Chapter Text
In the end, reflexes were what saved Dream.
His hands stop Tommy’s in the nick of time, nails digging into corrupt, dotted-with-scales flesh, but at the very least Tommy gets to bask in the sight of his wide eyes that were filled to the brim with blatant surprise. This was clearly on the bottom of the list of things he was expecting.
…Now only if he could claw those eyes out.
Tommy grits his teeth, sweat beading down his neck as he struggles against Dream’s grip, dully aware of how his wings casted shadows over his back and the way his tail was lashing left and right in violent, jerking motions. The sounds of gasps and exclamations echo in the background, but he ignores them, forcing his arm to go down, closer—
Dream’s eyes flash green again, but it’s brighter than ever before as his own dreamon skin crawls over his face. It paints his cheeks an almost distorted and glitched black as claws pop out from his own nails and dig bloody red into Tommy’s wrist. Tommy growls, feral almost as he raises his other hand only for it to get blocked as well.
“...I’ve underestimated you. How did you- you little—!” Dream snarls, and there’s something in his voice like he was finally taking Tommy seriously. It’s… it’s the same tone he used whenever he was trying to negotiate with Technoblade. Like he had found his equal.
Tommy stares at him a bit, then smiles, baring a set of gleaming fangs.
Dream was going to die. Dream was going to—
Kill him.
Take revenge. Take revenge.
“Tommy, what the fuck—” Tubbo’s voice hits him, and its owner seems like he was on the verge of throwing up.
“...Tommy?” that was Phil. He sounded completely bewildered… betrayed .
“Tommy, what the hell?! What the fuck is this shit?!” Quackity.
Dream grits his teeth before forcing his mouth to curl in an ugly smirk. “Didn’t I tell you?! He lied! Tommy used you. He was so fixated on me, he fucking hurt himself—”
Fuck. I can’t—
No. I don’t care. I don’t…
Lying. Manipulating. Burying himself in sob story after sob story, consuming the pity that he hated so much, pretending to love the people he hated so much—
Tommy didn’t care for any of them, or at least, he would’ve liked to think that way.
Warm soup Techno prepared, Wilbur's guilt, Tubbo’s seemingly endless trust, Phil’s comforting gaze, protection, love—
It’s all based on nothing but a lie I told them. They would never love me. Just like I would never love them. All I care about is making sure this bastard dies. All I care about is—
Fuck.
Inexplicably, Tommy feels his eyes water.
Dream’s smirk widens, and Tommy's suddenly shuddering claws are forced a whole inch back.
No. I’m not doing this again.
Wilbur hitting him. Phil abandoning him. The pit. The exile.
Betrayal after betrayal after betrayal—
Tommy did not love.
Tommy will not love.
Love was what made him weak. But hate was what drove him this close to victory, where Dream was so close to finally getting what he deserved.
I… just want him to die. I
need
him to die. Guilt will not stop me.
Tommy feels red glaze over his vision, and his claws stop shuddering. He brings them closer—
“Tommy! Tommy, stop—”
Quackity, again.
Always after that stupid revival book. He didn’t care if Tommy was beaten to death for it. He didn’t care if Tommy suffered in limbo for it. He was so fucking obsessed with power he didn’t— he didn’t care—
A hurt hero, crying out again.
Why won’t anyone lo v e m e —-
Tommy kills him, again.
In the same breath as his tail lashes out and strikes Quackity in the shoulder with its jagged point. A scream responds, and Tommy feels no guilt.
But during that brief moment, Dream manages to gain the upper hand, forcing his head to the side and Tommy’s wrists to another as he kicks Tommy in the stomach. Tommy grunts, blood splashing over his tongue as Dream, the slimy bastard, pushes him backwards—
No.
They end up on the floor, clawing at each other like primal animals, neither one gaining advantage over the other. While Dream is stronger and way more skilled compared to Tommy- who hadn’t practiced PVP since faking his kidnapping- Tommy had the bonus of having netherite gear whereas Dream did not. Tommy isn’t going to lose. He isn’t.
Even when Dream’s black, disgusting, talon-like hand almost rips his face off as he barely dodges. Even when Dream is showing off his cards as well, dreamon side fully rising over human as his entire body seems to glitch, from skin to muscle to bone.
“Stop him!” Dream cries out as he fights. “You want the revival book, don’t you? You can’t let me die! You can’t!”
“Fucking hypocrite. You’re just as pathetic as I am,” Tommy spits as he tears a piece of flesh from Dream’s arm. Dream doesn’t scream, just fights back harder.
Red blood draws flecks over Dream’s face even as green blood paints Tommy’s stomach. Tommy’s dimly aware of his armor’s durability ebbing along with his hearts, and he punches Dream across the cheek with one hand in the same motion as he forces an enchanted golden apple down his throat.
“Foolish!” Quackity calls.
The sounds of a sword being drawn. Then another, and another.
…Looks like the bystanders are done being bystanders. Fuck.
Foolish walks over, but Tommy doubts the other man will kill him. The most likely option would be to knock him out instead in an effort to stop the fight.
