Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There’s nothing, Tommy thinks, in his great wealth of life experience, that’s been as hard to endure as this is now.

Frigid wind whips through his dirty hair and torn clothes as he stands in front of a familiar pit. Dream stands menacingly on the other side of it, waiting expectantly for him to follow the orders given. Every second that passes between them is tense, wind rustling the sunbleached, torn tablecloths that were once bright with color adorning painstakingly-crafted wooden tables and benches. A backdrop to his misery.

“Tommy,” Dream warns, and Tommy startles out of his hazy, clouded thoughts. He doesn’t know why, but his mind picks the most inconvenient times possible to space out, making him drift through the days as if he’s an outsider to his own body. Like now, with an increasingly impatient Dream standing right in front of him, with a hand ghosting over his axe like a second longer without obeying will cost him his last life. No glorious, heroic end, no grand act of destruction or villainy. Not even the selfless ending, a fast fall to the molten grave he’d been dreaming of lately. The charitable act he deserves to carry out for the benefit of everyone on the server. Of course, though, his life will meet a pathetic end, struck down for the third time by the man in front of him for failing to do the one thing asked of him for his own good. If not right here, right now, it will be soon that Dream decides its his time and delivers the justice he deserves to get, but Tommy can’t bring himself to carry out.

His hands fly mechanically to the straps of his chestplate and Tommy thinks he should have stopped making armor by now. The hastily, messily forged iron chestplate hits the cold earth at the bottom of the pit with a dull clunk and the rest of his items follow it without complaint. His back hurts way too much lately to wear chestplates comfortably anyways. Sleeping on the ground does that to you, he guesses mirthlessly as he watches Dream light a stick of dynamite with a well-worn flint and steel.

Tommy’s hands jerk up to cover his ears in time for the short fuse to light up the explosive and destroy the meagre supplies in the pit with a resounding boom, sounding like thunder after a crack of lightning in a storm. The scraps of chicken he’d managed to catch and cook without burning, lay at the bottom of the blackened hole, smoldering like charcoal with small specks of orange flame licking the sides. A poor imitation of anger fills his heart like water would fill an empty stomach in a desperate attempt to stave off the dull ache of hunger pains. His dull eyes raise from the pit to meet Dream’s smiling mask.

“Fuck you,” he spits, and Dream tilts his head minutely in response, the only indication he heard the insult. The anger, if it can even be called such, is already draining from him, and all he’s left with are the various aches and pains that are his only company.

“I thought we were done with this,” Dream comments lightly. There’s a hint of exasperation in his tone that is nothing but condescending, as if Tommy is a petulant child that refuses to behave.

Isn’t that exactly what he is, though?

Exile has made it very clear that a troublesome, annoying child is what the server sees him as, and Tommy has never done anything to disprove that, but not for a lack of trying. The old him, the one who knew green bandanas, fire, and anger, real anger, would have argued against that with a fierceness that’s now been beaten out of him. He would argue that no child has fought two wars, no child has won the independence of a country at the cost of two lives, and no child has accomplished all he has accomplished in sixteen years of life, but then what would that make him? He’s a child, but he’s a soldier. He’s a man, but he’s sixteen years old. He’s horrible, annoying, and impossibly selfish, but he gives everything he has for the people he loves and the things he believes in. He’s too much, and too little. Tommy is all of these, and none of them.

Despite everything--all the fuss over what neat little box he belongs in to make sense to people, for people to care about him--he just wants to know why he’s alone.

He wants to scream into the sky and ask whatever’s listening why he’s so unlovable. Why Dream is the only person who seems to give a shit about what happens to him, and that's only because there's something he wants to fix about him.

Tommy hates Dream. There isn’t a question about it, yet Tommy finds himself questioning it more and more. The hatred coexists with this weird sort of companionship that he despises, yet finds comfort in. He wonders if it's because they both know what it's like to be hated by everyone else on the server.

Tommy can hold grudges a mile long. One of his odd collections of traits that comes from some part of him which cannot be compromised with. It’s a simple fact for him, that if he is wronged by someone, he will rarely forgive it. Dream is no exception. No matter what odd companionship Dream seems to be pushing in his direction, it will not overshadow the hatred. Not completely.

“I hate you,” Tommy mutters for the hundredth time since the boat docked on this island and likely for the millionth time since the first revolution. He’s made it no secret, but Dream only chuckles.

“You don’t hate me,” he responds lightly. Tommy grits his teeth but doesn’t bite back. They’ve had this conversation before many times, less and less with each day--Tommy being less inclined to fight as exile whittles down his spirit. At this point, with the wind buffeting his dirty skin, scraped raw from the wilderness and standing too close to explosions, he’s run out of rebuttals and the energy to say them, so he turns away from the pit and leaves Dream standing there without a fight. He stalks over to his tent, stubbornly ignoring the sound of heavy boots treading on the cold, dead grass behind him, following behind loosely. The flaps of the tent flutter in the wind, and Tommy doesn’t bother to catch them, only ducking under them to enter--grimacing at the way the movement pulls at his aching shoulders. He drops bonelessly onto the pile of wool imitating a sleeping bag that he has pushed into the corner of the tent and watches listlessly as Dream grabs one of the fluttering door flaps and pins it to the side, gazing inside at him like a bug under a microscope. A twinge of familiar humiliation at the examination rises in Tommy’s gut, but it's nothing compared to the burning flame it used to be. The dirty wool pile he calls his bed is stained an ugly shade of dark green on some patches from the grass and exposed earth it’s laying out on, but it’s not like Tommy’s much cleaner.

“What the fuck do you want,” Tommy says to Dream, who’s still taking in the sorry state of the tent. He just wants the man to leave. Let him stew in his own misery. His stomach folds with a sharp pang of hunger that Tommy knows he’ll be dealing with the whole night until it gives way to an empty nausea, but he doesn’t have the energy to get up and hunt for food. “Leave, bitch.” The insult has no bite to it, only a tired pain. They both pick up on it, but neither comment.

“What, I can’t just hang out with you?” Dream crouches in the entrance like he’s talking to some sort of stray dog and a small, quiet part of Tommy bristles. “I thought we were friends, Tommy, I’m hurt.”

“Good.” Dream goes dangerously quiet and Tommy disguises a shiver by moving to wrap his arms around his stomach, like putting pressure on it will stop it from hurting. The silence is even tenser than when they were standing at the pit, somehow, and Tommy fights back the vicious urge to apologize. Every time ‘sorry’ tries to escape his lips he thinks of the scraps of food still smouldering in the pit outside and swallows his remorse, even if his submission will make Dream less mad. He refuses to tear his eyes away from the rustling cloth of the tent wall across from him, glaring at it like it’s the reason he’s here, and not because it’s his fault. It's comforting to pretend that he doesn’t deserve what’s happening to him, like he’s being wronged in some deeply unfair way, but he knows it’s not true. Dream’s made it clear that no matter how much he might delude himself, he’s no victim. But it’s nice to have delusions sometimes. At least here, unlike the cold, dark ravine like a weight in his memory, his insanity won’t hurt anyone else.

“Tommy.” Dream’s low voice has a dark, threatening edge to it and fear flares up in the front of Tommy’s brain, rising from its ever-present, constant hum in the back of his mind. He fucked up. This is bad, this is bad, this is bad, this is bad--

Dream reaches his arm towards him, and Tommy tries to jerk away, but Dream’s grip lands firmly on his shoulder. His fingers dig mercilessly into his aching shoulder as they pull Tommy forward to reprimand him, and his vision whites out with pain. Somehow, through the pain, he thinks that a grip on his shoulder, no matter how firm, should not be hurting this fucking bad.

“Listen to me,” Dream says, and Tommy barely hears it through the piercing ache in his shoulder underneath the unrelenting grip. He feels his breathing stop, as if his body is trying to stop the pain by passing out. “You may not like it, or believe it, but I am the only person on this goddamn server who still gives a shit about you. You’ve finally pushed away the few people who could stand you, yet you keep going even once everyone’s realized that you’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

The words cut through the air with a cold finality that hurts almost as much as the blinding pain lacing through his back. Dream’s hand tightens with a final squeeze before letting go, and Tommy sways, dangerously close to passing out. The pain from Dream’s grip webs through his aching shoulders, somehow spreading all across his back as if the bruising touch was a lit match dropped in oil.

Dream stands, looming over Tommy at full height and continuing his verbal dissection.

“I am trying to help you, Tommy. Help you become someone worthy of other people’s friendship. The best way to help you, I think, is to be your friend, and teach you how to behave. I’m finding it to be the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do.” To his embarrassment, Tommy fails to blink back the hot tears welling up in his eyes from the throbbing pain in his shoulders and the cutting words from the man looming over him.

“It’s hard because you’re too self-absorbed to realize that people have limits to how much charity work they’ll do for an ungrateful, selfish, greedy brat that does nothing but destroy everything they’ve worked hard for.” Dream takes a deep breath, and Tommy barely hears it. His eyes are glued to the imposing shadow on the bare ground of the tent, trying desperately to hide the tears rolling down his face. He doesn’t know if it’s working, because the droplets drip from his chin and land on the ground with a tiny patter, soaking quickly into the dark soil. If Dream sees that he’s crying, he obviously doesn’t care.

“Tommy, you play hard to get with everyone around you, expecting they’ll chase after you and care about you after everything you put them through, but you forget that you’re not much of a prize.” It feels like a shard of ice is lodged into his heart, and Tommy manages to choke back a sob.

It’s true, and that's the worst part. Dream may have been his enemy more than a couple times in the past, may have been scheming, cruel, and underhanded, but he was never outright dishonest. The most damning lies coming from him were lies of omission, and Tommy had never considered those as real lies anyway. Dream was cutthroat and brutal, and would never bother to sugarcoat the truth, or shy away from calling it how he saw it.

So for him to say that Tommy was never anything more than a thorn in everyone’s side, a rude, selfish child—

It was only confirming what Tommy had already feared, deep in his heart. The insecurity that stated clearly that he was far too much for anyone to handle, and not nearly enough to love.

That fear’s always been there, of course, nagging in a quiet, looming sort of way, but it was easy to make it quiet. A soft hug from Wilbur (before Pogtopia, nothing that happened in Pogtopia was ever comforting, but that’s just another thing that’s his fault, isn’t it?), a reassurance from Phil, a small but genuine smile from Techno, but most of all, the quiet conversations he and Tubbo used to share in the dead of night, whispering their fears to each other, always followed by fierce support. Tommy remembers the nights when he would heatedly swear to Tubbo in as quiet of a whisper he could manage, that he would personally beat Schlatt’s face in, and Tubbo would know without Tommy ever saying a word about it, that being on Wilbur’s side wasn’t much better those days.

It hurts like nothing Tommy’s ever experienced before to realize that the cold emptiness in him from his broken friendships is his fault. He poisoned everyone he loves by just being around them. Too much to handle and not enough to love. Maybe that’s what’ll be carved into his gravestone after this all ends.

Dream seems satisfied with his pained silence, and Tommy risks a small glance up from the ground in time to see him duck under the tent flaps and exit.

“I’ll be back to see you in a few days. You need some time alone to think about things, it seems,” he announces, and Tommy curls in on himself a little tighter. It feels like all he has is time alone, but he can’t bring himself to break his silence and beg Dream to stay with him a little longer in his selfish desperation to have someone around to poison.

He must be some kind of parasite.

Boots crunch on the cold ground outside the tent, receding from Logsteadshire, and Tommy hears the distant whoosh of the nether portal transporting someone into it. Dream left, and now Tommy is alone.

Everything hurts.

Hunger pains are returning viciously, ripping through his gut and bringing even more tears to his eyes. Coupled with his back, of course, which feels like it’s been used as a target for throwing bricks. Tommy moves from his curled up sitting position—hugging his knees and burying his face—and tries to gently lower himself onto his bedding. Every movement is like fire arcing through his back, but he manages to lay down on his side.

If he closes his eyes and just breathes softly, his body feels almost blissfully numb. As he falls asleep with frigid wind blowing through his tent that doesn’t make his body shiver anymore, he wonders if he’ll ever wake up.

Maybe he doesn’t want to.

Chapter Text

Life in retirement would be peaceful if not for Technoblade’s regrets following him like a loyal shadow.

Monotonous tasks do little to keep his mind off of everything--all the things he’s done--despite how much he’s heard that they help with that sort of thing.

If it weren’t for Phil, the last living member of his flock, he’d have likely gone insane by now. And god does that hurt; Wilbur is nothing more than a cheerful shadow of himself, and Tommy probably never wanted them around anyways. If he ever did, he certainly doesn’t now.

That leaves two.

Phil, with his pitch black wings healing nicely from explosion burns, and Technoblade, who keeps his large, imposing wings tucked away most days. He isn’t fighting, and he has little use for flying in retirement. There’s less feathers littered around to pick up when he keeps them put away anyways.

Snow crunches under his feet as he trudges away from the turtle farm he’s been working on all day, a bucket of scutes swinging in his grip as he carries them back to his base to store. God knows why he even bothers with collecting them, they’re only useful for helmets that don’t suit him and potions that are only good for combat. It’s as if the only peace he knows are the moments of tense preparation between battles, and the lack of fighting only makes his mind clamor to do something useful. To get ready.

He’s working on that.

Technoblade reaches his cottage and pushes the basement door open, letting out a breath of relief at the warm air that washes over him as he steps inside and sets down the bucket. The basement isn’t nearly as warm as the house when there’s a fire burning in the fireplace, but it’s certainly a change from the frigid air outside. The weather is well suited for mid-winter in the middle of a snowy tundra, and Technoblade chose to settle here specifically for its unforgiving and brutal nature. A great deterrent for any potential visitors looking to cause trouble and deciding to make the journey to seek him out while being unprepared for the environment. If they didn’t know what they were in for, they might not even make it to him alive.

The feeling of warmth only lasts a few minutes for him—standing in the cold basement in damp, snowy clothes—before he has to quickly finish dumping the scutes in his chests and climb upstairs to light the fireplace. Warm, golden fire crackles and devours the logs in the fireplace, which were mostly ash by now, and Technoblade takes off his heavy cloak and lets his wings emerge from his back.

He appreciates the convenience of being able to tuck them away into his back endlessly. Usually he only puts them away for occasions like the Championships, where avians like them are asked to in order to discourage flying and keep the competition even. Now, though, he’s just tired of having them knock things over and of bumping into the walls of his small cottage. His wingspan isn’t intimidating, powerful, or awe-inspiring when he can’t make it across the room without sending his table—and everything on it—right to the floor. Maybe living in a cottage this small is more trouble than the coziness is worth.

Technoblade’s wings unfurl behind him, and he’s careful to stretch them in a direction that won’t result in a mess on his floor. The golden brown feathers are in a slight disarray, and he wonders when Phil will be over next to help him sort it out. God knows he can’t reach that far himself.

There’s a light knock at his front door, and Technoblade wonders if he’s summoned Phil just by thinking about him. He folds his wings behind his back and opens the door, feeling a rush of cold air hit him like a wave, wishing distantly that he was wearing his mask so it could block the frigid wind he’s faced with now.

Technoblade registers the person standing—or floating—at his door and blinks.

“Hello Technoblade!” Ghostbur greets cheerily, a beaming smile stretched across his face. Technoblade thinks that if he attempted to replicate that expression he’d hurt himself trying.

“Hello,” he replies, at a slight loss for words. It’s not like he doesn’t want to see Ghostbur, with his greyed out skin and deceptively gentle-looking, elegant wings, it’s just been a good while since he’d last seen him. Wasn’t he staying with Tommy?

“Uh, I’d hate to impose, but could I please come inside?” The ghost asks, his light tone edged with anxiety, snapping Technoblade out of his silence.

“Okay,” he answers, and steps to the side, pulling the door open wider and Ghostbur darts inside like he’s ducking for cover. The rushed, slightly desperate movement makes the instincts from the less-human part of his brain rear up protectively at a possible threat to his flock. Technoblade pokes his head out and scans their surroundings for any sign of an attacker, if Ghostbur’s being followed or threatened, but there’s nothing as far as he can see except for the fluttering, white snow. He shuts the door and turns to look at Ghostbur hesitantly. “Are you alright?”

The ghost meets his questioning, slightly worried gaze with a carefree grin.

“Oh yes, I’m perfectly alright now!” he chirps. “I’m out of the snow, so I’ll be fine!” Technoblade feels even more confused now.

“Is the snow… bad?” he puzzles, still wondering if he needs to grab his axe and cut someone down in his lawn, but Ghostbur nods his head fervently at his question.

“Yes. If I stay out in it, I’ll melt,” he tells Technoblade seriously.

“Oh,” is all he manages to say in response. Looking closer, he notices that the ghost is looking a little paler than usual, sparking no small amount of fear in him at the threat of his friend dying again. He grabs a thick blanket from his couch and tosses it to Ghostbur, who startles at the object thrown at him, but manages to catch it.

“Woah—thank you, Techno!” the ghost replies appreciatively. Technoblade just nods in acknowledgment and plops down onto his chair, motioning for Ghostbur to do the same, who follows quickly, wrapping the gifted blanket over his shoulders and wings. They sit in silence for a bit, Technoblade idly combing through the golden brown feathers on the parts of his wings he can reach himself as Ghostbur warms up as much as possible for a ghost. Surprisingly, it’s Technoblade who breaks the silence.

“Aren’t you supposed to be with Tommy?” he questions, looking up from his wings in time to see Ghostbur stiffen. The ghost seems frozen in place, eyes wide and unfocused, making Technoblade impossibly worried. “Ghostbur?”

The ghost snaps out of it suddenly, recoiling and blinking strangely before shaking his head and meeting Technoblade’s worried gaze.

“Yes?” he replies blankly, as if he simply hadn’t heard the question. Anxiety pools in Technoblade’s stomach.

“I asked why you weren’t with Tommy,” he asks, a little forcefully this time. Ghostbur scrunches his face as if to conjure up the answer by focusing hard enough.

“I—I don’t know,” he admits, sounding terribly distressed, and boy does that make his instincts flare up with panic. He manages to shove it down, though, because Ghostbur is probably just confused. Everything is probably completely fine, no problems at all.

“Technoblade, something is so, so wrong, but I can’t remember what it is,” Ghostbur whispers, shattering his wishful thinking in one swoop. His mind freezes in place and he barely hears himself respond.

“What do you mean?” he asks weakly. Please don’t say that Tommy’s in trouble, or hurt, oh god, what if he’s dead? “Is it about Tommy?”

Apparently, his traitorous bird instincts still consider Tommy to be part of his flock. God knows why, but Technoblade can’t help the familiar anxious, protective energy that runs through him at the idea of Tommy being hurt—or worse. He thought that the two of them had gone their separate ways after the Manburg war, after they both somehow betrayed each other by being as open about their individual intentions as possible the entire time, mutually parting after the dust settled, hating each other fiercely.

But Technoblade has had nothing but time to think about how things went down and try to avoid the realization that neither of them had really betrayed the other at all.

Tommy’s goal was to reinstate the government how it had been before, with Wilbur as president and Schlatt gone, and for some reason, he trusted the anarchist to be fine with that. Just as Technoblade had made it clear that he would tolerate no governmental figure, Schlatt or Wilbur at the head of it, and trusted the exiled rulers fighting for their power back to be fine with that.

In hindsight, neither of them could have made their intentions any clearer. Maybe it felt so much like betrayal to the both of them because they both wanted to pretend so badly that they were working together for the same ends.

After so many quiet days in retirement, it’s hard to be as mad at Tommy as he used to be. Especially with the flock bond that somehow never broke ringing incessantly in the back of his head, only getting worse the longer he refuses to go see if Tommy’s okay.

“Tommy? Yes—well, no. Maybe? Is it about him? I can’t remember.” Ghostbur’s wings are shaking and he looks close to tears. Technoblade freezes awkwardly, unsure what to do to comfort Ghostbur while his brain is still buzzing with anxiety. Should he hug him? Should he try to talk to him and calm him down? What would he even say?

A rhythmic, deliberate pattern of knocking comes from Technoblade’s front door, and he feels some of the tension in his mind ease. He’d never developed a code for knocking, confident that nobody who didn’t already know where he was would find him, but Phil likes to use one anyways. He strides over to his door and pulls it open quickly.

Phil is standing outside, as expected, sleek black feathers puffed behind him from the cold wind, and presumably ruffled from being startled by how abruptly—and slightly violently—Technoblade had whipped open the door.

“Thank god you’re here, Phil,” he breathes, and Phil levels him with a questioning look. “Uh—come inside.”

Technoblade ushers him inside and over to the couch, where Ghostbur is now openly crying, dark blue inky tears streaming down his face, and gripping his hair with his grey hands, pulling at it in frustration.

“Oh, fuck—“ Phil mutters, and swiftly moves to the couch, pulling Ghostbur into a tight hug, black wings wrapping around him like a protective shield. Over the ghost’s head, which is now buried in Phil’s coat, he catches Technoblade’s gaze.

What happened? Phil asks, mouthing the words silently. He doesn’t really know what happened himself, to be honest.

“Ghostbur showed up here, I asked him why he wasn’t with Tommy, and… this,” he explains in a hushed whisper, gesturing at the ghost’s crying form in Phil’s arms. Phil’s brows furrow in confusion and worry, looking back down at Ghostbur crying of frustration.

“Something’s wrong, Phil, but I don’t know what it is anymore!”

Technoblade resigns himself to awkwardly watching as Phil shushes and comforts the distressed ghost, then deciding to help Phil with the bags he dropped on the floor in his rush to get to their other flock member. It looks like he packed heavily for this trip, so maybe he’ll be staying a while. There’s also an unfamiliar satchel with—upon closer examination—several large, old-looking, weathered books and some scattered papers that look to be much younger than the yellowed pages of the books. Some of the books have an odd sort of shine to them, maybe they’re enchanted? Whatever, he’ll ask Phil about them later—hopefully at a better time than this. He carefully puts the bags on the floor just inside of his guest room upstairs, and makes his way back downstairs.

It seems like Ghostbur has calmed down significantly, with Phil’s help, and Technoblade decides to start making dinner, because he’s apparently having guests. They’ll have to eat potato soup, because it’s the only thing he can make enough for several people on as short of a notice as this.

The house is comfortably silent, with the exception of the fire crackling warmly and Technoblade aggressively peeling potatoes from the kitchen. Nobody seems to want to break through the warm, cozy quiet they’ve settled into, and when Technoblade glances over to the couch, he sees Ghostbur curled up comfortably with his soft, black and white wings wrapped around himself loosely, and Phil next to him, rereading a book Technoblade keeps by his couch.

It’s nice.

Dinner went quickly, the potato soup being slightly lackluster only because of how quickly he had to make it, There wasn’t much conversation, either, but the silence was comfortable instead of oppressive and awkward. After they finished, they all moved back to the couch.

Just as Technoblade was about to ask about the books and papers he saw in the bag, Phil clears his throat and breaks the silence.

“So—I’m not even sure if this is the best time, but I did come visit for a reason.” Technoblade furrows his brow and turns to face him, silently motioning for him to explain. “Well, it’s about Ghostbur—or Wilbur, probably both of them, I guess.”

“Okay?” Technoblade responds, feeling slightly confused. Beside Phil, Ghostbur is watching Phil quietly with a nervous look in his eyes. Phil takes a deep breath and presses his hands together like he’s trying to form the words in his mind before speaking.

“I’ll just—I’ll cut right to it—Ghostbur, I think I have a way to bring you back.”

Technoblade feels his breath catch in his throat. Ghostbur looks similarly stunned, blank eyes wide as saucers and face a paler grey than usual. Phil plows on without pausing.

“I’ve been working on it for a while now, didn’t want to say anything sooner because I wasn’t sure it could even work, but I think I’ve got it now. I brought all my research, and my notes, so we could do it whenever—“

“Okay,” Ghostbur blurts, and Phil stops his rambling out of shock. There’s a nervous but determined look on his pale grey face and his wings—elegant even in death—coil with tension in a way that hints at the hidden power and brutality behind the veneer of soft feathers. It was an illusion that Wilbur wielded like a blade, and Technoblade hasn’t seen anything but Ghostbur’s cheerful softness for such a long time now that he almost wants to celebrate. Or cry.

Phil meets Ghostbur’s determined gaze with hesitation.

“Ghostbur, it’s your choice. Neither of us would dream of forcing you to try going through with this, but if this is what you want, we’d be glad to help you.”

“Do it.”

“Are you sure?” If there’s a slight chance that this could go horribly wrong, that Ghostbur—and Wilbur—could be gone permanently? Neither of them would dream of risking it if Ghostbur wasn’t completely on board.

“I can’t live with my mind like this—either the resurrection works and I can be alive and remember things again, or it doesn’t and I’ll be the same as I am now or gone completely.”

“We’re gonna try to not kill you permanently.”

“Yes, please do try. There’s something important that I need to do, I know it, and I can’t do anything about it like this. I don’t even remember how I got here, you know.” Technoblade winces, because he hadn’t realized that the ghost’s memory problems were that bad, if he can’t remember anything leading up to or during his arrival to Technoblade’s cabin.

“Well,” Phil starts, standing up from the table, dark wings fluttering behind him. “In that case, I suppose I should go get my books. We’ve got work to do.”

Chapter Text

Despite his wishes, Tommy wakes up.

He’s in so much pain that he actually doesn’t notice at first. His whole body seems to have turned numb, which lasts for a few blissful seconds until he tries to move and everything comes rushing back with a vengeance.

Worst of all is the burning pain in his upper back, stabbing like dull knives. The hunger comes close, though, his stomach turning with a cruel mix of nausea and brutal aching.

With all the random injuries he’s collected for the past month, give or take—none of which have healed fully—and the struggle he puts up every time he tries to open his eyes, Tommy wishes he’d had the courage to off himself before things got to this point. Before he was stuck in his stupid, cold tent, waiting to be put out of his misery like a sickly animal.

Long story short, he feels like shit.

It doesn’t help that for some reason, his brain keeps thinking of the weirdest things that he can hardly explain. Screaming for someone, anyone to come visit (specifically four people that definitely hate him more than anything now), but that’s how it’s been for a while now, nothing new there. What’s new is a weird part of his brain yelling endlessly about how wrong his bedding is, because it should be warm and safe, with so many more blankets, circling around him like a—

Okay, that’s enough. He’s fucked in the head and all it took was about a month of being Dream’s friend. Tommy almost snickers at that, before remembering Dream, and how badly he fucked up yesterday.

Oh god.

Dream was so mad. He has to apologize. What is he apologizing for again? Everything. Tommy will just apologize for everything, and hope that covers it. When Dream gets back, he’ll apologize for making Dream mad, and hopefully he’ll forgive him.

Will Dream even come back?

The thought hits Tommy like a crossbow bolt, making him physically tremble. What reason does Dream even have for coming back? He’d said that he would come back in a few days, but is he? He was trying to help, and Tommy had obviously fucked that up yesterday, badly enough for Dream to hurt him again, something he hadn’t done in days, at least, so why would Dream even bother with him anymore? Is he completely alone now? Did he finally fuck up the last, barest, semblence of friendship that he had?

A choked sob crawls strangely up his throat, sounding rough and not quite human. More of an odd warble that emerges from a part of his vocal cords he doesn’t think he’s ever used before. It’s such an ugly sound, and Tommy wants to rip his stupid throat out.

Maybe people would be able to tolerate him then.

He brings a weak hand up to his neck and holds his throat, feeling his heartbeat flutter under his palm and the rumble of his vocal cords as another weird warble noise tries to escape him. Tommy chokes it down and coughs at the sharp pressure of forcing it away, which in turn sends fire racing through his back and he almost stops breathing at the sheer agony. His chest feels tight and his back feels like there’s a weight sitting heavily on top of him, like his skin is too tight, stretched over his shoulders like an ill fitting shirt.

Sometimes, when the intense pressure flares and pushes horribly against his shoulders, he considers taking his damaged iron sword and slicing into his skin, just to release the feeling of being so trapped in his own body.

The flare of pressure decreases in intensity and his muscles stop tensing and clenching his shoulders weirdly. He realizes how insane he is to think that. Why the fuck would he stab his own back? Dream must have been exactly right about there being something very wrong in his head. Has he always been this fucked up? Maybe he was, and everyone just saw it first. Decided to get away from him before he could cause any more problems for them. Tubbo probably wanted to believe that he was good, that he could be Tommy’s friend without getting poisoned by just being around him, but all Tommy did was prove him wrong.

If Dream does decide to come back, to give Tommy his millionth second chance, then he’ll be good. Tommy will obey, and listen to him--because he’s right, Dream’s right about everything--and he’ll try desperately to be a better person and a better friend.

Tommy is tired.

Constant pain is exhausting, turns out, and slowly starving only makes it worse. He’s still lying on the ground with only a dirty blanket to keep out the cold wind that he can hardly even feel anymore. Lucky him, because the amount of movement that shivering would cause him would probably make him pass out.

He’s cold, still, and quiet lying alone in his tent, three things that have never been expected when it comes to Tommy. Last time he fell asleep (or passed out, he’s not sure), he hadn’t wanted to wake back up. That hasn’t changed at all this time, except Tommy really isn’t sure he will.

It’s an odd sort of certainty.

He knows that without something interfering, showing him cruel mercy, he will not wake back up. Distantly, in the back of his mind--the weird part--he knows that something is different with him, and he will not survive it like this--starving, injured, freezing, and pitifully alone.

Tommy misses Tubbo. He misses Wilbur, Technoblade, and Phil, all of which used to be his best friends in the world before they all realized he wasn’t worth the trouble he put up and cut their losses. Except for Wilbur, who only realized what a monster Tommy was after he turned into one himself. Wilbur and Dream were the only ones who realized how poisonous Tommy was to be around, and Dream is the only one who survived him.

Tommy wishes that Tubbo was still his friend, and that it was like how they used to be. Best friends, completely inseparable. He wishes it was back when he was the annoying kid tagging along with the famed SBI flock, the annoying fourth-wheel in the Championships. He wasn’t even an avian and they kept him around for some reason. Probably just for entertainment, but that was okay. It was nice of them to let him hang around as long as they did. Doesn’t mean he can’t long for their company, their powerful wings and soft, warm feathers that Wilbur used to wrap around him during their first nights in Pogtopia before Tommy drove him insane.

He’s too tired and numb to try and choke back the weird, warbly sob that rises in his throat, and he hates himself for it. It’s such an ugly, creature-like sound, and he decides not to think about that too hard.

The patches of sky he can see through the rips in his tent are blazing crimson and varying shades of orange and yellow. Wind blows softly through the tears, making the tent flutter. Tommy hears a bird caw loudly in the distance, from somewhere in the woods.

His eyes slip shut quietly with a final spike of pain and Tommy doesn’t know if he’s fallen asleep or if he’s slipped away, gone forever.

Something warm grabs his hand and holds two fingers against his wrist, then his neck, searching for his weak heartbeat. Strong hands grip him and pull him into a sitting position, and Tommy almost screams at the movement. All that leaves him, though, is a near-silent, hoarse noise that makes the hands work faster, pushing a bottle to his lips and forcing sweet, tangy liquid down his dry throat. The warm liquid spreads quickly, making his blood tingle and waking up his numb body and making some of the ache disappear. The absence of pain for just the few seconds that the potion softens it has Tommy’s eyes rolling up into the back of his head and falling back into unconsciousness, slumping against the warm, armored chest of the person trying to hold him up.

The strong hands try to shake him awake, but it doesn’t work.

He’s so warm.

The next time he wakes, he’s able to blink his eyes open. He isn’t able to at first, his eyelids feeling like they’ve been glued shut with cement, and he can hardly bring himself to move, anyways. Tommy is warmer than he has felt for weeks, and the merciless pain that’s been hammering against him for likely just as long has lessened. Not completely, because Tommy’s sure that if he tried to move his back would light up horribly, but enough to make him feel like he’s on drugs. Which he might be, because for some reason he remembers being given a healing potion, but that doesn’t make any fucking sense, because he’s alone. Maybe his pathetic, lonely mind dreamt it up. That must be it, he decides.

Then he opens his eyes. Just to make sure.

“Huh. Look who’s awake,” a voice chuckles mildly, and Tommy feels like he’s been shocked with a live wire. He knows that voice. Who-- “Thought that might have been it for you, honestly.”

“Dream?” Tommy tries to croak, but his voice comes out scratchy and terribly hoarse. A bottle of water is pushed in his face. He drinks it and almost chokes when his throat fails to swallow the first gulp, but his mouth is no longer as dry as it was before, so he’s grateful. He clears his throat and makes another valiant attempt at speaking. “I thought you weren’t coming back.”

Dream is crouched in front of him, one hand holding the water bottle he just made Tommy drink and the other holding a bowl of soup, probably. Tommy can’t decipher anything from his blank, smiling mask except for the slight tilt of his head.

“Yeah, I didn’t think I was coming back either, but you should be grateful I did. I had to use so many healing potions on you,” Dream says with a sigh, and Tommy feels all his breath leave him at once.

“No, no, no,” he mumbles, slightly deliriously. “You shouldn’t have had to use those on me, I’m sorry Dream, I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry--”

“Are you ungrateful that I did?” Tommy’s heart stops. Dream sounds so disappointed and also kind of pissed, which was the absolute opposite of what he wanted.

“No! No, thank you, I really appreciate it, but you didn’t need to because I’m sure you could have used them for something useful, so I’m sorry--”

“I can always make more potions, don’t worry. I can afford to waste a couple here and there.”

“Oh, good.” An overwhelming relief washes over him. His entire body had tensed without his permission the second he heard Dream sounding mad, but now he feels the tension draining from his muscles, which unfortunately brought back the pain in his shoulders. It seems the healing potions didn’t heal everything, because the familiar, tight pressure in his back never left, and the aching pain is quickly returning with a vengeance. It almost feels worse now, as if the pressure has somehow increased dramatically.

“Here,” Dream shoves the bowl of soup he’d been holding into Tommy’s hands, almost making him drop it. “You need to eat. The health potions kept you alive, but not for long, because apparently you haven’t bothered to eat anything lately.”

Tommy takes the soup and tries to eat it, but it feels more like he’s choking it down. It’s thick and heavy and Tommy already knows that finishing the bowl will be impossible. But he tries to anyway, because Dream told him to, and he’s watching with a cold, impassive stare as Tommy fails to obey him. Dream told him to, so he has to do it, or Dream will hate him, or probably punish him again.

He sets down the only mostly empty bowl after an intense wave of nausea, along with the thick, mushroom-y taste of the soup churning in his stomach. Tommy claps a hand to cover his mouth just as he starts to heave, and vomit spills through the gaps of his fingers. He turns and crouches over the grass next to his blanket pile and throws up all the soup he just ate.

“Okay, that’s disgusting,” Dream complains from where he’s standing, watching him throw up like it’s some sort of show. Tommy feels his face heat up from the humiliation. “Ew. Maybe I should go. Leave you to… that.” Tommy’s head jerks up. The weird, irrational part of his brain absolutely screams at the thought of being alone again. It’s selfish, because Tommy knows he’s being disgusting—bile dripping down his chin—but he really wants Dream to stay. Dream is his friend.

“N—no, please,” he begs, just as Dream turns to leave. Thankfully, he stops.

“What, you want me to stay?” he laughs, and Tommy tries to wipe his face, but doesn’t meet Dream’s eyes (or mask).

“Yes.” Tommy hugs himself, kneeling and staring down at the grass and decidedly not the puddle of vomit. At least this position eases the ache in his back the tiniest amount, but he’s never felt worse in his life. He’s so fucking pathetic. Dream looks down at him and sighs loudly, before stepping back over to him. Tommy can really only see his boots from this position on the ground, but that’s somehow enough to read his mood.

“Yeah, I guess I can stay. I’m not going to clean that up, though, you’re going to have to deal with that yourself.” Tommy nods quickly, grateful that Dream is being so nice to him today.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and it’s a miracle that Dream is even able to hear it.

“Sure. I’m feeling extra charitable today, I guess. But only because you asked so nicely.”

Tommy feels his throat tighten, and it only takes him a second to recognize the feeling of that weird, warble sound crawling up his throat.

Absolutely not.

It’s already bad enough that he made those sounds while he was dying—however long ago that was, maybe he should ask Dream—but he will not even consider making them right now. They’re weird and humiliating, and Tommy has already done enough to humiliate himself in front of Dream today, so he forces it down with a vengeance.

It feels like holding in a cough while choking, which, ironically, makes him start coughing violently. He pitches forward, resting his forehead and arms on the ground, thankfully not in the puddle of vomit. He can’t stop fucking coughing, and his hoarse, sore, throat burns at the abuse. The awful, hacking, coughs that just don’t stop coming make his weak body tremble, and his upper back is deciding that this is the perfect time for it to ache with intense, painful, pressure. Somehow it feels so much worse than it did before, like the healing potions made the pain progress further instead of getting rid of it.

Tommy feels a hand grab his shoulder, and he screams. White-hot pain runs through him and shuts off his brain. The only thing he can think about is pain, pain, Dream, where is Dream—

Distantly, he hears Dream’s shocked whisper of “what the fuck” as a strong hand examines his back with featherlight touches. His back is swollen badly, Tommy knows that without even having to look. Every light contact with his skin, even through his torn shirt, burns fiercely and only heightens the awful pressure.

Tommy passes out, his mind shutting off to try and escape the pain.

Chapter Text

The next time Tommy wakes up, he’s screaming.

Dream is still there. His mind only registers it because the back of his mind is chirping with happiness at his company, at the contact, because Dream is holding him—well, not quite. More like Tommy is laid out across the ground chest down, face pressed into his dirty blankets, and Dream is sitting on the ground beside him, a warm, gloved hand resting just below the tight, swollen part of his back, in a way that doesn’t hurt. His shirt must have been cut, exposing his back and shoulders, because the cold wind brushes against his skin. He hopes Dream can get him another shirt, because this was his only one.

Tommy thinks that Dream’s palm warming his skin and giving him some semblance of contact with another person would be nice, if the mounting pressure under his skin hadn’t started feeling like it was reaching a breaking point. Tommy is so sure that his back is going to split open like a berry squeezed between two fingers.

A bolt of red hot pain shoots through him and his screams mix with sobs. It feels like there’s something moving in his back, under his skin, flexing against his abused muscles and making Tommy almost faint again. What the fuck is that? Oh god, there’s something inside him, get it out, get it out, get it out—

He squirms under Dream’s gloved hand, which instantly switches from resting lightly to pinning him down.

“Oh holy shit, you’re awake,” he hears Dream curse, but the only thing that matters right now is getting whatever is inside his back out of it. His ragged breaths come out in short gasps as he struggles to claw at his back. Gloved hands catch his wrists and grip them tightly, keeping them still and rendering them useless.

“Calm down before I have to knock you out myself,” Dream threatens, and Tommy instantly goes limp in his hold. His wrists aren’t released, but Dream moves them into a slightly more comfortable position, holding them tightly with one hand, pinned to his lower back. “Thank you. Now stay still.” Tommy is hardly breathing, and his heart feels like it’s hammering out of his chest. His skin feels like it’s on fire, and the slightly awkward position his arms are pinned in presses his shoulder blades together in a way that pushes at something inside his back. The struggle he put up a few seconds ago certainly didn’t help, it almost feels like he’s knocked something in his back out of place.

This has to be the most pain he’s ever gone through in his life, and he’s fought two wars. Tommy feels his back start to tighten and convulse, something painfully familiar to him after having to wait them out a dozen times before Dream found him, but so much stronger. They’re increasing rapidly in intensity, racketing higher and higher with each set of convulsions. That probably means something, but Tommy’s never been very analytical, nor is he able to even try while his mind is whited out with blinding pain.

He tries to bite down a scream, but it hardly works. It feels like something is pushing up at his skin from inside him, and Tommy actually does scream this time, at the feeling of movement that definitely should not be there. His throat feels absolutely shredded, and screaming only does more damage to it. He’ll lose his voice if he keeps this up.

Tommy’s face is pressed into the cold ground, and his jaw is clenched shut, trying to brace through the pain. His breathing is ragged and mixed with choked sobs. Dream’s free hand—the one not pinning his wrists to his back—ghosts over his shoulder blades curiously, examining the burning skin like a puzzle. Tommy hears the sound of a communicator buzzing, and Dream takes his hand away to pick it up from where he’d presumably left it on the ground near Tommy’s head. He quickly types an answering message and shoves the comm back down just as another spasm takes hold, and Tommy fails to keep himself from screaming.

“Looks like it’s almost through,” Dream comments mildly between Tommy’s ragged screams. “I wonder what it’ll look like when the skin breaks. That’ll be interesting, won’t it?” Tommy can think of some better words to describe this than “interesting.”

“Dream, what is happening to me?” His voice is wrecked. The words come out more like a hoarse sob than an actual sentence. Dream just chuckles in response.

“Wow, you’re actually lucid enough to talk instead of just make weird noises,” he hums. “Probably won’t last.”

As it turns out, Dream is exactly right. Before he can even attempt a response—asking again about what the hell is happening, apologizing for having made noises that were probably annoying, or begging for a numbing potion to help with the absolute agony of whatever this is—another spasm racks through his body with such a fierce pain that his vision blurs, and when he comes to he can only hear his own screaming.

There’s an intense wave of pressure and agony followed by the feeling of something stabbing at the skin of his back. Tommy, yet again, falls unconscious with a sharp gasp, his body deciding to flick the off switch because it can’t bear to be awake while his back tries to rip itself apart.

This time, it feels like he’s drifting underwater. Floating. His body feels endlessly light, yet heavy at the same time, and his brain is nothing but static and numbness. Tommy wonders if he’s died. If he’s lost his last life and he’s going to see Wilbur again. Part of him desperately hopes he has. Maybe Wilbur could forgive him, for being so selfish and horrible, slowly poisoning his mind until there was a monster in his place. As much as he wishes he was, Ghostbur is not Wilbur. The ghost does not remember being Wilbur, nor does he remember most things that happened in his life, so Tommy can’t apologize for making him go insane. It’d be useless. Ghostbur is gone anyways.

Logsteadshire used to be the two of them, Dream coming around to bother them every now and then, but then Ghostbur must have realized what being around Tommy did to people, and left without warning. Not even a goodbye spared so Tommy would have known not to look for him, searching the woods for hours before Dream stopped him and correctly deduced that he must have gotten sick of the place and left.

It hurts.

Selfishly, he wishes that Ghostbur had been here instead of Dream, offering him comfort through the pain and taking care of him with the endless patience the ghost had that used to be much thinner when he was alive.

It’s like Tommy has some sort of hindbrain that’s been going haywire for the past couple days, following bouts of pain with cries for people who want absolutely nothing to do with him anymore. It bowls him over with waves of longing whenever he thinks of Tubbo, but its cries are even louder when he thinks of Wilbur, Techno, and Phil, with their large, strong, wings and solid bonds with each other (Tommy asked Wilbur about how close they were, once, and Wilbur explained how avians could bond with each other as a flock. He remembers how Wilbur described it as being like a family. It was hard for him to not be a little jealous that he was human, and could never really have the same instincts, even if Wilbur insisted that he was very much part of their flock, despite being completely human).

