Chapter Text
"We need to talk." Dream stares at him. "Alone."
In all fairness, he really shouldn't have kicked something that had looked as adorable as this version of Dream for no good reason. But then again, he wasn't about to let himself be sent to the realistic version of his depression arc without putting up a fight.
Maybe drop-kicking his supposed nemesis wasn't such a good idea after all.
"You're really in for it now, Tommy." Quackity nudges his shoulder. Tommy clicks his tongue in response.
He'll be fine.
As long as Dream is tinier and more vulnerable than him, he'll be fine.
Maybe not that fine, considering this Dream had canonically beat him to death in prison.
He was definitely screwed.
"What? Pissed that I beat you?" Tommy forces himself to grin.
Dream purses his lip, looking hesitant for a second. "Well yes but- Look, this is urgent."
Tommy furrows a brow in response.
Okay maybe Dream had a change of heart and pissed himself in fear after being beat by the great Tommyinnit. (Despite Tommy literally having the strength of an average Minecraft player)
"What could be more urgent than literal politics?" Quackity butts in, crossing his arms. Dream ignores him, looking Tommy in the eyes.
"I- just- Maybe not in person but- Tommy, you're not supposed to be here, aren't you?"
As ominous as it had sounded, Dream had guessed it right. Tommy's not supposed to be here. He's supposed to be at home, streaming and chatting his friends on discord.
"How the fu-" Dream interrupts him. "Most people find you annoying at first."
"And only a small percentage of your viewers are actually subscribed." Tommy eyes him with suspicion, completely going stiff at the sudden realization.
It was safe to assume that the Dream he drop-kicked wasn't the version of Dream who clearly deserved it.
Whatever that red vine was, had knocked both him and Dream unconscious and sent them to an alternate universe where the SMP was real.
Both of them stare at each other as if they'd come to a silent agreement.
"Hey guys um... What the fuck is going on here?" Tubbo shoves Tommy to the side, as he stands between the both of them.
Dream shakes his head. "Nothing. We've come to discuss Tommy's exile right?"
"Of course, of course." Tubbo rubs his hands. "But seriously, what the fuck did you guys mean earlier?"
The both of them ignore the president.
"Okay great, Tommy's exiled." Dream proclaims. "Let's go."
Fundy and Quackity grab Tommy by the arm before he can move any further. "Hold on, hold on you son of a bitch. We haven't even told you our decision yet."
"We already know what your decision is anyways, so I'm just gonna make this faster." Dream only winks at him causing Tommy to scrunch his nose. Tommy can almost hear Speedrun music play on the back of his head.
Fundy clenches his fist "We haven't even-"
"Yeah but Tommy's exiled now, bye bye!" Dream declares again.
"Tubbo, back us up, we can't just let Dream be a tyrant again and not listen to what we have to say." Quackity voices out. Tubbo only shrugs, his face had shown a clearly hurt expression and a helpless one at that, in which he really had no choice but to exile Tommy, especially with the other Dream's recent threat days ago to have L'manburg massacred otherwise. "I mean we did plan for Tommy to be actually exiled."
Tommy scoffs. Of course they did. Him and Tubbo didn't really plan to keep Tommy in L'manburg anyways when they'd wrote the outline for this arc.
Tommy has no clue whatever the loving fuck is going on in Dream's head for him to speedrun his exile like that but still complies with what Dream has to say anyways. "Okay, let's go."
Tommy wiggles out of Fundy and Quackity's grip as he goes towards Dream.
"What the fuck? You're just letting Tommy go with that bastard?" Fundy protests. "Tommy, you're not even arguing against this?"
As much as Tommy doesn't want to be exiled, if this Dream really is the Dream from his reality, then who's to say he shouldn't comply? This could be an opportunity to talk with someone who's in the same situation as him and make plans to go back to their world. It's convenient enough that on his exile, he'd be alone with the only other person stuck with him which means no one else can really interfere with their plans to go back home.
"I mean it's either me or you get killed right?" Tommy points out, he remembers Dream threatening L'manburg if he wasn't exiled over a year ago. "Besides, I drop-kicked him already."
He trusts that his exile doesn't turn out as bad as the one from last year with Dream being less evil and such.
Tommy raises both arms up, both fists curled. "Let's fucking go!"
And with that Tommy waves at them before actively flipping all of them off as he follows Dream into exile.
"So we're both stuck in the game right and you didn't just speedrun my exile for no reason at all?" Tommy raises his eyebrow at the other, completely resisting the urge to pick up the tiny blob ahead of him.
"Well, I wanted to talk to you in private since we're both stuck here together now." Dream thickly swallows.
"And you're stuck with me." Tommy adds on to Dream's statement. "I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing." Dream chuckles, causing Tommy to raise his middle finger at him. "We have to figure our way out and exile provides a good opportunity for us to plan our escape out in private." Dream continues.
"Good thing, I have a big brain, Dream." Tommy scowls. "You wouldn't survive alone without me."
"Yeah? Where are your big IQ YouTube compilations, then?" Dream retorts, leading the other to roll his eyes.
"Oh look at me I'm so humble, I have big IQ compilations of me." Tommy mocks. Dream let's out a fond laugh. "Oh look at me, I'm Tommyinnit, women pogchamp, give me primes mmmmm, I love committing crimes and burning other people's houses." Dream keeps his voice high-pitched, similar to the way Tommy talks.
"You're a fuckin' prick, you know that right? One day I'm gonna fuckin' stab you for real and commit war crimes. A lot of war crimes." Tommy threatens.
