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Even after all this time, negotiations scare Dream. Maybe it’s the vulnerability of it all: sitting around a table, like equals, weapons hidden where Dream can’t see them. Variables he can’t know. Dream is a calculated man: he believes in logic above all; logic which guides each decision, which creates harmony on the server. And all this talking… it’s near-incomprehensible if he doesn’t try.
Dream does try: negotiation is a science; people are a science. The chemicals in people’s brains can be pushed to do certain things, evoke certain responses. Dream has them memorised: he knows the cards he can play. He plays them well. As such, entering this negotiation with L’manberg, Dream is somewhat at ease with the knowledge that the cards are in his favour. This time around, in the cold of Christmas Eve, he has the upper hand. It is he that controls what goes on in the server; he who doles out each card to who he pleases. In this round, he is the dealer.
Even so, there’s something that can’t be put down to something as predictable as cards. Take Tommy. At face value, Tommy’s one of those kids who no matter how old they get, will kick off. Written over every inch of his slender body is the rich desire for attention; it sings in him as loud as ghast-cries. But what he says appears most often to be as much of a surprise to Tommy as it is to everyone else.
“Wil, what if we-”
Wilbur frowns before more than a single word comes from his mouth; that is predictable.
“Tommy, no,” Wilbur huffs, chastising his brother from the other end of the table.
See, this negotiation may be in Eret’s castle (Dream’s mental airquotes make up for the several times he’s had to say as much with mustered sincerity) but it was him who decided seating. Eret, of course, is seated in his throne at one end of the table, the members of L’manberg on the other. All but Tommy, who’s seated next to him, who is between him and Eret. Watching over him, he’d called it.
Dream wants peace, yes, but fundamentally Tommy is opposed to peace. Sure, it might not be his intention, but Tommy’s nature is war, is childish violence. Tommy is like the ocean, like an excited tsunami eagerly greeting land, brutally thrashing the innocent land with which it meets, hugging it with all his force. Dream knows, no matter what happens, that Tommy will say something Wilbur doesn’t like, whether or not its genuine effect is negative.
It annoys Wilbur, he’s noticed, when it is Tommy’s idea that wins the war. Sure, Wilbur may say he’s proud, may embrace his lieutenant and praise him and watch over him like a brother, but they are not brothers. Wilbur, he’s noticed, is jealous of Tommy, in some way Dream can hardly understand and a way Tommy never could. It tastes pleasant in Dream’s chest that he can pick it up; he praises himself for the understanding, a self-congratulatory kick to survive the meeting. To understand your enemy, you must understand how they work; Tommy and Wilbur, at the most inopportune times, do not.
“What- Wil! It’s a good idea. Look, I’ll come over and tell you,” Tommy pleads, so desperate and so childish.
It’s hard to tell sometimes that Tommy’s an adult — nineteen, apparently — and Dream’s seen the evidence to prove it. It just shows that he’s not learning under Wilbur… Dream’s sure he could do much better for Tommy himself, even if it took dragging the kid into his base by the head and beating it into his head till he understands. He’d never do that, of course, though it’s one of those intense, sudden thoughts which frequently enter Dream’s head, those pleasant fantasies in a world where everything is his and everyone does as he says. But though he wants power, he is not a dictator.
“I say let him speak,” Dream says with a smile, invisible behind the white of his mask.
Wilbur stares at him in surprise (and doesn’t Wilbur look beautiful when he’s thoroughly confused, unable to comprehend just why he’s making the decisions he does. And then the seething resentment that follows; the wedge that only grows. Tommy’s going to have a rough evening when he gets home, Dream suspects.
Tommy, meanwhile, beams, intermittently shooting him a suspicious glance. Tommy is nothing if not a multitasker, kid has too many thoughts at once and all of them are written across his face as clear as day.
Ultimately, Tommy preens under his attention.
“Okay, of course we’ve been fighting recently, but I think — and I think we’d all agree — we need a place where we can all meet together: neutral soil, you know? I think we need to restart Church Prime — boost morale after the war, get people back together, you know?” Tommy suggests.
A warm glow falls onto Dream’s hair and he’s back there, in the land of yesteryear when he and Tommy were friends without anything so complex as war. There’d been conflict, no doubt, but without the presence of Wilbur and Tubbo and- and the others in Tommy’s orbit - things were so simple. Tommy looked up to him, like a little puppydog who’d do as he said in one moment, and in the next as a little kitty scratching his owner for the sake of it, eager to take a claw and slash one and in the next breath curl up in his lap, on the cool tiles of Church Prime, basking in the summer breeze.
