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Techno was gone.
Sure, he had written a nice message to all of them, but memories and a note weren’t enough to fill the void that Techno had once filled in their life.
Wilbur had begun to push himself away from everyone else, focusing on making his own music and coping in his own way. Phil has tried to be there for him for a few days but it was soon proven that Wilbur obviously needed him more than Tommy did.
Without Techno, everything had fallen apart.
The cliques of the town separated and stopped checking in on one another. No one cared anymore.
Everyone was coping with the loss of a friend.
But—but, they didn’t have to mourn him. He was just in their Mimic’s world! And his Mimic couldn’t risk killing him! He was obviously still alive as Techno was stronger than any enemy (techno on the ground—a sword at his neck—all his fault techno lost). Techno had to be alive because no one could function without him.
Least of all Tommy.
One day while Tommy was angsting about being ignored, well not really angsting just taking a nice walk to avoid everyone, he stumbled upon the scene of the crime.
Everyone had left quickly after it had occurred, whether to try and forget the vision of their friend disappearing into a fog and none of them trying to save him, or going to see what Techno had left for Tommy.
No one looked twice at the fountain, nor the remains of the broken mirror on the ground.
And this—the broken shards of the mirror, stirred up something—a desperate need— and Tommy, to him, what was the point of resisting the flames of something to push him beyond his limits?
He was an Icarus with his wax wings, but if he didn’t fly—he would be nothing.
Now equipped with a fire in his soul and the shattered remains of a mirror that would allow him to travel to his Mimic’s world, Tommy realized people were beginning to notice his increasing absence in their life. Why did they only care now? It didn’t matter, he just needed them to back off.
He smiled and laughed and stole from them—and they believed it.
They believed that mere days after his best friend had gone missing he would be happy and hyper again.
They were all fucking idiots.
But—but he could make it work for him. He could fake just a few more smiles—just a few more fake laughs—then maybe he’d get to laugh and have fun with Techno just one more time.
No.
He would see Techno again.
He was TommyInnit—and he would do… anything to see his pseudo-older brother once more.
“Anything” accounted for a lot of things.
“Anything” accounted for what would happen over the next few days.
“Anything” knew Dream would ask him to join his friend group and have fun together.
And “Anything” knew that if Tommy let himself be happy for real—everything would fall apart.
So he didn’t.
So he drove everyone to snap at him, so he made everyone hate him with all of their guts.
When he went days thinking about how to fix the mirror and bringing himself to tears no one came to cheer him up.
Why?
Oh, yeah.
Everyone hated him now.
Once Dream focused on something, he wouldn’t give up on it in a thousand years. This was something everyone who had met the man knew for a fact.
Tommy, being a trusting idiot, decided to entrust Dream with what he was working towards. The masked man obviously didn’t care about it, seeing as he tried to stop him.
(“I already tried”—“Tommy please you need to stop”)
But—Dream didn’t know Techno like he did. He didn’t know that Techno could survive anything. He survived his whole family not noticing he had been replaced, and he survived in a world that wanted him dead.
And Tommy had already thought of all of that. Tommy was ready for a world where all that was left of his friend (brother) was a rotting skeleton. He was ready to shatter into a million pieces, but not yet.
Dream kept checking in on him, and after the fifth surprise encounter he found out about Tommy’s mirror.
The next day his mirror was gone.
Fine.
He’d have to take drastic measures to make sure Dream couldn’t stop him.
While all of Dream’s belongings were being scattered and buried, Tommy also conveniently found his mirror poorly hidden in Dream’s house.
It was nice of him to leave a present for him, at least.
For the first few days, Dream was constantly trying to hound him about where he had hidden his stuff, only to get nothing from the child. Dream would have to suffer for it.
And maybe, hopefully, he could have this all figured out before Dream came back.
Most of the time, the mirror was either sitting in a hidden box in his closet or was being held by him. The mirror was still shattered, but he had managed to pick up all the shards from the ground. (Sure, his hands had bled for a few days, and the mirror had his blood on it, but it was all for Techno. Nothing mattered except seeing him again.)
