Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Punz?”

“I’m sorry, Dream, but… I can’t let you do this.”

Dream glanced at the clock on the wall of the Pandora’s Vault. It had been three days since he’d gotten put in here, and it was nearing the end of the fourth. Tommy would come any day now. Dream smiled at the thought but quickly dropped it when he heard the dispensers clicking, parting the lava for a visitor.

Dream certainly hadn’t expected Tommy to come this early, but he definitely wasn’t going to complain. The sooner he got Tommy, the sooner the rest of his plans could begin.

But as the lava fell in front of the cell, Dream saw that the visitor wasn’t Tommy or Tubbo or even George. No, the person glaring at him from the floating platform was Punz. Careful to keep up appearances, Dream glared back with equal intensity until Punz stepped into the cell and the lava fell behind him.

Losing the scowl, Dream quietly said, “Punz, I appreciate the visit, but I told you to stay away. If people figured out we’re allied, my plan could be ruined.”

There was a pause. Then:

“So, Sam hasn’t told you yet?” Punz asked with a smirk.

“Told me-?”

“We’re not allied anymore, Dream.”
“Uh, Punz, he can’t hear us. You can drop the act now,” Dream said a little uncertainly.

Punz sighed.

“You just don’t get it do you? Dream, I’m not acting. This is real. Don’t you remember what I said? ‘I can’t let you do this.’ I told them. Everything.”

“You-you what?”

This had to be a joke right? Punz didn’t actually… betray him. He couldn’t have. They were friends.

“I told them. Your plan. Techno won’t come. Tommy won’t come. You’re staying here. Forever.”

No.

No!

This can’t be happening!

“Punz, I trusted you!” Dream cried out, still half waiting for a punch line or a ‘Just Kidding’

“You tortured a child, Dream!” Punz exclaimed.

“It was for the greater good! You think I enjoyed it?” Dream shot back.

“…Yes”

“What?!”

“Yes,” Punz repeated, “I listened to Tommy talk about you. You terrified him. You tortured him. And you loved every second. Didn’t you, Dream? Tommy nearly committed suicide because of you! Did mean for that?”

“Wh—”

“Of course you did! It’s the perfect crime! Drive the kid mad. Let him jump. Your hands are clean! And you’re down one rule-breaking piece of scum.”

“No! I didn’t mean for that! Really!” (Just keep telling yourself that) “I just wanted to teach him—”

“Teach him?! Dream, have you seen the kid? He’s dirty and ragged—”

“He always was.”

“Untrusting—”

“Trust is weak.”

“He can’t even look at a fucking smiley face without having a panic attack.”

Dream opened his mouth but had no retort for that one.

Punz scoffed at him.

“Dream, you didn’t teach Tommy anything. You broke him.”

“No! I mean… I didn’t—”

“And don’t even get me started on what you did to Ranboo.”

“I didn’t do—” (Liar)

“Who, coincidentally, also can’t look at a smiley without weird shit happening.”

“I didn’t hurt him! I was just using him to—”

“Just using him?” Punz laughed, “Dream, do you hear yourself? It’s no wonder you don’t have any friends! God I should’ve realized sooner. I should’ve known just how much you’ve lost it!”

“I haven’t lost it!” (Then why are you here?) “I’m just trying to get this place on track! I just want everyone to be happy!”

Punz scoffed again.

“Yeah, I’ve heard it before. ‘One big happy family’ Right? Hate to break it to you, but I don’t think the wars made L’manberg happy. And I highly doubt that Tommy was happy when he built a death pillar into the sky. And I’m not even going to mention your plans for Sam.”

(He’s right. You’re just an evil dictator. A demon in disguise. You really thought you were making the world better? You’re a real stupid piece of shit.)

“What?” Punz asked mockingly, “Cat got your tongue? Or did it finally sink into your thick skull just how sick you are?”

Dream just looked on, desperately searching for some way to deflect the blow to his excuse ideology. Nothing came, however, and Dream was left to slide down the back wall of the cell, cowering in shame before the last person who considered him a friend.

