Chapter Text
The dampness sticks to the bricks in a thin, slimy layer of grime that mirrors oily puddles of filth. The sulfur-orange glow from the distant streetlights shine in a dull glimmer over the pavement. The secluded back-alley is dark and infested with rats feasting on a nearby diner’s soiled leftovers. The garbage trucks here only come by once a week, giving everything in the open dumpsters plenty of time to putrefy. The alley air is thick with the stagnant scent of trash and feral cat piss. Tommy knows better than to think he’d find anything useful in a shithole like this. This alleyway looks how suffering feels in the inner-city.
There’s a chill in the air tonight that lets him know life is going to get a lot harder a hell of a lot faster than he’d like. Winter is the cruelest season to be on the streets, but Tommy’s survived them before. He’s practically an expert at this point. The thinning sleeves of his jacket are a constant reminder that he needs an upgrade before the weather turns and he crams his hands in his pockets as he kicks his way through the litter as silently as he can, head on an ever-vigilant swivel.
The shadows hide eyes. He’s being watched.
Pogtopia is a dangerous borough to be homeless in. It’s safer up in Snowchester, in Kinoko, the nicer areas of L’Manburg’s warren-like neighborhoods. There’s worse things than rats in Pogtopia’s dark alleyways, things the Hunter’s Guild takes great pains to keep confined to the city’s poorest districts in some shitty, transparently miserable cycle that voters can pat themselves on the back for without ever addressing the root of the problem.
Tommy’s not stupid enough to be out after dark alone— shit like that’s just asking to be eaten. He’s watched enough of his fellow unhoused friends vanish without a trace to know better, and that simmering, sick anger’s part of the reason why he’s kicking through nasty, disgusting alleyways, hoping something equally ugly takes the bait.
There’s an Apple Airtag in his threadbare pocket and a wireless panic button around his wrist. Dream and his team stays out of sight but Tommy knows the hunters will be close enough to act if Tommy’s ‘easily missed, alone, and tasty’ ploy reels in any biters. The Guild would never approve of any team using a civilian as bait like this, nonetheless clearly underage and homeless bait like Tommy. That’s why this system works so well. The bloodsuckers should never expect the fucking trap. They don’t expect Tommy to be the same kind of monster as them.
Tommy keeps stomping through garbage, making a face at the smell. He’s loud, panting and huffing, drawing attention to himself with one hand ready on the watchband that holds the button that will send Dream, Sapnap, Karl, and George the signal to move in.
There’s broken glass at his feet, beer bottles and worse shit, and it crunches loudly as he treads through the pile. Someone has shoved the burnt-out frame of a pickup truck back here, with an equally burned mattress resting in the bed. He can’t stare at it for more than a few seconds before he has to look away, before the blackened sticks piled pitifully on the burned mattress rearrange themselves into bones that can only have once been human, the sorry remains of yet another person who will never be reported missing.
Something in the back of his throat burns at the sight, hot and choking. Sometimes he hates his fucking city. Sometimes he wants to burn it all down. If pyres could kill vampires, Tommy’d light the first match.
He's hunting through the alleyways, determined. It’s late enough that it’s early now and the chill has long since seeped into his joints. There’s only so many times he can jump at rats before he can’t sustain the tension that being vigilant takes out of him. He’s crashing, exhausted, his steps heavy as he stumbles along. His bleary eyes blink away sleep but he doesn’t call it yet. If anything, his obvious exhaustion is a boon. It makes him better prey.
Tommy crashes his way out of the trash-filled alleyway and back onto clearer sidewalk. He absolutely reeks and it’s close to 4am and he’s seen nothing more dangerous than a loose pitbull all night. The street itself is abandoned. The stars glitter coldly far, far overhead, nearly lost among the smoggy clouds. The dark mouth of another bleak alleyway looms across the street from him, and Tommy heads resolutely for it.
