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It’s long past midnight when the events of the last few hours, days, weeks slowly start to settle in.
He’s out. He’s out of prison after months. After almost an entire year of being imprisoned, after seeing nothing but lava and obsidian for so long.
Being able to breathe fresh air feels like a miracle—not because he didn’t think he’d ever get out of prison again, but because it seems like an eternity since the last time, he’d been able to breathe air that didn’t smell like blood and was filled with ash.
The air is cold on his skin as he stares at the sky. How long has it been since he’s last seen the stars? He still remembers that the last night before the vault had been cloudy; he’d not seen the moon nor a single star on the night sky.
Being free after all this time…the prison had been necessary; the months of isolation had been important. Pandora had been a vital point of their plan; he’s still hated it. He’s still hated it so, so much. He’d always liked his freedom, had always needed to know of the things happening around him—giving up both his control and his freedom for this…
He had to. There hasn’t been any other way; there’s still no other way than this one.
A necessary sacrifice, no matter how much he might have hated it. (And no matter how much worse it got than both of them had expected it to be.)
He flexes his fingers. It’s weird…wearing his gloves again. His hands have always felt naked in prison, but now that he’s actually able to wear gloves, it also doesn’t seem quite right.
It’s the same with the armor. He’s missed this feeling; he’s missed how much more protected he feels simply by wearing netherite; he’s missed how it almost makes him feel invincible even if it’s not his armor. (At some point, he might actually need to try and get his set back.)
He’s missed it, but at the same time, it just doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel right the way the chestplate fits, it doesn’t feel right how the boots press against his ankles, it doesn’t feel right how the vambraces seem to weigh his arms down.
But maybe that’s what he should’ve expected after prison.
It’s not surprising that an armor that’s not his own doesn’t feel right and that he needs to get used to wearing armor almost non-stop again. If anything, it should be more surprising that he’d even able to wear armor after such a long time without any problems.
He grimaces. Especially because some of the older wounds still haven’t fully, properly healed.
Maybe he should’ve taken the time to bandage his arms and put on some…less destroyed clothes. But Punz didn’t have anything else but the armor on them for Dream, the closest base had still been a few thousands blocks away, and there had been more important things on his mind than changing clothes. (He’d needed to act, and he’d needed to act fast.)
Well. He guesses, he has the time to take care of everything else now. And there’s also the thing that he’s probably purely running on adrenaline right now and that he might not be getting anywhere today, should he not slowly make his way to one of his bases.
Prison sure as hell hasn’t helped with keeping his strength, his stamina up.
He needs food, potions. And bandages. Clothes. If possible, maybe a bath, but that could also wait until he’s rested for a bit. Food and healing potions are the most important thing right now.
Only that he has neither of these two things on him or stored in any of his bases. Not that they would still be edible after ten months of him being locked up.
He takes his communicator out, turns it. Another thing he’s not had in his hands for months.
He doesn’t know if Punz is still awake, but it’s worth a shot. The worst that could be, is that Punz is already asleep and then he’d just have to find food on his own. He’s not going to die anytime soon, so the healing potions could wait until the morning and to be honest…even the food might not be completely necessary at the moment.
He’s…not eaten a lot in prison, so not having food right now, wouldn’t be too big of a deal. Annoying, but he’d deal with it. Just like he always does.
It takes him longer to type the message than he would have liked.
<you whisper to Punz> are you still awake? might need your help
He doesn’t wait for Punz to answer him. Even if Punz is already asleep, their base is in the same direction as the nearest of his bases should be, so he should be fine no matter what happens. (As long as he doesn’t run into any of the other server members, that is. He’s not sure if he’d be able to handle another confrontation (especially if they’re out for blood). It’s exhausting.)
<Punz whispers to you> what’s up?
<you whisper to Punz> I need pots and food, but I don’t have either on me rn
<Punz whispers to you> same base as always
<you whisper to Punz> coming
He breathes out. Okay. Great. This might not have been his biggest problem, but it’s nice that he doesn’t have to worry about that right now.
