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Tommy is standing on the little porch outside Technoblade’s house, leaning against the railing and watching the sunset, when Techno returns on Carl. He looks annoyed--there’s a chink in his armor, probably left by an arrow from a skeleton--but otherwise unhurt. That’s good, Tommy thinks, he only has one life left.
“Why are you outside?” he asks, tying up the horse. “If anyone from L’manberg sees you…”
“They’ll kill me,” Tommy says flatly. “I know, Techno.”
“And the sunset was worth it?” Techno replies, one eyebrow raised.
He sighs, opening the door back into the house. “The freedom was worth it.”
“Freedom.” Technoblade scoffs, but he doesn’t say anything else.
It’s late at night when they next speak, phantoms banging at the roof of Techno’s hidden house as he casually sharpens a netherite pickaxe. Tommy sits on top of the box, staring out the window. “I miss them,” he says. “I miss L’manberg.”
“Mhmm,” Techno responds noncommittally, sparks flying as he strikes the pickaxe again.
Tommy turns to him and asks, “Do you ever miss them?”
He shrugs. “I miss Phil.”
“But L’manberg--”
Techno interrupts him with a loud laugh, the pickaxe clattering against the anvil as he drops it. “I don’t miss that place, no. It doesn’t miss me much either.”
Tommy shrinks in on himself as the pickaxe falls, recoiling on instinct as if now that it’s not in his or Techno’s hands Dream will swoop in and steal it from the anvil. “I do. I want to go back.”
“You will,” he says. “We just need my stuff back.”
“For leverage.”
“Exactly.”
Leverage, he thinks. Everything is fucking leverage.
“It’ll be fine, Tommy,” Techno says, and Tommy doesn’t believe him.
They are both silent for a very long time before Tommy speaks up again. “Do you ever miss Wilbur?”
Techno doesn’t say anything, and instead just hits the anvil harder than he did previously, sending sparks flying higher and higher.
“Do you?” Tommy presses, and Techno whips around with a snarl.
“Do I miss the man who lied to me and used me to achieve his own selfish goal of installing a new, worse government in place of the old, failed one?” he growls, and Tommy instinctively reaches for a shield that isn’t at his side to protect him from the pig’s fury. “Do I wish I could still see him sometimes, and listen to him tell me about how I’m the lynchpin in his stupid plan? Do I miss him?”
Tommy winces, but some brave (or maybe unreasonably stupid) part of his brain, he asks again: “Do you?”
Techno grits his teeth and sighs. “Yeah, Tommy. I miss him,” he says quietly, without any hint of his usual sarcasm.
“I do too.”
“He was like a brother to you, huh?” Technoblade asks with a wry smile, and Tommy just laughs.
“As much as you are, Techno.”
He smiles, turning back to the anvil. “Quite the family you got there, Theseus.”
“Don’t call me Theseus,” Tommy snaps, and Techno just raises an amused eyebrow. “I’m serious, Techno. Don’t fucking call me that.”
“Why not?”
“Theseus dies in the end.”
He snorts, rolling his eyes. “Every hero dies in the end, Tommy.”
“He died in exile,” Tommy says, “he died alone, without any friends or family; he died in exile , Techno--”
“Exactly!” Techno exclaims, throwing his hands up, “The parallels , Tommy!”
“I don’t want to die!” Tommy screams, tears stinging at his eyes. “I don’t want to die alone in exile without any friends and any family and--and--I don’t care about the parallels, I just don’t wanna die…”
Techno blanches, completely at a loss for words. “Uh.”
He sniffs, biting the inside of his lip to keep himself from crying. “It’s just--can you not call me Theseus? If that’s okay?”
“...yeah, I can do that.”
Tommy continues to try and calm himself down as Techno waffles about what to do. Emotions are, unfortunately, extremely complicated.
“I’m… sorry,” he says. “I didn’t think about that.”
“It would be a really interesting parallel.” Tommy giggles wetly. “But I’d rather not have the same story as someone else.”
