Chapter Text
The moon is dipping behind the horizon, following along the passing night, and Tommy has yet to sleep a wink. Instead, he’s watching as beams of light fracture into different colors as it passes through the window’s tinted glass, adorned with translucent patterns and cartoons painted on its surface.
The familiar drawings catch his attention in his sleepless boredom, and he fondly recalls when he and his roommates had decided to scribble on the glass in the first place. Tommy had found a surviving stash of window markers in one of the other classrooms, and the three eagerly scrambled to grab at the limited colors, proceeding to vandalize their bedroom window with doodles of long-forgotten pop culture references they’d only seen on dated posters and covers of empty dvd cases. They drew on whatever they desired, though his taller roommate—a brunette teen who was pale enough that he looked like he burned in the sunlight— Ranboo, was heavily against any phallic imagery in their little mural. Tommy argued it would only add to the artistry, and his other roommate, Toby, only concurred.
They eventually relented though, after a chaotic scuffle of pillows and loose limbs, they strictly stuck with poorly rendered cartoon characters—drawing and coloring until their markers went dry. Their masterpiece has remained there ever since, and will remain there—mostly unchanging— until the off chance that Tommy finds another set of markers one day.
In the present, the little mural is littered with various scratches from wear and tear opening the window day after day, and bits of ink flake and roll off the glass in a see-through film as it ages. Looking at it now, Tommy doesn’t think they’ll ever have the heart to wipe it clean, even if they’re ever able to find a new set of markers, or a new set of characters they never grew up with. It’s almost silly how much the juvenile design means to him, but his chest swells with an unmistakable fondness whenever it catches his eye, and it makes him thankful to have the company he has.
Tommy smiles despite his restless mind, and he continues to think every thought he can from his place in bed. Said bed being a mattress laid over rearranged shelves that once lined the ninth grade classroom-turned-bedroom. He tucks a pillow closer to himself, looking over at the two other boys in their respective spots in the room, cozied up in their similar, makeshift beds.
Ranboo is completely enveloped in his own blanket, his bed parallel to Tommy's on the other side of the room by the whiteboard. If he looks closely enough, the lump will shift in increments as the boy breathes. For as long as he knew him, the tallest teen slept like a rock, and would not wake up in the middle of the night, even if the floor was collapsing underneath him.
On the other hand, if Ranboo was a rock, Toby was a landslide. The guy tossed and turned like he was caught in a current while remaining dead asleep. As of the moment, he was splayed out like a starfish on his bed, one foot on the ground, with a blanket wrapped around it. Tommy briefly wonders how he hasn’t accidentally killed himself yet, and mourns for the brunette’s inevitable neck pains as he spots Toby’s pillow on the floor.
His bed in particular was already a little shorter because of his tendency to roll off it, but the guy was still able to bruise himself in other ways with how violently he sleeps.
Turning from the two, Tommy trains his eyes on the ceiling. He fidgets as a restive feeling thrums under his skin, and trails the cracks on the ceiling with his eyes as he thinks.
There’s a lot he wants to do within the day, a lot he has to fit in a measly twenty four hours. Trying to make plans with so many things running through his head is an overwhelming feat, especially in the haze of a sleepless night. He closes his eyes tight and rolls over to try and shroud his vision in complete darkness. He knows he definitely wants to go back to the city center in the morning, and hopes that he isn’t stopped from going out for one reason or another. Other than that slight worry, things should go pretty smoothly as long as he stays on route and on time, and Tommy’s certain he has everything he needs ready to grab and go.
He’s trying and failing to fall asleep with all the buzzing under his skin, and Tommy will be the first to admit he may be a little eager to explore more. There’s a lot of mystery to the city he hadn’t realized, and the encounter with the strange man only fueled his desire to uncover those mysteries.
Tommy was far too young to remember the kind of normalcy that existed before the virus, and he’s mostly remained in the safety of the base since he found it. One might say he’s just seeking a change of pace, or maybe he was morbidly curious of what his life could have been if the apocalypse never transpired. He recalls getting gravely upset at the thought, once, but he has long come to terms with the fact that there’s very little that can be done about it.
