Real Human Man

That is highly offensive.

Yes?

not fast enough green boi

Siren’s chains dropped—entirely forgotten in the moment.

Dream leans forward against the reporter in his grasp, his voice a hateful whisper;

Siren knew the heroes had a distaste for the news, he had watched them on the occasional times he had nothing to watch but the city's news channel. But this? This was something raw, pure unfiltered anger and rage and it almost... Exited the villain, knowing that even a hero can break eventually.

He paused in his movements, tilting his head to the side, a smug grin on his face. Whether the grin on his face was visible or not didn't matter, because for once, it actually met his eyes, a glimmer of something unrecognisable shining in his eyes.

"Not very hero-like Dream"

Diverting focus back to his escape, the exit only five steps away. Four. Three.

Karl's face skids against the slimy ground, his feet betraying him before a hand grasps him again and oh there he goes, pushed against the wall. Again. The green smile making its reappearance in his peripheral.

The air prickes as tension paints the silence in the sewer, the only sound Karl's panting. Until it isn't.

click

Twin gazes move slowly to a tiny device in the journalist's hand hanging limply but seemingly not helplessly. It was the size of an apple. Well actually, the recorder was definitely a little smaller than an apple.

Karl tries to stiffen a smile. Dream doesnt speak this time. That's alright. Karl got plenty already.

He flips the tech around in a smooth motion. On its backside a blinking red button under an open glass case. Upon closer inspection, the edge of it seemed to be charred. There was no time for that though.

His finger hovers over the button, moved from its previous placement on the black recording button. "Bad choice."

He sighed and began to step forward, walking up behind Dream who was way too focused on the journalist. He lifted his arms and dropped them around the hero's neck, pulling them back just enough for the chain connecting Wilbur's hands together to press against the hero's neck. He leaned forward slightly, his breath almost warm against the others ear as he spoke.

Dream feels almost outside of his own body. Like he’s watching the violence carried out by a stranger. But of course he isn’t.

The show of force had been enough to set the other photographers fleeing. Equipment smashed and submerged. Crushed and splintered under Dream’s feet at every opportunity.

The reporter, crawling, lurches again for the exit. Like a snake Dream thinks viciously, the heel of his boot coming down against the small of his back. Wriggling like a worm beneath his foot.

“Stop it! You’re being mean!” Tiny, gooey hands cling and tug desperately at his hair. “I said stop!”

Dream doesn’t stop. He hauls Karl Jacobs back up against the wall to face him once again.

For a long moment they stare at one another. The reporter’s panting breath the only sound.

“Click”

Dream goes stiff with horror at the sight of the device clutched in the reporter’s other hand.

“Bad choice.”

There’s the flicker of a smile as Karl Jacob’s finger hovers over a second, red button.

A taser, Dream tells himself. It’s only a taser. Dream is well trained enough to deflect a taser. Control—I’m still in control. He tells himself, a little desperately.

Except… Dream pauses. His stomach dropping with doubt at the look on the journalist’s face.

Absently, he feels the reporter’s hand come up to rest, gently, against the skin of his wrist.

“I can still pay you back for the equipment” he murmurs finally, “—but only if I can trust you to keep quiet about all of this.”

Trust that I can’t afford to give he thinks morosely as he reaches for the recorder.

Yet before his fingers can brush against it…

—Dream jerks at the feeling of cold metal pressed across his throat. The back of his neck prickles. His senses gone momentarily haywire in the contrast of a presence—another warm body that looms against his back.

"don't make me do this."

It’s Siren’s voice.

Shock, relief, then disbelief.

Dream would’ve sworn that the man had left already. Had seen him leave, he’d thought; And the sight had been a growing pit in his stomach that grew heavier with every second that ticked by.

Yet—impossibly—there was his salvation. Tommy’s salvation.

He twists ineffectually to see the other, the chain tightens briefly in warning. He’s tugged backwards. Stumbling against the chest of the taller man. He goes with him pliantly. Karl Jacobs sliding back down the wall as Dream’s grip slips away.

I should fight back, Dream thinks absently. He knows this. Yet somehow the energy eludes him. The all-consuming panic and rage that had so animated him moments before bleeding dry to give way to numb exhaustion.

“We’re both going to die,” he finds himself complaining. Numbly staring at the reporter whom he’s just allowed to slip away from his grasp. “When he publishes the story. They’ll realize that I broke you out..”

