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When Dream boats him off, stranding him on the island, Tommy feels a sense of dread pounding underneath his skin.
The grassland seems pretty enough, with a gentle breeze blowing ocean spray inland, and the saltwater air rests in his lungs. The trees sway to the wind, their leaves humming together along with the waves crashing at the shore. His feet are unbothered by the rough sand, and for a moment, Tommy pretends it's like a fun day at the beach, that his family is waiting up ahead.
Pretty scenery won’t cure loneliness, though. The ache in Tommy’s heart knows this.
His first night is rough. Dream had given him a bed, tattered red cloth stretched over unfamiliar wood, and made it clear what would happen should he spawn back home. Tommy spends the moonlight hiding from monsters, fighting with a stone sword and wooden shield.
Dream took everything he had, stripped him to his bare bones. It’s okay, though. Tommy knows this already, when his country had unapologetically sent him away. When his homeland went to ruins, and when his friendships did too.
Dream only revealed Tubbo’s inner desires, and Tommy felt bitterly glad that at least his friend wasn’t lying to him anymore.
He survived that night. He’ll survive the next few, too.
Nobody visits him for the first couple of days. Under his breath, he speaks a mantra he holds dear, a hope and a promise for what his destiny holds.
My friends will come back. He thinks, binding an axe. He quickly got iron after his first night, the mobs haven’t bothered him much since. They have to. They wouldn’t leave me.
A small part of him screams back to rebuke.
He finds his first diamonds, using string to weld the gems and wood together into a pickaxe. He uses his bucket to create obsidian, and slowly carves out flat, square chunks. His newly minted sword gets put to use, gutting a few endermen.
Tommy doesn’t think about his accomplice, the one who stood by and watched as he faced his demise.
When he realizes he’ll have to go to the nether, the golden powder being the only thing standing between him and an ender chest, he hesitates. In his communicator, he types out a short message for help. It’s the first time he’s opened it.
My friends care about me. He tells himself, waiting another few minutes. They wouldn’t leave me.
There’s no response. He slips the device back in his pocket, and begins constructing a nether portal. The nether’s air is dank and humid, and his mind jumps to the relaxing beach, the slow breeze and gentle waves, for comfort.
The portal, luckily, opens right outside a fortress. He fastens his iron armor, and secures the shield at his wrist. It’s an easy quest, the mobs in the forest prepared him well. He gets the blaze rods he needs, plus a few extra, and heads back through.
For the first time, he’s relieved to see the island, and he absentmindedly checks his communicator. Maybe they messaged him back.
My friends miss me. They wouldn’t leave me. He thinks.
His friends have left no reply.
When he wakes up the next morning, Dream is there. He’s so giddy to see a familiar face that he welcomes him, taking his arm in hand and giving him a tour.
Dream hums in reply, and Tommy stops the presentation, and truly stares at the man. His hoodie is the same obnoxious green, and the mask is polished and clean. He looks invigorated, Tommy jumps at the chance for conversation.
“So, you uhh—” he stumbles. He forgot he hasn’t talked to people in days. “Did the SMP get a holiday?”
“What?” Dream replies, incredulous. “What are you talking about?”
“You look,” Tommy pauses, “You look nice-r? Like you’ve taken a bath, for once in your life.”
Dream huffs, crossing his arms. “Coming here was a waste of time, huh?” he mutters, kicking at a rock.
“Wha— No—” Tommy’s stomach sinks. “Of course not, Big— D Money,” he stammers. “Forget I said anything.”
Dream sighs. “I guess I’ll forgive you, for now.” His tone is dismissive, and Tommy gives an awkward smile.
He continues with his tour, with Dream staring at the ground as he talks. In fact, Dream’s eyes seem to be anywhere but on Tommy, finding the ground, or the trees, or the flowers all the more interesting than the words coming out of Tommy’s mouth.
My friend will come back. A stubborn part of him taunts. If that were the case, then why was Dream—his sworn enemy—his only visitor?
Why was he giving Dream a tour, anyway?
“Just— spit it out,” he says, tapping his foot. “Why’d you come here, anyway?”
Dream chuckles. “Can’t I visit a friend?”
“Yeah, but—” Tommy feels his face go red. “You never cared before, and it’s a long trip and—” he stops his rambling, huffing and throwing his arms in the air.
“Did—” Dream asks, moving closer. There’s something about his tone that Tommy can’t decipher. “Did you not want me to visit?”
