Work Text:
The lights downstairs go out.
Tommy sits up, blinking into the darkness surrounding him. His bed creaks slightly at his weight as he shifts into a sitting position, the rusted springs shaking under their own rot.
He blinks the dying sleep from his eyes and kicks his blanket down off his legs. Beside him, Wilbur snores, his back turned away from Tommy. The flames of his candle have died out by now, leaving nothing but melted, pooling wax and a dying ember on a black, ashy wick. Beside it sits a slightly worn lantern, free of dust and dirt.
Tommy moves to kneel on the mattress and gets quick to work. He stuffs a blanket around an old pillow hidden away under his bed to act as a makeshift Tommy before moving off the bed, dust sticking to the soles of his feet with cold sweat acting as the glue.
He kneels down in front of the end table connecting his and Wilbur's beds, glancing over at Wilbur as he rests his hand on the handle. The elder child rolls over to face Tommy, his eyes slightly lidded but clearly open, glistening with gold in dying candlelight.
“Going out?” Wilbur's voice is fuzzy with sleep, blurring like purple and green watercolor, drowning and heavy.
“Yeah.” Tommy's voice is equally quiet, though more energized. He can feel the kinetic pulsing in his chest, electrifying his fingertips.
“Soulmate?”
“Yeah.”
Wilbur lets out a small breath through his nose. “Be back by seven.”
“Seven? Why not eight?”
“We have to get up an hour early to finish our holes in the yard, since someone got a bit too distracted fighting with Dream.” Wilbur glares, albeit sleepy and lacking its usual brotherly spite.
“Hey, you were fighting him too!”
“Only cause he hit you. Plus, I didn’t talk back to Ms. Gale and get slapped.” Wilbur lazily juts his chin towards Tommy’s face, eyes locked on his sore, reddened cheek.
Tommy smiles sheepishly. “Right.”
“Matches are in the drawer.”
Wilbur watches him with blurry eyes as he digs the matches out from a cluttered drawer. It's filled with maps and navigation tools, a compass and ink and feathers.
“How much longer, you think?”
“I’d prefer to get some extra stuff, an extra compass and a more up-to-date map, but what we have should work. We just need to ration out a bit more food and tools. Shouldn’t be too long.”
“‘Kay.”
Wilbur yawns, closing his eyes and Tommy fishes out the matches. The younger of the duo sets the candle alight, its dying embers bursting back to life in a fit of orange and yellow.
“Stay safe.”
Tommy nods, though Wilbur can’t see it, and settles the candle into the empty lantern, closing it and letting it light up.
“Love ya’, Wil.” Tommy smirks as Wil lightly groans, shoving the air in Tommy’s direction to no avail.
“Shut up and go already.” He hisses, muffled by the pillow he had shoved his face into.
“C’mon, say it back. You don’t want me to feel unloved, do you? Your sweet baby brother?”
“I fuckin’ love you too, now go see your deer friend.”
“He’s a faun.”
“Yeah yeah, whatever.”
Tommy rolls his eyes and picks up the lantern, clambering onto the now bare end table and snapping open the small lock keeping it locked, pushing the window open and sliding onto the roof. It closes behind him with a careful nudge, a ritual between two brothers.
He carefully half-slides, half-climbs down the side of the roof and towards a ladder, leaning against the side of the roof, hidden from nurses by treetops. He positions himself to climb down, grips the handle of the lantern with his teeth, and clambers halfway down before jumping the rest of the way, stumbling a bit before steadying himself on the dew-covered grass.
Keeping the lantern in his mouth, Tommy jumps the picket fence separating the yard out from the rest of the property, landing more solidly on the other side than he had a second ago. He finally lets his mouth relax, gripping the lantern at his side, and begins his trek away from his false home and towards his real one.
The trees loom around him as he steps into the clearing. The night dances above him, stars twinkling white on a black, ebony blanket, a pillow fort waiting to collapse under the shaky wooden chairs keeping it afloat.
“I’ve never understood how you like the night. I feel like the sky's gonna collapse in on me at any second.”
From the other side of the clearing, there’s a small laugh. It's light and soft, but it's there, and that quiet noise means more to Tommy than anything else.
“I doubt you’ll ever understand.”
