Far Gone || Dream

1 - Line Without A Hook

  I started to hear Dream's footsteps growing louder and hugged myself further against the tree. I started to form my plan of attack in my head.

  I knew from the sound of his footsteps that if he kept in the direction he was going he'd soon appear to my right.

  I caught a glimpse of his green hoodie to my right, as I assumed, and took my chance to take him by surprise. I tried my best to grab his arm to push him against the tree, but he quickly used my own tactic against me. He had me pinned to the tree with an axe to my neck, another win for him.

  I started laughing as I saw the white mask covering his features.

  He took a step back and put his axe back where it was normally held on his back. "What are you laughing at?"

  I tapped the mask. "You're still wearing this dumb thing." I pulled his hood down and brought my hands to the back of his head to take it off.

  He quickly put his hands on mine to stop me, just resting his on top of mine to tell me not to without words.

  I frowned a bit. "Dream, it's just us. There's no battle to worry about, no one to intimidate or hide from. It's just me."

  He contemplated it for a second before letting go of my hands so that I could continue.

  I unclasped the mask behind his head and took it into my hands as it fell away from his face. I smiled at the sight of his familiar green eyes. "There we go."

  He took the mask from my hands and put it into the bag at his side. "I'll never understand why you care whether I have it on or not."

  "Well, if you have it on, I can't do this." I put my hands at the sides of his face so that he'd face me and looked into his eyes. I smiled a bit wider and giggled to myself.

  He smiled and momentarily rested his cheek into my palm. "Fair point, but it doesn't matter if I have my mask on or not for me to do this." He grabbed my hips and picked me up to spin me around.

  I laughed as he quickly spun me. "Dream! You're so weird."

  He laughed after setting me back down. "I'm the weird one?"

  I nodded. "Absolutely. Which one of us here wears a mask all the time?"

  He shook his head. "I don't wear it all the time."

  "Practically all the time." I corrected.

  "There we go." He smiled and started to walk back towards the lake.

  I walked behind him and sat down at the edge of the lake. I looked up as he continued to stand behind me. He was looking at me. "What? Do I have something in my hair?" I teased

  He smiled and shook his head before sitting down next to me. I took his hand and started to fidget with the glove on it. "What? You want that gone too?" He teased me.

  "Who's to say I wasn't just fidgeting?" I questioned.

  "I am." He took his hand away from mine and I frowned. He proceeded to take the glove off and put it in his bag where his mask was. He took my hand into his. "Better?"

  "Maybe." I lightly squeezed his hand for a moment.

  He laughed at my response and returned the light squeeze as he brought his gaze to the lake.

  I rested my head on his shoulder and followed his sight line to the trees on the opposite side, more specifically the tree with the large flat rock in front of it. We'd spent a lot of time there, just sitting as we were now or laying a blanket out over it to try to have a picnic over my horrendous cooking. On warmer days like these I could picture Sapnap and George pushing me into the lake while they laughed. It always ended up with all four of us in the water and having to wait days for some of our clothing to dry out.

  There had been a couple of times Sapnap and I had convinced George and Dream to sing with us around a fire that we had started there, but that would always cause George to start mocking whatever we were singing. The noises that came out of him whenever he mocked Sapnap's singing could only be described as inhuman.

  I noticed a fish in the lake swimming by and let go of Dream's hand to lean forward to look at it. He turned to me. "What are you looking at?" He started leaning forward.

  "There's a fish." I continued to stare at the little plain fish while I felt Dream lose all interest. I felt one of Dream's arms wrap around my waist and looked back at him. "What are you doing?"

  "Making sure you don't fall in again." He shrugged.

  I frowned. "It was one time!"

  "One time too many." He smirked and looked at me, trying to get a reaction.

  I rolled my eyes and sat back how I was before I spotted the fish. "I hate you."

  "That's not true." Dream pulled me closer to him with the arm he still had wrapped around my waist.

  "Yeah, that's not true." I accepted defeat and leaned my head back onto his shoulder. I looked up at his hair and brushed one of my hands through the dirty blonde waves. "Do you think I could braid your hair?"

  He scoffed with a smile. "Absolutely not. Even if you could, no."

  I shrugged and put my head back onto his shoulder. "It'd look good."

  He chuckled. "I don't think it would." He started playing with a bit of my hair. "You can stick to braids on you."

  I looked behind us and got up to walk further away from the edge of the lake.

  Dream looked over his shoulder. "What are you doing?"

  "Something." I started pulling dandelions from the field and went back to Dream once I felt I had enough.

  "Flower crown again?" He questioned.

  I hummed. "You can never make too many." I started to weave the long stems of the dandelions together and felt Dream's eyes on me the entire time. I had made plenty of these before and had become quite the professional at it.

  Before I completed the crown I took a flower from the pile and placed it into Dream's hair. He didn't put up any fight and just watched me finish the crown. I placed it on top of my head and looked at him. "Good?"

  He gently adjusted it on my head. "Perfect."

  I smiled and wrapped my arms around him to relax. He had always been a good go-to person to lay on.

  "Dream?" I heard Sapnap's voice yelling outside of the clearing.

  "Yeah?" Dream turned around to look into the meadow.

  Sapnap emerged from the path that Dream and I had originally come from. He smiled at me. "Hey, Val!"

  I smiled and waved at him. "What's up Sapnap?"

  His smile dropped. "L'manberg still hasn't surrendered. They expect us there soon."

  My smile dropped too. This marked the end of me getting Dream's mind off of things.

  Dream solemnly hummed in response and pulled his mask from out of his bag. He started to get his equipment ready and stood up. He held out a hand to help me up. "You coming?"

  I nodded at the white mask. "Wouldn't miss it."

  Dream began leading us back and while I was behind him I took the flower crown from my head and set it onto Sapnap's head.

  He mouthed a quick thank you and I smiled. I grabbed his shoulder to stop him from walking and he turned to look at me confused.

  I fixed the bandana on his head from its crooked position and lightly pushed him forward again. "That's all."

  He jogged to catch up to Dream and I just walked a tiny bit faster, slowly catching up. They began to approach the familiar brick building and I tried to remember where I left my armor. I didn't particularly want to fight them, but I wasn't on their side either. I'd much prefer if I could've stayed neutral, but there was no way around fighting alongside my best friends.