His blonde, matted locks swayed longingly in the vicious Logstedshire wind. Tommy shivered roughly and rubbed his goosebump-ridden, bloody arms, only slowed by the clinging, dirty rags that used to be clothes long ago, before he lost almost everything. Tears streamed down his face and fell silently info the muddy hilltop he stood on as he waited for Dream, the only one who hadn't left him. Tubbo had left him here, alone in his misery, Ranboo had abandoned him afterwards, probably forgetting all about him. Was he not important enough to be put in his memory book?

Suddenly, his mind went back to the warmth of the nether, and the desire to throw himself into lava -to be consumed by fire - built up once more in his shattered heart.

"Tommy!" A voice yelled. Wait, it was Dream! He sighed in relief and limped down the hill, watching to make sure he didn't trip on his loose bandages. "Dream! I-" Tommy was cut off by the swift digging of a two-block hole. Dream had barely asked him to drop his stuff in the hole, and he'd already began to throw his wooden tools he'd forced himself to make into the dirt -or lack thereof.

For his trouble, he received a warm pat on the head, wiggling Tommy's furry ears. "So, what have you been up to?" Asked Dream, breaking the soft silence. Tommy's eyes lit up with excitement. "Oh, Dream, I've been a big man and built myself a new girlfriend! And I did have some stuff for a farm but uhh-" He looked down at the crater- when had it became a crater? He couldn't quite remember Dream blowing it up- did he blow it up? It didn't matter. He'd think about it later when he had time for himself. Like he always did when Dream left, when he had no-one, when even Dream wasn't there to distract him from himself, from his stupid thoughts-

An axe rocketed into his stomach, knocking him to the ground. Right, he'd spaced out, Dream didn't like him doing that. Pain burst into his body, quickly followed by intense guilt that wracked his body more than pain ever could. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, m' sorry, m'sorry, m'sorry!" the boy repeated, over and over and over and over. He hadn't paid attention to his only friend - his best friend - and so he suffered the consequences.

Red, sticky blood poured out. "M'sorry, m'sorry, m'sorry, m-" "Stop, Tommy." Dream ordered, no room for arguments. He wiped the tears (when had he started crying?) and looked up at the masked man, the man who posed as if under that mask his eyes (if he even had any) would be glaring at him.

"I wish, Tommy... I wish I didn't have to do this, that you could just be fucking normal... I wish I didn't have to fix you, but here we are. Nobody else will do it."

A foot collided into him.

"This is why Tubbo exiled you, because he's too bored of you to bother wasting time trying to correct you."

Another leg.

"The wars are over, they have no use for you, so they've left you, like the broken toy you are- are you listening, Tommy?"

A hand sliced into his face.

"I-I am listening Dream, I swear!" Tommy stammered. "Then what the fuck did I just say, Tommy?" He yelled. "I- I'm useless, That's why T-T-Tubbo left me... N' I'm broken too..." The tears got heavier and soon Tommy was curled up in a fetal position, wiping away tears.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" Dream crooned as he lifted up Tommy's chin to look at him. The younger boy whimpered, almost unable to vocalise words due to his tears taking up all his energy. I jus-" and another stream of tears flew down his face.

Dream crouched down to Tommy's level and gestured at Tommy to come over to him, which the teen hesitantly did. Dream embraced Tommy and the younger looked over Dream's shoulder at the tear-blurred view of Logstedshire. Tommy suddenly realised that he felt a lot calmer and the tears slowed to a halt. "I got your shoulder a bit wet." He muttered. Dream grunted, he expected that. "You'd better not get snot on there too." Tommy almost shot back a remark about how much of a big man he was, but in that moment, he didn't feel like a big man. He felt fucking pathetic. He'd fought in wars and now what was he? A blubbering baby?

He was snapped out of his thoughts by Dream standing up and supporting Tommy's weight as he carried the boy away over to Tommy's tent. "Are you hungry?" Dream asked. Tommy muttered a quick affirmative and felt himself getting plopped down onto the mess of towels he loosely referred to as a bed. Dream walked off and soon, he was gone, and Tommy was cold and alone again.

It felt like ages and no time at all that Dream took to find some meat, probably killing an animal somewhere with his fancy netherite shit and smelting it, or maybe he fished it out of his inventory? Either way, when Dream dropped some warm steak into his lap that was soon devoured, Tommy was truly thankful.