"Do you really think there's a world where our story doesn't end in death"

It's phrased like it's almost a question that Wilbur knows the answer to, like he's testing the hero, that if he chooses the right answer they'll wake up, that maybe this was all a dream and they'd wake up and all this has gone away, like Wilbur wasn't going to be executed and dream was still at home with his brother like nothing ever happened

"It doesn't matter when, or how, this isn't some fairy story hero. We die. People die. And the faster you except that the easier it'll be"

He doesn't know if he believes that himself, but he says it anyway, because what else is there to say? That he wishes he was anywhere but here, that he wishes he was with his family?

He's silent for a moment, his eyes closed in some mock peace before he frowns, does he really want to just accept this reality, that they're just going to give up and wait for the inevitable relief of death?

"get up."

He hisses at dream, pulling the chains that were barley choking the hero anymore over his head and pushing him up.

There’s no point in arguing with the villain. Not when the man will, otherwise, seemingly cooperate. So Dream only nods. Eying the end of the chain again, considering.

“It’s this way,” he murmurs—shoving his hands into his pockets instead; He inclines with his head to gesture towards the direction that they’re meant to go.

But he pauses with his eyes locked on Karl Jacobs

He looks almost unimpressed with Dreams nonexistent attempt to fight back, he squints at dreams covered face, hoping to find anything to tell him that the hero is pulling him into a trap. He found nothing.

Dream looked... Pathetic almost. Well, more than usual, like a particularly wet cat. He's almost hunched over, pulling into himself in a way Wilbur hadn't seen him do before, he barely notices when Dream gestured in the vague direction he assumes that is their way out because he's just staring at the hero like he was a particularly interesting bug he wasn't sure he wanted to keep or squish under his heal.

He finally pulls himself away from staring at Dream to put his attention on Karl. He stares unblinkingly then gives the journalist a look that equates to 'i know what you do and who you do. Don't test me'. Before tilting his head back to Dream

"He's a journalist. He knows when it's in his best interest to not talk"

He pauses for a moment, like he's going to add to that. But he doesn't.

It feels so easy, too easy, to step aside and let the other make things right.

And Dream certainly doesn’t have a better idea of what to do with him.

Three men stand in a moment of silence, before Siren turns back glaring, “get these chains off me.”

Dream twitches at the command. The audacity of this man, to give him orders. Dream tries to cling to that anger. Holding desperately whatever shred remains of his tattered pride.

‘As if there were further to fall.’

Dream suddenly feels like screaming.

But he knows that if he begins to scream that he won’t stop until his lungs are empty.

Part of him wants to hurt Wilbur for that.

Even as another part wanted to follow: Fall back into rhythms of childhood. A time when adults promised safety for his blind obedience. (That safety had never meant safe, not truly. It just hurt less to pretend).

So Dream leans into his anger, yet still he follows. Ruminating on his wrath like a man coaxing smoldering embers to burn. Dream reaches for the rage to fill his heart and guide his movements.

He stalks up to his prisoner, bristling. Even as he fumbles with the key.

Dream doesn’t need to fake the tenseness of his shoulders. His fingers curl in white-knuckled agony as the XD-mark begins to pulse. Burning like the brand were pressed afresh against his skin.

The pain never makes him break his stride. Dream is a man above weakness.

He can feel as the hero's hands almost dig into his own as he frees Wilbur's hands, how he flinches as the chains fall to the ground with a splash or how he steps backwards like Wilbur was about to lift his hands and wrap them around Dreams neck. He felt like it, felt like killing him and leaving the body to rot like every so-called 'hero' deserved. But... He didn't.

Wilbur let out a breath as the weight on his wrists disappears, a sigh of relief that morphs into a hiss of pain as his calloused thumb rubs against the lacerations and abrasions caused by the chains. A rare moment of weakness he allowed himself before he pulled his (thankfully not wet yet) sleeves down. It was a problem for later. Not something he can worry about now.

Wilbur lifted his head, his eyes meeting Dreams and never wavering as he spoke

"What now. Do you even have a plan? Or are you just winging it"

Dream tells him as he turns. Then, more quietly—

So he didn't.

He instead focused on the words the hero said next. 'I want to talk to you'. Huh. Talk about what? Red maybe?

"about what?"

“family stuff.”

"family stuff."

Silence.

Nothing.

