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The snow was familiar. And stupid.
As he walked through Snowchester, Tubbo’s new place to live, the biting cold and the crunch of the snow underneath his boots brought Tommy back to holing up beneath Technoblade’s cabin, back to seeing that cavern of skulls in the mountain for the first time, back to the days he had spent becoming the worst version of himself. And he didn’t like it one bit.
Jesus, he was fucking freezing. He kicked at the snow and looked over at Tubbo, strolling next to him with a smile on his scarred face as he spoke about Snowchester. Just like before everything went to shit. Right?
Wrong, said an annoying little voice in his head. Shut the fuck up, bitch, he told it, but that didn’t do much. The voice persisted, and it had a point. As much as he tried to tell himself that things were the same as they had been before the exile, before Doomsday, something in the air between them had changed. He wasn’t sure what it was, but something fundamental had been thrown off balance, leaving the slightest details crooked: gazes between them that were far too long or short, jokes that weren’t as funny as they used to be, the new weight in Tubbo’s tone when he said his name. But he was trying his best to convince himself that if he pretended that the change wasn’t there for long enough, it had to go away.
So far, it wasn’t really working.
“Tommy!” A voice cut through his thoughts. He looked up from the ground to see Tubbo stopped in his tracks looking at him, his expectant gaze slightly obscured by his brown hair.
“Huh?”
“I was asking what you thought of what I’ve got so far.” He gestured towards the buildings of dark wood and stone coming together behind them. They looked welcoming in the same way some of the L’Manberg houses had: once they were finished, it wouldn’t take long for them to feel lived in, for them to feel like home to someone.
Those all would have been great things to say, but they got caught in his throat. “Oh, yeah, it’s great, I love it,” he said dismissively instead. An unpleasant feeling clawed at his insides, one that had tugged at him since the day at the community house. For what might have been the thousandth time that day, he was hit with the sensation that he was lacking in something, that he hadn’t made up for the things he had done and every step he took just put him further and further in everyone’s debt.
It must have shown in his voice, because Tubbo just swallowed and looked down at his boots “Thanks.”
“No problem.” Silence. Not the comfortable kind. The cold, cutting silence of words left unsaid mingled with the awkwardness of not having enough to say. The kind that made him feel vulnerable, unguarded, like his entire body was an open wound. The stupid kind. He wished he had something, anything, to say, but everything that came to mind just seemed wrong. He rubbed his cold hands together and blew on them. God, he hated the snow.
“Are you alright? What’s up with you today?” Tubbo finally spoke, his words deliberate, like they had been heavily scrutinized before being let out. Weird. He never really asked those questions before. He had never needed to.
“Yeah I’m alright, just… you know.” He moved his hands around, trying to find the right words for it all, before finding nothing and dropping them. “Country’s blown up and shit.”
“Yeah, it is, isn’t it?” A breath that might have been a laugh escaped Tubbo’s lips. He paused. “I mean, you’ll always be welcome here in Snowchester. I know it’s not L’Manberg, but...” It could still be home. He could sense those words hanging off of his tongue, and it took so much of him not to reach over and grab them. Not that he wanted his hands to be anywhere near Tubbo’s tongue. But a home… it would be nice, even if it was in the snow. Even if it was never like L’Manberg.
But even then… “I’ll come to visit for sure, yeah.” No, he couldn’t stay. Not while he carried this debt with him, not while he shattered every home someone let him into. Staying would be selfish, because he cared about Tubbo and Tubbo cared about Snowchester and anything he didn’t keep at an arm’s length was bound to fall, to be stolen or blown up or killed. If time had taught him anything, it had been that.
He had already been selfish enough. He would keep his distance.
“But you won’t stay?” Tubbo’s voice was slightly strained, but casual. Like it was a simple request. Like before. And Tommy wanted to kick himself because that was the closest to normal they’d gotten but memories of buttons and explosions and withers flooded his mind and trapped his tongue and he wouldn’t, couldn’t, say a simple yes.
“I mean, I’ve got my house in L’Manberg, Tubbo. I think I’ll just stay there.” I wish I didn’t have to.
