Chapter Text
“Tommy?”
“Hm?” Tommy looked up from where he was rubbing his wrist. He blinked the fuzz crowding his mind away, trying to beat it back to be normal just for this moment. “Sorry, what?”
Tubbo gave him a look that seemed to analyze him from the inside out. “I asked if you were on for dinner. You know, with Ranboo and I? Like we’ve tried to plan since you came back?”
He leaned back, phantom waves crashing in his ears. It was the same kind of cold apathy as exile, the same in-out, in-out of breath that came with the monotony of life. He was much more focused on his breaths than he used to be.
Most of him just wanted to go to sleep and never wake up.
Nonetheless, he put on a smile that felt painfully fake and washed away everything unhelpful. At least this way, Tubbo wouldn’t have to see what was wrong with him. “Sorry, big man. Not tonight. I have plans.”
The goat hybrid’s face went sour. “Gods, please don’t tell me any of them have to do with Wilbur. I’ve been trying to tell Boo that he’s bad news nowadays, but they never listen.”
Tommy tried to quell the surge of guilt that crawled up his throat like bile. It was his fault. It was his fault, and he knew it. It was a stupid plan, really. After what all went down in the prison, he’d begged Sam to let him back in, to send a letter, anything, but Sam just insisted that ‘it wasn’t good for him’, and to talk to Puffy. And, while Puffy was sweet, she wasn’t what he needed. Talks with her were long and uncomfortable, and though he really tried for his friends’ sake, opening up was something that he was starting to think he was incapable of. So, like he always did, he resorted to something stupid.
He’d asked Ghostbur to go in while he was invisible. Now, Ghostbur wasn’t here, and Wilbur was.
“Tubbo, what makes you think I want to talk to Wil, out of all the people on the server?” He tilted his head away, glaring at the spot right next to his friend-slash-acquaintance-possibly’s head. “Why would I do that to myself? I already spent enough time with the bastard in Limbo.”
“Uhh, maybe ‘cause you wanted to go back to see Dream less than a week after you got out of the vault? It’s what you do, man. You did it in Pogtopia and you’re still doing it now. You keep coming back to the things that hurt you instead of moving on like the rest of us,” Tubbo said bluntly.
Tommy opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, right back to staring at the ram hybrid’s face. “That was fucking uncalled for!”
“It’s true, though! You’re like Wilbur. He always said he’d stop smoking, that he hated it, and by the end, he traded every emerald we got for cigarettes. You’re self-destructive.”
He hated that Tubbo had a point. He hated that his friend had gotten straight to the heart of the thing he hated worst about himself. It wasn’t fair. He’d spent so fucking long fighting with himself, and Tubbo didn’t understand the half of it, but it still hurt, enough to the point that Tommy pinched the meat of his thumb discreetly to make sure he wasn’t just having a nightmare. Sure enough, it stung, and he swallowed a lump in his throat, both because of the aversion to pain and because of the shit his supposed best friend had just said.
“Well, maybe if I’m so self-destructive, I shouldn’t have forgiven you for exiling me. Oh, and never visiting, and moving on after my death, and replacing me!” Tommy stood up, feeling his cheeks warm up amidst the cold air. He was always so cold now, but he could feel the bright red on his face and the way his ears pinned back.
Across from him, Tubbo’s frown fell deeper. “I never- I didn’t- I’m just trying to be real with you, man! You never let any of us in, and I’m worried-”
Tommy scoffed, holding his wrist tight. The smile under it burned. “Yeah, right. Go play house with your soulmate-”
“I don’t get it!” Tubbo stood as well. “We’ve tried to bring this up a thousand times! If we try to distract you, you just end up zoning out the whole time. If we try to include you, you pretend you have plans. If we try to talk to you, you dodge it- and now this! What are we supposed to do?! Do you just like wallowing in your misery? Do you want to be unhappy all the time?”
Tommy stared at him, both betrayed and absolutely flabbergasted. “Why would I like being fucking miserable? You think I chose exile? You think I chose being stuck? I was getting better, Tubbo! Both times, I was getting better! I never chose to have that progress destroyed!”
“Why are you choosing that now, then?”
Because I can’t move on.
Because it’s just going to get worse.
Because I’m scared, I’m so scared.
Because this is the only way I can choose.
