they don’t love you like i do
wake up babe new au just dropped
warnings: emotional manipulation, abuse, the whole prison, death, there’s just. a bunch of shit.
word count: 2.7k
ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30039279
fic under cut
a security measure, sam told him. a security measure. it’d be over in a week. just a week.
just a week.
just a week.
trapped with dream. you know, dream. the guy who helped wilbur blow up l’manberg and led him to exile and hurt him and everyone he loves over and over and over.
all behind the smiling mask.
and now, he’s trapped, powerless, utterly powerless, with the person who he never wanted to see again.
it was supposed to be the last time. it was supposed to be CLOSURE.
he was supposed to be fine.
he looks over at dream, just from the corner of his eye.
he doesn’t see a manipulator? but he assumes that’s just because he’s seeing dream in rose-tinted glasses or whatever sam and puffy said.
he can’t.
he looks over at dream, properly this time. he looks so pitiful. he isn’t even wearing his mask. he isn’t facing tommy. his hair’s grown out a little, and it’s a little dirty. the little of his face tommy can see is horribly scarred. it’s almost a little sickening to look at.
dream doesn’t look at him.
dream doesn’t look at him.
and he looks at dream.
he sits there. he sits there in the corner of the room?? cell? and he sits.
the room is too silent.
the room is far too silent.
tommy tries to hum just a little bit but the noise echoes around him. the noise echoes HORRIBLY. horribly. the noise echoes in a horrible horrible song and it feels far too loud, far, far too loud.
he sits quietly, and even in the silence, his breath feels far too loud.
he sits.
and the silence sits with him. the silence is mocking him, it’s surrounding him, it’s laughing at him and his suffering and it’s laughing.
it laughs in the silence and it’s laughter is somehow quieter than the surroundings.
he tries to focus on the lava bubbling. it’s crackling fills the silence but it doesn’t feel right. it’s like a hole. a hole in his soul or whatever bullshit people would use to explain his emotions.
he sits and he listens to lava and he feels empty. empty unlike anything he’s felt before. he isn’t full of anger for dream, for being trapped. he isn’t scared. he isn’t anything.
he isn’t anything at all. he’s empty. empty like the night sky, black and shining full of mocking, mocking stars.
mocking, mocking stars. shining in the awful void.
he is empty. and he sits. and the silence laughs. and the lava crackles. and dream faces away. he doesn’t even acknowledge tommy.
he sits there in his silly, silly orange jumpsuit and he looks straight out of a crime movie or some shit. he doesn’t look at tommy. he’s looking at the water? his back to the chest. and he’s looking at the water.
tommy’s never seen dream’s face behind that mask. he looks in dream’s eyes and immediately looks away. they’re piercing green, green so bright it hurts a little. his nose is crooked, and it looks broken, and tommy wonders what he did to get that. his cheek is scarred up, and the wounds look old. his mouth is thinly-set and he looks almost remorseful. words echo in his mind, echoing, telling him dream cannot be trusted, dream is a horrible person, dream is a murderer, dream is the one he’s been fighting all along.
the message doesn’t fully sink in. not when dream finally meets his eye, and tommy sees the other eye, a massive slash through his eye, and the iris white and glossed over, like he can’t see out of it. like he’s blinded.
dream looks over at him and his eyes are so pitiful, and so horribly sorry. they look almost teary.
they look like an apology.
and tommy looks at him, and he can’t tell what his eyes say. but dream knows. dream knows.
dream knows.
dream always knows.
and tommy doesn’t.
tommy is blind, and dream is all-seeing.
dream guides him into the dark, and he only guides him into further depths. but the blind cannot tell the dark from the darker.
and so he follows.
dream doesn’t speak. but at least he’s looking at him now. at least he’s looking.
at least he’s here.
at least he’s not alone.
at least he’s not alone.
he’s not alone.
dream’s here, at least.
yeah. dream’s here.
right?
he’ll be fine. he’ll be fine. it’s just a week.
and dream isn’t that bad. he’s powerless. he doesn’t have armour, or weapons, or potions, or the discs or anything he can use against tommy.
he’s the one in power. yeah. he’s in power.
he’s in power.
tommy smiles to himself. he’s in charge here. he’s gonna be just fine.
dream doesn’t speak, and tommy goes to sleep and he knows he’s in charge. he’s gonna be just fine. absolutely fine.
he thinks.
he hopes.
