Work Text:
Sun filters through the blinds in streaks of golden light.
Dust dances in its path, a gentle melody of vinyl wafting like summer's breeze throughout the room. Spring’s breeze--Tommy supposes--is more accurate, but regardless. The notes carry with them the salt of summer ocean, warmed from its usual heavy, murky frost by the golden drops of heat from above them, a heat spring’s never had. Spring’s just the poor man's Summer, anyway.
“Do, do, do-do,” Tommy mumbles alongside the notes of blue tape under his breath, tapping sock-loose wood against the hardwood below him. “Oh, do, do, do-do.” A slightly lower pitch.
He moves, sweeping a sliver of missed dust to join the pile building like blackstone wall in the corner of the room. Humming a gentle vibrato, he steps back to the center of the room, sun stretching alongside the wool on his feet and the wood unblocked by his shadow.
The rooms barren, save for a few small boxes in the corner. Tommy’s fingers itch from their place on the broom handle, desperate to move, to assist with something, rather than just sit idly. But alas, he keeps them still, firm against the carefully smoothed broom handle. He rests his chin atop it, holding it steady with his hands and kicking one foot over the other, prosthetic grazing the floor next to planted foot.
He exhales, content.
The warmth of the window sun and dust freckling it stretches along his back, covered by a well oversized hoodie. Comes with the territory of having most of your clothes burned, either by the father and mentor you betrayed or the masked psychopath they teamed up with to betray you. Borrowing a hoodie here or there is expected.
Something presses against Tommy’s prosthetic. He can’t feel it where it happens, but he feels a subtle shift from where it’s strapped to his thigh. He blinks, a bit warily--though he’s mostly managed to shoo away the lingering shadows that crawl around the edges of his skull, whispering their harsh seeds of distrust to be planted in the damp soil-stuffed crevices of his head, they’re still there, stubborn as ever. Like a bug that he can’t flick off. That’s how his abuser described it, yeah?
(Puffy suggested mentally referring to his abuser by what he did to Tommy, rather than his name. Tommy isn’t sure how much it’s helping, but it keeps him from having panic attacks as often so, hey. Worth?)
He blinks down at the calf headbutting the sole of his prosthetic. She blinks up at him, beadily, small tail of patched cinnamon and snow wagging behind her. Tommy feels a smile break out on his face and swallows down the nervousness that comes with the stretch by instinct, crouching down. His hand slides down the broom handle as he lowers himself, the other hanging in front of his bent leg, kept steady by an elbow on his knee.
“Hey, Tiny Henry.”
The calf sits as Tommy reaches his hand out, slow, as to not scare her--he promptly ignores the fact she’s never been scared by fast movement. He pats her head. She leans into it. “Hi--hi,” he laughs airily, eyes wide as their gazes meet. His face shifts into a frown, and he bites the inside of his cheek. After a moment of consideration, he sets the broom down onto the floor, reaching over and scooping Tiny Henry into his arms, standing.
“Hey girl.”
Tiny Henry shifts slightly before getting comfortable, pressing her snout into the flesh between the outside and inside of his bicep. Tommy huffs in amusement.
“You’re getting older. I won’t be able to do this much longer, even if I get my weight up to a ‘healthy level’. Whatever the fuck that means. Ponk’s quite odd, in’ he? With all that medical shit.”
Tiny Henry moos.
“You’re right, I shouldn’t be mean. He was my first real rival here, before the discs became important. Plus, he’s one of those, uh, Eggers, yeah? Eggies? Egg worshipers? Eggpire bitches?” Tommy bites down a cackle, stifling it to a gentle, breathless chuckle, “Is Ponk one of the eggs bitches?”
Tiny Henry stares up at him. Even though her eyes are just as beady as ever, Tommy feels like he’s being scolded, staring at the dark, unending ebony and russet.
“That was good.”
Tiny Henry huffs indignantly, pressing her forehead against Tommy’s chest, right next to his heart.
Muffled by walls yet ricocheting along them, Tommy hears the sound of gears and rock shifting. He brightens, though he wasn’t particularly sullen beforehand, padding out the room and following the churning of rusted metal and powdered ruby.
Sam’s base is set up a bit weirdly. Last time Tommy had visited prior to being invited to permanently visit, it had been a bunker of sorts. Stone and chests and armor, nothing too homely and leaving a lingering memory of smoke and cheers and blackstone and netherite and pink and red and ‘I’m ready for revolution, boys!’--a lingering memory to sit on his tongue alongside the copper drawn from biting his tongue out of stress at Sam’s condition, stumbling and slurring his words, corners of his eyes branching with red mimicking that weighing down his mind.
Now, it’s split off into two sections. The back section is where Tommy passes through with Tiny Henry tucked safely in his arms. It's the newer section, with floors made of oak plank and walls tied together with stacks of log. The center room has a fireplace of crimson and grey brick, along with a couch, recliner and shaggy green-grey rug. It usually has a record player sitting on the small shelving area edging the brick, just in Tommy’s reach, thank prime. He doesn’t know what he’d do if he suddenly were encountered with something out of his reach due to living with someone who's almost seven-and-a-half feet tall. Hybrid bastard--he promptly ignores the fact he, too, is a hybrid. Avians aren’t really gifted with height.
Tommy passes through two doors to make it to the front section. One of spruce, the other of iron, requiring the quiet click of weighted stone key to unlock. He shifts Tiny Henry a bit awkwardly in his arms to unlock the second door, deciding to leave it open. He once again ignores the anxiety that comes with that, the lack of security, feeling the nausea die down as quickly as it came at the sight of a certain creeper standing at the other side of the room.
“Oi, Sam!” Tommys face breaks out into a smile once more, all metal and tooth. He speeds his gait up briefly, only stopping when Tiny Henry moos irritatedly, lightly butting his chest. Tommy huffs out a small laugh alongside Sam, who's watching him with a fond gaze, hidden under the shadow of goggles and green fringe. It’s still easy for Tommy to pick out despite it, having adjusted after almost two months of being in Sam’s company.
“Hey Tommy. Tiny in a bad mood?”