Something just outside of his blurred awareness jolts him, pulling him back to consciousness. His instincts scream at him that he needs to wake up, that this process can’t continue without him at least some semblance of awake. Tommy fights against it, a pitiful attempt to hide from the raw pain and misery of being lucid. He just wants to sleep forever. If this is death, he wants it more than he ever has before, but whatever wants him awake is persistent. It’s like he’s dragged awake by his heels, mind sharpening slightly like a camera lens changing its focus to clear the image, stamping out some of the static of unconsciousness.

His eyes feel sore and glued shut, as if the convulsions are reaching every inch of his body and leaving leftovers of the tension they spread mercilessly. It’s a miracle that he’s able to pry them open enough to squint in the low light.

The sky was pitch black when he’d last fallen unconscious, moon somewhere high above casting its light onto the tent. Now, the inky blacks are mixed with the beginnings of red and orange light, the sun preparing to rise over the ocean.

Dream isn’t here.

There’s a fire lit, obviously freshly tended to, and some of Dream’s stuff—that he would definitely not leave behind—is sitting on the ground by the tent’s entrance flaps. Logically, it’s clear that wherever Dream went, he’s probably only been gone for a few minutes, and will be back soon. However, there’s a particularly annoying and very weird part of his brain that does not understand that logic, only seeing that Dream is gone, and unfortunately, Tommy is far too weakened for the logical, human part of his brain to win over the grossly instinctual one. Panic grips his whole being with heart-stopping fierceness, and Tommy forgets how to breathe.

Where is Dream? Where is his friend? He needs Dream, oh my god, where did he go? Oh god, where did he go? Did he leave? Please no, please don’t leave, Dream, where is his friend—

A shrill warble slips from his wrecked throat like a sob, and Tommy immediately halts the desperate rambling in his head. It barely works. All he manages to do is shove it down to the back of his mind, where it continues to buzz desperately for Dream’s company.

His back feels numb, as it always does between intense convulsions. It’s like the spasms are so painful, that the lack of them feels like nothing at all. He can’t move. His arms are free from Dream’s grip, and nothing else is restraining him, but his limbs feel like heavy cement. The idea that moving was even something he could do was laughable. His whole body is slick with sweat, even though the air is biting and cold.

His shoulders twinge at the feeling of something moving inside his back. The movement prods at the skin of his back and Tommy feels dread sink like a stone in his stomach. Somehow, forebodingly, he knows exactly what’s going to happen very soon, and he curses having been dragged out from unconsciousness.

Because that thing under his skin is going to come out, and he’s going to have to give it the push it needs. Tommy knows this like it’s ingrained deep in the back of his mind, an instinctual knowledge for survival. Whatever this is, whatever process is happening to his body and subconscious, it is close to completion, and he’s going to be awake for the worst part.

His shoulders shiver with another spasm.

Boots crunch the dry grass and dead leaves underneath them as they return to the tent. Dream enters through the flaps and sets down his battle axe, leaning it against one of the poles of the tent before crouching to check on Tommy. Whatever he sees must be pretty interesting.

“Huh,” Dream places a hand on the back of his neck, on the middle of and just above the parts of his back that hurt the most. “That’s looking a lot further along now.” His hand is warm and the part of his brain that is weirdly attached to Dream now absolutely melts at even that small amount of contact. Tommy’s brain is absolutely delirious, and he completely fails to realize that he’s made another warble noise until Dream starts to laugh.

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot you did that. You’re awake now, though, aren’t you?” he says, and Tommy startles out of the warm haze he’d been floating in.

“Y—eah,” he tries to answer, but his voice is thoroughly wrecked, and it breaks off completely in a rough crack, leaving the rest of the word to come out like a quiet gasp. Dream just laughs again and starts to remove his hand from where it was resting lightly. Tommy has to choke down a mournful warble at the loss of the comforting touch, but he hasn’t gotten any better at forcing them down, and the attempt makes harsh, painful coughs rack his worn body. He doesn’t know which is better: making that awful, humiliating, noise; or the pain of forcing them away. They don’t even sound human.

Unfortunately for him, the coughing fit spurred on a particularly strong spasm that racks his body and makes tears spring to his eyes and drip onto the dirt under his nose. He looks over at Dream, managing to twist his head weakly to see him sitting crosslegged on the grass next to him, typing something on his communicator again.

Is he talking to someone?

Tommy shakes himself mentally, it’s none of his business. Dream doesn’t like him being nosy like that.

He takes a minute to breathe, both recovering after the last painful spasm and gathering the courage to speak. Based on the intensity of the convulsions rising again, it won’t be long before it ramps up, and actually starts to break through.

Instinctively, Tommy knows that this will be the worst pain he’s ever felt in his life. All he’s experienced up to this point will pale in comparison to what comes next, including all the convulsions that made him pass out, the pain of an explosion far too near to him, and the battle wounds from the wars he’s fought. His body is weak and not as strong as it probably should be for all this after weeks of punishments from Dream and too many days of going hungry to count. If he tries to go through this with no medicine or potions to help numb the pain, it will be hell. Which is why he has to ask.

“Dream—“ he chokes out, his voice breathless and hoarse from screaming. Dream looks up at him from whatever he was typing out on his communicator with an air of slight surprise at being spoken to by Tommy after what must have been hours of unconsciousness mixed with deliriousness.

“Yes?” Tommy takes a deep breath. He can feel another spasm start surfacing to his shoulders and he tries to push it back for just another minute. Just long enough to ask this.

“Dream, can I—“ The spasm rocks through his weak shoulders and Tommy bites off his sentence with a silent cry. He supposes that the good thing about his voice being so shredded is that he can’t really scream anymore.

Tommy pries his eyes back open and lifts his head back up to Dream. Not making eye contact with the mask, though. It’s not allowed.

The feeling of another oncoming set of spasms lurking under his skin makes him duck his head, leaning it on the ground with his eyes screwed shut to try and focus on pushing them back. He wouldn’t even try to ask if it were just a regular injury, but this is going to be so painful, he can already tell.

“—can I please have a numbing potion?” Dream only stares down at him, mask betraying absolutely nothing. Although Tommy's started to doubt that Dream has any expressions on his real face at all, even without the blank, smiling mask.

Neither of them makes a sound for what feels like an eternity, with the exception of Tommy’s harsh, pained, breaths and the ping from Dream’s communicator that he doesn’t move from staring Tommy down to check. Finally, he decides to respond.

“Why?” he asks icily, and Tommy feels his fear mounting. He should not keep talking. He should apologize immediately and take back the request while praying to anyone listening that Dream can find it in his heart to forgive him.

But he really fucking needs the potion.

“Please, it’s going to be so much worse—“ he cuts himself off with a silent, choked, cry, another spasm pushing his muscles around and preparing to force something out soon. This is hopeless, he already knows, but he tries to form the words to beg for any kind of medicine anyways. He can’t seem to make a single, coherent sound through the pain, though, and Dream just sits and watches him struggle.

The spasm recedes eventually—and, yeah, those are getting a lot worse, but shorter and quicker to leave—and when he’s finally able to go limp like a puppet with cut strings, Dream reaches out and puts his hand in his hair.

Tommy’s hindbrain is endlessly soothed by the contact, but his human brain knows far better than to relax. If anything, the hand resting on his head makes his heart start racing and sends a violent shiver through him. Even worse so when the grip in his hair tightens.

“Tommy,” Dream demands. “Look at me.” The hand grips his sweaty, tangled hair and twists his head till he’s staring into the black pinpricks of Dream’s mask. Tommy can’t figure out how to make his lungs work anymore.

“I know how this works. The pinion joint is about to break the skin and then you’ll be done. This will be completely survivable.” Dream’s voice is stern and cold, talking over Tommy’s small, gasping breaths, trying to get enough air to not lose consciousness and also trying to withstand the strain put on his shoulders from his head being wrenched into this awkward position.

“So tell me, Tommy,” Dream’s fingers tighten their grip in his hair enough to make him cry out. “Do you think you deserve to get a numbing potion?”

Tommy feels sick. His heart switches from beating so hard it felt like it would burst, to nearly stopping completely at Dream’s words. Because yet again, Dream is right, and he is selfish.

Why would he deserve to get his pain numbed when he’s hurt so many people? Where would the justice be in that? Good people don’t get exiled, and bad people don’t deserve kindness. Kindness that Dream has been giving him freely this whole time—offering him friendship, visiting him in exile, staying with him right now, even as he tries to take advantage of it by asking for things.

“No, no, Dream, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please don’t leave. I don’t need one, I’m sorry—“ His delirious pleas are hardly more than mumbles, but Dream seems to accept them well enough. The grip in his hair slackens, and Tommy’s head falls back onto the ground with a startled, hoarse cry. His shoulders jolt at the impact and his back tightens with the newest set of spasms. Tommy wishes he could still scream, only so he could have that outlet, that reflection of how much pain he’s in, but no sound except harsh, whistling, silent yells can escape his dry, way overused vocal cords.

Dream’s hand returns to his head, but this time it’s only petting his hair softy, carding through it gently with his fingers.

“I’m glad you understand, Tommy. You’ll be just fine, and I’ll be here with you for the whole time.” Tommy’s brain purrs with contentment and he feels drunk with warmth and relief. Dream is so good to him, he’s such a good friend. Tommy couldn’t ask for someone better to be his flock—oh fuck.

What the hell.

That thought came from the weird part of his brain. The “flock” thing is what Wilbur told him avians did. That is not a human thing.

Tommy snaps slightly out of his haze enough to hear the small, rumbly, chirping noises he’s making that sound an awful lot like a weird fucking bird, don’t they?

He doesn’t have any time to think about his realization and what it entails (and the fact that Dream is petting him, and that he’s practically purring because of it) before his shoulders seize up with a sharp, stabbing pain.

None of the spasms up to this point have felt like this. Before, they had this bone-deep ache to them, a periodical increase of the vicious aches that had plagued him for weeks leading up to the first set that he powered through—mistaking them for back pain from sleeping on the ground.

This feels like knives.

Tommy has been shot with an arrow before, has felt the arrowhead pierce through his skin and lodge itself in his body in a way that burns like an electric shock. Moving only pushes the arrow deeper and deeper, digging into his flesh brutally until the battle is over and he’s safe to remove it and treat the wound left behind.

Two very large arrows are pushing their way out of his back, piercing through his flesh in the opposite direction that Tommy is used to. He can barely hold onto consciousness. His face feels slick with sweat and rolling tears, and he feels something trickle down the skin of his back; he can’t tell if it’s sweat or blood. Dream says something, maybe, but Tommy can’t hear it past the blinding pain and the noise of his own sobs.

His back is being torn apart as two new limbs push through. It’s like his muscles are tensing and contracting to help force them out, but Tommy can’t think, can’t register what’s happening anymore; he just feels pain, and the sensation of something wet dripping from his shoulders.

Tommy almost passes out when the flesh of the right side of his back tears open, splitting his skin like a knife has been dragged through it slowly and painfully. The slick, wet feeling on his back increases tenfold, rivers of liquid running down his skin and down his shoulders, pooling under him in a worrying, crimson puddle. Hopefully it’s not as disgusting as it feels, because Dream might decide to leave if he’s being too gross, and Tommy really, really doesn’t want to be alone right now. Luckily, he hasn’t felt Dream’s hand leave his hair yet; although now it’s still, resting gently on his head.

This is hell.

The feeling of limbs bursting from his skin—unbuffered by any kind of painkiller or numbing potion—is something he will never be able to forget. His significant catalogue of injuries that he’s had in his life, from fighting wars, being a soldier, and from just living in Pogtopia, don’t hold a candle to this raw amount of agony. In all his other experiences, he’s only been without potions or golden apples to heal injuries cleanly and quickly down in the dark, cold ravine, where they only had the barest, meagre supplies and potatoes for food. But even those injuries never hurt as bad as this does. Tommy has also never been this weak—starved, cold, and half dead. But Dream said he would survive the pain, and Tommy does not want to argue. He can’t really talk right now anyways.

His muscles loosen for a few blissful moments. The right side of his back feels absolutely drenched, slick with the blood that he’s also lying in. How much blood is he losing? Because it feels like a lot.

A stray twitch on his right side from something halfway pushed through the flesh of his back, squirming to keep pushing through the split in his skin makes itself known to him, and Tommy realizes that it’s close to breaking through completely.

He also realizes that the new limb is just under his skin, and his body has done all it can to push it out by itself. Could he really…?

Tommy focuses on the limb under his skin and mentally catalogues the feeling of it sitting there: fully formed and ready to move. He relaxes his shoulders (as much as he can manage), and tries to pretend that it’s his arm under his skin, hoping that moving this limb will prove to be similar enough to moving any other limb.

The pointy limb answers him, twitching against his skin again and sending a flare of pain. He jolts to a stop, letting the new limb fall mostly still again, barring the occasional twitch. This is going to hurt. Really fucking bad. Tommy grits his teeth and takes as deep of a breath as his lungs allow. And then, because he has never been a patient person—always preferring to rip the bandages straight off instead of agonizing over it—he clenches his fists, tenses his shoulders, and pushes outwards.

The answering pain is immediate and agonizing, but all Tommy can do is keep going. Keep pushing the limb out. He hears himself sob harshly and feels the split in his skin widen and widen, blood gushing out of it as he forces a slimy, bony limb out from under his skin.

There’s a sharp tear, and something wet and heavy drops limply onto his back, twitching as the brand new skin makes contact with the cold air and the outside of his body for the first time. Tommy doesn’t even try to move it anymore, just lets it slide around in the blood gushing from the opening. All he does is pant heavily, chest heaving with labored breaths.

“One more to go, Tommy,” Dream whispers, and Tommy wants to cry even harder at the knowledge that he’s going to have to do that again. The left side has the beginnings of a tear, with the limb still firmly under the skin.

He is so tired. Pain is exhausting like nothing else, and Tommy wants nothing more than to fall unconscious and escape the absolute agony of this whole thing. But if he does that, he knows instinctively that the limb won’t be able to fully break the skin, and it will be stuck. Which could kill him.

Tommy feels for the limb nestled under his skin like he did the other, and wiggles it. The pointed part of the bony limb prods sharply at the thin flesh around the beginning of a small opening in his skin like the first one had. and Tommy struggles to keep breathing through the jolts of pain that result from each movement. But—also like with the first limb—he doesn’t feel like waiting around and prolonging this pain.

He clenches his fists so tightly that his blunt fingernails start to cut into his palm, and his jaw is so tight he’s worried he might crack a tooth, but he holds the limb tense and pushes. Hard.

If Tommy could still scream, he would be screaming hard enough, with enough raw pain, to lose his voice all over again. The limb he forces through the flesh of his back rips through the slightly premature opening, bursting out of his skin with the sensation of a dull knife being buried in his back. Blood spurts from the tear with a fierceness, pouring around him like he’s had a bucket dumped on him. The slimy mass of bone and muscle in the form of his newest limb flops onto his back, right next to its matching pair.

It’s done.

Small spasms run through him, his body still trying to make sure the process is completed in the form of leftover aftershocks. Although they still twitch slightly, and are horrifically sore, his muscles are loose and slackened.

Tommy lets his head drop completely, smashing his cheek into the ground, not bothering to waste energy trying to soften the blow. He just closes his eyes and lets himself rest; enjoying having only the stinging, cutting pain of the torn wounds in his back that are now falling slightly numb because they can’t seem to compare to the pain he experienced minutes ago.

“Good job, Tommy,” Dream tells him softly, and Tommy hears a weak chirp escape him before falling asleep.

Chapter Text

Technoblade is not welcome in L’manburg. He knows this.

That doesn’t mean that he’ll let that stop him from going with Phil and Ghostbur (although Ghostbur’s drifted off somewhere, probably already forgetting that they’re there) to the rebuilt country to do what they need to do. Phil still had some materials they needed in his house, because while he had brought most of his belongings to Technoblade’s house two nights ago to move in, he wasn’t able to bring everything. They were almost finished gathering materials and setting things up for the resurrection before Phil realized that he’d left some important notes under one of his floorboards, and they couldn’t get any further without it. Hence, Technoblade walking around L’manburg like he didn’t have a bounty.

Somehow, they manage to get to Phil’s house, find the materials and extra notes Phil needs, and leave before anyone sees them or confronts them.

“Is this place always so empty?” Technoblade wonders aloud to Phil, who shrugs in response as they walk down the path to exit the country. There’s usually something going on every second of the day on this server, but seeing it so quiet is eerie.

“Well, it's been really weird and tense since Tommy was exiled, but yeah. This is a little odd, even for this place.” Technoblade inwardly laughs at that, because of course all the noise and energy followed him out when he was exiled. He doesn’t even fully understand what happened that day; he wasn’t there to see any of it, and Phil wasn’t either, so the only direct source of information is Ghostbur, who… is not the most reliable right now. But they are going to fix that.

Neither of them say anything after that, keeping alert and listening hard for any breaks in the silence blanketing the country.

And of course, because nothing can ever be simple or easy, just as they turn a corner—almost out of L’manburg—they run into Quackity.

“What the fuck? Oh my god—“ Quackity’s tawny wings flap behind him, feathers puffing up at being startled. “Uh—you guys aren’t really supposed to be here. I mean, Phil, you’re fine, but uh—“

“We were just leaving,” Phil replies calmly, likely trying to keep Quackity from calling backup to try and apprehend Technoblade. Quackity just laughs weakly.

“Man, sure. I won’t stop you, then, I guess,” he huffs, scrubbing a hand across his face, taking them slightly off guard.

Quackity looks exhausted. His feathers look slightly rumpled now that they’ve recovered and lain flat; his beanie looks as if he literally threw it on his head, with tangled, black strands of hair peeking out from underneath. He’s also ditched any semblance of his Vice Presidential attire, instead just wearing a plain hoodie and sweatpants.

“If you guys are actually just gonna leave normally, go ahead and do that. Please. I don’t even know what the fuck you would pull, but whatever it is, I can’t deal with it right now.”

“Quackity, what’s going on?” Phil asks, and Technoblade figures he must be seeing the exhaustion radiating from Quackity too.

“What—oh,” he chuckles. “This is just your favorite government trying to live another day in the Dream SMP, something you two are completely against, I know, you don’t have to tell me.” Technoblade doesn’t much appreciate Quackity calling L’manburg his favorite government, but beside him, Phil frowns in concern.

“Is there anything we can help with?” he offers, and both Quackity and Technoblade snap their heads to look at him in shock.

“Phil—“ Technoblade’s protest is cut off by a sharp glance from Phil, who is apparently insisting on helping this deplorable government. Lame. Quackity just stares at Phil, looking like his brain short circuited and Technoblade eyes a puddle just off the side of the path they’re on—fingers itching to summon his trident from his inventory—trying to figure out how fast he could run to it and make an escape before Quackity can pull himself together or Phil stops him.

“Wow. Um. Okay, today can’t get any fucking weirder, I swear,” Quackity laughs, sounding slightly hysterical. “Thanks for the offer, but no. There isn’t anything you can do for us. There’s nothing anyone can fucking do right now.”

“Don’t you have a president and, like, a whole cabinet? Pretty sure someone can do something about… whatever this is,” Technoblade drawls. “Except for us, you’re right; we definitely can’t help.” Phil sighs quietly beside him.

Technoblade expected Quackity to bristle at that, to get mad and jump into a rant about government and bureaucracy, or whatever. He does not expect for Quackity to huff a sigh and look even more exhausted, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Tubbo’s resigning,” he snaps wearily. Beside him, Phil recoils slightly in shock.

“What?”

“But, if you’re talking about the real president, Dream is not going to help us with shit,” Quackity snarls, and Technoblade exchanges a look with Phil.

“Why is Tubbo resigning?” Phil presses, worry etched into his voice.

“Why do you think, man? He’s falling apart ever since Dream made him exile Tommy,” Technoblade grimaces. “He’s locked himself in his house, won’t let anyone in.”

“He was seriously determined to lead L’manburg, even the exile was to protect the country. Why has he just… quit? Not that I blame him, of course,” Phil remarks, and Technoblade honestly wonders the same. The kid’s drive to lead the country he’d been put in charge of was honestly admirable, even though Technoblade loathes to admit it.

“Well, his—“ Quackity stops himself, shaking his head. “No, that’s his business. I’m not going to spread it around. I only found out on accident the last time I saw him. Everyone else is chalking it up to the stress of the job and missing Tommy, so you guys just go with that and forget I said anything. None of your business.”

“He’s okay though, right?” Quackity laughs sharply.

“Oh yeah, he’s just fine physically, just a small… um—cosmetic development. I really tried to tell him that he wasn’t actually Schlatt 2.0, but he wouldn’t listen at all. Fucking hell… I feel awful for him,” he groans, and Technoblade hates that he agrees. “He literally won’t talk to anyone anymore. He’ll only talk to Ranboo. But even that is only to let him know when Tommy will let him visit and to help him deliver letters to Logsteadshire.”

What the hell?

“Tommy won’t let him visit?” Technoblade repeats incredulously, because that’s probably the weirdest part of this already bizarre situation.

“Yeah. Ranboo’s the only one who goes.. Apparently Tommy doesn’t want to see anyone else other than Dream, so Ranboo usually just pops in quickly, drops off letters in a chest, and teleports out before anyone catches him. Better than nothing, I guess.”

Technoblade is shocked, and more than a little confused. He knew that Tommy wouldn’t want anything to do with him—visiting him or sending a letter were off the table—but to hear that Tommy apparently hated everyone else, too? It sounded more like the server was exiled from Tommy, instead of the other way around. Technoblade knows that Tommy holds some silly grudges, but he has never known him to be so vindictive.

“We got a message from Tubbo yesterday, formally announcing his resignation. And we have no idea who’s next in line, because the job was thrown around like a fucking hot potato. But that hardly fucking matters, because we all answer to Dream anyways, so let’s just cut out the goddamn middleman!” Quackity’s wings twitch with a mix of stress and rage as he spills the country’s internal affairs to a wanted criminal and the man aiding him. Technoblade should be pleased at L’manburg’s government falling apart, but he doesn’t really feel anything except mild discomfort. “So go ahead and celebrate, Technoblade, you got your symbolic victory! It’s got as much influence as our child president had on this server!”

“Okay, I do feel kinda bad,” Technoblade mutters, and Quackity deflates, wings drooping.

“Yeah, me too.”

“Quackity, if you do ever need anything, just ask. We’d be glad to help,” Phil promises, glancing sternly at Technoblade again to keep him from objecting.

“Thanks, man. You guys can probably come around any time you want as long as you don’t start wrecking shit and killing people, I guess. There isn’t really a bounty out for you or anything anymore ‘cause, again, there’s nobody here to enforce it unless Dream decides to, but he hasn’t been around for a while.” Quackity trails off, falling silent. They turn to leave, and manage a few steps before Quackity calls out to them.

“Wait.” They pause and turn to face him. Quackity’s expression looks stony and Technoblade wonders for a second if he’s changed his mind about letting them go.

“I know you guys are off doing your own thing, mostly, retirement or whatever, but I figure you guys should know,” he huffs. “I don’t know how you feel about Dream—whether you’re friends or some shit—but I’m just going to tell you that the guy has some serious issues with control.”

“Are you just trying to tell us that Dream is weird? Because I kind of thought that was obvious,” Technoblade interrupts. “Pretty well known.”

“No—shut up. I’m actually trying to help you guys because you weren’t total dicks,” Quackity hesitates, like he’s trying to figure out the best way to phrase what he’s trying to tell them. “So—I’m warning you that Dream contacted me two days ago, wanting to know some shit about avians. Specifically how we get our wings.”

Technoblade stills. In the corner of his eye, he sees Phil’s dark wings raise in caution.

“And what did you tell him?” Phil questions, his stern tone laced with hidden nervousness.

“I told him that I’m a duck avian, everyone knows that, and since ducks are precocial birds, I was born with them, had them since I was a baby.”

“Okay,” Technoblade says slowly, dragging the word and prompting Quackity to continue.

“But then he told me that he wasn’t asking about duck avians. He wanted to know how avians like you guys grew your wings. I said that I didn’t know shit about how altricial avians got their wings, and that he should just ask one of you, but he wouldn’t do that. Said he wanted to hear it from me.” Technoblade stiffens and Phil sucks in a breath.

“Look, I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t really know shit about your whole… process, so I doubt that I gave him any sensitive information. All he got from me was the basic stuff. But he was super fucking vague with all his questions and it was really suspicious.”

“Yeah. That is really suspicious,” Technoblade mutters darkly.

“Tell me exactly what you told him,” Phil demands, and Quackity nods grimly before pulling out his communicator.

“I said ‘wings develop pretty much undetectable in their backs until they’re ready to come out.’ He asked, ‘what happens when they emerge?’ I said, ‘I don’t fucking know, asshole, they come out of your back somehow. I told you to ask Phil or Techno.” Quackity grimaces slightly. “Then—this was really weird—he asked, ‘what’s the survival rate for the process?’ I didn’t know why the fuck he was asking that, but I said ‘I don’t fucking know. Probably pretty high I guess.”

Technoblade exchanges a look with Phil, who looks as baffled as he feels. Quackity switches off his communicator and shoves it back in the pocket of his sweatpants, before throwing up his hands.

“And he sound ed like he was in some kind of fucking hurry!” he exclaims, and yeah, that’s really weird. Technoblade can’t help but feel a sliver of paranoia, both at what he’s hearing and from being naturally suspicious of everyone around him.

“How can we be sure that we can trust you?” he questions, and Quackity levels him with a glare.

“Seriously—okay fine. I’ll be honest, L’manburg is pretty much non existent, I don’t know what the hell is going on anymore, and you guys didn’t just kill me immediately. You were, like, nice and helpful, and even though we were on different sides, or whatever, we’re the only avians on the server—except for Ghostbur, I guess, but he’s kinda dead—so I guess what I’m trying to say is… this isn’t about sides anymore, Dream is dangerous even if you can beat him in a fight, so this is me telling you to be careful. Avian to avian, or some shit like that.”

“Thank you,” Phil replies earnestly. “We appreciate this.” Technoblade nods in agreement. Quackity returns the nod, mouth pressed in a tight smile that looks much more like a grimace. Technoblade hears his communicator buzz even from the distance they’re standing at, and Quackity reaches into his pocket to dig it out.

“Okay…” he mutters, frowning at the screen. “I’ve got to go. Fundy’s telling me that apparently Dream caught Ranboo trying to sneak into Logsteadshire this time and almost killed him. Oh, that’s another thing: could you guys go visit Tommy?”

Technoblade blinks in surprise.

“What?” Quackity sighs.

“Whenever anyone asks, Dream says that they can’t visit him because he doesn’t want to see anyone. Not only that, but if you try to show up anyways, he’ll tell you to leave, or he’ll kill you. You might not know, but I’m down a life now. Guess how.”

“What the fuck,” Phil says eloquently in response, and Quackity laughs.

“Yeah, we don’t even know if Tommy’s still alive or if ‘exile’ was just a way for Dream to get rid of him for good. Ranboo’s barely able to sneak in when he does, and he’s never gotten a glimpse of him, and Tommy never writes any letters back. I get that you guys have problems, issues, or you just don’t like him, whatever—but please. See if he’s alive. None of us can beat Dream in the fight it would take to get past him, but I know for a fact that you both stand a chance at the very least.”

Technoblade feels like his heart is beating out of his chest. Tommy was supposed to be safe, even in exile. If he’s dead, and the last thing Technoblade said to him was making fun of him—regardless of the fact that he was only teasing him—he will never forgive himself. One of his flock, taken away and killed, just for stirring up a little chaos. Something that Dream himself had claimed was his ultimate goal.

Quackity couldn’t have been more wrong about him and Phil not liking Tommy, because he somehow managed to worm his way into their flock while not even being an avian. He was the annoying, rowdy kid that Wilbur loved fiercely. ‘Like a little brother,’ he had said to him once, and Technoblade had long since begrudgingly accepted that he actually genuinely liked Tommy as a friend, and could very easily see how Wilbur ended up being like Tommy’s older brother. Then, after an embarrassingly long time, they realized that they had all somehow unanimously adopted some kid into their flock. And there’s little Technoblade regrets more than how they got split apart like this.

“We will,” Phil vows. “If we find anything out, you’ll hear from us.”

“Thanks guys,” Quackity breathes, shoulders slumping in relief. “It’s fucking awful not knowing. I’ll see you around, I guess.”

“Right.” Quackity gives them a tired salute that drips with irony before turning on his heel.

“Bring back some good news, amigos!” he calls as they go their separate ways, and Technoblade desperately hopes he’ll be able to do just that.

“So,” Technoblade mutters, prompting Phil to speak on what they both just experienced. Phil scrubs his eyes with his hand and laughs weakly.

“Holy shit, dude,” he breathes, and Technoblade is inclined to agree with the sentiment. “What the fuck is even going on anymore?”

“Who knows. What are we going to do about Tommy?”

“I’m going to fly over to that shitty island, and if he’s even the slightest bit hurt I will burn this server to the fucking ground.”

“Glad to know we’re on the same page.”

Technoblade releases his wings, unfurling them from his back and unclasping his cape from his shoulders to make room for the massive limbs. He had put them away again to infiltrate L’manburg, realizing that while Phil’s sleek raven wings can go pretty low profile, he doesn’t have that same luxury.

Just as he arcs his wings, preparing to shamelessly break a server rule, Phil sighs and shakes his head.

“Not—not yet, Techno,” he mutters, looking pained. “I hate it so much, and I know you won’t like it either, but we might need to revive Wilbur first.” Phil’s right, he absolutely hates that plan.

“No,” he refuses. It’s not happening. Tommy could be dead, or hurt, and Technoblade’s mind is not going to allow him a moment of peace until he knows his flock is safe. “I need to know.”

“Me too, but we need to think about this. We don’t know what we’re walking into, and for all we know, Dream could be planning something against us. I don’t know what the fuck he’s playing at by getting information about avians without us knowing, but you have to admit that it’s cause for caution.” Phil pauses for a moment to breathe before continuing. “But do you realize who would know exactly what we would be walking into? Someone that’s been a silent witness to just about everything that Dream doesn’t want people seeing?”

He knows exactly what Phil is getting at with this, unfortunately. That would take time they don’t have if Tommy is hurt.

“We could go really quickly, do a flyover and see if we can see him at all,” Technoblade offers.

“Still dangerous. But you’ll be glad to hear that if we work our asses off, we can get this resurrection done as soon as tomorrow morning. Honestly that’s the only thing that’s keeping me on the fucking ground right now, is how quickly I know we can pull this off.”

He’s right, even if Technoblade doesn’t want him to be. Maybe he can work with waiting till tomorrow, though.

Doesn’t mean he has to like it.

“Alright,” he concedes. “In that case, let's show Dream what a real speedrun looks like.”

“Lead the way, mate,” Phil laughs.

They have never made the trip back to the tundra faster before today.

Chapter Text

Tommy isn’t woken up by extreme, aching pain.

Instead, the feeling of a bucket of frigid seawater being dumped over him jerks him awake, the briny water making the wounds on his back burn fiercely and making the brand new, raw skin of his two newest limbs sting.

Holy shit. Right, new limbs.

He’s still lying on his stomach in the exact position he fell asleep in (and have presumably been in for… a while), so he pulls his shaking arms to the sides of his chest and tries to lift himself up. It doesn’t work.

“Need help?” Dream laughs, setting an empty bucket on the ground with a clunk, and Tommy almost jumps out of his skin. It takes him a few seconds to recover from being startled so badly at Dream being right there. His brain doesn’t seem to be fully awake, despite having been drenched with freezing water. His heart feels like it’s racing and he’s shaking badly, but he manages to twist his head and peer up at Dream.

Dream is standing over him, arms crossed and head tilted down to watch him shiver violently on the ground, which Tommy realizes is still soaked with puddles of his own blood. He looks up a little too far, accidentally locking eyes with Dream’s mask. Tommy jerks his head down and stares at the bloody ground, not daring to look back up, even for a second.

After another second of silence, Tommy remembers what Dream had asked, and nods sharply, still not daring to break eye contact with the ground. Dream shifts in place and steps over to Tommy, who sneaks a glance at the heavy, black, boots in his peripheral.

Whatever Tommy was expecting for Dream to do to help him stand, it was not this. He barely has time to process what’s happening before Dream is standing over him fully, grabbing him under both arms and yanking him off the ground. A silent scream leaves him, sounding way more like a pathetic squeak than an actual yell.

Dream plops him down on his feet and lets go. Tommy is only able to balance for a second before he topples over, but—thankfully—Dream catches him and he slumps completely bonelessly in his firm hold.

“Jesus fucking christ,” Dream mutters, and Tommy tries to apologize, but no sound comes out. He clutches his throat, trying desperately to force at least one word out, and attempting to shove down his quickly rising panic. “Lost your voice, huh? Not really surprised about that, considering how much you were screaming for the past two days.”

Two days?

Has it really been that long?

There’s no way for him to speak, so he holds up two fingers and mouths the words, hoping that Dream understands.

“Yeah. Two full days of you growing these—” he motions somewhere behind Tommy’s shoulder, but Tommy can’t twist his head enough to see what he’s talking about. “—screaming your head off the whole time. It was really fun to be around.” Tommy’s voice fails him again when he tries to choke out an apology. The horrible guilt makes his throat feel tight and cottony, closing up on him every time he tries to make a sound.

Dream huffs, grabbing Tommy’s shoulders and twisting him around to get a better look at his face. Tommy keeps his head down and stays quiet. Dream chuckles lightly.

“Still can’t talk,” he muses. “Well, this is kind of a blessing, honestly. I think you might have given me hearing damage.” Tommy still can’t force out the words to apologize, to beg Dream for forgiveness and to tell him that he didn’t mean to be so loud and awful, that he should have tried harder not to scream so much. Dream gets really mad when he doesn’t apologize, because it means he must not understand what he did wrong. But Tommy knows, and he really wants to, but he just can’t make any sound with his rough, abused throat. He can only sit there, shaking like a leaf in Dream’s firm hold with his chin pressed to his chest, looking as far down to the ground as possible.

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until hot tears fall from his cheeks and drip onto the dark material of Dream’s pants, pooling up and running off the weatherproof fabric in clear, shiny beads.

“Tommy, it’s okay,” Dream says, sounding amused, somehow reading his mind. “You don’t need to say sorry. In fact, it’s so much better when you don’t talk.”

Oh.

Relief washes over him completely, and Tommy slumps even more limply against Dream’s hold, leaning into the firm grip supporting him and letting himself sit in silence. He can be quiet. Dream likes it when he doesn’t talk, so he won’t. Dream is his friend, and he wants him to be quiet, so he can absolutely do that. No problem.

“Alright, the first thing you need to do is clean yourself up, because even with the water there’s still blood and gross stuff all over you,” Dream complains. “Then—“

Dream’s hand delicately touches somewhere near one of his shoulders, fingerpads making featherlight contact with a painfully raw patch of skin—sending a sharp sting through Tommy, making him jolt. Dream ignores him, tracing his hand along the full span of the new limb extending outwards from his back. “—I’ll figure out what I’m going to do about these.”

Tommy shivers, both at the frighteningly calculating tone and the pinprick stings from Dream’s hands on the brand new and still raw skin of the limb extending from his back. The limbs twitch, and he unconsciously pulls it back towards himself, accidentally shrinking away from Dream’s examination. Before he can panic about having possibly made Dream mad, he hears him hum thoughtfully.

“That could work,” he comments, and Tommy only tenses more. It’s not like Dream would hurt him if he didn’t deserve it, but Tommy can’t hold back the pure fear that wells up inside him at knowing Dream is planning something.

“Oh, come on, Tommy. Don’t be like that,” Dream chides, sounding amused. “It’ll be for your own good. Now stand up, because you need to go wash off.”

Dream shifts his grip to Tommy’s sides and yanks him to his feet again, but this time Tommy is more used to being upright, so he doesn’t collapse immediately like before. Unfortunately, he still can’t stand on his own—much less walk all the way to the shore like Dream wants him to. This all probably becomes very clear to the both of them, because there’s a heavy sigh next to him before suddenly he’s being lifted up and tossed over Dream’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He only flails weakly for a second, mostly out of surprise, before going limp and hoping it’ll make him easier to carry. In the back of his mind—the human part, not the… yeah—he hears a quiet voice say that he shouldn’t be easy to carry at all, and he should not be this light. The thought makes Tommy feel a little sick, but he sweeps it to the side and ignores it.

Dream sets him down at a small pool by the beach and leaves him sitting with his legs in the cold water to go get his bucket from the tent. Tommy’s brain buzzes unhappily at being alone, but he tries to push the feeling away. It reminds him of the moments while in pain, when the not-quite-human part of him would absolutely not let Dream leave, and screamed for his company when he wasn’t there. He shudders to think of what he was like to be around, and he only remembers some moments of lucidity, flashes that are few and probably far between.

Tommy leans forward, daring to look at his reflection in the cold, rippling water.

He looks horrible.

His face is pale and thin, cheeks hollowed and colorless. Speaking of colorless, his eyes are a weak, stone gray that look more like thick clouds in a frigid winter sky than the clear, bright, summer sky of blue they used to be. His hair is bleached almost white by the sun and has gotten long enough to hang limply over his face, but none of this is particularly new or surprising to him. He’s caught his reflection in the water before, and seen the way his face gets thinner and paler each day.

What’s new is the blood crusted up his neck, down his arms, and covering every inch of his chest and shoulders; and the thin, bony, pink, appendages sticking out from behind him. They look like a chicken’s wings after you take all the feathers out, which he supposes is pretty much exactly what these are.

Tommy has wings. They’re ugly, pink, baby wings that haven’t even grown in a single, downy feather, but there’s no mistaking that these are, in fact, wings. And he grew them. These wings are his. He tries to wiggle them, and they quiver weakly in response, like the brand new muscles need time to grow stronger. Which makes sense.

“Weird, right? For some reason I never thought about how wings start out. It makes sense that they’d look so… ugly.” Tommy flinches violently at the sudden sound of Dream’s voice ringing out from behind him, and Dream laughs. “Oh my god, you jumped so hard!” he cackles, as Tommy tries to get his breathing back to normal.

Dream walks over and sets the empty bucket down next to him with a clink.

“They’re already bigger, you know. It’s only been a day, so they must grow really fast.”

Tommy wonders if he’ll ever be able to fly.

“By the way, don’t worry about your clothes being ruined. I cut your shirt and your pants are already wet, so they’re gonna have to go regardless of this,” Dream says offhandedly, filling the bucket with seawater and sounding halfway apologetic. “I got you some new clothes while you were asleep, though. I know, I know—“ A full bucket of frigid seawater is dumped over his head. Some of it goes straight up his nose, making him double over coughing. “—thank me later.”

This continues for what feels like an eternity, buckets of saltwater being dumped over him and shocking him each time with the freezing temperature of the water until he’s gone slightly numb and Dream judges him clean enough.

True to his word, Dream hands him a set of clean clothes: a plain, white, sleeveless tank top—probably chosen because of the shape of the shirt in the back, which would fit his wings—and a pair of black pants that look a little too big. He goes to the tent to change, but stops when he sees the mess of blood and dirt everywhere inside. Instead, he takes a deep breath and trudges over to Ghostbur’s empty cabin, pushing open the wooden door and walking inside for the first time in a while. Since Ghostbur… left.

Tommy pulls on the dark pants and has to hook the button through a belt loop instead, because he was right to assume they’d be too big. Then, he shrugs on the shirt, struggling slightly to maneuver his wings through the large sleeve straps. He gets it eventually, though, and he relishes the feeling of having clean clothes.

A cold wind flies in through the opened door, brushing against his wet, freezing cold arms, and he shivers. Maybe Ghostbur left a coat or something in one of these chests somewhere.

After a few minutes of careful digging through the meagre storage, Tommy finds absolutely nothing.

This is stupid.

Wilbur was always cold, somehow. If anyone had a jacket or something to keep warm, it’d be him. He was always wearing his stupid sweaters, turtlenecks, big trenchcoats—

Oh.

Tommy’s gaze slides nervously to the enderchest in the corner of the cabin. Containing his most precious belongings—his only belongings, really—and one that… used to belong to Wilbur.

He slowly unlatches the lid, pulling it open and letting his hand rest on the tough fabric, folded as neatly as he could manage but still taking up the most space in the chest with the sheer volume and weight of it.

Tommy holds it reverently, lifting it out of the chest and letting it unfurl, falling open in front of him like a book when you only hold one cover, pages flapping like little wings as they fall, gravity taking it’s hold.

There are no gaps for wings on this trenchcoat. None of the usual adjustments Tommy was used to seeing in Wilbur’s clothes, to fit his warm black, white, and soft grey wings through. Because Wilbur did not care enough to make them, and he had his wings put away most days in the dark ravine. Tommy remembers missing them so much it hurt, some days, but he never dared to ask Wilbur if he would have them out, even for just for a few minutes.

Not that it needs wing holes for Tommy to wear it, his aren’t big enough that he can’t just tuck them under the coat. With how baggy it would be on him, he’d bet that they’d be completely unnoticeable to anyone who didn’t already know they were there. Tommy could pull on the trenchcoat, tuck his wings tight to his back to hide them, and hope they become less ugly and gross soon. The dark, heavy fabric would undoubtedly keep him warm from the cold weather, which will only get worse as the seasons shift deeper into winter.

It would be really useful.

But he can’t.

Tommy can’t bring himself to actually shrug the trenchcoat over his shoulders like an ill-fitting cloak, using it as just a coat.

Because it’s Wilbur’s.

This is the trenchcoat that swirled around Wilbur’s feet as he stalked through the haunting ravine. This is the trenchcoat that Wilbur wore the entire time his mind slipped away, poisoned and ruined till all that was left of him was a body with quickly fading warmth that Tommy held onto and begged to wake up. Wilbur died in this coat, and when the dust cleared—the withers defeated and Technoblade long gone with an inconsolable Phil in tow—Tommy limped across the ruins of L’manburg to the bloody remains of a small room with messy writing scrawled on the walls, and did what no one else was going to do.

He swallowed his anguish and dug a grave.

Before he lowered Wilbur’s horribly cold, lifeless body into the empty grave dug under the L’mantree, he slipped the trenchcoat from his shoulders.

After all the soil was moved back over his brother, packed neatly on top and smoothed over with care, Tommy took the trenchcoat to the river and scrubbed the bloodstains out until his hands were raw and at risk of bleeding on the fabric themselves. The roaring of clear, rushing water surrounding him drowned out his ragged, uncontrollable sobs that threatened to tear his chest apart. Icy water splashed his face as he scrubbed desperately, careful of the gaping tear in the back of the coat which was the center of the largest bloodstain, and if his hysterical, stinging tears streamed into the river like his eyes were open faucets, they were swept away. Dashed against rocks, tangled through flora and fauna, and mixed endlessly with the river until they’re cast out to sea. And what’s a few more drops of saltwater in the ocean?

