Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first lesson that Tommy’s older brother taught him before he was spirited away by the cruel hands of society was that family didn’t have to be blood. He doesn’t know when he first realized that was what he was supposed to learn, but it set in eventually. He didn’t look anything like his brother. It was one of the things that were most commonly said when comparing them. Tommy was all blond hair, blue eyes, and a lanky build while his brother, Dream, had dark brown eyes and light brown hair that turned to a dirty blond when he was in the sun. His brother had wider shoulders and fit his height.

When Tommy asked something, Dream answered. It was as if there was an unbreakable trust between the two that no one who saw them could ever hope to replicate. So, when Tommy asked if he and his brother were related, he was given the truth. 

“Not by blood,” Dream said. “But family isn’t always the one who gives you life.”

“So what is it then? Family?” Tommy questioned. He was eleven at the time. His brother was freshly sixteen, roughing it out on the streets to make due for their rent. Tommy was his lifeline, just as Dream was his.

Dream smiled at him, all warmth, no contempt, and responded. His voice was so clear and reassuring that Tommy never forgot what his brother had said. “Family is who helps you live. You and I?” He pointed to himself and Tommy. “We’re family. I would do anything to see you thrive.”

Tommy pondered those words for a moment, trying to compute whether or not the answer satisfied him. He didn’t take into account how his heart warmed and he felt safer than he ever had before when his brother told him that. 

“So, is that a long-winded way of saying yes?” He joked. Dream scoffed playfully. 

“Yes, Tommy,” He laughed. “We are related where it matters.”

Now, Tommy sat on his barren couch in an old and dusty living room that once upon a time he might’ve called home. He stared at the wall aimlessly, caught up in memories while the date caught up with him. 

He had been thirteen when his brother was taken from him. It has been five years since then.

Tommy was content to let his mind drift on into the unknown. He had no qualms about spending his eighteenth birthday not being in the moment. There was almost no one to celebrate it with him that hadn’t already left him. 

The bells from the church down the road sent loud rings echoing through his apartment for the fourth time since he’d gotten home. Time truly does pass by in the blink of an eye. He tilted his head backward so that everything behind him looked like it was upside down. In the corner was a desk. Old and unused. Once upon a time, it had been his older brother’s, but with no one left to fill it, it only took up space. The only thing that changed about the furniture and the decorations on top of it was the placement of a photo.

It was a portrait from when his older brother was younger. It was taken on the same day that the two of them had met for the first time, mere hours before. While it used to be facing the living room, a sight that both they and their guests could see, now it was faced down as if Tommy was mourning. 

Dream was not dead. That thought was his only hope and savior. He would’ve known otherwise. It was too early for his brother to die. It wasn’t anyone’s fault that he was gone except the SCU. Maybe Tommy would’ve been gone as well if circumstances led him to stay home that day.

The cruel fate of those with superpowers. 

All of them were just unheard victims. 

Tommy shifted his vision away from the desk and threw his gaze toward the windows. It was sunset, finally. He had been waiting for this all day. It signaled that soon the moon would be out and he could enjoy his favorite time of the day.

A buzzing noise came from his back pocket, finally bringing him back down to earth. He groaned as the light from the golden hour hit his eyes and blinded him momentarily. Tommy reached back and picked up his phone to see who was calling him. He didn’t have many contacts, and it was rarer that someone would actually take the time to give him a call. 

There were always two people who came through, though. He smiled to himself at the names of the contacts. It was from the group chat. A facetime call. 

He admitted he hadn’t seen his two best friends in quite a while. Excitedly, he clicked the answer button and cursed at his shitty wifi for its slowness before the cameras showed up and the voices of his friends rang out into the desolate apartment. 

“Happy birthday!” Eryn yelled. Tommy almost regretted putting the call on speaker. Instead, he laughed. Because when you want to cry, what else is better than to laugh? 

“Thanks,” He grinned. 

Purpled, the calmer of his two friends, said a less loud version of the greeting as well, which only left his smile to light up even further. 

“Boys!” Tommy yelled. His eyes squinted, trying to hold back tears. Eryn had been with him before he had even met his brother, and Purpled had joined his best friend to comfort him when his brother was ripped out of his arms. He couldn’t ask for any more than that. Especially not on a day that held so much grief that they tried to make it so much fun. “How are we?”

Purpled smirked, while Eryn let out a boisterous laugh. Both of them answered in their relative ‘good’ and ‘never been better' and they went on about how the day had been. It was nice to talk to people he was comfortable with. He couldn’t wait to see them.

“You both are still down for Diamonds & Demons tonight, lads?” Of course they were. They wouldn’t miss it for the world. 

“To finally see you take your first legal shot? Hell yeah, no fucking way I’d miss that.” Eryn responded. 

Purpled had shifted back into the camera frame, he looked like he had started driving. “Yeah, man. We’ll meet you there at nine?” He grunted out as he shifted gears. 

“Absolutely, I wouldn't miss it for the world.” 

“Good good- fucking christ!” Purpled shouted. 

“You good there, man?” Eryn questioned, his playful tone underlined with genuine concern. 

“Yeah Nah, I’m fine. Just south side traffic. I’m trying to merge onto the North but some fucker decided to cut in like like four cars up and- Jesus! Move your ass lady!” Tommy snorted at Purpled’s sudden shouts. 

“Oh, shit- that’s not good.” The humor turned sour at his friend’s tone shift. 

“What? What happened?”

“You alright king?”

“Nah, dude, I’m fine for now. Some dipshit villain decided now was the perfect time to interrupt traffic. Fucking hell man, this is why I hate working in south side.” The phone fell backward leaving him and Eryn to see the roof of the car. Multiple honks were heard outside of the car, and Purpled added on his own after a while. Soon enough, the phone was picked up to show a ticked-off Purpled rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I’ve gotta go, guys, see you tonight.”

“Alright, stay safe dude.”

“Yeah don’t get hit by that villain, ‘specially if a hero comes ‘round to clean shit up,” Eryn added. 

“I don’t plan on it. Later.”

Then, he hung up. Now it was just Eryn and Tommy. The two had been attached at the hip longer than they had known Dream. Just like what his older brother had said, family is who helps you live. The people that lift you up in life and would do anything for each other. Eryn was his family. Purpled was his family. It was as simple as that.

Tommy and Eryn went back and forth for a while, talking about recent episodes of their favorite TV shows, or about work. Both of them worked in the back at Puffy’s and were relieved of the shifts that they had today in honor of Tommy’s birthday. Puffy had always treated them like they were her own. She always seemed to understand what Tommy was feeling when he talked about how much he missed his brother as well. It was nice to have someone like that.

Eventually, Eryn had to go as well, and by that point, it was just around eight. The sun was down and the stars were out. He had over an hour to get two blocks down, so he wasn’t concerned about running short on time.

Instead of getting ready, however, he grabbed his keys and walked out of his apartment and into the hallway. He lived on the third floor, and the elevator took you up nine floors. So when he stepped into it, he cursed that there wasn’t an easier way to get to the roof.

The night was his favorite time of the day because the world seemed to stop just for him. When he was on the rooftop, a place that no one else in the apartment building frequented, he felt free. He felt like he was in control for the first time in his life.

The elevator dinged at the ninth floor and he walked around the corner to the set of stairs that led to the roof. It was cold outside, but he didn’t get any goosebumps. He was excited. 