Tommy slows to a stop a few feet away from Sam. Sam has a few boxes stacked in both sets of arms, bottom set holding them from below and top set floating around the sides. His hair, which is usually pulled back from his face, falls over his eyes in thin strands, blurring Tommy’s view of his forehead. The red dots serving as his eyes through his goggles shift, somehow warm despite the inherently unnerving nature of red on black.
“She’s always in a bad mood, she’s fine.”
Tiny butts Tommy’s chest once more, huffing out a gravelly moo. He jolts, scowling down at her. Sam snickers as he definitely does not squawk, high-pitched and airy and rough on the edges, “Hey!”
“Don’t be mean, Tommy. She’ll stomp on you in your sleep. Those hooves are powerful.” Sam pads into the room, his tail settled still behind him, tuft of fur lifted an inch or two above the stone.
“I’m a big man. She can’t do shit to me.”
Sam hums, glancing briefly over his shoulder, red meeting blue in a collision of honeysuckle lavender, the lingering taste of morning air dotted in its wake, “‘Course. You’re the biggest man here.” He juts his chin behind Tommy, “Can you go fix the soil and lock the door? I’ll bring these to your room and we can finish cleaning it up.”
“I already finished sweeping,” Tommy gently sets Tiny down on the ground. She immediately trots over to Sam, lightly butting the back of his calf. Tommy crosses his arms over his chest, hunching slightly, fingers loose along hoodie-clad biceps. “I--I didn’t get to toss it out, though. It’s in a pile in the corner, next to the door.”
Sam’s expression is hard to make out, but Tommy can faintly see his cheekbones lift, however slight.
“Great work! I’ll grab the bin from the kitchen and move it into the room. We can toss it out and go from there.” He pauses, tail flicking slightly before stilling. “I’m proud of you.”
Tommy swallows, a small trill of warmth jolting up his spine. He stares down at his socks, biting the inside of his cheek. His face feels warm, “‘s just sweeping. Not a big deal.”
“I think it is,” Sam chirps, voice laced with airy pride and ever-persistent patience, “I know how tired you were this morning, still in the aftermath of your fever and all.”
“‘m pretty much healed.”
“Still.” Sam’s ears perk slightly, shifting to hold the boxes a bit sturdier. “Now, go get that door shut. I’ll be in your room.”
Sam leaves, Tiny hot on his heel, Sam’s tail lightly flicking around his ankles as he disappears into the darker section of the base--where the front half has artificial soul-lights lining the walls, casting the stone piled around them in bright white and blue tinge, the back half is dark and shaded, sketching wooden walls with gold and soul.
The difference is a bit dizzying, he thinks, as he makes his way out of the base, slipping on his boots which sit by the door. He blinks at the sudden shift in light from artificial soul to bright gold. White blankets the ground in a thick pelt, mimicking that weighing down on his torso, though his takes the form of a baggy hoodie rather than cold, packed flakes of sparkling glitter dust. The gold leaves a residue of sting branching from his retinas at the bright reflection.
The snow stacks, just ending a bit below the hem of his boot. He winces at the damp weight he feels on the sides of his legs, carefully stepping in the footprints left behind by Sam. The snow around the imprints flake slightly as his boots rub them loose, but it works in keeping snow from slipping in and soaking his socks. He picks up the hoe, gold and leant against the side of the carved cliff, and carefully flattens the newly tilled soil, pressing the side of the tool end against the dirt and smearing it smooth.
He rushes back in before he gets locked out, leaning against the wall and sighing low, a puddle pooling at the bottom of his chest in thin static as the cold cuts out. The faint heat from the torches popping alongside the walls draw the harsh red bloom from his face.
He kicks his boots off in front of the fireplace in the back section of the base. It’s unlit, coals flaking with black and grey dust and embers long died into cold ebony. He has a feeling Sam’ll relight it once the sun dips over the skyline, as he always does, determined to fan the lingering wisping tendrils of cold away from the corners of the walls. Sam’s weird like that.
The pile of boxes in one of the guest bedroom’s corners has grown. Mainly in width rather than height, but it’s grown all the same. The broom has been picked up and leant against the wall under the windows lining the top of the wall, and a small wicker basket is now sitting where the pile of dust and lint that reminded Tommy of torn blackstone once sat. Sam’s knelt over one of the more solid boxes, something large and solid probably in it, blue-taped music disc gingerly plucked in his upper set of hands, other braced against the rim of the box.
Tommy winces, “I--I used your record player to listen to one of my discs whilst sweeping. I--sorry. I should’ve asked you first.”
Sam blinks, looking up from the scratched vinyl to meet Tommy’s gaze. His gas mask is gone, now, allowing Tommy to see the gentle, reassuring smile gently pulling at his cheeks.
“Don’t even worry about it. You can take it for all I care, I hardly listen to any of my discs,” Sam stands to his full height, moving the disc to his lower arms and stretching his upper arms behind his back, shoulders popping at the movement, “The only time I’m really stationary enough to be able to listen to one is when I’m working on some project for the base, and music makes it hard for me to focus on what I’m doing, so I just. Don't listen to discs. This thing’s been collecting dust.”
“I noticed,” Tommy scoffs, rolling his eyes. His gaze scans over the corner of the room with the wicker bin, briefly pausing on Tiny, who's now laying on the floor next to it, eyes lidded--they look closed, but Tommy can feel her gaze.
Sam doesn’t say anything at first, gazing back down at the disc with an odd look. It isn’t one of the odd looks he would see on Phil, or Wilbur--during Pogtopia, anyway, or his abuser, whenever Tommy did something he immediately knew he’d regret. Something they didn’t like, something that would lead to being left alone and cold or, if he got lucky with Wilbur or his abuser, a few new splotches of dark paint to join the dirtying canvas of his skin.
The look Sam is giving his disc makes him feel safe, somehow. He can’t describe it, and a small part of him isn’t entirely sure he wants to. Tommy swallows the thoughts down. That’s something for him to think about late at night when he’s too scared to sleep, nightmares that haunt the darker corners of his skull screaming in the pits of his ears.
Tommy bites his building apology for his scoff and eye-roll down. Sam always gets sad when he apologizes. He isn’t entirely sure it’s intentional, but regardless.