He almost drops his communicator as he tries to put it away. When did his hands start to tremble…?
He shakes his head; as long as he makes it safely and as quickly as possible to Punz’s base, it’s fine. He’s fine.
It doesn’t matter that his legs feel weak, that he almost falls when one of his knees gives out, that he’s more stumbling than walking.
It doesn’t matter. He’s out; the plan can continue like they’ve wanted; months of isolation, months of preparation will finally pay off.
What does it really matter how he is feeling?
He slumps against the door, barely able to keep himself upright. The prison…the fights and the running seem to have taken more out of him than he’s expected.
He used to be able to run and fight for hours without problems before…before he’d let himself be locked up. He knows, he knows all too well that he shouldn’t expect his body to be able to do the same things it was able to do before prison, but it stings. It stings. He hates it.
He hates it even though he knew it would happen, even though all of this had been part of his plan—he knew what he did when he asked Sam to block off the court yard, he knew what he did when he wanted the high security cell. He knew.
It doesn’t mean he doesn’t hate it.
It’s annoying at best and infuriating at worst.
Thankfully, it won’t slow them down for now. They had a few weeks of resting planned when they first set up the plan—to make sure that everything would be alright, that there wouldn’t be anything important they overlook, that he can rest for a bit and get his strength back if necessary. (Although he has the feeling that a few weeks won’t be enough for that now.)
He’d been able to get through today purely because of adrenalin and determination. Spite, probably too.
He almost falls when the door opens, but he’s barely able to catch himself before his face meets the ground. Maybe leaning against the door hasn’t been one of his best ideas.
“Dream!”
It makes him flinch, and even though he’s able to get himself under control fast enough, he doesn’t doubt that Punz has noticed it. There’s a reason why Punz has always been good at their job, and there’s a reason why he’s originally decided on Punz to work with him.
He looks up. Punz’s brows are furrowed, their eyes trained on him—and now he’s once more glad that he’s wearing a mask. He’s not the biggest fan of people being able to look through his façades, and Punz has always been good at it. (Almost as good as Sapnap.)
“Fuck,” he says, trying to suppress the shakiness of his voice. “You surprised me,” he continues like that will make Punz less suspicious.
“C’mon,” Punz says, ignoring Dream’s last comment. “You shouldn’t crash outside the base if you don’t want anyone to find you.” They don’t move to help him get up, and Dream’s more thankful for it than he’d like to admit.
Unannounced and unexpected touch has never been something he’d particularly liked, and now…he doesn’t know how he’s going to react to it when even someone calling his name makes him flinch, and if he’s honest, he’s not keen on finding it out. Not now anyway.
He has to get on his knees first, clinging to the doorframe before he’s able to actually stand up, and once he stands, his legs shake so much he fears he might not be able to walk.
“Need help?” Punz offers, not directly looking at Dream, but it’s obvious enough that they’re observing him.
“It’s fine.” He lets go off the doorframe, and it’s almost surprising that he doesn’t directly fall over.
Punz’s eyebrows are raised, but thankfully, they don’t say anything. There’s no doubt that they will ask at a later point, but that’s fine. That’s fine. He just doesn’t think he’d be able to have this conversation now.
(Truth to be told, Punz should’ve never known about the…conditions of the prison. They shouldn’t know about the starvation and the changed conditions and the deaths, but Dream doubts he’ll be able to keep them out of the loop forever. And the torture…the torture— there’s a reason why he’s told Sapnap and Tommy so freely about it, and there’s a reason why he doesn’t want to tell Punz.)
“You said you needed food and pots,” they say as they turn away to lead him into their base. “Is there anything you don’t want?”
He hesitates—he doesn’t know if he should tell Punz. “Potatoes,” he still says. “As long as it’s not potatoes, I don’t really care.”
Punz nods and comes to a stop in front of a table and chairs. “Sit,” they say as they turn around to face him. “I’ll bring you something to eat.” They tilt their head. “Which potions do you need?”