Tubbo cocked his head, his brows furrowed. “You can have it as your vacation home, you know. It’s all lonely there, L’Manberg is…” Gone. He paused. “There’s nothing for any of us there. Why stay?” Because they can’t blow up a crater. Because they can’t kill my friends if they’re nowhere to be seen. Because this is one of the only places that isn’t screwed up and it’s yours, and if I stay, you’ll lose something else.
Because even if it’s gone, it still feels like home.
“It’s my house, Tubbo, I…” Please don’t make this more difficult than it already is, for fuck’s sake. He crossed his arms. “You’re so clingy, you know that? God, you are so clingy.” It was the same joke he had told time and time again, but something in his tone was a bit too defensive, too forced, and it didn’t land quite right. Jesus. He cringed a little.
Tubbo blinked, bits of snow falling onto his small, spiralling horns and staying there. “Alright.” He shrugged. “I mean, as long as you come visit every once in a while, you can go wherever you want.”
He knew he had brought it upon himself, but the word wherever was still a bit jarring. Before the exile, they had never not lived near each other, if not together. Going from that to wherever made him feel untethered. Oh come on, did you really expect anything else? said the same voice from before. L’Manberg was better off without you anyway. Nobody missed you, you know that. The voice brought him back to the island dotted with craters and made his hands start to shake a little, made him feel like he was all alone even though his lifelong best friend was right next to him. God, shut up shut up shut up, he told it. But was it right again? How could he expect anything else when the air between them was thick as stone and Tubbo hadn’t visited him once during exile? Maybe the invitation to stay had just been out of pity, anyway.
“Okay,” he said pointedly, staring out into the icy sea. He wasn’t a fucking pussy: if it was out of pity, he wouldn’t accept it. He put his trembling hands in his pockets.
Tubbo was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry.”
Tommy blinked, caught off guard. He turned to look at him. “For what?”
“Everything, I guess. For exiling you. For not coming to see you.”
Pity again. But he felt a bit less certain about it this time. “Don’t fucking worry about that, man. It’s fine. We already talked about this.” His tone had lost all its prickliness, every harsh edge softened. But it was still slightly guarded. Wary. The voice made sure of it.
“Yeah, but that was before Doomsday. We were in a rush to get our things ready, and… I don't know, I just feel like what I said wasn’t enough, if that makes sense.” Every word sounded strange as it came out of his mouth, and Tommy felt like they had both been turned inside out. Like they had both fallen to pieces in the past couple of months and were just now discovering that they had been put back together at all the wrong angles. They had never apologized before, never had conversations about whether or not their words were enough. It wasn’t normal.
“Hey, don’t worry about it, okay? It was enough, it was fine.” He waved a hand dismissively. He preferred the silence to this: this felt like ripping off a bandage slowly and painfully, hoping that whatever was underneath had healed. Maybe it was better to just leave it on.
“Well maybe I want to worry about it for once. Maybe I feel weird not giving you a proper apology for literally exiling you from L’Manberg.”
“Yeah, well, if you can worry, then I can be confused because we never talked like this before. Why are you saying this all of a sudden?”
Tubbo looked at him for a second before looking away and sitting down in the snow, criss-crossing his legs as Tommy followed suit. “Because while you were gone, and while I thought you were…” He trailed off, his expression unreadable as he rested his chin in his hand. “While you were gone, I wanted to tell you things and I couldn’t. I thought I’d never be able to, actually. So I’m telling you now.”
He considered it for a second. “You could’ve just visited, you know. You could’ve literally just shown up and spoken to me. I was exiled, not dead.”
Tubbo looked up at the falling snow. “For a time you were. And I know that’s not an excuse, but even if it was far too late, I did go.” He paused. The words made Tommy sit up a little straighter, his eyes widening as his heart skipped a beat. Fragments of memories clouded his mind, memories of his friend hiding in the sand and standing in the nether portal with a tired, almost homesick expression on his face, a compass clutched in his blemished hand. Had the hallucinations been real? “Who do you think found your tower?” He looked at Tommy, something in his blue gaze falling as he did.
Oh. A chill ran down his spine. He had never really thought about how technically, he had been dead to nearly everyone for a while before that moment. Maybe it was another wound that hadn’t quite healed, another thing that mattered more than Tubbo let on. He picked at one of his fingernails.
