Work Text:
Lawrence had awoken in a cold bed that morning to two messages on his communicator.
>Dream whispered to you: Get over here.
The second message to follow was a set of coordinates that the catboy recognizes as being out near the remains of Logstedshire. He frowns faintly, his mind turning the simple messages over his head a thousand times over, as he quickly gets ready.
What in Prime’s name does Dream need all the way out there?
After exchanging his pajamas for his favored green shirt and grey trousers, Lawrence just shakes his head. Well, he’ll find out soon enough.
“Hya, I’m headed out! I’ll be back by supper!” Lawrence calls into the home, but he receives no response. Strange… Usually Hyacinthus always hangs around until Lawrence wakes up before heading off. Must have had something urgent happen for him to head off without even a simple note.
The catboy just shakes his head again, biting back a sigh, as he scurries his way into the basement.
It’s dusty down here, not a place either man of the house tends to go to often. There’s a couple stacks of crates and barrels dotted around, a simple farm of mushrooms and Nether Warts in the back corner, and, standing proudly front and center, a Nether Portal. The portal’s frame was chipped and not very well maintained, but Lawrence gets it. Hya’s pyrophobia gets so bad sometimes that even just being in the same room as the Nether Portal makes him panic.
But now isn't the time to think about that.
Lawrence takes a deep breath before stepping through the portal, stagnant dusty air replaced with the burning spice and sulphuric smell of the Nether. Gods above, this is unpleasant.
The catboy spends as little time in the hellish dimension as he can, speed-walking his way over rickety pathways of poor materials until he’s stood at the long-abandoned Logstedshire portal.
In all honesty, there’s a nervous roiling in his stomach. Lawrence isn’t sure he wants to go meet up with Dream, but… He doesn’t really have much choice. Despite the fiery heat that makes him sweat bullets, a shiver runs down his spine as he has to force himself through the portal.
On the other side, the salty air of the sea greets him, and he can see the face of the sun beginning it’s slow ascent over the horizon’s edge, painting the dawn with oranges and pinks and purples that remind him so much of—
“Oh, good, you’re here finally.” A voice suddenly speaks, startling Lawrence and pulling him from his revelry of the sky. He looks up before bowing his head.
“My Lord…” The catboy murmurs, his tone full of respect and careful attention.
Near hidden amongst the branches of a tree next to the portal, there’s Dream, cracked mask smiling down and netherite axe in hand gleaming in the rising sunlight.
“Please, forgive me if I kept you waiting long.”
Dream hums and jumps down from his perch, returning his axe to his inventory with the wave of a hand.
“Follow me.” The green man says simply, waving off Lawrence’s words nonchalantly.
Lawrence follows dutifully after his god, both men keeping quiet as Dream leads them away from the ruins of Logsted, deeper into the forest and away from the sea. As the forest grows thicker, Lawrence isn’t sure how long they walk, the sun not able to make it quite through the canopy of the leaves above other than a small dapling of light and his hushed anxiety not helping at all. Eventually, however, be it several minutes or a couple hours later, Dream suddenly stops.
The catboy watches curiously as Dream kicks away some underbrush and then blinks in surprise at the sight of a trapdoor.
“You go down first.” Dream commands and, as a simple worshipper, Lawrence does as his god wishes without complaint.
Lawrence kneels to open the trapdoor before shifting to shimmy down ladder in the one-block wide hole into the earth.
His cat-like eyes adjust rather easily to the darkness, so when he reaches the end of the ladder and settles on his feet, he looks around. The room at the bottom is maybe about 7x7 and three blocks tall. The walls are plain and undecorated, diorite and gravel and andesite still peppering the stone, as if this room was freshly mined. Lawrence is about to voice his confusion before the words die on his tongue as he finally notices the centerpiece of the room.
On the other wall, directly opposite the ladder, there’s a fence post connected from floor to ceiling and attached to that fence post with a length of lead, forced to kneel on the cold stone floor with his arms tied behind his back, is Hyacinthus.
The nymph looks so much worse for wear. Hyacinthus’s dark brown skin is paled and ashy and mottled with bruises, one pitch eye swollen completely shut while his nose is painfully crooked, dawn purple locks tinged red with blood in spots. The same thing can be said of his usually pristine white blouse that's now shreds of useless fabric and delicate wilted blossoms on his head. Prime, there’s so much bloody red…
Lawrence is muted in his horror and, in those silent moments, Dream finally clambers his way into the small room.