And maybe he’s blinded by nostalgia, but Dream finds himself willing to agree: a bridge between them, in the neutral land of Church Prime, could go far in repairing what they’d lost. Things can never be as they were before, but Dream is hungry for a simulacrum of it. He swallows up yesterday in greedy gulps, wishing desperately to follow it up with the joys of tomorrow.
“What about the community house?” Wilbur interrupts, “We have a space where people can meet - this castle is abhorrently biased on the part of the SMP, and Church Prime is egregious in distracting the citizens of L’manberg from their duties.”
The others — Jack, Niki and, he supposes, Fundy — each nod and chorus their agreement. It doesn’t matter whether Tommy’s idea is better or worse: they’re loyal to Wilbur. Like how his closest allies, Sapnap and George, stay quiet by his side: of both parties, it is clear who makes the decisions. Tommy, with his brashness and argumentativeness, is unaware he’s presenting Wilbur with a challenge. It’s only natural Wilbur would rise to the bait.
Wilbur shoots a glance at Tommy, who hisses in phantom pain at his President's disapproval, then switches target to him. Despite knowing what he’s doing, Wilbur’s first target is Tommy. Isn’t it interesting how Wilbur’s emotions blind him, even as he tries to fight it? Wilbur is so emotionally-driven, even though he can keep his voice level and his face straight.
"Well, Wilbur, I think you’re being a bit of a dick,” Tommy says, somehow near-oblivious to the fact that this is a negotiation, that he needs to portray a united front. If Dream didn’t know just how much Tommy cared about Wilbur, he’d assume Tommy was doing it on purpose.
But he’s sharing his puppy-dog now, and it’s in Wilbur’s arms he now sleeps, in that caravan together. As he blinks, Dream sees what he and Tommy once got up to on the cool steps of Church Prime in the heat of the summer, and over himself sees Wilbur’s stitched-on head.
Wilbur hasn’t taken Tommy: Tommy’s just wandered off. There’s a difference.
“Your meal,” a servant (average height — small for an Enderian) announces, followed in his stead by a parade of platters.
Wilbur’s mouth hangs open mid-thought. The humiliation festers in his mind. Saved by the bell, Dream thinks — Wilbur would only have humiliated himself more if he spoke more.
One of the uses of installing Eret as King is that Eret is very much willing to make himself wealthy, and is just as willing to use the wealth in displays such as this evening. A whole host of servants have cooked for hours to provide them with a feast worthy of a King, and Dream pretends not to know Eret’s near-bankrupted themself for one night. That’s why while Eret is wealthy, Dream has no faith in his ability to cling to power: he’s a traitor, for one, and nobody trusts a traitor, and what he does have he wastes.
That it’s on Eret’s dime makes the spice-marinated chicken that much more flavourful. Dream’s mouth near-overflows with rich saliva as the decadence of the chicken meets his lips, slipped carefully under his mask as Tommy attempts to take peeks from the side. Tommy’s seen his face before, when drink and desire overpowered him and he pulled his mask off and both their trousers down and taught Tommy some useful lessons in biology.
Tommy tucks into his meal like a wild animal, hardly stopping to breath. He inhales everything his fork touches, and for a moment Tommy falters, looks around and decides that sticking to using his fork is probably better. His knife remains unused.
He wants to talk to Tommy while they eat, but Dream knows Tommy’s going to be unreachable till someone else starts a conversation and Tommy needs to be involved. Fortunately, Dream spies George and Wilbur both becoming agitated, sees Tommy dropping his fork and watches as half-chewed chicken and works spew from his mouth.
“Stop bein’ sush a dihk, johj,” Tommy manages, spraying half the contents of his mouth into his plate or on the table around him. Dream, thankfully, is out of the blast zone.
“Tommy,” he warns. The Dream SMP is a united front: at the negotiating table, he’ll go to bat for George.
“What!” Tommy argues, garbled, “Just ‘cos I’m honest doesn’t mean you can ‘Tommy’ me. I’m not a child,” Tommy hisses, as if being a child is the worst insult known to man. For Tommy, (immature, louder than an adult might be, too confident at all the wrong times, oblivious) it’s the insult that defines his life. It’s his main source of deridation; it’s what pisses people off with him the most. It’s what pushes people away.