Tommy sees him lying there in the golden candlelight. His deer half is tucked neatly on the grass, limbs folded underneath him and his tail brushing gently against the dewy blades. His forelegs are crossed in front of him, human hands lazily twisting flowers and thin birch branches into a crown shape.
“Probably not.”
Tubbo looks up at him and sends him a small smile, eyes glistening with white and gold in their usual glossy manner. Tommy makes his way over to him and settles himself on the grass, setting his lantern in between the two of them. The embers shift before settling to a gentle lick.
“How've things been at the village?”
“About the same as last week.” Tubbo looks back at his crown and continues to work, this time with a bit more vigor. The tips of his fingers are stained with damp green, sticking to calloused skin and under rough fingernails. “My mums got a new job as a mushroom farmer out in the southern side of the woods. She’s gonna be gone most of the day, especially since the trip to and from is so long.”
“She trusts you to stay home on your own?”
“I’m nine, of course she does.”
Tommy shrugs and flops down to lay on his chest, chin resting on crossed arms.
“Sometimes I forget you’re older than me.”
“Only by a little, if that helps at all.”
Tommy hums and closes his eyes. He feels something gingerly adjust itself on his head.
“Another one? I’m gonna run out of hiding space for these soon.”
“You don’t have to keep them.”
“You know I do.”
Tommy lets one of his eyes slit open as Tubbo blinks and smiles, looking as warm as ever despite the chilled night breeze surrounding them.
There's a gentle pause in their hushed conversation. Tommy doesn’t mind it. He takes a moment to assess his friend, his best friend, his soulmate, his link. The boy who had let him see some of his now favorite colors. The color of Wilbur’s hair and the dirt permanently embedded in it, the grass below him and the orange of fire.
The mottled purple dotting Tubbo’s side, hidden partially by brown spotted fur.
“Where’d that bruise come from?”
“Hm?” Tubbo looks up from his hands, where he’s begun to work on another crown, made of dark branches and light yellow flowers.
“There’s a bruise on your side. Mainly on your stomach. The deer side.”
“Oh.” Tubbo looks over at the spot in question. “That, uh.”
Tommy squints. “And your antlers are chipped.” How had he not noticed the bandages rolled around the thin, arching bone?
“I have a lot of bruises. Comes with living in the woods. We don’t have as nice places as humans.”
“Tubbo. Don’t… Don’t try that on me.”
Tubbo doesn’t respond, curling his forelegs closer to his front and working to twist flowers into the darkly-colored branches and twigs.
Tommy swallows down a sigh. “Did they come back?”
Silence.
“Toby…”
More silence, broken only by quiet breathing and the ringing of cicadas in the trees.
“Fine! They did, okay?” Tubbo stomps the ground with his forelegs, knuckles whitening on the crown in his hands. He locks eyes with Tommy, eyes burning in cold night air. “I thought they’d left town for good but they came back, couldn’t find a good unclaimed place to settle, and their fucking- my classmates came back with them.”
Tommy glowers. “They’ve been hurting you again, haven’t they?”
“Not as bad as last time.”
“When’d they come back.” It’s somehow less of a question and more of a leading statement, Tommy’s voice low and buried under caked layers of spite and protectiveness.
“A few days ago?”
“That means they just haven’t had a chance to hurt you as bad yet!” Tommy scoots up and kneels to face Tubbo, shifting in front of him and putting his hands on his shoulders. “Toby, you can’t- you can’t just let them get away with this again!”
“What do you expect me to do? I’m the weakest in our herd! You and I both know that.” Tommy loosens the grip on his shoulders as he notices Tubbo’s eyes are beginning to glisten, filled with cold, watery tears and a thin layer of stinging. “They’re right, anyways. I’m weak. Frail and… honestly disgusting. I’m unworthy of everything I’ve gotten. There’s so much that I just… there’s so many more people who deserve it more than me. All of it. Finding a soulmate so young, loving parents, I don’t- I don’t deserve any of it. I’m just… just weak and disgusting and-”
Tommy wraps his arms around Tubbo. Pulls him close, as close as he can considering his anatomy. Tubbo lets himself be pulled, hisforelegs folding onto Tommy’s legs and burying his face in Tommy’s neck.
He begins to sob.
“Toby, Tobes, hey-”
Tommy lets him break down, running his hand up and down his back, the wrinkled green tunic covering it. The spotted light brown fading into tanned pale skin.
