Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I have come to the decision- The most logical thing to do is to exile Tommy Innit from and L’manberg,” Tubbo declared, his words hitting each and every person in the crowd; the adults cheered and cried; the children jumped up and down or were grabbed suddenly and ordered not to. Their thundering yells reached the border of L’manberg, spreading out across sea and farther than anyone had ever gone.

“What- Tubbo!” Tommy yelled,”No- please! We’re friends?!” Tommy pleaded, not daring to cry in front of the audience which taunted him and chanted horrid things about him.

“It’s the best thing for this nation, Tommy,” Tubbo said neutrally, though it was clear that his cabinet didn’t agree.

Quackity, for example, looked distraught; his eyes had that wild frenzy in them which Tommy hadn’t seen since Schlatt’s funeral, that wicked look of hate and fear and what Tommy hoped was genuine upset.

Tommy hoped (with all of that naive part of him that said that Wilbur was coming back) that everyone would fight back against Tubbo’s decision, that a loud enough voice would speak up and it would be Dream instead that was forced off of L’manberg, never to return on pain of death.

But it seemed that the world was silent of support, nobody shouting and fighting back, nobody on his side as Dream laughed, that fucking asshole laugh, the laugh that Tommy knew he practiced in the mirrror, the sick fuck that he was.

“No, no! You can’t do this, I’m the fucking-” Tommy breathed, his words not making any more sense than the situation itself.

“Dream, could you please escort Tommy out of this country?” Tubbo ordered calmly, his face not betraying any emotion other than the perfect neutrality of a politician who had forgotten how he’d gotten there.

“Of course, Mr. President,” Dream replied sarcastically, though either Tubbo didn’t notice it or he didn’t let it show because never once did the mask slip to reveal an inch of what he might have thought. It was like whatever made Tubbo Tubbo had been carved out by the people, his true self stolen and condensed till he was merely a shell of his former self, all of the spark and the whimsy and the part of Tubbo who was his best friend gone.

And then, as Dream approached with a wide smile on his face, he took something out of his inventory; something expensive, something strong and something so ill-suited for the situation that he wanted to cry.

“No, Dream- This is just an exile! You aren’t taking me out of here in- in handcuffs!” Tommy protested, shoving Dream away as he approached to put them on.

The crowd went wild in a sort of entertained frenzy that begins whenever a bloodthirsty group knows that there’s violence to come; smelling it out like sharks, they circled them both, clamouring for a front-row seat to whatever violence was to ensue.

Oh, how Tommy wanted to fight back; he desperately wanted to beat the shit out of Dream till he couldn’t walk ever again, till every bone in Dream’s body was shattered into a thousand unfixable pieces. He’d look better that way, masked bastard, but Tommy didn’t dare. He couldn’t – not after what he’d been exiled for. See, it wasn’t that Tommy was scared about a fight but he knew that if he attempted to get into one, it would be splashed over the front-cover of the paper how he resisted arrest, some dumb commentary on how he acted more like an ‘animal’ as though he wasn’t the best politician and general the server had ever seen.

So, after that light shove, Tommy stared into Tubbo’s uncaring eyes, trying to ignore the cold, heavy sensation of Dream’s cuffs around his hands.

“This is so- Dream, you got the cheapest handcuffs you could get, didn’t you? I bet that your SMP is so broke that you can’t even afford to shit in toilets. I bet you don’t wash your hands after you go to the toilet like a dumb bastard, if you even shit you weird, weird person. Fuck you,” Tommy spat, just loud enough that Dream and the front row could hear but quiet enough that Tubbo couldn’t make out a word, concealing his insults by the power of the wind.

At this, Dream laughed, as though he was entirely unable to understand an insult. He was probably so fucking smug, but Tommy didn’t feel like spinning around to see because his hands were connected to each other and if he fell flat on his face people would use it to shit on Tubbo. Really, though it fucking sucked, there was nothing he could do but follow what he’d been told to do lest the press absolutely fucking slander him.

“Tommy, I can do what I want on my server, you know? I could take you wherever I wanted, so long as it isn’t L’manberg,” Dream whispered dangerously, his mask preventing him from going too close to Tommy’s ear but that didn’t matter when nobody could lip-read what Dream was saying anyway,”I could drag you around this whole server for hours, I could lock you in George’s basement and set the whole house on fire myself, and Tubbo couldn’t do shit. So, we either do this nicely or I use force,” Dream ordered emotionlessly.

