Archive of Our Own

Dream wakes up in a field of grass so green it feels like paradise. It tickles at the bare skin of his arms and neck, but otherwise he's not uncomfortable. Better than not uncomfortable, actually. He'd even venture to say he's comfortable.

Huh. That's… strange, isn't it? His memories feel a bit dulled at the moment, a bit foggier than he'd like them to be—so apparently whatever magic managed to fix the ache in his shoulder (and, to be completely honest, the aches in most of his other joints, too) clearly didn't find it necessary to fix his brain injuries—problems. They don't need to be healed, so they don't count as injuries. Either way, there's nothing he can do about the fog in his head, so he puts the issue out of his mind and concentrates on what he knows he can remember. It's all there, but how he got to whatever this warm green place is missing.

There was Tommy and Punz, in the prison. There was talking in agonizingly long-winded circles that never went anywhere—but when did any conversation with Tommy ever?—and there was screaming that echoed off the wall of the prison and made his ears sting. And there was an alarm, he knows. There was an alarm, and Tommy was crying, "Sorry, I'm sorry," and he was demanding to know what the fuck he did with the metallic taste of blood in the back of his throat and then. And then?

He isn't there now, so something must've happened. Something Tommy did must've teleported them somewhere else, far away from the rest of the server, and that must be what he was apologizing for. If he really wanted Dream alone, he could've just asked. Dream wouldn't have said 'yes', of course, but it's the principle of the thing.

He still doesn't move, basking in the warm sunlight. 'Just a second longer' turns into another, and another, and another. He hasn't felt this good in years, and there's a tiny paranoid part of him (as opposed to all of the much larger paranoias he carries) that worries that if he gets up, the bubble of bliss he's in will pop like an overfilled balloon and he'll be yanked straight back to the hell he actually belongs to. He remembers suddenly the courtyard Sam had wanted to put in the prison before Dream shut him down sharply, citing security risks. He knows Sam assumed that he meant a prisoner might be able to escape the prison if they were allowed to go to an open-air space—Gods, did Sam think he was stupid?—but that wasn't really what he meant, of course. What would be the point of getting an engineer to build him a huge, practically impenetrable base full of redstone (and the kinds of horrors that would keep anyone from asking too many questions about it) if someone could just break in whenever they wanted?

He almost misses those times. He did during prison, of course, when Sam's eyes turned hard and dark and his voice lacked any mirth it once had.

It never made sense to him why that was the version of Sam he mourned over in that cell, since they had been friends once. Once, Sam had chased Dream halfway across the world with a bunch of his other friends and he ran from them not because he knew that they'd murder him if they caught up to him but because of the joy of it, the sheer liberating joy of it. He hadn't had those memories bashed out of his head yet. But he didn't miss that Sam, not unless he really made a point to think about him. He missed what he would later consider to be his Sam. The one that built the prison with him, the one that brought up pithy, humanistic little mercies even as Dream denied all of his suggestions with gusto.

In the same way, he doesn't miss the Tommy from the first few days after he joined the server, either. Although he's not sure why he would, like he is with Sam: Tommy was always a brat, destroying things and killing people just for the fun of it. Nobody really liked that version of Tommy, he's pretty sure, even his so-called friends.

No, he misses the version of Tommy that felt like he belonged to him.

If this really is some kind of paradise he's been dropped into, it would be that Tommy that bounds up to him, ready to show his subservience by digging a hole and dropping all of his items into it before Dream even asks. If it's really heaven, he'd do a little bit more than that while he's down on his knees.

But it isn't, clearly. The Tommy that comes up to him while he's lying on the grass, waving a hand over his face like he's trying to snap him out of zoning out, doesn't have any of the fear in his eyes that Dream's come to associate with him.

"Hey, green man, are you dead?" he asks. Dream's entranced—he sounds like he's never seen a dead body before! "Because, and I say this in the nicest way possible, you look more dead than any living person I've ever met. I reckon that's not a good thing."

You have no idea.

Wait—no. Yeah. Tommy… has no idea. He has no idea who Dream is, or he would never be talking to him this… civilly (the word never really does apply to Tommy's incessant chirping, but the way he's talking now is nothing like the vitriol he gives Dream usually). Maybe he got knocked on his head and got amnesia? Dream suppresses a laugh. Serves him right, doesn't it?

He sits up, carefully keeping any recognition out of his gaze—first task on the agenda: get a new mask—and lets his tone betray only the genuine confusion he feels and none of his other, more dangerous emotions lurking just below the surface, saying, "What? Of course I'm alive. I'm breathing, aren't I? Who are you?"

"I'm Tommy. Tommy Careful Danger Kraken Innit." Dream actually snorts at that, but Tommy just beams like he's been given great applause. "But you can just call me… uh. You can call me 'The Haver of Wives'. If you want."

"I'm not calling you that."

"Prick."

"Idiot."

It's easy to slip back into the banter they used to use so frequently with each other. Too easy, even. It shakes something loose inside of Dream, to realize that they really could be friends if they wanted to be. Hadn't Tommy been saying something like that in the prison? That they drove each other insane. Dream remembers, because it was the first time he thinks he's ever heard Tommy apologize to him without some kind of threat forcing him into it. For once, Tommy wasn't apologizing to Dream because he thought that Dream would punish him if he didn't. He just did.

But then there was the alarm roaring and shrieking like an animal possessed by some evil spirit, and Dream lost any of his charity for Tommy at that point. If he really wanted to apologize, he wouldn't have killed him. He wouldn't have done whatever the hell he did to get the two of them out here. He can't trust Tommy. He should know that by now, no matter how nice it feels to just joke with him like friends do for once, no matter how much his heart calls out to have someone to talk to that doesn't know how much of a monster he's become.

He knows that he doesn't care about Tommy, because if he did, he'd get up right now and start running and not stop until that stupid, traitorous heart gave out. Because he doesn't care about Tommy, he doesn't leave.

"So," Tommy begins. "Do you want to—to make a base together?"

Dream's mouth is dry suddenly.

"You—you want to be friends?" he asks, and if his voice wavers in the middle of the phrase, he just has to pray to whatever god's still listening that Tommy doesn't notice.

For once, luck is on Dream's side, since Tommy just keeps on like nothing happened at all. "Yeah, come on, green boy! We've got to get to it, you know, stop burning daylight or whatever old people say. You're not old, are you? I would hate if you were old, 'cause old people are boring as shit."

"I'm twenty-five."

"Well." Tommy considers it for a second. "I guess we can be friends anyway, even though you're practically ancient."

"What? And you're—how old are you, anyway?"

"Twenty," Tommy says. "A good, viv… vivacious age. Some would say it's the best age, actually. Sorry, you're past it. Don't collect two hundred dollars, or whatever."

Huh. That's interesting—Tommy's the same age as he was at the end of the old server, even though they seem to have reverted to their old bodies.

Dream forgot how meandering and chaotic Tommy was when he wasn't shaking in fear. "Dollars? Aren't you British?"

Tommy rolls his eyes. "It's a game. Don't tell me you've never heard of fucking Monopoly."

"As opposed to celibate Monopoly?" Dream asks.

Tommy just tells him to shut up, and Dream gets to his feet without too much trouble. There's a lightness in his chest that hasn't been there for a long time.