Tommy can’t tear his eyes from the messily torn hole in the back of the coat, because it’s where Wilbur was run through with a sword. It’s the wound that killed him. Careful threading is holding it closed, shaking fingers stitching it like a wound, because that’s all the sewing he knows how to do.

This isn’t his coat to wear. But was it even his to keep? Should he have shoved down the urge to keep something of Wilbur’s with him forever and buried him with it?

Even after scrubbing it for hours in a rushing river, it still somehow smells like Wilbur.

Tommy gently gathers the fabric in his hands and places it back in the enderchest, shutting the lid on his single most precious belonging.

He’ll probably cave after a few nights of freezing, but for now, the coat will stay safely held in his enderchest.

Tommy pushes open the door of the cabin, exiting quietly and stepping outside to see Dream off, who has somewhere else he needs to be soon.

And when he leaves, Tommy will be utterly, painfully alone again.

Chapter Text

The preparations for resurrecting Wilbur are going off without a hitch. Until, of course, they aren’t.

Technoblade and Phil have been pouring over notes, mixing complicated, unheard of potions, and working long into the evening to make sure that they make no mistakes. Neither of them expect to sleep tonight. Not that Technoblade ever really does anyway.

“Phil,” Technoblade calls, frowning over the notes he’s holding, side by side in each hand. Phil climbs up the ladder with a book held under his arm and joins Technoblade at the table, peering over his shoulder. “Pages thirty-two and forty-seven are saying something totally different about what we actually need for this.”

“Are they?” Technoblade tilts the pages towards him and motions for him to read.

“Thirty two says we need some physical remains of the deceased, like a piece of their hair, a small part of their actual body, or a feather like we have. So, if we go off of that, we’re good,” he explains to Phil, who hums thoughtfully.

“The other page doesn’t say anything terribly different than that from what I can see.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. It’s all about the wording. Here, it says we need ‘the remains of the deceased,” he stresses. “The.’ not ‘some’ of them.”

“That still means the same, it’s just an issue with different wording,” Phil argues, but Technoblade shakes his head.

“No. The language I’m translating this from is known for being precise with wording and the structures of phrasings. I can’t translate the exact intent, because it’s specific to this language, but what it means is that one book says we need any part of the body, but this book is saying we need the—“

“The dead body. Fuck,” Phil curses, cutting him off. “Which one do we go with, then?”

“Well, the shortcut is just using the feather we have. Saves time,” Technoblade considers. “But the safer, smarter option is getting the body from… wherever it is. Do we know where Wilbur’s buried?”

Phil goes pale.

“That looks like a ‘no.”

“Oh my god, was he left in the control room? I didn’t go back to bury him, and nobody else would have after what he’d done,” Phil mutters, panicked at the thought of having forgotten to bury one of his flock, leaving them to rot in the room they died in.

Technoblade stands up and hooks his cloak to his shoulders, grabbing his armor and gear. Phil just stands and stares at him before Technoblade speaks, shaking him out of his grief.

“Come on. I want to have this done by morning, so we need to head back to L’manburg. If he’s in the room like you say he will be, then we can just grab him and set up the ritual. Plus we need to find Ghostbur.” Phil nods jerkily before grabbing his gear and meeting Technoblade at the door. “You can apologize for not burying him after we get him back, Phil, and I’m sure he’ll find it in him to forgive you.”

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

When they get there, L’manburg is just as quiet as they’d left it before, but much darker. The light from the full moon covers the land with a pale, muted glow that mixes with the soft yellow light from the floating lanterns and the light cast from their torch.

“The room should be just over here. We should probably go through the tunnel entrance instead of the… blown up bit,” Phil mutters, and Technoblade nods.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever been in here,” he mentions offhandedly as he leads Phil down the narrow passage. “I knew all about it, of course, and I was there for the… detonation, but I’ve never been inside.”

“I wish I could say the same, Techno,” Phil laughs weakly from further behind in the tunnel than Technoblade thought he was.

The room is haunting, to say the least. Chilling in the way that it is a perfect exhibit for Wilbur’s sharp decline and downfall, displayed like a museum installation. His eyes roam the walls, reading the scratched lyrics in the stone: the hymn he’d only ever heard sung sadly or laced with insanity. The stone walls are blackened and splattered with ash, leading to the gaping hole that used to be another wall, one with a button. It was taken by the blast, joining the rubble in the crater.

Technoblade sweeps the torch around the room, pausing over a spot on the floor that has wide smears of black ash and blood in an odd set of disturbed debris. He stops and turns to Phil.

“It’s not here.” Phil sucks in a breath and pushes past him to see the vacant, bloody ground.

“What?” he breathes, staring at the black ash and crimson smears where the body had presumably lain. There’s a couple odd looking tracks in the long-dried blood, ones that couldn’t be Phil’s because the blood was clearly already drying when these were made, and Phil left pretty quickly, not able to bring himself to come back. Technoblade follows the tracks with his gaze, seeing them first come over to the body; struggle to pick it up, smearing ash and partially dried blood around in their attempt; and stumble out of the broken wall, down through the ruins somewhere where the trail would be lost completely.

“Someone took the body, probably buried it somewhere,” Technoblade concludes, and Phil nods sharply.

“Yeah. None of these marks were here before. I’m going to message Quackity and see if L’manburg buried him,” he agrees, pulling out his communicator and typing quickly into it. “Hopefully he knows.”

They leave the broken room, back through the tunnel and out into the dark night. Technoblade scans the woods, looking in vain for any sort of marker that might indicate a grave. The communicator buzzes and he watches Phil’s brow furrow as he reads Quackity’s reply.

“He said, ‘I thought you did that?” Phil relays, and Technoblade sighs.

“So he doesn’t know anything?”

“Apparently not.”

“Well, then we’ve got a lot of land to dig up,” Technoblade grumbles, already combing through possible spots the grave could be in his mind.

“Hello Phil! Hello Technoblade!” Ghostbur chirps from right behind them, and Technoblade is smacked right in the face with Phil’s wing, who startles and whips around to face the unexpected voice.

“Ow—“

“Oh, hi Ghostbur,” Phil sighs in relief, before seeing Technoblade cupping his nose beside him. “Fuck, did I break your nose?”

“Nah. It’s just bleeding a little, don’t worry,” he assures from behind his hand, and Ghostbur laughs.

“You both are very funny! What are you doing out in the dark? It’s nighttime.” Technoblade and Phil exchange a look.

“We’re—uh—looking for something,” Technoblade answers, sounding slightly muffled from talking while wiping at his bloody nose, which thankfully didn’t bleed for long at all.

“You said you were digging up land, what is that about?” Ghostbur asks happily, and Technoblade ignores the question.

“Ghostbur, do you know where you were buried?” he asks, not really expecting the ghost to know anything. Maybe a hint, or something to narrow down what they have to look through, because digging for it randomly would take days. It’s a shot in the dark, but he’s a little desperate.

“Yes! I do! Oh, it’s such a lovely grave, I wish people visited, but I don’t think they know it’s there,” Ghostbur sighs, wilting sadly, but Technoblade and Phil both straighten and press for more information.

“Where is it?” they both ask at once, and Ghostbur laughs.

“It’s over here, under L’mantree!” Ghostbur motions for them to follow him, leading them to a tall, weathered but strong looking oak tree. The leaves are all dead and fallen, scattered across the ground in a thick cover that would completely conceal a spot of disturbed soil. Technoblade sweeps the leaves away and summons his shovel from his inventory, stabbing the ground right in the middle of the bare, upturned patch now visible without the leaves.

“What are you doing—wait, no!” Ghostbur cries, and Technoblade pauses, a pile of dirt on his shovel, about to toss to the side.

“Ghostbur, I’m sorry, but we need your body to resurrect you. It’s part of the ritual,” Phil soothes, but Ghostbur still looks stricken.

“But Tommy worked so hard on it!” he protests, and Technoblade almost drops his shovel.

“Tommy?” he whispers, and Ghostbur nods.

“Yes, what about him?”

“Tommy was the one who buried you?” Ghostbur laughs.

“Of course! I can’t remember barely any of it, because I wasn’t much of a ghost yet, but he did such a good job! I doubt I’d be a very pleasant ghost at all if I hadn’t been buried!” Phil grimaces.

“Ghostbur,” Technoblade calls. “When you’re resurrected, you can thank Tommy for doing that for you. Alive. In the flesh. Plus, we’ll make sure to put all the dirt back exactly how it was before, we promise.” Ghostbur looks thoughtful for a second before nodding happily.

“Okay, sure! I don’t want to watch you, though.”

“That’s perfectly fine, Ghostbur,” Phil replies. “Could you meet us back at Techno’s cabin? We need you to be there for the resurrection, please.”

“Okay, goodbye now!” Ghostbur flutters away, Phil and Technoblade waving him off before turning back to the grave.

“Alright,” Technoblade mutters. “Permission granted, now let's defile a grave.”

Phil summons his shovel and joins Technoblade, digging up a body as fast and as carefully as possible. Hopefully nobody else sees them, or there might be some serious questions.

Technoblade’s shovel grazes something that is definitely not dirt, and he drops it, crouching down and brushing the dirt aside with his hand. That’s fabric.

“Got it,” he calls to Phil, who grimaces and pulls out a large sheet of fabric, laying it out next to the body. Technoblade digs a little more around the edges to uncover it better before lifting it up just enough to lay onto the cloth.

“This is so fucking questionable, dude,” Phil laughs humorlessly as he firmly wraps the dirt-covered corpse in the cloth before lifting it by one side and pulling it out of the grave, Technoblade holding the other.

“Ends justify the means, Phil.”

They hurry out of L’manburg with a body in tow, covered head to toe in dirt. As promised, they piled the dirt back into the empty grave before they left, but they couldn’t hang around for any longer than absolutely necessary, so it looks anything but natural.

Once they get to the cabin, they pack.

The site they have mapped out for the ritual is a small forest not far from the tundra. Transporting so many delicate materials is a pain, and Technoblade laments that it can’t storm where they live, otherwise they’d be doing this in his yard. Unfortunately, every detail of the ritual is uncompromisable, and incredibly complicated. Everything has to be perfect, and that means he has to drag a crate all the way to the forest, laden heavily with slightly unorthodox potions. Also a dead body.

Ghostbur miraculously remembered to wait for them at the cabin, although when they got back he had completely forgotten what he was doing and why he was there. Still, it worked out perfectly fine, because all the stuff got transported quickly, and all they had left to do was get there themselves with Ghostbur and Wilbur’s body in tow, neither of which they felt comfortable sending ahead of them to the ritual site.

Everything is ready.

The final trip to the forest where the ritual will take place is short, neither of them breaking the tense, determined silence as they trudge through leaves and snow, each handling one end of the wrapped corpse.

He doesn’t really know what he’ll do if this doesn’t work. Probably cry.

The first droplets of rain patter against dead leaves just as they step into the clearing, and Technoblade almost cheers. It’s as if the heavens themselves want Wilbur back, because a sharp ribbon of light laces the sky, followed by a distant rumble. Phil laughs disbelievingly at the heavy, dark clouds blocking the full moon’s light.

“I thought we might have to wait for hours for a storm to start up!” he grins, and Technoblade gives him a matching smile.

“Yeah. Let’s set him down.” Phil nods and they lay Wilbur’s body gently in the circle of a ring marked out with string and torches. “Ghostbur,” he calls, and the ghost perks up and meets his gaze from under his umbrella.

“Yes?” Technoblade points to the center of the ring.

“Can you stand there and wait? It might be a while, but we need you to stand exactly there,” he directs, and Ghostbur drifts over to the ring, glancing curiously at the wrapped body, but thankfully not asking questions.

The rain is absolutely drenching the forest, the dark, bloated clouds pouring icy buckets onto the two of them, but the droplets do nothing more than roll off their sleek feathers instead of soaking their wings through to the bones. Which is good.

“We gotta hurry before the storm slows down too much,” Technoblade mutters to Phil, who grimaces and nods quickly, glancing up at the sky.

“It’ll be sunrise in a few hours, not long from now. I’ll do the potions if you do the gapples and totem,” he offers.

“Alright.”

Time passes rapidly as they set up the individual parts of the ritual they split up. Phil splashes the potions they brewed in various places around the ring and inside it, some of them straight onto Ghostbur and the body. Technoblade takes the stack of god apples they have and places them in their exact, designated spots, down to the millimeter. There’s no second chance for this, and Technoblade isn’t going to lose his brother again because he put something down an inch off.

The golden apples shining powerfully with violet shimmer lay in an array inside the ring, glinting in the dark rain, and Technoblade steps forward with their totem. He unwraps it from the protective cloth they had it in and kneels beside the body, still covered to protect it from the rain and to not freak out Ghostbur, who is still stood obediently in the center of the ring. Technoblade unwraps the body just enough to slot the glowing totem into Wilbur’s cold, stiff hand.

“Is that what will resurrect me?” Ghostbur asks carefully, and Technoblade shrugs.

“Part of it. It’s the second most powerful thing we’ll use in the ritual,” he replies, slightly ominously, but Ghostbur doesn’t look as nervous as he thought he might. The ghost looks mildly curious, but mostly anticipatory.

“Are you ready for this?” Ghostbur nods.

“Yes,” the ghost replies with conviction, as if the uncertainty was already long gone. Which, thinking back to the night Ghostbur showed up at his cabin, distraught that he couldn’t remember something that he insisted was very wrong, deciding right then and there that he couldn’t stand to be at the mercy of his own unreliable mind--it probably was. Technoblade gives him a smile he hopes is reassuring before stepping out of the ring to join Phil.

Hours have passed, and while the storm is still strong, the dark clouds are colored a deep, blood red with the beginnings of a sunrise. Phil laps around the ring, double checking the placements, and nods.

The Totem of Undying is the second most important part of the ritual, as Technoblade mentioned to Ghostbur a few minutes ago. It is vital to the process because it is the item which has the power to cheat death. The holder is revived through its magic upon death, amplifying the dying spark of life, multiplying its strength tenfold and revitalising the user before the embers are snuffed out.

It is no source of life by itself, and zero times ten is still zero.

Wilbur is long dead.

This is a fact that is no longer so uncompromising.

All they need is a spark.

Well, that’s a bit of an understatement.

Phil cracks open the black leather-bound book in his hands and heaves a shuddering sigh.

“God, I hope this shit works,” Phil mutters, glancing up at the raging sky. Technoblade takes out the trident he enchanted specifically for this ritual and holds it with a tight grip.

“Just tell me when,” is all he says in response. Phil nods and begins to read off of the page. The rites took ages to translate and decipher. Technoblade can only hope they got it right.

The air around them seems to shudder as Phil’s words ring weakly out, barely heard over the pouring rain that seems to be picking up. Wind cuts through Technoblade’s wings, ruffling his feathers with a small shudder.

Technoblade spares a glance at Ghostbur. The ghost’s eyes are perfectly calm at first glance, but there’s a deep, faraway look to them, like he’s no longer seeing the clearing they’re in.

With his attention fixed on Ghostbur, Technoblade catches the exact moment the ghost’s form flickers and trembles, just as Phil finishes a line in the ritual’s rites. He nearly yells out to Phil to tell him to stop reading, that something is wrong, before the items laid out in the circle begin to glow, as if with a powerful enchantment.

Hopefully that means it’s working. Technoblade tears his gaze from the Ghostbur and the circle and looks back at Phil for his cue.

Any minute now.

The winds are strong but soft, whipping around them like silk, circling the clearing in a hurricane of energy. Anointed with powerful potions, brewed to be bottles of pure energy, the earth shivers violently beneath their feet.

Any minute now, Phil will give Technoblade his signal. Because while Phil is reading the ritual rites, putting everything into motion, Technoblade has to finish it. For all the power the items they’ve gathered and sacrificed for this have within themselves, it isn’t enough to revive the dead. Without the final burst of energy, everything would lie inert. The ritual would be botched completely and the lack of reaction for the energy generated would be explosively dangerous.

But if Technoblade doesn’t deliver the strike at the exact, right time in the ritual, just as Phil finishes the rites, the results would be far more dangerous.

Ghostbur’s form fractures further with every word Phil speaks, getting harder and harder to see past the rushing wind and heavy downpour. The glow Technoblade saw before has spread from the items, emanating from the very ground and wrapping the covered corpse in a strange, purplish-white, iridescent light. It contrasts strangely with the deep, fiery crimson growing with the sunrise in the sky above them, sunlight blocked out by thick, dark clouds.

Phil’s voice climbs to a near shout over the roaring wind and Technoblade grips his trident tighter. He can barely make out Ghostbur’s form through the wind, having to strain his eyes to see just an outline of a yellow sweater and glowing, white eyes.

The air crackles with static energy, electricity buzzing around him and swarming with sparks around the prongs of his trident. The smell of ozone surrounds his senses.

Any minute now.

Phil’s words seem to reach a peak. Technoblade can practically hear him shouting over the wind, the glow emanating from the ritual circle turning nearly blinding.

Phil looks up sharply from the book and snaps his head to face Technoblade, eyes wide and urgent.

“Do it now!” Technoblade can barely hear the weak sound of his voice through the storm but the signal was clear. Electricity crackles violently around him as he raises his trident, the storm itself seemingly answering to his movement.

He winds his arm back in a powerful arc and casts the trident towards the center of the ritual circle. It flies through the air like a missile, ribbons of electricity flaring around it, channelling the storm’s power in one, lethal blow.

The trident lands on target and the circle explodes with lightning. Blinding, white light nearly burns their eyes as ropes of pure electricity tear through the clearing.

Most importantly, the blinding white is joined by an explosion of green and shining gold as a Totem bursts from the use of an active player.

Someone has been brought back from the brink of death.

There is a figure sitting in the middle of the raging storm of light, grey wings flared like an archangel, feathers dancing with sparks. The wind dies out in tandem with the rain, almost abruptly. Dark clouds part in the sky, letting the crimson red sun shine down on them with fierce, golden light.

Wilbur sits in the middle of the clearing, in the center of the smouldering remains of the ritual circle, gasping lungfuls of the rain-soaked air. The last sparks of energy soak into his skin as his warm brown eyes blink disbelievingly at the sky. For a moment, Technoblade thinks he’s hallucinating. His dead friend is sitting just mere meters in front of him, alive.

“Wilbur,” Phil breathes, and the illusion is shattered. Wilbur’s bright eyes snap to face them, wings folding loosely behind him. He gapes at the two of them, opening and closing his mouth like a fish.

“Wh--” Technoblade’s legs move on their own, stepping towards Wilbur with sharp, jerky movements. “Techno? What--” Wilbur’s hoarse voice, absent of any sort of echo and laced with pure confusion, is the best thing that Technoblade thinks he’s ever heard.

Because he never thought he’d be able to hear it again. Not like this.

He drops to his knees and pulls Wilbur into a tight hug. His form is solid, warm, and unquestionably alive in Technoblade’s hold. The smell of fire and electricity fills his nose as he buries his face in Wilbur’s shoulder.

“I--I’m… alive,” Wilbur whispers, disbelieving. “How am I alive?”

“We revived you,” Technoblade replies, muffled. Wilbur huffs a quiet laugh.

“I should have been able to guess that,” he jokes, and places a light hand on Technoblade’s back, weakly returning the embrace. “Phil, what are you doing over there? You look like an idiot, come on.” Technoblade feels Wilbur raise his other hand to wave Phil over, who stumbles to his knees beside them. He lifts his head from Wilbur’s shoulder and sees tears streaming down Phil’s face.

“I’m so sorry, Wilbur,” Phil chokes out, and Wilbur grins.

“None of that, Phil. I don’t want to hear it,” he chides, and Phil laughs tearfully.

“It’s so good to see you, mate.”

“Same to you two.” Technoblade lets his arms drop and pulls away from Wilbur, who shoots him a smile before turning to hug Phil.

“Well,” Technoblade comments as Wilbur and Phil pull away from each other after a good few moments. “This is almost all of us back together.”

Phil’s eyes harden with a determined sort of sadness.

Wilbur freezes.

“Tommy,” he gasps. “Phil, Techno, listen--my memories are still--god fucking damnit--”

“What is it?” Phil asks, concern palpable. Wilbur growls and drops his head into his hands, tightly gripping strands of his hair like doing so would help him think.

“I can remember so much more of when I was alive; all of it, probably. Except Pogtopia, things get really foggy around then.”

“That’s really good,” Phil tells him, brow furrowed. Wilbur lifts his head to glance at them both.

“No, I barely have any memories from when I was a ghost. Some bits are coming back in these awful flashes and I know there’s something I need to remember. Something’s wrong, I know it.”

Technoblade pauses. His heart feels like it’s beating twice as fast in his chest.

“You kept saying that.” Wilbur looks at him oddly.

“What?”

“Ghostbur was sure that something was wrong, but he couldn’t remember what it was. I asked if it was about Tommy and he froze up. Forgot what he was saying immediately.” Wilbur levels him with a calculating gaze. They’re silent for a few moments. The sharp scent of ozone is fading from the clearing as the sun rises higher and higher in the sky.

“We’re going to visit Logsteadshire. Right now,” Wilbur announces, and rises clumsily to his feet. The charred remains of the sheet they’d wrapped his body in fall to the burnt ground in a pile of ashes. Technoblade and Phil eye Wilbur from head to toe and grimace.

He’s wearing the clothes he was buried in. They forced a respawn with the ritual, so he isn’t covered in dirt like a corpse dug from an open grave anymore, but he’s smeared with ash. While his body was respawned anew, his clothes were not. They’re charred and tattered as well as caked with dirt. His wings are in desperate need of cleaning; the ash painted over the feathers make the soft blacks and whites look like an odd, dark brown.

“Mate, you’re not going anywhere until you get cleaned up,” Phil tells him. Wilbur frowns and looks down at his clothes.

“You look like a corpse,” Technoblade points out dryly, standing. Wilbur barks out a laugh.

“I wonder why, Technoblade. Fine, I’ll go take a shower or something.” Phil smiles and spreads his wings as he stands.

“Think you can handle flying?” Wilbur grins.

“Phil, I’m fresh out of the grave and feeling better than I have in years. Fuck yeah I can fly,” he laughs. “You’ll have to lead the way, because I don’t know where the fuck you live.”

“Hey Phil?” Technoblade hears Wilbur call out from the bathroom, dragging out the question with a nervous high pitch. The sound of the shower running stopped just a few minutes ago, so he assumed Wilbur was done.

“Yeah? What’s up?” Phil calls back, mild concern in his voice. Technoblade stops polishing his axe to listen.

“What are those scars that people get from being struck by lightning called?” Phil and Technoblade glance at each other, frowning.

“Lichtenberg scars?” Technoblade offers.

“Yeah, those.” Wilbur is silent for a few moments. Phil visibly hesitates before voicing the question Technoblade was floundering with.

“Are—do you... have them?” he asks, sounding uncertain. There’s a long pause before anyone speaks, one that seems to stretch infinitely.

“Yep,” Wilbur answers casually. “Didn’t notice until I’d gotten all the ash washed off.” The bathroom door clicks open and Wilbur steps out in the fresh clothes Phil set out for him; a soft white sweater, dark pants, and an ice blue cloak, although the cloak is still held folded in his arms.

Technoblade scans him for any sign of scarring and his eyes land on the side of Wilbur’s neck. Thin, pink lines peek out from under his sweater, climbing up the side of his neck and stopping before his jaw. Beside him, he knows Phil is doing the exact same as he is.

“Do I want to know which part of your homemade ritual involved electricity, or are you going to keep the shady bits to yourself?” Wilbur asks dryly. Phil seems to scramble for an answer, but Technoblade doesn’t bother to mince words.

“We struck you with lighting.” Wilbur laughs.

“Fucking insane, aren’t you, Techno? What the fuck were you two even doing?”

“Bringing you back,” Technoblade offers, and Wilbur grins.

“Obviously.”

“That wasn’t even the worst thing we did, mate,” Phil cuts in and Wilbur turns to glare at him.

“And what the fuck would that be?” he questions, amusement clear in his voice. “Did you commit crimes, or some shit?” Both Phil and Technoblade pause, trying to figure out the legality of grave robbing and… everything else they did. “Christ, you two did, didn’t you?”

“Don’t pretend to be scandalized,” Technoblade defends, and Wilbur laughs.

“Come on, Techno, you know me. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” The room lapses into silence and Technoblade’s eyes drift back to the faint pink scarring on Wilbur’s neck. Wilbur huffs loudly and he realizes Phil had been doing the exact same as they both look up guiltily.

“Fine, since you lads want to see it so badly, I’ll strip for you,” Wilbur says and Technoblade scrambles to apologize.

“No, no, you don’t have to—“

“Too late.” Wilbur is already ripping his sweater off.

His chest is pale and smattered with various scars—unrelated to the lightning strike, obviously, these are from fights. What’s new are the tracks of fresh, pink scars branching down his arms and tracing across his chest. Technoblade realizes that the scars on the side of his neck are just small branches off of a much larger mass that looks like it’s…

“Are you done yet?” Wilbur asks them both, clearly annoyed. Technoblade tries to follow the smaller fractals back to the source, but fails.

“Can you turn around?” he asks Wilbur, who rolls his eyes and spins on his heel.

“Holy shit,” Phil whispers beside him, and Technoblade blinks a little at the sight.

Every fractal joins into one thick scar running down his spine like a bolt of lightning itself. It runs perfectly in between his wings (which are tucked away right now, looking like raised, feathery lumps until he wills them to emerge again), some even spreading under the feathers. The ribboning scars trace up the back of his neck, covered by his hair at where the end presumably is.

Basically, it’s probably the coolest scar Technoblade has ever seen.

Wilbur crosses his arms. “Seriously, you have to be done by now. It took me two seconds to look at them and accept that this bullshit happened.”

“They’re so fucking cool,” Phil tells him. Technoblade voices his agreement.

“They really are.”

“Well, they sting.”

“Do you want anything for that? We have healing potions and we could probably bandage them,” Phil offers and Wilbur shakes his head.

“No.” He turns around and pulls his sweater back over his head. “We need to go to Logsteadshire. I’m not going to wait any longer, and I’m sure neither of you want to either.”

The mention of Logsteadshire—and by extent, Tommy—has an instant effect on the atmosphere of the room. It’s probably—no, scratch that, it’s definitely their bird instincts reacting, flooding the room with a sense of urgency (panic).

It feels like half a second before the three of them are out the door, cloaks on and wings out, ready to fly.

Technoblade, just as he readies his wings to take off, realizes that Wilbur isn’t aware of any of the things Quackity told them the day before. He also doesn’t really know where he’s going.

“Wilbur, wait one second,” he calls to Wilbur, whose wings are taut and ready to take off with a large flap. He pauses, thankfully, and looks at Technoblade, clearly annoyed.

“What?”

“What do you remember about Logsteadshire? How was Tommy?” Phil must realize what Technoblade is doing, because he furrows his brows and adds his own question.

“How often did Dream come around?” Wilbur glances between the two of them with a frown.

“Is now really the best time for this?” he asks. “We’re going there right now, you can just find out. I really don’t remember a lot, and certainly nothing helpful.” Phil sighs.

“We think Dream might be planning something against us,” he explains. Technoblade nods, but Wilbur looks even more confused.

“You two? Are you sure?” Technoblade grimaces.

“We talked to Quackity yesterday while we were in L’manburg preparing for your revival. He begged us to go visit Tommy because we’re the only ones who could reliably fight off Dream.”

Wilbur’s eyes seem to glaze over with a faraway look, staring at the bright snow. Phil glances at Technoblade meaningfully before adding to his explanation.

“He said he lost a life trying, and that nobody even knew if Tommy was still alive.” Wilbur sucks in a breath.

“He’s alive. I know he is. He’s just—there’s something—we need to fucking bust him out of exile and keep him with us.” He takes a deep breath. “Why do you think he’s planning something against you two, specifically. Where does that tie in?”

“Dream messaged Quackity a couple days ago, asking for a bunch of information about avians. Specifically altricial avians, and he refused to ask us. You know, the only two altricial avians on the server? Also, veritably the only two people on the server who can oppose him? A little strange.” Wilbur frowns, glaring.

“And what did Quackity tell him?”

“Nothing he couldn’t have found out from looking in a book. Nothing compromising.”

“You can find plenty of compromising shit from a book, Phil, that bastard is planning something,” Wilbur spits.

“Exactly,” Technoblade agrees. “So we need you to try to remember if you saw anything, heard anything, or even suspected anything was going on when you were around Dream in Logsteadshire.”

Wilbur’s frown deepens as he scrunches his eyes closed and scrubs a hand across his forehead. A few tense moments pass before he groans and drops his hand.

“Tommy was going to… have a party,” he forces out. “I was… giving out invitations.”

Technoblade blinks.

“What?”

“Tommy had a shitty tent, so I built us a cabin, but he stayed in the tent… he always had awful bruises…” Wilbur forces out the memories like the effort of remembering them hurts, which judging on how he’s clutching his head, it probably does. Unfortunately, none of it is very helpful, even if it is horribly concerning. “He had burns… I always covered my ears or just left when Dream came to visit because he… they… god damnit, none of this shit is useful.”

“It’s… not a good picture,” Phil mutters, and Technoblade can’t help but agree.

“None of these flashes are,” Wilbur stresses. “You haven’t seen him, he looks so… sad.” Technoblade sighs.

“We’re flying in blind, then, aren’t we?”

“Yep,” Phil answers. “I’ve got my gear, do you?”

“Of course.”

“If it comes down to that I’m just going to grab Tommy and take off while you two pummel Dream,” Wilbur declares, and Technoblade hums thoughtfully.

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

“Let’s hope Dream isn’t there, so we can just bail with Tommy as efficiently and quickly as possible,” Phil tells them, and they both nod in response.

“If Tommy is doing even half as badly as you were describing then I’m going to raze this server to bedrock and kill Dream as many times as I need to make it stick,” Technoblade mutters, mostly to himself, but Wilbur grins darkly.

“I’m looking forward to seeing that happen, then, Technoblade.”

“Tommy will probably be mostly fine, we just need to get him out of there,” Phil tries, but neither of them are really hearing it.

“You’re going to change your mind once you see him, Phil. I know how you get.” Wilbur sounds certain, which only makes the air feel tenser. He meets their eyes and gestures in the direction of the spruce forests.

“I’m going to Logsteadshire now; I at least remember how to get there. Just follow me.” A gust of wind explodes out from beneath Wilbur’s wings as he takes off, rocketing into the sky. Phil and Technoblade waste no time in following.

Chapter Text

They land on a small island, ducking down beneath the cover of trees, not bothering to tuck away their wings, both because they’re too high strung to care to, and if they need to escape quickly, they would be able to take off.

It’s eerily silent.

No animals wander peacefully through the tall grasses, no birds chirp songs from the trees, and there is not a single sign of life in the cold winter landscape.

Well, except for the crows.

“Phil, are you getting mobbed again?” Technoblade asks, halfway between tired and dryly amused. Phil narrows his eyes at the trees, his wings puffing up as he examines them for a hostile flock of crows.

Avians have… odd relationships with a great deal of different birds. Birds tend to be quite fond of avians they share their species with.

This also means that other birds will keep certain behaviors around avians. Songbirds would be hard pressed to spend more than a second around a bird-of-prey avian, and birds that have… complicated relationships in nature will act largely the same towards those avians.

Unfortunately for Phil, crows are territorial, and never very welcoming to ravens. Both Technoblade and Wilbur have some treasured memories of entire murders descending from the sky to mob Phil, and they only leave when they’ve successfully “chased him off.”

Such a thing would be incredibly inconvenient in their position right now. Dozens of loud, angry crows are not conducive to a mission as delicate as this one.

“They better fucking not be,” Phil mutters, feathers puffed up and twitching. Wilbur frowns and glances through the trees. Several dark shapes are nestled in the bare branches, watching them as they pass.

“They don’t seem to mind you yet,” Wilbur observes, and then squints at the shapes. “Are they not crows, then?” Phil shakes his head.

“Those are crows, mate, I just don’t know what they’re doing. Probably just stalking you.” Technoblade huffs a laugh and brushes past them.

“Come on, they aren’t attacking, who cares what they’re doing. If they start, I’ll scare them off. Let’s find Tommy.” Phil tears his eyes away from the trees and follows with a tense grimace, but Wilbur’s contemplative frown stays firmly on his face as he follows, still observing the forest.

“Where is everything? The crows are the only animals left.”

“Fuck knows, but it’s weird. All of this is weird,” Phil huffs as he ducks under a low branch.

“You said he lived on the beach?” Technoblade asks, ignoring their previous topic.

“Yeah. There’s his tent, the cabin, and a couple other little structures I can’t quite remember. You’ll see it just as we break the treeline up ahead.” Wilbur keeps his voice low, nearly masked by the gentle crunching of the frigid earth under their feet.

They come up on the treeline as silent as death and scan the now-visible campsite. True to Wilbur’s word, a log cabin stands by the beach, closer to them than any other structure, and a small, dirty tent stands weakly on its poles a distance away. There’s a small bench down by the water and a few other things scattered around that look damaged each in their own unique way.

Technoblade ghosts his hand over the axe on his belt and steps out of the forest.

The earth is scorched.

Patches of land are scarred black with the remnants of fire and gunpowder, streaks of burnt grass blown outwards from several copies of the same trench. It looks as if these holes are dug and then… blown up?

“What the fuck?” Phil whispers beside him, eyes scanning the scorched landscape with palpable confusion.

“See Dream anywhere?” Technoblade asks them both, hand still hovering over his axe. Phil shakes his head, but Wilbur doesn’t reply. “Wilbur?”

Technoblade turns and is met with Wilbur clutching his head in his hands, gripping fistfuls of his hair.

“I—can’t—“ he forces out, eyes screwed shut. “He—they—they use TNT—“

“You’re alright mate, just breathe,” Phil reassures him in a hushed whisper. Technoblade turns to scan the area for any sign of… anything.

There’s nothing. Just a hauntingly silent beach.

Behind him, Wilbur shakes his head roughly and heaves a sigh.

“I keep getting those fucking flashes,” he mutters. “They’re gone before I can make any damn sense of them.” Phil frowns.

“It sounds like your memories are coming back. You probably have a really shaky grasp on the ones you have from when you were a ghost.” Technoblade huffs a laugh.

“You didn’t have a grasp on them when you were a ghost either, and reviving you didn’t change that at all. Except, I guess, you’re getting ‘em back now,” he tells them.

“Yeah,” Wilbur laughs dryly, scrubbing a hand across his brow. “It doesn’t matter right now, we need to find Tommy before Dream shows up.”

“Easier said than done, mate, do you see him anywhere?” Phil asks. Wilbur hums.

“No, but it’s not like he can fucking leave, can he? We haven’t even stepped foot in the camp yet, come on.”

Wilbur brushes past Technoblade and steps out of the trees. The other two glance around one last time before catching up to Wilbur and joining him on either side. Technoblade moves carefully to not disturb the ground as he walks, avoiding twigs and piles of rotting leaves. His nerves thrum in his chest and every muscle feels coiled and tensed, ready for a fight to jump out.

As they get closer, Technoblade sees more of the camp. If it can even be called that.

The explosion marks only get deeper and worse as they get closer to the center, half filled holes littering the area with dirt piled in haphazardly. Explosion marks covering the ground paint a hell of a picture for what exile has entailed, even though Technoblade admittedly has no idea what the hell they’re for. The air feels so much colder, so much darker than any other part of the island—even the whole server, including the tundra he lives in.

One thing that catches his eye as he gets a closer look at it, is Tommy’s tent.

It looks so… dirty. From a distance, even with his eyesight, he hadn’t seen the dark smudges and stains peeking through the exterior of the tent from the inside, which he assumes is probably dirt. He can’t see the inside of the tent; the flaps are closed and all he can see are the stains going through to the outside.

Words can’t describe how much he despises the idea of Tommy sleeping in there.

Technoblade catches Wilbur’s eyes and tilts his head towards the decrepit tent.

“Is he… uh… in there?” Wilbur grimaces at both the question and the sight of the tent.

“What the fuck? I don’t remember it looking that awful,” he questions. “Me not remembering things doesn’t mean a damn thing though, I suppose.”

Technoblade steps towards the tent to check before pausing and turning towards the cabin.

“There’s no way. He’s gotta be in the cabin or something. That tent is a health violation.”

“I don’t get it,” Phil mutters as they turn towards the cabin. “He’s been in exile for nearly two months now and he hasn’t done anything to fix this place up. The only structure here that can actually stand and help him is the cabin, and Wilbur built that.”

An unidentifiable feeling twists in Technoblade’s chest at the words.

It would be easy to chalk up the lack of progress to Tommy being lazy, or complacent to wallow in his own misery and self-pity instead of growing. It’s what he would have said back in November, filled with fresh anger and hurt at their double-betrayal.

But he knows that isn’t true.

In reality, he’s only ever known Tommy to make the absolute best of a situation he possibly can. Even in Pogtopia, where he was likely the only reason Wilbur didn’t snap the second he was exiled.

He won’t pretend that Tommy isn’t a little bit of a rat, or that he’s at all dedicated to the art of survival like most hardcore players, but he would never… stand to live like this. There would be a clear effort to improve his situation.

The worst part is that Technoblade can kind of see one.

There’s the remains of little structures here and there, torn to shreds or blown up with telltale burn marks on the rubble. Down by the beach, he can see a wooden table, worn down both by the harsh weather and axe gouges. Little splashes of dull color flutter around it; if he had to guess he’d say they were party streamers worn down by the weather and bleached by the sun.

The whole atmosphere feels like Tommy’s familiar optimism being purposefully and brutally stamped out by a heavy boot.

Technoblade hates it.

“Not everybody’s a hardcore player, Phil,” is what he ends up muttering in response. There isn’t a way to voice all of what he feels about the camp, and none of them have the time for him to try.

A particularly chilling breeze blows through the camp, and Technoblade hears the flock of crows begin cawing loudly.

“Oh boy,” Technoblade mutters, glancing at Phil. “You excited to get mobbed?” Phil glares at him before turning to glare twice as hard in the direction of the cawing.

“Fuck no.”

Several crows fly overhead, black wings gliding in the breeze as they rush past. A few swoop down to yell loudly at Phil as they pass. They land by the cabin, cluttered around the house pecking at the ground and strutting across the lawn. Some land on the roof and stare down at the three intruders.

“Looks like you’re just getting followed by them for now,” Wilbur guesses.

“I’ll take it over getting dive bombed.”

The small sound of wood creaking has the three of them whipping their heads around to stare at the cabin. A second later, the wooden door pushes open quietly and a figure steps out.

Technoblade can’t be blamed for nearly not recognizing Tommy right away. Beside him, Phil and Wilbur suck in a breath at almost the exact same time.

For one, his head is down, eyes tracing the ground, only leaving his mop of blond hair visible. Which is another thing, because his hair is no longer a color Technoblade would call blond. Nearly white, sun bleached hair hangs in tangled curls from his head, looking coarse and frizzy in a way that constant exposure to salt-water would absolutely be the perpetrator of. A familiar trenchcoat hangs off his frame and drags behind him, obviously too big to fit him right. Not that any of his clothes are, they hang off his too-small frame like dirt-smudged curtains.

Wilbur said he looked ‘sad’ in his flashes of memory.

Technoblade thinks that's a vicious understatement.

Tommy looks miserable, even as his dull, grey eyes flick up to the sky and squint, before falling to the three of them.

The moment Tommy’s eyes land on them stretches into an eternity, but in actuality, it only lasts for a fraction of a second.

Because then, Tommy sees them, and his dull eyes flood with terror.

“Tommy—“ says Wilbur, voice breathless. Tommy stumbles back, hands clutching the coat on his shoulders, pulling it tighter around him. He’s terrified, and Technoblade feels sick. His wings shift higher, stiff and tense with stress.

Tommy’s eyes snap to the movement, and the smallest ounce of fear drains from him for some odd reason that Technoblade can’t decipher. A small noise crawls up his throat and Technoblade blinks, recoiling for a second at the tiny, shrill call he’d just made.

That’s… really embarrassing, but he’ll agonize over it later. Usually he doesn’t just… make bird calls unprompted, but it isn’t important right now. What matters is Tommy, standing frozen in front of him, looking—

Calmer?

His hands have loosened from their white-knuckled death grip on the coat he’s wrapped in and his shoulders have adopted a slight downward slump.

“Tommy, are you alright, mate?” Phil asks softly, like he’s coaxing a frightened animal. But Tommy doesn’t respond. He opens his mouth, as if to reply, but his gaze slides over to Wilbur and trails off in a silent question.

“They revived me, Tommy,” Wilbur tells him, and Tommy just keeps staring.

It occurs to Technoblade that Tommy has yet to say a single word.

Which is the most disconcerting part for him, barring how small he looks.

Tommy shuffles his feet towards them and stares down at the ground.

“We’ve come to take you with us,” says Wilbur, impossibly gently. “Please, Tommy. We’d like you to live with us in the tundra, not… here.”

Technoblade watches as Tommy’s eyes cloud with something miserably desperate, but painfully conflicted as he stares at the scorched ground beneath their feet. He lifts his gaze, ever so slightly, staring past the three of them with that terribly clouded, grey gaze.

Even from the distance Technoblade is standing, the sharp hitch in Tommy’s breath is painfully audible as he stumbles back and stiffens, clutching his arms around himself in a mimicry of a hug.

For a second, Technoblade curses internally, thinking that they’ve scared him again.

Tommy’s eyes swim with indecipherable emotions as he stares over their shoulders and further into the camp.

“Well,” a venomous drawl rings out from behind them. “I certainly wasn’t expecting this visit from the Sleepy Boys.”

Tommy’s eyes snap to the charred grass as Dream approaches, wide and glassy. Technoblade grips the handle of his axe, stiffening his wings as he turns to face the man slinking up behind them.

“But, then again, neither was Tommy, I’m sure, because none of you have bothered until now. How long has it been, weeks?” Dream stops and stands with his arms folded a couple paces away from the three of them, his gaze behind his mask weighing down on them.

“What are you doing, Dream,” Technoblade asks, more of a warning than a question, but a question nonetheless.

What have you been doing to Tommy? And what do you plan to do about us?

“Visiting Tommy,” Dream replies smoothly. “And the rest is none of your concern.” He pushes past the three of them and makes his way to Tommy, who is still standing stiffly with his head lowered to the ground.

Beside him, Wilbur, probably completely involuntarily, makes a shrill, high pitched call as Dream steps towards Tommy and places a hand on his thin shoulders. It’s one that Technoblade has never heard from him before.

But boy does it have an immediate effect.

The crows perched on the roof and strutting around the beach take off in a flurry, abandoning the camp. Technoblade feels his mind snap to attention as his eyes scan the area, zeroing in on Dream. Phil jerks up at the noise, staring hard at Tommy and Dream as well.