Tommy’s eyes widened as he processed Dream’s words. It was true – Tubbo couldn’t fight Dream at all and everyone knew it, much less without him. Sure, Tubbo was a decent president but being a general had always been his job. And with him out of the way…

“You’re making a mistake, Tubbo,” Tommy said finally, just as Dream began to drag him away.

“No, I don’t think I am,” Tubbo answered, utterly unfeeling as Dream dragged them apart towards the docks.

Tommy winced as he was thrown into Dream’s boat, thrown into a seat as though Dream saw him as a sack of items that he could throw about as he pleased. Before the pain even hit, before he’d managed to get himself up, Tommy’s mouth was already open, the salt-oak scent of rotting seaweed and what had once been a perfectly decent boat combining to create a vomit-inducing smell so bad Tommy debated shutting up for once.

But Tommy had never been one for self-preservation, so before he could talk himself out of it, Tommy spat out, ”What the fuck? You are a bitch-bastard, Dream, I swear- You think you’re so fucking cool just ‘cause you’re the admin of this server. Well, you’re not, Dream, you’re a dickhead and everyone hates you,” he spat, pulling himself up (with much difficulty) using his legs alone so he was merely leaning down on the second seat rather than having fallen over it, like a bridge made entirely of Tommy, looking slightly less pathetic by the second.

“Well, if everyone hates me, then why were you the one who was exiled?” Dream, the fucking bastard, asked as though that was the kind of question that any reasonable person asked.

“Well, Dream, that’s because you fucking forced him with your shitty wall. Tubbo didn’t decide to exile me, you basically told him we had to or he’d have had to go to war again because of your shitty decisions. So, really, Dream, you’re the one that Tubbo decided to exile because he only did this to make you shut the fuck up for five seconds,” Tommy reasoned confidently, unfortunately aware of how his nose bled more every moment.

“Oh? Well, who’s still going to be going to all of L’manberg’s meetings? Honestly, Tommy, by this point I’m more friends with Tubbo than you are. At least Tubbo wants me around,” Dream scoffed.

“He fucking doesn’t!” Tommy shouted, his blood dripping down his chin till it began to dye his shirt a different shade of red entirely, as though it was all made of blood. Tommy stared down in disgust at his own blood, wincing at the pain across his whole body.

“Oh? Tommy, I don’t think you’re exactly telling the truth to yourself, Tommy,” Dream shrugged,”I mean, clearly, Tubbo doesn’t like you that much because, you know, he didn’t even want to talk to you back there. He’s a good president, Tommy, and I think he’ll do a good job – well, as well as a President of L’manberg can do, but, you know,” Dream declared condescendingly, as though his opinion was some objective truth that he was too stupid for Dream.

“You prick, you green dickhead, can do at least uncuff me because I’m fucking bleeding thanks to you. Look, it’s running all down my top because you fucking shoved me,” Tommy spat, going to move his hands to prove his point yet was unable to since his hands were cuffed to his back.

“No, I’m not going to uncuff you. Tommy, you committed a crime – you burned down George’s house and, sure, I have no doubt that you had help but you were undoubtedly the ringleader. The Dream SMP wants peace, that’s what Tubbo exiled you for. And it’s peaceful, you know? When I don’t have to worry about what you’ve done next. So, I’m putting you far away, far enough that you won’t be able to commit crimes with anyone. It’s as simple as that. I’m putting you in time out,” Dream explained,”And I can’t get there if I have to worry.”

“Okay, but what does that have to do with, oh, I don’t know, the fact that I’m fucking bleeding because you fucking punched me. Last I heard, that was a crime too but you don’t seem to give a shit about that you fucking ‘ippocrite!” Tommy cried.

Dream sighed,”And what was it that you did back in L’manberg? You shoved me, Tommy, in front of everyone. There’s proof – I saw about ten people recording. But whether I pushed you out here or not- You can’t prove that, Tommy, that’s your opinion. Honestly, I think how well you behave on this trip changes how much I talk about your aggression to the reporters. They’ll all love to hear about how their beloved admin got shoved by someone everyone already knows acts like an animal. So, either you do as I say or you don’t and you learn why you should,” Dream announced, his ultimatum set in stone.

“I’m not gonna sit bleeding out for as long as you keep rowing, Dream – at least give me- I don’t know- a tissue or something!” Tommy demanded, though it held little of the strength of his previous demands.