He can’t change shit about how the world is now, and all that matters is how he survives it, but he does think it's worth his time to have a little fun at the very least. Tommy is determined to make the most out of his (probably short) life, and doing so would entail exploring more of the zombie-infested city he would most likely be trapped in for the rest of his days. He wants to understand how things used to be—its history one could say—and it’s not like people are out there funding museums about the end of society as they knew it.
He huffs, eyes still firmly shut, and forcibly steadies his breaths. One peek outside the window shows that it’s likely early morning, and Tommy is aware that if he wants to make it across the city with energy to spare for a return trip home, he’s going to have to rest now. He rolls over, burying himself in the mess of his own sheets and pillows, and forces himself to ease into exhaustion. His sight is shrouded in a black he forces into his shut eyes, and he tries to dispel the hyper-fixated awareness on the back of his lids with a half-assed scolding at his subconscious. By some miracle, the night eventually fades as he lets himself doze off to the thought of adventure, as childish as that thought may seem.
His dreamless sleep ends as quick as it began, hours passing in quick succession, and the sun rising just as fast. It bathes the shared room in tinted warmth, laying over Tommy’s face in strips of light. His eyes flutter open as he rises readily from his slumber.
He hasn’t had nearly the recommended amount of sleep, but he’s strangely refreshed despite that. Exhaustion is mostly absent from him, even when it should be clinging to him like a second skin, and Tommy sits up quickly—already half out of bed as he pulls his backpack from the shelf that makes up his bed. He’s eager and buzzing with wanderlust, rushing to the window. He slides it open, mindful of the scratchy drawings that adorn it, and reaches down to pluck his clothes from the line that stretches across this side of the building. It carries the weight of his and his roommates’ collective wardrobe, particularly the damp ones they had to leave out to dry, and Tommy pulls a run-appropriate attire off it before leaning back into the room and sliding the window shut.
Tommy dresses up hastily, pulling on his pants and shoes in an awkward shamble of limbs. He’s stumbling out the door with his shirt half on, and he graciously ignores the annoyed grumbles of Toby, who seems to be half-awake and observing his trainwreck of a morning routine from the comfort of his blanket cocoon.
Meanwhile, Ranboo is dead to the world.
“You heading out?” He croaks out, squinting at Tommy’s figure as he pulls his shirt on properly.
Tommy hums in response, far too preoccupied checking the contents of his backpack to put any effort into a better reply, and he’s midway through zipping up the bag by the time Tobias pipes up again.
“At least shower,” he shouts, face scrunched up in an expression of disgust. His bed head is a chaotic tangle that doesn’t obscure his vision somehow, his aim remaining impeccable when he chucks a pillow at Tommy hitting the back of his head with a light thud. Half asleep and appalled, Tubbo calls Tommy a
‘filthy rat’
as he crosses the doorway, yet the blonde only yells back with a laugh, “I’ll bathe when I get back! I’ll just get dirty anyways-”
Tommy hops on one foot as he wins a battle with the backs of his shoes, getting out with a finger trapped between the sole of his foot and the folded over back of his sneakers. Closing the door, he remembers the discarded pillow on the ground, and he pokes his head back into the room. “I’m not picking that up!”
Tommy doesn’t stick around long enough to hear Tubbo’s response, swinging the door shut and having it muffle the angry curses of his friend that is very obviously not a morning person, running out and heading towards the ground floor as his groggy shouts grow fainter in the distance.
He slides and sprints in his rush, skipping steps with one hand anchoring him to the stair rail. He’s gliding past some passing early risers, who barely spare a glance at his typical antics. Although the halls are sparse as many remain restful in bed.
Tommy lands on the ground floor with a skip in his step, speedily going through the halls and towards the door leading outside. A man Tommy thinks is named Joseph stands guard by its side, a rifle tucked safely by his side.
As with most of their volunteer patrollers at the complex, the guy is built and pretty intimidating, being one of the few ex-military they have at the safehouse.
He regards Tommy with a passing glance and quirked brow, probably used to his face and letting him through without comment. The blonde carries on through the courtyard, passing the clothes lines of drying sheets, and the ratty tables littered with empty bottles.
He eventually reaches the iron bars of the main gate, framed by the brick walls of the school fences. Sat on a monobloc chair nearby is another patroller Tommy knows is named Jen— a tough woman with graying hair and a thin smile. She’s the only person Tommy knew that could manage to make a ruffled blouse and office pants look intimidating, and yet she smiles at him warmly without an ounce of that toughness in sight.