But Tommy…

Tommy’s head shoots up from the ground for the first time since Dream arrived in the camp. His eyes seem glazed and hazy with panic as he scrambles away from Dream and makes a strange, hoarse-sounding whimper.

The sound is… distinctly upsetting. Instinctually. Technoblade’s axe is in his hand within a fraction of a second.

“Get away from him,” he snarls at Dream, who smoothly unclips his own axe from its holster.

“It feels like I’ve just missed half the fucking conversation with you bird people,” Dream laughs darkly. His voice turns serious. “Get in the cabin, Tommy, and don’t come out.”

Tommy, astonishingly, horrifyingly, obeys. He stumbles weakly into the cabin, back to staring at the ground, save for a couple terrified glances towards the four of them.

The door clicks shut and Dream whistles lowly.

“Wow,” he comments. “Even I didn’t think he’d be that scared of you, but I guess you three really did some damage. Honestly, you three showing up had me worried for a second, because when I saw you, I thought, ‘Tommy’s gonna run off with you into the sunset, and all this hard work will be gone in a second.” Dream twists around and glances back at the cabin, rocking on his heels. “Guess not!”

“What the fuck have you done to him?” Wilbur demands, rage clear in his low voice. Dream laughs and spreads his arms like a god in front of his creation.

“What needs to be done, Wilbur. Welcome back, by the way. Must have been an impressive production, I’m sad I missed it. L’manburg is in a bit of a weird mood today because nobody knows why there’s suddenly an empty grave right under L’mantree. I figured this—“ he motions towards Wilbur. “—was the case, though. Glad to see I’m right.”

“That’s none of your concern, Dream,” Phil cuts in icily.

“Oh, it’s plenty my concern what happens on my server, Philza. You should be glad I’m letting your little flockmate be revived at all, because that’s my prerogative. Either way, Tommy stays here. With me.”

“No, he’s coming with us, Dream. You can’t fucking keep him here.” Dream laughs at Wilbur’s words.

“I’d rather this not end with a fight, Wilbur.”

“You know you’d lose,” Technoblade observes dryly, heaving his axe to rest on his shoulders. Even with the mask, he can feel Dream’s eyes follow the movement.

“I don’t think I’ve ever given you a reason to believe I’m stupid, Techno. We both know my odds—pretty empirically, too.”

“So what makes you think you’re anything in our way?” Phil questions coldly. Dream laughs, a light sound against the heavy tension. Abrasive.

“Because I don’t have to be! Tommy stays with me, whether you fight me for him or not. Whether you drag him to your little cottage and play family, kicking and screaming,” Dream tilts his head in a way that scratches a shadow across his grinning mask. “Because he doesn’t want to leave.”

Technoblade’s breath catches in his throat.

That’s obviously not true. Clearly. This place sucks, Dream sucks, and Tommy looks half dead. No way would he ever stay here by choice if given the opportunity to come live with them. He could understand if it were just him, because last he talked to Tommy they’d hated each other and spat fiery insults before leaving to stew in hurt. But it isn’t just him that’s here for Tommy.

It’s Phil, and it’s Wilbur. Wilbur, who’s coat Tommy is wearing right now, cleaned and stitched with a painful, heart wrenching sort of reverence that makes the sight of it on Tommy’s thin, trembling shoulders twist in Technoblade’s chest, burned into his mind like a scorching brand.

So Tommy probably wouldn’t come for him, maybe not even for Phil, but—

It’s like a law of the universe: Tommy and Wilbur, together.

Probably committing crimes or something, but that’s beside the point.

If Wilbur is alive, on any world, that’s where Tommy wants to be.

It’s with this universal truth in his head that Technoblade speaks through the buzzing static and denies.

“You’re lying,” is all he says, because a simple refutation of such a bold-faced lie is all that’s needed.

The sick smile tearing across the white wooden mask undoubtedly mirrors the one under it as Dream cocks his head.

“Am I?”

The world is as silent as his mind. The world, in this instance, being the tiny island, empty of life and host to this unspoken standoff. What is he supposed to think, in response to the ridiculous insinuation that Tommy would want to stay? Here on this quiet, lifeless island?

“Tommy,” Dream calls, voice raised towards the cabin door. “Come here.”

And Tommy—again—unfailingly and silently, obeys, stumbling out of the cabin. His gaze remains shakily downcast, like looking upwards is some sort of sin.

But in terms of sins, Technoblade thinks, the most unforgivable is whatever Dream has surely done to stop a single word from leaving Tommy this whole time.

It’s so viscerally wrong to see him approach Dream like a lost puppy, head down and shoulders trembling still.

“Don’t worry, Tommy, they won’t attack you,” Dream croons, a sickly sweet imitation of comfort that makes all three of them bristle, both at the insinuation that they would ever attack Tommy, and the image of whatever manipulation Dream has been pulling with Tommy becoming ever clearer like the adjusted lens of a camera.

“Alright.” Dream places his hand squarely on Tommy’s back. Technoblade can’t see Tommy’s expression from where the kid is staring at the ground, but he does see the shiver that runs through him at the contact. “Tommy, these three want to take you away.”

The low tone Dream is speaking in has a distinctly threatening undercurrent that would be impossible to ignore.

“You don’t want to go with them, do you?”

Tommy shakes his head.

“Well, there you go,” Dream announces, audibly grinning, even if none of them can see it. “He’s staying here.”

Fuck.

“That’s fucked. You’re so clearly—“

“He gave you his answer, Phil, are you going to respect his choice? Or are you going to force him to come with you? I wouldn’t advise that.” Dream pats Tommy on the back and steps forward, unclipping his axe from its holster.

Technoblade tightens his grip on his own axe.

“We could,” Technoblade muses. “It would be better for him than here.” Dream leans casually on the handle of his axe, the eye pressed into the dirt.

“So be it,” he tells the three of them. “But I’ll defend his choice.”

“You’ll lose,” observes Phil, stepping forward. His sword remains clipped to his belt and his tone is strangely mild. Curious.

“What matters here is Tommy,” is all Dream says in reply.

And suddenly Dream’s willingness to fight a losing battle makes sense to Technoblade. Phil too, judging by the frown cutting across his features.

Tommy, for some godforsaken reason, wants to stay with Dream. It’s definitely manipulation, but what matters is that Tommy chooses Dream.

If they try to force this, fight Dream and take Tommy, it will go badly.

A part of Technoblade’s mind, the one that admires strategy, is applauding Dream very faintly underneath the potent rage that calls for his gored head on a stake. Because even if they murk Dream and knock a life from his tally, they’ll be killing him in front of Tommy.

Which would be, from a strategic standpoint, an awful idea. Probably traumatizing.

Long story short, they’re in a bind.

Phil tilts his head back to them and flicks his eyes up to the sky. Wilbur hisses, but readies his wings without further complaint.

Technoblade takes another careful glance at Tommy before doing the same.

“We’ll be seeing you, Dream,” Phil says in a polite tone of voice that sounds far more like a threat. “You too, Tommy.” His voice shifts to something softer. Tommy seems to sneak a glance up at them, locking eyes with Wilbur. “If you ever change your mind, we’re just up north, through the snow.”

“I don’t have to speak for him when I say that he won’t,” Dream cuts in hotly.

“Well, you’ve been doing that the whole time already,” Wilbur bites back and Technoblade huffs a dry laugh. Phil and Wilbur take off with a gust of wind, but Technoblade hangs back.

Dream doesn’t see him, but Tommy’s eyes lift from the ground to watch Phil and Wilbur fly off. There’s an expression on his pale face that’s somewhere between awe and longing, but Technoblade quickly turns his attention back to Dream to avoid notice.

Dream is still leaning casually on his axe, face tilted up at the sky in the direction Phil and Wilbur took off.

“Are we breaking my server rules now?” he nearly pouts.

“Yep.” Technoblade readies his wings and levels Dream with a burning stare. He lets a beat of silence ring out between them before he delivers his farewell.

“Be careful, Dream,” he advises, stretching his wings to their full length. It’s the strongest threat he can deliver with Tommy in hearing range, which sucks because he could probably make Dream cry with a couple he’s been saving.

With one, powerful beat, he’s in the sky, following behind his flock. He can see them in the horizon, but he can catch up fine.

A scowl grows on his face and his chest burns with visceral rage.

They are getting Tommy out of Logsteadshire somehow. Even if it involves kidnapping.

“Okay,” Technoblade starts as he slams the door behind them. “What are we gonna do?”

Phil and Wilbur exchange a heated glance as Technoblade rips off his cloak and tucks his wings into his back. They flare out when he gets mad, which is something that can’t really happen in his living room without pretty damaging consequences to the furniture around him.

“I don’t know,” Phil groans, scrubbing a hand across his face. “This is like a nightmare scenario.”

“Alright, well we have till the end of the week to come up with an ethical plan before I drop out of the sky and snatch him.”

“Sounds good,” agrees Wilbur. “Though I feel like we could just do that now.”

“Okay, hold on. We probably need to think about this a bit harder.” Wilbur groans loudly.

“No, Phil!” he cries in a near shout. “We don’t need to fucking think, we need to grab Tommy when Dream isn’t there and haul him back here! Can’t you see what Dream is fucking doing to him?”

“I see what Dream’s doing, do you?” Phil challenges. “You saw him shake his head, he doesn’t want to come with us!” His voice lowers. “He wants to stay with Dream, and that is what Dream is doing.”

“It doesn’t matter! He’s being fucking abused, anywhere is better than there, and I’m not going to respect his choice when it was fed to him on a spoon.”

“If we kidnap Tommy,” Technoblade cuts in. “He is going to see that as a violation of his decision, regardless of who put that decision in his head. And we can’t kill Dream, because Dream is his ‘protector.”

Wilbur’s wings are puffed and bristling with rage. Phil lets out a heavy sigh.

“So if we kidnap him, he’ll hate us and run straight back to Dream. And if we kill Dream, it might be even worse,” Phil clarifies to an enraged Wilbur.

“The kidnapping plan stays,” Wilbur growls at the hardwood. “Because at some point, the cost of leaving him there outweighs the risk.”

“It’s a last resort,” Technoblade tells him, and Wilbur nods.

“Okay,” Phil relents. “But we need to think of something, and soon.”

Chapter Text

The day passed in a thick haze. A bone-deep panic set in the second Dream left him, and even nearly a full day later, it had yet to let up. If anything, the feeling was getting worse with each second he was alone.

Being completely alone in the dark, freezing campsite made it impossible to stop himself from doing weird (probably instinctual) stuff, because nobody was around to see it.

He chirped a lot.

Like a bird.

It wasn’t particularly audible, of course, not with his throat still sore and thoroughly overused, but Tommy was coming to realize that the bird noises came from closer to his chest than his regular (human) voice. They started from his chest, crawled up his throat and bubbled weakly from his closed mouth. He wondered if he could play it off as having come from one of the crows somewhere in the trees if Dream ever heard him, but he doubted he’d be very convincing. Dream’s already heard him do it, apparently, many times while he was barely lucid in his tent. The most humiliating part, which Dream made sure to tell him with a laugh, was that he’d chirp desperately and incessantly if he thought that Dream wasn’t there. Dream had to keep a point of contact with him for practically the entire time, and thinking about what those few days must have been like for Dream, Tommy wants to crawl into a hole and die.

He doesn’t deserve Dream. There’s so much he’s done for Tommy, and all Tommy has done to repay him is be an awful, gross, screaming burden. He feels sick, stomach twisting in guilt and disgust at himself. How long is Dream going to stick around? If he decided to never come back, leave Tommy alone in exile forever, he’d deserve it, wouldn’t he?

Another thing he’s done in his time alone, shivering and chirping uncontrollably in a tight ball on the floor of Ghostbur’s log cabin, was put on Wilbur’s coat. Predictably, once the sun set and the already-frigid day turned dark, Tommy caved. Numb fingers had lost their resolve, shakily unlocking the enderchest in the cabin and carefully pulling out the dark, heavy fabric. He pulled on the coat with no small feeling of guilt twisting in his gut and curled up on the hard, wooden floor.

His tent is probably ruined for good. It was already in quite a state before, but now Tommy thinks that sleeping in it would almost definitely make him sick. The tattered cloth of the tent walls are smeared with a wash of dried blood, and it lets in every frigid breeze that comes through the camp. The blanket caked with dirt and blood would do little to keep him warm. If he had the sense to toss the blanket, that would leave him with the freezing ground, soaked with dried blood and vomit. Long story short, if he slept in that wreck of a shelter, he’d probably die. It already looks like something died gruesomely in there. Smells like it, too.

The night passes without Tommy sleeping for even a second. His mind won’t shut off, screaming for Dream to come back in that horribly clingy way that’s somewhat new to him. A small, nervous part of him whispers that he has never been quite this attached before. This is new, and he should hate Dream, but somehow he really doesn’t, because Dream is his friend, and Dream is there for him, Dream is his best friend, Dream is his flock--

It’s that thought that scares him. That one, right there, that he has to cut off every time. His mind goes off on it’s own these days with instincts that he’s always had, but have never been this strong.

Tommy knows what a flock bond is. The SBI are flock bonded to each other, a family of three avians that would do absolutely anything to protect each other. Once, Wilbur used to proudly claim that Tommy was part of their flock too, even if he was completely human.

Tommy also knows that he is an avian. The exact species of bird he is escapes him (probably some sparrow, there’s no chance he’s any kind of bird of prey like Technoblade, or anything remotely cool), and will continue to be impossible to tell until his feathers grow in, but that’s not what matters.

What matters is that he--as an avian--has somehow attached himself to Dream, and he doesn't know what to do. Dream is his friend, isn’t he? This should be a good thing. Tommy doesn’t know how Dream feels about avians, but so far it doesn’t seem too bad, right? Dream could get mad at Tommy for being so clingy, because, really, you help a guy grow wings one time and suddenly he’s bonded to you and loves you like family? Shit’s crazy.

The good thing, he supposes, is that he has plenty of time to figure out what he’s going to tell Dream while he waits for his voice to heal.

Unfortunately, the universe will not allow him a second of peace.

Ghostbur’s log cabin is so much more well-constructed than any of Tommy’s builds in Logsteadshire. It’s laughable, really, comparing it and the tent side by side, because the tent hardly compares to the cabin at all.

Yet the cabin is still cold. Tommy’s starting to think that no part of Logsteadshire will ever be warm. Unless he starts taking apart the walls, there is no firewood to burn in the small fireplace. Dream never lets him keep any, and Tommy’s glad for it. He doesn’t deserve firewood, so he shouldn’t have any. It’s simple.

But he hasn’t slept for a second all night, his numb fingers stiffly clenched in the fabric of Wilbur’s coat wrapped around his body like a blanket, and that makes it hard not to wish he had a fire burning in the empty fireplace. He’s lucky he isn’t in his tent, though, despite how sick he feels being in Ghostbur’s vacant cabin, because the storm raging outside is no joke. The booming clap of thunder that follows a crack of violent light illuminating the entire sky too close for comfort has Tommy pressing his numb hands to his ears and shaking in a pathetic, chirping ball on the hard wooden floor.

Weirdly enough, the loudest crack of thunder seemed to be the last of the storm, because the clouds clear away and the sunrise bathes his camp in fresh light.

His stomach feeling like it’s trying to tear itself apart is what forces him up and out of the cabin to search in vain for food. The scraps of chicken he’d managed to catch and unevenly cook a few days ago that Dream forced him to toss in the pit was likely the last animal around. He’d spent hours searching the woods for any form of life that hadn’t been chased away by the near-daily booms of explosions and all he was able to find was that lone chicken.

It’s practically hopeless because he’s too weak to go searching far in the woods again. All that remains near his camp is that flock of crows, which are still there. For some fucking reason. Either they’re the only birds around here with no goddamn self-preservation or they’re just idiots, because all they do is caw loudly and bob their heads as they strut around. In short, they’re assholes and they refuse to leave. Part of Tommy is glad for them, though, because as loud and obnoxious as they are, the silence would be so much worse.

He hopes Dream brings food when he comes to visit.

Tommy stumbles out of the door of the cabin, clutching Wilbur’s trenchcoat around him like a lifeline as the cold morning air hits him. The chill makes his face sting and his eyes water, but most of it is thankfully kept back by Wilbur’s coat. He blinks a little in the bright, morning sunlight, clearing his vision.

He freezes.

“Tommy—“

Because all three goddamn members of the Sleepy Boys are standing in front of him like fucking death omens. And isn’t that funny? Because one of them is the ‘Angel of Death,’ one is the ‘Blood God,’ or ‘acolyte of the Blood God,’ whichever was cooler to people in the moment—

And the third, was supposed to be dead, but was looking more alive than Tommy had seen him before his death.

Tough, brown fabric folds in his clenched fists as his arms shake, wrapped around him in a pathetic sort of pose. They’re fucking staring at him and he can feel the weight of their eyes all over him.

Technoblade shifts, his wings raising slightly, and—

His own tiny wings tremble weakly against his back, under the heavy coat. A buzzing, odd feeling turns faintly in his chest, right next to the part of him that’s still on the endless mantra of dream wheres dream dream dream dream flock—

Phil has his wings out as well—dark, sleek, shining black feathers held carefully in place behind his back.

And so does Wilbur. Elegant blacks and whites that crawl from a warm grey, fluffed up in that way Wilbur has always involuntarily done while anxious.

Somehow, in the span of about a month, and less than a week of looking at his own pathetic beginnings of wings, he’d lost his sense of scale.

Because their fucking—adult wings are gigantic. They look like proper wings, which is something that Tommy can’t say the same for his own scrappy ones that look far closer to a plucked chicken than any of theirs. Dream hasn’t stopped calling them ugly since they ripped out of his back, and Tommy would be stupid to try to disagree.

There’s a small, high pitched noise that his distracted mind zeros in on like a beacon. For a moment, he thinks it’s come from him, but it’s too… different.

For some fucking reason, the soft, shrill noise is like a drug to him. His limbs loosen and the tension in his shoulders drops.

“Tommy, are you alright, mate?” Phil asks him, and he thinks for a moment.

Is he?

It’s a bit of a broad question, isn’t it? But he’s fine, even if Dream isn’t here—but—

Tommy scans the three of them, his eyes landing helplessly on Wilbur, who is somehow alive, and standing right in front of him.

“They revived me, Tommy,” Wilbur tells him, as if that explains everything. His limbs feel locked in place as he stands and stares, because he can’t reply. With his vocal chords still healing, the extent of what he can do is make stupid bird sounds that annoy Dream.

Dream wouldn’t want him talking to them. For a split second, the ‘flock’ mantra tunes back in, but with an aching confliction that makes Tommy’s head hurt. It’s the same jumbled mess as before, if he had to translate the feelings into words they’d be the same on paper, but they’re so different. Because his mind is screaming flock, but he doesn’t know who the fuck that’s talking about anymore.

“We’ve come to take you with us,” says Wilbur, impossibly gently. “Please, Tommy. We’d like you to live with us in the tundra, not… here.”

Fuck.

He wants to go, he wants to go so badly—but he fucking can’t because he doesn’t deserve to and Dream is his flock, and he can’t leave his flock, but if he doesn’t go, his flock will leave him here and go back to the tundra—

What the hell is happening to him?

He feels like he’s something less than alive as he raises his gaze over their shoulders. It’s hard to even look straight at them, because doing so would set his instincts off like fucking crazy.

It’s then that he sees Dream.

Tommy’s heart stops, lungs failing him as he stumbles backwards, away from Dream. His arms wrap around his middle defensively as Dream steps forward—

dream’s here, flock flock flock flock, flock is here—

Dream is… here…

Tommy is so fucking scared.

“Well,” Dream starts, in a tone of voice that’s familiar to Tommy. The really mad one. “I certainly wasn’t expecting this visit from the Sleepy Boys.”

Tommy’s eyes snap to the charred grass as Dream approaches, because Dream is mad enough already, and he doesn’t like Tommy looking up at his masked face because that’s disrespectful—

“But, then again, neither was Tommy, I’m sure, because none of you have bothered until now. How long has it been, weeks?”

It feels like his blood is roaring in his ears. His mind feels like it’s burning as they face off in front of him.

“What are you doing, Dream,” Technoblade asks, sounding terribly cold, and Tommy remembers that he should hate Technoblade, shouldn’t he? Technoblade hates him, he’s going to kill Tommy.

Are they here to kill him?

“Visiting Tommy,” Dream replies, but Tommy barely hears it through the buzzing in his ears. “And the rest is none of your concern.”

He feels Dream’s footsteps on the ground as he’s approached, and Dream slides up right beside him, placing a light hand on his shoulder.

There’s a sharp noise that sounds more like a shriek than anything else, and fear floods Tommy’s limbs like ice.

danger danger danger dangerdangerdanger—

Tommy rips himself from Dream’s grasp and stumbles back in an instinctual panic. One of the noises that Dream hates escapes him and he curses internally through the haze, because he’d done so well until now.

“Get away from him,” Tommy hears Technoblade snarl, and his limbs freeze in place.

Dream unclips his axe. Dream is going to protect him. Dream is his flock.

“It feels like I’ve just missed half the fucking conversation with you bird people,” Dream laughs, and Tommy swallows hard. He doesn’t even turn before giving Tommy an order. “Get in the cabin, Tommy, and don’t come out.”

He does.

With one last, snuck glance at the three visitors, all Tommy sees is Technoblade with an axe out and a unique sort of rage in his eyes and etched into his features. Wilbur looks enraged, with his wings held stiffly and his eyes bright as hellfire. Phil looks more pissed than Tommy’s ever seen him.

The door shuts behind him with a thunk and Tommy tries desperately to breathe. His mind is screaming with his own instincts battling themselves and his mind. Muffled voices fade into the background as he nearly hyperventilates in an attempt to take in oxygen. At some point, he sinks down to the ground, collapsing in a limp heap. His body seems to be taking this brief moment out of the spotlight to get all the stupid bird noises out of his chest, and the flurry of small peeps that bubble in his throat sound like he’s just woken up a nest of baby birds.

A good few minutes must go by with him collapsed pathetically on the floor of the cabin, because he hears Dream call his name, with an order to come back out.

He swallows the rest of the peeps threatening to bubble up from his chest and obeys.

Tommy takes his place next to—but slightly behind—Dream.

“Don’t worry, Tommy, they won’t attack you,” Dream reassures him, but he’s still fucking terrified.

“Alright.” Dream’s hand settles on his back, right where his wings are tucked into Wilbur’s trenchcoat. The contact sends a jolt through him. “Tommy, these three want to take you away.”

Flock flock flock flock flock flock flock dream stay—Dream’s hand presses harder against his wings. Still gentle, but a clear message.

“You don’t want to go with them, do you?”

There’s a right answer here, and a wrong one.

Tommy shakes his head.

“Well, there you go,” Dream announces. “He’s staying here.”

Dream sounds happy. This is good. Dream is pleased with his choice, so he’s made the right one.

(it feels wrong. he can’t see any of their faces, but there’s a palpable amount of tension between technoblade, wilbur, and phil at his answer. he just wants to be with his flock—)

“That’s fucked. You’re so clearly—“ Phil doesn’t get the chance to finish his protest before Dream cuts in to defend Tommy.

“He gave you his answer, Phil, are you going to respect his choice? Or are you going to force him to come with you? I wouldn’t advise that.” Dream pats Tommy on the back and steps forward, unclipping his axe from its holster.

Dream is going to protect him, Dream is his friend, this is what friends do for each other—

“We could,” Technoblade says with a threatening grip on his deadly axe. “It would be better for him than here.”

That isn’t true, Tommy thinks but can’t say. Dream takes care of him. Tommy is learning how to be a better person, and Dream is helping him. It’s hard, but it’s for the best.

“So be it,” Dream says. “But I’ll defend his choice.”

“You’ll lose,” Tommy hears Phil say through the static buzzing in his head. Are his instincts supposed to make him want to rip his hair out and give him a headache?

“What matters here is Tommy,” is all Dream says in reply.

dream cares about him dream is his friend he loves dream flockfflockflockfl—

“We’ll be seeing you, Dream,” someone says. He’s hardly able to register anything around him, but his mind seems to snap back to him at the next bit directed towards him. “You too, Tommy.”

Phil’s voice, he realizes it’s Phil, sounds soft as he talks to Tommy. His mind spins fucking viciously with another bout of whatever the hell has hijacked him with all the flock chatter.

Cautiously, curiously, Tommy risks a tiny glance up.

He locks eyes with Wilbur, who’s soft wings are puffed up with stress like a fucking balloon. Part of him wants to laugh at the sight of Wilbur looking like a ruffled hen, but the look in his eyes is so… concerned. Wilbur looks pissed and horribly concerned, his brow scrunched together in a way that is so fucking familiar because he wears it every time he’s worried for Tommy.

It bowls him over so suddenly with desperation that he nearly takes a step towards them.

“If you ever change your mind, we’re just up north, through the snow.”

Oh.

They aren’t—

They’re not far away. He could walk there if he wanted.

Up north. Through the snow.

“I don’t have to speak for him when I say that he won’t,” Dream cuts in, and Tommy snaps his eyes back to the ground. If Dream saw him looking at them—

“Well, you’ve been doing that the whole time already,” Wilbur snarks, and Tommy feels his chest tighten. He’s better when he doesn’t talk, why don’t they sound happy with his improvement?

There’s a rustle of feathers from in front of him and Tommy’s eyes involuntarily lift to see their wings stretch out to their full wingspans.

Phil and Wilbur take off with a gust that blows Tommy’s hair back and makes the trenchcoat flap behind him.

It’s fucking amazing.

They shoot into the sky like arrows and fade to specks in Tommy’s vision within seconds.

“Are we breaking my server rules now?” Dream questions, sounding displeased. Tommy feels his wings twitch under the coat as he tries to swallow past the lump in his throat.

“Yep,” replies Technoblade, who Tommy notices is not only still here, but also has his wings still partially folded behind him.

The second Tommy observes that, Technoblade readies his wings with a stare that makes Tommy’s blood run cold. It isn’t even directed at him; it’s leveled right at Dream.

As Technoblade seemingly prepares to take off, Tommy feels his eyes helplessly follow his extending wings.

When Tommy stretches his wings out fully, they just barely reach the ends of his forearms. If he’s being generous, he could say they reach his wrists. Sure they’re still growing, but…

Technoblade’s primaries alone have got to be nearly as long as Tommy’s fucking arms. They stretch out, the gold sheen shifting over his warm brown coverts.

It’s absolutely an intimidation tactic. If Tommy were who he was a month ago, he would have poked fun at the display.

‘Dream, look at my wingspan, I’m like a pissed off pigeon getting territorial—’

It might be a good thing he can’t talk. Technoblade would probably rip him to shreds.

Although, for some fucking reason, Tommy thinks he should be way more frightened by the display than he is. All it does is make him feel very small.

(He ignores the logic behind how a threat to Dream feels a little like protection.)

“Be careful, Dream,” Technoblade calls, and Tommy watches with fascination as his wings arc and send him into the sky with one swift, downward beat. The force of the gust it sends through Logsteadshire makes Tommy feel like he’s about to fall over.

Tommy’s eyes flick up towards the sky, watching as Technoblade soars out of view.

Up north, through the snow.

“Well,” Dream comments, pushing himself up off the handle of his axe where he was leaning casually, mask tilted towards the sky. “That was… something.”

Tommy’s eyes fall back to the ground despite how badly he wants to stare at the sky even after the three avians are long gone. Dream spins on his heel and strolls up to him.

“You did very well, Tommy,” Dream tells him with a grin in his voice. The praise washes over him like a blanket of warmth that makes his chest feel fuzzy. Pointedly, he ignores the slimy feeling in the back of his throat as he tries to swallow.

“I don’t remember you having a coat with you, though.” Tommy’s breath hitches before he stops breathing completely. He didn’t mean to let Dream find out about Wilbur’s coat, he was going to put it away before he could see.

Now the next thing Tommy’s going to have to watch be reduced to ash and embers is Wilbur’s coat.

“I won’t destroy it, don’t worry. You did well today, remember?”

Oh. Oh, good.

Dream cocks his head and examines him in silence for what feels like an eternity. Tommy doesn’t know what he wants to see from this examination, so he tries to stay as still as possible.

“Come here, Tommy,” Dream commands lightly with a contemplative note in his voice. He motions towards a bench with a swift tilt of the head and starts towards it. Tommy follows, and sits down silently on the other end of the bench as Dream drops onto it and pulls out an item that Tommy can’t see without craning his neck.

“Alright Tommy, I have some new rules for you.” Tommy nods obediently. “The first has to do with your coat. Take it off, by the way. You don’t need it around me.”

Slowly, Tommy lets the oversized trenchcoat fall from his thin shoulders. He shivers as the air hits his bare arms and wings, but he tries to ignore his body begging for the warmth of the coat back around him.

“Turn around,” Dream orders, and Tommy shifts on the bench so he’s facing away from Dream, his wings trembling from the cold and the fear rising in his gut. Which makes no sense, because he shouldn’t be afraid of Dream. Dream is his friend. Dream would only hurt him if he deserved it.

He feels Dream move further down the bench, sitting right behind him. A gloved hand closes around the elbow joint of one of his wings, making him jump with a flinch.

“Calm down,” Dream murmurs in warning. Tommy doesn’t. The touch burns in a wrong sort of way that makes him want to jerk away. A sick, violated feeling runs through every inch of him as Dream forces his wing to extend. He can’t relax, even if it’s just his friend Dream, so he does the next best thing and forces the new muscles in his wings to go completely limp.

“Your feathers are starting to grow in.” Tommy latches onto the words and repeats the sound of them over and over in his head like a broken record, barely registering the meaning in favor of filling the silence with something to distract him from Dream’s hands on his wings.

It’s fine. Tommy’s just being weird. He doesn’t know why the feeling of Dream moving his wings like he’s a posable doll makes him want to throw up. Dream is his friend, and he’s allowed to touch Tommy’s wings if he wants. Hell, Dream is probably some kind of expert on avians with all that IQ he has. He helped Tommy through the whole process of… growing them, so Dream must be helping him with this too.

“You’re lucky I decided to use a healing potion on you after they came through,” Dream comments with a laugh. “Or you’d still be walking around with bloody slits in your back. Now you’ve just got these scars.”

Tommy should be grateful.

He should be grateful that Dream is making sure his wings are okay. Dream is his friend, and Dream is a good friend.

“For the time being,” Dream starts, suddenly pressing both wings very firmly to his back. The position aches a little with the tightness and pressure on the joints of his wings, forcibly folded down as small as possible. “We’re gonna keep them folded like this, okay Tommy?”

His wings ache already. It isn’t a natural position to hold his wings in at all, but he nods hesitantly. Dream takes his hand off for a second and his wings immediately fall out of the position into a more natural fold, so Tommy doesn’t understand what Dream wants him to do—

Dream’s hands return to holding down his wings, this time with something else in his grip. If he were a betting man, Tommy would guess that it’s the item he saw Dream pull out earlier.

“Because your wings can’t fold down right,” Dream explains. “This will help.”

Tommy glances back and Dream is unwinding a spool of string. Claws of dread grip his chest and he catches himself leaning away from Dream.

It doesn’t matter, though, because Dream finishes unwinding the string and pulls Tommy towards him with a firm hand on his shoulder.

Dream wraps his wings with twine tightly and strategically, clearly leaving no room for movement. The first loops of string bind the elbow joints closed tight, then the shoulder joint is bound to his back with layers of twine wrapping around the front of his chest.

Tommy thinks it should have taken longer to render his wings immobile than the amount of time it took Dream to wrap this twine around his chest.

“There we go,” Dream finishes with some fancy knot that Tommy doesn’t even know how to start untying. “How’s it feel?”

Tommy tries to move his wings. He starts with a small twitch, and when that fails to answer past the restraints, he tries to jerk his wings out just to get them to move.

It’s in vain.

He doesn’t answer.

“Turn around, Tommy,” Dream says. Tommy barely registers it past the nausea swimming through him. He shifts on the bench and turns to face Dream, who pulls him into a hug.

“I know this isn’t comfortable for your wings,” Dream murmurs, gently holding Tommy to his chest. He sinks limply into Dream’s hold despite his raging discomfort. “But i’m doing what I have to do to protect you.”

From what? Tommy wants to ask. But Dream answers without him even needing to speak. Without wanting him to speak.

“You couldn’t see it—I know because you wanted to go with those three—but they wanted to kill you, Tommy.”

His breath hitches. Dream pulls him closer, but he doesn’t notice past the burning in his eyes.

They—they couldn’t have, could they? Technoblade might want him dead, the blood of the vice president anointing the earth, dripping from the brutal axe he’d wielded just a few minutes ago, but would Phil?

Would Wilbur?

The thing is, whatever their plan is, they’re clearly acting together.

Whatever the plan is, they’re in agreement.

Tommy only sees one motive that would make sense from Wilbur, who blew L’manburg to smithereens, and Technoblade, who razed the smithereens.

Phil… killed Wilbur. And Tommy doesn’t know what reasons he has to want him dead, but it’s probably revenge or something.

Phil must have brought Wilbur back, Tommy thinks with a shred of dark, painful amusement, Because he realized he’d got the wrong guy that day.

“I’m worried for you, Tommy. I’m worried that one day, I won’t get here in time like I did today. Even worse, though,” Dream takes a deep breath that Tommy, with his head still pressed to Dream’s chest, can feel. “Is if they find out about this.” His hand comes up to rest on Tommy’s bound wings.

“I didn’t want you to be scared, but you couldn’t imagine how glad I was that they didn’t see your wings.” Dream pulls him back, holding his shoulders in a bruising grip and leveling him with his mask’s cold, blank gaze. Tommy goes rigid, tension making his heart jackrabbit as Dream forces him to stare back into the menacing black eyeholes.

“Because I know what they would do to you if they found out you had them.”

Dream’s words ring in Tommy’s ears like the last note of a scream echoes through the woods, terror bouncing off the trees and finding a home in his chest. His grip gets tighter, somehow, and Tommy’s cry fails to come out as more than a hoarse, strained whimper.

“You’re an insult to them. They’d snap and they’d rip the wings right out of your back,” Dream hisses, and Tommy can’t fucking breathe. “I’ve been learning as much as I can about avians so I can protect you, but do you know what I’ve found out?” Tommy can’t shake his head to respond. He can’t move at all.

“Avians take after the birds they get their wings from. It doesn’t matter what kind of weak little finch you end up being, any one of them could rip you to shreds.” Dream leans in, voice dropping low. “Techno? He’s a fucking Golden Eagle. A bird of prey that can take down a wolf. I know Phil’s a raven, which is a bird that literally eats other bird species’ babies right out of their nests. That’s literally what you are, he’d kill you in a second!”

Tommy feels faint, like his mind is floating out of his body and the world is fuzzing with black static behind his eyes. It might be because he hasn’t eaten in a day or two, since Dream gave him a bit of bread on his way out after Tommy woke up, but it’s mostly due to the fact that he knows Dream isn’t lying.

“I have no clue what Wilbur is,” Dream confesses. “My best guess is just a Mockingbird, but he’s dangerous and insane enough as a human to be a threat to you. If anything, they’re trying to lure you in with the songbird, and then let the bird of prey slice you to ribbons.”

Dream wouldn’t know what type of bird Wilbur shares his wings with. Very few do. Wilbur is notoriously tight-lipped about it. People see the black feathers with striking white patches that transition elegantly into soft greys and pick a sweet songbird with the same coloring.

Their assumption is usually the same as Dream’s, and it’s only solidified when Wilbur, in true Mockingbird fashion, reveals his talent for mimicking an impressive assortment of different species of songbirds’ calls.

People will write him off as harmless. Dream certainly has, but Tommy hasn’t.

Because Tommy knows what kind of bird he really is.

Wilbur is more than capable of snapping his neck and revelling in the blood that drips from his body after it’s been pinned up like a trophy.

Amongst a bird of prey avian that’s a killing machine, an avian that takes the omen of death from the bird he shares his wings with and turns it into a promise, Wilbur is far from out of place.

“I know you and Wilbur were close once, but you can’t trust him. You can’t trust any of them,” Dream hisses to a catatonic Tommy. “I’m the only one you can trust. Which is why we have a few new rules.”

Dream releases his shoulders and reaches around Tommy, grabbing Wilbur’s trenchcoat and holding it up between them.

“Whenever I’m not here, or unless I ask you to take it off, you will have this coat on and you will never take it off.” Dream’s voice is low and dangerous. There is no room for argument here, and Tommy doesn’t even want to think about what the punishment would be for disobeying right now. “Do you understand me?”

Tommy nods.

“Good. Now don’t think that just because I was able to stop them from killing you today means they won’t be back. So if you see them, you’re going to walk into that cabin,” Dream points to Ghostbur’s cabin with a growl. “And you’re going to lock the fucking door.”

Tommy nods, ice running through his veins. Locking the door will not protect him for a second against the Sleepy Boys, but if it makes Dream feel better, he’ll do it. Dream is trying his best to protect him, but the way his voice shakes with rage makes him think that Dream is in some sort of denial about his fate.

If the Sleepy Boys want him dead, he is going to die. Tommy is only alive for as long as they let him.

They’re just up north, through the snow. He doesn’t know why they’re dragging this out as long as they are.

Tommy is terrified out of his mind, but he isn’t upset at the idea of dying. He wouldn’t mind it if they just grabbed him and ran him through with a sword before he could even fight back. There isn’t really anyone else he’d rather have put him out of his misery.

What nags the back of his mind and twists his gut with pure terror, is what would happen if they found out he had wings.

Dream is right about how they’d react.

It would be nowhere near a quick death. Dying slowly might be what he deserves, but he’s too much of a fucking coward to think about what he might face in the hands of the three of them before they decide they’re done.

Torture is not something he’s looking forward to, nor is it the peaceful end he craves.

“You’ve been very good today, Tommy. Even without all the facts you made the right choice and stayed with me,” Dream tells him, the dark undertones gone from his voice once again. Tommy gets whiplash every time Dream’s moods change like this. It’s so fucking hard to keep up.

Dream takes out a small, pink vial and holds it delicately in front of him.

“I’ve decided that we can heal your throat just enough for you to speak a little bit. But I hope you understand that talking is an unnecessary privilege for you. One that I’m granting, but if you don’t use it correctly, I will take it away, and you might never get it back.”

Tommy stares at the rose-pink liquid swirling in the glass vial. Dream uncorks it with a pop and places it into his trembling hand.

“Drink it, but don’t swallow. Hold it in the back of your throat,” Dream directs, and Tommy obeys.

The potion fizzes wildly in the back of his throat, popping and bubbling uncomfortably as it heals his torn throat with a burn. He doesn’t dare swallow it, though, because not only would that be counterproductive, it would be horrifically disobedient.

Tommy screws his eyes shut as the potion fizzes and stings, waiting for Dream to decide when it’s done.

“Alright, that’s probably good,” Dream’s voice cuts through the silence and Tommy swallows, letting the potion reach the rest of his throat as it goes down.

“You should already know not to eat or drink for at least an hour so the potion can do its job. I doubt I have to tell you that.” Tommy nods in agreement. It isn’t like he has any food anyways. “Your voice should be coming back now, so I’ll explain what I expect from you.”

The fizzing has died down. Now it feels as though there’s a warm coating over his numb throat. It doesn’t feel as rough and painful as it did before, so that’s definitely a good thing.

“You will only talk if I’m addressing you, or if I’ve asked you a question and I expect an answer. Under no circumstance will you talk to anyone else unless I have given you permission. But that’s unlikely.”

This is fine. He’s been doing that already, except for the talking part. This’ll be easy. It must be a test of how much better he’s gotten because before, with his voice rendered unusable, he didn’t have the option to speak. Now, he could be tempted to talk out of turn and disobey Dream, but he won’t do that. He knows better.

“You’re also not allowed to chirp. I’ve been very lenient with that, but it needs to stop.” Tommy blinks up at Dream, a tense coil of anxiety wrapping around his chest. He can’t control the chirping. It just… happens. As much as Tommy would rather they didn’t, they slip from his chest, only stopping if he chokes them back painfully.

He supposes he’ll be doing a lot of that now, rather than face punishment for breaking the rules. It hurts, but it’s fine.

“Do you understand?” Dream asks, and Tommy nods. “No, Tommy. Say you understand me.” The sudden chill in Dream’s voice makes a shiver run through him.

“Y—yes,” he manages to whisper, vocal cords responding to him for the first time in days.

“Good.” Tommy thinks he can hear a smile in Dream’s voice, light and pleased, all traces of anger wiped away.

Dream abruptly stands from the bench and Tommy flinches at the movement.

“Put the coat on and follow me,” Dream orders. Tommy picks Wilbur’s coat up gingerly, a tightness clenching him as he slides it back over his shoulders. He was planning on putting it back into his enderchest so it wouldn’t get damaged, but he guesses he’s lucky he didn’t before the Sleepy Boys showed up. Otherwise…

Tommy cuts off his thoughts and stands up to follow before he can imagine all the ways the three adult avians would maim him.

He half-jogs to catch up to Dream, who is—

Horror floods him as Dream lines his tent with bright red packs of TNT. He can’t even stutter out a plea before Dream finishes and whips out a flint and steel.

“No—“ he chokes out. Either Dream doesn’t hear him, or he doesn’t care to respond. The TNT lights with a spray of sparks and Dream steps back, behind Tommy, who would do the same if his feet weren’t frozen to the ground.

With a resonating bang and a wave of thick heat, his tent is reduced to rubble and ashes.

Tommy fails to hold back a sob at the sight. It wasn’t like his tent was very helpful with dried blood splattered and smeared all over the inside, or with the filthy ground and bedding in there, but… he…

For whatever reason, he was attached to it. It’s similar to the way he’s attached to Dream, because it comes from the same part of his brain. He slept there, it was his home, he didn’t want it to be destroyed. It was his fucking tent, and it was shitty, but he loved it, even if he never had enough bedding to surround himself with, and it felt way too open, insecure, and cold.

He doesn’t understand why… why Dream had to…

“You should have backed away if you didn’t want to get hurt,” Dream’s voice cuts through his internal whining and Tommy’s mind snaps back to where he is, which is standing too close to the remains of the tent. His shins burn fiercely, along with anywhere on his body Wilbur’s trenchcoat doesn’t cover with thick, leathery fabric. He looks down, and sure enough, his legs are reddened with new burns and scratches from flying debris. Wilbur’s coat has a new spray of ash over the front of it, and Tommy feels ridiculous for the gut-wrenching horror that overtakes him at the realization that he’s fucked up the coat.

Why does he even fucking care? Wilbur’s alive again. It may not fucking feel like it, because the grief hanging over his shoulders like weights hasn’t let up for a second yet, but he’s back.

“Why?” he whispers, tears clogging his aching throat. Dream pulls him away from the wreckage with a laugh.

“You can’t seriously be upset about getting rid of that tent,” he chides. “I did you a favor. You should be thanking me, not pouting.”

