after the prison, c!dream sometimes just lays down on the floor or the ground. the first time was outside in the snow and c!techno assumed that he was overwhelmed with being free and dutifully ignored the tears. the second time was inside and techno noticed that dream was shifting around in the chair like he was uncomfortable and assumed when he slid out of the chair and onto the floor, he was just trying to ease his bones.
but then he kept doing it and techno never asks why because he kinda assumes that the answer will have something to do with the prison cell and that floor, even if dream doesn't know that's why.
instead, he starts keeping a few (more) blankets around and invests in a nicer rug and when dream lays down on the floor after something stressful or a long night or maybe just things were too loud for a bit, techno lays down next to him. which dream says is stupid, techno, and techno says something about monkey see, monkey do and dream just rolls his eyes but never complains again.
This week, the Trump-appointed Supreme Court ruled that it’s not okay for private or public institutions to level the playing field for people of color with affirmative action, but they also ruled that it IS okay for private institutions to discriminate against the LGBTQIA community. On this last day of Pride month, I’m just pledging to do my part to keep fighting for equity, to keep fighting to make this society we can be proud of. (Also, Cas is gay.)
you know how ppl give broody hens eggs to sit on? bc a broody hen is a menace (even more so than the average hen) and to get them to snap out of it they need to satisfy that egg warming instinct? now imagine tommy learning abt that and going: "dream, calm yourself, have some eggs" imagine it actually working as dream is too busy tending to the eggs to do villain shit. "no punz go away i am BUSY" "u do realize they're hardboiled yea?" "HOW DARE U TALK ABT MY CHILDREN LIKE THAT"
dream’s in limbo and punz is there to pull him back
https://archiveofourown.org/works/43023870
It had in reality been mere minutes since it happened. Mere minutes, yet, Dream had already relived it a hundred times. The darkness, the silence…then a voice.
“Wake up, Dream”
The first time it had been Sapnap. Dream snapped his head towards the sound, but it wasn’t Sapnap, standing there, it was Punz, holding out a hand, offering Dream a delicate string.
Dream took it without hesitation, grasping it in a shaking hand. His eyes followed the string, tracing it passed where it was entangled in Punz’ fingers, to where it neatly wrapped around their neck, to where it wrapped around their heart.
‘What do you want me to do with this?’ Dream wanted to ask, but no sound could escape his lips.
Then Punz offered a small smile, and they turned, and began to walk away.
No. No no no no, they wouldn’t. They couldn’t leave. Anyone but them.
Dream wanted to scream, wanted to beg Punz to stay, but he couldn’t. The words were trapped in his throat.
He frantically looked around for something, anything.
Then he saw them. Strings like the one in his hand, laying spread out on the ground around him. They disappeared into fog, but Dream swore he saw silhouettes.
Dream felt a tug on the string in his hand. No. Punz had to stay. He wrapped the string around his hand, and pulled.
It was as if time stopped, for just a second. The fog cleared up. Everyone. Everyone was there. Everyone was staring. Everyone was judging him. Everyone held such disgust in their gaze.
‘I’m sorry! Don’t leave’
Nothing.
They turned, almost synchronized. No, not them too.
Dream grasped for the strings, gathering them in his hands, wrapping them around himself, pulling, anything to make them stay.
[anything to not be alone]
Punz’ string was already digging into Dream’s skin. It hurt. It didn’t matter. Dream pulled.
He pulled.
And pulled.
He didn’t even notice when the strings drew blood. Didn’t notice when they seemed to move on their own. Didn’t notice when they slithered up his arms, around his chest, around his neck. Didn’t notice until it was too late.
Dream felt the warmth of blood running down his neck, down his arms, staining his clothes, felt the agony of every movement, the strings cutting deeper and deeper. Felt his throat being crushed, felt his breathing be reduced to pathetic raspy wheezes.
But he couldn’t give up, not now. He had to stop them from leaving.
There was the sound of a bone breaking.
A thud.
He did not get up.
…
…
…
“Wake up, Dream” Bad called.
And Dream opened his eyes to Punz standing in front of him, a delicate string in their held out hand.
Dream looked around. Everyone was there. Everyone was staring. Everyone turned.