After a few beats of silence, Sam looks back over to Tommy, taking a few steps toward him and holding the disc out, tail flicking lightly behind him. Tommy quickly takes it, holding it to his chest, bandaged fingers grazing against the rough yet comforting scratch of vinyl.
“Thanks.”
“It’s yours,” Sam shrugs, as if giving Tommy back something that technically belonged to him wasn’t more than anyone else on their server had done before. He walks back over to the boxes and kneels down once more, opening one of the boxes near the edge of the pile, resting on the floor, and pulling out an ender chest, “So is this."
“You didn’t have to get that,” Tommy protests weakly as Sam picks up the chest with his bottom set of arms like it's nothing, as though the obsidian and other dimensional material doesn’t weigh close to a ton. He turns to Tommy with a curious look.
“Did you not want it?”
“Well, I--I did, but I know it’s heavy and I could’ve just used one of the ones in the front half of the base--”
“You deserved your own, in your own room,” Sam deadpans, light in a way another deadpan hybrid wasn’t, and that’s the end of that. Something light and warm flutters in Tommy’s chest, “Now, where do you want me to put this?”
They spend the rest of the afternoon unpacking the main furniture for the guest room. The ender chest goes next to the closet door, which is in the corner where the wicker basket is--they put that so it grazes against said chest.
When Tommy questions where his bed frame is, somehow missing alongside the other sloppy furniture he put together for his base years prior, Sam offhandedly comments on how he’d noticed that bed was too small for Tommy during cold February evenings caring for the radiation-sick avian. Noticed how his feet dangled over the end and how he had to curl up into an uncomfortably tight looking ball in order to fit under his blanket. So, Sam had gathered the wood, wire and wool to make him a new bed later that evening, not only big enough for him but with extra room so he didn’t grow out of it again.
Tommy feels the fluttering warmth return at that, but does his best to ignore it, focusing on organizing his materials into his chests. He isn’t typically one for organizing his storage, but Sam had insisted, so here he is.
Tommy’s struggling to focus, however. He keeps spacing out, lost in his own thoughts of Sam the cow sniffing curiously at each new piece of furniture set out he hasn’t talked to Tubbo today he wonders how Snowchester is going Puffy better be taking good care of Fran is Phil taking better care of Ranboo than he did his older brother he could really go for some music right now is Sam Nook overworking himself at the hotel did he forget to take care of his carrots this morning--
“Sam?” Tommy swallows, hand resting uselessly on the front rim of the double chest. The other subconsciously fiddles with the front latch, gold and rusted a splotched copper.
Sam hums curiously from across the room. Tommy fights the urge to glance over at him, knowing if he looked at Sam, the anxious nausea churning deep in his gut and the thin layer of cold sweat caking his skin would get the better of him. Prime, why is he so nervous?
“Ah, is it, uh, okay if I play one of my discs? The music helps me focus.” There’s a beat of silence. Tommy scrambles to fill it, “It’s perfectly okay if not, it--it was stupid for me to ask, you said earlier it makes it hard for you to focus, ‘m sorry--”
“Tommy, can you look at me?” Tommy swallows down the nervous vomit of slurred words rising from his throat, rising from his knees to the balls of his feet and glancing over his shoulder. Sam is watching him with a gentle expression, goggles pressed against his hairline and holding his hair back from his eyes. It gives Tommy a full, proper view of Sam’s face, something he can appreciate. It’s easier to keep the waters calm when (your abuser’s) your company's emotions are easily discernible.
Tommy tries to let the mantra of Puffy’s words ring through his head.
Point out five things that are physically different about the person you're talking to compared to your abuser.
Sam has green hair. Sam doesn't have a scar on the side of his lip. Sam has two sets of arms. Sam has a tail. Sam doesn’t have his hood pulled up.
Sam’s wearing a hoodie. Sam has fingerless gloves. Sam has freckles.
Sam’s hoodie is a darker green. Sam’s gloves have studded straps on the bottom. Sam’s freckles are creeper scales, they aren’t human freckles.
Tommy’s okay. He’s fine.
“Tommy?”
Tommy stands up, turning around fully to meet Sam’s gaze. His fingers shake slightly from their white-knuckled grip on the hem of his borrowed hoodie. He stares at the ground, “Sorry, sorry.”
Clicks, “It’s alright. Can I touch you?”
Tommy looks up to meet Sam’s gaze, trying to ignore the way his grip unwilfully tightens at the movement.
Sam’s taken off his gloves.
Tommy nods, taking a small step forward. Sam closes the gap, bottom set of arms taking Tommy’s hands in his own and top set resting their hands on Tommy’s shoulders. Sam’s expression never wavers from gentle, sympathetic patience. Tommy watches warily for any shift, unable to find one. His ears are pointed doward. He looks sad. Tommy hates it.
“Sorry if I made you panic. I was just a bit concerned over how nervous you sounded to ask.”
“Just--you know how my thoughts get. Me ‘ed refuses to let me focus, y’know? Music helps. But I--I know it can be distracting for you.”
“I get it, Tommy. It’s okay," Sam's smile loosens, easing so it’s still there, just light, nothing more than a faint quirking of the corners of his lips. "How about a compromise, hm? You play one of your discs to help you focus on organizing your chest, and once you're done you can take a break from working on the room for the day whilst I finish building your bed frame.”
“But--what’ll you do while I’m organizing?” Please don’t leave. The words go unspoken, but Tommy has a feeling Sam somehow manages to pick up on them. Bastard.
“Well, I can keep Tiny from chewing up your wool, for one," Sam breathes out a quiet laugh, gaze moving down to the ground next to Tommy’s wooden foot. Tommy follows, squawking indignantly at a baby calf nibbling on the edges of a pile of red wool. Sam kneels down and pulls her into his arms, a few puffs of wool rising with her, only to drop as she moos in gravelly irritation.
“Why’d we have to pick out the bitchiest cow from that fuckin’ field?”
“You’re the one that chose her. What happened to being the ‘Cow Master’?”