They wouldn’t leave me. Oh, but they had, and Tommy stares at Dream: a decision to make. “Of— Of course I wanted you to visit.” The words leave a bitter taste in his mouth.
“Good,” Dream says. He pulls out his communicator, the screen lighting up. “Oh, George just messaged me.” He has the decency to sound sheepish, but Tommy grumbles as he puts the device back in his pocket. “I have to go back.”
“Yeah, no worries,” he replies. My friends miss me. What a lie.
Dream disappears through a swirling portal, his green clashing against the purple, and for a moment Tommy envies him.
Then, he feels his eyes open, and he stares at the white ceiling, the tarp swaying in the wind. He forgot about the tent he took out of his ender chest for a moment, and his heart skips a beat.
His head only looks around in confusion. Dream was just in front of him. What happened?
Tommy opens his ender chest, and the potatoes are glaring at him.
Techno’s lessons ring in his ears, a reminder of the past and of what he lost, and he blocks it out, instead focusing on the sea gulls' cries at the break of day.
He remembers his dream, somewhat, in fuzzy bits and pieces. The most he recalled was feeling loss and dread, and seeing the porcelain mask and pristine clothes. Thinking about Dream’s clean appearance makes a part of him inexplicably angry. His own shirt is caked with dust, and his shoes always have grains of sand in them.
Someone had visited him—the island became something to share instead just to lay claim over—and his heart yearned for a simpler time, where he would sit on a bench and share the music with a friend by his side.
Tommy digresses. The potatoes were watching him and he sifted through the chest, trying to find his gems and tools for which to make better armor. He wasn’t very fond of wearing it much anymore; it served no purpose. The mobs were no trouble with just a sword, and there were no other enemies here.
And Tommy didn’t really feel like making any armor anyway. In the pit of his stomach is an odd ball of hopelessness, spreading throughout all his limbs. If he concentrated hard enough, he could pinpoint where each arm felt weary and why his mind was foggy and artificial, like a piece of redstone circuitry instead of skin and bone.
He sighs, and closes the chest.
Tommy wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of explosives.
His ears are ringing and smoke burns his nostrils, and Tommy rushes outside in his pajamas, uncaring. Dream stands beside his tent rummaging through the ender chest, with dynamite held between his fingers. Behind him, the forest is on fire, and the wildlife lays in ruins.
Tommy is reminded of his home, of the place he swore to leave behind when he started living here.
Dream cackles, apparently finding what he was looking for, and the fire roars and laughs alongside him, snapping in the air in a rhythm like the waves would tickle at his feet. Tommy watches as they reach higher and higher, aiming for the sky, and finds his feet stuck to the floor.
He can’t move.
“Oh, Tommy,” Dream says. “Come on now. You really thought I’d let you get away with this?”
Tommy’s eyes are watering, whether from the smoke or Dream’s words he doesn’t know; his vision is blurring, and he feels the floor reel beneath him as the ground begins to shake.
He opens his eyes, and there’s a rough blanket on his legs and a weight on his chest. He closes his eyes, takes a few deep breaths, and opens them again to a pink-tinted sky.
Tommy puts on his shoes, and opens the tent flap to find the forest and trees still standing, and all his mind can remember are the walls of flame, double its height.
He resolves not to fall asleep tonight.
Instead, he goes back to bed, lies on top of his sheets for what feels like hours, until the sun has risen beyond the horizon and comes to meet him at mid-day, right above his tent.
The air is hot and stagnant today, with his hair sticking to his forehead and clothes sticking to his skin. He groggily pushes open the tent, harder than necessary, and spitefully watches as the opening flaps in the wind. The breeze helps cool him down, slightly, and he heads down to the water to get a drink.
His head still feels cloudy while he fills up a bottle, meticulously boiling the jar then catching the condensation, and he takes a cautionary sip. He should have done this last night, or earlier, because his forehead is throbbing and the sand is too bright.
My friends care about me. He thinks about how this would be easier with two people, how this exile would be easier, and how even Dream didn’t want to stay here. Despite the man, ironically, only visiting in Tommy’s nightmares, that’s marginally better than no company at all.
The bottle begins to slip out of his fingers; his hands are slow and his mind is empty, and it falls onto ground, sand sticking to the sides and the few drops of water he'd caught.
And all of his progress is gone.