“Ah, I see you’ve seen what I called you here for.” Dream says in that tone of his, oh-so-smug, as he brings forth a torch.
At the sound of speaking, Hyacinthus looks up from here he’d been staring at the floor, hazy and cloudy eye sharpening slightly in alarm.
“Kitty—“ Hyacinthus starts before his rough and almost inaudible voice breaks, breaking down into a coughing fit that has him rasping for breath.
Rage fills Lawrence’s heart and he rounds on his heel, turning to face Dream with a glare. Fucking hell, that shitty mask…
“What in XD’s name are you doing?!” Lawrence shouts at his god, not thinking rationally about consequences. “He is our ally!”
That was a mistake. The next second, Lawrence was on the ground from the force Dream had used to backhand him. Dream's foot digging into and pressing on Lawrence's chest as the admin bends over the catboy that was staring up in fear.
“Don't you ever speak to me like that again. Do you hear me, Lawrence?” Dream threatened, his voice terrifyingly calm as he points a diamond shard dagger at the poet. Lawrence shook and nodded his understanding.
Dream smiled cruely under the mask, before removing his foot from Lawrence's chest and the knife from his neck before yanking Lawrence up by the arm.
Dream leaves the catboy standing there, and approaches Hyacintheus' kneeling form. It had been embarrassingly easy for him to steal the nymph away in the night, with Hyacintheus never locking the door and both of them being heavy sleepers.
A pale hand grabs Hyacinthus’s chin, forcing the nymph’s gaze away from Lawrence and onto Dream.
“He needs to be taught a lesson in piety.” Dream says slowly, as if speaking to a child. He drops Hyacinthus’s chip, drawing back and wiping his hand on his pants. “Frankly, you might as well, Lawrence.”
The catboy blinks.
“You see, there’s been… Rumors ? Yes, rumors about you two flying about this server for quite some time now. Rather unsavory, if you ask me, claiming you two are in some sort of relationship.”
Lawrence’s blood runs cold. Oh, fuck. Now he thinks he sees where this is going… And judging from the way that Hyacinthus’s eye widens, he does as well.
“Dream, no, stop. Please, those rumors are baseless. Me and Hya are just co-workers, nothing more.” Lawrence tries to argue, even as the denial leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.
Lawrence senses his fuck-up the moment he utters it.
“Oh, it’s ‘Hya’ now? Tell me, ‘kitty’…” Dream growls, his tone dropping cold. Lawrence cringes at the usage of Hyacinthus’s nickname for him. “Since when do ‘just co-workers’ give each other such affectionate pet-names?”
Lawrence stammer and stutters, his heart and mind racing alike. Thankfully, Dream doesn’t even bother letting his follower try to spit out some worthless excuse.
“My one tenet. Remind me again, Lawrence, what that tenet is.”
“D-Don’t get attached—“ There was a dagger sticking out of his shoulder now, but fear and adrenaline kept Lawrence from screaming. For now.
“Don’t get fucking attached!! Simple as that! And what did you do? You went and got yourself attached to something!”
Dream’s voice is loud and full of nothing but pure anger, the sound ricocheting off the walls of the tiny room and causing Hyacinthus to curl in on himself, trying to cover his pointed ears though failing from his binds. The sight is enough to make Lawrence’s protective instincts rear their head, but he shoves them down for the moment as he as to physically bite his tongue as the dagger is ripped from his flesh.
The green man takes a breath and laughs, a mad and bitter noise, and he shakes his head.
“But you can make it up to me, can’t you, Lawrence?”
Lawrence falters, tail swaying in unease as he clutches his bleeding wound, not expecting that.
“I- What?”
The torch is snatched back before immediately being replaced with something else. The catboy looks down, his heart stuttering to a near stop as he realizes what he’s been handed.
A crossbow, fully loaded with fireworks already.
“Shoot him, Lawrence. Get rid of this… Pesky loose end and I will forget this ever happened. We’ll be a big happy family all over again.” Dream’s voice is sweet and coaxing, a hand nudging and guiding Lawrence’s aim right at Hyacinthus.
Hyacinthus doesn’t seem to have the energy to look distraught or scared or anything like that. He just looks tired, like he’s already accepted his fate, this final death after such a long life. This final death of drowning a sailor in a clay pot.
“B-But what about keeping a hold on Eret? You need Hya for that—“
“Just shoot the bastard!”
Lawrence flinches, reluctantly turning his gaze to look down the scope of the crossbow, trying so hard to ignore the shaking of his hands as the crosshairs settle on Hyacinthus. Point blank, there’s not surviving this shot.
