Chapter Text
A knife pierced Dream’s forehead, embedding itself in the cork board behind the poster. Dream was smiling menacingly at Tommy, though the picture was taken from one of the Dream Team.
It wasn’t even a legitimate smirk, nor a sneer, but a genuine smile, one Tommy remembered clearly from his earliest days in this damned world. What he could give to turn back the clock and tell Dream to stop, to be full, to be satisfied with what he already had.
Tommy stands up to retrieve his knife, being that his last. The poster was slashed in so many places that he could probably rip the whole thing with only an ounce of his strength—that wasn’t much all things considered. Two months of not using his corporal body left him as fragile as eggshells.
He scowls when he yanks a knife out of the cork board, rolling his eyes at the hoarse cough that came from the other side of his dirt mound he called a house. Looking up with his hand around the hilt of another knife, Tommy pulls it out with a moment of strain. “Mate, just go get cough medicine from Ponk or sum’ shit. Ya’ cough like a smoker,” Tommy grumbles.
Connor looks back at him with a distasteful look. “Oh yeah, because I, the sensible adult as I am, haven’t already tried that. Thanks, Theseus, wouldn’t have known what to do without your help.”
Tommy holds a knife out to Connor in a half-hearted threat. “I don’ like how ya’ know my name.”
“I know too much,” Connor yawns, taking another sip of his Capri-sun. He burps a moment after, dark eyes following Tommy to his spot on an almost empty chest. “I was expecting you to hiss at me again. Did your little ‘I’ve died canonically’ anonymous not-so anonymous meeting with those three take you?”
A knife finds home next to Connor’s left ear, a string from his onesie hoodie pushed down on his shoulders breaking with a comedic ting. The man’s curved ear twitches up on his head, small things that were characteristic of a hamster or a hedgehog. Props to the man, not reacting with the threat besides another sip of his juice.
“You’re something, Tommy.”
Tommy mocks him with his hand and tilts of his hand. Snorting out of ill humor, he fingers the next knife. It finds Dream’s left eye, a black pinpoint drawn on a birch mask.
“Your aim is getting there,” Connor comments offhandedly. Tommy takes the compliment lightly. It’s the nicest thing he’s heard in over four months.
-
Connor shouldn’t have been his only source of comfort. Connor was.. well, Connor. A wanderer, a lazy-body, a dull-humored yet still made you laugh out of awkwardness kind-of guy. There wasn’t much you didn’t know about Connor, like how everyone knew his fear for piglins and invisibility potions, or his reluctance to swim. How he named his pets the more absurd way, or that his parents weren’t even from Minecraft’s vast intricacy of worlds.
Still, there was still a side to Connor that no one had even brought a thought to yet, simply because Connor was Connor.
He seems to know everyone, yet nobody knows him. He appeared one day and has yet to leave. It’s a new normal to see the short man walking already idly with no visible purpose, but Connor appears at the weirdest moments with the oddest intentions. How did he find [Chekov's Gun]? Tommy, nor anyone for that matter, could find it in the rumble known as Manberg after the war. When asked about it, Connor waved all questions off with “I know a guy.”
Karl Jacobs and he knew acted like they’ve known each other longer than Tommy’s lived, but to Tommy’s knowledge, the two never met before this world. He watched in mild interest as the two bickered like old friends. Something about mansions, stars, horses, and orphans.
That rhymed, Tommy mused. Maybe in his next life, he’d be a poet.
Connor was, to put it simply, there. He never seemed to disappear, nor was he the center of attention - rather, far from it. Tommy could look around when he thought he was all alone, and more times than not, see the soft bouncing, up and down, of blue-and-brown quills just behind a fence. When asked about it, Connor was walking Esteban.
What cat needed a walk?
It.. was confusing. Very confusing. Connor was a confusing man, oh so confusing, of where he came from, of what he was, of his business. Still, Tommy didn’t want to be the guy to question the hamster-hedgehog, onesie-wearing, sorta-awkward guy that knows too much and talks too little.
-
Tommy guessed it was best not to poke at the hamster-hedgehog-hybrid man. Maybe he should ask what type of hybrid Connor was. Was that rude? Connor had been his only reliable guardian since Awesamdude, and Tommy didn’t feel like running back to the man who let him die in a prison cell, leaking purple ooze.
He and Connor might as well be real with each other to an extent.
“The fuck are ya’, anyway?” Tommy questions with a huff, splashing water on his face to get ready for bed. Connor looks up from his place over his journal, a quill in hand. The man tilts his head in thought, pursing his lips.
“Like, in regards to what I do or where I come from, because both are tricky answers and your brain is already dealing with a lot of shit.” Connor leaves it open-ended, trying to figure out what Tommy meant. “Be more specific, dude.”
“What are ya’,” Tommy repeats with a grumble, pointing at the top of his head. Water drips down his face.
Connor raises his eyebrows in realization before chuckling softly. His ears. “Hedgehog. Dad was a hedgehog, my mom was a human. A princess or something.” So a hybrid.. and royalty.
