Chapter Text
The first time Dream hears him, it’s three seconds before he’s in position, voice smooth and laid back as if he isn’t meant to direct Dream on who to kill.
Two o’clock, red tie, thick-framed glasses. The person who spoke in his in-ear tells Dream. Dream aligns the sniper's crosshair to the target’s head and pulls the trigger. The shot hits. The mission is over.
He doesn’t even think about the voice of the man in his ear, only remembering the faint traces of an encouraging ‘ Good job, Agent Clay.’. His previous earpiece guy never did something like that.
It’s on the second mission when Dream really noticed that he, indeed, has a new guy talking in his ear.
The casino is massive, a huge chandelier looming above them as if to provide some sort of foreboding with what is about to happen tonight. Discreet, Dream flicks his eyes on his team located across the crowded room, eyes shifting into their standby positions.
Tina. By the entrance.
George. By the slot machines.
Corpse. By the poker table.
Emma. By the craps.
Sapnap. By the roulette wheel.
It’s the six of them in the field, as it had always been, and they’re waiting for Dream’s signal, as they always do. But the operation doesn’t start in another half an hour so Dream traverses the carpeted floor, the cold weight of the tray pressing down on his fingertips as he navigates his way around hotel guests, serving them crisp flutes of white wine.
“ Left hallway.” A static voice says from his earpiece. He follows, walking down the dim hallway with confident ease as if he knows the place and didn’t just sneak his way in as one of the casino’s staff earlier. The busy kitchen is the sight that meets Dream upon turning the corner, and not even two seconds later, a chef beckons him closer and gives him a tray of finger food to serve to the guests.
Dream nods and goes back to the floor.
“Thanks.” He mutters quietly as an afterthought.
“ You’re welcome, Agent Clay.” The man says on the other line. It’s a voice Dream doesn’t recognize but he barely pays it any mind, simply making a mental note to ask Bad about it later.
Dream almost forgets that he has someone he can hear in his ear, not until the guy speaks again.
“ I’m on your profile and wow, you’re cute. Didn’t know someone so grumpy could be this adorable.” The man remarks.
Dream hands a drink to Emma who had gestured to him in faux nonchalance, smiling professionally as if they’re not trained assassins together and merely a high roller and a staff employee, and instead opted to reply quietly to the voice in his ear without his mouth moving too much.
“What are you doing?” Dream grits, glaring at Emma’s amused grin, aware that she’s hearing the same shit spouting from their in-ears. All of them can hear the voice, and any of the others could speak back, but protocol has it that the team leader should be the only one to communicate with the operations specialist unless any of the other members are in danger. Dream is the team leader but every second that passes and the operations specialist speaks in his ears, he is starting to wish that he isn’t.
“ I just told you I’m looking at your profile- oh, you were a former FBI Agent. I came from the CIA before this. I don’t know why that’s funny.” The voice is gentle, tone bright, and it’s doing everything for Dream when it comes to pissing him off.
“You’re not supposed to talk to me when I don’t need you.” Dream deadpans under his breath.
The man coos from the other line. “ You wound me, Agent Clay. What if I wanted you to need me every second of every day?”
Supposedly, the mission was relatively easy. Find the guy named Marcus, kill him, and then steal the briefcase he was supposed to be carrying around tonight. Preferably in that order.
It’s an easy job, not because it is, but because he knows his team is good. So easy Dream thinks they could do this blindfolded. But as the clock ticks closer and closer to the high time and the distracting voice in his earpiece keeps at the onslaught of stupid pick-up lines flowing unapologetically, Dream is beginning to doubt if he can get a bullet through his target’s skull before he disintegrates into the ground.
“Can you shut the fuck up?” Dream asks in fury, knowing full well that his patience is far from being admirable.
Really, the grin can be heard from across the line. “ Depends,” The man answers, voice slow and sultry, “ Are you gonna make me?”
So, with gritted teeth, Dream simply ignores the remarks and nods towards the roulette wheel, his team that had eyes on him finally moving into the plan. It's time.
“Would you like a drink, sir?” Dream prompts, the uniform black half-mask snug around his eyes shifting upwards as he allows his lips to tilt up into a practiced smile.
The high roller, their target for tonight, Marcus, waves a hand in dismissal, focused on the ball fleeting between red and black alternatively on the spinning wheel in front of them. When the ball lands on red, Sapnap who strategically placed himself behind Dream suddenly exclaims a loud ‘Fuck! I lost that one.’ and purposefully nudges Dream to spill the white wine all over Marcus.
“Shit!” Marcus exclaims, the large man suddenly standing up and directing a hard glare towards Dream.
Dream fakes a gasp, eyes widening for show. “Oh god, I’m so sorry, sir, please, let me lead you to our bathroom to clean that up.”