as he sleeps, he dreams of explosions. one after the other. the first l’manberg war, then wilbur and then he hears his things, his armour, his weapons, everything he knows and owns, all blown up in front of him. and then he hears the explosions from earlier, the ones trapping him in here.
except he isn’t trapped, is he?
he’s fine! he’s absolutely fine! he’s the one in power here!
his dreams twist into a smile and they reassure him. he’s gonna be absolutely fine! this is actually amazing for him!
his dreams smile some more, and then they are gone. and he is awake.
dream stands over him, and tommy looks in his eyes. it’s funny to be able to actually see them. dream smiles at him, just as his dreams smiled at him.
isn’t that funny?
dream passes him a potato, and tommy gladly eats it. it only fills his stomach a little, but it’s something.
dream still doesn’t speak, but tommy does.
he speaks very fast and about a lot of things and dream listens. dream listens to him! he’s glad to be listened to.
if he keeps talking, and dream keeps listening, maybe he can forget that he’s in this prison. maybe it’ll feel like old times! before l’manberg, before things got complicated, before people got complicated. it was normal before. maybe it can be normal again.
he can be normal!
and dream can be normal and not whatever he was doing.
mhm. he’s doing great.
dream speaks, and now tommy listens. he talks about prison.
he speaks, and he says he is lonely. he is very lonely.
he only sees sam, and he only sees him occasionally. and tommy feels pity. dream sighs. and he says he’s sorry, he’s sorry for exile and he didn’t realise and he’s so, so sorry because he hurt tommy and he didn’t even realise what he was doing, he didn’t understand what tommy was feeling and now he understands. because he is lonely. he’s sorry.
he’s sorry. and tommy smiles. because he’s sorry! he’s really sorry! he’s alone and afraid and so was tommy and now he understands! he knows. he knows. he knows how it was. and tommy smiles and dream smiles and the silence smiles. and the prison smiles and everyone smiles because everything’s right.
nothing was wrong in the first place.
dream is nice to him! dream is his friend! dream hasn’t done anything super bad. he’s not that bad. he’s his friend.
dream’s his friend!
mhm!
dream’s sorry!! and he’s nice!!
he talks a little more, and tommy listens because dream listened to tommy and then tommy talks and dream listens to him because he’s his friend!
tommy talks about his hotel, and dream asks about it. dream asks if he can stay at hotel when it’s open and tommy says yes because dream’s his friend! of course his friends can stay at the hotel! dream can stay there, and-
does he have any other friends?
tubbo was? was he? didn’t tubbo exile him? wasn’t it tubbo?
tubbo hadn’t apologised.
but dream had.
yeah! dream had!
dream’s his only friend but he’s still a friend!
they talk, and the silence no longer mocks him and neither do the stars.
it’s fine.
tommy’s fine.
he and dream talk and they eat potatoes and dream shows tommy books, things he’s written.
tommy tries his hand at writing too. he doesn’t write much. he was never any good at writing.
he sleeps.
his dreams are now blank and dark, like a cave or a mine. or maybe even a ravine. a singular lantern lights, and shows the truth of the dark. it’s stone, ragged stone, studded with button after button after button and tommy stands there, facing him.
wilbur faces him, a thin, twisted smile on his face, trenchcoat blowing back in the wind. his eyes aren’t the brown they were in life, they were fire. pure fire and hell in an iris, dancing and flickering.
wilbur looks him in the eye, and he speaks in a voice so painfully close to his wilbur, to the man he’d followed to revolution, and yet so broken, so horribly broken, hanging on to sanity by a thread.
he speaks.
“it was never meant to be.”
he hits a button, and the ravine collapses in a mad flurry of explosions. but above the boom of tnt and the crash of rock, all tommy’s can hear is wilbur’s mad laughter, cackling, yelling, the final note in a damned symphony, damned from the second it started.
and tommy wakes up, screaming.
and dream is sat beside him, leaning over him, his face twisted in concern. he asks what happened softly. his voice is quiet, so very quiet, like snowfall. it’s comforting. tommy’s heavy breaths become even, if a little ragged. “nightmare.” he explains, and sighs.
he hates those dreams. they got so bad after pogtopia, he barely slept, just to avoid them. in exile, it was even worse. and now, it makes sense they’re back, creeping into his weak points, making him vulnerable. he’s lucky dream’s here to help calm him down.
4 notes
·
View notes