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They won, Tommy thinks. Punz and the rest of the SMP arrived in time, the big bad villain is now on his knees with all his stuff in the hole, the porcelain mask haunted his nightmares now smashed into pieces. Even if Dream is a strong and powerful and manipulative asshole, with his evil plan now exposed, he can’t do any harm any more. They’re safe now, the SMP is safe now. Tommy picked all the items in the hole up, and pulled Nightmare into his hands. He looked Dream in the eyes and walked toward the fallen villian, his nemesis, -his friend-.
Dream doesn’t say a word as the teen rests the heavy blade on his neck. The man looked... resigned. No hurt despite Punz’s betrayal, no frustration even though he has no chance to escape this time, no anger when his every last bit of dirty idea is known to his ex-friends. He doesn’t use his smart tongue and quick wit to try to convince people. The only thing Dream does is hold Tommy’s stare, emerald eyes void of any emotion.
“No trying to humiliate me? Insult me or belittle me so you can manipulate me into letting you go? ” Tommy asks, the voice came out more uncertain than he expected, but before he can use his loud yells to cover his vulnerability up as usual, the wince flash across Dream’s face in a millisecond caught his attention.
“Just do what you nee-want to do. ” Dream sighs. “you win, I lose. The hero defeated the villain and saved the world, hooray. ”
Tommy inspects the man again throughly, wanting to see if there’s any sign of tricks still hiding in his sleeves but can’t find any. The victory, his grand finale, doesn’t taste as sweet as he thought when he thinks of seeing Dream’s blood splatter across the floor in front of him. But Tommy raised the blade higher anyway.
And drop it on the floor.
“I think an exile would be enough for you. Tommy says, confused as he saw the terror in Dream’s eyes. Isn’t this better than death? But an ear-piercing voice suddenly attacks Tommy’s hearing before he can question.
“No! No no no, it was not supposed to be like this! You need to kill him, that’s what it should be! ”
Tommy falls to his knees and digs his palms into his ear, but he still can hear others yelling worries to him and accuses Dream. He doesn’t understand where the accused come from, the voice ringing in his head has no similarity to Dream’s. Opening his eyes, sky blue eyes suddenly met with horrified emerald irises. Dream looks more alive now than he was all night, but the terror and shock are so out of place Tommy thinks he’s hallucinating.
“What did you do to Tommy!” Sapnap yells, and Tommy can see the emotions swept from Dream’s face at the voice of his former friend, and his eyes become as lifeless as they were.
“Would it matter? You won’t listen.” Dream sighs. “Tommy, just do it, kill me. Don’t think of anything else.”
The boy can somehow taste the desperation in the villain's voice, but Tommy never listens to orders.
“No, I don’t want to do that. The heaviest punishment I can think of is exile.”
“What about putting him in prison? The one that he himself commissioned?” Sam steps forward and suggests, his voice ringing behind his gas mask and giving Tommy a migraine. “It’s kind of like an exile, but we don’t have to worry about him planning something. Oh, and maybe take two of his lifes, just to make sure he has no other tricks? ”
“What...? I mean the ’ground him in the forest’ kind of exile!” Tommy tries to argue but others seem to agree to the plan pretty quickly, he turns to his best friend for back up. “Tubbo, tell me you don’t think locking a person in that looming building after taking his two lifes is a good idea. At least give him a fair trial!”
“Tommy, I don’t see the problem in it, and, he doesn’t really need a trial, isn’t it? We all know what his crimes are, that’s enough to deliver the punishment without trial.” Tubbo shrugged.
“You can’t be serious.” Tommy backs up from his friends, eyes locking on the burn mark on Tubbo’s face. He feels his pounding headache is getting worse, like someone is squeezing his brain. “I don’t agree to that.”
“Tommy-”
“Dream! Do something, aren’t you good at escaping impossible situations? Are you really willing to die twice and got lock up?” Tommy yells toward the person behind him without turning his head, he has a feeling that something is wrong. The man in question who hasn’t move from his kneeling position since beginning, opens his mouth for the first time after the whole drama unfold.
