Imprisoned Love

The Collar

Dream and Swap sat across from each other, each on their cots as Ink lay sleeping mere feet away from them, passed out from drugs they used to pacify him after his most recent escape attempt. The silence between the two of them was born out of anxiety. Whether it was anxiety of waking the sleeping escape artist and having to deal with whatever screaming match was about to happen, or if it was the anxiety of speaking about the subject in general didn't matter to them.

Dream looked over at Ink before returning his eyes to looking at his lover. He watched as Swapstared at his hands, sliding his hands , wrapping them around each other and looking as if he was washing his hands without the water, his hands and face were smeared with dried mud that he was dirtied with after falling into the mud while Ink fought against him as he dragged him back to camp. Dream stood up, not managing to get Swap's attention as he walked over to his bag, grabbing a cloth and a small bottle of water that he wet it with. He sat next to Swap on his cot and slid his hand underneath his chin, making him make eye contact with him.

"Here, let me clean you up, Love." Dream said as he held up the wet rag with a forced smile.

"You shouldn't waste water on me, Dream. You might need it when you go out tomorrow." Swap replied.

"It's not a waste if I'm using it for you, Love." Dream said as he pressed the cold cloth underneath his eye socket where a little bit of dried dirt sat.

He wiped it away in a tender display of affection that neither had the energy to do recently. Before Ink returned they would usually spend their night cuddling, trying to forget about everything, but now they spent the night with Dream crying into Swap's arms or Swap trying to blow off his anger running around killing Nightmare's soldiers. Everything hurt, and everything turned into a fight over it all. They loved each other but they truly had no other solution but to do what they were doing. Dream was upset all the time and Swap angry, when Swap returned from his borderline massacres Dream was always angry.

"They're people Swap!" Dream would scream.

"They support him! Look what he did to Ink! What he's doing to the whole multiverse!" Swap would scream back.

Around and around it went, every single time Swap left late at night Dream would sit awake to try and get him to stop killing people. His naivety was on full display-at least Swap thought so-with his attitude. He remembered thinking like that, but this was a completely different situation then all those years ago. They had lost, their friend-the most powerful member of the Star Sanses-was kidnapped, and they had gone from an equal playing field to two men revolting against an army.

Dream smiled as the dirt was wiped from his face and the vertebrae of his neck. He carefully grabbed his hands and looked them over. They were rugged and calloused, worn and toughened by a war he didn't even realise he was fighting half the time. He wanted to be a soldier, and he proved that he could be one, he was one. He used to be so hopeful and full of light, but day by day, battle by battle, with every friend that was murdered right before his eyes that light and hope dimmed a little. Dream missed the way his hands used to feel, smooth and untouched by battle, but it had been two long years of regimented training that changed him, blood and death that changed him, and worst of all, two years of LV building up inside him that slowly became harder and harder to control.

Dream took a deep breath and started to use the already dirty cloth to wipe the dirt off his touch hands as if he was a delicate porcelain doll and not the hardened murderer he had become. Swap liked when he touched him like that, it made him remember the past and the man he was before all of this. He liked it sometimes, but other times he hated feeling like that, it just depended on the mood. But right now, in this mood, he just felt the need to be cared for and held like he could break at any point, because he could break at any point right now. He stopped fiddling with his hands and instead allowed Dream's soft and unhardened hands to rub away the dirt caked along his palms and fingers.

"They're so rough..." Dream whispered, more to himself than to Swap.

"This war has changed all of us," Swap replied as he glanced over to Ink.

"I suppose so..." Dream said, noticing how he looked at their friend. "I hate seeing you like this..." He whispered again as his eyes flicked back down to his lover's hands.

"Like what?" Swap asked.

"So... angry all the time..."

"I know. I know it hurts you... I'm so sorry Dream, I'm trying to feel better and be happier I just..." Swap looked over to Ink again, "Whenever I see him I just get... angry again..."

"I know, I know Honey I just... I just hate it." Dream said as he finished cleaning Swap's right hand and moved onto his left one.

"I know, I can try more though."

"If you need me to I can help you wi-"

"No Dream, I don't want your magic anywhere near my LV ridden soul. Last time you tried to take away all those feelings it made them worse, we don't know how the LV could hurt either of us." Swap said.

"Okay... whatever you want, Berry." Dream said.

He finished wiping off all the dirt from his hands and placed the dirty cloth back on top of his bag. Dream looked up at his lover as he carefully climbed into his lap. Swap wrapped his arms around and pulled him in tightly with a smile. It had been so long since they had been physically affectionate in this way.

"Dream," Swap said.

"Yeah Honey?" Dream replied.

"I know he freaked out last time but... we need to get the collar off him," Swap said as he pulled Dream even closer.

"I know... you're right, I just... I dunno..." Dream whispered as he rested his head against Swap's chest. "I don't want him to hate us."

"Dream, he already kinda does, but he can hate us and be Nightmare's property, or he can be a free man to hate us."

"I think he's Nightmare's with or without the collar."

"Yeah but if he runs into the military camp without a collar they wont send him back to be with him, they'll probably just keep him imprisoned in this au and then we can just save him."

"Yeah... okay... okay let's do it then, when he wakes up." Dream said as he pressed a light hiss to his lover's neck.

"Why not when he's asleep, right now?" Swap asked.

"Well... I want to see if maybe... the collar is the thing keeping him brainwashed? And I thought that maybe if he was awake for it then we'd be able to tell better or he'd adjust to it better or something?"

"Okay... sure. Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow."

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1239 words

Have a good day/night and I hope you enjoyed :]