Because if I let my hopes up again, I’m not sure I’ll recover when everything crashes down again.
Because a million different things, and none at all. He didn’t want to be upset, it wasn’t his fault that things kept happening. He was a pawn who reached the end of the chessboard and somehow became a queen, without the ability to move on his own.
He was always just following. Following Wilbur, following Tubbo, following Dream. Taking orders like a good little soldier, a good little pet. How was he supposed to walk on his own when trailing behind was so easy? Tubbo was right about one thing: everybody else was moving on, and Tommy was stuck waiting for the puppet strings to drag him back again.
Puffy wasn’t a leader; she asked questions like “how are you feeling” and “what do you think?”. None of that mattered. Tommy always felt like shit. Every time he thought and tried to take agency, someone always pushed back.
Tubbo was… complicated. He was too soft to give real orders but too stubborn to accept that Tommy was as fucked up as he was. It was sort of the same way with Ranboo, and with Sam. They were all trying to ‘help’ him, but they didn’t seem to understand that nothing would help.
If the old him were here, that bright-eyed kid would scoff and plow right through the current him. If the old him were here, that poor soul would be absolutely crushed under the weight of a thousand problems.
“There was never a choice in the first place. I’m just protecting myself.” With that, he turned away, swallowing heavily. “Goodbye, Tubbo.”
Forgive me for what I’m about to do.
“You’re positive this will work?” Tommy’s eyes flicked up to Wilbur’s face, hesitant to even brush hands with the first man that had ruined his life. “Sam told me if I stepped foot in the prison, he’d take my last life. Again, I guess.”
“It will,” Wilbur assured him. “We had a long talk on the train about semantics. Besides, if it doesn’t, you have infinite more chances. Dream still has the book memorized. It might take him a while to realize you’re dead, but he’ll get to it.”
Tommy swallowed, looking down at the potions and milk. He was doing this. He was actually, really doing this. Fuck. Fuck. This was a very, very bad idea.
“Wilbur-”
“I’m proud of you.”
A hand ruffled his curls, making the streak of white loop down in front of his eyes again. Tommy brushed it out of his face, eyes huge. “Huh?”
“I’m proud of you. You’re taking a stand. You’re the one person in the server who seems to understand that Dream isn’t as bad of a guy as to deserve to be put in jail without a trial for… what? Who the hell even knows what he did?” Wilbur waved a hand, and Tommy swallowed.
“He, uh, did a lot of political stuff, and ended up stealing about half of everyone on the server’s most important possessions, actually,” he muttered.
His brother just shrugged. “A little griefing. Nothing you or I wouldn’t do. Everyone’s overreacting. Point is, I’m glad you’re doing something about it. Besides, I heard the good news on the train.”
“The… good news?”
Wilbur’s eyes seemed to light up. Had they always had that type of red hue to them? The walking corpse grabbed Tommy’s wrist and pulled the blue wool sweater up, revealing the scar. “Your soulmark. I almost didn’t believe it at first, really. I thought Dream was making stuff up, but look at that. I remember, you wanted one for so long. You’d ring the bell every night. That’s what convinced me that Prime wasn’t real, you know. The fact that you existed, and there wasn’t a perfect match somewhere else in the world. I guess I was wrong. Maybe I should start praying to them again.”
Tommy tried not to violently pull away, but the flinch caused him to jerk back anyway, rubbing his wrist. “I don’t care what you do. I just- I need to get him out, okay? That’s what- I mean- that’s what you would do with Quackity, right? Get him out? That’s what a good soulmate would do. Right?”
Partly, it was a hypothetical. The soulmark was what got him going, but it was mostly a point of self-preservation. If Tommy was the one to get Dream out, and make him promise not to hurt anyone, then he would get the best end of the deal. Dream would get out anyway. The universe had a way of connecting soulmates, as Quackity and Wilbur were quickly proving. Everyone in the server had one now, and they all seemed to like each other a little bit.
Tommy… wasn’t sure how he felt, but above everything, he took orders. If Prime was giving him one, who was he to deny them? Maybe this way, things would end up better. It was fighting with Dream that got everything into this whole mess, wasn’t it?
The moment Wilbur nodded, Tommy took a deep breath. “Okay. Give me the potions.”