Begrudgingly, the man complains but follows Dream nonetheless as Dream leads him away from the crowd, sending one last look to Sapnap. Sapnap takes this to send a signal towards Emma’s general direction, letting her know that the plan is in motion.
“ Go right.” The guy in his earpiece suddenly speaks up, almost startling Dream. He doesn’t flinch, and instead continues to walk towards the bathroom’s general vicinity. “ Avoid that guy with the bowtie at ten o’clock, he’s head of security. Knows all his staff. Definitely won’t recognize you.”
Dream listens with rapt attention, proceeding with ease to take a slight detour. Marcus frowns, rough voice heavy with complaints, but Dream doesn’t react to any of his insults.
“ Tina’s inbound.”
“Sirs, the bathrooms are closed that way and they are currently being fixed as we speak. Our second floor bathrooms work just fine so if it won’t be too much of a bother...” Tina punctuates her entrance with a nod, convincing in her silk and velvet uniform, maroon and black in equal tone like Dream’s.
“Jesus Christ, what is with today’s service, it’s bullshit.” Marcus berates, earning another insincere apology from Dream.
“ Stairs. You have incoming guests, 6 o'clock. Tina, mislead them.”
Tina, who heard the same command in her own earpiece, nods, turning back and leaving Dream alone with Marcus as they walk the desolate hallways of the second floor, shoes clacking across polished tiles.
They arrived in the bathroom. Checking for people, Dream finds none. Before anything, he locks the door, making the complaining man turn to face him.
“What’s this about?” Marcus shouts, but Dream can see his hand sneak up to his belt. “You can’t just—”
Just then, a huge explosion reverberates from outside towards the main floor at the same time that the voice in his ear says, “ Now.”
Dream pulls out his pistol, aims, and shoots.
Marcus’ limp body falls to the ground, the gun he almost managed to hold falling down pathetically against the cold tile. Dream picks the briefcase up from the floor before the pooling blood from the dead man’s severed head gets to it.
When he walks out, the second floor is barren but the loud noise coming from downstairs effectively diminishes the sense of desolation across the building. Trudging down the stairs, Dream casually steps into chaos he knows is caused by Emma, Corpse, and George. The tables are in a total state of disarray, hotel guests and staff running towards the slot machines in desperation, tokens piling out in the bottom due to the broken exploded levers. Dream ducks his head down and heads towards the back door, meeting George halfway across the panic.
“Did you get it?” The brunet asks.
Dream raises his hand, briefly showing George the small case.
“Where are they?” Dream questions in turn.
“Out.”
“Good.”
When the team had all gathered back into the van, they drove away from the casino just as police cars started rolling in. A soft voice then filters through Dream’s ears. “ Good job, Agent Clay. You were amazing.”
He ignores it.
Dream learns the earpiece guy’s name on their third mission together, at a complicated job in a cruise ship.
Their team has to take out a whole group this time and Dream boards the back of the ship with Karl greeting him a teasing ‘ Hey, sexy.’ first thing in the morning. Dream frowns at his men who are all trying to look like they’re not three seconds away from bursting out of laughter.
“Where are the targets?” Dream asks, watching as Corpse and Sapnap knock out four gunned men easily, George loading up their equipment behind Dream.
“ They’re on deck five. Billiard room. Club is empty, Tina and Emma are already on site.” The smooth voice explains, the sharp clicks of a mouse and clacks of a keyboard discernible even through the device planted in Dream’s ear.
“Alright.” He dismisses, cocking his gun in preparation, before putting it in his back pocket.
“ Specialist Karl Jacobs.”
“What?” Dream asks, confused.
“ That’s who I am. Bad and everyone in HQ just calls me ‘K’, but for you, I’d let you call me ‘yours’.”
Dream sees that Sapnap couldn’t help but cackle loudly at that, with Corpse suddenly hitting him in the shoulder reprimandingly, but Dream can see the assassin biting back his smile, giving Dream not-subtle looks of amusement. George is a lost case, dying on the floor laughing, hugging both his glocks close to his chest.
Dream can feel his eye twitch.
“Alright, K. Now can you do your job and tell me if deck six is clear? We need to move.” Dream requests sternly.
“ Of course, Agent Clay,” Karl giggles, the sound making Dream want to tear his ears off his head, “ Deck six is clear. Don’t go to the left wing, your targets’ goons are walking around there.”
Dream nods, sighing to himself, before he’s pointing towards the general direction of the right wing.
“Sap, George, go around.” He nods towards the two. He then turns towards the ebony-haired assassin. “Corpse. You’re with me. We go ahead. Am I understood?”
All three of them nod, words of affirmation filtering out between the four of them before they go through the crowded expanse of deck six, not even the loud roar of the waves from around them enough to drown out the noise of a few thousand people on vacation in the middle of a floating metal box.
