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As Puffy walked to the back room of her house, she carried a heavy armor stand. This was it. She was learning to accept things. No more running.
She’d wanted a room for all her weapons and armor so it didn’t all have to be stored on her ship and it was time to make one. She would turn that room into one.
Letting out a heavy sigh, she reached for the doorknob. She hadn’t been in there in a long time. She’d always loved sailing the seas, and after Dream had been arrested, she wanted to run away from it all, spending most of her time on the boat and barely returning to her home.
When she did return, she let things get out of control, barely keeping the place up and the last thing she was going to do is look in that room.
It had been a storage room for years, plenty of boxes stacked up all over the place, but that wasn’t why she hated going back there. Before its days as a storage room, it had been Dream’s room. He was once her duckling, but was now locked up for heinous crimes.
Setting the armor stand outside the door as a reminder that all the garbage inside the room needed to go out, she walked in. She decided she didn’t care anymore. Most of the items in the room in some way reminded her of him in some way, and she hated it.
Puffy hated Dream. She refused to visit him because she knew he deserved every minute he spent, rotting in that cell. She honestly wished he was getting something worse than that. The prison never felt like enough.
The first thing she removed was a small box decorated with stickers. She opened it and realized it was full of old polaroids. Most of them were of Dream and Foolish when Dream was little, long before she realized how evil he was.
She hated looking at the pictures. In fact, they were the last straw. She didn’t just want to get rid of everything in the room, she wanted to burn it, and she could burn it.
Wanting to forget about him, she felt this would be a good way to get closure. She didn’t think the prison was punishment enough. He deserved something much worse. After all that he’d done, he deserved something worse than death. And that’s not what he was going to get. Unfortunately, as angry as most of the server was, they didn’t hate him nearly as much as she did.
So, if she couldn’t kill him, maybe just burning everything that reminded her of him and leaving him as a distant memory that she didn’t have to deal with anymore would be best.
It’s not like she’d ever have to see him again because she was not going anywhere near that cell no matter how long he lasted in that prison, so if she just got rid of all his stuff, she could probably forget about him pretty easily.
Little did she know, that night would be the night he broke out.
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People had seen someone helping him escape who’d been disguised in all black. They carried the prisoner away from the angry mob that chased them.
Puffy hadn’t been there, but she’d heard about it. Earlier that day, she’d burnt everything that reminded her of Dream and finally started setting up her armor room. Why couldn’t she just be happy?
She chose not to get involved in the drama with chasing her son down, honestly believing she would kill him in the most brutal way if she caught him. The server may hate him, but if she killed her own child like that, she wouldn’t be able to get rid of her new reputation that she was a psychopath.
They might even think he got it from her since almost no one knew he was adopted. They knew she and Foolish and Dream had the same colored eyes and no one questioned their being biologically related. That was just another thing that angered her about the whole Dream situation.
A few weeks went by and the server had calmed down a bit, even though Dream was out. She finished her armor room and had been enjoying showing it to everyone who stopped by, and they all knew whose room it had once been.
She got a knock on the door and figured it was Foolish, but instead it was Sam. The warden stepped in without being invited, Quackity behind him, and many others just hanging around outside as if waiting for something.
“Um, excuse me?” she asked, indignantly. “Are you guys just inviting yourselves into my house?”
“There’s no invitation needed. You’re under arrest!” Sam shouted. “And so is Dream once we find him. Where is he?”
“What the hell? Sam, you’re not arresting me just for being his mom, are you?” She removed her sword from its sheath. She could probably take Sam and Quackity if she could get away before everyone outside chased her down, but that angered her. She was having to leave her home just because of her disowned son.
“We know you were that person on the night of the escape, the one who carried Dream to safety,” Sam explained. “You dropped this.” The warden threw a gold coin on the floor depicting her ship. She kept many like that around the house to remind her of her pirate days and carried them with her for good luck.
“And if it were me, why would I bring those with me knowing how easily I could drop them?” Puffy asked. “Sounds like I’ve been framed.” She knew she was easy to blame for Dream’s escape as she had raised him, and people tended to forget that she disowned him whenever it was convenient.
“Well,” Sam defended, “they also managed to hold off quite a few people at once, and a lot of people say they escaped by boat and went out to sea. You probably have a base out there somewhere.”
“You can’t be serious,” Puffy deadpanned. “You think I have a secret base and he’s in it right now?”
"Well, not exactly,” Quackity added. “We know you wouldn’t just leave him on his own after he’s been in prison, so he must be hiding around here somewhere. You’ve barely left your house lately, so that just adds to the evidence. Where is he?"
"What a great question, bud," Puffy sarcastically stated, leading them into the kitchen and gesturing around. "If you think I have a secret room, feel free to look around, but don't break my stuff and anything of value you find is mine." She walked to the hallway and pointed to the last door. "That's what I did to his old room. It's an armor room now. Have a look if you wish." She gestured to the back window. "And out there, you can see what I did to all of his stuff. Some stupid green fabric is still half burnt up in the fire pit, just look!"
The confident expression that had been on Sam's face as he walked in was gone. He looked at Quackity and then back to Puffy. "Alright, well we're still gonna search the place, just in case." He motioned at the window, and a few people from outside entered as if on cue.
Of course, the warden wouldn’t just admit he’d been wrong. He could never do that. He couldn’t admit he’d been too much of an idiot to keep Dream in prison either.
The search took basically the rest of the day, but proved her innocence in the end.
After everyone else left, Puffy began thinking that she couldn't really blame them for searching her house, and the fact that they’d mistaken her for the person who broke him out was more of a compliment to her capability and fighting skills than anything else.
Besides, after everything her son had done, she really wanted to find him, too.
Well, she didn't want to, but she needed to. It was time to track down the child she'd once loved so she could kill him. He'd done too much to the rest of the server to be left alive. He was out of prison and he deserved to die for that, so she and everyone else wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore.
And with how angry she was, his death would not be quick or without a good deal of screaming. She’d already disowned him, after all, and a long painful death by her hand would be the last thing her brain needed to stop thinking back to all those times when he was young.
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She spent the next few weeks walking around the server, looking in places she figured Dream would visit.