He doesn’t check the street before crossing. He doesn’t need to. Not even taxis run this late in Pogtopia, late enough that anything with common sense is inside and out of sight behind locked doors. He heads for the alley, ready for one last attempt to stir up something dangerous. He trips on the curb, his sluggish foot catching on the lip of the pavement and suddenly the sidewalk is racing at his face.
A strong arm catches him before Tommy can succeed in breaking his nose in a pothole.
“Woah,” someone says, amused. “Watch your step there, mate.”
Tommy shoves himself away from the man, already scowling. His hand’s near the panic button, but he doesn’t set it off and call in the hunters because it’s just some guy in a shitty trench coat.
Distrustful, Tommy runs through his checklist but the guy’s clear— no fangs, no red eyes— but that doesn’t make him safe and Tommy’s already walking away. “Whatever,” he snaps, not acknowledging the guy. “Just keep your hands to yourself next time.”
The guy falls into step beside him and Tommy’s sense of danger rackets up to eleven. But the guy only shrugs after looking around at the empty streets. “Alright then,” the stranger says calmly. “Next time I’ll make sure to let you fall on your face.”
“I’ll trip you first,” Tommy warns. “And why the fuck are you following me, asshole?”
The man, and he can’t be that old, maybe young twenty-something, again looks around the empty streets as if to make sure they’re alone, and Tommy’s fingers settle on the panic button in readiness.
“In case you haven’t noticed,” the guy says. “It’s dark. It’s not safe to be out after sunfall alone.” He motions to the bubble of personal space Tommy’s enforcing between them. “This? This is safety in numbers.”
“Bitch,” Tommy complains, but his fingers leave the panic button. “I am safe, shithead. No one messes with me.”
The guy studies him with another amused grin. “No one messes with a skinny teenager who looks like they’ve been sleeping in the dirt?”
“No one!” Tommy says boldly, ignoring the insult. “I am the biggest of men, haver of too many wives for your feeble brain to count. I am the Big Man of these streets. Not even the vampires fuck with me.”
The guy snickers and sways closer to bump him with an elbow. “Probably because you’re too skinny for them.”
“Fuck you,” Tommy says, but part of him’s relaxing at the guy’s company. He’s right, two people are safer than one and his hunt’s already ruined after an uneventful night. He might as well make sure this asshole gets where he’s going without getting eaten. “What are you even doing out here? Only idiots or monsters stay out late alone.”
“Which one are you?” the guy asks curiously, and Tommy’s already scowling at him for it.
“I’m my own category,” He proclaims grandly. “I am like the king of Pogtopia. That grants me my own category, one above the rest of the idiots out at night.”
“Guess I’m the idiot then,” the guy sighs, and he checks their surroundings again but the streets are silent and empty. It makes Tommy uneasy. That’s not the jumpy, paranoid look of someone checking for monsters. It’s a calm, steady sweep of the eyes, ever-vigilant and watchful.
“I knew you were an idiot just from that shitty trench coat,” Tommy says, and he does not trust this guy. “Bitch.”
“It’s Wilbur actually,” the guy tells him, and there it is again, a cheeky, amused grin. No fangs.
“Fine, Wilbitch,” Tommy says, but the verbal abuse only seems like it makes the guy happier. “Where are you going? If you need someone as big as me to hold your hand all the way there so the vamps don’t get you, I could at least make sure you live till sunrise.”
Wilbur’s eyebrows raise slightly at that, but he sighs. “Nowhere,” he says. “I’m not really going anywhere. I just needed to take a walk.”
Tommy stops dead in the middle of the sidewalk, gaping at the massive moron. “Bullshit,” he fires back. “No one just takes a walk in fucking Pogtopia. I thought you were an idiot, not braindead!”
“Hey,” Wilbur defends himself. “I have very good reasons for being an idiot!”
“Like?” Tommy says, incredulous, and they’re being too loud, too noticeable.