It pissed Wilbur off, the way Dream drops information and then refuses to elaborate on anything. He wants to just grab the hero by his shoulders and shake him until he does something

"Dream."

Nothing.

"Dream!"

He hisses the hero's name, almost sounding like a child trying to get its parents attention.

"you can't just tell me something and not elaborate."

Silence.

He pushed the other, attempting to elicit any shred of information or reaction from the hero

"For fucks sake, just talk to me"

He almost growls the word. And it clicks. Dream is confused. Like actually, genuinely confused. And that frustrates him more than anything.

"where do I even start? The fact that I have no idea where we are going, or who we are meeting. Or maybe. You know. The fact that you tell me we need to talk about 'family stuff' and don't elaborate. Family stuff means a lot of things. Are we talking about Red here? Your family? My family? I don't know because you don't explain"

He's barely holding his frustration back, speaking quickly, his hands moving animatedly the way they would when Wilbur talked about something that interested him.

“Yes?” He answered. He was answering the family question, Dream thinks. But Wilbur had come at him with a lot at once so maybe those ones weren’t what Wilbur had meant.

"just-"

He pinched the top of his nose, trying to calm himself. Dream is at least attempting to meet him in the middle.

He sticks to the shadows, stretching the chains now on his hands-borrowed from Siren -as much as he can to keep a safe distance from the other two as they trudge and argue along. Moreover argue. He's pretty sure the empty peanuts packet drifting along sewage water is making faster travel time than them.

He flicks the glass casing of the button open and shut, straining to hear the aggressive whispering going on up ahead. Trying to piece it together with the flashes he's receiving from Dream.

His breathing quickens. No. One foot in front of the other. One. Two. Come on. Karl wants to groan. He's holding on to too many. They've told him, he knows. Just as he knows he's not going to press the button. Karl knows that too and so does Wilbur.

Seriously, threatening him with that look. Does Wilbur think they're in high school?

But it worked. If there's one weapon Wilbur can wield. And Karl Jacobs sticks to Dream's heel like a puppy. (Is this how red chaos lives?)

He'll hold onto the universe, as many as it takes before it gets to harm them. In this volcano of a sewer the rings in his pocket burn like the sun.

Up ahead the hero and villain halt. Karl fidgets with his device.

Open.

"Fanily stuff--" Two main paths. Pause. Talk. Tell- more words on the tip of the tongue- or

Close.

Dream turns abruptly, pulling Karl along. Ah, the second choice then. This one was easier than the other ideas the hero contemplated. Less bloody too. And if Karl has to see one more flash with crunching bones-

"Dream!" Siren hisses. Karl has half a mind to press the recording button again. He tries to catch bits and pieces. Wilbur wants to know something about family. His or Dream's? Karl tries looking deeper but its too far a decision for him to see. But wait-

Open.

Fire. Family. Towards the Pit, the blood entrance. Enforcers, in hoardes.

Or?

A purple band on a ring finger. Spinning. Around and around. Manhole cover, thrown open. Leaping into the beast's mouth. Hand and heart aflame A tracking device in the other. Spinning. Stop.

Close.

Darkness. Karl sputters, his grip on the device almost shattering as the white is fading and his senses returning. He's coming. Oh god he's coming.

Karl turns his focus back up. How much are these going to stare at each other?

Open.

One step forward. Two. Or-

Close.

"404 been gone a long while huh." Karl mutters to himself just as Dream lets out a "Yes?"

Yes? Dream's family? Karl has never heard of any mention of Dream's family. He racks his brain for the flashes from Red Chaos- unless...the only old person he is seemingly to close with is the man Sapnap just chose Karl above.

His breathing quickens again. Oh god. Karl has been in this forsaken place for how long? This isn't even his best hoodie. He has half a mind to ask Wilbur to fix his hair- if he's going to meet his future in-law. Maybe he could check his reflection in a nearby Pringles can?

Open.

Close.

Open.

A deer, but not a fawn. Pouncing, teeth bared. Antlers like daggers. The boar, unassuming, vulnerable. A blade lunging to kill.

Another blade. An axe.

Meeting its kind up. Up. A crow caws-

Blood, filthy and crimson. A hand of bones and rot flinging Karl out of the flash into Red Chaos' mind.

Close.

Karl stumbles, mud and whatever disease-ridden liquid sloshing onto him. How good is a demon smell anyway?

Its nothing. He's fine. Walk on. Turn back. Or

"Jacobs?" Dream calls out warily.

