Archive of Our Own ^beta

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It all was a normal day; the birds were singing, and the breeze was nice and cool. Dream sat near an open window and just…. existed. It was nice, just him the breeze and George telling him about something.

He never realized just how annoying the sound of Georges voice was... It grated against his very ears and into his brain. Something snapped and came unhinged in Dreams head as he began to uncontrollably shake. Then his vision faded to black…...

George:

            George was telling dream about what he had heard on the news lately.

“Dream, I’m telling you this isn’t normal! People just snap out of the bl—” he was cut off by a snarl and when he turned around ice flooded every inch of his body. Dream stood staring at him with an unsettling posture, quietly growling at him. George backed up and stumbled over a cup and Dream had already charged at the space where Georges head was and slammed head-first into the wall, splintering a portion of his mask. Georg took the opportunity to pull Dreams arms behind his back and sit on his back so that he couldn’t get bit or scratched. Dream howled and snarled, trying to get at the thing sitting on him. George sat there for a good 2 hours before Dream finally calmed down enough to be released from Georges hold.

“Dream?” he whispered, not sure if he had made the wrong decision. “Are you okay?” Dream was still on the floor, lying motionless. George crept closer and carefully flipped Dream onto his side, just in case the 25-year-old man decided to attack again. Dream didn’t. Instead he looked bewildered and downright terrified. George jumped when Dream scrambled backwards and up against the nearest wall, breath hitching in his chest.

Dream:

            Where am I? Who is that? Why am I hurting? Did that man hurt me? He must have…. Run, go get out you need to go rUN. the stranger had reached a hand over to him and was saying some reassuring words.

            “Dream, I’m not going to hurt you. Take my hand and lets go sit down and talk.”  Dream recognized this man, he was a friend. Friends could be trusted. Dream reached out and grabbed his hand and was pulled to his feet. They went to the table nearby and sat down. George (as Dream remembered his name now) had a weird look on his face. Maybe I did something….?, Dream thought as he watched the man walk over to a stack of white sheets of something flat and grabbed a yellow stick. George walked back and sat down and when he put the white thing on the table, Dream slapped it off the table. It made a noise he didn’t trust. George sighed and put it back on the table, stopping Dream form slapping it again. He wrote:

            Are you okay?

Dream stared at the question. He felt fine, his eyes did hurt a little though……He opened his mouth make a noise, but no sound came out. He was confused. George did that same thing and he made a noise. He tried again and still nothing, he huffed and sank lower in the chair. George made another face; this one looked a bit weirder than the last. George asked Dream to look at him and when dream did, he showed him some motions.

            “This one means ‘yes’- “George nodded his head”-and this one means ‘no’.”  George pointed at Dream, “Use those for answering if you don’t wanna talk...”

Dream shook his head , something was wrong. He didn’t feel right. His head hurt and his eyes did too. He pointed to his head and his eyes. He just then realized that he couldn’t see out of one eye and started to panic.

            “georgie” was all he managed to say while clawing at the thing blocking his vison, there were hands and then he could see again! And he made a noise! George looked sad. Maybe he wasn’t happy that he had made a noise? That couldn’t be right, he recalled speaking a whole lot with George and other people that Dream couldn’t quite remember. He tried to remember faces or names and that made his head hurt more…he hissed softly. Something started making noise, a light clinging sound that didn’t bother him too much. George reached behind himself and pulled out a rectangle thing that lit up and was the source of the jingle noise. George pushed a button and a new voice was heard.

            Dream lit up, he knew that voice! They had done something a lot together! Dream knew they were friends, so why was the name so hard to remember?

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George:

            Bad was calling, that was either good or bad.., George told himself. He hit Answer and then Speaker.

            “Hello?” George cracked a small smile at Dream’s face lighting up.

            “Where are you guys? I’m coming to get you both.” There was the sound of a car engine, Bad must be driving.

            “Oh, you know, Bad.. At Dreams’ house. Where I said we’d be, Bad.” Dream still as thinking hard as before. Yeah, something is definitely, positively wrong here…, Bad sounded confused and concerned

            “George. What is wrong? You keep saying my name over and over.”

Dream gasped and basically yelled “BAD!! I KNOW HIM!!!” he clapped his hands like a small child, which was a start.

            “Was that Dream? What happened over there?” It sounded like Bad swerved away from something, judging by the tire squealing. George wrestled with the words. Dream had the happiest look on his face, kinda like a puppy.