Wilbur shrugs again, his voice lower. “I got into a fight with my brother,” he says softly, dejected. “Said some things I shouldn’t have that I already regret.” He sways closer again and this time Tommy lets him. “I just needed to clear my head. Get away for a minute, you know?”
Tommy doesn’t know. He’s never had family to get pissed at. “Must have been pretty bad if you decided the vamps were a risk worth taking just to catch some air.”
“Ah, maybe not,” Wilbur says, and his eyes sweep their surroundings again, and with a jolt Tommy realizes that for all the guy walks in his shadow and says this is for protection, he hasn’t once looked afraid. “But it’s nearly dawn. I think my gamble paid off.” He’s just looking at Tommy now with something unreadable in his face.
Tommy creeps his hand closer to the panic button again, nearly convinced that fangs or not, this guy’s a vamp and is about to attack him. He might not have ever seen a vampire before, but he knows better than to trust anyone, even lame hipster douchbags.
Wilbur notices the movement but mistakes it for a shiver. Concern fills his face, so genuine that it throws Tommy for a moment. “You’re cold?” Wilbur asks, worried.
Tommy plays it off, pulling his threadbare sleeves further down his arms, making sure the panic button stays out of sight. “I don’t get cold,” he lies.
But Wilbur’s pulling off that hideous tan trench coat without a word and offering it to him. “Here.”
Tommy recoils, offended. “Fuck you, loser,” he says. “I don’t need your shitty coat! Or your charity. I’m not some homeless dog you can just throw your worthless scraps at.”
“So you are homeless,” Wilbur says, those keen brown eyes unreadable. He throws the coat at Tommy, who has to catch it to avoid it hitting him in the face. “Take the fucking coat, dickhead, before you freeze to death.”
“It’s not even that cold,” Tommy protests. “Dick.”
Wilbur only shrugs at him from the confines of a eye-stabbingly yellow sweater that does not match the beanie pulled over his brown curls. “Just put it on, you gremlin child.”
“I’m not a child!” Tommy snaps, but he does pull on the old trench coat. It’s long on him, comfortable wrinkles worn into the much-loved fabric. There’s patches at the elbow. But it’s warm. It keeps the wind from cutting through him. Tommy feels the stitching at around the patches, evidence of time and care taken to repair the ugly thing. “Why give this to me?” He questions Wilbur, because he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get this stranger with his strange kindness.
Wilbur fiddles with a necklace around his throat, the end hidden beneath his sweater. “You need it more than me,” he says, like it’s that simple. He checks the sky, a thin strip of navy showing in the east. “Well, Tommy,” Wilbur says, stopping. “I’ll be seeing you around, but this is my stop.”
Tommy studies the building Wilbur points at but it’s just a public library. It’s the only ground-level thing in sight with the lights on. Tommy snickers meanly. “A library? I knew you were a fucking nerd.”
But Wilbur only laughs with him. “Bitch.”
“Poser.”
“Loud-mouth.”
“Hipster duchebag.”
“Minor,” Wilbur says smugly. “Itty bitty baby.”
“I’m not a baby,” Tommy states, puffing out his chest. “I’m nearly sixteen.”
“Fifteen is absolutely a child,” Wilbur tells him, still insufferably smug. Then his face falters as he sweeps their surroundings again. “Stay safe out there, okay? Pogtopia needs its king. Even if you are a shitty kid in threadbare shoes.”
“Hey, fuck you,” Tommy flicks the guy off, but he’s grinning too. “I’ll steal your shoes too, don’t tempt me, even if your sense of fashion is worse than most dumpster finds.”
Wilbur laughs as he pulls open the library door. “See ya, Toms,” he says, and the bell tinkles merrily as the door swings shut behind him.
Tommy stares at the closed door for a long moment, feeling strangely warm. Maybe the weirdo wasn’t half bad. And the coat’s a nice touch. It makes this night not a total waste.