…
…
…
Sapnap, Bad, Techno, Sam, Ranboo, Tubbo, George, Dream lost track of them, of who called out to him, of who forced him to relive the nightmare.
“Dream”
It was Punz.
Oh god, it was Punz.
It hurt so much more, hearing their voice, knowing when he opened his eyes he’d only be forced to see them leave.
“Dream, I’m here”
No, that wasn’t right. That wasn’t what they said. Not what any of them said.
“Come one, I’ve got you”
Arms wrapping around Dream’s shoulders.
No no no, this was wrong. Was this a trick? Was he not suffering enough? Dream tried to push away. It was better if he didn’t allow himself the comfort, then it wouldn’t hurt as badly when it was ripped away from him.
But the arms stayed.
“Dream, look at me, please”
God, Punz sounded so real, so them.
Dream gave in, and opened his eyes. Punz was there, like every other time. But their hand gently moved to push strands of hair away from Dreams face, and there was no string.
There was no string…
The realization dawned on Dream, but a part of him still refused to believe it, refused to feel safe. His hand gripped Punz’ hoodie. He never wanted to let go.
“Punz?”
It wasn’t more than a whisper, but he’d spoken.
It was real.
“Punz”
Punz pulled Dream closer, laying his head against their chest. He could hear Punz’ steady heartbeat.
“Yeah, Dream. I’m here. I’m getting you out of here”
major character death, grieving process, depression, illness/infection, one graphic mention of torture
Stage 1: Shock.
Dream does not allow himself to think about the moment when Sam’s sword plunges through Ranboo’s chest, carving its way through his apprentice’s heart. Yes, he acknowledges it: Punz, who he’s fighting, must notice the tremor in his hand, and the sudden fever he fights with. But Dream does not focus on the body crumpling behind him or the cry of Techno from in front of him or the feeling of something shattering deep inside him. Instead, he nods at Punz, vaults onto a horse, and he runs.
Stage 2: Denial.
“Ran—” Dream’s voice stutters in the emptiness of their base.
Punz is nowhere to be found: Dream urges him to constantly make himself scarce, uneasy about the two of them being discovered together, while their horses are being given a clean by Techno and the Syndicate. Dream is half asleep himself, bare-foot and maskless, blinking grit out of his eyes and Ranboo’s name out of his mouth as he slides to alertness.
Ranboo is not here. On a very rational day, he knows this.
Deeper down, at night, however…
Dream’s hands fist round themselves, looking for the fabric of a cloak he knows is gone. Ranboo is not here, he tells his hands, and they don’t believe him — they reach out for the chair his friend had always sat in, searching for proof, searching for confirmation of Ranboo’s existence.
They find dust. A crumpled cushion, from where Ranboo had moved in a hurry.
Ranboo is not here. And yet the room is suffocating him. Dream sucks in a stilted breath through broken teeth and closes his eyes.
He’ll pretend for a second. Just for a second, he’ll give himself the luxury of imagining a simpler happy ending.
Stage 3: Anger.
He meets Sam in prison — in his home — and finds with a horrified disgust that the feeling dominating him is not fear, or contempt, or betrayal. It’s not even bitter resignation.
It’s anger. White hot, blistering. Dream blinks, and swears he can see the scars on his limbs from the lava and burning obsidian burst open, weep their rage and hatred down his skin. He blinks again, vision billowy in the seeping heat, and the scars become scars again, and Ranboo is still gone.
Rage is new. He hasn’t felt it in a while. He doesn’t quite know what to do with it, either: wearing it as a second layer is stifling, oppressive, but he’s viciously proud of how well he hides it. Sam and him talk of morality and life and death and prison, while Dream’s heart sings a song of blood and anger and grief he can’t quite feel.
When he slams a blade through Sam’s eye and leaves him to walk back through the prison himself, Dream thinks of Ranboo, and how close they’d been to escaping before Sam had killed them.
Sam does not speak when he comes back. Not until he gets to the nether portal, standing there timidly, bright eyes fixed on him. They’d been friends, once, Dream remembers fleetingly, friends, maybe even family.
