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“guys the greatest idea ever just hit me.” tommy stated from the front of the group. the four of them were walking through a forest path. he stopped in his march and they all ran into each other in a domino effect type of thing.
“tommy!” tubbo shouted. he had stumbled but hadn’t fallen down. “you can’t just stooop!”
“yeah well, i did!” tommy spun around and threw his arms onto his hips. “anyways, listen up!”
ranboo sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. purpled just let the poor kid talk. he was like fifteen and purpled was sixteen. tubbo also sighed. “yes?”
“let’s burn down this forest!”
the other three were taken aback. “huh??”
“we’re not gonna burn down a forest, tommy..” ranboo muttered, sweat rolling down his face. like what? burn down a– huh?
“okay then let’s prank dream!”
purpled knew it was a horrible idea but he could also see the excitement in his friends’ eyes. he’d have to figure something out so his friends don’t get in trouble too.
“okay!” tubbo and ranboo cheered. purpled still couldn’t bring himself to stop his friends. they’ve all been bored out of their minds all day. purpled wouldn’t be able to stop them.
––
the entire prank was wimpy. they were going to grab some axes and every time dream placed a crafting table, they would break it or scare him out of the crafting menu. the only issue was that dream was with sapnap and george the whole time.
purpled leaned over to tommy who was seated next to him behind a tree next to a hill. “this isn’t a good idea.”
“why not?”
“dream looks mad,” purpled titled his head to the side once to motion to his brother. “he doesn’t look happy and we’re gonna get yelled at.”
“and? he won’t do anything too bad, right?”
the older gritted his teeth. he didn’t say anything as he nervously looked back and forth between his older brother and someone he held close to himself as a little brother. “sure.”
––
the entire prank went downhill. dream, before the boys started joking around, had already been snapping at his friends and mother, puffy.
once tommy had broken two crafting tables dream had been using at the time, dream had lashed out and found tommy behind the tree. he had picked up the boy by his neck and held him there. purpled had sat on the ground and stared up in horror.
"dream!" he yelled. his brother promised he wouldn't hurt others. his brother knew he had to keep that promise. his brother told him he would control himself—
in that moment the blonde and screamed, dream squeezed his eyes shut and dropped tommy. the boy landed promptly on purpled but he was safe now. purpled threw his arms around tommy. "what the hell?"
"purpled." dream was horrifyingly serious. ranboo and tubbo peeked from behind a tree farther away. george and sapnap just now noticed the scene going on. "care to explain?" his mask slid back on dangerously.
as the boy opened his mouth to explain himself, george and sapnap came running over.
"what the fuck, dream?"
the older pushed his mask to the side and made direct eye contact with purpled. he mouthed 'we'll talk later,' to the smaller and turned to his buddies, pulling the mask back over his face. that was the first time tommy had seen dream without his mask.
———
dream hadn't lied about talking later. once they were back at dream's base— which wasn't far actually—, dream had torn off his mask and gripped his younger brother by his upper arm, denying him any movement away from him.
"whose idea was it to bother me." it was less of question and more of a statement, yet still as demanding.
"it was mine–" purpled didn't hesitate. "i gave the idea a–and–"
"then why did tommy do it?!"
"b–because i told him to!" purpled shut his eyes.
"you goddamn stupid child!" dream dropped purpled's arm and instead brought the same hand down on the boy's face hard. "you knew i was already mad, didn't you?! and you still bothered me!"
purpled crumbled to the floor. dream kicked him repeatedly, each swing of his leg with more and more power than the last. he curled up into a ball and kept his hands in fists because shoe to finger impact hurt a lot. he knew that from past mistakes.
"goddamnit, purpled!"
luckily, purpled dissociated for a few minutes and returned to the real world in pain and betrayal.
once dream had hurt him, he had carried the boy to his room and had the audacity to tuck him into bed, as if he was asleep.
purpled pushed himself out of his bed and traveled to his door, only to find that it was locked. purpled wished that puffy or punz would come home, even foolish. foolish would always play music and make his brothers dance with him. purpled missed him. purpled missed the softer days, before they all grew up. before dream began this monthly routine of beating him up whenever his friends made him mad. purpled knew that dream knew he was just taking the blame. he's not sure how that made him any madder at him, but it did. and it resulted in more blood.
purpled missed his brother.
———
"dream hurts him?" tubbo asked incredulously.
ranboo nodded with wide eyes. tommy stared in fear. "i followed him home," the enderman said. "he took purpled inside and just began yelling and screaming and hitting him an–"
tubbo jumped into his friend's chest. he mumbled kind words while ranboo furiously wiped tears from his eyes. tommy joined in on the hug too.
"we'll get him out of there." tommy declared after a few moments of silence. tubbo sighed sadly.
"i sure hope so.."