Tommy heads back, retracing his steps. He doesn’t have to walk far before the four hunters flicker into sight in the darkness. Tommy’s already unhooking the panic button from around his wrist, pulling the airtag out his pocket. “Took you guys long enough,” he calls out as the four of them snap to attention. “Here’s your shit back.”
Karl meets him with a sheepish grin, taking the items. “No luck, huh?” He shakes his head. “Must be a bad night to be out.”
“Guess bloodsuckers don’t like the chill,” Sapnap shrugs.
“I don’t like the chill either,” Tommy says, but he isn’t shivering now, not with Wilbur’s coat.
It’s hard to tell what Dream’s thinking with that weird mask he wears, but Tommy can tell when the hunter’s attention sharpens on him. George is talking something low and calm but Tommy’s watching Dream with unease as the guy looks him over. Tommy might like the hunter team but something about Dream’s always been cold to him.
“Tommy,” Dream asks, and his voice is like ice. “Where’d you get that coat?”
Tommy tugs the sleeves of the coat further down his arms. “Some dipshit poser trying to run from his problems,” he says, shrugging. “I walked with him to make sure he didn’t get his dumbass eaten. It’s fine.”
“Did you mug him for his coat?” Karl laughs.
“He deserved it if he was wearing something that hideous,” George says, but Sapnap’s also gone still in a way that makes Tommy want to walk away.
“What did he look like?” Dream demands to know. “Was he wearing an emerald?”
“What?” Tommy says, stalling. “No, I didn’t see any fucking emerald or else I really would have mugged him.” He’s lying, some instinct warning him to brush this off.
“Where’d you drop him off?” Sapnap asks, intent.
“The library,” Tommy says, trying to back away as Dream aggressively boxes him in against the wall. The bricks are cold at his back, the chill seeping through the cloth.
“And you let him go?” Dream demands, crowding him in. “What the fuck, Tommy!”
“Why not? He was just some guy—”
Dream slaps him, a nice, solid backhand that rattles his teeth and snaps his head to the side. He never even saw it coming. Tommy ducks in on himself, preparing for the next blow, because this isn’t the first time he’s been roughed up but he’d never expected it to come from Dream.
“The fuck, man,” Karl gasps, trying to pull Dream away from Tommy.
Sapnap is speaking very quickly into the radio clipped at his chest, something about ‘surround the library’ and ‘possible target sighted on-scene’.
Tommy’s rattles from the unexpected hit but he’s not stupid. “It wasn’t a fucking vampire!” he yells, trying to squirm away. “Just some guy—”
Dream grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. “You’re supposed to let us know when you see anyone,” he says, shaking Tommy. “Anyone! You stupid brat, you let him go!”
“Hey,” Karl protests. “Tommy’s right. it might have just been some—”
“No, no I’ve seen that coat before,” Dream growls out. “Tommy, you—”
Tommy grunts, rears back, and kicks out at the hunter. His satisfaction at Dream’s gasp as Tommy nails him in the gut is short lived as he bolts, ducking away from the masked man and trying to run for it. He’s not sure what the fuck’s going on, but he’s not about to hang around and get beaten up to find out.
Dream gets him by the back of Wilbur’s coat and drags him back. Tommy’s thrashing, screeching insults at him, but he’s just an underfed teenager and Dream’s a trained vampire hunter. It’s embarrassing how easily Dream manhandles him, it stings at Tommy’s pride, but he’ll bite this asshole if that’s what it takes. Tommy has no shame when it comes to fighting dirty, so he aims for that shitty pale mask, trying to rip it down and blind the hunter.
Dream punches him for it, hard enough stars explode behind his eyes. Tommy crumples to the pavement, breathing hard, his eye already swelling as he curls up to fend off kicks.
George is yelling too, arguing with Dream as Sapnap yells orders into the radio. Tommy tries to blink the world back into blurry focus around him as a new voice cuts through the chaotic din.