“ Good luck, team.” The man in their earpieces bids, as they walk the pool area of deck five, a good distance away from each other.
And then, Karl says, “ Good luck, Agent Clay.” He specifically mentions.
“ With this assignment, let’s commit the perfect crime, shall we? You steal my heart and I steal yours.”
Corpse barks out a laugh and Dream’s certain it’s George’s cackle that he hears even beyond the kids screaming at the top of their lungs as they cannonball in the chlorine-injected waters.
Emma and Tina grin at Dream teasingly when the mission is done and they’re zooming away on their organization’s private yacht, confident enough that they left no trace of the killings that took place in the cruise ship.
They howl in laughter when Karl leaves a sweet “ Good job, Agent Clay. You did well.” before Dream signs off.
“Not one word.” Dream grits out then, not even the dirty glare he sends all of them capable of making them stop acting like absolute children. He hates it.
Alright, so Dream has a problem. Their tech guy is flirting with him.
And while Dream is not a total prude nor is he repulsed by relationships, he just doesn’t deem them necessary due to the nature of their work. He’s an assassin. A trained killer; a murderer who is part of an organized crime group that’s arguably the most powerful in the country. If anything, relationships are what would probably kill him, posing vulnerabilities at a job that doesn’t favor those who have one.
But see, the thing is — and this is the most infuriating part of it — Dream can’t exactly tell Bad that he wants a new tech guy. Because the thing that angers Dream the most is that Karl does his job really fucking well.
He’s perfect at it, if Dream is being completely honest, capable of giving clear instructions and sufficient details that allows Dream to perform to the best of his abilities and lead his team to do the same. As someone who likes working with people that are competent (he wouldn’t have requested any of his team now if he knew they were anything short of being amazing at their jobs), Dream should be over the moon right now for having such a trustworthy tech guy.
But instead, he just feels more and more pissed as the weeks go by and more missions get accomplished, Karl’s consistent ‘ Hey, sexy’, ‘Hi, handsome’, and ‘Good morning, pretty boy’ greeting him every time he as much breathes on the job.
“ Whenever I hear you click your tongue in annoyance every ten seconds, I feel like a dog that’s always giddy to greet you at the door. You know, like a pavlovian response. Me cooing at how cute you sound when pissed off.” Karl rambles on their ninth mission together, Dream flat on his stomach atop a building’s roof. George and Sapnap are a good distance away on either side of him, both snickering to themselves as the three of them peer through the individual scopes of their snipers.
Today’s mission is exactly three people in the gala that Emma, Tina, and Corpse had successfully infiltrated, all of them dressed impeccably even to the smallest details of their fingertips.
The shiny black polish staining Dream’s nails glints in the dark of the night, illuminated by the moon and lights from the huge hotel in front of them. When their designated infiltrators were getting ready for the gala yesterday, Tina had dragged Dream and George and Sapnap to the table where Emma and Corpse were painting their nails, begging them to do the same. And while Dream is not a huge fan of relationships, his team seems to be his only vulnerability, weak for their flimsy requests evident in the chipped dried paint in his nails.
“You’re right,” Dream finally breathes out in exasperation, taking his eyes back to his scope. His target for tonight is an old politician, Emma the one meant to put him in Dream’s scope at the same time that Corpse and Tina align their target with Sapnap and George’s crosshairs. The secret of the success rate in all of their missions lies in well-coordinated timing. It’s all about timing, and all six of them seem to run on the same body clock because their teamwork is evident in synchronised beats.
Well, seven. If Karl counts. (Dream wishes he doesn’t, honestly.)
“You know you just pertained to yourself as a bitch.” Dream scoffs, meant to be lighthearted but he should have known better than to try and land a joke when he’s trying to be calm and focused. It’s going to fall flat at some point.
Unfortunately, Karl doesn’t seem to take offense.
“ Woah, Agent Clay,” Karl giggles, “ Chill out. I’m not really into the degradation stuff. Like, the whole ‘Slut!’, ‘Whore!’, ‘Bitch!’ thing? Not for me.”
Dream is glad that it’s dark because it lets him hide the embarrassed flush he can feel high on his cheeks, George and Sapnap’s amused giggles silently echoing into the dead of the night.
“ I’ll let you call me ‘baby’ though if you promise to be nice.” Karl adds, unaware of the muted chaos he’s causing in Dream’s team.
Through the scope, Dream sees Emma hide a smile behind their hand, their other hand going in their ears as if adjusting the earpiece hidden beneath their hair.
“Can you stop distracting my team and just give me instructions as you’re meant to do?” Dream grits out in bridled fury.
“ Oh,” Karl breathes. And then, as if in a dawning realization, he says, “ Oohh.”