“I’m sorry about Ranboo,” Sam murmurs, as particles pull him away, “if you’d listened to me—”
Dream lunges for him, but Sam is gone before he can scream.
Stage 4: Bargaining
“You’ll give me him back,” Dream demands, asks, pleads.
XD stares at him. A blossoming shower of iridescent stars tumble from the sky behind It.
Dream knows how gods work, by now. Making deals with one is worse than shaking hands with the devil. But he hasn’t slept in four days and Punz is off in his tower and he’s jittery, anxious, newly escaped from Quackity and Sam’s newest trap and feeling almost entirely alone in the world.
And when he’d told Techno that he didn’t sleep, it hadn’t been entirely true. He sleeps, sometimes. But he doesn’t ever dream. This is the first dream he’s had in months and months and Dream’s not even sure it’s real: all he can see is the god in front of him and the showering of stars and the moon, that glistens and gloats untouched far above them both.
You’re the one that can bring back the dead, XD tells him. The words scorch Dream’s throat. Or have you forgotten already?
Dream swallows. “I can’t.” It comes as bitter as poison. “I can’t do it. I don’t— I mean, it won’t work. I don’t know why it won’t work. I don’t know how.”
XD turns as a comet whizzes by with a howl. Dream is bowled away by his own insignificance: how many times, he thinks, will he have to die to understand this place?
You aren’t supposed to be here. It’s time to send you back.
“Wait,” Dream blurts out, “wait, I need—”
He wakes up in a clatter of armour and with a fever Punz is coaxing him through. Infection in one of his wounds, apparently. Dream doesn’t say, but he remembers Quackity driving his shears into that wound. Peeling the skin off like dried glue. Laughing at the shrieks.
“You were mumbling pretty badly back then,” Punz says, voice shrewd. His gloved hand cards through his sweat-soaked hair and Dream’s eyelids flutter. “You okay?”
Dream does not reply. He just closes his eyes, and prays for sleep.
Stage 5: Depression.
Sleep comes. He doesn’t move from his bed for days. At one point he thinks he sees Ranboo standing on one block in the middle of a raging ocean, but he’s lost track in this sickness of what is real and what is not.
Stage 6: Acceptance.
Dream takes his first steps on trembling legs after his fever of nine nights, just as snow begins to tumble lazily from the sky.
He gets Punz to sleep under that open sky with him that night, even though his friend complains and grouches about the cold and the wet. Dream rolls his eyes, jabs a bony elbow into his ribs and makes Punz yelp in pain. They’re not friends, not exactly, but it helps soothe the ache in the hollow of Dream’s chest.
Ranboo had listened once when Dream had explained the stars to him, mad on coffee he hated and preparing for the finale of the disk war, and so Dream explains them to Punz now. It’s different, obviously: Punz quips where Ranboo had been quiet, Punz is silent where Ranboo had asked questions. It’s okay, though: Dream is different too. He talks until his voice goes hoarse and Punz forces his hands around a mug of hot chocolate, and then they drift off to sleep together.
The morning brings winter flowers and sneezing pitifully in the snow-turned-slush. When they show up at the Syndicate, Techno cackles at them.
Dream places new flowers on Ranboo’s grave and for the first time breathes easy.
Stage 6.5: Hope.
When Dream breathes for the last time, and wakes up in an iridescent friend with a blonde boy squawking, the first thought in his head is of an Enderchild beaming uncertainly at him.
He asks Tommy if he knows any half-Enderians, and Tommy shrugs, spitting out a bone from the chicken he’d been eating. They’ve set up camp near a river, and Tommy is good company: Dream just remembers something, someone, and feels lonely.
“Don’t think so,” Tommy says, “but we can look. Lotta world here. There’s got to be one somewhere.”
Dream shoots him a soft grateful smile, and begins to map.
Stage 7: Processing.
When he finds Ranboo, Dream does not cry.
But he does hug him, tightly. In this world, he has nothing to fear and nothing to hide, no armour to drown in and no plans to self destruct. He breathes, deep, and the familiar scent of End-particles and earth fills his head.
“I waited for you.” Ranboo’s voice is muffled and small. “I waited for you for so long. You didn’t come.”
