Chapter Text
He ran through the small and tightly woven streets of the lower levels of L'manburg. It wasn't hard for Tommy to remember the layout from his homeless days, before joining the Hunters two years ago.
But the problem now was that he wasn't running from the city guards, or the random vampire who didn't know the intricate back roads and alleys. No, Tommy was running from the best hunter in the entire city. His now ex-mentor, Dream.
It wasn't his fault. He didn't choose to be turned into an undead monster. It was just a lucky (or unlucky, in Tommy’s case) chance that Tommy was jumped one night with no back up.
That was three weeks ago.
"Hello, Tommy." Said Dream, holding a wooden stake.
Fuck. Dream must’ve found another way around. Tommy froze in fear. His instincts were yelling at him. Escape, Danger, Escape, Kill But he didn't move.
"You know, I thought hunting you would be harder, but guess since you’re still weak-”
Tommy saw a sizable stone loose from the road. While Dream was still talking, Tommy was able to throw the stone at Dream’s face faster than normal human reflexes.
A loud crack! was heard as Dream’s mask broke and was hit in the eye. The man yelled and swore in pain as he clutched the right side of his face.
Tommy took off at full speed not waiting for Dream to recover. He weaved through the backroads that were getting less numerous and less interconnected. The lights were changing from the dim and broken street lamps of the outskirts, to the better maintained ones of the main city. As Tommy contuited at the speed he was going at his mind started to feel fuzzy and his limbs were getting harder to move.
He abruptly slowed down to a normal human running speed, he lost his balance and face planted on the pavement. Tommy was tempted to stay there as the fuzzy static were changing to small black dots. God he really was weak. Tommy faintly heard the sound of someone running and harsh breathing. He forced himself to get up and continue.
Tommy stumbles as he turns the corner into a dead end. He let out a small whine. Out of pain, frustration, and helplessness. Black dots swarmed in his vision even more. Surprisingly, Tommy found himself on the ground again. He closes his eyes as he waits for Dream to find him.
“Hey, kid.” Someone said, poking Tommy’s side with their foot. Tommy groaned as he was pressured to respond, couldn’t he just be left alone to die? Tommy regrettably opened his eyes to see a man with red eyes and a long trench coat staring down at him. I’m hallucinating, I’m fucking hallucintaing and Dreams already here and I’m about to die.
“Aw, no you’re just blood deprived-” The man said as he was interrupted by footsteps. “Hello, Dream.”
Fuuuuck!Tommy really did not want to pay attention to this. The voices that were speaking around him shifted from words to meaningless noise. The noise got louder at some point and Tommy jolted into backing away from it, but it eventually faded quieting and then disappearing.
Dream has killed that vampire that tried to talk to Tommy and was now coming to finish him off. Tommy waited for the pain of a stake to the heart. The pain to envelope him and the death taking him to darkness.
But no pain came. Instead it was someone shaking Tommy by the shoulder back to awareness.
"Oh good you're still alive. You can't be too old so here, drink." The man did something and Tommy smelled blood, and latched onto it.
It was warm? But he honestly couldn't tell. It was sweet and didn't taste like iron. Tommy's senses come back from the fuzzy unaware feeling from before to a feeling of tired happiness.
"Wow, ok that's enough." The man said, ripping Tommy away from the blood supply.
Tommy whined involuntarily. He finally opened his eyes again, not seeming to remember when closed them.
"Aww, don't worry you'll get more soon" said the man, he smiled, his fangs prominently showing. "Hopefully."
He helped Tommy stand up. Tommy's legs refused to carry his weight falling into the man.
"Oh, I guess we're going to Phil a lot sooner." The man said. "Hey, kid, what's your name? Gonna need something other than kid to call you."
"Tommy." Tommy slurred out. Leaning more of his weight on the guy. "Yours?"
"Wilbur."
***
Tommy didn't have dreams anymore. At least not normal ones if he had them at all. Most of the time all he could remember was a flash of red and him waking up mid scream. The numerous times it happened during the week before he was kicked out of the Hunters, Tommy had to force himself to calm down before trying to get at least some kind of sleep. Even when the other two were still around before the attack all they would do would ask if he was ok, give him a hug and tell him to go back to sleep.
What never happened was someone comforting him or the feeling of someone running their fingers through Tommy’s hair.
“Shhhh, you’re ok, you’re ok,” Said a person, they sounded older than Wilbur. “You can go back to sleep, mate, you’re fine.”
Tommy ignored that and pried his eyes open. The most shocking thing was that he was in a house? No, a mansion. Or at least a very huge room inside of a building. The second most shocking thing was directly across from Tommy was a man, who clearly is strongly built, but has the contrast of long pink hair, and dressing like some wealthy pirate.
“Heh. I’m getting so much money.” Holy, shit! This guy’s voice was deep.
“What are you talking about?” The person sitting next to Tommy asked.
“Theseus’ eyes are red.”