Chapter Text
The annoying cawing of the rooster was what woke Tommy up. It clawed its way past his eardrums and banged relentlessly on the wrinkles of his brain until electricity sparked and all of a sudden Tommy's eyes were fluttering open in rage. His bright blue peepers opened wide and stared hard at the ceiling above him. He already wished he could go back to sleep.
Moaning and groaning in rage, Tommy kicked and flailed his limbs hard until the sheet resting placidly over his body had been thrown and tossed over his head as well, then he turned onto his side and curled up to go back to sleep. Closing his eyes tightly and trying his hardest not to think about ANYTHING, he almost start drifting off. Almost.
"Tommy! You owe me!" a loud voice made itself present from just outside his window. To accompany, there seemed to be a rough 'thump' followed by a few clumps and speckles of dirt falling from Tommy's dirt ceiling and landing right over where his eyes should be. The boy groaned louder.
"I'm busy," he responded. "Sleeping. Fuck off."
"Tommy! Get out here. I'm not leaving until you give me what I want."
Upset, angry, grumpy, pissed off, and needing to take a huge morning shit, Tommy finally kicked off his sheet, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and stumbled his way over to the door without bothering to put on shoes. Or pants.
He yanked the door practically off its hinges and stared right into Jack Manifold's eyes.
"Oi, ya cock," Jack practically spat before he glanced down and immediately yelped and turned away. "Tommy! Put on clothes, you idiot!"
"It's my house," Tommy replied simply.
Jack really did spit, then. Onto the floor. Before he turned toward the teenager again, making sure to place a hand below his line of sight, and gave him a good hard glare behind his mock 3D glasses.
"Hey hey hey!" Tommy complained, motioning towards the garden Jack was now stepping, and had spit, onto. "Watch it, those flowers were hard to grow."
"Fuck your flowers. You owe me rent for the hotel."
Tommy grimaced, already telling himself that this was gonna be a bad day.
"I don't owe you shit. Get off my property. I'll kill you?" the boy threatened, pointing an accusing finger against Jack's chest.
"You can't kill me, I already died!"
"Oi, this shit again," Tommy began, rolling his eyes. "I'm Jack Manifold, I died and came back, look at me, mememememe," he mocked, dancing on his legs like a funky chicken on hot coals.
Jack was seething so hard that steam was roiling off of his buzzed head and collecting on the underside of the makeshift awning that Tommy had put up for rainy days. At this point, if Tommy put a cup under it, he'd have a fairly clean source of water.
"You know, I could kill you!" Jack shouted in the teen's face.
"Do it." Tommy answered simply before promptly slamming the door and stalking back to his bed to flop against it and drown out the sounds of Jack Manifold baby raging outside. Eventually, the fucker finally left, but the damage had been done. Tommy was awake, and he might as well do something about it. He glanced over at the floor-length mirror beside his bed and gave it his best glare.
After another few minutes of laying on his bed and contemplating... everything, Tommy eventually pushed himself up with a loud grunt, slipped on his regular pair of blue sweatpants and white sneakers, and stepped out into the great big beyond to torture himself with human interaction. Taking a deep breath of air tainted with war, betrayal, death, and disappointment, he closed the door behind him and walked out onto the rickety wooden path he called "the prime path."
There really wasn't much to do in the SMP at this point. So many good things had been destroyed or abandoned in the name of chaos. Shops that used to be open and thriving with friends hanging out and workers putting in their week's pay were now overrun with cobwebs and falling apart with soaked and rotten wood. Houses that used to be shared between roommates who spent every second of every day with one another were now nothing but torn down smithereens with half empty chests filled with sentimental pieces of trash and forgotten memories.
The chances of finding someone to share a good time with were slim to none, and it's almost what Tommy spent the entire day doing.
First, he had tried, and failed, to catch a cow and grow feeling for it the way he'd grown for Henry, but the cows either didn't like him or he didn't like them. None of them were good enough, in his opinion. So that was the first few hours of the day gone.
Then he had gone underground to try to get himself rich to BUY himself some friends. But then after maybe half an hour of strip mining and finding only a few diamonds, he figured it was better to just steal them. He then spent the next couple of hours searching practically every chest in the SMP that he could get his hands on, only to come up with a couple ingots of iron and a bucket full of disappointment. So that was the next few hours of his afternoon.
Then, he tried to go fishing! Because... why not. Nothing better to do.