At the top of the hill, Tubbo stands motionlessly, staring down at the two of them.

"Who's that?" Dream asks. "Do you know them?"

Tommy shakes his head. "No. And I'm pretty sure they're a wrong'n with how they're just creepily staring at us. But it's okay, you can stay with me and I'll protect you. I'm a big man, you know."

"You'll protect me?" Dream raises an eyebrow.

"Yeah! Why not?"

And Dream can't answer that question, now can he? He was just about to point out all the battles Tommy'd lost to him over the years, except that he's not supposed to know about them, apparently. Or at least, Tommy doesn't know about them, and Dream can't seem to bring himself to dull the friendly light in the little sunshine's eyes. He stops himself short just in time.

He really needs a mask.

He wasn't all that good at lying before. There's a reason all his villainous speeches came out hollow and canned-sounding, at least in his opinion, and it was because he really did practice them, like a kid in a school play practicing their lines, before he had to say them for real. He got better at it, with Sam, but that was mostly just because he got better at predicting what Sam already believed so that he could go along with it and ride the wave instead of making his own current. Sam was never all that difficult to lie to; he wore his heart on his sleeve. But he doesn't know what this version of Tommy thinks, and he especially doesn't know what he thinks of him.

"Hey, man? What's your name?"

"Dream," he answers, before he can even think of a reason why he would be better off giving a false name. He's, like, ninety-eight percent sure it won't be a problem, but his life experience thus far has convinced him never to trust even the best odds.

"That's a—that's a fucking stupid name," Tommy says. "Sounds like you should be a main character in some magical girl show."

"What's wrong with girl shows?"

It's so easy to rile Tommy up.

"Nothing!" he says quickly. "There's absolutely nothing wrong with girl shows, or girls in general for that matter, and I in fact am the biggest lover of girls you'll ever meet. And guys. But we're talking about girls right now, and I'm not going to bring up guys in a conversation about girls because I am not a misogynist."

Dream focuses in on the only new information in that rant: "You like guys?"

"What?" Tommy's shoulders rise as he bristles. "You got a problem with that?"

"No, no—not at all. Just—" Dream should not be saying this. Not to Tommy. He does anyway, before he can stop himself. "So do I."

Tommy relaxes. "Alright, big man. Just needed to know. Can't be being friends with a homophobe, you know. They're wrong'ns."

"They sure are. Now come on, we need to find somewhere to build."

So they go, together.

There's scarcely a moment of dead air between them where they're not chatting aimlessly about nothing important. Dream's enjoying this, he realizes. He's smiling, and he actually means it for once—not like when he grinned maniacally at Sam in prison over and over just to scare him or piss him off or whatever, not even like the times he'd thought he meant it, like when he beat Tommy to death with a stupid raw potato and then laughed until his ribs hurt. He means it like he remembers meaning it back when the server was just him and Sapnap and George, except that it's Tommy, so it's somehow more. More raw, more vicious, more golden than anything he could ever have with anyone else.

As if he needed more reasons to justify his decision not to tell Tommy that he remembered the server as it was before. But he's… He feels hopeful now. He can start over. He can keep all his monstrosity locked in a box, buried under so many layers of floorboards and dirt that not even his ability to escape impossible situations would be enought to get it out. He remembers what Tommy had told him in that weird fight-that-wasn't in the hollow that was all there was left of Pandora's Vault, how he was sorry for driving Dream insane. If he could keep Tommy from being such a goddamn menace all the time—or if he could attach himself to him alone so that he didn't care about anything else but what Tommy wanted (that's probably not supposed to be as enticing of a prospect as it is to him at the moment, considering how often what Tommy wants has historically included arson and murder)—then they would never have a reason to turn on each other.

He hasn't seen Wilbur yet—the guy left before the server restarted (Dream's only assuming that's what happened to it, but it seems the most likely possibility, unless he needs to write down way more notes about how Limbo works) and it doesn't seem that he's been dragged back, or at least, not in the same place where Dream, Tommy, and Tubbo were—but if he is around, Dream will simply have to make sure Tommy doesn't talk to him. Not too much, anyway. This new, nicer version of him has no reason to be too controlling, especially since Tommy always seemed to balk at anything that restricted his freedom too much before, but Wilbur's a corrupting influence. It's his fault that L'Manberg was built, after all, and that ruined everything for Dream.

At least Tommy already doesn't seem to like Tubbo too much.

Eventually, they find a small clearing, dotted with daisies and dandelions. Tommy runs forward when he sees it, spinning in a circle in the sun, and Dream stops walking to watch him, his mouth slightly open with the words he's now forgotten.

He's always understood that Tommy's a handsome boy, in an objective sense. Sure, he's skinny, with knobby knees and bug eyes, and he's not particularly strong or fast. But his hair looks like gold in the sunlight, and Dream longs suddenly to put his hands in it, to run his fingers between every strand until it feels like silk on his skin. It's a horrible, irrational thought and Tommy would hate him if he knew—but Tommy doesn't have to know. Tommy can just stay right there, spinning like a dancer in a box with his arms out to hold the whole sun and those beautiful, sky-blue eyes closed, and Dream can stay here and watch him and that'll be about as close to perfect as he's ever going to deserve, he thinks.

Any thought of more only reminds him of Exile, and the memory turns in his stomach now.

He'd never touched Tommy then—or ever, though he still doesn't know what he'd have done if Tommy noticed the way Dream looked at him sometimes with eyes full of hunger and asked—but he certainly thought about it. He wouldn't be a very good monster if he didn't think anything monstrous, at least once in a while, and Tommy made it very easy to want him.

Tommy back then was beautiful, of course. But it was in a very different way than this. He was all desperation and the kind of sadness that made you feel sick to your stomach with it, raw-boned even more than he is naturally. Unfinished, almost. Like something had been taken from him—a lot of things had been taken from him, Dream knows, because he was the one that had taken most of them—and he didn't know what it would take to get it back. Maybe if Dream was a better person, or if he was more interested in lying to himself, he would say that he had the kind of look that made you want to give him something back. But that wasn't the appeal for him. On the contrary, it was easy back then to look at him and think about taking more.

That's why Dream can't be honest with him. If he ever wants Tommy—he doesn't, he can't (but maybe someday he will be good enough to want him in the way he's supposed to)—he has to make sure that there's an ocean separating what he's trying to remake himself into now and the person he is at his worst.

On a whim, he kneels to the grass and plucks a daisy, leaving half the stem behind.

Tommy's gone still by the time Dream walks to him, and he wishes he could bottle the soft confusion on his face. Better still is the light pink that dusts his cheeks when Dream boldly brushes his hair behind his ear and tucks the stem of the daisy into it.

Dream's face is hot, too.

He's not sure why he did that. Tommy would just throw the flower away, like he would with any of Dream's—he's not going to call them 'advances'—and he doesn't have a mask to hide his disappointment so he'd know for sure, then. Tommy would know, and Tommy does horrible things when he has the freedom to break things that other people hold dear, almost as bad as Dream is, except that Dream has reasons for the terrible things that he does and Tommy only cares about his own fun.

Except that Tommy doesn't throw the flower in the grass and stomp on him and call Dream a loser or something worse, like he fears. He just stays there, motionless as a startled deer that hasn't yet figured out that it really better start running. And so Dream stays too, still watching.

