Chapter Text
“So,” Tommy grinned, staring at the man across from them. “What’s up?” The man glanced up at Tommy through greasy, hardly blond strands, met his gaze and spat at his feet. “Well, that was uncalled for.” Dream’s hands ached behind him.
“I’m not sure if this is the best place to be making new friends,” Dream mumbled, unable to stop his leg from bouncing, despite the glares from beside them.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got a strat.”
“Do I even want to know?”
“Everything will go according to plan as long as you save me in case I get the shit beat out of me.”
“Great.” Dream sighed and leaned his head against the cool metal behind him. Suddenly, he lurched to the side, every man in the bus falling too as the bus came to a sudden halt. The two armed men by the doors stood. The white doors of the bus swung open and Dream didn’t bother to make a show of resisting as the officers dragged the lot of them away from the certainty of the bus, to the gaping black hole of power that was the prison.
“What’s this guy look like again?” Tommy whispered to Dream. The trays were a shade of beige that made Dream’s stomach hurt. He wasn’t entirely sure he could handle the food, whatever that turned out to look like.
“Blond, American, early twenties, about six feet tall,” Dream said, following Tommy slowly as the line moved forward.
“So we’re looking for you.”
“What? No, he’s like- I don’t know, we have different vibes.”
“That’s still like, about a quarter of this whole place,” Tommy said.
“We’ll figure it out.” Tommy got his food first. All Dream had to prepare himself was a sound of confused anguish from Tommy, before his food was practically thrown on his plate.
“What the fuck is this?” Tommy asked. “Fucking Rice Krispies?”
“Crisp rice, yeah,” Dream said. The line kept moving, giving a slice of strangely small bread, an apple, coleslaw, and some disturbingly orange beans.
“I think,” Tommy started as they sat down at an empty table. “I think I’m going to kill myself.” Dream punched him in the shoulder, probably a little harder than he should have.
“Tom!”
“I was kidding! Fuck-” Tommy rubbed his shoulder. “This is all bullshit. How long do we have to be here?”
“As long as it takes,” Dream said, lifting up the piece of bread. He hadn’t even put it in his mouth and he could tell it was stale.
“Do people really live like this?”
“Yep,” Dream took a hesitant bite of the bread, swallowed what he’d taken, and dropped it back onto the tray. “My dad went to prison a couple of times, never for very long, but it happened. I visited him once or twice, all I really remember is the jumpsuits were a lot more orange than this.”
“Wasn’t he like, a wrongen?”
“You could say that.”
“Hey,” Dream and Tommy both looked up in sync, as someone he didn’t recognize walked up to their table. Dream planned a thousand different disasters in an instant, all of him racing to find whichever way would ensure his, and more importantly Tommy’s safety. “Are you Tommy?”
“Uh,” Tommy blinked, so rapidly Dream thought for a moment the boy was going to cry. “Maybe.” The mystery man suddenly handed Tommy a torn out page from some book, and a piece of some rock.
“My daughter is a big fan of your internet show. Would you mind signing this for her?” The man was at least six foot six, taller than Dream by far, and one of the widest men he’d ever seen. His hands practically swallowed the paper.
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Tommy said, still blinking, and taking the items. He scribbled a short message and his signature, handing them back as quickly as his body would allow.
“Thanks,” The mystery man said.
“Hey,” Dream said before he had a chance to leave. “We have a friend in here that we haven’t seen yet, do you happen to know a Punz?” The man stared at him for a moment, before briefly nodding toward a table at the very edge of the room. “Thanks.”
“Please don’t tell your daughter I’m in prison,” Tommy said suddenly. “I’m not- we didn’t actually commit a crime, you know?” The man laughed, a deep, booming laugh that almost sounded like singing.
“No one in here committed a crime.” Without another word, the man left them alone, sitting at a table far from theirs.
“Well, that was… strange,” Dream said.
“Oh god I thought he was gonna kick my ass,” Tommy said, patting down his face and body to make sure he was still alive. “What if chat finds out about this, Dream?”
“They won’t.”
“Dream, what if!”
“Don’t worry, I have luck, don’t I? It protects the things I care about, and I care about your reputation. You’ll be fine.” Dream promised with a smile.
“You sure?”
“Of course.”
“Alright.” Tommy nodded. “Okay. Let’s go kick Punz’s ass-”
“Uh, no-” Dream stood from the table, intercepting Tommy as he moved to meet Punz. “We’re going to be friendly. We do not need to make enemies.”