But unfortunately, as the days went by she still hadn’t seen him. She needed to find him. She’d made a mistake, taking in a starving child when he was young and raising him. How could she have known he would one day be the biggest terror on the server?
Her inability to see the future didn’t matter now. She was tired of people looking down on her for being the reason Dream was alive, and it was time for her redemption. She had to kill him, eliminating the problem she caused, removing him from her life and everyone else’s. Permanently.
She knew Sam and likely a lot of the server wouldn’t approve of her eliminating the only owner of the revival book from existence, so she couldn’t let many people in on her secret. So far, she’d only told Tommy and Phil, and they approved.
There was only one other person she figured she could let in on her secret. And she knew just where to find him.
As she walked through the gate of the walls protecting the house and tower, she took a deep breath in. This wouldn’t be an easy conversation, but it needed to happen.
Punz had been Dream’s friend growing up, and eventually his underpaid mercenary. He likely knew much more about Dream and his plans than even George or Sapnap. Asking him about her son would be the best way to get clues as to where he could be hiding.
After knocking on the door, she heard a lot of shuffling and shifting, which wasn’t surprising. She figured as a mercenary, he probably had all kinds of things he couldn’t let other people know about, maybe even some dead bodies he needed to bury.
That was fair though; her job as a captain had involved much more killing than treasure hunting, and though most knew she’d killed a few people, she knew she and Punz had probably both killed more people than the rest of the server would ever know.
When he finally opened the door he quickly invited her in and the two sat down at a table. The smell of seasoned steak hung in the air, and based purely on the smell, it seemed to be the same exact combination of spices she always used. She hated that it reminded her of Dream; it had always been his favorite meal.
“So, you said you had something important to talk about?” Punz asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes, but before I say this, we’re making a promise that this conversation stays here. If the rest of the server finds out about this, some people will have some choice words for me, so go around telling people any of this and you’re dead.”
“Alright, I agree to that, but that deal goes both ways,” Punz threatened, and Puffy just nodded in response.
“So, I need some information on Dream, and you used to be his mercenary, so I’m hoping you will support my cause in any way that you can,” Puffy announced confidently. Punz would probably want to help her with the actual assassination, and Dream stood no chance against them both.
“And why exactly do you need information on my former boss?” Punz asked.
“It’s simple. I’m gonna kill him.” Puffy smirked.
The blonde seemed to be thinking, but Puffy was certain of his eventual compliance. Punz wasn’t one to go along with plans until he knew all the details.
“Why do you want to kill him?”
“Well, since this conversation stays here, I may as well tell you.” She knew Sam would hate her for complaining about him and his prison like that, but she figured Punz of all people could be trusted with her true motivation. After working for Dream, and likely enduring all kinds of awful mistreatment and manipulation, he probably also felt that prison wasn’t punishment enough.
The scoff accompanied by an eye roll after she explained nearly made her jaw drop. “A lot of people think the prison is more than enough punishment already and just want to put him back there, even Foolish agrees. Do you actually think he deserves something worse?”
“Of course I do. You know what he’s done to the server.” Puffy glared.
Punz seemed baffled. “You know what a lot of people have done to the server? So many people have done absolutely despicable things, and gone without any punishment or ridicule, and yet you don’t think that obsidian box ran by Sam is punishment enough for Dream?”
“He just had to sit there and think about what he did. All of his human rights were respected, and I’m not sure if I can even call him human after what I saw at the confrontation,” Puffy answered.
Punz wasn’t the first to overreact about the prison. Tina, Bad, and even Ant had all been very clear that they thought the prison was too far. Many thought it was bad, but deserved, and once Dream told everyone about the revival book, very few were willing to use a more permanent means of dealing with Dream.
“But he wasn’t just sitting there and thinking about what he did, and everyone knows that!” Punz raised his voice. “Did you hear what Sapnap said about his condition while he was in that place? He was eating raw potatoes and hurting himself! Where were you when Sam admitted to beating him when he acted up? You know, the same Sam who tortured someone and chopped off their arm for taking an expired key card.” He let out a long sigh. “I’m not saying Dream wasn’t a bad person, and defend the prison if you want, but to act like it was some sort of peaceful stay at a resort is insane!”
Puffy was aware of those things, but they wouldn’t dissuade her. Dream deserved to truly suffer for all the people he’d hurt. She couldn’t think of something worse than death, so a brutal death and eternity with Schlatt would have to do.
She couldn’t entirely blame Punz for being angry with her. She realized that she probably sounded insane for wishing such awful things upon her own child, but he wasn’t her child anymore. When she disowned him, she hoped he’d suffer through the worst death imaginable. A voice in her head might still remind her that he was her son, but she didn’t feel any extra sympathy at the thought of his suffering.
“Well Punz, I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I’d hire you to kill him, but I’m guessing you’re not just gonna kill your former boss…” her voice trailed off as she stared into Punz’ angry blue eyes. He was still trying to calm himself from his rant about how awful the prison was, as if he had a lot more to say, but held back.
Wait…
No. Punz had betrayed Dream, he was done with him, and any sympathy he felt for him was clearly just the most basic of human decency. He was close with Bad, so surely his views on Dream had started to rub off on the mercenary.
But Bad had never talked about Sam like that. Punz mentioned the Ponk incident as if Sam was some sort of psychopath. No one did that. Most people still saw Sam as a very moral person, even the people concerned about the prison itself being too far. If anything, he was considered too kind with how he handled Dream while he was in the prison.
Punz must have something against Sam.
Puffy wasn’t stupid, the answer came to mind almost immediately.
“You still work for Dream, don’t you?” Puffy spat.
Punz smirked. “Of course I do, he’s learned his lesson about paying me now, and he’s certainly not gonna risk underpaying me again.”
The captain couldn’t say she didn’t understand. Punz was a mercenary. None of this had ever been about ethics or morals. He never would’ve betrayed her son if he’d just coughed up enough diamonds. Punz cared about money and money only.
She couldn’t say she was really that surprised or even that mad. She’d seen plenty of people who only cared about the treasure. She’d seen captains who’d kill their own crew just to have it. People like him were disgusting, and all too common.
But that didn’t make him invincible.
