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Tommy felt completely numb as he sat in his little shack in Logstedshire.
The sky had turned dark while the wind howled through the little room he had curled up in. The front and the back walls weren’t completely finished yet and it had only gotten through him now that it had been a mistake to leave them open like that. It was absolutely freezing, yet he couldn’t seem to find the motivation to actually finish his house.
A couple weeks ago, Tommy probably wouldn’t have minded the cold so much, wandering around L’manburg with Tubbo by his side, undefeated by a bit of rain or a storm. But then again, a couple of weeks ago, Tommy had not yet been exiled and brutally abandoned by the people that he once considered to be his friends and family.
He sighed and leaned his head against the stone wall behind him, the cold making his muscles freeze up and his fingers lose feeling.
They had not visited him once. Phil, Techno, or Tubbo. Hell, even Fundy or Quackity had not shown up. Not a single time.
The worst part was that they hadn’t even tried to make up a shitty excuse about why they wouldn’t be able to visit him. Instead there was just complete and utter radio silence. No messages, no calls. Nothing. Just silence.
Yet Tommy told himself that he didn’t mind. After all, He was more than capable of taking care of himself and there were big plans for the future of Logstedshire that needed to be executed. Together with Wilbur he would build himself a new nation, a new home, with new friends and better politics and they would sing and dance and laugh their asses off because they would love to be around each other. Tommy would like to do all of that, and he was trying to. Actually trying this time.
But he found out rather quickly that he couldn’t do it.
It was simply not the same without the people that he used to love the most. Every single part of his body ached as he sat on this stupid stone floor and goddammnit, he missed his family so fucking much. He missed Phil and his calm, steady presence. Always comforting anyone who needed it and making sure that his sons were physically and mentally well. He longed for Techno, his fierce yet caring brother. He missed the way they would laugh and drive each other crazy sometimes, knowing that there was never really any venom in the argued words. They loved each other, and they knew that. Tommy also missed the old Wilbur, even though part of him technically was his only companion in the godforsaken shithole that this place was.
And then there was Tubbo. The boy he used to consider his best friend for as long as he’d known, someone he had admired and would have given his life for if it meant keeping him safe. But their friendship had been destroyed in the span of one single day. When given an opportunity, Tubbo had exiled him without any protest and without showing any signs that he even cared about Tommy. It turned out that Tommy was indeed not worth anything to him. He was as easily replaceable as an old pair of shoes. And when Tubbo did not answer when asked if they were still friends, Tommy knew he’d been thrown away.
{***}
He was pulled out of his thoughts as Wilbur appeared in front of him, seemingly out of nowhere. He probably entered through the huge hole in his wall, where a door should have been present if Tommy hadn’t been so lazy and had actually finished his house. He looked down at Tommy curiously and tugged his coat a little tighter around his shoulders.
“You could stay in my hut, y’know. It’s a lot less cold in there. And it actually has furniture,” Wilbur said, motioning to the dark, empty room around them. The only things present in the shack were a messily made bed and a crafting table.
“It’s not cold in here, you’re just being a bitch.” Tommy retorted, hugging his knees a bit closer to his chest
“Are you sure? Even I can feel that it is absolutely freezing in here.”
“I’m fine, Wilbur.”
“Well, you don’t sound fine. And I’m pretty sure your hands are not supposed to have a blue tinge to them.” Tommy glanced down at his hands and noted that Wilbur was right, a sickly blue-ish hue coated his pale skin.
“Listen,” Tommy started. “I really don’t want to talk right now. Just leave me alone.” There was a slight pause, before he sighed. “Please.”
“It’s not like you, y’know, to not want to talk. You used to talk an awful lot, so much that I had to forcefully shut you up sometimes, if I recall that correctly.”
“Yeah, well, what can I say, Will? Times have changed, I guess. People have changed too.”
Tommy tried to lighten the mood, but he felt that the smile he forced on his face did not reach his eyes. ”Hell, maybe even I have changed. Maybe I’ve finally hit puberty which would be great because then I wouldn’t look like I was made of goddamn twigs anymore.” He looked at his arms, still as skinny as ever, and chuckled bitterly. “But nope, no puberty for me.”
“Look, Tommy. People change, that’s just the way life goes. I changed too and I’ve only gotten happier as a result.”
Yeah, of course he would be happier if he didn’t remember all of the awful things he’d done, Tommy thought.
“You goddamn died, Wilbur. You went fucking insane, destroyed everything you ever stood for and then forgot all of the bad things that you did because you got yourself killed. I don’t think that that counts as becoming happier.”
“I am happier now, though. I think. But that’s not the point. What I’m saying is –“
“Oh, you think I should let Phil stab me, too?” Tommy interrupted.
“What? No, of course not, Tommy. That’s- That’s not my point at all.” Wilbur said, and he sighed.
“What I’m saying is that maybe these changes will all be alright in the end, you are still so young after all. You have all the time in the world to do whatever you want to do, to move on. And processing what happened will take some time, don’t get me wrong, but I think you should try to move on and find a new source of happiness again. Like, some new friends, or, eh, a dog or something. Or you could start a farm?” He looked around for something else to say. “Anything really. I just hate to see you down like this.”