Tonight he would speak to the stars, blow out his lighter, and make one last wish. 

Then he would put all of his searching and worries to rest. 

He was eighteen now, and the time for tirelessly hoping that someone else was going to walk into his life and suddenly make everything okay was over.

He was just fine with that.

Chapter Text

On the rooftop of the apartment building, ten floors high, was his safe place- his haven- after Dream was ripped from his side. 

The apartment building was on the east side of the city, left to rot in its poverty. The night was busy and full of bustling bars, fights in the alleys, and clubs closer to the south side. The rooftop was above it all.

Once the sun went down, the nightlife sprung up just as it had all of the days before it. What he liked most was that the roof was the best place to look up at the stars. One hundred feet above the ground, with all of the bustling city lights far over yonder on the west side, leaving the darkness of his side of the city to draw in the night sky.

He loved the look at the constellations. It was late August and he could just barely make out The Archer in the sky. It was cooler up there, but he didn’t mind as much as he usually did. Normally, it put a damper on the experience, but tonight it thrilled him. It was the perfect night to let things go, to put everything behind him. 

He reached into his back pocket, from which he pulled out a lighter. It was old and a bit rusted on the outside shell from being out in the elements for so long. He’d found it in the alley to the left of the apartments the same year that he and Dream became family. He didn’t know what he could use it for since he wasn’t a smoker, but it was nice to have it nonetheless.

He snapped the lid open and closed it a few times while looking back at the stars. Carefully, he approached the ledge. The roof had a three-foot-tall brick barrier around it to stop unfortunate accidents from happening while handymen were up there, but he still didn’t lean on it, not trusting how well it would actually support him. 

Tommy looked out over the city. His city. It was the only place he would ever really call home. No matter what he had experienced in his childhood, no matter the prejudice towards people like his brother that was bad enough for many to flee, he wouldn’t quite be able to function in any city other than Esempi. 

Once he grew bored of fidgeting with the lighter, he clicked down on it, letting out the gas and creating a spark. It didn’t light on the first try, but Tommy didn’t expect anything more. He tried again one more time and the fire came up in a wispy teardrop of flames, flickering larger and smaller as it burned. 

It was the last fire he would light with the damn thing. Tonight, he was letting things go. He was letting that sheltered, innocent past self stay in the past. He would stop carrying unnecessary burdens. 

“I wish to be able to rest without the burdens and weights of my past and my problems,” Tommy whispered. “I want to be able to turn a new chapter in my life.”

No one else was around to hear him except the flame that burned his words in its heat and the wind that carried his voice to deaf ears. 

He closed the top of the lighter, putting out the fire and shutting his wish away.

Looking over the ledge he saw a few pedestrians but had no care as to whether or not he would hit someone. If it did, it would surely hurt, but that’s just how things went sometimes. 

He held out his closed fist above the drop to the street, lighter in hand, and dropped it from the roof hoping that upon its landing it would shatter. It made a whistling noise as it neared the end of its descent before landing in pieces on the concrete below it. 

Tommy turned around, tears stinging in his eyes. It would be hard not to think about things as much, if at all, but he was going to try. He wiped at any oncoming tears. It wasn’t the time for that, tonight he was going to party until he regretted it.

He took one last look at the skyline before walking towards the staircase down, humming to himself a happy birthday. 

The Diamonds & Demons was a club two blocks down from where Tommy’s apartment was located. It was closer to the south side, and most definitely looked the part. Neon blue and red lights flashed in tubes around its sign, with a black brick exterior to match. He had known the owners for years after his older brother introduced them to him. He’d never had a drink with them, though. That was for when he was with his friends at one of their places. Now, though, he was able to go in without a worry in the world of what could happen. 

It was something he was good at; relaxing to his fullest extent. He could put down his guard around people like no one was watching, or as if world peace had suddenly become a viable option. Tommy didn’t like when people referred to it as him letting down his guard, because he didn’t, even sometimes around his family and friends. He was just having fun and letting loose. 

People in the other parts of his city were too uptight and didn’t know how to relax.

He approached the entrance a few minutes later than the coordinated meet-up time. It had taken him longer than he’d thought to get ready, even though all he did was take a shower and get dressed. 

Waiting outside of the building was Eryn, in a black leather jacket and his iconic black headband wrapped around his head. One of his dads owned the building, while the other one ran the first-floor pub and was the main bartender, so it was no surprise that he was the first one to show considering his house was two floors up. 

His friend looked up from his phone and caught sight of Tommy. The zoned-out look on Eryn’s face turned to a wide grin. He held his hand up and waved Tommy over, and once he was close enough, slammed his palm on his back so hard that it sent him stuttering forward. 

Eryn let out a laugh before greeting him. “What’s up, man?! You look great!”

Tommy returned the smile. Eryn always cheered him up when he was lost in thought, and he was the best person to have around when it was time to party. Plus, his parents gave the three of them plenty of discounts and items on the house. He had no doubt his first drink would be free. 

“Thanks, big man. I grabbed my best jacket,” Tommy laughed. Both of them knew it wasn’t, but Eryn didn’t complain. He never did. 

There was a loud honk that came from behind them and an old gray car rolled down the street and parked in the alleyway just beside the bar. Purpled was finally there and had made it out all in one piece after the intervention of the traffic villain. 

The car’s engine came to a stop and the bouncing of the car- likely from whatever music their best friend was blasting- slowed to a halt. The car door creaked open to reveal the blond-haired driver in all of his glory. His normal purple hoodie was replaced with an almost shiny purple blazer with a black undershirt. Tommy internally sighed, wondering after all the years he’d known Purpled if the man had worn anything without the color.

He brushed off his pants before making eye contact with the others. A small smile glazed his face, and he made his way towards them, pushing a button on his keys to lock his car. 

“Ayyy, Purpled!” Tommy greeted him. He held out his arm and gave his friend a side hug. Then, Purpled looked towards Eryn who had a joking look on his face as he stared at Purpled head to toe as if judging what he was wearing. 

“A solid seven out of ten today, at least you didn’t come dressed in a hoodie,” Eryn joked in a pretentious voice that was made to mock West Side. 

Purpled faked an offended look. “A seven?! I even put on my best blazer!” Tommy snorted, he had just said the same thing. Eryn cracked a smile when he noticed. The neon lights flickered above them, lighting them up in the dark cover of the night. 

“It’s the color that’s throwing it off for me, maybe if it was black- or even red,” Eryn smoldered. He kicked his accent up a notch when he said it, making light of the city’s first-class accent. Purpled eyes darkened for a moment before throwing a punch toward Eryn, a crazed smile on his face. Eryn deflected it and broke into a laugh. 

“I could never pull off a good bright red like Tommy here can!” Purpled said. 

“Hey!” There was no real bite to Tommy’s chide, only playfulness. Purpled wasn’t wrong though, he could pull off red like no one was watching. 

Tommy stepped closer to the two of them and chopped both of them on the top of their heads with his hands. “Alright you two, let’s go inside. We’re gonna have a long night, lads!”

He turned on his heel and towards the bar door, the bouncer waved them in, not bothering with the trio that basically lived on the upper floor. Inside, a loud remix of music blasted through surround-sound speakers and echoed off the walls. Red and blue strobe lights flashed through the crowd- which was quickly growing to look more and more like a mosh pit. Neon light strips were fixed around the bar to provide lighting that matched the theme of the place. Behind the counter was one of Eryn’s dads, Bad. Tommy and Purpled didn’t know if that was the man’s real name or not, but at first glance, someone might say the name fit the man perfectly. 

