Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Techno had been in the prison with Dream, Wilbur was still examining the world around him, and life was starting to go back to a dull normalcy. Tommy liked it, even though things were seemingly crumbling around him it was… falling into peacefulness. Which was good! Really, of course it was. Though everything still felt empty, and Tommy checked his communicator every few seconds. People were logging off, and it felt a bit too familiar for his taste, the final goodbyes, the triumph, the abruptness of it all. He let it happen, and had said goodbye to Tubbo and Ranboo, and watched them say goodbye to Michael. The world was finally falling into a silence, no more explosions, no more destruction, no nothing.

He sat at the edge of L’manpit, staring down through the glass and trying not to cry, it was a bittersweet goodbye to it all, and part of him didn’t want it, even if this place had ruined him more than anything would in his life. He messed with the braid in his hair, a sharp pang hitting his heart. Techno would be left here, as would Dream. That was the agreement. Leave them here with Sam, who’d watch over the prison until the server shut down and the new one began.

He heard someone calling for him and looked up. Niki was waiting for him. Right. He sighed a little bit and pushed himself to his feet. Stretching out his arms and looking around for a last time, a song slowly singing itself in his mind.

It was never his L’manburg. It really wasn’t meant to be. But was that really so bad?

He followed Niki’s voice, and stared at her, she was standing infront of the portal. Just Tommy and Niki were left. Both saying their goodbyes. Both wondering who the other was waiting to see on the other side. Both wondering if they’d even make it through… but through they went, Tommy stepping through only to be hit with coastal air.

He opened his eyes and took a deep breath. He didn’t remember which server he’d be entering, he’d been through too much, his brain was lagging, and the confusion of actually making it through overwhelmed him for a moment.

And then something hit his chest, slamming into him and making his breath catch in his throat and his sword appeared in his hand, only for his wrist to be caught and twisted and squeezed by a man who was grinning at him from behind his sunglasses.

“Deo?”
“Tommy.”

A calm voice, a sense of security, and a rush of memories washed over Tommy and he dropped his sword, throwing his arms around Deo and squeezing him tight. “Holy fucking SHIT, DEO! You’re not gonna fucking believe all of this man there’s so fucking much-” and he kept rambling as Deo picked up his sword and tucked it away, grabbing Tommy’s hand and starting to walk him back towards Business Bay. What a hunting trip- Bitzel and Luke would be ecstatic.

Tommy kept talking and talking about the Dream SMP, and Deo listened intently, his grip on Tommy’s hand routinely loosening and tightening as he heard about the most definitely traumatizing events. He kept glancing at his friend and trying to gauge his mental state just by how different he was acting. His brain worked fast.

Tommy was holding onto his hand like a lifeline, his shirt was messy and frayed at the edges, and the colors were faded or patchy in some places, his hair was longer and looked like it hadn’t been washed- and a white stripe lay amongst the blonde. His eyes weren’t as bright, more dull and quiet, defensive. And he kept glancing around as if something would attack him any second.

Deo didn’t like it.

So he pulled Tommy closer to his side as they walked, noticing how Tommy immediately looked up at him and fear flashed in his eyes. Deo flashed Tommy as reassuring a smile as he could muster, and he seemed to calm down a little bit, sticking closer to Deo obediently. Deo didn’t like how easy that was either. Especially out of the stubborn boy.

When they arrived at Business Bay, Luke was out and tending to the farm while Bitzel was training firing arrows at some dummys. Luke noticed them first, and the immediate “TOMMY!” made both the one in question and Deo jump, and Bitzels head swung in their direction.

Tommy was swarmed suddenly by his two friends, Lukes hands sliding up and down his torso as the boy somewhat circled him, checking Tommy for wounds or anything of the such “Luke! Luke I’m fine!” But there was no reaction as Luke simply pulled up Tommys shirt a bit, huffing in annoyance at the arrow and axe scars, but not saying anything. Bitzel was talking more though, a million questions a minute.

Deo had backed off and was texting someone on his communicator. When the other two boys were done, they looked at him- so he held it up and showed them he’d been texting Wisp. It was about time Tommy got back and had a proper day with his friends.

So that’s what they did.

Wisp arrived and they spent the day together. Deo stayed close to Tommy the whole time, and trained with him, watching Tommys new way of fighting that he was happy to teach the rest of the Business Bay boys- they all recognized how trained into him it looked instead of his normal vague recklessness, and they were all careful not to actually wound him after Deo had caught them all up.