"What was that?" Karl sputters. The hand, it was an amount of power he's never come across before. "Red Chaos- he- would never-" An axe in the hand of the Hero that never kills. "Not anymore." He mumbles as footsteps approach.

Open.

Crooning. Twisting, wretched horns. A hand on- a hand on his chin, where it certainly doesn't belong anymore. Fall into it, lean.

Or- He moves forward. Spits. The hands, the horns, angry now, move closer.

"No!" Karl screams.

Smash.

The recorder plummets. He hears a crack. Oh. His company won't like that. Karl is on his knees now, wet till his waist. When did that happen?

...what?

He turns towards the noise and reaches for the weapon on himself that he knows is long gone, taken from him when he was imprisoned. He silently cursed dream out for that, he was already vulnerable enough right now after everything, not even able to access his powers.

He softens slightly when he realises who it was, just slightly, not enough to be noticeable.

"You."

He hisses out. He was so tempted to- no. Not now. He doesn't have time for anything but getting out of here, plus that would be a pain to explain to jester.

He was so close to prying something out of dream, he knows it. He can feel how he was finally peeling back some of Dreams outside defences, but no. He just hand to be interrupted. Breath Siren. This is not the time to start more things, even if he deserves it-

No.

Breath.

His guard—(at what point had he allowed it to slip? Siren is his enemy)—snaps right back into place, and with vengeance: The realization that Dream had allowed it to fall at all fills his heart with terror.

So many secrets that he had nearly allowed to slip from his tongue. Released and unrecoverable into the world. Weaponizible by any opportunist who sought to use them. Such an opportunist was with them now. Dream chokes his secrets back as he chokes on the putrid air, Grateful that they had never left his lips.

Dream can’t understand—doesn’t want to understand—the reality in front of him. “Why couldn’t you have just stayed away” he thinks desperately at Karl Jacobs, furious.

Heart pounding far too hard in his chest. For an instant Dream wants to believe that if he closes his eyes that the journalist will vanish too. Like the winged phantoms in Bad’s stories: warping in an out of reality with sleep, undead mirages born from a starry sky.

He feels’s Wilbur’s eyes turn back to him, and Dream’s mind scrambles to grasp at something to ground himself. Latching onto to the first thing his mind can make sense of—words murmured into his ear.

He twists his head inward into the shadow of his hood where the tiny slime resides. His eyes wide behind the cover of his mask.

“Are you blackmailing me?” Dream gasps, aghast. He’s almost too flabbergasted to feel properly angry.

Slime tilts his head to the side, trying to think of a suitable replacement word for what was, by all intents and purposes, blackmail.

Yes?

not fast enough green boi

Siren’s chains dropped—entirely forgotten in the moment.

Dream leans forward against the reporter in his grasp, his voice a hateful whisper;

Siren knew the heroes had a distaste for the news, he had watched them on the occasional times he had nothing to watch but the city's news channel. But this? This was something raw, pure unfiltered anger and rage and it almost... Exited the villain, knowing that even a hero can break eventually.

He paused in his movements, tilting his head to the side, a smug grin on his face. Whether the grin on his face was visible or not didn't matter, because for once, it actually met his eyes, a glimmer of something unrecognisable shining in his eyes.

"Not very hero-like Dream"

Diverting focus back to his escape, the exit only five steps away. Four. Three.

Karl's face skids against the slimy ground, his feet betraying him before a hand grasps him again and oh there he goes, pushed against the wall. Again. The green smile making its reappearance in his peripheral.

The air prickes as tension paints the silence in the sewer, the only sound Karl's panting. Until it isn't.

click

Twin gazes move slowly to a tiny device in the journalist's hand hanging limply but seemingly not helplessly. It was the size of an apple. Well actually, the recorder was definitely a little smaller than an apple.

Karl tries to stiffen a smile. Dream doesnt speak this time. That's alright. Karl got plenty already.

He flips the tech around in a smooth motion. On its backside a blinking red button under an open glass case. Upon closer inspection, the edge of it seemed to be charred. There was no time for that though.

His finger hovers over the button, moved from its previous placement on the black recording button. "Bad choice."

He sighed and began to step forward, walking up behind Dream who was way too focused on the journalist. He lifted his arms and dropped them around the hero's neck, pulling them back just enough for the chain connecting Wilbur's hands together to press against the hero's neck. He leaned forward slightly, his breath almost warm against the others ear as he spoke.

