Chapter Text
His vision felt funny. The bright white of joining a new world giving way to the familiar pixels that decorated the world around him. The air was comfortable against his skin, gentle. Warm but not hot, cool but not cold. It was neutral in a way that made sense, but it almost felt too sterile. Too new. He turned away from the tree he was punching, Since when was he doing that...? To find a man behind him. Skin pale with a greenish hue that suggested his Minecraft skin was plain skin, nearing neon. His face was hidden by a white mask with a simple smiley face that suggested that those two dot eyes had seen so much more than they should have. He walked over, tucking away the crafting table he had just make.
"Hey, Man, what's up?" He asked, tone light, passive, as you naturally were when speaking to strangers. He had to ignore the ache in his chest at the thought of strangers.
"Hey...?" He prompted, unsure if the man had heard him at all.
The stranger seemed to pick up on his presence after a beat or two of silence, and he turned to face Tommy before surveying his spawn area. "Uhhh... Who're you...?"
Tom felt like he should make a remark, the corner of his mouth twitching before the realisation came to him that he didn't know why he wanted to make a remark, so he didn't. Tommy went to reply but his words failed him. "Uhm."
He looked around, eyes catching the sight of another player not far from them on the ridge of a hill The players skin was pale, With Puffy blonde hair sticking up in what looked to be brushed out curls, reminiscent of Tommy's own loose golden ringlets. The player wore a pickle green shirt with dark blue jeans.
Tommy was suddenly very aware of the feeling he was being watched.
"You... You wanna build a base or something...?" The word 'something' coming out as a 'Sum'in', making him sound akin to a child. He opened his inventory. Empty. Just like it always was when joining a new game. Just like it should've been, but then, why did the sight feel so wrong...?
A beat went by, then another. Then:
"You wanna be friends?" The stranger asked in response. The gold of his crown glinting in the sun.
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"Uhm, yeah, sure. I got us a crafting bench." He'd said. The man gave a nod of recognition. His new friend punched down his own tree, the leaves already ticking away to apples, sticks and saplings as Tommy watched the age old ritual of crafting your first tools began. His heart stuttered at the sight of an axe in this man's hands, it unsettled him deep down into his soul in a way he wasn't able to name.
"My name's Clay by the way. My friends call me Dream, though." The man (Dream) supplied.
Tommy didn't like the shiver down his spine at the name. "Why Dream?" He asked, open curiosity in his tone.
Clay looked up at him, the daytime sun glinting off of the white of his mask, offering the illusion of a halo. The smile seemed to scratch an itch deep within Tommy's psyche. " My friends thought it seemed appropriate, me being a daydreamer and all" His voice was light, airy with a small chuckle.
The sound seemed friendly enough. It was friendly. So why didn't it feel it...?
Tommy found himself smiling regardless, ignoring the churn in his stomach, the logic was sound. God, was he always this calculating...?
"Okay then, Daydream." He said teasingly, smirking subtly as he dug through dirt and into the ground to get stone.
The masked man turned to peer down the hole where Tommy was digging. "Say, what did you say your name was?" Right... He hadn't told him.
"I'm Tom." He said, looking up from the hole to flash a toothy grin at the stranger. He climbed out the pit with dirt and was met with Dream extending his hand for a shake. "Nice to meet you, Tommy." A nickname... but it felt odd... Why...?
Tommy went to the crafting bench but before he could, the sight of the other blonde boy on the hill made him freeze, he hadn't moved yet. Just stood watching. Tommy felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and he swallowed harshly, his throat suddenly very dry, causing the motion to feel scratchy.
Dream laughed lightly, as the younger tossed him some cobble to made some decent tools with. Tommy felt a warmth temporarily unfreeze the chill in his body as Dream happily accepted the gifts and crafted tools that soon filled his hotbar.
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For the next few hours, the sun scrolled the sky, Tommy and Clay worked into building a base. A simple oak wood and cobblestone house with two beds, a crafting table, a furnace and a chest each. It was everything a starter base should've been in Minecraft; Homey, comfortable and essential.
While mining with his newly acquired Iron pickaxe (a gift from Dream when he found their first vein of the ore) Tommy had notice the blonde boy was gone. Mabey he logged off...?