“Haven’t you ever watched Deadpool 2?” Tommy asked. “You kill the biggest guy in here, and then-”
“I don’t think that was the point of that scene-”
“Alright fine, let’s become BFFs with this guy. We’ll paint each other's nails and talk about boys. Oh! Oh look Jessica have you heard of the new Harry Styles band?”
“Christ,” Dream mumbled, practically dragging Tommy along. The table was far from empty, with half a dozen men eating and chatting together quietly. All of them looked up as Dream and Tommy approached.
“Dream?” One of them said.
“Hey, Punz,” Dream said with a smile that hurt his conscience. “Sup.”
“The hell are you doing in here?” Punz demanded, standing from his spot at the table. “Who the fuck did this to you?”
“What?” Dream blinked.
“Who’s this guy?” Punz asked, pointing to Tommy.
“I am so glad you asked,” Tommy said with a grin. Dream immediately put his hand in front of Tommy’s face.
“He’s a friend. We uh, we wanted to talk to you-”
“Yeah, man, whatever you need,” Punz nodded. “Hey, I’ve got some-” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Some crazy shit I’ve gotta talk to you about.”
“I figured. That’s why we’re here. When’s a good time to talk?”
“After yard time, meet me in the library,” Punz said. He suddenly smiled and gave Dream a clap on the back. He turned them both toward his table of friends. “Guys, this is Dream, he’s the one who taught me everything I know about tattooing.” The table fell into a series of mild greetings.
“This is Dream?” One of the guys pointed at Dream, speaking in a thick french accent. “I thought you said he was, how did you put it, a ‘teddy bear man’.” The man around the table laughed, and Dream’s face flushed crimson red.
“I’m not- what?” Dream scoffed, begging the warm blush to stamp itself out. “What?” Tommy giggled behind him.
“But he is soft,” the french man continued. “Look at his hair, soft as a lamb-”
“I never said that by the way-” Punz assured Dream, turning to him with an almost pouted look.
“This guy’s taller than you!” Another man at the table exclaimed. “He looks like he’s been in double the fights too.” Dream just frowned, his tongue unable to form a response that wouldn’t get his ass kicked.
“Do I?” Dream managed, running his tongue over the permanently scarred part of his lip. Another few men laughed.
“What happened to your nose?” A smaller man asked.
“I uh-” Dream gestured vaguely with his hand. “Got it broke. Twice. In a day. I think. First, someone smashed it with a door, then later I got punched for a while.”
“It’s true, I was there,” Tommy vouched for no apparent reason other than to have something to say. “He used to be much hotter-” Dream smacked his shoulder.
“Y’all are new here?” Someone asked.
“Yep,” Dream said as Tommy said-
“I killed my wife.”
Everyone stared.
“He’s kidding!” Dream said with a nervous laugh. “Haha, Tommy, why would you say that?”
“It was a dark and stormy night,” Tommy started, a faraway look on his face with one eye half closed, and the other wildly open. “I had just come home from a 26 hour walk back from work, uphill both ways-”
“How old are you?” The Frenchman asked.
“Sixty seven.”
“You look fourteen,” Another man said.
“I am not!” Tommy exclaimed with a glare. “I’m 18.” A few of the men around the table winced, most looking disturbed. Someone whistled in surprise.
“Sorry kid.” Someone said, sounding strangely genuine. “How much time you got?”
“Two days, I’m breaking out-”
“Tommy!” Dream blurted. “We’re not doing that-”
“You kids are gonna get killed in here if you’re not careful,” an older man said. “This one is loud, this one is pretty.”
“I’m not loud!” Tommy shouted.
“Pretty?” Dream asked, frowning and touching his face.
“They’re not gonna get killed,” Punz said. “Because they’re with me, so they’re with us.” A few men groaned.
“We’re babysitting?” The short man asked, sounding oh so tired.
“They’re here for me,” Punz explained. “Look, I’ll tell you guys more later, but for now, they’re under our protection. Cool?” The table fell into murmurs, two men whispering to one another.
“Whatever.” Someone finally said before eating an orange slice. Punz smiled at them, then slowly shuffled Dream and Tommy away from the group until they were out of earshot.
“This is about the tattoo thing, right?” Punz asked.
“So you’ve noticed?” Dream asked.
“Uh, yeah, it’s kinda hard not to.”
“Is it bad?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like are your abilities…” Dream hesitated. “Extreme? Powerful?”
“Yeah.” Punz nodded intensely. “Definitely.”
“So we can leave then, right?” Tommy said. “Like we know-”
“We can’t just leave,” Dream said.
“You can’t,” Punz begged. “You have to help me, I don’t know how to control it.”