He was extraordinarily tall, with a broad set of shoulders and jet-black hair. On the back of his neck, and swinging around to the sides of his throat was a tattoo of devil tails that were tied together with a white ribbon. He wore a long-sleeved black button-up with red buttons that made him seem almost as demonic as his tattoo. A small pair of rectangle glasses trimmed his nose, and he squinted through them as he raised a glass to look for impurities. 

Bad, in truth, was the softest person the three of them had ever met. He chided them when they cursed and always had an open door and an open ear. His looks intimidated newcomers to behave and his personality made them stay. The man was the nicest person they had come across in a long time, and they would vouch in his favor if they ever needed to. He was also a great bartender. 

The trio approached him, talking amongst themselves about what happened after Purpled hung up the call, and about which hero showed up to fight the guy off. It was York, the water hero, they found out. She was one of the better-advertised heroes of the city and was one of the larger reasons for the lowering hate-crime rate against supernatural people in the area. 

She was young too, only being around for less than two years and already making a large splash in the community. She helped small communities out to the best of her abilities and tried her hardest to make rounds in the east side during her off hours. The agencies she was tied to were strict on heroes, however, and restricted her to certain jobs or kept her busy during most times of the day. 

York was best liked with the east side. There was a reasonably sized group of fans that were mostly of young teen girls or young adults who York had saved in her east side adventures. 

She had come and taken out the small-time villain quickly and helped move traffic along shortly after that until she was called back to the hero tower for her next mission. Tommy thought it would be stressful to be on call all of the time. There were lower-ranked heroes to take on smaller missions and random emergency calls, but the larger things were always handled by the top-listed heroes, and the publicity was all that they benefited from it. 

Purpled talked about how depressed she looked when she had to leave. He was always the most informed on heroes and the supernatural community, even though he never manifested the gene when he turned eighteen a few months prior. It most likely had to do with the random jobs he ran for the south side newspaper. Purpled wanted to be a journalist, but college was expensive, so his best bet was to work his way up the ladder starting all the way at the bottom.

Once they reached the bar and got themselves seated on their usual stools, Bad came over to them, finally leaving a conversation he was stuck in with an impaired customer. There was a smile on his face, he was warm and welcoming as always.

“I hear someone’s an adult now, huh?” Bad said. His voice was a bit higher than you’d expect from the man. He reached out and ruffled Tommy’s hair. “I can’t believe you’ve gotten so big! It was just yesterday that you were ten and already walking around like you owned this place.” The man smiled fondly. 

Tommy smiled under the touch. Bad had always been a father figure to him after Dream was gone, and he would never understand how he could repay such a great guy. To Eryn, he was so much more than just a father figure. When Tommy first met Dream, he was already best friends with Eryn. When he was introduced to Bad and his husband, they immediately attached themselves to Tommy’s best friend. Eryn was eleven when he was adopted into their family. He couldn’t have been happier for him. 

“I’m all grown up now, yeah? I’m the biggest man this bar has ever seen!” Tommy grinned. Purpled snorted beside him and Eryn bumped his shoulder. 

“What can this ‘birthday boy’ get for his first,” Eryn snickered a bit, “special drink?”

Bad hummed to himself for a moment, seeming to think about what Tommy would enjoy the best. “I’d start off with an old-fashioned, but if you’re more interested in a certain drink, I'd be happy to pour you a shot.”

“I’ll take your word for it, then.”

“It’s on the house, happy birthday, Tommy.”

Bad turned towards Eryn, who just asked for the same as Tommy. Purpled just asked for a soda. He was the driver tonight, and as much as he trusted his driving skills, he didn’t trust his passengers to behave. He laughed at the thought. 

Tommy kicked his feet as he waited. Bad tried to strike up a conversation with the customer he was talking to previously while he made the trio’s drinks. They went back to talking about the hero situation in the meantime.

“Did you two hear about the bill that the governor is trying to pass?” Purpled asked. Eryn grimaced, turning to tap his fingers on the counter. Tommy, with distaste apparent in his eyes, shook his head.

The governor wasn’t known as the kindest person towards the supernatural. His way of thinking was old, but it was shared with the majority of the population. He thought that people with powers were dangerous and threatening and tried everything in his power to restrict their rights. It was as if the moment they turned eighteen, everything they had built for themselves up to that point was flushed down the drain. Governor Beast wasn’t a cruel man, but he was a prejudiced one.

“Ok, well Director Tango was talking to Ms. Gem, that one reporter I was telling you I would be working under soon, and anyway he got a reporter into the Whitehouse last weekend and heard that the governor was proposing a bill to mandatorily report any unlicensed supernatural to the SCU.” Purpled talked in an almost whispered tone, loud enough so that his friends could hear him through the noise, but quiet enough so the whole building wouldn’t stop and stare. 

Eryn froze up next to him, and Tommy’s smile dropped as well. The three of them had always been pro-supernatural, and generally against the SCU. The SCU, or the Supernatural Control Unit, was a branch of the general government that had authority over the supernatural community. The only thing it really succeeded in doing, however, was taking away people’s rights and spiriting away freshly adult supernaturals. 

All three of them were against it for their own personal reasons, such as Dream being taken by them once he turned eighteen, leaving Tommy to hide and fend for himself. Even people like Bad and his husband were affected by the so-called “recruiting.” Their first adopted son was taken by the SCU on his eighteenth, and they hadn’t heard from him since. Tommy didn’t know him personally, but he knew that his older brother was good friends with him. 

“Tell me you’re joking,” Tommy said. Governor Beast always got bills passed, as he was held in high regard by his peers and people in powerful positions. The man was also a rich bastard, so one could only imagine that he’d used some of it to push his agendas further into the house. 

“Never.”

Eryn stayed quiet, lost in thought. 

The criminalization of non-reporting would turn the negligence of supernatural hate crimes into an active hunt for all superpowered individuals. With the vast amount of animosity towards the community, he had no doubt that hundreds- if not thousands of young adults would be outed to the authorities to be dispatched all across the country. Tommy could sympathize with the pain of losing a family member to the fucking SCU, and he would rather others not have to experience it.

Bad came back around to them with the drunken customer grumbling in the background. He had their drinks finished and passed them across the counter to the boys. It was the first time they would all drink together- even if Purpled’s was just soda- as adults. Purpled turned eighteenth the previous year and his nineteenth birthday would be in the fall. Eryn was the oldest out of the trio, having turned eighteen last summer. His party was one to be remembered. 

The man seemed to notice the crestfallen mood that the teens had switched to, and cracked a terrible dad joke at them. Eryn cackled at that. Bad always had just the trick to bring up the mood of the room. 

Tommy stared at the drink in front of him, it wasn’t intimidating to drink it, but it felt special. He wanted to remember this moment and savor every second of it. He wanted to look back in ten years and think, fuck yeah, my eighteenth birthday was sick.  

He grabbed the glass, amber liquid splashing about the inside of it, and lifted it to his face. He looked around him- at Bad’s proud smile, and Eryn’s confidence, and at Purpled’s cool grin. Tommy felt loved. 

This is family, he thought. 

So he laughed, laughed loud and proud, and let all of his worries, stupid wishes, and burdens slip off his shoulders and poured the drink down his throat. A grin was plastered on his face the entire time. 