“Why?” The fragility in the single syllable stunned Tommy, like the ceramic shattered and glued back so many times that one more hit would make the damage irreversible. He wants to ask what does he means, but a potion bottle took his attention. Weakness, thrown by Sapnap, aiming at him. Tommy fired the crossbow in his hand before he thinks, the arrow hit the glass and spill the contents in midair.
Before he can yell at the ravenette, the weird voice appeared again.
“Stop messing around! Why are you unaffected?”
“What?”
“Ugh, fine, I’ll just eliminate this error and make a new one.”
Red vines suddenly broke through the black floor of Dream’s vault, and all the others freeze at their spot. One vine that is the nearest to Tommy swipes at him, made the boy scream. To his surprise, no one moves. It’s like their time had stopped, leaving only him with crimson tentacles together. The next attack comes before he can react, the speed of the vine aiming at his heart so fast he only sees the afterimage. Tommy closes his eyes, afraid of seeing the moment his heart being plugged out of his chest.
But the pain never comes.
“Tommy, run. ” Dream, now standing between him and the plants trying to kill him, said. Blood dripping down from the hole in his palm pierced by the vine, but his grip on it firm and his eyes lively than ever. “Don’t freeze, run!”
The boy jumped and heading straight to the portal, but the red vines quickly blocked it when it realized where Tommy’s exit is. Two vines wrapped around his ankles and tripped him. As soon as his body hit the ground, more vines comes to pin him in place. He gets a hold on Nightmare at the last second and chop off the restrictions before they completely engulf him, just in time to see Dream being smacked to the wall like a ragdoll.
The impact crushed a hole in the black wall, framing the green figure in the middle of destruction. Dream’s head hang down feebly, the leg being used by the vine to drag him around bend in awkward angle, blood drip down from his torn side. He doesn’t look alive.
Tommy hasn’t feel this scared in a long time. There will be no one coming in time to save him, not that it would be any different with an enemy that can decommissioned the most fearsome fighter in the SMP in seconds. He scrambled back, trying to put as much distance between him and the red. Suddenly, he heard that voice again.
“There’s no need to fight, Tommy. It won’t hurt, and you won’t remember anything.” The tentacles nodding along the words while slowly but surely getting closer to the boy, who is already at the corner. The vines are ready to attack at any second, but a soft green glow coming out of nowhere trap them in place.
“Stop lying.” Dream holds out a hand, which glows the same shades of green as the force around vines, and pull himself out of the rubble. He looks terrible. His signature green hoodie now a mixed of blood, tears and dust, and his fluffy blond hair stuck on his face with the blood coming from the large gush at his forehead. But most importantly, he’s not dead. “Death fucking hurts.”
“Using your precious little admin power just to save him?” More vines grow from the floor, and one of the thickest one finds its way around Dream’s extended arm and squeeze.
“After seeing what you did to him during the exile, I would think you hate him.”
“Shut. Up.” Dream spits, his face as neutral as ever, betrayed nothing about his injuries.
“Since you love him so much, let’s see what he would react to seeing you scream, shall we?” Tommy can hear the venom in the voice but doesn’t really understand the words, untill he sees the vines crushed around Dream, breaking the bones in his body. Some red tried to attack Tommy at the same moment, but the force holding back vicious tentacles does not fade a bit.
“You can’t touch him.” Dream laughs, sounds gurgling and painful. He didn’t scream like the voice said when his body is being broke inch by inch, but his voice is hoarse. “I won’t let you.”
“Then let’s see if he can keep safe when you’re not alive.”
A wet choke was forced out of the man as a blur of red shot past his throat, slashed his windpipe open. They withdraw their support once their mission is complete, and dropped Dream’s body to the ground. It decomposed in seconds, leaving nothing but a faint smoke. The voice laughed darkly.