“Hands off the kid!”
Sapnap drops the radio and goes for his crossbow, leveling the loaded weapon at the figure storming angrily up the sidewalk at them.
Tommy blinks, confused, because it’s Wilbur, Wilbur in his stupid yellow sweater and beanie, and he looks furious.
Dream immediately forgets about where Tommy’s curled on the sidewalk and draws his sword. Karl draws his weapons too, even George hefts up his own crossbow, every inch of the hunters tense and ready.
“The fuck are hunters doing beating on some kid?” Wilbur spits at them, but he does falter under the sights of two different crossbows, their silver broadheads glistening under the streetlights. “I’ll report you to the Guild for this. Who the fuck do you think you are, assholes?”
Tommy adjusts his mental view of the guy from braindead to suicidal, because no one with common sense fucks with the Guild, and yet Wilbur seems to think threatening them is a good idea, the fucking idiot.
Wilbur’s brave though, not backing down even if he does keep his distance.
Dream’s mask tilts carefully, very carefully, and he lifts his sword. “Wilbur fucking Soot,” he says, and Tommy’s never heard the guy sound so cold before.
Wilbur’s face pales in surprise at being recognized. “Fuck,” he says weakly. “Who?”
Sapnap goes for his radio again. “We’ve got a positive identity on Wilbur Soot, requesting backup immediately!”
Wilbur steps back, stressed, his hands up. “Easy there,” he says as George centers the crossbow at him. “You don’t want to do that.”
“George, check our six,” Dream snaps at his teammate, and George’s crossbow leaves Wilbur’s chest. A tiny, tiny part of Tommy feels relief at the sight from where he’s trying to crawl away without being noticed.
“You really, really don’t want to do this,” Wilbur says as Karl steps up to stand shoulder to shoulder with Dream, both of them armed with swords. “I’m not here to hurt anyone.” And fuck it, there’s the fear that’s been missing from the guy all night, not aimed at the unknowns of the streets but at the four hunters closing in on him.
It takes Tommy a long moment to force the pieces to connect, even with his inherent suspicion of anyone out after dark. Vampire.
Except he’s not sure he believes it, especially as Wilbur does nothing but look terrified. Vampires are evil. They attack without warning, they’re vicious, but Wilbur just looks scared.
“You’ve got me confused with someone else,” Wilbur says, desperate. “I was just trying to get you to stop hurting Tommy.”
“Sapnap,” Dream says, flinty, and Sapnap lets an arrow fly.
Wilbur jerks out of the way, too slow, and the bolt hits him squarely in the upper arm. He shrieks and the yellow fabric of his sweater seeps with something black as he grabs at the arrow, hissing as he yanks it out of him. The wound smokes at the touch of silver, bleeding black, and Wilbur’s eyes aren’t soft brown anymore. They’re a bright, vicious scarlet.
The vampire drops the arrow and hisses at them, the sound sudden and scalding. “You fuckers shot me.” He sounds more stunned than anything.
Sapnap calmly reloads and takes aim again, and Wilbur’s eyes go wide.
Tommy’s on the ground. This is his chance to escape, to flee from the monster before him, but as Sapnap lifts that crossbow, something inside Tommy reacts explosively.
“No!” Tommy yells, and he throws himself at the hunter, tackling him around the middle.
The crossbow twangs as it fires and the bolt sparks off the bricks behind Wilbur’s head. Tommy lands a punch on Sapnap before Dream’s kick takes the air from his lungs and sends him flying. He wheezes around the pain in his chest, eyes watering as he sees Karl closing in on the vampire. No.
Dream drags him upright by the hair and Tommy screams. Wilbur’s red eyes flash to him at the sound, panicked, right before Dream puts a knife to Tommy’s throat.
Tommy freezes, still wheezing. He can taste blood in his mouth from where he’s bitten his tongue.