On the side of the counter, sitting in the last seat, was the drunk customer glaring at the trio. His ears blocked out all of the noise and it all turned into a loud ringing sound. His vision blurred and blackened around the edges until all he could see was Bad turning around to attend to him once more.

He glanced at Tommy one more time and turned to glance at his own glass. A manic smile appeared on his face and he raised his arm high, drink in hand.

The shattering of glass turned the trio’s heads, and Purpled’s eyes went wide as the man across the bar jumped out of his seat towards them.

Chapter Text

For the record, Tommy didn’t plan to be attacked by a drunk patron on his birthday. The man from across the bar dropped his glass on the counter, shards spraying out everywhere, and went straight for him and his friends. That’s how he supposed the man planned on doing things. What he wanted to do- or why for that matter- was a mystery to Tommy. Bad, being the tank he is, intercepted the drunken bastard, and the three of them were on their feet. 

The sound of shattered glasses and the screech of chairs falling to the floor and echoing across the bar attracted the attention of all of the other people in the building. The music came to a halt and Skeppy- Bad’s husband- came rushing from behind the DJ station to see what the fuss was about. 

The mic attached to his shirt tapped to life and he reassured the crowd. “One moment folks, it seems as though a guest has gotten rowdy while our bouncer is busy. Rest assured, this will be settled in a moment, excuse me.” Then the man, diamond mask and all, stormed up to the bar where Bad was trying to hold the man down. The bouncer would come and get him in a moment, surely, but the bartender still held him tightly so he couldn’t get to the boys. 

They were odd targets for a drunkard. They were just teens having fun in a place that was made for that exact purpose. Tommy assumed it to be for no other reason than the three of them being the closest in range to go off on. 

Tommy glanced to his right, where Eryn was seething. He was normally level-headed and things didn’t peak his anger often, but when it came to his family, that was a different story. There was concern laced in every inch of his eyes, hidden away by fury and aggravation. Skeppy approached them from behind and ended up putting a hand on Eryn’s shoulder to reassure him. 

Skeppy was good at calming people down, similar to his husband. His son was not immune to that skill. Eryn’s posture relaxed at the support, and he smiled. 

To Tommy’s left, Purpled was looking at the scene with amused disbelief. It came as no surprise to him, surely, that someone would get drunk enough to be rowdy. Tommy guessed that like him he was confused as to why the man would go for them. Purpled was the closest to the man and must’ve seen something that he and Eryn didn’t notice. 

Purpled always noticed the little things that neither of his friends could pick up. 

He seemed to be lost in thought as he stared at the man under Bad’s grip. Tommy observed as realization bled into Purpled’s features and his friend turned to him. The hairs on the back of his back stood up as he leaned closer to his friend. 

“Someone looks like they saw something, care to share?” Tommy asked. Purpled didn’t laugh at his quip.

“That man's supernatural,” Purpled said. Then he paused as if contemplating whether or not he should say more information that he clearly had. “His face is all over one of the reporter’s offices. I don’t remember his name, but he’s got a record.”

Alarm bells sounded loudly in his head, panic bubbling in his chest. Purpled had information that not a lot of people had, and if someone in the newspaper he worked for was looking for a random supernatural guy in the backwater part of town, then shit might hit the fan. Tommy squeezed his hand into a fist. 

“Are you sure?”

“His eyes were glowing,” he said. Glowing eyes were the clearest sign that supernaturals were aggravated or activating their power.“Things might not be pretty if this guy is actually supernatural, so just keep a lookout.” 

Purpled turned his gaze on him and his expression softened a bit. “Sorry about all this happening on your birthday, man. We really just can’t have shit that isn’t scuffed.”

Tommy scoffed at his friend’s attempt to lighten the mood. “Would it really be fun if everything went right?” Purpled mouth turned up a bit at that, trying to find a moment where something they’d planned had gone anything like how it was supposed to. 

“I guess not.”

Despite the sudden upturn in the conversation that had left the two to quietly observe the situation, Tommy’s heart was still beating quickly in his chest. Keep a lookout , his mind supplied him. 

Purpled was right. 

Low level criminals or wanted peoples were so common in East Side, that unless you’d done something really fucked up, your name would run through gossip circles before being lost to the wind. Despite that, someone was still just as dangerous as someone with a lot of media coverage especially when that person is impaired. 

His eyes begrudgingly left Bad and his hold on the man and landed on Eryn and Skeppy. The two were close and had bonded over many things over the years, some of those things being their political opinions and music taste. Tommy didn’t know Skeppy as well as he knew Bad, but he’d been living with him and the rest of the family on and off for the past five years and was fond of him all the same. 

Skeppy was still murmuring things into his son’s ear, and Tommy assumed they were private so he didn’t bother them. There were a good number of bystanders, peering over to see why the music had stopped. He assumed some of the people there had left since the crowd seemed considerably smaller than it had been when they’d gone into the building. 

He tapped on Purpled’s shoulder and pointed over to the bathroom. His friend turned his head so his gaze met Tommy’s location and nodded. Eryn caught his gaze at the motion, and Tommy nonchalantly mouthed, “Bathroom,” at him and Eryn nodded before turning back to his conversation with Skeppy. 

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket before walking in the direction of the bathrooms. They were around the corner from the bar, next to the pool tables and he laughed a bit to himself when his eyes caught on the small engravings on the corner of the pool table. When he, Purpled, and Eryn were fourteen, they decided it was a wonderful idea to carve into the expensive wood on the corner of the pool table and they ended up being heavily lectured by Skeppy about inflation. Bad laughed at them in the corner for a while when it happened and later eased Skeppy off them. Tommy thinks Skeppy still has an internal grudge against them for it, but after four years it was still there every time they came downstairs and Purpled joked that Skeppy liked it better that way after all.

His heartbeat began to ease to a slow once more. Security would be on its way, and Bad was more than capable of holding an impaired person. He never had any difficulty handling anyone before the man, so Tommy didn’t know why he still had goosebumps running down his arms with unease. 

He closed his eyes, replaying the event in his head as he entered the bathroom. The man groaned and rested his head on the table, the man’s glass shattering against the floor, him launching towards the three of them, unimportant details that happened afterward, talking to Purpled about the man being supernatural… Talking to Purpled about being supernatural?

Tommy’s heart leaped to his throat when a shriek- Bad’s shriek- echoed across the club, followed by a stranger’s scream. He ripped his eyes open and turned on his heels so fast he forgot his balance and tripped over his own feet. 

He hit the ground, and he hit the ground hard. The bathroom tile was cold and hard. In his panic, he couldn’t get his hands to catch him quick enough and the side of his head took a hit. The world rang in his ears for a moment before he scrambled upright. He noticed that it felt hotter than it had when he’d gone down, and the crowd had almost doubled around the bar. There were shouts and screams, and phones with the flash on, recording whatever was in front of them. 

He came to a head with the thick wall of people and tried to squeeze past them so he could see what the fuck was happening. His ears were still ringing slightly and there was a pain in the spot where his head had hit the ground which he knew would bruise later. 

He saw flickers of flames in the air and heard Skeppy’s shouting voice above the crowd. He pushed past the last layer of people before the bar and was met with a scene that he desperately hoped was fake. He hoped that Eryn’s glowing eyes were a trick of the light and that the flames coming out of his hands was clown magic as he stood protectively in front of Bad. He desperately wished that the man from the bar’s hands hadn’t turned into blades and that the blood dripping down one of them didn’t match the blood running along Bad’s arm. 