The blonde duo spent the rest of the night in Tommy's tent :Dream looking after Tommy, consoling him, feeding him, entertaining him, and Tommy doing whatever Dream wanted him to do, an equal exchange giving both parties what they wanted. Yes, this was friendship. Tommy felt himself loose consciousness as the world became darker, and Dream's soft 'goodbye' received only a murmured protest in response

Logstedshire had only been getting colder as Winter progressed, leading to Tommy being almost unable to leave his makeshift bed due to the very real concern of getting frostbite. Which was fine, Dream was giving him supplies every so often, and making sure that he was okay, which was more than Tubbo ever did. Speaking of Tubbo, Dream had regretfully informed him that Tubbo had heartlessly discarded his Tommy compass, just like he'd discarded the real Tommy.

Dream was in Tommy's tent one snowy day, when a mob started to get closer because most of the torches had been destroyed by the heavy snow. The zombie limped in (reminding Tommy of himself) and was soon destroyed by Dream, who noticed that Tommy hadn't even stirred from his blanket cocoon. "What would you do without me Tommy?" Dream asked, semi-rhetorically. "I think I'd die without you, Dream. I can't do anything m' too cold and weak all the time." Tommy whispered, his voice trailing off at the end.

"That's a good thing though, you can't burn down houses or start wars if you can't fight, this is an improvement." Dream stated, no room for argument. Tommy curled over to face him directly and Dream put his fingers through Tommy's long, windswept, less matted hair. Dream had made sure that Tommy's hair at least was well kept, and while he was still hungry and dirty, at least he looked somewhat presentable.

"I guess..." Tommy muttered. He was a lot quieter, no longer did he need to fill space on the rare occasion that there were no explosions, while TNT did go off regularly, Logsted was a quiet environment where inside voices were appreciated if everyone was good.

Dream cut up some bite sized cube of apple for Tommy to snack on and set it on Tommy's ripped and torn pillow and then stood up and left, zipping the tent as he left. It was times like this that Tommy hated. When Dream said something so annoyingly true that made Tommy want to be hugged and comforted but instead left Tommy with his thoughts and made him reflect on where he went wrong, like a good friend. And if he missed when Dream fed him the food, the scenes of comfort and protection living forever in his mind, that was up to him.

A small piece of apple the size of Tommy's fingernail found itself in Tommy's mouth and he chewed to try and make it a bit less loudly quiet. Did that make sense? Maybe he was just going crazy due to isolation. That would be a weird. Like the Tubbo hallucinations he kept on having, but worse.

Tommy heard some weird groaning noises, and with a start, he realised that he knew the only thing that could make those noises: a zombie horde. His heart started beating faster and faster, and adrenaline started pumping, but it was like he was paralysed. He just couldn't move. "Agh..." He grumbled as he tried to order his legs to move. It was then that he noticed that he didn't have a sword, or axe, or pickaxe. He had not even a hoe (at least not the tool kind) to his name. It was then that Tommy knew that he had two choices: the first was to give up, to call it quits. He was exiled anyway, he had one friend, and he was broken anyway. The second was to scream as loud as he could and pray that Dream wasn't too far away.

Zombie hands battered down the wool walls of his tent. He had barely any time to think. What could he do. Fuck. Shit. Piss. Virgin. Shit. Bastard. Shit. "Dreeam!" He yelled, enunciating the 'e'. He yelled again, praying that his voice could still carry far enough, the zombies had removed two wool blocks, luckily horizontally next to each other rather than vertically. "Dreeam!" Again, he tried to attract Dream's attention, he prayed his last prayer to Prime. He prayed that Dream would come or that he would go to the good place once he died, whether that would be in the next five seconds, or years. "Dreeaaam!" He yelled a final time, this time for longer.

The zombies broke in, all of them rushing at him, hitting his legs. It was agony as pain errupted across his legs and he weirdly felt the flavour of the infection enter his body through the scratches. It was like Dream's punishments were like falling over at the park when he was seven (Phil carrying him to a bench and giving him a Hello Kitty plaster. He had never known suffering like this before.

Fire.

Dream appeared out of nowhere, slashing the green beasts down and bravely taking on multiple at once. He looked down at Tommy, knowing immediately what had happened from the shaking of his legs and the position of the dust that had been zombies. "Help, please, do anything..." Tommy pleaded.

It all went dark...

------------------------------------------------

Tommy woke up in an actual bedroom for the first time in months. He was clearly not in Logstedshire, or L'manberg. The walls were decorated a neon green, the bed he was in was made from jungle wood and the bedsheets were green. He'd been a soldier, Tommy was used to waking up in weird places, so this time, he determined that this must be Dream's home. "Hello?" He yelled, voice cracking from it's previous overuse.

Footsteps.

