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Things have been complicated after the reveal, as one would expect.
Techno and Phil hadn’t found out yet (hence Wilbur meeting with Tommy rather than Red Chaos), but even so they still needed to process all that happened now that Wilbur was out of his mentor and Schlatt’s clutches. They figured a park was a good location, there was relatively little foot traffic due to the winter chill and the view of the snow sparkling on the branches bare of leaves would likely help to calm the tension in the air.
Fighting his mentor didn’t exactly help things, but he’s trying not to think about that right now. His mind is already swirling with confusion and conflict and fear enough as is, thinking about his mentor wasn’t exactly going to help that.
He’s chosen a side now and he doesn’t like to think about it.
“So-“ he’s pulled out of his thoughts by Wilbur, voice with an awkward hesitance before letting out an exasperated sigh, “Fuck it I’ll get straight to the point, what does this whole thing mean, for us I mean. Are-“ a fear creeps into his tone, his voice getting softer, “Are we still friends Toms?”
And-
Tommy doesn’t know. All this time he thought Wilbur was a civilian he was selfishly dragging into his world, for months he lay awake with no one at his side wishing he killed Siren himself. He didn’t know what to think when neither of those things were true now.
But at least now there was a chance for honesty. No longer did he have to hide, to play a role he didn’t fit of the helpless civilian, no longer did he have to lie as in all of it came crashing down it left room for a deeper foundation of truth.
“Wilbur-“
He stops as a woman runs by, a picture of a stegosaurus on her pure white tee-shirt she wears despite being the middle of winter.
His mentor had always been fond of stegosauruses.
Tommy remembers he always used to go off on long tangents about stegosauruses, describing every aspect of them in great detail.
“ You know what this reminds me of, speaking of reptiles ” his mentor would start, “ Did you know Tommy-“ a smile spreads across his face, “- that Stegosaurus was one of the many dinosaurs first collected and described in the Bone Wars, which was originally named by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1877 from remains that were recovered north of Morrison, Colorado? ”
His mentor would smile, “ I remember how I used to always go to the library, learning everything I could about stegosauruses, checking out every book in the library just to memorize them all -“
“ Dream, mentor -“ Tommy would start, exasperation quickly spilling into his tone, “ We are at the climax of The Chamber of Secrets, I want to hear about Harry Potter fighting the Basilisk- “
“ Hush now Tommy, I’m having a flashback ”.
His mentor always used to read him bedtime stories. Though Tommy had refused at first, he quickly grew to love the routine of getting snuggled under the covers and listening as his mentor’s calm voice take him to another world, a world free of the horror and corruption of their own.
A world they could aspire to create.
During the climax of these stories was always his favorite time to stop and wax poetically about his past ridden with Stegosauruses.
“ Dream ” Tommy had started, “ Why do you always do this? Why do you always interrupt stories to talk about random things from your past, and why is it always stegosauruses? ”
“Because you see Tommy-” his mentor’s smile changed, hiding something darker, something unknowable behind it, a look he had never seen before from his mentor. He remembers vividly the chill that went down his spine. “-this is something that’s going to come up later in the plot”
“What?” he shoots back, confused with a fear that was slowly creeping into the back of his mind. “What the hell do you mean by ‘it is going to come up later in the plot’? What, do you think we’re all in a movie or some shit?”
“A fanfiction actually” he said with a satisfaction in his voice, “And by someone who likes microwaving milk and putting it in chocolate cereal no less. They describe it as ‘hot chocolate with crunch’”
“Ew, who the fuck drinks cereal with hot milk?”
“God apparently”
“ Wow , never knew God was a heathen themselves”
“It’s like that quote from Spy Kids about why god stays in heaven but in reverse”
“Yeah, essentially”
There’s a silence.
“How the fuck do you even know all this? Like no offense I trust you more than anyone but this is a pretty fucking big claim ” he says, secretly not wanting to hear the answer.
The evil laugh his mentor lets out only deepens his fear.
“You see Tommy, while yes, that is technically our God, as in the creator of our universe, within it there are also other gods of different domains. And you see, while people always thought the god that claimed me was XD, well, they were only half right ”, Dream said, a dark humor in his voice. “It is true I have the mark of XD burned into my neck but, well, I got a little help fighting it off even if it wasn’t enough for it to vanish completely. Tell me Tommy, are you aware of the story of The Garden of Eden?”
“Uh, yeah, I think so. Doesn’t it go like- there were two naked people in this garden and god told them to fuck, but as they were fucking a snake showed up and started to be shady as fuck and offer them an evil apple or some shit, and they ate it like idiots and now the world is shit and women have periods”
His mentor snorts, “Well that’s certainly one way of putting it” his tone goes back to something mysterious, “But yes, a snake approached Adam and Eve and offered them the forbidden fruit, the power to know the difference between good and evil, a fruit of forbidden knowledge-“
“Where the fuck are you going with this-“
“ Hush , I’m getting to that. You see, while yes technically the forbidden fruit wasn’t stated to be an apple, it is often imagined as such and well, you see gods are often a bit outside our mortal understanding. They don’t have a solid form like us, don’t have a single perception. This leads to gods somewhat reflecting our human symbols, being somewhat of a mirror that reflects back what we expect to perceive. And, well, over time as they’re associated more and more, those symbols start to actively embody the god and change the very way we interact with them. Now Tommy, do you remember how I always used to talk about apples, how I always used to insist on you keeping them in your apartment? ”
And then-
It clicks, he doesn’t know how he didn’t realize it before. Dream always knew a lot about apples, more than any normal person should know about apples, and Dream had subtly ingrained the habit of eating apples into Tommy so much that it was half of what he ate even after Dream left.
Tommy looks up at his mentor, the one that had guided him to this point and asks, “So you’re saying there’s some sort of Apple God , or something?”
His mentor smiles back, “Yes Tommy, that’s exactly what I’m suggesting. What better a symbol of a god of knowledge than the forbidden fruit, and what is more cursed knowledge than that all this time we were secretly a part of a woman’s edgy fanfiction about block men”
“…you got me there”
“Like I said, cursed knowledge.”
He looks at his mentor trying to puzzle out what this means before finally asking, “So, what happens now?”
His mentor smiles, and pulls out a shining red apple. “Tommy, would you like to know how deep the roots really go?”
And-
He bites down, the apple surprisingly bitter in his mouth.
And then-
He woke up.