———
ranboo and the other teens had their plans set out. they would make dream mad again, but this time stop him from getting to purpled. they knew dream wouldn’t hurt a kid, not how he hurt purpled at least. sure the man would fight them in a war but— what he was doing to purpled was messed up.
so the four of them (they dragged purpled along, the boy looked sick) broke into the community house, left all the doors open, and stole a pickaxe from dream. it was dream’s backup pickaxe. it was netherite and enchanted and looked very important.
the teens did pick up that purpled asked them to not do it multiple times and also asked them to put it back. but he didn’t put up much of a fight.
“do you want us to put it back?”
purpled sighed. “yes, yes please.”
tubbo and ranboo looked at each other and began giggling. “no, we have to take this.”
“but leaving the doors open would be enough to make dream mad–” the boys took his word on that yet pretended to ignore him. now they knew they were in big trouble.
correction, they knew when they heard a curse shouted from downstairs.
“what the fuck?”
the four of them froze and purpled’s blood went cold. this was it, he was going to die.
tommy had a netherite sword on hand and ready to go if dream tried to do something. tubbo and ranboo were also ready to fight, don’t get them wrong. all four of them were skilled at pvp from a young age.
dream’s footsteps got closer. he appeared from behind a corner.
“oh hey dream..” tommy played off the role of being caught by surprise quite well. his voice was laced in nervousness and his face showed it too. on the inside he was ready for whatever the man was going to do next.
tommy feels like he watched dream’s eyes flicker to purpled. he couldn’t tell because of the mask, though. but he still felt like the man got madder and sadder at the same time (if that was possible for someone so cold-hearted as dream–).
“what are you four doing?” he paused for a moment, not giving the others enough time to respond. “where’s my pickaxe? why were the doors open and the lights out? what the hell do you guys think you’re doing?”
“we uhh..” ranboo trailed off. “surprise?”
dream’s aura changed from kinda mad to furious. “give me my pickaxe right now or everyone here gets it.”
“we.. all get your pickaxe?” tommy tried to laugh it off. he wasn’t too scared of dream, honestly. but he was worried for his friend’s safety.
in a flash of green and white, there was a sword at tommy’s throat. purpled immediately reacted and used his fist to knock the sword out of the way while tubbo basically tackled tommy so he wasn’t in the line of the blade anymore. dream only got more mad but at least tommy was out of danger.
“stop please we can explain–” purpled breathed heavily. he hated standing in. he hated this, he hated hurting dream.
“then explain! explain all you want,” he reached forward. dream was mad, he was furious. the older held his brother by the collar of his shirt firmly. “because i don’t care.” dream’s other hand held his sword.
“we just thought it would be funny to pull a prank on you and it was supposed to be harmless–”
“well you sure made me mad!”
“i know i know– i’m sorry dream please, just let us go–” he was rambling, almost tripping over his words. tommy and tubbo looked like they wanted to intervene and ranboo looked like he was conflicted about something. he was worried if dream would raise his hand over the teen’s face.
“whose idea was this? who in their right mind thought it would be all fun and games to annoy me?”
“mine–” purpled said without hesitating. tommy’s head immediately fwipped to look at the other blonde. he was going to verbally complain that he was lying but was cut off. “it was mine–”
dream basically growled. “it's always you.” and he spun his sword around and dug the blade directly into purpled’s stomach.
there was a moment of silence. until blood dripped out of purpled’s abdomen region and his mouth. tubbo’s scream shook everyone awake. dream let go of his sword and purpled, and the boy fell to the ground. with shaky arms he caught himself and sat in pure pain.
it felt like his stomach was on fire. it didn’t feel like something had stabbed him, it felt like he was in flames. as he tried to get himself to stare directly at the ground in front of himself but the white flashes and the black spots blurred his vision. the ringing in his ears made it hard to hear the people around him.
tubbo had thrown himself to the ground next to purpled and used his forearm to put pressure on the wound from the side of the blade.
tommy was in shock momentarily but came straight back to reality when he saw a flash of white and black hit a masked figure.
dream’s mask cracked. a quarter of the full mask chipped off and clattered to the floor. ranboo had punched dream in the face. tommy stared in pride but also disgust. dream stabbed his younger brother, the teen he raised, the boy who looked up to him. dream stabbed his friend. and tommy wouldn’t let that ‘slide.’
the server owner looked pained mentally. he was probably questioning what he had just done. or he was proud of himself. tommy scowled internally.
he joined tubbo on the floor.
“do we take it out?”
tubbo looked at him incredulously. “take it out? are you insane?” the brunette took a deep breath and calmed himself down. the only person he was mad at was dream, he didn’t mean to snap at tommy. rushedly he looked at the blood seeping between his fingers and back to tommy.
“go get puffy.” tommy nodded. tubbo wanted to add ‘or niki,’ but tommy would figure it out. he was smarter than he let on.
the blonde stood up and ran to find purpled’s mother.