“I-“

“Stop talking,” Dream cuts him off. “You’re breaking the rules.”

Oh fuck.

He didn’t mean to, he forgot about the new fucking rules, but he shouldn’t have. Is Dream going to punish him? Fuck, fuck, fuck fuck fuck—

“That’s your only warning,” Dream grips his arms and looms over him as he speaks. “If you speak out of turn another time, I’ll be forced to punish you. Now stop being ridiculous about your tent and move on,” he hisses. Tommy nods jerkily and his arms are released from Dream’s bruising grip.

“Good. Since you’re clearly too dumb to understand, I got rid of your tent to protect you,” Dream clarifies, like that explains anything. If he could still feel angry, Tommy thinks that’s what he would be feeling right now instead of this emptiness.

“Do you seriously think that three avians wouldn’t know what the process of growing wings looks like? I bet the only reason you’re not in pieces on the ground is that they didn’t look in there. The dried blood just looks like mud, and they must have left it at that this time, but if they looked closer, you’d be found out.”

Oh.

Dream is right, like he always fucking is, and Tommy is stupid. He’s never felt dumber in his life, and that’s saying something, because he’s done a lot of dumb shit. A burning building comes to mind as an example.

Here he is, crying like a fucking toddler about a filthy tent that could have killed him by revealing him to the three people trying to kill him, as well as from infection of some sort.

“I wasn’t planning on staying this long, but since you decided to have them over, it dragged out and now I’m late for something,” Dream complains, brushing past him and striding over to the nether portal. “I’ll be back soon, Tommy.”

A desperate chirp threatens to climb up his chest, but Tommy forces it down with a vengeance. The effort has him choking out painful, burning coughs as Dream hops through the portal and disappears in a flurry of purple wisps.

He’s alone again, with fresh burns scattered all over him and a smoking pit where his tent used to be.

His stomach twists in agony and he realizes that Dream didn’t leave him with any food.

Chapter Text

“Alright, L’manburg is probably a little… different than you remember it,” Technoblade warns Wilbur as they walk down the path towards the rapidly-dissolving country. Wilbur’s eyes flit around, examining the new additions to the surroundings.

“I’d imagine so,” he replies, shoving his hands into his pockets casually. “Considering my last act was an attempt to level it.”

“Uh, yeah, that,” Technoblade mutters, glancing back at Wilbur. There’s a grimace twisting his features, and his feathers are puffed up slightly. “But also politics-wise.”

“And you’re sure it’s a good idea for me to be here?” Wilbur questions. “Aren’t we both war criminals?” Phil laughs.

“Wil, there’s not much of a country left to arrest you,” he says, and Wilbur blinks in
surprise.

“I thought you said they rebuilt after the explosions?” Technoblade lets out a deep sigh.

“They did, but then the President exiled the Vice President on the whim of a foreign dictator, and after having some sort of personal crisis and realizing that he never had any real power, the President locked himself in his house and mailed his resignation letters to his office. The de-facto Vice President and the other two cabinet members are presumably doing damage control as we speak to make sure that the dissolution of the country isn’t any harder than it has to be.”

Wilbur whistles lowly. “Damn.”

“Yeah,” Technoblade agrees. “How the mighty fall.”

“And who’s the acting President?”

“Quackity,” Technoblade supplies. “Speaking of, I don’t think we’re gonna be lucky enough to run into him again, Phil. Message him that we’re here and we have news.”

“Got it.”

“Big Q is in charge of my country?” Wilbur asks with a laugh.

“Yep, but I think you lost the right to call it ‘your country’ when you rigged it with explosives.” Wilbur shoots Technoblade an offended look.

“I fucking founded it!”

“We’ve seen how much these guys care about their founders, Wilbur. Theseus over there is a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“Alright, Quackity wants to know where to meet,” Phil interrupts. A grin creeps onto Technoblade’s face.

“Tell him to meet us by my wanted poster.” Behind him, Wilbur snorts.

“Sure thing, mate,” Phil cackles.

“Can we ask Big Q to make me one too?” begs Wilbur as they approach the center of L’manburg. “If it isn’t too much trouble, of course, I hear they’re terribly busy lately.”

“I’m sure they can find the time,” Technoblade quips. His boots thunk against the wooden path as they approach his wanted poster. He turns around to face Wilbur and Phil as he leans casually against his own printed figure.

“You’re such a prick,” Wilbur laughs, glaring at him with mock offense.

“If you had a poster you’d do the exact same thing.”

“Motherfucker!” Quackity’s voice rings out from the other side of the area. Barely a second later, he jogs into view with outrage clear on his face, yet colored with palpable amusement.

“Hello, Big Q,” Wilbur greets with a grin.

“Who left the gates to hell unlocked?”

“It’s good to see you again, too, Quackity.” Quackity huffs an incredulous laugh.

“I shouldn’t even ask, should I? Fuck,” he groans. “I should’ve known the second you fuckers asked where he was buried.”

“Yeah, it was kinda obvious, to be honest,” Technoblade agrees and Quackity shoots him a glare.

“I’m adding grave-robbery to your charges.”

“That’s fair.”

“Speaking of, Big Q, this wanted poster you made for Technoblade is lovely, so I was wondering if—“

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.” Quackity cuts Wilbur off. “I am not making you a fucking wanted poster.” He pauses, face twisting into a grimace before muttering, “Fundy broke the printer.”

Wilbur curses loudly.

“Okay, you guys said you had news. Is it the walking corpse?” Quackity guesses.

“Nah, we brought him back to life, but that’s not important,” Technoblade clarifies.

“Fuck off, Techno,” Wilbur complains. Quackity narrows his eyes.

“Then what else?”

“We went to Logsteadshire.” Technoblade watches as Quackity tenses, his wings bristling with stress.

“How’d that go?” he asks tersely.

“Tommy’s alive,” Phil offers. Quackity’s shoulders lose some of their tension.

“Well, yeah. If he weren’t, you three would probably be leveling the entire server to fucking bedrock, waving Dream’s head on a stick.” The three of them exchange a glance before nodding.

“Yeah, you’re probably right about that,” Technoblade muses. “But Dream is a dead-man-walking regardless.” Quackity fixes him with a tense gaze.

“Was Tommy hurt?”

“We don’t know,” Wilbur cuts in. Quackity looks at him incredulously.

“How do you not know? Didn’t you talk to him?” Technoblade feels a sharp pang in his chest.

“We talked plenty. Tommy didn’t say a single word the entire time we were there. To anyone.”

Quackity blanches.

“You’re kidding,” he denies. “There’s no way.”

“Way,” Technoblade refutes. “He kept his head down like a kicked puppy and looked miserable.”

“Okay—okay,” Quackity stutters, looking ill. “So he’s—you guys are getting him out, right?”

“We’re fucking trying,” Phil tells him. “We asked him to come with us, and then Dream showed up.”

“And what did Dream do?” Quackity hisses.

“Made him choose who he wanted to go with. Long story short, Tommy chose to stay in Logsteadshire with Dream.”

“Fuck!”

“Yeah, that’s what I wanted to say, too,” Wilbur chuckles listlessly. Quackity buries his head in his hands.

For a few minutes, the three of them stand and watch as Quackity collects himself before his head shoots up sporting a calculating expression.

“What’s your plan?” he asks them.

“We don’t really have one,” replies Technoblade. Wilbur hums.

“We have a backup plan,” he offers. “Which involves kidnapping.” Quackity laughs dryly.

“Alright, well, I’ll tell you what you need to do,” he levels the three of them with a hard stare. “You need to visit Logsteadshire when Dream is not there, and you need to convince Tommy to come with you. Talk to him. Hopefully he talks back, but you need to visit as many times as it takes and get him the fuck out.”

“That could work,” Phil muses. “Do you know when Dream usually visits?”

“How the fuck would I know? That’s your problem,” Quackity snarks. He scrubs a hand across his face, looking weary. “I’d help you if I could, but you’re asking about a guy who’s more like a fucking cryptid around here than an actual ghost was.”

“Fair enough,” Technoblade replies.

“I really fucking wish I could do more, but you guys are on your own with this. Shit is bad enough here already, and I’m just glad I’m not the only one working against Dream anymore.”

“What about your cabinet?” Wilbur points out curiously, frowning at Quackity’s exhaustion.

“Wilbur, people are clearing out. Fundy left—he’s probably with Eret—and Tubbo hasn’t left his fucking house. Ranboo is actually being helpful because he’s helping me look after Tubbo, and they’re getting along really well, but he’s still healing from when Dream chased him away from Logsteadshire.” Quackity’s voice rises as he talks, stress clear in every note. “Meanwhile, I’m trying to keep Dream from breathing down their necks, because apparently he wants more kids to fuck with!” Technoblade observes as he takes a heaving breath.

“I have a question for you, though,” Quackity shifts abruptly, turning towards Technoblade, sounding palpably serious through the tension in his voice. “You aren’t trying to kill me right now, does that courtesy extend to anyone else formerly in L’manburg’s government?”

Technoblade shifts uncomfortably under the weight of his stare.

“Yes? There isn’t really a government to speak of anymore. I’m also still retired.”

Quackity’s intense, calculating gaze scans every inch of his face, looking for any hint of dishonesty. He doesn’t find any.

“Alright,” he mutters, straightening. “Good to know.”

“Why’d you ask?” says Phil. Quackity glances at him, expression smoothed over.

“I need a lot of contingency plans right now, Philza. I also have to know who I can trust with what I might need done.”

“Alright, mate.”

“If it helps, none of us really give a shit about anything except Tommy right now,” Wilbur supplies. “Politics are what got him on that island, and I have very little patience for them now.” Quackity laughs.

“That’s fair. Politics are the thin string keeping Dream’s axe from falling like a guillotine on my neck, and the damn thing is fraying. I’d hate them too, if it weren’t the only reason any of us are still alive against Dream.”

“We’ll be taking care of Dream soon,” Technoblade tries to reassure him, but it comes out far colder than he’d anticipated. Quackity’s wings puff out slightly with a shiver.

“Fucking hell,” he laughs. “I’m glad we’re on the same side.”

“It’s good to have you,” Wilbur says with a grin.

“Speaking of, any news on why Dream’s looking into altricial avians?” Technoblade grimaces.

“No. It could be anywhere from him looking for ways to enforce the no-fly rule to him trying to get wings of his own. Logsteadshire didn’t give us any answers.”

“If he figures out pinioning I think I’m just gonna fucking leave, L’manburg be dammed,” Quackity says with a hysterical-sounding laugh. A wave of anger rushes through Technoblade at the familiar thought of Dream going that far for control.

“If he does, I’ll kill him before he can even try,” he drawls with a false calm in his voice.

“Clipping is more likely,” Phil points out. “It’s easier to get your hands on how to do it, too.”

“Well, I’ll be sure to warn you three in advance if I get clipped,” Quackity announces with resigned horror written on his face. “Because he’s not going to try to clip any of you on the first try, at least.”

“We’ll look out for you, Big Q,” Wilbur promises. Phil and Technoblade nod in agreement.

“Hopefully he’s wasting his time trying to grow his own wings and you won’t have to do much, but I really fucking appreciate it.” Quackity frowns and pulls out his communicator. “Speak of the fucking devil,” he mutters. “You all should clear out. Dream’s running late for a meeting with me, but he’s on his way now.”

“Are you sure you don’t want us to stay for that?” Phil asks with concern clear in his voice. Quackity grins sharply.

“I absolutely don’t. Dream can’t know that we’re talking to each other, much less allies, because he’s counting on me being completely cut off from support. He’s even trying to convince me to go on a fucking suicide mission to your house and attack you three, and I need him to think that his plan is working.”

“What if he finds you out?” questions Technoblade hesitantly. Quackity turns to meet his gaze, still grinning sharply.

“Then I’m as good as dead, and he moves on to a contingency plan, which most likely involves the two teenagers I’m trying my hardest to fucking protect.” He levels them each with a cold stare. “And that can’t happen. So fuck off in the next five minutes, and make sure Dream doesn’t see shit.”

“We fly above the clouds, don’t worry,” Phil reassures him. Quackity blinks.

“You guys are flying?” He asks, sounding incredulous. Technoblade shrugs.

“Yeah. Why not?” Quackity laughs bitterly.

“Because it’s against the fucking rules, dumbass.”

“Fuck the rules,” Wilbur eloquently pipes up.

“I forgot that you three don’t have much to worry about in terms of enforcement, so I figured we were all still following the rules. I’m glad some of us get to fly, at least.”

“Dream’s days are numbered and so are his rules’ so you won’t have to worry about ‘enforcement’ after his time runs out,” Technoblade assures Quackity, who grins.

“I’m looking forward to it,” he sighs. “It’s not like I’m any good at flying, I just miss being able to do it at all.”

“That’s what L’manburg was supposed to be about,” Wilbur says. “I wanted it to be a land where we could fly freely. Staying on the ground makes you lose your mind, I would know, but Dream can’t handle even the smallest loss of control.”

“What an ass,” mutters Quackity. “Well, you three go help Tommy, I’ve got it covered over here.”

“Message us if you ever need any help,” Phil tells him seriously with a tight-lipped smile before bracing his wings for flight. Technoblade and Wilbur follow his cue.

“See you around, Big Q,” Technoblade hears Wilbur say as he shoots into the sky with a heavy gust of wind. He doesn’t wait for Phil or Wilbur, because he knows they’ll catch up fine.

A second later, he’s proven right as they come up to flank him on each side. They’re careful to stay over the clouds as they make their way back to Logsteadshire.

“So what’s the plan?” Technoblade asks in a hushed whisper, the three of them hiding in the thick trees. Below, Logsteadshire looks as miserable as they left it hours ago, but with a large, smoking pit Wilbur swears wasn’t there before.

“He’s not going to take it well if all three of us pop out of the trees all of the sudden,” Phil points out. “One of us should probably try to talk to him, and I vote Wilbur.”

“Yeah, I also vote Wilbur.”

Wilbur splutters, recoiling a little at the suddenness of the decision.

“What? Why me?” Phil huffs a laugh and levels him with an imploring stare.

“Well it can’t be Techno, because he and Tommy are blood-sworn enemies ever since he wrecked L’manburg, and he probably isn’t so fond of me after I killed you.”

“I blew L’manburg sky high, Phil! He’s got to hate me for that.” Technoblade rolls his eyes.

“He probably does, but you’re the lesser of three evils here, Wilbur. Plus you two are the closest.” Wilbur sighs heavily, brow furrowed and tense with nerves.

“Alright,” he concedes. “But if he runs away screaming, just know I warned you.”

He hops down from his perch and winces at the noise he makes doing so. The rustling of his feathers feels as loud as the banging of a drum as he steps further into the camp.

It’s impossible to accurately describe how much he fucking hates this place. The whole island feels haunted with misery, and it only got exponentially worse after the actual ghost left. Not that he’s an accurate judge of any past event from when he was Ghostbur. It’s getting easier to remember things gradually, even if the events of Logsteadshire and Pogtopia remain a blur.

(Pogtopia happened while he was alive. Unwell, but alive. The fact that he can hardly remember so much of such a horrible, stressful time has him wondering if his mind has simply blocked the memories, unconnected to his current recovery of memories that his ghost had a shaky grip on at best).

What he does remember (blasts of TNT dropping iron tools into a pit then stone then wood and food dream told tommy he didnt deserve it tommy falls from the force of dream’s punch—) is enough to have him shaking with rage.

Which is another thing.

Wilbur isn’t going to even try to deny that Tommy being hurt is deeply upsetting.

But even when his emotions are at their worst, he usually has a better hold on his instincts than this.

His mind has not stopped screaming about Tommy being hurt for a second since they first saw him earlier. It feels like a kicked hive of furious hornets has found a home in his brain, and he can’t fucking shut them up or reign them in.

It’s never been this bad, not even for the few weeks after he grew his wings—when instincts are just setting in. Emotions get a little strange during that period, and Wilbur sure doesn’t miss it.

He feels so fucking volatile.

Like if Dream catches him alone in a forest, Dream won’t walk back out.

Wilbur isn’t much of a fighter, but he is rabid. Probably. It certainly feels like he is, that’s for sure.

He also knows that Phil and Technoblade are feeling something similar, if the way they hold their wings tense and gaze blankly into nothing with stony expressions before getting a hold on themselves and moving on is anything to go off of. Wilbur recognizes it for what it is, which is a vicious struggle to beat back the infernal shouting of their hindbrains to protect Tommy (first priority) and rip Dream to miserable, bloody shreds (second priority).

The thing is, Tommy has been in danger before. Hell, he’d been his right-hand-man in a damn revolution, and there was no small amount of danger in that war.

But seeing him hurt and in danger earlier feels like a screw has been knocked loose, and his mind is screaming and snarling for the baby of his flock.

It isn’t that he hasn’t been worried for Tommy up until now, because that couldn’t be farther from the truth. For some reason, the extra fear, the unprecedented protective rage in him, is something that’s coming from the bird side of things, where it hasn’t before. And he doesn’t know why, because for all he knows, nothing’s changed.

But, as long as he can hold himself together and follow the plan, everything should be fine.

Looking around the scorched camp, Tommy is nowhere to be found. A sharp pang of worry floods through him, and his pace quickens.

Where is he? He could be hurt, bleeding out somewhere, helpless and alone—Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck—

By the time his eyes land on the cabin, he feels winded and nearly completely out of breath. The door is shut tight, but it’s the most logical place Tommy could be. Not bleeding out in a ditch somewhere or dead. Wilbur is getting a little tired of thinking irrationally lately, so he trudges up to the door and knocks like a normal person. Of course, he does so with a moment of hesitation, nerves running through him at the possibility that his paranoid thoughts might not be as insane as he hopes.

Behind the door, there’s an audible intake of breath that he almost misses even with his inhuman ability to pick up on the littlest of sounds.

It’s quiet, but familiar.

“Tommy?” he calls softly, stepping closer towards the door. “Are you alright?”

No answer.

There’s a small window beside the door. He cranes his neck and peers inside the dark cabin, trying to catch a glimpse of Tommy, just to make sure he hadn’t imagined that small, sharp breath from inside.

Curled into himself on the floor, staring back at him from the other side of the window with terrified, hazey, dull blue eyes, is Tommy. A breath catches in Wilbur’s throat at the sight of him. The look in his eyes is a horrific mixture of terror, helplessness, and dull acceptance glazed over with a haziness that makes him look close to death. It’s a look that Wilbur wants to wipe clean and never, ever see on him again.

“Tommy,” he begins gently, speaking through the foggy glass. “I’ve just come to talk, is that alright?” Tommy only blinks slowly at him, like he’s struggling to even think. His skin is somehow even paler than it was earlier, and something about the shallowness of his gaze screams that something is not right.

With a sharp, growing worry, Wilbur asks, “Can I come inside?”

Tommy doesn’t give any indication that he’s heard him. Instead, his eyes slip closed and Wilbur feels panic rise in his chest. He looks dead, but Wilbur doesn’t know what’s wrong with him.

There’s no fucking way he’s leaving Tommy alone in that cabin for another second.

Just as he turns towards the door, with full intention to break in, a very small, stifled sound reaches his ears.

The noise, not unlike a whimper, was even quieter than the small breath he’d struggled to pick up on when he’d first knocked.

But somehow, Wilbur thinks as his mind blurs completely in favor of instinct, nothing he’s ever heard in his entire life has sounded louder to him.

He has no food on him, he realizes with a loud curse, but he knows who certainly will.

Wilbur spins on his heel and half sprints, half flies with rough wingbeats, desperate to carry him to the treeline faster. Technoblade and Phil stare as he approaches, nothing short of alarmed at his unexpected retreat. Before either of them can get a word in, Wilbur skids to a halt at the foot of the tree and asks them politely for any food they can part with,

“Give me all your fucking food,” he nearly snarls. “Now.”

Technoblade and Phil exchange a glance before hopping down to him.

“Wilbur, what’s going on,” Technoblade questions tensely, examining him with sharp eyes.

“Did I ask for fucking questions?” There’s a strange sort of hysteria in his voice and he doesn’t need a mirror to see that he looks like he’s gone mad. He can tell just from the way the other two are looking at him. Hesitantly, Technoblade tosses him a small satchel of bread. He snatches it from the air. Perfect.

“Maybe you should calm down a bit—“ Phil tries, but Wilbur is already off towards the cabin. With a sharp flap of his wings he lands on the doorstep and stumbles slightly before immediately catching his balance.

His hand closes around the doorknob, twists it, and Wilbur’s first rational thought in the span of two minutes breaks through the haze.

Tommy is going to be terrified if Wilbur goes inside the cabin and corners him, regardless of how well he means. But he still needs to get this bread inside, so he does the next best thing.

He cracks the door open and kneels down to the ground, sliding the satchel of food across the wooden floor, hitting one of Tommy’s crossed feet with a small thump.

Wide, blue eyes snap onto the bread like it’s a projectile, and then over to Wilbur through the crack of the door.

“I can get you more if you need it,” Wilbur tells him. His instincts are calming down, his duty fulfilled. It gives him room in his mind to wonder what the fuck just happened past the seemingly ever-present buzzing.

Wilbur crosses his legs and leans against the doorframe, trying his best to look non-threatening for Tommy, who clutches the satchel of bread with shaking fingers and stares at him like Wilbur’s seconds away from lunging to attack.

It makes a wave of white-hot rage wash over him and Wilbur is finding it difficult to keep his lips from curling into a snarl as thoughts of Dream slither into his mind.

Every second that Dream’s heart still beats in his chest feels like a sin Wilbur is committing. Sitting here, breathing in the smoky air left in Dream’s wake trying to calm his hammering heart feels like the most unforgivable way to waste time while he could be scattering Dream’s wretched entrails so widely no god could dream of being able to put him back together.

But the time will come for him to repent, and he will do so with fervor.

Because Tommy is too quiet, too cold, too miserable, and he’s only just worked up the courage to nibble at one of the loaves, even if his face has settled into less of an expression of trust and more into one of acceptance. He’s starving, and between fading away slowly, alone in the dark cabin, and eating whatever poison he seems to think Wilbur put in the bread, the choice has been made.

Wilbur is ecstatic. He wholly expected Tommy to have jack shit in the ‘Trusting Wilbur’ department, so his clear suspicion hurts, but isn’t surprising. What’s absolutely incredible about this situation, though, is that Tommy has chosen a quick death via imaginary poison over the very real possibility of starving to death slowly.

Which means he’s eating, and that is something this kid desperately needs. His cheeks are shallow and pale and Wilbur has to swallow past the lump in his throat at the sight of how thin and bony his wrists are, barely managing to slip past the sleeves of his old, smoke stained trenchcoat that was already too big on Tommy before.

Wilbur lets his eyes drift shut, relishing in the closest thing to silence his mind has offered him for ages. The rage is still there, of course, but Tommy is here, right in front of him, and while nothing about this is ideal, it helps. He finally has the room to think properly, and he is going to use it.

Starting with what the actual fuck just happened.

Wilbur remembers that small sound from inside the cabin, which made his vision damn near black out as he sent himself into a scramble to find food for Tommy.

Now he’s going to have to explain to Technoblade and Phil that he went full mother-bird the second Tommy made a noise resembling a starving hatchling. Which led to the worrying behavior he displayed during the bread shakedown.

Oops.

Just as Tommy finishes eating, pausing with half of the small loaf left in his hands, Wilbur lets his eyes slip back open. The kid’s eyes look clearer, that awful haze is lifted a little. There’s still plenty of fear in them, but it’s less than before, replaced with no small amount of suspicion.

All things considered, this is going better than Wilbur imagined. So, as he shifts a little to face Tommy as non threateningly as possible, he decides to push his luck. They came to talk, after all, and there’s a few things they’d appreciate knowing.

“Can I ask you something?” says Wilbur, voice as gentle as he thinks is possible for him to make it. Tommy still startles, hands jerking up with a flinch that Wilbur tries his hardest to ignore in an attempt to keep his head clear.

Other than that, Tommy doesn’t respond. He only stares back at Wilbur like the words are on the tip of his tongue, not allowed to escape. Unfortunately, Wilbur would rather like to get some sort of affirmation from him before barrelling into an interrogation.

He frowns.

“Are you alright?” is what he asks next, concern rising in his gut at the way Tommy’s face is scrunching up with what seems to be an awful confliction. Jarring as it may be to have a silent conversation with TommyInnit, Wilbur swallows and pushes past his disconcertion to think.

“Is there something wrong with your voice?” Tommy blinks, opening his mouth as if to speak before shutting it abruptly. It isn’t out of the realm of possibility for Tommy to have gotten sick and lost his voice. Phil mentioned to him how he barely sleeps, if at all, on cold nights that dip into freezing, out of worry for Tommy, alone in exile. There’s certainly been a lot of those, Wilbur knows despite not having been alive for them.

If Tommy has lost his voice, Wilbur’s going to go shake Technoblade down for a regeneration potion immediately. But, judging on the way it looks as if Tommy is keeping himself from speaking, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

“Whatever it is, I bet I could help,” he offers. Tommy shifts, unsubtly glancing behind Wilbur with nervous, searching eyes.

Ah. So that’s the problem.

“Dream isn’t here, won’t be for a while,” Wilbur tells him. Tommy still looks conflicted, but Wilbur is persistent.

“Tommy, I won’t leave until you say something.” His concern is audible even to him. “You don’t have to answer my questions, I just need to hear how you’re doing. I don’t want to hear it from Dream, I want to hear it from you.”

He’s nearly begging at this point. Tommy’s face scrunches up and he makes an odd movement like he’s rolling his shoulders. There’s a long, meaningful pause as Wilbur waits for a response, even if it’s just Tommy telling him to fuck off.

“I’m not allowed to talk to you.” The soft, scratchy sounding whisper nearly comes as a surprise to Wilbur just by the measure of how different it is from how he remembers Tommy’s voice being.

“Why’s that?” Wilbur questions curiously, without any hint of the anger threatening to slip through. He’s quite proud of how well he’s managing to keep back the waves white-hot rage, bubbling and seething furiously at Dream’s deeds, because there’s a time and place for that passion, and here it will do nothing but frighten Tommy.

Tommy’s eyes drift from Wilbur in the doorway to somewhere on the floor without responding.

Logsteadshire is a quiet camp, made even quieter in moments like these. The only sound that reaches Wilbur’s ears is the gentle roaring of the ocean and the cawing of birds scattered in the trees.

“Dream doesn’t want me to.” Wilbur’s head snaps up at the sound of the response, which he didn’t think he would get. He’d assumed he’d pushed his luck too far, and Tommy had shut down.

Unfortunately, what Tommy’s said is enough to immediately sober any of his happiness.

Since when, Wilbur thinks with a bitter pang. Does TommyInnit care about what Dream wants him to do, except for when he’s planning to do the opposite?

“Did he tell you why you shouldn’t talk to me?” He’s curious, sue him. Whatever bullshit Dream has made Tommy believe about them better at least be creative. Tommy looks even more hesitant than before, like hearing what Dream’s said about him will slight Wilbur enough to attack.

“Because you’re dangerous,” Tommy whispers, shrinking back as if he’s just remembered that himself.

“Not to you.” Wilbur’s voice turns firm. Tommy meets his gaze with wavering eyes that flick to the floor. “I won’t try to say that I am not dangerous, nor is Phil, nor is Techno, but we are not dangerous to you,”

Tommy goes impossibly still.

“Never to you, Tommy. I swear it.”

“I… I don’t believe you.” Tommy’s voice is terribly small, and Wilbur feels his words like an axe to the chest.

But that’s fine. He can work with this.

“That’s okay,” he replies softly. “You don’t have to.”

Silence, or the nearest thing to it with the constant roar of the ocean on the little beach, falls over their conversation. It’s a while before either of them dare to break it.

Surprisingly enough, the one who finally does is Tommy, sliding the satchel of bread back across the floor. Wilbur glances incredulously between him and the bread at his feet.

“Keep it,” he implores Tommy who keeps his eyes to the ground and shakes his head. “No—no I’m not going to take it back, you need it.”

“I can’t keep it,” says Tommy, an odd note in his painfully hoarse-sounding voice. “It’ll just get destroyed.”

Wilbur’s heart sinks, leaving him feeling sick at the way Tommy hugs his knees tight to his chest and avoids his gaze.

“Then I’ll just have to come back again, won’t I?” A soft grin creeps onto his face, mentally applauding the brilliance of his excuse. He’s coming back, obviously, it would take quite a lot to keep him away, but this just gives him another reason to visit.

Tommy’s head whips up, staring at Wilbur with bright, nervous eyes.

“Dream doesn’t want you here, I’m not even supposed to be talking to you!” he hisses, but Wilbur’s grin only gets wider.

“Tommy, I don’t listen to Dream,” he scoffs. “The day I obey that man is the day I die. And I’ve done that, but I’m back, and I’m playing differently now.”

For the first time, in a fucking while, Wilbur finds himself speaking with an energy he’d thought he lost somewhere along the way. Something that he’d thought was lost in the moments between his own exile and the day L’manburg went up in smoke.

It’s the fire in his veins that he felt with his wings locked up in his back, building vans and towering walls, and taking up a sword, fighting like it was his last days alive for the right to fly.

Dream was too obsessed with being able to control what he never could. It made him cruel. And Wilbur, with that restless anger swimming through his veins and the kid in front of him right now by his side, would not fall in line.

It looks like Tommy has. Fallen in line, that is, with Dream’s little game of chess.

But Wilbur is nothing if not a remarkably terrible influence.

L’manburg is gone. The country is dead already, practically choking on it’s own blood as it fades away. His sanctuary became something of a rook, or a knight in Dream’s game of chess, when Wilbur had thought before that they were on opposite sides of the board. White versus black.

So he took the piece from the board.

Now, he’s going to smash that shitty piece of cardboard and send all of Dream’s precious little kings and pawns to the floor with a clatter.

Before, during the revolution, Wilbur had tried his hardest to be a formidable opponent. Then, Dream changed the rules of the game.

Wilbur isn’t playing anymore. Phil and Technoblade aren’t either.

So, while Dream scrambles to arrange his knights, rooks, bishops, whatever the fuck he has left—

Wilbur is going to snatch Tommy from that black-and-white checkered stage the second Dream slips up.

Once Tommy’s safe, this will turn to checkmate.

“Dream doesn’t have to know I’ve stepped foot in Logsteadshire, Tommy. It’s up to you to decide if you want to tell him I was here today. I’d rather you didn’t tell him, of course, but it’s your decision.”

“I can’t lie to Dream, he’s my f—“ Tommy chokes on his own sentence, stopping it in its tracks. Wilbur frowns.

“If you want, I can tell Techno and Phil that you didn’t say a word the whole time. I would be lying to them, of course, but if it makes you feel better, I’ll do it. All this can stay between us.”

“Wouldn’t they get mad at you?” asks Tommy in a near whisper. Wilbur decides that he’s got to bring a regen potion with him next visit for his throat, it sounds awfully strained for such a small amount of use.

“Of course,” he laughs softly. “They’re going out of their minds worrying about you. They want to know all they can about how you’re doing, and it would suck to hear I’ve been keeping it from them, but they’d understand.”

“No—no, you can tell them, it doesn’t matter. Dream is gonna kill me,” Wilbur hears Tommy mutter. “For lying about this. He’s just trying to keep me safe.”

“Tommy,” Wilbur asks, very carefully. “If Dream finds out you talked to me, is he going to hurt you?”

Tommy sucks in a sharp breath, wide eyes snapping back to the floor as they fill with fear. It’s as much confirmation as Wilbur needs.

“In that case,” he continues, stiffly. “I advise you to do whatever you can to avoid that. As for me, I’ll be sure to visit when Dream is not here.

“The problem is, I don’t know when he’s usually here, and when he isn’t. But I was hoping you could help me with that.”

Tommy stares blankly at him like he’s grown a second head.

“It’s perfectly alright if you don’t want to tell me that. It just means I’ll have to guess,” Wilbur tells him with a small grin. Tommy continues to stare, before huffing a sigh and resting his head on his knees. Just as Wilbur figures that he won’t be getting that information from Tommy today, and decides to cut his losses, he hears the raspy whisper.

“He doesn’t come everyday, but he always comes in the morning.” Tommy doesn’t lift his head from his knees. “Sometimes he’ll stay for a few hours, but he’s usually gone pretty quick.”

“Thanks, Tommy,” Wilbur breathes. Relief grips him like a vise, even if Tommy looks like he thinks he’s just signed his own death warrant. “I’ll see you soon.”

It’s a promise. There’s no question in his voice that he’ll be back. Tommy doesn’t give any indication that he’s even heard him, but Wilbur knows he has.

With that last word, Wilbur stands and heads back over to the treeline, over to Technoblade and Phil.

He does not take the satchel.

They’ve returned to their places in the trees after Wilbur shook them down for bread, but they hop down again once they see him coming. He gives them a quick nod.

“We’ll talk at the cabin,” he announces.

“Yeah,” Phil agrees. “It’ll get dark on us pretty soon.”

“See you there,” Technoblade mutters before flapping his wings and leaving them both on the ground. Wilbur groans.

“He always beats us,” he complains, rolling his eyes. Phil laughs lightly.

“Just fly faster,” he offers unhelpfully. Wilbur shoots him a withering glare.

“Fuck off. If this weren’t distance flight, I’d smoke both of you.”

“You know that’s not true, Wil.”

“It’s ‘cause you’re so old and slow,” Wilbur grumbles, and breaks into a sprint away from Phil. He shoots into the air with a running start, leaving Phil in the dust.

“Is that all he said?” The kitchen table feels remarkably similar to an interrogation room, Wilbur thinks. All that’s missing is the blinding light in his face and the handcuffs, because Phil and Technoblade already make a damn good “Good Cop, Bad Cop” duo.

“Yes,” Wilbur drawls. “That’s when I bid him goodbye and went back to you two. He wasn’t going to say anything else, and I figured that was enough conversation for today.” Technoblade hardly looks satisfied with his response, but Wilbur can tell it has little to do with his recounting of events. He isn’t going to be satisfied with anything they do until Tommy’s out of Logsteadshire and safe with them. Which is something Wilbur can completely understand.

“He one-hundred-percent thinks we’re gonna kill him, doesn’t he?” Phil sighs, burying his head in his hands. Wilbur frowns.

“Well,” he counters. “Maybe not completely. He did tell me exactly when Dream wouldn’t be there to defend him.”

Technoblade’s shoes click rapidly on the wooden floor with every pace across the kitchen. Wilbur thanks the heavens that he’s tucked away his wings, because the house isn’t large enough for how idiotically clumsy he can be. He says it isn’t his fault, but Wilbur thinks he just lacks grace. And spatial awareness.

“Dream’s not enough to stop me,” Technoblade mumbles, tearing a hand through his hair. It’s down from the braid he’d had it in, which means it’s already tangled. “Tommy knows that.”

“Maybe he’s putting his faith in the forty-percent chance that he is,” Phil suggests.

“Not with all three of us,” Technoblade bites out. “Those numbers are useless here, and this isn’t a duel.”

Strands of hair fall into Technoblade’s face, but he doesn’t even bother brushing them away. Wilbur can’t tell if he even sees them; his eyes stay glued to the floor in front of him as he paces incessantly.

“He clearly doesn’t trust us—“

“But we’ll get there eventually,” Phil cuts Technoblade off sharply. “It’s a work in progress, we just need to be patient and be there for him, so he knows he can trust us.”

“He’s right,” Wilbur chimes in. “And can you stop fucking pacing?”

“No, I’m thinking,” Technoblade glares at Wilbur for half a second before resuming his pacing—his shoes click quieter this time, but it’s still annoying as fuck.

“What’s there to think about?” Wilbur asks.

“Absolutely everything, Wilbur, it feels like Dream’s playing a whole separate game than us. One where he isn’t losing.” Technoblade brushes his hair back from his face in one fluid movement, but it quickly falls right back into his face. The way the tangled strands hang in front of his wide, unfocused eyes makes him look like a madman.

“Have a seat, Technoblade,” Wilbur insists, standing from his chair at the table and guiding him over.

“No, no, I’ve gotta—“

“Shut up. Sit here and calm down for a second, man.” Wilbur glances at Phil and sees him still sitting with his head buried in his hands.

He hadn’t noticed until now that his head was blissfully quiet. Well, that’s not quite true. His instincts were quiet when he had Tommy right in front of him, but now they’re a buzz in the back of his mind like a terrible itch he can’t scratch. It’ll only get worse the longer he knows Tommy is in danger on that shitty island away from them, but for now he has a level head.

Neither Phil nor Technoblade got to talk to Tommy. Wilbur doesn’t think either of them even saw him.

And because of that, they’re both clearly having issues.

“Alright lads,” Wilbur crosses his arms. Someone here has to be the responsible one with enough common sense for the other two, and apparently the burden falls on his shoulders for once. “We aren’t getting anything useful done tonight, so let's all go to sleep and come back to this in the morning with fresh minds.”

Okay, he’s laying it on a little thick. He isn’t even planning on going to bed himself, he’s just spouting bullshit so they will.

There’s something he needs to do.

“You’re right,” Phil says, lifting his head. “Let’s all go to bed, we’ll feel much better in the morning.”

“Yes. Phil agrees,” Wilbur says pointedly. Technoblade wordlessly stands and brushes his hair over his shoulder.

“That’s a great idea Wilbur.” There’s a strange note in his voice, but Wilbur pays it no mind. As long as he goes to bed, it doesn’t matter right now. “I want to get my full eight hours.”

Okay, that's very strange. Technoblade doesn’t sleep, and Wilbur doesn’t think he could make him sleep more than six hours in a night holding a gun to his head.

“So do I!” Wilbur chirps, playing along, ushering the two of them down the hallway and up the stairs.

“Definitely,” Phil agrees. Okay, Phil also sounds a bit strange. Must be the stress, then.

“Goodnight, you two,” Technoblade calls as he strides into his room. He turns as he goes to shut the door, but he pauses, holding it open and staring at them.

“Goodnight, Technoblade,” Wilbur returns, stepping into his room as well. His fingers land lightly on the doorknob and he very slowly begins pulling the door closed, maintaining eye contact with Technoblade who has yet to close his.

“Make sure you both get some sleep tonight,” Phil advises, bidding them both goodnight and closing his own bedroom door behind him. Wilbur and Technoblade resume their staredown in the hallway.

“Go to bed, Technoblade,” Wilbur says sweetly through the crack of his door. Technoblade continues to stare unblinkingly.

“Only when you do,” he replies. “You should get some sleep, Wilbur.”

“You first.” Technoblade narrows his eyes.

“Fine.” He pulls his door shut with a soft click. Wilbur grins and lets his own fall shut after a few moments.

He climbs into bed, back facing the door, and turns out the light. His eyes stay wide open, and he waits, listening to every creak and shuffle from the other rooms.

Only when his ears pick up only complete silence does he toss the blankets away and stand softly, cognizant of every tiny noise his boots make on the hardwood. He pads over to the window, and quietly slides it open.

The night air chills him through his sweater as he steps out onto the roof. Everyone should be asleep by now, or at least nearing that point, and it’s unlikely that his escape was loud enough to rouse suspicion. Which means he’s good to go.

He isn’t going to do anything, that would be astonishingly stupid. It would probably fuck up everything, and Wilbur’s head is clear enough to think rationally, believe it or not.

He’s just going to… keep watch. Like a lookout. Just to make sure Tommy’s safe for the night. He’ll be gone before morning, to avoid Dream, but he needs to do this. For peace of mind, if nothing else.

With a crunchy thump, his boots land in the layer of snow. Wilbur turns to give the house one last glance, readying his wings for flight, before stopping in his tracks.

A dark shape slinks out of another window, silently dropping down into the snow a couple paces away. He’s been caught.

“What the hell,” Wilbur hisses at Technoblade, who whips around to face him with shock written on his face.

“Wilbur?” he hisses back, surprised. “What are you doing?”

“Please tell me we aren’t both pulling the exact same bullshit right now,” Wilbur groans.

“That depends. What are you doing?”

“I’m sneaking out to go to Logsteadshire.”

“You should go to bed,” Technoblade argues uselessly.

“Yeah, so should you. Yet we’re both out here, and you can’t stop me.”

“You can’t do anything dumb there. I’m only going to keep an eye out until morning, then we’re both leaving before Dream gets there.”

“That’s what I was planning on already,” Wilbur defends. “I’m not fucking stupid.”

“Fine.” Technoblade scrubs a hand across his face and sighs. “Keep it down, though. Phil’s still asleep.”

As if on cue, another window slides open, and Phil jumps down from the roof, landing softly in the snow. It takes a second for him to notice Wilbur and Technoblade on either side of him.

“Wait… what the fuck are you two doing out here?” he asks, dumbfounded. Wilbur barks a laugh.

“What are you doing out here, Phil?”

“Are you going to Logsteadshire, too?” Technoblade questions dryly.

“What the fuck.”

Wilbur cackles. “Well, come on then. I suppose we’re all going together.” He readies his wings again as Technoblade lets his own unfurl from his back.

Wilbur is first in the air this time, followed by Technoblade, who will undoubtedly pass him soon, and then Phil, who is likely still stunned.

Hopefully Tommy won’t mind having three silent guardians observing from the trees, but he likely won’t notice them because Wilbur doesn’t plan on being spotted, and he doesn’t think the other two do either.

“It’s gonna be a long night,” Wilbur mutters to himself, but the words are lost in the wind as he flies.

Chapter Text

Tommy’s a fucking idiot. He’s a damn fool and he knows it. It took just a few gentle words from Wilbur fucking Soot and he caved.

He doesn’t think he could have done a worse job of following Dream’s rules.

Although it shouldn’t matter. He’ll be dead soon regardless of whether he follows those rules to the letter or if he rips the twine from his wings and runs to the tundra himself.

Tommy has, more or less, accepted his fate. Dream doesn’t need to get caught in the crossfire, because as powerful as he is, he’s badly outmatched. What he doesn’t understand is why the SBI are wasting so much of their time.

Dream said they wanted him dead, but they’ve come to visit Logsteadshire twice already and he… isn’t?

They’re toying with him. That must be it. Tommy wouldn’t understand why they’re trying so hard to get him to live with them before killing him, but it must be a trap. He’s always been pretty shit at strategy, unlike everyone else, it seems. But Dream is the best strategizer he knows that isn’t trying to kill him, so he’ll listen to Dream.

Dream is his friend. Hell, Dream is his flock and that’s an even bigger deal than being friends, because it’s closer to being family. Flock bonds are a big fucking deal to avians, Tommy knows this well from having been around a tight-knit flock for years.

He never imagined they were anything like this, though.

His brain feels like it’s on fire, and his whole body feels like it’s gone cold. The endless buzzing of his instincts only lets up when Dream visits him.

That is, unfortunately, a lie.

Because when he was curled up on the floor of the cabin with a full stomach of warm bread, listening to Wilbur speak softer than he’s ever heard him before, his head was quiet. It was as if his brain was telling him, this is exactly where you’re supposed to be.