But it turns into frustrated shrieks as its attempt to lash at Tommy still got stopped. Tommy watched in fear as it struck through the ceiling with excessive force and drag a figure down to ground level.
“What have you done?” The voice is livid, but Dream wheezes, the sound airy and happy, like he is entertained by the question.
“Just some nice timing and a quick respawn, nothing special. Oh, and admin power.” He says with the goal to provoke it further. “I told you, I won’t let you touch him.”
“Ha! But how long can you do that?”
“Long enough to ruin your plan. Tick tock, how much time do you have until next-” The rest of the sentence got cut off as vines pin Dream to the ground.
“You,” The vines glows, red light paint the whole place like extracted from hell. “Walk out from the protection, Tommy, or I’ll rip his heart off.”
“Wrong person, he won’t care if you skin me and eviscerate like an animal.” Dream had the audacity to sound smug at the one threatening his life while being pressed to the ground. The man steal a quick glance at Tommy and shake his head almost unnoticeable, but it still got caught by the voice from wherever it’s watching.
“No hinting.” It songs as the vines smack Dream’s head on the floor. Once, twice, it released after the third hard hit knocked out the man again.
“What makes you think he would let me free under my own wish. ” Tommy speaks up, the fear and tremors in his voice unignorable. “He never tolerate things that go against his will.”
“Oh, Tommy Tommy Tommy,” The voice sings giggly. “How I wish he was awaken to hear that, I’d love to see his face. But the sound he is going to make would be equally amazing when I snap his rib one by one to get to his heart. Come on, don’t give me that look, he tortured you in the exile didn’t he? You can have a chance to get back to him by doing nothing, I’d be more than happy to give up dealing with you and your protection to enjoy myself.”
“You’re a sick fuck.” Tommy says. He thinks back the small shake of head given by Dream along with the determination in those green eyes.
The red thing want him dead for some reason and Dream is intent on protecting him not letting it get what it wants, even if it cost himself. Tommy makes his decision before he can spiral down the rabbit hole of that possibility. “I’m not going out.”
“You refused to go out so I shall abide my words.” The voice grit the words out, the tone loss all the sweet and luring it uses to sugarcoat its true intentions.
Red vines position themselves on Dream’s chest and start digging in. The man’s conscious is dragged back by the invasion. He looked panicked for a second before he recognized his surrounding, but that didn’t prevent the agonized scream from ripped through his throat.
Tommy close his eyes as soon as his brain process what he saw, but the image of opened rib cage already etched in his mind. The sounds of choked sob and flesh tearing only worsen the terror. Tommy tries to go into the unfeeling state he often drift to while in exile, but before he succeed, the nightmarish sounds stopped.
He opened one of his eyes, and the overwhelming red attack his vision. Vines had curl around the green force field with only a window towards where the torture take place, blood is seeping into every nook on the ground. Dream is nowhere to be seen, but the smoke in the center of blood told enough.
Tommy still flinched when Dream was dragged down from his bed yet again. The man looks half way to death, but that’s what losing two canon lives in less than a day would done to people, Tommy guess.
“Lower. The. Barriers.”It demands with a strain voice while holding the admin’s limp form by wrists. Dream grins sharply despite he is still recovering from the dizziness of canon respawn. His smile is made of blade when he spits,
“Never.”
Red snake around the man’s neck and starts adding pressure, Dream struggles against the vines but to no avail. However, before the older blond get his final canon death from suffocation, the thing stops. It kept the red collar around his neck and add one around his mouth to gag him.
“Give me that brat or I’ll make your old friends get you to do it.” Dream shakes his head as Tommy shivers at the amusement and cruel in the warped voice. His eyes, however, light up as he saw two of his friends start moving again.
“Sam! Big Q! Help me get rid of these things! They want to kill me-” The boy’s words died on his tongue as he saw the soulless look on their face. That is not his friends. That is something wearing their looks.
