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After no one comes to Tommy’s party, confirming that the world fucking hates him, it starts to rain. It’s a crazy storm, lightning flashing and thunder shaking him down to his bones. He’d probably be huddled miserably in his stupid tent if he didn’t have Dream with him.
But he does.
So he’s riding the wind on a borrowed trident, feeling like a million bucks every time he forgets to hate his life. Even with his armor, it doesn’t take him long to be soaked to the skin, so he’s shivering in the winter chill even as he has the best time he’s had since Tubbo betrayed him– oh wait, he hates his life again. He throws the trident again and whoops as he flies into rain.
It’s almost like he’s leaving the feelings behind every time he throws the trident, like they’re lagged. He’s genuinely happy for a second, then he hits the ground, and no matter how sick his MLG was, the sadness just zooms back into him.
Eventually the storm ends and he and Dream play a good-natured little game of keep away with one of the borrowed tridents. It ends well, too, with Tommy walking away one trident richer. (And it’s Dream’s! Try to burn that, bitch!)
But then all the lagged bad feelings catch up and he just has to ask Dream what to do, which really just shows how far he’s fallen. Dream tells him to get used to it, which is exactly what Tommy should’ve expected him to say, but it still hurts somehow. Like, how can the one person on the server who actually cares enough to come to his party still want him gone? It makes no sense, much like a country exiling a guy who gave up his most precious possessions for them, in favor of a guy who was a certified wrong’un.
…The wrong’un who was currently Tommy’s only friend, since no one else gave a single shit-
Tommy shoos Dream away and prepares to dive into the ocean. He can’t be sad when he’s underwater, he’s finding.
But something funny happens when Dream starts to leave. He jolts and freezes in place, like a dog that didn’t realise it was at the limit of its electric fence. Normally it would be super funny, since he did ruin Tommy’s entire life, but it seems Tommy is connected to the same invisible wire, cause he feels the shock as well. It’s proper painful, too.
“Ow,” he yelps, when Dream takes another step, to the exact same result.
Dream– well, he jumps slightly, like he’d forgotten Tommy’s existence (rude!!!) and looks at Tommy over his shoulder. “Oh, you– what? This must be some kind of glitch– um.”
There’s a brief pause, and then the complete bastard keeps walking away. Which hurts.
“Hey! Ouch– that– shit– that fucking hurts, prick,” Tommy shouts after him, scrambling to his feet as quick as he can, which is not too quick when you’re barefoot on sand, and trying to follow.
Dream isn’t making a peep, but Tommy can see that he’s hurting too, just from how stiff he’s moving. All of this is starting to ring a very alarming bell for Tommy, but he ignores it in favor of not feeling like he’s got those little taser spikes sticking in him and trying to get closer to Dream.
“But it shouldn’t be hurting,” Dream is mumbling to himself, ignoring Tommy, “this has to be a glitch.”
“Oi,” Tommy shouts, not one to be ignored. “Dream, even if this is a glitch, it hurts a fucking lot! Stop– stop with your running, it’s not a manhunt.”
Dream flicks another look at him over his shoulder, but doesn’t even break his stride toward the shore closest to the rest of the SMP. “No, it won’t work if you keep following me, Tommy, I need you to stay where you are while I try something.
Tommy is increasingly sure he knows what’s going on, which is crazy, and frankly sick, but he’s somehow even more concerned about whatever Dream has in mind at the moment.
“What exactly are you going to try?” Tommy demands, following Dream at a slightly greater and more painful distance, but by no means staying in place because Tommy Innit takes orders from no man, especially not Dream. “Is it going to be something crazy, because–” he cuts himself off with an incredulous laugh when Dream pulls out his trident from earlier.
“Dream, surely you wouldn’t–”
But Dream is already talking, sounding faintly frantic, “I think, if I get out of range, this has to be some kind of– Maybe it’s because of the storm…?”
It’s not as if it’s new information, but Tommy is suddenly reminded that he is dealing with a madman. He creeps closer to Dream, who is deep contemplation of his trident, trying to look nonthreatening. Maybe if he gets close enough, he can snatch it away before Dream does anything with it.
“Dream, that’s crazy,” he says, in his most conciliatory tones. “Be logical, man, there’s only so many things that could be happening here– Wouldn’t it be easier to just go into admin and fix it?”
Unfortunately, same as always, Dream does not give a single shit about what Tommy Innit wants and doesn’t want.
