(A/N: request as a pic. aahhahahha hee ya go! ft a tommyinnit with 0 fucks to give)
Tommy was so sick of everything.
It seemed as if his life was just a constant fall downhill, with the occasional stop every now and then. If this could be described in a stage of grief, he'd be fully on 'anger', because god-fucking-fuck was he angry.
It was probably a 'coping mechanism', or whatever the term was for the actions that Puffy had told him he was doing — like picking flowers, or walking around a lot, or building towers, or getting angry, apparently.
He'd been dealing with it better though. All those books Puffy gave him on anger management kind of helped, but Tommy did prefer the anger, because at least it was better than the fear and numbness that would envelop him if he let go of his anger and snark.
Still, when his head crashed into his pillow and he fell into a deep sleep, he wasn't expecting to be in a fully white room. Usually, his nightmares consisted of... a variety of things, really. Things he'd rather not think about, because then they'd appear, and they'd- and then he would have to suffer through another night, eventually waking up screaming and crying.
Something rippled through the air, and Tommy's first instinct upon seeing someone who looked like Dream but wasn't popping to life and turning to stare at him was, surprisingly, not to scream. Unsurprisingly, it was to stand frozen shock-still, because of course his body would betray him at a time like this, just like everyone else had.
And then the Dream wannabe raised a hand towards him, and oh no no no he was going to get choked-
"Sorry!" the Dream wannabe suddenly exclaimed, wrenching his hand away, and Tommy slowly uncurled himself from his shaking, prone form. Or, tried to, at least.
Fuck, why couldn't his nightmare be normal?
"Go away," he whispered.
"My name is... well, you can call me Exdee. I'm not here to hurt you," he said. "I'm here to... prepare you, in a way."
"For what?"
"Your future," here, 'Exdee' — which, honestly speaking, was a better name to call him than 'Dream wannabe' — paused, wincing a little, before continuing. "At least, the best I can with my restrictions."
Was Tommy having a fever dream inside of a nightmare-dream? Because it very much seemed like it.
"What the fuck?"
"Okay, so, I don't think I can stay for long, because my alarm will be waking me up soon," Exdee seemed to- fucking rip a hole through the dream, and Tommy got a glimpse of a dark room, with someone laying on a bed, before the rip closed up, and Exdee turned back to him. "But- uh, tomorrow, don't go to the Red Banquet, alright? It's best if you didn't. And avoid the main SMP area for a week two days after the Red Banquet. Trust me, it's for your own good."
Tommy was really beginning to be sick of that phrase. For gods sake, how old did everyone think he was, five? He could understand things just fine, obviously he was fucking frustrated with everyone's attempts at not giving him information to 'protect him'.
Where the hell was this kind of energy during the worst moments of his life, anyways?!
"Don't worry, you'll get to punch, uh, your... creator? Who's... you? I don't really know how to explain this," Exdee laughed awkwardly, and it really was something to see someone who looked so similar to his worst nightmare act so... human. "But, uh! Yeah! That's... that's about it. I'd love to say more, but I can't stay for long now, and, uh, I don't really have my notes fully prepared yet."
"Notes for what?"
Suddenly, there was a sudden force pulling him up, and Tommy's heart started racing in panic as he went higher and higher, while Exdee stared at him with a sad smile. Tommy hated that stupid fucking sad smile.
"Wait!" Tommy called out, even as the grasps of the waking world started to pull him above. "How do you know all of this?! How do- how did you get all this info-?!"
"It's simple," Exdee smiled at him, sadness in his tone as he started to sink below the pristine ground, white melting around him as he was pulled under.
"It was a collaborative effort, really," Exdee continued. "After all, every storyteller knows their characters more than their characters know themselves."
And then, Tommy sat up in his bed, fists twisted in his sheets as he painted heavily. He glanced around his room wildly, but found nothing out of the ordinary.
Nothing, but a single white note, stuck to his hand.
'Until we meet again, Tommy. I might not be able to stop the lore, but I can save you from the worst of it.
- C.C.Dream (Exdee)'
'...what the fuck.'