Tommy smiles. It's the most beautiful thing Dream's ever seen.

"Thank you," he says.

Dream shrugs. "It's nothing. Now let's get to building."

Building with Tommy is, just as everything has been so far, shockingly pleasant. Yeah, Tommy's too much of a gremlin to stay focused on the same task for too long, and he loves telling Dream what to do in this universe too—for a while, he'd thought that that was just some weird symptom of whatever Wilbur taught him about garnering power, but it seems proven to be a natural facet of his personality now—but Dream sends him off to gather wood, and then follows him a few minutes later, just because he misses the guy's big mouth and all the idiotic things he says, chattering away about nothing and making it funny in the way only he really can, so who's the clingy one, really?

They swing wooden axes into trees. Tommy pretends that he's fighting some terrible, powerful adversary, making loud swooshing sounds, and Dream pretends he's never seen what Tommy looks like when he actually is.

And that's how they build the house.

It takes until nearly dark, but it's done. Two beds and a furnace, even. The last time Dream built a house—a real one, not the sloppy dirt hut he made when he knew Techno was watching him do it—was the Community House, all the way back in the beginning of the server. He hasn't slept in a bed in ages, and he feels a sudden desire for it, the domesticity he's never appreciated before. He'll come to hate it eventually—he knows himself too well at this point not to know that he will never stay in one place for more than a few days before he gets the itch to run, to leave it all behind in search of whatever fortune will give him out in the wilderness he truly belongs to—but today he can look at the bland oak box and smile.

The bed is even softer as he expects it to be. He ends up sleeping on the floor.

His breath comes tearing at his lungs. They sting. His mouth tastes like blood.

He's running, he realizes, in a thin tunnel that's barely big enough for him to stand in. It's long and straight and he can't tell, no matter how much he focuses, whether the footsteps pounding behind it are someone else chasing him or simply echoes of his own feet. He runs anyway.

Dream had to learn many things in his life. How to talk to people, how to fight without getting his shit pushed in by people like Technoblade all the time, how to pretend he's fine when he feels like he's dying inside. But running? He's known how to do that from his earliest memory.

The torches on the walls of the tunnel are redder than usual. They cast the same light—the same exact shade—that a wall of lava does on obsidian. He never thought he'd see that light again when he first escaped; he knew he'd see it every night in his dreams. And he does. He does.

There's got to be something chasing him—why else would he be running?

But his chest hurts. He's sick to his stomach. Had prison really taken so much out of him that he couldn't even run—couldn't even do what he often felt he had been designed specifically to do—without pain? He shouldn't be surprised, since it took everything else from him, too. But the sting of betrayal zapping his lungs with every gasping breath is impossible to ignore.

His body was always a battlefield, but there's so much more to it, now. The scars, most of them impressive only in their number, but the others… He doesn't like to think about the other ones, the special ones that Quackity had been sure to make sure Dream knew exactly what they meant as he carved them into his flesh. You could tell when they were made by how ragged the edges were—but Quackity didn't get better at torture, the stupid bastard that he was. Dream just stopped struggling.

He never gave them what they wanted. He holds onto that now, when the memories feel too overwhelming to fight his way through; that one piece of evidence that he is strong above anything that anyone else could do. He is Dream. Who could hurt him? Who would dare to try?

Sometimes it's even comical, the thought, in a horrible, bone-dry way: he was better at torture than Sam and Quackity, and he was better at being tortured than Tommy. He doesn't always think of Exile as torture, since it really wasn't that bad—come on, who cared so much about—what had it been?—a week, or a bit more, with freedom and the sun on your face and visitors to come see you?—but he knew the rest of the server didn't tend to think of it that way. They didn't understand how much worse things could have been. But Dream knew, now. He'd had it beaten into him over and over, exactly how merciful he had been to Tommy.

There's—the floor is wet and dark.

Just water, he tells himself—forces himself to believe. The air smells metallic, but that's just the taste of his own blood in his mouth bugging him, right? It's not blood. It can't be.

It's sticky on the soles of his shoes.

And then his socks.

It fills his shoes, leaving them warm and wet like a swamp in the summertime. Like putting your fingers in an open wound.

He can't run anymore, though his body aches with the desire to start sprinting as fast as humanly possible. If the monster chasing him catches him, well, that will be that, won't it? He walks fast, anyway. He ignores the rising tide of unidentifiable liquid.

It starts dripping from the ceiling.

A drop lands on the tip of Dream's nose and, on instinct, he rubs the heel of his palm down over it. It just smears it over his face; he tastes salt on his lips. His hand looks red and dark, but who could tell in light like this? Everything looks like blood or fire when you're trapped in hell in a box. He knows that: you see what you expect, or what you most fear, or some nonsense like that. It won't work on him. He won't fall for it.

It's up to his calves.

His knees. He's wading now, and it's impossible to keep any kind of speed, especially when it rises to his thighs.

His heart pounds in his ears, too urgent for the pace he's keeping. He keeps moving. The monster must be having trouble with the depth of the liquid, too. Otherwise, it would surely have caught up to him by now, with how slow he's forced to be.

It's at his waist.

He grits his teeth. It's—certainly thicker than water.

Now his chest.

When it brushes up against the bottom of his chin, there's still no end to the tunnel that he can see. Beyond the torches, there is only darkness. It could be three steps ahead or three thousand.

He turns behind him, because if he's going to die he might as well know what sort of creature his predator is, right? He would hate to go out and have no idea who to go after if he ends up coming back—no one stays dead forever in a world where the Revive Book exists, even if Punz has had the same problem as Tommy and ended up forgetting all of the content of it. Someday, he'll find it, and it wasn't that hard to learn how to revive people the first time, anyway. Punz is smart—he can handle it, even without Dream. So he needs to be able to tell them what he needs to get revenge on, when he inevitably gets revived.

There's nothing there.

He stumbles back and trips on nothing, crashing into the deep liquid—it's blood, he can call it that now, what kind of idiot is he if he can't accept reality?—and smacking the back of his head sharply on the floor. His vision goes dark.

And he wakes up, gasping. Someone's touching him.

Someone has their hand on him.

He jerks back, and the hand leaves instantly—Quackity and Sam wouldn't have done that, if it was them, so it has to be someone else. Punz, maybe? Techno? He doesn't remember where he was before he fell asleep.

Eventually, he comes to enough to recognize the person in front of him; to his credit, he's never been able to sleep around Tommy before. He barely sleeps as it is, and when he does, he's very selective about the people that he allows to see him in such a vulnerable state.

"You alright?" Tommy asks, his voice soft.

Dream doesn't answer.

"Nightmare?"

He nods.

Tommy breathes in slowly, and even though Dream knows he's just trying to make him breathe in pace with him, since he did that in the old universe too, he relaxes an iota anyway. "Okay. Okay. I didn't—I didn't know you got nightmares."

"You only met me yesterday," Dream croaks out. "How would you know?"

"Oh, yeah." Tommy seems to be considering something for a moment, and then speaks again, "It's still dark. If you want—and if you think it would help—you can come sleep in my bed with me? It's big enough.

"I won't do anything," he adds quickly. "We can just sleep, I mean it. I don't mean anything creepy."