“That won’t work,” he mumbles, then he adjusts his grip on the trident, and steps forward so a wave washes over his boots. “Just– hold still, let me try…”
Tommy lunges for Dream, for his weapon, but it’s too late. The distance between them goes from arms-reach to the height of a building in a couple seconds as the magic of the trident does its work. Just like with Tommy’s shitty depressed feelings, there’s a delay.
Then he’s hit with it like a truck. If Dream walking away from him felt like wearing a shock collar, this feels like grabbing an exposed power line. Tommy goes stiff all over and falls into the sand, and he can hear himself scream at a pitch he’s faintly surprised he can still reach. But somehow, he can still see Dream, even though it now feels like he’s watching a scene in a film.
In midair, Dream goes limp, the trident dropping from his hand as he starts to fall back towards earth. With the armor on, and the way he’s ragdolling, he almost looks like a broken doll, dropped from a great height.
Before the doll can hit the surface of the water, blackness swallows Tommy’s vision and he goes mercifully unconscious.
Scratch that, there’s no mercy, cause Tommy opens his eyes just a few heartbeats later, feeling like roadkill and just knowing, knowing like he knows up from down, that Dream is starting to drown. This is definitely a fucking soulbond, then.
He starts to crawl through the sand like a shitty turtle, toward the water, toward Dream, cause that’ll make the pain stop. And thank Christ, cause the dolphins are swarming around Dream, basically dragging him to shore. One of Tommy’s hands stretches out towards Dream, very much against his will.
The agony swells and then fades to nearly nothing when Dream is finally in arm’s reach again. There’s barely time to unbuckle the chestplate and push on his chest before he flops over and vomits into the sand, seawater and cake.
“You fucking moron,” Tommy hears himself say. The relief is so potent he feels a bit drugged, and that’s probably why he’s rubbing Dream’s back. “You stupid prick.”
After he’s gone from vomiting to mostly coughing, Dream has the audacity to smack Tommy’s hand away. It stings in a way that could be soulbond related and not just his stupid feelings, and he slaps the back of Dream’s head, left unprotected after he tore off his helmet. Dream abruptly sits up and summons his axe from his inventory.
Tommy scrambles back, kicking up sand and raising his hands defensively. Distract him, distract him–
“I’m right, though, aren’t I?” He struggles to work moisture into his dry mouth as he watches Dream stare at the axe like he’s never seen it before. He puts it away and adjusts his mask back down before Tommy can work out what that twist in his expression means. ”We’re fucking soulbonded now, and you thought your stupid shitty trident would help. Because you are a dumb bitch with a brain that don't work.”
When Dream speaks, his throat is gravelly, like he’s been shouting. “It’s not possible, it doesn’t make sense. We don’t even like each other.”
He sucks in a breath without meaning to. They’ve barely been soulbound for five minutes, and Dream is already sick of him. His friend Dream doesn’t even like him.
“Well–” he starts, and stops, hearing how hurt he sounds. He tries again. “Well, I don’t like you either, Dream, on account you are green and you are a massive bitch, but you spent all day saying, oh Tommy, I’m your friend and Tommy, everyone else hates you, mneh mneh mneh.”
It works and Dream laughs a little bit, though it sounds like it hurts. Tommy realizes he’s been hearing that laugh a lot, today. “That– Tommy. I didn’t say that.”
“Yes, you fucking did! I would know, I was there,” Tommy retorts, crawling a little closer since the vibe is a lot less scary now. Dream relaxes, as well, and there’s a relief in Tommy’s gut that he’s pretty sure is the soulbond. The echo is strange, but– a little relieving. Early Dream freakout warning system is definitely a win.
“But why would we soulbond of all things, like what?” Dream says, sounding genuinely incredulous. “Tommy, are you seriously that lonely?”
Tommy reels back at the accusation, though it should be obvious that he is that lonely. Didn’t Dream just see that no one cares about him anymore? Hasn’t today been proof? Not even Tubbo came…
He summons enough anger to get to his feet and glare down at Dream. The mask tilts up to regard him. “What, no, it’s you,” Tommy says, pointing in his face. “You visit me every day, and try to act like we’re the best of friends, it’s definitely you. Hotter Girl is my only soulbond in Logstedshire, on account she’s not a wrong’un.”
