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1.
Tommy meets Tom in his second week of the SMP.
Or, more accurately, Tommy spots Dream in his second week of the SMP, dressed in a skirt, hair full of flowers, lying in the grass, staring up at the bright summer’s sky.
“Um,” Tommy says, rather lost for words, “don’t you have work to be doing, Dream?”
Dream’s face colours in embarrassment at being caught, but he doesn’t move his gaze from the clouds above him. “Tommy,” he says easily, “I’m not Dream.”
Tommy blinks. “I beg your pardon?”
“I’m not Dream,” says Dream-Not-Dream, patiently, “I’m- uh…”
Scrabbling for a name, he finally sits up, and sees Tommy with his arms crossed and hovering awkwardly.
“Tom,” Not-Dream says, with a shit-eating grin, “I’m Tom.”
Tommy splutters. “No,” he says, very firmly, “no no no, I’m Tom. I’m Tommy. That’s me.”
“You’re Tommy, I can be Tom.” Dream-Not-Dream, or Tom, flops back down, waving a hand lazily for Tommy to come and lie beside him. This is the most relaxed he’s seen Dream in ages: if he hadn’t been so confused, Tommy might’ve been secretly pleased his friend is taking a break. “You don’t own the name.”
“I basically do. I should copyright claim you right now.”
Dream - Tom - wheezes, shoving at Tommy in amusement. “Shut up, idiot.”
He doesn’t offer any explanation, and Tommy, for a bit, is content not to ask. Instead, he sprawls down beside Tom in the grass, and the two of them talk like old times. It’s been forever since they’d gotten the chance to speak like usual, what with the building of the server and Tommy catching up with old friends and making new ones, and Dream being preoccupied with whatever Admins of servers do in their free time, so it’s nice, Tommy reflects, after Tom squawks in laughter at his own joke, to make some time to talk with him. He and Dream are pretty close friends, after all, and it’s easy to forget with the two of them so busy.
But he has to bring it up eventually. Brows furrowing, maybe half an hour later, and sitting up to pull daisies rather aggressively out of the ground, Tommy turns to face Dream, tilting his head in question.
“So, what, are you changing your name or something?” He pokes curiously. “Like a tribute to me? You think I’m amazing and awesome and the best-”
“No,” Dream groans, “no, it’s not a tribute, what-”
“-And amazing and awesome, so you decide to name yourself after me?”
“Tommy, you’re-”
“That’s so sweet!” Tommy places a hand over his heart, pulls a teasingly touched expression. “My heart is warmed, little green bitch. Who knew you could be so nice?!”
“You’re such an idiot,” Dream mutters, but he’s chuckling, “no, no, it’s nothing like that. I dunno. It’s like-”
He scratches the back of his head awkwardly, glancing away.
“-Do you ever wish you could be someone else for a little bit?”
Tommy blinks. “What, like- someone else, like Technoblade? Sometimes I wish I was Technoblade. I would so kick your ass in a duel.”
“Not Technoblade,” Dream scoffs, “that’s the opposite of what I meant. I mean, I don’t- Sometimes it’s nice to not be Dream, you know?” He shrugs, cheeks turning a darker red. “Sometimes it’s… Nice to not have any responsibility, or to be the owner of the server, or- Whatever, look, it’s stupid, whatever, but I like it. It’s comforting.”
And Tommy is a lot of things, but perceptive is actually one of them, when he wants to be. He can tell his friend is embarrassed, can tell he had never been meant to find him, and from the way Dream fiddles with the flowers in his hair, beginning to casually, discreetly, pull them out, he can tell he’s anxious about Tommy’s response.
So he pulls out another daisy from the ground, and tosses it at Dream’s eye. “Tom?” He checks, “that’s what I call you like this?”
Dream’s eyes dart to his, wary, unsure expression on his face. “I mean- That was just a dumb joke, but-”
“In tribute to me, because I am so relaxed and cool and you wish you were me,” Tommy says, smirking, “Tom it is. I can teach you the ways of relaxing and de-stressing.”
“By throwing flowers in my eyes?” Dream grumbles, but he’s grinning, relief surging over his face like a dam has broken, “Yeah, really helpful, thanks-”
“If you don’t want my help, you green little bitch, then-”
“I don’t want your help, when did I ever say I needed your help?!”