“Healing would be the best.” Not that it will be possible to completely heal all of the wounds he still has—from prison and from the fights during the prison break. There’s nothing that’s all too bad, but he really doesn’t want to run around the server with injuries.
He doesn’t take off the armor before he sits down even though he probably should. He will have to take it off anyway if he wants to properly take care of his wounds later on, but right now…it’s not that he feels unsafe with Punz in their base, but…but taking off his armor feels almost like an impossible task. He hates being vulnerable around other people, even if this other person is Punz. (When Techno demanded his armor back, it had given him a good enough reason to bolt; he’d either way, but without armor, he wouldn’t have even wanted to stay.)
The only piece of armor he removes is the helmet—not only is the mask enough protection for now, it’s also incredibly annoying to eat with a helmet.
“So,” Punz says when they come back, a bowl with stew in their hands. “Mushroom stew, I hope it’s fine, but you don’t really look like you can stomach anything else.”
He presses his lips together; it’s not…like they’re wrong about that. He’s not eaten anything but raw potatoes in ten months—if he’s eaten anything at all. He can’t expect his body to be able to handle every type of food as soon as he’s out of prison and has the possibility to eat it.
(Maybe convincing Sam to switch the cooked steak to raw potatoes has been a bit overkill, but at that point, it had seemed like a good idea. And after that one…conversation he’s had with Sam, it’s obvious that it has worked—there’s no way that Sam will ever realize the prison has been built for him and not for Tommy. It makes him want to scoff.)
“Thanks,” he says.
“I’ll get you healing pots and bandages while you eat,” Punz tells him.
Normally, Dream would insist that it’s not necessary, but this time he doesn’t even bother to try and stop Punz. Punz, for one, won’t be listening to him, and there’s also the fact that he definitely needs bandages. There’s no use for bandages when he has a scratch, but most of the injuries that are still bothering him are not necessarily scratches.
Not that he will ever tell Punz that.
He’s barely eaten anything by the time Punz comes back. It’s not because it tastes bad, it’s not even because he isn’t hungry, it’s just…it tastes like too much, and he feels like he’s going to throw up.
And he feels like he shouldn’t throw up if he can help it.
“Are you okay?” Punz asks with a look at the bowl that’s still almost entirely filled.
“Yeah.” He doesn’t add anything even if he could. ‘I haven’t eaten anything but raw potatoes in the last ten months’ or ‘Sometimes I’ve had to go days without eating anything. Not even raw potatoes,’ but he doesn’t.
It’s not that he doesn’t trust Punz, it’s simply not Punz’s problem.
Punz slowly nods. “If you want, we can just let it stand here, so you can eat whenever you want,” they suggest, putting the vials down on the table. “I don’t know how many you need, so I just brought a few. Same with the bandages.”
He forces a smile on his lips; his mask is still crooked, so Punz actually sees it. “Thank you,” he says.
“Of course. Do you need help or do you—?”
He shakes his head quickly. The last he wants to happen is for Punz to see the scars and wounds—there are things about the prison that Punz is aware of, and there are things they don’t know. And he’s not entirely sure if he wants them to know because…well. Because they would care.
When he told Techno, when he told Sapnap and Tommy, it had been expected that they didn’t care. He’s not really thought that anything else would happen, so it’s not surprising that they moved on from it like it meant nothing—they’ve either already forgotten or they will forget in the next few days. It’s what he thought would happen, but Punz…Punz on the other hand—
The problem is that Punz cares. Sometimes a bit too much. Sometimes more than Dream wishes they would.
It’s not that they’re overly protective but considering their job, it’s almost funny with how badly they react when someone they know (and care about?), has been injured.
They would fuss, and he knows he can’t handle that right now. (All he wants is the healing pots and sleep. And then he’ll be off and properly prepare the rest of their plan; everything else is unimportant, and he can’t—can’t—have Punz be distracted.)
“It’s fine,” he adds. “A few superficial wounds here and there, nothing bad. I just think I shouldn’t risk them getting infected.” Punz is definitely not going to think there’s more going on. Absolutely not.