As promised, he doesn’t sleep that night.
The blanket stays wrapped tight around his legs, and he sits on the floor of his tent trying not to close his eyes. He contemplates, which feels almost worse than dreaming, and he waits out the night, and he stares in the vague direction of his ender chest outside.
It wouldn’t fit in the tent. He, now, barely does, crammed against a bed and a wall. He shivers and shakes and thinks about how his mantra had been a lie. My friends aren’t coming with me. He thinks, and prays that he’s wrong.
He considers going to sleep just to talk to someone, even if Dream only torments him and speaks in fabricated words. At least the lies are comforting, and the man feels tangible. But he’ll eventually wake to an untouched island, and think himself to be crazy.
The sun rises as a sliver of light, glowing around the tent, as he tenses his eyes open.
The night had been cold and unforgiving.
His head feels foggy, still, but his tongue’s loose and he sways down to the beachside, ready to try again with the water and condensation. He tries and fails a few times, and finds that he doesn’t care. The pain behind his eyes and in his head keep nudging him, but failure feels inevitable and he eventually quits.
He sinks deep into the sand, ignoring how it presses holes into his skin and gets in his clothes. He just doesn’t care anymore, and he’s oddly content to lie under the sun. Whenever he feels his eyes begin to close, he follows the waves as they ebb and flow along the shoreline. It’s cooler today, the saltwater air could even be considered pleasant, if his head didn’t hurt and his body didn’t moan whenever he tried to move.
He feels like doing nothing, and that’s what he does; there’s no-one to stop him, no-one to comfort him, no-one to deal with the consequences.
He, alone, has to dig himself out of this mess.
Well, maybe not alone, alone. A crab scuttles from somewhere out of the corner of his eye, and he watches as it begins to build itself a nest out of sand. The waters nudge it, but the sand stays strong, and the crab continues.
He watches, transfixed, as the crab builds its small but mighty sandcastle. The waves lap at the shore, but the crab doesn’t mind. It keeps placing the sand, creating its nest, making itself a home.
The crab makes it look effortless.
His own thoughts echo aloud. My friends will come back. They say, dripping with honey. They miss me.
Tommy shakes his head; he couldn’t control his friends, what they did or whether they’d visit. He follows the crab's movement instead: building a small mound, adding little sand turrets on top, and waits.
When the waves come, it does not fall.
He makes it until late in the day, when the sun is hazy on the horizon, before he feels his eyelids close.
Dream’s standing in front of him, oddly silent. He rocks back and forth on his feet, before turning to Tommy as he rubs his eyes. “Oh, good. You’re awake.”
Tommy is not amused. “As awake as I’ll ever be in a weird-ass fuckin’ dream, that is,” he mutters. “Why are you even here?”
Dream hums, but his shoulders are hunched and his voice is muddled. “I have unfinished business with you, Tommy. Isn’t that what you said at the end of your— when you stepped down as president?”
“Yeah, about the discs,” Tommy says, kicking at the ground. “I don’t know how much I care about those anymore, to be honest.”
“Really?” Tommy’s known Dream enough to know he's shit at acting. The fake incredulousness goes nowhere, and he lets the bait dissipate into the air.
“Don’t exactly have a jukebox here, do I?”
Dream gets strangely giddy at that, and gestures Tommy to follow him. He does, winding along a wooden path—a new addition to the island—deeper into the forest. They come across a hill, small and grassy, with Dream guiding Tommy up the path.
“Why are we coming up here?” he groans, dragging his feet.
“You’ll see,” Dream says ominously, but Tommy doesn't care enough to decipher it.
At the top of the mound lies a dirt clearing, and in the middle Dream’s crudely set up a log bench. He sits down and gestures at the seat beside him. “C’mon, we can watch the sunset.”
Tommy scowls, sitting on the floor instead and leaning his back against the wood.
This was something he used to do with Tubbo, he thinks, watching as the light hits the horizon. Dream's dug up this old memory to try and break him from loneliness, convince him to talk. But Tommy’s not feeling sentimental today; he’s missed his friends enough already and has too much work to do. He can't afford it.
Dream starts shuffling beside him, and there’s a jukebox to his right that wasn’t there before. From his satchel on the floor, he pulls out a familiar red and black disc, and Tommy’s face scrunches up as otherwise playful music fills the air.