“Alright Punz, I know I said that this conversation stays here, but I changed my mind. You know where Dream is, so either you tell me or I’m gonna out you as Dream’s mercenary.” She leaned back, proud of herself for forcing someone with so much power to give her exactly what she wanted.
Perhaps Dream’s desire for power wasn’t something he’d been born with, but she still hadn’t taught him to be evil.
“You said this was all confidential, so that makes you a liar!”
“I’m a pirate,” she explained, “I’ve double crossed my bosses and peers more times than you could ever dream of doing, and you’re a professional traitor.”
“You know, insulting me isn’t going to make me help you.” Punz stood up and opened the door, clearly wanting to bring an end to their meeting.
“Oh, but threatening to tell Sam will.” She stood up, taking plenty of time to gather her things. “Besides, don’t be so childish, it’s not like you haven’t endured plenty of insults and threats working under Dream.”
Punz fumed. “How am I the child when you’re threatening to tattle on me if you don’t get your way? And I don’t think you know your son very well. Maybe he was just a jerk to you because you’re a horrible person, and probably an even worse parent. I may have betrayed him, but at least I didn’t hash out all my personal drama and family issues in front of everyone just to publicly humiliate him.”
Puffy wasn’t sure what to say to any of that, and she really didn’t want to think about any of those things. “I’ll give you a week,” she said, not breaking her confidence that was now only an act. She realized that might not be convincing enough though. As much as her pride hated admitting she was wrong, there was no way this threat was going to get her what she wanted. “If he’s where you tell me he is, I’ll pay you double whatever Dream is paying you.”
She walked out the door, certain that after Punz’ meltdown ended, he wouldn’t be able to resist that offer.
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Dream wasn’t having a great day. Curled up in the corner and trying to sob as quietly as he could, Dream was actually having a pretty awful day.
Punz had shaken him awake at some point when he could see light outside. Clocks had become a comfort for Dream, but even though he had ten in his room, he didn’t bother looking at any of them because he’d been too distracted by the severe pain all over his body.
Tears gathered in his eyes as his mercenary tried to roll him onto his back to start removing his bandages. Dream had forgotten to wash out his wounds again, and they were infected.
He felt Punz’ warm hand on his forehead and the man was instantly fumbling with a regeneration potion and pressing it to his lips as soon as the lid was off. Punz encouraged him to go back to sleep to let his body try to heal itself up, and Dream couldn’t agree more.
Punz intentionally went into his room to wake him up and change his bandages early in the day so Dream would just fall back asleep afterwards. If it was later, Dream wouldn’t want to sleep anymore and then he’d move around while trying to make himself comfortable enough to sleep, and in the process he’d reopen everything, and things would already get reopened at some point later on when he’d actually get up, so he didn’t need to be losing extra blood.
When he woke up again, Punz placed a seasoned steak on the bedside table. Dream loved eating things that weren’t potatoes, especially when those things happened to be his favorite meal.
He burned himself on the first bite and decided to let it cool, but in that time Punz heard a noise and left the room in a hurry. One of his fake friends like Sapnap had probably just come by. Dream didn’t mind having Sapnap there, even if his name came up. Anything he’d overheard Sapnap say about him, he’d heard from Sapnap himself in the prison. That wound still hurt, but he’d had a while to get used to it.
Then he heard her voice. Puffy was in the tower. His mom was in the tower. That stung.
She’d loved him so much until that day when he was arrested. Many people turned against him that day, but he hadn’t expected Puffy to be so cruel about it.
As Sapnap fastened the cuffs around his trembling wrists and the warden gripped his arm hard, the warden’s trident in the other hand to convey a subtle threat in case he thought about escaping, she walked up to him.
Everyone seemed much more angry and bloodthirsty than he thought they’d be. He found himself overwhelmed with dread and fear and heartbreak as he looked out at the murderous crowd, many of those present were people he’d called his friends not even an hour before that.
Seeing his mom approach him made him feel slightly at ease in that moment. Foolish had done plenty of things she didn’t approve of, both for XD and due to his newfound gambling addiction. She always reminded her oldest son that she still loved him and always would, no matter what. She’d always told Dream the same things.
“I can hardly even look at you right now,” she spat, the way her hand pulled towards her sword before she stopped herself not going unnoticed. “Do you think I can still love you after all the evil you’ve done? You’ve disappointed me more than I thought was possible. You’re dead to me, and you’re not my son anymore. I hope you rot in that prison.”
Dream felt the tears gather in his eyes and tried his hardest to hold them inside. Everyone was staring, mocking him for getting disowned by his own mother. He’d never felt more humiliated in his life.
After a few minutes of him just trying to keep it together, she shouted at him for not even trying to apologize and kicked him. It was so unexpected that he flew forward and landed face down on the ground.
Sam didn’t see her push him and because Dream ‘tried to get away,’ he got electrocuted until he was crying with no way to stop the tears. More humiliation.
And to finish it up, she said that she was glad he was giving her the cold shoulder because she was never gonna say another thing to him, so they were even.
Any reminder of the woman he’d once called his mother made him more than enraged. Because of her, he didn’t get to go into that prison with the sliver of dignity he still had after enduring all that. She just had to disown him right there, in front of everyone, shattering his heart into a million pieces and causing him a lifetime of embarrassment.
Dream hated hearing her voice and as the conversation between her and Punz continued, he started to feel betrayed. He knew Punz had to keep the act up, but her presence was making Dream so upset he couldn’t even think about eating.
The fact that she wanted to kill him was far from surprising. He wanted to kill himself sometimes, but he knew she wouldn’t care. She cared about Foolish’s mental health, she cared about Tommy’s mental health, and he wasn’t even her son in any sense of the word, but she wouldn’t worry about her adopted child. Everyone else hated him and she did too.
He enjoyed listening to Punz defend him. He needed someone to defend him, and he didn’t even care if it meant the alliance would get exposed. Dream honestly wished his mom could see that there was someone out there who still cared about him, maybe then she’d have to stop justifying her hatred and admit that he was human.
Part of him wished Punz would go ahead and tell her the truth about the prison, not the things Sam was willing to admit to people, the ugly, hidden truth about the hellhole he lived in.
“You still work for Dream, don’t you?” Dream overheard her ask. At least Punz still pretended there was money involved. There had never been money involved.