Bitzel and Tommy ended up working on some new books together, and Tommy sat him down and taught him a bunch of new techniques to scam people he’d learnt- as well as sat down and made the L’manburg flag to hold it up and show it to the Business Boys, who all seemed genuinely impressed by the fact he and his brother had been able to start a whole new nation- not just a faction.

Tommy had sat down with Luke and showed him some wounds and scars and bragged about how he was able patch himself up on his own, only for Luke to gently reprimand him- “You shouldn’t have been getting into situations like that in the first place!” proceeded by him teaching Tommy how he should’ve actually fixed the wounds that had healed wrong and scarred up in bad ways. Which only resulted in Tommy complaining and groaning a lot and babbling on about how much of a fucking worry-wart that Luke was.

Wisp meanwhile had a talk with Tommy about the Antarctic Empire, seeming to enjoy the fact it had supposedly started again and there was a new member of it, as well as taking in all the details about Snowchester that he could. Proceeding that was a long long talk about how starting a nation and doing all that wasn’t fun, and then Wisp very much pushed for Tommy to find a therapist in the world hub so he could recover a bit- though Tommy just rolled his eyes and said no. But they all knew he would go looking for one, and if he didn’t- they would for him.

Days went by calmly and quietly, Tommy spent most of his time working on the farm and spending time with his friends, and sometimes his old friends came to visit- Tubbo and Ranboo came by at one point and Deo nearly attacked them just because Ranboo was an enderman, but it got sorted out. Wilbur came to visit, and at one point Techno did too-

It was nice, having his friends around and having everything be peaceful again. Tommy knew he’d have to go back to the Dream SMP for the next sessions, but for right now things were safe and okay, and he liked it that way, just relaxing with the Business Boys and feeling safe in his own skin.

As he collapsed down on the couch, throwing his head on Deos lap as they were all laughing and talking about something, the world slowly fading away as sleep started to take over him, the thought processed.

He was happy, this was what family was supposed to be.

Chapter Text

Days passed, and Tommy got more and more used to living with them, nothing would be the same of course, not after SMPEarth had ended and DSMP had happened, Tommy wasn’t the same, and finally the Bay members broke, Tommy had woken up from nightmares a few times in the time he’d been there.

Bitzel had been the first to see it, having been working on some paperwork in the living room while Tommy had presumably been peacefully sleeping on the couch. He’d been signing another things off and pushing the paper back when he heard the first whimper- so he glanced over, Tommy seemed to be fine, but he started to pay more attention. He noticed Tommy start shaking, and soon heard a sob come from the sleeping boy, and that was the straw. He moved a hand over and shook Tommy by the shoulder- resulting in the boys eyes shooting open and him flailing to grab a weapon, seeming confused when there wasn’t one. Bitzel just tilted his head in concern at him, and Tommy stared for a second, eyes wide and panicked…

Before he just slowly stood up and retreated to his room. Bitzel told Luke and Deo what happened in the morning. They both seemed concerned by it, but nobody decided to question Tommy on it immediately. There wasn’t any other red flags besides what Tommy had told Deo about the Dream SMP and what they’d heard from Tommy’s friends- plus Tubbo having scars…

They were starting to put pieces together.

The next person to notice was Deo, who was making jokes about explosions and talking about when they blew up the whole world, messing with tnt and setting some up in a line. He had his hand resting on the lever when he noticed how much Tommy seemed to be freaking out.

He was picking at the ends of his sleeves and looking around as if something was going to happen. Deo rose an eyebrow- “Tommy? Something wrong?” “No! No, of course not” the sharp answer and quick jump matched with Tommy trying to meet Deo’s eyes just made him suspicious, so he moved to slowly push the lever down, watching Tommy flinch and curl in on himself.

So he stopped, naturally.

Deo approached Tommy with his hands up and simply stood infront of him. “Are you scared of explosions?” He’d not noticed, but it would explain why Tommy avoided creepers and such. There was the tiniest nod, and Deo immediately destroyed the tnt and put it away.

He brought it up with Luke and Bitzel, and they had looked at eachother, and a small discussion started.

“Do you think people blew him up?” “He talked about his nation being blown up.” “Who the fuck decided they could hurt Tommy?”

Deo was pissed, Bitzel was starting to get angry, and Luke was a mixture of angry and worried. They told Wisp the situation and had to hold him back from marching up to Dreams private world himself.

The next person to see it was Luke, he’d been helping Tommy patch up some wounds from a skeleton when Tommy started talking all of a sudden.

“I’m used to a lot of damage, I don’t really feel anything from skeletons and zombies anymore.”

