Chapter Text
Broken feet stuttered down the farthest alleys in the back of downtown. Tommy knew not where he was being dragged, only that he hated it. He hated being back in London, and he hated the very prospect of the place.
He longed to go home, to see his brothers and his friends, unsure of who was even alive anymore. He wondered if someone else in the group had suffered the same issue as him, perhaps they had gone about it differently. Perhaps they had died straight on, or perhaps they told their friends earlier than Tommy, and were able to gain help where he was not. Maybe someone got stuck with an actual doctor, or perhaps a less forgiving brute that wouldn’t have shown him mercy or dragged him through an infested city. Perhaps they wouldn’t have infringed their own safety.
Tommy was effectively snapped out of his stupid by the sound of a familiar voice, however, really the only thing that could accomplish that anymore. He dragged his head up from where it had been dangling dangerously close to limp against his chest.
His eyes fought to see what he knew was before him. It fought to make sense of the blobs hovering before him, a mixture of brown and green, like the earth. The mixture of colors that made Tommy’s heart twist in sorrow.
“Shit… How long has he been like this?” Tubbo asked, and his hands reached out to lift Tommy’s head more to the light.
Tommy groaned, a gutteral sound that scraped in his throat when fingers brushed the sensitive layer of skin on his arm.
“It doesn’t matter,” Ranboo said and pulled Tubbo close.
For a moment, the three were squished in a hug, perhaps the last one Tommy would ever feel. It hurt, his sensitive skin screamed, but he could breathe in the scents of his friends, so intoxicating . He wanted them to stay forever. With him. He couldn’t just let them leave, could he?
Tubbo pulled away first, closely followed by Ranboo and Tommy, who were nearly attached at the hip. It’s not like Tommy was keen on trying to support himself alone anymore anyways.
“How much further?” Ranboo asked.
Tubbo tore his gaze from studying every inch of Tommy’s failing body, then pointed towards the distance where Tommy could just barely make out Big Ben. He supposed they would see it, after all.
“They should be over there.” Tubbo said. “I checked earlier, the place is crawling with zombies. If we want to cross, we need to find a way around. I’ve been looking.”
“Did you find one?” Ranboo asked.
“Maybe…” Tubbo said, but as he turned to Tommy, he trailed off. “I don’t know how well we can carry someone,” he said.
“He can’t walk,” Ranboo said softly, as if Tommy weren’t even there. “He’s too weak.”
“We can carry him between us,” Tubbo suggested and opted to grab Tommy’s arm right then and there and looped it around his shoulders. He then wrapped a hand around Tommy’s waist, and pulled him close to his warmth. “Come on, grab a hold. We have to go.”
Even the mention of movement made Tommy’s body ache. Frail coughs burst past his lips with nearly every breath, but he was far too weak to put any real force behind them. They choked him, restricted him of air, all so Tubbo and Ranboo could drag him across London. He couldn’t bear the thought of it and, as much as it pained him, he dug his heels into the ground when they tried to walk. Instantly, the attention was on him.
“Go through…”
Tubbo paused, his face twisted in concern as he looked at Tommy with wide eyes. “What…?”
“Go through!” Tommy snapped, barely an idea on even what the hell he was saying. “You have to go through. B… Big Ben… it’s quickest…”
His friends regarded him with crazed looks, as if he’d been speaking complete and utter nonsense, which… of course, he had been. But, he supposed that they all knew he wouldn’t make the long trip. And, honestly, Tommy didn’t want to accidently resort to pushing his friends off of a building or vice versa. And… Well, he supposed if there was a chance, he should take it, right?
“That’s crazy, the zombies—!” Ranboo began, but Tubbo cut him off.
“He’s right,” the boy said. “If we don’t get close enough, Tommy’s far gone… and he won’t smell like us. I’m willing to bet he might cover up our scent… or, at least, trick the others. Why would a zombie just be with two live people?”
Ranboo seemed displeased and uncomfortable, as if someone had just stuck a skewer into his chest. He looked as if he wanted to vomit, but Tommy couldn’t blame him. If he had the stomach power for it, he probably would have too.
Everything burned, his body was on fire, as if he’d just run a mile as fast as his legs could carry him. His lungs struggled for breath, fighting against something that no one could see. He longed to sit down, to finally succumb to the disastrous plague in his bones, but he wasn’t granted the luxury.