"I know you don't," Dream says.

He can't quite keep the resignation out of his tone. But Tommy's kind enough not to comment on it.

Instead he teases, "Now how could you know a thing like that? You only met me yesterday."

"Yeah, yeah."

But he follows Tommy to his bed anyway. Maybe he needs someone to be a little annoying sometimes, to get him out of his own head. Tommy's not even being that annoying right now, anyway. Much less so than he's used to from him. It's almost… comforting.

It reminds him of Sapnap and George in the earliest days of the server, how they'd riled him up constantly without any fear that he would crack down on them violently for it—for, back then when they were all equals and didn't need to vy for power to protect themselves, why would any of that have been necessary? But he remembers too the way Sapnap had told him in the prison that he'd kill him if he ever broke out, how cold his voice had sounded. He remembers that George never visited him in the prison, not even once. That he never tried to meet up with him after he broke out, either.

Tommy's bed is just as annoyingly soft as his own had been, but Dream gets in anyway. Tommy lies down behind him, their backs facing each other, but not touching. There's just enough room for it—Dream before the prison wouldn't have been able to fit in one bed with another person, even one as thin as Tommy, without touching them at least. It's even a little awkward still.

But Tommy is determined to keep his promise not to touch Dream while they lay in the same bed together, it seems, and Dream's not going to be the one to break the unspoken agreement. It's bad enough that he put that flower in his hair while they were standing in the meadow, but cuddling? With Tommy? That would, as Techno would say, ruin all of his 'big bad villain' reputation.

Not… that it makes any difference, anymore.

Slowly, Dream's eyelids grow heavier and heavier despite himself, and he falls asleep in Tommy's bed.

He wakes up just as gently from his dreamless sleep—that's a miracle in and of itself, so maybe Tommy was right that sleeping in his bed would help with the nightmares—and realizes that he and Tommy are no longer back-to-back. In fact, Tommy is… Well, his face is pressing into Dream's chest, and his arms are wrapped around him like he's a giant teddy bear. If he keeps this up, Dream's going to have to start assuming there's an ulterior motive behind the offer to have him sleep in his bed.

He snickers to himself quietly. Tommy really is cute like this, all soft and vulnerable, that golden hair of his a ragged mop on top of his head. Dream wouldn't mind sleeping here again, if Tommy gives him the chance.

Because he can't just take what he wants anymore, not if he's trying to actually keep the server peaceful against what seems to be a core facet of its very nature. Tommy is the main source of potential chaos in the world, so all he has to do to keep it safe—as he realized yesterday—is to keep Tommy happy, calm, and, above all, under his control. He can't push him away by getting too reckless with his demands, or Tommy will lash out against his authority like he always did before; there's nothing any version of Tommy hates more than being controlled.

Dream's going to need to be patient, but he's more than capable of that. He spent a year in prison, for Prime's sake! He can wait for Tommy. He'll have him under his thumb soon enough.

However patient he is in the long term, he does want to get up, currently. Tommy might be more than happy to waste the day away in bed, but Dream's got things to do!

He needs to see who else is left on the server, and make alliances with as many people as he can—that was his biggest flaw last time, after all: he just didn't have enough charisma to compete with people like Wilbur, and he was too overtly controlling, in contrast to Wilbur's subtler manipulation. But he's learned from his mistakes. He knows what he's doing now. He can be good for Tommy.

Oh, wait—that's not—he puts that thought, and the accompanying starburst of some warm feeling in his chest he can't articulate, into a box and locks it. Throws away the key. He imagines sitting on it too, for extra insurance.

Then he tugs at Tommy's hair.

Tommy makes some sound between an 'Ay?' and a growl, shoving Dream back. He lands on his ass off the bed, taking half the blanket with him, and laughs so hard he's wheezing. Tommy blinks rapidly at him.

"Asshole," he grumbles.

"You weren't waking up," Dream defends himself. "What was I supposed to do?"

"Get out of bed like a normal fucking person, I don't know. Not be a dick."

"Oh, great insult. That probably—how many brain cells did it take to come up with that one?"

Tommy snarls something intelligible and rolls over.

Dream just stays sitting on the floor for a moment, leaning back on his hands. He's still smiling, but something a bit more pained finds its way into his expression, and not just because his ass hurts from being pushed out of bed. He's not sure why he's smiling—it's not like Tommy can see it.

The thought stings unexpectedly.

Why did it?

Dream knows he can be, for lack of a better word, obsessive, at times. His past fixations included Wilbur Soot, fighting tactics, and the server in general. Each time, he had slipped into a miasmic haze of eating, breathing, and living whatever it was for a couple months or so, sometimes forgetting to eat or sleep in his desire to get as much as possible into his brain as quickly as he possiby could. It's part of what makes him such a formidable person to have as an enemy—if Dream wants you defeated, he won't rest until it is done. Literally.

Contrary to popular belief—contrary to things he's explicitly told the guy, actually—he's never truly felt that way about Tommy. Honestly, Tommy's probably more obsessed with him than he's ever been with him.

Exile wasn't about wanting Tommy. Dream felt nothing but vague disgust for the guy back then; he wanted him gone from the main server's dealings out of fear that he would continue blowing shit up and hurting people like he always had—especially now that he was closely tied to the president of L'Manberg, who basically always did what Tommy told him to, at least eventually. That doesn't change what happened next, of course: how Tommy raged at the beginning like a petulant prince and then faded more and more with every passing day, how Dream watched the color and life leech out of his baby blue eyes until they were as gray as ash, how Dream sat back in his netherite armor and loved all of it like he'd never loved anything before. It was a sick, twisted kind of love. It rotted something in Dream's heart that he thought had left long ago.

It wasn't… this. This warmth, this sunshine. This love that he wants to crow from the rooftops at the same time that he wants to hold it to his chest like a stuffed animal and never let go—it's not whatever he felt towards Tommy while he was exiled. That doesn't mean it's good for him. For either of them.

He leaves quietly.

In the end, he doesn't find Punz.

He spends a few hours scouring the server for them, taking mental notes of the few groups that have started up home bases of their own as of yet and making small talk with the people he could find—but he doesn't know the first place this new (or old?) version of Punz would go to haunt. Eventually he finds a spot to sit by the water (near where the entrance to Pandora's Vault used to stand, though that's not why he's sitting there—at least, he doesn't think so. His brain is hard to trust these days, his subconscious treacherous at the best of times) and, staring out at the empty horizon some part of him expects to be obscured by a giant netherite box, realizes that he's given up far too quickly.

He's not sure why, but he's alone with no one who needs anything from him in the near future, and besides, Pandora did nothing so well for him as it did make him a hell of a lot more introspective, so fuck it, let's figure this mystery out!

Punz and he weren't friends, exactly. Not in the typical sense of the word. Or maybe they were—Dream's never been too keen on labeling the strange relationships he tended to find himself in. Friends drink tea and eat grilled cheese sandwiches together, don't they?

Usually friends don't have such specific tastes though, probably—but waterboarding's a bitch and grilled cheese sandwiches were the first food other than potatoes that Dream expressed any kind of interest towards after his captivity. Punz had offered once, with an uncharacteristically shy look on their face like they were expecting the cold refusal Dream usually gave them when they did things like that, and Dream had said, "fuck it, sure." A different person than Punz would've probably made him try other food, like a parent does with a picky toddler, but that wasn't what Dream wanted and Punz was always delightfully good at doing what Dream wanted.