Which is stupid. Because he’s supposed to stay with Dream. That’s the only option. Well, it’s the only correct option, if the correct one is the one that keeps him alive the longest. Rage against the dying of the light, and all that. Except that poem is shit, and his opinion of it has not changed at all since Wilbur’s dramatic ass recitation during the L’manburg war that nearly made him switch sides.

The point is, Tommy thought that a flock bond was more solid than this. His bond with Dream seemed to practially fucking dissolve right in front of him the second Wilbur showed up. It’s like he’s out of sight, therefore out of mind.

But it isn’t the same for Wilbur.

When Wilbur left, his brain got loud and desperate. His mind is stretched like an elastic band in two opposite directions, and there’s a strange, painful feeling in his chest as if his body is trying to split itself apart. The flock instincts (is that what they’re called? fuck knows) in his brain absolutely never forget Wilbur. Even when Dream is right in front of him, and half his mind is calm, the other half is a constant mantra of where’s Wilbur?

As stupid as it sounds, it feels like he’s being pulled north to the tundra. One part of him is, anyway. The other part is the rational one, which is keeping him grounded in Logsteadshire, where his real flock is. Or visits. Sometimes.

His fucking bird-instincts are stupid and unreliable. Tommy knows who has his best interests in mind, and that person is Dream. Just because his instincts have latched onto the nearest avians in the vicinity doesn’t mean that Dream isn’t still his flock. The bond he has with Wilbur is superficial, and the only they even have one is because they’re both birds.

Wilbur is not his flock. Neither is Technoblade or Phil. They hate him. Dream said they all wanted him dead, and he’d be a fool for thinking they’d actually care about him.

No matter how many times he drills those words into his brain, it never stops hurting. Tommy doesn’t think it ever will. He isn’t someone who deserves to be cared about, regardless of how much he wants to be. Dream is here to help him be better.

Dream is here nearly every morning to help him learn lessons, painful as they may be, keep him company when he doesn’t deserve it, and even help him with growing wings. When he makes stupid mistakes, Dream is swift to… correct him, which is good. Really good. Because the harsher the punishment, the less likely he is to make the same mistake again.

Dream is helping him. The scars are just proof of that.

His traitorous mind reminds him every damn time that Wilbur has never raised a hand to him.

Ever.

Not even at his worst.

Tommy deserves to be hurt, though, if it makes him a better person. Which makes him think that everyone who hasn’t corrected him when he’s out of line has done him a disservice. But Dream won’t let him be a stupid fuck-up anymore.

Dream is his friend. He loves Dream. Dream is taking care of him. Dream is his flock.

How many times will he have to repeat that till the pressure behind his eyes isn’t there, and his mind quiets to contentment with what is rational and right?

When Wilbur left, he did not take the bread with him. Tommy looked up minutes after the sound of wingbeats had left the island and he’d deemed it safe to raise his head, only to be met with the sight of it lying innocently on the floor by his feet.

If he doesn’t hide it before Dream comes by, there’s going to be hell to pay.

He stands, legs shaking like they’re brand new, and shuffles over to the leather satchel. There’s quite a bit left, he notes as he picks it up. Wilbur was obviously not being stingy about giving him food.

Tommy pushes back the strange feeling that washes over him at the thought of someone giving him even a scrap more than he absolutely needs to survive. Which is technically all he needs, but in half a second, Wilbur tossed him such a staggering excess, when Dream would have…

He should not be comparing them. One of the two is his friend, who’s looking out for him and trying to keep him safe, and the other one is Wilbur. Who must be trying to manipulate him and lure him in to kill.

The difference between the two is palpable. Even the smallest interactions are night and day.

He can’t help but compare them, though, because the comparison comes so naturally.

Wilbur saw him starving on the floor of his ghost’s cabin and tossed him more food than Tommy’s seen in weeks. Dream would have shattered a strength potion on him with enough force to bruise and told him to get up. If he behaved, Dream would give him a few scraps of food on his way out.

What would Phil have done? Technoblade? Would they be more like Dream, or Wilbur?

If Dream is the one who cares about him, and the others are the ones who want him to choke on his own blood, are their methods a reflection of that?

Does Dream choose the harsher, bloodier approach because he actually cares about Tommy?

Why does Wilbur’s approach feel so much more like he gives a damn about what happens to him?

He should not compare Wilbur and Dream. Because it makes him start to think like that.

The thing is, he’s about to lie to Dream.

When Dream next comes to visit, Tommy will be hiding things from him, in both the literal and nonliteral sense.

Tommy kneels, digging his numb fingers in between the seam of the wooden floor, scratching until a board loosens. He pulls it up and the wood cracks a little with the sudden strain, but it opens into a hollow space underneath the floor. The satchel goes in with a small thump on the loose dirt, and Tommy slams the board back down.

He could let it rot down there.

The evidence of his betrayal could be buried beneath the floorboards forever. He would tell Dream that Wilbur tried to talk to him, but he didn’t breathe a word, and Dream would be proud that he followed the rules.

But Tommy is a coward. Lying to Dream’s face is something he cannot bring himself to do.

He’s never really considered a “lie by omission” to be a real lie anyways. If someone can’t figure shit out themselves, that’s on them.

So the satchel goes under the floorboards, and Tommy will pray that Dream does not ask if someone visited.

It isn’t lying if Dream doesn’t ask.

Tommy can hardly imagine the consequences if Dream finds out he’s hidden things. Hidden information. The consequences would hurt. Very badly.

But, what makes a strange feeling rise into his chest, is the thought that whatever punishment Dream comes up with to get him back in line wouldn’t be worse than what he’s done to help him.

Twine is not a gentle material. It isn’t like thread, or string, or yarn—it’s closer to metal wire than any of those. At least it feels that way. Barbed wire presses into the delicate skin on his bound wings and it might be the worst thing Tommy has ever had to endure. An awful itching has flared up all over his wings, and if he were a betting man, he’d guess that Dream was right about him starting to grow in feathers. Not that he knows for sure, because he can hardly twist his stiff neck far enough to see what’s on his back.

Technoblade told him once—in the absolutely dogshit-boring way he goes on about history—about revolutions.

He said that the reasons peasants cry injustice, take up arms, and fight for changes, is often cited as some sort of intellectual or moral thing. Like unjust laws, wealth inequality, or an obstruction of natural rights. It’s a nice thought, that everyone agrees to come together and shout till their lungs give out for change because they simply believe that it’s the right thing to do. The poor-as-dirt peasants read Plato or some shit and decide that revolution is the answer.

But, Technoblade told him, the peasantry simply did not have the time, nor literacy to care about politics or philosophy. Taxes could be risen, kings could be tyrants, and all the great, wealthy thinkers could write papers until their fingers bled about revolution, but that would be that.

What drove people to the streets—men, women, and children, ready to stir change one way or another—was the little things.

Revolutions began because the harvests failed, and the people had no bread to eat. They started because the taxes were too high to buy food.

Revolutions started because one man was banned from the sky—forced to lock his wings in his back and deny his nature.

The feeling of his wings being tied like a bushel of fucking wheat, stiff and unmovable in the worst way, while his muscles beg to be stretched, is a small discomfort in the grand scheme of things.

What a trivial thing to be so upset over. Something that Dream has done for his own protection, no less.

Tommy should be grateful, but if Dream doesn’t loosen the bindings, the twine will surely start cutting into the flesh of his wings as they continue to grow.

If he’s going to die, no matter what Dream thinks is protection, then what’s the fucking point?

The dark, bitter thing that curls in his gut for the first time in an eternity feels like the return of something forgotten.

Anger was hardly foreign to him before exile. For Tommy, it was a near constant. But now, it feels like an old, returning friend.

Chapter Text

“Tubbo? You awake?” Ranboo calls from the hallway, breaking the thick silence. Dust motes glow in the morning light, drifting lazily in front of his eyes.

“Yeah.” Tubbo steps out of his room, eyes to the floor. Ranboo can see the dark bags hanging starkly under his eyes and a pang of concern shoots through him at the sight.

“Did you sleep well?” he asks carefully. Tubbo mutters something he can’t quite catch and doesn’t look up from the ground. “Sorry, what was that?”

“I—uh—didn’t,” Tubbo says a little louder.

“Oh. Sorry to hear that.” Tubbo shakes his head minutely.

“I mean I didn’t sleep.”

Ranboo grimaces.

“Ah. Ok. Well, maybe you should try to—“ Tubbo pushes past him into the kitchen.

“Nope,” he cuts him off, grabbing a bag of coffee grounds and a pot. For the millionth day in a row, Ranboo is going to have to watch Tubbo skip sleep and run on caffeine. He can’t let his friend destroy himself like this. Steeling himself, he gathers his strength and tries to prepare himself to try to disagree with someone.

“Would you maybe consider, uh—“

“I’ve considered it,” Tubbo hums, filling the coffee pot at the sink, his back to Ranboo. “And I have decided I won’t.”

Damn it. Ranboo feels his spine deflate like a balloon.

“O—ok,” he concedes weakly. Maybe Tubbo will listen to him tomorrow, he lies to himself for the hundredth time. It’s fine. He’ll convince him to at least take a nap.

“So what are you up to today, boss man?” The smell of brewing coffee reaches his nose as Tubbo turns to face him.

“Uh—staying inside and not answering the door?” he offers. Tubbo rolls his eyes.

“Boring. We do that every day.”

“Well, yeah, but Quackity’s trying to keep us safe,” Ranboo points out. ”I don’t want to make it any harder for him.” Tubbo scoffs.

“I’m a fucking soldier. I don’t need to be babied.”

“It isn’t like that, Tubbo. Dream’s dangerous and staying out of everything makes it harder for him to get to us.” Tubbo’s face scrunches up.

“Staying out of everything is best for me anyways,” he says, bitter as the dark coffee he pours into a mug on the counter.

“Don’t say that,” Ranboo tells him, frowning. “You did the best you could have—“

“I don’t want to hear that I ‘did my best’ when Tommy could be fucking dead,” Tubbo snaps, glaring at the counter. Ranboo leans away slightly, and Tubbo’s gaze flicks to him before falling back to the countertop.

“Sorry,” Tubbo whispers. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

“It’s fine.” Ranboo slides out one of the barstools and sits down carefully, sighing . “I get why you’re upset.”

Tubbo pulls out the barstool beside him and sits down. They’re both silent for a minute, but Ranboo can’t tell if it’s an awkward silence or a comfortable one.

“Isn’t Quackity coming today?” Ranboo asks as Tubbo sips the steaming coffee. Tubbo shrugs.

“Probably. You know how he gets held up, though.” Ranboo huffs a laugh.

“You mean how he walks circles in the woods for hours to make sure he isn’t being followed? Or do you mean how he schedules random meetings with Dream to waste his time?” Tubbo snorts.

“Exactly. So either he shows up today or he doesn’t.” Tubbo takes a bigger sip and winces.

“I just burned my whole mouth,” he groans and Ranboo chuckles.

“Just give it a second to cool down.” Tubbo shoots him a mock-glare.

“Do I look like a bitch to you?”

“Yeah, a bitch that can’t wait for his coffee to cool.” Tubbo laughs, hanging his head.

“You suck,” he leans over and headbuts Ranboo in the shoulder. It isn’t nearly enough to hurt, just enough to feel the small horns not yet visible through Tubbo’s hair. Quackity said they’ll get there quickly, though.

“Wanna play Uno again?” Ranboo asks. It’s really the only thing they’ve been doing for weeks now. There’s not much else to do when you’re holed up in a remote cabin, not allowed to go outside, and in Ranboo’s case, under strict orders to limit mobility.

“I’m so tired of Uno,” Tubbo groans. “You lose every time.”

“Not true,” Ranboo protests. “But what do you suggest we do, then?”

“I just wish I could go for a walk or something,” Tubbo sighs. Ranboo hums.

“Okay, well, I can’t do that for two reasons.”

“Oh,” Tubbo says, glancing down at the cast on Ranboo’s leg. “Right.”

“Yeah.”

“You could teleport, though, couldn’t you?”

“Yes. Yes I can. But not to sneak either of us out. Not happening.”

“Boring,” Tubbo sighs dramatically, slamming his mug down on the counter and snatching the deck of loose cards from the other side of the counter. “I’ll deal.”

“Are you playing like shit on purpose, boss man?”

“No,” Ranboo groans, head buried in his hands. “Maybe we should make a rule where you’re not allowed to stack ‘draw fours.”

“What would be the point of playing, then?” Tubbo questions, a sharp grin on his face as he picks up the deck of played cards and starts to shuffle them.

“The point would be to get rid of all your cards—“

“—While making sure that your opponent has double digits at all times,” Tubbo finishes.

“No—“

“You’re just mad you had eighteen cards.” Tubbo presses two halves of the deck together and they blur into one with a string of fwips.

“I’m just saying that maybe that shouldn’t be possible!”

“Win a game and we’ll see.”

The casual atmosphere is sharply broken by the sound of a window slamming open. Both of them jump up—Tubbo far more gracefully than him—and stalk towards the source.

Heavy boots hit the kitchen tile, and the window slams shut. Ranboo steadies his shaking hands and rests a finger on the trigger of his crossbow. Tubbo pulls out a netherite axe shimmering with deadly enchantments and pushes in front of Ranboo with a cold look in his eyes.

“Buenos noches,” Quackity’s voice calls from the kitchen. Tubbo’s eyes defrost and Ranboo sags with relief.

“Hey Big Q,” Tubbo greets, putting away his axe and pushing open the kitchen door. “Would it kill you to knock?”

“Or use the front door?” Ranboo chimes in.

“It’s a precaution,” Quackity defends indignantly. “If I do these visits as fucking insane as possible, Dream’s never gonna know where you are!”

“Fair enough,” Tubbo agrees easily. “It’s worked so far.”

“Exactly.”

“Got any news?” Tubbo asks, changing the subject with a sharp, curious glint in his eyes.

“Yeah, I’ve got some info from a few… invested individuals. You’ll be glad to know that Dream won’t be a problem for any of us much longer.”

Ranboo stills.

“What’s that supposed to mean, Quackity?” Tubbo beats him to the question with a tense note in his voice.

“Let’s sit down,” Quackity suggests, striding into the living room. Ranboo and Tubbo follow slowly, lowering themselves onto the couch across from the armchair Quackity throws himself into.

“First thing,” he says, gaze resting on both of them. “Tommy is alive.”

The reaction is instantaneous.

“Is he?” Tubbo nearly shouts, jumping off the couch with enough force to knock Ranboo’s side into the armrest. The air is knocked out of Ranboo’s lungs and he can’t tell if it’s from the fact that he finally knows that Tommy is alive or the blunt force to his side.

It could be both.

If Tommy is alive, he can be rescued. If Tommy’s alive, then he’s probably spitting and snarling at the world for keeping him away.

If Tommy is alive, instead of becoming that image of a cold, grey corpse that’s been haunting Ranboo every second of every day, then he could have been receiving all those letters Ranboo delivered. It would have been worth it, Ranboo thinks, to have had Dream’s axe buried in his leg, if Tommy was there to read what he’d dropped off.

If Quackity says that Tommy is still alive, despite everything, then they still have a fight here in L’manburg.

Or, Ranboo supposes, he still has a fight here in this empty country for the sake of his first friend.

“Have you seen him?” Tubbo breathes. Desperation is written in every line of his face as he stares Quackity down.

“Phil, Technoblade, and Wilbur have.” Ranboo blinks a little.

“Do you mean Ghostbur?” he asks hesitantly. Quackity’ gaze flickers over to him and a crooked grin grows on his face. Tubbo’s eyes widen and Ranboo hears him suck in a breath beside him.

“I do not,” Quackity tells him slowly. “Techno and Phil decided they were done playing mortal and dragged their flockmate out of hell. The three of them visited Tommy.”

“How is he?” Ranboo asks as Tubbo sinks back down onto the sofa with a thousand emotions swimming across his face. Quackity grimaces.

“Bad. He’s uh—from what I’ve heard from them, very quiet. I suspect some kind of abuse is happening, and the Sleepy Boys seem to agree, with all that they’re implying.”

Ranboo feels his clenched shoulders trembling. At first, he assumes he’s scared for Tommy. Afraid for him, after hearing about the situation he’s been stuck in for a dangerous amount of time. Maybe his hands are shaking, clenching into white-knuckled fists because he’s sad, feeling some sort of grief for his friend. It isn’t a difficult stretch at all, of course, because he is feeling both of those things.

But what that fear, that grief, is far overshadowed by, is a vicious sort of rage.

“I said that we weren’t going to have to worry about Dream for much longer because the Sleepy Boys aren’t happy about Tommy’s… situation, so they’re gonna ‘handle’ it,” Quackity tells them, forming a pair of air-quotes with his fingers over “handle” and an expression that makes Ranboo want to shiver.

“Won’t Dream be able to get out of this somehow? That’s like his whole thing,” Ranboo bites out nervously.

Quackity’s face goes blank, staring at him with an unreadable expression.

“He won’t,” he replies with unwavering confidence that Ranboo can’t help but fear is unfounded. “Dream has been playing a game of burning bridges, and he’s made enemies with some very powerful people.”

“Uh.” Ranboo has technically met two-thirds of the Sleepy Boys. Wilbur (as Ghostbur, of course) and Phil. Ghostbur had a healthy fear of Dream, like everyone, so Ranboo hadn’t really imagined things would be too different for the living version. Phil had never seemed shaken by Dream in the least, but did that really mean he was someone who could take him down?

Are the Sleepy Boys enough to take out an admin? Even just once? Technoblade is powerful, but so is Dream, and it will do them no good to underestimate him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Tubbo’s eyes burning into the side of his head.

“You don’t think they can do it,” Tubbo observes.

“I just don’t think we should be underestimating Dream like that,” Ranboo points out. Quackity chuckles humorlessly.

“You’re underestimating them.”

Is he?

Ranboo turns to Tubbo, seeking some sort of agreement from him. Surely Tubbo understands.

“You’ve met Phil, and you’ve met Ghostbur,” says Tubbo, pinning Ranboo with his gaze. “I can understand the confusion.”

“I’ll sum it up for you, man,” Quackity laughs. “Ghostbur is not Wilbur Soot, and Phil, who is the only one you’ve met, is the sane one.”

“How do you know we can trust them?” Tubbo cuts in, voice thick with tension. “What if they’re lying?” Quackity huffs a laugh.

“If you’re worried about Tommy, they’re not gonna be hurting him, that’s for fucking sure,” he replies. Tubbo narrows his eyes at the response and Quackity meets his gaze. “They’re so obviously flock-bonded, Tubbo. If Tommy got a papercut in front of them they’d go feral. All three of them are pretty extreme right now, even for a flock-bond.”

“What?” Quackity sighs heavily.

“Trust me. As an avian, the safest place in the fucking world for him is with those three. The only thing Tommy’s in danger of is being smothered by three assholes who seem to think he’s a hatchling with how fucking broody they’ve all gone.”

Tubbo remains silent for a few tense seconds before sighing.

“If you trust them, and you’re sure, then so do I. I’m trusting your judgement here, Big Q.” Tubbo pauses and takes a deep breath before continuing. “But Technoblade? Seriously? He told Tommy to ‘die like a hero,’ somehow I’m not seeing the love and protection bit you’re saying he’s got going on.”

“That’s what I fucking thought at first before he came back from Logsteadshire with his eyes half glazed over, looking like he’d been through a hurricane, telling me he’s gonna scatter Dream’s entrails across the server.” Ranboo feels his eyes widen.

“Is he?” Quackity shrugs.

“He didn’t say it in words, but he had murder in his eyes, man. And it was for Tommy’s sake.”

“Huh,” Tubbo says contemplatively. “Did he really mean it, then? Telling Tommy to die?”

“I think we all did shit we regret on the sixteenth,” Quackity huffs. “Those two already brought Wilbur back even though Phil fucking killed him, Technoblade told the kid in his flock to die, neither Tommy or I could stop Wilbur, Ranboo joined this fucking server—“

“I don’t know if I should disagree or lie—“

“—the point is, things got a little crazy. But either way, with Wilbur and Phil there, who are also going too crazy to be mildly concerned about the kid, Techno isn’t gonna be pulling anything unsavory.”

“I guess that’s it, then,” Tubbo sighs, sinking into the plush sofa. “So if it’s game-over for Dream, and all we’ve gotta do is step back and make way for carnage, then what’s our plan?”

“The first priority is to keep doing what we’re already doing: dissolving L’manburg and getting the fuck out of here as soon as we can.”

“What’s the second priority?” Ranboo asks. Quackity looks at him.

“How’d you know there was a second priority?” he questions nonsensically in a low voice.

“You said there was a first priority, which usually means there’s a second one?” Quackity holds his gaze for a few weird seconds, waiting for Ranboo to squirm before slowly continuing with a grin.

“The second… priority,” he says, dragging the words. “Is to figure out what Dream is trying to find out about altricial avians, and what he’s planning to do with that information.”

“Why’s he looking into avians?” Tubbo asks.

“Why altricial, specifically?” Ranboo adds.

“Both fantastic questions!” Quackity exclaims. “I can’t answer either. We’ve only got guesses so far, and that’s not good. So I’m trying to find out more.”

Letting Dream keep secrets is giving him the upper hand. That’s something Ranboo learned during his time in L’manburg’s cabinet, and it has yet to fail him.

“If he finds out you’re prying, you’re done,” Tubbo warns and Quackity nods.

“I’ll be almost as fucked as I’d be if he decides to grab some shears and commit an ancient war crime. So I’m taking my chances with gathering intel and making sure nobody with wings gets grounded by some green control freak.”

“Fair enough,” Tubbo concedes. “Are you crashing here tonight or are you heading back?”

Ranboo suddenly has a horrible idea. It’s like a tiny voice in his head is begging him, on its hands and knees, to do something absolutely stupid.

But really, is doing something stupid worse than doing nothing at all?

“I’m gonna crash here till about four,” Quackity replies with a wild look in his eyes. “And then I’m gonna head towards the coast, do a few laps down the beach, and then boat back to L’manburg. I’m gonna fucking serpentine through the water really wide to throw anyone off.” He grins. “I’ll be back just in time for my early morning meeting with Dream.”

His plan is met with silence and the baffled faces of the two teens.

“Well,” Tubbo starts, breaking the long silence. “I appreciate the secrecy.”

“Yeah, that’s really…” Ranboo’s starting to think that maybe Quackity needs to get more sleep. “…something,” he trails off.

“If you think I’m being paranoid, you don’t know Dream.” He pauses. “Can I take the couch?”

“You have a room, boss man.”

“Yeah, but if I go to bed bed, then I’m gonna crash. I’ve gotta sleep light, man,” Quackity laughs. Ranboo and Tubbo grimace. “Plus you guys should be going to bed about now anyways.” He glances at his comm. “Alright, it’s eleven now, so that’s about four or five hours till I’ve gotta head out.”

Sleep probably won’t come easy to Ranboo tonight, if it even does at all. He’ll be trying all night to come to his senses and not do what he’s thinking of doing.

“I’m calling it a night,” Quackity announces. “Get your asses off the couch.” He stands, pulling Ranboo up and leading him down the hallway, holding his arm out for support. “Go to bed, Tubbo!” he yells back to the living room.

“Alright, man,” Quackity says, pushing Ranboo into his room. “Goodnight, sweet goddamn dreams. You won’t be awake when I leave, but I’ll try to come around tomorrow if I don’t get held up.”

Now, ordinarily, Ranboo wouldn’t do this. He considers himself a loyal friend. Not a snitch.

Unfortunately for Tubbo, and for him when Tubbo wakes up, he needs everything to fall perfectly into place so he can make very poor decisions.

“Tubbo hasn’t been sleeping,” he blurts in a near whisper. Quackity’s eyes narrow.

“Well he fucking should be.”

“I’ve tried to make him go to bed but he doesn’t want to,” Ranboo tells him.

“Well he’s gonna go to bed tonight.”

Quackity stalks out of his room, tossing the door shut behind him and yelling a final goodnight.

“Tubbo,” Ranboo hears him shout. “Bedtime.” He grimaces. Hopefully Tubbo won’t be too mad at him after this. Although if he finds out why, and what Ranboo is trying to do, he might never forgive him for not letting him in on it.

Eventually, the house quiets down.

Sleep, as predicted, mostly evades Ranboo. He gets maybe an hour, cumulatively, maybe two if he’s generous, but mostly his mind is reeling with nerves. Every hour, Ranboo glances at his comm.

At twelve o’ clock, the house is quiet. Barring the rustling of wind outside.

At one o’ clock, until three o’ clock, Ranboo is the closest to being asleep as he will be the whole night.

At four o’ clock, Quackity is awake. He pretends to be asleep when Quackity opens his bedroom door, peeking inside to check on him before heading out. Ranboo can hear him walking around in the living room, before he hears the sound of a window sliding open and shutting with a soft slam.

At six o’ clock, the sun rises. Ranboo gets out of bed. He pushes himself up on one leg, trying not to put too much weight on the leg in a cast.

When he goes to check on Tubbo, he prays that he is asleep. This entire, idiotic, risky plan, hinges on whether or not he is.

Ranboo opens the door, twisting the handle ever so gently, and looks in through the barest crack in the door.

Tubbo’s sheets are half tangled around him, half tucked like a mound. He’s perfectly buried in a mountain of blankets and pillows, sleeping like a dead man. Ranboo stifles a laugh and pulls the door shut.

Tubbo may have been able to run off of nothing but black coffee for days, but he was always going to crash eventually.

And it looks like he’s crashed hard.

Quackity is gone, fucking around the entire server before going back to L’manburg. Dream will be going to a morning meeting with him in about two hours. Tubbo is dead asleep, and will remain to be for god knows how long.

Tommy is in Logsteadshire. Alone.

And Ranboo would very much like to visit.

This is hell.

Tommy knows now, for certain, that down is growing on his wings. Because he can feel the tiny quills poking through, pressing into his folded wings like a thousand little thorns. Down clusters are not supposed to be poke, but it feels almost like they’re growing into the skin of his wings.

If these bindings aren’t loosened soon, Tommy will… he’ll do something. Anything.

Probably something drastic and equally as stupid as he is, for deciding that such a small discomfort will be his breaking point. It’s such a small straw, but it will be the last he can handle.

Tommy doesn’t know when Dream will visit him next. He’s a bundle of raw nerves, shaking with a thousand different emotions, because he knows that Dream is going to see right through him. There isn’t anything he’s ever been able to hide from him.

It’s really childish to think that Dream can read minds. But for such an irrational thought, Tommy finds it drifting around his brain all too often.

But really, it hardly matters if Dream can somehow hear his thoughts like a broadcast, because for Tommy, it’s all the same.

He’s going to know that Wilbur visited, and he’s going to know that Tommy talked to him. Tommy broke the rules.

But most importantly, or the most damning, is that Dream will know that Tommy doesn’t want him to know. He’s going to lie by omission, and he can’t quite wrap his head around the idea of such blatant disrespect towards Dream. It isn’t right.

He’s a coward.

That’s the root of it. Because he knows that if Dream finds out he broke a rule, so dangerously and flagrantly, he is going to punish Tommy.

Severely.

And it’s going to hurt. Dream will hold his arm over a fire and make him count. He’ll hold his head underwater till he goes limp, then he’ll pull him up to breathe and dunk him all over again (Tommy pushes a chair against the door of the cabin he sleeps in, just to make sure that he never wakes up drowning again. It wasn’t a pleasant experience before, but with the phantom feeling of hands gripping his hair, holding his head underwater, the panic doesn’t leave him for a while. He shakes like he’s freezing for the rest of the day).

Tommy doesn’t want to be fucking punished. He’s like an animal that can’t think past the pain to understand the good it’s doing for him.

Is he even human? He’s an avian, he knows that, but does that make him more like an animal?

Is he closer to the crows strutting across the beach than he is to Dream?

Tommy winces.

That’s not—he doesn’t want to think about that. The thought curls in his gut and tightens like a coiled snake and Tommy doesn’t know if it’s because he hates the question or knows the answer.

Wilbur is not sub-human. Neither is Phil, nor Technoblade, or Quackity. Tommy feels guilty for thinking something that suggests they are.

So Tommy is closer to the crows for a different reason. There’s a connection here, between the brash way they caw at Dream, but scatter in a flurry when he gets too close. They’re afraid, and so is he. Crows strut with all bark and no bite to show for it.

Tommy watches as one saunters towards the bench he’s sitting on, bobbing its head with every step.

He could toss it some bread, pry up the floorboards and share the wealth. There’s not much grass to peck seeds and bugs from here, where the earth is scorched and bruised. It’s probably hungry.

A twig snaps somewhere behind him. It is not a bird.

Tommy spins, heart beating wildly in his chest like a startled prey animal, to face the predator.

Except it’s just Ranboo.

“Ranboo?” Tommy whispers, hoarse voice tinged with disbelief. Ranboo’s eyes are wide, silent particles drifting around him, rapidly dissipating. He must have teleported over to the bench, Tommy thinks. He couldn’t have snuck up on him otherwise. His chest feels as though it's imploding for a different reason, although the aftereffects of being startled are still coursing through his veins like a spark to gunpowder.

“Oh god, Tommy?” He sounds scared. It isn’t a nice sound.

“What are you doing here?” Ranboo is silent for a moment, as if he’s failing to find the words to reply.

“…visiting,” Ranboo says. There’s something hesitant in his voice. Tommy’s eyes trail down to the ground, practically out of habit at this point, and freezes. Ranboo’s leg is wrapped tight in a thick, white cast.

“What the hell happened to your leg?” Tommy cries. “C’mere. Sit down.” He scoots down the bench and pats the spot next to him. Ranboo looks dead tired.

“Is anyone here, or going to show up in the next hour?” he asks, in lieu of replying.

“I don’t know.” Wilbur might show up. Tommy doesn’t know when he’ll show up next. But it’s not like he knows when Dream is going to come by again either.

Ranboo lowers himself onto the bench, eyes nervously flitting between Tommy and the treeline behind him, as if Tommy is going to disappear any second, or someone else is going to appear through the trees.

“How, uh,” he begins awkwardly. “Have you been?”

Tommy blinks back at him. It’s hard to remember the last time he’d talked to someone other than Dream. Or Wilbur. His chest swells with a strange emotion.

“I’ve been…” Tommy pauses. He doesn’t know how to answer, if he’s honest. This isn’t Dream, there is no right one. “Not the best,” he eventually decides after a beat of silence.

It’s true. His back burns with constrained muscles and a hundred thousand itches he can never scratch.

“How are you? And what happened to your leg?” Tommy’s voice is still hoarse. He doesn’t know exactly how much longer he can talk before it starts to give out on him again.

“Dream happened,” sighs Ranboo, eyes flicking across the campsite. Tommy blanches.

“Was there a fight?” Ranboo shakes his head.

“No, this was just Dream’s ‘no visitor’ policy for Logsteadshire in action.”

What the fuck.

There is no ‘no visitor’ policy in Logsteadshire. Tommy knows this for certain, unless people have somehow wildly misunderstood his begging attempts for visitors.

Why, then, was Dream enforcing one?

“Logsteadshire doesn’t have a ‘no visitor’ rule,” says Tommy in a low voice. “You should have been able to get that from the invites, if anything.”

“What invites?” Ranboo turns to look at him with a frown. Nausea curls in Tommy’s gut.

“Everyone was invited to my beach party,” he explains as his stomach twists. “But nobody came.”

“Fuck,” Ranboo hisses. “Did I get an invitation?” He rips a black leather bound book from his suit pocket and flips through it. Tommy watches with wide eyes as Ranboo’s written memories fly by illegibly before stopping on one page. “When were they sent out?” he asks Tommy.

“Probably around then.” He gestures to the page Ranboo’s stopped on. It’s from about a month ago.

“I don’t see it,” Ranboo frowns, narrowing his eyes at the book in his hands. “There’s no mention of parties or invitations of any kind.”

“I don’t think it would be in there. It wasn’t nearly a big enough deal to be written into your book.” Ranboo huffs a humorless laugh.

“Tommy,” he says, turning to face him, flipping the book shut. “Every single scrap of information about you I’ve heard or seen since you were exiled is important enough to be in this book.” The way Ranboo says that is so sure. It’s funny, the way that he thinks that anything about him is remotely important at all.

Tommy can hardly breathe. Dream is the only one who cares about him. He said so and Dream doesn’t lie. “If you invited me to something, I would’ve added the invitation to the page and I would rather have scratched the date and time of it into the skin of my arms than miss it.”

“… what?” Tommy forces out in a tiny voice. He doesn’t know how to respond to what Ranboo has just declared. There’s no reason he should be that important, but if Ranboo feels so strongly about this then surely he would have remembered the invitation. “But I wrote everyone an invitation. Dream said he gave them all out.”

“Well he probably lied,” Ranboo sighs casually as if he’s proposing an obvious explanation.

“He—he wouldn’t—“ he stutters in response, lowering his gaze. Ranboo’s eyes burn, he can feel his stare even without looking.

“Why wouldn’t he?” Ranboo sounds genuinely curious. That might be the worst part. “I thought that lying was pretty typical of him.”

“No—“ Tommy bites out. “—no. He wouldn’t. He doesn’t lie. He told me nobody wanted to see me.”

“That’s kind of the opposite of true, though.” Ranboo shifts, scraping at the scorched dirt with the toe of his glossy, black shoe. “Which is what lying is.”

The tightness in Tommy’s chest tightens tenfold with the snap of a vice grip locking into place. He glues his eyes to the aimless patterns scuffed into the ground by Ranboo’s shoe and tries to swallow past the pressure in his throat.

“Dream wouldn’t lie to me,” Tommy asserts in a voice that cracks weakly. It sounds unconvincing, even to him. Ranboo’s foot stills.

“Are—are you sure?” He turns to face Tommy. “Because I think that he might have.”

Dream is his friend. His flock. He wouldn’t lie. Dream is protecting him.

“Yes,” Tommy whispers. “He’s my friend.”

His voice breaks on the last word.

“Oh… uh—really?” Ranboo stutters. “That’s—uh—that’s nice. I guess.” Tommy can feel his eyes on the side of his head. “How’d that… happen?”

Tommy frowns.

“ I don’t know,” he remarks. “He just… said he was my friend.”

“That makes it sound like you didn’t really have a choice.” Tommy laughs.

“I could’ve kept fighting. It just hurts like a bitch when he gets mad.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Ranboo cringe.

“That’s not good,” he comments weakly. Tommy glances at his expression and his stomach twists at the sight of clear discomfort across his face.

“It’s fine,” he tries to assure Ranboo, but it doesn’t work. His face is pinched and Tommy thinks he looks as if something is physically paining him.

“Tommy,” Ranboo begins with a pause as he seems to try to form the words he wants to say. He shifts awkwardly as he turns to look at Tommy again. “I’m not going to say that Dream is lying to you, but what he’s saying is not true. And what I think he’s doing isn’t right.”

His bound wings twinge with pain. There’s a threshold between something that is uncomfortable and something that is painful. The twine has crossed it with enough magnitude to shake every defense that Tommy could possibly come up with to Ranboo’s words.

“No matter what Dream tells you, I care about you, and if you ever need help, you have me.”

Waves crash. The crows hop across the sand, ruffling their feathers to shake out the sand. Ranboo sits beside him on the bench, quiet, following his absent gaze into the distance.

“Thanks, Ranboo,” Tommy responds, voice barely above a whisper. The sound of it is nearly lost to the waves.

Part of him screams that Ranboo is lying. Dream is the only one who cares about him, and that’s a universal truth. A law that cannot ever be rewritten. It’s what’s been beaten into him until the words are carved into his bruised ribs and inked into his skin by a horrid mixture of blood and ash. Part of him is distinctly attached to Dream, for better or for worse.

What would it take, Tommy wonders as he watches the crows dig their claws in the sand searching for food, for that attachment to snap?

Flock bonds are supposed to be the strongest things in the world.

This is rope tying his wrists like a lead with Dream holding the other end, pulling it taut enough to burn.

“What I said isn’t just me, by the way,” Ranboo adds, cutting through the endlessly repeating sound of the ocean. “I’m not the only one who cares, I’m just the only one who can get into Logsteadshire without losing a life.”

Tears prick at the edges of his vision. But for some reason, he scrambles for a denial.

“Wilbur, Techno, and Phil did, but they’re going to kill me,” he chokes out. Ranboo blinks at him.

“Oh. What did they do? To make you think that?”

“Dream said they would kill me. I’m not allowed to talk to anyone who comes.”

“Tommy, that's not a good rule.” Ranboo frowns. “And I really don’t think that they’re trying to kill you.”

“They hate me. I betrayed Techno and if they find out that I—“ he cuts himself off, burying his head in his hands. “They just fucking hate me, Ranboo. I’d want me dead too if I were them.”

“Have they ever done anything that makes you think they want you dead?”

“Techno told me to die like a hero and Wilbur doesn’t give a shit about me after Pogtopia.”

Ranboo grimaces. “Okay, fair,” he relents. “But what about recently?”

They’ve been nothing but kind to him, looking at him with eyes that burn and soft tones. But they’re faking it. The security he feels when their gentle voices wrap around his mind like an embrace is a false one.

“They haven’t… they’ve just visited.”

“I’m going to suggest something, and if you do get killed, you can haunt me forever,” Ranboo says. “You should try to trust them.”

If they see his wings, they will kill him. Even if Ranboo is right about them, his wings change everything.

He’s not supposed to be an avian. The tiny, ugly wings attached to his back hardly even qualify him as one compared to the majesty of their full grown, sleek feathered ones. They’d do him a favor and cut them off like little parasites made of his own blood and bone.

Maybe he should do it himself. Or just jump from a fucking tower and see how well he can fly without feathers.

Would it be quicker than death by the hands of Wilbur, Technoblade, and Phil?

How quickly does the sparrow die in talons or thorns?

“Maybe,” he whispers in response, really just to humor Ranboo.

Trusting them will kill him. His instincts damn him.

Because god does he want to trust them. He wants them to give a shit about him, swoop in and fucking help him or at the very least be here with him after every time Dream knocks him to the ground and leaves him bloody and bruised even if he deserves it. What he doesn’t deserve is them. He had all of it and he fucking ruined it because it’s in his code to destroy, but he’ll never see what grows through the ash.

“You don’t seem very… happy here,” Ranboo observes. Tommy almost chokes on a bitter laugh. “So I think that you should go with whatever does make you happy.”

“They want to take me with them.” Tommy’s mind flashes with the sight of Wilbur, feathers puffed like a nervous hen, watching him choose to stay. Ranboo hums.

“Do you want to go?”

“Of fucking course I do,” he sighs. “But it’s not that simple.”

“Well it doesn’t have to be complicated, either,” replies Ranboo like it’s a matter of fact.

“You’re acting like I can just pack up and fucking leave.”

‘What’s stopping you?” Tommy grimaces, turning away from Ranboo’s gaze.

It’s enough of an answer, even without being the whole truth.

“If Dream was your friend, don’t you think he’d want you to be happy?”

“You’re asking me a lot of fucking questions today.” Tommy’s voice leaves him in an audible rasp. He reaches a hand up to press his throat and grimaces at the half-healed rawness.

“I think you should be considering them,” Ranboo defends. “Think about it, because I think you deserve better than this.”

Tommy turns his head to the dark sea, trying to hide his disbelief. It would only make Ranboo want to convince him that this isn’t a grave he’s dug to fit every form of his body. This is a level of hell custom made for his breed of evil.

“Are you gonna stay until someone comes along and catches you, big man?” Tommy asks. Ranboo should probably leave if he doesn’t want to be seen. He’s been pushing his luck already and it doesn’t matter how selfish Tommy is, his safety is more important than keeping him company. “L’manburg is probably missing you right now,” he mutters.

Ranboo’s eyes widen, then squint with a grimace.

“I have bad news,” he replies. Tommy blinks at him. “L’manburg isn’t… uh… much of a country anymore.”

His breath leaves him in one single sigh. Twice, Tommy has heaved a final, ragged breath as his body turns to ash along with the pain of dying.

It felt like this.

“What do you mean?” he manages to breathe as his lungs shrink.

“Dream’s been… pretty relentlessly harassing us. Tubbo resigned really soon after exiling you, mainly because he couldn’t live with having done that, and everyone sort of followed suit.”

“Tubbo’s not president?” Ranboo shakes his head softly.

“Quackity’s kind of the president. I guess in the way that a pallbearer holds the front of a casket. He’s trying to smooth things over with Dream while getting everyone out.”

“Why am I still here?” Tommy asks, voice cracking. It’s painful to speak, but he’s never needed to more than right now.

If there’s no more country to be exiled from, then why is he still here? What’s keeping him here?

“Dream won’t give you up,” Ranboo replies in a hesitant whisper, glancing nervously at Tommy’s face like the information will hurt him. It does.

“I don’t understand.”

“That’s okay,” Ranboo tells him, wringing his hands. “It’s just—good to know. You should have someone other than Dream tell you what’s happening. Not that—he—I’m not trying to insinuate anything. Multiple perspectives are good.”

Tommy bites down a sob and scrubs his hands over his eyes.

“Thanks,” he says. Ranboo nods before glancing around and jumping suddenly.

“Oh—oh fuck. What time is it?”

Tommy scoffs. “Like I know,” he rasps, pulling his face from his hands and blinking up at the sun as Ranboo scrambles for his communicator.

Dream blew his up on the first night.

“Around ten,” he guesses, squinting at the high, approximately midday sun.

“Uh—yeah. Yeah, it’s nearly ten. I’ve gotta go,” Ranboo stands, pushing himself off the bench with his arms and one leg. Tommy stands too, watching awkwardly as Ranboo hobbles stiffly forward, wondering if he should help somehow. He’s certain that his face is red with blotches from unshed tears.

“Tommy, if I don’t manage to come visit again, It was absolutely not my choice, and I was probably physically restrained,” he says, twisting his head back to face him.

Tommy laughs, managing to stamp down the twisting insecurity demanding that he’s not worth the fucking effort. His chest hurts with the knowledge that Ranboo is probably telling the truth. About everything.

“Alright, man,” he grins weakly. “Get out of here before somebody fucking jumps you.”

With a final wave and a small grin, Ranboo disappears in a flurry of purple particles and dissipating smoke. Tommy sighs, turning back towards the horizon, a familiar, dense fog settling comfortably in his mind.

It’s a mist thick enough to choke him if he dares to breathe. He’s helpless for every second he’s left alone like the pain of not having anyone here is enough to shut down his mind.

Tommy knows he isn’t supposed to be alone. Not just because he’s the kind of person to crave the company of others, easily crippled by loneliness, but because something has changed.

Avians don’t do well alone. He knows this. Unfortunately, Dream doesn’t seem to know, or care, that he really fucking needs to not be alone at least until his wings are grown out with fledgling feathers.

The treeline shivers and Tommy whips his head to face the disturbance.