“We’ll help you,” Dream promised. “We have tattoos too, we’ve been in the same boat as you. It’s easy once you get the hang of it.”
“I still fuck up sometimes,” Tommy admitted. “But not like, majorly, just stupidly.”
“Thank you, seriously,” Punz said. “I mean, in here, do you know what kind of chaos I could cause? How much shit would go down?”
“Why don’t you just break out?” Tommy asked.
“Tom!” Dream scolded.
“What? It’s a valid question.”
“I can’t, you guys haven’t been here very long, you don’t understand. People will die, some good people, some of my friends.” Punz said. “It’s getting out of hand, I don’t know what I would have done if you guys hadn’t shown up.”
“We’re here now,” Dream said with a reassuring smile. “After field time in the library, right? We’ll explain everything then, and you can explain your side too.”
“Yeah, yeah that sounds good,” Punz nodded. “Try not to start any fights, cool?”
“Coolio,” Tommy said.
“I really appreciate this,” Punz said finally, before clapping the two of them on the shoulders and leaving them to head back to his group. Tommy and Dream returned to their table. Their trays had been ransacked, hardly a crumb left to eat. Someone even had the audacity to leave Dream’s apple core behind.
“What are you doing?” Tommy asked, wincing as Dream picked up the apple core.
“Getting ammo,” Dream said, picking the seeds out and shoving them in his pocket. “Never know when you might need them.”
“We already have seeds, remember?” Tommy said, moving to pull his lip down.
“Stop stop stop!” Dream rushed to pull his hands back down. “Not here. You still have ‘em?”
“Yep.”
“Great, that’s all we need then.”
The ‘yard’ was a fenced in rectangle of dead grass. Half of it was taken up by a shoddy basketball court, with cracked concrete and lines so faded they were hardly visible. The hoops were missing their nets, and one of the two backboards was cracked in half. A dozen or so men played soccer toward the prison wall, white chalk marking the goals. Everyone who wasn’t playing simply talked toward the edges of the fence, or cheered on those who did play.
“And I thought my school playground was depressing,” Tommy said, leaning against the brick wall.
“Can you imagine doing this, every day, for your whole life?” Dream asked. “I’m already bored out of my mind and we’ve been here for half a day.”
“You’re always bored.”
“I am not.”
“Yes you are, you’re always bouncing your leg and staring off into space.”
“I’m thinking.”
“Your head’s always in the clouds, with the birds and shit.” They were quiet for a moment. “I would make such a good bird. I’d be- I’d be a canary, no, what’s that super fast one?”
“A peregrine falcon.”
“Yeah, one of those.”
“They can get up to almost 200 miles per hour. After World War Two they became an endangered species due to the use of DDT pesticides across the United States and Canada, but they haven’t been since 1999.”
“Well, that’s good. They’re my brothers, birds of a feather,” Tommy grinned. “See what I did there?”
“Good job, Tommy.”
“Thank you, Dreamsicle.”
“What?”
“Sorry, just trying something new.” Tommy kicked a rock by his feet. “Is that faster than a bullet? 200 miles per hour?”
“Depends on the gun, but somewhere around 800 miles an hour for a handgun.”
“Shit.”
“Peregrine falcons are only that fast when diving anyway. Did you plan on racing any bullets any time soon?”
“No, but I need to be better than the Flash.”
“Why?”
“Stupid fucking face,” Tommy mumbled, offering no more reasoning or context. They watched the games around them in silence for a few minutes. Anxiety boiled in Dream’s stomach at the thought of a stray ball heading their way. Not because of the backlash, or getting hit, but getting warned by his luck, and catching it midair. That would be a great way to draw attention to themselves.
“Who’s she?” Tommy asked suddenly, pointing to a woman across the yard, chatting with two fellow inmates. “I thought this was a men’s prison?”
“Me too…” Dream squinted. Definitely a woman. “Shit.”
“What?”
“Do you think she’s… trans?”
“Oh fuck,” Tommy drew out the k. “Shit. That fucking sucks. Maybe we can, you know, take her with us.”
“She’s still a criminal.”
“Yeah, but she doesn’t belong here.”
“Most of the people here don’t ‘belong here’,” Dream said. He sighed, he’d never really thought about what went on in prisons. The idea of anyone besides a twenty something year old man imprisoned for murder hardly ever crossed his mind, but half of the convicts were over forty. “Maybe. I don’t know, do we really need to be her ‘savior’? Do we have to take it upon ourselves to change her life without her consent?”
“We can ask,” Tommy said.
“I- yeah, we should,” Dream agreed. “Not now though, it’s too early.”
