Archive of Our Own

i. 

its not that it was a totally stupid plan, okay? it was a mostly stupid plan, but he had been able to convince tubbo to go along with it which means it can’t be that stupid.

he holds up a book with his slanted scrawl all over it, the words “the plan” underlined several times at the top.

“this,” he says, pointing to the book, “is the plan. and the plan says,” he points a finger at a random point on the page for dramatic effect, “the plan says that we will be attempting for scientific study, mind you!” there is a pause for the ohs and ahs that are appropriate. tubbo looks unimpressed so he continues, “we will be attempting! to jump off of this cliff and onto a llama and see if we can live.”

he smiles in satisfaction and waits for the applause to roll in from the tubbster. 

any moment now.

just... a couple more seconds.

tommy peaks open one of his eyes, and finds tubbo’s head in his hands.

“tommy this sounds really, really dumb.”

he grins, “thank you tubbo!”

tubbo sighs for a very long time before pushing to his feet, “fine. but if you die i’m not getting held responsible. in fact i very specifically would like you to write in that plan of yours that it was all your idea and i should not be held responsible if you happen to die.”

tommy pumps a fist in victory, “that i can do big T!”

and that was how the pair end up standing over the cliff next to tommy’s house, wind blowing their hair, a small crowd gathered under a tree to watch. below them sit two llamas, tethered to a fence post that tommy briefly thinks could be an issue before dismissing it.

he turns to his friend who looks like he might vomit and grins, “ready big man?”

tubbo gulps and nods once and tommy turns to shout at the crowd that has now grown slightly larger.

“alright boys! here we go! three! two -“

one never exits his mouth because hes jumping, and as he jumps he is screaming, and all he can think is this is going to be so epic.

the fall takes... significantly longer than tommy really expected. he can’t really turn his head, g-force and shit, but he does attempt to look out of the corner of his eye  at tubbo. he fails, but as he looks he spots someone who looks suspiciously like wilbur soot come running over to the tree.

i’m so screwed is his last thought before he hits the ground. 

ii.

tommy... can’t swim. 

now, it's not usually that this is a problem, he can usually avoid water that's more than waist deep, and if he can’t then he can build a makeshift boat if really needed. but turns out, when explosives runs under the whole fuckin’ country that includes a river, water starts to spill into the whole damn place. 

‘s like the country’s pissin’ or some shit tommy almost snorts at his own joke before remembering his current predicament. not the time, right.

the water is dark, but he can see the buttons of someone's uniform glint in the distant light of the fires started by the tnt and he thrashes his arms in their direction, hoping, praying, they will grab him, pull him up. 

he only sinks lower.

out of all the stupid shit i’ve pulled , he thinks, his brain slowing down for a moment in the panic, out of all the dumbassery, this is whats going to kill me?

that seems stupid, that seems so stupid, after all the shit he’s pulled that was inches from killing him, he’s going to let the green bastard get the dub?

i’ll be damned if i do.

tommy vaguely remembers the things phil used to shout back when the man made an attempt to teach him how to swim.

kick.

right arm. left arm. kick.

up, up, up. kick. right, left, claw your way out of the watery hell, damnit if you’re killed by a green bitch and his mates, kick, kick, kick.

tommys face breaks the surface and he gasps for air, choking out what he swallowed. the walls and the ground burns and tommy kick kick kicks over to the van that started all this shit, and his feet hit solid ground and he climbs out of his almost grave, hears the shouts of a friend.

he runs into a dark tunnel.

iii. 

tommy has never claimed to be... particularly intelligent. he at least hasn’t claimed it seriously. or he at least hadn’t claimed it seriously when speaking about decision making, because honestly he had quite a large brain when it comes to book smarts - 

well anyways he hadn’t ever claimed to have common sense. 

so it shouldn’t be a big surprise that he’s attempting to scam the second most powerful person on the server (the first being himself, obviously). but for some reason, niki is giving him an exasperated shake of her head as he tells her his plans over a muffin she made.

the shop is half full, and niki is busy handing cakes and cookies and bread to the people who come up to the counter, but she stays quiet as tommy explains what he wants to do today.