Dream was speaking to him yet Tommy’s attention was brought to something else. Just as Dream pushed off, Tommy locked eyes with a faint wisp which seemed to be making its way onto the boat, barely there yet increasing in visibility as it whooshed and whished itself into existence.

“Hello, Tommy! You- I know you’ve had a good day today because you’re going sailing and I know you always used to like going sailing. Oh, we used to do it all the time – me, you and Eret!” Ghostbur cheered, his voice holding an echoey, cheerfully quality which only seemed disturbing after listening to Wilbur’s deep, demented rants as he hurtled himself further into madness.

Ghostbur was not Wilbur but he was at least there for him and Tommy really couldn’t pass up on an opportunity to see what was left of his brother so, like always, Tommy smiled at his dead big brother, pretending for a moment that everything was okay.

“Hey, Ghostbur, I’m fine. I just got a bit exiled but it’s nothing that Big Man TommyInnit here can’t handle. You know?” Tommy announced, grinning as best he could with his nose bleeding and hands cuffed at his back.

“Oh- is that what happened to your nose?” Tommy asked,”Did you get into a fight? Well, as long as you won, Tommy, you know?” he laughed, such a sweet sentiment that for a moment Tommy could forget that his nose was bleeding and that he was heading far away from his first and only home, an outcast and an exile.

“Tommy, who are you talking to?” Dream asked, squinting at Tommy as though he couldn’t see Ghostbur who was literally right in front of him, watching as Dream pushed off from the shore, sending him jolting into the side.

“Ghostbur? He’s right fucking here, you dickhead. I know you can see Ghostbur, ‘cos he’s not that invisible. Stop being… ghostist. You- You’re so fucking- uhh… predjudiced against ghosts and it’s not okay, man,” Tommy announced, standing up for ghosts worldwide like a good vice-president did.

“Uh-huh. When you’re finished with talking to Ghostbur, at least be quiet, okay?” Dream demanded, giving him harsh, sudden punch in the ribs as though he didn’t already get the message.

Tommy nodded,”Sure, I guess. It’s not like I want to speak to you, no offense- Full offense, actually, I hate you,” Tommy determined, turning slightly away from Dream to talk to Ghostbur, who had been eerily quiet since Dream started speaking.

Dream’s boat was leaky as shit. Not only did it move like it had been made a decade ago, it was also clear that Dream wasn’t the best at sailing for all he’d manhunted in his earlier years. Really, it was obvious that Dream was much shitter than he’d once been, nowhere near the god at everything he’d appeared when Tommy was young, before the Dream SMP even existed.

The boat was covered in moss on one side, with a hole on the side he was sat so it dipped down slightly, keeping Dream raised above him at all times. Knowing Dream, it was probably some shitty power-play which allowed him to feel like a genius as though Dream had any trace of a brain. Tommy struggled to keep himself upright in the wash, leaning against the tide to avoid falling out since his hands were bound more than he’d have liked.

Once again, Tommy kicked the side of the boat, idly chattering with Ghostbur so that it was like he hadn’t been exiled at all, as though he was on holiday, a casual affair which he could leave when he wanted. He had his brother and his worst enemy with him, what wasn’t to love?

“Tommy, what is this?” Dream sighed, slowing his rowing noticably as he stared in Tommy’s direction.

“What’s what, Dream? I know you don’t like Ghostbur but, you know, he’s here and he will be for a while. It’s not like you can just kill him or something, people actually like Ghostbur, a lot more than they like you,” Tommy declared.

Dream scoffed,”No, it’s not that I don’t like Ghostbur, it’s the fact that he’s not fucking real. You’re too old to be having imaginary friends, Tommy; you’ve seen how many wars and you’re still acting like a baby. I swear- you push Ghostbur off the boat right now and he’ll just appear right back here if you want him to, because he’s not fucking real.”

Tommy frowned, staring at Dream suspiciously,”What if I said that you weren’t real? Dream, Dream- we all saw Wilbur die, right? We can all agree that he’s dead. But after he died, he came back as a ghost. That’s Ghostbur. He doesn’t remember much and he’s not, you know, like Wilbur, but he’s still great and it’s really shitty for you to pretend that he’s not real!”

“Well, we all saw Wilbur die but who else has seen Ghostbur? If I talk about him with anyone else, there’s no way that they’ll say that they’ve also seen Ghostbur. Right now – right now, Tommy, you are speaking to thin air. That is a fact,” Dream declared, as though he had any right to tell Tommy what was real and what wasn’t. Ghostbur was real – he had to be.