“You dickhead-”
“Tommy, stop punching me!”
It’s not relaxing. It’s not de-stressing - Tommy actually makes it his goal to be as stressful as possible, and he likes to think he does a good job with it. But his friend is wheezing like he hasn’t heard him in a long time, tears of laughter in his eyes, and Tommy himself is laughing, so hey, he counts it as a win.
“Hey, Tom?” He says, after they’ve quietened down.
“Mmhm?”
“You’re not so bad,” Tommy tells him.
Tom shoots him a soft, surprised smile.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” Tom says, and Tommy grins.
2.
And then there’s L’Manburg.
And then there’s the war.
And then there’s the duel.
Tommy doesn’t see Dream for a long, long time after the duel and after his deal with the disks - not that he particularly wants to, still smarting with anger and- okay, more hurt than anger, at this point, because his anger has cooled into something upset and disappointed, and that’s the last thing he wants sharp-eyed, shrewd Dream to notice. And he’s by no means scared of Dream like some of the other L’Manburgians are, because Dream is a dick, sure, but they’d been at war.
Dream wouldn’t hurt them out of war. Tommy knows this. He knows Dream, better than any of the other L’Manburgians.
So when he wakes up in the middle of the night with a nightmare in which he had been hurt by Dream, he’s angry at himself, and embarrassed.
He takes a walk to clear his head.
The war is weeks over, and they’re building L’Manburg bigger and better than ever, so it’s safe to walk alone, and he doesn’t particularly want the company right now. He’s in a contemplative mood, not a joking one - as much as he loves Tubbo and Wil, he doesn’t want to mess around with them. Besides, he thinks, recalling the purple circles under Wilbur’s eyes, his best friends have enough on their hands.
He’s fine walking alone.
And, of course, it’s not long before he finds Dream.
Not Dream, he realises, very quickly, because even with his back to him, Tommy can tell the differences between Dream and Not-Dream. There’s a lack of armour, for one, and a casual slouch to his shoulders that Dream can’t afford - and when Tommy gets closer, he sees the same skirt as last time, though it looks a little more worn now. He wonders how often Dream comes to this part of the SMP and just sits as Tom - wonders, fleetingly, if he’s ever waiting for him.
“Alright?” He calls out, a guarded greeting to his kind-of-friend, kind-of-enemy, and watches Tom stiffen. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“Isn’t it past yours?” Tom retorts, and when he turns round, he’s clutching his mask in one hand, a loaf of bread in the other. “You’re the child here.”
Despite his nightmare, Tommy scoffs at him. “I’m more than a fucking child! I’m a big man!”
Tom rolls his eyes, though looks less cautious. “Sure.” He pauses, eyes darting to Tommy again. “Why’re you awake, anyway?”
“Nightmare.” Tommy shrugs, sidling up beside him and nudging Tom out of the way so he could admire the view too. The forest is lush green and full of animals: Tommy watches a cow lumber across the forest, and flinches when Tom pulls out his sword. “Hey, what the-”
A flash of diamond, and then two zombies are dead behind him. Tommy pauses.
“I could’ve done it,” is all he grumbles, and Tom groans.
“You could just say thank you.”
“In your fuckin’ dreams, bitch.”
There’s a silence after this, short, companionable, in which Tommy places a wooden block down - oak, obviously - and sits down, feeling at peace. Tom eyes him for a moment, before sitting down on the floor next to the block, sword still in hand.
“If you want to sleep, you can,” Tom offers at last, as Tommy yawns for the fourth time, “I’ll wake you up when the sun rises. I can… um, kill mobs and stuff. If you want to sleep.”
I can’t sleep, Tommy goes to say, we’re enemies. You’re just going to kill me. But it’s then that he looks at Tom, really looks at him, seeing the red rim of his eyes and the pallor of his skin, and remembers that he’s not enemies with Tom. Sure, he’s been fighting with Dream, but Tom is different. Tom is- They’re friends.
They’re friends. He’d dreamed about Dream taking his two lives. Not Tom.
“Would you actually?” Tommy checks, warily.