“so,” he pauses taking another large bite of the muffin, “basically, what i’m sayin’ niki is that if you hear,” he pauses, holding up a finger as he swallows, “if you hear me yelling about the green bitch - which i won’t! because i’m no pussy and he can’t beat me,” another pause for a bite of muffin, and niki passes him a glass of milk, “he can’t beat me, but say you hear that. just letting you know whats up.”

niki nods, looking very worried, but she’s tried to stop tommys plans and never been successful so now doesn’t seem like it will be an exception. 

“alright tommy,” she hands him a napkin as he gulps down the milk, “i’ll have a hideout ready for you, i suppose. but if this bakery comes down it’s you i blame.”

tommy grins, already halfway off the stool as soon as her approval leaves her mouth, “thanks niki! you’re the fuckin’ best!” he’s stepped outside the shop now, but niki hears him whoop and then yell something that sounds vaugely like “i love women!” as he sprints back towards the walls.

tommy is not sure how he got dream to meet him, he barely had to whine to get the man to agree to meet him on the top of his reverse coaster, but the man is standing there seemingly impatiently when tommy finally climbs his way up, halfway out of breath.

“big man!” he grins, and dream cocks his head, which tommy has found to be his equivalent of rolled eyes. 

“big man, dream, the big d -“ dream holds up a hand.

“what did you want tommy.”

tommy smirks, “right to business! i get the vibe!” he reaches into his bag, “well if we’re doing business - give me a minute,” he rummaged around for a moment before yanking out a beat up blazer trading out his l’manberg jacket.

“now! you may be asking, why the fuck did tommyinnit want to meet me, dream, the pissbaby. right?” he’s met with silence, but this does not deter the great tommyinnit, so he continues, “well you see dream, despite being the best pvp-er on this server,” that garners a snort from the masked man and tommy shoots him the glare, “despite that, i don’t exactly have the most op armor.”

dream hums and tommy powers on feeling encouraged, “so, big man, thats where you come in because,” he chuckles, moving closer to dream, “lets face it you have the best armor on the server.”

dream is picking at his nails. 

“where are you going with this tommy.”

tommy fumbles for a moment and dream glances up at him.

“tommy?”

a second too late, tommy slams his foot down on the weak connections of the coaster, a desperate attempt to have dream fall, but the man has already stepped back and it’s tommy who’s free falling. he fumbles around for something to soften the blow, ducking and rolling at just the right moment before slamming into the ground. 

“oh tommy...” rings out over the field, and tommy is up on his feet in an instant, stumbling as he sprints back towards l’manberg. 

“oh fuckfuckfuckfuck!” he screams, and he can hear the laughter of the green man as he runs.

over the ridge, through the old trees, back towards your house.

dream is gaining on him as he sees the cliffside of his house grow closer, and he knows he’ll have to be fast to get up ledge before dream can yank him down.

he’s nearly there too, when he feels something slam into his thigh and he falls face first.

that fucking fence post.

dream’s cackling as he approaches, close enough now that tommy can hear his footfalls, and he scrambles up, running parallel to his house now that scaling the face of the cliff would be near impossible.

a sharp u-turn as he passes the wal-mart and he’s screaming bloody murder as he comes back towards the walls and the sea, desperately hoping niki will hear him.

he passes a jack manifold who jumps out of the way, a curious yell dying on his lips as he spots dream close behind, but now tommy has home field advantage, and he weaves around the creeper holes, finding the routes he used back before the war. 

he quiets down as he approaches the bakery, hoping dream won’t hear his heavy breathing, and niki is holding the door open when he comes around the backside and she shoves him into the backroom and under a trapdoor.

he cowers there as she pushes a chest on top of the door and theres the distinct sound of a door getting kicked in and tommy knows niki’s going to make him pay for that.

iv.

pogtopia is clearly a nation built in a day. the ravine is no rome, it is built to be just barely functional, walkways built of mismatched stone and uneven planks balanced just barely. chains hold heavy lanterns from the roots of trees that dangle from the roof, and occasionally a loud clang will echo through the caverns and whoever runs out will find a lantern tipped on its side, the rubble on the floor burning low. 

they’ve made it into sort of a game, though only tommy really plays, techno never deigns to delve into the ravine unless its for his farm and wilbur never leaves, pacing the paths as he plans, so tommy runs between the two, passing messages and materials. he sees how fast he can go, if he can leap across the drops, can swing from one end of the commune to another.

he fails, a lot, and so he’s gotten used to the painful feeling of his bones stitching back together as he gulps down a potion, gotten used to filling his pockets with vials of the red liquid. 