“I am, bitch,” Tommy stuffs his hands into the pocket of the hoodie, scowling and pushing the hem down a little from inside the soft wool. Sam snickers. “Seriously. Cows fuckin’ run when they see me.”
“I know, Tommy,” Sam’s ears tilt back up as he scratches behind Tiny’s ear, “I’ll chill here with you for a bit, unless you need me somewhere else. Just listen to the music and pamper your cow. Just cause music makes it hard to focus on other things doesn’t mean I can’t focus on it specifically.”
“Clingy bitch.”
Sam barks out another laugh, this one a bit heartier and higher-pitched, almost surprised. Tommy turns around before Sam can see his smile, kneeling back down and trying to focus back in on organization.
“I left Wait out on the top of the ender chest. It’s stuck in my head, play it. You don’t deserve to hear one of the discs.”
“‘Course,” Tommy waits to be scolded for his tone of voice or something of that nature, but it doesn’t come. Instead, he’s met with footsteps, a bit of shuffling, and the gentle crackle of the disc being played, followed by notes and some more shuffling.
Tommy, a bit stubbornly on his own end, doesn’t spare Sam a glance over his shoulder, focusing on the chest. The music is a bit quiet, a bit scratchy on the edges due to the wear of the vinyl, but it does it’s job in easing Tommy into his work. It becomes almost relaxing, carefully separating wool from cobblestone, glass from fence, torch from log. A lot of his supplies from his storage room are still in boxes--he’ll probably just dump them in with Sam’s supplies, only keep the blocks and tools he values the most.
He feels a low vibrato in his chest. He’s humming, he realizes. He doesn’t bother to stop, though. It’s oddly relaxing, the deep vibrations under his breath intermixing with the notes filtering like fluttering moths in the air, attracted to the soul flame eating away at his brain, cooling the harsh lick of ashy flame.
He feels eyes on his back, but isn’t bothered by them. They feel warm--in a good way, a countering balance to the cool flap of moth that's now settled along the glass lining the lantern in his head. It leaves him with a relaxed lukewarm sheet along his skull, almost easing him into a sort of putty. He feels relaxed, he feels safe.
Safe. He hasn’t felt that in a long time.
It’s nice.
The piling of blocks and tools at Tommy’s feet slowly dwindles, lumps to splatter to freckling, until he finds himself placing a final pickaxe down, nestled between some tied up logs and two stone swords. He exhales, blinking out of focus, the edges of the materials neatly set blurring at their seams.
Tommy stands and pops his shoulders, elbows cracking as he stretched his arms out behind him. He does his neck and jaw before turning to Sam, who’s… dancing.
Sam’s dancing. It looks more like some odd, energized waltz with his cow, tucked safely in his arms. A gentle spin on the heel of his foot, now covered only by slightly damp sock, boots long abandoned. He’s smiling, ears relaxed and tail swishing, a bit above the ground to keep him steady.
As if he can sense the eyes on him--Tommy wouldn’t be surprised if so--Sam looks up and hums, perking. He quickly sets Tiny down on the ground, smile twitching in amusement at the indigent stomp of her hoof, rushing over to Tommy. Slows as he reaches to take his hand, attentiveness flickering in his gaze as it locks with Tommy’s.
Tommy raises his eyebrows curiously, allowing Sam to take his hand in his own. Sam brightens and laughs, dragging him forward, “Dance with me, kid!”
Tommy laughs, high-pitched, airy with lingering confusion, though it’s not negative--just surprised.
“Sam? What the hell--!”
Sam cackles as Tommy stumbles over his wooden foot, scowling up at him. He tugs Tommy’s hand up, interlocked with one of his upper ones, lower set gently coaxing him into a small spin. Tommy manages to keep his footing, wooden gears clacking.
“I don’t know how to fuckin’ dance, you prick!”
“Oh, well that just won’t do,” Sam rushes back, grip on Tommy’s hand ever careful, ever delicate. Tommy takes a few reactionary steps back, almost a stumble, yet kept steady by Sam’s hand. He blinks, breathing out a small pant.
Sam’s eyes are twinkling, top canines poking over his bottom lip. He looks excited, the ruby of his pupils glistening with white like newly placed redstone dust. He looks human in a way Tommy would never have imagined months before, only knowing Sam with his thick gas mask and glassy goggles. Tommy’s a bit relieved he’s gotten to see it.
“C’mon!”
The beat drops. And he does.
It’s admittedly fun, if a bit tiring. They spin, and they step, and Tommy finds himself cackling in dizzy glee more times than he’d willfully count off. Sam leads him through the whole thing, upper arms guiding him and lower arms acting as a safety net, should his prosthetic or previous fever or lack of experience in dancing of all things get the better of him--that's to say their movements could even be called dancing. The technical term would probably be ‘uncoordinated spins and narrowly avoiding stepping on each other's feet’. Regardless. There aren’t any professional dancers on the server that Tommy’s aware of, at least, so who’s gonna stop them?
The song length, apparently. The vinyl scratches to a stop, a gentle crackle fading into the ringing pounding alongside blood rushing in the pits of his ears.
Tommy sits on the ground next to the boxes, panting, shoulders shaking as his lungs fight to catch up with the pumping of his heart. He presses the pit of his palm against where he can feel its thrum, near the bottom of his ribs, the other hand keeping him stable along the floor.
“You’re a fuckin’ psycho.”
Sam snorts out a breath of amusement, tail whipping around near the ground. Tommy bites back his own airy half-yell of a laugh, flopping down onto the ground, ignoring the small thud as his head hits the hardwood. He’s been bruised worse.
Footsteps and the gentle clack of hoof. Tiny pops into vision, sniffing at his eye, whilst Sam stands a bit to the side near his good leg, blinking down at him. His hair’s a bit tousled and his face a mottled pink, slowly dimming with each breath.
“You good down there?”
“I’m fuckin’ fine, dipshit.”
Sam outstretches one of his lower hands, palm spread and tail flicking curiously. Tommy scrunches his nose, glowering, but takes the hand, gripping tight as he’s tugged into standing, wood clacking.
“That was fun, wasn’t it?”