He just hopes they wait to ask more questions until the morning.
“Okay.” Dream doesn’t even have to look at Punz to know they’ve raised one of their eyebrows. “You can just use the bathroom if you want. Do you…do you need other clothes? Because yours…” Punz trails off.
Yeah. His clothes…have definitely seen better days at some point. But after prison, after Quackity, it’s not really surprising that they look like this—battered and blood crusted. Sometimes, it surprises him that they’re still holding as well together as they do.
But the problem is that he doesn’t have stored any clothes in his enderchest, instead they’re spread all over his bases—not his brightest moment. Just like storing potions for months and hoping they might still be edible.
He shakes his head. “It’s whatever. I’ll just grab spare ones in the morning.”
“And wear them until then?” The disbelief is obvious in Punz’s voice. “This might be one of the stupidest things I’ve heard coming out of your mouth ever.”
He sighs. Punz isn’t entirely wrong, and he also doesn’t fancy the idea of putting his dirty clothes back on after showering, but it’s not really like he has any other choice. He doesn’t want to risk going to his base tonight.
They’re probably still searching for him and in his condition right now, he’s not able to fight anyone. He won’t risk their plan for clothes of all things.
“Eh,” he makes. “It’s fine.”
“Dude,” Punz says. “Do you really think I’ll let you walk around in those clothes after giving you food and a place to stay?”
“It’s…” Dream sighs. “Listen, Punz, I don’t have any spare clothes on me right now. I didn’t put them in my enderchest and the nearest base of mine is too far away to get there safely.”
Punz looks like they want to hit him. He cringes. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. “I’m— Dream. I have enough clothes to lend you some.”
For a moment, Dream stares at them. “Oh.”
Punz rolls their eyes. “The bathroom is on the left down the hallway. I’ll bring you the clothes.”
Dream is…Dream. He seems as put together as he always does, but at the same time, there’s something different about him, and Punz doesn’t know what exactly it is.
Of course, Dream is different than before the prison; it probably would be impossible to haven’t changed after spending ten months in an inescapable prison with Sam as your only consistent company and a few visitors here and there. (Before Sam prohibited anyone from visiting the prison anyway.)
Punz didn’t expect Dream to get out of prison and be completely the same, but they used to be able to read Dream a lot better than they are now, and it’s infuriating.
Dream doesn’t really hold himself in the same way he used to do the last time Punz saw him. The last time before the vault. The vault has been…they don’t count the vault because those were special conditions, and Dream had died twice, losing two of his canon lives.
The Dream in the vault isn’t comparable with Dream during any other event.
Still. Dream now acts the same and so different from the Dream before the prison, and Punz just itches to know why it is that way.
They’re not stupid. There’s been something going on in the prison that Dream isn’t really willing to share, and normally Punz is good at ignoring these things and moving on and doing their job like they’re supposed to do, but this is Dream. This is Dream, and it’s been a long time since they’ve been strictly a mercenary and an employer.
The thing is…Punz still remembers Dream telling them that he would get steak, cooked steak, in prison, that he made sure he’d be able to see the sunlight every now and then—but he’s thin in a way that doesn’t suggest Dream just lost muscles in prison because he hadn’t been able to train. And he’s so pale that Punz can barely imagine Dream seeing the sun during his imprisonment even once.
Not even to mention the injuries. Dream has never been someone to care about wounds that weren’t life-threatening or overly annoying—Sapnap has complained about this more than once after manhunts, and after working together with Dream for months and knowing him a lot longer, it’s…weird seeing him asking for bandages and healing pots to take care of “superficial injuries.”
Yeah. Punz won’t believe for a second that those are only superficial injuries, but then again. It’s Dream. It’s already a wonder that he even came to Punz at all, and that he let Punz do as much as they did—even if it’s not a lot at all.
And Punz doesn’t want to overstep any boundaries.
They’re not going to pry more than necessary, and as long as Dream’s not dying, things are fine. Things are fine. There’s nothing to worry about.