and so it’s habit, when techno yells something indistinguishable from his room at the top of the ravine, and tommy launches from his seat, shoves fingers into well worn footholds in the walls, pulls himself onto a ledge, and grabs a frayed rope and pushes off the wall, counting rhythmically in his head one, two, three, four seconds. it’s fifteen to the first lantern, another five to jump to the ledge across, stumbling over the uneven planks, ten to pull himself up onto the platform above, allows himself two seconds to stand, then four to the end of the platform, one to turn a corner and feel his foot slip.

it takes three long seconds for his body to hurtle back towards the ground, ten long seconds once he hits it for him to try and scramble for a potion as he feels blood drip drip dripping out of him, three more before he realizes he forgot them, takes him fifteen whole seconds for him to shout his brothers names and wonder if they will come.

loneliness, as tommy finds out, eats at your soul. it gnaws on your heart and grins whenever you flinch. 

it sinks its teeth deep into your brain, its venom poisoning your every thought. but... the poison can also be clarity - in the moments before death your thoughts are the most clear, right? 

is this the truth? is the creeping feeling of dread that takes over his heart right? 

he thinks it might be.

he thinks, as he towers up, higher than he has ever been, higher than the black pillars that were once a part of his nightly view, higher than the tip top of the roller coaster he once loved, higher than the mountains he climbed once, laughing with the people liars he once called friends. in the wind he hears yells, he hears scorn, he hears the hatred they must have always had. 

actions have consequences, tommy.

he sits at the top of his tower, and ponders the idea of dream. he ponders what the man might think, at the sight of tommy, if he will rejoice at knowing the boy he so hated was gone. 

that’s not friendship, is it though.

wait.

friendship? to laugh and mock and celebrate a death?

v. 

1. dream is no friend.

but then tommy has no friends.

have you looked for them? has he let you look for them?

and tommy leaps.

+ i.

tommy hates the prison. he hates how it is inhumanely hot, how he sweats from every pore of his body, and how the only relief comes from the lukewarm water in the sink. he hates the haunting noises of iron bars, hates the way the lava pulses a constant light. he hates the scratch of dream’s pencil against the page of a journal, and the unbreakable walls that seem to close in on him, and most of all he hates dream.

he hates, looking in the face of a man who lied every moment of the way, who pretended to be his friend, and then took them all. he hates seeing the man who destroyed every hope of a family, of a normal life he had. he hates hearing his voice, his horrible horrible voice that haunts his nightmares every time he shuts his eyes.

tommy gets through though, thinks, everyday, about how good it will feel to leave. he thinks about cool air, and walking barefoot on the prime path, and seeing the sunset, and standing at the top of his very own hotel, and hearing the blip of sam nooks voice. he thinks about all the good that will come out of leaving this place. 

that doesn’t mean he won’t beg when he hears sam come through the heavy doors on the other side of the lava, that he doesn’t yell when the man drops food down, that he doesn’t ask over and over and over if he can go. but it’s nice to know that he will get out, someday.

he doesn’t know why dream is so antsy today, doesn’t know why when he yells about hating him, gloats about the fact that he’ll be out of this shitfest of a place someday, laughs in the face of the worst person alive, why dream just scowls.

he talks about the revival books, and how tommy won’t ever kill him, and well tommy thinks the revival book is a load of horse shit, but dream is right. 

he won’t kill him.

maybe somewhere along the way he learned his lesson, sometime in between the wars and explosions and hatred he realized that death isn’t always the answer.

or maybe rotting in prison is worse than death. 

either way dream is right, but tommy still yells back when he calls himself a god, because he can see in his eyes he is just as mortal as the rest of them. he tempts fate, again, and maybe fate has gotten tired of his tricks because she does not hold him back.

and tommy is on the floor, and he is holding his head in his hands, and tommy is yelling for sam, yelling for tubbo, yelling for someone. 

someone is there.

they have not been here in a long time, their hands have not embraced him in a long time, but they are there. 

they pull tommy’s crumpled form into their arms and they leave. they do not threaten the man who stands over the body, they do not whisper comforting words, they do not help the corpse.

they hoist the spirit into their arms and it is just as it had always been. brother and brother, soldier and soldier, leader and leader, wilbur and tommy. 

peace is hard to come by, but they have found it, and they will keep it. 

“welcome home, tommy.”