Chapter Text
“Hello?” Punz’s voice rang through the device, Dream stared at the screen in awe as he saw Punz on there, he looked almost identical to how the mercenary looked in his world, though his hair was a bit longer.
Dream snapped out of his daze realizing that the greeting was directed towards him, as George and Nick had already greeted the blond back. “Hi.” He said, slightly nervously, he still didn’t know what this worlds Punz was like, he could be completely different and it would be horrible talking to him, or he could be at least very similar to his Punz and they’d be able to at least somewhat get along.
“We’re gonna go Luke, just message us if you need anything or after you finish.” Nick smiled as he went towards the door leaving, Punz gave them a verbal agreement, waiting for them to leave.
“You can call me Luke by the way.” Luke said, slightly awkwardly, clearly not knowing how to start the conversation at all.
“Are you nervous about talking to me?” Dream asked, blankly staring at the screen, somehow Luke didn’t scare him, maybe it was because he has a good relationship with his Punz, and Luke just seemed like a weaker version of him.
Luke was silent for a bit before speaking up. “A bit, technically I have never spoken to you.” Dream nodded, that was understandable, it wasn’t smart to trust people right off the bat, most people knew that.
“What’s your opinion on me?” Dream continued asking, he needed to know, knowing what Luke thought of him was an important thing to know if he wanted to at least somewhat trust Luke.
“I don’t think what you did to some people was reasonable, and I also think that it could’ve been done differently, but if that was my reason to hate you, I’d hate all the people on the smp, so in my opinion, I find you okay, but I don’t agree with some of the things you did.” Luke explained, Dream nodded. It was.. Understandable, not something his Punz would say, but oh well, he couldn't really expect Luke to be a complete copy of him.
"What's it like acting out all of that stuff?" Dream asked, Punz looked slightly uncomfortable at the subject, understandably so, he had acted out a story that in fact was real and one of the people that he was affiliated with the most was Dream. "It was.. Interesting, and if I'm going to be completely honest, fun, I definitely wouldn't have enjoyed it that much if I knew it was real though." Luke hummed staring into the camera, with his eyes flicking away every few seconds.
They sat there in awkward silence, it felt odd, talking to Luke, who felt so much like his Punz, but yet so different, it made him slightly agitated. Why couldn't he just talk with his Punz? Being stuck in prison without him was enough torture already, not to mention when Quackity started visiting him.
Dream missed Punz, not Luke, he didn't want to talk with Luke.
In a moment of impulse, he saw a red button and clicked on it, hoping it would stop the call. Luckily it did, Luke wasn't there anymore.
He felt anger and irritation grow inside him, a mix of multiple things, the fact that this place was so irrationally different from the smp, the fact that he literally had no one here that he could fully trust. He felt disgustingly vulnerable with the huge change that had happened. Things were supposed to be one way and one way only. Although getting tortured was definitely not something he had planned, after a while it became familiar, he knew what to expect, he also knew that he'd be able to escape and join his Punz again. Now? Dream had no idea if he'd ever be able to see him again, he was stuck in another universe. A universe that created all their suffering. A universe that was full of puppeteers who controlled their life.
"Dream? Luke texted that you had ended the call, are you doing alright?" Georges voice rang through Dreams ears from behind the door, it was filled with concern and confusion about the situation. A part of Dream didn't blame George, if he'd been in his shoes, he'd do the same, but now he just felt agitated. How dare George even asked if he was fine, when he himself played a part in hurting him.
"Fuck off! Leave me alone! I hate you! I hate all of you!" Dream shouted in response, he felt blood dripping down his arms as he had been unconsciously scratching them. He stared at the blood freezing, panic arising inside of him as he realised he had just shouted. What if they called Quackity and let him discipline Dream in this world as well? He always told Quackity that he had learned whenever he begged him to not hurt him anymore. But had he really? Was Quackity right about everything? Did he really need to be taught constantly that he couldn't do something? This horrible world had just made him let his guard down, he knew he wasn't even supposed to talk without permission, and shouting was totally out of question.
Those punishments were one of the worst, mostly because it was so humiliating. He didn't want to go through those again, Dream had learned how not to do so multiple weeks ago, so how come he had made such a dumb mistake?
Dream didn't want to be hurt again, he liked not being hurt. It felt so bad, especially when Quackity was allowed longer visits.
He couldn't handle it anymore, what if Quackity killed him because he had evaded punishments for so long? He didn't want to die.
He was scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared. Scared.
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"Dream? Luke texted that you had ended the call, are you doing alright?" George asked, his voice laced with concern as he stood next to Nick, who's concern was more visually visible. When Luke had texted Nick that Dream had hung up the call randomly when he seemed a bit mad made the two worried about him, they thanked Luke and went to check on Dream, ending up here.
"Fuck off! Leave me alone! I hate you! I hate all of you!" Was heard in response from Dream, his voice was shaky and clearly aggressive. George and Nick stood there for a bit in silence before Nick spoke.
"Can we come in Dream? We just want to check on you." No response was heard from the other man behind the door. "Dream? Could you please say something? So we know you're fine?" George questioned, now more concerned about him.
Yet again they didn't get a response but only heard some things being knocked down.