He was real, right?

“Tommy, I think Dream wants another fight,” Ghostbur whispered, turning in conspiratorialy,”He looks like he wants to beat you up again.”

Tommy nodded, uncaring of what Dream thought,”Of course, he’s just being a dickhead. You’re right, Ghostbur, Dream’s just. Yeah. He likes making me mad, you know? It’s the one thing he’s good at. At least you’re still here, right?” Tommy asked.

“Of course, Tommy! Why wouldn’t I be?” Ghostbur replied curiously, his echoing voice so sweet that it felt like he was being tucked into bed with a bedtime story, seven all over again, sat in the early Camarvan, looking up at Wilbur proudly as though it hadn’t truly sank in that his brother was that good a storyteller, a thousand accents and tales on his tongue, a heart strong enough to power everyone’s and a head full of knowledge ripe for the picking.

And Tommy felt small again but not in the way that Dream made him feel small but like he was safe again, as though there was no possibility of some TNT dropping on his head or a sword going through his heart. Around Wilbur, he was warm and he was allowed to be tired, drooping eyes a sign he needed to have a nap rather than a cause for concern on a battlefield so vast and deadly his chances of surviving felt sub-zero. The world felt so much more manageable and traversible when he was at Wilbur’s side, a place where people like him and people like Dream could live in peace if enough words were exchanged, if enough people decided on peace. Around Wilbur, anything felt possible and with Ghostbur it was like that all again, spoken to in that soft voice as though he was a child that didn’t have to understand everything, what he knew and didn’t know unimportant as the love flowed as freely as the ink from Wilbur’s pen.

And there was no boat and no bleeding nose and no sea. There was him and Wilbur, brothers in arms and each caring about the other. Tommy felt himself become cocooned in sheer love, sheltered from the storm of conflict by a few honeyed words alone.

-All broken in seconds by one sudden slap.

“-Tommy, how fucking dare you! You’re not some fucking hero, Tommy- that’s not what this is. You’re insane, Tommy, and I know that you don’t understand it yet but you need help: you need someone who can help you tell reality from what’s in your head and I can do that for you. You- I think exile’s gonna be good for you, you’ll have lots of time to figure out what’s really happening if you’re barely doing anything. This isn’t a vacation, of course, but- who knows, maybe you’ll enjoy this?”

“Lads on tour!” Ghostbur cheered, instantly snapping him back into the haze of his idyllic past. Things seemed so much simpler when it was just him and Wilbur, alone together. Once he got those cuffs off, once Dream left- Though it sounded weird, Dream was right, just not in the way that he thought.

“Lads on tour!” Tommy echoed, suddenly unafraid of Dream by his brother’s side.

And just when Tommy thought that things were okay, Dream dropped the oars, allowing them to wobble suddenly out of the tiny boat, panic overpowering every inch of Tommy till he made a mad dash for the oars, all too aware that if the oars were to fall it would be he who swam for them.

..He didn’t catch them, instead forced to watch on in horror as they splashed into the water, his hands tied behind his back preventing any possibility of him stepping in to fix the situation.

“If you have that much time to talk, you may as well help out with the rowing,” Dream ordered, fishing both of the drifting oars out of the sea with some nerve-wracking difficulty.

“How the fuck am I meant to row with my hands cuffed up?” Tommy complained,”I don’t even want to be here, you’re the one who wanted to row and you’re probably going to be better at it than I am ‘cause you’re not being stopped from doing it with handcuffs! This- Dream, pick a side ‘cos this is bollocks.”

“I don’t care. You figure out how to do this because we both have all the time we need. I know when I need to be back and nobody needs you back ever so it doesn’t matter if it takes a day, two days to get to wherever we end up. So, either you row or I kill you,” Dream ordered, “Or will Ghostbur step in to help you?” he asked smuggly, passing the oars over to Tommy in the weirdest exchange ever, some movement which required Dream to go around the back and feed them over to Tommy who could barely hold onto them from the twenty new, strange sensations and situations he was experiencing or witnessing all at the same time.

Tommy looked up at Ghostbur for assistance but he seemed faint, as though whatever made him Ghostbur was fading slightly. He tried not to let it get to him but not even Ghostbur’s thumbs-up could make things any better.

