Chapter Text
Dream looks up when Tommy sets down the pink and white paper wrap on the table.
His blind eyes are turned in the general direction of the package, but he doesn’t ask any questions.
“Brought you a surprise, big D”, Tommy announces as he sets off to unwrap his gift.
He’s trying hard to keep his voice carefree, because even if it has been getting easier to interact with Dream, being in his general presence still stresses him out big time.
The paper comes loose to reveal a cardboard tray of six charming pastries, all identical to each other. They’re heart-shaped, filled with a cotton-pink cream in the middle and decorated by curly chocolate lines, and even tough he can’t see them, Dream sure picks up on their warm, sweet scent.
Surprise paints his features as he recognises it.
“This is Nikki’s”, he says.
“Yup.” Tommy grins. “And they’re all yours.”
He pushes the tray in his direction.
“Come on, take ‘em.”
The now deposed tyrant’s face is painted with distrust.
Tommy scoffs.
“Now you’re going to tell me that you actually don’t like sweets, aren’t you?”
“Why would you give me these?”, he asks instead.
The teen raises his shoulders.
“I just… thought you might like them.”
The expression on Dream’s face remains unchanged. Still, he brings his hand forward and grabs one of the pastries.
Holding it carefully, as if it were made of glass, he brings it to his face and takes a bite.
His unseeing gaze gets lost in the void, but his empty eyes land where Tommy is sitting and the latter has to suppress a shudder. Why does he have to look so creepy? Maybe Tommy should suggest a mask.
“D’you like it?”, he brings out.
For a moment, Dream stays immobile.
Then, a grin cuts his face like a scar. His shoulders tremble, and huffs of air escape his mouth at irregular intervals as he curls in on himself.
What the fuck?
Tommy starts to feel a little creeped out. Instinctually, he presses himself back into the chair at Dream’s laughter, until he sees silver tears run down his cheeks and realises that Dream is not laughing at all; he’s crying.
“Hey, big D…everything alright over there?”
The little sweet escapes Dream’s trembling grip and lands face down on the table. Instead of searching for it, the escapee cradles his hand trough his hair and mutters, nearly surprised, like the realisation just hit him: “T-this is torture.”
Tommy feels a cold shudder course trough him.
He has to force himself to loosen his grip on the edges of the chair.
“Bi- Dream? What’s going on?”
“Y-you’re torturing me.”, he buries his face in his hand, trembling, “this is fucking psychological torture.”
He clenches his teeth trough the tears; he looks in pain.
“But if you think this is enough to break me, after everything I’ve survived, you’re wrong! You think-“, he has to take in a deep breath, “you think dangling everything you took from me under my nose as if I could have it again, when we both know it’s just a matter of time until you drop your act and throw me again in that- that hellhole , will be enough to break me? What, do you think I won’t be able to take it once I’m back there? Do you think I’ll just crumble in your palm?”
His voice has become increasingly shaky, and Tommy is torn between trying to help Dream calm down or make a run for the door and lock it behind himself.
He stands up without even meaning to. The door feels almost like it’s calling out to him behind his back.
“Hey, there, man. I really didn’t mean-“
Dream rises up. His chair tumbles behind him.
“You can’t break me!”, he half-yells, all while still crying.
“No matter what you do to me, what kinds of torture you put me through, you will never get me to give you that fucking book.”
He starts making his way around the table, using it as support for himself.
Tommy, now properly terrified, slowly backs down towards the door.
A chorus of thoughts the likes of “holy shit this guy’s insane” and “ oh shit he’s fucking unstable”, swirls in his head, and he really wants to make a run for it.
“I don’t care-“, Dream continues monologuing, ignorant of Tommy’s fear, “-that you’re helping me now, that you’ve healed my wounds and pretend to give a fuck. You think loosing my safety, loosing my dignity again will be so unbearable to me that I’ll give in and let you kill me? I won’t care! You might as well just bring me back now, because it won’t make a difference!”
He stops advancing. Tommy stops, too.
“Just lock me back up now, I can’t stand this act anymore.”
The door is right there; Tommy could just lurch forward and lock this dangerous psychopath inside. But Dream’s last sentence, paired with his defeated tone, makes him hesitate.
Tommy, body twisted and arm half stretched to the door, stares at him in silence as he leans on the table for support, panting, face red from crying.
He starts talking again.
“I wanted to believe you so fucking badly, Tommy. When you told me you were going to help me…. I want to believe you so fucking badly.” His hands clench on the table. “But I know you’re lying.” His face contorts like a sudden flash of pain has befallen him. “I know you’re lying and every time you come here and do me a favour, and act like you want to give me another chance and actually care; prime! It fucking hurts! Can you even begin to imagine how much I miss being free? My friends? My family? All of us going out exploring and coming home late and crashing at somebody’s house, messing around all night and dropping at Nikki’s for breakfast because we were all too tired to cook?” He’s curled up over the table, shaking. “I miss it so much.”
Slowly, Tommy’s fear melts like snow.
