The Soldier And The Poet

Chapter One

Dream had always wanted a family.

Always had.

So when he'd arrived on the Essempi and befriended George and Sapnap, he'd thought he'd found it.

He'd thought he'd found it when Puffy had adopted him.

But he'd been wrong.

He'd had only a few years before it all went wrong. Before it all had gone south.

Before he'd taken the role of the villain, watching as everyone else got a family.

Their families were small.

And broken.

But they were together.

And Dream was alone.

He should've known it'd end like this.

XD had warned him that their stories never ended well, in any universe.

But he'd hoped that he'd be the exception.

Be the one to prove XD wrong.

He slumped against the prison wall, bracing for the inevitable.

But it never came.

Dream slowly opened his eyes and found someone who was most definitely not Quackity looming over him.

It was Technoblade.

"Good, you're awake," the pink-haired man said, stepping back.

Dream rubbed his eyes. This couldn't be real. This has to be a dream, he thought.

There was no way Techno could really be here.

Soft hands cupped his face. "Hey," Techno said quietly. "Stay with me, okay?"

"Why are you here?" Dream rasped.

One of Techno's pink eyebrows lifted slightly. "Getting you out of here, duh."

This couldn't be happening.

He couldn't be so close to being free of this hellhole.

He couldn't be so close to eating something more than potatoes.

But he deserves to rot in here.

It was only the favor, he thought. Techno wouldn't be here otherwise.

He laughed bitterly. No one was willing to be with him anymore.

Not even himself.

But he still missed George. And Sapnap. He missed Niki's sweet voice and baked goods.

He'd had many lives, on many servers, and he knew that no one ever stuck around.

That was just the nature of humanity: fickle and ever-shifting.

Dream just craved freedom.

He'd do anything to be free.

Even willingly giving himself up to Death's loving embrace.

It shouldn't be that hard. He only had one canon life left.

And Techno'd be gone soon, once Dream was out.

-

The escape went well. No one died.

Except for a few guards, but Dream couldn't bring himself to care about them.

They'd watched as Quackity gleefully tortured him, they'd watched as he ended his life multiple times, they'd watched him writhe in pain from eating poisonous raw potatoes. They were just as implicit in his suffering as Sam.