Dream frowns.

Maybe that was the issue. Not the food thing—at least, not entirely—but the pattern it was an example of: Punz enabling Dream. They never did make each other better, exactly. Safer, yes. Happier, maybe. Kinder—no, never. They followed each other straight to rock bottom like Orpheus chasing his love in the depths of Hades, except that neither of them would even try to get out without looking back at each other. Punz would never not be able to look to Dream for guidance, after so many months of following his lead to whatever horrible places he took them.

Punz was a relic of the old world. They weren't… They don't suit this new thing that Dream is trying to make himself into, and that's just a fact. The work will be hard enough without someone at his side that he knows all too well will stay there regardless of how monstrous he becomes.

He knows it's more than a bit cruel to think of Punz that way. Once a monster, always a monster.

But he can't forget the way Punz had said they were Dream's friend, back when Tommy asked before the server restarted. He can't forget his own silence, when he should have easily agreed. Was it just because Punz was the one to say it and he was too much of a defiant mess to accept something someone else said about him when he wasn't quite ready to say it yet?

Although no normal person would let someone kill them over and over (and fuck them, though consensual killing should probably be considered more intimate than that—though, of course, Dream let Punz pour poison down his throat long before he took their dick into it, because that's just the kind of deeply abnormal person he is) and not consider them a friend. But it was easier for him—and post-Pandora, Dream didn't have the wherewithal to do pretty much anything but the least energy-intensive option for everything (see again: potatoes, Limbo, living in the prison instead of any-fucking-where else, etc.)—to call them simply his ally.

He always assumed Punz knew that that word meant to him—that it was both less and more than the word 'friend' was in his mind, because he never told anyone they were his friend unless he was lying. That it meant partnership, meant trust. That it was the same word he used for Technoblade, the only man that ever protected him with any more than vague presence (Bad and Ant did have a role in reducing the constancy of Dream's torture, since Sam had to heal him in between sessions so the kinder—or simply weaker-stomached, as he thought in his more cynical moments—guards wouldn't notice. But he knew they were hardly on his side, anyway. If they were, a couple healing potions and Sam's sweet lies wouldn't have stopped them from looking closer so easily), even once Techno was calling him his bestie and idiotic shit like that.

Punz knew that everyone he'd ever called a friend eventually betrayed him.

He sighs and tosses a stray rock. It's too rough to skip, so it just plunks into the water without fanfare. He doesn't mind—he knows things don't tend to do what they're not meant to. Not like people.

"Going crazy all by yourself, handsome?" Tommy says from behind him.

Dream looks over his shoulder, resisting the urge to scramble to his feet so he's not looking up at the guy—he's not Wilbur; he doesn't need physical height to prove he's the one in control. He's not Quackity either. He doesn't want or need Tommy on his knees (not unless he's—well).

"What are you calling me handsome for?" Dream asks.

"It's not—it's a—" Tommy splutters. His face is rose red.

Maybe it's the flustered look on Tommy's face, or maybe it's the sunlight beaming down on the both of them when they spent so much time with each other in crushing, shadowy restriction, or maybe it's just the fact that Tommy's clearly sought him out, like, on purpose when he never would've said a word to Dream before without sounding like he was being tortured into it. Dream still wishes the uncomfortable ache in his chest would go away.

But he doesn't want Tommy to go away. Even though he should.

"What do you need?" he asks.

"You left," Tommy says. His voice is suddenly quiet.

Dream stares at him. He realizes he probably should turn to face him fully, if it's going to be one of those kinds of conversations—rather, he realizes that the good person he's trying to be would turn around. So he does.

Tommy looks scared.

Dream doesn't want this version of Tommy to be afraid of him.

"I didn't—you didn't tell me not to."

Tommy scoffs, and there's a hint of the older, bitterer Tommy in the expression. It tastes like the charred bits on the edge of a piece of barely-burnt bread. "Like you would've listened."

"Maybe I would've."

Dream's jaw is tight.

"It's not your fault," Tommy says, and something in Dream slackens. It should sound fake, an coerced apology of the same ilk as Tommy used to tell him during Exile. And yet, after a moment of hesitation, he continues, "I don't like feeling… abandoned, okay? I just—it fucks with my head."

"Oh."

Tommy doesn't elaborate, so the issue falls to Dream.

"So… do you want me to tell you every single time I'm coming or going from the base?" he asks. "Because that's… don't get me wrong, I don't want to hurt you, but I don't think I can do that."

"It's not—" Tommy inhales dramatically. "No, you don't have to. I just—it's nothing. Nevermind."

Dream's head tilts like a curious fox, trying to pin down exactly where the problem lies under the heavy snow of Tommy's refusal to finish the conversation he'd started. They're all so all-or-nothing, is the problem. Nothing can be for Tommy without it being against Dream. Someday, in a better universe, they might be able to learn to compromise, for fucking once. Dream almost wishes he really had lost his memory too. Maybe an innocent version of him wouldn't have this desperate need he has to rely only on himself, to hoard power like a dragon with outstretched claws sunk into everything people kept trying to take away from him.

"Tell me what's wrong, Tommy."

It's an order, but it's also a plea—Dream understands as he always has that giving up his violence and cruelty removes so much of his power in this world of brokers and ever-shifting alliances, that this kinder version of him that he's trying to create can only exist if people listen to his words, for once. Tommy's hands clench into fists at his sides, then release just as quickly. A flinch. Is Dream so terrifying, even without the horrors of their shared bloody history to contend with? Is this just what he is? Or maybe Tommy was always just a pussy. That would be a shame. For all of his other faults, Dream didn't think Tommy was a coward.

He obeys, and that's really all that matters at the end of the day.

"Sorry, man—I was just—I just mean that you should—or. No, that's not—"

Dream sighs. "Spit it out. I'm not going to rip your head off."

"Could you please not leave the house without at least—fucking—messaging me that you're going?" Finally, Tommy gains his fire, staring down at Dream like he expects to have to fight for even this concession (maybe he always had that too; growing up with a mentor like Wilbur couldn't have been easy, after all)

Old Dream would have teased Tommy relentlessly for that—what, is he worried? About big, bad Dream? And then he might punch him a couple times, just to show exactly how well Dream could take care of himself. It would be fine, because old Tommy would punch him back. But this soft, naive boy? He might not. And that's scaring Dream straight more than anything. He doesn't want to be that kind of man anymore. He doesn't think he ever really was—but the habits born from years of persecution stay with him even now that he should be allowed to be peaceful.

So he schools his face into something approximating a kind smile (Tommy's wide eyes indicate it may not have been an wholly successful endeavor) and says, "Sure, if that's all you want."

"Alright."

They stay by the ocean for a while, until Dream can no longer smell the salt in the air. Habituation is a funny thing—so is Tommy's presence by his side, so uncharacteristically gentle he feels like another limb, their breaths in unison.

"You don't trust me, do you?" Tommy asks softly.

A laugh bubbles out of Dream's chest in surprise. "Dude, I met you, like, yesterday. Besides, I could say the same thing to you, Mr. Stutterer."