“We can wait, yeah.” Tommy nodded. “God this place fucking blows. You’d think they’d give us a tour or something.” All at once, a corner of the yard erupted in shouting. Dream whipped his head around to stare at the noise. The gray basketball some of the inmates had been playing with was now on the other side of the fence, somehow passing over barbed wire, and trapped between the barriers. Men began slapping another inmate on the head, berating him for the loss.
“Are they gonna go get it?” Dream asked, looking for guards. The jailers stood around the yard, but no one took it upon themselves to help.”
“What dickheads,” Tommy glared at a guard particularly close to the action. “I’m gonna go ask him.”
“Tommy, do not-”
“Hey!” Tommy shouted, running over to the guard. Dream immediately chased after him. “Hey, are you gonna go get that?”
“Excuse me?” The officer asked.
“The ball. Can one of you go get it?”
“Not my problem-”
“Yeah, but we can’t go get it.”
“Should’ve been more careful with it then.” Tommy glared. Dream had the passing thought of oh no before-
“Now you listen here-” Dream pushed himself in front of Tommy, placing his body between him and the officer.
“Sir-” Dream began before the guard's radio crackled to life. The officer glared, then brought the device to his ear. He took a few steps back and turned, speaking too softly to make out. A moment later, he was heading back inside, walkie-talkie to his ear.
“What was that?” Tommy asked.
“Luck,” Dream mumbled. “His car is getting towed out front.”
“Oh.”
“How would you know that?” Someone suddenly asked. Tommy and Dream both spun to see the group of basketball players watching them.
“Uh,” Dream felt his mouth go dry. God, he wished his luck worked on people. “I-”
“He’s a wizard!” Tommy suddenly said. “We both are.” Dream expected the inmates to burst into laughter, but instead, they just gave a few smiles. One chuckled.
“Oh yeah?” The tallest one challenged.
“Pick a card,” Tommy said with a shit eating grin. As Dream realized what he meant, he couldn't help but grin either.
“Are you serious?” The man asked.
“Yes. Any card.”
“Uno plus four.” Tommy rubbed his hands together, clapped them twice, snapped, and suddenly presented the group with an Uno plus four card. The group did laugh at that, ripping the card from his hands and passing it around.
“Abracadabra!” Tommy kept grinning.
“Seven of spades!” Someone called out. Tommy summoned their card the same way. This one too was passed around, and suddenly, a crowd began to form.
“Queen of hearts!”
“Ace of spades!”
“Cards against humanity!”
“Five of clubs!”
“Joker!”
“Uno reverse!”
Tommy handed out as many as he could, passing out cards like candy on Halloween. After the first ten, he began to sweat. By twenty, he was trembling.
“Okay, that’s enough!” Dream shouted, pulling Tommy away from the group. His face grew pale as his hands shook, grabbing Dream’s jumpsuit for dear life. “That’s enough!” Complaints began to pile.
“What’s going on over there!” A guard shouted across the yard. Someone reached for Tommy’s sleeve, and Dream yanked the boy away.
“If anyone touches him I’ll- I’ll do a magic trick no one’s gonna like,” Dream warned. At that moment, Tommy’s cards disappeared, going back to wherever they came from. Dream was almost grateful.
“Hey, everyone get the fuck away!” Someone demanded, and suddenly a guard was pushing through the crowd, shooing people away. Tommy closed his eyes, and his knees buckled. Dream gripped Tommy’s arms, letting him down slowly and kneeling in the dead grass.
“Hey, hey Tommy, Tommy!” Dream shouted. He didn’t think Tommy had ever summoned that many individual items at once before, not even half of that.
“Is he okay?” The officer asked behind Dream.
“Heatstroke,” Dream managed to say. “Do you have any water?”
“No.”
“Fucking seriously dude?” Dream snapped, turning to look at the guy. The guard looked offended, then walked back to where he was stationed. Dream felt for Tommy’s pulse on his wrist. He was alive. Of course he was alive, Tommy wouldn’t get killed by playing cards. Probably.
“Tom,” Dream reached for Tommy’s eyelids, opening one. When he let go, it fell back into place. Dream wiped his hand on Tommy’s clothes. “Tom!”
“Are you guys alright?” Someone asked behind them. Dream turned, a few random prisoners standing around them.
“Uh, yeah, yeah we’re good, he just needs a second, he tends to uh-” Dream glanced back down at Tommy. “Overheat. Late nights in the middle of June, right?” Dream laughed nervously to himself. Why the fuck did I say that?