One moment they were still, the next, Tubbo and Ranboo’s grip had tightened on him and they were moving. They fought to keep him upright, fought to keep his feet on the ground, even if those feet were dragging on the pavement. All in all, they did what they could to keep him alive.
Tommy heard the groaning of the undead before he saw them. The sounds crawled their way into his heart and wrapped around it, twisting it with its already struggling beats.
It wouldn’t be long before he joined them.
He would join them soon, even if he didn’t want to. Tubbo and Ranboo wouldn’t let him go so easily, they never would have and Tommy supposed that he’d always known that.
He heard their shuffling and their groans, though he supposed he’d never realized how humanly agonizing they sounded. It was as if they were sick and were only groaning for help. But, Tommy knew what they wanted, and there was no stopping the ravenous hunger of a beast.
He heard as his friends surrounding him gasped in nervous breaths as the three of them entered the crowd of zombies. And, suddenly, it was all Tommy could focus on.
Gnashing teeth and lifeless eyes met his gaze immediately and he would’ve been lying if he said that it didn’t make his stomach flip. Blood stained the leathery skin of the monsters, as if they’d bitten into a guy and didn't even bother to clean up before they hunted their next meal. They walked what gaits and limps, as if their legs had been chewed clean off before they’d perished, only to be stitched back on. And, the stench. It nearly made Tommy gag. Millions and millions of rotting flesh, shit, and urine mixed into the mixture of death.
The tangy scent of blood made his nostrils curdle, unfresh meat just the same as they dragged themselves through the once barren streets. They stumbled over rocks, as if unaware that they were there, tripped over light poles, and hit the ground so hard, their eyes popped out of their sockets.
The sights disgusted him, it twisted his already jumbled insides, rose bile in his throat as the realizations settled upon him like the first breech of dawn.
Tubbo’s grip tightened on his arm, squeezing dangerously close to numbing fear, and the stumbling steps of the duo carrying him halted. When Tommy at last focused on the scene before him, he saw what had irked his friends.
It was a lady… or, rather, the remnants of one. Half of her face was missing, like it had been melted off by a supersized hairdryer. Her eye dropped out of a leathery socket, and knocked against her face with every unsteady movement. Half of her nose was missing as well, leaving behind two slits in her face in its wake.
Her breathing could’ve been heard from miles away, that ghastly sniffing noise that sounded so close to a wheeze, or a struggling for breath.
Tommy's stomach twisted and he gagged suddenly, his lungs shuddered in his chest like old wood, coughing harshly, hacking as his body rejected the stench. With his arms hooked around his friends’ shoulders, securing him, he was left to cough into the open air, directly into the undead’s face.
The creature remained unbothered, however, as if she saw this every day, and every young boy that coughed in her face was but a mere pass by.
She sniffed one last time in the air, then at last decided that Tommy and his friends were not a meal enough… or, more likely, she simply thought of them as being part of her own. The thought somehow disgusted Tommy more. The transformation was almost complete.
He heard as she stumbled away, heard as his friends’ shuddering breaths picked up again, this time starting with an edge of fear. He felt their hesitance to pick him up again, but, in an agonizingly slow heartbeat, they were moving once more.
The streets were crawling with the undead. They were everywhere. In every alleyway and street, they stumbled and tripped as they looked for their next victim. It made Tommy sick.
And, it was after that, for whatever reason, the realization struck Tommy harder than a ton of bricks. He… wouldn’t make it. And, staying here only succeeded in putting his friends in jeopardy.
Why was he letting this drag on? His body was failing, struggling just to keep up with his mind, he already had one foot in the grave, so why the hell was he putting his friends through this? Why was he letting this happen?
Before Tommy realized what he was doing, he dug his heels into the broken ground, just barely managing to catch the edge of a pothole enough to make his friends stumble. He felt their grips slacken on him just briefly, before they stopped all together, their expressions twisted with confusion.
It was with that, Tommy fought to speak. He coughed and hacked past the blockage in his throat, uncaring as liquid sputtered onto his chin and into the air before him.
“Don’t try to speak,” Tubbo soothed him gently and rubbed a calloused hand against Tommy’s back. “Please. Just hold on.”