New friends. Like Tommy would be able to find anyone who would be able to fill the holes in his soul that the others left behind. He didn’t want new friends, he wanted his old friends back. He suddenly was very, very tired of this conversation.
“I don’t want to talk anymore. I’m going to bed.” Tommy exclaimed. When Wilbur didn’t move, but just stared at him, he shot him a glare. “So, uh, could you leave?”
Wilbur nodded. “If that is what you want, I’ll go.” He shuffled around and looked at Tommy for a couple of seconds, before turning his gaze away and floating towards the back opening of the shack. “My door is always open, if you want to talk. Or simply not freeze to death.”
As he left, Tommy curled in on himself on the cold stone floor.
He did not go to Wilbur’s hut that night.
{***}
In the next few weeks, Tommy managed to finish his shack. It was probably the ugliest thing that he had ever created – even uglier than the cobblestone towers he used to build - but he felt vaguely proud of the mismatched stones and the crooked door that signalled the entrance of the monstrosity. It had been nice to not think about anything for a while, to just focus on surviving.
As he stepped inside to bandage his hands, wounded from a long day of continuous mining and building, Wilbur showed up again. He seemed to do that a lot nowadays, appearing without any warning to check up on Tommy. Which was complete bullshit, because he was doing absolutely fine, thank you very much.
“Hey Toms, I’m back!” said Wilbur, his words soft and strangely… happy?
“Wilbur?” Tommy asked, and he turned around to face him. “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you since, like, this morning. Which is quite a long time for you to not be around.”
The ghost man let out a surprised noise. “Oh, did I not tell you? I went back to L’manburg for a bit.”
Tommy paused the bandaging of his hand, a strip of gauze hanging loosely from his palm.
“What?”
“Yeah, I wanted to see how everyone was doing. It has been a long time since I’ve seen them and I figured I could quickly say hi to them before I got noticed too much. Which I didn’t. Get noticed, I mean. I was in super sneaky invisibility mode.” As he said that, Wilbur went invisible for a bit, as to demonstrate his hiding abilities.
Tommy forced out a weak laugh, which sounded hollow even to his own ears.
Wilbur had gone back to L’manburg. Of course he did. But he couldn’t blame Wilbur for liking to go back to his friends someday. Just like he couldn’t really blame him for wanting to escape this depressing ass field. It still kind of hurt, because Tommy couldn’t do those things, could he? No matter how much he wanted to see everyone, he could not go back.
“So, what were they up to then?” Tommy managed to get out. The words were strained and not all that enthusiastic, but Wilbur did not seem to notice.
“Alright, so I saw Niki working in her bakery, which was awesome because it smelled like fresh baked bread and pies everywhere. Did you know that it is incredibly busy these days? It seems like everyone wants to buy her famous apple pie, now that the peace has finally returned.”
Now that the peace had returned. Had he really been that troublesome?
He balled his free hand into a fist.
“Wow, that’s – that’s great Will,” Tommy replied.
“I know right,” Wilbur continued. “I also saw Dream and George playing basketball together, which is weird because I’ve never seen them do that before. I didn’t even know that they knew what basketball was. Oh, and Sapnap, Fundy and Quackity were hanging out by the lake. I think they were fishing but I don’t think that they caught anything worth mentioning. They seemed to have fun though.”
They seemed to have fun, echoed through Tommy’s head. Nobody even cared that Tommy was not around anymore. And they were having so much fun together. Something is his chest tightened painfully.
“What about Tubbo? Does he – Is he up to anything interesting?” he asked, picking the gauze back up and wrapping it securely around his palm. No way that he could look Wilbur in the eyes right now. Not when he was likely going to tell him the worst thing that Tommy could ever imagine.
“Tubbo? Oh, yeah, he extended his bee farm and it is so immensely big now! He looked so happy and proud of himself. He had that stupid grin on his face all day long, you know the one I’m talking about. We haven’t seen that side of him too much in the past months, so I was glad to see that he is doing better now.”
And there it was. The news that Tommy had been dreading to hear the most: Tubbo had moved on with his life as well. He clenched and unclenched his fists, and a sudden wave of dizziness had him swaying on his feet. Had the temperature risen? Because his whole body felt weird and feverish, as if he had been frozen in a block of ice and then had warmed up way too fast. He stayed silent.
“He was also planning on throwing a big Christmas dinner,” Wilbur continued, “since they haven’t really celebrated Christmas last year. Every L’manburg resident is invited.”
“O-Okay.” Tommy stammered.
Wilbur frowned, and came closer. “That’s cool right! Aren’t you happy that they are all picking up their lives again?”
“Yeah, of course, uh, very happy. Good for them. That they – that they moved on, I mean.” Tommy sucked in a breath, steading himself with his left hand against the rough stone wall. “I mean, I- I get it, really. Forgetting about all of the wars and shit is probably the best for everyone. Right? I guess it’s – it’s… I-“
His breath grew uneven as his head started to pound. He should probably have fled from this conversation when he had the chance.
