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Dream crept through the forest back towards the prison, another day of mining for resources behind him. His muscles burned, and his left leg twinged as he put too much weight on it, and he hissed, digging two knuckles into the aching muscle harshly. He considered downing another gapple, but dismissed the notion. This didn’t warrant a gapple. He was fine. Fine. He could eat a steak and a few carrots later, it would be enough. It would be fine. He was fine.
The prison came into view over the hill, and sick relief filled him at the sight. He was almost safe. He was almost home.
And then he spotted it. Two small, familiar, rectangular shapes wrapped in white, partially hidden by the roots of a tree. Saliva flooded his mouth at the sight, as nausea and hunger churned his stomach in equal measures. He knew what he would find in wrapped in the squares of cloth: sandwichs. Delicious ones, undoubtedly. Would the bread still be crusty and slightly warm? Would they be chicken or beef or fish? Made with lettuce? Tomato? Pickles? Mushrooms? A honey glaze? Mayonnaise- stop.
He didn’t need it. He was fine. He had steak and carrots and gapples at home. It could be poisoned. It could be a trap. It was no accident he’d found it here, so close to the prison, where he would be sure to find it. Better to not risk it. But…
Dream glanced at the sandwich again, swallowing his mouthful of saliva. The thought of letting food, good food just… go to waste rankled at him, especially after a year of eating only raw, disgusting potatoes, his only reprieve the occasional sandwich just like this one. Memories flooded his mind, of faltering, awkward attempts at conversation; sad, tired, haunted white eyes with heavy bags underneath them that seemed to get heavier by the day; jittery, black-clawed fingers that hesitantly held out white-wrapped sandwiches, reached out to touch his shoulder or arm before faltering at his involuntary flinches, and once gently carded through Dream’s matted, unwashed hair during a time he was still too concussed from Quackity’s latest visit to even sit up.
He'd thought that last instance was a hallucination at first (goodness knows he’d had enough of them at that point), his stupid, battered brain conjuring up desperate visions of the only person who’d been halfway decent to him for going on months now giving him the attention and gentle touch his weak, traitorous heart so, so desperately craved. So, if he nuzzled desperately into the hand touching him so impossibly tenderly and a pathetic noise or two crawled out of his throat, well, that was between him and his hallucination. The added humming had been nice, too, that was a new one. But then the next time Bad had showed up, he’d handed over the usual sandwich, and as Dream voraciously tore into it (but slowly, slowly; he couldn’t eat too fast, lest it make him sick), the tall, lanky demon had gingerly sat cross-legged on the ground in front of him.
“Dream… you know you can talk to me, right? About, about anything. Anything you want.”
Dream snorted, taking another bite. Yeah, sure, he could. Didn’t mean he wanted to.
Bad rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. “I just, um. I know Sam isn’t allowing visitors right now. Which I’ve tried talking with him about, by the way, but uh. You know how he is.”
Dream did indeed know and shot Bad a look that conveyed as much over his sandwich.
“Heh, yeah, figured. I just…” Bad took a deep breath. “Is there anybody I could… talk to for you? Pass along a message to, bring a message back from, anything like that?”
Dream nearly choked on a pickle slice.
Bad sighed, staring directly into Dream’s incredulous eyes, his expression open and earnest. “Dream, please… if there’s something I can do to help, I- this isn’t right. You’re hurting, Dream. I can’t… I can’t do much. Not… Sam would-” Bad dragged his hands down his face in frustration. “But I can do this, at least. Please. Let me do this for you.”
An inexplicable urge to laugh, to cry, to scream at the top of his lungs until he had no more breath in them seized him. How dare he, how dare he, how dare he-! With an incoherent snarl of frustration, Dream hurled the rest of the sandwich into the lava and turned away from Bad the guard, wrapping his aching arms around his legs and burying his face into his knees. His ears filled with white noise, his brain went fuzzy and distant.
When he finally came back to himself, the guard was gone. The half-eaten sandwich in his stomach threatened to make a reappearance, but through sheer force of will, he kept it down. He lay on the hard, stone floor, exhausted and spent and on the verge of tears, his very being scraped raw and bleeding inside and out.
He hated this (he craved it). He hated it (please, please come back, please, I’m sorry, I don’t want to be alone, please-). He couldn’t stand the concerned, guilty glances the demon kept sending him when he thought Dream wasn’t looking, like he was some kicked, starving animal Bad felt sorry for (how long had it been since someone had genuinely worried about him?). He didn’t need his worthless pity (the thought of a sandwich was sometimes the only thing that kept him going some days). He couldn’t stand the thought that he had to rely on someone like BadBoyHalo for help, one of his prison guards (you were my friend, you were my friend, I miss you, I miss you so much-). Was this a trick (coward)? A new tactic of Sam’s to get him to give up the revive book (never never never)?
Through the sick maelstrom of dark, desperate thoughts whirling around in his mind, one kept rising to the surface: What if Bad was telling the truth?
It took Dream four subsequent visits to finally pluck up the desperate courage, gather every scrap of trust that hadn’t yet been torn out of him by the roots, to ask Bad to give the prison blueprints to Ranboo. He’d waited and waited for days and days afterward, absolutely sick with nerves, expecting the other shoe to drop at any moment, for Sam or Quackity to barge in and demand answers and explanations for what he wanted with Ranboo, why he was daring to speak to Bad at all. But they hadn’t. Nothing. Quackity’s visits didn’t stop, but neither did the sandwiches stop coming. Then Techno got locked in there with him, and the visits stopped, and still the sandwiches came. And six months later, Technoblade broke him out of prison, only able to do so with the assistance of the blueprints Bad had passed along to Ranboo.
Bad had come through for him then. He hadn’t betrayed him, even when he stood nothing to gain from helping him and everything to lose if Sam ever found out. So now, maybe… just maybe…
Dream hid himself in some nearby bushes and waited. And waited. For the other shoe to drop, for some sign of foul play, for a mob to show up with torches and pitchforks. But nothing happened. The sun dropped lower in the sky, hunger gnawed at his insides in a familiar, almost comforting matter, and still, Dream waited.
Finally, as the moon peeked over the horizon, he crept closer to the tree. He picked up the sandwiches and stashed them in his inventory. He’d eat it when he had some milk on hand just in case it was poisoned. As he turned to go, he spotted something else. Something that had been hidden by the tree trunk and roots. A potted plant.
“Know what? Once I become a guard, we can get you like a... I don’t know, maybe like a pot, and put a plant in it!”
Scarred fingers ghosted over the vibrant, glossy leaves, a small smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. He took a moment to just drink in the color, the minute imperfections in the pretty, long, narrow leaves, some with little brown spots, others with small holes where an insect had clearly taken a bite or two out of them. The simple brown clay pot it grew in was clearly homemade, decorated with some small, clumsily painted neon green polka dots around the brim. A small note had been tucked amidst the plant’s leaves, and Dream deftly plucked it out and unfolded it to read the unsigned, six word message:
Sorry it took me so long.
The note crumpled in shaking fists. Dream stared at the plant for a long, long moment. A sudden, violent impulse to smash the pot, grind the tender leaves into the ground under his boot came over him. Then it passed. He carefully lifted the pot into his arms, the leaves brushing against his skin like a soft caress (like the memory of gentle fingers in his hair, the first kind touch he’d felt in months).
Such a beautiful, fragile, imperfect thing. Yet still it grew. Still it tried. That had to count for something, right?
He slowly made his way back home, the sandwiches a heavy weight in his pocket, the pot protectively cradled in his arms, already making plans for where he could put it so he would see it every day.
*~*~Fin~*~*