“I was an army medic,” one of them said. “Can I take a look at him?” Dream’s eyes darted between the two, Tommy and this random guy, this criminal, who could be here for any of a thousand reasons.
“Yeah, that’s okay.” The man knelt in the dirt by Tommy’s side, tilting his head and getting his ear close to Tommy’s face.
“He sounds okay, has he done this before?” The man asked, checking Tommy’s wrist for a pulse.
“Uh,” Dream thought back to the time a few months ago when half of the hero team and a few more friends had played paintball. Tommy rage quit and pelted Bad with tomatoes in such quick succession and large quantities that he’d passed out in the middle of the forest, getting a deep scar on his cheek. “Once, yeah.”
“Did his head hit the ground?”
“No.”
“Did any part of him hit the ground?”
“No, he kinda passed out while I was grabbing him.”
“Theo!” Someone from the group perked up. “Go get some water.” The man nodded and ran off toward the prison.
“He’s gonna be fine, right?” Dream asked.
“I don’t see why not,” The medic said. “We need to get him out of the sun, is it okay if we move him into the shade?” Before Dream had a chance to answer, Tommy sat up in one quick motion, nearly headbutting the medic.
“Tommy!” Dream shouted suddenly, letting the stress in his shoulders fall. “How do you feel, are you okay?” Tommy didn’t speak for a moment, staring at the people surrounding him, then he looked down.
“Why am I on the ground?” Dream let out a sigh of relief. At least his brain still worked. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Uh, Chris-” The medic said, blinking.
“And just who the fuck are you, Chris?” Chris stared at Tommy, then at Dream.
“I uh, I’m not sure I know how to answer that.”
“Hm,” Tommy hummed, squinting. “Me neither. Oh well,” Tommy tried to get to his feet, and Dream held out his arms to catch him just before he came tumbling back down.
“Don’t stand up so quickly,” Chris said, offering his arm for Tommy to balance on.
“Uh, I don’t think so. I have perfect, masculine legs. I’m like a horse, full of muscle, horse legs, like a cinema-tar.”
“Centaur,” Dream corrected.
“Thanks, Big D.”
“You don’t have to call me that.”
“It’s okay, I’ll do it for you.”
“Let me rephrase, please don’t.”
“Why do you hate joy? Is it because you’re jealous?”
“Jealous-?”
“Dude,” Chris just said with a sigh.
“I’m not a dude,” Tommy scoffed, taking his arm anyway, gripping Dream’s shoulder on his other side. “You may call me sir.”
“Jesus,” Chris mumbled.
“That is also acceptable.”
“Tommy,” Dream started, as the three of them hobbled over toward the prison, the brick walls creating a small area of shade by an odd wooden fenced area. “Let’s be nice to Chris, he’s helping us out. We’re practicing kindness.”
“Do you use ‘he him’ pronouns?” Tommy asked.
“Tom!”
“What! I’m practicing kindness!”
“Uh,” Chris hesitated. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Nevermind,” Dream said before Tommy could speak again. They both put Tommy down on a slightly less dead patch of grass, likely aided by the shade. “Feel any better?”
“I always feel like I could eat a fucking horse.”
“So is that good?”
“Fantastic. Powerful.” Tommy sprawled in the grass like he was about to make a snow angel. “Ah. Glorious nature shit.”
“What’s the box for?” Dream asked, pointing to the boxed in area made of wood, with gray dirt and dandelions inside.
“Ah, so you guys are new here,” Chris nodded to himself, seemingly satisfied with his assessment. “I personally didn’t get to see it, but the older guys here said they used to let them keep a garden in here.” Without much prompting, Dream found himself uncontrollably grinning. A flying feeling flowed through his veins, the joy of finding a perfect song, the smell of morning rain, something so viscerally alive, that devoured nihilism.
“Dream,” Tommy warned. “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t do it.”
“Why not?” Dream asked. “Might as well help out while we’re here.”
“We need those too, you know-” Tommy made a face that said that thing we can’t talk about.
“What are you talking about?” Chris asked, and for a moment, Dream thought he saw fear in the man’s eyes.
“Can you keep something a secret?” Dream asked, reaching down and pulling a few seeds out of his shoe, some from his apple at lunch, and a few they’d snuck in themselves.
“...apple seeds?” Chris said slowly, watching Dream sprinkle them in the gray dirt. “We’ve tried that before, they don’t grow-”
“That’s fine,” Dream said, ignoring Tommy’s disapproving sigh. The seeds didn’t even flinch at the broken dirt. They had broken through concrete before, this was nothing. They sprung forward toward the sun, apple saplings, young blackberry bushes, sunflowers, and roses, their stems instinctually strengthening before Dream calmed them. They wouldn’t be fighting, not here.