Tom shrugs. “No promises that I won’t draw on your face in marker, but… Yeah. If you need sleep. It can be hard to sleep after a long time fighting sometimes.”
And then, when Tommy hesitates, Tom places down two more blocks to make a crude three block bench, and Tommy caves, curling up on it and stifling another yawn.
“Thanks, man,” he says, sleepily, “wake me up if you need me.”
Tom says nothing, but he doesn’t need to. Tommy falls asleep quicker than he’s been able to in ages, and when he’s woken up by a tap, he sits up to being alone.
There’s a note beside him, though. It’s Dream’s typical smiley face, but it has a moustache scribbled between the eyes and the smile. Tommy stares at it, smothering a confused laugh, before he sees the signature.
TOM, is all it says, and when he flips it over, he sees a hastily scribbled, ANY PRONOUNS.
Tommy holds onto the note.
It’s one of the only things he manages to take to Pogtopia from the elections, and the one thing he never lets anyone else see.
3.
“I didn’t know you smoked.”
There’s surprise written into Tom’s voice, along with carefully concealed concern that Tommy instantly hears. Grunting, waving his hand in a halfhearted come-closer gesture, he waits for Tom to do so, taking another drag from his cigarette and shrugging. “I don’t,” he says, “but I dunno. Wilbur says they relieve stress, so…”
“And you believe Wilbur?” Tom asks, and for a second, there’s a flash of Dream in there - scorn, bitter tiredness at the whole situation, but Tommy is too exhausted to jump to Wilbur’s defence for once. “Are we talking about the same Wilbur here?”
“Well, here I am, less stressed,” Tommy mutters, “if you’re here to be a dick, fuck off. I’m not in the mood.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees something soften in Tom’s stance, and the older sits down beside him, legs dangling over the slight drop of the hill they sit on. For a moment, if Tommy closes his eyes and ignores the smoke in his lungs, he can pretend they’re back at the beginning when they first met, when it had been summer and things had been so much easier.
Tom nudges him, and when Tommy looks up, they’re pulling off their mask, and Tommy instantly feels something inside him unclench. “So, not a dick, then,” he says, resting his head back against a rock behind him, “thank fuck.”
“I’m never a dick,” Tom says, but shuffles a little closer, hunching one leg up and letting the other dangle freely, “I just… you know.”
“You’re just in a silly goofy mood when you ruin my country and watch as we get banned from it,” Tommy respond sarcastically, “yeah, I know.”
Tom stiffens. “I didn’t do those things.”
“...Sorry.” Pinching his brow, Tommy sighs, taking another drag form his cigarette and coughing, eyes watering. “Fuck’s sake.”
“Smoking is bad for your health,” Tom says, after a pause, and puts her hand out.
“I’m not giving you my cigarette, Tom.” Still, he obligingly hands over the packet he’d stolen from Wilbur, only groaning when Tom hurls them off the hill and into water below, watching them drift away and sink gloomily. “You’re a right dick.”
“Nope,” Tom adjusts their position, cautiously pulling off their helmet. “Just in a… a silly, goofy mood.”
Hearing someone like Tom utter the words ‘silly goofy mood’ is enough to make Tommy laugh, the sound ripping free from his throat despite his upset and exhaustion. “Fuck you, man, what the fuck?”
Tom snickers, and lets her gaze drift to the ravine they sit over, eyes sharp, contemplative. For a while, they sit in silence: Tommy’s head leaning back against the rocks and Tom’s eyes focused on a point in the distance, too many words and too little history between them to bridge the gap between them. And then—
“You know—” Tom clears his throat, still pointedly not looking at Tommy. “I’m on your side. As Dream. I’m on Pogtopia’s side.”
Tommy lets out an ugly little sound. “Well,” he mutters, ignoring the hope that rises between his ribs like a bird with broken wings, “that’s nice. At least someone is.”
Tom hums. “You have more allies than you think. Schlatt isn’t popular, and-” Her hands twist, unsure, and Tommy can see the self-conscious habits of Dream sliding in, disrupting the easy air between them, “and it’s not as if, you know, L’Manburg wants him ruling.” He twists a daisy around his fingers, pressing her lips together in a firm line. “I dunno. We… stand with you, is what I guess I want to say. Even if it doesn’t always feel like it.”