“Wait!” Wilbur yells, hands flying up, empty and appeasing. “Alright, you win. You win, Dream. Just let the boy go.”
The knife at Tommy’s throat doesn’t budge and Karl steps forward and bludgeons Wilbur with the pommel of his blade. It’s brutal and the silver metal burns him every hit, but Wilbur doesn’t defend himself.
Tommy’s muscles unfreeze at the sight as a million different thoughts race through his head, and he hates this, he hates Dream, he’s gotta help Wilbur, so he yanks his chin to the side, cutting himself on the knife, and sinks his teeth into Dream’s wrist. He doesn’t let go either, chewing at him, anything to make this stop.
He doesn’t even know what Dream does to make him let go but pain violently overtakes his head and suddenly everything’s swimming. The knife clatters to the pavement.
“Stop,” Wilbur pleads. “Don’t hurt him. I surrender. I surrender!” Wilbur’s on the ground. Karl sands over him, the hilt of his blade coated in black. The color steaks down the vampire’s face, matting in his brown curls.
Sapnap calmly takes aim at point blank range. Wilbur’s breathing hard, but his eyes never leave Tommy even as he smirks up at the hunters. “That’s it, then?” he taunts. “Gonna kill me in the streets? I thought hunters were supposed to be smarter than that.”
George reappears, also breathing hard. “He’s alone,” the hunter says, shocked. “No other vampires are near us.”
Wilbur laughs, high and mocking. Karl skewers him through the hand for it and the vampire shrieks and bucks up only for Karl’s sword at his neck to force him back down.
Dream’s looking from Wilbur to Tommy, completely unreadable.
“Bit of a waste to kill me here,” Wilbur says, trying for smug but ending somewhere between panic and terror. “Disastrous, even. I might be worth more alive to the Guild.”
“Shut up!” Dream snaps at him, but he’s not that glacial calm Tommy usually hears from the guy. He’s every bit as stressed out as Tommy.
George tilts his head to the side. “He’s probably right,” the hunter admits. “We can’t kill him yet.” He checks a device cuffed to his forearm and taps at something there. “Backup’s three minutes out. At the very least we should give Bad a chance to decide what to do with him.”
“Bad knows the Guild won’t survive the war you’re about to start,” Wilbur begins but shuts up as Karl bears down on his neck with the sword.
“Dream?” Sapnap asks, defaulting to the team leader to decide for them. “What do we do?”
Sirens sound in the distance, rapidly getting closer. Dream tightens his grip on Tommy. “Leave him,” the hunter decides. “This bloodsucker might be more useful to us alive.”
Wilbur’s eyes don’t leave Tommy as Karl slowly removes his swords from the vampire’s neck. His eyes are brown again, face streaked in blood that’s shades too dark for human. He doesn’t move from where he’s lying belly down on the cold ground. “I’ll cooperate,” Wilbur volunteers, his voice soft and shaky. “Just let Tommy go. He isn’t a part of this.”
Even Karl picks up on the desperation in the vampire’s words. Dream says, “no,” and drags Tommy closer to the monster. Tommy can’t do more than drag his heels in protest, everything still spinning. It hurts to breathe. But Dream is relentless and forces Tommy closer to the vampire as the Guild assault vans come tearing around the corner, orange lights flashing and sirens screaming.
All too quickly they’re surrounded as hunters flood out of the vans, dozens of them, more than Tommy ever realized the city had. But all Dream does is kneel down, dragging Tommy with him, just out of arm’s reach of the monster they’ve got pinned. Dream pulls out a second knife and lets it rest at Tommy’s neck again, watching with satisfaction as the vampire’s eyes instantly flash red. Wilbur’s lip curls up in a silent snarl, revealing fangs.
“Why would I ever let Tommy go?” Dream says, almost too soft to hear over the screaming of the sirens and the white noise crowding Tommy’s aching head. “I think taking two kids away from the Angel is far better than one, don’t you think?”