Chris just stared, silently. A few seconds passed, then half a minute.
“Is- is he okay?” Tommy asked. More silence. Out of nowhere, Chris’s jaw fell open and he began to scream at the top of his lungs, moving to run before he was suddenly silenced. Wait, what had-
“Tommy,” Dream dropped his raised hand. “Tommy what did I-”
“Dream let him go-”
“I didn’t-” Chris’s face grew a deep red, gasping for air. With all of the breaths he lacked, Dream inhaled them just as fast, his heart beating so hard he thought it would break another rib.
“Dream!”
“I can’t!” Chris’s stance began to waver, swaying to the side. All at once, Dream unclenched his throat without even meaning to, and Chris gasped.
“Oh my fucking god,” Tommy rushed over to the man’s side as he choked on the sudden air.
“I didn’t- that wasn’t on purpose-” Deam rushed to fill the wordless wind. “I swear, it was an accident, I wasn’t-”
“Dream, I get it,” Tommy said sharply. “Just-” A sudden shrill rang out through the yard, piercing their bubble of a crisis. The men in the yard began to file into a line, slowly disappearing back inside. “What do we do?”
“Uh,” Dream glanced at the coughing man in Tommy’s arms, the increasingly concerned faces of the inmates and guards, then to the garden that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. “Do you trust me?”
“Only if the plan is fucking stupid.”
“You’re not gonna like it.”
“I already hate it. Fuck you.”
“Drop Chris.” Tommy looked up and glared.
“What?”
“Leave him. Now. He’ll be fine, we’ll pay him back. We have to meet Punz, then we get the fuck out of here.” Tommy still held the man’s shoulders. “Tommy. Trust me. Now.”
“Fucking shit balls. Fuck.” Tommy released Chris and returned to Dream’s side, both of them jogging to the crowd and filing inside. They disappeared into a sea of orange.
“That could have been a disaster.” Dream whispered as they crossed the doorway, a burst of cold air conditioning hitting them all at once.
“That was a dick move.” Tommy snapped. “I told you not to do that.”
“I know, I know,” Dream caught a gaze from across the room, Punz’s blue eyes staring back at him. “I- they needed a garden-”
“Did they?” Tommy asked. Punz nodded toward the metal staircase behind them, and Dream pivoted to follow. Tommy shifted with him. “Maybe you just needed a fucking garden.”
“We can use the stuff we already planted to escape, besides, I’m sure Chris will forgive us if we break him out of here.”
“What happened to not wanting to choose for people if they want out?” Tommy asked.
“He does get to choose,” Dream said, beginning to ascend the stairs. The foyer smelled of sweat and despair. “But at least we’re giving him a choice. Besides, what’s even going to happen, they’ll interrogate him and ask where the mysterious tree came from? It’ll trace back to us, and by then, we’ll be gone.”
“I guess,” Tommy mumbled. “It’s still bullshit.”
“All of this is bullshit.”
“What if he’s like, a serial killer? Or an evil scientist or some shit? You ever watch Jurassic World two?”
“No.”
“No one has, it was shit. But I saw it and it was okay. Do we just hit the dinosaur button and let everyone out and let everyone get eaten by pterodactyls?” Dream paused halfway up a step to turn around.
“What?”
“I don’t think we get to offer them a choice,” Tommy said. “I don’t fucking know, I just don’t want a bunch of potentially terrible people to get out into the world.” Dream pursed his lips, letting the words roll around in his head.
“We need to-”
“Hey!” A voice called from behind him. Dream whipped around, Punz standing at the top of the staircase. “Can you guys hurry up, we don’t have a lot of time.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dream gave Tommy a ‘we’ll talk about this later’ look before they both half sprinted up the remaining stairs. Punz led them through a grand oak door, one that reminded him of the doors in Quackity’s hotel. The library’s ceilings reached towering heights, gold accents and black words on book spines painting feigned windows on the cedar skyscrapers. The windows seemed to glare, pupils tracing their steps as they disappeared to a corner behind a shelf full of short stories and mythologies.
“Are you sure this is a safe spot?” Dream asked.
“Oh yeah, no one will bother us while we’re back here,” Punz assured him. “This is where people go to… you know-”
“Fuck.” Tommy said. Both Dream and Punz turned to stare at him.
“...deal contraband.” Punz said slowly.
“Oh.”
“I’m sure someone has fucked back here,” Punz compromised. “Let’s do this fast. I don’t know how long we have before we get busted. Dream, I have to ask, how?”