Dream might dislike showing weakness in front of others, but he’s also not stupid. And he’s not careless.
They hope.
He stares at himself. It’s…bad. Worse than he thought it would be. Or maybe it’s not worse than he expected it, maybe it’s just worse than he had hoped for it to be.
His face is gaunt, the eyebags dark against his skin. He looks more dead than alive (he feels more dead than alive). His hair, it’s…bad. He will have to cut it soon.
The scars stand out on his pale skin; most of them are still pinkish even though it’s been months, and the wounds…
The healing potion has helped, but it will still take a while until they’re completely healed. Potions can only do so much, and his body has been starved to a point where the priority isn’t dying instead of healing wounds that won’t kill him…instantly.
It’s annoying, but it’s expected.
He breathes out. His legs are still shaky, but it’s better than before. The food and the potion definitely have helped, even if he knows that he needs rest before he will be able to do anything else, before he’ll be able to continue with the plan.
He’ll need to train—he’s lost more muscles, strength and stamina than he would’ve liked, but it doesn’t come as a surprise. That’s what staying in a cell for months without getting out of there once does to people.
Not that he can do anything about that now. The only thing what this means it that he’ll need to train, and that he might need a longer period of time to get his strength back than originally planned.
But it’s fine. It’s fine.
The prison part of their plan has already taken longer than they had planned, so it’s not going to be a big problem that he’ll need longer to heal and train than they wanted.
It’s annoying for sure, but that’s also just how things are when your plans include yourself too.
The prison has been necessary for his goals, and the consequences are doable. It could be worse. A lot worse.
He grimaces when he touches one of the raised scars on his forearm.
Well, they could have been better as well, but Quackity or Sam could have killed him for real, so getting tortured, starving and surviving and with that being able to continue with the plan, is the better version of what could have happened.
When he gets rid of his clothes, he carefully avoids looking at the mirror to not have to see his back. The scars on his arms, on his face have been bad enough; he doesn’t need to see those on his chest and back. He doesn’t want to see them either—he can imagine how bad it must be, and that’s enough knowledge for him.
(He can’t…he can’t confront what has happened in the last few months in the prison. Not right now. He doesn’t have the energy, doesn’t have the time for it. (And once he starts, will he be able to stop?)
It will only bring more problems; problems he can’t afford to have at this moment. There’s a plan that needs to be done, a goal to work towards.
He doesn’t have the time for it.
So, he decides to ignore it. Like he always does.)
“You should get rest,” Punz tells him once he steps out of the bathroom. “We can worry about the other things in the morning. They’re not going to run away.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. He’s exhausted. He’s tired. He’s not slept in months—he’s not slept before the prison, and he sure as hell hasn’t slept while in prison. He hasn’t been able to properly sleep in so long. A few naps here and there have been more than enough, but he can feel it now.
(He doubts that he will be able to sleep now but resting at a place where he knows he will wake up, where he knows is no one just waiting to kill him, will be enough. It will. It has to.)
“Yeah,” he says again, then he adds quieter, “thank you.” He doesn’t know why exactly he’s thanking Punz. For what he’s thanking Punz.
Maybe for believing in him and the plan. Maybe for waiting for so long and helping him even if they didn’t have to. Maybe for not demanding their armor back and wanting another favor.
(He doesn’t blame Techno for that, even if he wishes, they had parted on different terms. But...he can’t, and he won’t blame Techno for acting this way.
Especially because he might have reacted very similarly.)
Punz raises their eyebrows. “For what? Not letting you die?”
He scoffs. “I wouldn’t have died. I would have—” Collapsed maybe before he’d be able to reach his base. Or maybe one of the others would’ve found him. Or— it doesn’t matter.
“I’m serious,” he says instead. “Thank you for helping me; you wouldn’t have needed to.”
Punz rolls their eyes. “This is nothing to thank me for. You can thank me once we’re done with the plan.”
He forces a smile on his lips. “Of course,” he agrees. ‘If we’re both alive then,’ he doesn’t say out loud.