Chapter Text
He ran.
His feet pounded into the dirt, grit pushing its way deeper and deeper into the open sores and cuts on his aching soles but he couldn’t stop. He could hear the shouts and whooping of his pursuers, driving him farther, faster, until the air was ripping his lungs to shreds and the wind brought tears to his eyes.
Everything, everything hurt. It was a raw, pulse-pounding pain that hadn’t stopped or ebbed since Quackity’s first visit to him in the prison. His fingers twitched from their clenched fists in remembrance. He stumbled, flailed, and cursed as it meant just one more advantage against him, bringing the hunters one step closer.
“Oh, Dream!”
He reeled, head whipping behind to spot dark figures between the tree trunks and branches, easily matching him stride for stride. Their armor and weapons glistened under the moon, oily with enchanting light and nether metal. They were toying with him. He made a raw noise in his throat when a rock cut deeper into his foot, not from the pain—he doesn’t think he’ll ever make noise from pain again—but from the surprise of it, of what it would mean.
He’d slowed, now, leaving a crimson trail of staggering footprints in his wake that become ever more brilliantly obvious as they reach the snow. It was numbing, but would be no help to him soon.
It was too open, and the moon so bright not even the creatures of the night made an appearance. They would have been handy distractions, but Dream’s luck, it seems, had finally run dry. He was utterly alone. Each step was slower than the last, until he neared a crawl, panting like a beast and slicked over with nervous sweat that chilled him, dangerously, to the bone. If they didn’t kill him, the elements would.
“You finally done? ‘Cause wow, that was kinda pathetic actually,” Sapnap drawled behind him. He was barely out of breath, and Dream couldn’t even speak.
“Is this for real? What game you playing at, Dream?!”
That voice made him pause. That voice sends prickling waves down his spine as he straightened, turning to look over his shoulder. Tommy was there. He was right there, he’s—
A netherite boot to his lower back had him crashing to the ground. His face slapped down hard onto snow and rock but he could barely scramble to his knees before the foot returned, crushing him down, pinning him to the jagged cold dirt.
“I mean, look at him, Sap,” Tommy spoke again. He ground his teeth but kept his mouth shut. Tommy Tommy Tommy—
“He looks, well, pathetic really.”
Pathetic. He stopped struggling, considering it. He could work with pathetic.
“P-please,” he stuttered, bringing his hands by his head with his shaking, misaligned fingers spread in peace.
“Shut up,” Sapnap snarled, grinding his boot further up Dream’s back until it was almost to his neck.
“Please,” he tried again, blubbering, really hamming it up. The pressure on his back eased, only slightly, but it was enough. “Sap please you don’t…you don’t know what it was like, what he put me through, I…”
“I. Don’t. Care.”
“He peeled my skin off, Sap. My…my fingernails, he…” Dream sobbed, could feel himself falling into real panic but couldn’t pull himself back from the brink. He was aware enough still to notice the lessening weight on his back.
He used to think himself incapable of crying. Quackity proved him wrong. Sometimes it made Quackity go easy on him, sometimes it had the opposite effect. He didn’t know what it would do for Sapnap and Tommy, and that deep rooted, tiny final vestige of pride tucked away in his chest throbbed.
He didn’t want to admit it but it was an awful truth. He was scared of them.
“He must’ve been like this when you visited him before,” Sapnap tried to rally, and Tommy spluttered and stammered in his usual way, sliding away from the unspoken accusation.
“Prime, Sapnap! You think I remember what he fucking looked like as he was bashing my head in?! Remember that?!”
“Don’t take me back,” Dream pleaded, his voice gone all high and reedy from the panic, “not there. Please, I’ll…I-I’ll do anything. Don’t take me back to him.”
The pressure was nearly gone, but it was enough. Dream slammed his palms into the snow and pushed up with all his remaining strength, legs surging and muscles screaming. Sapnap fell backwards with a shouted curse and Tommy yelped, frozen as Dream rounded on him.