When the accusations about Dream mistreating Punz flew, Dream felt his blood boiling. He’d been mad at Puffy before, but part of him wanted to kill her for this. He loved his friends and he loved the server, and he’d endured everything to try to save them.
It was bad enough that they’d all turned against him, but for her to accuse him of treating Punz horribly when he was the one person who stuck by his side through it all stung in a special way.
After prison, Dream had been doubting everything. He even doubted his friendship with Punz, and he knew he was just a burden to his friend. Punz constantly reassured him that Dream was worth it and reminded him of all those times Punz came back from a battle wounded. Dream wouldn’t leave his side until he knew his friend would be okay, even forfeiting sleep after a week of not sleeping in preparation for a battle just to make potions and ensure that all the wounds were properly cared for.
She accused him of insulting Punz and threatening him all the time, of treating him the way he was treated by Sam. He couldn’t imagine being as awful as Sam. Dream could be a jerk when needed, but he could never be so awful to his friends, and certainly not his only friend.
If Puffy had been saying things like that behind his back while he was in prison, he perfectly understood why Punz decided to frame her of all people.
Dream hadn’t expected Punz to arrive in the prison to break him out. He’d originally told Punz to stay away for his own safety, but he didn’t get caught; and after nearly a year of torture and unimaginable abuse every single day, Dream wasn’t complaining when his friend tunneled through the floor of the main cell.
Punz had told Purpled to kill all the guardians, claiming he had a client who wanted to force Sam to replace them, which would be a huge hassle, but the younger mercenary still did it. Dream remembered the feeling when the mining fatigue vanished. Punz promised Dream that he and his brother had an agreement to stay out of each other's mercenary businesses unless one needed to pay the other to finish a smaller task for a mission, like with the guardians, and that Purpled wouldn’t care if he was the one to break Dream out.
Right before they exited the underground tunnel, Punz made sure his dark hood and mask were on securely and pulled the gold coins he’d stolen from Puffy out of his pocket, then he explained he was going to pretend to drop them when people saw the two escaping. Dream was confused, but Punz just said he needed to frame someone and that she was an easy target.
As soon as the two got to the shore and sailed away, Punz got Dream to an island with a tunnel leading deep underground, placed Dream in a minecart that would take him all the way back to the tower, and then vanished as soon as he messaged Purpled to activate the stasis chamber he’d set.
Dream wasn’t in a great condition to be left alone, but enduring the minecart ride by himself meant Punz could teleport to a location far in the opposite direction and pretend to just be hearing of the prison break. They had to make sure Punz looked as innocent as possible, and the stasis chamber and framing someone would both help with that.
It was a good thing Punz chose Puffy; she really deserved to get framed. Dream was so upset after her accusations, acting like he was just a complete monster incapable of humanity, that he started panicking.
Punz walked in a few minutes later, looking extremely drained and angry. “So uh, Captain Puffy was here.”
The mercenary refused to refer to her as his mom around Dream. After Dream’s escape from prison, Punz told him that she didn’t deserve the title because she hadn’t been one to him, not a good one at least, and Dream couldn’t agree more.
“I heard all of it. Thanks for defending me,” Dream said in a shaky voice.
Punz instantly noticed what was happening and ran to Dream, throwing a blanket over him. “You gonna be alright?”
Dream shrugged, so Punz brought him his water and sat down next to him, opening the window slightly so he could hear all the songbirds Punz kept outside in his garden.
“It’s like a music disc, but less likely to cause a war,” Dream remarked. Having some background noise besides his own pounding heart was nice though.
“So,” Punz said when Dream was noticeably less shaky, “what about this threat? Do you want me to just kill her before the end of the week? I won’t tell you any of the details afterwards if you don’t want to think about it.”
“Well, I was actually hoping to get a bit of closure,” Dream admitted.
Punz tilted his head. “And you don’t think killing her would bring closure?”
“Well, it could, but I had a different idea that might be a lot more effective.” Dream rubbed the corner of his blanket between his fingers. “You’re going to hate it, but I promise it’ll hurt her a lot more than a blade.”
“However you want to handle this, I’m right behind you.”
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Puffy traveled through the tunnel and into the prison. Punz had arrived at her door an hour before that and told her to get her weapons because he knew exactly where Dream was at that moment.
"You actually expect me to believe he's in the prison?" Puffy shot Punz a suspicious look.
"Yeah, he returned to get some books. He said there were important notes in them, now if you want to kill him, let's hurry before he leaves!" He waved, signaling for her to follow.
"And how can I trust you're not just gonna lock me in?"
"The cell has a huge tunnel in the floor and it would be hard to seal it off since it’s now coated in obsidian tears. Dream said it's how they broke him out. Besides, I don't wanna lock anyone who's somehow giving me double what Dream is paying me in a cell unless they don't pay me."
Puffy realized she probably should've found out how much her son had been paying Punz before saying she'd double it, but the important part was she could kill Dream.
She could finally kill that mistake. Everything else could be worked out later.
Punz directed Puffy to the tunnel's entrance. It climbed up to the cell with a lot of twists and turns. The jagged obsidian kept cutting her, and the oily obsidian tears stung her fresh wounds.
Since most of the tunnel was through obsidian, whoever mined all of it accidentally created a ton of crying obsidian. She wondered if the person who’d rescued Dream actually didn’t know the correct way to mine obsidian or if they just figured pretending like they didn’t would leave a bigger suspect pool.
Punz told her that she and Dream deserved some privacy to hash out their family issues this time and turned around near the start of the tunnel, refusing to follow her any longer.
Puffy kept climbing the tunnel, but the second she could slightly see into the inside of the cell, she started feeling uncomfortable. The hairs on her arms stood up, a pit started to form in her stomach and she could tell something about the place she was about to enter was really off. The overwhelming heat in the room only made this worse.
But then she finally climbed up into the cell, and everything turned out to be much, much worse than she had ever imagined.
She never came to visit her son, saying he didn’t deserve visitors, but she was imagining a fairly large cell with a bed.
This was a cramped box made of jagged obsidian with the floor and the wall covered in obsidian tears and some sort of red substance that had clearly been dried for quite a while.