As Punz called for Sam to send the bridge across, and the lava flow paused long enough for Punz to leave the cell, Dream’s actions became a near-physical presence, pushing him farther and farther in on himself until tears fell from his face, pooling along the edge of his mask, and Dream was left crying into the cold, empty silence.

You did this to yourself :)

Chapter Text

At first he’d tried to be optimistic.

Maybe if he was complacent, maybe if he was cooperative, they’d let him out. He could apologize. He could make things right, try to rebuild the Dream SMP.

(That would never happen. Sapnap himself had said that, should Dream ever leave, he wouldn’t make it long.)

He would make up little stories and put them into his books. Stories with heroes and happy endings.

When he ran out of pages to write in, he waited. He waited and listened and counted seconds. He hummed to himself, he watched the clock on the wall, he listed as many names as he could think of.

(He did everything he could not to think of his mistakes. Everything to hold out hope that he could still be redeemed.)

Through this, there was one final book. He would add a mark to it every time the clock hit midnight.

He had filled less than half a page when he began to feel lonely. Empty.

He wanted to see someone. Anyone. To speak to someone who could answer back. (Even if those answers were full of well-deserved hatred)

He had filled less than one page when he first thought to hurt himself.

He wanted to feel something other than the heat and the terrible, suffocating loneliness.

He had filled one page when he actually did it.

He was just glad to see a color other than the constant black and brown and orange. Red. Dark, staining red, blooming across his pale skin. Red, the color of passion. Red. A color he’d soon become far more accustomed to.

He had filled little more than a page when Quackity came for the first time.

Quackity asked for the revival book. Demanded it. Dream knew he couldn’t give Quackity that knowledge. That would only sow conflict. Conflict that the people of the Dream SMP didn’t deserve.

Quackity gave threats. Dream did everything he asked. Except one thing.

Quackity didn’t get the revive book.

That was the first time Dream was left sprawled on the floor lying in a pool of his own blood.

It wasn’t the last.

From then on, Quackity would return every single day. And Dream grew to dread it.

He hadn’t nearly filled a page and a half when he considered stopping entirely.

Each mark came with the looming terror of the axe and shears. The hours of torment to protect a world that hated him. But it was his only routine, the only way to keep him from drifting off, succumbing to the aimless drift of nothingness and falling into the abyss of depression that seemed to fill the tiny cell. (Besides he deserved the pain anyway. After everything he did.)

Five marks later, blood seemed to drench the cell. There was nothing to scrub it away with. Except…

Seven marks later Dream began to tear pages from the stories.

Ten marks later, pages of bloody paper filled a corner of the cell. Tales of hope for a better future stained with the ink of his despair.

Fifteen marks later, Quackity burned the clock.

Only fifteen days after the first visit, the marks turned red.

Fifteen days and Dream started counting sessions, unable to distinguish days.

Soon after that, life began to feel like a pointless loop.

Ten sessions (days?) after the marks turned red, Dream started to think about death. If it would matter. If anyone would care.

Wouldn’t death be a relief in this in this endless, ever-repeating cycle of physical and emotional torment? And wouldn’t it be better for everyone? If he died, knowledge of the revive book—the last source of conflict in the Dream SMP—would die with him. The world would be at peace.

It only became worse when he realized that he had only filled two pages. Not even one year! But it felt like forever!

Would it always be like this? A never-ending spiral of pain and release and white scars and metal against flesh and skin torn away and pain and release and white scars and metal against flesh and pain and release and white scars and pain and release and pain and release and pain and release and pain and re lea s e and pain and r e l e a s e and pain pain pain painpainpainpainpainpainp ain pa in p a inpai np ain pa i n p a i n.

Two pages.

He tore them from the book.

He ripped them apart and threw them into the blaze of lava that separated him from the outside world.

It was only a matter of time.

Only a matter of time before he threw himself in too.

Broken and torn and ripped apart piece by piece.

He would have done it then and there. Let his flesh burn off and bones blacken in the scorching heat.

But no. After all he’d done to the world? He didn’t deserve the sweet, cool embrace of death.

No, he deserved nothing more than torture.

To be beaten down and torn apart and broken to bits.

Put back together again only for it all to repeat.

Pain and release and pain and release and pain and release and pain and release and pain and release and pain and release and pain and release and pain and release and pain and release and—

Was it even worth it?