Chapter Text

Tommy couldn’t understand how he’d rowed as far as he had – or, rowed at all, for that matter. His cuffed fingers were numb – whether from the iced ocean or his strange position, he didn’t know – though there was a chill in the air which went right down to his bones, a sensation which could only suggest it was the former. But perhaps (and this became increasingly likely the more he looked at Dream’s ugly fucking mask) it was the mere presence of Dream which triggered deep unrest; a fire in an ancient library; disease in the cleanest of hospitals; spores in the most hospitable of forests.

The blood from his nose had dried and hardened with haste, becoming his second skin before he’d even realised it was no longer dripping; fusing with his flesh to make him something more animal than human: An exile. His eyes held a spark of hatred so great that, had Tommy been able to make eye-contact, he would have eviscerated Dream on the spot without mercy.

Alas, Dream was as much of a masked bastard as always, and so Tommy was stuck with wincing and wheezing as he slowly swished the oars, the rickety little boat hardly moving for the cuffs which forced his hands together.

Tommy didn’t dare speak of his suffering again; he had the acute awareness of the fact that Dream was spiting him; the brains on his shoulder to understand that each time he dared ask if they could stop, Dream was likely adding another agonising hour to his suffering. In time, his rage, once wild and outspoken, had turned to this simmering, bubbling hatred which refused to realise itself, even as Tommy demanded it to do so; ordering up his anger in vain; it, too, betraying him.

It had been hours since he’d been able to see L’manberg in the distance: random sky-high towers scattering the land, dwarfing the crowd which had gathered, taunting and jeering, to send him off. Once, he’d been able to imagine where Tubbo sobbed in his office; the look in his eyes once he regretted the situation and sent for Tommy’s return. Unfortunately, the longer he waited, the more he came to understand that Tubbo wasn’t prepared to do anything of the sort. This was it, wasn’t it? Their friendship ruined forever.

All Tommy could do to distract him from the numbness of the boat was think back to the night that promised the night where everything had gone wrong. Or, well, by that point, it was late morning: he and Tubbo were shattered, not a flat hair on their heads. They’d sat on that bench admiring a crater; a wreck in which they saw a future. And he’d promised – and Tommy knew he’d been truthful – that, behind the ram-horns which poked from his skull, he would never become the next Jschlatt.

And Tommy had believed his lie for it was the truth: Tubbo had never wanted to become the next Schlatt. He’d just… become him, seemingly overnight. There had been warning signs, of course, but nothing that couldn’t be chalked down to presidential stress. Tommy wished he could turn the boat around or jump out and swim for it but if he tried anything, he had no doubt about it that Dream would ensure he never saw Tubbo again.

In short, he needed to play along, for his and Tubbo’s sake – who knew what would happen if he died, or got hurt or anything else that Dream could make happen? Prime, his presidency was already strained – he didn’t need to give anyone more ammunition to destroy Tubbo.

Without him, it was probably quite calm in L’manberg. The event over, Tommy could imagine a hundred furnaces switching on; L’manberg’s sewers and heating systems struggling to cope with the sheer population which had amassed in only a few weeks as whole families chattered casually about the TommyInnit Scandal; the excitement in their voices as they recalled the declaration of his exile.

He shivered.

Ghostbur was gone, though Tommy assumed he’d return – he always did, a floater rather than a constant. It wasn’t like Wilbur had been there for him properly in life, either – he was always… absent, as though caring for him was secondary behind whatever grand scheme he had or whatever delusions of grandeur or defeatism he’d stumbled upon this time. It was almost like he was still alive; working on some insane project to get L’manberg back, Dream’s head on a spike as they all lived happily in L’manberg.

But Tommy wasn’t a child anymore: he was a big man, just as he’d insisted all those years ago before L’manberg was even a country. He’d done it, even if he still felt so small: he’d lived, he’d shown all those pussies who doubted him that he was capable of surviving in a world which hated fire yet seemed to thrive on it all the same. So he wasn’t a fool – Wilbur was dead; his body destroyed by the withers and whatever else Dream’s shithole of a server had to offer.

“Stop.” Dream ordered, staring out at something in the distance as he yanked the oars away from him, tearing through his aching bones without care ”I’ve figured out where you’re staying.”

Tommy grinned, shrugging off the pain casually enough.”Seasick, ey?” he joked,”I bet you’re scared of being pushed in ‘cos Ghostbur’s sneaking up behind you,” he lied, watching as Dream scanned the area behind him just in case.

Nothing: Ghostbur really had vanished into thin air.