It’s touching to hear. It is. A thank you flutters up in his throat, tentative, quiet, uncharacteristic, and Tommy chokes on it, chokes on the gratitude and the relief and his fear, and stuffs it back down. And, then, remembering who he’s talking to, he swallows.
“Can we talk about- other shit? I’m sick and fuckin’ tired of hearing about L’Manburg and Manberg and Pogtopia and everything. Tell me what you’ve been doing.”
Tom shoots him a cynical smile. “I’d have to lie,” she warns, and the Dream underneath sinks his teeth into the words she says, “I don’t wanna talk about what I’ve been doing.”
“Then lie to me,” Tommy says plainly, “make me up a fucking story, Tom. A manhunt, or- fucking, I don’t know. Tell me you spent a nice day with Sapnap and George and BadBoy-Fucking-Halo. Make something up, man.”
Tom stares at him, clearly hesitant, before pursing their lips. “We… did do a manhunt, not too long ago,” he admits, and Tommy can’t tell whether or not it’s a lie, doesn’t know whether to feel grateful or alarmed he can’t figure out the difference anymore, “not televised or anything like the others, just- I don’t know. Just the four of us. Obviously not in the SMP, we had to switch servers, but it was pretty fun.” The next time he smiles, it’s lighter, slightly more nostalgic. “I can run you through it moment by moment, if you want.”
“Can you really?” Tommy asks, feeling a spark of delight rise inside him. He’s always been an embarrassingly big fan of Dream Team manhunts. “That would be cool.”
“I am cool,” Tom tells him, raising his eyebrows and clearing his throat, “get comfortable. It’s gonna take a couple of hours.”
In any other circumstance, Tommy would pull away and insist on getting back to Wilbur, on making sure Pogtopia is in order for any guests. But he’s exhausted, and this is Tom, and for the first time, he feels like his old self.
So he only offers a grin. “Take as long as you can,” he says, settling back, “I got all night.”
(Tommy watches L’Manburg blow up with a scream trapped in his lungs. Even when he manages to voice it, it’s smaller than it feels inside him. Inside, he’s breaking apart, the bird of hope inside him thoroughly shattered, and when he watches Philza drive a sword through his pseudo-brother’s ribs, it breaks further.
He thinks he might be the only one who sees Dream slinking back into L’Manburg that night, studying the rebuilding with his face twisted up into distaste and grim determination.
What are you doing, man? Tommy wants to call out to him, but his throat hurts from the smoke and carnage from earlier. Instead, he meets his gaze squarely, eyes firm, words unsaid. What the fuck are you doing?
Dream doesn’t hear them. The silence between them stretches thin. And, before Tommy can decide whether to call out to Dream or to Tom, the older enderpearls away, leaving Tommy alone and shivering in the wreckage of a place he’d called home.
They rebuild, just like always. But when Tommy catches Dream next in L’Manburg, he’s wearing netherite armour and carrying an axe like it’s the weight of the world.)
(It’s a long, long time before he sees Tom again.)
4.
It’s cold, in Logstedshire.Even when the sun is shining, even when he’s in the Nether, Tommy is so, so cold.
He keeps himself productive even when he knows it’s pointless, makes sure he keeps stacking up on items even when he knows Dream will just blow them up, because if he stops moving for even a second, if he pauses, and lets himself think about what the fuck is happening to him, he’ll break down, worse than he already is.
The long nights when Dream isn’t there are the worst. And it’s stupid, because Tommy knows exactly what Dream is doing from the moment the bastard utters the words “we’re friends”, knows exactly what trap he’ll be falling into if he believes him, and yet, on the long nights when he’s alone and falling apart, he can’t help but entertain the thought:
What if we are? He thinks, head between his heads, humming a jittery, off-tune melody to himself to drown out the violence of his thoughts. What if we are friends?
The one thing he clings to is that Dream has never used Tom against him. He will blow up his possessions, he will make him question his reality, he will pretend to be his friend, his only ally, but he doesn’t mention a word about Tom. It’s not much, but Tommy doesn’t have much - he’s thankful for the little things, like Dream letting him use his trident, like Dream defending him from mobs.
Like Dream letting Tom remain an untouched friend in his mind.