“Say whatever you want, mate, but you don’t have to be sorry for anything. If anything,I’m the one who has to apologize for all this shit.”
Tubbo’s brow furrowed. “I mean, you don’t need to. You already did, and besides, I literally exiled you.” He pulled his knees to his chest.
“Well, it wasn’t for no reason, was it? It was that or war, and I’m the one who teamed up with Technoblade. You said it yourself, I betrayed everyone-”
“Do you seriously still believe the things I said that day?” His gaze narrowed, his tone flat but rife with disbelief and something else Tommy couldn’t quite place. Something slightly repentant, too close to pity for his comfort.
He looked down at his shoes. “No.”A little.
“Well, good. They aren’t true.” The words should’ve reassured him, but they didn’t make a dent in his thoughts: he might as well have not said anything at all.
“Well, still, if one of us is going to take the blame for this, it has got to be me.”
Tubbo stared at him, something in his eyes dimming. “That just isn’t true.” Tommy was silent. “If anything, it would be me. And who says one of us has to take all the blame?” In an ideal world, the air between them would’ve cleared at this. In an ideal world, he’d say Yeah, you’re right! Let’s go stab the shit out of Dream! But this world was far from ideal, and the voice had grabbed hold of him and wouldn’t let go. He’s lying. Lying out of pity. His jaw stiffening, he turned away from the boy’s gaze and swore he felt something between them fracture, just a little more. But a flickering bit of hope flared up inside of him, one that said that maybe, just maybe, the voice was wrong. As dim as it was, he let it stay.
Hope continued to tug at him, but doubt did too. “Well, someone has to, and I’m the one who…” He couldn’t find the right words for what had happened to them, for the suffocating obsidian walls and sleepless nights in a cold, lonely tent. “I could’ve done things differently. What do you think would’ve happened then?” Something in his voice broke as the question that had lived in the forefront of his mind and been the voice’s favorite taunt since the first bombs dropped on the country he had loved finally clawed its way out from deep within him.
A laugh, dry and slightly sad. “I ask myself the same thing. Every single night.” Tubbo’s eyes, rimmed with dark smudges, looked more tired than ever as they met his.
As their gazes collided, something inside him hummed in recognition, and for once, the voice had no rebuttals. Between all the fractured ties and uncrossable walls that separated them was this mutual unguarding, the two of them taking off their armor at the same time to reveal the same marred, broken parts. His thoughts stopped asking for permission before leaving his mouth. “We were so good before. How-”
“Were?” Tubbo interrupted him, his head tilting to the side. “I don’t think we were. If we were, then I wouldn’t be sitting next to you. ” A small smile, one that would have seemed foreign minutes before but was now spreading across his face like it was the easiest thing in the world. One that made every problem they had feel miniscule and every crack between them seem to disappear. For a moment, the impossible was made simple with that smile and they weren’t an ex-president and the boy he exiled having an awkward acknowledgement of their feelings, but just two best friends grinning at each other in the snow. For a moment, he fell back into their old, familiar dynamic, the one that felt like home.
The moment passed and reality set back in, rude and unwelcome, but it was a little lighter to carry than before. “Yeah, you’re right, but you know what I mean. Things were different before. We never fought about anything, even when we were on opposite sides of a fucking war. How did I manage to screw us up?” Something tore itself from inside of him at that, and it stung. He felt more unguarded than before, like he had coughed his heart up and handed it to the boy next to him, hoping he wouldn’t crush it in his palm. Tubbo opened his mouth to reply, but he interrupted him: he wasn’t in the mood to hear the phrase I literally exiled you again. “And if it wasn’t me like you say, then why did it even happen? Why did we of all people have to get torn apart the way we did? Did we do something wrong?” He regretted the words the second they left his unthinking mouth. “That makes no sense, I’m sor-”
“No, I get it. Like, why us specifically? But I don’t think we as a group did anything wrong. I should’ve… done things differently, for sure, but Dream’s the one who put up the walls. Maybe it was all just bad luck.” He paused. “Or maybe we didn’t do anything wrong, we just did too much right. Like…” He gestured at nothing. Tommy’s brow furrowed, and Tubbo laughed. “I don’t know. You try thinking of some sort of explanation.”