Dream scoffs slightly as he gets up too, brushing sand off his armor. “Okay, it’s– clearly you, though.” He takes out a piece of steak and passes it to Tommy, who limply accepts it. He’s not in the mood for pity food.
He wonders if it is his fault they’re soulbound, now. Dream takes the time to visit him every day, and Tommy goes and ties their souls together on him. Maybe Dream’s right to call him annoying, that’s definitely got to be annoying. And doing it after Dream exiled him and everything…
Wait, no, that’s definitely not right.
“Why are you victim blaming me, Dream?” Tommy demands, all his shame flash-forged into defiance. “Are you looking to get cancelled?”
Dream, leading them in the vague direction of Logstedshire, chokes on his bite of steak. “Tommy, what?” he manages, after a bit of coughing.
Tommy grins, perking up at Dream’s disorientation. “You’re like, oh, Tommy, what were you wearing when I soulbonded with you–" (“Tommy, what the hell–”) “–it’s all your fault. You’re the one who exiled me, Dream, if anything you should be filming an apology video right now. Take acountability, bitch!”
“That’s not true,” Dream says quickly, then changes the topic, like a coward. “Tommy, eat your steak. I can feel you’re hungry.”
In all likelihood, that’s true. If you concentrate on someone you’re soulbonded with, you can get some details on how they’re doing, what they’re feeling. Tubbo used to use their soulbond to get a feel for when Tommy was lying, which was annoying but also pretty cool. Dream’s being weird about it, of course, and he mutters as much before taking a reluctant bite of steak. He ignores the flare of appreciative calm as he realizes how hungry he was.
When they get to Tommy’s tent, Dream goes to sit on the bed, which makes Tommy feel inexplicably panicked. That’s his personal blanket, and it’s not– clean, and besides that it’s his. Ears burning, Tommy swats at him a few times, not that it matters when the person he’s hitting barehanded is wearing armor, until Dream chuckles indulgently and sits on Tommy’s chest instead.
After that, there’s really only one thing for them to talk about.
“So, I’m not exiled anymore, right?” Tommy says, the question thick with anticipation. He’s thought it over and there’s no way he can stay in exile. He and Dream are going to be attached at the hip anywhere from a few weeks to months, and probably longer because of Dream’s dumbass stunt with the trident. Everyone knows stretching the bond too much makes it tighter. Dream can’t leave exile without taking Tommy with him. Ergo… exile is cancelled, bitch!
Tommy’s excited smile drops off his face when Dream doesn’t immediately answer his question. Instead, he rubs at his chin with one hand and hums. The air in the little tent starts to feel stuffy, confining.
“Right?!”
“Why wouldn’t you be?” Dream asks, like it’s not fucking obvious.
Tommy laughs a little, because he doesn’t want Dream to notice he’s kind of freaking out. “Well– don’t be stupid, Dream, we’ll be as good as fucking handcuffed together for a least a month… Haven’t you done this with Gogy as well?” He twists his mouth as an unpleasant idea occurs to him. “Unless– Dream, I better not be your first soulbound because that would be creepy– fucking sickening, honestly. I don’t want your soulbond cherry.”
Dream laughs in a shocked burst of sound and waves his hands in denial even while he tries to catch his breath. “What! No, no, no, no, Tommy, that’s disgusting. Yes, George and I soulbonded. You’re so weird.”
Okay. Okay, that’s a big relief. There are certain ideas about the first soulbond a person forms. It’s meant to be important, like a template for all the other relationships you’ll have later on. There’s something chilling about the idea of Dream just waiting his whole life for this, not just for Tommy but for exile, and only then having his soul wake up enough to reach out and grab at someone. It’s strange enough that it happened at all. He’d always found Dream cool, sure, and maybe he was hot in a slasher kind of way–
Tommy puts a lid on all of those thoughts and bravely forges on. “So, if we’re newbound and I can’t get further than ten steps from your ugly fucking mug without my soul tearing out of me–”
“Tommy.”
“–Then you can’t just leave me here. Even a complete psycho like you couldn’t manage that. No offense.”
“No offense…?” Dream echoes incredulously.
Tommy clears his throat and spreads his arms in Dream’s direction, speaking as persuasively as he knows how to. “What do you say, Dream? How’s about we leave this whole exile business behind us? Call it even, since our souls are all tied together and shit.”