Dream crosses his arms, leaning back, and Tommy can feel his eyes on him, watching as his expression contorts and stretches the longer he hears it. All Tommy can think of is Tubbo, but he pushes away the nostalgia, and struggles to remember his reality.
He’s trapped on an island, with no way home. The only person who can visit him is the man who sentenced him here, and the only way he can do that is through his dreams.
Suddenly, he realizes Dream’s as powerless as he is. And a vindictive part of him, bitter upon hearing the recollection of old memories, starts spiraling into how Tommy can give Dream a taste of his own medicine, trap him like Tommy’s trapped here—
And Tommy stops that line of thinking. That isn’t who he is, nor who he wants to be. The music keeps taunting him though, its rhythm turning softer and lower, and his body starts to shake, a racking going through his feet to his knees to his chest. If he concentrates hard enough, he can feel his eyes start to tear up. He doesn’t want to give Dream that satisfaction, though.
Sluggishly, he slams his hand onto the jukebox. Huh, he’d been moving closer to it ever since Dream slotted the disc in. The music doesn’t stop, so he does it again, cracking the wood along the seams.
Silence fills the air. He half-smiles, that sort of grimace one makes when their friend’s just said something awkward. But Tommy has no friends with him, just a man who’s made his life’s mission to torment him.
Tommy’s chest feels empty, his arms feel empty, everything about him feels like Dream’s taken a scoop to his mind and his memories and taken what’s left.
He inhales. Exhales. Dream’s still there, pensive, watching as the last rays of the sun dip below the horizon. The trees are swaying in the wind, their branches bending and twisting, but not breaking. The leaves rustle an empty tune, and a few fall to the floor.
But not all.
Dream gets up, putting his hands together in a concluding gesture. “Well, that’s— that wraps up everything I had planned this time.”
Tommy stills. “You sick bastard.”
Dream tilts his head, his voice damningly playful. “I’m the only guy who can visit your island,” he says. “I’d be more appreciative if I were you.”
Tommy’s mouth has straightened into a thin line, and his eyes are fixed ahead, out of focus. “Just— go.”
“What’s that?” Dream asks, leaning over. “I couldn’t hear you.”
“Leave,” Tommy says, his voice more firm and steady than he feels. “Go back to your friends, or your SMP, or— anywhere but here.”
Dream puts his hands in his pockets, shaking his head. “But where’s the fun in that?” he asks smugly.
“Don’t you have anything else to do!” Tommy shouts. “You’re so bored that you’ll come— you get off doing this— this kind of stupid shit,” he says, his face heating up.
Dream pauses, and Tommy’s blood boils at how he sits up, a mix of fascination and cynicism at what Tommy has to say.
“Oh, wipe that smirk off your face!” he shouts, swiping in front of the masked man. “I may not be in L’manburg, but at least I’m not hung up on making some far-away kid cry every night.”
“Oh, Tommy,” Dream tuts. “Don’t you know—”
“You’re pathetic,” Tommy screams, tears flowing faster and faster. “You’re a sadistic, cruel bitch, and I wish— and all you can do is come here and torment me.” His breath comes out more shaky, each of the words taking a special kind of deliberation to enter the brisk air.
Dream stands shell-shocked. Tommy continues.
“Don’t you have a life, man?” Tommy asks, desperate and calm. “Don’t you have better things to do? You come here trying to play a disc to make me get all lonely and shit— and you’re not any better,” he says, gesturing at the broken music box. “At least I know when to cut my losses.”
Dream’s silent, face darting between Tommy and the surroundings. “Do you, Tommy?” he says weakly, holding his arms in front of him.
“Yeah, motherfucker, I think I do!” Tommy yells, a sick smile coming over his features. “I may be alone on this island, with just a tent and a— and the clothes on my back, but I’m gonna live with it,” he says spitefully, moving closer. “You’ve done your bit, you stranded me here.”
Dream shuffles his feet, facing anywhere but Tommy’s eyes.
“Now I have to deal with it. And I will! I’m going to live my life out in the best— like a fucking king— and all you’re going to be is sad, and alone, and— I dunno, depressed or some shit,” he says, his voice going weak. All the fighting spirit seems to have been drained out of him, and he looks back at Dream.
Or, where Dream used to be, for his body’s gone, fluttered to the wind, and Tommy doesn’t really know what to do with himself.
His chest feels more light and airy than any moment spent on this god-forsaken island, and his breathing slows to a steady pace.