She’s seen him come and go a countless number of times, never failing to send a friendly—albeit wordless— greeting his way. It isn’t any different today, and she quickly turns away following her silent greeting, focusing on watching over her post diligently. They’ve never spoken more than a few words to one another, yet Tommy can confidently say that he trusts that woman with his life.
She has a soft strength in her features, a face lined with experience and full of life. Jen pulls the keys from their place on her belt and stands to unlock the front gate, pushing it open to let Tommy through.
The gates swing open less noisily than one would expect from such an old structure, moving on its hinges with only a slight creak. That’s to say that the maintenance of subtlety was a task for those unfortunate enough to do something to deserve it.
Piss off the right people, or ‘disturb the peace’, and you had a one way ticket to oiling duty for the whole compound’s rusty bits. And though he wouldn’t say attempting a couple egg drop experiments Tubbo found in a science book is necessarily ‘disturbing the peace’ , he wouldn't dare do it again after what happened last time.
Apparently, it was unacceptable to be taking from their supply of eggs (—they only used six!— ) and putting them in makeshift parachutes and paragliders. Thus, after a shameful scolding, Sam had put them on oil duty.
Then, it had been hell on earth getting grease on literally everything but the object-to-be-greased, and having to bear Toby’s continuous stream of death threats; or Ranboo’s constant, dejected expression. Not to mention the tedious suffering of trying to get all the grease off afterwards.
The one experience was enough to deter him from any serious troublemaking, sans for when he had the perfect escape route.
Walking further from the entrance to the school, Tommy goes into a jog along his usual path, passing across the old parking lot into the road out of the safe zone. It always impressed Tommy how efficiently their little community was able to enforce a kind of border around the school, with around fifty yards all around completely clear of any undead.
Of course it doesn’t hurt to be alert anyways, and it’s never good to be too confident when it comes to safety in the Apocalypse. Tommy is just one to ponder on how a collection of random strangers were able to come together to do something like this.
He supposes he lucked out, in a sense that he found a stable community willing to take him in, and not in the fact that he’s a teen growing up in the midst of an apocalypse
Tommy looks up at the morning sun as he jogs, slowing down briefly to check on the time. He’s got plenty of time to get there and back, all thanks to his early rising for the day, but he’s also never been the most patient. So, he quickly bursts back into a run, following the route he knows so well.
He zooms past familiar places and landmarks, repeating the directions to the city center while he heads to his personal checkpoint on muscle memory alone. It would be a bad situation if he got lost, and he would rather not stress about becoming zombie lunch while trying to navigate around a city he never really explored.
A good distance away from the school, Tommy eventually finds his way to the familiar sight of the apartment complex situated there, long run down like most of the other buildings in the area, and only a couple stories tall as usual.
He scales it with ease, only as tired as he usually gets as he uses the sturdy pieces of the deteriorating building (in addition to some stairs) to bring himself to the top.
Settling on the rooftop, Tommy takes a short break to regain some energy, twisting a cap off a water bottle to drink. He takes in the scenery of ruin and walking corpses from his high vantage point as he rummages through his bag to retrieve his breakfast: a crumbling cinnamon granola bar that he shakes into his mouth.
It feels sandy on his tongue, after the snack had been crushed and jostled around under other things in his bag. It isn’t the most pleasant meal he’s had, but it’s enough sustenance to keep him from going hungry. He just washes it down with more water anyways, and notes to look for better flavors in the pantry next time.
Tommy crumples the foil wrapping in his hand, chucking it in a black bin sitting on the trashed rooftop. It’s an unchangingly ugly environment, and Tommy ignores it in favor of surveying the area.
He hasn’t forgotten what he came here for, and quickly turns to pinpoint the rooftop he’s looking for.
Counting exactly eight rooftops away is what Tommy believes is his target location, a relatively short and square building with no one in sight. He hadn’t noticed before, too focused on freaking out and fleeing to really take note of what he was seeing. The surface of the roof is surprisingly clear of grass and overgrowth, obviously maintained in some kind of way. It’s entirely devoid of life besides some birds perched on the edges, the built-in landing on one of its corners, and the array of roof ventilation units. Tommy thinks the building could be where the stranger lives, or at least somewhere they frequent quite a bit.