“Hmmm… very tempting.” Dream crosses his legs and leans forward to rest his chin in one palm. As always, he’s got the mask on, but something in Tommy’s stomach clenches as he can feel himself being studied, like he’s a bug hopelessly trapped between a plastic cup and a piece of paper.
He barely has time to get his hopes up before Dream is shrugging, shaking his head a little.
“I don’t know if I can do that, Tommy,” he says, as if he hadn’t made up his mind before Tommy said a fucking word. “You were banned from the Dream SMP, forever,” he says, his tone that of a teacher patiently explaining last week’s lesson to his dumbest student. “And it wasn’t even just my choice, it was Tubbo that decided to exile you.”
All Tubbo’s offenses of the last few days are forgotten as Tommy bares his teeth at Dream in a snarl. “He did it because you forced him! He never would’ve done it if it weren’t for you!”
Dream shakes his head sadly. The class dunce has answered another question incorrectly. “But he still chose it. Honestly, Tommy, I think I’ll just stay here with you while the soulbond adjusts. We can– we can hang out! It’ll just be a few weeks.”
Horror washes over Tommy, more potent for the glimpse of freedom slipping out of his hands.
“You can’t be serious,” he says numbly. All hours of the day, having to think of what Dream would want him to do, having to give over his things, having to tolerate the leashed violence that follows Dream like a beloved pet.
“I am serious,” Dream insists. Tommy can hear the smile in his voice, the sincerity. “I keep telling you to get used to living here– I can be a good example! We can live off the land together.”
Tommy feels a dizzy mix of anger and delight fill his chest. He clutches at his blanket, the rough wool of it, the little holes he’s poked in it during sleepless nights. “Surely you’ll have to– You’ll let me keep my armor and such. We– we’ve soulbonded.”
“Sure!” Dream agrees easily, leaning back on the chest he’s sitting on. “Sure, if you’re good.”
Outrage rises quickly, which at least stops his hands shaking. “I shouldn’t have to be good, you’re my fucking soulbond, you’re supposed to like me as I am!” It feels good to shout, makes him feel less like he’s watching this from the outside.
Dream sighs fondly, like Tommy is being stupid in a cute way. “And I do like you. When you’re good.”
Creep, Tommy thinks furiously when he can’t think of a good retort. Freak! Pervert!
“Besides,” Dream adds casually, “it’s not like Tubbo liked you unconditionally.”
Like a sudden gust of wind on a snowy day, the comment takes Tommy from chilly down to freezing. “You shut the fuck up,” he says, and instead of livid his voice is oddly thin. “Tubbo– You forced him to dislike me. It wasn’t my fault.”
“But why would I do that?” Dream asks. “After all, apparently even my soul thinks we’re friends, Tommy.”
“That’s– that’s…” Tommy trails off. He doesn’t know. What else could it mean? Despite their argument earlier, soulbonds are always two-sided. He’s never heard of a one-sided bond. Tommy’s soul had reached out, and so had Dream’s. That’s how it works.
Dream seems to sense he’s got Tommy on the ropes. In a moment, he’s gotten up from his seat on the chest and perched lightly on the bed next to Tommy, just a few centimeters between them. His earlier embarrassment forgotten, Tommy stares blankly at Dream when Dream shuffles closer, a hot line against Tommy’s side. His hand comes up to tousle Tommy’s hair, settling warm and heavy on his shoulder to tug him close. “Why would I do all this, come out here and visit you every day, come to your party, soulbond with you, and then lie? Especially since I’m going to move out here, just for you.”
In a moment, a thousand objections sprout and wither away in Tommy’s mind. Dream’s hand on his shoulder is warm, and this close, Tommy can actually smell him a bit. He’d love to say he stinks, but instead he smells mostly like armor polish and leather, with just a hint of the steak that he shared with Tommy earlier. It’s pleasant in a way Tommy hasn’t felt in a while: if he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine it’s intimate. He can’t quite stop himself from leaning into it. Something in the bond relaxes fully like this, relieved and painless.
“I… I guess,” Tommy says uncertainly. And then, hating himself, “Thank you, Dream.”
“You’re welcome,” says Dream brightly, like it really is just that easy. He squeezes Tommy close for another brilliant, painless moment before he gets to his feet, turning to pull Tommy up as well. “Now, let’s see if we can figure out the current limits of our bond range.”
Dream leaves the tent without a glance back, and Tommy follows a step after, close enough to feel the relief.
