Work Text:
"What?"
His steps echo against the blackstone as he descends further. Tommy and Tubbo behind him fade from laughter to eerie silence. They ask, "What’s going on?', but he doesn't answer. They demand, "Punz, what's going on?" They cry, they whine, they whimper like scared dogs and it hits him. Four steps before the bottom, it hits him what they've done.
"We killed Dream!" they said, shouting and laughing and Punz sees the blood. He sees the gore lining their blades. He smells the acid in the air of too many potions, too much fear, too many grapples eaten in one sitting. Mining fatigue wears off them and he knows what they've done.
"Punz?" Tommy asks, his voice breaking, shattering to the floor with all the trust he put into him the moment Punz stepped through that nether portal. His hands tightened into fists, his anger boiling over as ice spread around the edges of the room.
"Punz, you're freaking us out! What's going on?" Tommy whimpers like a child and Punz's anger explodes out of him. He turns on him, turns to stare up at him and Tubbo, his glare molten like the lava he can hear behind him.
"Tommy," he says, the words dripping from him like poison as he forces his voice calmer than the rage of blowing this whole damn thing to kingdom come! "You think Dream was really the only one with a revival book?"
The silence is deafening. He witnesses their heartbreak and betrayal crack through their victory, and he wants to rip out their throats for the things they've done! The revive book is heavy in his hands, weighted with the sins he's committed. But it's weighted too with the knowledge of what they can do. What they can accomplish!
But they don't have that knowledge. They don't know what Punz had sacrificed, what Punz had strived for all this time. So he can't tell them. Not yet. He doesn't tell them, and instead, he goes for something that will show them a fraction of the rage he feels.
"It's for power, Tommy! It's always been for power! And with this?" he says as he holds the book up in the space between him. "I have all the power in the world." He steps back as Tommy starts begging. He steps back as Tubbo starts whimpering.
He steps back and he spits his words at his face. "And you'll never. Fucking. Win." Punz turns and hits the ground floor. He drops the book on the lectern, immediately flipping to a dog-eared page. Tommy's behind him. Shaking. Crying. Tubbo's behind him, his gasp audible at the sight of the lava-filled room before them. It's a spark, a stray rock tossed out of the molten pool that he catches. From dust they began; to dust they will return. From the anger of the ones who killed him, the desperation for some goddamn peace and silence, Punz casts his hand out.
He knows where to look for him. He knows where he'll be, where he stands. This isn't the first time they've done this, but it is the first they've done it with an audience who had every opportunity to stab him in the back. His concentration must not waver. His focus must not fade. For if it does, if one small interruption occurs while he reaches into the void, then he risks losing Dream forever.
A cool, scarred hand slips into his from the other side, and Punz sees Dream the way they saw him. Scars littering his body, frail and malnourished. Wounds festering on a fading body, his injuries too much to bear any longer. Death doesn't heal the scarring, but it clears the mind. And when Punz grips his hand and pulls back, Dream's face splits into a grin.