Dream starts pulling at his restrains harder than before. His eyes wide with desperate and fear as Quackity and Sam walk toward him in unsteady steps. A pair of bloody shear and a netherite dagger glint in dim light in their hands. The pair of dull blades press against Dream’s achilles tendon, and the sword rest above his right eye.
“What do you think about being crippled and blinded, Dreamie?” The sickening sweet tone make Tommy wants to puke, but he somehow unable to tear his eyes away from the scene. “Last chance, him or you?”
The fighter, who had been completely freeze from the moment the shear make contact with him, turns his head to look at Tommy and move his hands to gesture at the gag. The vine dropped as a response, and the boy can feel the vines around buzzing with anticipation and excitement while his stomach clenched with dread. Tommy can’t ignore the thought of “He will chose himself over me” forming in his head. They watch Dream open his mouth, smirk, and says,
“Fuck you.”
They were stunned into silence, but soon a vine wrapped around Dream’s mouth to shut him up and the two executors started moving again. Tommy closes his eyes and clasps hands over his ears before they do anything. However, he doesn’t need to see or hear to know what is happening at the other side of his protection.
The thing he doesn’t know is why would Dream help him. It makes much more sense for the other to deactivate the protection instead of losing two lives to the sadistic voices and suffering on his last live. He never cared about me, why start now?
Tommy’s train of thoughts derailed by a sudden anguished scream. He is startled by the sound and instinctively looks over to where it came from. Without thinking, he moved toward the blood covered figure before his brain stopped him.
The force field doesn’t resist a bit when he passes through. It only takes one step for him to be out of the protection, the green light ripples around his body which immediately caught the vines’ attention. A strap of red finds the boy’s ankle before Tommy realizes his fault and retreats back to safety. It tugs, hard, throwing Tommy off balance and dragging him all the way to the center of the room.
Broken stone shards on the floor caused thin bloody lines on the blond boy’s exposed skin. He digs his fingers into the blackstone floor, trying to stop himself from going to where the vines want him to go, but the only thing Tommy succeeded is breaking his nails.
The voice speaks again when it has Tommy at where it wants. Lying on the ground with his limbs spread out and pinned by red vines, one lock around his neck and another around his waist. A bug caught in a spider net.
“Finally,”The voice mused. “took you long enough, huh?”
Tommy tries to turn his head while not getting choked. His eyes land on the slouching body not far away from him. The only thing keeping the admin upright is the very thing that restrained him in the first place. To Tommy’s terror, the older blond is still conscious. It seems that a dripping slash crossed his right eye and a pool of blood gathered under his left ankle still not enough to knock him out.
Quackity and Sam are frozen in their spot, but weapons still in hands. Dream takes the chance to struggle against the vines. He became desperate the moment he figured Tommy was now lying in red. Tommy’s attention was forced away when the vine closed around his windpipe.
Oxygen barely squeezes past the closed way, Tommy starts to see dark spots around his sight. Everything seemed to turn several shades darker than they should be. A distant clang of something turned into ringing in his ear and migraine. His brain screaming for him to breath, you need to breath breathoryouwillsuffocate—
I’m going to die here, Tommy thinks while trying to blink back his tear, with all my friends stand by and watch, and the only one knowing what will happen is Dream.
The boy been through too much at an age too young opened his mouth, trying to take in his last breath he doesn’t sure he can get—
“Tommy!” Tubbo yelled at him. Tommy sucked in a huge breath and choked on air. “Oh my God, are you okay?”
The blond boy raises his head and is met with his best friend’s teary eyes. “Why are you crying? What happened?”
“Oh, yeah you probably didn't know yet.” Tubbo wiped his face with his sleeve, smearing tears and snots everywhere. “Wilbur died.”
“I know he’s dead, it has been a long time.” Tommy replied.
“No, it’s different. This is his last canon life, Phil took it.” Tubbo stifled a cry. “L’manberg is now gone, Tommy. What should we do?”
What?