There’s only three people who would make an entrance like that. Blowing the full force of the wind under powerful wings through the weak branches and budding leaves.

Tommy’s trembling hands press into the splintered wood of the bench as he tries to breathe. His eyes sting, nearly burning him with the mess of emotion swirling through him.

Wilbur did say he would be back.

The three people on the server who want him dead more than anyone step out of the trees, folding their wings behind them. Tommy sees the exact moment Wilbur’s eyes lock onto him, paralyzed like a little sparrow under their sharp gazes.

When anyone came to Logsteadshire, Dream told him he had to go into the cabin and lock the door.

He also told Tommy not to say a word to anyone that wasn’t him.

Tommy sits, trembling under the thick trenchcoat, on the bench. Its wood is warped from the elements, including some nearby explosions, but he can no longer scrounge up the means to repair it, much less replace the splintered wood. His hands clench the wood planks and Tommy can hardly feel the sharp splinters that dig into his palms.

The three avians approach him and Tommy holds his breath. It isn’t a conscious choice, but it’s a nicer way to say that he can’t fucking breathe, save for a few tiny puffs through his parted lips.

Wilbur approaches the bench. Technoblade and Phil step away, each gripping the other’s arm as if to drag the other away.

“Hello,” Wilbur greets, pausing as he looks at Tommy, tilting his head slightly. “Are you alright?” His voice is soft and Tommy struggles to blink past the black spots growing in his vision.

He’s going to fucking die. A mixture of panic and pathetic elation at the sight of them has a vice grip on his throat. Either they’ll kill him now or he’ll die from a lack of oxygen.

It doesn’t fucking matter. Anything to stop the burning in his wretched wings.

“Tommy, you have to breathe.” Someone sits softly on the bench beside him, speaking with urgency. A gentle hand rests on his shoulder, fingers ghosting over his arm in featherlight touches that burn like soft little pinpricks of flame on a candle’s wick.

The sheer incongruity of a touch that doesn’t somehow hurt shocks him enough to suck in a breath. His vision blinks back, gradually returning to focus.

Beside him sits Wilbur, sleek monochrome feathers puffed like a startled cat, eyes wide and worried, scanning Tommy’s face like a troubled man searching the words of a holy text. He retracts his hand from Tommy’s shoulder, eyes not leaving his face.

“Are you alright?’ Wilbur repeats, concern swimming through his features. Tommy nearly shivers with the sweltering chill that runs through his bones at the absence of Wilbur’s hand on his shoulder. A chirp threatens to bubble up into his throat but he stamps it down with ferocity that chokes him again.

Not now, not with Wilbur right next to him. He’d be found out in less than a second and Wilbur’s warm eyes would turn to stone.

Tommy struggles to cough, choking on the noise he’s shoved down. His throat burns and he knows he won’t be able to take much more of this without losing his fucking voice again.

He buries his head in his arms, a hand over his mouth in an attempt to stifle the coughs, but they push through regardless. Wilbur shifts beside him, cursing vibrantly under his breath.

Tommy leans up and retracts his hand as the sharp, itching burn in his throat ceases. Delicate streaks of crimson blood are painted onto the pale, scarred skin of his palm.

Wilbur reaches over to him and pulls it into view with nothing more than the warm pads of his fingers on the back of Tommy’s hand.

“Shit,” he breathes. Tommy sees him look up over his head and motion with his free hand. Leaves crunch from behind the bench as someone else approaches.

“What is it?” Technoblade’s voice is low. Worried. His hesitance is as clear as it is baffling, because what reason would Technoblade have to be hesitant, much less worried?

“I need a regen potion,” Wilbur demands, pulling a soft square of cloth from his pocket and swiping the specks of blood from Tommy’s palm with infuriating gentleness.

Tommy can’t see Technoblade. He can’t quite force himself to turn and look, especially since he already knows the hatred that is certainly scrawled across Technoblade’s face. If Wilbur is going to insist on wasting potions on Tommy, then the least he can do for Technoblade in return is not force him to pretend to care about him.

His eyes stay firmly trained to his lap as Wilbur grabs the quickly surrendered potion, uncorks it, and passes it to him.

The whole potion.

As if it’s a problem that Tommy is bleeding.

Dream has never had an issue with seeing him bleed. Rivers of blood gushed from his back as Dream watched with curious amusement, and Tommy didn’t get a single potion. If Wilbur’s freaking out over this, he should have seen the tent.

Actually, it’s a good thing he didn’t. It’s a good thing Dream blew it up.

Regardless, this comparison is useless. A numbing potion wouldn’t have stopped the bleeding.

He could laugh at the opulence held out to him. The sheer luxury that’s more than he’s had access to for months.

“Here, Tommy,” Wilbur offers, gentle voice like a windchime in the softest breeze.

Wilbur is dangerous. Tommy knows that, perhaps even better than Dream does.

Dream told him that the danger lay with Technoblade and Phil, who could tear a weak hatchling like him to fucking shreds. It’s an easy assumption. But he said that the mockingbird would never pose a real threat compared to them.

It very well might be Technoblade who slays him. Or Phil, whichever whim they land on to put him down.

But it will be the siren song that leads him there. The pied piper’s sweet symphony.

Wilbur is impossibly gentle. His soft words and elegant wings are beautiful enough to ignore the sparks in his eyes that warn of danger.

Tommy is doomed because this softness will fool him. And then it will be too late. He’ll be yet another little bird caught, strung up like a grotesque trophy on barbed wire thorns, fooled by a song that he should not have listened to.

A shrike is still a songbird, after all.

And when they need to, they can sing just as sweetly.

Tommy watches Wilbur’s hand hold the offered potion out to him, but he doesn’t move to grab it, nor does he dare to look up.

Regeneration is expensive as fuck to make. At least it is for him, who doesn’t have the means to kill a ghast, much less collect any of their tears. It’s also quite a powerful potion, and Tommy doesn’t understand why they think he deserves to have it.

Sure, his throat is fucked. Coughing up blood is probably not a good sign when his voice has been so thoroughly wrecked by all his screaming. Dream healed it partially, but it’s clear that he didn’t want to heal Tommy’s throat completely, only enough for him to be able to rasp out a few words when needed.

And the punishment for using his voice when he isn’t allowed was clear.

Tommy has already broken that rule, horribly. When Dream finds out, he’ll likely never talk again.

And that…sucks.

If his throat has magically healed itself when Dream next visits, he will know that Wilbur has been visiting. Giving him potions. Food. Everything under the sun that he does not deserve.

Dream would be pissed enough to pin him down and cut his fucking throat out.

Tommy shakes his head. Wilbur’s hand lowers minutely.

“You don’t want it?” Wilbur asks him in a small voice.

Tommy grimaces. “I can’t,” he rasps, voice barely over a whisper. He’s sorely overused it already today, no wonder it’s tearing itself apart.

“Why not?” The mauve liquid swirls enchantingly in the glass bottle.

“Dream will know.” Dream will not let him have anything he doesn’t deserve. Tommy’s stomach churns with sickness.

For a split second, Wilbur’s hand clenches around the glass bottle, knuckles bleeding white. It’s over in a blink, but Tommy sees his hands tremble faintly, the potion licking the walls of the glass bottle.

It’s not fear.

“How about just a little bit, then?”

The waver, barely audible in his voice, is enough to tell Tommy that he’ll have to compromise on this.

He reaches out for the bottle and Wilbur pushes it into his hand. Still gently, of course, but insistent.

Tommy presses the bottle to his lips, letting the fizzing liquid slide to the back of his throat. The regeneration stings in a way that healing doesn’t, rebuilding the injury, repairing it completely. If you have a full dose, of course, and Tommy doesn’t plan to. Because he can’t have his throat heal completely.

Dream wouldn’t like it. This feeling of sickness will never leave him.

He passes the bottle back to Wilbur.

“I need to ask you something,” he forces himself to say past the thunderous beating of his own heart.

“Of course,” Wilbur replies, tilting his head like a curious sparrow.

“Do you remember being Ghostbur?”

Wilbur doesn’t reply. The silence that rings between them is deafening enough to make Tommy sorely regret asking him at all. It must be personal.

“Sorry—“

“A little—“

They speak at the same time, Wilbur pausing at Tommy’s apology.

“You have nothing to apologize for, Tommy,” he tells him. Tommy’s eyes burn. “I remember some of the things I did as Ghostbur. Things are coming back to me slowly, but it’s quite a process.”

“Oh.”

“Mainly it’s things that are quite small. Did you ask for any particular reason?”

“Do you remember anything about my beach party?” Tommy asks, ignoring his question. Wilbur blinks a little.

“Your beach party?” he echoes. “I don’t…”

Wilbur trails off, a faraway look clouding his eyes.

“You had a beach party,” he mutters. His brow furrows. “There were invitations, and you gave them to me. I was supposed to… give them all out.”

Tommy tries to swallow past the lump in his raw throat.

“Dream stopped me,” Wilbur mumbles. His face scrunches like he’s in pain. Tommy feels his words like a boot to the chest. “He told me he would take care of it. And that you didn’t want me in Logsteadshire anymore.”

Tommy watches, frozen, as Wilbur shakes himself and his gaze lands straight back onto him.

“I need to talk to Technoblade and Phil,” Tommy forces out, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Would you be alright if I called them both over?” Wilbur sounds impossibly concerned. Tommy wonders if he knows that Technoblade and Phil aren’t nearly as good of actors as him. They can’t fool him with a facade of love, but they will give him the truth.

Technoblade is not the sort to lie to a man on his deathbed, even if the truth kills him faster than any ailment.

Even if he’s tired of telling himself that people wouldn’t lie with such surety that he believes it like gospel, he’s going to try to trust them.

Ranboo told him to try. And he trusts Ranboo.

He nods, and Wilbur gestures again, this time two pairs of footsteps approach the bench.

“Tommy asked to talk to you,” Wilbur tells them.

“Uh… ok,” Technoblade replies, deep voice lilting upwards. Tommy watches their boots as they step around the bench, stopping on the other side of Wilbur.

“Did you ever get an invitation for my party?”

He has to be sure. Dream could have handed out every invitation as promised and everyone could have simply decided not to come. Or in Ranboo’s case, forget.

“No,” Technoblade says slowly. Phil echos him and Tommy feels the pressure in his head increase by tenfold. “You had a party?’

Tommy shakes his head.

“Nobody came. Dream said he would hand out the invitations I made.” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a shudder run through Technoblade’s golden-brown wings.

“We never got any invitation.” Technoblade’s voice wavers with a palpable effort to keep it level. Calm. “If we did, we would have come.”

It doesn’t sound like a lie. But Dream never sounds like he’s lying either.

“Tell me what’s happening in L’manburg,” he all but demands them.

The silence after he speaks is filled by the glance exchanged over his head before Technoblade starts to speak.

“Tubbo resigned. Nearly everyone deserted, and Quackity is in charge, trying to keep Dream from killing anyone before he can dissolve the country.”

Half of Tommy cries that it isn’t true. Why would he trust these killers over Dream? His friend?

But Ranboo is his friend. Ranboo trusts them.

And maybe, even if they do see his stiffly bound, hatchling wings, they’ll dispose of him quickly enough. False softness and a quiet death is better than the constant pain under Dream’s watch.

So either Dream has been lying or he hasn’t. Both options leave him dead, and this will be quickest. God does he hate pity but maybe they’ll hold him as he bleeds and call it mercy, just as Phil did for Wilbur.

The other half of Tommy believes them.

This half is also divided: one part is shocked that Dream would ever lie. He’s so impossibly betrayed. But the other part feels very small and horribly stupid.

“He said…” Tommy chokes out. Wilbur’s eyes scrunch as his feathers flex slightly. “That everyone was doing better without me.”

“That’s not fucking true,” Wilbur tells him. Phil laughs.

“The entire country fell apart without you,” he adds. “Everyone’s fucking miserable.”

“Dream’s a liar, Tommy,” Technoblade says in a tone that could be interpreted as gentle, which throws Tommy for a fucking loop, because Technoblade doesn’t do gentle.

Dream also doesn’t do lying, but the repetition drilled into his head of the inverse being true is impossible to ignore.

“Why am I still here?” he asks again, more to himself than any of the three beside him.

Because, really, why is he here? Alone on this wreck of a fucking island, in exile from a country that apparently no longer exists?

He knows the answer already, Ranboo told him enough.

Dream wants him here, so here he is. And here he will stay, until he… leaves, somehow. How far would he get from the boundaries of the island before he’s caught and killed? Maybe it would be worth it, no matter what happens.

“Because you’re choosing to stay,” Technoblade answers, and Tommy blinks.

“What do you mean?”

“You chose to stay here with Dream, but you can choose to leave.” His words are spoken simply, as if they aren’t quietly shattering everything Tommy thought was true. “The offer still stands if you want to come with us.”

Dream is his friend. His flock. The only one there for him. He’s said this a million times.

Dream is the only one who visits Tommy inside this locked cage, but he’s the only one with a key.

His bound wings burn. Twine claws into his soft skin tight enough to bleed.

It’s enough to make him disloyal.

“Okay,” he whispers. The three avians react immediately, straightening and looking at him with their feathers flexing.

“You’ll come with us?” Wilbur asks in a soft whisper, like Tommy will change his answer if he speaks too loud. Tommy nods.

“Tomorrow,” he clarifies. “I’ll leave tomorrow. There’s something I have to do first.”

Chapter Text

If Tommy were smart, he’d have left with them and never looked back. There isn’t much Dream can say to redeem himself and certainly not much he can say for Tommy to change his mind. What he needs more than anything, is an explanation. Maybe this is all some sort of misunderstanding. The part of his brain that’s tethered to Dream is screaming at him that he needs to reconsider.

But here he is, waiting. Dream will either show up within seconds or hours, it doesn’t matter which. Tommy has time to wait.

After many reassurances that yes, he’ll be fine, he’s been here for months, he can survive one more day in Logsteadshire, Wilbur left with Technoblade and Phil in tow. All three of them had the distinct look that a weight had been lifted off their shoulders but Tommy can’t quite understand why agreeing to go with them would make them seem so relieved.

It gives Tommy no relief. The truth of the matter is Tommy knows that this is giving up in more ways than one. But whoever said that giving up was the easy way out deserves a fist to the face. Everything is pushing him in seperate, terrifying directions and all of them end with him dead.

If Dream finds out he is trying to escape his punishment—leave exile, then he will kill him.

Technoblade, Phil, and Wilbur are going to kill him. Even if they don’t harbor any ill will towards him now, they will soon.

The easiest way is to beat all four of them to it. But he won’t. He’s too much of a fucking coward to actually end this and he’s too stupid not to try and roll the dice anyways. Mainly, though, he can’t do it because he wants Ranboo to be right.

He wants it to be true that the three avians give a shit about him even if that also makes him right about Dream.

Dream, who is apparently a liar. L’manburg, according to two different sources, is falling apart.

It’s such a stupid thought, but maybe Dream didn’t know either. Except Ranboo said that Dream had been pretty… involved, but Tommy hasn’t exactly asked about what was going on in L’manburg for a while. Maybe Dream just forgot to tell him. It could be a simple mistake. A misunderstanding.

Which is why Tommy can’t just leave. The part of his brain that demands attachment still hasn’t given Dream up. If anything, the conflict has only made it louder.

He stands from his spot on the wooden floor of the cabin, wincing at how the cold reaches his skin through the shifting fabric of Wilbur’s coat. It feels like a weight on his shoulders, brushing against the burning itch of his bound wings and offering a warmth that feels so cold to him. Another satchel of bread shifts in his pocket and he glances down at it, stomach twisting.

He’ll have to put this one under the floorboards too. If Tommy’s going to get a beating for asking about L’manburg when Dream visits, he’s not going to add another broken rule to the punishment.

Unfortunately, he knows he’s going to get punished either way. There’s no way around this. Dream already told him to stop asking about Tubbo and L’manburg a while ago and there’s no guarantee he’ll even answer.

He wonders whether Dream would avoid damaging his wings or focus on them.

The interest that Dream has in his wings is as strange as it is obvious to see. Tommy feels as though he’s seconds away from being dissected at all times and it’s hard to forget how Dream sat and watched as he grew them as if he was watching a pinned bug writhe and squirm in some sadistic experiment.

Not that he’s ungrateful. He would never want to imply that Dream was being nothing short of an incredible friend for taking care of him throughout that process. It was hell. Being alone would have been so much worse and Tommy is never going to say that he deserved to have more than what Dream did for him. That would be selfish. It would be entitled, selfish, demanding, horrible— everything that Dream has been trying to teach him not to be.

He is going to leave exile a better person than he was before. It’s his only comfort in the face of knowing he’s only escaping what he deserves.

The door creaks open, it's cold wood under his numb fingers. Even after all of this, he’s still trying to hide from Dream. He knows how many rules he’s broken and the only thing he can make himself do is curl up in the cabin and hope that it takes a few seconds longer for Dream to find him.

But it’s pathetic and he knows it, so he steps outside and stands in front of the door, pulling Wilbur’s coat tighter around him. Not so tight that it presses the twine further into his skin, though.

Every day feels like it folds upon itself, repeating the same steps over and over again, all with the lingering torture of his bound wings and aching body. At night he drags himself into Ghostbur’s cabin and collapses onto the floor, letting unconsciousness take him with the same fucked up nightmares as always. He wakes up to the yelling caws of the crows outside and leaves the cabin to sit and wait for something to fucking happen.

Something always does. It’s a much different routine than the one he had before he grew wings but it’s quite a bit more reliable. He doesn’t know why he even bothered to do anything before. It’s hard to remember why he had so much drive to do pointless things like gathering materials when he knew it would all be destroyed. Maybe he thought that if he worked hard enough, if he was a good little soldier, Dream would stop.

Tommy sits on the bench, feeling the dewey, warped wood underneath his stinging palms as he lowers himself down, carefully turning his torso to keep his back from touching the back of the bench. The position perfectly aligns his sight with the nether portal so he sits and he stares.

He knows he should have gone with the Sleepy Boys. He knows. Deep down, he knows nothing good is going to come out of the conversation he wants to have with Dream. It very well might lead to his body in a hole in the ground, unrecognizable from the explosives Dream loves so much. He told them he’d be fine until tomorrow but he actually doesn’t know if he’ll be alive long enough to see them again.

Which is fine. He’s been on the road of passive self-destruction long enough to see that it would end one way or another.

Hopefully Dream is right about everyone pretending to care because he doesn’t want to be as much of a problem in death as he was in his life. They can glance away from his mangled body with a slight, disgusted turn of the lip and brush off the sight in favor of things that deserve their attention.

His train of thought is mercifully interrupted before he thinks of doing something slightly drastic. A waver in the swirling purple film of the nether portal jolts him to attention. It wobbles threateningly, each ripple catching the light of the morning sun and shifting between shades of purple before Dream steps through. The pinprick eyes of his mask catch him immediately.

Tommy lets his gaze slide to the ground.

He wonders how long he has left until his mind betrays him and pushes everything he knows he shouldn’t forgive to the sidelines just so Dream won’t be angry with him. But Dream finds things to be angry about and Tommy has to instigate this now or he’ll have this horrible twine digging into his skin forever until he finally dies.

“Hey Tommy,” Dream says. His dark boots step into Tommy’s view.

Sometimes it feels like this is all there is. This is all he has.

It’s him and Dream on this island alone.

Dream doesn’t sound angry at him. Sometimes he’ll greet him with a note of rage in his voice and Tommy knew to be cautious. Sometimes he didn’t greet him at all. That was when it was really bad.

Today could be a good day. Dream could be happy with him, with the progress he’s made becoming a better person. Tommy could forget about all of this, let Dream protect him from the Sleepy Boys, and have a nice visit where he doesn’t fuck up.

He remembers a day when nothing he did seemed to bother Dream too much. Even though he was disrespectful, Dream had let it slide and even let Tommy use his trident. He felt drunk on the high-altitude air buffeting his face.

(In hindsight there’s a comically succinct explanation for why being in freefall had such a profound effect on him. One that includes why his choice of self-destruction seems to be teetering over cliffs and towers and not pushing a blade into his chest).

Tommy could let this be one of those good days.

He feels the pain in his wings pulse in time with his heartbeat. Dream can tie a damn good knot because his wings can’t move enough to spasm as much as Tommy knows they’re desperate to.

He’d rather have them cut off than bound like this. They itched for a while. Tommy knows it was the little downy feathers he’s supposed to have soon growing in but he couldn’t reach around to scratch at them so the itch gradually faded into a throbbing pain that his mind vividly interpreted as the feeling of feathers growing backwards into the skin of his wings.

It can’t be a good day. He can never have a good day as long as there’s this fucked up witch’s ladder stabbing curses into his fragile skin. His wings are bound and it hurts. No colorful expression, vulgarly spat or verbosely crafted, can manage to describe it and he’s out of the will to try.

Tommy can handle pain. He can grit his teeth and bear it because it has a reason. Dream knocks him to the ground and kicks his ribs in? It’s a punishment for doing something wrong. He mouths off and Dream tells him “good luck finding food”? That’s a lesson to learn from.

Dream is punishing him for the crime of having wings. Supposedly it’s meant to protect him, but if the Sleepy Boys really did want him dead, all it would get him is a quick death if they didn’t see him as the mockery he was. Somehow, it isn’t enough. The reason isn’t enough to justify the pain.

“Don’t ignore me, Tommy,” chastises Dream, placing his hands on either side of him on the backrest of the bench.

“Sorry.” Tommy’s heart jumps with every beat. He tilts his head to put Dream firmly in his field of vision, his gaze never rising above Dream’s chest.

“Dream,” he starts, voice cracking. “Can I ask you something?”

Dream tilts his head, examining him, before replying, “Sure.”

He could confront him now. Tommy could tell him that he knows he’s been lied to and demand answers, letting fire crawl up his chest.

It’s injustice, being lied to. That’s a worthy cause to fight for. He’s the hero who’s been toyed with and lied to. He should be spitting with righteous anger, ready to take up arms and revolt.

But maybe he’s exactly as simple minded and stupid as Dream says he is.

“Could you untie my wings? Please?” His voice breaks as he pleads and his eyes burn with unwelcome tears.

He wonders if Dream will see this for what it is.

A final bid.

Tommy knows he never was and never will be the hero that Technoblade likes to call him. Heroes would never be monstrous enough to be exiled to a small, cold island like this. Tommy was dragged, practically kicking and screaming, as nothing more than a criminal.

Theseus volunteered.

He chose to be the tribute sent to Crete to appease the Minotar. Nobody bound his wrists with rope like a criminal and led him out of his city-state. He wasn’t pushed into the back of a wooden boat, he sailed a ship himself. One fit for the prince of Athens. A hero.

Tommy wonders what Technoblade would think of him now, if he truly saw him. All of him.

His pale, thin, figure with bones nearly jutting from his skin as if parasites are trying to chew their way out of him, and the revolting excuse for wings protruding from his back, tied tightly out of view. Such a powerful disgust would overtake his face, shortly conquered by the sheer hatred Tommy would see and then be proven right.

Technoblade would wonder the same thing that eats at Tommy: How could that ever be mistaken for a hero?

He knows Technoblade hates to be proven wrong, but Tommy can’t help pissing him off a little.

Maybe Dream will take the bindings off, recognizing that this bid will save his game. Then, Tommy will stay. If Dream just does this for him, Tommy will let him do anything else.

This, in so few words, is a compromise. More accurately a plea for one, but the semantics hardly matter.

A hero would never plead. A hero would never accept anything less than what is good and right and honorable but here Tommy is, begging for the pain to stop.

Heroes would never be so fucking pathetic.

“I thought you understood, Tommy,” says Dream. “We have rules.”

“Please,” he whispers, one last time.

“You’re breaking our rules, now.” Dream leans further forward, looming over Tommy who begins to shake. He feels his shoulders tremble as if a chill is running down his spine.

“I tied your wings because it keeps you safe. It doesn’t matter that you don’t understand it, you don’t have a fucking choice.” Dream exhales. It sounds almost like a laugh, the way his breath escapes his lungs. “I make the choices here, and that twine will never come off.”

A strange haze envelops Tommy’s vision. There’s a slight tingling he can still feel, but the rest of him floats. Something was happening, but he can hardly remember.

Idly, he watches the waves move, running away from the horizon.

“I thought we’d moved past being this disrespectful but since you insist on this I’ll have to teach you a lesson.”

Dream’s mad at him. He must have done something bad again. Distantly, he sees movement around him.

“Are you even listening?” Dream’s voice is coming from the opposite side, now. He must have moved. “Obviously not,” he growls before a hand grips his hair and pulls. Tommy jerks back with a sharp cry as Dream pulls his head to face him.

“Listen to me when I fucking talk to you,” he says, voice low. Tommy wishes he could zone back out. There’s a moment of silence as he stares anywhere but the black pinprick eyes boring into him.

“Actually,” Dream’s voice cuts through the fearsome silence. “I’ve changed my mind.” He rips his hand from Tommy’s hair and turns to grip the back of his neck, slamming him against the back of the bench. Tommy cries out as the wood connects with his neck and his voice cuts off with a gag as Dream pushes his throat further down. He can feel Wilbur’s trench coat being torn off of him and he sees it thrown to the ground out of the corner of his blurring eyes.

“I’ll cut it off you,” Dream snarls. Tommy hears the small shriek of a blade pulled from a sheath and panic nearly consumes him.

“Please—stop—I’m sorry—“ he gasps. Dream squeezes his neck in warning.

“No, you aren’t,” he replies softly. Tommy feels him lean closer to him, placing cold metal on the skin of his back where the twine wraps around, just right of his bound wings. “But you will be.”

With a sharp slice, Dream tears the blade down his side. Twine snaps, a dozen whips lashing his arm with the recoil as Dream sinks the knife further into his skin, dragging it down.

The pain is blinding. He struggles underneath Dream’s hold, sobbing as thick rivers of blood run down the right side of his body. His attempts yield nothing because the cruel grip on his neck holds like iron against him. He explodes with pain as the blade in his skin is jostled.

“There,” says Dream, pulling away. Tommy gasps as his side throbs with fury. He can feel the bloodsoaked twine peeling away from his skin, loosening around his chest, but his wings are still tightly wrapped.

“Is that better?” Dream’s voice lilts mockingly as Tommy curls into himself. Out of the corner of his eye, a crow throws its head and caws roughly. “I asked you a question,” he snarls after the brief pause of silence, filled only by the crows and Tommy’s shallow gasps.

“It—it is,” he croaks. “Thank you.” He fails to choke back a sob.

“You’re welcome, Tommy.” He can hear the grin in Dream’s voice. “I’ll be putting them back on before I leave, but I’m happy to give you a little break.”

His heart sinks. He never should have asked. The thought of having twine pressing into the slice gouged into his side makes him wish he just kept his fucking mouth shut because Dream is too mad for him to back out.

“Since I’m here to keep you company for a bit,” Dream begins, wiping his blade and sheathing it. He sits next to Tommy on the bench and casually crosses his arms. “What do you wanna do?”

Tommy presses his elbows into his thighs, trembling as the movement stretches his cuts. He holds his face in his hands, tilting his eyes towards Dream who idly drums his fingers onto his knee with no discernible rhythm.

He sighs. “If you don’t want to do anything that’s fine, I guess. We can just talk.”

“Sorry.” Tommy cringes. He had been too focused on the pain to think of anything to do or even respond.

“No, no,” Dream waves him off. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you anyways.” Tommy stills.

“How is it? Being an avian?” Dream asks him. “I have to admit that I’m curious. Have you noticed anything different?” Tommy takes a deep breath, trying to still his heart. The wound on his side screams with throbbing pain and his hands are slick with sweat as he tries to wipe the tears from his face.

“Not really,” Tommy breathes, unsure. It sounds more like a question than an answer and Dream tilts his head towards him.

“You have to have noticed something. This is more than just sprouting wings, Tommy. If you haven’t—” Dream laughs lightly. “—then you’re even dumber than I thought.”

He winces and breathes a shaking sigh.

“It just feels like I’m going crazy.”

“So insightful,” Dream replies, huffing. Tommy’s shoulders tense at the sound of it. “But somehow that’s the deepest insight I’ve gotten so far.” A small part of him preens embarrassingly at the praise. It isn’t even supposed to be a compliment, it’s damn near an insult, but it doesn’t matter enough to stop the little miniscule glow of pride.

“You know I’ve been looking into avians lately,” Dream continues. Tommy doesn’t know if he’s meant to respond, but he gives a small nod to be safe. “Everything is so fucking tight-lipped. I knew you all were notoriously cagey but I had no idea. Can you believe the most informative accounts I’ve found are from some of those idiots who were obsessed with getting their own wings?”

Tommy barely succeeds in holding back a shiver. His wings, still tangled in strings of snapped twine, rustle against the back of the bench like a tied bushel. Save for a few strings that Dream’s blade missed, pulling tight around his chest like a wire, his wings are only tied tightly to each other, and each joint is fixed completely in place. He decides to be grateful, because he can slightly move his wings like a lump fused together, sticking out from his back.

Of course, it would be worse if Dream had believed the writings of “those idiots.” Their experiments would be best left in their time.

“It’s an interesting thought, though, that an avain’s wings can be cut from their back and grafted into a human back,” Dream muses with an audible grin. “Completely untrue, but interesting.”

No, it’s actually not interesting. At all.

“Come on, I was joking.” Even with his mask on, Tommy can see Dream roll his eyes. “You can stop shaking like some stupid, wet puppy. Besides, nobody would want… these,” Dream trails off, lifting his bound wings with a finger hooked under a strand of twine. The feeling is nauseating, made even worse by the movement pulling the twine wrapped around his chest tight around the slice in his side. He bites back a cry at the flare of pain that shoots through him.

“Huh,” Dream says, prying his wings further up from his back and leaning in for a closer look. “I can’t tell if those little feathers are going to grow out lighter than that, but they seem pretty dark.” Tommy can barely hear his observations past the blinding pain of the stray wires of twine digging fiercely into the gouged wound. He can hardly bite back a scream and as nausea rolls in his gut he wonders if he’ll vomit if this goes on any longer.

“Oh well.” Dream drops his wings and the pressure is released. Tommy struggles to force air into his lungs, panting slightly as the throbbing in his side gradually fades. “We’ll be able to tell eventually. Until then, I can just keep guessing.”

For a brief moment, there is silence between them, only broken by Tommy’s harsh, panting breaths. The ocean roars on and the crows yell with palpable agitation.

“My money is either on a brood parasite or some stupid sparrow,” Dream muses idly. “Both seem like fitting options for you, especially the brood parasite. Probably a cowbird if we’re judging based on the color of those feathers, although I guess that could change.”

Tommy doesn’t respond. What difference does it make to Dream what bird he ends up being? It would only cement what he already knows about him, that he’s the kind of bird that would be placed in songbirds’ nests to kill the real offspring and force the innocent parents to feed a gluttonous leech of a hatchling. It would be fitting and expected from someone like him so why Dream bothers to guess is beyond him.

“Whatever,” Dream sighs, passively observing the area as he taps his boot on the scorched ground. “Let’s see what else we can talk about.”

What is he looking to get out of this? It isn’t like Dream has ever sat him down to “talk” before, this is new. Tommy can only wonder if it’s a way to pry at the changes in him Dream can’t see, part of the same dehumanizing curiosity that has him pulling at his wings and apparently dedicating time to researching forbidden information about avians.

What is it all for?

Since the first appearance of his wings and the subsequent reveal of his avian blood, Dream has approached him like a case study with the curiosity of a white-coated scientist. He’s a strategist and a hunter and he hoards information because it is what gives him the power he has.

Knowledge is power. Knowledge is the upper hand. Ignorance is a fundamental human weakness that greater men give their lives to cure themselves of and Dream is no different but Tommy doesn’t see him as the kind of man who would die. Maybe it’s the trickster in them both, but Tommy has become familiar with the way Dream sees an opening for strategy. He is also familiar with the way Dream begins to hunt for weakness. A single scrap of information can often be the key to toppling the strongest opponents. It’s a fact to Tommy but to Dream it’s a mantra. A hymn. Tommy saw it first the day he joined the server, but he didn’t realize the way Dream fought until Wilbur decided to pick a fight with the guy, but in every battle Tommy felt like Dream knew him better than he knew himself, telegraphing his moves like he was privy to every thought.

An ignorant man is a weak one.

Tommy can live with weakness. Dream cannot. He wonders how badly it must chafe.

He wonders what it means for Dream to be lying to him about everything going on outside of the borders of Logsteadshire.

“Well,” Dream starts after several long minutes of nothing but the waves roaring and crashing against the beaten shore. “In case you’re wondering, nothing new is happening with L’manburg. Things are going steady, everyones doing pretty great.” Tommy stills. First at the realization that Dream has just brought up the forbidden topic, L’manburg, and then the sinking knowledge that there’s something wrong lacing the words he says.

“I have bad news,” Ranboo’s voice whispers like a ghost in his head. “L’manburg isn’t… uh… much of a country anymore.”

“I’m just glad things are working out now.”

“Dream’s been… pretty relentlessly harassing us.” There’s a buzzing in his head, growing tamelessly with each second.

“Tubbo’s busy as ever, but everyones getting along fine. It’s really peaceful, honestly.”

“Tubbo resigned really soon after exiling you,”

“I think they’re even planning some celebrations or something.”

“Then everyone else sort of followed suit.”

“I know you miss Quackity too, but he’s been doing just fine.”

“He’s trying to smooth things over with Dream while getting everyone out.”

The buzzing rises to a crescendo. Tommy feels his hands tremble.

“No,” he breathes. If Ranboo’s voice hadn’t brushed against his mind like the cold breath of a ghost whispering behind him, Tommy would have believed every word. There was no hint of any dishonesty but it isn’t true. “They’re not.”

Dream stills. His boot ceases its idle tapping.

“You’re lying.”

Tommy breathes. His lungs fail to take in any air.

“What makes you think I’m lying, Tommy?”

“Because—L’manburg is—it’s not—people are leaving. And Tubbo’s resigned.”

“You’ve been talking to someone,” Dream hums. His voice feels like ice down his spine. “And you believe them over me.”

Tommy doesn’t respond.

“Who was it?” Tommy swallows roughly. His dry tongue is sandpaper in his mouth.

“No,” Dream places a hand softly on the back of his neck and turns his head to meet his pinprick eyes, the bruising pressure of his thumb and forefinger sharply contrasting the gentleness of his palm. “Answer. Tell me who’s word you’re taking over mine.”

Fear grips him like an iron clamp. It wasn’t a good idea to speak. He never should have said a damn thing. Dream’s grip gets tighter around the back of his neck, fingers digging into his skin.

“Whoever it is, they aren’t telling you the truth. But I trusted you not to listen, and I want to know who’s telling you I’m lying.” It’s a threat. Dream won’t accept anything but a name, and saying one would hardly fall short of a death sentence.

Ranboo’s leg was wrapped tight in a thick, white cast. “Dream happened,” he sighed, eyes trailing to the ground.

Giving Dream a name would spell their death. Depending on who it is.

“Dream’s a liar, Tommy,” Technoblade’s voice echoes in his head like a whisper in a cathedral.

“I—it was Technoblade,” he whimpers under Dream’s grip, shoulders hiking as he tries to squirm away.

Dream’s hand loosens. “So you were talking to Techno?” Tommy nods. He watches with dread curling like a tensed snake in his gut as Dream sighs and stands from the bench. “Not only does that break our rules,” he growls. “But you’re choosing to believe the word of a man who wants you dead over me.”

“So that’s two rules broken. Three, technically,” Dream huffs, motioning to the snapped and bloodied twine around his chest before looking back down to sift through his potion belt.“You know what I have to do now.”

His mind is going a little floaty again. Tommy can’t feel anything except for a distant buzz from the cut on his side. It’s a good state to be in right now, as Dream’s hand clamps around his throat and slams him into the ground.

There’s a ringing sound around him, trembling in his eardrums. He can feel the distant touch of Dream’s fingers pulling at the ripped cloth on the side of his shirt. Liquid is poured down his side, through the tear in his shirt and into the slice Dream made into his skin.

At first it feels like ice. It runs from his side to his chest, dripping and pooling underneath him like shards of crushed ice, but then, with sharpening awareness, it begins to burn.

Like fire licking against his abused skin, it scalds. Pinprick blades stab him to the bone anywhere the potion reaches and sinks into his pores. It fills the gash in his side as water fills a desperate, cupped palm and chews rabidly into his flesh.

Tommy screams. His fingers, raw from scratching at twine, claw at the ground and bury themselves into the charred dirt like doing so would magically make the pain stop.

He can’t think, or process what’s happening to him, he can only vaguely register the spasms of his own body and Dream’s hand in his hair, petting at the sweat-soaked, tangled strands.

More liquid runs down his chest. It’s most likely blood.

When it all fades to a burning sensation, Tommy pries his eyes open. Dream’s mask stares down at him before he shifts his arms and pulls Tommy into his lap.

There’s a rough, tearing sound as Dream slices through the fabric of his shirt, pulling open a large slit where the cut was made before. He cranes his neck weakly and sees the wound, bleeding sluggishly surrounded by a large patch of raw, bloody skin, courtesy of what he can only assume was a potion of harming now that the blinding pain has left him the space to think.

Dream brushes the fabric away like a parted curtain, presses his blade to the exposed skin, and begins to cut.

Tommy watches as the blade slices into him, gasping as the cold metal drags through his burning skin. The pain doesn’t register much past the continuing burn of the potion.

With surgical precision, a series of horizontal cuts are made, going down his side to his hip. They are of perfectly the same length and depth and Tommy is distantly impressed with the level of control, passively observing as the last ones are gouged into his hip.

Then Dream prys the cork off of another potion of harming and Tommy tries to push himself off of Dream’s lap with a whimper. It doesn’t work, it never would have worked. His weakened limbs are as heavy as iron and he’ll never be able to escape this. Even if he ran, Dream would catch him eventually and it was always so much worse when he tried to run.

Dream tilts the bottle over the grid of cuts and lets the poison fill his wounds.

It’s hard to tell, in this moment, which was more painful: this, or growing wings? Limbs tearing from his back was a unique, bone-deep pain that gripped him with enough force to render him unconscious. It was unmedicated surgery, a raw, splitting pain.

This is torture. It isn’t comparable. Acid eats into his skin and through the flesh in his open wounds, tearing, chewing, gnawing—

Tommy passes out. His consciousness leaves him, mercifully, and the last thing he hears is the droning ring of a tortured scream.

The first thing Tommy registers is the scent of smoke.

He pries his eyes open and watches as ash drifts lazily past his vision.

Despite the permeating numbness in his limbs, he manages to push himself up enough to take in his surroundings.

Fires dance across the ground, devouring any life left in the scorched patches of dirt. Smoke curls in wisps that drift towards the sky, escaping into the dark, looming clouds that warn of a storm. The ocean roars indistinctly, fading in his ears and joining the nauseating buzz of sound ringing in his head.

Ghostbur’s cabin is burned, charred and ashen with tendrils of smoke tapering off into the sky. Small pinpricks of flame and embers in the wood are visible even from where Tommy lays, burning orange and neon red in the dark ash. The land around him is in a similar state, reeling from some terrible reckoning. Arrows jut out from black, feathery piles that dot the ground and a sick feeling rolling in his gut forces Tommy’s eyes to blink away from the sight of them, scattered and smoking.

Dream is gone.

In front of where Tommy’s head lay, there is a crisply folded slip of paper, pinned to the ground with a bloodsoaked dagger. With trembling hands, he reaches out and takes the dagger, the note remaining stuck on the blade as he pulls it closer. His arms wobble dangerously before failing, sending him crashing back to the ground. He curls inward despite the vehement protests of his aching body and pulls the note from the blade, fingers shaking.

Consider this a warning.

Stay safe.

—Dream

A tiny vial of healing tumbles out from the fold of the note, nearly shattering on the ground when Tommy’s reflexes fail him. Luckily, he manages to get a hold of the vial and he uncorks it, bringing it to his lips and letting it drain into his mouth. It coats his dry, sandpapery mouth like a fizzing syrup, dripping down his (almost certainly re-damaged) throat.

He takes a moment to breathe.

The potion returns some modicum of feeling to his numb limbs, enough to clamber to his feet, taking the dagger and the note with him. It isn’t enough to heal him.

Burns litter his entire body, snaking across his skin in patches. Smoke fills his lungs like a drowned man holds water and his ears ring with the aftermath of the horror that Dream bestowed upon Logsteadshire. His side is… numb, like the limit of pain his body can take has been long met. Tommy is not looking forward to when he’ll have to feel again.

Beside what used to be the bench is the tossed, rumpled form of Wilbur’s trenchcoat. Tommy stumbles over to it with leaden limbs and claws it up off the razed earth, eyes sticking on burnt patches that he’ll have to clean and stitch back up.

He puts the trenchcoat on, sliding his shaking arms into the sleeves and wrapping it tightly around him. The weight on his shoulders is familiar, and it smells like the same smoke it always has. He slips Dream’s note into one of the front pockets and the motion pulls at the few strands of twine that are somehow still fucking there. The few that lasted Dream’s onslaught are tough enough to withstand everything else Dream did to him too, it seems.

At least he forgot to rebind them.

Tommy pulls the twine, spacing it from his chest, and slides the dagger between them. He yanks the blade outwards and the twine breaks with a harsh snap.

With a shuddering sigh, Tommy lowers the dagger and his wings spasm against the knotted mess of twine tangling them together. At least they can do that much, he thinks.

Tommy averts his gaze from the smouldering remains of Logsteadshire and turns it north, towards the woods.

North, towards the tundra.

His leaden limbs carry him as he trudges weakly into the dark treeline. They’ll probably kill him. He’s certain that once they see him, see the pathetic excuse for wings jutting from his back, tied like a trussed chicken, they’ll slit his fucking throat or worse.

They’ll make it fucking hurt, but Tommy has never been known to have an ounce of common sense.

He’s stumbling to the tundra, right into the waiting palms of the avians, and he knows that he’s no better than a fool.

Chapter Text

The freezing wind batters his numb body as he forces himself to take each step forward. Sheets of white snow give underneath his frozen, trudging feet, some powdered clumps sticking to what remains of his shoes each time he manages to lift them up again and press forward.

His body is tattered, burned, and almost certainly hypothermic. When he catches a glance of his arms underneath Wilbur’s trenchcoat, his hands barely peeking out from the sleeves, they are sickly pale with an icy, bluish sheen. It isn’t good that he can hardly feel his body except for the pull of increasing exhaustion and the overwhelming heaviness that pulls on every step. It takes everything in him to keep pushing forward instead of falling to the ground, letting the falling snow cover him.

Maybe if Tommy were thinking clearly, he would have given up already.

Truthfully, he would have seen no reason to push forward with such tenacity if all it would do is take him stumbling into the arms of the avians who want him dead.

Although all rationality pulls him towards the ground, every inch a makeshift, icy grave, Tommy mindlessly pushes forward with the instinctual need to survive.

