#tommy is an oddly soothing character to write. and dream is just So Damn Interesting

[sparxwrites]

(written to “everything i wanted”, covered by social repose – “i had a dream / i got everything i wanted / not what you think / and if i’m being honest / it might have been a nightmare”.)

some context for this, as it makes zero sense otherwise: this is a hypothetical in-the-future au thing, where the server works out what’s going on in the prison and goes “Absolutely Not”. sam i think probably has/has already had a full breakdown from the stress and the guilt, and he gets… dealt with, somehow. i have no idea what happens to quackity; i doubt it’s anything good. the prison is destroyed. but that, of course, leaves the server with dream, who is no longer a significant threat thanks to the permanent damage quackity’s done, and also in need of long-term medical/social care. techno and philza, as the people on the server with the least baggage towards him, agree to at the very least house and feed him, and the rest of the server is mostly relieved that he’s not their problem for the foreseeable future. this bit happens a while after the prison, where dream is in the process of coming to terms with the fact that this is his life now, and where the rest of the server is in the process of working out what the hell their relationships with him look like now.

cw for referenced imprisonment, solitary confinement, and torture; and the aftermath of that, including permanent acquired physical/neurological disabilities and associated internalised ableism. also for referenced canonical abuse and suicidality.

[ao3]

Director’s commentary here.

It takes six months for Tommy to come visit him. Part of Dream’s surprised it took so long. Part of Dream’s surprised he came at all.

The rest of him doesn’t really have the energy to care, through the hurting and the anger and the cold, constant anhedonia.

“Dream,” says Tommy, nervously, as he closes the door to Dream’s dismal little bedroom behind him. It’s a terrible opening gambit. He follows it up with an even worse one. “Dream, my man! You look– fucked up, actually, I mean. Philza said, but, wow, uh.” He laughs, and that’s nervous, too, a short little cut-off thing with none of its usual wheeze. “Wow.”

Dream reaches up to touch one of the puckered scars cut across his face by a pair of shears, and misses his mask with a deep and abiding ache, and does not flinch.

“Rude,” he says, instead. His voice is raw and rasping, the edge of a slur to the end of it where his tongue doesn’t move quite right.

“Oh, yeah?” Tommy’s on the defensive, immediately, and it warms something deep in the cold hollow of Dream’s chest how quick that response is. No one’s frightened of him any more. No one respects him like this, limping and stuttering, and it grates worse than Quackity’s blade had against his bones. But Tommy– Tommy is frightened of him. Tommy respects him. “What you’re gonna do about it, bitch?”

“I,” says Dream, and cuts off, swallows. The words slip away from him, wet and leaking. That happens a lot, nowadays. Something to do with the relative strength of the human skull versus obsidian, and what happens when those relative strengths are repeatedly tested, Philza had said. All that really means, as far as he’s concerned, is that it’s just another thing Quackity’s taken from him. His physical prowess; his independence, his pride; and now, even his words. “Mmh. Call Techno. You… make you leave.”

“Don’t– Fuck. Shit.” Tommy frowns, chewing on his lip. “That was– I shouldn’t’ve said that. Don’t call Techno. I…” He sighs. “I had a question I wanted to ask. That’s why I came here. Don’t, like, get any weird fucking ideas or whatever. I came to ask you something. That’s all.”

Dream says nothing.

Tommy’s always been good at hanging himself with his own mouth – silence is a far more effective weapon against him than words. Useful, considering Dream finds himself without them more often than not, nowadays.

How convenient of the universe, to allow him to keep the single weapon he needs to continue to play with his favourite toy.

“…You killed me,” says Tommy, eventually, when the silence drags on long enough he begins to get twitchy. His throat bobs as he swallows. His eyes, though, are steady – the pale blue of summer skies and autumn rain, locked on Dream’s like a homing missile. Like he’s a compass, and Dream is true north. “You hurt me. You hurt me, really badly, and you fucked with my head, and you kept destroying my shit, and you starved me, and you made me think that my friends hated me, and– And then you tried to hurt everyone else, too. And Tubbo. You tried to kill Tubbo. And then you, you fucking– you killed me. You actually killed me.”