Though if he was being honest, the prospect of being knocked out with Dream being alive sounds even worse than the both of them dead. If Foolish fought him now, along with Nikki and Jack…
Even as a demon, Tommy doubted he would be able to take on a 1v4. Dread fills his mouth like cotton.
Was the death of one man so much to ask for? The same man who tortured him, manipulated him, used him—
Even after all this effort, the possibility that Dream was going to walk out of this alive— fuck. Fuck, w-why… why couldn’t I just get what I want for once in my fucking life—
A clang.
“Sorry, mate. Can’t let you do that.”
Phil’s voice. Sturdy, quiet, and torn on the edges with hurt.
A spark of hope swells in Tommy’s battered chest, ignoring the guilt, and he pushes back against Dream harder.
“Seriously? He betrayed you, you know that?!” Dream snarls as he digs a claw underneath Tommy’s pauldron, determined to rip it off. Tommy curses and spits in Dream’s face, wrenching his arm back and going for a punch. It’s blocked. “He used you! He lied, manipulated—
“Phil, you—” Technoblade tries to speak, and Tommy realizes that if Technoblade tried to get Phil to stand down now, it very well could work. And then Dream was going to live another day, and all of Tommy’s hard earned work would be for fucking nothing, and exile, exile, exile—
The guilt in his heart spirals, contorting with hate. Dream wasn’t wrong. But Tommy knew everything he did was what others had taught him from the beginning. Was what they taught him.
“And haven’t you people done the same? If there was one thing Dream got right, it’s that none of you are victims.” Tommy asks, breaking the silence and shattering his mask once and for all. His self-control had long since withered away, and he knew now that the second he had chosen to reveal his demonic side and attack Dream was the second all the trust put into him had been murdered. But it's fine, he couldn't didn't care, as long as..
“Tubbo was the one who betrayed me.”
He lands a strike into Dream’s heart. Quackity yells something incomprehensible, but in that moment, no one moves.
Dream lashes back, and Tommy lets the crack echo through his armor and bleed red over his skin. The pain is insignificant.
“Wilbur was the one who used me.”
He drags demon blades into the side of Dream’s head, staining his blond hair with blood. Jack swings his sword, but Wilbur blocks it with his own and forces him backwards. Dream coughs, and blood dribbles down his chin as he looks at Tommy, surprised again.
“Phil lied to me.”
Dream does not stop fighting. But his motions seem… slower now, and Tommy gets more and more injured, but he decides that the second part didn’t matter. And so, Tommy rips into Dream’s collarbone. The fight between Phil and Quackity restarts, and Techno’s voice falls quiet. His axe does not.
“And you…” Tommy grins as something akin to fear washes over Dream’s face. It’s a tantalizing, addicting expression. How long had Tommy feared him? How long had he remained under Dream’s foot, dressed up in those pretty green strings, how long had…
I’ve been waiting.
I’ve been waiting for this for so fucking long.
“You manipulated me.”
Tommy finds an opening and forces his hand through, ripping through fabric, then skin, and then going right past—
Dream chokes on even more blood as Tommy’s hand barrels through his chest to the other side. He does not scream as his flesh tears past Tommy’s arm and as his blood overflows, spilling onto the floor in a gruesome puddle. He does not scream, just continues to look at Tommy, really look at him, anger and fear and shock all piling into one on his face, all overlapping. It’s as if he was seeing Tommy for the first time.
Tommy stares back, sharp grin widening like the one on the mask Dream used to so frequently wear.
“Am I a little brat now, Dream? Am I powerless? Am I worthless?” he asks, twisting his arm and watching Dream instinctively spasm with pain. “You told me to stop prioritizing people over objects.
You
taught me this. You forced me to grow up.” Tommy giggles a little, drunk on the feeling of Dream’s pulsating flesh and that
look
on his face. “Are you proud of me?”
Dream’s bright green eyes are beginning to fog up, Tommy notes. Judging by how things were going, he had only one heart left. One simple punch would be enough to land the finishing blow.
“...you…” Dream gasps. He looks pathetic. “You can’t kill me. I’ll- I’ll give you the secrets of the revival book if you—”
Tommy remembers back when they were in that obsidian underground chamber, a sealed place of bargaining chips with two discs front and centered. He remembers Dream offering the same deal, remembers when the thought of Wilbur trickled into his head and he let Dream live. Remembers—
Agreeing to that deal was a mistake. And at this point, Tommy knew better than to make the same mistake twice.
“Sorry, Dream. Your reign was never meant to be,” he grins, all teeth, and rips his arm back. His claws puncture Dream’s lungs. Blood pours out of Dream’s body like a fountain, and he tries to say something, but nothing comes out but a coarse, futile gasp.
Tommy can pinpoint the exact moment as Dream's last heart withers. His limp body collapses onto the floor, blood pooling into a pond to cradle it.
He’s dead.
There’s screaming, yelling, heck, even crying, but all of that seems insignificant now. Is insignificant now.
He’s dead.
Tommy grins so hard it hurts. The last strings of his adrenaline fall, and the injuries from the fight catch up. But it doesn’t matter, even as Tommy begins to feel lightheaded and he drops to his knees.
I won.
I… won.
The last thing Tommy sees is the beautiful sight of Dream’s corpse before everything fades to black.