Dream feels almost outside of his own body. Like he’s watching the violence carried out by a stranger. But of course he isn’t.

The show of force had been enough to set the other photographers fleeing. Equipment smashed and submerged. Crushed and splintered under Dream’s feet at every opportunity.

The reporter, crawling, lurches again for the exit. Like a snake Dream thinks viciously, the heel of his boot coming down against the small of his back. Wriggling like a worm beneath his foot.

“Stop it! You’re being mean!” Tiny, gooey hands cling and tug desperately at his hair. “I said stop!”

Dream doesn’t stop. He hauls Karl Jacobs back up against the wall to face him once again.

For a long moment they stare at one another. The reporter’s panting breath the only sound.

“Click”

Dream goes stiff with horror at the sight of the device clutched in the reporter’s other hand.

“Bad choice.”

There’s the flicker of a smile as Karl Jacob’s finger hovers over a second, red button.

A taser, Dream tells himself. It’s only a taser. Dream is well trained enough to deflect a taser. Control—I’m still in control. He tells himself, a little desperately.

Except… Dream pauses. His stomach dropping with doubt at the look on the journalist’s face.

Absently, he feels the reporter’s hand come up to rest, gently, against the skin of his wrist.

“I can still pay you back for the equipment” he murmurs finally, “—but only if I can trust you to keep quiet about all of this.”

Trust that I can’t afford to give he thinks morosely as he reaches for the recorder.

Yet before his fingers can brush against it…

—Dream jerks at the feeling of cold metal pressed across his throat. The back of his neck prickles. His senses gone momentarily haywire in the contrast of a presence—another warm body that looms against his back.

"don't make me do this."

It’s Siren’s voice.

Shock, relief, then disbelief.

Dream would’ve sworn that the man had left already. Had seen him leave, he’d thought; And the sight had been a growing pit in his stomach that grew heavier with every second that ticked by.

Yet—impossibly—there was his salvation. Tommy’s salvation.

He twists ineffectually to see the other, the chain tightens briefly in warning. He’s tugged backwards. Stumbling against the chest of the taller man. He goes with him pliantly. Karl Jacobs sliding back down the wall as Dream’s grip slips away.

I should fight back, Dream thinks absently. He knows this. Yet somehow the energy eludes him. The all-consuming panic and rage that had so animated him moments before bleeding dry to give way to numb exhaustion.

“We’re both going to die,” he finds himself complaining. Numbly staring at the reporter whom he’s just allowed to slip away from his grasp. “When he publishes the story. They’ll realize that I broke you out..”

"Do you really think there's a world where our story doesn't end in death"

It's phrased like it's almost a question that Wilbur knows the answer to, like he's testing the hero, that if he chooses the right answer they'll wake up, that maybe this was all a dream and they'd wake up and all this has gone away, like Wilbur wasn't going to be executed and dream was still at home with his brother like nothing ever happened

"It doesn't matter when, or how, this isn't some fairy story hero. We die. People die. And the faster you except that the easier it'll be"

He doesn't know if he believes that himself, but he says it anyway, because what else is there to say? That he wishes he was anywhere but here, that he wishes he was with his family?

He's silent for a moment, his eyes closed in some mock peace before he frowns, does he really want to just accept this reality, that they're just going to give up and wait for the inevitable relief of death?

"get up."

He hisses at dream, pulling the chains that were barley choking the hero anymore over his head and pushing him up.

There’s no point in arguing with the villain. Not when the man will, otherwise, seemingly cooperate. So Dream only nods. Eying the end of the chain again, considering.

“It’s this way,” he murmurs—shoving his hands into his pockets instead; He inclines with his head to gesture towards the direction that they’re meant to go.

But he pauses with his eyes locked on Karl Jacobs

He looks almost unimpressed with Dreams nonexistent attempt to fight back, he squints at dreams covered face, hoping to find anything to tell him that the hero is pulling him into a trap. He found nothing.

Dream looked... Pathetic almost. Well, more than usual, like a particularly wet cat. He's almost hunched over, pulling into himself in a way Wilbur hadn't seen him do before, he barely notices when Dream gestured in the vague direction he assumes that is their way out because he's just staring at the hero like he was a particularly interesting bug he wasn't sure he wanted to keep or squish under his heal.