They soon stopped on the opposite side of the jungle wood door he could see in front of him. A lock was unlocked, and Dream appeared in front of him, in all of his glory. "Dream! Is this... Your house..? I thought..." Tommy trailed off. "Who else's? Besides, how could you even believe Blade's propaganda? Of course I own a house!" Dream stated, almost too defensively. In actuality, Tommy realised then that if Dream did have enough netherite to have full armour, he would need at least a base, if not a home, and then Techno's "homeless" rants seemed lot more funny.

The masked man walked over to Tommy and sat on the bed he was in. "What happened?" Dream asked. "I thought you could at least take care of yourself for about 5 minutes, are you really that weak?" Tommy tried to curl up, but his legs just weren't obeying. "Dream, what's wrong with my legs?" Tommy asked. "Ah... That... You see for yourself..." Said the masked man.

Tommy obediently lifted up the duvet and soon, his legs were revealed. They weren't fucking there. "Whathefuck!" He shouted, his legs were gone. Up until Tommy's knee, there was nothing there on either leg. He would never be able to walk again, he could never run, or fight. He would need a wheelchair, he wouldn't be able to climb a mountain, or go on a hilly walk-

"Tommy!" A fist collided with his face. "Jeez, you gotta start paying attention." Dream scolded. "So- I- Zombies...?" Tommy whispered. "Yeah, you got mauled in your legs by a zombie and they were both infected so to stop it spreading..."

Tommy's face became wet and the world got all blurry. "It's okay, Tommy, I'll look after you." Dream said comfortingly. Dream pet his hair and everything got a bit clearer and calmer. He was safe, Dream was with him, and they were best friends so he'd be fine.

A few hours later, after everyone had calmed down a bit and Tommy had taken in his lack of legs, Dream decided that it was time for breakfast (Tommy's archadian rhythm hadn't failed him before, he always woke up at a good time, no matter how tired he was) and so Tommy was soon lifted into the little wheelchair next to his bed. It was a mix of red and green, a good fusion of Dream and Tommy, which Tommy quite liked. The wheelchair was not designed to be wheeled by the user, but an able-bodied person to wheel it for them. And Dream did just that, making sure that Tommy was wherever necessary.

The hallway was the same jungle wood aesthetic and every room was out of view behind a door. But what made Tommy confused was that there were no windows at all. Like, none, not even when they got out of the hallway area that was probably just a bunch of bedrooms and a few specialised potion and enchantment rooms and into the open kitchen and living room.

Tommy felt really tired, most likely a side effect of the zombie infection that had required the removal of two (fucking) limbs and so he relaxed a bit in the chair. Dream soon tucked Tommy into the table where there was a normal chair missing to make room for the wheelchair. Tommy looked into the kitchen and watched as Dream removed some weird salad mix of pumpkin, apple and melon slices from the fridge and divided it into two bowls, one for Tommy and one for Dream.

Once the bowls were on the table, Dream started to feed Tommy, like he usually did back in Logsted. Tommy's ears perked up, all racoon hybrids liked a bit of meal-time attention from their protectors in their pack, and Dream filled said role. The warmth of Dream's home still shocked Tommy, he'd been missing warmth ever since he'd been exiled, ever since Tubbo decided that Tommy was too bad to live in L'manberg, the country he'd died twice for, the country he'd sacrificed so much for. He couldn't believe he'd ever been friends with Tubbo.

Soon, breakfast was over and after a quick wipe of Tommy's face, it was time for some cleaning. Tommy was moved to a wheelchair that he could move independently in, which looked exactly the same except for the mechanical stuff, and Tommy was told that he was only allowed to use this one at set times to make sure that he didn't betray Dream to L'manberg, which he would never do. He wasn't the same loudmouthed, annoying, violent brat he was at the beginning of exile, no. He was a better Tommy. He listened, he behaved, he cleaned the house like Dream asked.

Tommy was given a list of chores that were all more or less easy to accomplish, like mopping the floor, which was a bit harder now, but it was still easy enough to do when he'd figured out the angle. He dusted the floor with a hoover and almost ran over the cord a few times, but he managed. And no matter what he was doing, Dream watched, eagle-'eyed', ready to pounce if he took a 'step' out of line.

It took him a few hours to clean the entire living space and his new bedroom however he was forbidden from entering any room that wasn't either living space or his bedroom, and Dream's bedroom was off-limit except from if he was invited in. In Tommy's own room, there was an entire wardrobe of clothes, each one a green colour, some were all green, some had a bit of black, others some white. But nothing had any red on it.

Tommy was soon given lunch and then after some time spent in his bedroom with Dream exploring his new clothes, he was tucked into bed, ready for another day.