Chapter Text
“Do you want to walk, or do you want me to carry you?”
Choices. Tommy isn’t allowed to make choices. Monsters don’t get to choose, don’t get to have a preference. Things are chosen for him, and he does them, that’s how it works. That’s how it’s always worked.
He just stares blankly at Techno, the area of his brain that his instincts reside— that’s grown larger than before, and harder to shut out—because he isn’t sure of what the right answer is. He doesn’t know what his sire wants to hear.
He knows which one he would pick, if he was allowed to. His instincts want him to be held, cradled close to his sire’s chest and listening to him purr, and Tommy wants that. He’s not allowed to want anything, monsters don’t get to want things, but that’s what he wants.
Monsters don’t make choices, either.
Techno sighs, and it takes everything in Tommy to not flinch again, to not shy away from his sire even though his instincts whine for him to go closer, to be safe.
“You don’t have to say anything, but I would like an answer,” Techno says, he sounds angry. Annoyed.
Tommy has upset him by not deciding, then. He isn’t supposed to decide things for himself, he’s a monster, but he doesn’t want to make Techno’s anger worse. He doesn’t want to disappoint him. The desire to avoid his si— Techno’s anger is something both his instincts and normal brain agree on.
So he has to choose.
Something anxious pulls at his chest. He’s never had to make a choice before. He doesn’t know which one his sire prefers, he doesn’t know what the right answer is, and the look Techno is giving him tells him that he isn’t going to get told which to pick either.
His instincts want him to be carried, but Tommy isn’t supposed to listen to his instincts. Clearly, being carried must be the wrong choice, or at least that’s what he hopes is the wrong choice.
Hesitantly, he turns away from his sire and scoots to the edge of the bed, ignoring the way both Wilbur’s and Techno’s eyes burn into him as he goes. He hasn’t been given explicit permission to move, he realizes, but he has to move in order to make a choice. It’s confusing.
Tommy swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands quickly, before Techno and Wilbur can realize their mistake in not ordering him to move.
Just as quickly, a wave of unnatural terror slams into him, almost knocking him off of his feet and back into the nest. He stumbles, gasping, as fear floods his veins, gripping him tight and holding him in it’s inescapable grasp, a terrified sharp noise peeling from between his lips. No-no-bad not-safe need-need-sire-need-nest-need-safe-need-no-no-bad—
The unnatural amount of fear suddenly cuts out as hands grab him, pulling him close to a broad chest and silky smooth shirt. His sire croons, calming and reassuring and promising safety. Just as quickly as the terror appeared, it was gone, leaving Tommy leaning against his sire with a needy whimper.
“What’s wrong, what happened?” His sire asks him, concern bleeding into his voice.
“It’s probably just instincts,” Wilbur says, sounding a lot closer than Tommy remembers him being. Wilbur had been on the other side of the room before, he thinks, but now it sounds like he’s right next to him. “He’s still newly imprinted, so being outside of the nest without his sire probably sent his instincts into overdrive. That happened to me a couple of times after I imprinted on Phil, trying to leave the nest before my instincts had settled.”
His sire takes a deep breath, and his exhale ruffles Tommy’s hair. It’s only then that he realized that Techno had buried his face into Tommy’s oily curls. “Okay,” his sire says. “Hold on, runt.”
Tommy doesn’t know what Techno means by “hold on”, not until he feels hands shift to grip him under his armpits. He has no time to brace himself, because in the very next moment he’s being lifted into the air effortlessly, quickly. Tommy yelps at the sudden movement, legs locking around Techno’s middle instinctively as his arms throw themselves around the pink-haired vampire’s neck.
His head tucks itself into the crook of Techno’s neck immediately, trying to stamp down a purr of delight. It doesn’t work, though it does come out all weird again, choked and stuttering.
“I knew you wanted to be carried,” his sire huffs, readjusting his grip to support Tommy’s thighs. “Can’t fool me, little one.” There’s an odd sort of affection in Techno’s voice, one unfamiliar to Tommy, but likes the sound of it. He likes it a lot, actually, though he shouldn’t.