Phil’s voice echoes like a mantra in his head, saying, “We’re just up north, through the snow.”

His body is numb, beaten, and burned, and his mind has turned to the part of him that is most reliable. Every thought is consumed by instinct and with every exhale his throat rumbles with small, gravelly, peeping sounds that he couldn’t suppress if he wanted to. They’re lost in the roaring of the wind and falling snow.

With a dull crunch, his foot sinks into a hole, hidden by the thick cover of snow. He falls face first to the ground, buried in an instant and gasping for air.

For a moment he lies there, unmoving. His chest rises lethargically and falls with a silent chirp, muffled in the snow.

Somehow, he gets back up. Tommy braces his trembling arms beneath him, digging his fingers into the snow, and pushes his body up. His head lifts towards the pale horizon, eyes squinting past the blinding brightness of the snow.

Nestled between tall, dark, snow-covered trees, is a cabin. The soft calls of ravens ring from a distance, high up in the trees.

Somehow, Tommy’s feet get back under him and he stands. Somehow, he takes another step forward. His mind won’t let him falter, won’t let him think of the danger he’s in, only screaming for the warmth they once gave him. Not that he would protest much against his instincts. He’d die a fool, but he wouldn’t die alone.

It takes an eternity to reach the doorstep. He drags himself through the snow and claws his way up the steps, collapsing just outside the door. His strength nearly fails him as he lifts a trembling fist to knock at the door. It’s a small sound, barely audible, which is likely why nobody answers.

Tommy sits there for a long time. He sits, leaning against the wooden door with pathetic little noises rumbling in his chest, waiting for the door to fly open and a sword to be pushed between his ribs.

Neither happens.

He lifts a numb arm to the door and pulls down on the handle. It opens with a click and the weight of his body leaning against the door sends him tumbling to the floor inside, clumps of snow sprawling across the hardwood. Tommy wholeheartedly expects for Technoblade to burst into the room brandishing an axe at the intruder, but again, nothing happens. The warmth of the house urges him to get up, so Tommy manages to stand once again and trudges into the room, pulling the door shut behind him.

Unfortunately, the surroundings—as warm as they may be—give him no comfort in the face of his growing paranoia. Any second, they could find him. At any moment, one of them could burst through the door and cut him down, executing him like an animal. He’s done all the hard work for them, wandering straight into their den.

His panic mixes viciously with his instincts. Panic overcomes him as he is wracked with the need to get away, somewhere safe—

Tommy stumbles towards the couch, grabbing a blanket tossed over the cushions and pulling it to his chest with trembling fingers. It’s the softest thing he’s felt in months and the feeling of it calms something in him enough to think slightly past the haze of panic.

In the corner of the room, he sees stairs to a basement, most likely. Clutching the blanket, he quickly creeps down the steps, wide eyes flicking back and forth for any sign of threat. His breathing is ragged but stifled by the overwhelming paranoia coursing through his exhausted body.

The stairs descend into a basement, as predicted, and further when Tommy spies a trapdoor and manages to slip down the ladder into a… sub-basement? There’s almost complete silence in the room, save for the creaking of the wood above and a slight roar of the muffled wind outside.

It isn’t enough. He could be found and there’s no way he could fight in this state. Especially not since he’s in Technoblade’s basement. He has to hide. It’s possible he’s just massively fucked up by dropping himself down the ladder into this…cavernous sub-basement, because it looks horribly unfinished. Most likely, Technoblade has a plan for it but hasn’t done anything for it other than create the space under the cabin as a placeholder. That is incredibly unhelpful, but Tommy glances up at the ladder and knows that trying to pull himself back up will be pushing his adrenaline too far. He won’t be able to do it, his numb limbs would probably remember their pain after the first rung and give out on him.

Tommy buries his shaking fingers in the blanket, whipping his head around the cavern. There has to be somewhere he can just crawl into and hope for the best. In the corner, propped against the wall, is a pickaxe. The weathered, diamond blade glints blue in the pale light and the handle is cold in Tommy’s hand as he stumbles over and grabs it.

His best bet at not being found is to go even further down. So he does.

It feels as though he’s digging his own grave. The loose dirt and bits of gravel underneath his feet give way easily, but moving his body enough to dig into the ground enough is nightmarish. Feeling is slowly beginning to return to his body and Tommy knows that the second he starts to feel his injuries his time to hide will run out and he’ll collapse right on the floor, ready to be caught and skewered.

He barely manages to dig out a small hole underneath the floor before his arms give out and he drops the pickaxe. It clatters to the bottom of the pit he’s dug and Tommy nearly expects Dream’s expectant voice to ring out, telling him to drop the rest of his things in too.

Instead, Tommy lowers himself in, dragging his stolen blanket behind him, and covers the opening, concealing himself in the hole.

It’s dark, cold, and incredibly small, but it’s safe. Tommy curls into himself, hugging the blanket to his chest and burying his face in its soft fabric.

It still feels warm from when it had sat on the couch, next to the lazily burning embers of coal left behind in the fireplace.

It also smells like them. The three avians Tommy is currently hiding from. It shared their space, their warmth, and it carries the barest scent of the fireplace as well as the comforting smell of detergent. Tommy breathes it in, letting it filter the dank, dusty air of his hiding place before it reaches his nose.

Just like the trenchcoat wrapped around Tommy’s twitching wings, the blanket smells somewhat like Wilbur.

But the brown leather carries the smell of a dead man, one who smelled of ash and smoke. The permeating metallic scent of blood clings to it. Tommy could wash the stains but he could never get out the smell. At some point, it’s become difficult to distinguish the old scent of Wilbur’s blood and the fresh, tangy scent of his own soaking into the fabric.

The fleece blanket, soft and warm in his numb fingers, smells faintly of coffee and spice. It's the subtle scent that was covered by the tang of blood and choked out by acrid smoke. He hasn’t smelled it in a long fucking time.

For what feels like an eternity, Tommy sits there, curled into a tight ball with his face pressed into the fleece blanket, breathing. Eventually, his consciousness mercifully fades and he slips into sleep, buried beneath Technoblade’s basement as the wind howls above.

When they arrive in Logsteadshire, Tommy is nowhere to be found.

In fact, Phil can’t spot a single living thing left, save for some very lucky clumps of grass on the outskirts of the area.

They land in the middle of the carnage. For a solid minute, none of them dare to speak, hardly breathing as their eyes race across the scorched land.

“Fuck,” Phil breathes. The bench where Tommy sat just yesterday has been reduced to ashes and scattered shards of wood. Because nothing about this could ever stand to be easy.

“Tommy!” Wilbur yells, panic audible in his voice. The sound of it echoes into the flame-scarred trees. It’s as if a wildfire sprung up, consuming the land and spitting ash back out, but the scattered marks of explosions ruin the image of a natural disaster. So do the arrows, jutting out of the prone forms of crows scattered across the ground in sickening piles. Someone did this. Phil almost hopes Tommy left before the destruction, already long gone.

Technoblade twists his head, pacing in different directions like he can’t decide where to go first. Phil watches as his braid swings, hitting the plates of his armor with each turn.

Tommy said he would be fine for one more day.

The carnage begs to differ.

Phil remembers the sheer relief he felt, knowing Tommy would be safe with them in just one more day. After waiting for weeks, they only had to wait one more day.

They’re one day too late, now.

“Okay, so this was obviously Dream, right?” Technoblade half-shouts in order for Wilbur, who has wandered all the way over to the still-standing cabin, to hear him. There’s a quiver in his voice that betrays his panic.

“Obviously!” Wilbur shouts back. “He practically left a fucking signature!” He gestures widely to the array of brand new, still smoking pits in the ground.

“Why’d he do it?” Technoblade mutters beside him, holding a fist to his gritted teeth. Then he shifts, visibly tensing and placing his hand on his holstered crossbow.

“Is this a trap?” Phil asks him, copying his movement towards a weapon. Technoblade glances quickly at him before his eyes flick back to the surroundings.

“Possibly.”

“Go search the area, Wilbur and I will search the camp.” Technoblade nods before slipping away from his side and into the scorched woods. Wilbur’s gaze follows him as Phil joins him by the cabin.

“We might’ve been set up,” he explains. Wilbur’s eyes darken, flicking from the treeline to meet Phil’s.

“Phil,” he says, voice low and trembling. Crimson glints in his brown eyes. “I am losing my patience.”

Phil breathes in, then out, slowly enough to calm himself ever so slightly. Wilbur is right. It’s clear that the thin strand keeping him from snapping is frayed beyond belief. He can see the same in Technoblade, too. It’s been hard, trying to keep them from going off the rails and employing whatever means they deem necessary to meet the ends of getting Tommy out of exile and safe with them. It’s been so fucking hard to be somewhat of a voice of reason, to remind Wilbur that they need to approach this with strategy and finesse, to remind Technoblade that they can’t fight fire with fire—

But it’s been the most difficult to remind himself of those things. To restrain himself from taking Dream’s throat out.

“So am I,” he says, and he means it. Because he won’t hold back forever.

Maybe it’s the reason why he never became as prodigious in battle as Technoblade and Dream did, or as cunning as Wilbur, but Phil has no patience for games.

Predictably, they find nothing useful.

The only things that haven’t been destroyed are, for the most part, inside the cabin. It remained somewhat untouched by the carnage, but there was nothing that could tell them anything about what happened here or where Tommy could be now.

Phil only finds familiar satchels of food stuffed beneath a loose floorboard. The sight of them sends Wilbur to his knees and Phil has to comfort him through a mixture of spitting curses and sobs.

Fortunately, though, Technoblade returns to the camp and confirms that the surrounding area is completely clear. Of anything. If this was supposed to be a trap, it's a shit one.

“Okay, we’ve established that Tommy isn’t here. Sue me, but I don’t actually care about the rest of this.” Technoblade’s voice is low and his eyes are glued to the horizon. “Let’s stop wasting our time here and figure out where he went.”

“How?” Phil asks. “We didn’t find anything that could tell us where he went. For all we know, Dream could have just taken him somewhere else.”

“Easy,” Technoblade drawls. “We politely ask Dream.”

Wilbur laughs darkly. “Yeah,” he says. “Let’s have a word with Dream.”

Phil can already tell that nothing about it will be civil.

“Fuck it.” He watches as Technoblade grins towards the horizon, approximately towards the mainland. “Let’s find him.”

It doesn’t take long.

Technically, they find Quackity first. He sees the three of them just as they drop from the sky.

“Hey, Quackity,” Phil greets, glancing around the path as Quackity jumps, wings flaring at the shock of their sudden presence. “Have you seen Dream today?”

“Jesus fucking christ,” he breathes, leaning down with a hand pressed to his chest. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Where’s Dream?” Technoblade cuts in.

“We need to have a chat with him,” adds Wilbur, tilting his head with a slight grin.

“Oh.” Quackity straightens immediately, glancing between the three of them. His eyes widen and his lips twist into a slight grimace. “What happened?”

“Something’s come up and we’ve decided that we need to speak with Dream. Is he around?” Phil explains, voice perfectly level. He’s managing to reign in his tone, but he can only hope it lasts.

“I’ve roped him into a meeting that’ll be happening about—“ he glances down at his communicator. “—five minutes from now. But guys, seriously, what’s going on? You look—um, upset.” Quackity finishes with a deepening grimace, eyes flicking between their expressions. Phil wonders what he sees.

“Well,” Phil begins. “Tommy isn’t in Logsteadshire and we need to find him.”

“What? What happened? Why’d he leave? Or was he taken?”

“No idea. The island was blown to fucking pieces and he wasn’t there. So we’d like to ask Dream where he supposes his charge is. Where is that meeting happening?”

“Uh—right here. On the path.” Quackity points to his feet, glancing behind him. “I was waiting for him.”

“You two just have meetings on the Prime Path now?” Wilbur pipes up. “Fun.”

“Look, motherfuckers,” Quackity leans in, whispering. “I need to waste as much of his fucking time as possible. It’s called community service. He’s so wrapped up in his political circus that he needs to play the part, and if he misses a single one of my bullshit meetings, I get to call him uncooperative.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Wilbur remarks. “And an incredible waste of your time as well.”

“No, man, my time is worth way less than his. Whatever I can do in an hour, he can do in half. He’s only putting up with me ‘cause he thinks I’m still useful to him.”

“Because of the revenge thing,” Technoblade says. Quackity nods sharply.

“Yeah. Speaking of, maybe you guys should take me hostage or something. Or I’ll have to leave because he can’t see us having a nice, friendly chat.”

“Do whatever,” Technoblade drawls tonelessly.

“It might be best to leave,” Phil suggests. “You’re not going to be able to have your meeting. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Quackity waves him off. “I wasn’t looking forward to it or anything.”

“Too late,” Technoblade says, staring over Quackity’s shoulder. Phil follows his gaze and is met with Dream, stopped short several meters down the path. Immediately, Quackity’s wings rise with tension. Phil can feel his attempting to do the same, but he stifles the urge and keeps completely still as he watches Dream approach.

“The acting leader of L’manburg and three assorted terrorists having a pleasant conversation,” Dream laughs as he joins them. “I never thought I’d see the day.” He levels Quackity with what must be a pointed look.

“What the fuck do you think you’re looking at me like that for?” Quackity spits. “Did you seriously think I’d just jump them?”

“We discussed some strategies,” Dream says smoothly. Quackity bristles.

“An ambush, Dream. An ambush. A surprise attack.” He throws his arms, gesturing towards the three of them. “We’re the ones getting ambushed right now!”

“Good to know,” Technoblade snarks. “I’ll be expecting an ambush in the future. If you catch me on a good day I’ll even act a little surprised.”

“I’d thought you were a little more passionate about the causes we’ve discussed. You have to understand that I wouldn’t have expected to see you casually—“

“Do you think I’m fucking stupid?” Quackity explodes. “What you won’t see me doing is throwing myself into a fight I won’t win for the pure sake of revenge. We discussed justice and I will not find that by picking fights.” None of them move for a brief moment. Quackity exhales shakily, glaring at Dream’s blank, smiling mask.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my fucking way. Dream,” Quackity gestures to the three other avians. “You’ll find that your agenda has changed. We can meet to discuss L’manburg’s fish count at a later date.”

“I hope you have an incredible day,” Quackity cordially snarls, brushing past Dream and stalking away down the path. Phil doesn’t wait to watch him leave, his cold gaze flicks immediately to Dream.

His head is turned casually, watching Quackity leave.

“I feel privileged to be working with such a gracious and hard-working Vice President,” Dream sighs.

“I could have sworn Quackity was the President,” Wilbur points out, grinning. It looks far more like a snarl across his face, as he stares at Dream, eyes glinting with crimson.

Dream laughs. “Sure,” he drawls. “But he didn’t really get elected, did he?”

“Man, could you imagine if all you had to do to become president was wait for somebody to resign?” Dream chuckles. “Makes me wonder where you’d be if Schlatt were a coward, Wilbur.”

“Sure,” Wilbur says. “But I suppose we’ll never know.”

“I have a few ideas. You’d be surprised just how predictable everyone on this server is.” Dream pauses, before muttering. “Well, almost everyone. This place runs like a machine, you know. I do my part to keep it that way.”

“I don’t actually care, Dream,” Technoblade cuts in. “Where’s Tommy?” Straight to the point. Internally, Phil winces at his lack of conversationality but he’s mostly glad that they no longer have to bother with formalities. The confrontation was going to get ugly quick, all Technoblade has done is make sure it’s getting uglier, faster.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” he replies slowly.

“It’s very simple, Dream. Just tell us where he is.”

Technoblade rests his hand on the hilt of his axe. A purposeful motion that he makes a show of as he steps away from Phil, circling Dream and stopping directly behind him.

Phil stands in front of him. Wilbur stands to his side. Technoblade stands behind him.

“Dream,” Technoblade continues. “Where is Tommy?”

Phil watches as Dream struggles to pick which one of them to face. There is no right answer, of course, none of them are “safe,” but it’s terribly amusing to watch that realization happen. He’s completely cornered.

“This is an incredibly rude way to carry out a conversation,” remarks Dream as his head swivels to face all three of them. “And I still don’t know what you mean. Tommy is in Logsteadshire, you know that.”

“You should try again,” Wilbur grins, voice smooth. He steps closer, closing the circle. Phil remains silent.

“I will. It is my understanding that Tommy is currently in Logsteadshire,” Dream amends, putting his hands up placatingly. “You have me at a disadvantage.”

“Well, he isn’t.” Dream stills.

“Huh.” He turns to face Technoblade and Wilbur.

“It would seem that Logsteadshire has been destroyed. I trust that you know this already, Dream, because I don’t believe Logsteadshire is a popular spot to visit, these days for everyone except you,” Wilbur challenges.

“What do you mean?” Phil can hear the grin in his voice. “That was you guys.”

Technoblade sighs. “Really? That’s your angle?” Dream laughs.

“Absolutely!”

Even with his back completely to Phil, his stance reeks of smugness.

“Look,” he continues. “The shit I come up with doesn’t even have to be that believable at this point. But here’s what I’d have done: I’d go back to visit poor, injured Tommy, devastated because his new home was blown up, act really surprised, and then tell him that you guys did it.”

Phil’s hand meets the ice cold hilt of his sword.

“See, he thinks that I did it, but all he needs is for me to tell him what he really saw.”

His other hand curls around a splash potion.

“Of course, since you say he’s missing, I have to go get him. Chances are, he’s off bleeding out in a ditch somewhere.” Wilbur snarls, wings flaring behind him. Technoblade’s wings tense. Phil watches as tendrils of red creep into his vision.

“I won’t miss that fucking vermin, but I know you three might—“

A potion of harming crashes into Dream’s back, shattering and drenching him with pale red. Phil shoots forward, gripping his head and forcing the blade of his sword against his throat, pushing him to his knees.

“Thank you for your time today,” Phil tells him. “But I seem to have run out of patience.”

He pulls Dream’s head back and yanks the blade across his throat, slicing deep into his neck and spilling a river of crimson blood. It spurts, gushing like a thick, red fountain, running down his front and pooling around his knees.

Phil releases his head with a harsh shove, listening to the harsh gurgles as Dream chokes desperately on his own blood, trying to breathe even when his mouth and his lungs no longer connect. The body collapses on the wooden path, still gurgling as Technoblade steps forward, holding his axe high above his head.

He buries the head of his axe into Dream’s half-severed neck. Phil watches passively as he reduces Dream’s limbs to pieces.

Technoblade finally yanks his axe out of the mutilated remains and looks up at them with a wild, empty look in his eyes.

“He didn’t know anything about Tommy.” Phil nods.

“Which is why I killed him so quickly,” he explains. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, I didn’t want to hear another word out of his mouth. I’m only mad I didn’t get the kill.” Technoblade pulls out his communicator, smearing blood onto his clothing as he digs for it. “See, it says Phil,” he complains, holding the screen out for him to see.

“It does say Dream was slain by Philza, which is why we should be leaving right now,” Wilbur points out, idly kicking around one of Dream’s severed arms. “I don’t know how many allies he has left, but we shouldn’t risk involving them in these personal matters.”

“Sure,” Phil agrees easily. “Let’s circle Logsteadshire a few times, see if we see Tommy anywhere.”

“We’ll circle the area until we find him,” says Technoblade, voice tight. His shoulders are wound up to his neck. He grips his axe and raises his tawny wings. “Or until we see a death message.”

“Dream said he was injured,” Wilbur points out. Phil nods, raising his own wings. He casts a poisonous, empty glace towards Dream’s pieces as he turns to the sky.

“He better not be,” he warns softly, unheard by the scattered remains. “Because I’m done playing these games.”

They take off, shooting into the sky and weaving between the clouds, missing the moment Quackity darts out from behind a nearby building and snaps pictures of every angle of the chunky pool of blood they turned Dream into.

Their communicators buzz, beyond their notice, with the pictures being posted to the server. In one of them, Quackity holds the camera to face himself—Dream’s pieces in the background—with his fingers forming an “L” over his forehead and a breathless grin stretched across his face.

They find nothing.

Snow falls around them as a blizzard takes the sky. It buries the tundra in sheets of fresh cover, ruining any hopes they might have had of catching sight of tracks or a body in the snow.

But they find nothing, and Phil tells them they should stop looking and go home.

“We can hardly keep flying in this storm,” he begs them. “I don’t want to give up either, but I can’t let anything happen to either of you, too.” Clumps of snow slide off of his shining, bloodsoaked armor and fall at their feet. They carry the crimson color of Dream’s blood, standing out amongst the sheets of white. Technoblade watches them melt into the rest of the snow with wide, unfocused eyes as the three of them stand beside an outcropping of rock, sheltered from the storm by trees and a cliff above them.

“If it’s this bad for us, then how do you think Tommy will survive until the blizzard clears up? Do you think he can afford for us to find him at our leisure?” Wilbur demands, leaning heavily on the rocks beside them. Technoblade doesn’t think he’d be standing without them. He looks ready to collapse into the snow.

Despite how he burns at the thought, Technoblade knows Phil is right.

“I don’t think I can go home without him,” he confesses. The blizzard rages on and it nearly drowns out the whisper of his voice. Wilbur and Phil both turn to him and he can see the same feeling in their faces.

It would be logical to go home now and continue to search after the storm clears. All that they would accomplish by flying in a snowstorm would be damage to their wings, hypothermia, and almost certainly no luck finding Tommy. The low visibility from the sky, coupled with the fact that there’s already a thick layer of snow recovering the tundra means that anything out there has been buried, and they can’t see it from the sky. It would become a trip on foot, digging through layers of snow for a hint of anything to point them in the direction of where Tommy ended up.

They’d more likely find his corpse than anything else, at this point. Waiting wouldn’t change the fact that this land is not something an injured kid can survive without protection against the elements.

So, the choice is: do they dig up Tommy’s corpse from mounds of snow at their own leisure, as Wilbur stated, or do they tear through a roaring snowstorm at the expense of their safety and health? They’ll be finding a body either way.

Logically, they should go home. Technoblade prides himself on thinking logically, making decisions that don’t bend to emotion. Sometimes, he takes it too far and he makes choices with no warmth to them, but he trusts the cold bite of reason.

There is nothing logical about the instincts raging in his mind that there is a fledgling out there, somewhere. He doesn’t think that he can force his limbs to carry him through the door of his cabin until he knows that the fledgling is safe.

Their fledgling is out there, injured and alone.

There’s no logic, no reason, or truth that could make him stop caring about that.

“Wait here and save your strength for a break in the storm,” Technoblade tells them, shaking the snow off his wings and spreading them for flight. “I’m going back out.”

Here’s some logic: Technoblade is, by nature, better suited to withstand a blizzard than either Phil or Wilbur. He shares his traits with a bird that is designed for this environment, and for hunting from the sky.

“You can’t go out in this alone,” Phil pleads.

“And I can’t go back until I find him,” Technoblade points out. Wilbur examines him wearily.

“We’ve looked everywhere,” he sighs. “Where are you going to search?”

“I’ll do another lap of the area, double checking for anything we missed.”

“Mate, that’s pointless,” Phil points out tiredly. “Anything we didn’t see the first time has been covered in snow already—“

“—And we’ll only be finding a body, most likely,” Wilbur cuts in, his face twisting with grief.

“I know that,” Technoblade snaps, his fingers curling into fists, nails digging into his palms. He deflates with a sigh. “I know that,” he repeats, softer, more like a whisper.

“It doesn’t matter. Dead or alive, we’ll find him. If he’s already gone, then we’ll take him home and we’ll get everything we need to bring him back. We did it for you,” he motions to Wilbur. “And I’d do it for him in a heartbeat.”

They’re silent for a moment, listening to the wind shaking the evergreen trees and whistling past the cliffs.

“I’ll do one more lap, then I’ll come back. We can fly home together.”

Phil sighs, fixing his tired gaze on the roaring sky. He nods.

“Keep in touch on your comm,” says Wilbur as Technoblade braces himself to enter the sky. “We’ll need to know if we need to up the counter of ‘people to pull out of the fucking snow’ to two.”

“I’ll do my best,” he promises, and steps out from the alcove they found shelter in.

He lifts his wings and joins the snow in the sky as he pushes himself high enough to fly against the force of the wind.

Technoblade doesn’t find Tommy.

Failure runs hot under his skin as he leads Wilbur and Phil back to the cabin, without the kid he’d sworn to find.

There were no tracks to follow, no signs Tommy had ever even stepped foot in the tundra, and there wasn’t even a body to spot from the sky. He wonders, numbly, if there was any other direction he could have gone.

Maybe Tommy never did step foot in the tundra. Maybe they’d wasted their time scouring the ice, snow, and mountainous evergreen trees for him. Maybe, Tommy hopped in a boat, injured as he was, and said fuck this to all of it.

(But maybe, he came to the tundra.

Technoblade wants that little bit of trust: he wants Tommy to have chosen to come to them.

He said he’d leave with them, Technoblade just hopes Tommy really meant that).

Tomorrow, they’ll look elsewhere. They’ll split up from Logsteadshire and continue the search. It’ll quickly become a race with Dream to find their lost fledgling.

If they see Dream, past the moment Phil tore a cold blade through his throat, they will kill him. They won’t be able to hesitate, it isn’t in their nature.

Maybe, if they shared the traits of gentler species, they’d give a moment’s pause. But they are built from birds of prey. Technoblade is not Wilbur, he’s never pretended to be any less dangerous than people know him to be.

Although, he’s never given people the transparency to know exactly how dangerous he can be, if he wants to.

Now, with Tommy still injured and missing; Dream with one life down, two still to go; and everything falling apart around them, he’s run out of the desire to hold himself back.

So, he won’t.

Technoblade lands in his yard with a strong flap marking his descent. Phil and Wilbur don’t waste time doing so either, and they follow him up to the door.

He pushes it open and stops short at the sight of half-melted clumps of snow littering the floor.

“Someone’s been here,” he tells them, voice clipped. His hand meets the blade of his axe on his holster, unlatching it and bringing it up to a position in front of him as he moves inside the house. Similarly, he hears Phil unsheathe his sword and the little click of Wilbur’s crossbow loading a bolt.

They move fluidly, like the hunters they are, sharp eyes searching for anything out of place.

Technoblade’s gaze catches on the tracks left sloppily across his floor. The snow left from the intruder’s shoes has melted into little puddles trailing over to the stairs.

He follows it, rage mounting.

Whoever is down here, has chosen the wrong house. Technoblade almost hopes that they won’t be chased out quietly, because his skin crawls, itching for a fight. After Tommy’s disappearance and Technoblade’s subsequent failure to find him, he’s in the mood for blood.

He’s territorial; sue him.

As he makes his way down to the basement, he lets his boots thunk loudly on the ground, announcing his footsteps and presence to the intruder. The snow continues down further, leading to the trapdoor that separates his basement from the extension he’d been working on. It’s a glorified hole in the ground.

This makes him pause. It’s weird for someone to have broken into his house, taken nothing, and gone to hide in the unfinished basement. Illogical. Because he’s stopped to question the situation, his sharp eyes scan the scene and find blood.

There’s a smear of blood stretched across part of the trapdoor. It’s been opened by someone, and that someone was bleeding. Or at the very least, had blood on their hands. With a glance back at the two behind him, he knows they see it too.

Technoblade leans down, grabbing ahold of the trapdoor, and rips it open with a sharp creak. After he’d noticed the blood, he was able to smell the tangy, metallic scent faintly in the air, too subtle to register in his mind past the distraction that the intruder posed. When he drops down the ladder into the sub-basement, the smell gets more intense. Past it is an undercurrent of smoke.

He turns. Nothing is out of place, except for the fact that he’s almost certain he’d left a spare pickaxe down here, and the messily patched floor in the corner of the room. Technoblade quietly approaches it, setting his axe aside. He’s let his guard down, something inside him buzzing with a revelation, or something, dancing on the tip of his tongue that he just hasn’t put together yet. But he tells himself that he’s no longer out for blood because the intruder has already spilt it, and is in no shape to be a clear threat. This is not the behavior of an enemy ready to fight. It’s not even the behavior of an ambush.

Technoblade removes the cover, his senses instantly assaulted by the reeking smell of blood and smoke. His eyes water and he blinks rapidly to clear them as he drops into the little hole.

With a sharp intake of breath, his heart stops.

Staring at him with terror etched into every inch of his face, is Tommy. His glassy blue eyes regard him like he’s a reaper coming to claim his soul.

Technoblade drops to his knees and stares back.

There isn’t a sound, from any of the four of them for a long moment.

Tommy is wrapped haphazardly in a blanket Technoblade recognizes, one he must not have noticed was missing from the couch upstairs. He notes the blood staining the fibers and his ability to breathe returns just as Tommy begins to shake.

“Tommy,” he breathes, lowering himself against the floor, letting his legs fold beneath him to try and seem smaller. Maybe Wilbur should have come down here instead, because the best way Technoblade can think to handle this situation is to approach Tommy like a frightened animal. Although, if Wilbur were better equipped than him, he wouldn’t be peering down into the hole, paralyzed with shock with Phil beside him, just as uselessly dumbstruck.

Technoblade tunes out the frantic scuffling above him and focuses entirely on the kid in front of him. Still scared out of his mind, shaking and pressing himself as far as he can into the stone and dirt behind him.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Technoblade tells him, hoping to get that delirious fear in Tommy’s eyes to lessen. He lets his hands rest on his lap, limp and open-palmed, his axe long forgotten. Tommy’s eyes flick between them and his face as he seems to choke on his own breath. It takes absolutely everything in him to not grab the kid and wrap his wings around him completely in a near-suffocating hold. Half his mind is crying out with victory that Tommy’s finally here, in his house. It’s not enough to drown out the other half, screaming at the sight of blood on him.

He’d love to take the time to calm Tommy down, to bring him back down from the delirium and hysteria, but he’s injured, and Technoblade knows he’ll probably have to do whatever it takes to take care of those injuries first and worry about everything else afterwards.

The first step is getting Tommy out of this hole.

“Can you stand?” he asks. Tommy only looks at him without any hint of acknowledgement or recognition. Technoblade feels a heavy sigh build in his chest.

“I’m gonna have to carry you upstairs,” he mutters, mostly to himself because he knows Tommy isn’t really hearing him right now.

As slowly as he can, he leans forward, reaching out to Tommy like he’s an injured rabbit with a heart running quick enough to kill it from the inside before it even has the chance to bleed out.

Technoblade scooches himself closer, inch by inch, which doesn’t help Tommy’s panic in the least. Again, he probably isn’t the best one of the three of them to be doing this. He spares a glance upwards and he’s met with the sight of Phil restraining Wilbur, holding him back from jumping in the hole. Although, in the next second Phil shifts, leaning towards him, and Technoblade is able to spot the equal grip that Wilbur has on Phil.

Alright, maybe Technoblade is the best one to do this. He appreciates the restraint, though. Clearly, they all understand just how delicate this is. It isn’t even the hardest part, yet.

Technoblade rises to his knees and snakes his arms behind Tommy’s waist and legs, gently pulling him over his shoulder. It’s not as gentle or slow as it should be, and it’s only going to freak the kid out even worse, but Technoblade figures that the urgency of the injuries on him is enough to have him rushing this a little. Guilt pangs in his stomach as he feels Tommy’s chest heave brutally for a moment against his shoulder, making a horrible choking sound before going completely limp. It only makes Technoblade clamber out of the hole and up the ladder—past Phil and Wilbur’s panicked noises—all the faster.

He doesn’t stop until he’s all the way upstairs. Tommy ends up getting set down on his table, which Technoblade deems to be the best place for any healing he’ll have to do. Phil and Wilbur both join him at some point while he’s tearing through cabinets for medical supplies.

“He’s hurt,” he tells them, slapping a healing potion onto the table beside Tommy.

“He’s not breathing,” he hears Wilbur say past the roaring in his head. Technoblade whips around and rushes to Tommy, placing a hand to his pulse point. He must look half-mad, glaring down at Tommy’s unmoving form like he can implore the life in the kid’s body to stay.

Tommy’s skin is cold. Not the pale, waxy chill of dead skin, freshly deceased—it’s freezing. In his shock, he hadn’t noticed. Tommy’s (Wilbur’s?) coat is soaked, clumps of red stained snow clinging to the lower half of it. It’s certainly not helping and they’ll have to pull the heavy thing from his shoulders before it makes the kid even more hypothermic than he already is.

None of that is important right now. What is, is that Technoblade can feel the faintest, fluttering heartbeat buried in the cold.

Alright, Technoblade thinks, or maybe he says it out loud absentmindedly. What’s going to kill him first? Hypothermia, or whatever injuries Dream’s given him? Probably best to start treating both and figure out which needs more attention.

He blocks everything out except for the task at hand. Phil and Wilbur seem to have done the same, working with him wordlessly. Technoblade grabs the side of the table and pulls, dragging it towards the warmth of the fireplace. He registers Wilbur steadying it from the other side and Phil keeping Tommy stable as they move.

The warmth will help, but the frigid, ratty clothes will suck the heat out faster than the fire can warm him, Plus, Technoblade needs to see where the blood is coming from.

Gently, he turns Tommy over and takes a hold of the cloak, sliding one of his arms from the sleeves.

And that—with the feeling of the ratty, smoke stained cloak being pulled from his shoulders—is when Tommy wakes up.

He wakes up begging.

“No—“ Technoblade hears Tommy gasp as cold, pale hands twist back, reaching for the sleeve in Technoblade’s hold. Carefully, Technoblade takes Tommy’s wrists and holds them still.

“Don’t look,” Tommy chokes and Technoblade’s chest twists. Fear, worry, and rage swirl together in his stomach until they’re unidentifiable— and terribly stronger in their combination. Also confusion, because is there something Tommy doesn’t want him to see?

Phil says something, but Technoblade only hears the fear in his voice that resonates with his own. Somebody takes Tommy’s wrists from his hands, as pointless as it is to keep holding them because Tommy’s gone limp again.

He’s still awake, sobbing, his chest heaving with the force of it. Someone is chirping, loud and distressed, which only worsens the roaring static in his ears. He can’t tell who it is, but his biggest concern is Tommy.

Technoblade blinks and his mind allows him the sharpest clarity, just long enough to focus back on the task of getting the cloak off of Tommy and checking him for injuries.

He fights against the buzzing—the snarling of emotion and panic in his brain like a rabid dog clawing for release.

His hand brushes Tommy’s side. It comes back bloody.

There’s the wound, he thinks. The coat needs to come off.

He grabs the collar of the coat. Maybe Tommy was hurt, last time he tried, because his movements weren’t as gentle as they should have been. He does it, now, as if he’s peeling the delicate skin from a fruit.

Slowly, Technoblade pulls the coat off of Tommy’s shoulders.

And everything stops.

His heart beats like a record scratching loudly in his ears.

Blood rushes through him and Technoblade swears he can feel every drop as it’s pushed through his veins.

He isn’t breathing.

A knife could cleave his head into two separate halves and it would move him less than this.

On Tommy’s back, there are two tiny, grey, down-speckled wings.

If he were any weaker than he is now, any less focused, this would bring him to his knees.

It nearly does.

The last time he’d seen wings this small and new were when they were on his own back. He feels a lot differently about Tommy’s than he felt about his own.

Technoblade stares at the down that’s barely started to grow in as everything fractures into dust around him, falling at his feet like snow. The wings can’t be more than a few weeks old at most.

These are hatchling wings.

And they are amazing.

But something is wrong.

Technoblade lets his hand ghost over them, barely brushing against them as he wonders why they’re struggling to move.

The tiny limbs tremble, stuttering as they try to move but can’t for some reason and Technoblade feels his breath catch in his throat again—

Why aren’t they moving? Are they hurt? Is this where the blood is coming from? What—

His sharp eyes, even now, don’t fail to catch the miniscule glint of light buried in the sparse beginnings of down.

With a featherlight touch, Technoblade brushes through the down. His finger catches on a thread.

Tommy has tiny, delicate hatchling wings.

And they have been bound together, with twine.

Light glints off of the twine, catching on the warm light cast from the fireplace.

It’s a spark, landing in Technoblade’s chest.

Something explosive is surfacing in him. Distantly, he feels the urge to laugh.

He thought he knew rage.

He was wrong.

All he has ever felt—up to where he stands now, with a finger lifting twine from bound wings—has simply been anger. It was mild. Weak.

His hands are shaking.

This—his gaze follows the paths of blood to slashes in Tommy’s side—is rage.

There’s an animal clawing, scratching, and devouring him from the inside.

In the back of his mind, he wonders if he’ll die. He’s never felt this angry in his life and he wonders if his heart might just give out. It wouldn’t be surprising.

Something has snapped inside of him, loudly and irreparably.

Tommy is still bleeding, he notices.

Technoblade picks up a cloth from the table and cleans the blood from the flurry of slashes on Tommy’s side. Another pair of hands is helping him, disinfecting the cuts as he cleans. Together, they douse the cuts in a healing potion and bandage it neatly. Technoblade ignores the telltale damage of a harming potion over the open skin.

(That’s a lie. He can’t ignore any part of the cruelty recorded on Tommy’s skin. He’ll never be able to scrub the sight of this from his memories)

Someone is leaning over Tommy’s wings with small shears, the kind meant for cutting herbs.

Technoblade blinks, and his mind grants him brief clarity once again.

Phil’s hands are shaking too badly to cut the twine. Technoblade steps closer and gently pulls the shears from Phil’s trembling grip and turns to Tommy himself.

He examines the tangle of threads and gets to work.

Not a single breath passes through him the entire time. Technoblade’s mind screams at the idea of anything sharp being anywhere near these wings. It takes everything in him to not break down. This is the worst thing he has ever had to do, and someone will pay for this—

He brushes the threads from Tommy’s wings and searches for any more. It looks like there’s one last thread that’s actually constricting movement, which he takes care of quickly.

The problem right now wasn’t that the wings were bound—not anymore, at least. It was that they had been bound, and then the twine was cut, and it tangled.

Twine had been wrapped cruelly and effectively around Tommy’s wings, wrapping around his chest to secure them. It was tight enough to leave thin lines of bruising and raw skin. Then, a knife was dragged down the side of Tommy’s chest, snapping the twine and tangling all of it into knots in his delicate wings.

It would take nothing less than the focus and precision that Technoblade just afforded to the task to free Tommy’s wings. That was never something he could have done by himself.

Tommy’s wings were bound—

Someone will pay for this.

And Technoblade knows exactly who’s debt to collect.

Eventually, after an eternity of cleaning, bandaging, and trying not to lose grip of his rage, Technoblade is confident that Tommy is no longer at risk of imminent death.

It doesn’t mean the kid is fine, but it’s enough for him to finally let himself breathe.

Which allows him to process…this.

“I’m going to kill him,” he declares. Phil is the only one there to hear him, though. Tommy’s still out cold and Wilbur is…somewhere? Technoblade doesn’t even know where that guy is, and he’s too keyed up to care right now. He can handle himself.

Probably.

“We fucking better kill him,” Phil agrees before shifting his gaze back to the mass of blankets that contains Tommy’s sleeping form. “But not now.”

“Yeah,” Technoblade sighs. “We can take shifts, but I’m not going anywhere for now.”

He knows that it’s only the fact that the instinct to protect and defend is stronger than his rage that’s keeping him here. Leaving Tommy’s side would only make his brain go even more haywire. It’d do more harm than good.

(But the first chance he gets, there will be blood. Dream will fucking pay with his life—)

Technoblade and Phil sit in near silence, unbroken except for the barely audible crackling of wood in the fireplace. Even with the time to process everything that’s happened in the past hour or so, Technoblade just can’t.

“Tommy has wings,” he blurts out into the silence of the room. Phil snorts.

“I know, mate. I saw them too.” Technoblade watches as Phil sighs, scrubbing a hand across his face and pinching the bridge of his nose. It’s a familiar exhaustion to Technoblade, since he’s feeling the same pressure in his head.

He doesn’t really know what he wants to say. There’s no direction he planned to take this, but regardless, he tries to verbalize what’s crawling through his brain.

“They can’t be more than a week old.”

“Yeah,” Phil agrees. “They’re so…”

“Small,” he finishes. Phil sighs again.

“Yeah.”

Neither of them say anything for a while after that. The cabin falls into silence again. Mutely, Technoblade can hear the distant croaking of ravens in the trees.

“I wonder what kind of bird he is,” he muses aloud. Phil glances at him before looking back to Tommy.

“His wings look pretty much exactly like mine did when they first grew in.”

“A raven?” Phil hums.

“Could be, but that hardly proves anything. Lots of birds have black wings. His feathers could even stay that color grey.”

“It’s too early to tell,” Technoblade agrees. Phil laughs tiredly.

“It’ll have to be a hell of a fuckin’ bird to fit him.”

“I would have guessed parrot, but I think we’d already be seeing the colors if he was.”

“Well, he’s just barely started growing out his pin feathers, there’s still a chance,” Phil points out, amused.

“But there’s a lot we can rule out now.” Phil hums in agreement.

“Do you think he could be the same as any of us?”

“Maybe you or Wilbur, but definitely not the same as me,” Technoblade laughs and Phil raises an eyebrow. “His wings don’t look nearly stupid enough to be an eagle.”

“Was it really that bad?” Phil laughs. Technoblade hides a grin behind his hand.

“It was brutal, Phil. Have you seen golden eagle hatchlings? They look like muppets.”

“Fair enough,” Phil says through his laughter. “But we all looked stupid. It’s just part of the teenage experience.”

“Yeah,” he agrees easily. “But I know he’s got different wings than me. Mine were completely white before the real feathers started coming in.”

“Guess not, then.” Phil settles down onto the couch, still carefully watching Tommy’s blanket cocoon. “I didn’t really think he would be, anyways.”

Once again, both of them lapse into silence. It’s easy to simply sit together and watch the slow rise and fall of the bundle of blankets in time with Tommy’s unconscious breathing. The rage from earlier isn’t gone, at all, but it can take the backseat for now. Nothing really needs to be said, and they’re content to just be together, finally, after all they’ve had to do to make this happen.

Except, they’re not all together, are they?

“Where’s Wilbur?” Technoblade asks, turning to glance around the cabin. Phil frowns.

“No clue.” Phil reaches for his communicator. “Last I saw, he was helping with Tommy. I was too distracted to keep track of him.”

“Same.” Technoblade watches as Phil checks his communicator and begins reaching for his own. Maybe he should message Wilbur, just to—

“Oh my fucking god—we can’t leave you alone for two seconds—“ Phil bursts out, burying his head in his hands with a hysterical laugh.

Technoblade flicks the screen of his own communicator on and is met with a few new messages.

Dream was slain by Philza, from earlier. A treasured memory in Technoblade’s opinion. Several pictures, taken by Quackity, were posted to memorialize the event.

Dream: Everyone meet me on the Prime Path. This is important.

He doesn’t give half a shit about whatever that’s about, and it can’t have warranted that reaction from Phil, so he scrolls to the next one.

Dream was slain by WilburSoot

Huh.