All the guards who were in the prison had survived the prison break, so clearly this wasn’t a massacre from her son fighting his way out. Puffy could even tell which blood splatters and puddles were older than others. This had to be from months of… something very violent happening.
Various chains and restraints were scattered around the room; a chair with straps to restrain someone, a hook on the ceiling with shackles hanging down, and different types of handcuffs were just a few of the ones with the most blood dried on them.
Layed out near the lava was a collection of weapons, all bloody and disgusting. There were so many different ones; blades of different shapes, whips made from many materials, branding tools and lots of other fire related ones, and many others Puffy could barely even guess the names of just looking at them.
These things wouldn’t have just been left there for the prisoner to use. If they were there, someone had gathered them. Someone had wanted these things to be seen. A morbid message about the conditions in the prison clearly portrayed.
Puffy felt sick, but before she could even begin to fathom what had been done in that room, she heard someone drinking something.
Dream suddenly appeared, sipping a bottle of milk. He looked nothing like he did on the day of his arrest.
He was super thin, and leaned against the wall for support as if injured. The tank top he wore revealed many different types of scars and healing wounds that decorated his arms and part of his chest. She could tell bandages were bulking up his clothing and didn’t even want to imagine how hurt he actually was.
His once-bright, emerald green eyes looked dead and sad before the man took on a confident glare. “It’s too bad, isn’t it?”
“What?” Puffy asked, taken off guard by the fact that the man before her eyes was actually speaking. It was Dream’s voice, but not the Dream she’d known, not the boy she’d raised. He sounded so broken and almost sick.
“It’s too bad that they were so soft with me. Clearly I deserved much, much worse,” Dream stated. The sarcasm reminded her of the old Dream, but he was still way too damaged and she could even hear it in his voice. “The prison wasn’t so bad, isn’t that right?”
“Oh,” Puffy said, feeling stupid for not realizing what had happened sooner. The state of the prison had surprised her too much to really think about it before. “So he told you?”
“Of course he did, he’s my mercenary.” Dream smiled, but it looked painful. “He asked if he should just kill you, but I told him I had a better idea, so he brought you here as I- I requested-”
“What do you want, Dream? Why did you bring me here?”
Dream thought for a moment, avoiding eye contact and staring into the distance wistfully, pain in his eyes. “I just wanted to know what enough would be.”
“What?”
“Enough,” he answered. “You said the prison wouldn’t be enough, so what exactly would ‘enough’ be?” The man walked to the chest where a small, empty plate sat. “I thought before you kill me, you may as well come down here and have a look, and then when you kill me, I’ll at least know what I could’ve done to suffer all of the punishment I needed to in your eyes.”
Puffy stayed silent for a moment, trying to process his words, trying to figure out what strategy he was using to manipulate her.
He eventually continued, clearly tired of waiting, “I know I won’t be able to ever earn your forgiveness or anything, but I think I at least deserve to know what you would’ve wanted.”
There was so much sadness and hurt in every syllable, and Puffy didn’t like how it made her feel. She wasn’t supposed to feel sorry for him, and she wasn’t supposed to wish she hadn’t disowned him, but after seeing everything, her heart was starting to hurt and nothing the logical part of her brain told her would make it stop.
Dream was the worst person on the server. He’d deserved prison, he’d deserved death, but looking around the cell made her question if he really deserved all that.
But Dream loved to manipulate people’s feelings. He had to be exaggerating somehow and she couldn’t fall for it.
Her son ran his fingers along the edge of the plate as Puffy continued to stare in silence. “You know, the reason I’m so skinny is because Sam barely fed me,” he said casually, but Puffy could sense the growing bitterness behind his tone. “I swam in the lava quite often, and I’d also hurt myself in other ways.” He took a deep breath as if holding back tears, and something about that really messed with Puffy. “I just really wanted control over my life again. Even just the tiniest bit of control over part of it after- after-”
He sniffled and went quiet, turning his head and refusing to look at her. Puffy looked down at her shoes. Something about Dream’s tone and the fact that he was crying was adding to the discomfort the rest of this picture brought her. She hated everything about what she was looking at.
She’d been so convinced that whatever Dream was getting in prison, it was not only deserved but that it was much less than what he actually deserved, but now she was staring at the truth. The prison wasn’t anything like it seemed to be from the outside. But, Dream probably still deserved whatever happened to him, right?
No matter how much dried blood was in the cell, how thin Dream was, or how many scars decorated nearly every inch of Dream’s skin that Puffy could see, she couldn’t let herself pity Dream.
She was staring at him, but couldn’t let herself face the truth.
The chest, cauldron and lectern seemed to be the only furniture in the room, each one as bloody and busted up as the rest of the cell looked.
And the heat was really starting to mess with her. She’d visited the nether plenty of times, and most places there were much colder than this. Dream had been kept in a place hotter than parts of hell.
No, he still had this coming. She told herself he must’ve deserved this. Perhaps he’d made it extra warm since he’d known she was coming. This had to be all smoke and mirrors.
Sure, Dream was pretty severely scarred, but perhaps he’d earned all those and the way Sam delivered them was not nearly as bad as she was imagining. He was always very defiant, after all.
As if reading her mind, Dream walked over to a certain spot in the pile of weapons once he’d calmed himself. An axe, a sword, and a pair of sheers in front of him. “These were Sam’s. He’d beat me over the smallest things, claiming I’d try to escape if he didn’t ‘keep me in line.’ Sometimes I only had to look at him wrong,” Dream spat.
“And you escaped, so clearly he was onto something,” Puffy replied cruelly. She couldn’t let him see how much his act was affecting her. That’s what he wanted.
“Yeah, and by then I was getting tortured by Quackity every single day!” Dream huffed. “Sam beat me, but it was nothing like the daily torture I got at the hands of that short maniac. And Sam put me in the restraints and laughed while I was tortured, so he’s just as guilty.”
“Dream,” Puffy said, almost warningly. Dream had to be exaggerating. There was no way he wasn’t.
“Just look at me!” Dream stood in front of her, his now angry emerald eyes piercing through her. “I have so many scars from what they did to me in here every single day. Quackity liked to try out different weapons and he knew which ones made me scream the most. He used blades, whips, pickaxes, brands, burns, and potions. And I could probably tell you specifically what every scar was from because they were each that terrifying!” Dream let out another long sigh. There were tears in his voice.