“The uh, tattoos?” Dream asked. Punz nodded. “I have no idea. It kinda just-” Dream made a clicking noise with his tongue. “You know? Happens.”
“How do I control it?” Punz asked. “I mean, I could stop using it all together but in here I don't really have a choice.”
“What tattoo did I give you again?” Dream asked. Punz hesitated, glancing at Tommy for a moment.
“Don’t… freak.” Punz’s eyes pleaded, even as his words felt flat. Tommy and Dream’s eyes briefly met. Punz grabbed the edge of his right sleeve, pulling it up, all the way past his shoulder.
“Holy shit,” Tommy blurted.
“Where did you get those?” Dream asked. Half of Punz’s arm was covered in assorted tattoos. He only recognized one, a bee he’d tattooed just above the inside of Punz’s elbow. It looked like a children’s coloring book, messy, and orderless.
“Myself,” Punz said, narrowing his eyebrows.
“In here?” Dream asked. His inner artist fainted at the idea of pulling out his machine in such a polluted environment.
“Yeah? Wait, you guys know why I’m freaking, right?”
“Because you can’t control whatever powers you got, right?” Tommy asked. “What did you get?”
“I-” Punz’s blue eyes met Dream’s, suddenly terrified, caught in free fall. “I think I got yours.” Dream could suddenly hear his heartbeat.
“I- what do you mean?” Dream demanded, not noticing as he took a step closer to Punz.
“I’ve been tattooing the guys in here, I’m not great at it, but they’ve been getting… abilities, I guess? Like my buddy, Matt can fall asleep whenever he wants for however long he wants. He use to have insomnia, I don’t know what the fuck I did but-”
“Are you fucking serious?” Dream grabbed Punz by the shoulders, watching his pupils drift to Dream’s hands, then back to his eyes.
“Yeah?”
“Are you a hundred percent sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Would you bet your life on that?”
“I think so?” Dream dropped his grip on Punz, retreating until his back hit the wall just behind him. He slid down it, sitting on the ground and pulling his knees to his chest. His eyes couldn’t find purchase in the hundreds of books, opting to stare into a sea of voided, cedar dying. He couldn’t think about it. He couldn’t think. His mind and spine had been a tall block tower, knocked over by the presence of a toddler, their creativity only fed by his destruction. It fell so effortlessly. What could a house of cards do against the nature of wind?
“Dream? Dream, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Dream mumbled, the words passing his lips without a single nerve twitching. “Punz?”
“Yeah?”
“What scares you?” Dream asked. The cogs in his mind began to turn again, shocked as it was dropped into a frozen ocean, once again acclimating to the freeze.
“What?”
“He gets like this,” Tommy explained. “He’s- you just freaked him out. He’s had like, seven crises in the past month. He’s never met someone else who can do the tattoo thing.”
“I think I’m gonna throw up.” Dream mumbled.
“You’re not gonna throw up,” Tommy said, rolling his eyes. Dream’s gaze refused to break from the bookshelves. “Come on. We gotta help Punzo.”
“Punzo?” Punz asked, affronted.
“Look, who else is gonna help this guy? It’s not gonna be me-” A clang rang out through the library, and Dream’s head jerked up.
“They’re looking for me.” Dream realized, snapping out of his mental fog. “Shit, they must’ve seen the plants.”
“Wait, how do you know that? What plants?” Punz demanded.
“Dream can like, catch the vibes for shit,” Tommy explained as Dream practically jumped to his feet. “Oh boy, now he’s going into anxious panic warfare mode and something’s about to explode. Just cover your head and don’t get caught in the crossfire.”
“What?” Punz exclaimed, shouting from outside the library growing in volume. Dream felt the plants in the garden begin to stir.
“We’re breaking you out of prison, dickhead, try not to resist.” Tommy summoned a metal baseball bat, tossing it to Punz.
“What the fuck!”
“Don’t worry, we got this!” Tommy said with a grin. From the other side of the prison, blackberry vines and sunflower stems erupted through the concrete. Tommy let out a shrill scream as he led the charge out of the library, Dream following right behind and Punz still demanding answers. They burst through the oak doors, and the prison practically exploded. Two guards dangled upside down, held up by a blackberry vine. Sunlight broke through the shattered wall, making the metal tables and metal stairs and metal rails and plates shine like a knight’s armor. Someone was shirtless. A dozen guys were raiding the cafeteria as fast as possible. Most people fought.
“What the hell?” Punz looked around, dazed.