"We're going inside Dream." George exclaimed, opening the door in panic, rushing inside with Nick, only to see Dream crawled up in a corner, hyperventilating, mumbling something user his breath, crying and scratching at his wrists.
Fuck, how did this even start?
George and Nick went towards Dream, slowly not to startle him -even though Dream seemed so out of it that he didn't even realise they were there, it was better to be safe than sorry-.
Even though it wasn't the smartest thing to do, George gently grabbed Dreams wrists to stop him from hurting himself.
"Ple-please.. 'm sorry, don't hurt me sir... I'll do better, I pr-promise.. Please..." George felt sick at how weak, how vulnerable Dream sounded and looked, a burning hatred toward the Quackity in Dreams world grew inside of him, and a feeling of guilt of being a part of causing this.
"Dream, I need you to try and breath with me okay? No one is going to hurt you." George told him softly, he already felt bad enough for touching Dream without permission, he definitely didn't want to startle him in any other way. Nick also started saying reassuring words to try and ground Dream as he wasn't really able to breath along with George. It took a long time before started being responsive or even reacted to any of their words, and some time after that he started breathing along.
Dream looked exhausted by the time he was calmer again, he was breathing normally but he hid his face away into his knees, wrapping his hands around himself. George would've wondered why if he didn't know that Dream probably liked being faceless back on the smp as well. So he just hoped that he wouldn't start panicking again.
"Why... Why... Why did you make us? Why did you make me suffer like this? If you hadn't meddled with us we could've been fine, we could've been happy." Dream mumbled, almost quiet enough for George and Nick not to hear it, but they did. George felt guilt hit him hard almost immediately after hearing that, because the worst thing was that Dream was right, although George mostly had completely separated lore later on, he still joined in on it. He helped make these painful stories that were someone's actual life.
He was the one who had caused so much hurt.
That fact alone made him sick to his stomach.
He only heard Nick whisper a shaky sorry before the American stood up and left tho room, George nodded. Nick was probably feeling even worse than George right now, he had played a bigger role in the later lore, wanting to hunt Dream down and all of that.
The worst thing was, they couldn't even change anything, it was already over, it was written. Their story- their life was already predetermined.
And it did not end well.
George also apologized with a hushed tone before leaving to his room to try and think about something else for a moment. Something that would distract him from feeling like this.
Whenever he felt depressed in England, he'd usually talk to Clay and Nick, the two always managing to make him feel at least a bit better at the moment. But, Clay wasn't here right now, God how much George missed him, George loved and cared about Nick, a lot, he loved them both, but one of them not being with him just did not sit well with him.
It left him feeling empty and wishing that he could feel the same again. But for now he'd have to deal with it, so he decided to go to Nick's room. George knocked on the door, normally if he was in the mood to piss Nick off he'd just barge in, but it just felt wrong to do now.
A soft 'come in' was heard from inside the room and George opened the door, stepping inside.
Nick looked just about as troubled as George, George figured Nick was just worse at hiding it than he was. "I'm guessing you're not doing very well." George spoke, in any other situation he would have said this in a teasing manner, trying to brighten up the mood a bit. After all, he wasn't really the best at talking about this stuff. Yet now wasn't the right moment, he knew that it wouldn't end well if either one of them bottled their emotions up, with how many waves of them were coming it would end up overflowing soon anyways.
"He's right George, if we hadn't thought it was a great idea to make a little story where all the characters went through all sorts of trauma, they would've been fine!" Nick stared at George, it made Georges heart break, seeing his best friend like this, he hated it. "It's not your fault Nick, we couldn't have known it was real." George tried to reassure Nick, he wasn't really good at it, but he could at least try to do so. "We could've given them a happy ending, but we killed everyone off! He's not even gonna get a happy ending after literally being tortured." Nick continued, he looked like he was spiraling down million thoughts of self hatred and feelings of guilt about the situation they had unknowingly caused.
"Nick, you need to cam down, it's bad, really bad, but we can't change it now. And we know not to do it again." George walked over to Nick, holding his shoulders to try to ground him. After all, being out of it was the last thing they needed now.
Nick's eyes met George's again, they were filled with very obvious grief, and slight panic. Most notably, he looked exhausted. "When's the last time you've slept properly Nick?" George asked, concern lacing his voice as his grip on Nick loosened.
"Probably the night before he arrived, but that's fine, there's more important things I need to be doing." Nick said, his words were very rushed as if he did not want to talk about this. "You need to sleep Nick, you're important too." George's eyes softened as he spoke, God, he was so wrapped up in taking care of Dream he hadn't even considered checking on Nick properly.
"No it's fi-" "Nick I mean it." George cut him off, his voice wasn't aggressive or anything like that, it was just filled with worry for his best friend.
"Rest, I'll look over you and stay awake in case Dream needs us." George told him, dragging Nick towards his bed laying him down there. Nick let out a few grumbles in response to George pulling him there but obeyed and laid under the covers of his soft bed.
"Please rest Nick, it's important, you're important to me." George said quietly, just loud enough for Nick to hear it.
Nick nodded his head. "Fine." He sighed softly before closing his eyes, and soon enough George heard small snores coming from the man. George looked over him fondly, sighing a bit in relief that Nick would hopefully be okay.