Chapter Text
Dream was sitting in Pandora’s Box on the cold ground by his bed waiting for someone to come visit him. ‘It’s been months since anyone has talked to me’ . Dream breathed in the hot air that filled his small cage, he didn’t know why but it reminded him of the hot summer days years ago when it was just him and his friends. ‘before things got complicated… before Tommy.’
Dream shook his head slightly as if the motion could banish the train of thought he was having. Dream knew deep down that Tommy wasn’t to blame for the things that happened, and the things that were Tommy’s fault, Dream shouldn’t be holding against him.
It wasn’t Tommy’s fault that Dream and his friends grew apart, and it wasn’t Tommy's fault that things couldn’t be like they were before. Things change, Dream knows that if it wasn’t Tommy it would have been something or someone else.
But the bitterness and anger that cling to Dream's heart is hard to forget. It built up like a pressure that needed to be let out, like a scream stuck in his throat. Taking it out on Tommy, and the people close to him made the pressure lessen but only to be replaced by an emptiness, a deep hole of nothing that left Dream longing for something. But, he’s never able to bring himself to reach out, the anger and pride acting like chains keeping him in a cage worse than the one he was in now.
Dream longs for his friends back, he wants to go back to when it was just him, Sapnap, George and Callahan. When it was just them building a bunch of stupid stuff at Dream’s house. The one he hasn’t slept in since the community house was built, the one he hasn’t set foot in since the first war, afraid someone would find it and use it to hurt him or his friends.
He misses the late nights they’d all spend there talking about stupid little things that nobody cares for anymore. But it was so long ago and so far out of reach that it felt more like a dream than memories of long ago.
The tears that had built up in Dream’s eyes blurred his view of the world around him, making the only thing he could see the warm light of lava reflecting into his eyes. Dream rubbed the streaks of salt off his cheeks, and blinked to dispel the tears obscuring his vision.
And that's when it happened…