“I’m terrified of when your truce will end. I- I don’t know what I’m gonna do once I am in that hell again. Even if you’re giving me a taste of mercy right now, I know that whatever I do I will never truly have this again. You will bring me back to Pandora’s Vault and I will not be able to prevent it. Sometimes I don’t believe that it’s worth it to keep fighting against all of you.”
The room falls in silence. It’s as if Dream is waiting for him to say something, but Tommy is at a loss. His current plan for convincing Dream that he wasn’t being lied to consisted of waiting until Dream convinced himself on his own, there’s nothing Tommy can tell him to sway his mind.
As he is nevertheless wracking his brain for any sort of answer, he notices that the silence is weighing down on Dream. His arms are stiff, his breathing ragged, and the flow of tears hasn’t been getting any weaker; on the contrary.
With a trembling sigh he lets go of the table and lowers himself to the ground.
Sitting, back arched, face tilted downwards, he mutters in a heavy voice: “I’ll give you the Revival Book.”
“You- YOU WHAT?”
Tommy scrambles forward and lands on all fours on the ground, right in front of Dream.
Obviously startled and pushing himself back, he repeats: “I’ll give you the Revival Book. It’ not worth protecting anymore.”
Tommy’s heart swells with excitement. A tiny voice at the back of his mind tells him that he should refuse; should tell Dream to keep that knowledge, at least for now. This is more or less a glorified act of suicide on his part, but having his offer to give up the book refused would prove to him that this is not all just a ruse. It would help him greatly. On the other hand, Tommy really, really wants that book, and surely if Dream gives it up and realises that he’s not being imprisoned again he’ll understand that he’s safe all the same.
The teen has already opened the door, ready to go grab a quill and tons of paper, when he’s stopped in his tracks by Dream half-whispering to him to wait.
“What?”, he asks, the excitement bleeding unashamed from his voice.
“If… if I give you the book, you won’t use it to bring me back, right?”
Tommy raises an eyebrow. “What?”
Dream looks… well, he looks mortified.
“I just thought… you’ve had your revenge, all of you have. You killed me twice, soon three times. You imprisoned me, you took everything I cared about, you had me tortured… surely you don’t want more.”
Tommy cocks his head to the side.
“I don’t think I get where you’re trying to go with this.”
“If I give you the book, you wouldn’t use it to torture me to death over and over again, right?”
Dream lets out a laugh that sounds way too relieved. “I mean, of course you wouldn’t, you all had vengeance. Surely you want me dead just as much as I do. You- you just want to bury me and move on with your lives, right?”
And the mere implication of what Dream is suggesting makes Tommy sick to the stomach.
When he doesn’t answer immediately, Dream reads an answer in his silence.
“No, no! You- you’ve had enough! Why- why would you need more?” He brings his hand to his hair. “Please! Please, I just want this to end! Please forgive me! I just want to die! I don’t deserve any more pain, right? I- I already paid! Just let me go!”
Tommy dashes forward, and is immediately kneeling in front of him, hands on his shoulders.
“Hey! Listen to me, Dream! Listen to me!”
Instead of doing as he’s told, the ex con just keeps on mumbling pleas in front of himself, seized by panic.
“Nobody wants you tortured, you hear? We don’t even want you dead!”, Tommy tries again.
He shakes his shoulders. His yelling doesn’t make Dream any calmer, but it does make Tommy more panicked.
The situation is about to slip from his control, he realises, so he searches for anything he can say to get him out of this. There’s only one thing he knows for sure will work.
“Dream! I don’t want you to give me the book!”
That’s what gets Dream’s attention.
“You- you don’t?”
Tommy feels the tiniest relief when Dream replies to him.
“Fuck, you can keep it!”
He’s still frazzled, but he falls silent now. Tommy continues talking.
“All I want is for things to be fine again. That includes you, you piece of shit! And if that means that I don’t get to be a necromancer, -Prime!- I won’t be a necromancer!”
Those two empty fucking eyes fill themselves with incredulity.
“But… it’s a lie. You’re trying to make me give you the book…”
“Holy fuck, Dream! No I’m not! I don’t want your fucking book, and you know what? From now on I’ll do my very best to ensure that you don’t give it to me! So you’ll have to believe me!”
Dream is silent.
“If you don’t want the Revive Book, then…”, he swallows. “Why help me? Why do any of this?”
There’s genuine confusion in his voice.
Tommy sighs.
“We… I don’t want vengeance. Not anymore, at least. You… put me through Hell, Dream. And I want out of it. But I can’t leave this all behind now that I know what happened to you.”
Dream stares into nothingness, face wet, laboured breath, and Tommy knows that he doesn’t believe him. He stands up. The criminal’s head snaps towards him as he goes to the table.
The teen scoops the fallen sweet up. It’s crumbly, and the decorations are a little smudged. But Tommy puts it back on the tray with the others and heads back to where Dream sits.
He shoves the cardboard tray in his hands.
“Hear me out. I’ll help you, and then you’ll make it up to me for what you did to me. Somehow.” Tommy smirks. “You’re, like, basically Einstein, you’ll figure out a way how.”
The smell of the pastries is enticing. They’re pretty. Made with love.
“…I can do that.”, Dream concedes.
Tommy smiles.
“Then we’re gonna start here. With this. Take it as a reconciliation gift.”