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When Toby felt the world begin to right itself, he knew he could open his eyes. It was always disorientating joining a new server. Every player had the same experience, the intense vertigo, the bright white light and the deafening ring in their ears. wait... ringing...?
Ringing didn't feel normal it felt odd. it felt loud. Minecraft was quiet when you first joined, your body didn't load the sounds from around you , your mind didn't fully have time to register the subtle ambient music that the wind played in the air, your ears weren't fully ready to receive the audio from the cows or the sheep or the crunch when you landed on the ground for the first time. it certainly wasn't supposed to load a ringing. It was supposed to be quiet.
Why wasn't it quiet...?
He looked around. The sky was blue, as it always was, the grass was green, the dirt was brown and the clouds were white. All was as it was supposed to be. A brand-new world. A clean slate, a fresh restart, but a restart from what...? What was he leaving behind...? How did he know that's what he was feeling...? When Toby looked across the empty expanse of the plains biome, he felt hollow, like something was missing, like something should be there but wasn't. It was Akin to the feeling of leaving behind something precious. Or when you suddenly remember something important to you but cant find where you left it. It made him think of nostalgia, of longing. It was like having something on the tip of your tongue but never able to place the name as to what. A chill settled into his stomach at the thought and he gave the area a second glance, his eyes landing on two people who spawned at the base of the hill he was stood at the top of.
There was a boy with cheese hair, and a plainly dressed man with a greenish hue to him, his eyes interpreting what he could assume was a plain green green skin into a person wearing a green tracksuit with a lime coloured glow. His stomach lurched at the sight and all he could do was was stare. His fingers felt numb and his wouldn't move, but why...?
There was no true source for his unbridled terror, all he knew was that he was feeling it.
Toby forced himself to take a shuddered breath, forcing himself to calm down when the duo caught him staring and as soon as they turned their backs to him, he bolted. Running far into the hills and into the large gathering of dense oak trees forming a forest to his right. Running felt like a good reaction, something that deep down into the core of his very being, knew was the right thing to do. His feet carried him swiftly across the grass, past clusters of unassuming flowers, though herds of sheep and clueless chickens. His legs carried him in a way he didn't remember being able to do before. Why couldn't he remember anything...? Why did he ache...? Why did his body feel on fire even as the cool air rubbed against sore, yet uninjured skin...? Why was his skin sore to begin with...?
Toby felt his chest grow tight, his throat felt raw and ragged. The world around him was starting to blur and he felt his cheeks grow hot, what was wrong with him...? Why was he acting this way...?
Suddenly, it was cold, and air refused to enter his lungs, refusing to come at all. He swam up to the surface and gulped greedy amounts of air, water dripping from his hair and masking the tears that branded his skin. Toby didn't remember getting into a lake, but his foot ached from where he had caught the roots of an oak tree beside the edge of a stream. His ankle throbbed where he had misjudged a step and landed into the undergrowth. Toby didn't remember shivering himself dry as tears slid down his cheeks, muddling with the water dripping down his face, and he didn't know how he came to be sitting on a particularly large root at the base of the tree, but he did know that a man was sitting beside him. A ghostly, spectral, flickering form of a tall man with curly brown hair, cuddled into a dull yellow sweater, holding a vibrant blue sphere in his hand. The spirit offered some out to him and gave a soft look solely with his eyes.
"Hello. Here, have some blue."
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In the heart of the plains biome, Tommy and Clay had just finished setting down the last of the glass pane. Clay had found a water spring nor far from where they had spawned and together they had gathered the sand at the bottom of the lake, smelting it to create the glass used in their windows, and suffice to say, it didn't look half bad. Tommy had also taken some clay (Heh-) and used it to make some flowerpots which they placed on top of some trapdoors under the windows like a windowsill. They had found some poppies to place inside, and the red added a nice touch of colour to the otherwise brow-on-brown house.
Besides the house, they had opened up a mine, using Tommy's original hole from their first meeting. It was a long descending staircase that lead into a cavern they had found which digging for coal for some torches. Clay was down there currently , the faint thrum of his gamertag being present in the back of his mind, DreamWasTaken...