His eyes open. The white tent flap taunts him again, and he groans and closes his eyes at the light. The memory of his dream is already fading, though his shoulders have released some kind of invisible tension, and his body feels more rested. He gets out of bed in a relatively timely manner.
Tommy opens the chest, and the potatoes are somber, meddling amongst themselves.
He stares at them for a bit, and they stare back. And he realizes he hasn’t eaten anything but fish for the past two weeks, and takes them out of the chest.
He prays he hasn’t forgotten what his brother taught him.
Crafting himself a wooden hoe, he tills the ground in vertical stripes, Techno’s voice ringing in his ears. He does it wrong the first time, and he scuffs the dirt and rehashes the lines. It’s the least he can do to honor his brother’s obsession with potatoes.
Tommy gets into a rhythm, striking the ground and cutting the potatoes the way his brother taught him, then putting them in a satchel and walking along the edge of the field. He goes from end to end, scattering the cuttings on the soil and burying them in the dirt.
There’s a makeshift hat hanging on his head, and he finds the repetition comforting as he works the ground. When he’s just about ready to soak them, he feels droplets tap against his skin, sinking into his clothes.
Rain starts pouring from the sky, doing the work of soaking the crop for him. He smiles a little, and remembers to set up a bucket, catching the clean rainwater.
He has a new appreciation for his brother’s work on the farm. It’s the first time he thinks of home without an ache in his chest, and he smiles at the memory, not letting it consume him. There’s a taste of cocoa on his tongue that his eldest brother would make, waiting out the storm; his chest flutters in response but does not overshadow any pride at his work.
He rests in his tent, listening as the rain patters against the tarp and his eyes begin to shut.
Tommy stands in a field clearing, tall grass reaching his waist and petals poking between the stalks. He’s sure all the pollen would be making his allergies go off, but his nose is clear and there’s no sand in his shoes, nor dirt on his clothes.
There’s a figure in the middle, with a hunched over silhouette and brown hair. For a moment he freezes, worried that Dream’s found a new setting to plague him in. He keeps walking closer, though, and realizes he can put a name to the face.
Tubbo is there, laughing as the bees twirl around him, and he waves Tommy over without a second thought. Tubbo is there, and Tommy’s unsure whether the squirming in his gut is from anticipation, or fear, or excitement.
He goes to meet him.
Tubbo smiles at his presence, and Tommy swears the sun glows brighter the moment it hits him. “Tommy! I missed you so much,” he says, pulling him into an embrace.
“Hey Tubbo,” Tommy says meekly. “It’s been too long.”
“Oh my goodness, how have you been? Well— maybe not the best, considering, exile, y’know,” Tubbo says, words flying out of his mouth faster than Tommy can register. “But still, there has to be a bright side to it, right?”
“Yeah,” Tommy says tentatively. He’s begun to toy with the flower stems, shaping them in his hands as he listened to Tubbo ramble.
“That’s good!” he says, joining Tommy in fiddling with the grass. “I was being completely honest when I said I missed you, by the way. Dream’s being such a hard-ass it’s getting kind of ridiculous—”
“Can we change the subject?” Tommy cringes. “Uhh, please.”
“Oh yeah, ‘course,” Tubbo says, going quiet.
They stare at each other for a minute. Then, Tubbo speaks again. “What did— What do you want to talk about?”
Tommy stares at the ground, a question circling his head. “Why did you come here, Tubbo?” His voice cracks halfway through saying it.
“Like, why am I talking to you?” Tubbo asks.
“I guess,” Tommy says, rubbing his arm. “I thought—” he stops himself. “I mean like, why are you here? It used to just be Dream, the— prick, and now you’re here too.”
“Yeah, I am,” Tubbo says. “I— I don’t really know why.” He starts getting up, and Tommy blinks his eyes as he sits up too.
Suddenly, they’re hiking along the fields, a winding path curling through the grass laid out in front of them. In Tommy’s mind, the jump doesn’t feel out of the ordinary.
“The specifics of why I’m here don’t really matter,” Tubbo says, marching on. The sun thinks favorably of him, showering him with light, and for a moment Tommy agrees with it. “C’mon, let’s just have some fun!” he exclaims, taking Tommy’s hand and squeezing it tight.
Tommy follows him, and Tubbo talks animatedly as they walk. There’s the occasional bee or dandelion, and Tubbo stops along the path a lot, just to admire the scenery. A memorable hare hops in and out of view behind the tall stalks, the boys chasing it as its fur blends into the rolling hills.