"Tommy that's literally why you're canonically exiled." Dream scoffs back. "You can't stop with the war crimes."
"And you're canonically a bitch." Tommy grits out, crossing his arms.
Both of them halt at that the terrain ahead of them, completely assuming the place is where Logsteadshire should be at. Realization dawning upon both Minecraft streamers.
"Yeah fuck no." Tommy frowns at the thought of having to build a base from the ground up with nothing but barehands. He was a Minecraft streamer for fuck's sake, Dream was one as well. Both of them are incapable of constructing houses unlike everyone else on the server who'd been here long enough to know how.
"Yeah no." Dream agrees.
Tommy really wasn't one to start all over. His inventory had been empty the moment he'd been sent here, he hadn't really been given enough time to stack up for supplies before his exile, but it wasn't like he was gonna stack up for anything at all if he still thought Dream was still the piece of shit Dream who was supposed to manipulate him.
"You have an axe?" Tommy questions the other who had shook his head in return. "I'm not cutting off trees without an axe. I'm too frail for that."
"Tommy, I'm a blob with no arms and legs, how'd you think I'd manage?"
"And we're both Minecraft players which means we barely have the strength to do shit ourselves." Tommy argues. "You know what? Let's just get everyone on the server to build our base for us and do our bidding while we make plans to go home."
"We can't just get everyone on the server to-"
"Yes we can." He hasn't even been here at the server for a whole day yet but he's seen how unwell everyone had been doing based on their looks. He can hit two birds with one stone.
Helping everybody while getting them to help him in return.
"H-how?"
"Dream, you know how like everyone on this server canonically has issues and all that shit?" Dream raises his brow at Tommy. "You want us to exploit that?" Dream asks the younger who'd nodded at his question.
Exile had originally been about Dream gaslighting Tommy into being less of the chaotic boy he once was and into more of a shell of who he once was. But who's to say they can't gaslight the rest of the server during his exile, into being the best versions of themselves while profiting off of it?
"What if instead of you gaslighting me into a two-week depression arc, we gaslight everyone else into therapy instead?" Tommy suggests.
"Not bad." Dream hums. "We can benefit off of it too." He continues as he hops off of Tommy's grasp. "We have to strategize how we can be rich out of it though. We don't have any rivals in the business, considering how emotionally constipated everyone made their characters out to be."
Tommy brings over a finger on his chin. "What about Puffy? She's a therapist too. We can't be on top of the business unless she's out of the way."
"She hasn't started her therapy office yet, we'll be fine." Dream reassures. " For now at least."
"Do you reckon we can threaten her and shit?"
While it hadn't been morally correct to do so, especially with the predictable aftermath in which he'd feel bad, both him and Dream weren't really capable of making their own base and gathering their own things right now. He's just taking a page out of Techno's book and using anything he can come up with to survive.
Besides, he'd done this shady business thing before in his Skyblock days. He's Tommy Trusty, the scammer, the dirty crime boy who steals shit and coerces people into buying useless products. It wasn't like he always pushed through with his threats either.
"That'll ruin our business, Tommy." And Dream's right. It definitely would. But this is the same server where wild shit happens, so who could care about their business' reputation?
Threatening someone would be bad for business. Especially a therapy business.
But then again...
"I mean if we threaten her, that means she'll have trauma and if she has trauma we'll have customers. That's how the business goes, Mr. I Manipulate Sixteen-Year olds on Minecraft Roleplays."
Perhaps it wasn't all that much of a good idea. But business has to be booming. It's not like there isn't anyone on the server that doesn't have some kind of unresolved mental health issue.
"I don't think that'll make her want to go to us more."
"She'll have no choice if we gaslight her into going." They can just use his and Wilbur's methods when they'd tried getting Phil into thinking his wife didn't exist. It was always a hilarious moment to look back at.
Dream falls silent for a moment as he bites the inside of his cheek. "Actually that just gives me an idea."
Tommy stands before Techno's door with the tiny Dream on his arms. It's a surprise how both of them haven't frozen to death yet, considering their lack of winter clothing. Thank God for minecraft-mechanics and plot armour for not having them both killed in the snow yet.
Tommy knocks on the door and clears out his throat. "Greetings, dear citizen-"
Tired groans can be heard from behind the door. "Look, I've been tired all day, please go away."
"We're door to door salesmen, we've come to advertise our brand new business." Dream states. "There's door to door salesmen on the server now?" They hear Techno comment to himself.
Tommy scoffs "Well yes-"
"Be grateful we're not Mormons and listen to what we have to say." Dream rolls his eyes.
They hear a shuffle from behind the door, as they stand on Techno's porch in momentarily silence before hearing him speak out again, this time with hesitancy in his tone as if he'd debated with himself whether he wanted to hear out what they wanted to say or not. "Okay, I'll bite. What are you guys up too?"
"Oh you'll love this." Tommy smirks before clearing his throat once again. "Good evening dear citizen of the Dream SMP, I am TommyInnit, famed Minecraft connoisseur and vlogger and this is Dreamwastaken, extremely well-known speedrunner and popstar, here to advertise our free of charge therapy service that specifically costs sixty-four diamonds and two full set netherite armour."
The door slams open, revealing a small and irritated pig clad in a crimson red cloak along with a golden crown on the top of his head.
"First of all, the introduction part was really unnecessary, second of all, since when did you think a therapy business was ideal for this server? And third of all, do you morons even understand what free of charge means?!"