He finally pulls himself away from staring at Dream to put his attention on Karl. He stares unblinkingly then gives the journalist a look that equates to 'i know what you do and who you do. Don't test me'. Before tilting his head back to Dream

"He's a journalist. He knows when it's in his best interest to not talk"

He pauses for a moment, like he's going to add to that. But he doesn't.

It feels so easy, too easy, to step aside and let the other make things right.

And Dream certainly doesn’t have a better idea of what to do with him.

Three men stand in a moment of silence, before Siren turns back glaring, “get these chains off me.”

Dream twitches at the command. The audacity of this man, to give him orders. Dream tries to cling to that anger. Holding desperately whatever shred remains of his tattered pride.

‘As if there were further to fall.’

Dream suddenly feels like screaming.

But he knows that if he begins to scream that he won’t stop until his lungs are empty.

Part of him wants to hurt Wilbur for that.

Even as another part wanted to follow: Fall back into rhythms of childhood. A time when adults promised safety for his blind obedience. (That safety had never meant safe, not truly. It just hurt less to pretend).

So Dream leans into his anger, yet still he follows. Ruminating on his wrath like a man coaxing smoldering embers to burn. Dream reaches for the rage to fill his heart and guide his movements.

He stalks up to his prisoner, bristling. Even as he fumbles with the key.

Dream doesn’t need to fake the tenseness of his shoulders. His fingers curl in white-knuckled agony as the XD-mark begins to pulse. Burning like the brand were pressed afresh against his skin.

The pain never makes him break his stride. Dream is a man above weakness.

He can feel as the hero's hands almost dig into his own as he frees Wilbur's hands, how he flinches as the chains fall to the ground with a splash or how he steps backwards like Wilbur was about to lift his hands and wrap them around Dreams neck. He felt like it, felt like killing him and leaving the body to rot like every so-called 'hero' deserved. But... He didn't.

Wilbur let out a breath as the weight on his wrists disappears, a sigh of relief that morphs into a hiss of pain as his calloused thumb rubs against the lacerations and abrasions caused by the chains. A rare moment of weakness he allowed himself before he pulled his (thankfully not wet yet) sleeves down. It was a problem for later. Not something he can worry about now.

Wilbur lifted his head, his eyes meeting Dreams and never wavering as he spoke

"What now. Do you even have a plan? Or are you just winging it"

Dream tells him as he turns. Then, more quietly—

So he didn't.

He instead focused on the words the hero said next. 'I want to talk to you'. Huh. Talk about what? Red maybe?

"about what?"

“family stuff.”

"family stuff."

Silence.

Nothing.

It pissed Wilbur off, the way Dream drops information and then refuses to elaborate on anything. He wants to just grab the hero by his shoulders and shake him until he does something

"Dream."

Nothing.

"Dream!"

He hisses the hero's name, almost sounding like a child trying to get its parents attention.

"you can't just tell me something and not elaborate."

Silence.

He pushed the other, attempting to elicit any shred of information or reaction from the hero

"For fucks sake, just talk to me"

He almost growls the word. And it clicks. Dream is confused. Like actually, genuinely confused. And that frustrates him more than anything.

"where do I even start? The fact that I have no idea where we are going, or who we are meeting. Or maybe. You know. The fact that you tell me we need to talk about 'family stuff' and don't elaborate. Family stuff means a lot of things. Are we talking about Red here? Your family? My family? I don't know because you don't explain"

He's barely holding his frustration back, speaking quickly, his hands moving animatedly the way they would when Wilbur talked about something that interested him.

“Yes?” He answered. He was answering the family question, Dream thinks. But Wilbur had come at him with a lot at once so maybe those ones weren’t what Wilbur had meant.

"just-"

He pinched the top of his nose, trying to calm himself. Dream is at least attempting to meet him in the middle.

He sticks to the shadows, stretching the chains now on his hands-borrowed from Siren -as much as he can to keep a safe distance from the other two as they trudge and argue along. Moreover argue. He's pretty sure the empty peanuts packet drifting along sewage water is making faster travel time than them.

He flicks the glass casing of the button open and shut, straining to hear the aggressive whispering going on up ahead. Trying to piece it together with the flashes he's receiving from Dream.

His breathing quickens. No. One foot in front of the other. One. Two. Come on. Karl wants to groan. He's holding on to too many. They've told him, he knows. Just as he knows he's not going to press the button. Karl knows that too and so does Wilbur.