His eyes flutter closed, the overwhelming scent of leather and wood filling his nose and making him sleepy. His head has calmed from its shrieking terror from mere moments earlier, instead filling in with a jumbled mess of sire-sire-sire-safe-stay-safe-safe. It’s much better than the fear.
The world rocks underneath him as Techno moves, carrying Tommy with him. Door hinges squeak open, and Tommy listens distantly as two pairs of footsteps echo down the hallway they now find themselves in, the wall blurring into a mess of color as sleep continues to tug him down into its clutches.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he hears Wilbur say, and vaguely he can see Wilbur over Techno’s shoulder. They’re walking together, it seems. “It might stress him out more, you know.”
“I know,” his sire says back, voice rumbling through his chest and by definition, Tommy’s as well. Hearing it this way soothes Tommy in a way he can’t explain. “But I want him to realize the truth. The sooner he does that, the sooner he can heal, just like you and Tubbo.”
“There’s a bit of a difference between his situation between mine and Tubbo’s,” Wilbur says.
“I know that,” his sire snaps, making Tommy flinch. A soft, reassuring purr follows, continuing on until he relaxes again with a little whimper. “I know, that, Will,” Techno continues, in a much softer voice. “If you have a better idea on how to get him to realize that he’s safe, that he isn’t going back there, I’ll take it. Really, I will.”
Wilbur stays silent, and the two of them continue onwards. The rocking back and forth of his sire’s walking is gentle, calming. Even as the footsteps turn from gentle rocking to sharper, jolting movements. Tommy only has to peek his eyes open a little bit to realize they’re going down a staircase, and he lets them flutter shut again soon afterwards.
His purr has become louder, now, Tommy notices. It’s less strained, less held back. He should be holding it back, he knows he should, but he can’t. He doesn’t want to. It feels good to just… purr. As if nothing would come of it. It feels good to make noise, feels nice, feels natural. Tommy doesn’t want to stop.
He really should, though. He doesn’t want to get hurt.
But they won’t hurt him, his sire said so. Techno said that he’s allowed to make noise.
Techno was lying. He’s a liar.
Tommy doesn’t want to think about this, doesn’t want to think about anything at all. He wants the soft haze from before, gentle and quiet so he doesn’t have to think, or worry, or feel anything other than safe and contentment.
Monsters don’t get to want things.
This will end, he knows it will. They’ll give him back to Dream and then that’s it, no more gentle touches, no more soft purrs, no more regular feedings, no more sated instinct. This will end, and it’ll be back to the way it was before. Back to burning chains and dark rooms and slabs of raw meat to drink from. Back to silence and bruises and orders.
He should want that, not this. He should want to go back to Dream, go back to his training, accept his punishment for being so bad. That’s what he should want to do, and Tommy— he doesn’t want to.
He wants to stay here, even if that means he’s feral. Everything feels so much better here, he likes it here.
He doesn’t get to stay, though. That’s not how it works. Even if Techno said he can, it isn’t true. Techno’s lying to get him to be more bad, so that way Tommy will be punished even worse when he finally goes back to Dream like he’s supposed to.
Techno shifts Tommy in his grip as they go from the harsher, jolting steps, to the softer rocking ones again. They’re not going down any more stairs, it seems. Tommy finds himself being pressed further against Techno, and it’s not himself doing it this time. His sire is pulling him closer, letting Tommy rest his head sideways on his shoulder.
His eyelids flutter, he should really open them, try to examine his surroundings in case they give him an order that he can’t obey because he doesn’t know the layout of the house. He can’t open them, though, he’s tired. His belly is full and he feels all warm and his sire is holding him close. Tommy doesn’t even remember closing his eyes in the first place, but now they refuse to open.
“Mate?” A voice. Not his sire’s or Wilbur’s, someone else’s. Familiar. Coven, like Wilbur, like his sire. “You took him out of the nest?” It isn’t a question, not really, and the tone of Phil’s voice isn’t necessarily accusing, just curious.