Dream shrugs, because yes. That’s all true. He did all those things, and more besides. They’re rehashing history, here, history they both lived through.

“Do you regret it?”

Tommy’s fidgeting with his own fingers, hands at his sides.

It’s all Dream can do to not laugh, because what a stupid question to ask. What a stupid fucking question. Why the fuck would he regret it? And, more to the point– why the fuck wouldn’t he?

He doesn’t say that, though. Probably couldn’t, even if he wanted to. Can’t even really articulate it properly in the private not-language of his own head – that weird twisting tension of sorry-not-sorry, the wrong kind of regret. He shrugs, again, instead, a stiff little motion that makes his left shoulderblade and collarbone ache.

Silence falls over their little room again, dragging and awkward. Tommy chews on his lip until it bleeds. Dream watches, silently, and wonders whether to count that as a victory or not.

“Would you do it again?”

And isn’t that the question. Isn’t that the million-dollar what-if fucking question.

Dream’s throat works, soundless, as he pieces his words together. “…Wouldn’t be any point,” he says, eventually, and tries not to let the grief show on his face.

Tommy flinches, though it’s only the truth. This wasn’t what Dream wanted – how could it have been? Left useless, broken, some kind of pity-project for the only people on the server who gave little enough of a shit about him to give him room and board. Maybe if he’d been smarter about it– more subtle about it– maybe if he’d been faster, or slower, stealthier, or more brutal–

But it doesn’t matter, because this is his life now. A brain that can’t string a sentence together, a body that doesn’t work right, and a heart full of regret but no remorse.

“You’re a monster. You’re fucked in the head, you are.” Tommy’s started pacing, right on cue. Three steps and turn, over and over, trapped between the close walls of Dream’s tiny room. “Fucked in the head. Fucking hell.”

For a moment, between blinks, the walls look like they’re made of glossy obsidian rather than panelled wood. For a moment, they’re somewhere else, sometime else, and Dream has a brief and vicious sense-memory flash of we’ve been here before. Of Tommy’s skull cracking beneath his hands, wet and jagged, soft and leaking. Of that hot flash of power-control-satisfaction before the cold anhedonia set in, like always. That hollow and empty boredom of having won.

Then Dream laughs, and the sound is cracked, ragged, humourless. “Yeah,” he says, and raps crooked knuckles against the side of his head. There’s a scar there, three inches long and cutting gnarled through his shorn hair, silver-pink and twisting. “Quackity’s fault.”

“Did you enjoy it?” snaps Tommy, and there’s a shake to his hands where they’re curled into fists, and a blown-wide prey-look to his pupils. “You– exile, you fucking, you– did you, did you enjoy– enjoy seeing what you–?” He exhales, shaky, rasping. “Seeing what you did to me. D’you. Seeing what you’ve done to me? Are you enjoying it right now?”

Dream shrugs one listless shoulder again, and half-smiles. It does strange things to the scars raked across his face, twisting them into an animal snarl. “Dunno,” he manages, throat working as he picks his words with the care of a butcher choosing knives. “You enjoying this?”

Tommy flinches, violently, and Dream smiles with two teeth missing, and–

“…No,” says Tommy, quietly, and he says it like it’s a revelation. Dream has the sudden and disconcerting sense of having missed a step on the stair. “No, I’m fucking not, because this is– it’s just fucking miserable, isn’t it?”

Dream opens his mouth to interrupt, but Tommy’s already barrelling on.