–
It’s just over a week later when Dream snaps. Oh, he’d tried to keep things under control. He’d helped Tommy with builds and mining as patiently as he could manage. He’d enforced the behavioral standards he'd decided for Tommy, though he had to go easier to avoid taking too much backlash through the bond. He’d soothed the tattered edges of Tommy Innit, even while he pulled at loose threads.
But in the end, he wasn’t built for it. Really, neither of them were, being a pair of impatient, aggressive, hormonal young men.
Tommy screams, high-pitched and girlish, when Dream suddenly barges into his tent (by necessity, they’d had to establish an ‘ask before entering the tent’ rule). Dream ignores Tommy’s pointless covering-up of his completely dressed self, and the loud swearing and insults being thrown at him. The flare of genuine fear in the bond between them is harder to ignore, but he forges past it.
He pauses before speaking, considers if there’s some smoother way to open the topic, but then discards the thought. Dream’s not going to waste time mincing words.
“Tommy. Have you– have you ever considered having sex with me? Or thought about me like that?”
Tommy goes dead quiet. “Never,” he says, after forcing his face straight.
“Is that true?”
A little blood comes up into Tommy’s face, and he looks away miserably, caught. “You’ve already got such a fat fucking head, man. You sound insecure as shit. What do you even get out of asking me this?”
Dream would normally point and laugh at this humiliating admission, but this situation has utterly robbed him of his ability to mock the less fortunate.
“You don’t have to answer, actually. But that only applies if you don’t make me say– say, uh… my thing.”
Tommy does a double-take. A triple-take. It’s incredibly annoying. It doesn’t change his stupid feelings one bit.
“Dream, excuse me, what? What the fuck?! You fucking– You complete–”
Dream is so over this. He says what he has to say in one breath.
“Yes I had a wet dream about you the night before your party that no one came to but I didn’t think it was a big deal because to be fair it’s not like I even chose to do that but now that I’m stuck here I really just don’t think we’re friendship bondmates, like, at all.” A breath. “And I think we should probably try having sex cause I’ve had to listen to you jerk off through your tent like every morning and night plus afternoon sometimes and it’s driving me crazy and I heard you say my name but maybe it’s like a hate thing–” he catches himself getting off track and cuts his rant short.
He watches Tommy watch him. There’s an unprecedented entire ten seconds of Tommy not talking before he seemingly gathers his wits enough to answer. He opens and closes his mouth, then raises one side of his blanket in a weak invitation.
“So do we have sex now, or…?”
Dream takes one step forward by reflex, pulled along by the warm lust and tingling excitement the bond is offering him, and then stops. Oh, right, the other thing.
“Oh, nearly forgot. I’m ending exile, effective…. Uhhh…. Ten minutes ago. So don’t cry about how you couldn’t leave, okay? You can leave now.”
Tommy drops his blanket, and the feedback wave of shock makes Dream startle a little. “That’s– You’re going to– Fuck you, you’re not serious.”
Dream sighs, summoning patience, mentally lowering his chances of potentially getting his dick wet by twenty percent. “Yeah, I’m serious, okay? It’s– It’s weird to have a soulbond in a position of power like this, anyway. Especially, like… a romantic one.”
“IT’S WEIRD TO DO IT EITHER WAY,” Tommy screams, and Dream shrugs in reluctant agreement.
Tommy had always been something of a fringe case, for him. Or at least, that’s what he’d always believed to be the case. Apparently, at some point, what he thought about Tommy and what he felt about Tommy had gotten dangerously disconnected.
“Yeah, well. Sorry. You– you can leave now if you want, I’ll walk with you or whatever. We can see Tubbo,” he offers, though it’s a little painful to say after all this time. What a waste of effort, without literally anything to be salvaged from it. He wonders if Tommy can sense his frustration, his disappointment.
Tommy blinks once, twice. “Oh. Well, obviously I want to see Tubbo. But. Well. …We’re still having sex first, though, right?”
Dream, about to leave the tent, swivels on his heel. “Oh. I figured you– Didn’t wanna anymore.”
Tommy sits back in the bed and poses in a parody of sensuality. His lust washes over Dream, fiery and almost like a drug, especially compared to the tepid warmth from earlier. “No. I super want to. More than before. And now I will not do a murder-suicide in the middle.”
Dream takes off his mask to reveal a second smile underneath. “Okay, that is a kinda hot image though. Maybe we can work that in.”
“Oh, you are a freak. C’mere.”