“What’d they say to you?” Tommy's voice is quiet and soft, a low rumbling deep in his chest.
“The truth.”
“Tobes.”
“They said… they said I was weak, and frail and stupid and disgusting and unworthy and-” Toby sniffs, wettening Tommy’s already damp tunic. “The fact my antlers are so small, and I can’t antler wrestle, and they kept trying to provoke Spins to sting them and- and they’d push me around and-”
“Fuck them.”
Tubbo sniffles, sobs loosening for a moment. “Wh… What?”
“Fuck ‘em. Fuck all of ‘em. If I ever see them I’ll beat the fucking life out of ‘em.”
“Tommy!” Tubbo scolds, unable to make much of an impact with his shaky, watery voice. Tommy would normally tease him for it. Not now, though.
“I’m serious. Fuckers don’t know how lucky they are to even have a chance to know you. To go to school with you, to be able to see you in the daylight.”
Tubbo lets out a weak laugh, his grip on Tommy’s back loosening. “I doubt that.”
“Toby.” Reluctantly, Tommy pulls away from the hug to look Tubbo in the eyes. They swirl and churn with emotion, glistening in the candlelight. They’ve always been glossy, big and watery- comes with being a faun, especially one not fully grown- but it’s just saddening to look out now.
Tommy wants nothing more than to murder those kids who’ve been teasing him. Who’ve been reeling the tears from the back of Toby's mind and let them leak out.
He can’t, though. He can’t and he hates himself for that.
“Tobes, you’re one of the best people I know- no, fuck, you’re the best person I know. You’re kind and friendly and you care about everyone you meet. Not to mention you’re funny and talented and imaginative- I’m so, so lucky to have you as my soulmate.”
Tubbo wetly scoffs, rubbing his eyes dry with his wrist. “Thanks, Toms, but I-”
“Shut up, Bitch Boy. I’m not finished.”
Tubbo blinks, jolting slightly in surprise. Tommy internally beams at the spark of humor that ignites in his otherwise shaky eyes.
“You’re the strongest person I know.”
“Oh fuck off-”
“No, I’m serious! Everyday you go out and take care of yourself, collect your own food and maintain you and your mum’s home, go to school even though there’s nobody forcing you to, and continue to do so, even with bruises and cuts from the other faun. Continue to be loving and friendly and kind to everyone despite what they put you through. Refuse to tell anyone because you don’t want their lives to be messed up.”
“That doesn’t make me strong. It just makes me too weak to stand up for myself.”
Tommy sighs, loosening his grip on Tubbo. “Y’know what I think?”
Tubbo hums questioningly.
“I think you’re wrong.”
“You’re not-”
“You and me, we’ve both been pushed around. Knocked down and spit on and left for dead. The difference between us is how we treat those we aren’t close to.”
“What… What do you mean?”
“You’re kind to everyone. You’re friendly and considerate. Meanwhile, anyone I’m not close to, anyone who isn’t you or Wil? I treat like shit. I bully and tease them.”
“I keep telling you to stop doing that.”
“But I don’t!” Tubbo looks up and squints at Tommy, confusion lightly twisted on his face. “I don’t… I don’t trust strangers not to hurt me. That's what Wil said, anyway, when I told him about what you said.”
“I don’t either.”
“But you’re still nice to people despite it. You don’t try to shut people out or knock them down because you’re scared.”
Something clicks in Tubbo’s eyes. Tommy can see it, feel it, feel the way his shoulders quickly tense and untense, the way his eyes light up as he rubs them dry.
“That. That makes you stronger than anyone else. Because you’re scared, you’ve been through shit, but you don’t let that make things worse for other people.”
Tubbo’s chin quivers, and before Tommy knows it, he’s being engulfed in another hug, pushed to the ground with antlers poking at his neck and temple, a deer body crushing his legs.
“Thanks, Toms.” Toby’s voice is muffled by grass and the nape of Tommy’s neck.
“‘course.”
They stay like that for a good few minutes, before Tommy complains about his legs falling asleep and Tubbo lets him up.
He goes back to his flower crown. Tommy lays on his back and looks up at the stars, his own crown sitting loosely on his chest.
“By the way, Tobes?”
“Yeah?”
“All that other stuff is bullshit. You’re worthy of everything you’ve gotten. Karma for your kindness and all that. Not all that disgusting either.”
Tubbo huffs out a laugh.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”