Mapping his possible path across the seven rooftops in the building’s direction, Tommy briefly considers the fact that this might be breaking and entering if the person does, in fact, live there. However, he was not risking getting there on the ground and possibly getting bit. Regardless of his resistance to zombification, it still wasn’t a pleasant experience getting gnawed on.
He barely ponders for a minute more—because Tommy is more fond of the ‘act now, think later’ approach—before he’s jumping from one roof to the other.
The first is an easy jump, a short distance of only a couple feet, and he lands gracefully before continuing in a sprint.
The next couple are pretty much the same, the height differences minimal in terms of difficulty, allowing him to jump and hop about, avoiding small obstacles like garbage and debris.
Tommy runs to the sound of his own controlled breaths, mostly ignoring the crinkle of plastic crushed under his feet, or the sounds of his shoes kicking up gravel. His bag rustles alongside him, bouncing as he moves around.
The next building is a little farther than the rest were to each other, its concrete surface lined with a brick barrier.
Tommy speeds up a little more, swinging his arms as he pushes himself off the structure to the next, leaping and soaring across the gap between the two buildings. His backpack seems suspended in place for a second, before thudding into his back when he quickly brings his feet together to land on the ledge of the barrier.
He briefly feels himself lose balance, his heart lurching up his throat before he strongly leans forward, and stumbles off the barrier.
The blonde thankfully lands safely on his feet, breathing out in relief. “Fucking christ” He curses, shaking off the nerves as he jogs to the opposite ledge, looking down towards his target location.
He’s only a building away from the spot, but he has to be especially cautious of the sloped roof he’ll have to traverse to get there. Any loose shingles could be the death of him, though Tommy chooses not to think too hard about it, hyping himself up with a brief jumping jack-spring-kick combo.
Tommy backs up a couple steps, then promptly running up to the edge, plants his hands on the brick barrier with both hands before swinging his legs over.
The move sends him off careening towards the roof of the next building, where he braces himself to land on the unkempt tiles. The roof creaks and groans under his weight, and Tommy promptly stills himself at the rattling sound of shingles coming loose. Several of the dusty and dirty shingles slide past him and knock against the back of his feet, tumbling off the edge landing with a resound clatter on the ground below.
He doesn’t allow himself to panic, however, refraining from stumbling and throwing himself off the impromptu ramp.
Tommy feels the tiles move in their places under his feet, slipping from his weight. His legs wobble as his terrain becomes more and more uncertain, and even without the proper leverage to act confidently, Tommy moves to jump up.
He takes a couple steps down the roof to gain momentum, before pushing upwards. His right foot barely toes the angled surface, and Tommy kicks against the slope with as much force he can muster into the tips of his shoes.
The effort brings the feeling of a taut string pulling across his thighs, stinging in a way that Tommy knows will leave an ache later, but as he jumps high enough from the slippery slope, he swings his arms up even higher.
His hands slap against the edge of the building as he grips on tightly, his knuckles white with the tension of carrying his own weight, and chipped paint making a home underneath his nails. Tommy spares a glance below him without thinking, and he only now remembers why he doesn’t do that.
The drop is a long one, a couple stories that are more than enough to kill him, looking longer as his vision seems to emphasize the distance like a sinking slinky. Tommy feels nauseous for a brief moment, as if a heavy stone had sunk into the depths of his stomach, weighing him down even further.
With a yelp he barely manages to keep down, Tommy shakes himself out of those thoughts and brings his feet to plant themselves on the side of the building. He struggles and pulls his upper body upwards, leveraging himself on the ledge, one elbow at a time.
He pushes himself over onto solid ground, landing with a thud and a curse as he groans on his back. His blonde hair is slick with sweat and plastered on his forehead as he recovers, muck forming in a gross mix on his damp skin.
Dirt and dust become mud on his body, rough against his flesh in a way that reminds Tommy he’ll need a really good shower later. He’s covered in scrapes that would normally be a one way ticket to an infection, but Tommy decides that he’ll worry about that later.
The discomfort he feels has him thinking that while grease duty is the worst thing to grace god’s green earth, this whole experience is probably a close second.