He sat on that boat, beneath the afternoon sun, for what felt like ages. Until he finally got a bite! He tried to reel it in the way Phil had taught him, making sure to give the fish a bit of swimming room in between pulls, and it worked! Except when he'd finally pulled the damn thing from the depths of the pond, all that it was was just a small salmon that he couldn't even tame a single cat with. Yelling in frustration, he threw it out into the sea, and promptly tipped over his boat and fell into the water. So that was those hours gone.
All day Tommy spent doing absolutely fucking nothing productive, until he was forced to walk himself dry as he made his way back home near the end of the evening. The entire day had been a bust, and Tommy was exhausted and in the worst of moods. But maybe he could find someone to throw these feelings onto instead....
Tommy usually saw a lot of people when he was out and about on the server. There was Purpled just there, in fact. Building another tower of sorts. For no reason. And there was Puffy! Running off somewhere to probably reprimand someone for something. And there was Sam Nook. Standing! And there was Tubbo-
Tommy's eyes lit up. Tubbo!
He ran up to his best friend. "Tubboooo, my freeeen," Tommy greeted, practically tackling the smaller boy onto the ground below.
"Tommy!" Tubbo squeaked, letting himself be manhandled by the greater being. That was one thing Tommy loved about Tubbo. He was so clingy, and such a pussy, that Tommy could tell him whatever he wanted, and he'd agree! The best friend a teenage boy could ever have, in his opinion. If only Tubbo still lived near him..
"Hey Tommy." As if reading Tommy's thoughts and deciding it was his cue to speak up (which it never was, in Tommy's opinion. He never needed to speak. Ever), Ranboo gave the boy a short wave and a gentle smile. Tommy met his eyes with a harsh glare and subconsciously pulled the other kid closer to him.
"Hello Ranboo," Tommy answered in as gruff and unforgiving a voice as he could muster.
"Tommy!" Tubbo interrupted the boy's rotten thoughts, "Me and Ranboo were just thinking of building another hotel in Snowchester. We were just getting supplies. Want to help?"
Tommy grimaced. "Why would I want to help Ranboo build a competitive hotel in your snow country?"
Ranboo's eyebrows furrowed but the smile stayed plastered on his face. "Well, it's not competitive if it's nowhere near yours."
"Plus it's not Ranboo's," Tubbo cut in cheerfully, "it's ours! We can build it together, and own it together! It could be fun."
"That does not sound like fun," Tommy replied.
"Well, it could be!" Tubbo finally slipped out from under Tommy's arm and went over to Ranboo's side, giving Tommy another bright smile and a twitch of his fluffy little ears. "We could make it fun if we build it together. And then you can stay in it when you visit our home!"
"Our home," Tommy emphasized, no amusement showing on his face.
"Yeah! Mine and Ranboo's!"
Tommy's heart stuttered as he stared into his friend's deep blue eyes. Nothing but pure glee and relief was shown on Tubbo's face. He'd forgotten and moved past everything so easily. He'd almost died, Tommy'd almost died, over and over, multiple times. Their friends had almost died. Wilbur was dead! And here Tubbo was, moving on, with his stupid husband. And his stupid country.
Tommy frowned. Hard.
"That sounds like hell."
"It's not hell! It's nice. Snowchester is really nice, I'm really proud of it, actually."
"That sounds like hell, Tubbo. I'd be in hell. I don't want to be in hell."
"Well... you don't have to be."
And just like that, Tommy was running away from his friend, his best friend in the whole wide world, and towards L'manberg. Just like everyone in his life had done to him. He ran so hard his vision blurred from the lubrication his eyes produced when met with great forces of wind. He blinked away the water (they weren't tears, they WEREN'T), and practically jumped down the steps to the ruins of his country to slump against a rock on the floor of it and completely collapse like a ragdoll thrown to the ground after a child insisted on no longer playing with them. And then it hit him.
Things used to be so different.. Tommy used to be so happy. As he looked out across his destroyed country, the sunrise peaking over a mountain in the distance and spilling over him and his sorrows like a cup of liquid gold, he felt a tear roll down his cheek. He wanted to be happy, he really did. But so much had happened, and it had changed everything. He used to be just a boy with his brother in his country with his friends. And now he was just a boy. Just a boy. That's all he was. And yet, he'd been through so much that he could barely even believe that anymore.