Dream leaned back against the prison cell wall, eyes closed. Prison was excruciatingly boring, especially compared to when Tommy was here. For a whole week and a half, he’d had the best entertainment in the world at his fingertips. The boy had bitched and whined and snapped at first, but by the end, he was well-behaved, despite having absolutely no disadvantage in terms of gear.
It was fascinating. It was wonderful. Dream had enjoyed every second getting Tommy right back to that obedient little thing he used to be near the end of exile. Killing the raccoon hybrid was a last-ditch effort. Experimenting with the book hadn’t shown any solid afterlife- mostly, his test subjects reported a different one based on the method of death and the individual. But at that point, he hadn’t had a choice. He wasn’t making any progress, and at any point, Sam could return.
The two days without Tommy were much duller, but Dream had had a body to inspect and position, at least. His own strange doll, one who didn’t protest when Dream poked and prodded curiously. He’d taken in the scars along the arms in careful detail, poring over every imperfection and wondering over their source. The corpse didn’t flinch or hiss at him when he ran his hand over matted curls and soft, if not unkempt fur.
And then Tommy had woken up and ruined everything by being too loud. Dream loved it, at first. The idea that his actions created such a bloodcurdling scream was amazing, but then it had carried, and carried, and carried. Tommy hadn’t responded to a single fucking thing, hadn’t fought to stay, hadn’t done anything, and the warden dragged him away. Dream had been in an awful mood since then. He’d nearly broken his fingers punching the wall. The sting was still there.
It didn’t help that he’d seen Tommy’s face again, had to deal with the boy that was meant to be his other half straining against Sam. The invisibility had worn off too quickly, and in his attempt to keep him there, he’d done the only thing he could do: bring Wilbur back. He’d expected an escape attempt by now, but there was absolutely zero payoff.
How disappointing.
Now, the numbness of possible defeat was starting to set in again, and Dream was back to waiting for nothing. There were few times where he felt hopeless, but this was one of them.
Come on, Punz. I don’t even care about the plan anymore, I’m bored. It’s been almost a year. This isn’t fair. They can’t have gotten you, too.
Had they actually paid him more? The whole thing was supposed to be a ruse, but surely, Punz must have noticed the plans went off the rails? He wasn’t used to this. He wasn’t used to his carefully-crafted plans going awry. Ranboo had set the TNT in perfect time, Tommy had fallen right into his lap again, he’d revived Wilbur to get another piece, and yet, the other side kept cheating!
He glowered at the wall. His knuckles still stung, but at least it was something, and he was so very bored.
Hmm.
There was a strange sound in the lava today. It was subtle, barely noticeable, but it caught his attention rather quickly, especially with how it became louder. Not quite the sound of the lava lowering, especially with the lack of machinery. It sounded like-
The moment he pieced it together, sitting up with wide eyes, a figure staggered from the lava. It was hard to place who, but as the lava dripped off in molten globs, Dream almost hit his own head for not recognizing sooner.
After all, weren’t soulmates supposed to recognize each other?
“Tommy!” He stood up, eyes lighting up. Immediately, he was hurrying towards his best friend, the one he had worked so hard to shape, and pulling him into a tight hug. The squeak he got was adorable, especially paired with the little gasp and the tensing of every muscle. Seeing Tommy happy was rewarding, but seeing him scared was somehow even better.
Dream wondered, sometimes, how he’d gotten so twisted. It was always in late nights in the prison when he had too much time to think, when the murmurs of a more reasonable man that had been lost to time invaded his mind. He wondered if he should seek help, or if he was beyond even that. If he tried hard enough, he was fairly sure he could get Puffy in here to talk to him. Apparently, she’d become a therapist recently, but even if she weren’t, he’d still go to her.
Or, he would, if he didn’t know the response he’d get.
“I don’t know you anymore.”
Which was fine. It was fine. She’d become so entwined with Niki that there was a promise ring involved, and now, they had grown apart. That was fine. He had his own prize, right in his arms. His new family. His Tommy, the brother he’d never had, the half he’d been predestined to never meet. And if it was intoxicating to watch him tremble and flinch, then that was just their dynamic. Soulmates were made for each other, but Dream got to choose how exactly that was. Tommy was just lucky he wasn’t a worse man, really. The boy was so easy to take advantage of, and without a soulmark, he could have been manipulated by someone truly terrible, without any sort of care.