“I didn’t—” his sire sighs, and stops. They’re not walking anymore. “He doesn’t believe me. He doesn’t believe that he’s not going to be punished. I mean, he probably still thinks we’re going to give him back to the hunters, Phil.”
Tommy immediately blocks out their conversation, one hand slapping over one of his ears and pressing his other firmly against his sire’s shoulder, trying to muffle their words as much as possible. He can’t listen to their lies, not if he’s going to be good. If he keeps listening to them, the desperate, hopeful, needy part of him will cling to the lies and make him believe them. He can’t let himself believe them, because it will just hurt worse when Dream finally comes back to get him.
His sire runs a thumb gently over the back of Tommy’s neck, making him shudder and melt into the touch. Tommy shouldn’t be finding as much comfort in it as he is, just like he shouldn’t feel Safe at both hearing and feeling Techno speak as he keeps his conversation with Phil going.
Their words are slightly more muffled now, though not as much as Tommy wants them to be. If he focused, he could make out what they were saying, so he kept himself as unfocused as he could.
Eventually though, the muffled words trail off, the rocking starts up again, with more footsteps than before. Tommy blinks open his eyes blearily and sees Phil over Techno’s shoulder, mouth pressed into a tight line and brilliant red eyes staring ahead, past Tommy. Wilbur is just a step behind, a similar expression on his face, though it softens when he catches Tommy looking at him.
Techno jostles him a bit, and Tommy glances up at him. He’s looking forward too, but glances down for a second and gives him a little smile, brushing oily hair out of Tommy’s eyes. “Hey Tommy,” his sire rumbles. “Do you want to walk for this next part?”
Tommy doesn’t, but he knows better than to disobey. He’s familiar with orders disguised as questions. He has to suppress a whine in protest, but he loosens his grip on Techno and allows himself to be lowered until his feet are placed the ground. His hand remains clamped fast on Techno’s, though, a hint of the overpowering fear that had hit him earlier present in the very back of his mind now that he wasn’t being held.
He’s fine, though. He is good, or at least he’s trying to be, and he refuses to cling to his sire. He refuses to be clingy and needy and bad, he can be good. He can be good.
They’re standing in front of a door, this one not sleek and shiny and smooth like the rest of the door to the room Tommy has been staying in. This one is made of wood, and it’s old wood too, splintering at the edges and an insane amount of locks on it, all unlocked now, though.
He doesn’t like this.
His hand squeezes Techno’s tighter, and it takes everything in him to not step away from the door. It looks like the room Dream always put him in when they didn’t need him with the amount of locks on it.
Techno opens the door and Tommy’s non-beating heart drops even further as it’s revealed to be a staircase. One that goes down. One that’s dark.
It’s the basement. The basement. They’re taking him to the basement.
He knew punishment would come, of course it would. He’s been bad, more than just bad, honestly. He’s feral now, listening to his instincts instead of ignoring them like he should be.
Tommy doesn’t want this.
But it doesn’t matter what he wants, he is a monster, he is feral, and he must be punished, must be tamed again.
Tears burn in his eyes, but he squeezes his eyes shut to push them away before they can fall. Techno’s thumb strokes over the back of Tommy’s hand, and it should be comforting. It certainly feels that way, coming from his sire, but Tommy can see through it now.
It’s been fake this whole time, he’s just been to stubborn to truly see it.
Techno steps forwards, leading Tommy to the stairs that just go down and down and down. Tommy’s steps are small, tight, stiff, as he follows behind. Numbness is creepy through his skin again, a cold acceptance to what is coming next.
Distantly, the little hysterical part of him wonders what kind of punishment the vampires will give him. They don’t seem to be the type to chain him upright with silver shackles and leave him hanging there for hours, days, who knows how long in the darkness. They don’t seem like the type to beat lessons into his head. They didn’t seem like the type to hurt him.
That’s just his instincts talking, though. And Tommy can’t listen to his instincts.