Seriously, threatening him with that look. Does Wilbur think they're in high school?

But it worked. If there's one weapon Wilbur can wield. And Karl Jacobs sticks to Dream's heel like a puppy. (Is this how red chaos lives?)

He'll hold onto the universe, as many as it takes before it gets to harm them. In this volcano of a sewer the rings in his pocket burn like the sun.

Up ahead the hero and villain halt. Karl fidgets with his device.

Open.

"Fanily stuff--" Two main paths. Pause. Talk. Tell- more words on the tip of the tongue- or

Close.

Dream turns abruptly, pulling Karl along. Ah, the second choice then. This one was easier than the other ideas the hero contemplated. Less bloody too. And if Karl has to see one more flash with crunching bones-

"Dream!" Siren hisses. Karl has half a mind to press the recording button again. He tries to catch bits and pieces. Wilbur wants to know something about family. His or Dream's? Karl tries looking deeper but its too far a decision for him to see. But wait-

Open.

Fire. Family. Towards the Pit, the blood entrance. Enforcers, in hoardes.

Or?

A purple band on a ring finger. Spinning. Around and around. Manhole cover, thrown open. Leaping into the beast's mouth. Hand and heart aflame A tracking device in the other. Spinning. Stop.

Close.

Darkness. Karl sputters, his grip on the device almost shattering as the white is fading and his senses returning. He's coming. Oh god he's coming.

Karl turns his focus back up. How much are these going to stare at each other?

Open.

One step forward. Two. Or-

Close.

"404 been gone a long while huh." Karl mutters to himself just as Dream lets out a "Yes?"

Yes? Dream's family? Karl has never heard of any mention of Dream's family. He racks his brain for the flashes from Red Chaos- unless...the only old person he is seemingly to close with is the man Sapnap just chose Karl above.

His breathing quickens again. Oh god. Karl has been in this forsaken place for how long? This isn't even his best hoodie. He has half a mind to ask Wilbur to fix his hair- if he's going to meet his future in-law. Maybe he could check his reflection in a nearby Pringles can?

Open.

Close.

Open.

A deer, but not a fawn. Pouncing, teeth bared. Antlers like daggers. The boar, unassuming, vulnerable. A blade lunging to kill.

Another blade. An axe.

Meeting its kind up. Up. A crow caws-

Blood, filthy and crimson. A hand of bones and rot flinging Karl out of the flash into Red Chaos' mind.

Close.

Karl stumbles, mud and whatever disease-ridden liquid sloshing onto him. How good is a demon smell anyway?

Its nothing. He's fine. Walk on. Turn back. Or

"Jacobs?" Dream calls out warily.

"What was that?" Karl sputters. The hand, it was an amount of power he's never come across before. "Red Chaos- he- would never-" An axe in the hand of the Hero that never kills. "Not anymore." He mumbles as footsteps approach.

Open.

Crooning. Twisting, wretched horns. A hand on- a hand on his chin, where it certainly doesn't belong anymore. Fall into it, lean.

Or- He moves forward. Spits. The hands, the horns, angry now, move closer.

"No!" Karl screams.

Smash.

The recorder plummets. He hears a crack. Oh. His company won't like that. Karl is on his knees now, wet till his waist. When did that happen?

...what?

He turns towards the noise and reaches for the weapon on himself that he knows is long gone, taken from him when he was imprisoned. He silently cursed dream out for that, he was already vulnerable enough right now after everything, not even able to access his powers.

He softens slightly when he realises who it was, just slightly, not enough to be noticeable.

"You."

He hisses out. He was so tempted to- no. Not now. He doesn't have time for anything but getting out of here, plus that would be a pain to explain to jester.

He was so close to prying something out of dream, he knows it. He can feel how he was finally peeling back some of Dreams outside defences, but no. He just hand to be interrupted. Breath Siren. This is not the time to start more things, even if he deserves it-

No.

Breath.

Yes?

not fast enough green boi

Siren’s chains dropped—entirely forgotten in the moment.

Dream leans forward against the reporter in his grasp, his voice a hateful whisper;

Siren knew the heroes had a distaste for the news, he had watched them on the occasional times he had nothing to watch but the city's news channel. But this? This was something raw, pure unfiltered anger and rage and it almost... Exited the villain, knowing that even a hero can break eventually.