Despite his best attempts to block it out, he was always able to sense it, sort of like how you're able to see your nose despite your brain blocking it out. They had arranged a wall of chests that were currently being filled with building supplies. Clay had brought up the idea that they could build stables and get some horses, to which Tommy agreed, he'd always been a fan of the gentle creatures.
They were also adding any spare cobblestone into a double chest, courtesy of tommy who jokingly suggested they fill a chest entirely with stacks cobblestone for the memes. They had gotten a good laugh out of that one.
Tommy padded his way over to the crafting bench, building himself a set of stone axes before heading out to cut down a few more trees in their immediate surroundings, planting a wall of saplings as he went, which acted as a perimeter, Clay had suggested a cool building where they could use crafting tables as flooring because of the pattern on the top and the pair had decided to change their basic flooring for that to add some dimension to the base, although, he had to admit, the more he thought about it, the idea seemed vaguely familiar to him. Though, people had Deja Vu all the time, he was probably just tied. It had been a long day after all. His brain had been weird since morning and maybe he was just absorbing the things around him as a way to stay focused. However, it didn't stop the vague nag of familiarity that pulsed behind his temples. Either way, he grabbed the logs that had clumped together and they slipped into his inventory. He had nearly 4 full stacks now, after all, he had been doing this all day. Only stopping once or twice to craft a new axe. He replanted the saplings and collected the fallen sticks and apples before heading back inside to deposit the items into their correct storage space. He placed the logs into the chest, watching the numbers add up. Satisfied, tommy let the chest fall shut with a resounding click.
The front door opened with the polite creak and tommy smiled.
"Guess who got us some more Iron!" His companion announced with a chipper tone.
Tommy turned to face the man behind him, "Wicked, mate! how much?!" He hopped over, crouching before the man as he looked at the amount being dropped Infront of him.
"12, I found two separate veins, they were pretty decent sizes." The other said, heading to their wall of chests to pull out some coal to load the furnaces. Tommy headed over and slotted the ore into the furnace, watching the glow begin to turn the material into its ingot form.
The glow from the furnace reflected from Dream's smiley mask turning it almost iridescent under the heated low of the fire. The room lit up with a gold glow, bouncing off of their furniture and making their starter base seem naturally comforting.
Tommy grinned, giddy with their luck at their great start to the game, "That's brilliant, what're you gonna make with it?" He asked, tossing Dream a glance over his shoulder as he moved to sit on the oak stair couch they had placed under the window beside the poppy.
"Figured we could split it, six 'n six, y'know?" The other replied, voice gentle as he tossed Tommy his half. From the couch, the Teen caught the ingots and slotted them into his inventory. "Aw, thanks, mate." He said genuinely " 'Appreciate it."
Clay settled beside him on the couch, offering a quiet hum of acknowledgement. "I feel like something's missing." He pondered aloud. Changing their topic completely.
"You do?" Tommy asked, head turning to watch Dream, the sterile white of his mask was softened by the warm lighting of the furnace and the polished gold of his crown. Tommy had to admit, he felt it too. Nothing to make him sad, but an ache that had settled in his chest since he spawned in their world.
"Yeah..." The other sighed in agreement, watching the house through those wistful pinhole eyes on his mask.
After a beat of silence and deep thought, Dream suggested this:
"Mabey we should get a jukebox, try and find some discs." He chuckled, turning to Tommy with a light hearted glint. "See if it fills the silence." Clay added.
"Yeah, we could." Tommy agreed, he silently hated the way the thought of discs made his eyes heat and throat close. The sickening feelings of longing, anxiety and anger bubbling their way to the surface. He hated it. They were just discs.... weren't they...?
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The morning of Day 2 was warm, the sun peering over the hill and through their windows, waking them with a warm brush of morning air. At some point during the night, they must've gone to sleep, avoiding starting the countdown to invite the phantoms to raid their house.
They rose at the crack of dawn, Tommy staying in their shared room to watch the early sun grow slightly higher in the sky before he padded across the house to get breakfast.
Clay had hunted sheep yesterday to get the wool for their beds, making today's breakfast mutton by default. He had slid Tommy a plate wordlessly as he began on his own cut of meat. The smell hit his nose first, a rich warmth from mixed herbs and runny butter from basting it. The mutton was runny with juices and he had to fight the groan rising in the back of his throat from how good it look.