Dusting himself off one more time, Tommy turns his attention to his surroundings, taking in the industrial rooftop he stands on. He decides that his initial observations are slightly off, and that the lack of overgrowth was not a testament to this building’s fortitude.
Sizeable cracks run along the surface of the rooftop, branching off and connecting like a web across the surface. The planes of the expanse of space split off in factions upon factions, crackling slightly under his weight in a way that worries him somewhat.
Tommy is still pretty certain the area is maintained somehow, clean in a way it could not naturally be. However, the building seems to have suffered from some kind of weathering anyways. Whether that be natural or not, Tommy couldn’t say.
Walking across the rooftop, it really begins to feel as though the building is one hard jump from falling apart, with dust coming off every ledge and corner as he walks across it. The clean corners of the rectangular space rounded off as pieces of itself fell off in pebbles, settling as small piles of debris.
Tommy can’t imagine being as confident sitting on its ledges like the man he had seen before. He already feels queasy walking across the roof alone, as if he’ll fall straight through, yet the stranger had been lounging around as if it was the most comfortable couch ever.
He digresses, wincing as he feels the sizable cracks beneath his feet. He looks for any sign of the strange man, any evidence of the man ever being there in the first place.
Unfortunately, the place is clean of traces of anything interesting, not even a speck of trash in sight. The large ventilation machines that fill up the area are seemingly non-functioning at the moment, as the large fans contained in them are still from disuse. Now, besides the passive interest in the actual function of this curious industrial building, he’s gotten nothing from this expedition so far.
Tommy’s honestly not quite sure what he was expecting to find anyways, given that he admittedly didn’t plan this trip out to the finest detail. However he was determined not to leave empty handed. The trip here wasn’t exactly the smoothest, and he doesn’t think he’d like to risk coming here the same way he did today.
He’s certain he could find a more stable route if he tried, but it would take hours of scouting around if not days, days in which curiosity will be eating away at him the whole time.
So, much to his apprehension, Tommy decides to go further into the building. Though he can’t help but feel a bit concerned about the dependability of the building’s infrastructure going forward, but he figures he can just make this a quick sweep of the place.
Tommy heads towards the shed-like structure that holds the door leading to the stairwell; cautiously walking around the machinery in his way. More cracks run along the area of the side of the rooftop where the landing sits, forming a tight cluster of fissures on the concrete’s surface.
He focuses on lightly stepping around the cracks as he gets close, and grabs the door handle when it’s in his reach. He’s worryingly watching the ground beneath his feet, and subconsciously presses closer to the doorway, supporting himself on the knob whilst toeing along the cracks.
Tommy tries to be incredibly careful, with every sound of minuscule tumbling debris making him nervously chew on his lips.
He takes a deep breath, readying himself to swing the door open and hop inside, his hands twisting the knob as he leans close to the door-
And in a swift, surprising bout of force, he finds himself being thrown back.
Tommy gasps with a rush of air that punches itself out his lungs, while his weight is shifted suddenly by the door swinging open violently by a force other than his own.
He’s lurching backwards, losing his balance and getting sent stumbling off the edge of the building.
Time seems to slow in his head as fear and adrenaline hit him like a tidal wave. His mind catches up with his dire predicament, and his voice comes out with a scream as the floor disappears from under him.
Terror runs ice cold throughout Tommy as the sensation of falling hits him. He feels his heart beat into a deafening crescendo, his face contorting alongside how he feels his guts do.
His thoughts are clouded by the sounds of his body screaming for a safety he is no longer privy to, and the overwhelming thought that he’s going to die here blurs his vision into a muddle of color and darkness.
Wind begins to rush up his arms, and it feels like blades slicing at his skin. He’s falling. He’s falling —
Then he’s going upwards, choking on spit as his body snaps against the opposing force. Tommy’s collar is tight around his neck, stealing his breath just as his backpack slaps against his back.
He can’t even begin to process anything beyond the sensation of a single hand dangling him in the air, his still-bleary eyes just catching flashes of features in their path:
Dark boots, dark pants. The familiar expressionless face of a gas mask, an unfamiliar head of brown, curly, hair.
He’s face to face with a strange man—more strange than the stranger from before, more unknown, somehow— and a deep, accented voice sounds like it speaks through falling sand,
“
Oh!
It's you.”