In the corner of his eye, he caught Skeppy yelling, but he couldn’t hear him anymore. Purpled was fighting desperately to push the crowd back from the bar and give the three who were fighting space.

It had to be a hallucination. It was a dream! He must’ve hit his head harder than he thought and… and… 

His expression fell and his brain screamed at him as his whole world crumbled down before him. 

Suddenly he was thirteen again. He was watching his brother being dragged out the front door of their apartment from the closet while he wrapped his hands around his mouth to stop himself from screaming out and getting himself caught. Suddenly he was fifteen, listening about how much Bad missed his son, he remembered crying into the man’s arms about how much he missed his brother. Suddenly he was seventeen again and had his back stiffly pressed against a wall at a Hero Day event because he was paranoid that someone- anyone- would recognize him as Dream ’s little brother. He was scared that he would be taken away too, despite not even being eighteen and not knowing whether or not he was supernatural.

He was back in the moment and watching his friend’s future crumble before him. Purpled was in front of him, shaking his shoulders back and forth with a worried look spread over his face. Purpled was tense and looked panicked. He was saying something to Tommy but he didn’t understand. Purpled’s mouth was moving- he was shouting- but none of it was making it to him. The ringing in his ears was so loud that it drowned out any sense that anyone was making. 

Purpled grit his teeth and looked over his shoulder. Then he began to push, he pushed Tommy back through the crowd and far past them, and when he turned his face back to Tommy, it was filled with horror and surprise. 

Light erupted from the bar and the entire area was on fire. Tommy’s mouth moved on its own, and he wasn’t in the moment when he yelled his best friend’s name

“Eryn!” He shouted, but he couldn’t hear himself. Eryn was an idiot, using fire in a bar with alcohol splashed all over the floor from the drunkard! “Get the fuck out of there!”

The flames licked at the ceiling and bit at the walls, charring the wallpaper and catching fire on the carpet. It bit at the ankles of the crowd, and as his hearing came back to him while Purpled shook him back into awareness and he could hear the screams of the people around him. The wretched smell of smoke filled his nose and sent him into a bout of coughing. 

“Hey, dude!” Purpled yelled at him. He grabbed Tommy’s arm and pulled him up. “Are you ok? Stay with me, we’ve gotta get out of here.” Tommy zeroed in on Purpled’s face, and his friend looked like was going to throw up. He remembered his friend's fear of fires and his heart pounded harder in his throat. Purpled never said anything more than a simple fear of them but both he and Eryn could tell it went way further than just a phobia. 

He needed to actually help. He didn't know how to do that...

It set in that he needed to be responsible and wake up from whatever flashbacks he had. He nodded sternly at Purpled and grabbed his friend’s arm, dragging them towards the kitchen. There was a back exit on the right side of the kitchen where he would take the trash out sometimes. It leads to the alley where Purpled’s car was parked. He didn’t doubt multiple people had already called the fire department, and it struck ice into his veins at the thought that the SCU would be called in as well. He stopped in his shoes at the thought, still on the other side of the floor from the kitchen as he turned back towards Purpled. 

“He’s still back there!” Purpled looked at him with pity in his eyes. 

“We need to go! Eryn will get out, he always gets out! But we,” he motioned between the two of them, “are not supernatural. Eryn... Eryn is. We won’t get out if we stay here.”

As if to exaggerate his friend’s point, the ceiling above them creaked with instability as flames ate through the wood. Tommy’s eyes watered at the thought of leaving the person who’d been by his side the longest behind.

He lingered, feet staying planted on the ground as the heat crackled around them. Purpled sighed and looked down, then put his hand on Tommy’s shoulder, tense, and pulled Tommy towards the kitchen. 

After a moment, Tommy took the lead once again. Purpled did not mention the tears streaming down Tommy’s face. Tommy did not mention how Purpled zoned out as the fire encased the building and the ceiling started to cave in.

The kitchen door was in front of them, all they had to do was open it, run down the kitchen, and they’d be out. 

They'd be out, and Eryn would still be in the  fire. He resisted the urge to sob.

Tommy let go of Purpled for a moment and reached towards the door handle, twisting at it, before grunting in frustration. 

“Is it stuck?” Purpled asked. 

“Yeah, it shouldn’t be stuck, though-”

Purpled always noticed the little things that neither of his friends could ever pick up. Maybe that's why he grabbed the back of Tommy’s jacket and flung his friend further back into the building, and away from the door before he even realized what he'd done.

There was a loud creaking and sparks flew. The ceiling collapsed over the door, and Purpled looked up, horrified as a beam fell right above him.

Chapter Text

The first time Purpled met Tommy, he was twelve and Tommy was eleven.

They met by accident. He is sure that if he didn’t go out that day, he would never get as far as he has. 

There are many things that Purpled doesn’t remember about his childhood, as there are many things he doesn’t remember in his early teens before he met Eryn and Tommy. Despite this, he will always admit to knowing exactly what happened the day that he met his two best friends. 

It was raining. It was cold and stormy, and the thunder that erupted from the skies sent old dogs barking, and had stores closing their doors. It was mid-winter, and while it wasn’t cold enough for snow, it wasn’t what anyone would call warm. 

Purpled had been in an argument with his brother in the early morning over something the two had watched on the news. His older brother was an intern at the SCU as a field agent, and his opinions on supernaturals, whose population at the time was far smaller than it became, were opposite that of Purpled’s. 

His brother believed that they needed to be contained before they caused more damage, and supported bills such as the Supernatural Replacement Act, which was the single cause for the fight the brothers had. It was close to passing as a law, but it would ensure that any supernatural individual reported to the SCU would be taken into custody and put through one of the branch’s educational systems. 

Meanwhile, Purpled thought it was inhumane to arrest someone for something they couldn’t control. His brother argued that because they couldn’t control it, that was exactly the reason they should be monitored. He said that they could go on killing sprees or commit serious crimes because they didn’t know what they were. 

Purpled thought his brother was an idiot. 

His brother was angry, and Purpled didn’t want to argue anymore. So, he left. 

He would go back to his family’s apartment later, but he didn’t think he could be around his brother without feeling awkward… without his brother making him feel stupid. 

When he was on his own, he’d usually go to the arcade. The manager of the place was really kind and let him sit in the back whenever he was bored and ran out of money to play. The place was almost always open and the greasy pizza that the chefs made was better than he expected it to be when he first found the place. 

This time too, he went to the arcade. He thought it might be closed because of how rainy it was, even if his conscience reminded him that the place was open no matter the weather. He rounded the corner and smiled to himself when he caught sight of the neon blinking sign. 

He doesn’t know when the arcade felt more like home than his house did, but the arcade was the only place he could turn to when his world flipped on its head, so in his books the place was quite alright.

Cars streamed by and splashed water over him as he neared the building. He tried to stick closer to the walls but the water still reached him all the same. He shivered as the dirty water stuck to his skin and drenched his purple hoodie. 

The doors to the arcade were closed because of the weather, and the handles were wet and slippery when he reached them. He pulled the doors open and his eyes watered the second the warm air hit his face. It smelled like home.

He stepped inside, drying his shoes off so the water on his shoes wouldn’t seep into the ugly carpet. 

Generic music played through the room and echoed off the Pac-Man machines and the first-person shooters. The smell of greasy pizza and spilled soda reminded him of laughter and safety, and all of the tension left his shoulders. 