They tried to move again, but Tommy fought. He fought with everything he had and, at last, managed to grab someone’s shirt with a free hand and pull himself close. He could see the fear sparkling in Ranboo’s eyes as the man leaned down to meet his gaze. Tommy could see the reflection of himself in his friend’s iris and understood. He looked beyond insane… and half dead.
“Leave me…” Tommy begged quietly and winced as a zombie brushed by them far too close to Ranboo’s arm for comfort, jostling the both of them just slightly. “Please… Please just leave me…” he barely had the strength to keep his head up anymore, much less walk. It felt as if his vision was drifting in and out of focus, like a weak lens of a camera.
“Just a bit further…” Tubbo muttered in his ear and ripped his hand from Ranboo’s top in favor of wrapping it back around his own shoulders. “They should be just on the other side of this. You have to hold on for them, okay?”
Tommy groaned softly. He’d been holding on for far longer than he should’ve been, he knew that much. He’d been fighting to stay ‘awake’ since he’d originally collapsed in the doorway of that cabin. Now was the time for rest. Now was the time for this finally to be over. He was ready to accept it, but he wasn’t so sure his friends were. “Leave me…!”
“Come on!” Tubbo pleaded in his ear, sounding more and more desperate with every failing step. “Come on, Tommy! Hold on!”
But… Tommy couldn’t. With a single, final step, his body all but failed. His toes caught on his alternating heels and, suddenly, the world was tipping downwards. Hands caught him, worry piqued in the air, but Tommy… didn’t care. He couldn’t care anymore.
Hands caught him and dragged him, he was vaguely aware of the musty sky passing before his eyes as he was dragged in somewhere. Shards of glass caught the heels of his nearly destroyed shoes and he swore he saw the glistening black of diseased blood trailing behind him.
When at last Tommy’s back hit the ground, it was cold and hard, like tile, though he was barely aware of it. His friends crowded around him, as if trying to protect him from something they all knew couldn’t be fought. They took his shoulders and yelled in his face as Tommy choked on his final breaths.
He couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t talk. For that earth-shattering moment, the longest one of Tommy’s life, he was helpless. Completely and utterly helpless.
Hands looped around his armpits and tried pulling, but it was no use. It was over. He was dead weight.
The figures above him were blurry, nothing but blackened figures whose voices barely registered in Tommy’s ears amidst his own wheezing.
Death, he was quick to discover. He was dying… he’d been dying before, of course, but… somehow this time, it didn’t hurt as much. He hated to admit that this was better. His peace was well within reach. Just a stretch of a hand away.
“…Tommy…” said Tubbo’s muffled voice. “Tommy! Please!”
Tommy could hear himself gasping, fighting to take his final breaths as the clutches of death finally began squeezing the air from his lungs. Agony gripped him nearly as tightly as his friends did as they begged him to stay awake.
He couldn’t feel his legs anymore, like he’d been paralyzed by this fucking disease. Like it had seeped into his spinal cord and forced it not to work anymore. He could barely see anymore, the edges of his vision were clouded with black like an old vignette, the rest of his gaze was blurred with shapes and colors that his tired brain simply could not comprehend.
But… Tommy heard everything, even as muffled as it was. About every other word processed, but the fragments were sometimes enough for him to string together.
“…breathing…?”
“… please…. Fight… fight!”
A sob broke the air and, in that moment, Tommy felt as if it really was over. His friend’s cries broke his heart, but he was left helpless to comfort them.
I’m sorry. Hands touched him gently, smoothed his hair back, and Tommy had a sneaking suspicion that acceptance was well within the distance. Or, rather, the closest thing to it. He gasped and choked, his body seized in failure, though he barely even felt it. He barely even felt anything anymore.
“Shit…”
“You’re okay… you’re alright…”
Tommy knew they wouldn’t leave and that’s what scared him the most. He hated that he was forcing them to watch, he hated that he couldn’t have pushed them away. He hated that he couldn’t die in peace. He was a terrible person for what he was doing to them. But, he could feel the disease crawling through him quicker than ever before, shitting down everything as it coursed through him, until it would reach his brain and turn him into a leathery, disgusting monster.
He wanted to sob and gasp for air like he’d done so many times before. He wanted to wail and cry with his friends at the unfairness of the world, but… when it came down to it… Tommy was helpless. Completely and utterly helpless. He could barely comprehend the fading world around him, much less speak.
