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This was a bad idea, Foolish thought, as he approached the guard dog of Las Nevadas.
As usual, the guard was standing in one of the corners, where he’d be easily missed. He wore a heavy-looking set of netherite—the weight of which he clearly struggled to hold up. His legs were slightly trembling. It was long past midday, and Foolish knew that he had been at it since before dawn. He wasn’t even sure if Dream had anything to eat.
While Foolish advanced closer, he could only imagine that Dream’s eyes turned to watch him, even if the mask that covered his face did not attempt to move. Foolish knew his orders, knew the commands he obeyed.
And he noticed the metal collar around his neck that kept him in line.
Quackity held the remote control, he knew, but still Dream heeded every other command from any member of Las Nevadas, without so much as a word of protest. Not that he spoke in general, but especially not to them.
The others were nervous, Foolish could tell. They didn’t like having Dream walking about freely in their country; their home. They were wary of how he listened to every demand as if they forced him at swordpoint to do so, like the Dream of before never would have. It unnerved them of the way he seemed to cower whenever Quackity or Sam approached, and it definitely seemed to scare some of them when they noticed blood dripping from weapons hanging at their belts.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on. And the fact that Dream didn’t so much as fight back suggested that it had been happening for a while.
“Dream,” he began slowly, fidgeting with the carved handle of his pickaxe. The mask immediately snapped to face him, body noticeably straightening up to attention. Even if Foolish offered food, like he had in the past, Dream would not react. Not even if he gave his permission to eat it, as much as it sickened him, Dream would not move a single muscle until Foolish had moved on, or Sam or Quackity came along. It didn’t seem like Dream was…trained…to comply with Foolish's requests. And even then, he felt awful about ordering him around.
“Uhm…” There was no other way to approach this. What was he supposed to do? Tell the main and only guard of Las Nevadas that he was going to remove him from his position? Yeah, Dream would probably fight him, and it was a thought that left him both a little scared and a little concerned, but not for him. Dream might wield weapons that in capable hands would easily cut someone in half, but this state of the once-great warrior was anything but capable. He’d sooner spear himself than hurt someone seriously, but Foolish decided that it was better not to test it. Hysteric fear was more than enough to inflict damage, and it seemed like he had enough of it to react whenever Quackity approached.
“Dream. Uhhh, come? With me?” As expected, it didn’t work, save for a small twitch of Dream’s hands. They certainly didn’t seem to stop shaking, he noticed, a faint waver coming from underneath his gloves.
He let out a breath of air, and mentally conjured up an image of authority to mimic. The authority of a god. The authority of an older brother.
“Dream. Come here, now.”
For a split second, nothing happened. Dream jolted, but remained in place. The mask shook once, left and right, and then Dream was scurrying to Foolish’s side as if he had been ordered at swordpoint to do so. Sam and Quackity were really the only ones that tried to order Dream around, so it wasn’t too much of a surprise that it actually worked.
Now that Dream was listening to him, though, his resolve faltered. He had to get Dream out of Las Nevadas undetected, but how in the world was he going to do that when he didn’t know where anybody else was? He wasn’t a fighter. He might have been a god, but Dream sure as hell wasn’t—not that he knew of, anyway. They couldn’t harm him, but they could hurt Dream, and he wouldn’t allow it. Not again.
“Follow me,” was all he said, blocking out the sight of Dream in his periphery. It was, luckily, easy enough. Dream was much shorter than he was, even in his ‘mortal’ form. The quiet, stumbling footsteps behind him were enough of a reassurance that he wasn’t leaving the man behind.
They reached the gates of Las Nevadas without any hassle. Nobody emerged from the many stores or restaurants. Nobody walked the streets. Nobody was searching for someone who wasn’t meant to be there, because there was absolutely no one who wasn’t. They all belonged, in some way. Some in a more twisted way than others.
When Foolish stepped across the boundary, that was when the steps faltered. He turned around to glance at his brother, who had stopped several feet from the gates, a hand clutching at his shirt behind the plates of armor.
“Come on, Dream.” Foolish risked a glance around. “We don’t have all day.”
And to his utter shock, Dream shook his head. He was…disobeying? That somehow made Foolish uneasy.
“Quackity gave his permission. Let’s go. Don’t make me do something I’ll regret.”
He wouldn’t do anything. He might have to forcibly drag Dream away, but he would do it. He wouldn’t try to fight Dream, nor would he hurt him. Dream had suffered enough, far more than a lifetime’s worth. Foolish would do nothing to make things worse. But if he had to make the choice between leaving his brother here to waste away, or knocking him out to remove him from hell, he would choose the latter.
Foolish took a step forward, and Dream jolted, but remained in place. “You won’t get in trouble. Come on.” He tried to soften his words, but he knew Dream wouldn’t listen. Not in this state. Not unless it was an order.
“Alright, screw this.” He returned inside the country’s borders, setting his pickaxe into its designated spot at his hip. “You’re coming with me whether you like it or not.”
And of course, Dream’s hand fell to his sword hilt, drawing it halfway out of its sheath. He crouched, body slightly trembling, in a defensive stance that he clearly couldn’t hold for long. He wasn’t going to leave willingly. Quackity and Sam had conditioned him badly enough to never leave the country’s boundaries, so he would have to force him out or knock him out.