“You’re sure acting like one,” Dream pushes calmly, grinning invisibly.
Tommy takes the bait: “Ohhh, you green bitch. You think ‘cos we’re here and we came to you means we fucking care about what you have to say, you prick. L’manberg is its own country, okay? Just ‘cos you’re pissy doesn’t change a thing: you can’t make us do shit, bitch!” Tommy grins, eager for a fight.
Ohhh, if that’s what Tommy wants, he’ll get one. Dream can do that much for him.
“Tommy.”
It’s Wilbur this time: Wilbur, reeling his little attack dog back in, his barking warrior who should, in Wilbur’s perfect world, be curled up at his feet, so far away from the big, evil, scary Dream who stopped him getting his country. Dream’s willing to play the villain, as well. He’s being very permissive here — he’s letting them decide the rules to this game, though he knows as sure as day that they’ll lose either way. Dream has his cards, Tommy has his sword and his temper; Wilbur has his sharp words. None of them are enough.
“You know, Wilbur, I don’t get it: you’re the President, right? Well- not the President, considering you’re unelected, but you call yourself that, don’t you?”
Wilbur nods, though Dream does not stop speaking.
“-Then why do you bring Tommy here? Surely, one leader is enough.I mean, to pick a child as your co-President…”
“He’s not my co-President!” Wilbur shouts, banging his fists onto the hard wood of Eret’s banquet table so that his words thunder through the hall.
“I’m not a fucking child,” Tommy yells, almost simultaneously.
And Dream can see it coming from a mile away, what happens next. But somehow he doesn’t stop it. He doesn’t move out of the way; he doesn’t stop the hand moving nearer. He doesn’t do anything but watch as Tommy’s fork slams through his mask, shattering the clay into dust, his right cheek on show as his mask dangles dangerously, damaged.
He grabs it, clings to it to keep it together — it falls apart in his hand — it becomes dust. Dream sees his one protection slip through his fingers, clatter into an ash-like pile on the floor and in the air and on the table.
Suddenly the whole room can see his face.
Dream’s face goes red with anger-fear-hate. A thousand thoughts rush through him, a thousand things he wants to do with Tommy. Drag him through the streets naked (Tommy wants to make him vulnerable? Wants to weaken him? Well he can do just the same!), shove him ass-first through a sword till he bleeds out (catapult his bloody body over the wall into L’manberg, let his blood rain down), scratch his eyes out (show him for looking at him), kill everyone he loves and make him watch?
So many possibilities; so many things he could do. Think. Think! Dream growls like a wild animal, lost in a flurry of possibilities like a man in a snowstorm, his face unprotected from the harsh of winter.
“Everyone out,” Dream orders, his voice bone-serious, his orders iron-clad.
The thirty or so occupants of the dining hall stare at each other expectantly for a moment and then his allies draw their weapons: Sapnap, George, Eret, Punz… each of them glaring, gesturing, pointing weapons as needed to send the message that L’manberg are getting the fuck out of his castle.
Tommy stirs, as if leaving himself; Dream grabs him by the shoulder, digging his sharp nails inside him.
“Not. You.” he barks, breathing hard, dangerous.
He claws into his hand a replacement mask, attaches it, and watches through the familiar gaps in his material as Tommy pulls a bow out, like that could do anything to harm him. This fight will be easy, even if Wilbur and Tubbo and all the other insignificants in L’manberg ran to his aid. Fortunately, they’re warded away by his team-mates; there is no battle forming on the other side of the room, only a chase out of his castle, away from his boy-prize.
Tommy looks at him like he’s a feral beast incapable of being reasoned with. Well, Dream admits, he is. And he likes it. He likes Tommy twitching, shaking, staring in fear. He likes it when Tommy’s scared when he wants him to be. This is control, isn’t it? Everyone out, on his orders — everyone out, to let him do what he wants with the one thing in the server that just. Doesn’t. Do. What. He. Says.
“Fuck you, Dream,” Tommy grunts, shoving his shoulder out of Dream’s grip.
He claws into his hand a replacement mask, attaches it, and watches through the familiar gaps in his material as Tommy pulls a bow out, like that could do anything to harm him. This fight will be easy, even if Wilbur and Tubbo and all the other insignificants in L’manberg ran to his aid.
Before Tommy can even begin whatever dramatic monologue he’d just thought up, Dream threw him to the ground, bashing Tommy beneath him, slapping the bow from his hands. Tommy flails under him, clawing and writhing like a zoo animal being subdued by their handler: he puts up a fight, but one which Dream knows he can win.