Tommy doesn’t feel so alone.
The warm and cozy feeling in his gut spreads throughout his body as Tubbo continues to dance and laugh with him, the sun remaining static in the sky even as the time passes by.
He keeps giggling absentmindedly as scenes flash by in front of him: him laying down and guessing the shapes of clouds, rolling down the hill into the marsh and getting grass-stains on his shirt, dipping their toes into the marshwater and ringing out their hair with towels. He’s certain by now his shirt would be rife with bristles and slightly wet from all the play, but both his clothes and his skin are clear, and he doesn’t question it.
Tubbo’s in the middle of explaining a purple plant they’ve come across—its petals are round and loopy, crawling up its stem—when Tommy asks him something. It’s more of a statement, really.
“I feel like I should be mad at you,” he spits outs, looking at the ground. He can’t bring a reason in himself as to why he said it, but the words have rushed out of his mouth and he can’t take them back.
“And this one’s—” Tubbo cuts himself off. “Oh. But we’ve been having so much fun together.”
Tommy shakes his head. “You’re the one who exiled me, I think. You’re the reason I’ve been so alone.” The fog in his head clears up as he keeps talking, and he finds a pit of emotion previously untapped.
“Really?” Tubbo says. “I forgot about that.”
“I’m glad it’s been easy for you,” Tommy snarls. The sun seems to dim, and the air between them has grown tense and murky. He remembers how much he was looking forward to them talking and hanging out. How could he forget what Tubbo had done to him?
“You know what I mean,” Tubbo says, crossing his arms. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
Tommy’s loneliness has blinded him. He remains quiet, deep in thought.
“I’ve missed you too,” Tubbo pleads. “A lot more than I think you know.”
Tommy still says nothing, his figure shaking. “I— I don’t want to see you right now.” A small part of him remembers harshly shouting at another figure in his dreams. He doesn’t want to do that to Tubbo.
“I can leave for a bit?” Tubbo tilts his head. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
“It’s— Thanks,” Tommy says evenly, staring at the ground.
“Okay.” Tubbo’s mouth lifts at the corners, but it doesn’t feel like a true smile; the sun has given no response.
Tommy blinks, and his friend is no longer in front of him.
The sky begins to dim again, slowly turning dusk, and Tommy clutches onto the weeds, the plants his friend was just explaining the properties of. He feels a sob overtake his body, a mix of satisfaction and regret pooling in his stomach.
Tommy opens his eyes. The tarp of the tent teases him, crackling slightly in the wind.
He uncurls his fist. There’s nothing there, of course, but faintly he remembers the purple plant and the lavender, and how his friend’s smile made him feel bubbly and light.
Exile had made a wound in his chest, where a bundle of sorrow and nostalgia and loneliness somehow got entangled alongside his heart. Despite his best efforts to stitch himself back together, he feels now like he’s unraveling, the memories of his friend reopening the wound. In one simple dream Tommy has gained and lost so much.
Fuck. Tommy still misses him, still misses Dream, any human contact he can get his hands on, really; the journey to accepting that he was here and his friends were there was proving more difficult than he thought.
He feels a little pride, though. His mind didn’t immediately lose itself when presented with pure wish fulfillment, and he’s clearly not too far gone into insanity. Another, a smaller part of him, screams in accusation, that he should’ve just let the dream play out happily, consequences be damned.
He’s not quite sure what to think.
Tommy realizes he’s overslept when he leaves his tent and the tide has already begun to rise, the water soaking up into the grassland.
He doesn’t want to see the island right now. The potato crop, the white and tattered tent, and the ocean breeze all set him on edge. There’s a gnawing discomfort in his gut, the faint memories of nostalgic and painful dreams in the back of his mind.
Tommy decides to venture properly into the forest, clear his head.
The hot air seems to melt away as he walks among the trees, instead being replaced by a sticky humidity and the clear air. If the beach and the grassland from his dreams were thistles poking at his skin, the jungle is a cool and flat stone he can finally rest upon.
Something about the faint sound of rushing water and the growth sprawling all around him makes him feel less lonely. Vines curl around the tree bark and undergrowth lays beneath his feet.
It doesn’t feel like home, but it could be. Tommy knows this in his soul. If he wanted to, he could leave it all behind and start anew. He could lose himself in the bushes and the tall trees and sweeping canopies and never look back.
