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He knew that out of everywhere he could go on the server right now this was probably not the best choice. The server was out for his blood. The alarms from the prison were still blaring in his ears and it still made him feel sick. His body was hurting and weak and exhausted and he wasn’t going to make it back to his safe houses.
Going to Punz wasn’t an option right now. Kinoko was too far to try to find George. His only hope was with the woman who’d discarded him nearly a year ago.
Dream ran to Puffy.
He dropped into her home on shaking legs. Trembling all over as his body protested the extreme movements after so long of not being able to. He had to blink spots from his vision while he pressed a hand to the wall beside him to keep himself upright. He didn’t see her down here. Maybe she wasn’t home? Maybe she was out looking for him to put him back in the box.
He forced himself to ignore the pang in his heart that that caused. Puffy had told him when they wrapped him in chains that he deserved what was coming to him. That he deserved what he was getting. But she never tried to visit to check on him. Surely she didn’t mean he deserved torture. Right? She wasn’t biologically his mother but he had still been her baby duckling for years. She couldn’t mean that he deserved to be tortured.
Even if she replaced him with Tommy. He deserved to live, didn’t he?
She’d been about to let them take all three of his lives. She had stood there and done nothing. She knows about the torture. She doesn’t care.
He tried to take a step forward. The shadows around him reminded him too much of the vault and he wanted to get to where he could see the lit lanterns further in. He wanted the safety of the place he ran to when he wanted company years ago. He wanted the person who used to hold him in her arms, but he couldn’t have that anymore. Not likely anyway. His step wobbled as he made it. One after the other. Limbs trembling more violently by the second. And then he felt it.
The point of a sword against his back.
“Dream.”
Her voice sounded so cold. Angry and furious and nothing like the cooing tone she used to use on him when she called him her duckling. His muscles were rigid under the blade. He had to force the memories of the vault out of his mind. She wasn’t Quackity. She wasn’t Sam. She was his mom.
He didn’t dare to turn. He hardly even breathed as she pressed the blade tip in further. Dream suppressed the flinch as he felt it dig slightly into one of his old wounds. The torture had left him covered in scars and marks. Some of them had never healed. Opening and reopening every time Quackity came for his daily sadistic visits. As slowly as possible he lifted his arms into surrender. He didn’t want to fight her. He couldn’t fight her. He didn’t have the strength to open his inventory to get the sword Techno gave him let alone hold it and use it. He was at her mercy.
He hated that he was scared he wouldn’t get it.
“What are you doing here?”
Still cold. Still harsh. He could tell from her tone that Puffy didn’t believe he was here for his mom. He could tell she didn’t think he had any good left in him. She believed he was a lost cause. She called him a monster and threw him away. She replaced him.
“I,” His voice scratched on the way out. Worn and broken and underused after the hell of Pandora. “I wanted to see you. I needed-”
“To use me? Dream you escaped from prison. You are going to hurt people. If you thought I would take your side, you are dead wrong. I will never be there again.”
He couldn’t stop the memories from washing through his mind. He was young. Probably eleven or so. He’d been helping her to carry things back home from the village they went to. They’d been talking about anything and everything. Dream had mentioned that he was having issues with some other kids in the village. He told her stories about the things they did and how he needed to fight back to defend himself. They’d made it home as he finished the stories. Puffy had been silent through all of it and Dream would have been lying if he said he hadn’t been worried by that.
“You believe me, right, mama?”
He remembered it so clearly. How she’d knelt down to him and pulled him into a hug.
“I’ll always believe you duckling. I’ll always be right here with you.”
He’d smiled back then. Buried his face into her hair and hugged her with all the strength he’d had.
“Nothing can take us apart.”
Tears welled in his eyes as he thought about it now. Nothing would take them apart. Nothing except trying to fight for them to all stay together apparently. Nothing but Tommy. Nothing but nations and bullshit attachments. No one cared about things that really mattered anymore. No one but him it seemed. Because even after all of this the words she spoke still hurt him.
He was still a boy who sought comfort in the arms of his mother.
He spoke softly. Almost too quiet to hear. His voice felt like sandpaper in his throat but he did it anyway. Tears dripped down his cheeks. Smearing on the inside of the mask and dripping silently onto his worn boots.
“I jinxed it, didn’t I?”