“You bastard, Dream,” Tommy growls, an animalistic seething echoing from his lungs, glugging almost, like he’s underwater.
“Who started this, Tommy? Who just couldn’t behave?” Dream hisses, right into Tommy’s ears, an elbow on his face, leaving one arm unpinned for just a moment.
Dream expects a hand to elbow him, or punch him or whatever; he prepares as such. But what he does not expect, is for Tommy to bite into his arm. Bones crack audibly, like window-shatter. Blood oozes from between Tommy’s teeth like he’s been punched in the teeth. The world spins like the world orbits around them.
He screams, throat-destroying and deep, his lungs fried as he bellows out at an escaping Tommy, “You child!”
With his better arm, Dream grabs Tommy by the leg, swinging his own leg up to kick Tommy down, a feat of gymnastics shocking enough to Tommy that it elicits a polite “whathefuck!”
“Exactly, Tommy. What the fuck? Am I gonna have to gag you, Tommy? Am I gonna have to put so much rope in your mouth you choke? What am I gonna have to do to get you to behave in negotiations. Look at what you’ve done — look at this whole situation you’ve caused, just ‘cause you couldn’t just bring a colouring book like a normal kid,” Dream spits, the liquid dripping into Tommy’s mouth below. Tommy doesn’t spit it out.
“Get. Fucked.” Tommy says seriously, almost dangerously. Dream understands why the next moment when a sword bounces off his armour, sending Tommy backwards from his thick layer of enchanted thorns.
As Tommy attempts to collect himself, Dream draws his own weapon: his axe, netherite, unlike Tommy’s diamond. There’s something so stupidly optimistic about Tommy’s performance — that’s his only thought as he drives Tommy to the ground, his sword snapping at Tommy’s oh-so-snappable neck. When Tommy’s on the floor, pinned once more, Dream drives it closer, drives it in just a little, just enough to draw blood, just enough that Tommy winces, just enough that Tommy’s scared.
Good — a scared Tommy is a good Tommy.
He moves so that he’s directly on top of him, so that what’s in their trousers just-so-happens to touch. Tommy winces — in pleasure or in horror, Dream doesn’t know.
“You know, Tommy,” Dream breaths, sweaty, confident, “I’m gonna kill you now, if you don’t do what I say. Did you know that?”
Tommy shakes, Tommy gasps. He flounders like a fish, caught on land by a man who could kill him in an instant if he wanted. He flinches like a man whose most intimate areas are in the possession of another man, an armed man, who could do what he liked if he wanted.
Tommy nods.
Good — Tommy’s being good.
“I’m gonna let you stand up,” Dream says, holding back his anger like a sea wall holds back a tsunami. Bits of it seep into his words, yet he continues, "-And when you stand up, you’re gonna strip off your clothes. Can you do that for me, Tommy?”
“You bastard, Dream,” Tommy roars, deepening his voice at first, losing pitch to the high-pitched battle-screech of someone who knows they’ve lost, “I won’t do shit for you — definitely not- not that. I’m not showing you shit. We’re not friends anymore, let alone what we were. We- no.”
It pleases him to know Tommy remembers what they had. Of course Tommy remembers when they weren’t rivals, just… close enemies. Friends, with a spark that brought them to the ground, sweaty and shoving and biting and gnawing and yet so tender in the next moment, he feeling over Tommys’s back, letting him curl up in his lap, touching him wherever he pleased.
Those days, they both know, are behind them. And yet, Dream’s been missing seeing what Tommy has to offer. Or, rather, what he doesn’t.
“Take. It. Off.” Dream demands, grabbing Tommy by the neck, throwing him up onto unsteady feet, ever-fearful of his careful blade. They both know Tommy’s on his last life. It would be a shame to end it all on Christmas.
Tommy goes pale. He stills, like a creepy victorian doll. What, does he not want to strip in front of him?
“Where did the little slut I knew go?” Dream teases, watching as Tommy’s face turns bright red, flustered.
“What- I’m not- you-” Tommy argues, but they both know what he is. They both know what he’s done.
But Tommy takes his shirt off, revealing his nipples, still somewhat discoloured from the game they’d played almost a year ago now. He blushes a deeper red as Dream wonders what the source is — his stick figure or the marks.