Dream’s hands tighten around the cloak. “I know,” he replies, “I’m— I should’ve come. You have every right to be mad at me.”
But Ranboo only pulls him closer, scoffing, and Dream feels warm again.
dream’s in limbo and punz is there to pull him back
https://archiveofourown.org/works/43023870
It had in reality been mere minutes since it happened. Mere minutes, yet, Dream had already relived it a hundred times. The darkness, the silence…then a voice.
“Wake up, Dream”
The first time it had been Sapnap. Dream snapped his head towards the sound, but it wasn’t Sapnap, standing there, it was Punz, holding out a hand, offering Dream a delicate string.
Dream took it without hesitation, grasping it in a shaking hand. His eyes followed the string, tracing it passed where it was entangled in Punz’ fingers, to where it neatly wrapped around their neck, to where it wrapped around their heart.
‘What do you want me to do with this?’ Dream wanted to ask, but no sound could escape his lips.
Then Punz offered a small smile, and they turned, and began to walk away.
No. No no no no, they wouldn’t. They couldn’t leave. Anyone but them.
Dream wanted to scream, wanted to beg Punz to stay, but he couldn’t. The words were trapped in his throat.
He frantically looked around for something, anything.
Then he saw them. Strings like the one in his hand, laying spread out on the ground around him. They disappeared into fog, but Dream swore he saw silhouettes.
Dream felt a tug on the string in his hand. No. Punz had to stay. He wrapped the string around his hand, and pulled.
It was as if time stopped, for just a second. The fog cleared up. Everyone. Everyone was there. Everyone was staring. Everyone was judging him. Everyone held such disgust in their gaze.
'I’m sorry! Don’t leave’
Nothing.
They turned, almost synchronized. No, not them too.
Dream grasped for the strings, gathering them in his hands, wrapping them around himself, pulling, anything to make them stay.
[anything to not be alone]
Punz’ string was already digging into Dream’s skin. It hurt. It didn’t matter. Dream pulled.
He pulled.
And pulled.
He didn’t even notice when the strings drew blood. Didn’t notice when they seemed to move on their own. Didn’t notice when they slithered up his arms, around his chest, around his neck. Didn’t notice until it was too late.
Dream felt the warmth of blood running down his neck, down his arms, staining his clothes, felt the agony of every movement, the strings cutting deeper and deeper. Felt his throat being crushed, felt his breathing be reduced to pathetic raspy wheezes.
But he couldn’t give up, not now. He had to stop them from leaving.
There was the sound of a bone breaking.
A thud.
He did not get up.
…
…
…
“Wake up, Dream” Bad called.
And Dream opened his eyes to Punz standing in front of him, a delicate string in their held out hand.
Dream looked around. Everyone was there. Everyone was staring. Everyone turned.
…
…
…
Sapnap, Bad, Techno, Sam, Ranboo, Tubbo, George, Dream lost track of them, of who called out to him, of who forced him to relive the nightmare.
“Dream”
It was Punz.
Oh god, it was Punz.
It hurt so much more, hearing their voice, knowing when he opened his eyes he’d only be forced to see them leave.
“Dream, I’m here”
No, that wasn’t right. That wasn’t what they said. Not what any of them said.
“Come one, I’ve got you”
Arms wrapping around Dream’s shoulders.
No no no, this was wrong. Was this a trick? Was he not suffering enough? Dream tried to push away. It was better if he didn’t allow himself the comfort, then it wouldn’t hurt as badly when it was ripped away from him.
But the arms stayed.
“Dream, look at me, please”
God, Punz sounded so real, so them.
Dream gave in, and opened his eyes. Punz was there, like every other time. But their hand gently moved to push strands of hair away from Dreams face, and there was no string.
There was no string…
The realization dawned on Dream, but a part of him still refused to believe it, refused to feel safe. His hand gripped Punz’ hoodie. He never wanted to let go.
“Punz?”
It wasn’t more than a whisper, but he’d spoken.
It was real.
“Punz”
Punz pulled Dream closer, laying his head against their chest. He could hear Punz’ steady heartbeat.
“Yeah, Dream. I’m here. I’m getting you out of here”
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