He felt the sword falter. Just so slightly but it was enough that he let himself turn around. Slowly, so slowly and carefully that she wouldn’t think he was trying to attack and stab him. That wasn’t his plan. Not yet at least. The tattered prison uniform hung loosely from his frame. It didn’t take long until he was looking at her. Cracked and filthy smile staring at a steadfast determined expression. There was barely a fraction of love in her eyes as she stared him down. Just the strong pirate captain who commanded and led the people she considered her crew.
“What are you talking about?”
“Us.”
He wanted her to stop looking at him like that. Like he was some cruel monster that felt nothing. He was her baby. That never changed even though everyone thought it had.
“You don’t believe me anymore.”
His voice shook but he ignored it. The tremble of his hands. The shake of his knees. The spots and sparks that flit across the corners of his vision. He saw her frown and shift her shoulders.
“Of course not.”
A faint smile crossed his lips. He’d always loved watching her do this. He wondered if she knew that he mimicked her when he fought. A small wet laugh bubbled through his damaged throat.
“So I jinxed us.” More tears fell from his eyes. “I tried to fight to protect us. To keep us safe.” He had to swallow back a round of coughs. His lungs trying and failing to seize in his chest. “All my pain was for nothing I guess.”
He wasn’t trying to manipulate. He was just thinking out loud. His injuries were becoming more apparent as the conversation went on. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could do this before he succumbed. Her expression only hardened.
“Your pain?” The sword pressed closer. Tip now digging into the soft flesh of his stomach. Dream felt the urge to walk forward to greet it. “All you’ve ever done is hurt people. You haven’t experienced pain.”
“Torture doesn’t count?”
The words left him before he could stop them. He thought she’d call him a liar. Thought she’d snap and run the blade through his body. But she faltered instead. Her eyes raked over his form as she adjusted her grip on her blade.
“What?”
It was her that was whispering now. Layers of emotion that his brain was too foggy to tell apart covering it. But he could see in her eyes that something had changed. There was something hiding behind the anger now. Something if he’d been more clear minded he would have recognized. A mother’s protective love.
He nodded to her slowly. The action caused spots and flashes to dance across his eyes and he had to stop himself from stumbling or swaying where he stood.
“Sam, Quackity, you can ask them. They’re proud of themselves. They came every day and I couldn’t-”
“Prove it.”
He couldn’t stop himself from flinching. He felt like he was a second from either fainting or throwing up. Maybe both. Her tone was too complicated. Her expression hurt his heart. Letting his eyes close against the spinning of the room he reached up to his collar and began undoing the buttons of the prisoner’s uniform. He let it slip down his torso. Let it fall away to show the scars and brands and still bleeding wounds. The bruises and scrapes that marred his skin and the lines of past and present infection.
He didn’t notice her sword falling away from him or the gasp that stole from her lungs. His hands just moved. His body running on autopilot as he undid the clasp of his mask and let it fall away.
Dull green eyes met hazel. Neither one of them moved. They just stared at each other. Puffy taking in every mark. The carved smiles into his flesh. The dirt and blood staining his undershirt. His mouth felt dry. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and his eyes felt heavy. He could barely lift them. The wound from Sapnap’s blade earlier must have opened. He must be bleeding again.
But she didn’t move. She didn’t care. She still didn’t believe him. That was fine. He didn’t need her to. He still believed her.
“I jinxed us..’m sorry.”
His legs gave out as soon as the words left his mouth. His body falling into the wall and down towards the ground but there were hands catching him before he could hit it. Lowering him down slowly before they were running over his face and patting at his cheeks.
“Dream? Dream, can you hear me? Open your eyes, I’m right here. You didn’t jinx us. I believe you. I see you. I’m here. Can you open your eyes for me?”
There was panic in her voice. Panic that he knew was because of him and it made him feel guilty. He didn’t want to hurt her. He didn’t want to upset her. He just wanted to make her proud. That was all he ever wanted really. He just wanted to stay with her.
“Dream. Dream. You can’t just say that and die. I won't let you. I won’t let you. Do you understand?”
She sounded scared that he’d die. But he remembered her being fine with it before. She hadn’t cared moments ago when she pointed her sword at him. He was just hallucinating. He had to be.
He couldn’t open his eyes to check.
“Stay with me. Stay with me, Dream. Come on Duckling. Please don’t go. Not yet. I can’t lose you yet. Not when I know you’re still here. Come on Duckling. Please. Please don’t leave.”
He felt like he was floating. Her hands running over his body was the only tethering him to the world. Her voice was floating through him like a lullaby. He was going to sleep. He wasn’t going to wake up.
Then there was the sound of something else.
The sound of shattering glass.
The smell of glistening melons.
And it all went black.