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He lifted his hand to knock on the door and the carefully planned speech, the one Dream had gone over and over while he stumbled through the snow, went right out of his head. It was hard, trying to keep his words together when the warm light from inside the cabin was spilling out across the porch and every inch of his body ached.
What was he even going to say in the first place?
Oh hey, Techno, I know the last time we saw each other you told me to basically get out and I know that was kinda the whole plan but I went and got myself recaptured like an IDIOT so now I’m really screwed.
Dream looked down. There was blood on the porch now. He didn’t realize he was knocking until his knuckles were scrapping against the wood. The sound made his bones rattle.
If he turned around now, he might make it off the porch in time. He had an invisibility potion on him and maybe he could choke it down without wanting to vomit.
He could still taste the weakness potion in his mouth.
Oh, and funny thing, Wilbur was there. That was—That was fucking embarrassing but hey! I convinced Sam to let me go and there were only a couple days of torture, so!
For a moment, Dream was almost blinded by the light. But only for a moment because then Techno’s frame filled the doorway, casting a shadow over him. It was too late to leave and none of the words he had practiced, the ones that would make him sound casual and collected and in control had come back to him.
Dream shuddered and looked up.
“I—I didn’t know where else to go,” he said.
The knock on the door pulled Techno from his sleep, the book in his lap tumbling to the floor as he jerked upright and looked around. He could have believed that he had dreamed the noise or that something else had woken him because it was late; his limbs were sore from sleeping in the chair for so long and the lantern wick had burned down.
But he smelled blood.
Techno got to his feet, relit the lantern and blinked rapidly as his eyes adjusted. His hand hovered near his sword briefly before he pulled the door open.
“HEH?”
Dream was standing on his porch, swaying on his feet. The armor he wore was ill-fitting, hanging awkwardly as if it was pulling him down. He flinched slightly at the noise of surprise Techno made and looked up.
“I—I didn’t know where else to go,” he said.
There was a moment where Techno imagined shutting the door. After all, Dream had told him they couldn’t stick together because it would be too obvious, the first place they came to look, so he would just be following Dream’s instructions.
And if he was a little angry about what had happened, if he still saw Ranboo’s body and heard Dream yelling for him to just leave, that was fair, wasn’t it?
Except it had been Sam holding the sword and Sam had been the one to allow Dream’s torture and—
“This was a—” Dream stuttered. “Never mind.”
Dream’s foot slipped slightly on the blood, smearing it across the spruce planks.
Techno grabbed his arm.
He ignored the quiet exclamation of fear that escaped Dream at the touch.
“Let it be known that Technoblade has never turned away a guest.” His voice was soft, the harshness of his earlier thoughts fading almost immediately. “C’mon, you’re bleedin’ all over my dang porch.”
Dream was silent as Techno led him inside, shutting the door behind them. It wasn’t until he directed him to sit that he spoke.
“Now I’m—Now I’m bleeding on your couch.”
Techno stopped and narrowed his eyes; he was, in fact, bleeding on the couch. Blood was seeping out between the chest and back plate of his armor. His face was pale and bruised, bottom lip swollen, blood drying beneath his nose. Time had passed since Techno had broken him out of prison but not enough to erase the signs of torture. Not enough for him to have gained any of the weight back after being starved.
Patting his pocket, Techno pulled out his handkerchief and knelt. He wiped the blood away as best he could.
“Yeah, I’ll be sendin’ you the bill for the cleaners,” he said, eyes flicking down to the bruises around Dream’s neck and Dream awkwardly tugged at his shirt in an attempt to hide them. Techno felt his stomach twist. “It’s fine, Dream, I’m teasin’ you.”
“Right.”
His hand dropped limply onto the couch, remaining fingers curled in a way that reminded Techno of a wilted flower. Or a dead bird. One of his fingers was red and swollen. Techno frowned.
“Alright. I’m gonna get you a healin’ potion before you bleed to death.”
If Dream heard, Techno couldn’t tell. He dug through the nearby chest, glancing back once or twice. It didn’t take him long to find the potions.