“Good boy,” Dream says, watching as Tommy elicits a begging whine, like the puppy-dog Dream played with in the summer. Even now, Tommy’s well-trained. Even now, Tommy’s body remembers what he’s unwilling to admit.
Tommy covers his mouth, biting down his lips desperately. Hes’s so scared, isn’t he? He doesn’t want to appear needy, desperate, willing. To Tommy, it’s imperative he doesn’t want it. Such a shame that he clearly does.
Because Dream’s not a rapist, or a sex pest. Though Tommy’s at swordpoint, fundamentally Tommy’s body wants this. Tommy wants to be touched, be adored, be cherished. In the same breath, he wants to be ravished, he wants to be bested, he wants to be destroyed. That’s all part of the game, isn’t it? Beyond all this L’manberg Versus Dream SMP nonsense, there’s something throbbing, something beating like a second heart. Dream is doing what’s best for him.
“And your pants,” Dream orders, watching a shaking Tommy beg with his eyes to keep them on. What, did he think he’d be satisfied with just a look at his torso? No, he wants to see the main attraction; he wants everyone to see the main attraction.
And yet, Tommy acquiesces, easier than a breath might knock down a house of cards. Tommy is defeated: his belt is cast on the floor, his pants cast to the ground. Even with his boxers on, Dream can see (barely) the outline of Tommy’s begging penis, erect yet invisible.
Tommy falters.
“Am I gonna have to give you a reminder,” Dream asks, grabbing at Tommy’s most sensitive areas with a brutal force, “Of what happens when you disobey me?”
“N-no,” Tommy stutters, a million thoughts going through his head. Dream can see it — the slight blur as pleasure steals reality from him; the horror of humiliation; the brimming tears of his failure. He’s been caught with his pants down by the enemy. He’s been conquered. It’s a good thing he only wants Tommy temporarily.
Barely holding back a sob, his whole body shaking from cold, confusion and more, overstimulated already, Tommy drops his boxers to the floor beneath his feet.
That is, of course, when George walks back in.
“Dream?” George squints, as if the whole situation is absurd. Maybe to George it is. He’d been with Fundy that summer, having an affair with George. George didn’t know about Tommy; the same was not true vice-versa.
“I’ve been busy recently,” Dream says, entirely without intonation.
“Recent- ough!” Tommy winces, the sharp of his sword scraping along Tommy’s poor shaft. A bit of skin lifts, bloody, and Tommy begins to shake even more. It’s funny, how someone as confident as Tommy can become putty by his blade. So malleable, so submissive. A mouth and a cock prepared to do whatever Dream wants them to.
“Is that…?” George asks, laughing, almost forgetting his grievances.
Dream nods, inspecting Tommy’s small cock with his careful fingers. It’s not big, certainly not for someone of his age. Tommy, to Dream, is like a small dog: it knows it’s smaller than the big dogs and it tries to make up for it by barking louder than all the rest. Yet his growls are whines and his noisemaking is tiresome to all but the few who understand him the most. Like him.
“It’s small,” Dream agrees, playing with Tommy like it’s a little toy.
Tommy gasps, “No- Dream, stop!”
Even contact is too much. All Dream can think is how Wilbur must be starving his poor lieutenant. He can imagine how Tommy would be begging for it, for attention Wilbur’s unwilling to provide.
“You’ve been waiting,” Dream says.
Tommy stills, confirming his suspicions.
Dream massages Tommy, careful to get closest to the areas Tommy’s fondest of, retreating just before his favourite area.
“No-” Tommy winces as Dream’s fingers retreat.
“-And you’ll be waiting longer,” he smiles gleefully, aroused himself by the sheer power he has over Wilbur’s little pet.
“No, no, no-” Tommy whimpers repeatedly, like it’s the only thing he can say anymore. Tears brim in his ducts; he begins to shiver desperately, as if it’s the only form of stimulation with which he can be provided in such dire circumstances.
“You know what I’m gonna do with you, Tommy?” Dream whispers, right into his ear, spittle lubricating his poor ‘drums.
Tommy squeaks out something akin to a response. An acknowledgement, at least. He’s begging, desperate, shaking like a wounded animal caught in a beartrap. His heart beats audibly, quickly, panicking.
“You’re gonna find out.”
Turning to George with a cheerful spin, he announces, “Hey, George, I think it’s time to call the rest of the party back.”
George nods, and Tommy clearly expects to see him begin to type; instead, he positions his communicator, the kid flinching as he realises he’s the subject of a photo.