He lets Techno lead him down the staircase, eyes adjusting quickly to the pitch darkness of the stone walls and dirt floors of the room. He tries to ignore how Wilbur and Phil follow close behind him, leaving no room to run.
He can’t run anyways. He has to be good. And he’s still clinging to Techno’s hand like a lifeline, since he feels like the overpowering fear from earlier will come back the moment he lets go, even worse than how it feels now.
Tommy isn’t… afraid of what’s coming, of what he knows is going to happen. He isn’t scared, he’s just… accepted it. He knew this would happen, and it is happening now.
His eyes remain trained on the dirt floor, watching absentmindedly as it covers his feet in another layer of grime. It tickles against his soles, gets caught between his toes. He wants to wiggle his toes into it, but they’re still walking, which make it hard. He hasn’t been given permission to do it either, so there’s another reason against it.
Out of the corners of his vision he can see dull metal bars and dark stone walls. They’re cells. Prison cells.
That’s where Tommy will be going, surely.
Yet his sire keeps leading him onward, not into one of the cells. Tommy doesn’t understand, but it isn’t his place to understand. Monsters don’t need to understand anything other than how to follow orders.
Suddenly, they stop, and Tommy nearly stumbles on the uneven floor.
“What, have more questions?”
Dream.
Tommy freezes in place immediately, but his head snaps up to attention anyway. Yet Dream isn’t in front of him like he thought he would be, the space in front of them is empty, hallway stretching further on.
He can’t move. He’s not allowed to move, but he turns anyway and finds dark metal bars, and just behind those bars is Dream.
Dream is behind the bars. That doesn’t make any sense.
Dream’s face is streaked with dirt, dried red blood smeared on his cheeks and staining his clothes. His green eyes are narrowed, angry, but dull. His fingers wrap tight around the bars.
“I see you brought some friends this time,” Dream says, and then he’s looking down at Tommy. Eye contact. Tommy freezes, Dream doesn’t like eye contact. His hand squeezes Techno’s tighter. “I thought you didn’t have any child vampires? Isn’t that why you’re so pissed with me?” His tone is sarcastic, but he sounds exhausted. Defeated.
Tommy doesn’t understand.
“Where’s the other one?” Techno asks, but not towards Dream. He’s turned away, looking over his shoulder at Wilbur and Phil behind them. “There were two.”
“He was more fragile than expected,” comes Phil’s voice, voice calm, dry, lacking any kind of emotion.
“You killed him,” Dream snaps. “Over some little monster, a brat. Because he refused to tell you what you wanted.”
Sapnap.
They’re talking about Sapnap, aren’t they? They have to be, no one else was with them when they brought Tommy here, gave him to the vampires to be tested. There can’t be anyone else that they’re referring to, right?
But Sapnap can’t be dead. He can’t be. Dream would never let that happen.
Tommy doesn’t understand.
He doesn’t think he wants to.
“Fine,” Techno says, sharp, angry. Tommy flinches and wants to pull away, pull back, away from his sire’s wrath, but his hand refuses to unclamp from around Techno’s. “One is enough, anyways. Now, hunter, let me tell what’s going to happen in the next few moments if you value your own skin.”
They’re threatening Dream. Techno’s threatening Dream. Dream, who is in the cell, not Tommy.
This doesn’t make any sense.
“You are going to explain to me exactly what you did to Tommy, and why you did it,” Techno says, calm, but his voice sounds angry. Tommy doesn’t understand, can’t process the meaning of his words or why he’s saying them in the first place. “Or you will find that your friend’s life will not be the only one taken here. Do you understand?”
Dream is glaring, furiously, at Techno, completely ignoring Tommy. And Tommy doesn’t understand. This isn’t… this isn’t normal. It’s not right. They— they’re supposed to be punishing Tommy, for being bad, but Dream is the one in the cell. Dream is the one getting punished.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to work.
“I understand,” Dream says, anger thick in his voice, much more present than Techno’s.
“Good,” Techno says. “Start with what you did, then.”
“Well what do you think I did, huh?” Dream snaps, laughing hysterically. “I tamed him.”