“Whatever,” Sam smiles, light but warm, and not in the way Tommy’s chest is, tightening as he struggles to catch the wind rushing in his gut. Warm in a way he doesn’t feel often, hasn’t seen in a long while.
“Well, I won’t make you keep me company any longer--unless you want to, of course.”
“May as well. Don’t feel like trekking all the way back to town, let alone Snowchester.”
“Could you grab a disc for me?”
“Thought they made it hard to focus.”
Sam shrugs, “I’m in a good mood now. Want to listen some more. If I don’t finish the bed I’ll just sleep on the couch and let you take mine for the night.”
Tommy bites the inside of his cheek at that, hesitant to take up more of Sam’s stuff than he already had, but nods, kneeling down and popping his ender chest open. The lid clicks against the wall behind it with a small metallic thud. Sam doesn’t say anything, so Tommy ignores the possibility it may have chipped the log, pulling out a small off-white game cartridge and setting it to the ground.
He feels the odd look Sam’s giving him. He doesn’t bother turning around, huffing low, pulling out a stack of colorfully-taped discs and filing through each, "I’ll keep the fuckin’ volume on your little hand-made gift nice and low for you, Sammy.”
The eyes ease, “Thank you, Tommy. You can turn it back up once I’m done with the bed.”
“‘Course. What disc you want?”
Warmth leans over his shoulder. Tommy’s gaze instinctually stays trained on the vinyl, whispers of did I say you could look at me? and why are you looking at me like that, bubba? You wouldn’t betray me, would you? suddenly pounding to the front of his mind. He swallows down the bile that rises at the harsh ricochet, indenting the inside of his cheek with metal-tied canines.
He focuses on switching through the vinyl. Sam eventually lets out a small trill at one of them, shifting. Tommy braces for something, but nothing comes.
“Chirp, right?”
Tommy swallows, suddenly feeling dizzy. “Y--Yeah. Bad gave it to me, beginning of exile. Before he was told to stop visiting.”
Tommy hopes his voice isn’t shaking. His fingers aren’t yet, which is good, grip on the vinyl steady, if a bit tight. His heart skips rope in his throat, bobbing back up no matter how much he tries to swallow it down, and the torn up skin on his shoulder blades itches, a deep-rooted stinging buried under the healed over flesh. There’s a solid, foreign phantom pain where wood now shifts, whipping like thick, velvety wind and wrapping as silk around the gears and hand-carved bones.
Sam hums, standing, “You're okay with that one? Chirp’s always been my favorite.”
Tommy doesn’t say anything. It’s the least he can do. Sam has sheltered him, fed him and held him tight during panic attacks. Hell, Sam’s making him a fucking bed from hand. He owes the guy.
“Sure. ‘s not like it’s one of the discs.”
“‘Course. I’m not ready to listen to one of those, yeah?”
There’s a small laugh, and then the heat moves away from him. Tommy simultaneously weeps and relishes in the absence, leaning a bit more solidly over the chest. He’s used to the cold--at least he knows what to do in it, knows how to deal with it, survive in it.
Familiarity can be comforting, even if it’s something bad. He thinks Puffy said something like that. The memory is wrapped in soft velvet of fireplace crackle and newly-set biscuit. It’s warm, and he’s cold. He doesn’t want to disturb it.
He traces the pad of his finger along the red tape pasted to the top of the disc. It’s charred at the ends, both with ash and the lingering humidity of lava, thinned out against the rough grey and black scratch.
His finger briefly stops at one of the outer edges. There, almost washed away by the wear and melt of dirt and ash and the elements, is a smiley face, in faded, loopy ink.
He hands the disc to Sam, who’s watching him with a curious look. He has to tilt his head back to meet his gaze due to their proximity, tall bastard. Who the fuck let hybrids be as tall as they are? First Bad, then Techno, and then fucking Sam. What the fuck. He’s just glad Tubbo is an exception to that. He doesn’t know what he’d do otherwise. Probably some fucked up shit.
He picks up the game cartridge and settles atop the double chest he’d just finished organizing, legs crossed under him. They’ll probably fall asleep, but he doesn’t really care. The cartridge flicks on after a few beats of dead screen.
For a few minutes, it’s calm. Tommy sits, surprisingly still, brows furrowed as he focuses on one of the three games Sam’d programmed onto the cartridge. Some shooting game about killing hordes of masked cowboys. Odd concept, but hey, it’s decently entertaining.
Tommy vaguely registers the sounds of hammer against nail and the filing of wood. It’s a gentle melody, low and deep and grating but good, nostalgic. Like the smell of warm smoke, or the taste of ashy jerky Wilbur would pick up every week from the village market as their main source of food, sitting by dimly lit fireplace during harsh December blizzards, huddled for warmth.
(Jerky was the cheapest food the market sold that would actually fill them for the night. Tommy’d never complained about it’s repetitiveness and the dry aftertaste it left--as irritating as he could, and still can be, when it came to those sorts of things, he stayed quiet. Even as a kid, he somehow knew not to press when Wilbur was just trying to keep them afloat. He’d done better than Tommy would’ve, should he had been in Wilbur’s position, so he had no right to whine.)
The atmosphere is comforting, soft to the touch and warm under his palms. The gentle staticky sounds from the cartridge intermix with the hum under Sam’s breath, room otherwise in relative silence.
A small part of him hopes that Sam’s forgotten about the disc, or has opted to work in silence as per usual, but once he registers the pounding against thinned, rusted nail suddenly fade into the ringing of Tommy’s ears, he knows the bubbly, airy talons of hope just barely holding on were feeble.
The vinyl crackles. And the music starts.
The once relaxing, velvety warmth twisting in thin knots around Tommy’s arms and burrowing deep under his ribs is gone. Replaced with something thick, overdue molasses clogging his throat alongside the sticky warmth of mucus and sap. Yellowed glue holding his eyes together in the morning following a bad fit of hypothermia. It’s tense and foreign. Like something building deep and low in Tommy’s gut, moments from breaking and curling outwards from the pocket it's nestled in, spreading like slow-moving water alongside his stomach and chest and arms and legs and wings, prime, his wings.