But he’d gotten lucky. Dream cared, and they were clearly destined for each other. And Tommy cared back, if being here said anything.
There was a deep breath, sweet and nervous. “Hi, Dream.”
“Where were you?” Dream scolded gently, pulling away from the hug and looking over his boy. “I almost thought you wouldn’t come. I was going to be very upset.”
Tommy didn’t seem to be looking in his eyes. “I know. I’m sorry. Sam wouldn’t let me in, and things were awkward between Wilbur and I after the whole Limbo thing.”
The admin shrugged lightheartedly. “I get it. I just want to get out of this place. I’m long overdue for a haircut and a cold shower.” He held a hand out for the fire resistance potions and milk, but Tommy didn’t move.
“Actually, um, Dream,” he seemed nervous, but not in that sweet way that he usually was. This was a fear of punishment, a fear that, based on the start, he had a very valid reason for. “I have some, uh- I have- shit, I don’t remember the word, I don’t-” A gasp, a pull away from Dream’s grip. “I’m not letting you free until you promise me a few things.”
“You have stipulations?” The prisoner raised an eyebrow, thoroughly unimpressed. Sure, Tommy had the upper hand here, but he was acting so skittish that it hardly mattered. He wasn’t intimidated at all.
“Yeah- yeah, I have those. Three, actually.” He was shaking. It was kind of cute, in a pathetic, wet-kitten kind of way.
“And why should I follow them? Why shouldn’t I just kill you and take the potions?”
“Because I’ll take you with me. If I’m going to Limbo, you’re going too.”
“Fair enough.” Dream snorted and leaned back against the wall. “Go ahead. Tell me.”
Tommy took a couple steps back so he was near the other side of the cell, looking unnerved. “Uh- okay, okay. Well, first of all, you can’t hurt any of my friends, even if they haven’t been very good to me.” When the prisoner snorted, he flinched again. “Not Tubbo, or Ranboo, or Quackity, or anyone. I’m serious.”
“I’m sure you are.” The admin tried to hide his amusement.
“I- ugh. Next rule, you can’t be- be mad at me, or hurt me for taking too long once we’re out of here. I’m helping you.”
Honestly, it felt like talking to a stubborn child. “Mmm-hmm?”
“And you need to prove to me that we’re connected.”
That was the one that took him aback. Despite himself, Dream straightened, giving Tommy a hurt glare that, for once, was completely genuine. How could Tommy doubt him? After the death, after seeing Dream’s fucking soulmark every day for the past however long, how did Tommy have the audacity to imply that they weren’t really connected? Was he fucking blind?
As if sensing the impending danger, Tommy paled and shook his head. “Wait, wait, not like- I do think we are. You’ve been good to me, you were there for me in exile, but, uh… you don’t have a mark.”
Some of the rage simmered down as Dream leaned back against the wall, considering it. Tommy was right. If he was being honest, the mark in exile was more of a control tactic than anything else. He’d known, obviously, about their connection, but he was fine markless. Mostly, it was just an excuse to be possessive and watch Tommy bleed. That always got his heart pumping.
But now, after seeing that little mark every day, it was impossible to ignore that there was something to it. It was a permanent reminder that Tommy belonged to him, that they were simply meant to be. To have a matching mark- he could already imagine it. Any time he doubted, he could look down and remember that Tommy wanted this on his skin. It would be wonderful.
“I don’t say this often,” Dream chuckled, “but that’s a wonderful idea. Do you have a knife?”
Tommy’s shoulders slumped in relief. “That’s good. Could I- could I actually draw it, though?”
“What, do you not trust me?” And there went the tensing again. It was rather funny.
“No, no, I do, I just-” A shaky breath. “I want to do it. You did it to me, after all. It’s just two dots and a line, I’ll be quick.”
Dream tilted his head. “Why would you put a smile on my wrist? That’s my symbol. It’s redundant. If we’re doing this, I want to make it something that reminds me of you.”
“No!”
“No?” The prisoner almost laughed at the audacity. “And why not?”
“Because soulmarks are supposed to match. Ranboo’s and Tubbo’s are a bee. Wilbur’s and Quackity’s are TNT. Phil’s and Techno’s are an emerald. It’s supposed to be a shared mark. I already have a smile,” Tommy insisted, squaring his shoulders.