“Geronimo!” Tommy shouted, summoning a shitty plastic sled and jumping on top of the metal railing, riding it down like a skateboard. Dream just started levitating. Punz screamed bloody murder.
“There he is!” Someone in the mass shouted, pointing up at Dream. A few people turned, then everyone, then they began to run. Streams of people screamed, rushing out through the mangled wall like water in a cracked jar, desperate to flee with the pull of gravity. Old disputes were forgotten, with a common enemy, a common fear, floating above them like a broken god, turning whatever mortal disputes into a single desire to survive the horrors. Any jailers that attempted to shoot him were left with crippled and melted guns, molten mercury and shattered ice breaking weapons of war.
Then Tommy came up behind one of the guards and slammed a wooden bat into the back of his head. The guard crumpled like a wet piece of paper. The bat disappeared and Tommy slapped the officer’s own pair of handcuffs on him, chaining him to a table.
Roots exploded out of the ground, trapping men where they stood. Any and all weapons melted, or shattered, or a thousand other shifts, anything to keep a gun from firing. The wind carried Dream over the running crowd, outside where he was immediately fired upon. Sirens rang out from every surface, encircling the chaos. Guard towers exploding with shot after shot, a symphony of shelling, a declaration of war. For the first time, the true gravity of it all fell upon Dream. Fuck, how do we fix this? There were just so many screams. If he focused, he could see people hiding inside, young and old men crouched under stairs, in cells, behind bookshelves and tables. He couldn’t do it all. One person could never save all of this.
Dream flew back inside, where Punz still stood alone on the stairs, clutching the bat like a scared child.
“Punz,” Dream said breathlessly, floating just a few feet away. Punz swung the bat back, ready to become the third person to fuck up Dream’s nose. His face was white as paper. “I’m not gonna hurt you-”
“You can fly.” Punz stammered. “You stay the fuck away from me.”
“Look, I want to help you, but first we all need to get out of here-”
“I’m doing just fine in here-”
“Are you? Are you really? Is anyone ever fine in here?”
“Of course, the fuck not!” Punz shouted. “But some of us need to be here. Some want to be here anyway. We were doing just fine before you came and fucked everything up. Look what you’ve done, half the prison is broken, everyone is fighting, and you’re-” Punz cut himself off, just staring at Dream, waiting for him to come to his own conclusion.
“I know, we need to fix the chaos. Right?” Punz nodded, slowly. That’s a start. Dream felt someone fire at him while his back was turned. He ignored it, hearing the broken click before it even resounded. “I can’t fix this. None of these people know me or trust me. Me and Tommy, we’re just outsiders.”
“I can’t corral an entire prison!” Punz cried. “What the hell man!”
“You’ve tattooed these people right? You know as well as I do what it’s like, what it feels like to tattoo someone else. You’re linked to them, they carry a piece of you wherever they go. You carry a piece of me, whether either of us likes it or not. Appeal to the part of them that let you give them powers in the first place. They didn’t come from nothing. Your tattoo didn’t come from thin air, it came from an art and a passion we both have. Remind them, Punz.” Dream hadn’t realized he’d floated onto the step right below Punz, both standing eye to eye. “We have to try. I don’t want anyone hurt. You have to believe that.” Punz stared at the space behind Dream, watching the last of the panicked men rush out of the prison. His gaze met Dream’s once again.
“How do I do that?” He asked. Dream let the tension in his shoulders dissipate.
“Go down into the crowd, show everyone you’re a part of them. Blend in, then stand out.” Punz nodded, and Dream thanked every god that he understood. The bat in his hands disappeared, Tommy somewhere too tired to keep it up. “We’ll stay out of the way, I’ll know if you need help.”
“How?”
“I’ll, you know, catch the vibes. And shit.” Dream smiled, just a little bit. “Tommy!”
“What!” He shouted back from the middle of the prison, handcuffing two cops together.
“Let’s go!”
“Aw, sorry guys,” Tommy left the cops to run around in disgruntled circles, passing Punz on the stairs. “What’s the plan?”
“Punz is gonna go… do something,” Dream said, watching him escape into the yard with the last convicts. “We can’t stay here, someone’s gonna drop an anvil on you.”
“God, that would be so based of them,” Tommy said, only half paying attention as he watched the cops he’d handcuffed together argue about nonsense. “How’re we getting out of here?”
“I was thinking we could chill on the roof for a bit.”
“Are we gonna take an Uber up there or some shit?” Tommy asked.
“I was thinking more like a magic carpet.” Tommy’s head jerked to face Dream, eyes lighting up.
“Dream, you sir, are the most based.”