Chapter Text
During the torture, Dream tries to fight off Quackity a lot - less over time, but he never stops completely. Just once, he tries to go for Eulalia.
It wasn't planned. They were getting sloppy, letting Dream fall too close to the barrier blocks where she usually hangs out. Dream figures that if he shoves her into the lava, he might get a fucking moment of respite.
(There is a point where the notion of touching Quackity’s daemon would have made Dream laugh. There is a point it would have made him nauseous. That point was about three pints of blood ago. Maybe a dozen ragged screams. Approximately five health potions that tactically save his life. Is this the economy you wanted, Sam, Quackity? Everything is fungible for everything else. Everything. You'd think Dream would have learned this when he sold his soul but it turns out he hadn't quite grasped it until now. Thanks for the lesson, Quackity. Hopefully Dream can return the favor.)
He grits his teeth and shoves her as hard as best he can.
Weak and cornered, Dream’s best is not good.
She bites off three of his fingers.
It’s been… maybe a month. Days and fucking days. One day, she finds herself after one session bearing a dreary, existential curiosity. Calling it hope would be going too far, because it’s all dressed in fear, but it’s uncertain and it’s all-encompassing and it’s almost calm. Hope has no idea what changed or what Dream is doing, but she fears the worst.
Fuck it. Fuck this. She’s held out for as long as she can. It’s the worst, it’s the fucking worst, she can’t go on like this, and Dream’s going to do something if she doesn’t play her last card.
Moving along roofs and tree branches and through shadows, Hope makes her way to 1000, -1000. She sees where the road bridges over a stream, and looks under it.
Like Phil said, there’s a chest hidden there, with a crack she can fit through. She roots through it until she finds a dry piney twig, and jumps onto it until it breaks.
Then she waits.
It takes Phil a few hours. Makes sense, she supposes, it’s a long ways away. When he arrives, he’s on horseback, scouts out the whole area before shouting her name. She’d appreciate his forethought if she had any goodwill left.
“Phil,” she says, scrambling up on the side of the bridge to address him. He’s clearly surprised to see her out in the open.
“Hey Hope. I came as fast as I could. Are you alright? Jesus, what happened to your tail?”
“Phil, Techno, the favor, I need it now. I know I asked before, but – I can’t keep doing this. Dream is - Listen, if he’s still asleep, bring me with you, I’ll wake him up. I don’t care. I -”
“Hope, slow down. Techno went to the prison this morning.”
“...He did?”
“Yeah, he went to visit Dream.”
“… When you say ‘visit’ -”
“He woke up a few days ago, I told him what you said, he – yeah, I dunno, Hope, he went to visit. I’m guessing the normal way if the prison’s still standing.”
“...It’s a trap.”
“It sounded sus to me, mate. I told him I was worried, I offered to help, he said he was good.”
“No, Phil, I’m telling you, it’s a trap. We need to – stop him. Before he gets there. Send Miria. Go -”
“Mate, he left this morning. Hours ago. He’s already there.”
“No. No no no- ”
“Hope, I’m telling you, he knows what he’s doing. He has a plan.”
“Then what is it?”
“He didn’t tell me! But he knew what he was doing.”
Somehow, Hope doubts that severely. “Dammit. Frick.”
“Hope – calm down. Why now? Did something happen?”
Hope opens and closes her mouth. Rescue isn’t coming. She just… has to think of something else. “No.”
“Okay. Okay. Are you alright? You don’t look good.”
“It’ll grow back.”
“...You’ve changed color, too.”
“I can do that. It’s fine. I’m fine. So Technoblade’s in the prison.”
“Yeah. He is.”
“...Okay.” Hope turns around. Her voice is flat and level. “Thanks for coming. Sorry to waste your time.”
“Is there anything you need? Anything I can help out with?”
“I don’t need anything.”
“I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t be.”
She has to leave, right now. She tears away through the brush and leaves Phil alone at the crossroads.
“What’s up with you, anyhow?”
“I’ve been tortured,” groans Dream.
“Not for, like, a week, though.”
“Oh, yeah, guess I haven’t totally bounced back. You know how delicate I am.”
“Yeah, no, I know, but you look, like, itchy. You have lice, Dream?”
“...Bugs can’t get in here,” Dream mutters into his arms.
“Mm. Not without proceeding through the proper checkpoints. That would be a security risk. Understandable. Understandable,” Techno says.
Dream’s whole upper body twitches. He’s sitting on one side of the cell folded up tight, rocking back and forth; which is new for him, so far as Techno’s seen. Dream’s silent for a few moments. Then: “I, I haven’t even seen Hope in… so long.”