He paused in his movements, tilting his head to the side, a smug grin on his face. Whether the grin on his face was visible or not didn't matter, because for once, it actually met his eyes, a glimmer of something unrecognisable shining in his eyes.

"Not very hero-like Dream"

Diverting focus back to his escape, the exit only five steps away. Four. Three.

Karl's face skids against the slimy ground, his feet betraying him before a hand grasps him again and oh there he goes, pushed against the wall. Again. The green smile making its reappearance in his peripheral.

The air prickes as tension paints the silence in the sewer, the only sound Karl's panting. Until it isn't.

click

Twin gazes move slowly to a tiny device in the journalist's hand hanging limply but seemingly not helplessly. It was the size of an apple. Well actually, the recorder was definitely a little smaller than an apple.

Karl tries to stiffen a smile. Dream doesnt speak this time. That's alright. Karl got plenty already.

He flips the tech around in a smooth motion. On its backside a blinking red button under an open glass case. Upon closer inspection, the edge of it seemed to be charred. There was no time for that though.

His finger hovers over the button, moved from its previous placement on the black recording button. "Bad choice."

He sighed and began to step forward, walking up behind Dream who was way too focused on the journalist. He lifted his arms and dropped them around the hero's neck, pulling them back just enough for the chain connecting Wilbur's hands together to press against the hero's neck. He leaned forward slightly, his breath almost warm against the others ear as he spoke.

Dream feels almost outside of his own body. Like he’s watching the violence carried out by a stranger. But of course he isn’t.

The show of force had been enough to set the other photographers fleeing. Equipment smashed and submerged. Crushed and splintered under Dream’s feet at every opportunity.

The reporter, crawling, lurches again for the exit. Like a snake Dream thinks viciously, the heel of his boot coming down against the small of his back. Wriggling like a worm beneath his foot.

“Stop it! You’re being mean!” Tiny, gooey hands cling and tug desperately at his hair. “I said stop!”

Dream doesn’t stop. He hauls Karl Jacobs back up against the wall to face him once again.

For a long moment they stare at one another. The reporter’s panting breath the only sound.

“Click”

Dream goes stiff with horror at the sight of the device clutched in the reporter’s other hand.

“Bad choice.”

There’s the flicker of a smile as Karl Jacob’s finger hovers over a second, red button.

A taser, Dream tells himself. It’s only a taser. Dream is well trained enough to deflect a taser. Control—I’m still in control. He tells himself, a little desperately.

Except… Dream pauses. His stomach dropping with doubt at the look on the journalist’s face.

Absently, he feels the reporter’s hand come up to rest, gently, against the skin of his wrist.

“I can still pay you back for the equipment” he murmurs finally, “—but only if I can trust you to keep quiet about all of this.”

Trust that I can’t afford to give he thinks morosely as he reaches for the recorder.

Yet before his fingers can brush against it…

—Dream jerks at the feeling of cold metal pressed across his throat. The back of his neck pricks. His senses gone momentarily haywire in the contrast of a presence—another warm body that looms against his back.

"don't make me do this."

It’s Siren’s voice.

Shock, relief, then disbelief.

Dream would’ve sworn that the man had left already. Had seen him leave, he’d thought; And the sight had been a growing pit in his stomach that grew heavier with every second that ticked by.

Yet—impossibly—there was his salvation. Tommy’s salvation.

He twists ineffectually to see the other, the chain tightens briefly in warning. He’s tugged backwards. Stumbling against the chest of the taller man. He goes with him pliantly. Karl Jacobs sliding back down the wall as Dream’s grip slips away.

I should fight back, Dream thinks absently. He knows this. Yet somehow the energy eludes him. The all-consuming panic and rage that had so animated him moments before bleeding dry to give way to numb exhaustion.

“We’re both going to die,” he finds himself complaining. Numbly staring at the reporter whom he’s just allowed to slip away from his grasp. “When he publishes the story. They’ll realize that I broke you out..”

No heros, no villains.

Nothing,

um…

Perchance… are you a museum curator/researcher or a serial killer?

Like a hybrid? I always assumed that slimes were cubes and… uh* (Family friend used to tell Tommy and I a lot of stories); But I’ve also never met a slime before. That’s rad as hell.

Hello @goopyhumanguy I am also a human and I have bones too.

Would you like to go see some bones in a museum with me?

I heard that Royal is sponsoring a new L’Manberg museum. I think he mentioned there’s be fossils?