Puffy hated what she was witnessing. Her son was crying and breaking down before her, telling her what had happened to him in the prison. He was telling her after hearing everything she’d said about wanting him to be punished more. He was telling her after knowing how much she hated him.
What could he possibly have to gain from all this if he were making it up, anyway? She thought of potential reasons as she tried to convince herself that the genuine tone could be faked, but only one of the reasons made sense.
He was afraid of her.
Of course he was. She’d come to kill him after all, and he didn’t look ready for a fight.
But now Puffy wasn’t sure if she could even bring herself to kill him. This whole thing was making her question herself, and she hated it.
She was the captain. When she used to sail, her word was law. If she led her crew to the wrong place, she could blame the navigator. If the treasure they searched for was disappointing once they found it, she’d blame whoever told her about it. If someone called her out, she could kill them.
This was different. This was her son. If he deserved to die, she could kill him, but if he didn’t, she’d never forgive herself.
“You know, I could go into all the details, but I’ll just have a panic attack, and I don’t think you even need me to explain much more about it.” Dream took another deep breath. “You can see the weapons and you can see the scars, and that paints a clear enough picture about this hellhole they call a prison.” Dream coughed. Something rattled in his chest and a concerning amount of blood left his mouth, but he didn’t seem phased. “I should probably just mention that Quackity wouldn’t stop the torture until my voice was gone from screaming!”
Puffy wanted to throw up. The cell was disgusting enough, but now she was picturing Quackity doing all those things to Dream, and it made her feel so bad for ever abandoning him, because that’s exactly what she’d done.
She’d left her son to the wrath of the server that hated him when he was at his most vulnerable state, and seeing the result made her sad. She kept telling herself that Dream didn’t deserve her sympathy, but the things he spoke of got more and more disturbing.
He walked around to the shackles hanging from the ceiling and told her about being restrained like that while Quackity abused him, and how Sam would be the one to put him in the restraints and then just sit there and watch with a grin as Quackity tortured him.
She hadn’t wanted to believe him about Sam, either. She’d always imagined he was too soft with Dream. She imagined him turning a blind eye to Bad sneaking in snacks. Bad had admitted that he did that sometimes when she, Punz, and Sapnap were at his house once, but begged them all to refrain from telling Sam. When he walked away, Puffy said she figured Sam knew anyway.
After Dream described how Sam would electrocute him for even flinching too much while he put Dream in the restraints, she could no longer call Sam soft.
“All these deep wounds on my wrist that cut into the skin are from how tight the restraints were,” Dream ranted. “And I practically lived in handcuffs. They only removed them to put me in other restraints while Quackity was here.”
His mood confused Puffy. He seemed to be rapidly shifting between anger, hurt, fear, sadness, and just trying to push everything away and remain calm.
She didn’t want to think of what being in the prison must’ve done to him mentally, but now she was. His emotional instability was likely just a symptom and not the sickness. Her duckling was probably barely a functional person after all that.
Punz was great at reading people’s emotions, and there was no way he couldn’t see it. That explained his loyalty to his former boss. He’d probably seen his condition and been too overwhelmed with guilt for putting him in the prison to even think about betraying him again.
She followed him to the cauldron. He explained that it was where his drinking water came from, but it was nearly half full of his own blood since he’d have to clean himself over it as the only way to care for himself after sessions. Quackity even nearly drowned him in it during a few sessions.
After that, Puffy nearly threw up. That water wasn’t clean by any definition of the word, and he had to drink it while he was living in there.
“I hated having to clean up my wounds, and sometimes I didn’t have the energy for it, but the infections really hurt and I’d only get health potions if I were on the verge of death,” Dream explained.
After the descriptions of the torture, hearing that the only care he was given afterwards was gross water and crappy bandages that he had apply himself bothered Puffy more than anything she’d heard so far.
She remembered caring for him each time he’d get injured when he was young. The time he fell off his bike while trying to do a jump was by far the worst injury. He broke his arm.
While in the cell, they’d break his bones regularly and then leave him to deal with the wounds himself unless he was about to die, and even then he’d only get health potions to survive.
He finally limped back over to the collection of weapons. “I’m sorry for wasting so much of your time, I just didn’t want to waste my chance to show you how truly awful this place was for me. You needed to see that.” He looked up, a stray tear running down his cheek. “I don’t need to explain how all the weapons work, so I think we’re good.”
Puffy couldn’t help but feel bad now, and not just bad, horrified. She’d shown up ready to kill him brutally, but on Dream’s little tour of the room, she’d heard more horrific things than she’d ever heard during her pirate days. Not even the worst stories of pirates replacing their legs with pegs could phase her now.
Dream sat down on the gross, blood stained floor. “I guess it’s time to get it over with,” he stated, casually but exhaustedly, like he was preparing himself for something he didn’t want to do. “I hope you choose something that will get the job done fairly quick, but perhaps I deserve a slow death in your eyes, so anything is fine, really.”
“What?” Puffy asked.
“You came here to kill me, didn’t you?” Dream asked. “Well, now I’ve shown you all that I wanted to, so I think it’s time for you to send me to limbo.” He didn’t even sound sad. He’d clearly accepted his fate long ago.
This was awful. Where was Punz? He cared about his boss, didn’t he?
She remembered him saying that Punz asked if he should kill her, but Dream had told him he had a better idea. He’d just wanted to show her all of this, and now he was okay with her killing him? If he’d wanted her to die, she’d be dead. If he wanted Punz to break in and save him after he showed her around, that would’ve happened.
What was this? Dream wasn’t-
She’d been so concerned about Tommy’s mental health when he said that Dream had made him want to kill himself. Puffy hated to admit it, even in her own thoughts, but it really wasn’t surprising that Dream was also wanting to die after all that.
The realization messed with her. Her neglect and hatred for her own child was hitting her more than it ever had.
“Why should I kill you?” she asked. Maybe trying to talk to him about it would help here.
“Oh, c’mon, Puffy!” Dream shouted. “You were so certain before you came in and saw what actually happened to me in here and now you’re changing your mind?”