After laughing to himself, Karl then remarks, “Oh, so not baby. I get it, Agent Clay, I get it.”
Confused, Dream’s eyebrows furrow. What?
“ Alright, alright. So would you rather call me ‘daddy’ or…?”
That’s it. Dream wants to chuck his earpiece off and shoot it against the wall. He can attempt to hit it and destroy it to bits. It will probably be a little challenging because it’s dark but he might as well try.
“Specialist K.” Dream grits out, voice dripping of so much warning and venom. “Just do your fucking job.”
His anger is ignored because Karl just laughs sweetly, humming a soft, “ Alright. Whatever you want, cutie.”
Dream really has the strongest urge to jump off the building.
The elevator dings as the doors open, six casually dressed highly trained assassins stepping out into a bustling lobby, the familiar sight making them grin and feel relief flood their bones. It’s been a while since Dream’s team had been to their main headquarters building.
Shoes clacking against pristine tiles, they approach the reception counter collectively, greeting everyone they walk past.
“Hey Brooke, is Bad here yet?” Corpse asks the blond woman by the front desk, her bored look morphing into a bright expression when she realizes who’s in front of her.
“Guys!” She beams, rounding the elegant marble counter and hugging each and every one of them tightly.
“Oh my god, long time no see!”
“Brooke! Oh my god, I missed you!” Tina squeals, rushing up to hug her when it’s her turn, squeezing tight with giddy excitement. Dream watches them catch up from behind the group, eyes raking around the place he hasn’t been in for almost half a year. The building is located on the opposite side of the country from where the team usually deports for their missions, so they instead opted to buy a house that accommodates the members of the team, all of them living together in a shared space.
Employees pass them in equal reverence and familiarity, old ones greeting them warmly, new ones treating them with respect because it’s not everyday that Dream and his team are on HQ. They’re probably stoked, if the hushed whispers and the excited well-wishes were anything to go by.
Upon looking around, Dream realizes that a lot of the layout of the architecture has changed. The lobby is more open, giving an instant view to the rows of cubicles lining the floor that they’re in. Dream used to wonder why the hell an organized crime group would ever need office workers, but Bad had explained they need those because they’re an organized crime group. Following this logic, it means that this big of an organization needs to do paper work so that they remain hidden and underground. In short, these aren’t just normal employees doing boring paperwork, these people are scammers forging documents on a daily basis.
Something about that arises twisted pride in Dream.
In his mindless haze, Dream’s usually calm composure gets shattered when George and Sapnap suddenly shoves him out of nowhere, as if urging him to do something.
“Wha—” he exclaims, shocked at his members’ antics, looking at them in sharp confusion.
“Dream, go on. Holy shit, go for it, dude.” Sapnap grins, still trying to push him elsewhere. Dream attempts to fight back but George is joining in on the shoving, their combined forces and giggly words rendering Dream in a growingly frustrated state of disorientation.
“Oh my god, Dream, go, go. That’s him, go!” George exclaims as they continue leading Dream towards a bunch of new faces in the other side of the lobby, presumably interns because Dream doesn’t recognize any of them, as they watch the three assassins shuffle around in the middle of the room with mild amusement.
“George! Sapnap! What are you two—”
And then at one particularly hard shove, Dream trips over his feet, causing him to almost collide with an intern if not for the hand that he suddenly propped up on the wall behind him.
“Oh, fuck, I’m—” The apology dies in Dream’s lips when the intern’s startled look transforms into an almost-conceited amusement, the corner of his lips curving upwards as if laced with an inside joke. Before Dream could ask what’s so funny, the intern opened his mouth which made Dream immediately understand.
“Why hello, Agent Clay.”
Static ruins quality, is Dream’s first thought. Timbre as saccharine as honey, tone as smooth as silk, words as incriminating as the person who owns the voice echoes around Dream’s silence. The familiar voice he’s so used to hearing in his ear that crackles on random times and marks muffled every time sounds really odd in real life. It’s more full. More sultry. More goddamn irritating.
“Fancy seeing you here.” Karl greets, grinning wide at Dream’s frozen expression.
Storm. That’s what Dream’s second thought was. Never had Dream imagined that the face behind the voice in his earpiece would have eyes as grey as storm. And there’s something incredibly daunting about that — how Karl’s physical appearance seems to be a juxtaposition with his uttered coquetry; small, frail frame for big, teasing words. Although it makes absolute sense, in whatever twisted logic Dream seems to be foraging off of right now, how Karl’s eyes are like brewing storms; wild, dangerous, unpredictable all restrained by soft, unassuming, affable clouds, holding a truth that Dream never knew he craved dismantling at its core.
Karl had storms in his eyes, the stars dotting his cheeks, and cold, bursting nebulae at the plump of his lips and strayed, Dream vaguely wonders how they could possibly part, give in and disperse under the mercy of Dream’s curious fingers.