Despite still being freed from his duty of rower, his cuffed wrists still ached like that day Wilbur had forced him to practice the same move all day. Really, had Dream put any thought into his shitty handcuffing stuff? Sure, he wanted to wank off at the thought of being a proper authority figure – it was Dream, biggest twat on the server,nothing new about that – but it was bizarre that he’d been willing to spend about five hours longer than was necessary just to fuck with him. Did he even have a job? Clearly not.

With Dream’s rowing, they were suddenly moving a lot faster and Tommy began to see the island that Dream was sending them towards. If he craned his neck, he could see the same lush trees and peaceful fauna that made up the majority of the Dream SMP. Sure, it was probably lethal at night, but he had torches and enough supplies that, once Dream uncuffed him, he’d be fine, so long as he hunkered down in some sort of hole.

The island was flat with a long beach which Tommy imagined would flood quite far in high-tide – so building on the beach was a no – and a lush forest which stretched as far as Tommy could see from his low point of view. The waves around him were calmer than he’d suspected initially, unprovoked by the evils of the server, and the weather appeared mild. In short, it was a nice enough place to set up camp for a little while till he hid in L’manberg again, possibly with Ghostbur or maybe with Quackity. His exile would not be long-lived, hopefully.

Before he knew it, Tommy noted that they were washing up onto the beach, Dream hopping immediately out from the boat (which slipped back out into the ocean a little from the uneven weight) and Tommy tried to follow, slipping and smashing his head on the side of the boat, provoking his existing nose injury.

As Tommy felt the blood pour, Ghostbur greeted him with a fond smile.

“Tommy, I thought you’d stopped picking your nose,” Ghostbur complained,”Especially not so hard it makes your nose bleed.”

Tommy shrugged, “I’m a bit stressed at the moment,” he explained, his voice muffled by the wood he lay on like a beached seal.

Dream outstretched a hand for him, going right through Ghostbur as though he was never there at all. Ghostbur appeared on the other side, wiping off his jumped and huffing in annoyance.

“You want some help?” Dream asked, ignoring the fact that he’d just fucking walked through Ghostbur.

“No, I don’t need any,” Tommy lied, slipping up slowly as he found balance on the ancient boat Dream had found somewhere to use.

Dream sighed as though he didn’t believe him (prick) and stood there watching him as Ghostbur droned on about something or other.

“Oh, and we can build a new nation!” he cheered gleefully,”One where I didn’t kill everyone.”

Tommy’s eye-bags only felt more prominent than ever as he forced himself out of the boat, hardly keeping himself straight for the rubbish state of the boat. On dry land, Tommy sank into the sand, the hot sun beaming down on him as he appraised the situation.

So, clearly, he’d need to either live solely off of cow-milk or desalinate the water when he needed it – the latter a more expensive project that Tommy didn’t want to bother with. Milking cows was fine with him – he loved their goofy little faces when he hugged them; the way they seemed unafraid of a loving hand once they got used to him… They were the perfect pets, equal parts useful and docile, a shred of peace in a server so used to chaos.

“That’s lovely, Ghostbur,” Tommy muttered, scanning the oak trees which were plentiful and as plain as the biome they were found in.

“Tommy, Wilbur’s dead,” Dream snapped, turning to look right at him sharply as though he’d done something wrong.

“Fuck off with all this talk about Wil, Dream- I’ve been fuckin’ exiled, you dick’ead!” Tommy whined, turning to grin at Ghostbur in amusement.

“Are you gonna kill him?” Ghostbur offered cheerfully,”I hope you don’t because Dream isn’t that bad, but you look like you will.”

Tommy shrugged,”Depends on how much of a prick he is.”

And suddenly he was on the ground, back-firstwith no chance of using his hands to defend himself. They cracked uselessly onto the ground, shattering upon impact. The cuffs dug into his chest, flattening his hands even more as he cried out in pain, Ghostbur unable (or unwilling – Tommy wasn’t sure what Ghostbur could understand) to help.

“Why the fuck ‘ave you done that?” Tommy spat, looking up at Dream like a baby; weak and unable to do much more than move his head and feet a little, desperate for the freedom that he suspected that Dream was unwilling to give him, the tyrannical bastard.

“Because you need to be punished – how dare you lie to me, Tommy – we keep having this discussion – there is nothing in front of you. Wilbur is dead, he has no ghosts- Ghosts aren’t real, even,” Dream spat, not even willing to look at Wilbur.