Tom doesn’t become a sour memory, because Tommy keeps them separate from Dream. Dream is the monster, Dream is the evil villain, Dream is his friend, Dream is the only person he has.
Dream is a lot of things, all of them contradictory in his head, but Tom remains neutral, and Tommy clings to that the same way he clings to Tubbo.
And maybe this is why he thinks he’s hallucinating when he sees Tom in the forest just outside Logstedshire, standing over a fire with their mask firmly in place.
“Tom?” Tommy croaks out, hunched over, throat hoarse. “Tom?”
Tom’s head jerks up, and they lock eyes. Tommy wonders if Tom looks guilty behind the mask, wonders if he looks upset. Their face is too hard to read with it on - Prime, it’s been so long since he’s seen someone unmasked, so long since he’s had someone to truly call a friend. Maybe this is what makes him step forwards on wobbly legs, maybe this is what makes him open his mouth, desperate to talk to a friendly face.
And then he sees what is being burned, and recoils like he’s been stung.
Fabric burns in the fire between them, long, green fabric threaded with flowers, and for one hopeful moment in his muddled head, Tommy thinks it’s Dream, hopes beyond all hopes that it’s Dream dying in there, that Tom has killed him and will take his place. One look closer proves him wrong instantly, because Tom is Dream, and it’s so easy to separate them, but now it all comes rushing back to him: they’re the same person, and Dream is the real one. Tom is a persona, Tom is just Dream but nicer, Tom is still doing this to him because Tom is Dream, no matter how much he wishes otherwise.
The fabric burning in the fire between them is Tom’s skirt, and for a wild moment, Tommy feels grief rise inside him, a sob almost suffocating him, inaudible over the crackling of the flames.
Tom stares at him, silently, a deer caught in the headlines. Tommy would have found it funny in any other circumstances. Now, it’s devastating, it’s embarrassing, and worse than that, it’s alienating. He’s never felt more lonely. Never felt more alone.
Tom doesn’t ask him to leave. Tommy doesn’t leave. He doesn’t step closer, either: instead, he stares at the fire, stares at the burning skirt that had represented some of his better memories, and quietly, silently, says his goodbyes to Tom, because as strong as he boasts about being, he isn’t sure he’s going to make it out of exile alive.
When he looks at Tom, and sees the resigned downturn of their lips, he thinks Tom might be saying goodbye to Tom too.
Tommy is the one to turn away this time; to step back, to head back to Logstedshire, heart heavy, mouth dry. He lies down on the bed, hooks his arms round his knees that pull themselves up to his chest, and tries his very best to sleep.
“Do you ever wish,” Tom from months ago whispers in his mind, face blurry, distant, “you could be someone else for a little bit?”
He wishes he could be someone else.
He wishes Dream could be too.
The next day, Tommy lights himself a cigarette from the remains of Wilbur’s coat he keeps wrapped around him, and takes a drag.
Stop me, he wants to beg Dream, who shows up that day as he always does, show me you care.
Behind the mask, Dream meets his eyes, evenly, and says nothing.
For some reason, this hurts a lot more than it would have yesterday.
When he builds the tower and jumps off, when he forces himself to land in water instead of on ground, Tommy doesn’t let himself think of Tom. When he gets to Techno’s base, Tommy doesn’t let himself think of Tom. When Doomsday happens, when he’s standing beside the person who destroyed his home, when he’s staring him dead in the eyes crying, Tommy doesn’t let himself think of Tom.
Tom is dead, he thinks, and he’s been dead for a long, long time.
(The only time he thinks of Tom is when he visits Dream in prison, and is taken aback to see the man’s hollow body and gaunt face. For a second, he can pretend the knots in his hair are flowers and the wheeze in his voice at all times is from laughing, not damage done to his lungs through fire.
“Who was Tom?” He dares ask one day in prison, after a rough night for both of them. “What the fuck was that? Was it all just fucking- Were you manipulating me, right from the start? Is that what that was?”
And he likes to think he can read Dream better now, after so long in his company, so he notes the tension that slides into Dream’s shoulders, the defensive hunch of his back as he continues writing, the ink blot on the page.
“Who were they?” Tommy demands, head throbbing. “Don’t stay fucking silent on me now. Fucking talk.”