“Give me that,” he snarled, easily yanking Tommy’s shield and sword from his shaking hands.
“Tommy, what the fuck—?!”
Before he could react Dream turned and drove his sword through Sapnap’s chest plate with a grunt, the squealing of rending netherite and snapping enchantments nearly drowning out the other man’s snarling curses and Tommy’s cries.
“Relax,” Dream spat when it was done, “you can meet up with him at spawn.”
“You’re fucking mental!” Tommy screamed. “You’re batshit insane if you think I’m just gonna let you walk away!”
“You just let me kill Sapnap,” Dream fired back. Tommy flinched, but squared his shoulders and jaw, taking a stance with an axe instead. Dream snorted and turned his back, rifling through Sapnap’s things.
He swayed as he crouched, spots dancing in his swimming vision but he swallowed and shook his head to clear it. The chest plate was damaged beyond Dream’s current capabilities to heal, but everything else was in good shape, though there wasn’t much. Sapnap had packed light, perhaps planning on this off chance that Dream would kill him instead.
The armor was almost too heavy, but the metal was cool and smooth against his fevered, raw skin. Sapnap had brought an axe, and he took that in favor of Tommy’s sword, sheathing it for now as he rounded once again on the boy, no, young man behind him.
Youth had drained from Tommy, much as it had from Dream. His panicked face was sunken, every line of his body rigid, ready for a fight he was woefully unprepared for. Dream was certain he could kill him, then and there. But…
“You go back, now.” Dream said, watching, fascinated as Tommy’s shoulders drooped in confusion, his axe lowering until the tip sunk into the ground.
“What d’you mean?”
“You’re dead, Tommy. No shield, no backup, I may not be in my prime but I was always, always better than you.”
“Wanna test that theory?” The other snarled, lifting has axe again but his guard was broken, his stance was off. He was shaken.
“Don’t do this, Tommy.”
“Stop saying my name!”
The wind blew between them and Dream shivered violently. He turned and continued walking, ignoring Tommy’s indignant shouts behind him.
He followed, for awhile, probably marking his direction so he and Sapnap could continue to track him later. But Dream would be long gone. When Tommy finally stopped and begrudgingly turned back—with a few parting expletives—Dream waited by a rocky outcropping until he was out of sight and earshot. Finally in the clear he collapsed against the rock, panting heavily.
Netherite is supposed to be the lightest metal in existence. You could fold layers upon layers of the stuff, smith it into oblivion and still it would weigh significantly less than diamond or even iron. But it weighed on him now, as heavy as obsidian. Sweat slicked over every inch of his skin, causing each plate to rub and chafe against him in the worst way, and it was so heavy.
He knew the effects of long-term solitude. He knew, as each day passed in prison, what it would cost him if he were to ever get out. But that was before Quackity, before his cruel, keen knives, his boiling oils and lava, his creativity.
His malnourished body struggled to keep up with it, for a time; he would come back from the lava respawned in a fresh body but that didn’t last long. A diet of potatoes and no room to run meant atrophy, decay.
He couldn’t have killed Tommy back there. Killing Sapnap took all the strength he had left.
He sagged there against the rock for longer than he could keep track of. His sense of time was woefully skewed, though now he had the benefit of seeing the sky, the moon dropping behind the mountains in the distance as deep blue bled first to purples, pinks, soft washes of apricot, until finally the sun peeked over the horizon line.
He watched as long as he could, eyes watering, the light searing into his retinas and spots dancing in his vision and he finally turned away. He couldn’t bring himself to look back up at it. Not yet.
He rummaged through his—Sapnap’s—dwindling inventory. There were two strength pots, one health, some steak Dream didn’t dare try to eat no matter how tempted he was, and among the remaining random pieces of wood and rubble there were surprisingly a few loaves of bread. He pulled one out, considering it. They were each carefully wrapped in red cloth, springy enough under his fingers to have been baked in the last day or so. Sapnap wouldn’t have bothered with bread if he had steak. Why did he bring it?