Tommy shakes his head. "No—it's different. Because—look, I'm not going to hurt you. But you look at me like I'm—like I'm fucking torturing you—"

You did, Dream thinks silently. You put me in there and you let them do it. You still torture me.

"—and I haven't even done anything, so what gives, man? What's up with you?"

"Does there have to be anything?"

His voice comes out angrier than he meant it to.

Tommy flinches.

He settles back, distantly disappointed—in himself or in Tommy, he can't quite tell. "Yeah."

"No," Tommy says. "No, we're not doing that. You're talking, or I'll make you."

"Uh-huh. How?"

In a flash, Tommy's hands are gripping tightly to his shoulders, shoving him into the ground. The grass tickles his neck. All Dream can focus on is the mere inches between their faces. Is it grass under him or obsidian? He can't tell. Absurdly, it doesn't seem like it matters.

It takes until Tommy gets off him for Dream to realize he probably should've fought back.

"What the fuck?" he spits, scratching at the back of his neck to get the rest of the itchy grass feeling off. "Why—what made you think you could do that?"

"I didn't," Tommy says. He sounds bewildered. "I thought you'd push me off—I mean, you're bigger and stronger than me, you know you'd win—and then you'd get mad and, I don't know, I guess I didn't really know what would happen after that. But you—why didn't you push me off?"

Dream can't answer that.

"Fucking asshole. I'm leaving," he says instead, getting to his feet.

Tommy's eyes widen. "No, you—you can't."

Dream glares down at him. "What? Gonna hold me down and force me?"

He's being a dick, alluding to something he knows Tommy would never do. Although—Tommy does like to break things. Tommy doesn't like being told 'no'; he doesn't like rules, especially rules that are meant to stop him from hurting people. That's how all of this started, isn't it? Tommy wanted to kill people and destroy buildings and be a general nuisance, and Dream wanted him to get in line. And then there was Wilbur and countries and wars and Hell in a box, but he could never forget the stupid fucking music discs that started it all.

No—this isn't that Tommy. This Tommy is good, innocent. Besides, why would he even want someone as obviously fucked-up as Dream, anyway?

Eventually, Dream's going to have to stop running away from things he doesn't like, but that day hasn't come for him yet.

"No, you can go. Of course you can go—"

"How magnanimous of you."

"Are you coming back?" Tommy's voice is tiny.

Dream scoffs, but he considers leaving without a word for only a moment before he turns away, saying, "I'll be at the base by the time it gets dark."

He can't offer any more than that.

There's no person on Earth that can find Dream when he doesn't want to be found, so he doesn't have to worry about that as he disappears into the woods, grabbing a couple sticks to fashion into a wooden sword as he runs. He's not going anywhere in particular. Just away—away from Tommy, away from the server, away from all the questions he shouldn't know the answers to. It's even easier now that the server has been reverted to its natural state, the way it was when Dream and his old friends first arrived. There's no settlements to dodge, no cities with lookout towers. He can run out here for as long as he wants.

He's enjoying being in his old body again. It doesn't really feel like his, anymore—but then maybe that's a good thing. It's not like he wants to think of the broken, beaten creature prison made him into as himself; it just happened. Maybe a part of him still thinks of this body as his true self, and that's why it's so easy to return to it. It is objectively better in pretty much every way.

Even his hair is better, now. Softer.

Just to see if he can (since his busted shoulder made any kind of climbing generally impossible before), he hauls his ass up a tree. It comes freely back to him, his hands closing on each knot of bark like it was made specially for him. The breeze pushes his hair back from his forehead.

Oh. This is living, isn't it?This is what life's supposed to be. Somehow he thinks he forgot it, lost like a single sock somewhere along the way.

He feels the wild desire to share with Tommy this revelation. To teach him how to climb trees, since he's definitely better at it than Wilbur or Phil, the only two he could imagine teaching Tommy much of anything (on purpose, anyway), and have a race through the treetops. The kind of chase they used to do seriously, now performed just for the love of it.

The love.

Shit. No—he can't. He can't be in love with Tommy. Blind lust is bad enough, but love doesn't even seem to compute. He can't be in love with anyone, really—he's actually pretty sure he's incapable of the kind of selflessness required for true love, at this point—but if it was going to be anyone, it would be—like, Punz or maybe even George, in the old days. Someone who could take all his meanness and throw it right back at him.

Tommy used to do that—used to tease and taunt as much as Dream chased and growled, practically running circles around him with sheer audacity—but Dream had broken that. Somewhere in Exile, Tommy had lost that spark. He never stopped trying to hurt Dream, of course, but it was less glancing blows just to trick him into a reaction and more going straight for the throat. Tommy hated Dream. And Dream hated him right back. Most of the time.

Prime strike him dead, he is, isn't he?

He can't do anything about it, obviously. That's the worst part of it all—Dream's not worried about being rejected; he knows precisely how to make Tommy desperate for any kind of connection with him. He did it before, didn't he? There were other factors in that case, of course—Wilbur's death and Tubbo's betrayal come to mind first—but it would just be a matter of time. Tommy can't go anywhere on this server that Dream can't track him down. But he's not going to do that. He does have some morals, even if the relentless drive for survival surpasses all of them when push comes to shove—he'll have Tommy willing, or not at all.

And he doesn't deserve that. Tommy's an asshole and a brat at the best of times, but Dream tortured him. He hurt him in so many ways, and he's never felt sorry for it, not once. Besides, it's just not what they are: they're kindling never lit, a ball at the top of the hill—all tension, no closure. It's not what they're used to, and Dream fears nothing so much as he fears change.

There's movement in the woods.

It interrupts his ruminating as his eyes dart to the motion on reflex. It takes a second for him to realize what he's looking at—Sam, not in netherite armor for once, his green fur blending in with the leaves almost perfectly. He freezes. Sam hasn't seen him yet. He's looking at the ground, and Dream is too high up to be visible.

This isn't his Sam. This isn't Warden Sam, the man that haunts his nightmares and nearly destroyed him. This is just Sam. Sammy, even. One of the original eight he started the server with, the man who was always kind to him.

He still can't bring himself to descend the relative safety of the tree.

He tosses his sword down instead, and watches it stick into the grass and Sam glance around in sudden fear. That's what he's assuming, at least—he can't see his face very well from this angle and distance. He doesn't see Dream, though, which is the important part. This version of Sam probably doesn't deserve this fear, this paranoia of being hunted at all times by an unseen force. Dream can't deny himself the instinct to get this slight revenge, though.

He waits until Sam turns and starts walking in the opposite direction before he slips back down the tree, landing lightly on the ground. It's almost dark, anyway. Or it will be.

When he arrives back at the base, because, really, he just doesn't have anyplace else to go, there is hesitation thick like lead in his limbs. He doesn't push the door open, not immediately. He doesn't fear Tommy. That would be ridiculous. But he fears the conversation he's been threatened with, which looms languidly on the horizon, biding its time: he has to open the door. He has to talk to Tommy.

He gathers his courage.

"Dream?" Tommy asks from within the moment the door groans on its hinges, before he can even see him. He's sitting on the bed, but he gets up when Dream enters.

"Who else would it be?" Dream replies.