“How?” Techno demands. “Why?”
“Because I wanted to see if I could.” Tommy shivers at Dream’s tone, it’s the same one that he uses when Tommy’s been particularly bad, when Tommy tries to fight him, when Tommy doesn’t take his punishment. He hates it. “I wanted to see how far I could take it, how close I could get to make a vampire act like how I wanted it to. Children are easily manipulated, you know. It wasn’t hard.”
“Techno,” Phil murmurs.
Tommy’s hand is squeezing Techno’s so hard that if Techno had been human, he’d probably have broken bone by now. He’s trembling, too, even with his desperate attempts to keep still, to be good.
His sire tugs him closer, away from the bars. Tommy finds himself half shielded from Dream, Techno having stepped in front of him.
He wants to lean into that, wants to cling tightly to his sire and be Safe, wants to be protected from Dream, taken away so he doesn’t have to see him. He wants to go back to the nest. Tommy isn’t allowed to want things, but he so desperately wants to get away from here, wants to be Safe in the nest with his sire again.
“I mean, he was really easy to convince,” Dream continues. “Considering he was our first attempt, I think he’s my proudest creation, you know? And I don’t care if you kill me for saying that, because I know you will. Bloodsucking monsters are all the same in that regard.”
His sire snarls, and Tommy gives a full body flinch.
“Techno,” Phil says again, a bit louder with a warning tone.
“Oh,” Dream says, and Tommy can see the outline of a grin on his face. “That’s him, isn’t it?” Dream leans forward, crouching down, staring directly at Tommy. “Hello little monster,” he says, smug. “Come here.”
Tommy freezes.
It’s an order. An order from Dream.
He doesn’t want to go over there, he doesn’t, but he has to. It’s an order. He doesn’t want to be punished.
He barely registers his feet moving, his fingers slipping out of Techno’s grip, or anything, really.
Tommy doesn’t get more than half a step, though, before his sire is squeezing his hand and pulling him back, tugging him until he’s shielded from Dream’s gaze once more.
“Oh don’t be like that,” Dream coos sweetly, but there is nothing kind in his face or in his tone. Then, his voice turns hard. “I said come here, little monster.”
He jerks, trying to pull his hand out of Techno’s grip and run towards Dream before he can be punished, but his sire’s hold on him is like steel, unrelenting. He is jerked backwards and hauled up into Techno’s arms, face pressed to his chest.
Dream merely laughs.
“You may have him now, but he will always listen to me.” Dream’s laugh is wheezing, just like it always is, and Tommy hates it. Has always hated it, hated the promise of pain and punishment it brings. The only reason he doesn’t start sobbing at the sound of it is because he isn’t allowed to, he has to be silent, still, good. “When I get out of here—”
“You’re never getting out of here,” Wilbur says darkly, and the sound of it should make Tommy scared, but it doesn’t. It makes him feel safe and he doesn’t know why. “You will spend the rest of your days in this hole, until you go mad and kill yourself or you starve to death.”
“That’s what you think,” Dream hisses, still grinning. “I will get out of here, I have friends, you know.”
“Friends who aren’t coming,” Phil says, just as darkly as Wilbur. “And if they do, they will never make it here.”
They don’t give him time to respond before Tommy realizes they’re moving again, leaving just as quickly as they came, except Tommy’s being carried again instead of dragged along. His eyes are squeezed shut tightly, tears leaking from his eyes and dripping onto his sire’s shirt.
His head is a mess, entangling thoughts of safety and comfort as well as fear and danger and help-please-help-me. He can’t differentiate one feeling from the next, can’t shove away the bad and focus on the good. It’s just a blur of noise and overwhelming emotion and he doesn’t know what to do.
Tommy suddenly realizes he’s whimpering. Loudly. Even when light spills over him and they’re no longer in the dark staircase, he can’t stop it. No amount of him trying to suppress it helps, it only seems to get louder when he tries.