It’s then that he realizes.
Karl is real fucking pretty.
Dream is utterly fucked.
“Now,” Karl lilts, snapping Dream out of his stupor, “As much as you seem to really like cornering me against a wall,” Dream flushes as he finally seems to realize the kind of barely-compromising but still-embarrassing position that they’re in, retracting his hand as if it burned and straightening his posture, giving Karl a glare too soft that even he can mistake it as something else.
“I believe we have a meeting to go to.” Karl finishes, giving him a bright smile.
He fixes his collar, white button up on top of the black, fitted turtleneck uniform all of them are currently wearing, before he’s tapping the back of his hand on Dream’s chest twice in a casual manner.
“Come on, pretty boy, Bad’s waiting.” Karl gives him one last fleeting look, before greeting the rest of the team.
“Good morning, Tina, Emma, Corpse, Sapnap, George!” He smiles at them charmingly, all of them greeting Karl back enthusiastically, ignoring their leader still stood frozen by the side. “So nice to finally meet all of you. Shall we go ahead to the meeting room? I have nothing but high praises for all of you and I’m sure Bad would agree with me. Come, boys, come.”
Karl beckons them further down the aisle and probably towards the offices on the other side of the floor, passing by Dream who is still, embarrassingly, standing idly.
His team walks past him in a single file with wide teasing grins, prodding fingers at his chest or shoving him by the shoulders, whispered cheers of encouragement or pity uttered from under their breaths as Karl animatedly talks ahead of them.
“Pipeline for pining, am I right?” George grins.
“Dream, come on, real sexy of you.” Sapnap shakes his head.
“Respect, bro.” Corpse teases.
“Dude, I’d be straight for Karl, holy shit. He destroyed you.” Emma whispers, hooking an arm around Tina and dragging her towards the group, Tina’s cheery “Karl said ‘come on boys’ and I’m not a boy so you’re real lucky, Dream.” the only thing left alone with Dream and his growing confusion in the desolate lobby. Dream could see Brooke snicker at him from the reception counter.
Huge urge to throw himself off the top of a building, again.
The meeting room is as cold and dim as Dream remembers it, the huge room with a sleek, long wooden table in the middle, antique chairs surrounding it in neat succession. The word ‘KINOKO’ along with the logo of the organized crime group is bright in its neon curves, casting saturated purple and green hues in the carmine velvet wall behind it. Shivering slightly as he steps in after the rest of his team, he sees Bad at the head of the table, talking indiscernibly with his right-hand man, Skeppy.
Their conversation ends when the team’s typical loudness echoes against the four walls, Bad nodding swiftly and handing Skeppy back the tablet he was holding earlier. Soon after, Skeppy greets everyone happily before disappearing into the main floor, giving Dream a light pat on the back as he passes him by the door. Bad urges them closer, prompting them to take a seat.
“Happy six months!” Bad greets joyfully, first thing when the team has settled into their comfortable seats. Their odd number of people, with Bad sitting at the aisle, allows Dream to be the farthest from their boss, no one parallel to him as he looks over his team who are beaming wide at the announcement.
“Holy shit?” Corpse gasps, turning towards George who is beside him, placing a congratulatory grip on the brunet’s shoulder.
“No way,” George grins, shoving Sapnap away from his face when Sapnap all but jokes, “Oh my god, Gogy, you’re due soon!” earning laughter from all across the table. Even Dream has a small smile on his face.
“I am so glad and proud that you’ve all come this far,” Bad grins, and Dream even thinks there are tears at the corners of his eyes. Dream rolls his own, used to his boss- friend ’s dramatics. They’ve known each other for almost a decade now, afterall.
“When I told Dream to go find a team to lead, the moment he gave me your names, I genuinely thought ‘well, this is not gonna go well’.” Bad laughs. “S-tier assassins and spies, all of whom have never been part of a team before because you’re already top of the game so you never really needed one, and Dream tells me he wants them all to work together! Imagine how crazy it sounded!”
“Are you seriously going to retell a story we all already know?” Dream deadpans.
“Oh my god, Dream, shut up, don’t ruin the moment,” Tina chides, Emma and Sapnap agreeing with her.
Scoffing loudly, he raises both his arms in surrender.
“No, no, Dream’s right, all of you already know this firsthand- well, Karl doesn’t but I think I told you about them before casting you to the team, right?” Bad turns towards the specialist.
With a small smile, Karl nods in agreement. “Your A-team. A bit overqualified for me, but you still told me to go try.” He explains, seemingly comfortable with all the attention of the room on him.
“He’s wonderful!” It’s Sapnap that goes first with the unbridled praise. “Really, really good at doing his job, amongst other things.” Sapnap adds, Dream not missing the teasing grin he sends his way. He scowls.