––––
by the time purpled was safe, dream hadn’t said a single word. puffy had scolded him and began crying. while undressing purpled to dress his wounds, puffy had found so many bruises on the teen. she had identified the source of them as dream thanks to ranboo’s admittance.
tubbo and tommy were talking badly about dream, in which they had the whole right to at that point. they had learned their friend was literally being abused by his older brother and the man was right there.
dream sat in silence and either stared at the floor or purpled. he felt horrible. his mask was slid to the side of his face, but it was at such an angle that the other boys in the room still couldn’t see his face other than his one green eye. even in peace he looked threatening.
all of the four– and many others on the smp– knew purpled was in pain even in slumber. the way he writhed in pain or the way his body twitched when someone touched his wound, it hurt them all to see him like that.
occasionally tommy would try to talk with dream. the man spoke some words with him sometimes but otherwise just listened to the boy ramble.
‘you know nothing was ever purpled’s idea, right?’ he’d say. ‘he just took the blame for it.’
at that, dream had frowned. purpled lied to him? what for? to.. protect his friends? why hadn’t dream noticed? the boy never caused any trouble at home or with anyone else, at least never with bad intentions. the teen was kind, not some– some prankster! dream had the slight right to be mad at tommy, but he just felt guilty. he was determined to apologize no matter what.
meanwhile, purpled slept for two days.
––––
once purpled stirred on the second night, dream stood and left the room right away. he was sure his baby brother didn’t want to see his face out of everybody else’s first. he had been the one to hospitalize him in the first place anyway.
puffy was there and she took care of him. tommy, tubbo, and ranboo weren’t present. they had gone to their houses for the night.
“mom?”
puffy smiled softly as she and niki adjusted the bags that gave him blood and pain killers. “hi sweetheart,” she brushed some hair out of his face.
after a moment of coming about, puffy left the room for a second. she left purpled with niki, they talked about what had happened and what he remembered.
sure enough, right outside the door, dream was leaning on the well.
“dream?”
his head spun. “yeah?” his voice cracked.
“why don’t you come in and say hi? he’s awake now.” her voice was caring and gentle. despite being utterly disappointed in dream, she still loved him and all of her other children.
“no, he wouldn’t want to see me.”
“i’m sure he would.” she rested a caring hand on his shoulder.
there was a pause of silence. puffy noticed that dream wasn’t going to answer. “at least come apologize, please?” dream huffed some air in response. “he would appreciate it, a lot, dream..”
“alright.. but if he gets mad, i’m leaving, mom.” he refused to make eye contact. she looked at him sadly and nodded.
puffy followed her son back into the room. purpled and niki’s conversation trailed off and purpled became subtly tenser. the nurse next to him noted that and told herself to tell puffy later.
purpled’s eyes followed his older brother. he paused at the foot of the teen’s bed and held his hand in another. he looked down at the ground.
“purpled i’m–”
“sorry?” the younger finished, a sad smile on his face. “it’s okay dream.”
the adults stared at him. they all knew that was not normal behavior.
"no–" dream was uncertain at first. he made up his mind. "no purpled you don't understand i'm genuinely sorry–" the two ladies raised their heads to look at each other before mutually agreeing that they should let the two sort it out. niki led the way and puffy made on last effort to look at purpled before shutting the door. he looked at her mortified yet played it off casually, expressing himself with his eyes.
dream watched them leave, taking his eyes off of purpled for a moment.
"purpled–"
"i'm sorry," he cut him off, knowing from past mistakes that it was better to apologize sooner rather than later.
"sorry? purpled i fucking stabbed you!"
"yeah but i was being weak and shit and–"
"no you weren't," he said sternly, he watched purpled tense and shut up. "you were lying to me because you favored your friends over yourself, purpled."
the younger was about to interrupt but dream continued. "and your lying and my gullibility and being an absolute dick of a brother led to you getting hurt. and you kept that up so i wouldn't hurt your friends– purpled you're insane."
his vibrant green eyes radiated disgust (towards himself) behind his mask.
"purpled– you have to stop being so fucking selfless."
"i'm sorry."
"no, don't apologize!" dream melted, standing there staring at his poor baby brother cower in true fear while he towered over the side of his hospital bed, berating himself and his past ideals. "purpled, you don't have anything to be sorry for. i do. but i couldn't say sorry enough times for you to believe me or i to feel fulfilled with my apology." he lowered his head, staring at the edge of the bed. "please let me prove to you that i forgive you."
purpled hesitated. this was his chance to make dream realize what he's been doing, but then again.. what if he's lying? what if, beneath that mask, dream was waiting for purpled to become vulnerable enough that he could snap and mock him? what if dream was actually good at manipulation? what if mom didn't hear his cries and screams, just like every other time? what if—
"purp?" his violet eyes shot up. he met with green. dream had taken his mask off. "you okay?"
he just nodded.
"then– what do you say, then? are we enemies or mutual?"
"the latter." dream grinned.