the wall that divides us | DNF au

four

dream

It took a lot to throw Dream off guard but knowing that there was more out there than just the people he surrounded himself with within these walls every day for the past 22 years was almost enough to leave the blonde speechless. He wanted- no, he needed to know more about this stranger that spoke to him through the wall. 'George.' 

Dream was an adrenaline junkie; he thrived off danger and craved to know more about the unknown, but that all became difficult when you've lived in the same area your whole life. The unknown becomes well-versed in your head, and the danger becomes barely life-threatening.  His excitement for life slowly festered every day that passed by at an achingly slow pace, but right then, his heart skipped a beat for the first time in a long time. He sensed danger just out of his reach and needed to face it head-on. 

It was almost an instant reaction, one could even call it instinct, but Dream knew that he had to do something. His intuition had been screaming at him from inside the walls of his gut. Without another thought, the blonde grabbed his axe, freshly sharpened this morning, and sliced through the small hole in the wall, ensuring that he'd put enough force in his swing to create a crater big enough for him to slip through. His eyes had no time to adjust to the darkness; putting all his trust in intuition yet again, he swung in front of him, the cutting edge of his axe forcefully making contact with something unbeknownst to him—the yelp of an animal filled the silence around him until its breathing faltered to a stop. 

He turned to his side once removing the axe from the now lifeless carcass, just enough light peering through the hole for him to make out the more petite figure on the floor. Adjusting his eyes, he noticed the expression on the innocent face. His face expressed horror paired with tear-filled, honey-brown eyes and a pale complexion. Dream immediately noticed the beauty of the fearful man on the ground but shook the thought out of his head when he heard him speak. His voice was more apparent now- it wasn't muffled by the wall that was once between them. However, it was different from his voice and those he knew; something about how he pronounced words was foreign to the blonde. 

"How did you-" the darker-haired man spoke; Dream noticed his matching eyes taking in the sight of the gaping hole in the wall. "I used the axe when I heard you fall over," Dream started, turning his head to look at the lifeless creature, pointing the end of his axe towards it. 

"I stopped that thing just in time," he added, noticing the fear in the other's face still prominent. He extended his hand to help the smaller one up, noticing how soft his hands were while ignoring the flip in his heart which was most likely occurring because he'd just touched someone that no one around here knew about. 

He noticed the expression change for a moment on George's face, a look of confusion, stepping back when he saw the shorter one trying to peek under Dream's mask. 
Once he received a thank you from the outsider, Dream immediately noticed George's body going limp, catching him before he fell to the ground again.

"Fuck me, I better not regret this," he muttered, placing the axe back on his back, fully lifting the stranger in his arms before making his way through the hole again. The grass was tall enough to hide the giant hole that Dream had made moments before, and he didn't bother to think about sealing it up just yet. 

The walk back to his place felt longer with the added weight, but he did his best to get back and clean George's wound before it got infected as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the only antibiotics around were in the heavily secured medical facility surrounded by freshly graduated trainees of the regime; Dream didn't want to have to take that risk of running into them.

-

Dream's home was more of a large room than a house - with metal flooring, overall greyscaled and dimmed in lighting apart from the lanterns he stole from the marketplace. He had a kitchen area with a table to eat at, a bed in the back corner of the room, and a bathroom he built by himself. There was a level of technology here but only for those higher up in the hierarchy. One joined the trainee regime to boost their rankings, and Dream was doing quite well for himself as a rookie. If one chose to stray from the regime, they were known as 'the disowned.'

Dream gently placed George on his bed; walking over to a cabinet with a first aid kit, he shook the bottle of disinfectant and poured it onto the rag before pressing it against the unconscious one's hand. 

"Fucking-" Dream said in a startled voice as he watched George awaken with a gasp from the stinging of the disinfectant. Instinctively, Dream placed his free hand against George's mouth, muffling the scream of pain. "Whatever you do, do not scream." Dream said in a hushed tone as he heard shuffling outside from people walking by. He noticed the honey-brown eyes surveilling his surroundings.

"Where am I?" the outsider spoke in a muffled voice against Dream's hand, which caused the blonde to remove his hand.

"My home," Dream started tilting his head, trying his best to read the expression on the other's face. "You fainted by the wall, so I took you back to mine to make sure your hand didn't get infected."

George looked as if he'd seen a ghost; it was pretty entertaining at this point; Dream had a good time mentally counting the different expressions he'd seen thus far. "You mean I'm in the void?" the dark-haired one spoke up again, finally making eye contact with Dream, but only for a measly 3 seconds before looking down at his hand, pressing it towards Dream, allowing him to continue what he had done before George's shocking awakening.

Dream chuckled under his breath. "I wouldn't call it a void, but uh, yeah?" he replied unsurely, cleaning up the wound before grabbing the bandage to wrap around the smaller hand.

 
"What about my friends? Did you see them? Do they know I'm here with you?" George asked, his muscles tensing up. Dream looked back at the honey-brown eyes, noticing the worry translated through them. 

"I didn't see anyone else out there. If anything, I thought you traveled alone, but considering your encounter with the creature I fought off, you wouldn't have lasted out there alone." Clipping the bandage against George's wrist, Dream was content with his work, letting go of the smaller hand and grabbing a glass of water for the boy on his bed.

"I could take you back to the wall? I'm assuming you want to get back to your friends." Dream stated as he leaned against the wall parallel to his bed. Then, silence. Neither spoke for nearly a minute before Dream's mask-covered face met the outsider's again. 

"I don't think I can go back," he stated, noticing the sun coming up. "I don't think anyone's expecting me ever to come back."

---

Author's Notes:

Right! So I realized I wasn't smart in writing everything in the first person. I changed it now! We're good, I edited the first three parts, and I'm much happy with the perspective writing it's in now. 
I've never written anything that's received positive feedback or any interaction so early on and I want to thank those of you who've taken a liking to it so far. I hope I do not disappoint the further along we go with this plot.