«☆Dream angst oneshots☆» (Slow Updates)

✧☆Haven't Seen The Light In Ages☆✧

Notes:
Well that took a little longer than expected. Anyway, this one features emerald duo, a tiny amount of humor, a bit of comfort (as a treat), and lots more pain

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Chapter Text:

Dream chokes and coughs on the dust in the air. For the first time in months, he sees a hint of the sun through the cloud of obsidian and blackstone particles floating in the hole blasted into the side of Pandora's Vault. An ender pearl is shoved into his hands with a hastily shouted instruction to go!

Dream squints through hazy bits of debris sparkling in the sun. It would be beautiful if his heart weren’t doing its best to shatter his ribcage. He spots a beach in the near distance, braces himself, and draws up every bit of strength he has left. He hurls the pearl as far as he can like his life depends on it—because it does.

The painful jolt as his body is ripped through space by the teleport nearly knocks him off his feet, but he just manages to keep his footing in the sand. He scrambles and lurches towards the treeline just a few paces away. Once he makes it to the trees, his breath halts completely.

It should be fucking glorious.

The fresh air filling his lungs should finally soothe his acrid cough, but it only makes his chest tighten more. The dappled sunlight should reinvigorate him, make him feel alive again, but instead it burns.

For the first time, it fully dawns on Dream just how open the outside world is, how few places there really are to hide. There's no corners he can back into, and it's increasingly perturbing to him how he can't fit all of his surroundings into his field of vision.

Up until now, the one thing he could trust was that at least he couldn’t be snuck up on, but now even that illusion of safety is gone. In a vain effort to take stock of his surroundings, he whips his head back and forth, turning in a panicked circle.

He has enemies, a lot of them. They could be anywhere, hell, maybe this whole escape thing was just a cruel trick, some way to give him a taste of freedom before they cut him up into pieces like Quackity had threatened countless times.

He almost wants to run back to his cell, but the threat of punishment steals any last strength from his legs, and they buckle. He needs to get out of here, but there's nowhere to go. He's exposed, anybody could sneak up behind him or drop from above.

He's suddenly keenly aware of his lack of armor. All that would stand between him and a well-placed blade is the ripped up, bloodstained, half-scorched fabric of his uniform. He lifts his hand to his mouth to cover a silent scream when he realizes. His mask.

He's out in the open without his mask.

If he felt exposed before, he’s completely defenseless now. His mask had always been his lifeline. It made it easier to protect himself, to do what needed to be done back before he lost everything. Sam taking it from him all those months ago had felt like losing an arm. He shrinks into himself at the memory, every atrophied muscle tense and painful.

Before Dream can sink much further in his thoughts, he hears the telltale vwoops of twin pearls shattering against the sand a few paces off. He looks up at Techno and Phil desperately, and hates himself for it. He wants to cringe away and hope they ignore him, or better yet, get himself under control, but Techno doesn’t give him the chance.

“Dream, Dream! Dream we gotta go, we gotta go, Dream,” he says hurriedly as he rushes over and gestures for Dream to get up. The idea of going anywhere in his current state with nothing to hide behind keeps him firmly rooted to the ground in terror, back hunched and arms crossed protectively over his chest.

“I need my mask, I need my mask, or—or something,” he barely gets out between breaths getting treacherously close to sobs. Techno’s urgency is frightening him more, and he needs a way to hide now.

“Dream, now is not the time to be accessorizing. We’re safe for now but there could be dudes on us any second.” Techno stamps his hoof, agitated.

“No you don’t understand I need my mask,” Dream insists in another attempt to get through to him.

“Dream I don’t know what to tell you buddy, your mask is long gone, now let’s go,” and it’s over for Dream.

He goes silent, unable to form words anymore, unable to make Techno understand. Paralysis sets into his body, and he can’t look at Techno, can’t get up even though he knows he has to, can only shiver and try to hold back these stupid broken tears and wish he’d disappear into the ground.

People used to flinch when he so much as looked at them wrong, but now he’s cowering and crying on the floor of some random forest like a child. In an instant, his fear turns to fury, at himself, at the ones who broke him, at the world for dealing him this hand. His chest heaves as he crushes handfuls of leaves in his trembling hands. Two tears fall from his eyes to the forest floor. He grits his teeth.

“Hey mate, breathe, alright?” Dream jerks at the sound of Phil’s placating voice. “We’ve nearly got you out of here, okay? You need something to cover your face, right? Is that it?” Dream stiffly nods, gaze still firmly fixed on the leaf litter, not meeting Phil’s eyes.

“How about you try this? It’s a bit scuffed but it should work.” Dream wrenches his head up to see what Phil is offering him. Phil himself is backlit above him, his scarred, tattered wings catching the filtered sunlight and gentle breeze.

It’s a wither skull, smooth and black with a dusting of ash. He slowly reaches out to take it, the animal part of his brain that keeps him alive still screaming to avoid getting anywhere near another person. When no hurt comes, he finally looks Phil in the eye. He bows his head and slips the skull over his own.

Phil was right, despite the stuffiness and the dust, he does feel better. He rises. His body is a mess, adrenaline still spiked and heart still pounding, but he feels a tiny bit like himself again. Everything hurts, and he can barely think straight, but his old self-preservation instincts feel like they’re kicking in again.

“Let’s go.”

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This chapter was created by this amazing person @Chlorophxll also we finally have a medium length chapter after the short ones

Link:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/31894738/chapters/81626254#workskin
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