The heater was on and warmed his chilled bones. To the left, there was a ‘Staff-Only’ door that swung open moments after he entered. 

The manager, Quincy, had been working at the arcade since before Purpled had first started going to the arcade. He’d talked to some of the other staff and they had told him that most of them thought she lived in the place based on how often she was on her shift. 

She had shoulder-length, wavy, dark brown hair and bright brown eyes and he was convinced that they glowed gold when no one was looking. She had a broad set of shoulders and light tan skin. He’d never seen them in anything other than the arcade uniform, but they always wore the same hair clip every time he saw them.

He was fond of her, she was kind. Their voice was like a warm blanket and she had grown to be more like a sibling to him than anything else. 

When she caught sight of him, she widened her eternal smile and he watched as it morphed into a large grin. He didn’t understand how someone was able to smile as much as they did. 

“Kid, with how much I see you here, we might need to start talking about getting you a uniform and a contract,” Quincy greeted him. 

He’d heard the same sentence every time he walked in for the past year and he was starting to think she would keep saying that until he took it seriously and got a job at the place. Purpled didn’t think it would be a bad idea, but he was going to keep Quincy hanging for just a little while longer. 

She came closer to him and reached out their hand. He scoffed with a smile on his face, and begrudgingly pulled one of his hands out from his hoodie pocket. She initiated a long-time handshake that always seemed so childish when the twenty-three-year-old knelt down to the twelve-year-old’s height and did something straight out of an elementary school playground. 

She let go of his hand with a quick pull with a force that took him with them as they stepped back from the door. 

"Jésus, kid,” Quincy started. “Your hands are colder than a rat’s balls- shit am I allowed to curse around you yet?” Of course, the manager never bothered to mind their words around him no matter what his age was, but she teased him for his age all the same.

“Well,” Purpled rebuked. “That only seems reasonable considering I walked here and forgot my umbrella.” He didn’t forget his umbrella, but Quincy was a worrier and he hated when she got on him for not taking care of himself. 

The grin turned into a smaller smile. She wanted to say more, he was always good at seeing the smaller things that no one else tended to pay attention to, and he could see it in her face that she wanted to whisk him away. He didn’t know if that was what he wanted, though, so he lied instead. 

Thinking back on it, he wishes he’d asked her to spirit him away. Purpled found that she was good at doing that.

“Let’s get you warmed up, kid.” She turned her face away from him as they led him toward the back. There was a heater in there, and in the break room, she had a stash of pillows and blankets if any of the staff wanted to take naps on their breaks. 

‘She was a good person,’ he thought. 

She wasn’t his person, but she was good, and they were kind, and maybe that was enough for him.

Quincy left him in the break room to go back to her shift and manage the general game room of the arcade. He was wrapped like a burrito on the staff couch while his face burned beet red at Quincy’s coddling. He huffed a sigh and waited for her to retreat back to the front of the building before relaxing into the warmth of the blankets.

His shirt wasn’t as wet as the hoodie that he discarded in the corner of the room near one of the portable heaters, but it was still uncomfortably heavy underneath the softness of the blanket.

He wondered if it would cause a hassle for Quincy later when she had to wash the dirty water out of the blankets and he swallowed the guilt he felt at the thought. He reassured himself that she knew that she would have to wash it anyways so there was no problem with him getting it a bit wet. Still, his mind pounded that he was making someone else’s life harder. 

The corners of his lips turned up at the thought of Quincy scolding him for thinking those things.

He turned his gaze to the door that was left slightly ajar and let in the neon lights from the game machines. He let himself zone out and stare into the warm red lights.

He thought about his brother, and whether or not he was going to be able to walk back in and pretend like nothing ever happened. Maybe when he went home, his mom would be there and he could forget about the entire day and just enjoy having her home for a day. He doesn't know how his thoughts wandered back to Quincy, but they did all the same. 

He wondered what led her to start working at the arcade. He imagined that she knew the mysterious owners of the place, or that her parents had gotten her a job there. One time he asked her when she started working at the place and she simply gave him a small smile and told him vaguely that she’d been working there for a long time before sitting up and walking away. He asked some of the other workers the same question and all they told him was that she had been working there before they were. He guessed that she started working there when she was around his age.

As he zoned back in, his eyes watered with overuse and he tore them away from the neon lights. 

He retreated deeper into the blanket that enveloped him and his eyes fell shut. He didn’t have the energy to open them, so he let his fatigue overtake him and fell asleep.

He didn’t dream, he never did, but he enjoyed the nothingness all the same. 

He awoke to brash yelling coming from the game room. He shot up from where he was laying on the couch. Sleep was still in his eyes and his body protested leaving the warm blankets behind, but his heart was pumping as if he’d been running. 

Purpled ran his hands down his face and rubbed at his eyes and walked to the door. It was shut now, rather than being slightly cracked open as it had been when he’d fallen asleep. He decided that the person yelling had to have a really loud voice to still be heard at such a volume through the door. 

He reached out and cracked the door open, letting in the blinding neon lights that expelled from the games and ceiling lights. He squinted at the headache he was bringing on. When his eyes focused in, he saw Quincy standing behind the trade-in desk with an annoyed smile on her face. She was staring straight at two customers; A tall boy around Purpled’s age with dirty blond hair and bright blue eyes, and a shorter boy with fluffy dark brown hair that wore a black bandana around his head. The tall blond was the source of all the yelling. 

The receiver of the tantrum was no one else but Quincy. Purpled puffed out his cheeks and opened the door wider, drawing the manager’s attention. She acknowledged him with a warm smile, just like the one they’d given him when he first walked in. His chest tightened at the sentiment. He didn’t understand what it meant, but he only felt it when he was around Quincy. A few months beforehand, he decided that it had to do with the pizza he was eating at the arcade.

Quincy’s eyes shifting in his direction brought the attention of the small brunette to him as well to which he tapped on the blond kid’s shoulder and jarred his thumb in Purpled’s direction. The angry blond quickly shut up and snapped his head in his direction. He furrowed his brows. 

“What’s your problem? What’re you doing in the staff room, what are you, ten?!” he shouted. It ticked him off a bit that he was being compared to someone that young, he wasn’t a ten-year-old. He was twelve! 

Decidedly, he ignored him. Instead, he shifted his weight and started towards Quincy. The now-dubbed “annoying kid” started throwing swear words at him as he continued to not acknowledge him. Once he was within arms-length of the manager, he felt a hand in his hair and he tried not to freeze under the touch. He still squinted at the motion but was delighted to find that instead of a harsh grab or pull, Quincy ruffled his head and let out a chuckle. 

He looked up at her after a moment, and although there was a smile ever present on their face, the worry behind her eyes made his heart hurt. 

“How was that nap, kid?” She grinned.

“It was good. I was woken up by,” he turned and stared at the annoying kid, “him. But other than that it was alright.” Quincy nodded in approval. “How long was I asleep?”

“Only for an hour or so, you didn’t miss much. It did stop raining.”

“Oh, that’s good.” It’s not time to go back to the house yet. He didn’t say the last part out loud, but it made his chest tighten at the thought that he still had more time here. 

“Mhm,” Quincy confirmed. “Sorry about these kids,” she said. She signaled toward the two who were observing the situation. The annoying kid had shut up since Purpled acknowledged him and he wore a weird expression that he couldn’t put a finger on. “Thomas here, the blond one, was being pissy that his favorite game was out of order.”