Dream flicks over the page, too sharply for Tommy to believe the casual disinterest that falls over his face.
“She was… a mistake,” is all he says, “just me trying to... delay the inevitable, I guess.”
And no matter how much Tommy presses, he won’t elaborate.)
( +1 )
Tommy finds Dream two months after his escape from Pandora’s Vault entirely by accident.
So sue him, he’s a copycat - in the months since Dream’s imprisonment, Tommy’s become a bit of a Dream impersonator, though not in the destroying-countries-destroying-lives kind of way. He’s taken up manhunts, racing with Tubbo and Ranboo to see if they can knock him down to one heart before he reaches the portal at the other side of the server, and hey, it’s not a full manhunt, but he’s getting pretty fucking good. It keeps him active, keeps him moving, and, just this once, in the middle of summer, he’s running through a flower field and finds a small, modest house in the middle of it that he instantly pins as Dream’s.
Heart falling, stumbling to a standstill, Tommy feels himself freeze up. For a moment, he’s back in exile, for a moment, he’s watching Doomsday happen, for a long, long moment, he’s in prison, and Dream’s fist is colliding with his face, and there’s blood everywhere, and-
And he’s moving like he’s a puppet on strings, taking steps firmer than he feels towards the house, grateful for the diamond armour and for the diamond weapons he’d been lucky enough to craft quickly. He’s not going to wait for backup to arrive - Tubbo and Ranboo are far behind him, and if this is Dream, if Dream is here, planning wreckage on the SMP, Tommy wants to kill him himself.
It’s only right, he thinks, and doesn’t think of Tom.
Dream is in his house. Perhaps not unexpected, considering Tommy had already guessed it would be his house, but it doesn’t stop Tommy rounding a corner and shrieking in alarm, doesn’t stop Dream from jumping back, axe instantly in hand, eyes blown wide in utter horror at being discovered.
Before he can even think, Tommy is stalking forwards, diamond sword no match for a stone axe, and Dream is backing away, dropping his axe and raising his hands in immediate surrender.
“Wait, wait, wait.” Dream blurts out, and he sounds horrible - Tommy can’t tell if his voice is destroyed from too little use or too much use, and also can't tell which is worse. “Tommy, Tommy, don’t, don’t!”
Tommy stops about two blocks from him, eyes hard, face stony, sword raised high. “Why the fuck should I?” He demands, voice vicious. “Give me one fucking good reason why I shouldn’t just kill you here and now?!”
Dream opens his mouth, hopeless despair spilling over his face, and Tommy lifts his sword higher, until-
A smell wafts in from the kitchen. His stomach grumbles.
“Are you baking cake?” Is his next question, and Dream’s cheeks flush in humiliation. “You can bake?”
“...Niki taught me,” Dream murmurs, averting eye contact, “back, um… While I was with the Syndicate. They broke me out, and, um, before I could live by myself, they let me- they let me stay with them. And I baked with Niki. She had a bakery set up there, so…”
A bakery. Dream had helped out at the bakery. It’s hard to believe, until he remembers George and Bad’s sweet tooth, until he remembers Bad running out of the Community House beaming after receiving cookies from Dream to thank him for helping to build part of the Community House that had fallen through. Until he remembers that Dream is a creator at heart, buried as that is under the destruction and tearing-down of things. Until he remembers Dream isn’t always evil.
Knowing Dream can bake makes it harder to kill him, for some inexplicable reason. Maybe it’s the therapy, maybe it’s compassion, maybe it’s because at one point they’d been friends, but Dream is stammering his way through excuses halfheartedly now, eyes darting around the room for a means of escape, and Tommy can only stand there, sword aimed for his head, heart thumping in his chest.
“Okay,” he interrupts Dream, struggling to force the words out, “okay, Tom.”
Dream flinches back. “That’s not- Tommy, I’m not-”
“‘Cause that’s who’s living out here, isn’t it?” Tommy says firmly, sword dropping back to his side and stepping back. “Not fuckin’- Not Dream, who wants to… I dunno, who hurts people and himself and does stupid fucking things for control or some bullshit. That’s not who’s here right now, right? It’s- You’re Tom.”