He took it slower by day, the cold of the night having bled to an insufferable heat. He’d passed the tundra and mountains in the morning and now wove between thick copses of birch and oak, the bright, pleasant colors from the foliage and flora were jarring to Dream’s eyes, so he tried not to look for too long. After so long with only orange lava and purplish black rock as his view, it was close to overstimulating.
The bread was good, he tried not to throw it up.
By nightfall he reached the ocean, and with it a decision that had to be made. Go out to sea, continue north past any and all known settlements and people until he was utterly alone. It would take some time, time he didn’t think he had.
He turned, glancing down the bank. Or he could go east. Punz was out there, thousands of blocks away waiting hopefully by their rendezvous point.
His eyes grew heavy, and instead he dug a hole for himself in the ground, boarded himself in, and slept, unable to ignore exhaustion any longer.
“He’s important to you.”
A voice, deep but multifaceted, tinkling and booming jarred Dream awake. He froze, listening.
“Yes.”
George…?
Dream carefully pulled himself upright, bracing against the makeshift wall to try and peek through the wood slats. He saw nothing but inky blackness, too dark to be night.
“He’s important to me, even now. Even after…after everything.”
“Important enough to call me here.”
“Yes,” George repeated, his voice taking on that all-too-familiar impatient tone. Prime, Dream missed him.
“You need to help me,” George continued.
The being hummed. Dream shivered and clawed at his shelter, pulling planks away until he was in the night air. At least, that’s where he should have been. He was surrounded by darkness. The shore was gone, and so was the ocean, the stars, the moon. All he saw in every direction was deep black void. He turned, eyes wide in the dark, and froze.
Illuminated some steps away were two figures.
The first he easily recognized as his George, though he looked exhausted, dark bags under his eyes and a thick blanket of moss and fungi over his shoulders. Quilt or cape it easily dwarfed him, making him appear so much smaller.
The second was…no one Dream had ever seen before, though their shape—the slope of their shoulders, their tapered waist—pricked at the back of his mind, tickling a memory or impression of someone he must have known. Looking at them directly for too long was like when he had stared at the sunrise. He had to look away.
Neither of them seemed to notice him.
“I can help, though you may not appreciate it, in the end.”
The second figure turned their head, then, glancing over their shoulder at Dream. It was his face staring back at him. It was partially obscured by crossed cloth wrappings over their face, a deep hood, but it was unmistakable. Its copycat face split into a grin, avaricious, before it turned back to George. It could see him. It knew Dream was there.
“Tell me, George. Tell me you want me to save Dream.”
Dream didn’t like that tone. He wanted to yell, scream at George not to listen to whatever this was, not to agree. But no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t make a sound.
“Yes,” George whispered, but it echoed loudly in Dream’s ears, tremulous and beautiful in its vulnerability, its earnestness.
“Very well,” the other replied, clapping their hands. George slumped to the ground and Dream could finally move.
“George!” He yelled, running to their lit oasis in the dark, staggering to his knees but stopped short at touching him, his shaking hands hovering inches from his face.
“You can touch him,” the being spoke, “he will not wake. I’ve assured it.”
“Assured it?” Dream snarled, glancing up at the thing with his face. “What did you do to him?”
“He sleeps often these days. You wouldn’t know,” it steepled its fingers and paced in a circle around him. Dream felt like a cornered animal, every instinct in his body screamed at him to run, but George…
“What to do about you now?” The being continued, “of course, I gave George my word I would save you, and I do so very love George. He is my favorite.”
“I don’t need saving,” Dream replied, choosing to ignore the rest of the other’s words for now. It chuckled, but didn’t cease its pacing.
“Clearly,” it mocked, and an icy thrill of pain shot through his gut, dropping him before he could even react. He gasped for breath, drooling and gaping at the black sky, mindless from the agony.