Dream strode over lazily, and despite the fact that Tommy undoubtedly had more things in his inventory, more to defend himself with, the boy still cowered back, tail between his legs. “You do understand that I’m choosing to do this, correct? Is it not enough for us to be connected? Do you want to be selfish like that?”
“I-”
“Because it sounds a lot to me like you’re holding your freedom over my head, and that’s not very equal. Aren’t we supposed to be soulmates? Isn’t that why you came? Why wouldn’t you want something from your friend, your soulmate? Didn’t I tell you not to be so fucking picky?”
The raccoon hybrid looked rather sick, pressing himself against the hot obsidian wall. “No- no, you’re right, I’m sorry. You can have the knife, too.”
Dream held up a hand, and Tommy flinched, but he just rested it on the boy’s head. “You can keep it. It was a sweet thought.” Oh, how he loved the look he got in response. He could just tell his little one’s head was spinning around and around. “Here, we’ll compromise: make it a disc. That’s our symbol, right? Maybe later, you can have two soulmarks. One that’s shared between us, and one that shows you how much I care about you all the time.”
He didn’t get an answer for a moment, and he sat down on the prison floor, gesturing for Tommy to follow. Sometimes, the teenager just got like this for a little bit. He’d freeze up, and the admin just had to coax him out of it. With a gentle tug, he was supporting Tommy’s back, keeping him close. His right hand was situated around Tommy’s shoulders, and the boy’s lanky legs were in a low triangle above Dream’s lap. It almost felt familial.
With a hum, Dream used his teeth to lower the sleeve of his jumpsuit. He wasn’t worried about time. It would be a while before Sam came to check on him. “Here. Three circles. Make it nice, this is going to be my permanent soulmark.”
Tommy slowly nodded, seeming to come out of the haze, and procured an iron knife. It went in, shallow at first, and Dream had to take Tommy’s wrist and push a little harder. It burned, it did, but the end result would be worth it. “Just like that. Good. Now, around.”
The first circle was large and a bit wobbly, but it was hard to see underneath the blood. Dream positioned the next one and let Tommy carve it, following suit with the third. By the end of it, his jaw was tense and the sleeve was bloody and painful, but it was done. He ripped a part of his sleeve and tied it up tight.
“There’s your stipulation. Hand me the potions and let’s get out of here.”
Blue eyes met green, and his soulmate nodded wordlessly.
The alarms were bound to go off eventually, but Tommy didn’t think it would happen so soon. One second, he’d stepped in the lava, and then, after what seemed like hours of wading through the thick, jelly-like substance with the only anchor being Dream’s hand, he’d emerged from the lake around the prison to alarms blaring. Moreso, he’d emerged to people.
It seemed like the entire server was there. Out of the crowd, he picked out Tubbo and Ranboo at the front. Tubbo looked something between angry and betrayed, brows furrowed together in confusion and something like disgust. Ranboo just looked startled. Puffy had that deep look of concern on her face, next to Quackity, whose sword was out. Jack had uncontained contempt written all over his face. Wilbur, hear the back, looked delighted.
And in the front, Sam’s face was hidden by the gas mask.
Tommy swallowed heavily, momentarily forgetting what, exactly, he was being caught doing, why they all looked sick. And then he remembered, with his heart low down in his chest, that he was still holding Dream’s hand. Like the appendage had burned him, he pulled his own away, feeling rather sick. These were people that didn’t know what went through his mind late at night. They hadn’t known that any of this was about to happen until it did- there was no doubt it was a shock to almost all of them, that Dream and Tommy were friends again after everything. It made sense, but part of Tommy shriveled back at the looks he was getting.
It reminded him of being exiled again. The looks of repulsion, the anger, the hatred. And of course, they hadn’t really cared about him since before exile, but fuck, if it didn’t feel like he was losing their trust all over again. He’d taken cracked relationships and shattered them in favor of… what? The notion of a soulmate? A bit of petty manipulation?
Bile rose in his throat, and fuck, he felt like just drinking milk, stepping back into the lake, and drowning on the spot. Maybe letting the void take him, if he was lucky. He wanted to shrivel and die. Maybe Limbo would be better the second time around. If his intention had been to ruin every positive feeling anyone on the server had about him, he’d done it with flying colors.
Prime, he was a mess. He shouldn’t have been revived. He deserved whatever fate the universe decided to give him. He’d been in a haze for so long, and now, he was finally out of it and realizing that the things he’d done couldn’t be undone.