            “uhhh well Dream, had a small breakdown and can’t seem to remember basic things….”

Bad was silent for a minute until he shrieked “he wHAT???” George had to take him off speaker when Dream threw his hands up to his ears and shrunk down in the chair. He made sure that Dream was alright before talking again.

            “Not so loud, Dream almost killed me earlier because I was too loud, I think…” George leaned down to check on Dream, who had crawled under the table.

            “He ALMOST KILLED YOU??? And you are still near him????” There were noises of general chaos from Bad’s end of the line. It sounded like things were not okay over there either.

            “Bad, Im not going to leave him alone. He could barely remember my name.” He glanced at the time, it was 4:10 in the afternoon.

            “When are you getting here?” Bad hummed in thought.

Bad:

            Bad has not been having a good day. His neighbor that he knew was a pilot, just up and attacked the mail man in front of the whole neighborhood. It was some scary stuff… not as scary as the neighbor charged at his wife who had come out to see the commotion. Bad packed the essentials as he knew it was only a matter of time until gridlock. He packed his throwing knives and whatever canned food he had along with some spare water bottles he filled from the tap. He got in his car and drove off without a second thought because he already knew where he was going.

            “Do you know why he attacked at least?”

George made a noise, “No, we were talking and then he was trying to kill me. Maybe it was something I said or maybe it was just me talking but he just snapped and now he won’t talk to me.”

Bad sighed but kept going, he needed to make it there before the gridlock even thought of starting. People were being awful and cutting him off when he was just trying

            “Just keep an eye on him, alright?”  George agreed and Bad hung up in time to slam on the brakes as the car in front suddenly braked. The driver got out, shaking violently and then whipping his head around to look for something. Bad locked eyes with the man but the driver snapped his head to the car he had gotten out of. He snarled and started attacking the car. Bad decided it was best to drive around the scene and get going before his car was attacked. There was a long stretch of no cars which was nice in a weird way. Then he pulled up to Dreams house. George came out with Dream, who was wearing a set of noise cancelling headphones and was clutching the fabric of his sleeve, not unlike a small child in a crowd.

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Dream:

Everything was fuzzy, he heard a voice from that strange little box that he felt he recognized. I should remember, he thought while a memory of the voice alongside a weird world that was all block-y. The memory slipped away before he could grab it and   Someone pulled up in a big rumbling thing, he didn't like the vibrations in his chest from the rumbly thing. Car, car, car, something from his crumbling memories told him. He shook his head and tried to pull the memory back but it was beyond his reach. George lightly gripped his hand and opened the car door, allowing Dream to get inside the car.

 The driver turned around in his seat to face Dream and asked something. He couldn’t hear the sound because of what his friend had put on his head. There was a flicker of some feeling in the drivers eyes. Dream tilted his head in confusion. He saw the driver's mouth moving but couldn't tell what he was trying to say. Something flickered in his head and then Dream had a name, or at least what he thinks was the name.

“....dad?...” That felt right, so there was a start….but there also seemed to be something wrong somehow...Thinking any further on that line made his head hurt so he curled up and started staring out the window. Before he knew it, they were in a different area. There were some trees and a lot of sticks on the ground. Dad stopped the car and got out along with Georgie, who came over and opened the door to let him out. 

George: 

Dream was being too quiet and it unsettled him deeply. Dream was never quiet unless he was plotting something or thinking, which not to be rude or anything but it didn’t seem Dream was doing a lot of when he got out of the car and immediately went over to some fallen branches and picked up a stick and started holding a conversation with it. Someone put a hand on his shoulder and George jumped halfway out of his skin.

“He’s gonna be okay, George.-” Bad leaned against his car, pulling out a notebook from his jacket.”-what can you tell me about the attack? If you don't mind me asking?” George sighed and sat down on the ground, watching Dream play with the stick.

“We were just talking about the whole ‘violence in the streets and in the local area’ when he just up and about killed me. I had to hold him down until he calmed down.” Dream seemed to dislike something the stick said and turned away from it, annoyed.

“Was there anything else? Like a sound or something?” Bad scribbled down notes in his notebook.

“No, it was just me talking. I noticed he was kinda tense when i was talking, like he was getting angry at something..then he just snapped and slammed his head into the wall trying to kill me.” Bad furrowed his brow at that statement. He looked over at Dream and then back to his notes.

“He slammed into the wall head-first?”

“Yes, that's why his mask is in the condition it’s in now” George nodded, adjusting his goggles.