“Don’t interrupt me again,” voices hissed in his ears and the pain vanished. Dream scrabbled upright, staggering a few feet from the other. He couldn’t catch his breath, and shocks of phantom pain had him cramped over, wincing. He glared weakly at the being, then down at George.
“I’ve never hurt him, you can relax. And I never will. I don’t need to hurt him. There are simpler ways to control him.”
“What do you want?” Dream hissed.
“I want to make him happy,” it answered simply, cocking its head.
“Right,” Dream grimaced. He blinked, and it was directly in front of him, scarcely inches from his face. It gripped his shoulders before he could flinch away.
“My name is DreamXD, and my domain is The End,” it intoned, its voice unbearable at this proximity. Hot liquid dribbled down his neck…his ears were bleeding. Dream couldn’t hold back a whimper when its hands brushed over his neck to his face, its thumbs alighting his forehead like twin points of fire.
“Stop, what’re you doing?!” Dream screamed. He knew pain, Quackity had put him through every conceivable method of agony, but this was something different, something under his skull, his skin, was bullying its way out.
“And I have given you a touch of it, now,” DreamXD continued, ignoring Dream melting and quivering in its hands, its grip the only thing keeping him upright even as his feet shuffled over the sand, limp from shock.
“They may try to hunt you, they will fail.”
A glimpse, then, something in the dark spotted with his blinded eyes. Pale purple and yellow amidst a field of black static.
“They may try and kill you, they will fail.”
Massive obsidian pillars looming into the sky, something…something glowing at each peak.
“So long as my domain stands,” it continued, and Dream gave one last desperate whimper and shuddered, his eyes rolling back in his head.
“You shall never die.”
Dream woke with a shuddering cry, then immediately gagged and coughed, sand coating his mouth and lips. He shivered, casting about blindly, patting over the sand. Nothing. There was nothing where George had fallen, where DreamXD had stood and drilled holes in his head spouting cryptic nonsense.
“George,” he tried anyway. His voice was too quiet and broken, no one would be able to hear him anyway. He crumpled with a sob. But the pain had ebbed, more than he was expecting, actually. He stood on shaky feet, trying over and over to open his eyes. The sunlight hurt more than usual, everything looked ten times brighter to his irritated eyes as he squinted, finding his way back to his shelter almost entirely from touch alone.
Inside was blessedly dark, though there was a strange, green glow he couldn’t find the source of. It could’ve been some residual side effect of…whatever XD did to him. He took a few sips of water from his inventory, went to grab his last loaf of bread but paused, glancing at the steak. His stomach gurgled loudly.
“Ugh,” he grumbled, tearing off a small piece and shoving it in his mouth, fully prepared to throw it up again in the next few minutes. He chewed, swallowed with another mouthful of water, and waited. And waited some more. He put a hand over his stomach and frowned, daring to take another bite. Nothing. He finished it off—slowly, he didn’t want to test his luck—and tucked the bread away for another time.
Despite the food, despite last night’s rest, Dream was still incredibly tired. He blamed XD and whatever it was that was done to him. He wanted to rinse the blood off his neck, it was crusted and prickly, uncomfortable in the worst way. It made him think of being back in that cell, covered in days’ old blood with only a small pool of water to wash with that had long gone fetid from daily doses of grime, replaced only rarely when Sam cared enough to do it.
Getting out into the sun and to the shoreline was harder than it had any reason to be. The sunlight well and truly hurt him, now. He could barely stand to open his eyes. Grumbling and wincing he squatted in the surf, splashing the salt water over his arms, face and neck with little care.
“Dream?”
His head shot around, staring as much as he could at the white-clad figure to his right. It was so bright it was almost impossible to discern him from the pale sky and sands but it was—
“Punz…?”
“Dream, holy shit,” the other breathed, rushing forward to tug him from the water into a firm embrace. He flailed, struggling a little, not wanting to get him dirty, but the other didn’t seem to care, tightening his hold.
“Fuck, Dream, when you didn’t show at the meeting point I thought for sure they’d…”
“They almost did,” Dream rasped.