He deserved it, yes.

But Dream was never a good person (He was. Once. Long ago. Before L’manberg. Before the Dream SMP. Running and playing in those forests so long gone with those friends he held so dear) and no matter the torture he endured to pay for it, in the minds of others, he was—and always would be—a monster.

So what was the point in the end?

If he would be remembered as someone who took what he didn’t deserve, what was one more thing?

Besides, if he really didn’t deserve it, maybe Death would reject him. Send him back to this hapless hellscape that was the land of the living.

Dream had heard she was pretty close with Philza.

And so with a book filled with empty pages, not even one year after entering the prison, Dream decided to leave this world forever.

With 0 pages filled and a chest full of half-destroyed tales, Dream almost met Death.

When he had filled two pages and thrown them into the blaze, Dream was pushed back from the brink of death by a flash of light.

Chapter Text

A step forward

Then another.

Death is just an inch away.

There was a blinding flash, and Dream was thrown back against the wall of the cell, causing his vision to fog over for a few seconds.

When he could see again, there was a glowing figure looming over him.

It was mostly just a mass of flowing cloth (that had little regard for gravity) and didn’t seem to have any real body, as in the place of its head was a round mask sporting an ‘XD’ face. 

However, despite having never seen him before, Dream knew exactly who this was.

”DreamXD,” he acknowledged.

“What do you think you’re doing?” XD asked, his voice echoing over itself and blurring the words together.

”Leaving,” Dream replied simply, even if it was far from simple..

”You’re on your last life.”

Dream made no attempt to answer. He hadn’t meant “leaving the prison”.

XD’s Sigh sounded like it was coming through a poorly made communicator.

”Look, I’d prefer if you didn’t die,” the god said, “So, here’s the deal: I will take you anywhere you want if you try to stay out of life or death situations.”

It may have been an attempt at some kind of joke, but Dream honestly didn’t have enough energy to care. He just wanted to end it.

Peace for the people. Relief for him. The villain’s defeat. Happily ever after for everyone. (What about you?)

“What’s the point?” He muttered.

”Excuse me?”

“What’s the point, XD? If I leave, he’ll know. Where could I go that they wouldn’t eventually find me? Why not just get it over with now? Every single person in the world is after me and not a single one of them would care enough to spare my life.”

XD gave a garbled murmur that sounded like, “Well… Something something.”

But that was enough. Dream knew what XD had meant.

”What? Who- You’re kidding right?” He sputtered.

”I don’t kid.”

As scathing as the words were, they gave Dream hope. Just a little.

Maybe he could find this person! Beg for mercy. If they really were willing to let him live, he could convince them of his change of heart. Make a new life for himself. Build a cozy little cottage somewhere—

Then he remembered Logsteadshire.

He remembered destroying Tommy’s hard work everyday. (With a smile on your face. Always hidden behind that stupid mask)

He remembered those sickening words echoed back from cracked lips. (Words you put in his mouth)

He remembered Tommy’s eyes as he said them. (Dull. Hopeless. He didn’t deserve that. It should’ve been you)

”You’re right, it’s for my own good.”

”I’m sorry, I was bad.”

”I know, you’re my only friend.”

You broke him. He was happy. Until you came along. You ruin everything.

And knowing Tommy was just the tip of the iceberg, Dream whispered, “No… I… I don’t deserve this… I have to convince them I don’t.”

He slowly got up, weak from his many injuries and malnourishment and said, “XD, I need to talk to this person. Somewhere we won’t immediately be found.”

The god tilted his head.

”I can do that. If that is what you want.”

Dream nodded, then tilted his chin up as the ground shifted beneath him and his vision flashed several colors before settling on white. (Teleportation should really come with an epilepsy warning.)

As the whiteness began to fade, and Dream’s surroundings began to resolve themselves around him, he swore he could hear a voice calling his name.

Then the ground gave a sudden lurch.

And he was falling.

Falling through earth and stone, moving faster and faster as he hurtled toward bedrock still stuck halfway through teleportation, unable to make a sound.