“W- Well…” her voice trailed off and she wasn’t even sure what to say. She’d been so confident that Dream deserved whatever the server had thrown at him and much more, but now she was staring at it, and walking her opinion back now wasn’t just admitting that the prison was bad; it was admitting that she’d been wrong.
It was admitting that she’d been wrong to leave him, wrong to disown him, and wrong to say everything she’d said about him and his treatment in the prison to Punz and to the rest of the server, and admitting that she’d been a horrible mother.
She probably could’ve shown concern when small things about him being mistreated in prison were revealed. She would’ve been taken much more seriously than Bad and Tina. She was his mother. If anyone could’ve forced Sam to keep allowing Dream visitors, it was her.
Dream said the torture only started after the visits stopped because Sam didn’t want others to know how bad the mistreatment was. All the other abuse got worse after that too. She could’ve saved him.
Punz may have been onto something when he’d said that she was a bad parent, after all. She could push the thought away and tell herself that Dream had just been a bad kid, but if she admitted it, she’d have to face it.
But she couldn’t kill him. Not after everything he’d gone through.
“Does this mean you’re admitting that I didn’t deserve all this?”
“I don’t know,” Puffy answered. That was the worst excuse for a lie that she could think of, but she couldn’t just say no, not to his face.
“You don’t know?” Dream exploded. “You don’t know if I deserved to be tied down every single day and scarred by whatever horrendous abuse Quackity and Sam could think of? You don’t know if I deserved to be branded with Quackity’s smile and to have insults carved into my shoulders with knives? You don’t know if I deserved to have to clean myself off in the gross cauldron because if I didn’t I’d get a severe infection?”
“Well, you did some-” Puffy stopped herself. He’d done bad things, but way worse things had been done to him. That argument wasn’t going to get her anywhere.
“What were you gonna say? That I did some bad things?” Dream asked, placing his hands on his hips. “You know who also did some bad things? You. Ignoring your pirate stuff, let’s start with the disowning. Do you think it was bad to disown me? You humiliated me in front of everyone, got me electrocuted, made me cry which humiliated me more. You turned against me when I had basically no one. If it were Foolish, I doubt you would’ve acted like that. What if it were Tommy in here, talking about all this? He’s not even your son!”
Puffy couldn’t even try to reply, Dream was ranting and there was no stopping him. “You love Foolish and Tommy. You’d side with them no matter what, but not me! I realize you hate me, but why do you hate me? I can guarantee if Foolish had been hauled off to prison, you’d whine to Sam until he was let out. But with me, you just trusted that whatever happened to me at the hands of Sam would be justice.” He spread out his arms, displaying all his wounds. “Does this look like justice to you?”
“Well, I had no way of knowing-”
“You’re a liar!” Dream shouted, standing up. “You hate me so much that you didn’t care what was happening in here because whatever it was, you would’ve still said I deserved something worse. You could’ve visited once and been able to tell that the prison wasn’t what Sam promised Sapnap it would be at all.”
“Does anyone know about the torture?” Puffy asked. Trying to claim she would care if she knew about it was a stretch, but it was the best argument she still had.
“Like that even matters,” Dream scoffed. “Punz could’ve told you, and you still wouldn’t have cared. You would’ve told him I was trying to manipulate him. Look at me, I’m so manipulative that I let my entire body be tortured, bruised, and scarred daily! I’m so manipulative that I have constant nightmares and panic attacks! I suffered through hell just to be manipulative!”
Puffy couldn’t say anything to that. That was exactly what she would’ve said.
“You wouldn’t care if you even if you knew about the torture while it was happening. You only care about it now that you’re having to look at what happened after months of it. As long as you didn’t have to deal with me, you didn’t care what was happening to me at all and the only reason you came here is to rid your life of me!” Dream let out a long sigh, finally cooling off from his rant. Tears appeared in his eyes before he blinked them away.
Puffy wanted to say something, but everything he’d just said about her had been true. She was a horrible person. She was a horrible mother. She had let all this happen and she wouldn’t have cared if he’d never escaped. She wouldn’t have cared if there wasn’t a chance he’d appear in her life and disrupt it again. She just wanted him gone.
She only came to see him to rid him from her life.
“Well, are you happy?” Dream asked. “You got what you wanted. You wanted me to have a brutal death because you couldn’t think of anything worse, and I’d say all this was way worse than a brutal death. Do you think I’ve been punished enough?”
“Duckling,” she said, feeling more sorry for him each time he talked, “you went through much more than anyone could ever deserve.”
“Stop lying, Puffy.” Dream deadpanned, clearly not calling her mom even in response to his old nickname. “You’re only saying that because you’re looking at me, and if you were with anyone else, you’d still side with them and talk about how Dream is the big, bad, awful monster who you regret raising.”
“What do you want, Dream?” Puffy asked, annoyed. “I tell you I don’t know if you deserved it or not, you point out that you didn’t. I tell you that you don’t deserve it, and you say I’m a liar. What kind of answer do you want here?”
“I want a true answer!” Dream stood up and walked over to the weapons. Oh no. “I didn’t deserve this, but you clearly think otherwise, so I want you to admit that you don’t love me and that you’re glad that I was tortured, and I want you to admit you’re a horrible person.”
“But I’m not a horrible person.”
Dream shook his head. “You know the truth. You came in here wanting to kill me and wanting to make it extremely painful. You wanted all this, you just don’t want to admit it now that you’re looking at it. I’ve been making this point the whole time, and you’ve only gotten quiet because you know I’m right. Now I want you to say it.”
“This is a dumb little game.”
“Well, okay then, just admit it. If it’s just a dumb little game then there’s no harm in just admitting it.” Dream smirked. “Unless of course, you really hate acknowledging that you’re wrong.”
“You know, I’m really starting to regret being so nice to you.” Puffy crossed her arms.
“Good, now that’s a start. Now admit you don’t love me, you’re glad I was tortured, you’re a bad person, and kill me.” Dream walked over to her with a sword and knelt down dramatically. “I even brought you a weapon to use. It’s the same one Sam beat me with. Quackity used it a lot too.”
“Dream, now that I’m looking at you, I realize that you didn’t deserve this. I don’t think I can kill you.” She tried to reach for his shoulder, but he pulled away.