“I should’ve been there,” Punz murmured, muffled in Dream’s nape. He winced and pulled away, but still held Punz’s arms as the other’s hold shifted to his waist. The warm, gentle touch was...
In a word, euphoric.
“You look like shit.”
“I’m sure I do,” Dream snorted out a laugh, grinning.
“Something wrong with your eyes?”
“It’s like, too bright? I’m not sure what’s wrong but it…ha, everything hurts, buddy.”
“Yeah, yeah and on that note,” Punz shuffled around, Dream could hear bottles clinking and then a glass rim pressed against his lips.
“Got a full cocktail of strength, health and speed for ya, wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into, so…”
Dream swallowed it eagerly, the thick, sweet liquid going down easily and bringing with it instant relief, though it did nothing for the two throbbing points at his temples. He was disappointed when he still couldn’t properly see, and relied on Punz to guide him back to the shelter.
He waited for Punz to hollow it out a little more to make room for two, and it took way less time with his tools than it had Dream the night before.
“It’s not much but we can chill here for a while,” Punz said, taking him by the hand to lead him inside. For Punz’s benefit there was a lone torch, but it was still dark enough for Dream to finally open his eyes, sighing from relief.
“Woah,” Punz murmured, staring at him.
“What?” Dream laughed awkwardly, self consciously crossing one arm over his chest to grasp the other. “You already said I look like shit, I know I do, you don’t need to rub it in…”
“No, no. Dude,” Punz approached him again, staring intently at his face, his eyes.
“They’re green…”
“Congrats, you finally noticed after years of friendship.”
“Not like that, dipshit,” Punz frowned, and Dream swallowed thickly, apprehensive. The other’s face was pinched in concentration, concern, as he stared at Dream’s eyes again.
“They look like…”
“Like what…?” Dream breathed. Panic was rising in his chest again. He knew Punz was a crass but frank individual, the chances he was just fucking with him weren’t zero, but still.
Instead of replying, Punz pulled a small, green orb from a belt pocket and produced it between them. Dream knew what it was already, he didn’t need to look that closely, but his eyes flicked down all the same.
The ender pearl glowed dully in the torchlight. Dream knew what they looked like from memory, having used them for as long as he could remember. He took it from Punz’s hand, holding it in his own instead. It throbbed in a way it never had before, clinging to his skin like a magnet, and in the dim, in a way that should’ve been impossible, if Dream looked hard enough he could see glimpses of deeper color, harsher greens masked by the cloudy exterior. And on top of it all, a reflection.
“My eyes look like this,” Dream said, hardly a question but Punz nodded all the same.
“But brighter. You’re glowing, dude. Like a fucking Ender chest.”
Dream clenched his jaw, returning the pearl to Punz’s hand. That green glow he’d seen earlier, not even an hour ago, had been from his eyes. He swallowed.
“Punz…how did you get here?” He asked slowly. “How did you find me?”
“I’d been hanging around the rendezvous,” Punz explained, sliding to sit on the floor, “laying low, keeping an eye out for you, for anyone. I figured if you could manage it you would’ve been there by nightfall, but when you didn’t show I started to worry a little.”
Dream joined him on the ground, with Punz’s steady hand on his elbow to help.
“Then there was this…feeling. Like, like I shouldn’t be sitting around waiting. I felt as if I had to leave, like a force was pushing me down the coast.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Dream clasped his hands in his lap, staring between his feet. If he told Punz about last night, the worst that would happen would be that he wouldn’t believe Dream. On the other hand, Dream knew what he looked like right now; ragged, scarred, and weak. He wasn’t sure if he would even believe himself.
“Well,” he started slowly, “I’m glad you came.”
Punz smiled, wrapping his arm around Dream’s shoulders. It was easier than Dream thought it would be, to rest his head on his friend’s shoulder, to fully relax beside him.
He had a gut feeling that nothing would happen to them in this shelter by the sea.