“I love you, kitty…” Hyacinthus smiles weakly, the confession hanging in the air as he braces himself for the final darkness with no light of respawn at the end of the tunnel.
The trigger is pulled.
>Dream went off with a bang whilst fighting Lawrence
Before Hyacinthus even has a moment to process what just happened, Lawrence drops the crossbow and stumbles to his side.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, this is so bad, shit—“ Lawrence rambles on, clearly panicking as he undoes the knots of the binds holding Hyacinthus in place.
The moment the lead is untied, Lawrence is hauling the nymph to his feet.
“We need to go now. Can you climb?” The catboy frets, looping one of Hyacinthus’s arms around his shoulders for balance, holding back a hiss as pressure is added to his stab wound.
Hya shakes his head, stifling a whimper as pins and needles shoot up his legs.
“Hurts…”
Lawrence curses, eyes flitting around for some other way out, but all they’ve got is the ladder.
“XD dammit, I’ll try to carry you up. Hold on tight.”
Lawrence shifts his hold on his friend so that the nymph is clinging to his back, arms wrapped around his neck. With one hand, Lawrence loops it under the back of Hyacinthus’s thigh for extra balance and, with the other hand, slowly and carefully pulls their way up and out of the hole.
The catboy doesn’t even pause once they’re out, just straightening out to loop the other hand under Hya’s other thigh before taking off running.
There’s a bit of struggle, what with how Hyacinthus is the slightly stronger one of the pair, but Lawrence seems to be running on pure adrenaline right now.
By the time the duo comes crashing out of the forest, the beautiful dawn is long gone.
“Close your eyes, we’ve gotta go through the Nether.” Lawrence warns, giving Hyacinthus just enough time to brace himself and bury his face into the catboy’s hair, just between his ears, before dipping through the portal.
With Hya’s pyrophobia, Lawrence spends even less time in the Nether, running as fast as his legs will safely carry him across rickety bridges.
In no time at all, Lawrence is back in the pair’s home, scrambling his way back upstairs.
“Hya? Where do you keep the regen pots?” He asks, worry and fatigue lacing his tone as he slows to a stop.
“Mhphh… Brewin’ r’m… Chest closest to the door…” The nymph manages to get out, his voice alarmingly sluggish and low.
Lawrence jogs to the brewing room, pushing into the room rather unceremoniously. He sets Hyacinthus on the small loveseat before moving to rummage through the two chests closest to the door. It only takes a minute to find the proper pink colored potion, but in the nymph’s state, Lawrence fears it may be a minute too late.
He uncorks the bottle, the bitter herbal smell of Nether Warts hitting him like a punch to the face.
“C’mon, Hya, drink up.” Lawrence coaxes gently as he sits down next to Hyacinthus.
The other blearily takes the bottle, blankly blinking once, twice, thrice… Before taking a sip of the potion, cringing at the taste. However, he doesn’t even utter a word of complaint as he begins to nurse the medicinal brew.
Lawrence watches with baited breath as the potion slowly starts to work its magick. Bruises rush right past dark purple into a sickly green before fading back to flesh tone, cuts and scratches and gashes stitch themselves back together, and his nose straightens itself back out. The hazy look of blood loss fades from Hyacinthus’s eyes as the color returns to the undertones of his face.
“Oh my gods, flower, you scared me…” Lawrence whispers, sounding a breath away from tears as he wraps Hyacinthus into a crushing hug.
Hyacinthus shakes in Lawrence’s arms and he makes a strange noise deep in the back of his throat. It takes a moment too long for Lawrence to realize that the nymph is crying.
Hyacinthus— cold and reserved and logical Hyacinthus— is crying.
“I-I thought I was g-going to die there..!” Hyacinthus sobs into Lawrence’s chest, the pure terror he had felt finally showing through.
The catboy flounders, not quite sure how to respond in this situation, before gently shushing Hya.
“Shh, shh, it’s okay. I would never let you die if I could help it…” He murmurs, tone soothing and kind.
Hyacinthus just whines and goes back to crying until his tears run dry. Lawrence holds him close the entire time, mumbling the occasional reassuring word, but otherwise keeping quiet.
They have much to discuss; things that need to be taken care of now, like needing to hide when Dream eventually comes back with a vengeance, and things that can wait until a proper calm moment after the storm, like that unexpected confession moments from death. But, for the moment. They just need a moment to breathe.