He remembers the way they’d flutter alongside the sea salt in the earlier days of exile. Even with their restraints clamping down, preventing them from picking up wind no matter how hard they flapped, feeling the cool breeze shift through the feathers had been familiar in a way he’ll never be able to express to anyone but himself. Even if the wind had felt like sandpaper with the way it carried salt and scraped away inches from muscle and bone. It was still a comforting weight, familiar and grounding during difficult nights where words whispered from a plastic smile became too fucking loud and made sense in a way they shouldn’t. Wrapping himself in the familiar heat that brought him back to the taste of ash and sound of gentle guitar strums.
It’s been months since he’s last felt the warmth. He’s not over it, per say, but he doesn’t usually actively notice the sudden weightlessness anymore, not unless he focuses in on it. He doesn’t go to unfurl his wings and start choking on his own sobs, he’s learnt to lay in bed at night comfortably again without making room for limbs that aren’t there. He can’t quite look at the harsh scarring tearing up the skin on his back without it suddenly feeling too tight, too hot, but he’s working on it. It’s as a friend who now hates him once said. Healing doesn't happen overnight.
As he listens to the starry notes of red tape that remind him of that white heat, of magma and plastic and blue and cake and stars and a female astronaut named Clara, he suddenly feels light in a way he hasn’t for… weeks, probably. When was doomsday, again? Has it been weeks? Months?
He feels sick, clammy and hot and tight and prime, why would the sky gods curse him with skin that doesn't properly fit? Was he cursed to pay for another’s sins once more?
He stands, stumbling, leaving the game cartridge to sit face-up on the chest. Runs a hand through his bangs, exhaustion pulling down like heavy, weighted silk on his joints. He was tired and yet filled with a nervous, staticky energy, heart thumping heavily from its spot nestled in between his ribs. His throat burns. Fuck.
“Tommy? Are you alright?”
Sam’s face is nothing but a sticky blur of humidity, greens and reds and yellows intermixing as a sickly bruise painting Tommy’s knees.
“I--berightback.”
Tommy practicality sprints out the room, narrowly catching himself as he trips over his prosthetic, movements shaky. He chafes the side of his good calf against the corner of the coffee table, cursing under his breath, before slamming the bathroom door behind him. Falls against the bowl, narrowly avoiding banging his head, and promptly releasing the fruit they’d eaten for breakfast that morning.
His throat burns hot, sweet tasting acid lined with boils and sugar-dotted chunks burning through the sides of his throat and stomach. His skin’s still clammy with cold sweat, still tight, too small for the shaking of his body. The phantom pain blooming from feathered limbs no longer there cuts deep, spreading along his back and arms, curling under the pits of his palms that are pressed against the bathroom tile.
His chest feels knotted, tight and clogged. He pulls one of his hands up, grasping at his shirt and clawing, trying to grasp on some loose rope and pull the whole thing into nothing but nooses hanging in the wind. The shirts sticky with sweat, cold and damp with salt--mornings spent laying on cold, rocky beaches, trying to regain control over his body after another morning waking up buried under layers of heavy salt and molasses, feeling so, so fucking cold, soaked in heavy chill freckled with rock.
His shoulders heave. The grip on his shirt tightens, knuckles white, holding the fabric a few inches from pasty skin. His mouth feels dry. Tommy pants, airy and rusted, gasoline burn spiking with each shift in his throat and lungs. What was it Puffy said about breathing? In for four, hold for seven--or was it six? Did it even start with S? Fuck, he can’t remember. He cant remember and he can’t breathe and he can’t move fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck f
“Tommy? Are you doing alright?”
Tommy rests his forehead against the edge of the bowl, “‘m--’m fine,” reaches up and pulls the handle, closing his eyes. Coaxes the harsh claws gripping the root of his brain into laxing, suddenly feeling heavy. Like putty left out in hot summer air, meldable yet stiff and so hot to the touch nobody would bother, leaving him to be used as a chew toy by the next cow to trot by.
Sam knocks on the door, gentle and thin, as if he’s using one or two knuckles, “Can I come in?”
Tommy tightens his eyelids a bit more. “It’s fine, Sam. I just--”
“I heard you retching,” Sam deadpans. Tommy groans, pressing his forehead further so it digs into the edge of the porcelain. Gentle pain blooms at the front of his skull.
“You should’ve told me if you weren’t fully healed from your fever. I don’t want you to overwork yourself.”
You’re one to talk. Tommy doesn’t dare mutter out his thoughts, lest he make Sam even more mad, “No, it wasn’t--this just happens when I get freaked out, sometimes. I didn’t make a mess, I don’t think, ‘m sorry.”
“Tommy,” Sam sigh, voice hardening to sternity. A bit like the warden voice he puts on, though less cold and more laced with sadness, wet and sticky with it, clogging his throat with web and honey, “I’m not--I wouldn’t get mad at you for being sick, okay? Or I guess--what even happened? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, I just, I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
Tommy sighs, a bit shakily and thinly due to the still ever present linger of burn. It shakes through his chest, hollowing out under his ribcage and the heart thrumming between it. He reaches up, gripping metal handle and flushing, watching the gross mismatch of green and red swirl, twisting like a lollipop being slowly chipped away at until it’s nothing but sugary chalk, tasting uncomfortably sweet as gross paste on your tongue and inner cheeks. Colorful mucus on the back of your throat, a discolored plaque on your teeth.
“Do you think you’re comfortable unlocking the door for me?”
“It’s already unlocked,” he manages, voice rough, scraping against his teeth, like biting a pencil eraser down to the nub of the metal and scraping it’s rusted green edges against your canines. Disgusting, shivering goosebumps crawling up the back of your throat, scraping like sandpaper.
He looks up to watch Sam through the corner of his vision as the door hinges screech, door sliding open, stopping not even an inch from slamming against the wall. Sam’s ears pin down slightly, lips curling into a sympathetic frown.
“C’mon. We should get you cleaned up.”
“‘m sorry.”
Tommy gingerly shuts the toilet lid, thighs shaking as he gets to his feet. The wooden gears in his prosthetic grate together under the strain of his upper body and his hand, pushing against it to help himself. Sam rushes forward, but steps back when Tommy flinches, swallowing.