“That’s pretty weird, Tommy.”
“I don’t think so. Dream SMP was pretty wild.”

“Yea, duels and such right?”

And off Tommy went, talking about the fact the admin of the server had shot him through the heart, and the fact he’d been exiled and arrows rained down on him, and talked about the final control room, and everything along that vein. As he went on Luke just slowly stopped smiling, a grimace on his face.

What kind of SMP was he in? Sure the hits were a thing but they never did it in ways that would hurt a person for more than a second, and they had infinite respawns here so it was fine. And what did Tommys white streak of hair mean. And why had he been exiled from his own nation, and why was he seemingly okay with it all?

“Did I say something wrong?” Tommys voice broke through Luke’s thoughts, and he shook his head quickly “No! No no of course you didn’t, I just think that everytime I hear about the Dream SMP it sounds a little weirder. Violent.”

“It was very violent, um. Wars every month or so.”

“That doesn’t sound safe for you, Tommy.”

Tommy didn’t respond to that, just letting Luke continue what he was doing.

Like always, Luke brought it up with the other Bay members, and Wisp hit a final straw, “I’m visiting Dream, and I’m going to beat his ass” Deo seemed damn near ready to agree with him, and Luke was in the same boat. Bitzel just sighed and told them that they needed to properly sit down and talk to Tommy about this first, because they couldn’t just rush someone without more information.

So they did. They brought it up while farming, and Tommy had frozen and stared at them.

“...Dream SMP? Why do you want me to go in depth about what happened?”

Deo shrugged a bit, he wanted this to go at least somewhat tactfully. “You’ve been worrying all of us Tommy, nightmares, scared of explosions, you got hurt a bunch. It’s time you sit down and talk about it with your friends.” and Bitzel nodded along quickly, Wisp tightening his fist around a carrot to keep himself quiet.

“Oh… um, yknow. I told you. Wilbur and I’s nation got blown up, I remember the explosion a lot- I died a few times. Normal stuff-”

“Whats with your white streak of hair? You’ve lived with us for a month or two now and it hasn’t faded so it’s clearly not dye.” Luke spoke up, and Tommy just brought his hand to his head to touch it, looking at the ground for a second.

“Can we go inside?”

And in they went, sitting Tommy on the couch- Bitzel compensated for his shaking immediately by wrapping a weighted blanket around his shoulders, and Wisp had gone to get him cold water.

“I lost my third life.”

The reaction was immediate.

“Third life?” “Did you only have three?” “Are you here because you died?”

Tommy flinched, and Deo shushed the other two immediately, sitting himself next to Tommy and putting a hand over his back, waiting for a nod to place his hand there and start rubbing his back through the blanket.

“You don’t have to talk in depth if you don’t want too, Tommy.”

“No I- there. I’ll answer questions. There were only three canon lives, and when you lost them you were permanently dead unless Dream revived you and- Dream killed me in the duel, I was killed in the control room, and Dream beat me to death in the prison.”

“In the prison?” Bitzel tilted his head a little bit, and Tommy nodded, sinking more into the blanket and looking down at the ground, only for his view to be obstructed by water being put in his hands. “The thing Sam built yea? I heard about that in the world hub.”

Tommy glanced up at Wisp and nodded. “Inescapable, Dream got put into it after manipulating the server, breaking laws, abusing me-”

“He what” All four of the Bay boys spoke in near sync, and Tommy laughed to himself, he didn’t expect a reaction like that- but suddenly Deo had wrapped an arm around him and yanked Tommy against his side, causing Tommy to yelp and blink up at him.

“He shouldn’t have hurt you.”

“Yeah, I know that now, but I was exiled.”

“Why were you exiled?” Lukes voice was shaking with anger, and Bitzel grabbed onto his wrist to try calming his friend down.

“I burnt down someones house- oh- the first time was because Schlatt became president and decided he hated me and Wilbur.”

“Schlatt? That makes sense. Who exiled you the second time?”

“Dream and Tubbo.”

Deos arm around Tommy tightened, and he made eye contact with Wisp, giving a careful nod, and then he smiled at Tommy without missing a beat “Alright, I think you’ve talked enough about it Tommy, you’re shaking a whole bunch. Drink that water and we can spend the night watching movies, yea?”

Tommy nodded- and so that’s what they did.

They watched movies late into the night until Tommy fell asleep leaning against Luke. And Deo, Wisp, and Bitzel headed out to go confront Dream about what he’d done to their leader.