“What you did to me was– was shit, and what Quackity did to you was shit too, and then this–“ He gestures, wildly, to the whole tiny, sparse room, and to the two of them – Tommy with his shaky hands and wild eyes, Dream with his crooked fingers and broken words. “This is all just so, so shit, like, literally all of it. Like, fucking– no one’s won, have they? We did all this fighting and shit, I went through all this– and there was no fucking point, because we’re all just older and way more fucking miserable than we started, and– and–”

And there’s not really much Dream can say to that, because yeah. That’s about the long and short of it. It wouldn’t have been, if he’d been faster, better, smarter – but he wasn’t, and so now that’s all that’s left. A wreck of a server, filled with the tired ghosts of people he used to care about.

He can’t really remember what that felt like, any more. Caring for them.

“I just wanted to play with my friends, man,” says Tommy, and he sounds so pathetically sad and lost that Dream almost laughs. “I just fucking wanted to– I just. You. You were–” He sighs. “Back before all this shit, you were– I just… wanted to fuck around and have fun with everyone. …With you, back when you weren’t– you know.”

And oh, that’s something that Dream intends to shy away from, as hard as he possibly can. He sets his jaw, and searches for his words, and when he finally finds them the thing that comes out of his mouth is, “Grow up.”

Tommy sighs, and digs the heel of one palm into his eye socket. His hands aren’t shaking quite so much, any more “Yeah,” he says, heavily. “Yeah. I guess that’s the thing, isn’t it. Someone’s fucking got to, haven’t they?”

It doesn’t even sound angry. That’s the thing that makes Dream want to scream. He doesn’t even sound angry. Just tired.

“But I was a fucking kid,” Tommy continues, and there’s anger in his voice there, there’s hurt, and Dream latches onto that with both of his unsteady, fucked-up hands and clings to it like a lifeline. “I was fucking– I was sixteen, man, and–”

“You,” says Dream, “were a problem.”

“Yeah! Yeah, I fucking was!” Tommy lowers his hand, and stares at Dream again with those blue, blue eyes that see right through him. “But I was a problem for everyone else, too, and none of them did the shit you did. Because that’s– what you did? That’s on you. Not on me. I annoyed the shit out of Wilbur, too, and he never– he never…”

Dream just looks at him, steady, slightly blurry-eyed – another thing Quackity’s taken from him. Because that’s a lie, and they both know it. They both know what Wilbur did to Tommy. To the server. To himself.

“…What the fuck am I doing?” Tommy mutters, after the silence sits long enough to sink into both their bones. “You’re fucking, like. You enjoy this. Me being sad and angry and scared and shit. Every time I come and see you, I think it might make it better, like I’ll– like I’ll stop being scared, or you’ll, I dunno, fucking apologise, which is hilarious, but. But. It just makes things worse, every time. And you enjoy it.”

Dream says nothing.

“I think… I think maybe I should go,” says Tommy, unsteadily. He drags a hand through his hair. “I think I should leave.”

And Dream still says nothing.

Tommy sighs, and chews on his bloody lip, and turns to the door. The room’s small enough he barely has to walk for it, just a half-step before he’s stood right before it.

“Wish I had some cool last words or something, but– whatever.” He pauses, with his fingers curled around the handle, and looks back over his shoulder. His eyes are wet, but clear, and there’s no fear in them any more. No respect. Just sadness. “I don’t think I’m gonna be coming back. Bye, Dream.”

“Tommy,” says Dream, and even he can’t tell if he means wait or goodbye.

The door closes behind Tommy with a soft click. And then it’s just Dream left behind – with his wooden walls and his wooden door and his body that doesn’t work right and his words that won’t come – as the cold anhedonia settles in once more.

#dream smp #dsmp #dsmp tag #dsmp fic #fic #man this one has been slow-burning in the back of my head for a hundred years #feels good to have it on paper #feels cathartic #tommy is an oddly soothing character to write. and dream is just So Damn Interesting #anyways you can pry my love of writing antagonist-pov bullshit from my cold dead hands #and you can pry my love of unsatisfactory emotional resolutions from my cold dead hands also #sometimes healing and moving on sucks! sometimes it hurts! sometimes it's cold and flat and not what you wanted at all #and you gotta live with that