“Too much right?” He rested his chin in the palm of his hand and stared back out into the sea, the beginnings of a sunset beginning to appear on the horizon. His mouth quirked to the side as he tried to think. Just when he thought he would have to give up, a sliver of a memory began to resurface in his mind, one he hadn’t thought of in years. “You reckon we’re like those magnets that Phil got us?”
Tubbo frowned in confusion. “Magnets?” His face cleared an instant later. “Oh! The magnets!”
“Yeah, those.” Back when they were younger, before L’Manberg and Dream and everything else, Phil would go on expeditions a lot. They got longer as time went on, and eventually, he stopped coming back altogether. But back when the journeys only lasted a couple weeks or months, he would always bring Wilbur, Tubbo, and Tommy gifts from his travels. Whether they were big or small, they were always things they had never seen before: foreign pastries glazed with sweet honey, old books of stories from lands they had never even heard of, even a big black hunting dog that ended up doing no hunting whatsoever and instead became one of Tommy’s best friends. He’d show them to them and tell them stories of his adventures, of the battles he won, the lands he conquered, and the people he met along the way, as they sat on the warm wooden floors and marvelled at their new possessions.
One day many, many years ago, Phil returned from a particularly short journey carrying a parcel of small gifts, including dozens of extremely strong magnets. Looking back, magnets seemed like kind of a stupid gift, but Tommy had never seen one before and was entertained easily enough for them to keep his attention for a long time. As Phil told them about the kingdom he had visited, Wilbur listening attentively, Tommy had laid down on the ground next to Tubbo and tried to stick as many together as possible, seeing how far apart he could put them and still have them inevitably come together again.
“If the bond between them is too strong, they’re bound to break eventually.” Tubbo said. Just as Wilbur had when he saw what Tommy was doing. He was right, of course: the magnets had ended up breaking. He didn’t remember what had happened to them after.
“Yeah. Maybe that’s what happened to us. I don’t know.” He shrugged.
Tubbo laughed. “It’s a nice way of thinking about it, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” It was nice, thinking that maybe they had been too strong instead of too weak, that they had just been too much for Dream and the rest of the world and their fallout hadn’t been a matter of if, but one of when, something that had been fated to happen the second their pull on each other became strong enough. Thinking that the one that had screwed things up between them hadn’t been either of them but some cosmic force, pulling them as far apart as it could before letting go and hoping they’d come back together, shattering them in the process. Thinking that, now that it was over, they would never have to break apart again.
“I think I like that, actually.”
He did too. But something about it tugged at him, and as his doubt grew louder and louder, a question slipped out of his mouth.“But… can you fix broken magnets?” That was what he said, but it wasn’t what he meant: beneath the question slithered another, one he couldn’t bring himself to ask out loud. Can we go back to how we were before? If earlier he had handed Tubbo his heart, this vulnerable question was a sharp, serrated knife. It was everything the voice hated and everything he needed to finish ripping the bandage off and finally see where they really stood, whether they could take down the walls and fix the severed pieces between them or not. It could break him all over again.
Their eyes met. Tubbo’s brow furrowed, and some paranoid, reliant thing deep inside of him flinched, because it was sure that this was the end. Then, his face relaxed. “I mean, if the bond is still there, I don’t see why the pieces shouldn’t be able to come back together again, right? So I think in some scenarios, broken magnets can be fixed. I’m sure someone has done it before. I don’t know for sure, but maybe someday, we can find out together.”
He smiled the same impossible smile from before, and for a quiet moment, everything between them was simple again. As the setting sun warmed his face, Tommy nodded and felt something between them relax, like they were both breathing for the first time. Like they had both finally made it home.
And he was hopeful. Because even if it was hidden beneath awkward looks and months of separation, he knew the bond between them was still there. It was in every glance at his compass during exile, every smile, every dreaded apology, just as strong as it had been back when their biggest worries were magnets breaking and they had never known what it was like to be truly apart. He had fucked up, but the fractured pieces and frayed edges between them could still be fixed, even if they were scarred forever. Even if they would never be able to call the same place home again and the snow made his hands shake for the rest of his life.
They could be together again. That was what magnets did, after all.