There was a hand on his shoulder, pulling him away from the ire, and Tommy couldn’t help but grip Dream’s hoodie like a child. It was nice to take a backseat as he was pressed against his friend, his soulmate. His head was tucked over the man’s shoulder. It fit perfectly, and, though everything was damp, it was comforting.
“What is the meaning of this?” Sam’s voice was low, and Tommy could smell the gunpowder lacing it. That didn’t help with the panic of the situation. Dream just put a hand on his back, though. The smell of the lake water and Dream’s hoodie were strangely comforting.
“I’m leaving,” the admin said simply. “I’ve paid my penance.”
“Oh, no, you haven’t. You’re going right back in there, and so is Tommy. I’ll make another high-security cell, I don’t trust you in the same one,” the creeper hybrid snapped. “You- both of you- are going to be there for a long time. I can’t believe this. I told you to stay away, Tommy!”
“I’m sorry in advance,” Dream whispered into his sopping raccoon ears. Just barely, Tommy could feel the edge of an iron knife on the back of his neck, just hard enough to draw blood. All of the muscles in the raccoon hybrid’s body tensed.
“Wait, Dream-”
“If you don’t let me go, I’ll kill him,” the human snapped out. There were a few shifting footsteps, a few murmurs of unease. “Don’t test me. I’ve done it once. I’ll do it again.”
Tommy couldn’t see what was going on, but the situation was enough to make him panic against the unforgiving blade. When the edge of pain heightened, he grabbed Dream’s arm and tried to squirm to get a better view. This hadn’t been in the plan. Dream was just supposed to disappear and the teenager was supposed to go back to his normal life without all those complicated feelings! “What the hell are you doing?! You can’t- stop-”
The man twisted in a flash so that Tommy’s back was pressed to his chest, and the knife was against his throat instead of his nape. He saw, with no shortage of horror, that Sam’s trident was aimed up. If he tried to shoot, he would either hit both of them or just the raccoon hybrid. He was caught in the middle of the crossfire, and nobody seemed to be willing to say the word to save his life. That realization hit him like one of the trains Wilbur so often spoke about.
Dream’s willing to kill me at the drop of a hat. And nobody’s speaking up to save me.
Fuck. Fuck. Shit, shit, shit, that shouldn’t have been the thing that got him. He knew everyone hated him, but it was like the party all over again. All that false grieving had been just for show. Nobody really cared. Maybe it was better with him gone. Maybe they wanted him dead. It shouldn’t have been a betrayal, he knew it, but he was rather sure a few of the drops of liquid on his cheeks weren’t just lake water. He had water breathing still in his system, but it still felt like he was drowning. All of his worst nightmares, proven correct. He felt so stupid for even considering that any of them might have actually been happy he was back. Or maybe they were. Maybe they were, and he fucking ruined it, because he ruined everything.
Things were starting to distort in that same familiar way they’d been doing since Pogtopia. What did Puffy always say to do? It didn’t matter, Puffy hated him. Maybe she’d air out all of his dirty laundry to the entire server now. And ever since his death, he couldn’t just pinch himself hard enough to throb for minutes afterwards to snap himself out of it. He was stuck in this horrible place between dissociation and panic, and he couldn’t help himself.
Someone- Quackity, he thought- pulled on Sam’s arm, yelling something that sounded as panicked and garbled as the inside of Tommy’s brain. Sam turned and yelled something back, but Quackity gestured to Tommy, or maybe Dream. If the raccoon hybrid focused, he could barely hear, “kill him again!”
He couldn’t tell if it was condemning or approving, but after a brief argument, Sam’s trident lowered, and Dream was speaking. There was some more talking that rumbled through Tommy’s entire body- Dream, then- and some moving of the crowd, before the knife was finally moved from his throat and control of his body finally started to return.
“Come on, Sunshine!” Tommy blinked, and Dream was dragging him along, leaving the others behind. He looked up at his friend, confused.
“Why are we-? Am I coming with you?”
“Of course. They were ready to kill you, too, you know. I was almost worried I miscalculated.”
“...Right.”
He was so confused. That was always the aftermath of these little bouts of panic, and it always left him exhausted. He hardly even noticed how Dream pulled him onto an old-looking boat, or how the land slowly disappeared.