Tommy’s always been hard at letting go, though. Coming to terms with exile has less to do with forgetting his friends and more with learning to cope in their absence.
Out of the corner of his eye, he notices a curling purple plant, and despite the dream having already begun to slip from his feeble memory: he thinks of Tubbo. He picks it, stuffs it in his satchel, and carefully extracts a few seeds off of its stem.
Tubbo could’ve been talking about a different plant, anyway. It wouldn’t matter to Tommy; he’d make sure to plant this in front of his tent all the same.
The jungle’s humid air starts to breathe down the back of his neck, and he realizes with a jolt that this was only a temporary escape. The security in the jungle’s signs of life was also alienating for his loneliness.
He missed his friends, that was something he couldn’t change. But, that didn’t mean he had to lie in wait for a deliverance that would never arrive. His fears were stupid, really.
Tommy starts the journey back to his tent, feeling an odd sense of dejá vu at the smashed petals in his fist.
The night air is cool and settles on the grass, and there’s a warm, content feeling in Tommy’s gut as he lies in bed, his tent flap open to the sky. The stars twinkle in greeting and in jest, and for a moment he’s reminded of Tubbo.
Tommy feels oddly at peace, as the lavender plants outside his tent sway softly in the wind. They’re a memento, a way to pay homage without letting the memories overwhelm him.
Crickets start making their harsh noises outside, and he zips up his tent with a huff. Crushed up bits of flower are still in his satchel, though, and he brings them out and lay them atop his chest, letting their sweet scent fill the air. If he had company, he might feel some shame at being calmed by smashed flowers, but for now, he softly smiles as his eyes begin to close.
When he dreams, it’s only of a happy nothingness. He sees no-one and talks to no-one, and wakes up remembering none of it.
As the sun rises, he gives a small thanks to Tubbo.
He spends the next day doing menial tasks, feeling the bags under his eyes recede as his body begins to heal. His mind takes a backseat as he checks on his potato farm, making sure that mites haven’t eaten the crop and that it's properly watered and tilled. He’s figured out how to weave some jungle leaves into baskets and a hat, similar to Phil and Techno’s on the farm.
Tommy absentmindedly thinks of his tent, his impromptu home. He’s had a book in his back-pocket of ideas to do when he gets bored—boredom brings contemplation and contemplation brings loneliness—but the words ‘build a log cabin’ are staring at him in pixelated ink and his stomach churns.
This island was never home. He can’t bring himself to build a cabin or set up a permanent farm, or do anything other than short-term, meaningless activities because he doesn’t want to risk losing a chance to go back.
He doesn’t want to get attached again only to have it be ripped out from under him. He doesn't want to get attached here, either; the fear that his friends may return and he’ll deny them is paralyzing.
Whenever he thinks about the future he gets an empty feeling in his gut and his insides start vibrating unpleasantly. Time passing makes him uncomfortable, if thinking about him being in this situation now is frightening, thinking about Future Tommy’s prospects is even worse.
It hits him that the commitment to not doing something was hardly as effective as he thought. Discuss the future, ignore it, tomorrow he’ll still be a little older and been without his friends a day longer. He can pledge to deny the yearning in his heart, or the aching in his bones, but that will never make them go away.
He’s gone beyond lying in wait, though. A restless part of him knows this. The Tommy that boated ashore would have never done as much as he has in the past week.
He wonders whether it’s enough, though. Whether constantly working will properly drown out the doubts and voices in his head.
If Tommy’s a boy who’s defined himself by his loyalty and his friendships, who does he become once they’re taken away? Is there anything to him at all, or is he a fragment of a person, held together by woven baskets and tattered cloth?
The sun gives him no time to answer as it marches across the sky. It beats down on Tommy’s pale skin and he knows he has to decide to move into the shade or stay and risk a sunburn.
His mind refuses to stay in the heat. He goes back into his tent to sulk and nap out the rest of his day.
He opens his eyes and a man in a straw-brimmed hat is at his farm, and his mind unhelpfully flashes back to a green shirt and brown hair. He shakes away the memories of crying into a sleeping bag, instead giving a wave.
“Welcome to my island,” he mutters, but the man ignores him and keeps farming. It’s oddly rhythmic, and he joins him; a pristine white-collared shirt and combat boots come into view.