“The time for that is over. You wished for something like this, and now you need to kill me and live with it,” Dream stated, offering her the sword again. “My journals from prison are over there in the chest, and I hope you read them. They’ll be a nice thing to remember me by since you burned all my stuff. It’s too bad you can’t compare them to my journals from happier times, but I’m sure you can still watch my descent into this recorded in their pages.”
“Dream, this is insane,” she tried to reason with him, grabbing his hands and pulling him back up so he stood next to her. “I just want you to be my little duckling again. Let’s just forget all this and start over.”
“No, we’re not doing that. You don’t even love me,” he spat. “And thanks for pointing out that it’s insane that I want a little closure before I die. Just another comment proving that I’m not human to you or anyone else on this server.”
That was it. He was right. He’d been right all along, but she needed to admit it. Even in trying to talk him out of assisted suicide, she’d managed to break him more. She felt awful. She played enough of a part in this to be almost as guilty as Quackity and Sam.
Her son wasn’t stupid enough for her pointless excuses, it was time for honesty.
“Fine,” Puffy said. “I did think you deserved all this until I came in here and saw it with my own eyes, I probably would’ve been glad to hear about the torture, and I hate you, and all that is because I’m an awful person, and an even worse mom. I’m sorry, Duckling. I really wish things had been different. I was so wrong for all of this.” She made it until the point where she called him his nickname before tears started freely spilling from her eyes.
Part of her had been in denial the whole time, telling herself that she hadn’t done anything wrong, but since she’d seen the blood on the floor of the cell, she’d known deep inside that her delusions of being right hadn’t been true.
Dream nodded. “Thank you! I’m just glad you could finally be honest.” He placed the handle of the blade in her hands and put his hands over hers, then he placed the tip against his chest. “Do it.”
And she did. She pushed the blade through him with one quick move. She hated the way his eyes slammed shut at the pain. She’d fantasized about killing him in awful ways mere hours before, but now she was watching her broken son die by her hand.
He didn’t deserve this. And she’d killed him. She knew she’d never be able to forgive herself, but that’s what she deserved.
His lifeless body fell to the floor and then so did she. She felt herself falling to her knees, crying harder than she ever had.
She’d felt no emotion the day he was arrested, not after she’d disowned him. She felt numb after that and then mostly tried to forget about the whole thing, only really feeling anger when he came to mind.
If she would’ve known how it was going to end, she would’ve never let them take him.
Not if she’d known what would happen to him, she was too stupid at the time to understand how awful that would be, but if she’d seen him, if she’d seen his tortured body crashing to the ground and herself letting go of the sword; If she’d felt the mountain of guilt in her chest.
She’d truly messed up. And now she had a son who was only a memory, every item of his burned other than some journals that would probably just make her want to die if she read them.
Puffy wanted to put the sword through her own chest that moment. The only thing stopping her was knowing how sad it would make her to go to limbo and see her son suffering there too knowing she’d sent him there.
Not only had she hurt him, not only had she helped quite a bit in the long process of breaking him, not only had she killed him, he died knowing she hated him.
Up until he took his last breath, everything she’d told him in the end had been true. She’d even hated him as he died. She felt bad for everything, but she’d still hated him. She only stopped hating him once he was gone.
The lava dropped and Punz stood there. He didn’t look surprised, and the stasis chamber next to him was why his entry had gone unnoticed.
“You heard all of that, didn’t you?” She asked.
“Yeah.”
“Are you going to kill me?”
“Well, I really want to, and I’m honestly not sure how I’m resisting the urge.” His knuckles were white from how hard he squeezed his fists. “But Dream wanted you to live with the guilt, so I’m going to honor his wishes.”
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Punz hated how long it took for Puffy to finally grab the journals and leave. After talking to her, he could no longer keep the tears out of his eyes, so he put the lava back and went somewhere out of her earshot.
He sobbed for hours, holding the book he’d use when it was time. He was going to bring Dream back as they’d agreed, but it wasn’t the same.
Listening to the conversation had broken his heart. Dream really hadn’t been the same after prison. He was so damaged.
He’d been asking Punz about limbo and if one of them should try to live there for a few years, just to see if that affected anything. He knew Dream just wanted to be gone. The hatred he faced from everyone else on the server was disgusting and he couldn’t honestly blame him, but he’d just felt bad.
Dream had told him all about what happened in the prison and Punz was beyond disgusted. He felt so, so bad. Dream didn’t deserve to be feeling this way because of what they did to him. He didn’t deserve torture, and he didn’t deserve to be treated with hatred instead of support after everything he’d been through.
Punz had thought about asking XD to destroy the entire server after that for what they’d done to Dream. He knew it was an option, he just wasn’t sure what XD would ask for in return.
Once he finally returned to the cell, Puffy was gone. Good. She’d caused enough problems. He just hoped she and her guilt stayed out of their lives now.
He threw the book into the lava, lightning struck, and Dream came back right where he stood when he was pierced.
Punz instantly embraced him. His friend hadn’t deserved to deal with any of that, and he was just glad that he was alive again.
He’d managed to convince him under one condition, and it would be hard, but Punz would make it happen. Dream was his one true friend and he would fight his hardest to keep him alive.
“You feeling alright after that?” Punz asked him.
“Pretty good honestly, the closure feels amazing!” Dream said. He sounded so much happier. “Now, I see that you revived me, so I’m guessing that means we’re going to pack up now?”
“Yep, we should go back to the tower and while I pack up, you should really get some rest. You need to recover from that death.” Punz reached for his communicator to tell Purpled he needed the stasis chamber in his tower set off.
He and Dream were going to leave all the people who hated Dream behind for a little while. They might visit after a few years, perhaps come back if things had calmed down.
Their plan could wait a bit, but Dream’s mental health clearly couldn’t. He’d need some time to get away from everything and recover, and Punz wasn’t going to leave his side for any of it.
They weren’t sure where they were going to go, but it had to be far away. Somewhere no one would find them. They needed to give the server time to realize what had been done to Dream and there was no way Puffy wouldn’t tell everyone every time he came up in conversation. The server would need time to process things and decide it was actually wrong.
Punz and Dream would return eventually, kill Quackity and Sam if they were still alive, and continue their plan. But right now, Dream just needed some peace.