Click
“No, no, no, no!” Tommy says, dropping to the ground to move effectively cover himself, squatting in a ball like he’s trying to make himself as small as possible.
More clicks come from George’s camera, a quivering young adult with his small penis left uncovered by shaking, quivering hands. Nothing is left to the imagination: immortalised is the subject of the photo, TommyInnit, in the nude. TommyInnit, looking the definition of pathetic.
“Please… anything,” Tommy begs, “An- anything but this. Don’t- Oh, fuck, don’t let them- it’s Christmas,” he pleads.
Such pleads fall on deaf ears.
“Tommy, you fucked me,” Dream snaps, then, almost singsong: “Youuu fucked me, in front of everyone.”
Finally, he allows himself to release the rage boiling inside him since that fucking kid broke his mask. He shakes like a wild dog barely controlling itself, and slits a line in Tommy’s chest. It’s reminiscent of a vivisection, yet Dream by no means intends to open him. A horizontal line, right where Dream’s gonna put the rope.
“F-fuck! Tommy stutters, yelling, confused for all the pain and pleasure weakening his mind, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, no! You bastard! You actual bastard, Dream.”
Tommy cradles his wound with his arm, mopping the blood which spills from the thin slit in his middle. He winces each time his arm presses into the oozing bloodfall, a ghastly red substance Dream loves so much falling freely from his confused, nude victim.
Dream stares at Tommy for a moment, that confused boy on the floor, lost in self-sympathy. But Dream feels none for him; instead, he’s with George, who laughs eagerly at Tommy’s suffering. And for good reasons.
“It’s funny, Tommy,” Dream says with a frown, “It’s you who pulled a weapon out; it’s you who started all this. And now you’re on the ground crying about it, acting all pathetic, like this wasn’t all your fault. I had to respond to this, you understand? I had to make it very clear that you do not do things like that to me. I don’t care what we had over the summer, or last year, or at any point. All I care about is making peace on this server, and you are stopping it. You are causing all this. So I don’t feel bad about doing this, and neither should you.”
Tommy stares up at him, considering, only half-understanding if that dazed look in his eyes says anything. Dream doesn’t know exactly what it is, but he’s seen it before, that look: it’s the look of someone experiencing something they don’t like.
Tommy’s pleasure be damned: he’ll get his cock out like the stupid thing he is. This is a fair and just punishment for something who acts like a brat, who insists on getting the best of both worlds. Tommy, though he’d never admit it, deserves it.
He hardly responds as a rope’s tied around his torso, right where Dream’s thin slid gorily seeps blood. A deep breath in, trying his hardest to not scream. A shaking, quivering desperation that Dream both loves and hates at the same time.
“You bastard,” Tommy whispers, as the hall fills up.
It’s a joyful event, by the looks of it: Christmas lights decorate the walls; tinsel and loom-warm designs accompany them. And at the centre of it all, above the table, Dream’s gonna put another ‘pretty’ thing on display.
“What on earth are you doing?” Wilbur asks loudly in that disgustingly fake facsimile of a politician’s voice.
“Get the fuck away from me!” Tommy yells as Dream approaches with yet another piece of rope — this one suspiciously smaller.
“Putting up the main attraction,” Dream answers casually, stuffing rope into Tommy’s maw till he’s gagging fearfully, his face going white like he’s about to choke. Dream’s filled enough people’s mouths with enough things to know their limits: Tommy isn’t going to die, nor even get hurt, so long as he doesn’t try to swallow.
“You can’t do that to him!” Tubbo yells, pushing past Sapnap, the man who murdered him only a few months ago. It’s almost impressive for a pawn like him.
“Tommy fucks up every single time he’s taken to one of these things. Wilbur, I don’t think Tommy’s gonna be running his mouth at another of these negotiations,” he notes cheerfully.
Wilbur takes a performative step forward, just enough that George raises his axe at him. Finally, Wilbur takes a backseat: he’s been won over with this great idea of his.
Niki, too, seems pleased. If he prides himself on being able to push down his emotions, Niki far outstrips him. He’s seen, watching from above, how her face lowers and her teeth grind as she turns away from Tommy after almost every encounter. Tommy, that feral freak who Niki can’t understand why Wilbur keeps around. Tommy, the bane of her existence. Tommy, rewarded for his perceived mediocrity while she must fight for Wilbur to so much as notice her.
It’s only Tubbo who considers helping, yet Dream can see him evaluate the situation in terms of manpower: there is no way he could win this one.