“Oh, of course you’d say that,” Tommy shrugged, willing to ignore the bastard who seemed to never be doing anything useful to society, instead deigning to fuck other people over like someone who’d never heard of the idea of talking shit out.

“Tommy, get up,” Dream ordered, treading right on the area where his broken wrist, underneath his chest, was shattering into more pieces still.

Tommy bit his tongue and obeyed, raising himself up till he was almost standing, in a strange sort of squat, though he simply did not have the energy to be tall. In that moment, he felt like he was nine again; tiny compared to Dream, an adult who was so eager to play the games of childhood and turn them into violence when violence was a game he could win. Above anything else, Tommy hated Dream – every other emotion duller for the feeling of disgust for a man who could have chosen to be good yet turned away from it at every point.

With that, Dream surveyed him and, without further comment, retrieved a netherite tool from his inventory.

For a moment, Tommy wondered if that was it: if he was to be hacked to death by Dream on an island miles away from any useful help (sorry, Ghostbur). Dream certainly had the gear and while he had cool shit, too, they were locked away in his inventory which was functionally unreachable, his cuffs rendering him useless for much beyond running away from a man who had won several speedrunning competitions.

Fortunately, Tommy was what a mad person might consider ‘lucky’ and Tommy was spared the threat of Dream’s axe or sword, instead greeted with a small shovel: netherite yet virtually harmless: something a parent might consider a decent first project to make with netherite.

Dream dug two blocks down, stuffing the dirt into his inventory as though he’d need it later as Tommy was forced to awkwardly watch, unable to comment on it without feeling a little weird.

…Unfortunately, what followed next was not something that even Wilbur in his darkest days could justify as good; an uttering of seven words which were so foul that Tommy could hardly believe his ears:

“Put your items in the hole, Tommy.”

Tommy cried out a groan of confusion much like a horse on the trot. His eyes shrunk and he looked Dream up and down,”What the fuck do you want my shit for?” Tommy spat,”Have you run out of shit to give Gogy?”

Dream scoffed – almost laughing – at Tommy’s comment though the tension was not improved even slightly.

In fact, in Tommy’s opinion it was much fucking worse when he had no clue what Dream’s next move was; when his enemy was unpredictable and confusing and so utterly wrong that it made his head spin for trying to comprehend the mental gymnastics required to justify his behaviour.

“No, Tommy, just throw it in there – don’t question me,” Dream ordered, lazily retrieving some TNT from his inventory.

Tommy’s eyes widened and he reached to access his inventory which, unfortunately, appeared behind him, where his broken hands were cuffed up.

“Dream, how am I supposed to get anything out of there? Me ‘ands are all fucked!” Tommy complained,”At least uncuff me.”

Dream scoffed,”Tommy, you burned George’s house down – you’re a criminal. Really, do you expect me to do everything for you after you destroyed my best friend's house?” Dream questioned seriously – or, well, he seemed serious for his axe was reaching closer over to Tommy, each lazy swing extending further as though it was only a matter of time before his neck was sliced.

“Don’t hit me, okay?” Tommy asked.

Dream nodded, casually, as though Tommy’s fear was irrational,”Of course – I’d only hurt you if you fucked up.”

At Dream’s asshole words, Tommy turned, putting his back to his least favourite masked bastard and threw away half his inventory: his axe; sword and half his netherite armour.

Dream nodded in assent, patting him on the head,”That’s great, Tommy, but I know for a fact that you’ve still got more in there,” he warned.

Tommy hesitantly threw in the meagre remainders of his stuff, aware suddenly how much more vulnerable he was: a single well-timed hit could spell the end for him if he wasn’t careful. Still, what could he do when Dream had his axe out while his own hands were bound to his back?

Unfortunately for him, Tommy had only just turned back around when he was swept off his feet, the impression of light and heat branding itself into his face. Tommy registered that he was in pain, his head buried in a mound of cow-shit as he rolled away, unable to use his hands to lift himself up.

He couldn’t see Dream’s face but that didn’t mean he couldn’t imagine the smug laugh Dream’s hands moved instinctively to hide.

“Everything’s going to be just fine, Tommy!” Ghostbur beamed, thumbs up as he idly watched Tommy’s singed hair sizzle, slightly burning the cow shit and blood on his face.

“I know, Ghostbur,” Tommy nodded weakly, ducking as he prepared for Dream’s angry foot.