since he couldn’t leave the house all that often, he had to come up with other ways to keep himself entertained and busy. George insisted that he didn’t need to do most of the house chores he picked up when his limp wasn’t bad, or when his hands weren’t shaking. On good days, he would be in the kitchen. Taking back control over what he ate was amazing, and it brought back old memories of cooking over a campfire in a darkened forest or in the opening of a cave during manhunts. And it even reminded him of something he and George used to make, too.
It always made George smile to see him doing something simple. Domestic. Something he’s had a hard time doing ever since he was in prison. Always, no matter how many times it made George smile, it made Dream’s heart stutter as well.
Sweet things especially he had grown really attached to. Even before the prison, he never liked coffee, and now that he was out he abhorred potions as well. Even if he stayed up, he never tried to drink either. Instead, he was more likely to be found with shaking hands wrapped around a warm mug of cocoa overloaded with marshmallows and peppermint. And if it wasn’t cocoa, then it was sweetened tea.
Reading and writing were a few other things he picked up. Though books did sometimes bore him, and the writing did tire out his wrists, they kept him busy and out of George’s way as he went about his daily business.
And of everything, his favorite hobby had become painting.
He had painted before in the prison, if you could even call it that. In between the bouts of torture, he would try and fail to draw in his books with long dried out ink in a poor attempt to keep his mind halfway together. When his quills would break, he would use his hands, and when he gave up with wetting the ink with water from the rapidly draining cauldron, he would use his own blood.
It was little more than haphazard shapes, or vague details of a face, or a pet, or an item, but it helped. His memory was failing, that he knew, so maybe if he wrote it all down it wouldn’t be forced to leave him too.
The Warden had discovered him like that, once. Sobbing over a bloodstained book, red ‘ink’ dripping from his fingertips, and barely-legible words scrawled on the page. It had clearly disturbed him immensely. He never entered the cell again unless strictly necessary.
When he couldn’t get to his chest, he would trace things out in the obsidian. A cat. A horse. Sapnap’s headband. George’s glasses. Karl’s spiral. Techno’s crown.
It was them he really thought about the most, the people of his server. He didn’t want to forget them; couldn’t afford to if he wanted to stay sane. Couldn’t afford to forget about his wrongdoings lest the reminders be beaten into his skull.
Now, even away from the pain and the torment, it was still something of comfort. Colors—something he sorely missed—constantly surrounded him. In the flowers on the windowsill, even now they were still slightly overwhelming. It was something different than black and purple, than red, red, red, on his hands, his clothes, the floor. Something other than red that painted his visitor’s monochrome clothes.
Green was still his favorite color. Even if it belonged to his Warden.
Since he couldn’t obtain the paints themselves, George did it for him. Well, George gave him the materials, and Dream would blend each bottle himself, crushing up petals and stems and sometimes even ores to make dye. When George was busy, Dream would take the bonemeal that he carefully stored up and scatter it across the backyard, watching the flowers spring up from the grass before he would rip them out by the roots and start the process again until he had enough.
The flowers that were too valuable to lose, namely the rare ones that George had to venture for thousands of blocks to get, Dream kept in a carefully maintained garden right up against the house and next to a border of trees that concealed his presence from outside eyes. When he put more bonemeal into that soil, it would grow more of them, which he then used for his paints.
His shaking hands, though he was often vexed at his inability to pick up his paintbrush, sometimes made his artwork a little more realistic. The branches in the trees became jagged and pushed by the wind. The leaves sometimes fell to the ground. Petals were carried away by the breeze. Shadows grew more elongated. People held more contour in their faces.
Colors fascinated him. Every painting held as much as he could fit. Sunsets reflected off of clouds in varying shades of orange, pink and purple. Oceans were drowned in blues and greens and the iridescent colors of fish. The nether was always a mix of everything in between combined with red (lighter than blood, lighter than Pandora’s Vault). Every flower field had dots of everything the canvas could fit.
His paintings were piled up in his room, stacked carefully on top of each other with his favorites hung on the walls, others laid out on any open surface in varying stages of completion or drying. Dream had expected George to want to throw the clutter away, but he didn’t. George even took a few of the paintings for himself to hang in his own bedroom that they now shared. Of course, Dream was delighted. Someone actually found him useful for something!
When he said as much, George looked crestfallen. Why couldn’t he understand? Why couldn’t Dream understand what he was doing wrong?
But that was okay! He painted when he had the dyes to do so. When he didn’t, he’d go and tend to his garden. If it was raining, he would read. If Sapnap was nearby, he would hide. That was okay! He was fine. It was fine.
George said one day that he was going to go talk to Sapnap about it. Dream didn’t dare argue.
To calm himself down, Dream sat at the desk in his room, taking up his brush, and turning to the nether landscape that he had been working on for the past week. It was a view through the nether portal itself, into one of the crimson biomes. Purple and black swirls ringed the canvas, and the smallest bit of blue was visible in the corner of the overworld.
He was mixing up another bottle for the shattered portal barely visible in the background, when his trembling hands knocked over the purple dye. Sighing heavily, he stood, reaching across the bottles for the rag he used to clean up spills. His fingers found it, grasping onto the soft material, and he pulled his arm back, this time hitting the open bottle of red paint.