“True.” The room unanimously agrees.
“Yeah, we talk about you a lot at home.” George nods, “Even Dream talks about you sometimes.”
“Oh?” Karl’s eyebrows raise at this. “Does he now?”
Impassive, Dream’s expression doesn’t change.
“Well, they’re complaints most- all the time, but you know.” George explains instantly.
Part of Dream watched with great attention at how Karl laughs, the crinkle of his eyes and the scrunching of his nose highlighting the brightness of his grin, but Dream tries to pay more attention to his words before he gets distracted.
“It’s fine,” Karl reassures, waving a vague hand towards Dream's general direction, “I feel like I deserve that since I know I incriminate him a lot with my jokes.”
Jokes? Steal your heart as a joke? Call him daddy as a joke? Flirt with him on the job as a joke?
“I don’t think Dream takes them as jokes.” Corpse says, hitting bullseye.
“Oh you fluster him so much, it’s so funny.” Emma adds.
“I don’t know if he’s flustered or mad but he looks ridiculous either way so thanks for that.” George admits.
“Dude, when his nostrils get bigger every time Karl says a pick up line!” Sapnap laughs.
“He’s so funny looking sometimes I think about it when I’m sad.” Tina confesses, earning a laugh from all of them.
Really, it’s a wonder Dream hasn’t followed through with any of his urges to jump off a building or burn their house on fire.
“Screw your six months, Bad, look at how horrible this team is to me.” Dream huffs, crossing his arms, frown firm in his face.
“Oh no,” Karl acknowledges him for the first time since stepping inside the meeting room, their eyes meeting from across the table, sending an unwanted shot of electricity throughout Dream’s spine. Damn Karl and his storm-ridden eyes, charging Dream with unknown, fleeting emotions. Damn him, really.
“Your team is amazing.” Karl imparts. “I know it’s only been four months since I started working with all of you and this is only our first time meeting each other, but even throughout the earpiece and the screen, you guys are seriously amazing. You know, like salad.” He explains with his hands, Dream had taken notice.
“Salad?” Bad asks innocently.
Karl hums, nodding as he gestures vaguely towards all of them. “Yeah, like they have different personalities but it works well.”
“You got the hot brit.” Karl points at George. “The gruff dilf. The emo nightmare. The punk rock divinity. The anime highschool girl baddie.” He points at each and every one of them, and then his finger lands in Dream’s general direction. “And Agent Clay.”
Dream’s eye twitches. “Are you making fun of-” me “my team?”
“I’m not! I don’t know how else to say it but I just called you guys the salad gang, that's high praise.” Karl says defensively.
“Salad gang is cute.” Tina nods, Emma nodding in mimicry, with the rest of the boys agreeing as well.
“See, I told you.” Karl says lightheartedly, and then he’s grinning at Dream with that same smile that he saw earlier in the lobby, the kind that seemed to be in on some inside joke.
“Hey, Dream ,” Karl calls him, his name uttered from Karl’s lips making his stomach turn, “If you were a vegetable, what do you think you’d be?” Karl asks him, the room turning silent as they turn to Dream in giddy expectation.
The question sounds stupid, making Dream shrug as an answer. “I don’t know what the point of—”
“I think you’d be a cute- cumber.” Karl doesn’t let him finish, instead deciding to land his line, in which it does well, in Dream’s team at least, and definitely not him, definitely not at the sudden rise of crimson in his cheeks.
"Fuck off."
The teasing hollers of joy from his members only increase Dream’s annoyance towards Karl.
Normal. They return to normal after that meeting, Bad dismissing them after congratulating them for their 100% mission success rate and discussing Kinoko’s plan for the next months or so. Big power moves, retribution of land, reacquiring funds. This means they’re going to be pretty busy, shot after shot and bloodied hands after bloodied hands not getting enough time to be washed before it’s being stained with yet again another person’s life. It’s in hectic schedules like these that Dream gets the recurring nightmares at night and the deafening whispers at daylight, all of which he’s been trying to ignore for years ever since starting to smudge over his morality lines. It’s fine, they always pass.
Information extraction is the mission this time when Dream feels like he’s being tipped over the edge, his nightmares only getting worse paired with his growing confusion for a certain stormy-eyed specialist.
With his hands on his knees, propped up as his chest heaves from running through alleyways, Dream tunes in to the equally heavy breathing that crackles through his earpiece.
“Count.” He says, waiting for his team’s response. They’re separated after running from a fight they know they can’t win without compromising the identity of their whole organization. So they ran separate ways, confusing the enemy. The keycard that was the goal of their mission lies safely inside Dream’s coat pocket.
“Two.” Emma says, number slipping out being the first one to reply. Dream would always be one. It’s part of their team's rules.