Purpled raised an eyebrow of disbelief at the annoying kid, or ‘Thomas’ apparently.

“Who's the ten-year-old now?”

“Shut up,” Thomas huffed. He turned his furrowed gaze towards Quincy. “Aren’t you the manager? Why’re you being so rude, isn’t the customer always right?” Purpled’s eyes widened a bit at the kid’s accent.

It was a west-side accent. A weak one, but he spoke with it naturally. He sounded stuck up for a kid who was probably younger than him, just like he assumed most west siders talked. Purpled wondered how he’d gotten to the east side in the first place. 

“I am the manager,” Quincy emphasized. “And the customer is always right, except for when said customer isn’t taking no for an answer and is barely twelve.” She stood straight up. “You’re lucky I haven’t kicked you out yet, especially since you woke him up.” They put their hand on Purpled’s shoulder. 

The smaller kid grabbed Thomas’ shoulder and pushed him back a bit. “I apologize for his rude behavior. We shouldn’t have caused such a scene.”

This kid had the east side accent he was used to hearing. He decided that the two probably weren’t related, then. 

Quincy sighed. “It’s alright, I know you’re just here to have fun, but try not to take things out on the staff.”

The boy nodded. 

“I’m Eryn by the way,” he said. “And this,” Eryn motioned to Thomas who had his arms crossed and was looking away. “This is Tommy.”

Quincy, who Purpled noticed had previously been zoning out of the conversation, snapped her head in the direction of Tommy. The said boy noticed the sudden attention and grimaced. 

“You have a problem?” Eryn smacked his shoulder.

“Tommy… Tommy, Tommy, Tommy…” Quincy said aloud. They were deep in thought. “Bright blue eyes, blond hair, tall and lanky- You’re Dream’s brother!”

Her eyes shined with gold, bright and glorious, but not bright enough that she’d be mistaken for a supernatural. 

He never did find out why the golden lining of her eyes seemed to glow.

Tommy stiffened. “Yeah. So what? How do you know Dream?”

“Chill, kid. I’m just a friend of his.” She gave him a grin. It looked like a normal grin, but all Purpled saw was distaste. 

“You don’t look like someone he’d be friends with.”

“You’d be surprised, Thomas. Just tell him Q says hello.”

He remembers that sentence being what piqued his interest. He wanted to know that connection, he needed to know how Quincy knew Tommy. He thinks that maybe if Quincy hadn’t been there, he’d never would’ve become friends with Eryn and Tommy at all. He would’ve just let them walk out and he might never have seen them again.

Tommy took a step back, intimidated by the ever-smiling manager’s nonchalant attitude. He nodded. Eryn stood on his toes to reach Tommy’s ear and whispered something to him. Tommy looked angry for a moment and looked at the brown-haired boy as if he was asking him if he was serious. Then, he turned towards Purpled with a huff and shoved his hands in his pockets. 

“I’m sorry for waking you up.”

Purpled appreciated it. He glanced at Eryn, looking him over. He was sensible, Purpled liked that personality.

“It’s alright. Also, I’m not ten, I’m twelve.” 

“Yeah, ok, you short prick.”

Quincy chuckled next to him. It probably sounded silly to her, that he was defending himself over a small age gap. His face turned blush red before turning his head away from her. 

“Do you wanna play with us?” Eryn asked energetically. Purpled’s eyes widened and he shuffled out a bit from where he was standing, half hidden by the counter. Eryn had a wide grin on his face and his hands were displayed openly. 

‘Someone’s energetic,’ Purpled thought. 

Normally, he would’ve said no. He would’ve gone back into the staff room and lay down on the couch until he had to go back to his house. But he snuck another glance at Tommy, the kid whose brother had ties with Quincy, and he couldn’t say no. 

He wanted to know more, he needed to know more about everything he was curious about, and Quincy had been his sole curiosity ever since he first met them. Tommy’s brother was the first big clue to the mysterious manager. Purpled always wanted to be a detective. 

“Ok,” he said. He put a smile on his face. “What do you guys wanna play?” 

Tommy started mouthing off again about the broken game while Eryn started listing other games that they could all play together. He felt a warm hand on his back and he looked back at Quincy. 

She was smiling, just like she always was, but it was her warm and kind smile. His chest felt tight again as if he was gonna cry.

“Go have fun, kid,” she said. He nodded and hopped over to the other boys. That was the first time he’d met the boys. He didn’t realize that it was the beginning of the happiest days of his life.

He still finds it funny that the reason he started hanging out with his best friends was that he wanted to use Tommy’s brother for information. He would’ve never asked for a better friendship, though.

As the memory faded out of his grasp, he started to feel warmer and warmer. The air around him seemed to get thicker and his ears started to ring. There was a crushing feeling in his chest and it weighed on his breathing. He was tired. Purpled was tired, and he wanted to sleep.

He started to let himself go, despite the distant calling for him to wake up. 

He would wake up in a little bit, he just wanted to take a small nap.

Chapter Text

The scream that tore its way out of Tommy’s throat shredded his vocal cords till he couldn’t scream any longer. He watched, helplessly, as he was pulled back from the door and his best friend took his place under the caving ceiling. His world was covered in flaring orange and he saw through red lenses. 

Blood pumped through his veins faster and faster, and it boiled with panic. 

Purpled’s gut-wrenching cry echoed out through the building, over the screams of terror and crackling of the fire. Tommy stared wide-eyed with fear at the beam crushing his friend and trapping him under debris. It wasn’t consumed by flames yet, which were kept at bay by the clamor of concrete and bricks around it, but as the fire grew stronger, he didn’t think it would be long before it consumed the beam- and his friend- as well.

“Help!” he belted. His vocal cords were shredded and painful. “Someone- Anyone! Please! Help us!” Tears poured down his face as he ran to Purpled’s aid. His friend was knocked out by the debris and lay crushed under everything that had fallen. Blood pooled down his forehead and he looked lifeless- like nothing more than a corpse. 

‘No,’ he thought. 

“Please! No, no!” Tommy begged.

Tommy never begged.

“Wake up, please! Please, stay with me!” His world was starting to spin and he choked on the black smoke that flooded the open hole in the ceiling. “Wake up, Purpled! Wake up!”

He grabbed at the top of the pile, throwing bricks and splintered wood off of the heavy beam, hoping to lighten the load. The beam hadn’t fallen first, but it was still covered by everything else. 

His tears blurred his vision, and the lessening oxygen in the room made his head spin. His hands burned at the heat of the bricks and his feet were sore from stomping at the smaller flames around his friend. He looked down at his friend, still pinned beneath the wooden beam, and let out a sob. 

He got down at his knees, fire eating at the carpet only a few feet behind him, and he pulled. He pulled at his friend’s arms, and when that didn’t work, he started to try and lift the beam off of him. It didn’t look as heavy as it was before, but his balance was shot, and he barely got it off of his friend’s chest.

It was all he needed, though. Tommy reached for the nearest brick and lodged it under the beam to keep it elevated. He reached down and grabbed his friend’s arm and pulled as hard as he could. Slowly, Purpled started to come out from the debris. 

The fire started to lick at the wood and blacken the edges. His panic came around full force, and he began to pull faster.

