Chapter Text
A weak sound bounces off the walls of the dirt shack, filling Tommy’s ear as he grimaces in pain. Pushing down at the base of the blood coloured wings with a sharp iron sword, Tommy tries to distract himself from the view in front of him. He hates doing this, hates it so much. Why must he do this? He continues sawing away at the wing, trying his hardest to break the feathered cartilage that protrudes out of his back.
Finally, Tommy slips into his thoughts and he’s no longer in his home on the Dream SMP but in another dirt shack. He’s younger, shorter but fairly muscular. Despite him only being 13 or so years old, he lives on an anarchy server; 2b2t, a place of destruction and death where no 13 year old should be. Tommy hacks his cheap stone sword into his back trying to cut away at the wings that sit there, a crimson colour despite no blood being drawn yet. Tears fill his eyes and he hastily wipes them away. Big men don’t cry, he tells himself, what would Phil say? But Phil isn’t here. No one is. It’s just Tommy alone, on a server made for people 18 and above. He doesn’t even know how he got here, all he knows is that a few days ago, these things just started growing out of his back and now they need to go.
Tommy draws blood and he's finally able to get the sword under the wing. Almost screaming out in pain, Tommy continues trying to make his way through the base.
Eventually, it falls to the ground with a dull thud before disappearing into dust, the way dead bodies do. He shouldn’t know that. If he had stayed with Techno and Phil and Wil then maybe he wouldn’t know that that's how bodies disappear. But he didn’t. Phil left him. Then Techno. It was only a matter of time before Wil left. So Tommy took matters into his own hands and disappeared in the night, only to end up on the worst server possible.
Taking a deep breath in before grabbing the next wing, Tommy hefts the sword and with all his strength, tries to break through the soft bone like cartilage. Sawing backwards and forth for a good few minutes (god this sword was shit), Tommy finally broke through and went to break the last bit of skin that's holding on desperately. He pauses. After this, he will never have wings like his dad, no like Phil (he’s no longer dad). They will never grow back. Without another moment's hesitation, Tommy cuts off the dangling bit of skin and the wing drops to the ground before turning to dust.
Tommy gets up, wipes his eyes and washes the blood off, before turning out of the shack. He’s going to go fuck shit up.
Tommy shakes out of his weird day dream (day nightmare?) and sees his wings on the ground. His back feels lighter and his mind freed. The wings fall into grey dust and are whisked away by non-existent wind. Tommy stands up, stretching with a small smile on his face. His back hurts but he slides his shirt back on, the classic white shirt with red sleeves covering the bloody mess that his back always looks like after ‘losing’ his wings.
Everything is good. He’s back to being TommyInnit, the man whose best friend is the president, whose life is finally on it’s way to being back on track, (whose brother was killed by his dad) and who is prepared to meet the new kid that joined the server about half an hour ago.
Before he heads out, Tommy heads up stairs, the cobblestone crunching under his feet, to check his ender chest. Light streams through the open door to the dirt shack and illuminates the room. Walking towards the as well as he could, his back ached and groaned with every step, but he managed to keep a straight back. Keep up the facade that wasn’t Tommy or Harpy from 2b2t but Tommy-fucking-Innit. He reached into the ender chest feeling around for a box. Pulling out a purple coloured box, he quietly opens it, checking the contents. Inside sits a full set of netherite armor and tools, tridents, enchanted gapples and countless other shulker boxes from his time as Harpy. He lets out a sigh of relief. It's safe.
“Whatcha got there Tommy?”
Due to his time on a fucking anarchy server Tommy did not jump at the surprise. But fuck, he should have heard him coming. Tubbo leans casually at the door, his suit freshly washed, prepared for a new day of whatever he does as president. Tommy calmly places the shulker box back in the chest. Luckily he was bent over so Tubbo didn’t get a view of the purple box.
“Ayyyyyyy, Tubbo! How's it going? What are you doing today, big man?” Tommy asks, schooling his expression into a calm lopsided smirk.
“Not much. Some paperwork up at the office and then Quackity wants me to check out a new house he wants to build inside L’manberg.” Tubbo answers, his expression calm and collected. Exactly how a president should be. (The opposite of what Wilbur was in his last days.)
“I should get going,” Tubbo sighs quietly, “Busy day today! We will talk later ok?”
“Sure, go do your thing Mr President,” Tommy answers, following Tubbo out the door.
They go separate ways just outside of Tommy's house, Tommy heading towards spawn to greet the new kid and Tubbo jogging towards L’manberg (he realised he was late for a morning meeting).
Tommy walks swiftly towards where he built the walls around spawn. The new kid must be around here somewhere. He glides between the trees silently until finally he discovers a lengthy black and white creature trying to cut down wood from a tall tree.
“Hey! Let me get that for you!” the creature jumps at Tommys words. Definitely new to servers in general, Tommy thinks as he runs towards him, no one experienced is that jumpy.
“Um thanks I guess?” the creature says after Tommy cuts some wood and hands it to him. A black hand with white specks takes the wood from Tommy’s hand.
“Ah don’t worry! Your new right? Do you need a tour around the server?,” eager to learn more about this interesting creature, Tommy will do anything to make him agree. “I’m TommyInnit.”
“Ranboo.”