Imprisoned Love

What He Wants?

TW: Mentions of violence and torture

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Dream looked different then the last time Ink saw him. He now only had one eyelight, and his other eye socket had a large crack that made it obvious to see why his other eye had stopped working. His crown sat atop his head, it was dirty, and a little cracked, but still stood proudly on his skull. His clothes had the same treatment, and he looked a lot different, clothes wise, then he used to. The only thing that stayed the same in his outfit was his cape, or, the sun from his cape. It looked like the sun had been cut off of the golden cape and sewn onto the back of his large leather jacket.

"Hey Ink." He said with a tired smile on his face.

Ink lunged at him, holding him tightly in a big hug and he could feel the tears falling out of his eyes and pressing against Dream's already dirty clothes. Dream grabbed him, wrapping his arms around his friend and joining him in his tearful reaction. Two years, they hadn't seen each other in two slow, loathsome years. Dream was terrified of what was happening to his friend, how he had to suffer with Nightmare, but it looked like he was worrying for no reason. Ink wasn't chained up in a basement coughing up blood and covered in cracks and broken bones. He was dirty, covered in mud, but he wasn't suffering or bloody. But Dream knew he had to get them out of here, he leaned down to him and pressed a kiss to his lips, using the closeness as he pulled himself close to Ink to be able to teleport them both away in one short burst of magic.

They were back in the Star Sanses' camp, seemingly in some sort of cave in Waterfall. Dream pulled away from Ink but yanked him in for another hug and held him like he would never let him go again. Ink had a chance to look around after his friend wiped away the tears blurring his eyes. It was dark, only lit by lanterns and glowing flowers. Ink could hear a waterfall somewhere, but he couldn't see it. The cave was pretty densely populated, there were a lot of people and tents set up around the place.

"Wh-where are we?" Ink asked after he managed to calm himself down enough to be able to get the words out.

"Swap's au. We found this huge cave behind a waterfall and it is now our home base." Dream explained as he led his friend into an ornate golden tent.

"New base?" Ink asked as he sat down on a stretcher-like bed.

"Error destroyed the au where our old house was, so we had to relocate." Dream explained, sitting down next to him.

"There are so many people here..." Ink muttered, looking at the shadows of all the people on the tent 'door'.

"Yeah, people from all over the multiverse. Their aus were either destroyed or enslaved by Nightmare and the Bad Sanses. They were all seeking salvation. Some of them help us with retaking aus that Nightmare has control over, some just want safety and came here to just live."

"Oh..."

"Hey, how about we get that collar off you. You won't have to see them anymore, they can not hurt you."

Ink's hand shot up to the collar and he shuffled away from Dream as he reached out to remove it from his neck. Dream's hands fell to his side and he gave him a confused look, reiterating that he was just going to take it off. He thought that maybe Ink thought he would hurt him, and he promised that he wouldn't. But it didn't change anything because Ink wasn't scared of being hurt, he didn't want the collar off. He liked it, he wanted it on, and he didn't want Dream to take it from him.

"Please don't..." Ink asked, giving him a pleading look.

Dream winced back and let out a sigh. He agreed with Ink, he wouldn't take it off. Not yet, he would let Ink recover from whatever had happened to him, he wanted Ink to agree to the removal. He wouldn't force him to do anything he didn't want to do, like he assumed the Bad Sanses had done.