“You’re not the best at metaphors, you know?”
“What?”
“Ain’t you been separated from her for a million years, anyhow?”
“Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. And I’d be, like, losing my goddamn mind if we were normal.”
“Well thank god you’re not normal.”
“Ugghhhhhh.”
They spend a while in companionable distracted silence. Techno works on carving a potato with his tusks; Dream drums his feet on the floor and keeps his head in his arms. At least he isn’t rubbing his forearms red right now.
“Seriously, though, aren’t you far from her most of the time? I never saw you together. Maybe, like, once.”
“We aren’t, most of the time. But we, like… meet up? We see each other pretty often. You, you got to, it’s a basic human need. I’ve never been away from her for this long.”
“That’s rough.”
“Mm,” says Dream. “Even when I built this place, I was like – well, we could keep the prisoner’s daemon in the nether; in their own cell, that would help security – like, you, you couldn’t get too far away from it even if one of them got out – but that’d be fucked up, that’d be inhumane, you know? Sam – Sam agreed. He agreed.”
“I can tell this prison was made with only state-of-the-art humane design in mind,” Techno agrees. “Really shines through all the little details.”
“Shut up.”
A while passes. “Can’t she just die and then respawn next to you?”
“Yes, but then - then we’d both be in here, and like all my chances - any chance I have -”
“Ohh,” says Techno, “So the problem with the prison you built is that it’s working exactly the way you planned.”
“Shut up,” says Dream, but his voice is smaller and even more muffled. “...You asked.”
“That I did. That I did. That’s on me.”
“Sometimes,” says Dream after a while, “You make your bed and lie in it, like you’re supposed to, but the bed still sucks.”
Techno nods, sadly. “Sour apples, man.”
“...Isn’t it grapes? Sour grapes?”
“What’s a grape?”
“Never mind.” Dream’s fingers eventually tighten around his arms again. “I hate this, I hate this, I hate this!” He’s yelling by the end. Techno gives him a few minutes to cool down, and he does. “...Sorry. It’ll pass.”
“Christ, Dream, do you need a hug or something?”
Dream snorts.
“That wasn’t a ‘no’.”
“I don’t need a hug.”
“Yeah, but like, do you want one?”
“Maybe.” Dream’s voice is very small. “...Yes.”
Techno ambles to his feet. He walks over and sits down next to Dream, and wraps his arms around him. Dream is thin and bony and warm and still. He gives a stuttery inhale, and then his breath is all over the place.
“Bro,” asks Techno, “Is this helping at all?”
“Uh. I – sorry, yeah, yeah, keep going, uh, just.”
“You’re good. You’re good.”
“...Just gimme a few.”
Eventually, before his breathing has totally evened out, Dream tugs away, and Techno immediately drops his arms.
“Th – thanks,” says Dream, quietly. “That was good, I think.” He looks a little less shaky, and he takes a deep purposeful breath.
“Any time, man. We might be here for a while. You’re gonna have to tell me what a grape is, though.”
“I hate you.”
“I know, Dream.”
Dream meets Punz and Zerk in the spot they agreed on. Before he can get out more than a few words to his old friend, or they can hug or anything, Punz is reaching into his jacket and prying at the drawstring lid of a little hard-shelled leather case, sturdy and kept warm under his cloak. And then it’s open, and - Hope closes the distance between them.Dream falls down, laughing and gasping, as Hope runs up his neck, hyperactively back and forth across his face. He reaches up his hands over his face to brush her back as she rushes over him. Tears roll down his face.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Dream chant-whispers.
Hope stops briefly to lick his tears. “Never again,” she murmurs. “Never again. We’re going to show all of them, Dream, we are… ”
Punz has the sense he shouldn’t be watching. Zerk tilts his head askew and shifts a wing, fondly bapping Punz in the face. Neither of them look fully away.
Dream sobs. All of the hurt of the distance between them over long months hits him at once, but their heart sings at being whole again. Hope checks him over at slightly-less-breakneck speeds, looking at scars and lumps, testing their texture with her feet, looking over the few fresher injuries too. She skirts all over his skin and then hangs on the side of his face, her red throat showing with each breath.
He’s grinning and shivering at the same time by the time he wipes his tears off his face and gets up. If he has any reservations about Punz and Zerk witnessing an extremely vulnerable interlude of his life, he doesn’t bring it up. He just hugs Punz and presses the unoccupied side of his face against Punz’s, and says, choked, “Long time no see, buddy.”