He used to spend every morning waking up and hearing Wilbur, Tubbo, and Fundy just outside his cobblestone house, running around and practicing their fighting skills with one another. And before that, he used to just spend every morning waking up to Philza's cooking, and Techno's complaining, and Wilbur's laughter. And before that... well, Tommy didn't want to remember things before that. But the fact was that he did used to be happy. He used to feel fulfilled. He used to feel like he belonged.
And yet, as he stared out over L'manberg's remains, tears of sea water trickling down from the sea trapped in his eyes, Tommy felt nothing but pain and loneliness and yearning. Yearning for a better time. Yearning for happiness.
He sniffed hard and looked up at the night sky as a few stars were appearing, twinkling and winking down at him as if they knew something he didn't. Tommy let out a body wracking sob and laid his head against the rock. And then came another sob, that one harder to control. And then the dam broke, and Tommy was just sobbing, and feeling, and sobbing.
He cried so hard he thought he saw twice as many stars in the night. He cried so hard it felt like the world was spinning beneath him and his heart rate skyrocketed to the point he thought he was going to throw up and die. He could barely breathe, barely think. All that crawled through his mind was the feeling of pain and rejection and sadness. And it trickled down his face like a leaky faucet with no one to care enough to just twist it slightly so it could turn off.
Closing his eyes so hard that stars prickled his vision and trying not to cry as violently, Tommy wiped away a few of his tears and took a deep breath.
"I wish I could be happy again," he said finally, speaking (stuttering, more like) the wish into the night sky as if he was telling the gods a fatal secret that he was afraid of admitting even to himself. And in his mind, those gods just laughed at him.
"But this is who you are," the gods said to him as they barely had enough breath in their lungs from all their laughing.
"You're Tommyinnit. And Tommyinnit doesn't get happy endings."
"He gets pain, and suffering, and loneliness."
"You can't be happy if you never were happy."
Tommy kneeled low before the gods, his sobs now reduced to sick hiccups that made his lungs twitch and his trachea shudder. He laid his palms on the ground before the hulking figures surrounded by halos of light, practically kissing it as he laid his forehead between them, and begged, "Please. Please let me be happy again."
More laughter ensued.
"Aw, but he asks so nicely."
"Surely we can give him something."
"But if you come crawling back with another wish, we won't give it to you."
"Although, it's a bit hard of a wish to fulfill, isn't it?"
"No no, I have an idea..."
Tommy's eyes flew open and he panted heavily, sweat making his golden locks of hair stick all around his face with a force that could stick two countries together. His tongue felt too small in his mouth, for once, and he felt as if he had drooled all over his entire face, pillow, and shirt. Stretching and flexing his fingers, which felt swollen and too soft, he groaned, then stiffened.
Or.. did he groan? Did that sound come from him?
Surely he was just hallucinating. He just had a rough night last night.
Come to think of it... how had he gotten to his bed? When had he even fallen asleep??
"Tommy, you still owe me!"
Tommy groaned inwardly this time and shut his eyes tightly trying to block out that idiot's noises. He tried to reach a hand up to cover his ears but something about the motion was so foreign to him that he ended up smacking the sides of his head almost full force. It didn't hurt as much as he thought it would, though. It felt like two pieces of ham being thrown at his temples simultaneously.
"Tommy, I'm not leaving this time. You owe me, and I'm either gonna have to steal from you or kill you myself. So which is it gonna be, big man?"
Tommy frowned, barely listening to the rambling man who refused to get off of his damn doorstep. He was shaking too hard to listen. Something was awfully, horribly wrong with him..
"I know you can hear me! Come out, ya cock!"
Trembling, Tommy raised his hands up to his eyes.
"I'm gonna count to three, then I'm gonna bust in and kill you."
He could physically feel his pupils get smaller at the sight of them.
"One."
When he sat up, and looked down, he could physically feel his breath get caught in his throat at the sight of them.
"Two!"
When he looked in the floor length mirror beside his bed, he could physically feel the scream bubbling up in his chest at the sight of... him.
"Three!"
The sound of a door being kicked open was nothing in comparison to the sound of Tommy's loud, ear-bleeding, blood curdling screech. It was an unnaturally high and devastating noise, the type that only the small, frustrated, pent-up lungs of a toddler could produce. But he supposed that was fitting, for the situation he was in.
Jack's eyes widened as he laid eyes on the tiny body that was wearing Tommy's too-big shirt and sporting Tommy's golden hair and bright blue eyes, and the tiny thing stared back, their faces matching in levels of confusion and horror at the reality that had been placed between them.
"What... the fuck."