Chapter Text
Time, like water, is a strange thing. If you're not careful, it will slip through your fingers, leaving you grasping for what you could have had.
You're left with only fractured memories and distanced emotions. You can never relive that experience since all you have is a diluted version of it.
Tommy's childhood was similar to this. In the fall, there are shards of fires, sword fights, and family hikes.
Green robes and pink hair flashed across the mind. In his imagination, a quiet guitar begins to play, soon joined by a violin. Winter sunshine is pale, and summer afternoons are stormy. In a box, a green bandana and a boy with horns.
Warm sunlight inches across his face as he lies in one of those all-too-familiar fields of flowers and lush grass.
But none of this can hide the fact that he's just hiding. He's trying to avoid the fate that will befall him. In snow biome, distant from man's reach, is freezing to death.
Perhaps it’s better this way. He can die in peace, away from the chaos that was his past.
He’s thought much about death now. Those long, empty nights under starry skies made him think about his past. Who was waiting for him? Tubbo had exiled him. Phil had basically disowned him for techno at the point, and Techno hates him.
Much less the fact that almost everyone wants him dead, and no one’s come to visit him.
Except for Dream.
Dream, his only friend, his forever enemy. His never-ending loop of pain and trust and friendship with the man left him a complexed. Did he really care for him? Or did he just want to harness him, use him?
Tommy, not to Dreams knowing, was very aware of the blatant manipulation that he was being given. He just followed along, because he would rather have something fake than nothing at all.
Then there were the dreams. Dreams of a palace, Wilbur as a child, and Techno. The two are engaged in a sword duel. Wilbur doesn't fight with a sword. His silver tongue is his weapon. That, in Tommy's judgement, was far more lethal than any blade.
Wilbur looks no older than 15, and techno is only a few years above him. Techno looks the most different. His stocky build is replaced with something lithe, and his face isn’t and blunt, but more smoothed.
There isn't even a slight hint of stubble, which Tommy finds amusing because his techno wouldn't be caught dead without it.
Wilbur also appears to be more relaxed, careless, and, to be honest, a touch dull. Wilbur was stern and demanding, but he was also humorous, cracking jokes at every opportunity. His Wilbur, on the other hand, did it with a shapeshifting fish, so he wasn't much better.
His Wilbur had to grow up too quick
When Tommy and Tubbo turned 8, their father and Techno took off. Where they didn’t know. Not for years.
Phil discovered tubbo on Tommy's fifth birthday, so they always celebrated on the same day.
They never minded. After all, they were brothers. More so than Wilbur or techno, even if not by blood.
Instead of birthday breakfast and gifts, the delighted pair received a message and card in the kitchen. In a hushed handwriting on top, the card said happy birthday, and behind the rushed scribbles, they could discern techno's name.
In essence, the note stated that Tommy and Tubbo were now old enough to look after themselves, and that Techno and Dad were off on an adventure.
Wilbur had taken one look at the note and bolted out the door into the bleak morning. He didn't return for several hours. They assumed he had abandoned him as well. He did, however, return
Tired and soaked, but back. That was enough for them. Wilbur had become a father at the age of 15.
He couldn't be their sibling anymore. The days of sneaking out late at night to capture fireflies and go night swimming were long gone. The children were now obligated to go inside as the sun sank.
They couldn't be angry with him, though. Wilbur was exhausted, he was responsible for two children, and he had lost his young years. When Tommy and Tubbo were 12 years old, they returned. It had also been a bad birthday. Shouts that reverberate over the hills. Tommy and Tubbo were pushed out into the open.
Shortly after that, the couple left and did not return.
They didn't even say bye
Tommy was reminded of his family once more as he lay alone in his final moments, at the entrance of death.
History really does repeat itself. They didn't say goodbye.
As the darkness engulfed him, he made one final wish:
In my next life, I will defy the gods that did this to me, who caused me such pain in this world.
My fate will be mine, I swear it.
I reject the gods.
In the heavens, a tired diety gave the poor boy a sad smile, and in her infinite mercy, abided the boy's wish
And so, the boy’s strings of fate had been cut. What he would do could only be blamed on no one but himself.