“You don’t have any reason to apologize, bub.”
The nickname’s new, but Tommy doesn’t really care. It’s nice. Familiar.
“I’m fuckin’--I’m making you build me a bed, and haul my shit across the nether, and feed me and house me and now I’m fuckin’ making your bathroom smell like vomit because I’m a selfish fuckin’ prick who doesn’t think of anyone but himself--”
“Tommy, you’re not--you’re not making me do anything,” Sam looks like he wants to move, wants to physically comfort Tommy in some way, fingers clenching and unclenching uselessly in front of him. He doesn’t, though, tail lashing uselessly behind him and eyes glistening with a foreign yet familiar emotion Tommy doesn’t really want to decipher. “I chose to take care of you and house you and be your--your friend, because I care about you--because you’re--you’re a kid.”
Tommy opens his mouth to protest, but doesn’t, closing it and biting his lip. His mouth tastes bitter, sickly in the sugar lining it. It burns.
Sam frowns, “We can talk later. C’mon, I’ll get you some water.”
Sam ends up making them tea--after having Tommy sip on a bottle of water for a bit. Sam’s hesitant to touch him, at first, but as soon as Tommy crosses his legs under himself and leans into Sam’s side, he’s quick to wrap an arm around his shoulder and tuck him under the one hung over the back of the couch. His other bottom one is tucked in his hoodie pocket, top one holding his mug.
Tommy swirls the dark liquid with the mug, churning it with the movement of the porcelain, watching it stain dark brown onto chipped off-white. He leans a bit further into the warmth fuzzing from Sam. The body heat, combined with the crackling fire in front of them, the baby cow tucked against his outer thigh and the lukewarm heat billowing in curled, wisping steam from the mug in his hands makes him feel what he can only describe as safe. Safe and warm and okay.
He sips from the mug. It tastes like thick honey and cinnamon. It’s nice. It’s a comforting sweet, rather than the gross sting of acidic fruit that had crawled up his throat just twenty minutes prior.
(Techno had never had sugar or honey laying around for tea. He drank his plain. It was bitter, but Tommy was always too scared of getting kicked out to fend for himself in the arctic to complain.)
“So,” a rumble from his right. Tommy bites the inside of his lip, a quiet sigh filtering through his nose, barely audible, nothing more than a small puff of air.
“So what, dickhead?” His voice is a bit scratchy, rough on the edges. He feels if he jostles his throat too much he’ll hurl up the few sips of water and tea he’s managed to down.
“Wanna talk about what happened? Or was it just your fever acting up?”
Tommy pauses, shifting his grip on his mug. Sam’s offering him an out. He can easily just mumble out a small ‘fever,’ and be done with it. Sam will believe it, won’t interrogate or question him further. They’ll go back like nothing happened.
But.
He feels safe, in that moment. Wrapped up in velvety warmth, the comforting soft heat of Sam’s hoodie and the crackle of fire. The gentle puffs of breath from the cow nosing his good leg and the creeper tail gently wrapped around his hip. The thick honey and cinnamon resting on the back of his tongue and the claws gently running up and through his hair.
Sam’s offered him an out. He’s also offered him an in--a chance to speak.
Who else can say that? Who else has given Tommy a choice? Who else hasn’t either shut down any chance for him to speak up or has made him do so?
(Puffy, maybe. Then again, that’s her job. Therapist and all.)
He furrows his eyebrows, glancing up at Sam. Sam’s pointedly sipping from his mug and looking anywhere but at Tommy. Tommy breathes out a small laugh, “I’m not gonna have a panic attack if you look at me, y’know.”
Sam’s gaze instantly flickers to meet Tommy’s. He lets out a surprised laugh, outer corners of his eyes creasing and hand running through Tommy’s hair briefly stilling, “Just--Just wanted to make sure.”
Tommy smiles, and though his anxiety still lingers, the doubts crawling up his skull unlatch from the bone and shrivel up at the base.
He trusts Sam, and prime, isn’t that a scary thought?
“Uh, I--I sort of throw up when I get nervous, sometimes,” Tommy looks down at his mug, watching the liquid shift ever-so-slightly alongside his hands as they shake, “Usually I only get nervous enough for it to happen during, like, panic attacks and shit, but--but hearing that disc just brought back a lot of memories an’ emotions, I guess.”
Sam hums, “What kind of memories?” Pauses, “you don’t have to elaborate if you’re not comfortable.”
“I’m comfortable, Sam, I promise,” Tommy barks out a small laugh, warmth bubbling in his gut. There he goes, feeling appreciation for the bare minimum again. Whatever. “Just, like… Chirp, it was--I listened to it a lot during exile. It was the only disc I owned that didn’t have some sort of memory from before exile tied to it, y’know? It hurt the least to listen to.”
The nervousness is back, now. Is he really gonna talk about this?
He glances back up at Sam, who meets his gaze with such warmth, such gentle understanding and comfort, he knows he should. He should tell someone.
He quickly moves his gaze back down, watching the liquid shift in the mug. “I… you remember how I used to have wings? Before exile?”
Sam blinks, ears perking slightly, before putting on an encouraging glisten in his gaze and slowly nodding.
“I, uh. I remember, like, awhile before I left exile, before my beach party and stuff. I tried and failed to run away. He caught me.”
“D--He caught you?”
Tommy winces, “Yeah, like,” runs his tongue over his lips that suddenly feel dry. His face burns under the outer flesh, eyes stinging at the retinas. “I didn’t really… I was still fighting back, y’know? And he had asked me to put my stuff in the hole, like usual, and I yelled at him that I worked hard for my stuff and deserved to keep it.”
“As you should. He didn’t have a right to do that.”
Tommy leans further into Sam, “I flew. I--I ran to the treeline, got a bit ahead of him and flew, since it took me a few seconds to get off the ground. My wings weren’t in the best condition, though, really bruised and stuff, so I didn’t get far and kinda perched in a tree for a bit to try and catch my breath. He caught up to me, and he prompted me down, saying there was no point in running and that he wasn’t mad. He was really good at keeping his voice neutral and you can’t see much of his face due to his mask, y’know? Plus my vision was really blurry, tears and stuff.”