Tommy's staring at him. His gaze is uncomfortable in its intensity, in the unsaid emotions that Dream refuses to acknowledge—the fear, the surprise. As if he expected Dream to abandon him, even after he'd promised that he wouldn't. For not the first time—but very possibly the first time with this particular reason—Dream wants to break Wilbur's teeth. As if he needed more reasons to feel guilty.

"You wanted to talk."

"I do," Tommy says. "Yeah. Okay. We'll fucking talk, okay? And no running away this time, you fucking—you fucking scaredy-cat."

"Am not."

"Are too. Why don't you trust me?"

"I don't trust anyone."

"No. Tell me the real reason."

Dream thinks for a moment. "You… you just remind me of someone, that's all. Someone that I didn't like very much."

"What happened? Between you and—and that prick?"

Boy, is that a loaded question. How can Dream possibly sum up the many ups and downs of his and Tommy's relationship, the firestorm of obsession and control and betrayal that colored every one of their interactions—and how can he do it in a way that doesn't accidentally let slip something that would make Tommy hate him and start the whole ordeal over again? He could say something vague. Brush it off as something he just doesn't want to talk about. He doesn't know if this Tommy would respect that, and, even worse, he doesn't know how he would make him respect it.

He tries anyway: "He… he was my friend, once. Annoying as hell—but I was fine with that. He started, I don't know if he just—like, thought it was fun, or what, but he started blowing shit up, destroying everything everyone had built. He was hurting people, and he didn't even seem to care."

Tommy doesn't say anything, even as Dream's tone becomes more heated.

"I tried to stop him, but I guess I… I was an asshole to him, too," Dream says, a little quieter. "We were both shitty, and we made each other worse. Drove each other insane with how much we just hated each other's guts. All my friends turned on me, and I still don't really understand why. I was just trying to protect them. I was just trying to keep everyone safe."

"Why do you think he did that? Blowing shit up and shit."

Dream sighs. "I just said: I don't know. Maybe some people are just like that—they just want to watch the world burn. I don't think I would have made a very good firefighter, though."

He laughs, drily.

"No. No, I wouldn't have."

"Maybe he was just—" Tommy starts. Stops. Begins again: "Maybe he just didn't know what he was doing. Maybe he was just dicking around, and he didn't understand that he was hurting people."

"I don't know how he wouldn't."

"People are—I mean, generally, people are dickheads. Loads of people do stupid shit," Tommy says. "Doesn't mean they always, you know, mean it. Maybe you were a bitch to him too."

"Maybe."

Dream doesn't know why Tommy's defending this person so fervently. He doesn't know it's himself he's actually defending, after all—but he's still explaining old Tommy's actions with so much… certainty. Almost as if he—

There's a flash of realization, sharp as a fresh blade. Oh. Oh, fuck.

Just as quickly, it turns into anger. How long has Tommy known? Is he just—fucking playing with him? Playing with his food? He can't believe he—he told him everything. Shit he's never told anyone else, shit he only ever hinted at with Punz. He's running over every word that's passed his lips over this past day like an engineer does after a mechanical catastrophe: not that much, in the grand scheme of things, but it feels like a cascade now. His heart pounds.

"You—you asshole," he hisses. "You remember? Everything?"

"I thought—"

"I don't give a fuck what you think! Why did you tell me that you remember too? Why did you let me just—tell you shit, like we're fucking friends?"

"We could be," Tommy says. His hands are up, like he's trying to defuse a wild animal's rage. Like he thinks Dream's in any way feeling threatened by him. "We don't have to hate each other."

"Bullshit. You don't—you don't get to just say things like that. You have to mean it."

"Who says I don't?"

Dream wills his legs to move, his body to get the hell out of this stupid fucking house and the naive, stupid boy it contains. The boy he was dumb enough to think he could love. It was all just an illusion. A lie.

He doesn't leave.

"You can hit me, if you want," Tommy offers, and the sheer helplessness in his voice—a kitten facing down a jaguar—tempers Dream's fury. If only to replace it again with shock.

"What?"

Tommy averts his gaze and Dream thinks he should have been happy about that. He's not, if it needs to be said. "I was being a dick. I should've told you. Is that what you want to hear?"

"Did you hear what I just fucking said? You—I want you to be honest with me! I only want you to say things if they're true."

"I can't." Now he just sounds tired. "I can't not lie to you. Not when you're pissed at me. Don't you get why? You fucking did this to me, and now you're mad at me for it. I don't—I don't want to fucking fight you anymore. It's stupid. We both know you'll win."

"Okay."

Dream's head is spinning.

"Okay." He clears his throat. "Okay, I'm not mad. I'm not going to hurt you, and I'm not lying this time. Tell me whatever you want. Or don't."

"You want to know what I want?"

"Yeah, idiot. I do."

Tommy looks back up at him. His eyes are as blue as the sky, and Dream hates himself ever-fresh for ever putting clouds into them.

"I want to kiss you," Tommy says.

"The fuck?" Dream responds unintelligently.

"If—if you're leaving forever, if you're really going—I want, uh, I want to kiss you, just once before you go. Just so I don't spend the rest of my life wondering what it would've felt like. You don't have to," he adds, obviously noticing Dream's hesitation. "but you told me to tell you what I want. And that's it. That's what I fucking want, Dream. But if—"

He doesn't get another word out before Dream's pressing his lips to him. It's awkward—obviously, neither of them have had much practice as of late—and it takes a few tries before the lock of their mouths feels right. They melt into each other. Tommy's hands curl around Dream's waist and he's pushing him back into the door.

Dream gulps air.

Fuck it.

"You want to do more than kiss me?" he asks.

Tommy stares at him, and for a moment Dream's terrified he'll say no, that he's gone too far and pushed Tommy into something he doesn't actually want. There's butterflies in his stomach.

"Fuck yeah," Tommy says finally. "Yeah, man, I really, really do."

Dream spins them around and starts walking backwards towards the bed. When the backs of his knees hit the mattress, he stops.

He crooks two fingers in invitation. "Do it, then."

"What?"

"Are you an idiot?" Dream raises an eyebrow sardonically. "Do whatever you want. Do everything. Do shit that'll make you hate yourself in the morning. You're never seeing me again, right? And hell—you deserve it. I won't get mad at you. I won't fight you. Promise. Here—"

He pulls off his shirt and holds it out in both hands.

"Wait—what?"

"Tie my wrists," Dream tells him. "I know you know how to restrain someone. I don't have any rope for you to—to fucking hogtie me, but you can do my hands, if it'll make you feel better. Then I can't hit you, or whatever."

Tommy obeys, twisting the shirt into a makeshirt rope and tying it around his wrists, behind his back. He even puts two fingers under the knot to check the fit, like you would with a dog's collar.

He's still careful as he approaches, pushing Dream's shoulders down until he sits down on the bed. He tips his face up with one hand on his jaw, and kisses him gently.

The softness will break, Dream knows. They're only ever been cruel to each other—why should he expect any different now? This is penance as much as it is absolution. It's closure. Tommy will hurt him, and they'll both hate each other for it, and it'll make it so much easier to turn away and leave each other for good. His foolish heart will stop thinking about how they could've been friends in some alternate universe and understand that they're only destined to be enemies. The hero and the villain. The martyr and the monster. It's not what they really are, but it's all anyone else will ever see of them.