“…sorry we couldn’t have done more… you were a good mate, my best mate…. Don’t want you to think we can’t handle ourselves…”
Tears welled in Tommy’s eyes at the thought. He wanted so badly to lurch upon with a hearty exclamation of: “it was just a prank!” But… per usual, it was only wishful thinking. He was dying on the ground with his best friends comforting him in his last moments that he would remember.
This wouldn’t end well for any of them. Tubbo and Ranboo would end up heartbroken and he… Well, let’s just say his brain needed to be unable to function at all.
“…Know we’ve had our moments… one of our best friends… couldn’t have asked for… Tommy…?” Ranboo was speaking now, his words fragmented as Tommy struggled to keep up with him.
He could feel the wheezes turning into growls the longer he lay dying. He was angry at the world and angry at himself for not doing more. He was angry at himself for forcing his friends to sit through this. What was wrong with him? What was wrong with him?
“Tommy, it’s me…” the Ranboo voice broke half-way through the sentence, like a river splitting in two so harshly, it sprinkled the banks.
A hand grabbed his own and, though Tommy barely felt it, it was pressed into something soft and warm, no fabric of a hoodie, or a defined chest. Just… Ranboo. It was so much warmer than he’d been in a long time. His fingers rose and fell with restricted sobs, breathing that his own chest fought to keep doing. He knew the feeling all too much, his own hand had been strewn across his own chest in moments of panic, his hands covering the sobs that threatened to break through. “I… I’m here…”
A tear rolled down Tommy’s cheek quickly, pushing through the dirt, blackened blood, and grime that had found a home there. He barely felt as Tubbo’s thumb brushed his cheek to remove the indication of misery.
“Don’t cry…” the boy muttered through choked words. “Please… don’t cry.”
Tommy searched for the source of the voice once more, but it was impossible to determine anything through his blurred vision. It was as if an Angel’s hand was reaching down, blinding him with the light she carried with her.
Why was it so mortifying to accept what was doomed to happen from the very beginning?
He was scared, Tommy was so scared of something he knew had been coming since that monster had sunk its teeth into his arm. Death was supposed to be peaceful, but Tommy wasn’t done. He didn’t want to be done. He didn’t want to go, he wasn’t ready. His life had been ripped from his fingertips by this cruel, cruel world, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Would he see his parents again when he left? His dog that he’d loved so much? How many people had he lost in the dystopian hell? How many people had he lost in the span of a week?
He could feel them close now: familiar presences and faces that he’d been deprived of for too long.
He’d wanted this, but why was he so scared? “I’ll do it…”
In his last moment of the faintest grasp of sanity, Tommy saw it. The glint of metal catching on the light as the object was passed over him.
Hands were stroking his hair, smoothing it back in such a motion that Tommy couldn’t help but be comforted. The tears of himself and his friends were wetting his cheeks as his body finally began to give out, as his brain finally began to devour itself. He was scared. He was so fucking scared.
“My strong boy…”
“We’ll be waiting…”
But, Tommy wasn’t alone. He never had been.
His body shook and it trembled like a new leaf and he sobbed internally, fists pounding against the invisible wall that separated from saying goodbye to his best friends. His family. Please! Please! He wanted to say goodbye!
Tommy forced any remaining strength into focusing on the figure on his right, the mess of a boy who’d somehow grown into a man in the time they’d known each other. It was the most he could do.
Tubbo sat strong, his face distressed, but full of bravery and a mixture of bittersweet emotion. But, it was at the most streaked with tears as he stared his best friend down. “Now don’t you worry about us, alright?” He choked out again and Tommy watched as another tear trailed down his cheek. “Never worry.”
PLEASE!
Tommy held his gaze, the most he could really do as he sensed what was coming next. Tell them I’m sorry… the words hadn’t been said, but Tubbo seemed to get the idea. He always seemed to get the idea, and Tommy hoped the boy knew what he wanted to scream until his voice was raw.
“We love you, Tommy.”
There was the sound of a blade slicing through skin, Tommy barely registered the blood pooling down into his ear. The hands pressed harder, closer against his heart as, at long last, it struggled through its final beats. And, it was with that, the world was drowned to darkness like the flicking off of an old television.