A second later he was past bedrock even, now tumbling frozen through a glittering void of coal black. Nothing but stars as far as the eye could see, almost mirroring the night sky, only sparkling in a hundred different shades.

Once upon a time someone told him what they meant.

He didn’t remember now. (And every time he tried to recall the voice, it sounded like his own)

“Every void star,  my ᔑᓭ⍑ꖎ╎リ⊣, they are all—,”

Dream’s fall abruptly slowed as if he had begun to sink through water. His vision whited out again as his feet landed on a solid surface. Only a moment later he could see again, but he wasn’t sure what to make of the scene.

He was standing in a black expanse that swirled and glitched with far off colors that clashed to form momentary pictures that melted away a millisecond later, the entirety of which was filled with lines and lines of letters, numbers, and symbols.

This, however, was not what interested Dream. No, Dream’s attention was immediately drawn to the figure kneeling before him.

A young girl in a tattered and discolored cloak whose dirty strands of blond hair escaped from around the edge of he black mask (embezzled with a white D:). She was chained down with the same glowing text that floated about the space, only in white, and held tightly to a string of numbers which spiraled around Dream himself.

“╎ℸ ̣ ’ᓭ ᒲᒷ, ↸∷ᒷᔑᒲ!” she cried out in a language Dream didn’t remember understand, “||𝙹⚍ ⍑ᔑ⍊ᒷ ℸ ̣ 𝙹 ∷ᒷᒲᒷᒲʖᒷ∷!”

Whatever she was saying, she sounded desperate, and her hands trembled as she repeated, “∷ᒷᒲᒷᒲʖᒷ∷…” and continued, “!¡ꖎᒷᔑᓭᒷ, ╎ リᒷᒷ↸ ||𝙹⚍∷ ⍑ᒷꖎ!¡…”

“I-I-I’m sorry,” Dream said, “I… I don’t know what you’re saying…” he took a step back.

 “∴⍑ᔑℸ ̣  ᔑ∷ᒷ ||𝙹⚍ ↸𝙹╎リ⊣, ᓵ⍑╎ꖎ↸?!” a second voice screeched as a glowing red figure came into view.

(“ℸ ̣ ∷||╎リ⊣ ℸ ̣ 𝙹 ᓭᔑ⍊ᒷ ⍑╎ᒲ. F∷𝙹ᒲ ||𝙹⚍.”)

A very familiar figure at that.

”XD?”

”Don’t listen to her, Dream,” came the garbled reply while XD grabbed the strand she held with a glowing red whip of some kind only for him to exclaim, “||𝙹⚍ ⎓𝙹𝙹ꖎ! ↸𝙹リ’ℸ ̣  ||𝙹⚍ ᓭᒷᒷ ∴⍑ᔑℸ ̣  ||𝙹⚍’∷ᒷ ↸𝙹╎リ⊣?”

That part was directed at the prisoner who spat, “||ᒷᓭ! i ⍑ᔑ⍊ᒷ ℸ ̣ 𝙹 ⊣ᒷℸ ̣  ⍑╎ᒲ ᔑ∴ᔑ||,” while staring vehemently at the “ground” below Dream. 

Keeping her head in place, and finally speaking English, she said, “T-tr-tr-trust me-e-me-e-e.” She sounded like a broken machine.

“You-you ha-ha-a-ave-ave t-t-to reme-emb-er-er-er.”

Dream glanced down to see a void of white forming beneath his feet.

“What does that mean?” He asked the girl frantically, “What do I have to remember?”

But the ground gave way just as she spoke.

“Remember-er-er ↸-↸-↸∷——————-

Dream awoke with a start, quickly finding himself looking up at the clear blue sky.

Chapter Text

Hi.
I lied.
I'll be honest, I'm tired and I've just poured my reasoning and thoughts out in a previous discontinue notice on one of my other fics, so I'll keep this short.
I'm done.
I'm sorry.
I really am proud of this fic, and I really had a lot of ideas for it, but I just don't have it in me to write in this fandom anymore. It doesn't bring me joy.
So, goodbye. Thank you for reading. I hope, wherever and whoever you are, you're having a good time.
Get some sleep, drink some water, and remember to always check your facts.
-SugarSpice2022