Tommy was never one to be fine with secrets, but he didn’t feel like asking how his mother even had Connor. He turns back to the mirror and ignores his macabre reflection before dipping his head down to wash sudds away.
-
“I’m leaving, ya’ know,” Tommy stays, tipping his head back to pour soda down his throat. The carbonated liquid burns his throat. He hasn’t had enough sugar lately.
The two stood on one of the Hotel Innit’s balconies. It was probably off of Connor’s room, since Tommy still hadn’t - and apparently would never - fully move in to his own establishment.
In the distance, red vines hummed menacingly. Quackity had passed on the Prime Path earlier, blood splattered all over his clothing. The duck-hybrid offered the two a wave, but he couldn’t recognize them with his ruined eyesight. Tommy didn’t try and stop him.
Connor’s head swivels over, again hunched over his journal. A bottle of ink rested on his thigh, a few beads of ink staining his hoodie. There were other ink blots on the journal pages, useless minor notes through the week that Connor thought was important. Some of them, from what Tommy could see, were nonsense. Others were nonsense too, but ominous.
TOmmy’s nOt dOinG GOOd. I’m wOrriEd. Chickenscratch. Connor could use some penmanship classes.
“Yeah?” Connor breathes out, soft.
“Yeah,” Tommy repeats, staring down at his soda can. “Sorry.”
“Why are you-“ Connor began before falling silent. He slides the quill inside his journal, moving the ink bottle to the next patch of grass over to let them sit momentarily. He opens his arms up to the boy, a silent offer that could be turned down as easily as accepted.
Tommy studies the man before leaning into the embrace from the side. Connor pats Tommy’s thin bicep in an attempt to comfort him. Times like these reminded Connor of the last young boy he dealt with. Ty was about the same age as Tommy now back then. Where the albino was now, who knew.
“You have nothing to say sorry for, Tommy,” Connor murmurs, staring up at the pixel art made in tribute to the boy living in his arms. “I am sorry that you’re so used to say sorry because of what other people did to you. Had I known, I would’ve dragged Schlatt out from his gym and forced him to get you back into your body and out of the prison.”
“Schlatt don’ listen to anyone,” Tommy snickers, sticking his nose into the fabric of the onesie.
“Yeah, well, you’ve never seen me interact with Schlatt while he was alive. That ram knows his place with me. He’s always been a daredevil, hanging off of the rails, but deep down, he’s a sweetheart.”
“Ya’ must be glad ya’ didn’t see ‘im ‘ere, then,” Tommy sighs, slouching against Connor’s upper body. “Last I saw ‘im, he was starin’ at Wilbur’s ass like a dog.”
“He’s always done that. You learn to ignore it,” Connor replies nonchalantly. “Those two once eloped, you know. They’re exes, though Schlatt’s still had a soft spot for Wil. I officiated it for those lovebirds.”
“Dirty lovebirds, innit?” Tommy mumbles, his soda long dead and lukewarm.
“Dirty lovebirds.” Connor repeats with a small laugh, knocking his head against Tommy’s like an old friend used to do to him. “You know where you’re going? Who you’re taking?”
“Does it matter?” Tommy looks up at the man. His fluffy ear flicks at the question, like it personally pained him to come up with an answer. Tommy sighs. “Sorry again.”
“Guess not, Theseus, but maybe consider bringing someone along. I don’t want you alone any longer,” Connor tries, reaching over to grab his journal. It disappears into his inventory in a small glimmer of blue light. The ink bottle goes the same way. “You’ll be needed once again in the future. This isn’t the last of you.”
“I fuckin’ hate ya’. Hate ya’ so much. How dare ya’ act like ya’ know what’s comin’?”
Tommy turned into Connor’s chest and tried not to cry. Connor held him just the same, wondering how to ease the other’s pain.
-
Connor let the boy take Esteban the cat with him as he prepared to leave. The cat followed Tommy around, reminding him of his old shit one. Connor tagged behind the cat, trying to usher it away from the boy as he packed up a few bags that contained not much. Two discs, a leather hind, an iron sword with a matching set of armor, and a regen potion.
It was pitiful, he was pitiful, Tommy decided, as he watched the cat lick up the remnants of a fire resistance potion that cracked on the ground from his own clumsiness.
JSchlatt’s ghost had been following Connor around often these days, physically manifesting nowadays. He didn’t understand why Tommy was leaving so soon after being resurrected, but laughed at him anyway. Though, the ghost was still more into Esteban than Tommy, so the boy didn’t have to worry much about him. He smelt of WHEY extra strength powder and old rusty cars. Bearable, he boiled down, as Tommy watched red eyes fall defenseless against brown ones.
“I’ve always hated cats,” JSchlatt states, running his hand down Esteban’s spine. Connor was standing behind the ram-hybrid, brushing his messy hair and washing the cattle tag clamped permanently on one of his ears.
Tommy held him to be a liar.
JSchlatt spewed other shit as the unlikely trio headed towards the bridge between the Greater SMP and Snowchester. Connor thought it was right for Tommy to say goodbye to his best friend, regardless of their status. The blond protested. He lost.