He heard the creaking above his head, and he knew he needed to make his rescue fast, or else neither Tommy nor Purpled would make it out of this fuckery. He didn’t know how he was still going, nor how he still had the strength to move, Tommy guessed it was from the adrenaline. 

Finally, nothing but Purpled’s feet were left under the debris, and he slipped each one out as carefully and quickly as he could. His friend was still unconscious and blood still poured from his forehead. It smeared on Tommy’s hands and stained his clothes while he was pulling his friend. He looked down at his hands to realize that some of the blood on them was his own. Cuts and scrapes were carved into his hands from the burning bricks and nails he’d brushed up against while trying to remove debris from the pile. 

He didn’t pay any mind to the pulsing and burning in his hands, however. He checked to see that Purpled was still breathing and when he found that he still was, he whipped his head around desperately to try and find another exit that wasn’t closed off by fire or the caved-in ceiling.

There was nothing. 

They were trapped.

His heartbeat was all he heard as it pounded harder and harder in his ears. The tears that were once falling down his face had dried to his cheeks from the heat, and he felt helpless.

He was helpless.

Tommy looked back down at Purpled’s crumpled form and felt nothing but shame. If he hadn’t thought to go through the back exit instead of through the front door, maybe he would be ok- maybe Purpled, Eryn, and Bad, and Skeppy- maybe they would all be ok.

He needed to do something. He couldn’t die in a stupid place like this- not when he had just put everything behind him and started a new chapter in his life. 

Wiping at his eyes harshly, he grabbed Purpled’s wrists. He looked for the closest place he could reach with an unconscious body, farthest from the flames, and started to drag his friend towards it. He coughed harshly as he inhaled black smoke. 

He was pushing his lungs to the limit, and he knew he wouldn’t last much longer before he passed out as well. Tommy reached the back corner that wasn’t yet charred and nothing but burning ash and set his friend’s arms down slowly before collapsing onto his knees next to Purpled.

He looked over at him with fear and regret in his eyes and wished that a miracle would come along and save them.

“Help!” he tried one last time. His voice was nothing amongst the burning sea of noise, though. His plea didn’t make it any further than a few feet away.

He grabbed Purpled’s hand again and cried. 

“Please… please be ok,” he begged. “I would trade my life for yours, you stupid, self-sacrificial idiot.” Tears fogged over his vision once again. 

Then, something changed. 

The heartbeat that pounded in Tommy’s ears was silenced to nothing, and the room around him fell on deaf ears. His hands pounded harder and harder and he squeezed Purpled’s in return. He flinched backward as a dark purple light crawled out from his palms and covered his forearms in a glowing light. The same light cracked across Purpled’s body in the blink of an eye, and Tommy’s hands pulsed faster and faster. 

Purpled’s body shook and stirred, seeming to seize. Then, the light snapped back up his body and back to Tommy’s hands, right where he was holding Purpled’s hand. The moment the light that was consuming Purpled disappeared, Tommy felt something snap, and the glowing on his arms faded away.

His hearing returned, and he could hear the fire cracking all around him once more. This time, though, his heartbeat was no longer pounding in his ears, and a wave of tiredness washed over him. His body felt like it was lead, and he knew that he wasn’t going to last any longer. 

Tommy looked back over at Purpled, almost in denial that he didn’t just hallucinate all of the glowing. Yet, a voice in the back of his head screamed at him that now Purpled was breathing easier, and the cut on his head stopped bleeding so hard. 

They were relieving thoughts, even though he knew how hurt his friend must be. 

He turned his attention to what he could barely make out as the windows and door through the wall of fire. Red and blue lights flashed and the sound of sirens filled his ears. Fluffy white hair poked through one of the windows, while bright pink hair flashed in another, although he wasn’t all too convinced that he wasn’t hallucinating and that he really had just passed out while he was trying to free Purpled. 

Tommy watched as big coats burst in through the door and tackled the flames, and a woman with a dark blue suit and blond hair helped them. 

Hope sparked in his chest.

“Over here…” he let out painfully. 

His vision started to blacken around the edges, and he let out a strangled string of coughs. Then, the world tipped on his head and everything went black just before he reached the floor.

“Hey, Tommy,” Dream’s voice chided playfully. “It’s time to wake up, ok? We can’t have you falling asleep just yet.” His brother patted his shoulder and stood up from the park bench. “Here,” he motioned, “ Hop on my shoulders. I’ll carry you.”

“I don’t need…carry…big boy now…” Tommy, only nine years old at the time, mumbled. Dream chuckled lightly at his younger brother’s protests. 

“Alright, alright,” he said. “You do have to get up, though.” Tommy groaned at that.

Dream ended up carrying him home. 

“You can sleep now, Toms.” Dream ruffled his hair, tucked him in, and left the younger boy’s room with a ‘good night.’

He closed the door behind him as quietly as he could, so he wouldn’t wake up his sleeping brother. Then, he turned to the window that had been closed when the brothers had left for the park which was now slightly ajar. 

“Motherfucker, get out of my house.” He glared daggers at the body-shaped shadow in the corner. Dream grit his teeth and clenched his hands into fists. His fingernails dug into his palms.

A smile appeared, gleaming white as the figure stepped into a more lighted area. It was a girl who looked old enough to still be in high school. She had dark brown hair that spiraled down to the bottom of her back in long waves and stood just barely taller than Dream despite being multiple years older than him. 

Dream reigned in his distaste and rested his face to a more neutral expression. 

“Drop the tough guy act, kid,” she said. “Unless,” she reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled envelope, “You don’t want your cut of the deal?” He resisted the urge to let out a snarl. He knew how much money was in that envelope, and he wasn’t going to let it slip between his fingers. He calmed himself. The girl was going to give it to him either way, he just had to wait out her games.

“Give me that,” he said. “It’s mine.”

She waved it back and forth in the air as if it was a fan. Her smile was a little more reserved, and her eyes were piqued with interest. “Is it?” The girl tilted her head to her left where Dream’s desk was. “You’ve got a wonderful little array of notes, little kid detective. I wonder who helped you get them?” Her eyes snapped to stare at him, while she stayed facing the desk. 

“I didn’t get help. It’s easy enough to find things when you know where to go.”

“I’m sure, kid.”

“Don’t you have anywhere else to be? Why spend your time harassing a fourteen-year-old?”

“Oh, this isn’t harassing anyone!” she said, in mock surprise. “As I said, I’m just dropping off your pay, kid.”

Finally, she threw him the envelope. He raised his hand and caught it in the air. “There’s a little note in there from the client. I’ll keep in touch in case something else comes up.” She moved towards the open window and stuck one of her legs through it. “Oh, and kid, lock your windows. This city’s dangerous at night.”

Then, she was gone with the moon. Dream stood frozen in place for a moment before he rushed to the window and locked it. Once a minute had gone by, and he was sure she was gone for real, he let out the breath he’d been holding for what felt like forever. 

He looked down at the envelope that was bulging with cash. He reassured himself that everything was worth it, even though the little voice in the back of his head was telling him that he should stop. He walked over to his desk and unlocked the bottom drawer before slipping the envelope inside. He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, then shut and locked the drawer and moved to his room. 

He flicked the light on and walked over to his bed. He crouched down so his eyes were level with the bedframe and reached under his mattress. He pulled out a worn and tattered picture. It was a small boy with dirty blond hair and a green shirt. In his arms was a baby.

“I’m getting you out of there,” he said. He took one last glance at it before placing it back under his bed. “I promise.”