With how long the potato farm's been going, a small part of him is surprised it took Techno so long to visit.
“What do you want, Tommy?” he says, bored. Every word that comes out of his mouth sounds detached, but Tommy can feel the intensity hidden behind them. “Can’t a man just farm his potatoes?”
“You left long before my exile,” Tommy says. He doesn’t understand why the words stumble out of his mouth in such a strange order.
“I did, I retired.” Techno goes back to harvesting and replanting, the dirt getting on his hands but never beneath his nails.
Tommy shakes. No words are coming to his lips, but his mind is brimming with things to say.
“I’m living in peace, away from it all. It’s all I ever wanted,” Techno continues. Despite Tommy's body language—looking more at the quickly growing mound of harvested potatoes than Techno’s eyes—he’s still listening and the words are stirring something inside of him.
“I can’t imagine myself retiring,” he mutters under his breath.
“You don’t have to.” Techno’s hands keep wrangling the soil, eyes downcast—Tommy wonders how many potatoes his farm has—but the statement is clearly directed towards him.
“I can’t imagine a future for me at all, Techno,” he says, resigned. His voice is getting louder, but the reason why is unknown to him. “What am I going to do?”
“Whatever you want to,” Techno replies. He makes it sound so simple. “Why waste time doing anything else?”
Tommy goes quiet, and his thoughts come to a halt. “I don’t want to let go,” he says, his voice shaking. It sounds like the confession of a condemned man. “I want things to go back to how they were.”
“That can’t happen, Tommy,” Techno says, sighing. He doesn’t dismiss Tommy’s concerns so much as offer a rebuttal; he’ll let Tommy reach a compromise. “You know that.”
“Doesn’t stop it from hurting,” he mumbles, whines, almost.
Techno sets his bag on the floor and begins to approach him. “What do you want, Tommy?” he asks, pacing closer and closer. His feet stomping against the dirt demand a sufficient answer.
“I don’t know!” Tommy says, raising his arms above his head. Despite being taller than him in his memories, Tommy shrinks under Techno’s looming shadow, and feels a small fire alight in his chest. “It's all too much— There's so much that I just— just want to understand.”
“Understand what?” Techno sounds unimpressed, and Tommy's mouth floods open.
“I made a promise a while back to deal with this, that I had to get used to it,” he says, tapping his leg. “But what I want keeps changing. At first it was my friends to come visit, then it was to do a bunch on the island. Now— now I don’t even know.” His voice breaks and cracks and there’s hair sticking to his forehead and he throws his arms up, feeling hopelessly futile.
Techno nods. “That’s not an easy thing to deal with."
“If I go back, doesn’t that make me the same as earlier? Wouldn’t I have just gone in a circle, then?”
“Nah,” Techno says. “It’s— you’re different now. You’ve done so much.”
The words settle in Tommy’s limbs, and he gives Techno a small nod. “Yeah,” he mutters. It’s the first of many conversations where words escape him.
“You’ll figure it out eventually,” Techno says, smiling. “The old Tommy would have never asked those kinds of questions, anyway.”
“Yeah.” Tommy rubs at his arm. He’s grown to being eye-level with Techno, and gives a sheepish grin. “Thanks for helping me.”
Techno shrugs. “I’m just farming potatoes.”
Tommy sits and contemplates for a bit, as the sun keeps falling and Techno continues his harvest. It’s relaxing, almost, watching as Techno lets muscle memory take over and works the soil. Tommy puts on a woven hat and joins him.
“So none of it was wasted?” Tommy calls out. They haven’t been talking for ages by now, but Techno knows what he means.
“Of course,” Techno says. He sounds mildly offended that Tommy would think otherwise. “Are you going to help me, or what?”
Tommy cackles, light and airy, and relishes in the feeling of digging through the dirt and throwing potatoes at Techno, who always catches them with a near-hidden smirk.
He opens his eyes, and the stitched wound in his chest has been healed over. It’s still got bumps and cracks, sure, but for the first time he feels whole again.
The tent flap is still, and he opens it to embrace the rising sun. He looks out front, at the lapping waves, and the corners of his mouth tick up and he opens it in a smile. He looks to his right, and the lavender plants sway in the wind, greeting the day. He looks to his left, and—
His farm is back to being small, untilled, unharvested, untouched.
Tommy, on the other hand, has a new sense of understanding in his chest, and he smiles.
At ease.