Stricken, silent, Dream’s harsh breathing is the only thing that fills the air, hands fisting and opening like he doesn’t know what to do.
For once, Tommy takes control of the situation.
“Didn’t know you could bake,” he says, forcing his voice lighter, forcing his face amicable despite his fear that he’s making the wrong choice, “knew you could make shit, obviously, ‘cause you made flower jewelry all the time, but baking’s different. Would’ve asked you to bake so much shit for me if I’d known, Tom.”
Dream lets out a ragged excuse for a response. “You’re not going to- You’re not going to kill me.”
Tommy glances away. “I’d kill the version of Dream I thought existed,” he admits, and it’s a sign of how much therapy actually does that he believes this, “the fuckin’- the version I thought was, you know, a monster. And I think the actual version of Dream is a dick. I don’t forgive him.”
Dream’s eyes dart to the open window, and Tommy can tell he’s trying to figure out how quickly he’ll be able to make it out.
“But,” he adds, drawing Dream’s attention, “Tom is- they’re different, you know? It’s like Dream but- I don’t know. There’s no big scary reputation for them to hide behind. They’re not… They’re not really pretending. I mean, I know they are,” he adds, frowning, “but Dream- Dream isn’t really a person at this point, you know? Dream is a nightmare inside my head. He’s a nightmare inside all our heads. But Tom is just some guy.”
And he holds Dream’s gaze, steadily as he can, and waits desperately for a response.
Dream finally meets his eyes. They’re wet.
“That,” he croaks, “was the worst way of describing it ever.”
Tommy scowls, ignoring his lightheaded dizziness at breaking through to Dream. “Sit down, dickhead,” he says, “you look like you’re going to collapse.”
“Tommy?”
“Yeah, Dream?”
Dream lowers himself into a chair. He looks a lot more lost than Tommy remembers, and without the mask, more emotion than ever floods his face.
“It’s, um- Tom. Tom works better.”
The relief that fills Tommy’s chest isn’t measurable. Despite this, he keeps it under control, swallows and nods.
“Tom,” he says, and it comes out like don’t make me regret this, “like a fan name. ‘Cause you think I’m amazing and awesome.”
Tom laughs, strangled. It’s nothing like his old laugh. “Haven’t we had this conversation?”
“I mean, I think we’re both pretty different now.” In an act of good faith, Tommy offers his hand out, and Tom stares at it like they’ve been burned. “I say we start over, ey?” And when Tom shakes it, uncertainly, Tommy smirks. “So what’s the worst word you know?”
Tom laughs again, but it’s more natural this time, more relieved. “You’re awful,” he says, and Tommy smirks.
.
(“You don’t need to use the name Tom anymore if you don’t want,” Tommy tells him a few weeks later, when things are calmer, quieter, “I mean, you can just use Dream.”
“I prefer Tom.” It’s a quiet admission. “It makes me happier. And…”
His eyes dart to Tommy’s, before he gets up, opening a chest and pulling out a familiar looking fabric. Heart tightening, Tommy can only stare as Tom displays their skirt, a soft green and embroidered with flowers, just like he remembers.
“Made a new one, after Techno helped me get this place.” Tom shrugs, awkwardly. “It’s not finished, um, but it’s sort of- you know, what I’d wear all the time. Well, I mean, what I’d wear all the time as, um, as Tom. I- You probably remember me burning the other one, but-”
Tommy is grinning, too wide and too delighted to stop himself. “Show me how to make one,” he demands, “Ranboo’s birthday is coming up. I want to surprise him.”
Surprise flits over Tom’s face. “Teach you?” She asks.
“That’s what I said. Don’t tell me you’re losing your memory, prick.”
Levity finally lights them up. “You’re such a child,” they mutter, but pull out extra fabric and needles, passing them to Tommy and offering him a smile, “let’s get started.”
Hours later, Tommy has something semi-recognisable as a skirt, and Tom hasn’t stopped faintly smiling.
“You,” Tommy says, “aren’t so bad, you know.”
It’s code for a second chance, the closest to a I forgive you, you absolute dick as he’s going to get.
Tom, sensing this, only smiles brighter. “You’re not so bad yourself,” he replies, and it’s code for thank you for believing me.
It’s code for friendship, new, tentative, and Tommy smiles.)