His sire is purring, holding Tommy’s head gently into the crook of his neck and rubbing little circles into his hairline with the pad of his thumb. It’s gentle, soft, comforting, but Tommy still can’t shake the lingering fear, can’t stop the whimpering. Even the leather scent of his sire isn’t enough to shake it away.
He doesn’t know where they’re going now, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t understand anything, and he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to try and make sense of everything that just happened, he’d rather leave it alone, push it away, forget it. He wants everything to go back to normal. Back to Dream and Sapnap and George and Bad, back to rules and punishments and orders and where everything made sense.
But he really doesn’t. He wants to stay with Techno and Phil and Wilbur and Niki and Rubbo and Ranboo. He wants to be Safe and cared for and feeling light and floaty and unbothered all the time, but it’s not real—
It has to be real though, right? Dream is in the cell, Sapnap is dead, he isn’t going back to them. Is this real? Is any of this real? Tommy doesn’t know.
A sharp noise peels itself from his lips, something like a chirp, but more shrill, more distressed, more scared. Techno croons reassurance in response.
Tommy barely allows himself to twitch as he realizes he’s being moved again, his sire shifting around. It takes him a moment to realize that he’s laying down, his sire curling around him protectively and purring.
He finds he doesn’t mind too much, actually.
A weight settles on the other side of him, smaller, not Wilbur or Phil. It smells like cinnamon, though, like Tubbo does, like coven.
Wherever they are now, it smells like a mess of things, stronger than the nest Tommy was in earlier. Snow and moss and hay and sugar, as well as the cinnamon-smoke and hickory-leather. It smells good.
He wants to stay here.
Tommy curls closer to Techno, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt and breathing out a shaky sigh. He’s not whimpering anymore, especially as Tubbo starts purring from the other side of him, an arm thrown over Tommy’s middle.
He feels good. It feels Safe. He wants to stay here.
He hiccups, and his sire purrs, brushing the hair out of his face with a gentle hand. Tommy glances up, daring to open his eyes, and sees a pair of glittering rubies staring at him, his sire’s pupils dilated. They’re in another nest, bigger than the one he had been in before, on a bigger bed in a much bigger room.
“You’re safe here, Tommy,” Techno murmurs, quiet, soft, real. “I promise you that. You get to stay here for as long as you want to. Forever, if that’s what you want. No one and nothing will ever, ever make you leave if you want to stay.”
Tommy does want to stay, he does. He wants to so badly.
He whines, unsure, questioning, pleading.
“I know,” Techno says, his hand drifting down to cup Tommy’s cheek. “I know that doesn’t make sense right now, but it will. You’re never going to go back to Dream. No one hear will ever treat you like he and the hunters did. You never deserved how he treated you.”
Tommy presses his face into Techno’s hand and looks away, fists clenching tighter around Techno’s shirt.
“I didn’t understand at first either, you know,” Tubbo says from behind him, making Tommy blink in surprise. “And neither did Wilbur, but you’ll get it. I promise. And me and you and Ranboo will be the best of friends.”
“Yeah, I definitely didn’t understand at first,” Wilbur admits, sounding like he was curled up somewhere behind Tubbo. “But I do know, and so will you.”
“No one’s going to take you away,” Phil agrees, and Tommy glances towards the foot of the bed, and at the edge of the nest is Phil, smiling, soft. “Ever. Not unless you want to go.”
Tommy presses closer to Techno, glancing up at him with uncertain eyes. The fear of Dream is still present in the back of his mind, curled up like a snake ready to bite, but it’s being drowned out by safety, by comfort, by the feeling of being loved. Tommy doesn’t think he’s ever been loved before, but he’s certain that that’s what this is.
He wants to stay. He doesn’t want to go back to his life with Dream. Even if it means being feral, he wants to stay.
His throat is scratchy, raw from making noise that he isn’t used to making. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth, but he manages anyway.
“I wanna stay,” he whispers, voice raspy, barely there. It still makes him want to cringe, flinch, turn away and wait for a strike, but he doesn’t, and no reprimand ever comes.
No, Techno only laughs, wipes a tear from Tommy’s cheek, and smiles. “That can be arranged.”