There was red paint spilling across painted obsidian.
Red painted the obsidian —
His shaking hands dropped the brush instantly, drawing in upon himself and accidentally tipping his chair over. All he saw was red. Red, his blood, painting the purple obsidian floor.
Dream scurried back, dragging his body as well as he could manage until his head hit a wall, immediately curling his legs back up to his chest, arms braced over his head. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide in his small, cramped cell.
A laugh echoed in his ears. Look at you! What a pathetic, insignificant monster.
Whimpers left his throat as the grip on his clothes grew tighter. Please…
I should let someone else in here, ya know? Let them have a crack at you. Of course, you’d probably like it. Means you’d get to see someone else, huh?
Please, he mouthed from behind his arms. Please…
I’ll let them carve off their pound of meat, he continued. Not like you needed the extra weight, right? Should be grateful you even get anything to eat at all.
I am, Dream wanted to say. I promise I am.
Who am I kidding? Footsteps. A hand settling around his wrist. They wouldn’t want to see your worthless face anyway.
No, they wouldn’t, but it still hurt. It still hurt that they cared nothing for him, not even enough to scream his atrocities back in his face. The only one who did was-
And the only reason I’m here is for that damn book, Dream.
“Dream?”
A short exhale was Dream’s only response as all the air was pushed from his lungs, eyes wide. Not him. Please, please not him.
And then George’s voice spoke too and that just made him bite down on the inside of his cheek, afraid to make any sound. George knew. George brought him here. George wanted him dead.
“Careful,” George’s voice warned, and the way it broke halfway through made Dream even more wary. “He’s just…Dream? You’re not in prison, yeah?”
Was he? Dream didn’t know anymore. But he was there and that just made things worse. He was going to kill him…
“Can I-” the painfully familiar voice swallowed. “Can I hug you?”
No...he was going to stab Dream in the back with his own sword, his own axe held to his throat…
Warm arms circled around him, and his body would have tensed up even more if he had the ability to. Someone held him close, and Dream didn’t dare move, every inhale more choked up than the last.
Sapnap held him close, and Dream wailed. Any words he spoke came out slurred or mumbled, vague pleads and begs for mercy that didn’t exist, for his life that held no meaning except to make others suffer.
“I’m sorry,” Sapnap spoke over his cries. His voice was wavering. “I swear Dream, I didn’t mean it; I didn’t mean it. I was just so frustrated with everything. I was never going to kill you, it was the only thing I could think of to make you stay in prison. I swear, I never wanted to hurt you.”
Liar, Dream thought, squashing down the hope that started to bloom in his chest. Hope was dead. Hope only hurts him more. Hope is wistfulness for something that will never be.
It was never meant to be.
“George told me everything. I didn’t know what Quackity was doing, or I swear to you I would have broken into the prison myself to get you out. We never wanted this for you.”
Didn’t he? He said almost every day that Sapnap condoned this; even suggested ways to torture him. The lava was apparently his favorite. He even had a bucket engraved with a familiar fire symbol. That couldn’t have been false.
Right?
“I’m so, so sorry Dream,” Sapnap said. Involuntarily, Dream’s limbs slowly loosened, leaning slightly into Sapnap’s arms. “I know you probably hate me, and yeah, I deserve it. But please, talk to me.” He swallowed. “I—I don’t want to scare you anymore. You’re safe. Promise.”
Promises weren’t worth much anymore. Both Sapnap and George had promised not to turn their backs on him. Punz, before he was bought by Tommy. Techno, before Dream’s communicator was yanked away from him as his wide eyes read the final message that he was busy…
“He’s not going to hurt you,” George’s voice added. “I know I should have warned you first, and I’m sorry. I knew it would startle you.”
Dream was relaxing. Why was he relaxing? Why was his mind this gullible? Sapnap still chilled him to the core, quiet echoes of his voice slowly receding. Why, after all this time, did he want to trust him?
His head tilted slightly upwards, just enough to catch a glimpse of Sapnap’s face. Noticing this, Sapnap pulled away, letting them both lock eyes and his hands linger on Dream’s shoulders. For a moment, neither spoke. Dream sniffled quietly.
“I’m sorry,” were the first words out of his mouth, and Prime, he hated it. Hated that he had been reduced to this, hated that ‘sorry’ was his first instinct to appease whoever he had wronged.
He deserved this, he reminded himself. He was a monster. And monsters had to learn.
“You don’t have to apologize,” Sapnap said, and the honesty in his voice hurt. “This one’s on me.”
“No,” Dream answered softly. “It’s my fault.”
A nostalgic smile pulled at the edges of Sapnap’s lips. “You’re an idiot.” It almost seemed fond. Whatever the case, it still warmed Dream’s heart. “All this time, and I didn’t know you were here. You really are an idiot.”
“I’m so-”
“Don’t apologize.” Sapnap pulled him back into a tight hug, the pressure almost hurting his chest. “I’m just glad you’re okay.” Panicked eyes shot up to George, who was hovering behind, but he didn’t seem scared. His posture was open, worrying, but not concerned that Dream would be hurt.
Hesitantly, Dream raised his arms to hug back, interlocking his fingers in an attempt to contain the tremors.
“I…I missed you, Pandas.”
“I’ve missed you too, Dream.”