Wilbur seemed to notice his growing distress, but he kept his distance. “Are you okay? Did I do something wrong?”
“Mmh. I’m fine.” Tommy said. “And uh, no, you didn’t do anything wrong. Really. Uh, you- you can leave me alone now, though. Go do some ghost stuff or something. Like chasing ghost women. Or uh, I don’t know, other shit you need to do. You need to do stuff right? You- ”
“Are you sure you are alright, Tommy?” Wilbur interrupted. “You look very pale.”
“Yeah, yeah. ‘M fine. Totally 100% fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
“Fucking hell. I’m fine, okay.” Tommy snapped. “Please - please just leave me alone right now.”
“Toms – “ Wilbur tried, but failed.
“I said, I. Am. Fine. Just go.”
“What – “
“Go!” Tommy shouted. “Please.” He added, his voice breaking slightly.
And just like that, Wilbur left again, floating through the door and presumably going back to his own little house across the field.
Now that Tommy was completely alone in his shack, he let out a sob, sliding to the ground and shaking so hard he could almost feel the air around him vibrating in tandem with his body. His breaths escaped him way faster than he wanted them to, and no matter how hard he tried to gulp in air, it did not seem to be enough.
Nobody cared.
His ears started ringing, drowning out all of the other noises around him except the erratic pounding of his heart against his ribcage. Breathing correctly was impossible. Did he forget how to do a simple fucking task like breathing?
He was so, so worthless. Replaceable. Loud. Annoying. Stupid. Naïve.
He was going to pass out, he felt the darkness coming and knew he would not be able to stop it from consuming him.
They all moved without him.
Black smears disrupted his vision, and the furniture of his shack whirled and blurred together until eventually, he slid sideways and his head hit the ground.
Just before he slipped into unconsciousness, he realized that no-one would actually care if he just never woke up again.
{***}
As he stood on the ledge above the bubbling and gurgling lava, Tommy allowed himself to cry one last time. Crying was not going to change the way it was all going to end, so why bother to compose himself? It didn’t matter. Within the next few minutes Tommy would be gone, no longer a burden to himself and to anyone else.
He felt at peace with that idea.
It was Christmas Day today. Wilbur travelled to L’manburg to join the residents in their extensive festivities, his ghost form glowing almost as much as he did when he had received the invitation a few days prior. He’d looked genuinely happy. Tommy wished he could relate.
Because Tommy, naturally, had been left behind.
But it was okay, he had planned for this to happen. He had built a Nether portal on the other side of Logstedshire, and when he’d gone through, he had immediately seen the spot he was going to jump from. A tiny ledge above a massive lava pool, with a view of almost the whole Nether. A good place to spend his final moments.
He took a deep breath.
At first, the sweltering heat of the Nether had made his breathing grow shallow, but now, the heat felt like coming home.
He sighed.
This was it, then. The end of TommyInnit. An extra thing for them to celebrate during Christmas dinner.
Tommy, a sixteen year old (loud, annoying, worthless) kid, had finally broken enough to kill himself.
It’s about time, Tommy thought.
They would see the death message, for sure, but what would they do after it? Tommy doubted that anyone would grieve about his passing. They’d probably be silent for a second, processing the message, then shrugging and moving on with chatting and feasting.
He grabbed his communicator. His head buzzed and his hand trembled slightly when he eventually pressed ‘send’ on the written message, but other than that, complete numbness consumed him.
He took a deep breath, throwing the communicator to the side.
Then, he leaned forward.
And he let himself
fall.
{***}
On the other side of the map, the chatter that sounded through huge dining room fell silent when they received the two messages.
TommyInnit: Hey guys,
It’s me, Tommy. You’ve probably forgotten about my existence. Which is alright, by the way. I get it, I would forget about me too. But still, I wanted to say some things before I go.
You know, I’ve made peace with the fact I am, in fact, worthless and loud and annoying and childish and so fucking stupid. Stupid because I cannot believe how I actually thought that any moment we shared together had meant the same to you as it did to me.
I’ve always liked talking to you, like I’m doing now, even though I don’t think that this could be considered a conversation. But that doesn’t matter. Point is: I’ve missed you all a lot. And I’m going to miss you again when I’m gone, I think. Would any of you miss me too? Or is that a selfish thing to say? Whatever, it doesn’t really matter anyway, does it. Nothing matters. I’m not a resident of L’manburg anymore and therefore not your responsibility.
Please believe me when I say that I tried to move on, to forget you, to try and start a new life. But I couldn’t do it. I’m so sorry. I tried, I really did.
I really wish I could have said a proper goodbye to all of you. Especially to you, Tubbo, Phil, Techno and Wilbur. For all of the sixteen years that I’ve been on this godforsaken planet, I’ve never stopped loving you. You were everything that I needed in life.
My friends.
My family.
I loved you and I always will.
But this is the only way.
I wish you all the best and for what it’s worth, a merry Christmas.
Goodbye,
Tom.
[TommyInnit willingly tried to swim in Lava]