Tommy could do terrible things to him—things to rival all of Quackity's horrors, though that seems unlikely—and Dream will keep his promise. He won't fight back, even though the rope on his wrists is far from an effective counter to everything he could do if properly motivated. He'll let Tommy be honest with him, just this once, and then they'll never say another word to each other ever again.

His hands move down Dream's torso slowly, squeezing and savoring every curve, every softness he'd lost by the end of the old server.

"S'not anything special."

Tommy hums. "It's the last time I'll ever see you shirtless, innit? Don't rush me."

"Close your eyes then."

Tommy laughs, but he starts taking off Dream's pants, which he's pleased with. He seems to realize halfway through that he actually wants him on his stomach for this next part, and turns Dream around like a rotisserie chicken, one hand on his shoulder to help push him down onto the bed.

He hears Tommy's belt unbuckle.

That'll be it, won't it? Tommy doesn't have any weapons, as far as Dream's aware, so he'll probably just whip him with his belt. Something in Dream relaxes. Even if he's pretty sure this will be painful, it's nice just to know what the painful bit will be. It's not like he hasn't had worse, after all.

He's holding his breath, anyway.

Tommy rubs slow circles over his back. "Relax, bro. I'm not going to kill you."

"I know," Dream grumbles. "but just get on with it, won't you?"

He feels more than a little ridiculous, ass-up for his greatest enemy on the bed. Tommy could leave right now, and, yeah, Dream would be able to rip the shirt or dislocate his thumbs or something to get out of his binds, but it would still be embarrassing. Especially if someone else came in before he could get his clothes back on.

"Spread your legs," Tommy orders.

Dream obeys, and soon after feels a finger nudge at his entrance.

He jerks in surprise.

"You're so jumpy," Tommy muses. "Come on, let me make you feel good."

"Good?"

If Tommy wants to believe whatever he's about to do will be enjoyable for Dream, he's not going to argue with that. He can play the innocent toy—honestly, it's not even surprising that he would try to trick Dream in that way. Long ago, Dream did the same to him, though obviously in a much different context.

Against all of his instincts, Dream forces his body to relax.

Tommy's finger pushes deeper this time. The next time, there's two, and they scissor against Dream's walls, massaging him open until he feels almost boneless, limp like a wet noodle. It feels like it goes on for hours.

Prime, this guy is going to destroy him.

"Are you ready?"

"Fuck off."

Tommy takes that as the agreement it is, and his dick finally sinks into Dream. Someone whines, and it takes a second for Dream to realize it was him. Hey, it's been a long time! He's allowed to be a little pathetic.

"Good—good boy," Tommy says.

Dream doesn't argue, even though it's pretty fucking obvious that he's not, in any way besides the purely skillful, good. On the contrary, he feels… warm. His chest has a tiny sun in it, finally rising after so long neglected. It spreads all the way down to his toes. He wants to hold it close, this feeling. He never wants to let it go.

He lets Tommy set the pace, as much as his body aches to buck back against him to get him even deeper inside. Tommy's making such beautiful noises behind him, hoarse breaths and rumbling groans, and he thinks that however he wants to hurt him later, it will all be worth it for this sensation of pleasant warmth.

Tommy keeps talking: "Big bad villain—now look at you. You're so good for me. So good for me."

"Good?" Dream echoes. It's supposed to sound mocking, but comes out painfully sincere. Almost desperate.

"Yeah. Yeah, you're good, Dream. All for me."

As Tommy keeps thrusting into him at that steady, regular rhythm, Dream's brain leaks out of his ears. It's all been replacing with fog or featherdown. It's comforting—he doesn't have to think, doesn't have to come up with plans or watch every window for his enemies coming after him. He can just be, this strange, floaty creature in Tommy's gentle hands.

"You love this."

Tommy's voice sounds revelatory, but Dream in this moment can't imagine loving anything more than the things Tommy's doing to him.

"That's good. It's good that you love getting fucked."

Dream moans in response.

Good. The word echoes in Dream's ears, curling up like a fluffy kitten in his chest. He's being good. No one's called him that in—Prime, how long? He can't think of when. He can't think of much of anything at the moment, but that's fine. He doesn't need to think about anything. He's good right now, and that's all that matters.

Tommy's hand wraps around his dick, stroking up and down in the same rhythm as his thrusts.

Pleasure builds in his stomach, wrapping over him like a heavy blanket. The rhythm is all there is, the pleasure is all there is. It goes on and on, holding his focus like nothing he's ever experienced before.

He's almost too wrapped up in the beat to notice when he's about to slip over the edge, and his orgasm catches him by surprise. It's sticky on his lower stomach. Tommy works him through the aftershocks, thrusting into him at the exact same rate under he, too, comes. He pushes in once more, and fills Dream with more perfect warmth. He feels held. He feels surrounded, but not in a bad way. He feels—fuck it, he feels loved.

Tommy pulls out, and starts working on the knot tying Dream's hands together. He whines in protest.

"No? I get it, man. I get it. But I need to get this shit off. It's for your—your circulation. You need that shit."

Dream's brain doesn't agree, but his body obeys Tommy's command to stay still.

The cloth Tommy uses to wipe Dream's genitals and stomach is cold. It brings him back to himself, a bit. Reminds him that he is in a house—a shitty one, in all honesty—and that this is Tommy. His enemy. His… Prime, can he still call him that?

His face is hot and he can't meet Tommy's eyes. Every bit of him that was so nice and warm before is now cold with dread.

"What's next?" he asks quietly.

Tommy frowns. "Aren't you, y'know, done? Does there have to be anything else?"

"I just.." Dream's fighting to form his fear into coherent words. Proper sentences seem out of reach at the moment. "Thought you were going to—thought you wanted to hurt me. You can. If you—if you want to."

"I don't—when did I say I wanted to hurt you?"

"Always seem to," he grumbles. He feels pathetic. Even Sam and Quackity didn't hurt him like this, didn't make him feel this wretched. Although not for lack of effect, he supposes.

"Well," Tommy argues. "I don't want to hurt you now."

"Why?"

Tommy's quiet, and when he finally speaks, Dream understands it as the excuse it is. "'Cause you were—you were so good for me, remember? You were good."

"Don't call me that," Dream rasps. His throat feels thicker than usual.

"Okay." Tommy makes a small, aborted gesture, like he wants to touch Dream and thinks better of it. "Can you—just for tonight. Can you stay, please? I promise I won't do anything. Unless, I guess if you really want me to hurt you…"

"No," Dream admits. "Not if I can help it."

Tommy's shoulders relax.

They don't put their clothes back on—there doesn't seem a point, anymore—and Dream falls asleep in Tommy's arms. He doesn't dream.

He wakes up before Tommy, again. Pulls his clothes on. Stares for too long at Tommy's mussed hair, his fluttering eyelashes, the steady rise and fall of his chest. Leaves the house before he can think better of it.

He gazes out at the horizon. There's a whole world out there to explore: one untouched by human hands, one he can find that long-elusive peace he wants so badly in. He can live however he wants—he can be whoever he wants, without the pressure of his past misdeeds hanging over him like a guillotine ready to chop his head off.

He takes a step forward.

Backward.

Then he turns.

Peace is overrated, anyway.