Chapter Text

When they got back, Tommy was outside chasing around the Business cat, trying to catch him and pick him up because he’d gotten out of the house. Luke had stayed with him and was sorting through their chests, making sure everything was in the right places.

“We’re home!” Deos voice rang out across the bay, and Tommy looked up just as he missed the cat again. He raised an arm and waved before going back to chase it. Wisp stood behind Deo, still annoyed that he hadn’t been allowed to simply kill Dream. Bitzel stood behind him, seeing as he didn’t want the two very annoyed men to take the aggression out on him for stopping them from hurting people.

As much as Bitzel had wanted too as well, that would’ve only caused more problems.

Tommy swooped down and caught the cat in his arms, lifting it up and petting its back as he walked over to Deo “Where did you guys go?” “On a little trip” Wisp huffed, walking past Tommy and moving his hand over the boys shoulder as he passed.

Bitzel rolled his eyes and sighed “We went to Dreams private world to talk to him about what happened. He didn’t give any sort of apology so don’t ask, and he threatened you. So you’re not allowed to go to the next Dream SMP”

“What? That’s how I get all my clout and shit though-” “That sucks” Deo snorted, grabbing Tommys shoulders and turning him around to walk him back towards the Bay building.

“You got hurt there and we aren’t gonna let you go back for a long while, Tommy. We’re not going to just stand by and let you get hurt. If you do go back, one of us, Me, is coming with you.” Deos voice was stern, clearly unable to be argued with, so Tommy just groaned and rolled his eyes.

He got walked back inside, where he deposited the cat, which immediately jumped onto the couch and curled up, staring up at them curiously from over its tail.

Wisp grabbed the back of Lukes shirt, and pulled him away from the chests, and Deo sat Tommy down and took a deep breath-

But the first to speak was Bitzel. “You need to get therapy. You need to get a therapist.” “I do not.” “You do. Was there anyone on that server we could contact?” Tommy didn’t respond, just looking away from them.

So Luke sighed and sat down next to him, gently putting Tommy’s hand on the Business cat so he could mess with its fur. “Tommy, is there anyone we could contact that you trust?”

“Puffy.”

And that was that, Wisp had his communicator out and Deo had loaded up his server lists in an instant, while Bitzel had grabbed a paper and was looking through MCC Competitors to see if it was a name he recognized. They worked like ants, doing what they could to keep Tommy safe. It was interesting to watch, and Luke just sat with Tommy and made sure he kept petting the cat, he could see the panic in his friends eyes.

“Tommy, it’s gonna be alright. We’ll make sure you get some kind of good help, okay?” Bitzel looked at him, a sad smile on his face. Tommy just nodded numbly, lowering his head. He didn’t like the idea of having to talk about it all and sort through it all. It sounded hard. Especially with Puffy. He wondered if she would be upset at him, though he doubted it. She seemed to be one of the ones that liked him.

Wisp hummed as he closed his communicator “Right, I got it set up, shes captainpuffy, we’re gonna head to the world hub and meet her there.”

“Alright” It was in sync, all three of the others ready to go in an instant. And they all logged out except Deo and Tommy. Tommy stared at Deo.

“Do. Do I have too?” “Yes, Tommy” and he grabbed Tommys hand carefully, not wanting to scare him while he was like this.

He offered a smile and pulled him to his feet, before logging out for the both of them.

And off they all went, to the world hub to meet Puffy.

She wasn’t the one Tommy inevitably got as a therapist, it was another few minecrafters before they found a proper one for him, and they made sure he went for every session, doing their best to make sure he was doing better and support him along the way.

It was more than Tommy normally got, so he was happy with it, happy to live with the people that cared about him, and getting better mentally as he continued going to therapy, and getting prescribed some medications.

Everytime they messed up or there was a side effect they found some way around it, like potions or eventually Deo and Wisp having to talk to the doctors and get something new. They were safe about it, just doing what was required to keep Tommy safe and happy.

Deo stared down at his best friend and leader laying on his lap, yawning and slowly dozing off to the sound of Deos wings. They tinkled and sparkled, soft popping noises surrounding them as well as the glow barely lit up the room.

“Dee?” “Yes, Tommy?” Deo tilted his head. “You guys don’t have to do all this, you know that right?” Deo shrugged and pat Tommys forehead. “It’s what friends are for.” “But I was gone for a year. I’m different”

“You’re Tommy. You’re the leader of business bay. And you’re the person we love and care about. We’re gonna do what we can for you.”

Silence for a moment, and then Tommy sighed, turning his head and hiding his face against Deos stomach. “Thank you.”