Around Tommy’s head, Dream ties a rope so that the gag remains in place. His waist-harness and gag secured, Dream says, “Tommy won’t look any bigger from up there,” and fondles his whole flaccid micropenis.
The crowd laughs or works to stifle their laughter: they’re all adults, they all generally know the average. And Tommy? He’s lacking. So there’s amusement in the audience as Dream pulls Tommy by the rope to the table, as he places a scaffold and climbs. It’s his regret he can’t put a rope around Tommy’s neck instead, but he wants to humiliate not hang Tommy: dangling him by the neck from the ceiling would be a very short-lived source of entertainment and this game he’s playing is one he intends to keep playing for a while.
“MHMMM!” Tommy pushes weakly away from the rope, fully aware he’s surrounded even if he did get away from Dream’s grasp. Even so, he has to fight, just to say he fought. But he’s exhausted, confused, utterly humiliated. Everything has gone so thoroughly out of his control, and into Dream’s. Tommy is, as always, his open book.
“Just let it happen,” Dream suggests, “Who knows, maybe they’ll forget all about you if you’re quiet?”
Tommy sticks his middle fingers in the air as they reach the top of the scaffolding, turning to present his opinion to the rest of the server after Dream gets the general gist.
“Probably not,” Dream concedes casually, “you know, considering you’re so loud most of the time.”
Dream’s head presses on the ceiling as he ties Tommy to the light fixture, like Tommy’s a moth flying around his desired flame. Yet, with Tommy still safely on the scaffold, the effect isn’t complete. So Dream skilfully ties Tommy’s hands to his back with his third and final piece of rope and, in one swift movement, kicks Tommy off.
The effect is immediate: one moment he’s stood up, with the last of his decency, at equal height to Dream. The next, he’s suspended in mid-air at the waist, his small penis sticking out as he spins around above, his wound emitting a horrible bloody squelch like a knife into jam.
It’s clear as day that Tommy’s in pain: blood sprays out from where the pressure is on Tommy’s bloody slit, where he’s been cut open like a fish for market. His face is coated with sweat; his mouth is active with suffering. Tommy’s eyes are wet with tears. Tommy is the image of suffering itself; he is the epitome of torture.
As Dream looks up, he nods, self-satisfied. He casually water-buckets down, then breaks the scaffolding from beneath, leaving Tommy stranded in his torture, unable to scream, unable to beg, unable to so much as signal for help. It’s only his tortured expression which reveals his unrelenting agony to those below him.
“If we do this every time Tommy thinks of acting up, I think our pest infestation might be solved,” he suggests gleefully, seemingly oblivious or, worse, uncaring of Tommy’s torture above.
“What?!” Tubbo gasps, utterly lost as to why anyone would go along with this, “Guys, Tommy’s our friend, our ally. He’s- we care about him, why are we letting Dream do this?”
“Tubbo,” Wilbur says, his voice deep, “Tubbo in a box!” he pauses for a suspenseful moment, “Get back down in your seat and don’t ask questions. I am the President, not you, got it?” he snaps.
Tubbo stares at his president like he’s utterly unrecognisable, tracing each harsh feature on Wilbur’s face like he’s looking at it for the first time: his snapping jawline; his harsh eyes… how hadn’t he seen it before?
If there’s anything left of Tubbo’s innocence, it’s lost then. Nineteen, almost twenty, and he’d never before seen such depravity as he was witnessing in that horrible moment. Thirty people, about, and none of them felt anything at all for his best friend? For the man who’d won them their country? For the person to whom they owed their home? Tubbo is loyal to a fault, he knows as much himself. And, sure, it’s left him feeling stupid before when people aren’t loyal to him. But there’s one person who’s never betrayed him, and in that moment he’s been betrayed by everyone else in the entire server.
“I don’t feel hungry,” Tubbo admits, breath shaking, and with one final horrible glance, looks up to where the rope is slicing into Tommy like a gory birthday cake, the rope cutting in as bloody chunks fall onto the table.
Tubbo is loyal, and yet on this server, he is a coward. On this server, there is nothing he can do for his friend, surrounded by experts at combat, experts at war. Compared to them, he is nothing, and so he becomes nothing, leaving forever just like he wishes, for Tommy’s own sake, his friend does.
It’s a shame, then, that Tommy does not die. A few hours and healing pots, Tommy's left without a scratch and with a lot quieter mouth than before. A victory for everyone, right?