“Here.” The liquid shone in the firelight as Techno offered a potion to Dream. The expression on his face would have been comical – like a child being given a plate of brussels sprouts – if it hadn’t been for the flash of terror in his eyes. Techno didn’t know what to do with terror. When he spoke, louder than intended, his voice cracked slightly. “Drink the dang potion, Dream, c’mon.”
“Yes sir.”
The words fell from Dream’s mouth with such ease he didn’t seem to know what he said. But he took the potion and drank it and then set the empty bottle awkwardly on the couch next to him. And Techno resisted the urge to shake him and ask what happened to him. He had drank the potion, that’s what mattered, and Techno could try to forget the defeat in his words.
“How ‘bout we get this armor off, yeah?” he asked, sitting on the couch. “You look like you’re swimmin’ in it.”
“It’s—It’s not that bad.”
It was that bad. Techno knew well-fitting armor, how it should be like a second skin, with no gaps. Dream was holding onto the edge of the armor like a safety blanket, a frown on his face. With the way his fingers were shaking, he would never be able to undo the straps.
It wasn’t worth it, not right now, Techno decided.
“Whatever you say, man.” Silence lingered for a second and then Techno had to ask the question that had been on his mind since the knock on his door. “But can you explain what the heck happened?”
Dream looked at him. His eyes were red around the rims and Techno charitably chalked it up to exhaustion instead of the remnants of tears. The facts of what had happened were obvious: someone had choked him, someone had bloodied his nose and busted his lip, someone had broken his finger, someone had put bruises on his shoulders and wrists and a hole in his side that had finally stopped leaking red onto Techno’s couch.
When there was no answer, Techno nudged him gently.
“I mean, the whole plan was you not comin’ back here so. Somethin’ happened.”
“Yeah, well—I guess my plan didn’t work out,” said Dream, sullenly.
Techno laughed. Nothing about the situation was really funny – his dear friend was still dead and another friend was sitting on his couch, beaten and abused and scared and Techno was having a lot of complicated feelings about it – but the sheer understatement that was Dream’s words was hilarious to him.
“Not gonna lie, Dream, but this seems to be a runnin’ theme with your plans.”
“That’s—That’s not true.”
“How’d the prison work out for you?” Techno asked and regretted it the moment Dream paled, trembling.
There was enough confusion on his face that Techno wondered if Dream remembered everything he had told him during their stay in that cell. The details of his prison and the details of his torture, one of those planned and the other decidedly not.
“I—What the hell is wrong with you?”
“A lot of things, Dream,” he admitted, feeling relief when the tension eased from Dream’s shoulders. “A lot of things.”
“Whatever.”
Needing to do something to push away the vague, misplaced guilt that had settled in his stomach, Techno began undoing the straps of Dream’s armor. He looked so much smaller without it. He looked so much younger without it. The new injuries were apparent, even with the healing potion.
Enchantments, Techno thought. It was definitely deliberate.
He wanted to ask who had done this because he wanted to make them pay for it. There hadn’t been enough retribution for the things that had been done lately.
Techno pulled back Dream’s ripped shirt to get a better look at the wound in his side and Dream flinched away from him, eyes wary.
Maybe there had been too much retribution. Techno sighed. Reaching over to the chair he had been sitting in earlier, he grabbed the blanket that was folded across the back. Gently, he wrapped it around Dream.
“So, what’s the plan now, eh?”
Dream’s fingers ran along the well-worn edge of the blanket, the slight movement of his shoulders giving away his answer.
“I don’t know.”
He pulled the blanket tighter around himself.
“I-I suck at plans, remember?”
Techno laughed and this time it was because it was funny.
“Y’know what? That’s fair, Dream. How about this for a new plan.” He put one arm around Dream’s shoulder and waved the other out in front of him, a grand gesture of display though it was only the cluttered room of the cabin. “You stay here, with me.”
Like you should’ve from the beginning, if things hadn’t gone so wrong. If Ranboo hadn’t—
The thought was cut short by a sound that Techno almost mistook for coughing or crying.
Dream was laughing, the sound strained.
But he was.
“Yeah—Alright. I don’t have anywhere else to go, anyway.”