The meat itself was a rich smoky brown colour, resting in a gravy like substance. His hunger bar danced in the bottom of his vision, a testament to how hungry he actually was. It soon began to fill, however, when he began scarfing down the meat. Damn, Dream was a good cook...
That was when he noticed Dreams mask was off to eat, alongside his crown, both items resting beside him on their table. Tommy shuffled in his seat to see him better. Clay didn't look like he had expected him to, but he was good looking. A head of fluffy, honey brown curls, nearing ginger in the light of their furnace, but when it cooled, the warmth giving way to the pain white of the morning sun, his hair shifted to a dirty blonde. His eyes were green, or at least, they looked green at first glance, but to Tommy's keen gaze, he was able to see the hazel surrounding the pupil.
To Tommy's analysis, Dream chuckled. "Take a picture, it'll last longer."
Tommy's cheeks became a vibrant shade of red when he coughed with embarrassment. Dream wheezed at his suffering and after the laughs gave way to the quiet Minecraft ambiance Tommy said, " Just didn't expect you to have your mask off is all, mate."
Tommy looked back up at Dream who was eating the last mouthfuls of mutton. "Suppose not, but I had to take it off to eat." He replied earnestly and Tom nodded in agreement.
After that, the two cleaned themselves up, Tommy grabbed his tools from his inventory, organising them into his Hotbar. The Iron pickaxe from Dream, two spare stone ones, some torches and half a stack of cooked chicken.
The pair found themselves in their mines after that, a large empty cave mostly ransacked or ores giving way to some strip-mines they were digging.
"Hey, Clay?" Tommy began. "What's your favourite colour?" He turned left to strip-mine down a new hallway, Dream heading the opposite direction. The question was absentminded, just mindless chatter to fill the quiet. Tommy found a large vein of coal that he cleared out while he waited for dream's response, gaining nearly two full XP level for it. "Uhh- Probably like- green. I dunno."
Tommy chuckled at that, Dream doing the same. "What's funny about that?" He whined indignantly.
"Just- y'know. That wasn't obvious by the bright lime green tracksuit?" The younger replies, causing the two to fall into a fit of laughter and casual banter.
"Okay- okay. What's yours then?" Dream asked. Tommy hummed thoughtfully and the sound of breaking blocks reverberated in the cave. "Probably blue." Tommy settled on.
"Oh yeah? I would've assumed it was red."
"Yeah, my MC skin gives that impression but uhm- yeah- no, its probably blue. I think its pretty. Specifically cornflower blue though, not sky blue. Sky blue is cringe." Dream snorted and the two fell into a debate about how the colour of the sky was cringe.
They spent hours like that. Senseless giggling, debates and banter all filling the silence between them as their pickaxes made swift work breaking down ore into something useable. Dream over this time (Who had expressed a preference for the nickname over his real name) had learnt that Tommy once had a YouTube channel called 'Channel Nutpig' , that he had starred as the villain in his schools production of Footloose, and that his birthday was April 9th. And, respectively, Tommy had learnt that Dream's birthday is August 12th, That he is scared of heights, loves banana pudding and surprisingly, likes ladybugs.
It was a random collection of fun facts but it worked.
"Hey, Dream! come check this out!" Tommy laughed, amazement in his tone.
"What's up?" The other asked, voice getting closer as he ran down Tommy's mine to the younger.
"IS THAT A SPAWNER!?" He laughed. "Fucking hell- how low are we...?!" He grinned, already making his was down the cave to the spawner, his pic making light work of the several spiders that had spawned there. Tommy laughed, coming to kill the second to last one as Dream broke the spawner. "Nice work, Tommy" He praised genuinely.
The younger gave a toothy grin. "Thanks! I just cant believe we found one so soon." He admitted, rubbing the back of his neck before slotting away his pickaxe and opening the chests. Tommy got himself a saddle, useful for when they tamed some horses. 4 iron ingots and some coal. leaving behind the string and the random 2 spider eyes in there.
"YOOOO! no way! look!" Tommy looked up and made his way to Dream, Freezing immediately when he saw when dream was holding. Cat... His music disc.