“I really don’t want to hit you,” he warned, “but I will if I have to.”
That was when Dream lunged.
It was almost too easy to subdue him initially and knock his weapon from his hands. From there on, it was a struggle of mainly adrenaline. Dream was not going to go down without fighting tooth and nail, but he was so comically light that most of Foolish’s attacks were haphazard and half-assed so he didn’t break any of Dream’s bones. From there, it was all he could do to find a scrap of cloth under Dream’s armor and yank.
As they grew closer and closer to the boundary, Dream’s struggles became even more frantic, kicking and hitting at his arm to make him let go. It seemed less about battling Foolish and more of trying to remain inside the country’s boundaries. Was he really conditioned that badly to stay? If so, Foolish would have to spend a lot of time getting that out of him.
This was a bad idea, Foolish thought, as he dragged the struggling Dream across the country’s boundary.
The second they were outside of the gates, Dream stilled. He let out a choked gasp, momentarily going limp. Then his body started to convulse. A mechanical redstone clicking filled the air, barely audible over muffled shrieks. Hands clawed at his neck, right at the metal collar that now had a strange red glow.
Foolish cursed, forced to set Dream down on the ground, grabbing for his pickaxe. The moment he had all four of his limbs on the ground, however, was when Dream scrambled for the gate of Las Nevadas. Without any other choice, Foolish let him go, watching him collapse just inside, breathing out a shaky breath. He struggled to get his trembling arms underneath himself, to push himself upright, but dropped again. This time, he did not get back up.
“Okay,” Foolish muttered, crouching down by Dream’s side, pickaxe in hand. “Plan B. This comes off.” He couldn’t keep it on; it would only hurt Dream. There was no time to get more precise tools to break it open either. Quackity surely had some kind of signal that triggered if Dream were to leave. If he wasn’t drowning himself at the bar like he usually did during late nights, he would be upon them in moments.
“I’ll try not to hit you,” Foolish said as he raised the weapon.
This was a bad idea, Foolish thought, as he was forced to swing a pickaxe way too close to Dream’s neck to break off the collar. It didn’t nick skin, but the shards of the collar did as he pulled it away. That was nothing a potion couldn’t fix, but it wasn’t anything major, so it wasn’t something he needed to deal with immediately. Even so, Foolish muttered a quiet apology as Dream started gasping for air. Tears were barely trickling down his chin, past the mask, but at least he wasn’t fighting anymore.
Foolish put the pickaxe away and lifted Dream up, over his shoulder, once again stepping past the Las Nevadas boundary. This time, at least, Dream didn’t do anything but sniffle. He seemingly passed out only moments later.
By the time Foolish made it back to his summer home, Dream had woken again a couple of times. He did little but make tiny, pain-filled sounds that Foolish again and again apologized for, but it didn’t really seem like he was listening. They stopped once, when Foolish tried to get Dream to drink something before they entered the desert, only to falter when Dream refused to let his mask come off. Foolish ended up pulling it away and promising himself that they would deal with it later. Later. Things would be better later.
There were many guest rooms that Foolish never used, so he selected the one closest to his brewing room, where he kept his medical supplies. He rarely used them personally, but in preparation for today he had been stockpiling in case things really were as bad as he feared. Now, he was glad for his paranoia. He wasn’t a doctor by any means—who was he kidding, he was an immortal who rarely dealt with his own injuries—but surely he knew enough to keep Dream alive.
Bones must have been broken, but as he pulled off Dream’s armor he noticed bloody bandages and carelessly placed braces all over his body. At least he didn’t have to try and set anything. Foolish would probably just make it worse. He’d probably have to call Puffy, who’s seafaring experience might make things a little easier. There had been no doctors on the ocean.
As best as he could, he replaced the bandages, wiped away the worst of the patches of blood, and braced what had previously been splinted with better materials. He made sure to rub regeneration potions into the skin and the grisly wounds, taking great care on Dream’s neck. He used nearly a whole bottle on the electrical burns there alone, finding himself wishing that they wouldn’t scar.
Dream was unconscious, and Foolish needed to get potions into him. He had to take the mask off, and he did so reluctantly, exposing something else that made rage swell up in his chest. A few, slow breaths were taken, his fists clenching, as Foolish forced himself to relax. It was inhumane, but nothing about this wasn’t. As carefully as possible, he took a knife to the leather of the muzzle that caged Dream’s mouth and left his cries silent.
Before he did anything else, he made sure to numb the rest of the pain with a weakness potion in case Dream were to wake back up. It wasn’t extremely likely, at least not in the near future. Foolish was asleep for a while following his death. Injuries this extensive would probably take far longer to heal. It would be better for his brother if his pain was spared.
Finally taking a breath to relax, Foolish leaned against the wall of his guest room, watching Dream’s chest rise and fall. It stuttered through some breaths, and some of the air that came whistling from his lungs was more of a wheeze than true breathing, but it was something, and it was there.
This was a bad idea, Foolish thought, as he looked forward to all the work he would have to do to get his brother to function again.
But man was it worth it.