“Three. / Four. / Five.” George, Sapnap, and Corpse answer simultaneously, line buzzing before quieting down.
With his heart attempting to break out of his throat, Dream waits a few seconds of tense silence, expecting for the other line to crackle on last time. It doesn’t crackle for the few seconds he waited.
“Tina?” Dream asks hesitantly, unable to help the worry flooding his tone. He could feel that the others are holding their breaths as well despite being already out of it.
And then a loud heave, “Six! Six, oh my god , sorry, I had to catch my breath.” Tina’s panicked voice filters through the earpiece, gaining a collective sigh of relief.
Dream’s lungs get filled with oxygen-tinged layers of respite before he’s barking out a cathartic chuckle in the back of a dimly lit alleyway. Probably not the wisest choice he’s ever made, since he only just got away from the countless big men chasing after them, but his stupidest decision for tonight probably lies from why those big men were chasing them in the first place.
He can hear his team mimicking his laughter, adrenaline still coursing through their veins.
“I can’t believe you just kicked their boss in the balls — hard! — before grabbing the keycard and running without even telling us what you were planning to do!” Sapnap exclaims.
“Yeah, holy fuck, why did you do that, Dream?” Corpse asks.
“Sorry,” Dream apologizes instead, not really meaning it, “He pissed me off.”
Especially after knowing what he did to those children .
“I wanted to at least make him suffer before I—”
Gunshot echoes across the empty alleyway, before Dream is ducking down out of pure instinct, the dumpster behind him being pierced by the bullet, a little to the side of where Dream’s head previously was.
“Hey, you fucker!” The boss he was just talking about appears in the entrance of the crevice of the two abandoned buildings Dream found himself in.
“Bold of you to fucking pull that shit earlier, huh? Give me the card or I'll put a bullet through your fucking head.” The asshole threatens, wide and menacing.
Straightening his posture, Dream scoffs, hands already on both his pistols.
“ Dream, wait, fuck, did they find you?” Karl’s voice filters in his ear.
Dream ignores him and opted for answering the lone man, “I’m not really interested in bargaining.”
And then the man is not so alone after all, his men appearing from either side of the road, almost two dozen, flooding the entrance and Dream’s only way of escape.
“ Alright,” Karl’s panicked voice resounds in the device. “ Sit still, or stall. I have your location so I’m directing Emma and George to you, they’re the nearest. Wait for back up.”
Dream grits his teeth, thumb unhooking the safety in his guns, unwilling to follow through with Karl’s orders this time. He doesn’t have time.
“I wasn’t asking.” The huge man grins, signaling for his men to attack Dream. They don’t have guns but they could probably outnumber Dream if they’re smart enough to do it.
Jumping behind the huge dumpster behind him, he fires a warning shot towards them, bullet hitting the ground and deflecting, trying to stall the group from actually mobbing him. It only allows him about five seconds of free time, but it’s enough for Dream who finds his high in the fast-paced intricacies of these kinds of expeditions.
Taking a deep breath, he allows himself to close his eyes, trying to realign himself to who he knows he is.
Assassin, marksman, killer.
He doesn’t know any of these people but they work for a guy whose hands are stained with innocent lives. That’s their only difference, Dream and his current enemy. Both of them murderers, but Dream allows himself the guilty sense of superiority that all of the lives he’s taken are rightfully justifiable, not capitalizing off unfulfilled dreams.
He can kill them, without remorse, especially after knowing what they allowed to happen to those children.
Fingers settle on cold, metal triggers, and his hands don't shake when he turns around and shoots.
Right then, Dream is this. He is the incendiary depiction of mass murder, tendrils of thermite and gunpowder twisting in a sense as wicked as his remorseless pulls, one after the other as if they are mere red circles in gun ranges and not sondered people who had a life before all of this madness. Life flashes in front of his eyes, not in the way that it usually means, but in a way that could almost be said of what he was trained to do, proving himself that he is more weapon than human right then.
A last resolute bang, the last body falls to the ground, three guns thud across cold wet concrete, blood seeps into the ground, and ten seconds later, hurrying footsteps clomp across the asphalt and George and Emma finally find Dream staring emptily at all the lifeless bodies around him.
He’s not sure how they got to the van, or when they got home, or how he got cleaned up, but he finally allows himself to close his eyes to the feeling of George and Sapnap tightly holding him in their arms, and for a short while, he lets himself think that it’s fine.
The next mission almost goes bad.
After the alleyway dispute, the distance between him and his team is palpable. He can see it in their hesitant eyes, taste it like sour medicine at the back of his tongue, teetering to go past his throat and burn his thinning lungs.
They’re not afraid of Dream. They’re assassins and to kill is almost second nature to them if not their primal instinct. So, no, they aren’t afraid, but even worse, they’re hesitant because they act like Dream is fragile.