Partway through the boat ride, he was pulled close to Dream, head resting on his friend’s lap. The waves were soothing despite his history with them, and he found himself drifting off more than once. He must have slept a bit, because every time he opened his eyes, the sun was in a different position- from the afternoon to sunset to evening. All the while, his soulmate rowed and rowed. It was a peaceful silence, except for the way that his communicator was buzzing every few minutes. His was an older model, so he couldn’t mute it from his inventory or with a button, but it got annoying fairly quickly.
With a tired grumble, he finally gave in when the sky was a dusky gray and he’d rested a bit from the highs and lows of the day. Dream’s green eyes flicked down, but the man said nothing, just kept rowing. He leaned against his friend and finally turned the communicator on.
When Tommy opened the main chat, he was assaulted by a heated argument in the main chat about what to do with Dream, and several, several personal messages.
He should have muted it. He should have typed the command, powered it off, and maybe threw it into the ocean. But his curiosity got the better of him as he opened the first chat from Puffy. He wasn’t quite ready to look at the others yet.
CaptainPuffy: We’re all worried about you. We can talk about this, if you come back. If you don’t, we’re not giving up on you. Try to keep your communicator on you. If or when you want to come home, you know where my house is. There will always be a place for you. (15:01)
He stared down at it, touched by the kindness, but he was worried that if Dream caught a glimpse, he would get upset. He knew it was empty platitudes to try to get him in prison, but he still kind of wanted to cry because of it. With a deep breath, he moved to the next.
Awesamdude: I’m extremely disappointed. I can’t promise you complete lack of punishment, but if you find a way to capture Dream again and bring him back, I’m patching up security right now, and it will be a lighter punishment for you. (14:48)
Awesamdude: If you step foot in SMP lands without Dream as a peace offering, you know exactly where you’re going. (15:31)
Sure enough, there it was. Sam was always straightforward about things. He flicked to the next one.
Quackity: Sorry about sam man (14:32)
Quackity: I hope you’re okay (14:32)
Quackity: Tubbo says you’re not answering your comms (17:02)
Quackity: I don’t get it, but I don’t think youshould be locked up or killed (17:04)
Quackity: I wish you’d talked to me (17:08)
Quackity: Stay safe dude. (19:37)
He took a shaky breath. Next.
Ranboo: tommy, everyone’s really worried. i am too. please answer your comm we’re all worried (15:55)
Ranboo: please. i dont want exile again. (17:23)
Ranboo: please tommy please pick up (18:12)
Next.
WilburSoot: Dramatic. I like it, that’s exactly the kind of performance I’d do. Tell Dream to get back to me on where you are so we can meet up. (14:26)
Without thinking, he clicked to the last one, and almost hit the back button at the flurry of messages
Tubbo_: uck you why would you fop tjis (14:28)
Tubbo_: this isnt fair you told us nothing ejsay the HELL (14:31)
Tubbo_: i told you i told you not to go back to dream byut you fucking did (14:32)
Tubbo_: i cant believe this (14:44)
Tubbo_: i cant believe you (14:45)
Tubbo_: tommy come abck (15:48)
Tubbo_: why the hell did you let him out why would you do this he almost killed me he did cill you this isnt fair please (16:08)
Tubbo_: please tommy i want to talk please pick up the comm (16:25)
Tubbo_: i get it schloatt was like that with me he was convincing (16:59)
Tubbo_: why would you let him out though you knew better (17:00)
Tubbo_: look idc idfc please just answer the comm please i just want to talk im worried (17:11)
Tubbo_: PLEASE tommy i cant lose you again (17:13)
Tubbo_: tommy? (18:00)
Tubbo_: fine (18:33)
Tubbo_: fuck you then. (18:33)
Tubbo_: go be best friends wivh him (18:34)
Tubbo_: i hope you got what you wanted. (20:11)
A gentle hand landed atop his head and stroked his ears, and Tommy glanced up to see a familiar shoreline. Dream’s voice was gentle as he roused the raccoon hybrid back into wakefulness. “Eyes up, Tommy. We’re almost there.”
The messages rang in his head as he stared at the blown-up remains of the place he’d once called a twisted sort of home. With a sort of empty humor in the situation, he could only lean up against Dream and think, I don’t think I know what I wanted in the first place.