Techno nods--this, at least, he understands. “I am sorry.”
“It’s whatever,” he says like he didn’t just start scream-crying a minute ago. Bold move, but respectable. “I do think Wilbur was like a brother to me, though.”
“And I was too?”
“Was?” Tommy asks. “You’re not dead yet.”
He laughs, and a bit of the tension fades away. “Yet?”
“One life left, the both of us.”
“Technoblade never dies.”
Tommy rolls his eyes, resting his head against the window. “He might.”
“Would you be sad if I died?” Techno teases, not expecting much of a response.
He looks at Techno, eyes hardened in a way he’s never seen Tommy look before. “Techno, I would kill a whole city if you died. I would have done the same for Wil, and I’d do the same for Phil.”
“I did kill a whole city when Wilbur died,” he remarks casually, and Tommy winces at the lightness with which he treats L’manberg. “I figure you’d kill a lot of people for a lot of people.”
“I would,” he says, “I’d kill anyone for Tubbo. Or for you, or Phil, or--or--well, I don’t know who else, but I would kill for them too.”
“Good for you,” Techno says supportively. “Murdering for your friends is one of the most potent signs of affection.”
Tommy gives him a look, confused. “Yeah, that’s… one of them.” He thinks for a second, considering his options. “I’d kill people for Dream. He’s my friend.”
“Dream isn’t your friend,” Techno responds matter-of-factly. “He’s about as far away from a friend as you can get.”
“No, he was… he was the only person that was nice to me. He visited me in exile.” Tommy recites, almost like he’s reading from a script. “Dream cares about me.”
Techno laughs . “Dream couldn’t give less of a shit about you, Tommy.”
“That’s not true.”
“Whatever you want to believe, Tommy,” he hums, and Tommy isn’t sure what that is.
They settle into their routine again--tunnel under L’manberg, lie to Dream, lie to each other--and nothing feels too off.
That is, until the day they kidnapped Connor.
The day he saw Tubbo again.
“The whole exiled thing, not visiting you, not doing anything, leaving you to die in some faraway place…” Techno shrugs, tossing his braid over his shoulder. “I’m starting to think, Tommy, maybe Tubbo doesn’t think of you as a friend.”
It’s like a slap across the face, but the reality is that Technoblade is right ; Tubbo didn’t care about him.
And then they see Dream.
“I was the only person that visited you!” Dream says, and Tommy gets mad .
He’s mad because it’s fucking true, he’s mad because everyone keeps telling him his friends aren’t his friends, and he’s just so done with Dream’s lies (or maybe they aren’t lies--he doesn’t fucking know). It all boils up, and he tightens his grip on the string of his crossbow and spits out, “Go to hell .”
Technoblade snickers behind him as Dream replies with a snarky comment about them being the ones headed into the Nether, so actually , and even if Dream knows he’s with Techno now, it’s fucking worth it just to tell him off.
And Techno said, “he’s with me”. Techno said they were working together. Tommy was more than a raccoon in a basement. (Maybe.)
They’re gathering wolves late at night and Tubbo’s small “I wasn’t invited...” is still ringing in Tommy’s head. He wasn’t invited--that had to be bullshit, right? He had to be lying.
The idea that there might be truth to his best friend’s words--that there’s some higher power keeping the two of them apart and that Tubbo wasn’t the one making the decision--is more hope than Tommy dares dream of at this point.
“Everyone I love fucking dies,” he mumbles to himself as he watches a potion brew, alone in Techno’s house. “It might be better if I didn’t treat Techno as a brother. Maybe Tubbo isn’t my best friend. I don’t want them to die. I don’t want to die.”
Those words, I don’t want them to die, I don’t want to die , become a mantra in his head as the hours march on. He’s terrified, more so than he has been since he started living with Techno because Dream knows , and Tubbo knows , and Dream was never his friend and maybe Tubbo wasn’t either, and it’s the worst thing in the world.
Tommy pulls his knees up to his chest and lays his head down, hoping that at the very least, he’s still got one friend left.