He’s not. He killed two dozen people yesterday. Last week. Last month. Hell, he’s not even sure.
Point is he’s not fragile and he can lead this team and have this mission meet its success. If only Karl would stop arguing with him.
“ Just don’t go in. I won’t have any feedback below ground so I can’t give you info nor do I have any assurance we’ll even hear each other once you go down.” Karl pushes, when the team was inside the van, a few meters away from the factory entrance Dream knew their target went down to.
“It’s not anything dangerous, K . I can go in alone so it’s quiet, and the rest of the team can wait here.” Dream says, ignoring the looks of concern his team is exchanging.
“ You don’t know what or who is gonna be waiting for you on the other side.” Karl tries to convince him.
Dream shakes his head even if the other doesn’t see him. “That’s the fun of it, isn’t it?” He kids, lighthearted, but it never really lands.
Karl sighs, and when he speaks again, his tone is vulnerable, unlike anything Dream has ever heard before. Gone are his fast flirty quips and encouraging affirmations. This voice of Karl sounds scared and it twists Dream’s heart into the ugliest, unidentifiable emotion. He doesn’t know what it is that’s making his stomach turn, but he’s certain he hates it.
“ Dream, I can’t—” Dream swears he could hear when Karl almost begs . “ They’re going to hurt you. I can’t handle that.”
A slight pang makes Dream’s chest ache, undeniably affected by the words. Closing his eyes and allowing himself to take a deep breath, he lets the horrid wrenching of his stomach turn and turn in its own toxic acid. He despises it, how it makes him hesitate, so that’s why he steps out of the van, cocks his pistols, and looks at his team with firm determination.
“Don’t follow me unless I don’t come back in three minutes.” He says decidedly, closing the door of the van, and walking to the entrance. Karl’s desperate pleas cut out when Dream reaches the bottom of the stairs, the basement dark and eerie. He takes a deep breath.
It’s the longest three minutes of his team’s life, and when the clock hits 181 seconds, all five of them are scrambling off the van, guns ready, kicking the basement door open, weapons raised immediately when a person shows up in the entrance.
Relieved, they see that it’s Dream, a phone in hand, guns sprayed with blood along with his injured cheek.
Tina is on his side immediately, George catching the phone Dream throws his way.
“He was alone.” Dream concludes, wiping the blood from his cheekbones, hissing in pain when he thinks he touches the open wound he got from the graze of a bullet his target had fired earlier as his last form of defense. “Sending out a signal to his dealer but I managed to stop him. Give that phone to Bad.”
George nods, and when Corpse, Emma, and Sapnap come back from scouting the scene and Dream manages to shoo Tina away from treating him, the line in his earpiece connects back.
“ Hello? Hello, Clay? Can you hear me? ” Karl’s voice buzzes in.
“Yes.” Dream answers.
A sigh of relief can be heard from the other line, and when Karl speaks again, his voice is soft. “ Alright. I’m- I’m glad you got out safe.” He says sincerely, and then he adds, almost as an afterthought, “ Good job, Agent Clay.”
The supposed encouraging message does nothing to alleviate the bitterness brewing at the back of Dream’s throat. It’s scathing his airways and he can’t do anything to stop it because he’s too tired. Tired of what, he’s not certain.
“Stop treating me like I’m fucking fragile.” He can’t help but spit out. Regret replaces the heavy emotion dancing in his tongue as soon as the words came out, coating his mouth in a thick, viscous form of rue. Dream finds himself wishing to take back the words, and yet his actions seem to contradict his thoughts.
His team’s eyes are on the road ahead of them, the car bouncing slightly from hitting a hump. They’re quiet, tuning in to the disaster of a conversation happening between their two leaders.
“ I’m not.” Karl says, “ I’m just trying to- to learn from you. You value your team’s lives and yet it seems like you don’t value yours, Agent Clay.” A heavy sigh, and then Karl’s honest admittance filters through the line. “ If so, then let me do it.”
There is something enigmatic and reckless in his words. Something that seems like it should not be said over static lines, something that seems like it's meant to cross over underlying ones. Whatever it is, Dream can't figure it out.
“That’s not your job, Karl.” Dream murmurs.
“ What?” The line crackles.
“Your job isn’t to care for me,” Dream says, ignoring the warning signs that keep blaring at the forefront of his head, pleading him to stop uttering words he knows he’ll regret.
“Your job is to help me kill people. If you can’t do that then what need do I have of you?”
Everything goes silent. The regret is too suffocating to not feel like he’s close to vomiting all over the floor of the van and he’s unsure if they know that he doesn’t mean it. Dream doesn’t mean it. Karl needs to know that Dream didn’t mean it.
So, he tries, “Karl—”
But then, a long beep.
It’s the first time that Karl drops the line.