Sam starts up the hand running through his hair once more, scratching against his hairline with his claws, ginger, as to not irritate anything. It’s nice, calming the subconscious building of tension in Tommy’s shoulders.
“Not that I was crying, just like. Eyes were watering due to the cold. ‘m not a bitch.”
“‘Course.”
“Right, so. I knew I wouldn’t have gotten far. My wings and just body overall weren’t that strong--not to say I’m weak, he just starved me--and he could’ve just shot me down from the air, I wasn’t fast enough. So I went down and he brought me back to Logsted. And it--it was fine at first. He held me against his side and we listened to Chirp, just sort of watching the sea. That was the main thing I did to past time,” Tommy shifts against Sam’s side, shoulder blades suddenly itching, a deep rooted heat buried under the scarred flesh, “But then he--the disc ended, and he restarted it and turned to me, and he--he took his mask off, and he was smiling, but his eyes, they fucking--”
Tommy shivers, visibly, Sam tucking him even further into his side. His mug’s removed from his hands, which is probably good considering how hard they’re shaking at this point. There’s a bit of shifting before Tommy’s pulled into a hug, three arms wrapped around his back and the fourth running up and down through his hair.
“It’s okay, Tommy. You don’t need to push yourself to talk.”
“No, I--I need to tell someone,” Though it shakes, Tommy’s voice hardens, wet and mushy at the back yet still solid enough to press down on with a steel-toed boot with minimal damage, “His eyes--they were empty, Sam. Completely fucking empty. There was nothing but hollowness and this--this deep, insatiable hatred burning deep under it all. I swear my heart stopped fuckin’ beating when I saw them. They were--they were kinda like Wilbur’s, during Pogtopia, but worse . ‘Cause Wilbur’s at least broken, clouded--he was insane. I could pretend he didn’t know what he was doing. But he--my abuser--fuckin’, Dream was fully there. Every fucking breath he took in my presence had intention behind it, and it still fucking haunts me at night, Sam. I still struggle to breathe thinking of it, of him.”
Tommy’s shoulders shake. Sam whispers quiet encouragement against his temple, hand moving down to run circles along the scarring on his back. Though that particular area is usually a discomfort to be touched by… anyone (with the exception of Tubbo. Tubbo seems to be an exception for a lot, lately), Tommy finds an odd comfort in the movement, relaxing into the touch. His chest feels tight, but he still manages to breathe through it, albeit thin.
“Y’know what he said to me? He said, and this is word-to-word what he said, it fucking haunts me, Sam. He said, ‘I can’t have you trying to fly away again, little bird.’” Tommy scowls, face damp, “‘I need to get your head out of the clouds, need to get rid of these silly little thoughts about leaving me, your only friend. No, I need to ground you. Permanently.’ And he--he fuckin’, he stood, and he kicked me down, and he pulled out his fuckin’ axe, and he knelt down and turned me over and pressed his knee against my back and I struggled, prime I fucking struggled, but he was stronger than me, and he put the axe against the base of my wing and--”
Sam shushes him, gentle and shaky and so fucking warm and oh, he’s crying now. He doesn’t remember that starting, but here he is. Tears rolling down his cheeks, dampening Sam’s hoodie, face tight and red and his chest tight, lungs harshly shifting as he struggles to fill them with air, hot and tingling (and not in a good way, prime it fucking hurts).
“Chirp was fucking--Chirp was playing the whole time. He knew , he knew that stupid fucking disc was the only thing that gave me comfort and he ruined it, he ruined it. And y’know what was the worst part?”
“Tommy, you don’t have to--”
Tommy ignores Sam’s gentle shushing, his reassurance he doesn’t have to keep going. Because he does. Someone needs to know. Someone.
“The worst part wasn’t the pain. God, I’ll never be able to describe to you how much it hurt, Sam. The feeling of disgusting weightlessness where my wings should’ve been, the way one of them got caught on my skin and to this day there’s a huge strip of scarred skin going down to my tailbone because Dream had just ripped it off.” Tommy lets out a wet sob, throat burning, face hot, hair on the back of his neck damp with sweat.
“No, the worst part was the morning after. Dream had healed me up, kept me from just dying like I had wanted. I felt like nothing without my wings, I didn’t want to breathe without them. Couldn’t breathe without them. But Dream made me. Bandaged up my whole back and pumped me full of regen. He brought me to the nether and pulled my wings out from his ender chest and forced me to watch as he tossed them into the lava like they were nothing. Made me watch my wings get swallowed whole, thrown away like rotten flesh or stray arrows you find when cleaning out your bags.”
Tommy let out a wet sob, “and Chirp. Fucking Chirp. The one comfort I’ve always had is music, and that fucking disc was the only one I could listen to without hurting. And he took that away. Brought me back from the nether and held me and played that fucking disc as if it would’ve helped me. He fucking--He took it away from me. Prime, Sam-- ”
Sam presses a gentle kiss to his temple, and Tommy breaks.
He wails, screams into Sam’s shoulder. His whole body feels hot, so fucking hot, burning his skin from the inside out and then some, melting his bones to ash and dripping magma, burning the feathers dotting his shoulders and spine and sprouting from his tailbone into nothing, just like the wings who’s absence leave him feeling so fucking empty.
He sobs, shoulders shaking and fingers trembling from their grip on Sam’s back, and Sam lets him. Whispers encouragement and praise and comfort into his temple the whole time, tracing lines up and down his spine, gently petting the butterscotch feathers buried under thick layers of hoodie and shirt.
Eventually, he’ll stop crying. Eventually, he’ll be able to breathe steadily, only broken by an occasional sniffle. Sam will kiss the top of his head and message Tubbo to come over, and Tubbo will hold Tommy tight, run his hand through his hair and will cry for the loss his best friend has gone through he’ll never be able to fully understand. The children with broken childhoods and the creeper who just wishes to piece it back together will curl by the fireplace and cry, two in sadness and one in burning, white hot anger, directed at anyone and everyone but them.
But for now, Tommy cries. And that is enough.