If he could manage to keep all the shards together, maybe he could get someone to fill in the gaps. If he filled it in would the "smash the mirror" trick work again?
Techno would probably know.
(Or not know and try anyway.)
With Dream busy, and him generally refusing to ask help from anyone, he would be free to do whatever he wanted until Dream found his stuff.
Tommy left his house for the first time since he had hidden Dream’s shit.
Maybe hiding it was a mistake.
The whole ground was missing. He didn’t have a lawn anymore. With a great deal of shock, he looked around, quickly noticing Dream still digging even deeper in the pits.
Maybe this was why Dream was asking how deep he had buried them.
Well! It was too late for regret now!
Tommy ignored everything and barely managed to make it to the nearest village.
The village was mostly made up of farmers disappointingly, though they were obviously against adventurers like him so he couldn’t stay the night there. He continued on for another day before finding another village. This one had a blacksmith, and he wasted zero time before he began to make a deal with them.
He had a bag full of emeralds and the iron he wanted the blacksmith to fill the mirror with to keep the shards there. It was an easy deal, he probably paid much more than he should have, but he had brought so many and if they did a good job, what was the point of not spending everything?
Maybe he just missed talking to people.
Maybe he missed the calm security of Phil, and the strict moral compass Wilbur had enforced on him, and Techno’s light teasing.
He’d only cried once since this whole event had started. He hadn’t been alone, and everyone had hugged him as he sobbed.
(It’d been so long since someone had hugged him.)
(Maybe Techno would give him one of his giant, encompassing hugs and he could forget all of this.)
He was told to wait outside the blacksmith’s house while it was being done. It felt so disconcerting to have someone other than him touching the mirror. He had trusted Dream with it and he’d stolen it.
No one cared about the blond child shaking outside the house of the blacksmith. No one cared as he could barely breathe through his panic.
Everyone looked away and continued with their day, and that—that was what broke him.
He could barely stand, let alone walk, but through his sheer force of will, he was able to get the mirror back. All the cracks had been filled with iron, and though there were still flecks of his blood in it, it was perfect.
But there was one imperfection in it.
Normally it was clear, showing nothing.
Now, it was showing the other Tommy. His dark brown hair, and his torn white shirt. And—and he was laughing and smiling— with Techno.
With dried tear tracks on his cheeks, Tommy went about taking a horse from the village.
What was the point of following Wilbur’s moral compass if Wilbur didn’t care anymore?
He hadn’t been taking care of himself, he realized. He hadn’t been eating, sleeping, or, really, anything else.
Maybe that was why he was so weak.
Before he went, he stopped at Techno’s old house. There were no signs of life there, only a smattering of dust upon the house. Even Floof, Techno’s dog, was gone. Phil had taken them and was taking care of the dog.
But out of guilt, or something else, no one had looted Techno’s house.
There were still chests full of diamonds and Techno’s armor and swords. Knowing he would be meeting him again soon, Tommy packed his backpack full of Techno’s things. For now, he would his gear to protect himself from his Mimic’s world.
With everything he could possibly need, Tommy began to head to the portal.
He wondered if Dream had even noticed he had left, but with the level of carnage still being committed against the town, he would bet that no one had noticed.
That was fine.
(It wasn’t.)
Now he had a fixed mirror (but also the image of his Mimic laughing with Techno to haunt him) and all he had to do was go to the fountain one last time.
The empty grassy area was still left in the same condition since he had last been there.
Before he did anything drastic, Tommy took a moment to just… remember.
To remember those tournaments where it was him, Techno, Phil, and Wilbur all as a family and winning.
To remember to never mix up the Techno's.
He could only trust the one with brown eyes.
To remember that Techno’s last words were to him.
To remember the reason this all had happened was because he had distracted Techno.
Tommy smashed the mirror against the ground.
Fog spread across the grass, as a grin spread onto Tommy’s face.
It worked.
Dream showed up at Tommy’s house after weeks of digging up the ground around their village.
He had finally found everything.
He was ready to taunt the child about his victory over him, but he wasn’t there.
Tommy wasn’t there, but neither was the mirror.
What had Tommy done?