How to Fix the Broken

Chapter 35: He's Gone

Dream blinked and yawned, not feeling the numbness bearing down on him. He closed his sockets, leaning into the magenta fluf surrounding his head.

"How are you feeling angel..?" Lust's voice came from beside but above him.

"blank." Dream murmured, "You called me angel again..."

"well you are an angel, and you dont deserve what you are going through." Dream felt Lust's arms around him and came to the conclusion that he was resting on him.

"Why did you gasp before I fainted?" Dream asked. He felt Lust wince beside him.

"I..." There was the click of a door opening and Dream reluctantly opened his eyes. He had been nice a comfortable. He sat up when he saw Sci walk into the room.

His face was grim and Dreams sockets widened. "Dream..." Sci started then hesitated, "Dream I'm sorry..."

"no..." He whispered, tears making it hard to see.

"...nothing can be done... Your soul..." He broke off with a slightly irritated huff, inhaled and continued. "when a monster is pregnant, the unborn child feeds off of your magic, your soul, its important to its growth. Your soul has been injured, Dream. Your soul can't keep both you and Pallet alive, its barely sustaining you, much less Pallet..."

"what do you mean... Injured...?" Dream asked emotionlessly. He felt the numb feeling pressing, but he pushed it back. When he becomes too emotional, ever since he woke from the stone 20 something odd years ago, ever since Nightmare corrupted.... Dream couldn't feel high negative emotions. The numb feeling happened often when he married Ink. The past month... Nothing. Not a feeling. Not till Blue was found.  "How was it injured?"

Sci looked at him with worry, "you mean you didn't know...? You must be in pain right now! How do you not know!? The wound is at least a month old!"

Dream looked at the knife wound, "well yea... Ink stabbed me."

"Not that. Wait... What!? Ink stabbed you!?"

Dream turned to Lust, "you didn't tell him..? How long was I out?"

Lust looked down, " no, and not long, you were out for about 30minutes. He took your soul out of the room almost immediately after." he pointed over to the golden apple-shaped soul floating above Sci's hands. "You didn't notice it...?"

Dream shook his head and got off the table he had been sitting on to pull his soul in. Sci grabbed his hand gently and Dream looked up as his face. Sci's goggles were askew and his skeletal brows were furrowed with worry and concern. "Are you okay..? Lust wouldn't let me take off your detached sleeves and gloves to do a full body scan..." Dream started to shake his head and Sci pulled him into a hug. He sobbed brokenly into Science's shoulder as the numbness closed in.

All emotion faded leaving Dream hiccuping and sniffing as he let Sci remove his sleeves. He didn't look at the healed scars. They healed weeks ago but that didn't stop Sci from completely removing them. He heard Lust gasp behind him.

"You told me you stopped!" Dream turned to face Lust, he looked angry but worried.

"I was desperate." Dream said plainly.

"Desperate for what!? What could you possibly be desperate for that would cause you to harm yourself!?" Lust cried, tears welling up in his sockets.

"Emotion, feeling, something, anything." He said blankly again, "Did I tell you why I do it...?" Dream asked, he didn't remember telling Lust why....

And Lust shook his skull.

"I can't feel negative emotions. Lust think about that. You might think that I'm lucky or that its cool, its not. I'm forced into a numb emotionless state if it's to strong of a negative emotion. Fear, hatred, sadness, anger, disgust... I can't feel them. If I do I'm placed in that numb state for 30minutes or more, depends on how long the emotion itself lasts." He hesitated, steeling himself to tell them the truth. " ...there have been times where I couldn't feel a thing for months... I cut to force emotions through, to prove that I'm alive, to prove that I exist and I'm not just some phantom. ..."

"You know... Ink is soulless. He doesn't have emotions. That's what the vials are for. emotion. And if I can't feel emotions then I'm just like Ink... I dont want to be anything like Ink but I can't help it can I?..it doesn't help that the pain from the emotions are still there, they don't go away. They get bottled and shelved and there is literally nothing I can do.

"Then when people ask me how I'm doing, and I have to tell them I'm great. Because normally I'm feeling shitty but I can't say that I'm feeling shitty because then They ask me why and what's wrong and I have to explain why I'm feeling shitty but I dont know why I'm feeling shitty. I'm the god of Fucking positivity for deities sake. I'm not supposed to feel Shitty. I am supposed to be feeling great, cause that's what people expect.

" and I can't ask for help because everyone comes to me for help, if I ask them they'll stop coming to me. Its my job to help them and if they dont let me know that they aren't okay then how am I supposed to help them. I have an entire multiverse of emotions I have to keep in check, A brother to defeat, and an abusive husband to deal with on top of it.... I can't lose Palette. Not now, not ever."

"Dream we can't do anything about it." Sci whispered.

Dream pointed to the angry lines on his arms and looked at Lust, "I did these because I couldn't feel a thing for the past month. I went through with a plan I knew would most likely have a bad ending. I thought the slightest chance at having a good endding would be worth it. I ended up getting myself stabbed, you raped, and Blue kidnapped by Ink to have worse done to him. I wouldn't be surprised if Blue can't have children anymore... That would devastate him..."

Dream looked down at Palette's soul watching him flicker, dark more than light, till eventually he went out completely.

Blood soaked Dreams shorts, but he didn't care.

How could he? He was emotionless after all.

And yet that somehow didn't stop the tears that snaked down his cheek bones as he went back to the castle.

He's gone
Love conquers all

1087 words