The Boy With The Arrows

C H A P T E R • T W E N T Y S E V E N

Dream was pleased when I told him I believed I'd convinced Wilbur to agree to a treaty. He was less impressed with the rest of what Wilbur had told me, but he did not react as badly as I thought he would. I had been expecting him to reject Wilbur's words out of hand, and I had a suspicion he still wanted to. However, he kept his calm, and barely commented on it. It made me instantly curious, and I wanted to ask him what he thought of it, but decided it wasn't the time.

Word was sent to Wilbur of the planned independence deal, stating that L'Manburg must democratically elect a leader to prove they were following their ideals of freedom and equality. I expected some resistance to this, but Wilbur responded with only acceptance, and soon, an election was called.

Dream, Sapnap and Punz had decided that it was best if we did not show our faces outside the castle for the initial duration of this election, and as a result, the three of them, plus George, Bad and I spent a lot of time in each other's company. All of us were a part of the "knowing too much" club, and did not want to risk accidentally revealing our intentions. As annoying as it was to be cooped up within the castle grounds, I could see the benefits to this plan. It meant we didn't have to pretend to be surprised that Schlatt was running for president, competing for the role with Wilbur and Quackity.

Bad and Dream inevitably butted heads over the plan, and it was worse than usual. I was beginning to worry about Bad - his earlier words continued to ring in my head, stating that he wasn't cut out for the job as prime minister, and I began to wonder just how serious he was when he said them.

"This is so ridiculous!" He complained one day, about a week into our self imposed lockdown. "I had plans to go to the frontlines with Skeppy, we were going to take them food from the bakery as a treat! What harm could that possibly do?"

The group of us were in the common room, and Sapnap and George were playing chess again. Dream, Punz and I had been discussing the election on the sofas, and Bad was sitting at the other side of the room, grumbling away to himself.

"Bad, listen to me when I'm telling you, we are at war," stated Punz, eyeing the dark eyed prime minister with a sigh. "You can't go around taking muffins to people when you're the prime minister, you could easily be captured on the front lines."

"And I say this in the nicest way possible," added Dream, sitting up from where he'd been lying across the sofa, "You are incapable of keeping your mouth shut. You WOULD let something slip, and I believe that you wouldn't intend to, I really do, but it would happen! I know you, Bad, I've known you for a long time."

"Listen, how am I supposed to do my job when I'm locked up in a castle?" Bad continued to complain, practically ignoring Punz and Dream. "I have things I need to do that I can't trust anyone else to do properly. I can't send others out to do things like this - the people need the personal touch of the prime minister, Dream. I know you don't understand that, you never go out and speak to your own people. And the only reason that hasn't come back to bite you in the butt is because I'm doing it for you."

"Can't you can resume all of that when the election drama has died down?" I sighed. "Bad, you're not listening. Just stop talking for a moment and try to understand."

"You're no better than Dream, Alexa," Bad shook his head at me, surprising us all by talking straight back to me. "When was the last time either of you went out and made some kind of connection with the people you're ruling over? You think you can just sit in your own castle and watch your people suffer from afar, don't you? Well that's not how it works! Dream, if your parents were still here they'd be ashamed of you."

"Don't you DARE say that!" Dream retorted, suddenly angry at the mention of his parents. "You don't know anything about them!"

The rest of us stared at the two of them, eyes flicking from one to the other. We had seen Bad tell Dream he was wrong before, but they had never argued like this.

"I know they were better rulers than you two, which is as much as I need to know," stated Bad, and there was a slight tremor to his voice which betrayed his nerves. He hated yelling. "I don't want to say this to you, but you need to hear it, Dream! I'm sorry!"

"You didn't need to bring my parents into it!" Dream yelled at him. "Bad, you knew what you were getting into when you agreed to taking on the role that you did, so don't try and turn this on me and Alexa! This is on you, and you need to stop acting like a spoiled little kid just because you can't run around with Skeppy like you're used to for a few weeks."

Bad stared at him, and I reached over to rest a hand on Dream's back, wanting to calm him down. He relaxed slightly as my hand came in contact with the soft green material of his hoodie, but not by much.

"You know what?" Said Bad, standing up. "I'm done."

"What do you mean, you're done?" Asked George, chess board abandoned.

"I mean exactly that, I'm done. I quit. If what you said is true, Dream, that I knew what I signed up for, then perhaps I didn't realise exactly what I was getting myself into."

"You can't just walk out, Bad..." began Punz, but Bad interrupted him. I had never seen him like this before.

"Watch me," he glared at the chief of the army, before turning his steely gaze on the rest of the room.

"Bad, we... we NEED you!" Dream sighed. "I need you for so many things - what are we going to do without you?"

"Should have thought about that before acting like you did," stated Bad.

"Wait, wait, can we all calm down for a moment?" Stated George. "Bad, that's a very hasty decision. Why don't you sleep on it for a few—"

"I HAVE slept on it!" Bad exclaimed. "Do you think this has only happened today? The people of this kingdom are being hurt by this war - much more than anything you would know about because you never listen to me when I try to tell you! They're running out of food, they're working with limited supplies of clean water... and all you want to do is hole yourselves up in a castle and wait it out. Well, I'm not doing that anymore. I've already discussed this with Skeppy, and a few other friends, we've bought a big house, and we're all moving in together to start a food bank. Initially I wasn't sure - I was simply going to help them where I could, but I can't do that anymore. I need to get out of here, and trust me Dream, your precious secrets will stay safe. But I cannot continue to stay here any longer. Do me the honour of respecting my decision, even if you can't respect anything else."

The door slammed shut in his wake, leaving a depressed and confused silence behind him.

A/N: BadBoyHalo has kicked the bucket then...

Also shameless promo, go check out my other Dream fic, it has Dream and Techno being rivals but also kinda eventually friends maybe, and it's also Dream x OC like this :) it's called Chaos Faction and it's updated much more regularly than this one. (Mainly because it's already finished I'm just drip feeding you lol)